War in Iraq - 3 Years

In all honesty, this is why I avoid these debates more often than not these days; there's no focused discussion. Just a huge list of one-sentence gripes. Before you even have time to dispute one complaint, there's another, and it's not reasonable to expect me to spend a paragraph trying to rebut what someone casually tossed out there in a single sentence.


Are you suggesting that an oppressed people should be faulted for not overthrowing their oppressor? Because I don't think that's always a realistic option. Also, I don't see how we've made any choice for them, except insofar as we've made the choice that they ought to have a choice. Ultimately, though, you can't impose democracy. By definition, it's impossible.


I don't know if the threat was "immediate" or not. I also don't know if it should have to be completely immediate to be justified. I've already detailed their offenses; do you think we should be in the habit of ignoring such things? How's that worked for us in the past?

But to answer your last question, no, I don't think it's a better breeding ground for terrorists; I think the terrorists have simply decided to make a stand here. The general consensus is not that Iraqis are suddenly strapping bombs to themselves, but that terrorists from quite a few places are all flocking to Iraq to join in the fight.

What I don't think people get is that that's a good thing in many ways. When Bush first declared "war" on the notion of terrorism, he was dismissed as foolish, because terrorism, unlike a state, does not have defined borders or a standing army. That's what makes it so difficult to combat. What we have here is a scenario in which we've coaxed them out into a relatively open confrontation.

As I said above, I've seen no verification that this is actually true, as opposed to a plausible-sounding rhetorical device.


The fact that Iraqi is half way across the world is irrelevant. Distance clearly doesn't protect us in the manner in which it used to, and many fears relating to Iraq were more about who they might support (and were supporting) than what they might do themselves.

Hmm, i don't think that's the consensus view by any means. Note this snippet from the article i posted earlier, for example...

And again, another repeat quote from the same article...

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I do think you put too much of a rosey glow on some of this stuff.

Not that we can achieve much with all our bickering and speculation anyway - but it'd be nice to be as factual as possible

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Yes I have lived there, before and after the first Gulf War.

And my response comes from first hand knowledge of many famlies with whom I am in contact with that I came to know when I was over there. They tell me things are much better, are they lying?

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actually yes, that's exactly what i'm saying.i think these things should be left to develope naturally. the growning disatisfaction with the situation would have eventually forced the Iraqi people ( as i'm sure one of these days it will also become clear to the North Koreans and other oppressed nations ) to overthrow the dictator. and if not, well then, it's their own fault and noone else is to blame for the disaterous situation in which they live ( all of this was directed at your comment " should we have left the Iraqi's to starve" )


well, i don't see the offenses you stated as a valid reason for an invasion, only a direct attack can merrit such action.
well i disasgree, and i hope your administration does too, it would be foolish to think all the terrorists have flocked to Iraq and there were none to spare. no, i believe the majority of the terrorists in Iraq are Iraqis themselves. you're thinking of the begining of the war when muslims from all over the world came to Iraq to make a stand.



you don't watch the news? you don't see any increase in anti-american feelings amongst muslims ( and the rest of the world )?

then you better invade all of the muslim world and take over their oil reserves and general economy so you can prevent any sort of terrorist funding.

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i don't know. all i can tell you is what i hear on the news, recounts of Iraqis themselves who aren't so enthusiastic as your friends are. and there are a few croatians living there too that also don't support your claims. i don't see how the situation in Baghdad can be better if they don't even have electricity ( at least they had that before the invasion ) and live in absolute chaos.

You are right about Bagdad, but Iraq is a lot more than Bagdad.

No one disputes that Al-Qaeda has openly sent a presence to Iraq to exacerbate the problems we're having with the insurgency, to the point at which Bin Laden has declared Zarqawi his "deputy in Iraq." And I daresay that one article (or even a dozen) doesn't necessarily shoot down the idea that there's a general consensus. Surely you've read the same things I have: that numerous insurgents have come across the borders from nearby countries. How many, I won't pretend to know, but enough that it's not just us versus the Iraqis.

I want to respond to your post in more detail but in the meantime, I did a little reading about Paul Wolfowitz...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz

Speaking of the 91 Persian Gulf War...

In the aftermath of the war Wolfowitz wrote the Defense Planning Guidance to "set the nation’s direction for the next century" that many saw as a "blueprint for U.S. hegemony". At the time the official administration line was one of containment and the contents of Wolfowitz’s highly controversial plan that included calls for preemption and unilateralism proved unpalatable to the more moderate members of the administration including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and the President himself, so Cheney was charged with producing the watered-down version that was finally released in 1992.

