I honestly don't know what most Americans think, but a lot more people know that the Iraq War was an atrocity committed under false pretenses than did at the time.
Trust me. I *know*. I was deployed there twice before I retired.
And by the way OP? I thought most of the Iraqis I met were very nice people. I was amazed by their hospitality.
But what do I know?
You sound like my dad. Deployed in Desert Storm. Left in 93. Signed back up after 9/11- got deployed to Bosnia, Iraq again (twice) and Afghanistan before retiring.
I remember him not being very happy at some of the decisions being made.
I am *very* conflicted by my service in the first place. Iraq and Afghanistan made my decision to retire harden like cement.
There was zero reason for us to go to Iraq a second time. Not a fucking single reason. I lost friends there who should not have died on the first place. I can understand Afghanistan to a point. Not operation 'get more cheap oil'.
/Rant
I'm glad I'm retired and out.
I'm guessing by your name you were an NCO. I never served, but being around it growing up, it seemed like NCOs really got shafted, especially after '04-'05. I remember there being a lot of talk about Bush having a hair trigger to go after Saddam and finish what his father started. I went to a couple of funerals from that time. Sorry you had to go through that.
I understood the rationale behind the first Iraq conflict, the second made no sense. To be sure, the people of the US were justifiably pissed, but the premise put forth by Bush and Cheney was shaky at best, emotions were high and we were angry. But this WMD shit, when it was clear there were none, yet still sending troops, was beyond absurd. To a degree you had to ask yourself that same question about Vietnam, it made no sense. Troops dying for what…I can’t relate to battle, I refused to go to Vietnam, but that doesn’t lessen my respect for the Vets who fought, and died under the banner of this country. Family members, friends, acquaintances that I’ve known over the years that gave so much more than I have given, I don’t want to see someone have to do it again. And this current climate we live in makes me very uneasy. I’m tired of war and I’ve never been…my respect to all the Veterans
You’ve just confirmed a heck of a lot of theories I’ve had for years.
And thanks for being one of the men who let us sleep soundly and safely in our beds. 🫡🇺🇸
my boyfriend went to Iraq last year and met exclusively kind Iraqis who don't conflate Americans with our government's actions, which I think is a great standard for meeting people in other countries.
You're right. Almost every single person or family I interacted with has treated my very well. I've dined with them in their homes and they are a kind and generous people in my book.
Hope your bf made it back okay. Take care. Yall gonna get married?
I love to hear stories like that. Yes, he did! He and his group caught a parasite, but they all survived and had a great time. Haha too early to know about marriage!
That's the same as "thoughts and prayers" I guess it's nice thing to say but what does it mean?
Support Veterans or support legislators who support veterans. Kind of the same with mental health and regulating weapons. Either do it or don't but certainly don't say thoughts and prayers if you're not going to do anything to help end gun violence or the Mental Health crisis.
Trust me, most people who were around at the time DID know that the Iraq war was an atrocity. There was much outrage and protesting in the US while it was happening.
I was in college when 9/11 happened. It was an extremely crazy moment in time. There was this collective rage and sadness that I think overrode everything else, including common sense.
Same in the UK. We had massive anti-war demos, millions marching in London, back when the war was on
That's one of the main things we warned Israel about, don't make it a war of revenge, it doesn't work out well! ... and in that case, it's even worse
Yep. I was 14 when the invasion happened and my right wing family was allllll for it. They still won’t admit that it was all a sham. I figured out by 15-16 that it was fucked up and wrong. Hurricane Katrina and the clusterfuck of a “response” is the thing that really sealed for me that the Bush II administration was a bunch of criminals.
I would wager that majority of Americans are against the Iraq invasion and do realize it was based on a lie and feel betrayed by Dick Cheney and George Bush. I know of people on both the right and left who feel this way.
I would not take you up on that wager because I know you're right. I remember that hype about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction only to learn he really never did. A lot of American and Iraqi lives were lost and for what purpose? Is that region of the world truly better off since we invaded Iraq?
Brit here. WMDs were mainly just a way to make the invasion legal. Initially it was not a big deal that WMD's were not found as everyone was happy at the quick and successful invasion. Only as the occupation, as it became, went badly did people look for blame to exonerate themselves in supporting the invasion. Hence the failure to find WMD's was a way to blame Bush, Blair and Co. The truth being that although there were those against invasion, the majority wanted Saddam out after his invasion of Kuwait, and also after the use of nerve agents against his own people. It seemed like a just and righteous thing to do, freeing the innocent people from murderous oppression...... But it didn't turn out that way. Generalising, I think we are all to blame, US, UK and Allies, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Islam, Saudi Arabia etc... and equally we are guilty now of being too afraid to do anything that could be seen as the same today. How many died in Syria? Ukraine 2014 and 2022?
Just my opinion.
I was 13 when 9/11 happened. I remember very clearly when Bush started bombing Iraq and I remember everyone being pretty horrified & confused what Sadam had to do with Osama when Pakistan was hiding spot and something something Afghanistan.
We lived in Texas so this wasn't some blue vs red thing back then, though those fractures were already beyond repair between Fox News Watchers vs Everyone Else (fractured during Clinton Impeachment). IIRC we all knew there were no WMDs within the first year of the war, I think? but the ""Fox News patriots"" did not care: "i StAnD wItH oUr PrEsIdEnT" and that's when they co-opted the American Flag as a symbol of oppression. The protests, marches, candle light vigils, just huge antiwar sentiment exploded right before the reelection. By second Bush term I think we were all pretty demoralized and defeated and the Fox New Watchers were emboldened to become what they are today and learned they could steal the elections without the popular vote.
So yeah a lot if us went from young conservatives to burning flags within a year. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was like...THE voice to tell us what was going on and he was good about breaking down our war atrocities we were committing
I was there, part of the invasion in 2003. For what it's worth, here's my evolution:
**Priors:**
* Let's be clear, Saddam Hussein and family were bona fide villains. I mean evil with a capital E.
* His regime had repeatedly and flagrantly violated UN sanctions and no-fly provisions with impunity.
* Kicking out the weapons inspectors was a fatal error, depriving the U.N. of even cursory understanding of Iraq's weapons programs.
* 9/11 was my primary focus, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia were the sources of the Al Qaeda operatives, and there was no confusion in my mind about where they did their training or where they were from.
**During:**
* I wouldn't have trusted George Bush with making toast, and Dick Cheney was a palpable control freak. But I was a soldier at the time, and the person I *did* trust was Colin Powell. When he presented WMD before the UN, I was confused but trusted. It was plausible, but I didn't understand why we'd need to put boots on the ground.
* Once orders are given, we execute and at that point we're doing things more for the people next to us than any loyalty to Bush or Cheney. In our system of government, the military is subordinate to civilian government; part of the contract is that the nation will elect responsible and judicious leadership. (yeah, I know.)
* For the first 3-ish years, having seen the vastness of the deserts there, I clung to the belief that "if WMD's were here, they could be anywhere. This place is vast, and hiding them would be trivial."
**After:**
* After a few years, I realized what a mess it was. Either we were fooled by Saddam's posturing towards Iran (presenting that he had WMD as a deterrent to them and having to keep the facade up, and we fell for it)...
* Or we knew he didn't really have them from the beginning.
* The former is a crisis of competence with our intelligence community; the latter is a crisis of ethical leadership at the very top of the national leadership.
* Either way, it was clear that we stepped into a bear trap. In Colin Powell's parlance, "we broke it, we bought it."
**Epilogue:**
* I am crystal clear that the Iraq invasion was a catastrophic miscalculation, for which we are still paying the downstream consequences.
* Part of the nation's "fatigue" and political partisanship is in no small part a downstream consequence of the trust issues, exorbitant cost, casualty count, and protracted engagement.
* Then, when we left, it left a vacuum that the ISIS caliphate inhabited and thus another 5 years of war and devastation.
* On an international stage, we pulled a fire alarm and asked for help, and then led that coalition into an unnecessary war with significant consequences for the country in question.
* It is my deep hope that in the longer scale of geopolitical time, that maybe it will be a net positive that such a tyrant was removed. But in the short term, the calculus there is certainly questionable.
**Personal Note:**
I owe my life, probably multiple times over, to my interpreter. Rafid, I hope you're out there and doing well, brother. I think of you often and hope that some of the dreams and aspirations that our younger selves used to chat about have come true for you.
Thanks for the kind words. I certainly would, though I'm doubtful of the prospects of a reunion. But, just as a minor tribute to him:
He was a grad student at a university in Baghdad when the war started, about my age (mid twenties), his English was excellent, and we were both in the same places in life. Working on education, steady girlfriends we were hoping to marry, and scared shitless most of the time we were working together.
I was working in an intelligence capacity back in the early "Deck of Cards" era, and we had the job of working with human sources and trying to hack through the layers of local Iraqi bullshit and drama and score-settling that was rampant. And then delivering those human sources discreetly back to their neighborhoods "undercover." Being out of uniform and traveling in a tiny civilian element was terrifying back then. \[Cut to the Nate Bargatze bit where he travels to Bahrain, they tell him not to wear "American clothes" as a tourist and he asks, "Okay, but what are you guys gonna do about my white skin?"\]
What made Rafid special wasn't his language skills, although that really helped, but his intuition. He was perceptive, thoughtful, analytical, and just had a spidey sense that I quickly learned to trust implicitly. He'd lived in Baghdad his whole life, and he could look at a road, an intersection, a neighborhood, and could immediately tell if something was amiss. He could tell me if someone was lying, and then explain objectively and dispassionately how he knew. He was never arrogant or overconfident, just a quiet, *"No, wait, there's no laundry out on the lines. There should be laundry over there and at this time of day, kids should be playing over there in that field. Let's go around."* I'd pay good money to know how many IEDs or ambushes he saved us from.
Anyway, I'm waxing nostalgic. Knowing him, I was but the first in a long line of U.S. units he helped as the tours and rotations continued. I wouldn't begrudge him if he became disillusioned over the years and came to hate us and his memories of us. But in those early, chaotic months, there was a glimmer of hope that we shared and the work felt righteous, if imperfect. It's a little known fact, but we actually *were* greeted as liberators. Until we exposed the limits of our American omnipotence and people wanted their infrastructure back.
There were a lot of us that owe a lot to the many Rafids over there. Thanks for sharing. Most of them went unsung, and a lot of them that were unable to gain US citizenship didn't survive the vacuum and ensuing "dog hunt" when we left.
I went to MEPS in October of 2001 and the Navy sent me over the first time in April of 2004. I have to say that I 100% concur with everything you said. I had the exact same progression of thinking. About a month after I arrived the Abu Ghraib photos were leaked and I just felt shame and disgust. Locals would ask me questions about it and I had no words. My best friend, an HM, was KIA in May of 2005. His kids were very young at the time. He and many others (both Iraqis & Americans) should still be with us.
I joined in the late 90s when it wasn’t much more than Kosovo in the mix. I have a lot of respect for those that joined post-9/11 to do their part, even if that part turned out to be misguided.
Cheers, and I hope you’re doing well. 🍻
Polls indicate that while most Americans were enthusiastic about the invasion at the time, most now think it was a mistake. But being anti-war when it was happening would make you very unpopular.
Unfortunately they still appear unaware of how devastating and cruel it was, and don't acknowledge that it was a mistake because it was fundamentally wrong and was indefensible even at the time. Very, very few will admit that invading at all was a downright villainous thing for the country to do. They will instead believe it was still a good thing that went wrong.
I was in college at the time. It was very contentious and divisive and became more and more unpopular as the war went on. As for what people know... Yes, I think people generally were pretty skeptical of the Iraq-AlQ link at the time, though there were some in the GWB admin pushing it. "GWB lied about WMD" is a bit more of an issue. GWB cherry-picked intelligence reports to highlight the ones with the conclusions he wanted, complicated by the fact that Saddam really wanted Iran (and others) to THINK he had WMD at the ready. But yes, it became obvious quickly that this was incorrect.
Twenty years on, it was clearly a strategic error with a host of unintended negative consequences.
Yeah the whole GWB lied thing is overblown. He picked the intelligence that fit his and his cabinets world view. Pretty much like every other president. The biggest problem is once we got Saddam and figured out it was wrong we should have left. The whole nation building thing was ridiculous
Respectfully, the idea that Saddam was cosying up with Al-Qaeda was not even the least bit feasible. It was screamingly obvious that this was 100% a lie, before, during and after the invasion. Any expert on Al-Qaeda or with even a passing knowledge of the region stated that there's no way it could be true and that AQ absolutely despised Saddam.
The Neo-Cons had strategic documents published in the late 90s where they stated explicitly that they want the US to invade Iraq and install a friendly regime to shore up US influence in the region. The Al-Qaeda link pretense was to vaguely tie Iraq to 9/11, to suit their existing desire to invade.
Once you realise that 1 of the 2 pretexts to invade was demonstrably a lie, why would you give the Bush Administration the benefit of the doubt on WMD, given that it was disproven categorically? It was all total bullshit and they knew damn well it was every step of the way.
The invasion unavoidably caused immeasurable harm in too many ways to describe; GWB and his surviving Neocons all belong in a war crimes tribunal and deserve a life sentence, they killed hundreds of thousands if not more and fucked the whole region up for generations.
The commonly accepted view on the invasion of Iraq was that it was a mistake based on a lie. Politically, supporting it is toxic, and everyone claims they were against it. But this means little, as most people enthusiastically supported it when it was happening. If the US government wanted to do something like that again, the American people would again enthusiastically support it until years later where they would again claim they never did support it.
Source: American
I see it as a manifestation of the fear, anger, and desire for vengeance 9/11 caused to US public. Iraq played no part in 9/11, but USA was mad, angry, and wanted to beat someone up.
Saddam and his shitty government made a plausible excuse for an Islamic country that could be seen as evil. So US public willingly goes along with the WMD thing, supports expeditionary actions, just to regain the sense of power they lost during 9/11, but also from our failure to capture UBL in Afghanistan. Iraq just happens to be the country down range.
Overall, the action cannot be justified, but the emotions of the time cannot be dismissed.
I completely understand the impact of 9/11 on people, they must have been terrified.
