[GT40FIED]

I suppose validity is a poit of view issue. I see faults with what Rob posted because I disagree with him, thus making them invalid to me. As for "low blows", I've pretty much been over that. You reap what you sew...plain and simple. That's neither here nor there, though.

To the issue of freedom, all I have to say is this...freedom is subjective. There are over 6 billion people on this planet. That's 6 billion different kinds of freedom. It also means there's 6 billion different ideas on war and peace and etc. etc. etc. That part of the world will always have issues with freedom in the eyes of this country by their very culture. Just look at the way muslim women live. A normal way of life to them is for the most part unthinkable to American women. If terrorists really hated freedom, why not attack some place like Holland? I'm pretty sure the only things you CAN'T do there are kill someone or steal. That's obviously an oversimplification, but you get the idea. The people of any country are as free as they want to be. If the tables were turned and Iraq had invaded us in the name of freedom, you can bet we'd be doing exactly what they're doing. There'd be riots in the streets and all hell would break loose. Iraq could have been free without our help if they'd had the backbone to stand up to Saddam. Sure...he had a horrible reputation but, as you pointed out, we fought off what was the largest empire in the world at the time for our freedom. Simply put, if Iraqis had wanted it bad enough they could have taken their country back themselves. They didn't need us to do it.

I don't know that I've ever said that this war was for oil. Anyone who originally thought that might have been justified in thinking so (regardless of what the government has ever said, they lie), but now I think most people can see it's not about that. If anything oil will go higher if we hold true to sanctioning Iran since they said such sanctions would cause them to hold back their oil (which could push oil to $90/barrel). Like I said, we don't fight wars, we take sides. As I see it there's no reason for us to keep going the way we're going. If we take on any and every country we thought was oppressed or lacking freedom we'd implode and our military would shatter. Between Iran, Syria, North Korea, and others, we can't just run around spreading freedom. So if that's the case you have to ask the logical question why Iraq and why now? I could speculate...but it'd be just that...speculation. I have my own ideas but they'd likely be dismissed as conspiracy-driven crazyness. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.