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I'll try to give some answers to these. They may not be the same ones your friend would give if he does answer, but these are my answers to your questions. I'll add that I appear to be one of the few on this board who do support the Iraq War - and the more general War on Terror.
...The premise of the war was that Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction posed a threat to the US. Saddam's WMD's posed absolutely no threat to the US on account of, THEY DIDN'T EXIST. Saddam Hussein himself didn't pose any threat to the US because he was a 70 year old contained dictator.
Well, no, that wasn't the whole premise of the war - although it was one reason, I grant. There was also the fact that Hussein was providing financial support to terrorist organizations (Hamas, especially - not al Qaeda). Further, there was the fact that he had violated the cease fire agreement with us - we never actually ended the 1991 Gulf War, it was only a cease fire. Finally, even the WMD question was a little broader - the real problem was that the sanctions regime wasn't holding, it certainly wouldn't have lasted much longer. We believed that after it fell, he would acquire WMDs, so we had to be sure he wasn't in power when it did fall.
There were, in short, multiple reasons for going to war with Iraq. Perhaps none alone would have been sufficient, but take together, they were. I think it was unfortunate that President Bush felt he had to compress things to a single reason, and then picked one that was wrong. But only unfortunate - it does not negate the other reasons for going in.
If we had wanted to fight a real war on terror, why didn't we send tose 100,000 troops to find Osama Bin Laden who is a proven threat to the US on acount of, HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11!
Sure. Where shall we send them? If you know, please tell us. I'll do my part and try to get the message up to those who can do something about it.
We had, and still have, troops in Afghanistan. Shall we invade Pakistan? Those seem the two most likely places to find bin Laden. But he could be elsewhere as well. Assuming other countries are less than eager to have 100,000 American troops trouncing through their territory, how many wars should we start to look for him?
And let's not forget than bin Laden is not the only terrorist in the world? Shall we do this for all of them? Or just for those who have managed to cause a major attack on us?
Yes, this is at least a little sarcastic. And I would have been more certain of my defense here if we hadn't had the recent reports of officials who think we're better off with bin Laden alive. But even with that doubt, I'm not sure how you would have those 100,000 troops hunting for bin Laden.
Why don't we firm up our borders, especially with Mexico? As mentioned on another thread about immigration, it's pretty easy for Mexicans to hop the border and get into the US. What's stopping terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Iran from catching a flight to Mexico and jumping the border into the US?
Excellent idea, and I agree with you - we should tighten our borders. A lot. Sadly, the leadership in both parties appears to want loose, or even open, borders. President Bush has been getting warnings from some Republicans that they will fight him on his guest worker / amnesty proposal. National Review has warned that this issue could split the Republican party. I'm not as sure what the feeling is in the Democratic Party, but among the Repubs, this is one where the grass roots differ strongly with the President.
While I really hope that we do tighten the borders, though, I don't see a conflict with doing this while fighting a war. In fact, and for the very reasons you list, I think we should do this even more during a war.
Why don't we spend some of that $200 billion and counting on energy alternatives so that we aren't funding terrorism and brutal middle eastern regimes every time we go to pump gas into our cars?
We already spend money researching energy alternatives. Some of it is federal funded, some private. I know the academic side of this fairly well, and the research is ongoing. Maybe it should be funded more, but so far very little of the research has been terribly promising. Oil, and gasoline, are simply too cheap to get out of the ground, so even the inefficiencies in the burning process are easily outweighed. The alternatives, to date, have all been vastly more expensive (inherently, even allowing for ramping to full scale, non-prototype production).
There are two ways this can change. One is to keep pumping oil until it becomes scarcer, and the cost of getting it out of the now-harder areas is matched by new sources. The other is to keep researching and hope for a breakthrough. We're still doing that too. Now, $200 billion could make a difference in this effort. And it might succeed. But there's nothing really promising on the horizon (that I know of, at least), so I wouldn't consider that a good bet.
Here's the bottom line, invading Iraq did NOTHING to fight terror. Al Quaeda and other terrorist groups are just as easily able to sneak into the US, get a bomb or hijack a plane, and kill another few thousand Americans.
That may be the case. On the other hand, we haven't faced a large-scale domestic terrorist attack since 9/11. And we've killed a fair number of people in al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who are now fighting us in Iraq. It is at least possible that these events are related.
Further, I think the goal of the fight in Iraq is the correct one for fighting terrorists. Overthrow the dictators, and help the people towards a democratic government. Iraq will have the second elections in the Arab world - the first were the Palestinians, under Israeli occupation. I do not see any better way to win the real war.
And yes, I am well aware of all that we have done wrong to help build up the dictators in the first place. Having done evil in the past, though, is not an excuse to forgive it in the present. Feel free to consider our hardships and deaths in this war as payment for our sins.
BTW, I read from your profile that you are a 20 year old male. If you're so supportive of America entering an "all out Middle East war against terrorism", then why haven't you signed up to help fight it yet?"
Probably because we have an all-volunteer military, and they are doing the job quite well. I think it's not a contradiction to support a cause without being right in the middle of it.
Well, I suspect this post will draw quite a bit of comment. I come to this board specifically for the challenge to my general ideas. I'd appreciate thoughtful argument. Enjoy.
Drew Garrett
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