LABJ FORUM – Second Thoughts

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LABJ FORUM – Second Thoughts

Last week, President Bush took some political hits after reports and photographs showed alleged torture of Iraqi war prisoners. Even before that, public support for the war, once very high, had diminished as the casualties mounted. So the Business Journal asks:

In retrospect, do you think the war in Iraq was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?

Travis Preston

Artistic Director

The Center for New Theater at CalArts

I continue to be opposed to the war in Iraq. It was a poor decision for our country and created a more dangerous international environment. There was no coherent exit strategy. There was very thin evidence of weapons of mass destruction. And we did not have sufficient ally support. Our long-term security interests were not served by this action.

John Peretz

President

Fireball Marketing Inc.

In retrospect, we may have opened up a can of worms that will take some time to sort out. Hindsight is always 20/20, but knowing what we know now, I wouldn’t have done it.

Christina Porter

Vice President

NAI Capital Commercial

What’s happened since then is pretty scary, but what a hard decision to make. I think something had to be done about Saddam Hussein because of the human rights violations. Something had to be done, and if that’s what had to be done to change that, it’s justified.

Lee Kanon Alpert

Founding Partner

Alpert & Barr LLC

I don’t know. If the only reasons to go in were the reasons given, and those turn out not to be true, was it justified to go in? Probably not. It’s clear that even if we went in for the right reasons, we didn’t have in place a defined plan to get out.

Dave Burtch

Vice President, Marketing

AmeriTel Inc.

It was the right thing to do. I think this nation has a moral obligation to share some of our largesse with the rest of the world to make sure we don’t have criminal dictators stealing from and abusing their citizens. I also believe there are links to terrorism there, if nothing other than funding. That needed to be cleaned out. If we can persuade some of these countries to become good citizens, the whole world benefits.

Peter Welkin

Owner

Welkin World Services

Ultimately I feel like it’s none of our business to be in countries like that, trying to instigate democratic processes where they are not natural. It’s very telling that the world has a view of U.S. that is rather tarnished these days based on our efforts to control things in other countries.

Brian Doherty

Senior Editor

Reason Magazine

The war has been a mistake. It has cost America tremendously in terms of lives and money and international moral standing. It saddles us with probably an eternal commitment to remake a mess of a nation for no obvious benefit to us in terms of American security or interests. The mission now is to pacify a country that is difficult and dangerous to manage and in attempting to manage it, we’re damaging our credibility and moral standing.

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