52 more Iraqis "Liberated" this weekend

[Elind]

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

Come on! I will restate my response without the wasting time bit. Do you have a different answer to that?

 

[Virus]

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.

Saddam was not a bad guy. He was a deranged psychopath.

Don't deny that you've spent the whole thread arguing that Iraq was better off under his boot.

 

[TraneWreck]

Saddam was not a bad guy. He was a deranged psychopath.

Well, that sort of qualifies as "bad," as far as I'm concerned. You're welcome to be more specific.

 

[Virus]

One reason people think that things are worse now than under the Husseins is because Iraq is freer. The freer a society, the more information gets out and the more people criticize it. Under Saddam, all media was tightly controlled by the Baath party, specifically Saddam's psychopath son. There was no criticism of the regime allowed. Foreign journalists were allowed in, but only if they disseminated what the regime wanted them to see. Now there are foreign journalists, there is freedom of speech, people are allowed to criticize the government.

This gives the illusion that things are worse. It's like when a new test for a disease is invented, then the number of people diagnosed goes up, even if the incidence of the disease stayed the same. Free societies that tolerate criticism receive more of it than ones that suppress it by violence. We didn't know a lot of things about how sordid Saddam's Iraq was because it was a closed society. The regime also had a string of useful idiots on the radical left who ran interference on behalf of the regime in the West.

 

[Quad4_72]

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

Now? Its a weekly occurrence. Life in Iraq has become a terrorist-infested hell on Earth.

"Liberation" truly is.......interesting.

Just so you know, not everywhere in Iraq is like Baghdad. I was in Baghdad for a little while, and yes it is quite hellish. Now I am down in Diwaniyah, and it is the complete opposite of Baghdad. IEDs are rare and so are rocket attacks. The people are hard working and absolutely hate violence. The Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army are everywhere and have done an extremely good job at securing the city.

 

[Skeptic]

would be very surprised if organizations such as the BBC was engaging in such dishonest polling.

Oh yeah? Surprised? Really? In the cases I'm giving it's bias about Israel, but it isn't known as "al-Beeb" for nothing; the BBC is grossly biased against the USA and Israel and leans in the direction of the Islamists by "understanding" them and taking their lies at face value. BBC pundits declared the war in Iraq lost about a million times, for example -- dishonest polling would be right up their ally.

 

[TraneWreck]

One reason people think that things are worse now than under the Husseins is because Iraq is freer. The freer a society, the more information gets out and the more people criticize it. Under Saddam, all media was tightly controlled by the Baath party, specifically Saddam's psychopath son. There was no criticism of the regime allowed. Foreign journalists were allowed in, but only if they disseminated what the regime wanted them to see. Now there are foreign journalists, there is freedom of speech, people are allowed to criticize the government.

This gives the illusion that things are worse. It's like when a new test for a disease is invented, then the number of people diagnosed goes up, even if the incidence of the disease stayed the same. Free societies that tolerate criticism receive more of it than ones that suppress it by violence. We didn't know a lot of things about how sordid Saddam's Iraq was because it was a closed society. The regime also had a string of useful idiots on the radical left who ran interference on behalf of the regime in the West.

Ah, argument from ignorance. That's much better: we don't know EXACTLY what Saddam was doing from 1991-2003, so we can conclude it was worse than hundreds of thousands of deaths either directly or indirectly from violence and about 1/6th of the country displaced.

We had that country blanketed for more than a decade. Not much happened that we didn't know about, which is one of the reasons we knew the WMD nonsense was a lie before entering the country.

Keep going, though, maybe eventually you'll hit on a point that makes sense.

 

[Meed]

Oh yeah? Surprised? Really? In the cases I'm giving it's bias about Israel, but it isn't known as "al-Beeb" for nothing; the BBC is grossly biased against the USA and Israel and leans in the direction of the Islamists by "understanding" them and taking their lies at face value. BBC pundits declared the war in Iraq lost about a million times, for example -- dishonest polling would be right up their ally.

So why would an organization that is as dishonest and "grossly biased against the USA" as you characterize them report a poll that shows a majority of Iraqis think their lives are better off post-invasion?

 

[WildCat]

We had that country blanketed for more than a decade. Not much happened that we didn't know about, which is one of the reasons we knew the WMD nonsense was a lie before entering the country.

You can't possibly be serious... we couldn't find the scud launchers during GWI even though we had much, much more assets in the area than during the decade afterwards.

