20th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq

The air war started 20 years ago today. What do you think?

I was mobilized in 2001 after 9/11 on one-year orders. It was a hardship being away from family that long, but I figured I would barrel through it and go home. That didn’t turn out as I’d planned as three weeks before we were to go home, we (some of us anyway) were told that we would be extended on another set of one-year orders.

Man plans, Big Army laughs.

So that’s how 20 years ago today, I spent the day, and night, and day, and night, in an operations center “working the problem” as they say. No, I wasn’t in Iraq, I was safely in the boundaries of the United States, doing my part for the war effort.

 

I was stationed in Belgium on 911 and already had an ETS date for January of 02. I did a few more years in the guard. I never deployed, but i did spend a summer out-processing some guys who were getting deployed.

I think it's pretty clear now that our response to 911 did way more damage to us than 911. I don't know what we should have done, and i certainly don't think we should have done nothing, but if we had done nothing, it probably would have turned out better than us doing what we did.

 

20 years ago my son was still a high school student. But 2 years later he joined the Marine Corps, and 2 years after he joined he was fighting in Anbar Province in Iraq. He would also fight in Afghanistan the following year. Those years left their mark on all of us.

 

There are a lot of things you could nitpick as far as our initial response to 9/11, but overall the invasion of Afghanistan still made since to go after Bin Ladin. Not following up on that and invading Iraq was where things started to go south as far as the GWOT goes (IMHO).

 

Yea, it's easy to nitpick. At the time I was all in on Iraq and Afghanistan, so i'm not suggesting i knew any better.

I think going after Bin Laden was the right move still, I'm not sure we should have spent so much effort turning the Taliban into the devil. Not because they were good, but because in hindsight, they weren't going anywhere, and we might could have bribed them into turning over Bin Laden at a much lower cost than we ended up spending. If we could have spent a few trillion less dollars to end up with the Taliban in control of Afghanistan in 2022, i'd take it.

 

Not to mention the human cost. I agree with you, was worth it going after Bin Laden, had to, imo
Invading Iraq was a mistake, I yelled at the tv the day Bush announced it. My wife thought I was losing it, lol.
Glad we are out of Afghanistan, though..............

 

Turning Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy was always a pipe dream. I didn't believe it then, but I did think we could have broken the back of the Taliban as a fighting force if we had deployed sufficient forces along the Pakistan border to prevent the Taliban going back and forth for supplies and refuge. It still boggles my mind that we never did that. I suppose that was the cost of sending much of our forces to Iraq. It turns out we couldn't fight a two front war like we'd been promised.

 

I don't think we really lost either of those wars militarily. There isn't anything we needed the military to do that they couldn't have done.

We had no plan for victory or definition of success that required only military objectives. We lost that war politically, the military could have stayed there indefinitely and kept the Taliban out of power, but to what end?

 

Looking back, I think we rushed into the invasion of Iraq. I understand the politics of the invasion, and why we invaded. But the arguments that the GOP used to get the populace to agree to the invasion was less than honest and the GOP began its culture war in full swing against Muslims in general that lasted until Trump got into office.

We were in the midst of finding OBL in the tora bora region of Afghanistan but pulled the troops out so that they can participate in the 2003 invasion. This was not blood for oil, but it was regime change, USA style, and that is the only logical reason\. If you ever get to DFW and go to SMU and see the President GWB Library, there is an interactive exhibit there on the invasion. what is unique about this exhibit is that you, the viewer, is placed in GWB's shoes to decide whether to invade or not invade. It is quite interesting and has done it a couple of times. It's a nice library there, especially with the GWB painting exhibit that was displayed a couple of years ago prior to the pandemic.

In my analysis, we had two choices by 2003, either acquiesce to Iraq and stop the inspections, or invade. According to Arms Control International, not all WMDs were recovered. And No, I don't mean only nuclear weapons. The research they had on certain biological and chemical weapons and some military use nuclear weapons research were never turned over and no explanation as to why they were missing other than the usual BS Iraqi lines they gave. But we knew they were there, somewhere, and that is why we needed to contnue the inspections. I wished GBW gave the inspectors more time, but he didn't and he invaded.

 

That was on Condoleeza Rice and some of the GOP establishment thinking that if we "liberated" Iraq from Saddam, the populace would worship at our feet. That obviously didn't happen and why from 2003 to 2007 or 2008 was some of the toughest fighting the US ground forces, Army, Marines, and SEALs, have seen since the Vietnam War.

 

They decided to invade and came up with reasons to try and get the public to go along after they made the decision.

 

I would strongly suggest all you question the entire 911 narrative and the response that it spawned.

Terrorism or foreign threats are not a threat to America - the far greater threat to your freedom and country is your own government.

Information provided to you by your government, thru a completely corrupted media, should never be taken at face value; instead, you should ask why they are presenting that narrative.

