I wonder the same thing. Would high school/college age kids voluntarily give up their freedoms, cell phones, laptops and all their other possessions to go and fight in a world war? I definately think a good portion would, although not in the staggering numbers in WWII. Sometimes I also think that there is a lot of entitlement in today's youth and many believe that someone else should go to war instead of them. Many want the world to be a more peaceful place, but they are not going to risk their lives in uniform for it to happen.
I wonder about the same thing too. Not only about the people who served, but the people who made so many sacrifices at home. I mean you hear all the time about people having to deal with things like food and fuel rationing, curfews and not using any light at night. I get the feeling today if government tried to implement any of those things today, even during a war, you would get people freaking out about how dare the government do this to them.
I know, that would never happen today with Americans, they couldn't go with out like that generation did. My great grandparents migrated to Ct during the 20s, my great grandmother worked for Timex in Waterbury CT during the war, meanwhile my great grandfathers brothers where fighting for the Italians back in Europe. But if you asked them about how they felt about it, they would have told you that they loved America, and would do anything they could to stay here. They left some pretty hard times in Italy and made the most of it here in the states, gave up a lot and did what they could to provide for their family. These qualities they and their generation had are lost in todays America in my opinion. I hope we can return to that someday, thats why I look at that generation for insperation. Not only for saving the world, but because they gave when they had nothing to give. They grew up with out nothing and still gave when asked when they had every right to be selfish.
Its just to bad that the baby boomer generation and onward shit on their accomplishments and squander what they gave us. Imagin how different things would be if we kept their morals and dedication to family and community and used our reasourses to better America and the world?
I think that's bullshit. America hasn't been tested since WWII. Every conflict we've had since then has been by choice, not necessity. That is why you don't/won't see kids racing out en masse to sign up for the military. They've never been asked to fight for a cause that merited it. Every generation is convinced that the one that came after it is worthless compared to the "gods" that were their forefathers.
The Baby Boomers were the biggest bunch of hypocritical failures ever to grace this country. They took a great nation that stood as a symbol of hope in this world and trashed its reputation through failure after failure... the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. They took a nation that learned it could not trust private wealth to regulate itself (the Great Depression) and instead invented the self-serving doctrine of Reaganomics, with its disastrous deregulation and increasing wealth disparities.
I admire and respect those who lost their lives in WWII. It was a fight worth fighting. But don't tell me they were uniformly a greater generation than any other to walk the earth. Their nobility all too quickly became arrogance, and the sacrifices they made were all too quickly exploited for lesser aims.
I don't think Byrnzie hates America-- I think he hates the people who run America, who get us involved in numerous conflicts, which inspires hate for us abroad, and blind nationalism here.
America, at its core, as it was intended to be is about the most kick-ass place ever. How far have we been drawn away from that America though?
Finally, somebody posts something sensible. Thanks Vinny. I was beginning to lose any hope for this place.
I don't think Byrnzie hates America-- I think he hates the people who run America, who get us involved in numerous conflicts, which inspires hate for us abroad, and blind nationalism here.
America, at its core, as it was intended to be is about the most kick-ass place ever. How far have we been drawn away from that America though?
Finally, somebody posts something sensible. Thanks Vinny. I was beginning to lose any hope for this place.
Yet in the other thread, you fault the US for not getting involved in enough conflict (Bosnia and Chechnya). Which is it?
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
Yet in the other thread, you fault the US for not getting involved in enough conflict (Bosnia and Chechnya). Which is it?
You didn't invade Afghanistan or Iraq to save the people of these countries from being massacred. A case in point is the U.S abandonment of the Sunni uprising at the end of the first Gulf war. You abandoned them to be massacred and buried in mass graves. You instructed Sadaam to 'restore order in Iraq' during this uprising. So much for caring about the people of Iraq and wanting Sadaam toppled and replaced by other Iraqi's independent of American control.
You invaded in order to steal their natural resources and boost the arms industry and the bank balances of U.S companies such as Halliburton e.t.c.
I think that's bullshit. America hasn't been tested since WWII. Every conflict we've had since then has been by choice, not necessity. That is why you don't/won't see kids racing out en masse to sign up for the military. They've never been asked to fight for a cause that merited it. Every generation is convinced that the one that came after it is worthless compared to the "gods" that were their forefathers.
The Baby Boomers were the biggest bunch of hypocritical failures ever to grace this country. They took a great nation that stood as a symbol of hope in this world and trashed its reputation through failure after failure... the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. They took a nation that learned it could not trust private wealth to regulate itself (the Great Depression) and instead invented the self-serving doctrine of Reaganomics, with its disastrous deregulation and increasing wealth disparities.