It's both funny and sad that the 9/11 terrorists were (apparently) 15 Saudis, 1 Emirati, 1 Egyptian, and 1 Lebanese. Yet, we were the ones who got punished instead… 🥲
Yes. Really fucked up. I wanted to touch on your worries of being judged. No one will think you’re from Iraq unless you tell them. I could see people asking a lot of questions, but only out of genuine curiosity. All these wars we get our self into, I think are looked at as the government is bad and the people are the victims. So naturally we have compassion for the citizens here in the US
George W. Bush is a war criminal. And even National Public Radio hosts think very low of Dick Cheney. Aren't American and British oil companies still pumping out your oil? Do you guys get any money from them: BP, Exxon, and Shell?
Edit: as someone who has been to many foreign countries and befriended many foreigners, don't be too afraid of how they'll see you, most people know a good person when they see them, and if they get to know you, you might be the one that will change their perspective on Iraqis
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I think that it was fucking stupid and pointless and justified on the basis of some total hand-crafted artisanal bullshit. But yeah, most people are generally aware that the WMDs thing was a bald-faced lie, I'm not sure what most people know about the lack of connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
Most of the people I know see it for what it was, a massive, incomprehensible tragedy for the Iraqi people.
Almost everyone I knew was against the war, but I did know some people who clung to the revenge/vengeance-seeking mentality of shoot first, ask questions later.
People were so thirsty for revenge back then, a lot of people didn’t give a shit who we were killing as long as we were punishing someone for 9/11.
There was a brief period after 9/11 when I felt the country come together as one, in mourning, but that beautiful moment was quickly replaced by a lust for revenge, and blatant/unrepentant racism.
God be with the people of Iraq!
After 9/11, I think a lot of us were eager to take action against anyone that seemed like a threat to attack the US. Given that the Bush Administration seemed so adamant that Saddam Hussein and his government were planning on using weapons of mass destruction, stopping this potential threat seemed like a reasonable course of action, especially given that it was presented as a military operation that might only take a few months.
Personally, I had no problem with the war when it began because of the whole WMD threat. After a few years of the war, it became common knowledge that no WMDs were found. I, like many other Americans, stopped finding the war acceptable given that the main motive for invading wasn't valid. (There were also lots of other issues, like soldiers lacking adequate equipment.) Once that became clear, I truthfully couldn't figure out what the US was doing in Iraq other than trying to undo all the destabilization they had caused in the first place.
[Here's some polling data on opinions regarding the war.](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/) The gist of it is that support started out fairly high, followed by a gradual change toward disapproval until the US' eventual withdrawal.
My opinion is that we were sold the war on lies, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeild wanted that oil, found a willing puppet in GW Bush, the rest is history.
I will tell you most younger people and internet fluent people know that the war on terror was largely based on lies, especially with Iraq. That does not mean they will all be very vocally supportive and especially know much about it like the people you’ve spoken with. 9/11 was a HUGE deal in the States and many people, however misguided, blame Iraq and Afghanistan because of previous ideas. Al-Qaeda does come from the Middle East, and Americans have never been great a geography. MANY older people, especially in more rural areas may still act with some prejudice. This is multiplied tenfold if you are visibly Muslim like wearing a hijab, or have little to no English speaking skills. I would say that most people in urban areas like NYC, Chicago, or LA will be fine (not necessarily supportive, but as respectful as they would be to anyone else) but there’s always gonna be a couple bad apples.
My ex-husband joined the Army 2 weeks after 9/11 out of a sense of patriotic duty. We had a baby born at the end of August so it was a hard decision.
Then he was sent to Iraq for a year. Then home for 6 months. And sent to Iraq for a year again. Then home for a year. And sent to Iraq for 15 months.
Afghanistan happened after that. But he felt so completely lied to about Iraq. Sadam was horrible. We can all agree with that. But a lot of atrocities happen in war, and they definitely happened in that war.
I can only speak for my ex and other soldiers I knew there at the time. They made friends with the villagers around them. They shared meals with them. They took presents to the children (mostly candy, the wives sent boxes and boxes of candy for the children). The men knew that the Iraqi people were not the problem and that insurgency was a problem later on...and those people were often not even Iraqi.
They took to trying to protect the villagers. But especially their interpreters and their families, of course. I spoke often to the interpreter that most worked with my ex and I think of him often now. He sent me gifts for Christmas, I sent him gifts as well. I hope he is well...I hope he is thriving.
Sorry this got so long, I really loved the people I heard about. I felt so much love for them and their hearts, their lives, and how fucked up everything was.
I hope you do come to visit. If you're in Northern Nevada for some reason, I'll buy you a meal ❤️
I was there for 2 plus years. I thought it was shitty we came in but I did meet folks who talked about chemical Ali and the Tigris and the Euphrates being rerouted and people being starved out after the US abandoned Iraqis in 1991. We told them to overthrow their government and we'd have their back and then we pull out and they end up getting fucked for the next 10 plus years.
It disappointed me we didn't do more to build infrastructure. We would spend the shitload maintaining junkie tents and trying to air condition them but I guess the idea was we didn't want to build infrastructure and appear that we were trying to occupy why waste that money and have nothing to give to the Iraqi people when it's all over. it was strange we didn't hire locals KBR would get big contracts that were no bid contracts meaning they just named their price then they hired a bunch of Filipinos and Nigerians.
Then later it was sad to see Isis take control for a while and destroy all the museum and monuments and artifacts.
I think most Americans have caught up to it being a lie and a terrible mistake. They have also probably not internalized any of its lessons and will be ginned up into an even more disastrous war with Iran by the same class of criminals and charlatans.
If there's a God in this world, then I beg him to stop today's wars and prevent any possible war in the future, especially in West Asia. The region has endured enough.
Bush held a grudge that Saddam tried to assinate his father. Cheney and other neocons thought they could get a tidy cut of the oil money. Days after 9/11 Saddam started shooting surface to air misels at US planes monitoring the region to test the US which pissed off the US military. All those things aligned to create the situation where he could get war authorization.
Reportedly, Saddam, before he was hung, told his US interogators something along the lines of "I think you'll find this place isn't so easy to control."
Most people who were adults back then think it was a huge waste of blood and money. It took our eye off Afganistan.
Frankly, I want the US to move to EVs, alternative energy, etc. so we can not give a shit about the Middle East anymore.
Not American, but remember that the biggest demonstrations ever organised worldwide were against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (I was 15 but I did join!). A lot of people in Western countries were really much against it, at least in Europe. I worked in Iraq in the late 2010s and it really broke my heart to see that everything we were saying back then proved true.
Saddam was a homicidal maniac on one of the longest and bloodiest murder sprees in history. I fully support killing bad dudes like that.
As far as you not being treated friendly here, I don't see it happening. America is a melting pot of ethnicities and there are plenty of Middle Eastern people here. Maybe 20 years ago you'd have a reason to be concerned but not today.
> ***Do most Americans know that George Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction?***
Yes
> ***That Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda?***
Yes
> I've always wanted to travel to so many countries, including the USA once I graduate, but I'm a little nervous about how people might receive me, and anxious about the possibility of getting judged.
IMO, traveling to a foreign country is always going to come with some risk. But I genuinely hope you are made to feel welcome, or at a minimum not bothered by anyone for things you can’t change: ethnicity, etc.
I was about 8 or 9 when the it started,
Being a kid, I didn’t fully understand it, I was under the impression that it was “revenge” for 9/11 and that we were going after Saddam like he was some sort of comic book/cartoon villain.
In other words, I perceived the whole thing as if it was some sort of action movie.
Thankfully I know better as an adult, and I’m well aware that it was a farcical oil war.
>I was under the impression that it was “revenge” for 9/11 and that we were going after Saddam like he was some sort of comic book/cartoon villain.
Amazing how many 68 year olds think the way you did at age 8.
I don’t actually know what most Americans think about the war but I do believe the knowledge that there were actually no weapons of mass destruction is pretty widespread.
As far as how people will receive you when you visit? If you came to my area, New Jersey, nobody would even think twice about you being from Iraq, it wouldn’t be an issue at all.
I’m an army veteran. I can’t speak for all of us, but ALOT of us know that the wars are full of propaganda. We know that the US government has brainwashed the country. We may not have known it when we enlisted when we were young but have since figured it out.
I worked with a lot of people from both Iraq and Afghanistan while in the military. We work very closely with a lot of people from your country. The guys I met were respectful to me as a woman and also respected the fact that I do not follow the same religious and cultural beliefs as them. They worked with me no different than they did the men. I know a lot of people who say that Iraqi men will mistreat women and that they won’t even speak to us or any other number of things. While I don’t doubt there are men like that it has not been my experience.
One thing I tell everyone when these types of topics come up is that there are extremists in all walks of life. We have just as many horrible men and women in the US who claim to be christians.
We of course can't speak for the whole country; we don't know for sure. I can only say that in my circle everyone recognizes the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were a sham. I don't know much about Iraq but from what I have seen I genuinely view Iraqis as basically the same as me. Please come visit us if you want to! There are some places that are not particularly welcoming to outsiders (not even other white Americans) but I can't imagine you're trying to visit deep Appalachia... In general, most places I imagine you want to visit will not even bat an eye!
You're VERY nice, thank you! Can't wait to pay a visit. ;)
The same goes for Americans, especially those who are interested in ancient civilizations, peaceful places, and delicious food, you guys are welcome here. Iraqi people are known for the best hospitality in the area!
As a Canadian, I am so happy that the wisdom of the day guided our leaders to not participate in the invasion of Iraq. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I think we got that one right.
>As a Canadian, I am so happy that the wisdom of the day guided our leaders to not participate in the invasion of Iraq. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I think we got that one right.
As someone living in the UK, the whole thing is a despicable decision, but it also absolutely buried Blair and Labour for 20 years, the election this year is the first time they even stand a chance again. The consequences of 14+ years of tories being actively in charge have left us in a very... interesting position to start rebuilding from.
It was a mistake and I felt that way from the onset. I think they used WMD as a reason to invade, thinking they would surely find them, and that Saddam enjoyed taunting Bush, but ultimately it was a bad move. W was not as smart as his father.
Many ordinary people were suspicious of the motives for the Iraq invasion. There were **worldwide protests**. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests\_against\_the\_Iraq\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War) Yet ambitious **polticians & influencers** lead democratic countries to do horrible things. Weak & fearful leaders, succumbed to the pressure/delusion to join the ***coalition.*** A **shame upon the nations that participated**. Leading up to the invasion, there had been years of groundwork, an **intention to invade looking for enough reasons to do so. Misrepresenting information and manipulating the populace.** There **were/are** many Neo-Conservatives that itched to control **foreign oil production** rather than do it through mutually beneficial or multi-lateral agreements. Recognizing the limitations of future oil supplies, and the competitions for it, the leadership of a group called **PNAC generated policy papers that justified invasion/war to control oil.** [**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_for\_the\_New\_American\_Century**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century) **Policy Wonks** worked their way up in American and international political circles. Their philosophy was basically **whatever is good for America is good for everyone else. That is sick.** The Iraq War **proved** the delusion & evil of their goals. I went to many marches in large cities and saw the feelings & concern of 100,000s of people. I am 75 now. I was in my 50s then. Those against the war did what they could to stop the invasion, but fear, greed and ambition is very powerful. I am so sorry for what happened to the Iraqi people. They should have been free to bring justice to Sadam, as they chose and in their own way. Many people felt that way then, and many more think so now. Hind sight helped.
It was Bush Jr doing what his dad couldn’t do. He was probably convinced to invade by Cheney, who had been itching to take out Iraq and probably wanted to move on to Iran.
Afghanistan made sense after 9/11, but Iraq was unnecessary as far as I can tell and just overburdened the US in terms of cost and military resources.
Can only speak for myself. But everyone involved in lying to American public about it should be rotting in prison in the Hague. Going to war with Iraq was a moral disaster and I have never been happy to live in the US since it happened. We definitely haven't learned from the mistake though.
I was young i had one coworker flipping out about it. Everyone else was gungho while also being upset about Janet javksons nipple. War good boobs bad. Smartest lady on the room back then.
I believe it was a known thing that Saddam had chemical weapons at some point. Did he use them on his people? I believe so. Did he have them before we invaded? IDK? I also know that you could hide a city in the desert if you digged enough.
With that said; the invasion of Iraq due to 9/11 was bs imo. I think it's well known where those people were from, and I doubt we (regular citizens) will ever know the truth.
Some people (those I personally know) would say Iraq is a better place now. Some would say not. Who is more correct? IDK? Was it worth the bloodshed; from the innocent civilians and military members? I think not. Ultimately, I believe a lot of politicians and businessmen got richer, and the poor died. There's nothing new here with this. I now question everything, and sure as fuck don't trust any government.
It was a huge mistake. It is pretty obvious now the CIA had acquiesced to the President and fudged reports saying the weapons were there. It was just a pretext. I think most people know this (at least they should). No one with any decency in the US will judge you for being from Iraq.
I grew up in a republican household during the 9/11 Iraq war era. I was a 14 when 911 happened and fully supported the war on terror. Looking back, I bought into all the propaganda and was eager to join the army to fight terrorism. Luckily I ended up down a different path.
Into my late 20s I had a paradigm shift of American politics and now believe that the war on terrorism and the Iraq war was based on false pretenses to benefit corporations and the few in power.
I think more Republicans today look back at the war in Iraq very similar to how most Americans view the Vietnam War. A pointless war that costed many and benefited few.
The Bush family, being Texas oil tycoons, thought they could invade Iraq and steal or get cheap oil. So they lied and said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction so they could start an invasion. That's my take on it anyway.
Its probably split down the middle. Left wing thinks it was all a lie created by George Bush for his and his friends benefit. Right wing still thinks that middle easterners are all terrorists and that shooting them is cool and patriotic
I don't know, the first person I saw vocally speak out against the war on a big platform was Trump in the debates against Clinton, who voted for the use of military force.
Sadly the information people have/believe can be highly influenced by politics and their region. So "Americans" is hard to put into a single bucket. As others have said, it's widely known that Bush lied. But more importantly, I think most younger Americans at the time of 9/11 were truly unaware of the bubble they were living under, and for those were born post vietnam and grew up in a generally very optimistic US in the 80's and 90's, the iraq war was the first time we saw what a huge mechanism the military industrial complex was.
