@cystic:
@Deviant:Scripter:
I believe the situation could have easily gone on for a matter of years, and we’d still have to use military force eventually. If not with Saddam, it would’ve been against one of his psychotic kids.
I believe, in the wake of 9/11, most people would be MUCH MORE hesitant about giving a guy like that more time to disarm, especially given the 12 years he’s already had. The circumstances and potential consequences are just too great to sit by and watch…HOPING one day he’ll have a dramatic change of mind.
Does anybody deny that the only reason Saddam even “agreed” to inspections was because the US military was parked on his border?
i will agree with that. I’ll also agree that it was costing the US a fortune to park the machine there. Furthermore, i’ll agree that many other nations, particularly Canada and European nations (including Russia) helped speed this conflict along by being sideline wimps. I think that if more pressure had come from the international community much earlier, this war may have been avoided - if only because Bush would have lost his excuses to invade (although the regime change card would likely have still been played). Still, although i have little other than my gut to go on here, i believe that this is not a reason for a bunch of people carrying guns to march into someone else’s country in order to kill a bunch of other people . . . .
All true. I just don’t see how war could’ve been avoided in the end, without letting Saddam Hussein pretty much have his way for an indefinite amount of time.
JMO–a lot of great observations here from the other side as well.
Ozone27