What exactly has been done to prevent another Iraq War from happening?

[ck4829]

Although it seems unlikely to actually happen again, our country needs laws to make sure that a war like the Iraq War can never happen again.

Nobody was fired for incompetence
No new oversight organizations were created
No new laws banning propaganda and fear-mongering from the Executive Branch were put out on the table

Nothing.

We could use the following:
A new government organization keeping track of White House propaganda
A bill to make sure that intelligence doesn't get "stovepiped"
And so much more

Don't you think it's time Congress got to work on it?

[fenriswolf]

1. ill tell ya what could help prevent another war like iraq

We could put GW and cheney up on trail, give em up to the hague. Or at least impeach them.

The next president will reign knowing full well they can do whatever the fuck they want to do.

[Fresh_Start]

2. and the heads of the intelligence agencies which packaged

bullshit in order to please Cheney/Bush

[Iwasthere]

3. Never in the entire history of the USA have we struck first...

Iraq was the first time, and it was a war of choice against an unarmed country, or at the very least a country equipped with rusty junk that was certainly threat to us, let alone its neighbors. I have always been sickened by this and the war monger(s).

[htuttle]

4. That's not actually true

Working backwards, I can think of a few:

Panama
Grenada
Vietnam
Spanish-American War
War of 1812 (though we call that one a draw because we got our asses kicked)

For some of these we at least went to the trouble of coming up with a pretext. Iraq was just blatantly aggressive.

[Javaman]

5. The same thing we did to prevent another Viet Nam from happening...

nothing.

[leftofthedial]

6. well, for starters, the corporations have drummed the only anti-war candidates

(except for the nutter Ron Paul) out of the race for president

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. I would say that the Iraq War itself will prevent future similar wars (for awhile anyway)....

Our military, if it's not "broken" at this point, IS certainly very overstretched, fatigued, and IMHO in NO position to execute another invasion/occupation of another country the size and scope of Iraq or bigger. Sure, we could probably bomb another country if we wanted to but I don't think that we can put a bunch of troops on the ground nor manage another invasion/occupation right now and we probably won't be able to for awhile, at least not until most of our military forces have an opportunity to rest and rebuild itself and we bring most of our troops home from Iraq which, sadly, will probably not happen anytime in the foreseeable future. In fact, probably the only major reason that we haven't invaded Iran or any other country in the ME by now is that Iraq, or at least the post-invasion/occupation period, obviously has NOT ended up being the "cakewalk" that its backers somehow predicted/assumed it would be. It is pretty sad that our recent leaders did not learn the lessons of Vietnam (or learned entirely the WRONG lessons from THAT experience-e.g. we could've "won" in Vietnam if we had just stayed longer than we already had by the time we "left"). As Norman Solomon detailed in his book (and video documentary), "War Made Easy," our country seems to be locked into a perpetual cycle of violence towards other countries for all kinds of seemingly unjustifiable reasons and yet we continue to elect leaders that pretty much have to promise more of it to even get elected. It is a very sad commentary on our country that most of our leaders seem to spend a disproportionate time and energy trying to initiate wars/military conflicts rather than *genuinely* trying to prevent them and that many of our fellow citizens seem to blindly rally around them and the leaders promoting them. *sigh*

[Richard Steele]

8. Quite the opposite- it's been "normalized"; just standard procedure nowadays, like torture. nm

[taterguy]

9. All the people in this land opposed to oil wars stopped driving their cars

Oh wait.

That hasn't happened.

Nevermind.