What the US did to Iraq was a crime and a tragedy, but sadder still is the world has not changed even a little bit and I doubt it ever will. We dont have "kings" anymore, but we still live in a world where kingdoms go to war for money, or power, or both, and poor people pay the price.
THAT i think is the thing this generation of Americans are aware of more so now than in the past. Which is why trust in government is in an all time low, paving the way for the modern demigods to take over. But we're also living in a time where the powerful are becoming more powerful and the powerless are losing more power.
But to answer your question OP, yes the Iraq war has releaved to most americans our own trama and inner turmoil we're struggling to grasp till this day, and we still see those same tragedies happening in other regions of the world today.
Tony Blair managed to get a knighthood for it.
That's the biggest joke when he knowingly lied to the British parliament and public and dragged our country into a pointless war because Bush said so.
The 200,000+ dead civilians make it one of the most sinister undertaking in history. GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many soldiers should have been tried for war crimes. Sorry my government directed my country's military to wreck your country and the lives of millions.
The US military did a terrorism and killed a whole lot of innocent people. The US military does this a lot, I am appalled by my country's actions each and every day.
Afghanistan war veteran here. I can’t speak for other people but I feel that many people were misled. Also keep in mind that there were two towers that were destroyed, which at the time was considered unthinkable, so many people were angry and looking for the “enemy “. I honestly have no idea if Iraq had any involvement in 9/11 but, I can’t support what happened there. Looking back at what happened in Afghanistan and how it is today, I can’t say much good happened there either.
> I honestly have no idea if Iraq had any involvement in 9/11
I hate Saddam Hussein, he was a foolish dictator who ruined the country. However, it has been confirmed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and Al-Qaeda. If anything, Saddam and Al-Qaeda were enemies. Saddam did not trust extremist Islamists and saw them as a threat to his regime.
Al-Qaeda terrorists were mainly Saudis and no single Iraqi.
*I'm happy you survived the Afghanistan war.*
Polls a few years into the war, and especially after it was revealed that Iraq never had WMDs and the president ignored all evidence to the contrary, pushed public opinion away from supporting the war effort.
These days it isn't controversial to state this war was a mistake. Whether because of greed by Bush, genuinely believing faulty intelligence, or some other reason, most Americans think this was a pointless war and waste of resources.
Can't speak for most Americans but I personally was in favor of killing, or bringing the 9/11 terrorists , to justice .(Afghanistan ) Dubya Bush used the patriotism most of us were feeling at the time, to justify invading Iraq, and I was very much against it . How do you feel about it ?
Here is my personal take on it. We went in there with false pretenses obviously of the claims of WMD's. I am under the impression that Saddam needed to be out of power whether it be by a CIA sponsored revolution against him or an outright invasion of Iraq, there is evidence that he was killing minorities for decades in a systematic extermination. Of course the US went in with false pretenses although you could certainly argue in a humanitarian need as a justifiable reason. But the biggest issue for me with Iraq wasn't the invasion itself, but rather how everything was handled with the constant bombing campaigns and the dozens of displacement and refugees. Hard to argue any idea of coming in for humanitarian purposes when we are killing 500,000+ iraqis in the process.
That amount of bloodshed didn't need to happen but it still did. The opinion I find from many from iraq is that, they want the freedom they have now but want the stability of the Saddam regime. We shouldn't have put people in charge that were out for their own motives Aka persecuting the Sunni minority that once was Saddams sect of Islam. Once powerless, the minority has no support and were suppressed which lead them into the hands of ISIS when they rose as a result of Displaced frustrated Muslims in a war torn environment we created.
I'd say that a lot of Americans are too young to have been aware of international politics and what was going on in 2003. Even fewer are aware of went on with Iran and the CIA in '54. 911 happened just two years before and Americans generally were on a 'war footing' due to selective media coverage and the Bush admin narrative. As for the Boomers, my guess is that while many were aware of the games the GW Bush admin and Tony Blair were playing and how they gamed the UN that it never occurred to most of them that they were lying to the world in order to invade Iraq to commit a massive slaughter in order to steal natural resources while waging a 'war' to please Israel (probably to derail a threatened Israeli attack on Iran). Government control of media narratives started in earnest around then and has been picking up speed ever since.
Unless you're going to very conservative areas, most people you encounter are likely aware that the Iraq invasion was justified under false pretenses. Where I live there is a large population of Chaldeans so we are used to encountering Iraquis as they own a lot of local businesses. When you visit you will see people of many different ethnicities coexisting peacefully. Don't get me wrong, racism abounds in certain pockets and we have a big problem with the police going after Black people. But you will not be going to those places as a tourist. Please don't be fooled by the media focus on rednecks and MAGA freaks. That's just to sell advertising and doesn't represent most of America.
Most Americans, in my experience, now know that Bush lied about WMDs, but they don't think the invasion or subsequent war crimes were bad or wrong. Most Americans also cannot pick Iraq out on a map, nor do they differentiate between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, or any other middle eastern country. They think virtually every citizen in every middle eastern country (besides the US satellite state of Israel) is a freedom hating terrorist and that bombing them is justified to protect our freedom and way of life. Basically the same justifications coming out of Israel to condone their latest genocide campaign in Palestine.
What you have to understand about the United States is that from birth we are constantly indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe that it is us against the world and we are the sole defender of freedom and democracy that must bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world in the form of endless wars to install people in power who are sympathetic to US goals. And if we just so happen to secure resources along the way then those are just the spoils of war that we have earned.
Things are getting better now with the internet. More and more young people are seeing for themselves the realities of these situations and how they differ so much from the official narrative we're fed, but it's not easy to just deprogram a whole nation of people. These days simply stating a fact backed up with ample evidence from universally accepted reliable sources is just met with insults or accusations of being a troll or a bot. Which, of course, is the new narrative being spread by our media.
Has your community been able to recover at all since US armed forces left? If it's any small consolation, we see you and we're sorry and ashamed of what our government did to your country. If we had a democracy, we wouldn't have allowed that to happen.
I obviously have no love for Saddam and get great satisfaction at thinking of him hiding in a hole in the ground while his regime crumbled around him, and there’s a sort of American pride at how professional and effective the initial invasion was conducted, but aside from that it was a disaster.
Legally there was no justification for our war there. The Bush administration lied out their asses to even get us involved, and it was completely illegal.
Morally it was indefensible as it resulted in suffering for an entire generation and millions of unnecessary deaths.
Politically it was stupid as it alienated our allies and destabilized the entire region, creating MORE extremism and terrorism instead of the stated goal of eliminating those things.
Economically it was a disaster, as we wasted over a decade of lives, money, and resources which could have been used to better our own country instead of ruining someone else’s.
our government lied to us and death and destruction resulted. no WMD's, which was the main casus belli. i can't believe we just hand-wave it away. idk we should be holding those politicians accountable, trialing them, and paying reparations or something.
i assume saddam houssein really was a bad man, because it seems to be a commonly shared opinion, but i dont know much more than that.
i think myself and a lot of other americans were confused when we know we went to afganhistan to find the taliban after 9/11 and later we're in iraq like wait wtf?????
In school (at least when I was growing up which was during the war) we were taught the most vague info on it. Nothing made the US look bad, and it all pointed to 9/11 being the big start of it all. We were told it was a war on terror. But I was raised by a dad who really doesn't like war and keeps an eye on what's actually happening, so I learned through him that the war wasn't necessary or called for in any way. As I grew older, I learned about the lies and the BS the government pushed to justify war that was really about money and pushing a narrative.
Ngl looking back on it all, I'm glad my dad was vocal about his anti-military views. My high school did everything to push students to join the military and our curriculum was very pro-military. I had a few friends join and regret it because they didn't know any better.
To be clear, even Donald trump has said the Iraq war was a dumb idea. In other words, you have the current leading right winger against a war that was lead by right wingers. Yeah, most Americans now think it was a terrible thing.
George Bush lied and played upon our fear after 9/11 to go after Saddam Hussein. (He wanted to show his dad that he did something that his father couldn’t.)
When Hussein was overthrown and Iraqis celebrated by toppling his statues I thought that we did a good thing. But history has proved us wrong. I hope you all have recovered.
Most people my age (mid 20s) don't really think about it at all. We grew up with America being in the Middle East as just a normal thing. I've never really seen anyone support it at all and everyone seems to be in favor of us having finally gotten out, but nobody really cared that much either.
I think part of the problem is that world history, and education in general about the rest of the world, is NOT mandated to be done well (or even at all) in public schools. (Nationwide, that is) So people only really HEAR or UNDERSTAND most other countries through things like war, or when they personally travel.
I'd say most people bought the lie, after 9/11. I think it was an easy lie to sell, because "Iraq" wasn't a real place with real people in most American's minds. It was a vague place pretty much interchangeable with all the other countries and cultures nearby.
I'd say most Americans now understand it was lie. And really, really don't like having been lied to. And especially not with how much money it cost to hurt you all over there, while we're simultaneously told there's not enough money for basic services here in the US. I'd say most people are tired of spending money to destroy other places while we "don't have enough" to build ourselves up.
But also, I don't think people's general education about Iraq, or any other country in Middle East, (or most other places), has gotten a whole lot better. We still don't really know the history and culture of places outside of the European countries that it's common for people to travel to as tourists.
I think until we can, as a population, become more educated on more places, we'll (as a whole) still be relatively easy to lie to about the reality of other countries, and the people who live there.
That being said, I think people are ALSO on the whole more skeptical about being told we need to invade other countries. But the average citizen feels pretty disempowered to DO anything with our disapproval.
There are basically 3 groups in America. One buys everything they were told "Iraq had weapons" and was involved in 9/11
Another doesn't really follow any news but has a vague idea Iraq was involved with 9/11 and wmd's
The third group knows full well bush lied about wmd's and used the war as a pretext to invade Iraq. Heck he put more there by Far than the Actual country bin laden was in. The lied Massively and got away with it.
Obviously I and lost everyone I know is in the last group.
As for present, lots of stuff about how Iraq is back to curtailing advances in human rights, but I'm not up on much really.
Hi OP! I'd very much like a new Iraqi friend, as far as I know I'm a nice American (lol) and think it would be really awesome to learn about your culture, history, food, and the region you're from. I always thought that the wmd thing was absolute bull, and am totally against all war, period. I don't think it's right for the old men that have crummy views to send the young men into war to die. I hope to hear from you OP, can't wait to have a new friend to discuss things with!
Many many people did believe it at the time! The internet was small and not widespread and lots of people didn't have the resources to verify information. No Google or Wikipedia.
Nowadays I think most that did believe it know better, especially those of us who were young at the time and couldn't know any better.
Visiting is going to depend on where you go and who you meet. Big cities are more diverse and welcoming in general, and smaller towns are going to be more hit or miss. To be fair, USAmericans will largely not know that you're from Iraq unless you say so, and will probably just lump you into a "middle eastern" category. You'll probably be called Indian more than anything else.
Saddam Hussein was obviously not a great guy to say the least. However, the reasons given for invading were false. Even if true, it’s not they weren’t really reasons that couldn’t be applied to other countries ruled by a despot. We had no business invading Iraq.
Many Americans knew it was a scam from the beginning. Bush told everyone he “knew things” that he did not know. I think most Americans now are aware of what happened.
I don't know what most people think, but I think a *lot* of people are aware that it was mostly bullshit, or at the very least real sketchy. I personally am embarrassed that we invaded the Middle East period; it has been a total shitshow that we still haven't "fixed." And the invasion of Iraq specifically is a huge clusterfuck.
some of us knew it was bullshit then, most of us now know it was definitely bullshit, but there is a vocal minority that will go to their graves believing it was the right thing to do.
I was in 10 when 9/11 happened. I understood going to Afghanistan, to an extent. But when the news started 5alking about going to Iraq, I couldn't understand why. My family couldn't explain it to me in a way that ever made sense. And the as i got older, I started to see the bigger picture. I grew up to see that it was just a war for oil, after a time.
My uncle was in the military at the time and was among those who raided one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, or maybe it was just a very rich place tied to him. He bragged about the AWFUL and heinous things he did during that time. He was a psychopath before he joined the army, and his time in Iraq made it much worse because he had an outlet. I am truly sorry for what he and others like him did while there.
It was bullshit, and ultimately was conducted to benefit the GOP and its donors.
And everyone that could have stopped it from happening didn't, because if they seriously tried, they'd have been branded as "anti-American," and a vast majority of Americans would have agreed.
Anyone paying attention to the official group searching for WMD, before US invaded, knew that nothing was found and that Bush was lying. I was personally so irritated with him that I put an ´Impeach Bush’ sign on my lawn and kept it there until Obama won.
I can tell you that my experience, living in Idaho at the time of 9/11, and having family in the Middle East, I continuously found people having blind faith in the American story of what we were doing and why we were doing it, even though it was completely nonsensical.
I was going to college and regularly upset people in class discussions.
Years later I’d bet most people I know question the American narrative.
I was about to honestly say nothing. I'm glad this inst a new event I missed. Not glad it happened though. Most of the wars the USA has been involved with if not all since wwII have been motivated by greed and money and to "help" them get democracy. All of it's a farce for other agendas and always will be.
I’m still devastated by depression about the War in Iraq, and I had nothing to do with it besides being American. Deeply ashamed of the war criminals who run our country. Free Julian Assange!
Many of us thought it (the invasion of Iraq) was a massive, colossal blunder and a disaster -- for the US and Iraq. Just stupid beyond belief.
And, many of our main media outlets were real cheerleaders for the Bush Administration in the run up to the invasion. Many of the massive protests here in NYC and elsewhere were not covered by the media.
Truly a disgraceful low point in US history. I say this as a veteran too (my time was well before that war, but just puttin' it out there).
Despite it polling well in 2003, the vast majority of people alive at the time it happened will claim they were always against it and the the Bush administration made a misleading case.
Personally, I recognized Saddam was terrible and while it would be good to have a democracy there instead, it was still bad to wage war on that kind of a "revolutionary" principle rather than an actual clear threat, and Saddam was no threat to the US and had no ties to 9-11. I also didn't trust the administration to actually do a good job with the occupation.
