Great, that would have worked.
You sure love those Iraqis, let them suffer at the hands of that murderer.
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Great, that would have worked.
You sure love those Iraqis, let them suffer at the hands of that murderer.
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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You are moving the goalpost, oldhat. Go read the congressional authorization for war. You will find many reasons given for why we invaded. WMD's were but one, Saddam's connection to terrorist organizations (al Qaeda isn't the only terrorist group) were quite real, and there were other reasons as well.
Sure, especially when the US was supplying him with all of the nerve gas he was using to wipe them out and Reagan/Bush were looking the other way.
Republicans become chest beating champions of human rights once there's either a) oil involved or b) a chance to start a war of choice and test out all of this way cool advanced weaponry to live out their Tom Clancy fantasies.
P.S. Gulf War 1 started because our oily Kuwaiti friends were stealing Iraqi oil and Iraq was side-drilling to get it back. I read all about it in a series of reports on "Iraqgate" in the Marxist-Leninist Financial Times back in '91-'92. HTH.
Yes, who could forget how Saddam tried to kill Bush's daddy?
Hell of a reason to start a war.
DC
Banned
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Times have changed. Ten years ago, the systematic gassing of the Kurdish population of northern Iraq had far less impact on America. Only six months after the slaughter at Halabja, the White House lent Saddam Hussein another billion dollars. And in 1991, at the end of the Gulf war, US troops stood idly by while Saddam’s presidential guard ruthlessly suppressed the popular uprising by the Kurds for which the American president had himself called.
http://mondediplo.com/1998/03/04iraqkn
Iraq before 2003:
- Autocratic murderous regime controlling every part of the population's life through fear and intimidation
- Crippling sanctions
- Minorities heavily persecuted
- Ties with terror groups
- No hope
Iraq after 2003
- A new constitution
- An elected government
- No more international sanctions
- Free media
- Kurds have political autonomy
and so on.
- Autocratic murderous regime controlling every part of the population's life through fear and intimidation
- Crippling sanctions
- Minorities heavily persecuted
- Ties with terror groups
- No hope
Iraq after 2003
- A new constitution
- An elected government
- No more international sanctions
- Free media
- Kurds have political autonomy
and so on.
Darth Rotor
Salted Sith Cynic
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Do your sums. (interesting source from columbia univ on line: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1860a-02.pdf )
US population in 1860 was a bit over 31 million. Civil war cost the US half a million dead. So, for freedom (or whatever it was we fought over, ending slavery, preserving the Union, what have you) it looks as though about 1.7% dead was a price worth paying.
The bulk of the butcher's bill in this particularly Iraqi War is a case of a civil war. (No question, American action made that civil war possible sooner rather than later.)
Missing from this particular tab, a focus on the dead, is the 1-2 million Iraqis who have fled, or been internally displaced. (Numbers may be a bit higher, but IIRC over a million have left the country as best can be accounted for.)
DR
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DC
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Using your logic, it's funny how much conservatives love North Koreans or Iranians, i.e. not at all. What happened to the "Axis of Evil," conservatives and the great moral crusade of human rights and liberation we're supposed to be embarking on? Is that no longer operative?
Darth Rotor
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Darth Rotor
Salted Sith Cynic
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Axis of Evil was a nonsensical bit of rhetoric when it was uttered, and remains nonsensical no matter who uses it, to include you.
DR
Ziggurat
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I've heard this accusation plenty of times. What I have never heard is any details about what, specifically, should have been done to prevent this. The armchair generals simply say we shouldn't have let it happen, but have no clue about how, let alone any concept of why Bush should have been making the calls that would have changed this.
Bush deferred operational decisions to the military, and rightly so. If you want to find the most incompetent C-in-C, you should look elsewhere.
What a robust comeback.