 

~ 9 - 11 was a sad metamorphosis for me. The Covid-19 fiasco was the another ...
I realized the USA government was shirking the most important responsibility — to protect the Homeland. In the months that followed I learned how one department after another failed to communicate effectively with each other. I learned that as far back as President Clinton's administration the warning of Bin Ladin "doing something big" was not acted upon properly. I watched the public where I live stand on street corners with a flag and a candle. I witnessed the complacency of Americans as President Bush bungled and delayed taking action — then sidestepped opportunities to strike our enemy.
Sadly in both circumstances innocent Americans lost their lives needlessly.
It now seems that two generations of Americans have been dumbed-down into compliance. Our country has losts its soul, ambition and IQ. Our politicians are nothing more than actors on stage — our president a figurehead taking direction from those other than the citizens.
Meanwhile let us continue to fight and argue about wearing masks, reparations for slavery, gender-neutrality and Donald J. Trump's extramarital affairs ...

~ Sad but true ...

 

Bush and Cheney should be tried as war criminals and Biden, Clinton and all those who supported the invasion should be pariahs and never hold public office. The corporate media should be held accountable for their war propaganda but they won't.

 

Yeah, the GOP made the argument that Saddam Hussein was in league with AQ even though there was no evidence. Now, the Democratic party is trying to reverse the 2003 AUMF authorization and the very same GOP that says "It does not want war with Russia over Ukraine" are fighting against that bill. American politics, go figure.

 

So, you are a 9/12 truther then?

We do know some 19 Saudi Arabian, middle-income, and well-educated, young men, who boarded 4 flights from Boston and Washington DC Dulles Airport. Two crashed into the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon, and one crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania with the intended target being either the WH or Congress. At that time, any and all security screenings at the airport were done by private contractors paid for by the airlines. In the US, our boarding was very relaxed in that a person, as long as they passed security, can go up to the gate, but not board the plane. No verification of identity through the security checkpoint or at the gate. You can even purchase tickets at the gate if you wanted to and do not need or require identification as long as it is within the US airspace. And only a few airlines require identification if you used a credit card to purchase or a debit card. Not sure if United or American Airlines had such a requirement, generally back then.

But whatever happened on 9/11 really had nothing to do with Iraq. The issue with Iraq had to do with the first Gulf War and the weapons inspections, not 9/11.

 

I was for the invasion...the first Bush left things unfinished. But was highly bothered by references of "nation building" and "liberating". Our soldiers should focus on defeating the enemy first and foremost.

 

~ The USA had left all "wars" unfinished since WW2 .

 

I would include WW1 and WW2, not to mention the American-Philippine War, the War with Spain, War of 1812, and even the Indian Wars, just to name a few.

 

A war is unfinished until you have a defeated side and a clear winner. WW2 was finished -- because Germany and Japan were truly defeated and accepted their defeat...and because of that we ended up with two strong allies. Same with the War of 1812. Britain gave up and accepted defeat.

We don't fight to defeat anymore.

 

The cold war is just a continuation of WW2, just who was on which side changed. That is all. For the War of 1812, no. Nothing changed, and crew pressing still continued after the war, among other things.

 

The purpose of the U.S. being at war is simply to be at war - the target of the war is not the "enemy", the target of the war is the U.S. citizens.

Wartime psychology allows the Establishment to continually reshape our society - in the case of 911, The Patriot Act and all of the legislative attacks upon our Constitutional rights thereafter.

Terrorism is the same thing, it is a psychological attack by our government, against the people, in order to justify breaking down our society and civil liberties.

Covid?? Lather, rinse, repeat.

I know there's no way most of you will accept that 911 was a false flag, but even if it wasn't, the aftermath was a prescription written as if it were a false flag.

The lies our government throws out there are utterly absurd most of the time, but the propaganda machine shines up the turf to the point where even hardened skeptics fall for the lie.

Column 79?? Gimme a break.

I've been reluctant to label this spat of bank failures as the trigger for the end, but CRISIS is the name of the game.

This may, or may not be, a precursor to collapse, but the system is so unstable (deliberately so) that we won't be able to carry on too much longer before we're hit with collapse.

War, terrorism, fraudulently selling pandemic, economic upheaval - they all serve the same purpose, and they are provided to you by the same ruling elite.

In Washington, nothing happens by accident.

 

The inspections went on after the invasion, it was simply a case of what sort of expectations there were for Iraq's program. It was an inactive program that had been strangled by the sanctions. If you were expecting a nuclear warhead ready to launch inside a volcano, you felt that "Bush lied, people died"

US reveals Iraq nuclear operation

Gas shell findings a concern for Iraq arms inspector

At last! Have they finally found a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in Iraq?

Syria said to have Iraq arms

Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq

 

All well documented in the book, "The Looming Tower." Highly recommended read.

 

I sure would like to know more about the "Dancing Israelis "