War in Iraq

I am against the war in Iraq, and I am looking for someone to debate. I am not really addressing the war in afghanistan here, as I believe that that effort was quite different then what is going on in Iraq After 9/11, the shocked USA allowed Bush a lot of leeway that he would not have had if the attacks had not just happened. We went into Afghanistan to find the terrorists responsible, but going into Iraq was a totally different situation. The WMD issue has already been beaten to death by everyone, and it has been firmly established as a lie just to get us in there. OF COURSE the American people are going to let the president invade a country that they have just been told has nuclear weapons ready to shoot at us. This was a shameful tactic that the president used and blaming it on his intelligence committees for giving him bad info is no excuse, as he appoints those committees himself and he bears the responsibilities in this matter 100%. Bush lied about the WMD's and if you want to dispute that with me I will entertain your argument. Let us talk about the people who died in 9/11 for a moment. I think this will give us a fresh perspective to judge this issue. Terrorists came into our country and killed them. I won't base my argument on "loose change" conspiracy theory. If we could bring those people back and ask them what they think of our situation, what do you think they would say? Would they be happy with the longest and second most expensive war in American history that has just emerged from their situation? Let me put it this way for those of you who just answered yes. In September of 2001, our country experienced a great loss due to middle-eastern terrorist activity. The rest of the world was watching. The world saw us take that hit, and they felt pity on us as any warm blooded group of creatures would. We had a chance to take that pity and use it for good, but instead we decided to strike back like some child in a school yard that just got punched in the nose. If GWB was a great president, he would have taken this opportunity to travel the globe speaking out about terrorism and, using the weapon that he was just given (turning the other cheek that is, like his good book talks about but *of course* republicans have NO intention of actually following), he could have wielded a far greater weapon than any nuclear bomb. The world knows our military is more powerful than the rest of the entire planet put together. The world knows we have enough nuclear weapon technology and fighters to carry them to annihilate the entire planet back into the stone age. We don't have to prove we are stronger by flexxing our muscles the way we are doing right now. If GWB was a great president, he could have used humility to show the world we are truly the greatest country of all time, because despite the fact that we took a heavy attack we are still strong enough to exercise humility and not lose our composure. The world watched us like curious children to see what we would do after the attacks. We could have been the most popular, loved country in the history of the world if we had handled the situation right. Our enemies would have a much harder time recruiting hatred against us if we had turned the other cheek, and in the spirit of other great men like MLK and Jesus Christ, we could have used that martyrdom to surge a great pro-western movement in the middle-east and everywhere in the world. Coming back to those who died in 9/11, instead of being martyrd like MLK and Jesus, all they have accomplished is starting a terribly immoral conflict that has no end in sight and will end at best with us tucking our tails between our legs and running home. Chances are great right now that the next president will be a democrat and will make us retreat from Iraq with nothing accomplished. Sure, we ousted Hussein, but in my opinion the man who replaces Hussein will be much worse than Hussein himself, and most likely WILL start using terrorism against us because anti-american sentiments are running so high in the middle east (due to the war) that the only sensible leader out there MUST be a dreadfully anti-american dictator that will make Hussein look like a nice guy. The victims of 9/11 could have enjoyed a martyrdom that would have had a utility that would have actually made their lives *almost* worth losing; instead they are going to have to settle for being the cause of a worthlessly immoral and inept war. What a shame. I feel almost as bad for how wasteful and meaningless their deaths have become then about the fact that they lost their lives in the first place. If we do not learn from history's mistakes, then we are doomed to repeat them. England, greece, mongolia, persia, and Rome all fell because they couldn't handle the power of being the top nation in the world. Sure, we are not taking land from other countries, which is a wonderful thing, but we are still harassing our enemies with military might and once nuclear weapons start proliferating through other countries, like they inevitably will, we better have a different military strategy in place. It is safe to say that by the turn of the twenty-second century most countries WILL have nukes. We have established fully, despite what others may say, that a missile defense shield WILL NOT WORK against incoming nuclear missiles. Furthermore, incoming nukes on trucks and boats will be fairly easy to send, given the large number of them that go unsearched coming through our borders. You militaristic republicans are going to be the cause of our demise in this country, because there will come a time when we will not be able to protect ourselves from a nuclear attack. The only way to truly protect ourselves will be through diplomacy and charity: 1) make sure we are helping the rest of the world as much as we can, so that they depend on us enough NOT to want attack us 2) make sure we do not bridge religion and politics by keeping people like Bush and Huckabee out of our government. If we have a gov't full of religious zealots then other religions are going to be apt to want to attack us. This is necessarily true, due to the nature of religion. If I purport to know that I have a God that is inconsistent with someone else's God, then there is no chance for peace. 3) exercise virtue in policy in every concievable way so that other countries will be simply unable to disagree with the utility and morality of our practices. This includes environmental conciousness (our environmental problems affect other countries), confining our military to within our borders, and relaxing our immigration policies (paying welfare to mexicans doesn't cost half as much as the war does). If we can step it up and start doing the right thing, we can avoid the inevitable nuclear catastrophe that is in the not-so-distant future. If we keep up the way we are now, letting the neo-conservatives spread our military around the world like butter over too much bread (thanks bilbo), then we are sure to fall just like greece and rome.