The Iraq War and Questions of Legality

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

My response:

How did you come to the conclusion that we invaded a country illegally? Just because you disagree with the war in Iraq doesn’t make it illegal.  I disagree with dudes wearing pink collared shirts, but that doesn’t make it illegal. Congress gave President Bush the authorization to invade.  By the Constitution the President is the Commander in Chief, which means he commands the Armed Forces. Once Congress gave Bush the authority to wage war, the only way to stop it was to either defund the efforts or cancel the authorization, none of which happened.

If you are going to go down the road of making up the intelligence briefs then using those false intel briefs as justification for the invasion, keep in mind that there was not a dissenting opinion around the world or at the UN against the argument that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Even the French, who would at best be considered a flaky ally and stood a lot to lose, agreed that Iraq still had WMDs, and the capability to make WMD. Just because something turns out to be incorrect doesn’t mean it is lie.

As for Iraq being a threat to us I don’t think you can come up with a reasonable argument Saddam wasn’t some sort of threat. Maybe we didn’t have to worry about the Iraqi Republican Guard storming ashore in South Carolina, but they certainly were a threat to our interests. They proved that in 1990 by invading Kuwait. Why they didn’t turn south towards the Saudi oil fields is still a mystery but Saddam had intended to do just that eventually. Whether you like it or not, that region is VITAL to American interests. More than 40% of our oil comes from that region and having a mad man in control of the Persian Gulf would do us not good. Almost as soon as the Coalition forces pushed the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait, then he started his saber rattling. He constantly violated the “no-fly” areas. He had several 100,000 of his own citizens killed or injured. He continued to build up his Army.

So I guess the answer is no, I do not get mad that we invaded Iraq. The invasion, while based on faulty intelligence, was not done illegally or based on lies.