Then, when the invasion happened, the occupation was a fiasco and it was obvious there was no real, hard thought on how to maintain order in the post-war environment (and those who talked about what was needed were disregarded).
The biggest example of this was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army with no real kind of thought or analysis, especially the question of "what do we do with these people who are trained and have access to weapons?" The occupations of German and Japan all had a very large amount of effort to co-opt the existing elite and use them to keep things functioning, provided they weren't guilty of major war crimes.
The feeling from most of the people I knew in 2001 was that Saddam probably had some WMDs. Most people thought he had some kind of half-assed program to manufacture chemical weapons. Only the most hardcore Republicans I knew thought he had a fully-functional, dangerous weapons program that was being used to fund or arm global terrorism.
Most people I knew basically thought that Bush was making up excuses to go into Iraq, probably to get oil. They under-estimated the level of war profiteering that would eventually happen, though. I remember a guy telling me that all he had to do was roll down to the quartermaster and say he wanted a big screen TV for his barracks, and they were handing them out like candy. It was pretty crazy.
I would say these days, opinions vary widely. Most young people I know are sadly just clueless. The occupation of Iraq was never really like, a critical part of their lives unless they come from military families. For most young people, Iraq is just really far away and not very interesting. They have a vague feeling that we should've have been there, but it's pretty abstract. They think of Iraq the same way they think of anywhere "way over there" like South Korea. Most of them resent the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the occupation, because that money presumably could've been spent on stuff like health care over here, and working class Americans have been struggling for some time now.
The hard-core conservatives I know are pretty disappointing. I know a couple of guys who think Iraqi citizens should show more gratitude towards Americans, and Iraq should do stuff like hold pro-American parades and donate oil to the US to repay the costs of war. Those views aren't the mainstream at all (they're pretty radical, in fact) but I have seen it in a few people.
American here, and MENA background. I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, Arab capital of the USA. My dad is Egyptian. I grew up with Lebanese, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Kurds, Muslims from various sects, Copts, etc.
Most of us thought Saddam was a brutal shithead, but knew the WMD thing was bullshit and just an excuse to get rid of him. It's always about oil... just like Kuwait was.
And, as we all predicted, once Saddam was gone, we absolutely knew Iraq would be destroyed, and in his place a new, more fundamentalist government would end up in power.
The US is really great at creating the fundamentalist Islamic regimes they claim to be against.
I know it’s BS now that I’m grown up, but when I was a little girl my dad was deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan several times. This was closer to the end of Desert Storm and I was too little to understand, grandparents and mom would just tell me my dad was overseas in “country” fighting for our country and against bad guys. Then when he got back my dad would mention that the actual citizens were very nice and would even give him and his squad mates food and fruit but that the Taliban were the bad guys. That’s all I ever really heard about it as a child, except for all the 9/11 confusion in school. Teachers never really could give you a clear answer as to what happened. I was being fed an unhealthy amount of misinformation about it as a child.
I generally agree with what most people are already saying here, that it was a lie and and completely criminal. We had no business being there.
Having said that, I'll add that I work in a community and an industry where there are a lot of Chaldeans, and they're some of the best people I've ever worked around. Very helpful, charitable, and hard working.
I'm 41. I can tell you most people my age and older believe they were against the war the whole time. They weren't though. I remember. But I guess better late than never.
Quora is literally all misinformation. If you seriously want to know what most Americans think about this or anything, google again, but this time look for opinion polls done by reputable companies, not individual opinions. Reddit people are not a good representative sample of Americans; we're different in many respects. It's a self-selected population, and every subreddit is a self-selected subpopulation within it. My impression is that opinion has turned against the war, but my impression isn't an accurate sample or based on one.
That said, you might be asking the wrong question. Your concern is how you'll be received and get along with us. (Possibly you're visibly Middle Eastern?) Don't worry 'bout a thing. Americans are famously friendly and open and companionable. You'll get along with people even if they have different political views, about Iraq or anything else. You'll be well received and not judged. Come, relax, enjoy.
Oh, and about Americans thinking Iraq applies Sharia... they literally think Iraq and Iran are basically the same country.
They have no idea the differences between Islamic countries, or even between Shia and Sunni and Sufi, and Wahhabi or Salafi Islam.
Iraq being more or less balanced between the two major sects of Islam while Iran are pretty die hard Shiites means nothing to them.
Now that the public has been made aware of the truth—no WMDs, and the trigger-happy military only had suspicions based on evidence that was questionable at best—**I think the invasion was a mistake**. Back then, I was just a teenager, and I didn't have much opinion on it one way or the other.
Since then, now that I'm much more older and wiser, I've come to realize just how deep corruption can run....
**I think Bush's real motivation: Money.**
He spent an ungodly amount of money in the name of war, and it made his DoD and oil contractor friends uber rich. It was a massive conflict of evidence, and no one seemed to care or even bother to look into it at the time. He took advantage of most people's willingness to be blindly patriotic, riding the coat tails of 9/11.
A big part of my opinion is connecting the dots in my mind as I got older, realizing that Bush had Powell, a high-up retired general, present evidence that was grossly misinterpreted and way too unreliable to present publicly, much less grounds to invade a country.
Congress and the public were very familiar with Powell from the first Gulf War and respected him. However, he was the Secretary of *State*, not the Secretary of War. Rumsfeld should have been the most well-informed about the situation, not Powell.
Why would Bush pressure Powell to present shoddy evidence and make it look as legit as possible? Why would he take so much risk of human life and be willing to disrupt large portions of geopolitics on tiny shreds of (unreliable) proof?
Money.
His *policy* might have been fiscal conservatism, but that sure wasn't his actual behavior. He spent money like water.
**All this to say again—I believe the invasion was a mistake.**
I want to tag a couple of thoughts on this post if I may.
I can remember vividly watching colon Powell say that they had weapons of mass destruction and he thought we should invade and I knew it was a done deal we were going to do it, because, like you said, there was a tremendous amount of respect for him. I think that is why we haven’t seen anything from him since then either is because he was lied to and then lied to the people.
Another reason that Bush wanted to get in there was to finish what his dad started. The first gulf war was a military success but what it failed to do was remove Saddam Hussein from power. Saddam was a thorn in the side of US foreign policy, and that was a blemish on his dad’s record, so Bush Junior wanted him out.
The truly evil people here were Cheney and Rumsfeld. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but those two were in every republican White House since Nixon, in one way or another. They were the ones driving this bus.
Saddam gassed entire villages, and killed/tortured anyone who opposes him (even his family). Not allowing UN to do checks in his country, and bragging he was nukes was too much of a risk for the US. Remember he did invade Kuwait.
I was too young to understand and thought it was because of 9/11. I'd wager a big chunk of Americans still think so too. Looking back not, it definitely warrant such actions and the prolonged occupation that took place afterwards.
My cousin Pvt. Kelley Prewitt died there after being ambushed on the way in. He was driving a humvee full of ammunition. He joined the army in the fall of 2002. He was dead 11 months later.
I asked my dad when I was 14 why we were in Iraq if "Afghanistan" (which we now know was the Saudis/Bush) did 9/11? So if a dumbass teenager was able to see through the facade, I would hope most Americans were able to as well.
Most people that I know (I live in Texas) know that the Iraq War was based around lies to enrich Halliburton and other defense contractors, and that 9/11 was the perfect excuse to expand military operations worldwide for no real reason. Just like how Isreal is using 10/7 to do expand their ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Empire never lets a good tragedy go to waste right?
That said, there are certainly a decent chunk of Americans (usually conservatives) who will still "RAHH MURICA" no matter what adventurous nonsense the military is performing overseas. It's an embarrassing waste of resources in my opinion.
Any American with intelligence would not judge you for being Iraqi. Here’s some info that Americans should know by now concerning the war in Iraq. Bush administration had an improper relationship with Halliburton, the company where Dick Cheney was CEO from 1995 until he left in 2000 to run for vice president. In the run-up to the Iraq War, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which only Halliburton was allowed to bid. The US should have never went into Iraq to begin with, Afghanistan was already questionable imo.
To answer the most salient part of your question, I don't think people are mad at Iraqis about the war. No one will probably treat you as personally responsible for it. A hypothetical American probably won't be able to recognize you as specifically Iraqi, and if you bring it up, they might get uncomfortable.
I think it is something that feels like ancient history to a lot of us, especially those of us <30. It was on the news pretty often, and we had some fun songs on the playground about how much we hated Saddam Hussein, but generally speaking that war hasn't been terribly popular and when it's talked about nowadays it's almost always followed by the words "and Afghanistan".
I know you asked about the USA but I’m in UK and we were also complicit. I have to say that people nowadays hardly ever think about or discuss the Iraq War, it’s as though it’s dropped from the public consciousness. Even ten years ago, the Labour Party’s involvement with the war was a meaningful subject of discussion in politics but now they’re expected to form the next government and I’ve not heard anybody raise the war. I guess we’ve witnessed so many more conflicts since then that people don’t really have the bandwidth.
and the same Americans that have seen the truth about the Iraq war. are now brainwashed to believe Russia is the enemy.
no, Russia is not the enemy. NATO is. bunch of brainwashed clowns.
they were brainwashed about Iraq. they are now being brainwashed about Russia. and they insist that it's Russia at fault, yet NATO parks it's satanic missiles at the front yard of Russia.
cringe, sheeple.
I've been thinking a lot about Iraq with what is going on in Israel/Gaza right now.
We are seeing so much needless civilian deaths there and it pales in comparison to what we did to Iraq.
Myself and most people my age are very angry about the war. It's a big part of why there's a big disconnect from millennials on down to the Boomer generation. We see it as we were lied to growing up about how we were doing good, trying to save lives from a brutal tyrannt who was a threat to us building WMDs, engaging in one of my earliest memories which was 9-11. Only to find out as we grew up that we caused a lot of the issues over there, there was no WMD, and our government was responsible for horrendous war crimes like not being very careful with drone attacks, torcher,and instead of it being about preventing worse attacks on us, while saving innocent civilians from hords of unwanted moral police who would stone a woman to death because she tripped and her ankle was seen, we were there because of freaking oil because a war was better than transitioning to different power sources. Yeah we're very unhappy.
It was a war of propaganda rooted in racism and Islamophobia, and only happened to make people money via the military industrial complex. Our country killed both Iraq citizens and our own military personnel for selfish gains. It was and still is disgusting.
And yes, we know the weapons of mass destruction, and about the Al-Qaeda lie.
I know more about the Mongol invasion than the American invasion. But Iraqi food is bomb and a bunch of you guys came over here in the 90s and where chill.
Well reddit attracts a particular demographic politically speaking so this won't be representative of what "most" Americans think.
That being said, I'm fairly confident the vast majority of Americans know that the invasion was executed under false pretenses. Many of us knew there were no weapons of mass destruction pretty early on into the invasion. Anybody who pays any kind of attention to current events knows that al Qaeda, 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake at best, or horrific at worst but in reality probably falls somewhere in between.
I've never been to Iraq and never will, but my understanding is there was a lot of positive reception to American forces when we first arrived and deposed Saddam. But we topped the country with no plan to reconstruct and then abandoned the project entirely, and that obviously soured Iraqi opinion of the whole affair, understandably so.
Anyway, for what it's worth I'm deeply saddened by what we did to your country. Deposing Saddam might've been good for your people, but destroying the country and abandoning the mess was wrong and bad for the world. We should've stayed and rebuilt.
Considering that we deposed Saddam Hussein, I think its a net positive. Additionally, Saddam is at fault to a certain degree for convincing US intelligent that he may have WMD's but that's not a discussion for today.
I could care less about the justification, Saddam was a monster.
People in this country were scared and enraged by 9/11 and in this state of mind they were looking for an enemy. Our then President and his shitty cronies that I believe already wanted an excuse to invade for the own reasons jumped on it. They created another disaster in response to another and an appalling number of lives were destroyed. Then we occupied for FOREVER because they felt invested and I think didn’t want to admit they were wrong.
I think it and Afghanistan have made the public here a lot more weary of war in general. I think Ukraine would be an actual justified intervention but people don’t even want to help now when it’s the rare justification case.
God, looks like no one in this comment sections even knows that the Iran-IRaq war existed or anything about the atrocities Saddam put his own people through (torture, attempted ethnic cleansing of the kurdish people, etc).
I honestly don't know what most Americans think, but a lot more people know that the Iraq War was an atrocity committed under false pretenses than did at the time.
Trust me. I *know*. I was deployed there twice before I retired. And by the way OP? I thought most of the Iraqis I met were very nice people. I was amazed by their hospitality. But what do I know?
You sound like my dad. Deployed in Desert Storm. Left in 93. Signed back up after 9/11- got deployed to Bosnia, Iraq again (twice) and Afghanistan before retiring. I remember him not being very happy at some of the decisions being made.
I am *very* conflicted by my service in the first place. Iraq and Afghanistan made my decision to retire harden like cement. There was zero reason for us to go to Iraq a second time. Not a fucking single reason. I lost friends there who should not have died on the first place. I can understand Afghanistan to a point. Not operation 'get more cheap oil'. /Rant I'm glad I'm retired and out.
I'm guessing by your name you were an NCO. I never served, but being around it growing up, it seemed like NCOs really got shafted, especially after '04-'05. I remember there being a lot of talk about Bush having a hair trigger to go after Saddam and finish what his father started. I went to a couple of funerals from that time. Sorry you had to go through that.
Thanks brother. I retired as an E9. Master Gunnery Sargeant.
Off topic question, but I always ask when I run across a Marine. What is your favorite flavor of crayon?
Blue, of course...
thank you for your service!
