52 more Iraqis "Liberated" this weekend

[TraneWreck]

And now there is no more no-fly zone, and no more sanctions, and NGOs still are providing food and medicine.

Yet a minimum of 100,000 Iraqis have been directly killed by violence, so far, hundreds of thousands of more have died indirectly from the consequences of the violence and the destruction of the nation's infrastructure. In a nation of about 30 million, there are somewhere between 2 and 4 million refugees. Every statistic (nutrition, life expectancy, education, access to clean water, access to electricity...etc) is lower than it was in the 80's, under a thug dictator, and there's no sign the violence will end any time soon.

And all we needed to do to get these wonderful results was spend a trillion some odd dollars, send 4,000 kids to their deaths, ignore Afghanistan leading to us being forced to redouble efforts and spend more blood and money in that nation, and we're going to leave both places in the next decade, meaning that we handed regional hegemony to Iran.

Sweet.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I respectfully disagree. The only people who were incensed at our presence were the small minority of tribes within Iraq who were favored under Saddam, who lost their special status after the fall of Saddam.

This is far fetched. You are saying Iraqis whose homes were bombed, whose kids and parents and siblings and friends were killed in those bombings were just simply willing to make those sacrifices because the Americans were fighting on the side of the Iraqis against Saddam? That's not even talking about what feelings resulted from the loss of water, sewer, electricity and jobs for years because of the American incompetence in the post Saddam years. I don't know what fantasy world you are living in but I can guarantee what you've described is a fantasy in regards to Iraq.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Polls such as these are always anonymous. And they do not need to be "comprehensive", just random and representative.

And you have evidence that is indeed the case in polls of Iraqi sentiments we hear about in the American news? Have you seen any documentation validating the accuracy or integrity of the polls?

I, for one, am skeptical. Just because someone tells me in a news report the Iraqi public believes [X] is not sufficient. And I've not seen any more than a news report claiming Iraqis believe [X].

 

[Meed]

They were carried out by respected organizations such as the BBC and I don't have any evidence that there was anything unprofessional about them.

 

[Virus]

Liberating the country from Saddam saved lives:

Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq on July 16, 1979 and was deposed in April of 2003. Over that twenty-four year period, Saddam Hussein killed between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians, was responsible for the deaths of between 250,000 and 550,000 Iraqi military personnel and over 700,000 Iranians and Kuwaitis (here and here). Utilizing only the Iraqi civilian numbers, this is an average of between 25,260 and 42,108 civilians a year, or between 2105 and 3509 Iraqi citizens a month. The United States toppled Saddam Hussein fifty months ago now. If Saddam had remained in power for those 50 months, between 105,250 and 175,450 Iraqis would have died – children starved in prisons, whole villages gassed into oblivion, dissidents fed through industrial shredders, women strangled after visits to rape rooms, all to be eventually reunited in remote mass graves. Using the maximum credible figures available:

The protestors above are indicted by their selective regard for death in our world in general and in Iraq in particular. Those wielding signs did not stir themselves as Saddam harvested the boldest and brightest of Iraq for 24 years. The plight of the Sudanese or those in East Timor is met with general disinterest. Apparently one Iraqi child inadvertently killed by American soldiers risking life and limb to bring liberty to an oppressed people is more horrifying that hundreds of Sudanese children liquidated in Darfur.

The anti-war movement views Iraqi civilians deaths as grist for the anti-American mill. Dead Sudanese are a statistic. Dead Iraqis before the war are a vague memory. Dead civilians in Iraq today are an exhilarating opportunity for the socialist left to undermine American liberty, power and society. This fuzzy math cannot stand. Logic Times will keep, from this day forward, the Iraq Survival Count.

http://www.logictimes.com/antiwar.htm

 

[Meed]

It must be true, I read it on the internets!

