Officer of Engineers

"Suck it up, Captain. That kid ain't the first nor the last."

- Then CSM, now RSM, G Lindsay on my reaction to the 1st dead baby I saw.

__________________
Chimo

tarek

Maybe when the littlest terrorist in Wazirsistan is dead we will be safer - don't ya think?

turnagainarm

I guess then Bush is also responsible for all the death in Iraq so since it was him who started the war?

Iraq-Iran border dispute was an old one, and Iraqis and Iranian were not exactly on friendly terms. A border war started because Iraq wanted to claim back some of the disputed territory Iraq thought it rightfully belonged to it.

It is a different matter that the war lasted for 8 long years, party because of the Machiavellian role played by Uncle Sam which encouraged Saddam to fight on, and at the same time delivered arms to Iran under the clandestine Iran-contra deal.

You are missing the point. Total number of Kuwaitis dead was under 1000, unlike the 10's of thousands claimed by the poster to whom I replied.

Yes, but I was talking about use of WMD on his own civilians.

I won't be surprised that the WMD he used against Iranian troops was done under Uncle Sam's approval. Sunce Uncle Sam was Saddam's ally, and kept totally mum about the use of WMD against Iranians, never mind that use of such WMD was banned by international law.

Yes that was before the food for Oil program was started.
UN/UNICEF conclusion was that the deaths were due to sanctions, and international community considered US responsible for those deaths.
Recall Madeline Allbright interview with Lesile Stahl of 60 minutes, when asked if death of 1/2 million Iraqi children was justified because of the sanctions, Allbright replied in affirmative.

Nobody knows the exact number. You will never hear esitmate of Iraqi dead (or Afghan dead) from Pentagon, US does not like to put out any such number of adversary casualty.
However, I do remember several of the generals (retired) on the FOX news channel claiming upto 100,000 Iraqi troops killed during the the first phase of war itself (19th March - 9th April, 2003). A figure of 100,000 troops killed does not sound that much off the mark considering that the republican gaurds were carpet bombed round the clock and completely destroyed. Strength of the republican gaurd
iirc was 150,000, and that is just Republican gaurds.

Estimate of civilian death varries from 10,000 - 30,000.

Total number of Iraqis killed (troops + civilians + insurgents) could be anywhere between 50,000 to 150,000.

That was hardly the reason USA invaded Iraq. If that was the case then USA would not have formed alliance with Saddam back in 1979 and would have remained a faithfully ally until middle of 1990.

Remember the phrase used about Saddam by Uncle Sam during the 80's was that "Saddam was a SOB but he was our SOB".

Altruism would be last reason Uncle Sam would intervene in any conflict.

Let me give you the example of all the conflicts in Africa. In last 30-35 years there has a dozens of conflicts and civil wars in Africa, the total toll being of the order 5-6 million lives.
Have you heard of Uncle Sam ever trying to end those conflicts/civil-wars even through diplomatic/political means?
Liberia and now Darfur are more exceptions than rule, Rwanda was too late.

Confed999

Nope, Saddam restarted the war through non-compliance. He was given plenty of time, and chances.
Your first post said 300. Here's proof it's double that http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105976,00.html . Now you say it's under 1000. So you're really saying you don't know. From what I'm seeing in my search, grand total is around 2200 including the ones abducted. BTW, failure to release all of the Kuwaitis taken prisoner was enough to end the cease-fire on top of everything else.
How old are you? You do realize I sat in front of the TV as a kid and heard it reported, while the war was going on. The US press isn't silent, if it were there would be no government scandals.
If it was due to sanctions, then it was Saddam's fault for non-compliance. The oil-for-food money wasn't going to the people either.
These are the only deaths that count to me. 25,000,000 given a chance at freedom, for 10,000 - 30,000. If it were me, I'd like those odds. I hope the people of Iraq continue to reach for the goal, and Saddam won't have gotten all these people killed for nothing.
It was one of the reasons. Tell me, how many voted for what motive(s), to invade Iraq? It was my motive for support, so you are wrong at least on that level.
So, that makes it allright? We should just be pals with his kind, and everything will be peaches and cream?
Who ever said it was unselfish? Just trade with even a semi-free Iraq could ammount to billions and billions, but they would still be free. The last reason, is still a reason, and it's something I wonder why nobody else cares about. It's all about the WMD, never about life and freedom. I think the world really needs to prioritize.
I know about the conflicts in Africa. I support whatever means needed to stop the killing. I do not excuse evil, by pointing at more evil.
It's never too late to go after the bad guys, and help the innocent. "All you need to do good, is the will to do good."


