My friend, you are king of the Red Herring fallacy.
........."I love how the dems seem to forget that Bush didn't start this war."
OK...Then I'll bite....Who did start this war? (& please dont try to spin Iraq into being involved in the 9/11/2001 attacks that even the Bush admin admitts they had nothing to do with)
OK...Let me get this straight......Al Quieda, using mainly Sauid Arabian nationals, attacks us on 9/11/2001 from a planning base in Afganistan &, to retaliate............We invade Iraq!? ( sounds like a great idea!! .....If GW Bush had been President at the time of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, should we have invaded Fiji???...Nah...How about Sweden? (can never trust those sneaky Swedes!)
Well, if you REALLY want to get specific, Kennedy started this war when he implemented a sales policy of US-made weapons to Iraq; Reagan added to it when he sold arms to Iran and Afghanistan to thwart (then) the USSR's "invasion;" Clinton then made the decision to retaliate for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait; Bush is dealing with the mess of a foreign policy that has been screwed more times than my ex-wife; and the UN is doing what they do best: Absolutely nothing but relying on the US to mop up their mess.
And where in the WORLD, in any single one of my posts, anywhere at all on these forums for any time that I have been here, have I ever once stated that Bush went into Iraq because of 9/11?
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be combative... But don't put words in my mouth. I never claimed the Iraq war was a result of 9/11, nor do I believe it is or was. That tangent isn't going to fly with me, bro.
Iraq and Afghanistan are indeed tied together in many ways. The correlation isn't 9/11 though - it's in their political agreements and arrangements. I'm not going to sit here and lecture history, but a few facts:
Afghanistan is what's known as a "faction state." That is, tribal wars (not unlike S Africa) control the country's influences, not any established government. When the Taliban came to power as the authoritive figurehead faction circa 1984, A-Stan basically became an Opiate cash cow ruled by terror. We should know this, as we sold them the small arms and missiles and munitions to accomplish their stranglehold when they resisted Russia as an opposing force (the US has vested interest in A-Stan's political and geographical position).
Sadam has always been known as a terrorist collaborater. Always. Sadam met many, many times with Al-Queda leaders in private - these ramped up after UN weapon inspectors filed a complaint that Sadam was moving WMDs from location to location and stalling their efforts to inspect suspected caches of what was then thought to be a variation of Mustard gas that was used on the village of [whatever it was called] that massacred the Kurds and their resistance of the Iranian fundamentalists.
In 1990, Sadam ordered an invasion of Kuwait, a UN-protected nation.
Then-president Clinton followed the UN resolution to repel this attack, at which time the council embargoed Iraq and formed the coalition to stop Sadam. After we whipped his ass like the child he was, we established no-fly zones, weapons inspections, and demanded he comply with orders to stop torturing collaborators and cease any talks with any established terrorist organizations.
Sadam refused compliance by tap dancing around all of these issues, constantly toeing the line, and the idiot that was Clinton pulled us out anyway as mission complete.
Over the next 10 years, Sadam met hundreds of times with senior Al-Queda leaders. They did business together. His terror continued. A-Stan prospered from the alliance formed and the Talliban was given what basically amounts to free reign of the area. Then Iran jumped on board, ending the Iraq conflict for a common enemy: The United States. The infidels.
When 9/11 occurred, America finally said "enough is enough" and we went to the heart of the problem: We nailed both A-Stan and Iraq. So there IS correlation, but not in the way you choose to look at it.
If we just did A-Stan, the Talliban moves to Iraq. If we just do Iraq, they stay in A-Stan. Either way, our soil gets violated eventually. That is the way of warring against idealogical fanatics killing in the name of their god.
Iraq has needed attention for 40+ years. We've ignored it. Finally America is off its ass with a 52-card deck of what amounts to people that should have been assassinated were it not for the squeemish liberals that view death as intolerable. The CIA could have ended this war before it ever started, but noooooooo.... God forbid killing happens. Right to a fair trial and all that garbage that these people aren't afforded because they aren't members of the Geneva Convention (by their own choosing).
If Clinton would have just ended this when we (the military) told him to, we'd be in a much less of a pickle than we are now. Instead, we've created more of our own problems. It's not only his fault - lots of things led to this mess. And GW isn't helping matters, that's for sure.