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I don't think casualty lists and records of abuse and incompetence should be suppressed. I think we never should have attacked Iraq in the first place, and the more we learn about the grim reality of these operations, hopefully the less prone we will be to take such action in the future based on such little provocation. All I felt at the time we were preparing for this war was the sense that America hadn't waged a war in a long time, we had lot's of great technological innovation, and everyone sort of deep down wanted an excuse to see what we could do. History will tell, but I don't see the need to keep this sort of information classified, even if it pisses off people who would want to retaliate. I think the number of Iraqis killed in this operation should be something everyone is aware of for instance. After all has been said and done, I don't know how I feel anymore at times about the situation in Iraq, but while it seemed like everyone was in favor of this thing when the operation was beginning, I felt a tad alarmed at how much enthusiasm I saw for it. It's easy for me to point the finger, safe at home with this war on the TV, and I don't want to cheapen any of the sacrifices made by our service men, but I am more in favor of these leaks than I am against.
 
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Halfcentaur said:
I don't think casualty lists and records of abuse and incompetence should be suppressed. I think we never should have attacked Iraq in the first place, and the more we learn about the grim reality of these operations, hopefully the less prone we will be to take such action in the future based on such little provocation. All I felt at the time we were preparing for this war was the sense that America hadn't waged a war in a long time, we had lot's of great technological innovation, and everyone sort of deep down wanted an excuse to see what we could do.
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Yeah, that the Hussein regime was one of the most repressive and brutal ever surely had nothing to do with why I was supportive. It was just my mad desire to see what those new JDAM's could do.


Halfcentaur said:
History will tell, but I don't see the need to keep this sort of information classified, even if it pisses off people who would want to retaliate. I think the number of Iraqis killed in this operation should be something everyone is aware of for instance.
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Why?

Halfcentaur said:
After all has been said and done, I don't know how I feel anymore at times about the situation in Iraq, but while it seemed like everyone was in favor of this thing when the operation was beginning, I felt a tad alarmed at how much enthusiasm I saw for it.
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Why?
 
hopefully the less prone we will be to take such action in the future based on such little provocation.
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Little provocation? Afghanistan was a direct provocation and Saddam defied a slew of resolutions for 12 years.
 
Virus said:
Little provocation? Afghanistan was a direct provocation and Saddam defied a slew of resolutions for 12 years.
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and your unequivocal supportive evidence for this is?

and your justification that the actions taken were appropriate and more importantly effective are?
 
Travis said:
Yeah, that the Hussein regime was one of the most repressive and brutal ever surely
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Hyperbole much? American military actions over the last 20-odd years has arguably been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Saddam managed in his near forty years in power...
 
Conspiracy theory: media outlets are hyping this up so that when the leaks do come out, the issue will be framed as "Let's talk about how the leaks aren't as amazing as the hype said they would be" instead of "Let's talk about the content of the leaks" :tinfoil
 
Virus said:
Little provocation? Afghanistan was a direct provocation and Saddam defied a slew of resolutions for 12 years.
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Afghanistan didn't attack us on 9/11, al Qaeda did. I personally agree with the reasons for going in there but you don't seem to and your revisionist history needs some work.

Also, North Korea defied UN resolutions, really did demonstrably have materials to make nukes and actually was building a nuke. Your reasoning is weak.
 
bit_pattern said:
Hyperbole much? American military actions over the last 20-odd years has arguably been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Saddam managed in his near forty years in power...
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Silly, silly, pickled Al Gore head.

Don't you know that lives ended with the pleasurable tickle of freedom bombs only count for 3/5ths of a Saddam death?
 
bit_pattern said:
"We don't do body counts."

-- Gen. Tommy Franks
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Do you know why we don't do body counts? Because the last war we did was Vietnam, and the numbers were not only inaccurate but were a poor metric for determining success. The press and Congress vilified the military for the body counts. Thus, the military stopped using them.
 
TraneWreck said:
Silly, silly, pickled Al Gore head.

Don't you know that lives ended with the pleasurable tickle of freedom bombs only count for 3/5ths of a Saddam death?
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The overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in Iraq were from sectarian Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, not from US bombs or bullets.
 
WildCat said:
The overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in Iraq were from sectarian Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, not from US bombs or bullets.
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Whew, that's a relief.

That was going on under Saddam, right? And we shouldn't consider the deaths from the decade of sanctions because Madeleine Albright said that was collateral damage.
 
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TraneWreck said:
Whew, that's a relief.

That was going on under Saddam, right? And we shouldn't consider the deaths from the decade of sanctions because Madeleine Albright said that was collateral damage.
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So you were not only against the war in Iraq, you were also opposed to the sanctions?
 
WildCat said:
So you were not only against the war in Iraq, you were also opposed to the sanctions?
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No, letting a half million children die because of a lack of food and medicine really taught Saddam a lesson. The sanctions were brilliant.
 
TraneWreck said:
No, letting a half million children die because of a lack of food and medicine really taught Saddam a lesson. The sanctions were brilliant.
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There were no sanctions of food and medicine. Saddam decided he needed palaces more than children needed food and medicine.

Do you want to lift the sanctions against N. Korea also?
 
WildCat said:
There were no sanctions of food and medicine. Saddam decided he needed palaces more than children needed food and medicine.

Do you want to lift the sanctions against N. Korea also?
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That's a clever bit of weaseling. The sanctions were probably the most comprehensive economic sanctions ever placed on a country. It totally destroyed Iraq's economy. Among the things they were no longer able to buy in sufficient amounts, even though they weren't specifically part of the sanctions regime, were items necessary for the public health. It's also worth pointing that ALL trade was banned "but not including supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs..." Trade for food was banned unless there was a humanitarian disaster, that's a quote from the security resolution.
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0661.htm

The sanctions were modified late in the game, and around the time we invaded, NGO's and other human rights organizations had developed a pretty decent way of getting food and medicine to people who needed it. As bad as the sanctions were, the modified version would have been a great deal better than what happened post-2003.

I also like the idea that we escape moral responsibility for the deaths due to sanctions because Saddam didn't invest the little money he had in humanitarian efforts. That was highly predictable. This was all a very conscious decision, as Albright's quote shows. We knew Saddam would behave in such a way that would lead to hundreds of thousand of innocent deaths and we moved forward even though, as we learned in this last invasion, he was impotent after the first Gulf War.

As for North Korea, they actually have nukes, which complicates matters. If the choice is between military action and sanctions, take the sanctions. That choice wasn't forced in Iraq, however, and the weapons inspectors tried to explain this.
 
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