I admire and respect those who lost their lives in WWII. It was a fight worth fighting. But don't tell me they were uniformly a greater generation than any other to walk the earth. Their nobility all too quickly became arrogance, and the sacrifices they made were all too quickly exploited for lesser aims.[/quote]
You realize that the Baby Boomers are the children of the generation that fought WWII...aren't you?
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
the Soviets' job was to trade land for time (Scorched Earth policy)....the tried and true Russian battle tactic going back to Peter the Great's war with Sweden and the Napoleonic wars....hold onto Baku and its oilfields...
Trade land for time you say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
'...Stalin's orders to his troops not to retreat or surrender resulted in a return to static linear positions which German tanks easily breached, again quickly cutting supply lines and surrounding whole Soviet armies. Only later did Stalin allow his troops to retreat to the rear wherever possible and regroup, to mount a defence in depth or to counterattack. More than 2.4 million Soviet troops had been taken prisoner by December, 1941, by which time German and Soviet forces were fighting almost in the suburbs of Moscow. Most of these captured Soviet troops were to die from exposure, starvation, disease, or willful mistreatment by the German regime...'
A case in point is the U.S abandonment of the Sunni uprising at the end of the first Gulf war. You abandoned them to be massacred and buried in mass graves. You instructed Sadaam to 'restore order in Iraq' during this uprising. So much for caring about the people of Iraq and wanting Sadaam toppled and replaced by other Iraqi's independent of American control.
We didnt go ther to try and topple Saddam we went to stop the invasion of Kuwait, and also the Sunnis and the Kurds did this on their own accord
You invaded in order to steal their natural resources and boost the arms industry and the bank balances of U.S companies such as Halliburton e.t.c.
Yeah right :roll: If that were true we wouldn't still be paying so much for oil. We invaded becuase the Intel we received said that he had wmd's and he also violated 17 cease fire agreements and not to mention it was post 911
the Sunnis and the Kurds did this on their own accord
'...On February 15, 1991, in a carefully crafted and well-publicized statement, then-President George HW Bush appealed to “the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands-to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside.” To underscore the point, Bush repeated it verbatim in another speech that day. In early March 1991, a massive Shi’ite rebellion swept across southern Iraq from Basra to the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Ba’athists were tortured and executed in massive numbers throughout the south; pictures and portraits of Saddam were smashed to pieces. By mid-March, the Iraqi government lost control of 14 of the country’s 18 provinces.”
As the rebellion spread, representatives of the most prominent Shi’ite cleric in Iraq attempted to contact American forces that were then occupying parts of Iraq to assess Washington’s support. The US Commander in the region, General Norman Schwarzkopf refused to meet with them. American and other allied forces, meanwhile, destroyed and confiscated Iraqi munitions that could have been used by the rebellion. But the deathblow to the uprising came when the US lifted the over-flight ban on Iraqi aircraft, allowing the Iraqi government to send in attack helicopters to mercilessly crush the rebellion in late March. On top of this, the elite Republican Guard units that General Schwarzkopf had allowed to retreat to Baghdad at the end of the war led the counteroffensive on the ground against the rebellion.'
Yeah right :roll: If that were true we wouldn't still be paying so much for oil. We invaded becuase the Intel we received said that he had wmd's and he also violated 17 cease fire agreements and not to mention it was post 911
So you believed the story about wmd's at the time? Then why did the U.S government prevent the weapons inspectors from finishing their job?
And what does 9/11 have to do with Iraq?
Yeah I believed it and so did just about everyone else and also It wasn't just our intel saying he had Wmd's, British, Egyptian, and Israeli, I never said he had anything to do with 911 but he did have ties with al qaeda and for all we knew he could have given wmd's to them and we couldn't take that risk in a post 911 era.
Yeah I believed it and so did just about everyone else and also It wasn't just our intel saying he had Wmd's, British, Egyptian, and Israeli, I never said he had anything to do with 911 but he did have ties with al qaeda and for all we knew he could have given wmd's to them and we couldn't take that risk in a post 911 era.
Most people in Britain didn't believe it and saw it for the bunch of horseshit that it was. It was perfectly obvious to most people that war had already been decided upon months before - everything else was just a desperate attempt to find an excuse to invade. Maybe this is why 2 million people took to the streets of London before the war in protest.
Go ahead and provide some evidence that Sadaam had links with Al Queda. I'm going to bed now, and I know by the time I wake up you won't have produced any evidence, because there isn't any. There were no ties between Iraq and Al Queda.
