4 ms·

The counterfactual left-alone Saddam would have to do a lot of destruction and killing to work his way up to matching an invasion and occupation.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Saddam had already matched that scale of destruction in the Iraq-Iran war, which killed many times more people. That fact doesn't exonerate the USA (which supported Iraq at the time!) or justify the 2003 war, but the human cost of his reign wasn't small, and given his subsequent invasion of Kuwait there was very little reason to expect he was done with invading and occupying people.
pfraze 5y ago
The invasion was a bad, bad, no-good idea, but to add some color to what you're observing, one of the biggest conversations within the US at the turn of the century was whether we should enact foreign policy according to a moral mandate. It was a constant topic of punditry ("Should we be the world's police?") and off the top of my head I can say the movie Airforce One and the tv show Westwing both directly talked about it, and both suggested we should. Again: bear in mind that the invasion was a bad idea and some Americans at the time said so, but there was also some sense that non-involvement was selfish or immoral. There was much less understanding that the pain it would inflict could so far exceed the intended benefits. We have - I hope - now internalized as a country how wrong that viewpoint is.
- causi 5y ago
  We have - I hope - now internalized as a country how wrong that viewpoint is. I'm not sure that we have. The single most important concept of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is the vast, yawning difference between going to war primarily to stop one organized government from attacking another and going to war to effect regime change on a country. The former is very easy to do with a powerful professional military and the latter is effectively impossible. I don't think the difference has sunk in for most Americans.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

Saddam had already matched that scale of destruction in the Iraq-Iran war, which killed many times more people. That fact doesn't exonerate the USA (which supported Iraq at the time!) or justify the 2003 war, but the human cost of his reign wasn't small, and given his subsequent invasion of Kuwait there was very little reason to expect he was done with invading and occupying people.

pfraze 5y ago

The invasion was a bad, bad, no-good idea, but to add some color to what you're observing, one of the biggest conversations within the US at the turn of the century was whether we should enact foreign policy according to a moral mandate. It was a constant topic of punditry ("Should we be the world's police?") and off the top of my head I can say the movie Airforce One and the tv show Westwing both directly talked about it, and both suggested we should. Again: bear in mind that the invasion was a bad idea and some Americans at the time said so, but there was also some sense that non-involvement was selfish or immoral. There was much less understanding that the pain it would inflict could so far exceed the intended benefits. We have - I hope - now internalized as a country how wrong that viewpoint is.

causi 5y ago
We have - I hope - now internalized as a country how wrong that viewpoint is. I'm not sure that we have. The single most important concept of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is the vast, yawning difference between going to war primarily to stop one organized government from attacking another and going to war to effect regime change on a country. The former is very easy to do with a powerful professional military and the latter is effectively impossible. I don't think the difference has sunk in for most Americans.