Well, I wholeheartedly support the Iraq war. I came to a point were I knew too much of Saddam Hussein's secret police, his sadomasochistic purge in 1979, his hunt for psychopathic serial killers and sadists, not to incarcerate them but to use them against the people. Not to mention his complete implementation of one of the most palpable forms of totalitarianism in modern history. As Jalal Talabani briefly but yet disturbingly put it, Iraq was a mass grave beneath the surface and a concentration camp on it.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Saddam Hussein's planned successor, his son Uday was possibly more sadistic and had a shorter fuse. Iraq was firmly set for centuries of a 1984'ish nightmare state and there was nothing Iraqis could do about it. As Western correspondents would tell you, only the mere mention of the Leader's name would spark a flicker of panic, an impulsive glance above one's shoulder. There were conversations between these correspondents whether or not the fear was so palpable that it could be cut with a knife. So there we go, a population numbed by decades of constant fear trapped in a regime willing to kill them for pronouncing the name of the Leader without enough stealth or conviction. And that is for the daily struggles of the ordinary Iraqi. If you were unlucky enough to be a Kurd or a Shiite on top of a resident of Saddam's regime, well you just happened to have an unfortunate shot at life. Because by then you were so worthless to Saddam's regime that you were made to pay for the bullets used to kill your son or daughter. You most certainly had at least one family member firmly and safely stored away in a mass grave, alongside hundreds of thousands of other Kurds or Shiites. And that was, if you were lucky enough to not be the recipient of that bullet or the occupier of that grave. A mass grave beneath the surface and a concentration camp on it.
I think Iraq deserved to be emancipated from a regime like that. Or if we stood by and watched Saddam do what he did for 40 years, make sure we didn't stand by and watch what Uday had coming for his 40-50 year spell. Because, for those who knew what this Uday was capable of, it wouldn't be hard to imagine how much uglier his regime would've become.
So no, I don't see why it is so crystal clear to so many that this war was "unnecessary" or "avoidable". We have now, in a poorly administered war admittedly, made sure that the future generations of Iraq don't have to choose between complete servility or complete annihilation. Isn't that something worthwhile?
This is a very narrow viewpoint. Our Kurd/Shia community also supoorted the war when it first started. My dad is one of the many here who spent nearly a decade in jail before the gulf war broke out. Then another four years in a refugee camp (most of my friends,including my sister were born in either jail or refugee camps), total of 14 years of being "exiled" (not complaining about this since we are in a safe country now).
The Shia and Kurd community supported the war and as soon as Saddam was killed, we literally flocked back to Iraq in large groups because our dads were no longer on any most wanted lists.
Also, after the removal of Saddam, the prisons "opened", meaning that our families went from prison to prison collecting relatives (or in our case, after 14 years of waiting, being told that our men were all recorded to have been murdered in 1991).
I mean I'm just drawing out a picture of the type of families that support the war, and it's those who really suffered (as you can imagine, the pro Saddam Sunnis are butt hurt that their genocidal leader was taken out).
Also, under any other circumstance (including now), Kurds and Iraqis don't get along, in fact, Iraqis are against the idea or giving any land to the Kurds, and the Kurds resent Iraq for the mistreatment, but this exile has brought our community together even if temporarily.
The fact is, *now* after a decade of invasion (everyone was excited and happy by 2004), people who supported this war are the ones saying that under all the horrors of Saddam, there were no random car bombings and suicide bombings and poison in the food and all of these new horrors that have lasted 10 years after Saddam's death. The war lasted 10 years longer than it should have and has induced more suffering than what people had initially gone through. People *hate* Saddam, but the Americans receive the kind of hatred that Saddam would have envied.
Saddam executed Shia religious leaders and his men posted videos of high ranking scholar assassinations as warning to dissenters. People talked about that forever after they were free to do so. But now there is a different kind of murder, and it is no longer calculated. Suicide bombers enter into wherever they please: markets, government buildings, holy places, and they just murder dozens each week - 10 years straight of this.
There is something much scarier about this because now anyone is a target, as opposed to calculated murders and disappearances of anti Saddam citizens in the past - where you know that if you were involved in anti government activity, there is a chance you could "disappear" if a mole tells the police. As you can imagine, those who didn't suffer under Saddam (most of West Baghdad, for example, who collected all the benefits of supporting him) think we are traitors for supporting a war that caused them to lose their security. I wont be a dick and call it karma, but they are still incapable of seeing past their own noses o.O
Anyway this is my summary/rant about why people's support for the war died about a decade ago. I am extremely anti war. I believe a country needs activism from within. For example in Iraq now, there is not enough push to get people working on infrastructure. This new useless government needs to make programs where people work on roads and rebuild. But the war allowed one other negative aspect, and that is stealing. Everyone drives some hot new car, and yet, there aren't any proper roads! I wonder when they will wake up and start putting their investment into rebuilding...
Now, the only way this can be fixed is if people get their shit together and start their own activism to rebuild, focus energy on that rather than mourning that damn Hussein 24/7, or at least use that energy to create charity workers or something (yeah right) because the government sure as hell wont do anything .
Topic: America's Toxic Legacy in Iraq