Dragon,
I think its probably fairly non-controversial for me to say that no reasonable human being wants or likes to see people suffer.
There will always be some dictator somewhere that is going to kill, mame, or plunder. Its happening in various other countries around the world as we speak like in Syria, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Lybia, and many more, not just Iraq.
People do die all the time. Life is cruel that way. It is impossible to try and save everyone in the world from how things happen here on Earth. The best we can do is empower citizens of this planet to be able to defend themselves from whatever might come to hurt them.
My issues with Iraq and war in general have to do with the use of force. I am forced to pay for something via taxation, and have no choice to abstain from it. We are going to remove a dictator and force another government with dictator like authority on them. We are going to kill innocent Iraqi citizens just to remove one person from power, and we have already starved and caused other suffering on countless numbers over the past 12 years because of sanctions. How does making the citizens of a country suffer even more do anything else but make them weaker and more miserable?! Certainly, if they couldn't overthrow Saddam before, now they even have less resources if they had any inkling to do so. Even with "Democracy," because of the nature of the region and the people, another dictator will either be voted in or take power once troops leave. Look at the history of Iraq and other countries in the region!! How do you think these goofs got there to begin with? They put a bullet in the previous dictator's brain, as it happened to the leader before, and the leader before, etc.!!
All of this will lead to a waste of time, money, and lives. It all boils down to the people of Iraq, and its neighbors that surround it. They have to know liberty, they have to want it, and they have to be willing to pay for it with their own money and blood.
Freedom isn't free. How will Iraqis know to cherish it when we are willing to give it to them on a silver platter?! Our "solution" is no better than the problem at hand. If the US wants to lead, it should to so by setting an example based on the principles of Liberty, not by foreign policy that actually causes more suffering because its schitzophrenic.
The part that really bothers me is the fact that our own country and its foreign policy created this current mess to begin with. We supported Iraq because it was the lesser of two "evils" compared to Iran, which also had an brutal dictator that was supported by the US called the Shaw, to which the people of Iran chose to remove from power and installed an anti-western government. We made Saddam the "threat" he is today by providing him with wealth and technology or the access to technology and wealth to become the "bad" dictator he is today. Then he wished to reign in the break-a-way provence of Kuwait with his new-found technologies and power, just like China wants to do with Taiwan, we saw the troops massing on the boarder, and our government DIDN'T SAY NO.
For what its worth, you will all be glad to know there is nothing else I can say to help me get my feelings across here. So, stick a fork in me, 'cuz I'm done!