I understood the rationale behind the first Iraq conflict, the second made no sense. To be sure, the people of the US were justifiably pissed, but the premise put forth by Bush and Cheney was shaky at best, emotions were high and we were angry. But this WMD shit, when it was clear there were none, yet still sending troops, was beyond absurd. To a degree you had to ask yourself that same question about Vietnam, it made no sense. Troops dying for what…I can’t relate to battle, I refused to go to Vietnam, but that doesn’t lessen my respect for the Vets who fought, and died under the banner of this country. Family members, friends, acquaintances that I’ve known over the years that gave so much more than I have given, I don’t want to see someone have to do it again. And this current climate we live in makes me very uneasy. I’m tired of war and I’ve never been…my respect to all the Veterans
You’ve just confirmed a heck of a lot of theories I’ve had for years. And thanks for being one of the men who let us sleep soundly and safely in our beds. 🫡🇺🇸
The politics and decisions made are big reasons I stayed far away from Federal government gigs or armed forces.
my boyfriend went to Iraq last year and met exclusively kind Iraqis who don't conflate Americans with our government's actions, which I think is a great standard for meeting people in other countries.
You're right. Almost every single person or family I interacted with has treated my very well. I've dined with them in their homes and they are a kind and generous people in my book. Hope your bf made it back okay. Take care. Yall gonna get married?
I love to hear stories like that. Yes, he did! He and his group caught a parasite, but they all survived and had a great time. Haha too early to know about marriage!
Thank you for your service and sacrifices
That's the same as "thoughts and prayers" I guess it's nice thing to say but what does it mean? Support Veterans or support legislators who support veterans. Kind of the same with mental health and regulating weapons. Either do it or don't but certainly don't say thoughts and prayers if you're not going to do anything to help end gun violence or the Mental Health crisis.
mate it just means 'thank you', you can be nice to someone without being a saint.
Same and I agree 💯
Trust me, most people who were around at the time DID know that the Iraq war was an atrocity. There was much outrage and protesting in the US while it was happening.
Oh, no, I did too. The drumbeat to support the war was just deafening though.
Thank you, it's nice to know that more people are realizing the truth these days.
Quora isn’t a good representation of…anything
It's like Yahoo Answers, but somehow worse.
I was in college when 9/11 happened. It was an extremely crazy moment in time. There was this collective rage and sadness that I think overrode everything else, including common sense.
We felt an outrage toward terrorism in general. Cheney/Bush focused it wrongfully on Iraq, when it should have been centered on Pakistan/Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia ?
Same in the UK. We had massive anti-war demos, millions marching in London, back when the war was on That's one of the main things we warned Israel about, don't make it a war of revenge, it doesn't work out well! ... and in that case, it's even worse
My thoughts too so tally me up.
Yep. I was 14 when the invasion happened and my right wing family was allllll for it. They still won’t admit that it was all a sham. I figured out by 15-16 that it was fucked up and wrong. Hurricane Katrina and the clusterfuck of a “response” is the thing that really sealed for me that the Bush II administration was a bunch of criminals.
I would wager that majority of Americans are against the Iraq invasion and do realize it was based on a lie and feel betrayed by Dick Cheney and George Bush. I know of people on both the right and left who feel this way.
I would not take you up on that wager because I know you're right. I remember that hype about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction only to learn he really never did. A lot of American and Iraqi lives were lost and for what purpose? Is that region of the world truly better off since we invaded Iraq?
Brit here. WMDs were mainly just a way to make the invasion legal. Initially it was not a big deal that WMD's were not found as everyone was happy at the quick and successful invasion. Only as the occupation, as it became, went badly did people look for blame to exonerate themselves in supporting the invasion. Hence the failure to find WMD's was a way to blame Bush, Blair and Co. The truth being that although there were those against invasion, the majority wanted Saddam out after his invasion of Kuwait, and also after the use of nerve agents against his own people. It seemed like a just and righteous thing to do, freeing the innocent people from murderous oppression...... But it didn't turn out that way. Generalising, I think we are all to blame, US, UK and Allies, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Islam, Saudi Arabia etc... and equally we are guilty now of being too afraid to do anything that could be seen as the same today. How many died in Syria? Ukraine 2014 and 2022? Just my opinion.
Do you think George Bush lied, or was he misled by his advisors? I think it was the latter.
poTATo POTato. The pres is the one who authorizes such actions. Where the breakdown occurred is academic.
I was 13 when 9/11 happened. I remember very clearly when Bush started bombing Iraq and I remember everyone being pretty horrified & confused what Sadam had to do with Osama when Pakistan was hiding spot and something something Afghanistan. We lived in Texas so this wasn't some blue vs red thing back then, though those fractures were already beyond repair between Fox News Watchers vs Everyone Else (fractured during Clinton Impeachment). IIRC we all knew there were no WMDs within the first year of the war, I think? but the ""Fox News patriots"" did not care: "i StAnD wItH oUr PrEsIdEnT" and that's when they co-opted the American Flag as a symbol of oppression. The protests, marches, candle light vigils, just huge antiwar sentiment exploded right before the reelection. By second Bush term I think we were all pretty demoralized and defeated and the Fox New Watchers were emboldened to become what they are today and learned they could steal the elections without the popular vote. So yeah a lot if us went from young conservatives to burning flags within a year. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was like...THE voice to tell us what was going on and he was good about breaking down our war atrocities we were committing
That's such a relief to know, thanks!
I was there, part of the invasion in 2003. For what it's worth, here's my evolution: **Priors:** * Let's be clear, Saddam Hussein and family were bona fide villains. I mean evil with a capital E. * His regime had repeatedly and flagrantly violated UN sanctions and no-fly provisions with impunity. * Kicking out the weapons inspectors was a fatal error, depriving the U.N. of even cursory understanding of Iraq's weapons programs. * 9/11 was my primary focus, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia were the sources of the Al Qaeda operatives, and there was no confusion in my mind about where they did their training or where they were from. **During:** * I wouldn't have trusted George Bush with making toast, and Dick Cheney was a palpable control freak. But I was a soldier at the time, and the person I *did* trust was Colin Powell. When he presented WMD before the UN, I was confused but trusted. It was plausible, but I didn't understand why we'd need to put boots on the ground. * Once orders are given, we execute and at that point we're doing things more for the people next to us than any loyalty to Bush or Cheney. In our system of government, the military is subordinate to civilian government; part of the contract is that the nation will elect responsible and judicious leadership. (yeah, I know.) * For the first 3-ish years, having seen the vastness of the deserts there, I clung to the belief that "if WMD's were here, they could be anywhere. This place is vast, and hiding them would be trivial." **After:** * After a few years, I realized what a mess it was. Either we were fooled by Saddam's posturing towards Iran (presenting that he had WMD as a deterrent to them and having to keep the facade up, and we fell for it)... * Or we knew he didn't really have them from the beginning. * The former is a crisis of competence with our intelligence community; the latter is a crisis of ethical leadership at the very top of the national leadership. * Either way, it was clear that we stepped into a bear trap. In Colin Powell's parlance, "we broke it, we bought it." **Epilogue:** * I am crystal clear that the Iraq invasion was a catastrophic miscalculation, for which we are still paying the downstream consequences. * Part of the nation's "fatigue" and political partisanship is in no small part a downstream consequence of the trust issues, exorbitant cost, casualty count, and protracted engagement. * Then, when we left, it left a vacuum that the ISIS caliphate inhabited and thus another 5 years of war and devastation. * On an international stage, we pulled a fire alarm and asked for help, and then led that coalition into an unnecessary war with significant consequences for the country in question. * It is my deep hope that in the longer scale of geopolitical time, that maybe it will be a net positive that such a tyrant was removed. But in the short term, the calculus there is certainly questionable. **Personal Note:** I owe my life, probably multiple times over, to my interpreter. Rafid, I hope you're out there and doing well, brother. I think of you often and hope that some of the dreams and aspirations that our younger selves used to chat about have come true for you.
That's a well written, well considered post, thanks. Please post on Reddit if you ever reunite with Rafid, I'd love to hear his story.
Thanks for the kind words. I certainly would, though I'm doubtful of the prospects of a reunion. But, just as a minor tribute to him: He was a grad student at a university in Baghdad when the war started, about my age (mid twenties), his English was excellent, and we were both in the same places in life. Working on education, steady girlfriends we were hoping to marry, and scared shitless most of the time we were working together. I was working in an intelligence capacity back in the early "Deck of Cards" era, and we had the job of working with human sources and trying to hack through the layers of local Iraqi bullshit and drama and score-settling that was rampant. And then delivering those human sources discreetly back to their neighborhoods "undercover." Being out of uniform and traveling in a tiny civilian element was terrifying back then. \[Cut to the Nate Bargatze bit where he travels to Bahrain, they tell him not to wear "American clothes" as a tourist and he asks, "Okay, but what are you guys gonna do about my white skin?"\] What made Rafid special wasn't his language skills, although that really helped, but his intuition. He was perceptive, thoughtful, analytical, and just had a spidey sense that I quickly learned to trust implicitly. He'd lived in Baghdad his whole life, and he could look at a road, an intersection, a neighborhood, and could immediately tell if something was amiss. He could tell me if someone was lying, and then explain objectively and dispassionately how he knew. He was never arrogant or overconfident, just a quiet, *"No, wait, there's no laundry out on the lines. There should be laundry over there and at this time of day, kids should be playing over there in that field. Let's go around."* I'd pay good money to know how many IEDs or ambushes he saved us from. Anyway, I'm waxing nostalgic. Knowing him, I was but the first in a long line of U.S. units he helped as the tours and rotations continued. I wouldn't begrudge him if he became disillusioned over the years and came to hate us and his memories of us. But in those early, chaotic months, there was a glimmer of hope that we shared and the work felt righteous, if imperfect. It's a little known fact, but we actually *were* greeted as liberators. Until we exposed the limits of our American omnipotence and people wanted their infrastructure back.
There were a lot of us that owe a lot to the many Rafids over there. Thanks for sharing. Most of them went unsung, and a lot of them that were unable to gain US citizenship didn't survive the vacuum and ensuing "dog hunt" when we left.
I went to MEPS in October of 2001 and the Navy sent me over the first time in April of 2004. I have to say that I 100% concur with everything you said. I had the exact same progression of thinking. About a month after I arrived the Abu Ghraib photos were leaked and I just felt shame and disgust. Locals would ask me questions about it and I had no words. My best friend, an HM, was KIA in May of 2005. His kids were very young at the time. He and many others (both Iraqis & Americans) should still be with us.
I joined in the late 90s when it wasn’t much more than Kosovo in the mix. I have a lot of respect for those that joined post-9/11 to do their part, even if that part turned out to be misguided. Cheers, and I hope you’re doing well. 🍻
This should be top comment.
Polls indicate that while most Americans were enthusiastic about the invasion at the time, most now think it was a mistake. But being anti-war when it was happening would make you very unpopular. Unfortunately they still appear unaware of how devastating and cruel it was, and don't acknowledge that it was a mistake because it was fundamentally wrong and was indefensible even at the time. Very, very few will admit that invading at all was a downright villainous thing for the country to do. They will instead believe it was still a good thing that went wrong.
Yeah, look what happened to the Dixie Chicks(now just Chicks)
I understand, thank you. 🙏🏻 *Edit: username checks out!*
We were lied to. And I wish we never invaded.
Exactly. They lied to the world including their own people, which is sad...
But not at all surprising anymore. I joined the military because of the lies. My eyes are open now.
Military? Oh, man. I'm glad that you're still here.
Not all of me mentally. But physically I wasn’t harmed and I didn’t hurt anyone either. Thank you.
That's the US government for ya. I love our country but boooyyyyy do I LOATHE our government!!!!
I was in college at the time. It was very contentious and divisive and became more and more unpopular as the war went on. As for what people know... Yes, I think people generally were pretty skeptical of the Iraq-AlQ link at the time, though there were some in the GWB admin pushing it. "GWB lied about WMD" is a bit more of an issue. GWB cherry-picked intelligence reports to highlight the ones with the conclusions he wanted, complicated by the fact that Saddam really wanted Iran (and others) to THINK he had WMD at the ready. But yes, it became obvious quickly that this was incorrect. Twenty years on, it was clearly a strategic error with a host of unintended negative consequences.
Yeah, I can imagine how conventional it was at the start. Thank you so much!
Yeah the whole GWB lied thing is overblown. He picked the intelligence that fit his and his cabinets world view. Pretty much like every other president. The biggest problem is once we got Saddam and figured out it was wrong we should have left. The whole nation building thing was ridiculous
Yeah, it was a SUPER ambitious idea without an ambitious plan to back it up (if such a thing would have even been possible, which I doubt).
Respectfully, the idea that Saddam was cosying up with Al-Qaeda was not even the least bit feasible. It was screamingly obvious that this was 100% a lie, before, during and after the invasion. Any expert on Al-Qaeda or with even a passing knowledge of the region stated that there's no way it could be true and that AQ absolutely despised Saddam. The Neo-Cons had strategic documents published in the late 90s where they stated explicitly that they want the US to invade Iraq and install a friendly regime to shore up US influence in the region. The Al-Qaeda link pretense was to vaguely tie Iraq to 9/11, to suit their existing desire to invade. Once you realise that 1 of the 2 pretexts to invade was demonstrably a lie, why would you give the Bush Administration the benefit of the doubt on WMD, given that it was disproven categorically? It was all total bullshit and they knew damn well it was every step of the way. The invasion unavoidably caused immeasurable harm in too many ways to describe; GWB and his surviving Neocons all belong in a war crimes tribunal and deserve a life sentence, they killed hundreds of thousands if not more and fucked the whole region up for generations.
The commonly accepted view on the invasion of Iraq was that it was a mistake based on a lie. Politically, supporting it is toxic, and everyone claims they were against it. But this means little, as most people enthusiastically supported it when it was happening. If the US government wanted to do something like that again, the American people would again enthusiastically support it until years later where they would again claim they never did support it. Source: American
When the war drums started so many fell in line.
I see it as a manifestation of the fear, anger, and desire for vengeance 9/11 caused to US public. Iraq played no part in 9/11, but USA was mad, angry, and wanted to beat someone up. Saddam and his shitty government made a plausible excuse for an Islamic country that could be seen as evil. So US public willingly goes along with the WMD thing, supports expeditionary actions, just to regain the sense of power they lost during 9/11, but also from our failure to capture UBL in Afghanistan. Iraq just happens to be the country down range. Overall, the action cannot be justified, but the emotions of the time cannot be dismissed.
