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I think yesterday was the ten year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. There have been different people opining different things. I want to hear your basic arguments over a common question I'm hearing: was it worth it?
That's kind of the thorny nature of the war – it seems the answer is either a qualified “yes”, or a qualified “no”. It makes me wonder how historians will view it 20 years ahead.
I'm glad we toppled Saddam, but outside of that, it wasn't worth it.
I refuse to believe that ridding the world of the human cockroaches we did was not a net positive thing. Whether the Iraqis make anything of the opportunity we gave them is on them. We set the conditions, their freedom is their own to lose.
I heard someone remark that if Sadam were still alive, he would never have let Iran become a nuclear power. In any case, while his removal has been a benefit for the region, but there may be costs to the region as well that we are only now discovering.
There are positives and negatives to every war. I still maintain that Iraq is a net positive. It probably does not fit the criteria of a Just War, almost certainly not. But then, I personally don't get too hung up on Just War theory to begin with since it is so easily twisted.Is there consensus on any war? There are folks who claim WWII was unjust, just look at the retards that claim nuking Japan was unjustified.
I think that Just War Theory cannot be discarded even if it is difficult to apply at times. What is, after all, the alternative? Do nations adopt their own, disparate ethical frameworks for engaging in war?Whether the Iraq War satisfied the "just cause" requirement of JWT is something I am not sure of, but I think some of the arguments may incorporate several important facts - repeated attempts to curtail Iraq's military ambition diplomatically; a refusal of Sadaam Hussein of abiding by international decrees; the widely-held belief Iraq was harboring WMDs; the ineffectiveness of diplomatic decrees in stopping Iraq's ambitions. As for the war process, I think the most significant error was engaging in a war without foreseeable parameters. The argument for an undefined time of occupation was to ensure the work could be done as needed, rather than by an arbitrary deadline, and without informing the enemy of one's plans. Two key problems with this are that such an undefined timeline has the potential to be financially devastating to the occupier, and psychologically taxing on those involved. The political effects of the war have continued to be devastating on the U.S. mostly for one reason - the unpopular war led to the rise and election of Barack Obama in 2008. Would this have happened had the war been curtailed by 2005, with a withdrawal occurring soon thereafter? Impossible to say, but perhaps not.
If it was done correctly and Bush was truthful about it (not that I blame him for saying alternative reasons), it would have been worth it. But to me 80,000+ wounded mostly from IED's is unacceptable.As for the JWT - I think the reasons for some wars can be just, but the wars themselves never are. And that goes for all wars, IMO. I can no longer reconcile civilian casualties with Christianity.
What do you mean that you “can no longer reconcile civilian casualties with Christianity”? Are you saying that as a Christian, you do not find wars morally permissible if they lead to civilian deaths?
I'm saying deaths of innocent people is not just. War is hell.The decision to remove the Nazis by force is a just decision. Bombing a large German city and killing the majority of civilians in the process may have been a necessary tactic for victory, but it is not just.
I subscribe to Necessary War Theory. No war is just. We all belong to the human race. All wars, therefore, are fratricidal tragedies.
War is war, it is neither just or necessary. It just is. The question from a combatant point of view is how do I win? From a societal or governmental/diplomatic perspective it is Is fighting this war going to produce benefits in case of victory that balance the risks of defeat.War is an accounting with the means of account being territory and lives instead of dollars and cents.
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