War for all the Wrong Reasons
Why might the United States start a war with Iraq? Would this war be fought for legitimate causes or are there alternative reasons behind the war that the vast majority of the public are not aware of? These are a few questions that coincide with the questionable intensions of the Bush administration. The public of America can be swayed to support the war on Iraq because the government has control over the media, but with a little research it is not hard to find many reasons why a war on Iraq would be fought for all the wrong reasons.
To fully understand why there should be no war, it is vital to know the history of U.S.-Iraq relations. The U.S. has been involved with Iraq since its beginning. Iraq came
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At this time, Britain and the U.S. were in fierce competition for global economic control. In 1958, Iraq had a revolution and overthrew the king put in place by Britain because the people were living in extreme poverty. The U.S. sought to overturn this revolution, but decided only to contain it to Iraq because the risks were too great. Iraq had support by China and the Soviet Union. The U.S. had no choice but to accept the existence of Iraq as an independent state. Over the followed decades, the U.S. tried to weaken Iraq in many ways. The U.S. gave massive military support to right-wing Kurds fighting Baghdad and added Iraq to its list of "terrorist states." In the 1980s, the U.S. encouraged and helped to fund and arm Iraq in its war against Iran. U.S. domination of the Iran was ended by Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. In reality, the U.S. aim in the Iran-Iraq war was to weaken and destroy both countries. Henry Kissinger revealed the real U.S. attitude about the war when he was quoted saying "I hope they kill each other." The Pentagon provided Iraq's air force with satellite photos of Iranian targets. At the same time, as the Iran-Contra scandal revealed, the U.S. was sending anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Next, the U.S. started the Gulf War which is familiar to all. The results of the Gulf War still plague the Iraqi people. The
The Iraq War, also known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, took place in 2003 and dragged on for almost nine years, until the withdrawal of US troops in December 2011. The invasion was justified by the US using the new National Security Strategy that was proposed by the Bush administration. One of the key features of the National Security strategy was the justification that the US could preemptively strike targets nations that it deemed a threat to the security of the US. In order to justify the invasion of Iraq, the governmental leaders in the US claimed that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al-Qaeda and other terror groups, as well as using Saddam’s use of chemical weapons as legitimization for the war. Once the war began on March 20, 2003, the original
Invading Iraq was—and remains—a highly debated and controversial decision within both world politics and the academic disciplines of politics and international relations. With a growing number of deaths, rising tensions in the Middle East, and a failure to find any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the voices condemning the Bush administration have been increasing ever since the decision to go to war was announced. While many scholars have traditionally argued against the war, this paper will argue that the Iraq War can be justified.
Have you heard about Korean War, which occurred in June, 25, 1950? The conflict between ideologies caused this war with tens of millions killed, millions of families separated, the country reduced to rubble, and a huge permanent scar on Korea’s culture. Then, Vietnam War, Gulf War, or Iraq war can sound familiar to you. Let’s change point to the number of dead bodies from wars themselves. Can you guess how many people got killed during all of those war periods? Only for Vietnam War, the true civilians of Vietnam War were two millions in the north, and another two millions in the south, and military causalities were 1.1 million killed and six hundreds thousand wounded during war. To finish a war, how many innocent people and soldiers have
According to Charles Ommanney “Much contention surrounds Bush's reasons for declaring war on Iraq. Many of his supporters believe that despite the false claims regarding weapons of mass destruction, Bush was passionate about bringing democracy to the nation. However, the Iraq war instead brought the country hundreds of thousands of casualties and severely damaged infrastructure. Many believe the war was unsuccessful in its aim to deter terrorist activity. Dissenters believe the Bush administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, intentionally misled the American public in order to secure holdings for the oil industry. An MSNBC analysis of the incident reveals that many believe that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield came to the White House with the desire to start a war in Iraq. While the dispute continues, the fact remains one of Bush's goals in invading Iraq was to depose Saddam Hussein, and he was successful in that mission.”
What triggered the Iraq War that we are currently still having? During this time in history we were still in the cold war as well Cold War (1945–1991), a lot of events has happened during this time period. I am going to start with the Iran-Iraq war which started in 1980 and ended in 1988. The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. (Wikipedia, Iran–Iraq War, 2011). This war had at least a million and half casualties and it severely damaged both their economies, the Iran-Iraq war conflict is often
Firstly, it is important to understand why the United States decided to support Iraq. One of the reasons, is their loss of Iran as one of their “twin pillars.” When Nixon took office in 1969, his administration undertook a major review of US Persian Gulf policy. As part of an effort to redefine US military interests in key areas throughout the world by way of supporting certain states with arms rather than military forces. The result was the Nixon Doctrine, which relied on security cooperation with regional states to protect US interests around the world. In the Gulf, the United States heavily supported Iran and Saudi Arabia, a strategy that would quickly be known as the “Twin Pillar Policy.”