You still didn't answer my question, how many have to be enslaved, tortured and killed before you think it's ok to do something about it?

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Ray

No.

It's a cruel thing to say.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

turnagainarm

Saddam started the war? He brought his troops all the way from Iraq and attacked USA's east coast?

No Saddam did not start the war Bush did on the pretext of WMD, none was found.

I am not going to agree with you on this, gulf war II was not started by Saddam, it was strted by Bush.

Just couple of days back UN General Secretary said that Iraq war was illegal.

Again you are completely missing the points, lets for example assume that your number of 22,00 is correct, even then it is far short of the 10's of thousands claimed by another poster which prompted me to reply in the first place.

Can you see the difference between 22,00 and 10's of thousand?

How old you were as a kid when you watch those events unfold on TV?

USA at first did not even criticize Halabza gassing of civilian Kurds, it was only after in face of heavy international criticism that it came up with a lukewarm criticism.

As far as gassing of the Iranian soldiers are concerned, USA by and large kept mum about it and cntinued t support Iraq. On the contrary Reagan's special envoy Ramsfeld was making hand delivery of personl gifs from Reagan to Saddam.

Part of it was defintely Saddam's fault. But remember sanctions were imposed in 1991 imediately after war and food for oil program started in 1997, throught this period Iraq allowed UN inspection to continue. UN inspectors were only kicked out in 1998 after Iraqis found out that many of the inspectors ( Scott Ritter was one of them ) were USA spies.

USA also must share part of responsibility for the 1/2 million Iraqis (mostly children) killed due to punitive darconian sanctions. Again refer to Madeline Allbright's interview with Lesile Stahl in which she made the now infamous statement that death of 1/2 million Iraqi children was justified.

USA attitude was at best callous. USA knew that civilians/childrens were dying yet it did not act until 1997, it only agreed to food for oil program under heavy international pressure.

Your assertion that "food for oil" money was not going to people totally overlooks the fact that by 2003 upto 60% of the Iraqis were getting their food under this program.
Apparently you did not know that, did you?

I don't buy the "freedom and democracy" nonsense, because US right at this moment is supporting all kinds of repressive regime in the ME ranging from a dictator in Egypt, Kingdom in Saudi Arabia, Amirs in Kuwait, Sheikhs in Qatar, and another King in Jordon.

Never mind that USA's closet ally in war on terror is another dictator Musharraf of Pakistan.


I did not say alutrism was one of the reason, I said it was the "last reason" USA would intervene in conflcits beyound its territory.

Again you are missing the point. USA was in bed with Saddam from 1979 - 1990. Do you think Saddam was an angel during this period?

I am just exposing the hypocracy.

Explain to my why is US supporting a dictator like Musharraf, only 25 million Iraqi people need to enjoy freedom and democracy? What about 150 million Pakistanis, it is ok for them to live under a dictatorship?

Let me tell you US does not give a flying squirrel to "freedom & democracy" to people who live far away places.

In fact if you look at the history of last 50-60 years, USA has supported all kinds of vile/corrupt dictators/autocrats all over the world who have had been repressing their civilian populations all the time.

USA is "liberting" those Iraqis on daily basis by boming them into oblivion in places like Falluja. Iraqi civilians routinely "liberated" (killed) by American fire.

Have you seen the devastation in places like Falluja, Najaf. It becomes obvious that what USA is doing is not reconstruction but deconstruction of Iraq.

So you do admit USA invaded Iraq for selfish reason. Is it ok to go to some far away countries and kill 30,000 of their civilians because down the line you will be making billions of doller in trade?

Facts remains that these conflicts have been going on for 30-40 years, and an estimated 5-6 million Africans have died in these conflict without USA paying any attention at all.

Does USA only intervene for "alutristic" reason when it stands to make billions?

Given the totally indifferent attitude towards all the African conflicts, it sounds like that, doesn't it?


I will agree with you on this one, it is just that a timely intervention saves more lives.
For example 10,000 are being killed in Darfur on monthly basis, while the issue is being debated for last several months.
If the leading powers such as USA want to take remidial action, it can be arranged quickly through UNSC.

