The cost of freeing Iraq

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by problem_child
How about not complicitly allowing Saddam to put down the uprising after GW1 just because a popular uprising would not have been in US interests... in fact how about not allowing the Conspiracy Institute of America to have helped him into power in the first place.

Ah, yes, the good ol' CIA. When all else fails, the CIA did it.

The Sanctions where called Genocidal by the UN staff charged with administering them, and against the Geneva Convention. Iraq was held under seige for twelve years by the US and it's lackey... this had nothing to do with WMD, but everything to do with the purposeful impoverishment of a sovereign nation state, an attack upon the human rights of it's civilian population (the sanctions actually made Saddams Ba'athists look good in their governments actions to avoid mass starvation!) and a 'softening up' of the country for 'aquisition' and administration by the puppet-regime that will shortly be installed to service American interests.

Do-do-doo-do Do-do-doo-do You are now entering - the twilight zone.

So UNSCRs and refusal to trade violate the Geneva convention, Which Geneva convention was that, the Geneva convention on getting on your knees to service dictators at their whim?

D00D, what 1337 planet are you from? It took us four days to wipe 60% of Saddam's military force from the map - you think we needed 12 ****ing years to "soften up" Iraq? We could have been in Baghdad within 24 hours and there wasn't **** Hussein could have done to stop us.

Yes, and we "purposefully impoverished" a nation that had the luxury of sending an armored division to contribute to the attempted invasion of Israel, which got nearly 50 billion in subsidies from the US, USSR, France, and the arab world in connection with it's war against Iran (started by Hussein, who thought Khomeini would be impressed by what a tough guy he was).

How many palaces and memorials to himself did Saddam manage to build during this "siege?" But of course, it's all our fault, and poor sweet innocent Saddam, the hero of the Iraqi people, is just victimized and misunderstood.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Some of you people are like a bad propaganda cartoon. It's kind of disturbing in a way.

Entertaining, though, isn't it?

[Drake Tungsten]

Entertaining, though, isn't it?

Not anymore. It really just makes me sad.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Entertaining, though, isn't it?

In an Adams family sort of way. yeah.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by techumseh
There's a detailed list in Michael Moore's new book, "Dude, Where's My Country". If that's not good enough for you, here's a link to a paper that details the arms relationship between Iraq and the Reagan and Bush I regimes: http://www.logosjournal.com/gendzier_iraq.pdf

an excerpt:

"James J. Tuite III, Principle Investigator of the Riegle Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, disclosed that the U.S. “had exported chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile-system equipment to Iraq that was converted to military use in Iraq’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program. Many of these weapons—weapons that the U.S. and other countries provided critical materials for—were used against us during the war.”

Ah, so sales of potential "dual purpose" civilian items now mean that we supplied Iraq with weaponry. Doupleplus good. Guess what? We did the same thing with the USSR under the regime of that notorious red, Richard Nixon. (electronic ignitions for farm equipment were stripped off and copied to become electronic ignitions for AFVs)

It's nice to sit out there on the left - if we sell dual use items to someone, we're selling them WMDs, but if we don't sell dual use items, we're genocidal murderers of Iraqi children (the big chlorine flap, despite the fact that chlorine is not at all necessary in primary biological treatment of potable water)

And Michael Moore's penchant for ignoring facts he doesn't like, and not worrying much about the veracity of anything that sounds good, makes him about as credible as Ann Coulter.

The Chair of the Senate Committee, Donald Reigle, concluded on the basis of his Committee’s investigation, that “the U.S. government actually licensed the export of deadly microorganisms to Iraq.”

Of course, he didn't mention (not that CBW was in the expertise of a Senate committee on "Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs ) that samples of "deadly microorganisms" are exported routinely to hundreds of universities and other research organizations for virology, immunology, agricultural and epidemiological work, not that along with anthrax, (primarily an agricultural bug), sheep fever and several other agriculturally significant pathogens (most with no effects on humans) were exported in small quantities for agricultural research - like hundreds of samples exported all over the world.

In fact, the strain of Anthrax found in Iraq is so common in research labs it's provenance is untraceable. And never mind the tiny detail that Iraq's deployment of WMDs was CW, not BW, and that the CW agents used were far more common in Soviet inventories, because they were superseded in US development. But it's all the US's fault.

It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare capsulatum. Riegle’s Committee listed other biological agents as well as the dates and addresses to which they were sent in Iraq, along with the symptoms they were known to produce."

According to witnesses at the committee, US-Iraqi military cooperation continued right up to the invasion of Kuwait.