I completely understand the impact of 9/11 on people, they must have been terrified. It's both funny and sad that the 9/11 terrorists were (apparently) 15 Saudis, 1 Emirati, 1 Egyptian, and 1 Lebanese. Yet, we were the ones who got punished instead… 🥲
Yes. Really fucked up. I wanted to touch on your worries of being judged. No one will think you’re from Iraq unless you tell them. I could see people asking a lot of questions, but only out of genuine curiosity. All these wars we get our self into, I think are looked at as the government is bad and the people are the victims. So naturally we have compassion for the citizens here in the US
George W. Bush is a war criminal. And even National Public Radio hosts think very low of Dick Cheney. Aren't American and British oil companies still pumping out your oil? Do you guys get any money from them: BP, Exxon, and Shell? Edit: as someone who has been to many foreign countries and befriended many foreigners, don't be too afraid of how they'll see you, most people know a good person when they see them, and if they get to know you, you might be the one that will change their perspective on Iraqis
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I think that it was fucking stupid and pointless and justified on the basis of some total hand-crafted artisanal bullshit. But yeah, most people are generally aware that the WMDs thing was a bald-faced lie, I'm not sure what most people know about the lack of connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
Most of the people I know see it for what it was, a massive, incomprehensible tragedy for the Iraqi people. Almost everyone I knew was against the war, but I did know some people who clung to the revenge/vengeance-seeking mentality of shoot first, ask questions later. People were so thirsty for revenge back then, a lot of people didn’t give a shit who we were killing as long as we were punishing someone for 9/11. There was a brief period after 9/11 when I felt the country come together as one, in mourning, but that beautiful moment was quickly replaced by a lust for revenge, and blatant/unrepentant racism. God be with the people of Iraq!
Thank you a lot!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻
After 9/11, I think a lot of us were eager to take action against anyone that seemed like a threat to attack the US. Given that the Bush Administration seemed so adamant that Saddam Hussein and his government were planning on using weapons of mass destruction, stopping this potential threat seemed like a reasonable course of action, especially given that it was presented as a military operation that might only take a few months. Personally, I had no problem with the war when it began because of the whole WMD threat. After a few years of the war, it became common knowledge that no WMDs were found. I, like many other Americans, stopped finding the war acceptable given that the main motive for invading wasn't valid. (There were also lots of other issues, like soldiers lacking adequate equipment.) Once that became clear, I truthfully couldn't figure out what the US was doing in Iraq other than trying to undo all the destabilization they had caused in the first place. [Here's some polling data on opinions regarding the war.](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/) The gist of it is that support started out fairly high, followed by a gradual change toward disapproval until the US' eventual withdrawal.
My opinion is that we were sold the war on lies, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeild wanted that oil, found a willing puppet in GW Bush, the rest is history.
I don’t think about it at all
I’m glad Sadam and his cronies are dead, but I’m sad about American and Iraqi lives that were lost.
I will tell you most younger people and internet fluent people know that the war on terror was largely based on lies, especially with Iraq. That does not mean they will all be very vocally supportive and especially know much about it like the people you’ve spoken with. 9/11 was a HUGE deal in the States and many people, however misguided, blame Iraq and Afghanistan because of previous ideas. Al-Qaeda does come from the Middle East, and Americans have never been great a geography. MANY older people, especially in more rural areas may still act with some prejudice. This is multiplied tenfold if you are visibly Muslim like wearing a hijab, or have little to no English speaking skills. I would say that most people in urban areas like NYC, Chicago, or LA will be fine (not necessarily supportive, but as respectful as they would be to anyone else) but there’s always gonna be a couple bad apples.
Very understandable, thank you!
My ex-husband joined the Army 2 weeks after 9/11 out of a sense of patriotic duty. We had a baby born at the end of August so it was a hard decision. Then he was sent to Iraq for a year. Then home for 6 months. And sent to Iraq for a year again. Then home for a year. And sent to Iraq for 15 months. Afghanistan happened after that. But he felt so completely lied to about Iraq. Sadam was horrible. We can all agree with that. But a lot of atrocities happen in war, and they definitely happened in that war. I can only speak for my ex and other soldiers I knew there at the time. They made friends with the villagers around them. They shared meals with them. They took presents to the children (mostly candy, the wives sent boxes and boxes of candy for the children). The men knew that the Iraqi people were not the problem and that insurgency was a problem later on...and those people were often not even Iraqi. They took to trying to protect the villagers. But especially their interpreters and their families, of course. I spoke often to the interpreter that most worked with my ex and I think of him often now. He sent me gifts for Christmas, I sent him gifts as well. I hope he is well...I hope he is thriving. Sorry this got so long, I really loved the people I heard about. I felt so much love for them and their hearts, their lives, and how fucked up everything was. I hope you do come to visit. If you're in Northern Nevada for some reason, I'll buy you a meal ❤️
I was there for 2 plus years. I thought it was shitty we came in but I did meet folks who talked about chemical Ali and the Tigris and the Euphrates being rerouted and people being starved out after the US abandoned Iraqis in 1991. We told them to overthrow their government and we'd have their back and then we pull out and they end up getting fucked for the next 10 plus years. It disappointed me we didn't do more to build infrastructure. We would spend the shitload maintaining junkie tents and trying to air condition them but I guess the idea was we didn't want to build infrastructure and appear that we were trying to occupy why waste that money and have nothing to give to the Iraqi people when it's all over. it was strange we didn't hire locals KBR would get big contracts that were no bid contracts meaning they just named their price then they hired a bunch of Filipinos and Nigerians. Then later it was sad to see Isis take control for a while and destroy all the museum and monuments and artifacts.
Blood for oil and opiates.
Misguided counterattack at best, nefarious manipulation of a tragedy for financial gain at worst.
[удалено]
I think most Americans have caught up to it being a lie and a terrible mistake. They have also probably not internalized any of its lessons and will be ginned up into an even more disastrous war with Iran by the same class of criminals and charlatans.
If there's a God in this world, then I beg him to stop today's wars and prevent any possible war in the future, especially in West Asia. The region has endured enough.
Bush held a grudge that Saddam tried to assinate his father. Cheney and other neocons thought they could get a tidy cut of the oil money. Days after 9/11 Saddam started shooting surface to air misels at US planes monitoring the region to test the US which pissed off the US military. All those things aligned to create the situation where he could get war authorization. Reportedly, Saddam, before he was hung, told his US interogators something along the lines of "I think you'll find this place isn't so easy to control." Most people who were adults back then think it was a huge waste of blood and money. It took our eye off Afganistan. Frankly, I want the US to move to EVs, alternative energy, etc. so we can not give a shit about the Middle East anymore.
Not American, but remember that the biggest demonstrations ever organised worldwide were against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (I was 15 but I did join!). A lot of people in Western countries were really much against it, at least in Europe. I worked in Iraq in the late 2010s and it really broke my heart to see that everything we were saying back then proved true.
Saddam was a homicidal maniac on one of the longest and bloodiest murder sprees in history. I fully support killing bad dudes like that. As far as you not being treated friendly here, I don't see it happening. America is a melting pot of ethnicities and there are plenty of Middle Eastern people here. Maybe 20 years ago you'd have a reason to be concerned but not today.
> ***Do most Americans know that George Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction?*** Yes > ***That Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda?*** Yes > I've always wanted to travel to so many countries, including the USA once I graduate, but I'm a little nervous about how people might receive me, and anxious about the possibility of getting judged. IMO, traveling to a foreign country is always going to come with some risk. But I genuinely hope you are made to feel welcome, or at a minimum not bothered by anyone for things you can’t change: ethnicity, etc.
I was about 8 or 9 when the it started, Being a kid, I didn’t fully understand it, I was under the impression that it was “revenge” for 9/11 and that we were going after Saddam like he was some sort of comic book/cartoon villain. In other words, I perceived the whole thing as if it was some sort of action movie. Thankfully I know better as an adult, and I’m well aware that it was a farcical oil war.
>I was under the impression that it was “revenge” for 9/11 and that we were going after Saddam like he was some sort of comic book/cartoon villain. Amazing how many 68 year olds think the way you did at age 8.
I don’t actually know what most Americans think about the war but I do believe the knowledge that there were actually no weapons of mass destruction is pretty widespread. As far as how people will receive you when you visit? If you came to my area, New Jersey, nobody would even think twice about you being from Iraq, it wouldn’t be an issue at all.
We do not support the invasion. I say this almost universally. Even soldiers reject the motivations to enter iraq.
I’m an army veteran. I can’t speak for all of us, but ALOT of us know that the wars are full of propaganda. We know that the US government has brainwashed the country. We may not have known it when we enlisted when we were young but have since figured it out. I worked with a lot of people from both Iraq and Afghanistan while in the military. We work very closely with a lot of people from your country. The guys I met were respectful to me as a woman and also respected the fact that I do not follow the same religious and cultural beliefs as them. They worked with me no different than they did the men. I know a lot of people who say that Iraqi men will mistreat women and that they won’t even speak to us or any other number of things. While I don’t doubt there are men like that it has not been my experience. One thing I tell everyone when these types of topics come up is that there are extremists in all walks of life. We have just as many horrible men and women in the US who claim to be christians.
We of course can't speak for the whole country; we don't know for sure. I can only say that in my circle everyone recognizes the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were a sham. I don't know much about Iraq but from what I have seen I genuinely view Iraqis as basically the same as me. Please come visit us if you want to! There are some places that are not particularly welcoming to outsiders (not even other white Americans) but I can't imagine you're trying to visit deep Appalachia... In general, most places I imagine you want to visit will not even bat an eye!
You're VERY nice, thank you! Can't wait to pay a visit. ;) The same goes for Americans, especially those who are interested in ancient civilizations, peaceful places, and delicious food, you guys are welcome here. Iraqi people are known for the best hospitality in the area!
As a Canadian, I am so happy that the wisdom of the day guided our leaders to not participate in the invasion of Iraq. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I think we got that one right.
I'm happy to know that too!
>As a Canadian, I am so happy that the wisdom of the day guided our leaders to not participate in the invasion of Iraq. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I think we got that one right. As someone living in the UK, the whole thing is a despicable decision, but it also absolutely buried Blair and Labour for 20 years, the election this year is the first time they even stand a chance again. The consequences of 14+ years of tories being actively in charge have left us in a very... interesting position to start rebuilding from.
It was a mistake and I felt that way from the onset. I think they used WMD as a reason to invade, thinking they would surely find them, and that Saddam enjoyed taunting Bush, but ultimately it was a bad move. W was not as smart as his father.
Many ordinary people were suspicious of the motives for the Iraq invasion. There were **worldwide protests**. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests\_against\_the\_Iraq\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War) Yet ambitious **polticians & influencers** lead democratic countries to do horrible things. Weak & fearful leaders, succumbed to the pressure/delusion to join the ***coalition.*** A **shame upon the nations that participated**. Leading up to the invasion, there had been years of groundwork, an **intention to invade looking for enough reasons to do so. Misrepresenting information and manipulating the populace.** There **were/are** many Neo-Conservatives that itched to control **foreign oil production** rather than do it through mutually beneficial or multi-lateral agreements. Recognizing the limitations of future oil supplies, and the competitions for it, the leadership of a group called **PNAC generated policy papers that justified invasion/war to control oil.** [**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_for\_the\_New\_American\_Century**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century) **Policy Wonks** worked their way up in American and international political circles. Their philosophy was basically **whatever is good for America is good for everyone else. That is sick.** The Iraq War **proved** the delusion & evil of their goals. I went to many marches in large cities and saw the feelings & concern of 100,000s of people. I am 75 now. I was in my 50s then. Those against the war did what they could to stop the invasion, but fear, greed and ambition is very powerful. I am so sorry for what happened to the Iraqi people. They should have been free to bring justice to Sadam, as they chose and in their own way. Many people felt that way then, and many more think so now. Hind sight helped.
It was Bush Jr doing what his dad couldn’t do. He was probably convinced to invade by Cheney, who had been itching to take out Iraq and probably wanted to move on to Iran. Afghanistan made sense after 9/11, but Iraq was unnecessary as far as I can tell and just overburdened the US in terms of cost and military resources.
That it was bullshit. It was an excuse to get oil and to make people high up that owned stock In military companies a crap ton of money.
Can only speak for myself. But everyone involved in lying to American public about it should be rotting in prison in the Hague. Going to war with Iraq was a moral disaster and I have never been happy to live in the US since it happened. We definitely haven't learned from the mistake though.
I was young i had one coworker flipping out about it. Everyone else was gungho while also being upset about Janet javksons nipple. War good boobs bad. Smartest lady on the room back then.
I believe it was a known thing that Saddam had chemical weapons at some point. Did he use them on his people? I believe so. Did he have them before we invaded? IDK? I also know that you could hide a city in the desert if you digged enough. With that said; the invasion of Iraq due to 9/11 was bs imo. I think it's well known where those people were from, and I doubt we (regular citizens) will ever know the truth. Some people (those I personally know) would say Iraq is a better place now. Some would say not. Who is more correct? IDK? Was it worth the bloodshed; from the innocent civilians and military members? I think not. Ultimately, I believe a lot of politicians and businessmen got richer, and the poor died. There's nothing new here with this. I now question everything, and sure as fuck don't trust any government.
It was a huge mistake. It is pretty obvious now the CIA had acquiesced to the President and fudged reports saying the weapons were there. It was just a pretext. I think most people know this (at least they should). No one with any decency in the US will judge you for being from Iraq.
I grew up in a republican household during the 9/11 Iraq war era. I was a 14 when 911 happened and fully supported the war on terror. Looking back, I bought into all the propaganda and was eager to join the army to fight terrorism. Luckily I ended up down a different path. Into my late 20s I had a paradigm shift of American politics and now believe that the war on terrorism and the Iraq war was based on false pretenses to benefit corporations and the few in power. I think more Republicans today look back at the war in Iraq very similar to how most Americans view the Vietnam War. A pointless war that costed many and benefited few.
“Bush and Cheney for jail” was my bumper sticker for that election.
The Bush family, being Texas oil tycoons, thought they could invade Iraq and steal or get cheap oil. So they lied and said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction so they could start an invasion. That's my take on it anyway.
I think that's what happened too.