The United States and Iraq have been on edge with each other for many years. Under the power of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was considered one of the strongest countries. Saddam was one of the most gruesome, malicious, and aggressive leaders at the time. He would kill innocent people, invade other countries, and attempt to build nuclear weapons. Saddam was looked at as a serious threat to the United States, so actions had to be taken. On March 19, 2003, George Bush declares war on Iraq. The invasion of Iraq lasted from March 20 to May 1. Many people do not agree with what the United States chose to do. So the real question people ask, should the United States have gone to war in Iraq?
The reason for the invasion of Iraq was that they were suspected of harboring weapons of mass destruction and they were a potential threat to world peace. However no evidence has ever been found of the existence of such weapons in Iraq and this brought a lot of criticism on the US. This was however not the first altercation the US has been involved in in the Gulf war they fought with Iraq in order to protect their oil interests in the gulf region. The united states in the past has been known for going to war to protect is economic interests from the second world war, to the Vietnam War to the Korean War. All was aimed to protect the economic superiority of the United States. The resolution that brought the gulf war to an end put Sadam Hussein in power and thereafter he failed to follow some compliances the United Nations had imposed and in 2003 the Us led a coalition of forces aimed to remove Sadam Hussein from power and it was successful as he was executed 3 years later. This however started war in the country with the people bring opposed to the occupying forces and the new government that was in place. They also had additional reasons for
The Iraq war had a lot of different causes and effects on the United States. There has been a lot of controversy about why we started the War; a big theory is that we entered the war over oil because Iraq wouldn’t let America buy oil. Another big reason is because of the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center. Combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, invaded. Hard fought war which concluded with the capture of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad by American troops. The main reason is that the United States and the United Kingdom thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which they didn’t.
What does the United States have to gain from a war with Iraq? Supporters of a war with Iraq say it will help prevent the risk of an attack by a weapons of mass destruction developed by Iraq. Critics of a military action that say nothing will be gained, and the U.S. just wants to obtain the oil that Iraq controls. They claim that casualties will be too costly for America to afford. Nonetheless, America should act while others will not for fear of disturbing global peace. Iraq poses a “clear and present danger” to the security of the United States and the security of countries around the world.
The war waged on Iraq by the United States has been the cause of heated debate all over the world. Many people have opposed the United States attack on Iraq for many viable reasons. Some of these reasons include that it is not in the best interests for the reputation of the United States with the other nations of the global community, it poses an increased threat to United States homeland security, and it will result in many unjust crimes committed by the United States.
The Reason for Going to War Since the beginning of the war on Iraq, over 8243 civilians, 11000 Iraqi soldiers and 642 Coalition soldiers have died. There has not been one day since a US soldier was killed and since the beginning of the occupation, 39750 bombs have been dropped and $117 billion dollars have been spent. And no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
The war against Iraq began on March 20, 2002, when the U.S lunched “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. This was after President Bush called Iraq part of an “axis of evil”, also calling the country dangerous which is threatening U.S with the world’s most destructive weapons. The major phase of the war began when U.S troops marched within 50 miles of Baghdad with heavy aerial attacks on Baghdad and other cities. After the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon which was believed to be the work of Al Qaeda, U.S was concerned about the security of the Untied States which lead to the war in Iraq. Even though U.S officials felt the war in Iraq is the main priority, but many people in U.S opposes the war which brings up a lot of controversial issues.
The war began when Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, following a long history of border disputes. The conflict saw early successes by the Iraqis, but before long they were repulsed and the conflict stabilized into a long war of attrition. The United Nations Security Council called upon both parties to end the conflict on multiple occasions, but a ceasefire was not agreed to until August 20, 1988, and the last prisoners of war were not exchanged until 2003. The war irrevocably altered politics in the area, playing into wider global politics and leading to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Iran saw the war as an opportunity to export its Islamic revolution to Iraq, where the majority of the population share their version of Shi'a Islam,
War has been a part of human culture since it's birth. It has led to a great many massacres and has shown us the evil that exists within the souls of humanity. Some have even gone as far as saying that war is human nature. To better understand the reasons behind war and how it affects others, I've examined several different societies and cultures so as to better understand the necessity of war and see the cause of their external war attitude. To do so, different variables from two topics (military institutions and external war attitude) were matched up and crossed so as to look into the answers to these questions. The variables were then calculated and through these graphs, I was able to find different societies in which