 

[Virus]

Think about it, people that oppose the liberation of Iraq on a balance of lives saved vs lives lost depend on Saddam not ratcheting up his murder rate to his previous genocidal levels. Given his bizarre, irrational behavior I don't think he can be granted this assumption. He was also getting old, no doubt his sons were eying the throne and considering offing their dad and taking over. Both sons were rivals for the throne and factions loyal to each would probably fight it out for supremacy. Fascism never works and Iraq could only have gone down the crapper under the rule of the insane Hussein family. Iraq also contains 25% of the world's dwindling oil supplies and allowing it go to waste on a bunch of genocidal madmen would be silly.

At the end of the day; 9/11 showed that the region needs to change. Iraq was part of the broader war against Islamofascism. If Saddam hadn't been a rogue idiot and violated his ceasefire obligations then he wouldn't have drawn the short straw when America needed to clear a slum to put Arab democracy on the table. Saddam's fault. Islamist's fault and the fault of a retarded culture that gives birth to these movements.

The liberation of Iraq emboldened the Cedar revolution in Lebanon, emboldened the resistance to the Iranian mullahs, forced the cancellation of Qaddafi's WMD program, removed Saddam's threat to our Kurdish allies and put talk of Arab democracy on the table.

 

[Skeptic]

Whatdayya know! I thought the dead victims were the fault of Al Quaeda for staging the terrorist attack... or (although on a totally different *moral* level, of course) the fault of the Iraqi police for botching up the rescure attempt... but it was really Bush's fault. We have to look at the ROOT CAUSES of the event.

I thought that the deaths due to sanctions on Saddam were his fault for invading Kuwait for no reason at all... and then refusing to withdraw... and then stealing the money he was allowed for food and medicine for his army and palaces and deliberately letting his people starve... or for the UN being complicit in that in the largest bribe scandal in history. But it now turns out the death from the sanctions were really all the fault of those who imposed sanctions. We must NOT look at the root causes of the events.

It all depends: you look for "root causes" or ignore "root causes" depending solely on who will be blamed. If the USA is to blame according to the "root cause" theory, well, look for them. If not, ignore them.

The result is moral inversion: when it is obviously legitimate to look for a root cause -- sanctions imposed due to an agressive invasion, death of Iraqis "due to sanctions" actually due to Saddam deliberately stealing the food and -- it is not done, since that would mean one can't blame the USA. When it is obviously not -- when Al Queda is randomly butchering Christians, the "root cause" is clearly their Jihadi hatred of non-Muslims, and not the USA invasion -- it is used, since it is an excuse to blame the USA.

Clearly, the bottom line is that Saddam should have simply been allowed to occupy Kuwait and continue his one-man thugocratic rule.

Now: if Iraq was something of a more-or-less moderate Arab autocratic rule, something like (say) Egypt or Jordan, which hardly wins any prizes for human rights but at least does not massacre its own people at will, perhaps the folks here blaming the USA would have had a point. But the same people who are now so concerned about Iraqi deaths -- only when they can somehow distort them to make terrorist attacks by Islamist Jihadis on infidels (Christians in this case) to somehow be the USA's fault, of course -- are not only utterly unconcerned about the deaths of hundreds of thousands and more under Saddam, but in fact praise the late lamented (by them) departed for ruling "with a strong hand" and "keeping order".

Clearly, then, these folks think that Arabs should, indeed must, be ruled by murderous thugs with an iron first that kills hundreds of thousand -- it's the only kind of government for such savages, the only way to "keep order". Their sole concern for Iraqi deaths is when they can use them to feel morally superior by claiming how those deaths are all the USA's fault.

 

[Virus]

Saddam's boys knew how to keep those uppity Iraqi women in check.

Anyone recall the outcry when the Fedayeen Saddam dragged 250 women from their homes, beheaded them in public, then forced their relatives to nail the head to their door?

Me neither.

 

[Thunder]

Maybe if Bush ran the war right, security would have been established early on, and Al-Qaeda would not have a new amusement park to play in.

I am not against the invasion outright, but Bush's handling of the war, especially in the beginning, has left us with a mess that might just break the country apart.

