The Iraq War is over.......or is it? Troops now heading home.

[Kobuk]

The last American troops to leave Iraq left that country yesterday. With the Iraq war over and American troops coming home, I was curious what everyone's thoughts were on this whole conflict? Was it worth it? What were we fighting for or against? What do you think the future of Iraq will be? How will history look back on this conflict? Even though our troops have left, Should we still keep "advisors" over there to continue to train the Iraqi army as well as help continue to develop and support their fragile new government?

[Kay Alett]

War. War never changes.

I don't care what they wanna say, the fighting over there will never truly stop till one side destroys the other fully and totally.

[Alsek]

We didn't leave.  We built a base there larger than the Vatican.   Every troop we have removed we have replaced with a military contractor that we pay two to three times as much for.  Not even slightly over.    =\

[Avor]

TI was curious what everyone's thoughts were on this whole conflict?

It is the gross repersentation of the continured failures that are American thinkinh and morality.

You fought that war only out of fear and greed. It was never about freedom and honour of ANY kind.

[furtopia02]

TI was curious what everyone's thoughts were on this whole conflict?

It is the gross repersentation of the continured failures that are American thinkinh and morality.

You fought that war only out fear and greed. It was never about freedom and honour of ANY kind.

What? No really. I didn't understand that first part. Might want to proof read and edit this.

Anyway; I didn't care for the war and thought the reasons were just excuses to get rid of someone (yet another) the US didn't like. That regime was pretty awful but rather or not we actually had business there we may never know. There is always a lot of information about these situations that the general public will never know or understand - its just something I learned from serving in the military deep in the intelligence field. Even opinions that those of us have can often never be explained to someone not in the know or even blatantly lied about instead.

[DreamerHusky]

...

[Drake Blackpaw]

Anyway; I didn't care for the war and thought the reasons were just excuses to get rid of someone (yet another) the US didn't like. That regime was pretty awful but rather or not we actually had business there we may never know. There is always a lot of information about these situations that the general public will never know or understand - its just something I learned from serving in the military deep in the intelligence field. Even opinions that those of us have can often never be explained to someone not in the know or even blatantly lied about instead.

You pretty much expressed my view on the war.  The Bush administration was afraid of Sadaam and he certainly did his best to make us think he had weapons of mass destruction.  However, we had no definitive proof he had WMDs (and after he fell found out he did not)  and he certainly wasn't the threat the Bush administration perceived him to be.  The war also seemed to be as ill planned as it could be. There were generals who warned that the effort to maintain peace and stop sectarian violence would be far greater than toppling Sadaam's regime and these generals were not listened to, but had there careers damaged for not spouting what the administration wanted to hear. 

And where are we today? Iran, who I believe was always way more dangerous than Iraq,  has much more power in the region with their largest nemesis removed.  America no longer appears to be an invincible super power after the mess we created in the aftermath of the war.  And America amassed a huge load of debt from the war that we now have to deal with. 

War is necessary at times, but this war was not.

[AeglAxolotty]

I have to agree with the negative sentiments of the other posts.

For being in a battle that lasted at least a decade, we sure didn't accomplish much. It wasn't necessary to go to war to catch Saddam, and "waging a war on terrorism" to me was ludicrous. Terrorism is an idea. You can't destroy an idea, and especially in this case where all the destruction will just make those groups even more hungry for revenge.

The government seemed to be banking on the age-old formula that war = profit, and hoping that at some point this would somehow fix some of the economic issues as well as not wanting to look like a 'weak' country. Instead, we just ticked off a bunch of people that already disliked us, killed a bunch more (some of them innocent civilians) and made the economic situation even worse by bleeding ourselves dry.

If the US was a house, we'd be on the foreclosure auctions right now because the owners maxed out all their credit cards trying to pay the bills. Other countries could buy us. I think it would have been better if we'd focused on fortifying our country and it's defenses on our own turf.

[Kobuk]

I have to agree with the negative sentiments of the other posts.

For being in a battle that lasted at least a decade, we sure didn't accomplish much. It wasn't necessary to go to war to catch Saddam, and "waging a war on terrorism" to me was ludicrous. Terrorism is an idea. You can't destroy an idea, and especially in this case where all the destruction will just make those groups even more hungry for revenge.

The government seemed to be banking on the age-old formula that war = profit, and hoping that at some point this would somehow fix some of the economic issues as well as not wanting to look like a 'weak' country. Instead, we just ticked off a bunch of people that already disliked us, killed a bunch more (some of them innocent civilians) and made the economic situation even worse by bleeding ourselves dry.

If the US was a house, we'd be on the foreclosure auctions right now because the owners maxed out all their credit cards trying to pay the bills. Other countries could buy us. I think it would have been better if we'd focused on fortifying our country and it's defenses on our own turf.

QFT! 

[Rocket T. Coyote]

War is not like a game. It doesn't end when one side picks up their toys and goes home for supper.