You will have to first answer why the hypocracy, why it was ok for USA to sleep with Saddam between 1979-1990 when he was precisely doing the same things?

Why only Iraqis need "freedom & democracy" but not the Egyptian who are ruled by a dictator Mubarak who is just going to appoint his son to succeed him? Is that democracy? USA does support Mubarak, doesn't it?

Do you think the Suadi Kings are democartic? USA supports Saudi regime, doesn't it?

I can go on and on.

Point is as long as US will have these hypocratical stands and practice double standards, it is not going to have any credibility.

You see people are able to see such hypocracy and double standards.

Trooth

There is indeed some hypocrasy within the western powers' positions on Iraq (and other regimes, but Iraq is clearly the most tangible).

However, an excuse could be used that the western powers are democracies with regular changes of leader and also poitical party (and therefore change of flavour of their ideology). Hence what might be policy 25 years ago can change over subsequent governments etc. Dicatorial regimes with leaders in power for 30 years can't use that excuse.

One exception to that is Donald Rumsfeld. He was part of the policy then, he is part of the policy now. Personally i don't trust him.

Confed999

Did Saddam cooperate fully? No. Cease-fire broken. Sorry you can't understand that, but that's the deal.
As soon as he cites the law that was broken, I'll agree with him, but I will still support the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. If it's illegal to liberate, I'll joyfully accept criminal status.
Can yoyu see the difference between 300 and 2200? You're missing my point, and it's the same point you were making about another.
I'm 35, you can do the math. I've watched Iraq unfold through the end of the cold war. Iraq was the issue I went with to the polls the first time I voted.
And that makes it right? Sorry, I don't understand why you keep showing doing the wrong thing to support doing the wrong thing. It sounds like you're arguing in support of Iraq, because the US did it before. Deals with bad guys make me mad, but that may just be me...
But he did not cooperate fully, that was the deal. If you want to see how it's supposed to be done, look up South Africa's nuclear disarmament.
All Saddam had to do was cooperate. All of the power was his, that's why it's justified.
And that excuses it? I think Bush 1 or Clinton should have taken care of this allready. I really don't understand the way you argue.
Yes I did. Did you know it was only meant to supplement their diet, that it wasn't enough to survive on, but it was all many of that 60% had? Do you know what it means when the average age of a population is only 19? It means the elders are going without food, so the kids can eat.
Sorry, that's why I support the war, though not for democracy. I'm sure others support it for the same reason. Tell me, how many voices supporting another agenda are required to make my voice not matter? I don't care about individual motivations because in a world of over 6 billion people, there are more than 6 billion motives in play. All I care about is that one more tyrant has fallen, and 25 million have a chance to be free. You can have any motive you wish, I'm keeping mine the way it is.
And that makes it right? Am I misunderstanding you? Are you actually arguing for isolationism, or more war?
No country, as a whole, has ever done anything unselfishly. Only people can be selfless, good governments are biased towards their populations. If even one vote to go to war with Iraq was made with the thought of freedom for the people of Iraq, then alutrism is one of the reasons.
And that excuses it? You're exposing hypocracy allright.
Would you, and all the others like you, support his removal? From my posts above, can you guess what my answer is? Sadly, because of the politicization of every single thing anyone does, we're stuck with this "enemy of my enemy is my friend" BS.
And that makes it allright?
People die in war. It comes down to a decision, thousands for millions. It sucks, but that's how things are. If it were me living in Iraq, I would want the chance.
In the USA we're allowed to think as individuals, thus all reasons count. I'm sure there were many selfish reans, just as I know there were many selfless reasons. Reasons don't cancel each other out, they coexist.
And that makes it right? We shouldn't have done anything in Iraq, becasue we aren't doing enough elsewhere? It wasn't good to remove a tyrant, becasue there are other tyrants? I just don't get it...
Like Iraq was? How can the US do anything anywhere when there are people running around screaming "illegal" and "right wing (or left wing) conspiracy" with no real proof? I support stopping the killing, by any means needed.
I see the hypocracy and double standards, but I give them a cause as well. It's the same reason you have failed to answer my question. It's the same reason you do not support the removal of Saddam. It's the same reason that if Dems were in office, the sides would be reversed. I have no hypocracy in this, no politics, it's black and white to me.