And accordint to CentCom, most such "cooperation" (actually mid-level liason, etc. rapidly degenerated with public revelations of Ollie North's Iran-Contra games. Riegle's committee was essentially a politically motivated joke, that only had investigative authority into banking issues (hence the BNL scandal gave them their hook) and the committee staff did not consist of any experts on weapons, intelligence or military operations, so what few they got were hirelings with "friendly" views to the committee.

Since the end of WWII, the US has overthrown more democratically elected governments and bombed or intervened in more countries than all other countries combined. Here's a very partial list, just from memory: Iran, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Congo, El Salvador, Bolivia, Greece, Honduras, Haiti (coups) and Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Somalia, Panama (attacked). This does not include countries such as Iran and Ethiopia that have been attacked by a third country which has been incited by the US.

And of course, the Soviets did nothing, and everyone knows that any "election" of commies is a free and fair election. But we're just the big bad aggressor everywhere, o how my heart cries.

You might forgive some of us for being sceptical of the self proclaimed American mission of ridding the world of "evil".

We don't care. We're an empire.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Quote:

Entertaining, though, isn't it?

Not anymore. It really just makes me sad.

Why? The rest of the world's opinion is pretty much irrelevant, and the US is a bunch of *******s in terms of our policies in the rest of the world. We're just not as bad of a bunch of *******s as anyone with similar levels of power would be.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i honestly ask you, if the invasion of iraq was done for humanitarian reasons, why did we:

1. not go in sooner;
2. not go into other nations with equally atrocious human rights records;
3. tack it on as an afterthough--if at all--in virtually every speech leading up to the war?

1. Clinton's balls were busy doing other things.
2. They don't have oil or other useful things, except Congo, but Congo's too ****ed up
3. It's like the Nike slogan: "Just do it." We're not comfy with the notion that we have to go through the motions of "justifying" our policy decisions to all the little weenie countries in the world.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why?

Just general depression about the gullibility of mankind.

[MichaeltheGreat]

If you get depressed about human nature in any respect, you're doomed to have a miserable life. Just keep in mind that evolution is a continuum, and most humans have a mental capacity barely evolved beyond that of a chimp.

Then find a few that are beyond that level, and hang with them.

[Q Classic]

1. Clinton's balls were busy doing other things.
2. They don't have oil or other useful things, except Congo, but Congo's too ****ed up
3. It's like the Nike slogan: "Just do it." We're not comfy with the notion that we have to go through the motions of "justifying" our policy decisions to all the little weenie countries in the world.

at least one person steps up to bat.

1. if clinton did this, his opponents would be jumping down his throat thinking it would be a wag-the-dog affair.
2. so iraq has useful resources and it's easy to knock over. and after spending so much time saying that this had nothing to do with oil, that's just kinda...
3. i wasn't thinking of the world at large. i was thinking of how it was sold to americans. it was sold to us as a war of defence. now, after it's already been bought, we're to think it was a war about liberation?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
...
Just keep in mind that evolution is a continuum, and most humans have a mental capacity barely evolved beyond that of a chimp.

Then find a few that are beyond that level, and hang with them.

Perhaps it's time to stop reading this forum then?


By the way, what's the official Iraqi civilian and military casualty count estimated by American government agencies? Or perhaps they don't even bother to find out?

[MichaeltheGreat]

They don't bother. It's low priority info considering all the "hot" current stuff, and a lot of interpreter/translator/intel resources have been wasted in the WMD hunt.

Given the hassles of getting accurate numbers from every locale, it'll probably be well after the fact before we come up with a count, or the new Iraqi government will do it.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
2. so iraq has useful resources and it's easy to knock over. and after spending so much time saying that this had nothing to do with oil, that's just kinda...

You have to see it this way:

Evil dictators = We want to you go away, but we are not going to spend our money and lives to remove you.

Evil dictators + Strategic resources = Now we are going to wack you.


War is something risky and costly. We need some economic incentives to offset the risk and cost.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

Quote:

1. Clinton's balls were busy doing other things. 2. They don't have oil or other useful things, except Congo, but Congo's too ****ed up 3. It's like the Nike slogan: "Just do it." We're not comfy with the notion that we have to go through the motions of "justifying" our policy decisions to all the little weenie countries in the world.

at least one person steps up to bat.

1. if clinton did this, his opponents would be jumping down his throat thinking it would be a wag-the-dog affair.

Yep - and Clinton was the sort of Prez who'd be so concerned about poll numbers - lefties whining, righties going off about whatever they could think of that Clinton was obviously guilty of, that Clinton would never do it.

