52 more Iraqis "Liberated" this weekend

[Puppycow]

No, deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party imposing the sanctions.

No, deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party which makes it necessary that the sanctions be imposed.

 

[Puppycow]

#3. the OP blaims the invasion

In other words, the OP blames America.

Q.E.D.

 

[Puppycow]

No, deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party imposing the sanctions. Your reasoning could be used to claim that the holocaust was Hitler's mother's fault.

I'm curious. If "deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party imposing the sanctions" then deaths due to Al Qaeda terrorists attacking are the fault of ________?

 

[Meed]

No, deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party which makes it necessary that the sanctions be imposed.

Except they weren't necessary. That's like saying deaths due to 9/11 are the fault of the United States for making terrorism necessary with their geo-political actions.

 

[Meed]

I'm curious. If "deaths due to sanctions are the fault of the party imposing the sanctions" then deaths due to Al Qaeda terrorists attacking are the fault of ________?

Al Qaeda terrorists.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I don't follow.

Why am I not surprised. Many Iraqis (Mostly Sunnis) welcomed the foreign fighters in and supported them to fight against the International Forces and the Shities. Had Iraqis not supported them and helped them at the beginning, they never would have gained a foothold. Once the Iraqis stopped supporting the foreigners and started helping the International Forces by pointing out the insurgents, the Terrorists started losing. Blaming the US for AQ and co coming in totally ignores that fact that the Iraqis were inviting them in and backing them from the start. The monster the Iraqis made to fight the Americans and their hated rivals has now turned on them and biting them in the butt.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Baby, why did you make me hit you?

So WWII was the UK, Poland, and France's fault too...

Kind of. Mostly we paid them off, which is what Saddam did.

Actually the US started getting the locals on side, and as a result they started dobbing in the insurgents.

To tolerate or join the violent foreigners flooding into their country through the open borders. Had they the ability to fight back, things would have been very different. There's a reason foreign terrorists were not in Iraq in any significant number before 2003.

Having the abilkity to fight back wouldn't have done squat, they didn't fight back because they were the ones inviting the foreign fighters in to fight the US and UK forces. They weren't in significant numbers pre-2003 because the Iraqis weren't inviting them in to fight the US pre-2003.

Stupid, ignorant, insulting false dichotomy. This is the ********* that scared our dumb American population into supporting the war in the first place.

Watch the video I linked. Witness people who lived under Saddam criticize the American effort.

And there are plenty of people critizing Obama for the mess that Bush and his pals created too. People have short memories when it comes to the past. Don't believe me, watch the US elections tomorrow and consider the change from 2008 when the majority of the US wanted the Republicans exciled.

You know there's still no actual government in Iraq right now, correct?

Yes and no, none has been formed, however Government ministries and departments still exist and operate, and the Parliment has been sitting since mid-June.

Such vivid fantasies you have. But I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of mothers who lost children in the 90's due to the sanctions

You mean the ones that lost children because Saddam sold the food aid that the UN and other agencies was supplying. If you actually look at the amount of food deleivered to Iraq during the 90's it was more then enough to feed the population, and was even increased further in the later years. You can't blame the scantions for food and medicine not getting where it was needed.

and the millions of refugees of this latest adventure take solace in the fact that you, sitting fat and happy here in the US, think they're better off.

I'm sure that those Iraqi refugees that escaped Saddam during his years of terror and have now gone back think so too.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

One department where things appear to have got worse post-Saddam is LGBT rights, which operated on a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy before the war. Now, with the rise of Islamism in the country, gays have been subject to brutal persecution.

I don't know whether on the whole things are better, but this is one area where things are demonstrably worse.

 

[Pardalis]

One department where things appear to have got worse post-Saddam is LGBT rights, which operated on a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy before the war.

Not true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iraq#Criminal_code:_Ba.27athist

 

[Aepervius]

Is it your belief that things are worse now than when Saddam was in control?

It is indeed. Or are you pretending more than 100K/8years Iraqi was killed by Saddam during his dictature ?

Please ge a perspective. Irak was a dictature, but you would not be killed by a bomb off somewhere, or shoot at a checkpoint. It was in absolute NOT that bad.

 

[Aepervius]

I am not a propoonent of the invasion, I'm just a proponent of blaming Al Qaeda's crimes on Al Qaeda and Saddam's crimes on Saddam. The thread started with Thunder blaming America for Al Qaeda killing Iraqi Christians.

Oh. Please. Whi started the event ? Al quaeda ? No it was the USA.

Start the war you want, I can't stop you.

But at elast have the steel-balls / steel-ovary to ADMIT that you are the one which originated the current situation in Irak.

 

[TraneWreck]

So WWII was the UK, Poland, and France's fault too...

Why did we destroy damns, bridges and the nation's infrastructure in Gulf War I? Was that necessary to removing Saddam from Kuwait?

Notice that the Iraqis were incredibly upset by that destruction of their nation, despite opposing both Hussein and the invasion of Kuwait.

Obviously some military intervention was necessary. The decemation of targets without military necessity, as well as demanding that the Iraqis rise against Hussein, then abandoning them, were the major mistakes of Gulf War I.

Aggressive acts by Saddam don't justify all action taken against his nation. That sort of sweeping generalization, that once he invaded Kuwait we could do whatever we wanted, is beneath a modern nation.

Actually the US started getting the locals on side, and as a result they started dobbing in the insurgents.

You should probably page through those leaked documents. Fantasies are hard to sustain when actual information is available. The "Surge" is mostly fiction.

Having the abilkity to fight back wouldn't have done squat, they didn't fight back because they were the ones inviting the foreign fighters in to fight the US and UK forces. They weren't in significant numbers pre-2003 because the Iraqis weren't inviting them in to fight the US pre-2003.

