For those of you who didn't support the Iraq war, why did you oppose it?

[La_Serpiente]

For those of you who didn't support the Iraq war, why did you oppose it?

For myself, there is no single reason why I opposed it. It is more of a mix of them.

If there are a mix of reasons why you opposed the Iraq war, specify below.

[tom_paine]

1. Voted "other"

My reasons a combo of those listed...

"not an imminent threat"

"we should have been going after al-Qaeda"

"no allies" (except braaaaave Cameroon!)

"against Imperial Amerika and what (not to mention who) it stands for"

[GodHelpUsAll2]

6. Ditto

What you said. There are many many things to list why this "war" in Iraq was wrong. I prefer to call it the name my boyfriend gave it.
He says we are not at war, we are in the middle of an extended police action.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

8. Voted other-for many of the same reasons

another one is that I was certain BushCo had their sights set on all that Iraqi oil. Is that why gas is now $1.75 at my local cheapie gas station?

[G_j]

41. entering the new millennium with an outdated mindset

building more advanced ways to destroy and kill... the worlds gotten too small for this BS.

It's time move on and grow up.

[CalebHayes]

2. All of the above.

[ulysses]

3. other

a mix of several of those options.

[ewagner]

4. Afraid it was much more complicated.

I had just finished reading A Peace to End All Peace and felt that we were repeating the same mistakes made by the British after the end of WWI. add to that:

Bushco, Rummy et al, had absolutely no understanding of the dynamics of the region (and still don't)

The were obviously running the risk of:

a. destabilizing the region
b. Fomenting Civil war
c. Solidifying Anti-America positions in the Muslim Community

(hhhmmmm: Bush* hit another trifecta!

[Skittles]

5. because I knew Bush Inc had planned it when he was runnning for pres

it's all been one big fat f***ing lie.

[salinen]

17. Me too

One of the reasons people probably voted for this pig was they wanted him to get revenge for his daddy's assassination attempt.

I know born agains and they are pathologically lustful of death and destruction. I won't let one near my family.

Well gee, when the names Cheney and Rumsfeld are mentioned for cabinet positions, I think war automatically.

[AntiCoup2K4]

7. All of the above

Not to mention the fact that PNAC had this war planned for years before Junior's (s)election.

[A J]

9. All of them plus one...

...not worth the money or the lives lost.

[denverbill]

10. Other.

I believe a good case can be made for using America's military to throw out bad governments, but I cannot accept that it is America's decision alone as to which govts deserve to be overthrown and why and what govt replaces them.

If it's OK for the US to decide with a few other scattered countries that a govt deserves to die, then why can't China and North Korea decide the same about South Korea? Why can't India decide about Ceylon? Why not Israel deciding to depose Jordan's king?

[GodHelpUsAll2]

30. And the really big question

Why can't Russia and China decide AMERICA needs to be overthrown. This preemption policy leaves us wide open and basically justifies any country out there to do the same thing on the basis of "We had to, we thought they might...." Very scary stuff.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

11. Most of the above

I opposed it because Iraq was not an imminent threat and I opposed it because I thought we should be going after Al-Qaeda instead. Most of the other reasons you've listed played into it, but they were mainly gravy to me.

Also, not listed as a choice, but a huge factor for me, was that I was unable to see the war as anything but Bush's exploitation of 9-11 to pursue his own shady little agenda. I'm still astonished at how many people bought into it.

[bigwillq]

12. I voted other

Although I thought Iraq wasn't much of a threat to US soil people, I thought we should have at least went after Bin Laden more productively. I'm not saying "a shock and awe" tactic in Afghan but Bin Laden and his followers were more of a threat after what they did on 9-11.

[central scrutinizer]

13. all of the above plus

it would only create more terrorists that hated the US - only idiots believe there are a fixed number of terrorists so that using our troops as "flypaper" would thin their numbers.

[2cents]

other

Inspectors were back in - problem solved.

[geniph]

14. Pre-emptive unilateral invasion

of any country, by any country, for any reason, sets a horrible precedent.

[Redbear]

22. But its doubly bad...

when the reason is empire.