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Wolfowitz however could not remain completely out of politics for long and in 1997 he became one of the charter members, alongside Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle and others, of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded this neo-conservative think-tank with the stated aim of "American global leadership" through military strength. In 1998 Wolfowitz was one of the signatories of the PNAC open letter to President Bill Clinton that was highly critical of his continued policy of containing Iraq. The PNAC advocated preemptive U.S. military intervention against Iraq and other "potential aggressor states" to "protect our vital interests in the Gulf". In 2000 the PNAC produced its magnum opus the 90-page report on Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century that advocated the redeployment of U.S. troops in permanent bases in strategic locations throughout the world where they can be ready to act to protect U.S. interests abroad. The Clinton administration however remained unmoved and pressed on with containment.

In the run-up to the controversial 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, Wolfowitz joined Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Richard Perle amongst others on an advisory group known as The Vulcans put together to advise Republican Party Presidential candidate George W. Bush on foreign policy.

Wolfowitz returned to government from 2001-05 under U.S. President George W. Bush serving as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense reporting to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9-11 debate began within the White House as to the degrees of action to take against Al Qaeda. Certain members of President Bush's cabinet, led by Wolfowitz, readvocated pre-emptive strikes against Iraq, alongside those against terror cells in Afghanistan. Out of this came the creation of what would later be dubbed the Bush Doctrine, centering on pre-emption and a broad-based anti-terrorism campaign, as well as the war on Iraq which the PNAC advocated in their earlier letters. The Bush administration has been accused of "fixing intelligence to support policy" with the aim of influencing congress in its use of the War Powers Act.

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Twain: Make of that what you will. To me, it means a policy of preemptive, unilateral attack to protect our interests with permanent bases in strategic locations was on the table long before 911. Many of today's key players were involved...Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Rice, Powell and George W Bush.

Given that history, I think the claim that Bush (and others) wanted to invade Iraq and that WMD, ties with al Qaeda and nuclear material was the smokescreen that made it possible; carries more weight and is not simply "conjecture."

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Well, then I simply disagree, to the point of being a little disturbed at your comments. While I agree with the abstract notion that people are ultimately responsible for their living situation, the people can want change and be willing to fight for it, and still not always get it. While no one else is to blame for their problems, that doesn't mean they are at fault, or are unworthy of our compassion and even assistance.

Surely the Iraqis overthrowing Saddam was the ideal solution to the Hussein problem, but it wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, and people were suffering while we waited for it. We also, you know, already tried it over a decade ago. It didn't work because we abandoned them when things got tough. I hope that rings a few bells today.

Really? If we paid suicide bombers of another nation's enemy, shot at planes over their no-fly zones, harbored terrorists who attacked them, tried to assassinate one of their former President or Prime Ministers, killed the citizens of a neighboring country (along with a couple hundred thousand of our own), and used U.N. resolutions as toilet paper, they wouldn't have any justification in attacking us? What did Hussein have to do, slap Bush in the face with a white glove?


"None to spare"? No. But they've certainly realized that failure in Iraq would set us back a great deal and help their cause more than anything we've done so far, and have assisted the insurgency accordingly.


You just tried to berate 7thson for having opinions about Iraq despite not living there (and then finding out that he actually had lived there), and now you're going to trot out "you don't watch the news?" as a defense?

If you want my opinion, there probably has been an increase in anti-American "feeling," but they'd have to be some pretty extreme "feelings" to actually aid and abet terrorism, so until some actual evidence exists to suggest that this negativity has made us less safe, it's not really something you can toss around to make a point.


It's not just oil reserves that made Iraq dangerous, but their track record of aggression and openly funding causes directly contrary to American interests. We're not talking about mere potential; we're talking about ability and intent. The things we feared Iraqi would do were happening (though to a lesser degree), so it does not follow that this requires us to invade the rest of the Muslim world. Iraq was a unique case, for many reasons.

Though even if reform across the Middle East were necessary, it wouldn't really change my mind about any of this. Edmund Burke said that "nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." Something has to be done about the chaos and the despotism rampant across the Arab world. It has bred extremism for decades. Women have been stoned and dissidents jailed and killed, and we've looked the other way, preferring the relative stability of dictators to the unpredicability of budding democracies. And where did it get us?

Ah, the PNAC makes its first appearance. Took you long enough.