One of his top generals said this on 60 minutes a few years ago.
It's an interesting thought, but I don't know if there's anything to suggest the Iranians had their eyes on Iraq. Either way, I can't believe that anyone seriously believed Iraq posed a threat to anyone. I'm sure the Iranians knew as well as everyone else that Iraq had no wmd's. After the first Gulf war, and then ten years of sanctions and daily bombing raids I think it's safe to say they were fucked militarily and had little or nothing with which to defend themselves.
Im sorry what I meant to say is we thought there were links between the two but there were not any but it is a fact that he did give them safe haven and zarqawi received medical treatment from a hospital. But for what it's worth IMO Iraq was a huge mistake,but think what you will the Iraqi's are better off without him just go ask the Kurd's in the north how they feel without Saddam in power.
Then why did the U.S government prevent the weapons inspectors from finishing their job?
Saddam wouldn't let the weapons inspectors in because he wanted Iran to think he had wmd's,he was more worried about them than us.
What makes you think this? Do you have anything to support this belief? It's the first I've ever heard of it.
I read the same thing in an article in I think Newsweek a few years ago. Basically Saddam didn't want to look weak to his neighbours in the region so even if he didn't have WMD's to him there needed to be the perception that he might. Even if the Iranians weren't a legit threat, the brutal Iran/Iraq war really wasn't that long ago and they were still enemies.
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Yet in the other thread, you fault the US for not getting involved in enough conflict (Bosnia and Chechnya). Which is it?
You didn't invade Afghanistan or Iraq to save the people of these countries from being massacred. A case in point is the U.S abandonment of the Sunni uprising at the end of the first Gulf war. You abandoned them to be massacred and buried in mass graves. You instructed Sadaam to 'restore order in Iraq' during this uprising. So much for caring about the people of Iraq and wanting Sadaam toppled and replaced by other Iraqi's independent of American control.
You invaded in order to steal their natural resources and boost the arms industry and the bank balances of U.S companies such as Halliburton e.t.c.
There's a difference...can you see it?
Indeed. But just let me confirm this... we CAN use military force in various Byrnzie-approved situations then?
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Need to give them credit for making it through the Depression, thank God for the war to help with that....most of the kids fighting in the field were only 7, 8, 9 or 10 when the market tanked back in 1929...some helped pay the tab with their lives and limbs
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
Thank you for starting this thread, but it should have been posted on the AET. There are a hand full of people that like to shit on threads just because....the Moving Train isn't a great place for a thread like this because of the lack of respect for each other and their opinions.
they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Please explain what brings you to this conclusion..
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Need to give them credit for making it through the Depression, thank God for the war to help with that....most of the kids fighting in the field were only 7, 8, 9 or 10 when the market tanked back in 1929...some helped pay the tab with their lives and limbs
And now we're picking up the tab for their hubris with our lives, limbs, and wiped out retirement accounts.
they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Hey soul singing The term The greatest Generation i used came from a book written by Tom Brokaw, IT has nothing to do with thinking one Generation is greater then the other. Maybe you should go read it or maybe you should do some soul searching instead of singing because your way out of tune.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Please explain what brings you to this conclusion..
Reaganomics, deregulation, Vietnam, the Cold War, arming and training Bin Laden, arming and funding Saddam, Israel, most of Latin America... the list of abject failures of US interventionism is long. And it's a direct result of people coming home so full of themselves after WWII and so convinced they could do no wrong that they wrecked the world in their attempt to impose their rightness on it.
we CAN use military force in various Byrnzie-approved situations then?
Such as helping to stop a genocide, as opposed to creating one.
How extremist of me.
Saddam was committing genocide on the Kurds and Shittes yet you don't support the Iraq war. its so funny how convenient it is to pick and choose when you support the US going to war.
Saddam was committing genocide on the Kurds and Shittes yet you don't support the Iraq war. its so funny how convenient it is to pick and choose when you support the US going to war.
Apologies to the OP for posting off-topic I tried to stay away but..
to imply that the US went to war to save the Kurds and Shi'ites is nonsense. After the first gulf war you left them there to take it through every orifice they had. Saddam committed the massacres with the weapons the US government gave/sold him. So please forgive those who do not trust the US war effort to topple his dictatorship which mind you was not the reason for the war.
Think of the difference it would of made if after the first gulf war a UN peace-keeping force was mobilized to slowly take control of Iraq. But that wasn't the point of the first gulf war you guys just wanted US bases in several gulf countries.
