The last possible justification that didn't turn out to be a complete and blatant lie for Bush's invasion of Iraq was the attempt to bring freedom and democracy. Now, I have been to the middle east, and it is not a free place. Usually a result of strict Islamic doctrine and teachings, minorities, women, and foreigners are rarely respected, often subject to beatings, taunting, intimidation, rape, and pure murder. So if someone can add a bit of freedom and justice to this land, more power to them.However, as we have seen since the fall of the Baathist regime in Iraq, the situation has deteriorated so badly that the minorities and women that actually had a degree of protection, possibly one of the best protections in the Arab world, are now subject to the whims of armed gangs and Islamists. Women now are forced to wear the head scarf (hijab) or the full face covering Burqa, have litte freedom of movement, cannot retain jobs (thus losing their livelihoods), and have been subject to rampant sexual assaults.
Christians and other minorities are now subjected to forced conversions to Islam, kidnappings, murder, etc. As a result, an ethnic cleansing is in progress. The security situation is so bad, that instead of greater freedom and democracy, the opposite has happened, with few liberties formerly taken for granted no longer possible, and the democracy so highly spoken of ushering in a strict Shiite power base. Tyrrany of the majority is a pretty scary thing when Sharia (Islamic Law) is supported by most of the electorate.
How could the Republican Guard (and its conservative war-hawks) be so utterly incompetent as to not realize that this was going to happen? Or perhaps, this is yet another lie in their bullshit list of reasons to invade that they knew was false. If so, then this war and all the deaths have been to secure oil all along, or should I say oil profits for Bush's biggest campaign contributors.