I like how people talk about it as if it's this secret boogeyman organization, when of course Googling it brings up all the pertinent details and no one is denying its relevance or involvement. Ultimate, it's just a statement of principles which are, incidentally, publicly available. Have you read it? There's really nothing particularly objectionable in it.


But it is. If you were claiming the principles that are (openly) stated by the PNAC, then you're right, it wouldn't be conjecture. But you've extrapolated this "smokescreen" claim from that, and it's a complete non-sequitur. How do you go from "this group of people seem to favor preemptive force" to "they fabricated or exaggerated claims to justify it"? Where's the link between those two? You seem to be operating under the principle that if you can demonstrate that someone wanted something, you can safely conclude that they lied to get it.

I don't need to be convinced that most in the administration wanted to overthrow Hussein before 9/11. We know they did, because most of them are on record as saying so. And -- surprise, surprise -- regime change in Iraq was the Clinton administration's official policy, as well, though only as long as it didn't require us to, you know, do anything at all.

Not to be sacrosanct, but I rest my case, Well not really, but uh yeah.

Just a few comments...

On March 21nd one of the headline news was that Saddam's former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Naji Sabri, had in fact been working for the CIA. For $100.000 he had sold information to the Agency after that French agents had established the connection to Sabri. Just before the American invasion of Iraq, Sabri informed the CIA of that Saddam did not have any nuclear weapons in his possession and wasn't near developing any or getting any from elsewhere. Sabri did however claim that Saddam possessed over chemical weapons. All according to NBC. On March 22nd Sabri denied having worked for the CIA and said that he was suing NBC.

Working for CIA or not... This is an example of that there must have been a number of indicators of that Saddam didn't have any WMD:s (the result rendered by the UN inspectors was another indicator). These indicators together with the fact that there were no WMD:s being found leads at least me to believe that the Bush administration was very selective in their choice of intelligence material on which they based their decisions on. I have also seen documentaries, although slightly biased documentaries, containing interviews with persons working close to or inside the Bush administrations that were more or less told to get the intelligence data needed for backing up the arguments for an invasion.

But let's say that it was as you described it; that everything was pointing towards Iraq having WMD:s and all intelligence agents agreed on this. Then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the intelligence services or they were incredibly and unbelievably misinformed. I have problems believing that since I imagine the CIA and similar American intelligence organizations, and I say this completely without sarcasm, to be the most competent and far-reaching agencies in the world.

This definition of what "war on terror" is is kind of vague. It also raises a few questions. And the "war on terror" argument as it was being used as another reason for the invasion was, we have to remember, that Iraq was being accused of having close ties to al-Qaeda, which wasn't correct either. But back to the questions this definition raises... Harboring a terrorist. I believe a large number of countries could be accused of harboring or having harbored a terrorist, including many of America's allies (also in Europe) and America itself. And plotting to assassinate a former president is indeed serious. But let's not forget the actual and in reality executed assassinations of democratically elected presidents or political leaders, such as the removal and killing of Chile's president Allende carried out with the support by US intelligence agents. This example helps to qualify America, using your definition of what war on terror is, as a terrorist organization.

Saddam had to go. Fine. USA have to remain in Iraq for an uncertain period of time. Ok. But the reasons. The arguments. The upholding of democratic and freedom loving values, it just rings falsely in my ears. The argument that Iraq has proven to be a crook state in the past just adds fuel to the fire of those who think "well, so has USA!". Now it's reached a point where even I don't think the reasons for the invasion matter much. It's here, it's queer, get used to it! (sorry couldn't help myself). I started the thread to focus on the future but still the reasons are what people like to debate, so I just had to drop a few comments.

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

well, you will dismiss this comment, but i'll ask you this then. how come you did nothing to help the Kurds some 20 years ago when Saddam was performing a little thing called genocide? where were you when Pol Pot was doing the same little thing some 25 years ago in Kambodia? what about North Korea? people are dying there by the thousands out of starvation because of an insane dictator. the taliban regime was doing all sorts of wonderful things to their own people for years before you decided to do anything about it ( and i would venture a guess that if it hadn't been for the direct link of Al Quaida to Afghanistan, they would have still been doing it )....you're a bit selective when it comes to "helping" people aren't you? the key difference , as always, being oil and other "national" interests.