Thanks Bush, for the legacy.

 

[Thunder]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_iraq

Al-Qaeda threatens to "liberate" more Christians in Iraq. I have no doubt they shall follow through.

Maybe we wouldn't be in this mess if Bush hadn't **** ed up the whole thing in 2003-2004.

 

[TraneWreck]

Liberating the country from Saddam saved lives:



http://www.logictimes.com/antiwar.htm

This is what you have to offer? My god, the pro-war argument is worse than I could possibly imagine.

 

[Elind]

such events did not occur, before Iraq was "liberated".

Why don't you say that to the Shiites and Kurds instead of wasting time here?

 

[Thunder]

Why don't you say that to the Shiites and Kurds instead of wasting time here?

wasting time? how is discussing and debating current events, a waste of time?

 

[Virus]

This is what you have to offer? My god, the pro-war argument is worse than I could possibly imagine.

As opposed to the argument that Iraq was better off ruled by totalitarian psychopaths.

 

[TraneWreck]

As opposed to the argument that Iraq was better off ruled by totalitarian psychopaths.

That's all you have left, and it's a terrible argument. The only thing you can dredge up from your bucket of lies and false claims is, "Saddam was a bad guy, are you saying you like him?"

It's an intellectually barren, ridiculous argument, but it's all you have.

Like I say, your position is weaker than I could possibly imagine.

 

[Segnosaur]

Re: Saddam and his ability to oppress/kill his own people...

What 'capacity' do you think he was lacking?

If you want to argue that he didn't have the capacity for building WMD, or for engaging in other major wars (like Kuwait/Iran) you might have a point. But he had more than enough military might to continue oppressing his own people.
...
Heck, the genocide in Rwanda was accomplished largely with machetes and other similar implements. I'm sure Saddam could have spring for a few hundred Simitars.

Or do you think bullets used in killing Iraqis have to be gold plated?

Saddam's death total is basically composed of 1) the Iran-Iraq War (by far the vast majority) and 2) gassing various groups within his country. As of 2003, he could do neither.

Sure, he could shoot people and imprison them and generally be an ass, but his primary means of chaos was gone.

You know, I still really don't understand your argument. Did guns not work in Saddam's army? Were Iraqi dissidents somehow immune from being stabbed by soldiers?

Yeah, he might have used poison gas in some situations, but there are plenty of mass graves that have been uncovered that show victims who had been shot, not gassed. (Heck, were most Iraqi victims of Saddam even killed with poison gas?)

From: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,HRW,,IRQ,3f4f59567,0.html
People were pulled off the buses, thrown in a pre-dug pit, machine-gunned, and then buried with a bulldozer.

Do you really think Saddam was going to say "Oh, I don't have poison gas.. I think I'll stop oppressing people?

If he had even moved against the Kurds, we would have swiftly knocked him back.

We would have? Then why did we let him continue acting against the Marsh arabs, even though his oppression continued pretty much until he was overthrown?

Was there enough of a chance that he would kill 150-300,000 of his own people between 2003 and 2010...

Just out of curiosity, why is the time frame between 2003-2010 so important? Do you think Saddam would have stopped killing automatically by the year 2010? Would he have left power voluntarily by then?

There have been casualties in Iraq; however, the casualty rate now is much lower than it was back in 2006-2007 (according to the Iraq Body Count website). While their political process isn't perfect, its getting better. Going forward, there is a good chance that casualty numbers will continue to be low. Had Saddam not been overthrown, do you think he would have limited the number of people he killed?

Well, like I said, these were not exactly "the voice of Iraqis" themselves. One was a reporter, one was an author working at an American university.

They were Iraqi citizens who lived under Saddam, then returned to Iraq after he was removed.

They were still only 2 individuals, one of which worked for a newspaper that admits to a left wing bias. (Put it this way... if someone used an opinion piece from Fox News as "proof", would you find that acceptable?)