2. so iraq has useful resources and it's easy to knock over. and after spending so much time saying that this had nothing to do with oil, that's just kinda...

All geopolitics is about resources of one form or another. And sometimes there are practical reasons. Look at Congo for example. There are a lot of places in Africa where you can deal with the natives, but large parts of Congo ain't included. Logistically, anything we did there would have to be air supplyable, and you'd be into decades of low intensity banana warfare. You can't nation build until you get everyone past the point of "we hate those people because they're (tribe of your choice here) because we've always hated them because they did (fill in the generic legendary excuse)" and the "the way you solve problems is to kill this village and eat their livers" mode of doing things. A lot of Africa is beyond that, a lot of it isn't.

The other thing about Africa is that a lot of those countries are so badly ****ed up that you really need to institute a form of socialism to build up the barest standards of living and national infrastructure, but attempting to do so alienates the priviliged elements of society, while you have people on the opposite side who see you as an enemy of tradition, tribal values, and an imperialist to boot. So you win no friends, either way.

3. i wasn't thinking of the world at large. i was thinking of how it was sold to americans. it was sold to us as a war of defence. now, after it's already been bought, we're to think it was a war about liberation?

**************************
Time to alienate the righties.
**************************

If you stop to think about it, the US is really an amazing country, and Americans really amazing people. It's a country that basically consists of dirt farmers, tent revival preachers, carny side-show freaks and snake-oil peddlers, and you really have to wonder how in hell, other than resources and luck, we got to be the strongest military power and the most powerful economic empire in history?

Our modern tent revival preachers have expanded beyond religion, to include the likes of Michael Moore, Molly Ivins, Limbaugh and Ann Coulter - preach to your own choir, get emotions up, and let's forget any rational discourse or critical thinking.

Dirt farmers now have degrees and work for Intel or Domino's Pizza or do construction, but their focus is on their truck or minivan or urban SUV, what to do on the weekend, and their approach to policy is "what's in it for me, and what's it gonna do to me?" If they don't do the tent revivals, there's always Survivor or Jerry Springer. The extent of their interest in foreign places and policy is to (maybe) either go there for a few days of shopping and debauchery, or go someplace on the cheap, look around and talk about how those people all look and talk funny and it's dirty.

The snake oil salesmen are the politicians of course, corporate leaders, the drivers of the whole material consumer culture. They know the mob doesn't want to be bothered with details, 99.9% of them don't know anything, and they just want to be entertained. A good snake oil salesman knows that the way to keep selling the same old thing is to stick a label on it that says "New and improved" - Bill Clinton's "change" Nixon's "secret plan to end the war" yadda yadda. Snake oil salesmen also know that the audience gets bored quick if they sit still, so you keep 'em focusing on a shifting target. As long as you're movin, they're listenin', and it doesn't really matter to most if you're just going back and forth in circles.

See, the thing is, this isn't just a bottle of snake oil, this is a daily subscription to snake oil - so the message has to keep changing to get enough people to keep buying. Today's snake oil is new and improved. Honest.

[Chemical Ollie]

MtG

Keep on goin like that for 2-300 pages and you have a bestseller at the same level as the modern tent preachers you're mentioning. You could earn some bucks on it too

[MichaeltheGreat]

I need a good literary agent.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I need a good literary agent.

How about writing a book, "Dude, where's my Empire?"

[techumseh]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

You should at least get your facts straight...blah, blah, blah....we (like the Kuwaitis, Saudis, and everyone else) supported Saddam because he was the only semi-credible barrier to Iranian fundamentalist domination of the entire gulf.

I stand corrected.

So come on, pick an alternative - I gave you two, but you ducked those.

If it were up to me? Immediate, unconditional withdrawal. Pay all damages. And turn Bush and his gang over to the Hague for trial as war criminals.

The real world question isn't what's an acceptable number of deaths. People would be dying with any alternative. So just pick one.

Gimme a break. Of course people die, all the time. But when you bomb them, destroy their infrastructure, and attack them with tanks, they die much faster. Much faster. And if you destroy their civil authority so they have no security, they keep dying. Faster.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Security for Kurds and Shiites in the Baathist Iraqi regime wasn't that great. They couldn't even keep their mass burial sites a secret.

And apparently, you think it's more important to prove a point regarding Bush than whether Iraq returns to Saddamite oppression, Islamic fundamentalism, post-Saddam Baathism, or some other -ism - or if they simply have a good civil war to sort out who will run the next thugocracy. Gald to see you're such a humanitarian.