Its probably split down the middle. Left wing thinks it was all a lie created by George Bush for his and his friends benefit. Right wing still thinks that middle easterners are all terrorists and that shooting them is cool and patriotic
I don't know, the first person I saw vocally speak out against the war on a big platform was Trump in the debates against Clinton, who voted for the use of military force.
Sadly the information people have/believe can be highly influenced by politics and their region. So "Americans" is hard to put into a single bucket. As others have said, it's widely known that Bush lied. But more importantly, I think most younger Americans at the time of 9/11 were truly unaware of the bubble they were living under, and for those were born post vietnam and grew up in a generally very optimistic US in the 80's and 90's, the iraq war was the first time we saw what a huge mechanism the military industrial complex was. What the US did to Iraq was a crime and a tragedy, but sadder still is the world has not changed even a little bit and I doubt it ever will. We dont have "kings" anymore, but we still live in a world where kingdoms go to war for money, or power, or both, and poor people pay the price. THAT i think is the thing this generation of Americans are aware of more so now than in the past. Which is why trust in government is in an all time low, paving the way for the modern demigods to take over. But we're also living in a time where the powerful are becoming more powerful and the powerless are losing more power. But to answer your question OP, yes the Iraq war has releaved to most americans our own trama and inner turmoil we're struggling to grasp till this day, and we still see those same tragedies happening in other regions of the world today.
Tony Blair managed to get a knighthood for it. That's the biggest joke when he knowingly lied to the British parliament and public and dragged our country into a pointless war because Bush said so.
The 200,000+ dead civilians make it one of the most sinister undertaking in history. GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many soldiers should have been tried for war crimes. Sorry my government directed my country's military to wreck your country and the lives of millions.
Thank you, but don't apologize for that. Governments can be horrible but they don't represent the innocent civilians like you. :)
The US military did a terrorism and killed a whole lot of innocent people. The US military does this a lot, I am appalled by my country's actions each and every day.
Afghanistan war veteran here. I can’t speak for other people but I feel that many people were misled. Also keep in mind that there were two towers that were destroyed, which at the time was considered unthinkable, so many people were angry and looking for the “enemy “. I honestly have no idea if Iraq had any involvement in 9/11 but, I can’t support what happened there. Looking back at what happened in Afghanistan and how it is today, I can’t say much good happened there either.
> I honestly have no idea if Iraq had any involvement in 9/11 I hate Saddam Hussein, he was a foolish dictator who ruined the country. However, it has been confirmed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and Al-Qaeda. If anything, Saddam and Al-Qaeda were enemies. Saddam did not trust extremist Islamists and saw them as a threat to his regime. Al-Qaeda terrorists were mainly Saudis and no single Iraqi. *I'm happy you survived the Afghanistan war.*
Polls a few years into the war, and especially after it was revealed that Iraq never had WMDs and the president ignored all evidence to the contrary, pushed public opinion away from supporting the war effort. These days it isn't controversial to state this war was a mistake. Whether because of greed by Bush, genuinely believing faulty intelligence, or some other reason, most Americans think this was a pointless war and waste of resources.
Can't speak for most Americans but I personally was in favor of killing, or bringing the 9/11 terrorists , to justice .(Afghanistan ) Dubya Bush used the patriotism most of us were feeling at the time, to justify invading Iraq, and I was very much against it . How do you feel about it ?
Here is my personal take on it. We went in there with false pretenses obviously of the claims of WMD's. I am under the impression that Saddam needed to be out of power whether it be by a CIA sponsored revolution against him or an outright invasion of Iraq, there is evidence that he was killing minorities for decades in a systematic extermination. Of course the US went in with false pretenses although you could certainly argue in a humanitarian need as a justifiable reason. But the biggest issue for me with Iraq wasn't the invasion itself, but rather how everything was handled with the constant bombing campaigns and the dozens of displacement and refugees. Hard to argue any idea of coming in for humanitarian purposes when we are killing 500,000+ iraqis in the process. That amount of bloodshed didn't need to happen but it still did. The opinion I find from many from iraq is that, they want the freedom they have now but want the stability of the Saddam regime. We shouldn't have put people in charge that were out for their own motives Aka persecuting the Sunni minority that once was Saddams sect of Islam. Once powerless, the minority has no support and were suppressed which lead them into the hands of ISIS when they rose as a result of Displaced frustrated Muslims in a war torn environment we created.
I'd say that a lot of Americans are too young to have been aware of international politics and what was going on in 2003. Even fewer are aware of went on with Iran and the CIA in '54. 911 happened just two years before and Americans generally were on a 'war footing' due to selective media coverage and the Bush admin narrative. As for the Boomers, my guess is that while many were aware of the games the GW Bush admin and Tony Blair were playing and how they gamed the UN that it never occurred to most of them that they were lying to the world in order to invade Iraq to commit a massive slaughter in order to steal natural resources while waging a 'war' to please Israel (probably to derail a threatened Israeli attack on Iran). Government control of media narratives started in earnest around then and has been picking up speed ever since.
Unless you're going to very conservative areas, most people you encounter are likely aware that the Iraq invasion was justified under false pretenses. Where I live there is a large population of Chaldeans so we are used to encountering Iraquis as they own a lot of local businesses. When you visit you will see people of many different ethnicities coexisting peacefully. Don't get me wrong, racism abounds in certain pockets and we have a big problem with the police going after Black people. But you will not be going to those places as a tourist. Please don't be fooled by the media focus on rednecks and MAGA freaks. That's just to sell advertising and doesn't represent most of America.
Most Americans, in my experience, now know that Bush lied about WMDs, but they don't think the invasion or subsequent war crimes were bad or wrong. Most Americans also cannot pick Iraq out on a map, nor do they differentiate between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, or any other middle eastern country. They think virtually every citizen in every middle eastern country (besides the US satellite state of Israel) is a freedom hating terrorist and that bombing them is justified to protect our freedom and way of life. Basically the same justifications coming out of Israel to condone their latest genocide campaign in Palestine. What you have to understand about the United States is that from birth we are constantly indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe that it is us against the world and we are the sole defender of freedom and democracy that must bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world in the form of endless wars to install people in power who are sympathetic to US goals. And if we just so happen to secure resources along the way then those are just the spoils of war that we have earned. Things are getting better now with the internet. More and more young people are seeing for themselves the realities of these situations and how they differ so much from the official narrative we're fed, but it's not easy to just deprogram a whole nation of people. These days simply stating a fact backed up with ample evidence from universally accepted reliable sources is just met with insults or accusations of being a troll or a bot. Which, of course, is the new narrative being spread by our media. Has your community been able to recover at all since US armed forces left? If it's any small consolation, we see you and we're sorry and ashamed of what our government did to your country. If we had a democracy, we wouldn't have allowed that to happen.
I obviously have no love for Saddam and get great satisfaction at thinking of him hiding in a hole in the ground while his regime crumbled around him, and there’s a sort of American pride at how professional and effective the initial invasion was conducted, but aside from that it was a disaster. Legally there was no justification for our war there. The Bush administration lied out their asses to even get us involved, and it was completely illegal. Morally it was indefensible as it resulted in suffering for an entire generation and millions of unnecessary deaths. Politically it was stupid as it alienated our allies and destabilized the entire region, creating MORE extremism and terrorism instead of the stated goal of eliminating those things. Economically it was a disaster, as we wasted over a decade of lives, money, and resources which could have been used to better our own country instead of ruining someone else’s.
I mean I think it's stupid and we never should've but I have no idea whether that's the norm, i don't talk about it much
our government lied to us and death and destruction resulted. no WMD's, which was the main casus belli. i can't believe we just hand-wave it away. idk we should be holding those politicians accountable, trialing them, and paying reparations or something. i assume saddam houssein really was a bad man, because it seems to be a commonly shared opinion, but i dont know much more than that. i think myself and a lot of other americans were confused when we know we went to afganhistan to find the taliban after 9/11 and later we're in iraq like wait wtf?????
In school (at least when I was growing up which was during the war) we were taught the most vague info on it. Nothing made the US look bad, and it all pointed to 9/11 being the big start of it all. We were told it was a war on terror. But I was raised by a dad who really doesn't like war and keeps an eye on what's actually happening, so I learned through him that the war wasn't necessary or called for in any way. As I grew older, I learned about the lies and the BS the government pushed to justify war that was really about money and pushing a narrative. Ngl looking back on it all, I'm glad my dad was vocal about his anti-military views. My high school did everything to push students to join the military and our curriculum was very pro-military. I had a few friends join and regret it because they didn't know any better.
It was a thing
I think a lot of people got REALLY rich.
To be clear, even Donald trump has said the Iraq war was a dumb idea. In other words, you have the current leading right winger against a war that was lead by right wingers. Yeah, most Americans now think it was a terrible thing.
George Bush lied and played upon our fear after 9/11 to go after Saddam Hussein. (He wanted to show his dad that he did something that his father couldn’t.) When Hussein was overthrown and Iraqis celebrated by toppling his statues I thought that we did a good thing. But history has proved us wrong. I hope you all have recovered.
Most people my age (mid 20s) don't really think about it at all. We grew up with America being in the Middle East as just a normal thing. I've never really seen anyone support it at all and everyone seems to be in favor of us having finally gotten out, but nobody really cared that much either.
I think part of the problem is that world history, and education in general about the rest of the world, is NOT mandated to be done well (or even at all) in public schools. (Nationwide, that is) So people only really HEAR or UNDERSTAND most other countries through things like war, or when they personally travel. I'd say most people bought the lie, after 9/11. I think it was an easy lie to sell, because "Iraq" wasn't a real place with real people in most American's minds. It was a vague place pretty much interchangeable with all the other countries and cultures nearby. I'd say most Americans now understand it was lie. And really, really don't like having been lied to. And especially not with how much money it cost to hurt you all over there, while we're simultaneously told there's not enough money for basic services here in the US. I'd say most people are tired of spending money to destroy other places while we "don't have enough" to build ourselves up. But also, I don't think people's general education about Iraq, or any other country in Middle East, (or most other places), has gotten a whole lot better. We still don't really know the history and culture of places outside of the European countries that it's common for people to travel to as tourists. I think until we can, as a population, become more educated on more places, we'll (as a whole) still be relatively easy to lie to about the reality of other countries, and the people who live there. That being said, I think people are ALSO on the whole more skeptical about being told we need to invade other countries. But the average citizen feels pretty disempowered to DO anything with our disapproval.
There are basically 3 groups in America. One buys everything they were told "Iraq had weapons" and was involved in 9/11 Another doesn't really follow any news but has a vague idea Iraq was involved with 9/11 and wmd's The third group knows full well bush lied about wmd's and used the war as a pretext to invade Iraq. Heck he put more there by Far than the Actual country bin laden was in. The lied Massively and got away with it. Obviously I and lost everyone I know is in the last group. As for present, lots of stuff about how Iraq is back to curtailing advances in human rights, but I'm not up on much really.
Hi OP! I'd very much like a new Iraqi friend, as far as I know I'm a nice American (lol) and think it would be really awesome to learn about your culture, history, food, and the region you're from. I always thought that the wmd thing was absolute bull, and am totally against all war, period. I don't think it's right for the old men that have crummy views to send the young men into war to die. I hope to hear from you OP, can't wait to have a new friend to discuss things with!
Many many people did believe it at the time! The internet was small and not widespread and lots of people didn't have the resources to verify information. No Google or Wikipedia. Nowadays I think most that did believe it know better, especially those of us who were young at the time and couldn't know any better. Visiting is going to depend on where you go and who you meet. Big cities are more diverse and welcoming in general, and smaller towns are going to be more hit or miss. To be fair, USAmericans will largely not know that you're from Iraq unless you say so, and will probably just lump you into a "middle eastern" category. You'll probably be called Indian more than anything else.
I think a lot of the less educated people just loop Iraq into a general pool with the Taliban and Afghanistan, which isn't fair.
Most Americans don’t care..they say they don’t like it and blame the politicians but don’t actually do anything to change it
Saddam Hussein was obviously not a great guy to say the least. However, the reasons given for invading were false. Even if true, it’s not they weren’t really reasons that couldn’t be applied to other countries ruled by a despot. We had no business invading Iraq.
Many Americans knew it was a scam from the beginning. Bush told everyone he “knew things” that he did not know. I think most Americans now are aware of what happened.
Most of us know it was a terrible mistake based on a lie.
I don't know what most people think, but I think a *lot* of people are aware that it was mostly bullshit, or at the very least real sketchy. I personally am embarrassed that we invaded the Middle East period; it has been a total shitshow that we still haven't "fixed." And the invasion of Iraq specifically is a huge clusterfuck.
some of us knew it was bullshit then, most of us now know it was definitely bullshit, but there is a vocal minority that will go to their graves believing it was the right thing to do.
I was in 10 when 9/11 happened. I understood going to Afghanistan, to an extent. But when the news started 5alking about going to Iraq, I couldn't understand why. My family couldn't explain it to me in a way that ever made sense. And the as i got older, I started to see the bigger picture. I grew up to see that it was just a war for oil, after a time. My uncle was in the military at the time and was among those who raided one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, or maybe it was just a very rich place tied to him. He bragged about the AWFUL and heinous things he did during that time. He was a psychopath before he joined the army, and his time in Iraq made it much worse because he had an outlet. I am truly sorry for what he and others like him did while there.
well, keep in mind that many Americans believe big-time professional wrestling is real. So there's that.
It was bullshit, and ultimately was conducted to benefit the GOP and its donors. And everyone that could have stopped it from happening didn't, because if they seriously tried, they'd have been branded as "anti-American," and a vast majority of Americans would have agreed.
We're mostly just sorry.
Anyone paying attention to the official group searching for WMD, before US invaded, knew that nothing was found and that Bush was lying. I was personally so irritated with him that I put an ´Impeach Bush’ sign on my lawn and kept it there until Obama won.
I can tell you that my experience, living in Idaho at the time of 9/11, and having family in the Middle East, I continuously found people having blind faith in the American story of what we were doing and why we were doing it, even though it was completely nonsensical. I was going to college and regularly upset people in class discussions. Years later I’d bet most people I know question the American narrative.
I was about to honestly say nothing. I'm glad this inst a new event I missed. Not glad it happened though. Most of the wars the USA has been involved with if not all since wwII have been motivated by greed and money and to "help" them get democracy. All of it's a farce for other agendas and always will be.