[alittlelark]

15. I opposed it because I watched the UN on CSpan

and heard the head of the IAEA state that the Nigerian yellowcake documents were not just forgeries, but bad forgeries....and that story did'nt come out for 3-4 mo. in our media.

-I opposed it because I checked out international news sources.
-I opposed it because it was such an obvious resource grab.
-I opposed it because members of my family have fought in every American war (except this one, luckily).
-I opposed the war because Bush just plain LOOKS DISHONEST.
-I opposed this war because Ihave NO trust in * leadership or decisionmaking.
-I opposed the war because I am a patriotic American!:dem:

Just my opinion.

[Jacobin]

16. For all the reasons stated by King George I not to

invade and occupy Iraq.

I agree with Smirk's Daddy on this one

[earthman dave]

18. Other: It was a blatant oil and land grab.

"Liberation" my arse. "Imminent threat" my arse. And as for the idea that Our Glorious Leaders actually care about human rights - guess what? Well guessed.

[Sagan]

19. Mix of reasons...

1. Iraq was NOT an imminent threat to the United States.

2. If regime change could not successfully occur in a stable manner, such as with a coup, then it would be even less likely to be successful with the country smashed and invaded.

3. To use a historical example: If you don't have any good alternatives to Tito, you better just leave him alone. Yugoslavia without Tito is infinitely worse than with him.

[rogerashton]

20. Should have been going against Al Qaeda

first and foremost. There are other countries, with dictators just as bad or worse, that DID support the 9-11 strike (Liberia and Burkina Faso) and the shrub let them get away with it.

[eissa]

21. All of the above, plus

the fact that this war was in the works prior to the selection of this "president." I also think it was an election ploy; nothing gets your polls higher than a war against the bogeyman-of-the-year (in this case, the Muslims).

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

23. "not an imminent threat"

"we should have been going after al-Qaeda"

Those two mainly, also war is stupid, evil and sad. I did assume he had these highly touted weapons but I couldn't imagine how they were a threat to us way over here. The fact they don't exist compounds Bush's criminality. I was of the opinion that the sanctions were doing what they were supposed to by curbing Saddam. Didn't realize they were making life crappy for Iraqi citizens and harming Saddam hardly at all.

Actually that about Al-Qaeda I'm uncertain about. I've only heard they exist through this stupid government we have and I question the veracity of everything they say. For all I know it's a fantasy enemy they dreamed up to push the fear button a la 1984.

[utopian]

24. All of the above

[MrSlayer]

25. Other: Because I knew it was all lies to enrich pet companies.

I've been railing against this thing even from the time they stole the election. I knew they were going to do this.

[FloridaPat]

26. I voted other also. Most were some of the reason.

There were others:
1. It was obvious Bush was lying and his only intent was war.
2. 50% of the Gulf War 1 vets are on disabilility or requesting disability. Why should we send more American troops to their own distruction.
3. I remember Vietnam. The government lies. The government has no regard for the people.
4. Gulf War 1 could have been prevented - Bush 1 gave Sadam permission to invade Kuwait.
5. Gulf War 1 was started over lies too.

[NoPasaran]

27. Most of the above

I'm not a pacifist.

My main reason for opposing it is that wars are easy to start, hard to end. How long will it take, how much will it cost, how much damage will our society suffer before we can extract ourselves?

I don't think we've yet recovered from Vietnam. Yet the junta insists on not only repeating all of our mistakes there, they do so with unseemly haste, What a bunch of fucking idiots.

[woofless]

28. Simply.I opposed it because Shrub proposed it.

[pop goes the weasel]

29. several reasons

I voted "Iraq was not an imminent threat," but there were plenty of other reasons to oppose the war:

We were being lied to; it was obvious that the reasons trotted out for war were not the real reasons for the war. I considered and still consider W's subterfuge to be undermining the Constitution of the United States.

We already had a war--in Afghanistan--that the US was proving wholly unable to successfully pursue. The Afghanistan situation is still not stable, and may not ever be, but actually concentrating on doing it right and putting the money into rebuilding that we promised is the only chance of resolving the Afghanistan situation.