they paid suicide bombers? palestinians you mean? regarding Israel or America, because if you're speaking about funding terrorists in Israel.....that's really non of your concern now is it? harbored terrorists? you have proof of that? did Saddams regime do that? harbor terrorists that attacked the US? as i recall it, Saddam offered condolences to the american people and denied any connections to the terrorists. you mean they shot down planes that were flying over their own airspace? when did they kill citizens of a neighbouring country? are speaking of the Kuwait situation? wasn't that some 16 years ago? what UN resolutions did they use as toillete paper? did you have the approval of the UN to go into Iraq? and weren't you the ones trying many times to kill the president of another country? so, you can do it but noone else can?
and yes, for the invasion to be justified, Saddam should have launched some long range WMD at Washington.

i was reffering to living in Iraq before and after this invasion, not the Kuwait situation. the man has claimed that the situation is better now than it was before the invasion, which contradicts everything the rest of the world ( apart from america, aparently ) has been told through the news. and if i'm not mistaken, he has lived there prior to and just after the Gulf war, not this war. different situations.

i think you underestimate the dissatisfaction of muslims. just a theory, but it takes only a couple of insane people to perform acts of terrorism, and i think out of hundreds of millions of muslims that are fed with info on how america is evil and trying to take over the world, there will be one or two that will be willing to do something about it, even if it's just attacking someone that is american ( when reffering to the security of americans, i was also reffering to the security of americans travelling across the globe, i think you would agree, americans are not very welcomed in the muslim world right now )

well, lets see you invade any other country in the muslim world. how about Iran or Pakistan? No? why not?

so any Anti-American country should be (preemptively) attacked by the US? speak of world domination - that many people here, fortunately, won't accept - and "history of aggression" as if the US didn't have a huge one, Vietnam and all included...
what makes you so believe, if you could see from another point of view, except that you're American, that your country never did deserve to be attacked, if Iraq and others in your opinion deserved it?

how many times did i get that feeling myself?

the sacred mission to bring "civilisation and freedom" to all, even those who don't want it... rings a bell. i could ask why you don't do anything about Tibet and let Turks torture Kurds and Armenians in their dictatorial regime, but hei, that sacred mission only works when there's some money and power to gain from it. that's called hypocrisy. and if it did bring some more freedom to some people in Iraq, accidentally, i still think the reasons behind are of prime essence to the question.

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what i said about deserving...
the idea of building a strong, federal, Europe to oppose this kind of imperialism, is now 100 years old

Yep, of course. But i've also noticed the newer tendency amongst analysts and military personal to ascribe much of the continuing violence to home-grown groups - including groups who are pursuing jihadist-style agendas. I wasn't denying the external influences, i was just pointing out that Iraqis do seem to be 'suddenly strapping bombs to themselves', as you put it.

I absolutely agree with Yods' response. (Well, with some caveats on the Kuwait-period uprising and the causes of Iraqi suffering).

The UK and the US have meddled in Iraq for over a century and made national self-determination practically impossible. We owe the Iraqis a huge blood-debt which a competant intervention would have gone a long way towards absolving. (And perhaps a concerted engagement still can. We can hope eh? )

I feel like listing some of the areas where we're culpable...

-The UK set up Iraq's divide-and-conquer borders (leading to a fragmented nation which needed an iron-hand to rule it).
-The US happily played Iraq and Iran off against eachother during their clashes.
-Bush Snr's incitement to uprising was incredibly poorly thought-out, given that the 'allied' armed forces were in no position to invade Iraq and support it, due to the all-or-nothing Blitzkreig tactics employed to take Kuwait in the first place. Some of the mass Iraqi graves date from this period.
-The US/UK enforced sanctions which targeted civillians are frankly unforgiveable.

So Adi, no way could the Iraqis have risen up on their own, and the US/UK do have a moral-imperative to make things right in Iraq above and beyond many other worthy 'causes'. (Even if the moral-dimension has doubtless got next-to-nothing to do with our reasons for being there).

"Don't bite off more than you can chew" -- someone's grandmother.

Afghanistan would have been more than enough to be going on with.

There is plenty to object to in their vision of a world actively run by the US, to a large degree, with multiple-invasions being a key tool for obtaining compliance.

Such a vision, altho 'idealistic' in theory, is infused with a huge level of arrogance. The type of arrogance that seems to have led Rumsfeld to believe a small force could cut it in Iraq. (it's worth noting that many military and political figures, from the likes of General Shinseki to Powell himself, recognised the need for a large post-war effort, but they were ignored/over-ruled, and in Shinseki's case, fired)

There's plenty to object to in both the aspirations and the practicalities of PNAC-style ideals.

well this would all be just fine and dandy if altruism or "making things right" had anything to do with the invasion. but it didn't. the brits also have a great deal to do with the current situation in Palestine, but i don't see anyone falling over themselves to help the palestinians ( the poor fellas don't have any oil...whattayougonnado aye? )

How did I end up arguing with 4 people at once?