Real life isn't a Hollywood movie, intelligence is rarely clear-cut. Usually it's just a case of making your best guess.

 

[TraneWreck]

You can't possibly be serious... we couldn't find the scud launchers during GWI even though we had much, much more assets in the area than during the decade afterwards.

Real life isn't a Hollywood movie, intelligence is rarely clear-cut. Usually it's just a case of making your best guess.

We didn't have weapons inspectors all over the country in GWI.

I don't know why people still make this argument. Weapons inspectors said there were WMDs nor WMD programs. There were no WMDs nor WMD programs.

But obviously things happened in Iraq from 1991-2003 that we didn't know about. Once again, however, you're not dealing with the counterfactual. What would have happened in Iraq had we not invaded? We monitored that nation well enough to know if something like hundreds of thousands of deaths directly or indirectly from violence and 1/6 of the nation being displaced had occurred.

Virus' argument, seems to be, that because Saddam was a dictator, he was doing things during that period as severe or more severe than the above mentioned. This is hilariously false and a silly argument even if the facts weren't squarely against him.

 

[Ziggurat]

Ah, argument from ignorance. That's much better: we don't know EXACTLY what Saddam was doing from 1991-2003, so we can conclude it was worse than hundreds of thousands of deaths either directly or indirectly from violence and about 1/6th of the country displaced.

Ignoring the little fact that we didn't have weapons inspectors in the country for that whole period (or did you forget what happened in 1998), you seem to be forgetting the other liberal complaint about our policy towards Iraq: the crushing effects of the sanctions. To the extent that Saddam wasn't a threat to his neighbors, it's because of the sanctions, which were supposedly the cause of great misery and suffering themselves. Your comparison implies that the status quo was somehow cost-free, but it wasn't. Not even close.

We had that country blanketed for more than a decade.

Except for when we didn't.

 

[Elind]

Saddam was not a bad guy. He was a deranged psychopath.

I will disagree with you on this one. He was not a psychopath, just an Iraqi doing what has been normal in Iraq since it became a nation in modern times.

Call it living the legend of "The Thief of Baghdad", with steroids.

 

[TraneWreck]

Ignoring the little fact that we didn't have weapons inspectors in the country for that whole period (or did you forget what happened in 1998), you seem to be forgetting the other liberal complaint about our policy towards Iraq: the crushing effects of the sanctions. To the extent that Saddam wasn't a threat to his neighbors, it's because of the sanctions, which were supposedly the cause of great misery and suffering themselves. Your comparison implies that the status quo was somehow cost-free, but it wasn't. Not even close.

Ah, so now instead of attacking the strawman that "Saddam is good," you must attack the strawman that my position would be, "do nothing, keep the sanctions in place exactly as they were."

Perhaps it's this limited view of available options that lead to such insanely poor choices around that time.

Except for when we didn't.

Once again, you must provide some evidence that this lacuna in the inspections process was significant.

Saddam flaunted the system, we bombed the small remaining stockpiles he had, and a new program was put in place. One that, by the way, was incredibly effective, as evidenced by the complete absence of WMDs, or hell, tanks and hellicopters and airplanes, in Iraq's arsenal.

He had nothing, he couldn't build anything.

 

[Elind]

I don't know why people still make this argument. Weapons inspectors said there were WMDs nor WMD programs. There were no WMDs nor WMD programs.

No, and according to Saddam's own words, before he was hung, he said that the reason he made the world think so was that he wanted Iran first and foremost be afraid of him. He is also supposed to have said after the GW1 ceasfire that left him in power; "We have won".

Anyone who thinks if he were still there, that there would be no WMD programs reinvented are fools.

Virus' argument, seems to be, that because Saddam was a dictator, he was doing things during that period as severe or more severe than the above mentioned. This is hilariously false and a silly argument even if the facts weren't squarely against him.

He gassed entire villages of Kurds and built dams to eliminate the Marsh Arabs (Shites), not mention countless known and unknown knocks on doors at night by HIS execution squads.

Play your little counting game if it makes you feel good, but your arguments are classic apologist. (Note, rule 12. Your arguments, not you).

 

[TraneWreck]

No, and according to Saddam's own words, before he was hung, he said that the reason he made the world think so was that he wanted Iran first and foremost be afraid of him. He is also supposed to have said after the GW1 ceasfire that left him in power; "We have won".