[techumseh]

The point here is not whether Iraq has a civil war, or not, or whether it returns to an oppressive regime, or not. The point is it's up to the Iraqi people, not the American government. You're only making a bad situation worse. Just go home.

[MichaeltheGreat]

So who gives a ****, as long as they just kill each other? I can see you're Africa's best and brightest hope.

And yes, we're sooooooooo much worse than Saddam.

[Drake Tungsten]

And apparently, you think it's more important to prove a point regarding Bush than whether Iraq returns to Saddamite oppression

Am I the only one who thinks "Saddamite oppression" is a humorous phrase?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I have used "Saddamite" in various ways to describe our beloved villain and his government.

[Drake Tungsten]

It has other uses, though. For example, I don't think you would be out of line in calling the British monarchy a "Saddamite" institution.

[techumseh]

Another left wing organization suggests strong Iraqi support for the Resistance:

'We could lose this situation'

· CIA says insurgents now 50,000 strong
· Crisis talks over transfer of power

Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian

The White House yesterday drew up emergency plans to accelerate the transfer of power in Iraq after being shown a devastating CIA report warning that the guerrilla war was in danger of escalating out of US control.
The report, an "appraisal of situation" commissioned by the CIA director, George Tenet, and written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, said that the insurgency was gaining ground among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands.

One military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000. Analysts cautioned that such a figure was speculative, but it does indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon had led the administration to believe.

An intelligence source in Washington familiar with the CIA report described it as a "bleak assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".

"It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and dramatic change of course," the source said.

"There are thousands in the resistance - not just a core of Ba'athists. They are in the thousands, and growing every day. Not all those people are actually firing, but providing support, shelter and all that."

Although, the report was an internal CIA document it was widely circulated within the administration. Even more unusually, it carried an endorsement by Paul Bremer, the civilian head of the US-run occupation of Iraq - a possible sign that he was seeking to bypass his superiors in the Pentagon and send a message directly to President George Bush on how bad the situation has become..

[MichaeltheGreat]

Only 50,000? In a country of 25 million? Not bad.

Before the war, the Saddam Fedayeen, Special Republican Guard, and Iraqi Special Security services, which are the hard core of the hard core, numbered about 100,000. Add in regular Iraqi Republican Guard units, which were supposed to be elite and politically committed, and you've got another 100,000 on paper, probably not more than 50,000 in actuality. Then add senior Baath party members who have too much blood on their hands and too little stashed in overseas bank accounts to really "adapt" to change, and you've probably got 30,000 to 50,000 more. Add al Tikriti clan beneficiaries of the Saddamizing of the rest of Iraq, and you've probably got another 20,000.

So out of all those *******s who have everything to lose and nothing to gain by any non-Saddamite regime change, and you've only got 50,000 who can be arsed to actively oppose us? That report even concluded that not all are actively fighting, but the 50,000 number includes those who are providing "support" and "shelter."

Of course "we could lose this situation" - so can anyone, in any form of conflict, if you stop paying attention and let the other guy dictate the pace of things without responding appropriately.

[techumseh]

I will forgo the delights of shooting fish in a barrel, and just ask one question: Given that this report was intended for public consumption (how often do CIA reports get "leaked"?), what do you think the REAL number is?

[Q Classic]

mtg

pretty much what i've been thinking all along; though i still think it's absolutely disgusting that the administration is baldly changing its rationale and then accusing those who are calling them on it as "revisionists".

[Sikander]

Originally posted by techumseh


How about writing a book, "Dude, where's my Empire?"

[mindseye]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Also, O brilliant foreign policy visionary, what would you have done?

(a) Left Saddam Hussein and the Baath party in power and continued sanctions ad infinitum (...)

or

(b) Left Hussein and the Baathists in power (...)

Hey, you got that false dilemma from **** Cheney! Because the rest of your arguments have been spot-on, I'll assume you were providing as examples two of many options, right? I know I was far from alone in favoring (c) Take another year for an all-out attempt to build a legitimate international coalition that would be better positioned politically and economically to deal with the aftermath.

Even if one last all-holds barred attempt failed, it would have put more post-war pressure Germany and France for refusing to contribute to the re-building (after years of hand-wringing about the sanctions' effects on the Iraqi people).

Why is it there's never any leftist handwringing about the cost of leaving this kind of ******* in power?

I think your "they're all ****s" view of "the left" and "the right" is a bit over-simplified. I think that plenty, if not the majority of "the (American) left" were in favor of trying a little harder before playing the military card. Saddam's regime was just about a textbook example of the kind of government that "lefties" abhor the most.