20 years ago, I was in a crib, actually. But if you mean America, it were run by different people who naively thought (to varying degrees) many of the same things you seem to; that if we calmly sit on our side of the Atlantic maybe no one will bother us.

You're really only making my point for me: we've been doing it wrong for decades. I've said as much in earlier posts. The fact that we haven't always intervened in the past is not an argument against intervention now. Quite the opposite, actually.

Even if we fail to get involved until our interests play a stronger role, that still isn't an argument against the invasion, anymore than wanting the reward would be an argument against turning a known criminal in.


Yes, Palestinian suicide bombers. And the idea that that's not our concern is absurd, in my opinion. They're our ally, for one, and every established state is rightly concerned with such acts. "None of our concern"? You think these things don't effect anyone other than the target?


I'm sure I can find some, but it's an established fact that he harbored one of the men responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing. I believe the man in question is Ramzi Yousef.


Yes. It was part of sanctions, I believe. Mostly in the Northern part of the country. To my memory, it had the backing of the international community, as well.


Yep. Didn't realize there was a statute of limitations on mass murder, though.


Resolutions 687, 689, 699, 700, 705, 706, 707, 712, 715, 773, 778, 806, 833, 949, 986, 1060, 1143, 1153, 1154, 1158, 1175, 1194, 1205, 1210, 1242, 1266, 1275, 1280, 1281, 1284, 1293, 1302, 1330, 1352, 1360, 1382, 1409, 1441, 1443, 1447, 1454, 1511, and 1518. That's from 1990 to 2003, and covers Iraq's aggression in the region, their selective willingness to comply with weapons inspectors, and their abuse of the Oil For Food program.

Why do I get the feeling you weren't really asking, though? Seriously, long lists of rhetorical questions are not arguments. I'm not going to spend time answering yours when I don't feel that you're really answering most of mine.


Nope. For whatever reason, they didn't seem interested in enforcing their own resolutions. If you're arguing that the UN's opinion ought to be sacrosanct, however, you shoot yourself in the foot, because Iraq flaunted them to ridiculous degrees. So either the UN's opinion matters, in which case something had to be done about Iraq, or else it doesn't, in which case this question is moot.


Only us? No. But then again, there's a world of difference between a country run by its own people, and those run by tyrants. Saying that they should all be able to do exactly the same things with total moral equivalence is like saying to a police officer "you can't arrest that guy for screaming gibberish in the park and waving a gun...oh, so only you get a gun, huh?!"


I think this is borderline crazy and, frankly, to the point at which I see little value in continuing this discussion. And this coming from someone who really loves to hear himself type.


You're mentioning "the news" in an incredibly vague sense. I watch the news everyday and it's simply not telling me the things it appears to be telling you. Maybe you're highly selective in your media sources, but I hear mixed messages from multiple sources (local, national, and international...I prefer Internet news to cable news, generally) on a regular basis. All opinion polls I've seen, for example, show that Iraqis, while not happy with us, are very optimistic about their future. That certainly doesn't jibe with what your broad, sweeping generalizations about how horrible everything is.

Can you provide solid evidence for your repeated claim that "the news" says everything is horrible? And even if you can, what reason do you have to believe that it's more accurate than testimonials from both soldiers and Iraqis themselves?


I don't know that they were ever all that welcomed in the Muslim world. Regardless, vagueries about negative opinions is not an argument against the war. If it was, no war would ever be justified.


First, this isn't really your complaint. You'd be more upset if we invaded Iran and Pakistan, not less. Second, we've been looking into confronting Iran for some time, and it may very well happen; we can't do everything at once, however. Third, Iran may have a nuclear weapons program, whereas with Saddam, we only suspected that one was in progress. That's one of the reasons we chose to confront him; if he were to develop a nuclear weapon, we'd be forced to negotiate with him, the way we have with North Korea. These weapons force us to lend legitimacy to despots.

Also, I don't think you really answered my "where did it get us?" question. It wasn't entirely rhetorical. You're asking every question that pops into your head, apparently, and while I don't find it especially difficult to answer, I think you ought to put your cards on the table: what are you saying we should have done? Are you suggesting isolationism?