I may be the only American who feels this way, but I still think bombing Afghanistan was a mistake. If we really did need to take down the Taliban militarily, we needed to do it with more troops on the ground. "Rummy" was already pointing to Afghanistan as a model for the invasion of Iraq. It didn't take a military genius to see that basing an even larger military operation on an inadequate operation is a recipe for disaster.

We couldn't afford it. It is OK to fight wars you can't afford if the nation's continued existence is threatened, but not OK to do so when the war is one of opportunity, not necessity. Thanks to W's free-spending ways, the American economy is in much worse shape than simple market cycling dictated.

Saddam Hussein was cooperating. You don't invade a country that is cooperating. Sure, he grumbled and dragged his feet every inch of the way, but the UN had inspectors back in.

The "humanitarian motive" was a farce. I remembered quite plainly American complicity in "Saddam's use of WMD on his own people." If we were going to be invading on humanitarian grounds, we should have done that in the mid-1980s (pre Gulf War I).

The United States uses unethical WMD that have long term consequences for civilians and military alike, and does not compensate victims afterward. Atomic bomb cancer in Japan, Agent Orange birth defects in Vietnam, depleted uranium birth defects in Iraq... we have a sorry record.

The first US effort at post-war reconstruction was, well, Reconstruction. In 1877, the North declared the project a success, deciding that it was easier to work with the terrorists than it was to support human rights. The much bally-hooed post-WWII reconstructions of Germany and Japan saw the purposeful courting of fascists for the purpose of building an anti-Soviet operation. Human rights were again secondary. Somehow, I doubt we have become angels in the intervening decades. We like to think we are doing God's work, but we seldom take note of our astounding hubris.

Our astounding hubris--the rest of the world gapes in horror, wondering just how much damage our fall will do them when we collapse under self-created burdens. A little self-reflection before action is advisable.

[achtung_circus]

32. I didn't believe a word he said

I recall hearing the news that Saddam had agreed to allow UN Inspectors back into Iraq.

I recall hearing the US reponse delivered by Bush.

I recall thinking that "there is a man who won't take yes for an answer".

I knew then that war was inevitable.

[oldcoot]

43. The short-attention span president

Bush reminds me of a small kid who easily gets bored with his toys. He got bored with Afghanistan so he decided to invade Iraq (which he probably wanted to do for a long time). I agree that invading and rebuilding Afghanistan would have been challenging under the most ideal circumstances. An intelligent president would have finished the job in Afghanistan before even considering invading Iraq.

At the time I suspected that Bush administration hawks were too optimistic about the war's outcome. They thought that they would be able to win this war easily because Iraq was easy to defeat during the first Gulf War. Even though members of Bush's own administration warned them about the dangers, they decided to ignore that advice. Now American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are paying the price for their stupidity. Future historians may describe this war as one of the stupidest foreign policy blunders of all time.

[govegan]

31. One needn't be a pacifist to oppose this war.

Although, I am and I did.

Why the picture of Lorca next to that poster image?

Or, why did Roosevelt and the other so-called great defenders of democracy and freedom leave the Spanish Republicans to battle the fascists with no sales of arms?

"Now I know what the oak and the nightingale say:
Man is a prisoner who can never be free.
Oh, noble Liberty! Beloved Liberty,
light up the sky for me with your radiant stars." -- as spoken by Mariana Pineda in Lorca's play of that name.

"Like a lily they cut the lily,
Like a rose they cut the flower,
Like a lily they cut the lily,
Her heart more lovely by the hour."

[La_Serpiente]

44. It is an ironic statement

PNAC and the rest of the gang want to export a "Pax Americana" around the world by the bomb of a plane.

Of course, I do not support this concept. It is just hard for some people to realize that you cannot always force peace and freedom on people by the barrell of a gun. The picture highlights this paradox.

[Darranar]

33. Many reasons...

The "American empire & greed" was a big part; so was the fact that the inevitable result would be mass chaos and a humanitarian disaster, followed by either a near-permanent state of mass chaos (civil war, like in Afghanistan) or a US-controlled colonial state.