Anyone who thinks if he were still there, that there would be no WMD programs reinvented are fools.

Oh, now that you've said it that way...

He gassed entire villages of Kurds and built dams to eliminate the Marsh Arabs (Shites), not mention countless known and unknown knocks on doors at night by HIS execution squads.

Play your little counting game if it makes you feel good, but your arguments are classic apologist. (Note, rule 12. Your arguments, not you).

And notice we're quickly back to the silly strawman of pretending like somewhere, someone is arguing in favor of the Hussein regime.

Are we just going to get barely different versions of this same crappy argument over and over, or have you war buffs come up with something that makes sense over the last 7 years?

It seems like you should have ironed this out before we spent a trillion dollars, but now that you're committed, you could at least try to be creative.

 

[Virus]

Ah, argument from ignorance. That's much better: we don't know EXACTLY what Saddam was doing from 1991-2003, so we can conclude it was worse than hundreds of thousands of deaths either directly or indirectly from violence and about 1/6th of the country displaced.

We had that country blanketed for more than a decade. Not much happened that we didn't know about, which is one of the reasons we knew the WMD nonsense was a lie before entering the country.

Keep going, though, maybe eventually you'll hit on a point that makes sense.

Not true. Intelligence on Iraq was extemly poor. It caused a lot of problems for the invading force.

 

[TraneWreck]

Not true. Intelligence on Iraq was extemly poor. It caused a lot of problems for the invading force.

Yes, I remember that invasion dragging on for months and months, the impressively equiped Iraqi military launching wave after wave of tank, copter, and jet at our baffled and unprepared forces.

But you're being intentionally vague about what specificity of intellegence was needed to know whether Saddam had WMDs or was killing hundreds of thousands of people or 1/6th of the nation was displaced.

 

[Elind]

Oh, now that you've said it that way...

I've said it before, and no doubt I will say it, that way, again.

And notice we're quickly back to the silly strawman of pretending like somewhere, someone is arguing in favor of the Hussein regime.

No, I have never claimed anyone argued "in favor" of Saddam, just in favor of the status quo and the hell with the possibility of GW3 (GW2, just later).

Are we just going to get barely different versions of this same crappy argument over and over, or have you war buffs come up with something that makes sense over the last 7 years?

It seems like you should have ironed this out before we spent a trillion dollars, but now that you're committed, you could at least try to be creative.

One doesn't have to be creative to think that the present is likely better than what would have been had we saved all that money, and lives, temporarily.

I happen to be old enough to think that nothing is perfect (except my wife).

The present is better than the war my children would have had, although that is not to say they will have none.

I had my doubts about GW2, but living in the past is a waste of time.

Shall we now discuss how many hundred years we will have to bomb Afghanistan before they run out of sheep and opium to buy explosives with?

 

[TraneWreck]

The present is better than the war my children would have had, although that is not to say they will have none.

I had my doubts about GW2, but living in the past is a waste of time.

Shall we now discuss how many hundred years we will have to bomb Afghanistan before they run out of sheep and opium to buy explosives with?

That's right, why live in the past? Why, we'll never do something as pointless and stupid as invading a country to satisfy the vague demands of an overgeneralized, poorly thought-out global philosophy like we did in Vietnam.

War with Iraq wasn't inevitable. If there's one thing our invasion did succeed in proving, it was how pointless such an effort actually was.

Oh, right, I forgot. Saddam found a magic lamp that conjured WMD's and a functional army.

 

[Elind]

That's right, why live in the past? Why, we'll never do something as pointless and stupid as invading a country to satisfy the vague demands of an overgeneralized, poorly thought-out global philosophy like we did in Vietnam.

War with Iraq wasn't inevitable. If there's one thing our invasion did succeed in proving, it was how pointless such an effort actually was.

The real mistake was not finishing it the first time, and instead listening to all those who thought it was bad of Iraq to invade a neighbor, but its sovereignty should be respected regardless. The war hasn't been pointless, but its execution was flawed.

The problem with people like GWB is that they think if they meet one college educated Iraqi, it must mean most of them are like that.

Oh, right, I forgot. Saddam found a magic lamp that conjured WMD's and a functional army.

Huh? If GW2 had not happened sanctions would have been lifted and Saddam would again have had full access to the second largest oil reserves on the planet, and done whatever he wanted with them. Who needs conjurers when you have that?

The next nuclear arms race would not have been with Iran only, but between Iran and Iraq.