Even if some opinion polls show anti-American attitudes in Iraq, there is at least a sizable minority in Iraq who view the invasion positively. They couldn't find any of them for the panel?

 

[Segnosaur]

Saddam's death total is basically composed of 1) the Iran-Iraq War (by far the vast majority) and 2) gassing various groups within his country. As of 2003, he could do neither.

One other thing I wanted to add...

If you forget about Iraqi casualties during the Iran/Iraq war, you should consider:
- The number killed in the Al-Anfal Campaign (when he was most likely to use poison gas) is estimated between 50-100,000 people.
- The number killed post-1991 (when Saddam would have had his ability to use WMD curtailed) is likely between 80-230,000 people.
(figures from Wikipedia, but they seem to be in line with other reports I've seen)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq#Number_of_Victims

If those figures are correct, then it looks like the majority of Saddam's victims were killed not with poison gas (according to you, his "weapon of choice") but by conventional arms.

 

[TraneWreck]

You know, I still really don't understand your argument. Did guns not work in Saddam's army? Were Iraqi dissidents somehow immune from being stabbed by soldiers?

[...]

Even if some opinion polls show anti-American attitudes in Iraq, there is at least a sizable minority in Iraq who view the invasion positively. They couldn't find any of them for the panel?

You're arguing against some mythical position that Saddam was good. Virus did the same thing. It's amazing to me that this is the only thing war proponents can come up with. (side note--"weapon of choice" does not mean, "only weapon he used")

Yes, Saddam was awful. The fact of the matter is that most of his destruction occurred in the 1980's. He killed quite a few people right after Gulf War I because we convinced the Iraqis, mostly Kurds, to stand up against him, then abandoned them to Saddam's slaughter.

Once the nation was stabilized after the First Gulf War, however, Saddam was no longer killing at the rate he had previously (which is why Virus' argument about deaths/year is so amazingly dense).

Does that mean that Saddam was an awesome ruler from 1992ish to 2003? Obviously not. He was horrible.

But we're not comparing Saddam's Iraq to Denmark, or the French Riviera, we're comparing Saddam's Iraq after he was disarmed and neutered to the hell-storm we created after 2003.

Would another decade of Saddam been good? No.

Would another decade of Saddam been better than a minimum of 100-150,000 people killed directly by violence and hundreds of thousands of more due to the effect of violence? Would 4.7 million of 30 million Iraqis be displaced, with 1,400,000 seeking refuge in Iran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_Iraq)?

Would we have spent more than a trillion dollars, lost thousands of troops, destroyed our legacy of respect for human rights at Abu Ghraib, diverted funds from Afghanistan causing that nation to fall back into chaos leading to somewhere near a half billion to a trillion dollars and more lives being lost there?

We controlled that country for 7 years and we couldn't bring access to clean water, nutrition, medicine and electricity up to the levels they were at in the 80's. Yes, Saddam did that better than we did. It sucks, it's awful, but it's true.

This debate isn't, "was Saddam good or bad?" Pretending like his evil character justifies any and all action taken against him is a sort of blind, childish approach to the world I would expect from, well, Dubya.

 

[TraneWreck]

I should also point out that the cynicism of pretending like the Iraq invasion and occupation was justified on humanitarian grounds bothers me a great deal.

That argument was nothing more than a tossed-off line in the run-up to war. We were there because of WMD's and terrorism and Hussein's working links with Al Qaeda and yellow cake and endless other ********.

If we had actually been there for the Iraqi people, that first year and a half would have gone very differently.

We entered for decidedly non-humanitarian reasons, messed up the place with little concern for the long-term stability of the nation, then, when all of our other justifications evaporated and it turned out we were torturing people in the very spot Saddam perpetrated some of his most heinous crimes, then we started getting this nonsense about, "yeah, well Saddam was worse...probably worse..."

It's as though we could go in there and cause as much death, violence, and chaos as we wanted so long as we stayed under the Saddam threshold. I expected more of my country, and despite that expectation proving baseless, I still do.