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Comment by jhgfdsahgf | Hacker News Reader

>US liberated Iraq from a bloody dictator

That the US installed, in a war justified by lies, or are we still looking for the weapons of mass destruction that could be used in 45mins?

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We are headed quickly into politics here but I'm ignorant and genuinely curious. Do we have evidence that the search for biological weapons was false?

The idea that there were WMDs in development / ready to use at the drop of a hat was part of the motivation to go to war at the decision-maker level, but not the core reason, I think. It was more a "look out, he has a gun - rush him" kind of snow-job to get in there, with the idea that something could be found to justify that approach.

The bigger idea was a domino concept; that a remade Iraq would be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, that all the other states would similarly switch over (one way or another) to democracy, Muslim fundamentalism would no longer be a threat, and the whole region would be a capitalist wonderland with oil. Sort of like 50s/60s communism in reverse. But it didn't quite work out.

Should have nuked them - it worked for Japan.

I think the Japanese disagree on how well that nuking worked.

Yeah but we got the Sony walkmen, Manga, Honda Fireblade, Nintendo WII and some nice cameras. As well as a staunch ally that's been no trouble to anyone (except whales)

Just saying it's worth trying - just a couple of cities.

On what basis would you have nuked them?

They were at no treat what so ever to the US.

Sorry are we still talking about Japan? Difficult to see what threat to the US a starving isolated besieged Japan with no armed force, for or raw materials was either?

Your attempted humor is, at best, misguided.

Anonymous throw-away logins are not supposed to be used for this.

No, it was a bullshit war fabricated and developed. You can look up the PNAC's detailed history where they were just aching for excuses to go to war with Iraq and other Middle Eastern states.

The disputability of the intentions of the war is something only American citizens question. Everyone else knew from the start that there was nothing good in it.

Just for a start, Google the matter for a few minutes and you'll see that the supposed evidence for the war was completely fabricated, and the Security Council received outright lies from the American representatives.

I don't really see how you're contradicting what I wrote. The "look out, he's got a gun" excuse was largely a BS attempt to sell the war to the public, but the philosophical idea - the long-run reason for wanting to go to war in the middle east for a long time - has much of its roots in this domino theory.

I think they really did expect to find a few fragments of evidence that would back up the "he's got a gun" excuse. I think they were genuinely surprised Saddam hadn't kept something going in private. But I don't think it was the strategic reason for wanting to go to war; an unrealistic and naive (but profitable) ideology was.

> But I don't think it was the strategic reason for wanting to go to war; an unrealistic and naive (but profitable) ideology was.

The ideology of the neoconservatives who fabricated the war was plain and simple: America must the be the world's superpower at all costs. This implies backup governments that are friendly to American interests, regardless of their political affiliations. There is nothing naive about that, it is simply perverse and disregards all concerns for human life or regional peace.

Biological weapons are easy to make. Remember Aum Shinrikyo in Japan in the 90s? Or Jonestown? It would be a fair assumption that half the world's militaries have some sort of biological weapons. Granted, many of them won't be able to put them on missiles and launch them.

So claiming that the presence of bio-weapons in Iraq is some sort of a justification for invasion is just plain silly. If this was all that was needed, we would have invaded half the countries on this planet; many of them continue to be far worse than Iraq ever was.

Neither of those examples are biological weapons. Aum Shinrikyo used sarin gas, a chemical weapon, in the Tokyo subway attack. Jonestown used cyanide, also chemical, but this wasn't at all weaponized.

In any case, the argument was based on the umbrella term "weapons of mass destruction".

You're right that as a justification, it falls far too short, even had it been true.

Yes. Tons of evidence there were no bio weapons in Iraq. The UN weapons inspectors had inspected every square inch of Iraq over and over again. They said there was nothing to be found.

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