1. The war is based on lies.
The term "based on" may be a bit much, but to remove myself from a lengthy semantic argument, I'll simply say: yes. Yes, politicians use lies, spin, and shaded truths to bring us to war. Heck, maybe not "often," but "always." Lincoln did it. FDR did it. JFK and Nixon too. Even friendly ol' Bill Clinton did it. While I won't exclude power-drunk megalomania as a minor rationale for such lies, the primary motivation is a little more self-fulfilled than that. It is this very obsession with simple, absent-of-detail reasoning that people want, combined with war's inherent need to move a heck of a lot quicker than public opinion moves, that puts us in the situation where war is always peppered with such falsehoods in the short-term. As ironic as it may seem, one of the reasons for the lies is that such lies inherently will become all people want to focus on.
2. There is no link between Iraq and 9/11.
This is correct, there is not. However, we're not fighting 9/11. 9/11 already happened, and the sheer majority of the actual perpetrators are either dead or irrelevant now. We are, nonetheless, fighting terrorism. Terrorism is a concept- a mentality- not a nation nor event a group of people. To think Iraq doesn't play some role in this mentality is, well, simpleton.
3. We're sacrificing soldiers for oil.
There are statistics readily available to anyone that show how much oil we could get from Iraq as compared to the rest of the world (including our own nation.) There is also no Santa Claus.
I'll clump the rest of the specific issues in under the category of "and so on." They all fit a common theme- or, more aptly, they're all missing a common point: a long-term perceptive of the military strategies, sociological effects, and historical ramifications of the war. Short-term, maybe. However, short-term is as easy as it is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Again, it is important to keep in mind that none of the above is an argument for or against the war in Iraq. In the current national debate, we're not even there yet!
I will, however, offer up the real issues that should be driving the debate against or for the war. Whether or not such issues actually ever do enter today's fray (don't worry, they won't), it is these issues that the war's success hinges on, regardless.
As a caveat, if you're thinking of standing outside President Bush's ranch in Texas, shouting about your feelings on the following issues, you most likely will not get a lot of media coverage. The real complexities of- and questions about- war are, quite frankly, boring to most people. Nevertheless, if someone has to sacrifice their chance in the spotlight of the national partisan bickering contest, it may as well be me.
Alas, the real issues:
1. Isolationism versus nation building.
Simply put, are we safer by ignoring the political and sociological problems between other nations, or by meddling here and there to create situations where attacking the US is either more difficult or less desirable?