Saddam was committing genocide on the Kurds and Shittes yet you don't support the Iraq war. its so funny how convenient it is to pick and choose when you support the US going to war.
Apologies to the OP for posting off-topic I tried to stay away but..
to imply that the US went to war to save the Kurds and Shi'ites is nonsense. After the first gulf war you left them there to take it through every orifice they had. Saddam committed the massacres with the weapons the US government gave/sold him. So please forgive those who do not trust the US war effort to topple his dictatorship which mind you was not the reason for the war.
doesn't matter the why. its just funny how people can criticize the military action we didn't take but then criticize when we do. going to war to stop Saddam from genocide was one of several reasons we went to war. personally, I don't agree with any of them, but the reasons still exsit.
[
Think of the difference it would of made if after the first gulf war a UN peace-keeping force was mobilized to slowly take control of Iraq. But that wasn't the point of the first gulf war you guys just wanted US bases in several gulf countries.
the point of the first gulf war was to remove Saddam from Kuwait and liberate that country. but I'm sure you knew that.
Comments
I think that's bullshit. America hasn't been tested since WWII. Every conflict we've had since then has been by choice, not necessity. That is why you don't/won't see kids racing out en masse to sign up for the military. They've never been asked to fight for a cause that merited it. Every generation is convinced that the one that came after it is worthless compared to the "gods" that were their forefathers.
The Baby Boomers were the biggest bunch of hypocritical failures ever to grace this country. They took a great nation that stood as a symbol of hope in this world and trashed its reputation through failure after failure... the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. They took a nation that learned it could not trust private wealth to regulate itself (the Great Depression) and instead invented the self-serving doctrine of Reaganomics, with its disastrous deregulation and increasing wealth disparities.
I admire and respect those who lost their lives in WWII. It was a fight worth fighting. But don't tell me they were uniformly a greater generation than any other to walk the earth. Their nobility all too quickly became arrogance, and the sacrifices they made were all too quickly exploited for lesser aims.
Finally, somebody posts something sensible. Thanks Vinny. I was beginning to lose any hope for this place.
Yet in the other thread, you fault the US for not getting involved in enough conflict (Bosnia and Chechnya). Which is it?
You didn't invade Afghanistan or Iraq to save the people of these countries from being massacred. A case in point is the U.S abandonment of the Sunni uprising at the end of the first Gulf war. You abandoned them to be massacred and buried in mass graves. You instructed Sadaam to 'restore order in Iraq' during this uprising. So much for caring about the people of Iraq and wanting Sadaam toppled and replaced by other Iraqi's independent of American control.
You invaded in order to steal their natural resources and boost the arms industry and the bank balances of U.S companies such as Halliburton e.t.c.
There's a difference...can you see it?
I think that's bullshit. America hasn't been tested since WWII. Every conflict we've had since then has been by choice, not necessity. That is why you don't/won't see kids racing out en masse to sign up for the military. They've never been asked to fight for a cause that merited it. Every generation is convinced that the one that came after it is worthless compared to the "gods" that were their forefathers.
The Baby Boomers were the biggest bunch of hypocritical failures ever to grace this country. They took a great nation that stood as a symbol of hope in this world and trashed its reputation through failure after failure... the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. They took a nation that learned it could not trust private wealth to regulate itself (the Great Depression) and instead invented the self-serving doctrine of Reaganomics, with its disastrous deregulation and increasing wealth disparities.
I admire and respect those who lost their lives in WWII. It was a fight worth fighting. But don't tell me they were uniformly a greater generation than any other to walk the earth. Their nobility all too quickly became arrogance, and the sacrifices they made were all too quickly exploited for lesser aims.[/quote]
You realize that the Baby Boomers are the children of the generation that fought WWII...aren't you?
Trade land for time you say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
'...Stalin's orders to his troops not to retreat or surrender resulted in a return to static linear positions which German tanks easily breached, again quickly cutting supply lines and surrounding whole Soviet armies. Only later did Stalin allow his troops to retreat to the rear wherever possible and regroup, to mount a defence in depth or to counterattack. More than 2.4 million Soviet troops had been taken prisoner by December, 1941, by which time German and Soviet forces were fighting almost in the suburbs of Moscow. Most of these captured Soviet troops were to die from exposure, starvation, disease, or willful mistreatment by the German regime...'
Ermm, o.k.
