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I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an American who believes that the invasion of Iraq, either in conception (many believed and many now believe we should nev
by afarrell 9y ago
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an American who believes that the invasion of Iraq, either in conception (many believed and many now believe we should never have invaded) or in execution (Even among those who believed that the US should have overthrown Saddam, it is a pretty common opinion that the post-war occupation was bungled tragically). The reason you don't see more condemnations of it in the American media in 2018 is that at this point, an opinion like "our involvement in Iraq was a disaster" is pretty uncontroversial and therefore boring and therefore does not result in ad revenue or re-shares.
But that was largely a result of the decisions made by the civilian leaders in the Bush administration. What does that have to do with the quality or respectability of the soldiers?
- doktrin 9y agoAt the time, the Iraq war enjoyed broad public support particularly on the right. That support persisted for over a decade, and to this day you'll still find people justifying the whole mess, arguing for the existence of "WMDs", contrasting Saddams atrocities and of course roundly blaming Obama for creating ISIS by disengaging.
- afarrell 9y agoI’ll point out that your list consists of separate arguments. Some people point to the evidence Saddam had chemical weapons because they believe we found stocks of chemical weapons he’d kept even after using some on the Kurds, not because they think we should have overthrown him. Those are two separate statements—-one is a question of fact and one an opinion. Still other Americans initially opposed the invasion but believed that, having overthrown the government, we had a moral obligation to stay, develop the istitutions of the country, and prevent sectarian violence from breaking out again. I was in this camp back in 2006.