That's ********. There's a reason it took two years for the opposition to build. After the initial invasion there were no foreign fighters and there was no significant Iraqi resistance. It was our bungling after toppling Saddam that created the chaos. We didn't seal the borders, we sent the army home, we didn't provide employment, we didn't rebuild the infrastructure (even now electricity levels are below pre-invasion levels), and generally we didn't take our position seriously.

It's really amazing how totally our failures have been whitewashed by supporters of the war.

The invasion was a terrible idea on its face, but the ****-storm we created was not inevitable.

And there are plenty of people critizing Obama for the mess that Bush and his pals created too. People have short memories when it comes to the past. Don't believe me, watch the US elections tomorrow and consider the change from 2008 when the majority of the US wanted the Republicans exciled.

Agreed.

Yes and no, none has been formed, however Government ministries and departments still exist and operate, and the Parliment has been sitting since mid-June.

We'll see which direction it goes---towards a stable government or back into chaos.

It's worth pointing out that after our occupation Iraq is significantly below where it was in the 80's in every demographic statistic.

That's a fact. Our stewardship of that nation led to worse outcomes than one of the most brutal, senseless dictatorships of the last 50 years.

You mean the ones that lost children because Saddam sold the food aid that the UN and other agencies was supplying. If you actually look at the amount of food deleivered to Iraq during the 90's it was more then enough to feed the population, and was even increased further in the later years. You can't blame the scantions for food and medicine not getting where it was needed.

No, just no. This is more revisionist history.

I absolutely blame the sanctions. After modifying the sanctions after a decade of starving that nation, people were receiving food and medicine at a significantly higher rate. Saddam didn't change, we did, meaning that it was never inevitable that the sanctions regime be so devastating to the population.

And, of course, for all his tom-foolery Saddam's military and WMD programs were nonexistant.

I'm sure that those Iraqi refugees that escaped Saddam during his years of terror and have now gone back think so too.

Yeah, I linked a video with two such people. They are not very complimentary of the American effort, and that's post-surge.

 

[TraneWreck]

Why am I not surprised. Many Iraqis (Mostly Sunnis) welcomed the foreign fighters in and supported them to fight against the International Forces and the Shities. Had Iraqis not supported them and helped them at the beginning, they never would have gained a foothold. Once the Iraqis stopped supporting the foreigners and started helping the International Forces by pointing out the insurgents, the Terrorists started losing. Blaming the US for AQ and co coming in totally ignores that fact that the Iraqis were inviting them in and backing them from the start. The monster the Iraqis made to fight the Americans and their hated rivals has now turned on them and biting them in the butt.

This is simply not true. For basically the first year of the war there was an opportunity to establish security and build the infrastructure.

It was our total failure to secure that nation, while completely eliminating their ability to help themselves, that led them to turn away from us.

Read about Blackwater's efforts in Fallujah, for example. The violence was not inevitable, our horrible decisions and policies created the chaos.

 

[TraneWreck]

Al Qaeda introduced themselves into Iraqi culture. Americans did not bus them in. There they found sympathetic Iraqis who aided and abetted them. It's a real nightmare, but it is wrong to blame the actions of Al Qaeda people and their allies on anyone but those same people themselves. America has done as much as we could to destroy Al Qaeda in Iraq, with some success I might add.

This is just not an accurate representation of what happened in Iraq. It's this sort of revisionism that will make another such catastrophic error on the part of America inevitable.

Saddam hated the US, Al Qaeda hated the US. Why was Al Qaeda absent from Iraq when Saddam was in charge, but thrived under American control?

 

[Thunder]

In other words, the OP blames America.

Q.E.D.

No, I blaim Bush's bungled handling of the war in its early stages.

 

[Thunder]

This is simply not true. For basically the first year of the war there was an opportunity to establish security and build the infrastructure.

It was our total failure to secure that nation, while completely eliminating their ability to help themselves, that led them to turn away from us.

hear hear

 

[WildCat]

Why did we destroy damns, bridges and the nation's infrastructure in Gulf War I?

You destroy bridges (and dams if they're also bridges as many are) toprevent troop movement.

Not the fault of the US that Saddam decided he needed more palaces rather than bridges.

 

[WildCat]

Saddam hated the US, Al Qaeda hated the US. Why was Al Qaeda absent from Iraq when Saddam was in charge, but thrived under American control?

Because the Sunni didn't need help oppressing the Shia when they had Saddam and his army and security forces helping them.

 

[TraneWreck]

Because the Sunni didn't need help oppressing the Shia when they had Saddam and his army and security forces helping them.

So Saddam, despite years of sanctions that rendered his military impotent (remember all the helicopters and tanks fighting against the US in 2003? Oh yeah, there weren't any), was able to control his borders and keep terrorists with a religious vendetta against him out of the country.

But the greatest military force in the history of the Earth from the richest country in the history of the Earth couldn't maintain even a fraction of that security.

Sad that our forces are so pitiful.

We could have maintained security, we just didn't really care.

 

[TraneWreck]

You destroy bridges (and dams if they're also bridges as many are) toprevent troop movement.

Not the fault of the US that Saddam decided he needed more palaces rather than bridges.

I think there's a basic problem with geography here. Destroying bridges in Baghdad would have very little effect on troop movement in Kuwait. It also implies that the pitiful Iraqi army would do anything against the Allied forces if only they could have gotten reinforcements.

And Saddam actually repaired the infrastructure of Iraq after Gulf War I FASTER than we did when we were in control.

This should be humiliating, but the war apologists don't seem to care. Nor do they understand why such behavior might aid in fomenting a resistance.