We didnt go ther to try and topple Saddam we went to stop the invasion of Kuwait, and also the Sunnis and the Kurds did this on their own accord Yeah right
'...On February 15, 1991, in a carefully crafted and well-publicized statement, then-President George HW Bush appealed to “the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands-to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside.” To underscore the point, Bush repeated it verbatim in another speech that day. In early March 1991, a massive Shi’ite rebellion swept across southern Iraq from Basra to the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Ba’athists were tortured and executed in massive numbers throughout the south; pictures and portraits of Saddam were smashed to pieces. By mid-March, the Iraqi government lost control of 14 of the country’s 18 provinces.”
As the rebellion spread, representatives of the most prominent Shi’ite cleric in Iraq attempted to contact American forces that were then occupying parts of Iraq to assess Washington’s support. The US Commander in the region, General Norman Schwarzkopf refused to meet with them. American and other allied forces, meanwhile, destroyed and confiscated Iraqi munitions that could have been used by the rebellion. But the deathblow to the uprising came when the US lifted the over-flight ban on Iraqi aircraft, allowing the Iraqi government to send in attack helicopters to mercilessly crush the rebellion in late March. On top of this, the elite Republican Guard units that General Schwarzkopf had allowed to retreat to Baghdad at the end of the war led the counteroffensive on the ground against the rebellion.'
So you believed the story about wmd's at the time? Then why did the U.S government prevent the weapons inspectors from finishing their job?
And what does 9/11 have to do with Iraq?
Saddam wouldn't let the weapons inspectors in because he wanted Iran to think he had wmd's,he was more worried about them than us.
Most people in Britain didn't believe it and saw it for the bunch of horseshit that it was. It was perfectly obvious to most people that war had already been decided upon months before - everything else was just a desperate attempt to find an excuse to invade. Maybe this is why 2 million people took to the streets of London before the war in protest.
Go ahead and provide some evidence that Sadaam had links with Al Queda. I'm going to bed now, and I know by the time I wake up you won't have produced any evidence, because there isn't any. There were no ties between Iraq and Al Queda.
What makes you think this? Do you have anything to support this belief? It's the first I've ever heard of it.
It's an interesting thought, but I don't know if there's anything to suggest the Iranians had their eyes on Iraq. Either way, I can't believe that anyone seriously believed Iraq posed a threat to anyone. I'm sure the Iranians knew as well as everyone else that Iraq had no wmd's. After the first Gulf war, and then ten years of sanctions and daily bombing raids I think it's safe to say they were fucked militarily and had little or nothing with which to defend themselves.
This will do.
I read the same thing in an article in I think Newsweek a few years ago. Basically Saddam didn't want to look weak to his neighbours in the region so even if he didn't have WMD's to him there needed to be the perception that he might. Even if the Iranians weren't a legit threat, the brutal Iran/Iraq war really wasn't that long ago and they were still enemies.
I know where the term came from, but this country seems to have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. That generation was no different from any other generation, they just happened to get to fight a just war at a time when morale was high. If not for the fact that that generation fucked up just about every other war decision made for the next 60 years, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
Indeed. But just let me confirm this... we CAN use military force in various Byrnzie-approved situations then?
Going off on a tangent is the norm here.....
Please explain what brings you to this conclusion..
And now we're picking up the tab for their hubris with our lives, limbs, and wiped out retirement accounts.
Reaganomics, deregulation, Vietnam, the Cold War, arming and training Bin Laden, arming and funding Saddam, Israel, most of Latin America... the list of abject failures of US interventionism is long. And it's a direct result of people coming home so full of themselves after WWII and so convinced they could do no wrong that they wrecked the world in their attempt to impose their rightness on it.
I wasn't expecting a response. its a little bit too direct of a question
Such as helping to stop a genocide, as opposed to creating one.
How extremist of me.
Saddam was committing genocide on the Kurds and Shittes yet you don't support the Iraq war. its so funny how convenient it is to pick and choose when you support the US going to war.
Apologies to the OP for posting off-topic I tried to stay away but..
to imply that the US went to war to save the Kurds and Shi'ites is nonsense. After the first gulf war you left them there to take it through every orifice they had. Saddam committed the massacres with the weapons the US government gave/sold him. So please forgive those who do not trust the US war effort to topple his dictatorship which mind you was not the reason for the war.
Think of the difference it would of made if after the first gulf war a UN peace-keeping force was mobilized to slowly take control of Iraq. But that wasn't the point of the first gulf war you guys just wanted US bases in several gulf countries.
doesn't matter the why. its just funny how people can criticize the military action we didn't take but then criticize when we do. going to war to stop Saddam from genocide was one of several reasons we went to war. personally, I don't agree with any of them, but the reasons still exsit.
the point of the first gulf war was to remove Saddam from Kuwait and liberate that country. but I'm sure you knew that.