Did you support the initial invasion of Iraq?

[Bdub]

Yes but with some small reservations.

[MasterJedi]

Yes I suppored it then and I do now.

[Inverted Things]

no

[John Dibble]

No, but I don't think we should leave quite yet. It's good we're starting to replace our troops with Iraqi troops, though.

[opebo]

It's good we're starting to replace our troops with Iraqi troops, though.

Haha, or at least claim to do so.  Those stooges will run just as soon as we leave, like Saigon 1975!

[True Democrat]

No, I was a rabid anti-war person.  I used to call Bush the "greatest mass murderer of the 21st century".  Now, I've realized the errors in my ways.

[© tweed]

I would have voted no on the original authorization of force, if that's what the question's asking.

[phk]

Yes. I switched to anti-war around April 2004.

I bought into the hype that this war would last like 1 year. LOL.

[Virginian87]

No, I did not support the initial invasion of Iraq.  I never saw the connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 and I did not think that he was planning to attack us.  I also thought at the time that attacking Iraq would distract us from our objective in Afghanistan of finding Osama bin Laden and saw military involvement in Iraq as something that could snowball into a huge quagmire once we set about nation-building. 

[Citizen James]

No.

From what I read in the papers the reports from our intellegence agencies were closer to "we don't think they have WMD's, but we can't be certain", than the "absolutely, positively, is an immenent threat and requires rash action" that the administration was pushing.  They had the typical sets of weasel words of someone who was following orders to support a line of reasoning, but wanted to CYA should things go south. (happens all the time in the buisness world).  The whole claims of certainty the administration had rung as hollow of Robertsons claim that Cuba was currently in possession of nukes in the '88 primaries, given that various intellegence agencies showed no such certainty.

Though in retrospect I can consider there to be some positives here.  I will conceed there was a definite humaintarian need.  But there are a lot of places with a far more desperate humanitarian need that we all but ignore.

In addition, though I would not compare the confilct to Vietnam as a whole, the lesson of not letting ideologues (in this case various neo-cons) overrule the millitary (and common sense advice) in favor of their own pet theories.     I mean it should have been obvious to anyone not madly intoxicated with hubris that there was a good chance that not everyone would welcome us with open arms and flowers.  Unlike Kuwait and WWII France we were not expelling invaders - we were the invaders.  The claims that the war would pay for itself in a years time, and the cheapness on the part of the administration in shorting several of our reserve units on armor and supplies, is downright treasonous.

But they had no realistic occupation plan.  No plan for security the peace.  No plan for stopping rioting. Or the looting of priceless artifacts in museums.  Not even a plan of securing the nuclear plant which had been closed down and guarded until we came charging in without even thinking of securing the biggest supposed threat regarding WMD's.  We didn't get around to that last one for months.

No, Rummy and his pals figured they'd all sit down and sing Kumbaya.

Yes, toppling Saddam and setting up the nation for self rule might have been helpful.  But that's not the war we were sold.  Though Saddam was brutal, and still doing very bad things (TM) the genocides often mentioned after the fact were committed durring the Reagan administration, when we cared only for the fact that they hated Iran (Presumably part of the whole enemy of my enemy nonsense). 

But we did it messy, we failed to plan properly for the aftermath, and we did so over trumped up pretenses and selective intellegence.  All while the Whitehouse treats the troops with a veiled contempt in their actions despite giving them little lip service and using them for photo ops. (back door draft, anyone).

[7,052,770]

no

[Gabu]

I bought into the hype that this war would last like 1 year. LOL.

Actually, it did.  The army of Iraq under Saddam's command did not last very long and the United States assumed official authority over Iraq fairly quickly.

It's the post-war cleanup that's kind of, er, taken a while...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hell no.

In Dec. 2001, we could have taken Osama out with 800 soldiers, but instead our terrorist enabling President decides to use 150,000 soldiers to attack an unrelated country.

[The Duke]

Well, we didn't go in with the UN, but it wasn't unilateral either.

there were only three countries militarily involved in the initial invasion, though.

3/200-odd.

USA, Britain, Australia...

Wait, you forgot Poland!

[Gabu]

Well, we didn't go in with the UN, but it wasn't unilateral either.

there were only three countries militarily involved in the initial invasion, though.

3/200-odd.

USA, Britain, Australia...

Wait, you forgot Poland!

[Platypus]

Actually, Poland wasn't involved in the initial military actions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As I've said before, my position was confused and complicated (essentially because my view of war in general is very complicated). Putting it very simply, I didn't really support the war as such, but didn't really oppose it either.
I was almost convinced to support on human rights grounds (and that's the more normal position I'm closest to, btw) but was worried about the involvement of people like Rumsfeld... and his mishandling of the post-war situtation neatly confirmed my worries about him...
...and the fact that *both* the SWP and the BNP were against going to war might have been a factor in part in not opposing it as such either...

I do wish that both sides would quit being so holier-than-thou over this though...

[Gustaf]

As I've said before, my position was confused and complicated (essentially because my view of war in general is very complicated). Putting it very simply, I didn't really support the war as such, but didn't really oppose it either.
I was almost convinced to support on human rights grounds (and that's the more normal position I'm closest to, btw) but was worried about the involvement of people like Rumsfeld... and his mishandling of the post-war situtation neatly confirmed my worries about him...
...and the fact that *both* the SWP and the BNP were against going to war might have been a factor in part in not opposing it as such either...

I do wish that both sides would quit being so holier-than-thou over this though...

Sounds very similar to my position as well, actually. There aren't really any supporters of the war here in Sweden, so I get pushed to be in favour by all the crappy arguments I'm served with...