So I decided to make a little thread about this because your buddy and good friend John(that me!) is on rotation to head over in the spring of 2009. Its shortly approaching and as it turns out I am only going to be able to do 2 semesters of school before i go. What do you all think about Iraq and other GWOT related issues. If this gets too debateish we will have to move it to the debate forum.

Whats GWOT?

Whats your opinions on the war in iraq (yeh, this might wana get moved soon.. )?

I think that America were doing it for good reasons. And its kinda odd, but removing Saddam from power screwed there country. He could hold law and order over the poeople, if only he treated them proply though.

The war wont be over for a very long time, and it would have been finished a long time ago if these people fought a war properly, but they use gorilla tactics like the cowards they are.

Will what America has done be good for them in the future?
Well, thats a hard one. America has set them on a new path, which will make them more like the western world, but there not the western world!!

Are my opinions influenced bacause im Australian?
Possibly. We've lost less than 20 people I think. It almost sounds like America is loosing one a day.
But then again, you's have HEAPS more troops in there than what we do.

GWOT = Global War on terrorism

I agree with the war. And in my opinion and manys it is going better day by day. IED(imnprovised explosive device) attacks and deaths have fallen over the past months along with us combat deaths.

The war prolly wont be over for quite some time. But as far as rebuilding a country goes, it is usually not a short period of time. Look at our civil war, we had troops in the south for years. Or wwII we still have military bases in germany and japan. Hell we have and entire infantry devision in germany!

But in the end we have given too much time, effort, and blood to not see it out.

How much blood is to much.
In the first few weeks of this war Australia lost its first soilder. He was run over by a forklift when they were loading cargo planes with supplies for Iraq. When I heard this I was like.. gosh.. this isnt going to be good for Australia .

If that was our only casualty (even thou its not) is that one life worth the change we've already done over there? The war (as i see it) hasnt effected australia in a positive way at all, but its hard to see if its gone in a bad way either.

How about over there?

"I guess in the end it would seem natural to say that our lives mean more than theirs."

Do you mean our (meaning our countries) or the people over there (as in the iraqi people)?

Yes. Its natural to view the loss of our lives(us/allied forces) as more important than the loss of their lives(iraqis), correct?

I think it is just human to think like that. Not saying it is good, just like many natural human tendancies are not good.

I think its more like, the loss of lives for this war, although high, is a sacrafice we had to make to bring the world closer to global peace.

Unless thats sorta what you ment.

Instead of building Iraq we need to rebuild America from the ground up. Trash this current president and getting Ron Paul in would be a good start.

uh, reality check?

Ron Paul will never get elected. He's too fringe. Sure he may have some support in the younger generation but the majority will never vote for a guy like that. He won't stand a chance winning a place in American style government.

That's what everyone says and look how far he got with practically no media attention compared to the others who were running

Anyway doesn't really matter... best actor gets the job

Don't get me wrong jigsaw, i love ron paul and am going to write him in on election day, but he really doesn't have a fighting chance.

And america doesn't need to be rebuilt "from the ground up", i think a good spring cleaning would go a long way

In a sense, from an out of US perspective, I'd say that the USA has done exactly what the terrorists wanted. Granted, the attack on the Twin Towers were devestating to say the least, and of course it's a bad thing. BUT. Sending in a whole army into a country where half of them are civilians getting killed, it seems strange. I mean, the terrorist get what they want. Attention. People are obviously completely aware of their existance now, and they even got a reaction out of US government, which might be exactly how they wanted it to go.

Dragging this war on seems like a stupid idea to me. Iraq will probably take years to recover from this if this war ends one day. And I'm pretty sure that most of those bomb attacks, retaliations, etc, are all directly associated with the handful of terrorist groups that live in Iraq. Whereas the general population struggles and suffers because of it.

Loss of US lives more important than Iraq? Sure, from the US perspective, yes. But from outside once more? No. In fact, they are both equal in losses. Especially when taking into account how many civilians has died in relation to soldiers.

But if America (Australia too) withdraws, then these Iraqis have no defence, and the terrorists will gain control again. That is why we are all still in there, freeing the country.

Rome wasnt built in a day, and Iraq cant be freed in two.

The US isnt going around killing civilians, its more like terrorists are killing them and hiding behind them like the cowards they are.

EDIT : http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
Shows the deathcount going down.

Bigbob is right. It takes a long time. The people of Iraq only knew fear and violence fo decades.

If you want to see the accomplishments that have happened in Iraq or find a little bit more about whats going on in the military, I would recomend reading the Army Times. The paper is the best but, of course i don't expect you to spend moneys on it, so there is a website www.armytimes.com. Scroll thru and see what the army is really thinking.

And SkyStrom, isn't it better to take years to recover, than not recover at all?

Well, you are all right of course, but the question is, was it really so bad in Iraq before the US Troops went in there? I mean, you all go on the principle that the terorrist were terrorizing there too, but I don't think it was such a big thing at that time. It started getting much worse now that the US has got in. A lot worse. And you can't say that Iraq will ever recover from this. Besides they are probably set back decades in development because of this. The longer this stretches out, the worse it'll get.

Yeah.. I guess thats kinda true. Saddamn did keep the peace kind of... but he was a very violent (and evil) dictator, but from what I've heard he did keep the peace..

Also, dont forget the terrorists hate the americans more than they hate saddamn, because im pretty sure the remaining terrorists are not saddamn supporters.. well , you know, not fighting for him.. if that makes sense..

But had america not have gone in, within 10 years they might have had a nuclear homeland attack.

Originally posted by BigBob85

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But had america not have gone in, within 10 years they might have had a nuclear homeland attack.

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Though that's pure speculation. The US (no offense meant) does have a tendency to be a bit overparanoid.

None taken (Im not from the US).
Where are you from?
Have you had terrorist attacks?

When you have some, and if it effects you, it changes your opinions in big ways. I'd rather stop them before they get us 10 times worse.

I haven't been in any terrorist attack.

Now, even though it may change opinions, it doesn't make it right. It is still unfair to the Iraqis that had nothing to do with the attacks. So I agree to an extent that the actions of the US does have justification, but it's not neccesarily right.