Region Rat
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This is a very good example of an "I'm bored, what kind of thread can I start that will restart old arguments from many, many other old, old threads, because I just love bashing the last administration so much, even though there will be no new arguments or revelations, but it will allow me to show how far superior I am to the evil republicans" thread.
NWO Sentryman
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Try reading the OP with the link to the AP article.
If the resident JREF conservatives want to derail it and mix it up about how dumb DEMONcraps are, go ahead.
Praktik
Philosopher
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Especially when the invasion proved that containment was working (read Cobra II and the docs from inside the Hussein regime uncovered after the war). Likely I would have dramatically changed the sanctions regime to be less of a burden on the Iraqi people, because as always, the dictator can skirt the sanctions and the public can't. So they were counterproductive and almost a form of collective punishment - if not in intent than in effect.
I would likely have still looked at supporting internal groups and their efforts to overthrow the regime, even if the West's track record on that score was somewhat marred (see Bob Baer's "See no Evil" for a particularly good account of the failings of post Iraq War I intelligence policy in this respect).
I would not have abused the public's trust and become like the boy who cried wolf by declaring a war for reasons that turned out to be false. What will happen the next time a war is on the horizon? Will the public be skeptical no matter how well I make the case? I would certainly enjoy less of a chance of involving allies who have also become more skeptical of me after the 2003 invasion.
I would not have committed so much blood and treasure to: involve a minimum of a quarter million Iraqis in death or injury, cause a refugee crisis in neighbouring countries as millions of civilians fled, empower Iran and a Shiite resurgence (which my helpful Sunni allies like Saudi Arabia and others did not like).
One point that is not often made and is a crucial one, if we're really talking about "The Iraqi People" and not American national prestige, is just what kind of world have we exchanged for the one of Saddam?
As an Iraqi civilian under Saddam, I knew where the red lines were. If I kept my head down I could be a classical violinist, a tradesman, an accountant - if I didn't agitate against Saddam I could be pretty well guaranteed a normal life. I'd have to put up with policies I didnt like cause I had no input. I'd have to put up with curtailment of my freedoms, which of course, some found untenable. But the point was that I knew what actions would lead to violence directed against me. While the situation in Iraq has improved there are still kidnapping rings, random bombs and attacks by various groups, and collateral damage from American operations. And there is no defence possible from such a multi-directional, and random series of threats. So while life under Saddam was no panacea - and let me be clear I'm sure that our distaste for his authoritarian rule is similar in both of us - what the invasion did from the point of view of a normal civilian is exchange a known threat environment for a random one. I could be killed getting a tomato in 2004, not so much in 1995. Dropping my girl off at school could result in neither of us getting home in 2005. Doing so in 1996 was no issue.
This is a real and important point and I don't think that getting rid of Saddam in the manner done in 2003 has actually been a benefit to the Iraqi people. The blood cost to them was nearly unimaginable (could you imagine 900 000 American civilian deaths from violence in a 4 year period - or 85 thousand Canadians? I can't!), the money cost is absolutely off the charts, their infrastructure has been rolled back decades and they can't buy a toothbrush with an assurance of safety.
The Kurds were mentioned above - but after the 1st invasion they were well protected by a no-fly zone and an international presence. And of course, the chaos of the war nearly involved Turkey at one point in cross-border raids on a newly assertive Kurdish military.
So in short, no the cost has not been worth it, and the cost is not yet even known given that we still cannot say that things are over there. Thats the other thing, given that there actually is no final stability over there, no large national reconciliation - how could one even ask the question "was it worth it"?
What's the first "it"? We haven't even got there yet. Perhaps, one day in the future Iraq will turn out ok, and then war supporters can say: "it took us 15 years, was it worth it?"
But we're not there yet, so it could even conceivably get worse. What do we have to show for it so far, really?
Captain.Sassy
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[@that chart]:I don't think arms sales were a particularly important reason why those members of the Security Council opposed the invasion. Diplomatic balancing against US unipolarity post-cold war is much more reasonable.
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