Give diplomacy a chance to work.... we can wait a little longer
Wait how much longer? It's already been 12 years since Iraq signed a conditional cease fire agreement. For 12 years, diplomacy hasn't worked. Neither have the endless parade of sanctions, inspections, and cruise missile strikes. Indeed, Saddam Hussein vocally expressed his willingness to attack countries like the United States with weapons of terror, including chemical and biological weapons.
This war will only increase the threat of terrorism, and will hinder our efforts everywhere else.
First and foremost, our current actions in Afghanistan and our capture of high-profile terrorist leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as well as the destruction of most of Ansar-al-Islam within Iraq only serve to remind us that our focus on terrorism is not lost with this war. In fact, the defeat of the Baath party in Iraq and Saddam Hussein will mark a major setback for terrorist groups like Hamas, Hizbollah, and al Qaeda.
Don't forget, Saddam has personally financed Palestinian suicide bombers and their families. Evidence is mounting that Saddam's regime has also assisted Ansar in procuring the means, methods, and materials to obtain chemical weapons. Not only that, but Saddam (especially his gang of thugs, the Fedayyin) could himself be considered a terrorist - how else would one be called who gasses his own citizens, forces them to strap bombs to their bodies and ram checkpoints, or disguises his soldiers as civilians and uses ambulances as cover?
Did September 11 happen before or after this war? Would it have made a difference? Certainly not! The Islamic extremists will use any and every excuse to attack our homeland. This war will be a major setback for terrorists and their supporters. It will show them that we mean BUSINESS.
Iraq hasn't attacked us... why did we launch a preemptive strike?
The conflict with Iraq has not stopped since the Gulf War. Iraqi air defenses continued to violate sanctions and no-fly zones imposed by the cease fire. Numerous UN resolutions justify use of force to enforce the terms of these resolutions. This is also a war for freedom of the Iraqi citizenship from a dictator's clutches. It's not just about a beef or a grudge - this is about Iraqi freedom and the security of the world.
This war is unilateral!
If you call us and 47 supporting countries unilateral, you'd better retake Elementary mathematics. France, Russia and Germany do not constitute the world by any stretch of the imagination.
This is a war for oil!
Antiwar protesters contradict themselves in this fashion: They claim that the US is going into Iraq to get cheap oil, while at the same time also claim that the war will send oil prices sky-high and wreck our economy. Not only that, but even if the war reduced oil prices, removing sanctions would have been a far easier alternative. American oil companies have for a long time lobbied against sanctions on Iraq... they in fact opposed any war.
We helped empower Saddam.
Your point? The fact is, we're fixing our mistake, which has already certainly been acknowledged since the early 90's. Should we rather blindly cater to Saddam, and continue with our failed policy? Should we have turned a blind eye to Kuwait in 1990? No! We admitted our mistakes and worked to correct them. And believe me, they will be corrected soon.
This war will complicate things in Israel/Palestine.
Hey, Saddam has been trying to put a wrench between the two sides for a long time... you think he wants peace in Israel at all? A peace agreement in Israel for him would have meant an end to power. We're providing an end to Saddam's power to ease along peace in Israel. Who do you think was funding those suicide bombers?
We needed UN approval, and we didn't get it.
This assumes that the UN has any moral authority over global affairs, which it doesn't. Any organization which has Syria as a member of its Security Council, Libya as head of its human rights committee, and Iraq as a member of its disarmament committee, has questionable judgment to start. The UN is neither moral nor neutral.
Bush was slipping in the polls, and needed a boost.
War has decreased Bush's approval rating. If it was about polls, he'd have pulled a Clinton and backed off.
Why not lift sanctions?
Ridiculous. Saddam will subsequently strive to exterminate the Kurds and Shi'ites. He will also resume his nuclear weapons program. He's got the mentality to do it, and don't think he'll even take pause to think about it.
"You know, anyway I think he is alive, but the question is not there because Iraq is Iraq and Saddam Hussein is the president of Iraq. Now we have to talk about the war against Iraq, against the people of Iraq, not against one person." - Mohammed Aldouri
