In regards to the first tree paragraphs, you cant find any where in these forums that I have said "I believe what comes out of Washington". I actually state quite the opposite many times. That war started when Iraq invaded Kuwait, then stopped short of Baghdad because the UN Security council only gave authorization for the liberation of Kuwait.... This is why we stopped short of Baghdad.


I watched the video in its entirety and fully understand the views of all of those soldiers. Those are the accounts and feelings of a dozen or so veterans, there are another 250+ thousand that do not feel that exact way. I also noticed the age range that they all fall into. The same happens after any war. War is death and destruction, and not everyone that becomes a soldier is mentally equipped to deal with what they will do after they do it. veterans of War have to live the rest of their lives with the guilt of what they did, guilt is mighty powerful and can cause irrational behavior, thoughts, and actions.

That being said, to take a snapshot of the war in Iraq does not do justice to the cause that it was a part of. Much like taking a snapshot of the Revolutionary war does not do justice to the cause in its entirety.

On August 2nd of 1990 the armies of Iraq invaded the peaceful country of Kuwait. If you need the reasons and what transpired you can read below.
Invasion of Kuwait - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So while some Americans and a great % of the rest of the world say that the US went to Kuwait to steal oil and natural resources it is not the case. The truth is that Saddam invaded Kuwait to gain their natural resources and we prevented that. To this day Kuwait still has control of their own natural resources.
Operation Desert-Storm Chronology: Important Events...

The city of Kuwait was decimated. I saw this first hand. Key military points were not selected and attacked... The entire city was decimated.

Testimony of the barbarianism of Iraqi soldiers on innocents. Read it in its entirety, it discounts many allegations that were drummed up as propaganda but also points out that some of what was said to have happened in fact did. Iraqi soldiers DID in fact target hospitals, etc...
Nayirah (testimony) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have personally seen the remnants of blown out hospitals, civilian apartments, immigration offices, sections of highways littered with pock marks from bullets and rockets, street lights cut down by small to medium arms.

The driver and person responsible for everything that happened in Kuwait was Saddam Hussein. Lets also not forget what was learned about his sons Uday and Qusay and what they did to their own Iraqi people.

Uday Allegations of crimes:
Uday Hussein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Qusay and what was alleged he did to his own Shiite people
Qusay Hussein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Allegations against Saddam, while the links to him and Alqueida are contested, no one contests what he did to Kuwait or his own people.
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Number of victims" section
"According to The New York Times, "he [Saddam] murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule".[9] Estimates as to the number of Iraqis executed by Saddam's regime vary from 290,000[10] to over 600,000,[11] estimates as to the number of Kurds he massacred vary from 70,000 to 300,000,[12] and estimates as to the number killed in the put-down of the 1991 rebellion vary from 25,000 to 280,000.[13][11][14] Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.[15]"
Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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On the whole WMD issue. This is the question to ask your self. How do YOU define Weapons of Mass Destruction?

In my honest opinion WMD is not solely nuclear... It is what we trained for in the military. NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical). As defined radiological or "dirty bombs" are also included but to me that falls into Nuclear for the sake of argument.

So YES Saddam did have them before the Gulf War, he has used them before the Gulf War... some times on his own people.
Chemical Weapons Recovered

"On June 21, 2006 the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released key points from a classified report from the National Ground Intelligence Center on the recovery of a small number of degraded chemical munitions in Iraq. The report stated that "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent." However, all are thought to be pre-Gulf War munitions.[115]
These munitions meet the technical definition of weapons of mass destruction, according to the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center. "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee. The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, though agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said.[116]"
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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I believe in the right of all humans to be able to pursue freedom and happiness. To say that the United States should not use its power and might to help that cause, and should just mind its own business... really flies in the face of what we stand for. If company X makes a profit as an unintended result of our efforts then that is just what it is, an unintended consequence.

Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and he, his sons, his entire administration and regime needed to be eradicated. Were innocent civilians killed in the process, yes. Those deaths fall on him and ever Iraqi citizen that ever supported him and what he stood for.

There is NO justification to strapping bombs to women and children. EVER.

I could care less if the framing was not entirely accurate. Soldiers were not used as pawns for profit, they were a tool used to remove evil from this earth.

In closing, do I believe that certain entity's profited from the war? YES
Do I believe profit was the motive for everything from the start of the liberation of Kuwait until the end of the war in Iraq? No

One side believes that what we have done is truly 100% justified, the other side believes that nothing we have done is justified. As I have stated before, reality is some where in between, and while the framing of our actions might not always be accurate the result is justified.

The men and women that comprise our US Military also believe in the right of humans to be able to pursue freedom and happiness. That is WHY they join the military. To tell them all that they are just pawns of some solely for profit conspiracy is an insult, it makes them out to be mercenaries, and I caution anyone that thinks about doing that to their faces.

The whole 9/11, Afghanistan, Binladen thing is another discussion. The actions of George H. W. Bush have little to do with the actions of George W. Bush and Barrack Obama with the exception that W. did what his father should have been allowed to do.


FYI, I served under George H. W. Bush, participated in the liberation of Kuwait and am not proud of what I had to do, but I am very proud of what the out some was. Giving the Kuwaiti people back its country.