I am also a semi-pacifist. I think mass violence is very rarely an effective tactic, but I believe that it is sometimes necessary.

[PVnRT]

34. Mostly because I refuse to let this country become an empire

n/t

[LWolf]

35. Well,

I picked "Empire/Greed," but it's more complex than that. More than one reason:

1. I oppose aggression on principle.

2. I oppose violence on principle.

3. I oppose arrogance, greed, and bully tactics on principle.

4. I didn't feel threatened.

5. I oppose the misuse of American lives and $$.

6. I oppose misdirection.

7. I oppose dishonesty.

[Djinn]

39. I'm not a pacifist

I'm a bit of a pessimest when it comes to faith in human's ability to solve certain issues without it...that said I mainly opposed "war" with Iraq because it had more to do with Israeli National interest and neo-con financial interest than US or certainly AUstralian national interest.

The invasion and occupation comes straight from the pages of Defending the Realm a policy paper co-written for Netanyahu's Likud party by Perle, a man with a past history of overlooking US interests for thiose of Israel (An FBI summary of a 1970 tap heard Perle discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy)

when the argument stays the same but the reasons keep changing, someonme is lying

[LWolf]

40. I'm not a pacifist, either.

But I won't use force except in actual defense against an actual, this-minute-you-are-attacking me scenario.

I tend to embrace a more pacifist, relatively speaking, stance than I actually feel; it's part of my evolution. My life has been anything but peaceful, and I've lived violence. So I'm not eager to engage when it is not necessary. I'm choosing other ways to deal with situations.

I'm also female, and have a pretty typical response; I'll avoid you until you cross the line, then disembowel you, toss you over my shoulder, and walk off without looking, or thinking, back.

Aren't cha glad I'm choosing the more pacifistic stance? ;-)

[RainDog]

36. I opposed the invasion because-

1. I believed the experts in the region who said it would destablize the middle east and make civil war in Iraq the most likely outcome, with a theocracy to follow.

2. I believed those who noted that the invasion was a violation of the Nuremberg Principles which he helped to write.

3. I believed that it was a mid-term election ploy (among other things) by the Bush thugs.

4. I believed it was a smoke screen to detract from who was actually involved in 9-11 as financiers of terrorism.

5. I believed it was part of a PNAC strategy, which they had already outlined, to create an American Empire in the middle east. I choose democracy, not empire.

6. I believed it would inflame people in the middle east by failing to address the REAL issues, which are the Israeli-Palestinian problem, AND the (especially) Bush support of repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, while claiming to want democracy in the region.

7. I knew they were lying about the threat.

[DinahMoeHum]

37. For reasons 1 and 4.

n/t


:evilfrown:

[Gin]

38. it set a dangerous precedent...now we have to accept other nations

using the same ill-fated logic to serve their own purposes.

Global mistake for many reasons.

[Brian Sweat]

42. I opposed it for the following reasons.

1. I did not believe that invading would result in a net improvement in the lives of the Iraqi people.

2. I did not believe that Iraq posed a direct or indirect threat to the United States.

3. I did not believe that Iraq was supporting terrorist actions against the United States.

4. I was convinced when Bush stole the presidency that he was going to invade Iraq, so I did not believe any of his rationalizations for going to war.

5. I oppose war in general and need a particularly compelling reason before I will support going to war.

[T_i_B]

45. Al-Quaida

I supported the war in Afghanistan, and I would have supported a war in Iraq had the two been related. In August/September 2002 I was charging round the net trying to find evidence of a link. That I could not find and, as I did not find any of the other excuses plausable I went on the march, starting the Saturday after Blair's infamous dossier was published.

Needless to say, today I could not be more certain that I did the right thing by protesting.

[xxqqqzme]

46. because squatter is a lying

rat bastard and we all knew he was lying every time he opened his yap. SOTU - LIES; powell @ UN - LIES; rummy - LIES; condi on SunMorntalkies - LIES; unka dick popping out of his hidey hole - LIES!

Plus it was wrong to invade a country that posed absolutely NO threat 2 any person living w/i this country.