I’m still devastated by depression about the War in Iraq, and I had nothing to do with it besides being American. Deeply ashamed of the war criminals who run our country. Free Julian Assange!
Many of us thought it (the invasion of Iraq) was a massive, colossal blunder and a disaster -- for the US and Iraq. Just stupid beyond belief. And, many of our main media outlets were real cheerleaders for the Bush Administration in the run up to the invasion. Many of the massive protests here in NYC and elsewhere were not covered by the media. Truly a disgraceful low point in US history. I say this as a veteran too (my time was well before that war, but just puttin' it out there).
Entirely indifferent.
The premise for the invasion was flawed. Saddam was a bad dude and I think they thought the Iraqi people would embrace democracy ASAP.
It breaks my heart to say this, but most Americans *don’t* think about Iraq.
Despite it polling well in 2003, the vast majority of people alive at the time it happened will claim they were always against it and the the Bush administration made a misleading case. Personally, I recognized Saddam was terrible and while it would be good to have a democracy there instead, it was still bad to wage war on that kind of a "revolutionary" principle rather than an actual clear threat, and Saddam was no threat to the US and had no ties to 9-11. I also didn't trust the administration to actually do a good job with the occupation. Then, when the invasion happened, the occupation was a fiasco and it was obvious there was no real, hard thought on how to maintain order in the post-war environment (and those who talked about what was needed were disregarded). The biggest example of this was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army with no real kind of thought or analysis, especially the question of "what do we do with these people who are trained and have access to weapons?" The occupations of German and Japan all had a very large amount of effort to co-opt the existing elite and use them to keep things functioning, provided they weren't guilty of major war crimes.
The feeling from most of the people I knew in 2001 was that Saddam probably had some WMDs. Most people thought he had some kind of half-assed program to manufacture chemical weapons. Only the most hardcore Republicans I knew thought he had a fully-functional, dangerous weapons program that was being used to fund or arm global terrorism. Most people I knew basically thought that Bush was making up excuses to go into Iraq, probably to get oil. They under-estimated the level of war profiteering that would eventually happen, though. I remember a guy telling me that all he had to do was roll down to the quartermaster and say he wanted a big screen TV for his barracks, and they were handing them out like candy. It was pretty crazy. I would say these days, opinions vary widely. Most young people I know are sadly just clueless. The occupation of Iraq was never really like, a critical part of their lives unless they come from military families. For most young people, Iraq is just really far away and not very interesting. They have a vague feeling that we should've have been there, but it's pretty abstract. They think of Iraq the same way they think of anywhere "way over there" like South Korea. Most of them resent the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the occupation, because that money presumably could've been spent on stuff like health care over here, and working class Americans have been struggling for some time now. The hard-core conservatives I know are pretty disappointing. I know a couple of guys who think Iraqi citizens should show more gratitude towards Americans, and Iraq should do stuff like hold pro-American parades and donate oil to the US to repay the costs of war. Those views aren't the mainstream at all (they're pretty radical, in fact) but I have seen it in a few people.
We should have just lit $2 trillion on fire and stayed home instead.
2nd one? 100% fake because the loser of the presidency was attempting to legitimize his office
American here, and MENA background. I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, Arab capital of the USA. My dad is Egyptian. I grew up with Lebanese, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Kurds, Muslims from various sects, Copts, etc. Most of us thought Saddam was a brutal shithead, but knew the WMD thing was bullshit and just an excuse to get rid of him. It's always about oil... just like Kuwait was. And, as we all predicted, once Saddam was gone, we absolutely knew Iraq would be destroyed, and in his place a new, more fundamentalist government would end up in power. The US is really great at creating the fundamentalist Islamic regimes they claim to be against.
It was a terrible idea and I was opposed to it back in 2003
I know it’s BS now that I’m grown up, but when I was a little girl my dad was deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan several times. This was closer to the end of Desert Storm and I was too little to understand, grandparents and mom would just tell me my dad was overseas in “country” fighting for our country and against bad guys. Then when he got back my dad would mention that the actual citizens were very nice and would even give him and his squad mates food and fruit but that the Taliban were the bad guys. That’s all I ever really heard about it as a child, except for all the 9/11 confusion in school. Teachers never really could give you a clear answer as to what happened. I was being fed an unhealthy amount of misinformation about it as a child.
I generally agree with what most people are already saying here, that it was a lie and and completely criminal. We had no business being there. Having said that, I'll add that I work in a community and an industry where there are a lot of Chaldeans, and they're some of the best people I've ever worked around. Very helpful, charitable, and hard working.
It was another bullshit war that the US should not have started. I take a very anti-US stance in regards to Iraq.
I'm 41. I can tell you most people my age and older believe they were against the war the whole time. They weren't though. I remember. But I guess better late than never.
Quora is literally all misinformation. If you seriously want to know what most Americans think about this or anything, google again, but this time look for opinion polls done by reputable companies, not individual opinions. Reddit people are not a good representative sample of Americans; we're different in many respects. It's a self-selected population, and every subreddit is a self-selected subpopulation within it. My impression is that opinion has turned against the war, but my impression isn't an accurate sample or based on one. That said, you might be asking the wrong question. Your concern is how you'll be received and get along with us. (Possibly you're visibly Middle Eastern?) Don't worry 'bout a thing. Americans are famously friendly and open and companionable. You'll get along with people even if they have different political views, about Iraq or anything else. You'll be well received and not judged. Come, relax, enjoy.
Im english and over here it’s seen as a fucking disgrace. Tony Blair is known as a war criminal and any mention of him incites anger and disgust
Oh, and about Americans thinking Iraq applies Sharia... they literally think Iraq and Iran are basically the same country. They have no idea the differences between Islamic countries, or even between Shia and Sunni and Sufi, and Wahhabi or Salafi Islam. Iraq being more or less balanced between the two major sects of Islam while Iran are pretty die hard Shiites means nothing to them.
Useless war and needless death all because of lies.
Now that the public has been made aware of the truth—no WMDs, and the trigger-happy military only had suspicions based on evidence that was questionable at best—**I think the invasion was a mistake**. Back then, I was just a teenager, and I didn't have much opinion on it one way or the other. Since then, now that I'm much more older and wiser, I've come to realize just how deep corruption can run.... **I think Bush's real motivation: Money.** He spent an ungodly amount of money in the name of war, and it made his DoD and oil contractor friends uber rich. It was a massive conflict of evidence, and no one seemed to care or even bother to look into it at the time. He took advantage of most people's willingness to be blindly patriotic, riding the coat tails of 9/11. A big part of my opinion is connecting the dots in my mind as I got older, realizing that Bush had Powell, a high-up retired general, present evidence that was grossly misinterpreted and way too unreliable to present publicly, much less grounds to invade a country. Congress and the public were very familiar with Powell from the first Gulf War and respected him. However, he was the Secretary of *State*, not the Secretary of War. Rumsfeld should have been the most well-informed about the situation, not Powell. Why would Bush pressure Powell to present shoddy evidence and make it look as legit as possible? Why would he take so much risk of human life and be willing to disrupt large portions of geopolitics on tiny shreds of (unreliable) proof? Money. His *policy* might have been fiscal conservatism, but that sure wasn't his actual behavior. He spent money like water. **All this to say again—I believe the invasion was a mistake.**
I want to tag a couple of thoughts on this post if I may. I can remember vividly watching colon Powell say that they had weapons of mass destruction and he thought we should invade and I knew it was a done deal we were going to do it, because, like you said, there was a tremendous amount of respect for him. I think that is why we haven’t seen anything from him since then either is because he was lied to and then lied to the people. Another reason that Bush wanted to get in there was to finish what his dad started. The first gulf war was a military success but what it failed to do was remove Saddam Hussein from power. Saddam was a thorn in the side of US foreign policy, and that was a blemish on his dad’s record, so Bush Junior wanted him out. The truly evil people here were Cheney and Rumsfeld. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but those two were in every republican White House since Nixon, in one way or another. They were the ones driving this bus.
Saddam gassed entire villages, and killed/tortured anyone who opposes him (even his family). Not allowing UN to do checks in his country, and bragging he was nukes was too much of a risk for the US. Remember he did invade Kuwait.
It was a tragic unforced error based on a lie.
I was too young to understand and thought it was because of 9/11. I'd wager a big chunk of Americans still think so too. Looking back not, it definitely warrant such actions and the prolonged occupation that took place afterwards.
Petro-dollar
My cousin Pvt. Kelley Prewitt died there after being ambushed on the way in. He was driving a humvee full of ammunition. He joined the army in the fall of 2002. He was dead 11 months later.
I asked my dad when I was 14 why we were in Iraq if "Afghanistan" (which we now know was the Saudis/Bush) did 9/11? So if a dumbass teenager was able to see through the facade, I would hope most Americans were able to as well. Most people that I know (I live in Texas) know that the Iraq War was based around lies to enrich Halliburton and other defense contractors, and that 9/11 was the perfect excuse to expand military operations worldwide for no real reason. Just like how Isreal is using 10/7 to do expand their ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Empire never lets a good tragedy go to waste right? That said, there are certainly a decent chunk of Americans (usually conservatives) who will still "RAHH MURICA" no matter what adventurous nonsense the military is performing overseas. It's an embarrassing waste of resources in my opinion.
God damn travesty that it ever happened. Most Americans would like to run the clock back in that one.
Any American with intelligence would not judge you for being Iraqi. Here’s some info that Americans should know by now concerning the war in Iraq. Bush administration had an improper relationship with Halliburton, the company where Dick Cheney was CEO from 1995 until he left in 2000 to run for vice president. In the run-up to the Iraq War, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which only Halliburton was allowed to bid. The US should have never went into Iraq to begin with, Afghanistan was already questionable imo.
I knew Bush was lieing before we even stepped foot Iraq. We had no business over there
To answer the most salient part of your question, I don't think people are mad at Iraqis about the war. No one will probably treat you as personally responsible for it. A hypothetical American probably won't be able to recognize you as specifically Iraqi, and if you bring it up, they might get uncomfortable. I think it is something that feels like ancient history to a lot of us, especially those of us <30. It was on the news pretty often, and we had some fun songs on the playground about how much we hated Saddam Hussein, but generally speaking that war hasn't been terribly popular and when it's talked about nowadays it's almost always followed by the words "and Afghanistan".
I know you asked about the USA but I’m in UK and we were also complicit. I have to say that people nowadays hardly ever think about or discuss the Iraq War, it’s as though it’s dropped from the public consciousness. Even ten years ago, the Labour Party’s involvement with the war was a meaningful subject of discussion in politics but now they’re expected to form the next government and I’ve not heard anybody raise the war. I guess we’ve witnessed so many more conflicts since then that people don’t really have the bandwidth.
and the same Americans that have seen the truth about the Iraq war. are now brainwashed to believe Russia is the enemy. no, Russia is not the enemy. NATO is. bunch of brainwashed clowns. they were brainwashed about Iraq. they are now being brainwashed about Russia. and they insist that it's Russia at fault, yet NATO parks it's satanic missiles at the front yard of Russia. cringe, sheeple.
Waste of money. Huge waste of money.
I've been thinking a lot about Iraq with what is going on in Israel/Gaza right now. We are seeing so much needless civilian deaths there and it pales in comparison to what we did to Iraq.
Myself and most people my age are very angry about the war. It's a big part of why there's a big disconnect from millennials on down to the Boomer generation. We see it as we were lied to growing up about how we were doing good, trying to save lives from a brutal tyrannt who was a threat to us building WMDs, engaging in one of my earliest memories which was 9-11. Only to find out as we grew up that we caused a lot of the issues over there, there was no WMD, and our government was responsible for horrendous war crimes like not being very careful with drone attacks, torcher,and instead of it being about preventing worse attacks on us, while saving innocent civilians from hords of unwanted moral police who would stone a woman to death because she tripped and her ankle was seen, we were there because of freaking oil because a war was better than transitioning to different power sources. Yeah we're very unhappy.
It was a war of propaganda rooted in racism and Islamophobia, and only happened to make people money via the military industrial complex. Our country killed both Iraq citizens and our own military personnel for selfish gains. It was and still is disgusting. And yes, we know the weapons of mass destruction, and about the Al-Qaeda lie.
I know more about the Mongol invasion than the American invasion. But Iraqi food is bomb and a bunch of you guys came over here in the 90s and where chill.
Well reddit attracts a particular demographic politically speaking so this won't be representative of what "most" Americans think. That being said, I'm fairly confident the vast majority of Americans know that the invasion was executed under false pretenses. Many of us knew there were no weapons of mass destruction pretty early on into the invasion. Anybody who pays any kind of attention to current events knows that al Qaeda, 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was a mistake at best, or horrific at worst but in reality probably falls somewhere in between. I've never been to Iraq and never will, but my understanding is there was a lot of positive reception to American forces when we first arrived and deposed Saddam. But we topped the country with no plan to reconstruct and then abandoned the project entirely, and that obviously soured Iraqi opinion of the whole affair, understandably so. Anyway, for what it's worth I'm deeply saddened by what we did to your country. Deposing Saddam might've been good for your people, but destroying the country and abandoning the mess was wrong and bad for the world. We should've stayed and rebuilt.
Considering that we deposed Saddam Hussein, I think its a net positive. Additionally, Saddam is at fault to a certain degree for convincing US intelligent that he may have WMD's but that's not a discussion for today. I could care less about the justification, Saddam was a monster.
People in this country were scared and enraged by 9/11 and in this state of mind they were looking for an enemy. Our then President and his shitty cronies that I believe already wanted an excuse to invade for the own reasons jumped on it. They created another disaster in response to another and an appalling number of lives were destroyed. Then we occupied for FOREVER because they felt invested and I think didn’t want to admit they were wrong. I think it and Afghanistan have made the public here a lot more weary of war in general. I think Ukraine would be an actual justified intervention but people don’t even want to help now when it’s the rare justification case.
God, looks like no one in this comment sections even knows that the Iran-IRaq war existed or anything about the atrocities Saddam put his own people through (torture, attempted ethnic cleansing of the kurdish people, etc).