personally (mentioned before, cant remember in this thread or another in the past, eitherway its somewhere out there...) i dont know what to think about Iraq anymore.
it can be looked upon as a 'political propoganda tool' in the sense of the supposed WMD's, (which USA sold weapons to the Iraqi government a LONG time ago..... but thats not the point here.) political propoganda, my own Prime Minister (australian PM elected in last year, Kevin Rudd) used effectively to oust the then pm John Howard. [spoiler](or KRudd as i call him, i dislike his politics.... before being elected, supported the invasion, said there are weapons, and when the war became unpopular and there were none found, he quickly changed his tone and went on to claim they were never there out of convenience. now we have this guy as our PM.....
)
anyway after mini rant anti my PM....[/spoiler]
but more to the point, in the end we invaded and ousted a leader. on one hand, Hussein was a cruel dictator. on the other side, he was their leader AS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THEIR CULTURE. basically we went in and pulled him out of office 'because we didnt like him'. that i dont agree with but i agree with a violent dictator not being in power anymore but once again it isnt our CULTURE over there, thus not our right to decide.
Now as far as Afghanistan is concerned, i support this with no doubts. and heres why:
-Terrorists attacked western culture out of a religous hatred. FACT.
-we went to detain them under a war condition, they attacked and harmed citizens, thus justifyable. the taliban hid inside afghanistan. FACT.
-the Afghanistan government was approached and was told the following:
we are at war with the Taliban, they have taken refuge inside Afghanistan with your protection. hand them over or that will be seen as an act of war, thus we will be at war with you. FACT.
-the Afghanistan government refused, thus war declared. they harbored a terrorist organisation at war with a country and refused to hand them over. war justifyable. FACT.
as far as resource plundering, little do people realise that war is a HUGE logistical exercise. food, water, ammo, supplies, beds, tools, vehicles,
fuel and other things have to be taken into account. so establishing resources in the area is only natural. and considering that we were at war with the afghanistan government too, it is a foolish theory to let them have access to a HUGE resource that could fund a war campaign. now establishing a foothold resource wise not only do we have to secure the resources, but its just tactics to use it to support the war front.
why are we still there? the taliban has majorly been defeated. but fighting insurgency still shows signs of their willingness to fight, and while that still remains, to ANY military officer, American, Australian, European, its just logic that you do NOT leave a threat to continue fighting you or your allies, because simply this is WAR. thats the cruel reality, REGARDLESS of culture.