Your vote counts, how many have to be enslaved, tortured and killed before you think it's ok to do something about it?

Confed999

The policies can only change if the people require them to change. By attacking the changes with unproveable accusations of motive, instead of supporting the changes that needed to be made, things will never be any different.
I don't blame you.

Officer of Engineers

Excerpts from the BBC interview with the UN SG

I've re-read the Charter and he's wrong. While it was not legal, it was also not illegal.

Trooth

As has been discussed eloquently by Confed, and also discussed in other threads, there were many reasons for the Iraq war. Some selfless, some extremely selfish. Some justified at the time, some not, some justifed since, some not so.

I think, however you have to look at the world prior to the Invasion of Iraq. There were other reasons behind the politics, but i think the broad political and possibly military strategy work like this :-

Post 9/11 the US was out for AQ and Bin Laden who was (is?) in a cave in Afghanistan. Hence the invasion of Afghanistan. Then comes the tricky bit. AQ is a cellular organisation. Smashing it isn't easy. As Bali and Madrid have shown. Therefore the US / UK etc wanted to start this process. They wanted to achieve :-

1) Showing AQ that they will come after them where ever they are
2) Showing those regimes that support them that they are now viewed as a threat by the US/UK (this can include formerly friendly regimes - regimes who were friends when citizens of other nations were getting hurt)
3) Showing their constituents that they were in fact doing something about the large numbers of the citizens that are dead

To achieve this they wanted to put pressure on Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and any other nation that was sympathetic to the AQ cause. I haven't really lumped Iraq in at this point because it is well documented that Bin Laden and Saddam hated each other and that Bin Laden was offering his troops to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq, Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11 etc.

Now, the US/UK know exactly where the funding for AQ comes from - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan (as often a friendly channel as an unfriendly one) etc. It is in no position to directly have a go at SA - SA is too much of a close friend in other areas. Iran is not also an easy target - because aside from any Nuke's etc that Iran might have the US/UK already has an ongoing containment role in the area, that of the no fly zones in Iraq.

Firstly it would be somewhat absurd to attack Iran when its neighbour Iraq is regularly taking pot shots at your planes. If they were to go after Iran, what would Iraq do? Would it keep out, support Iran (seems unlikely but does it hate the infidel more than Iran?) and so on? Equally the forces used in the gulf to enforce the no fly zones could be better used in such an attack.

So, what to do? Well why not finish the Iraq problem off? Iraq is contained, it isn't a threat to its neighbours, unless the region gets some upheaval, and the coalition was about to start some upheaval. So, how can we attack them? The voters may have forgotten all about Saddam. So they dragged up a series of reasons to make it tangible to the voters. This to me explains why the official motivations kept changing and so on, and why the patience ran out. Iraq had to be removed from a strategic viewpoint - before any other nations could be tackled. Equally toppling Saddam would give a nice base in the region - meaning no dependency on dubious partners - such as Pakistan and to a lesser extent Turkey (who had already had to be bought for the invasion of Afghanistan).

Therefore Iraq, in my view, is just a step, possibly a significant one in that one less evil dictator has gone but it was unfinished business that had to be dealt with to pursue the greater goal of smashing AQ and smashing aligned regimes (such as Iran and Syria). The verbal linking happened with the "Axis of Evil" speech.

What makes me think this? Well people like Mr Powell and Dr Rice are more astute than to get caught in the political morass that they have recently - they were convinced that Saddam wasn't a threat in mid 2001, after all. Why link Iraq and Iran in the axis of evil - the countries do not in anyway like each other). Why "sex up" flakey evidence and why be so keen to believe Iraqi defectors (since completely discredited) when they weren't so believable before? Is it to make things more tangible, more real and more "sound bite friendly"?

The US/UK is finding it tougher in Iraq than it thought would happen. One of the reasons it didn't have an exit strategy is that i don't believe it actually wants to leave Iraq completely, it wants bases there for Iran and Syria (and it wants to distance itself from Israel longer term). Therefore it needed a stabilisation strategy.

So, the goal of ending the 12 year old "no fly zone" problem has been achieved. If the US can get Iraq stabilised then it can gather forces for Iran and Syria. Its starting the political side by trying verbal linking of Iran to 9/11 and by imposing unilateral sanctions on Syria.

North Korea, by the way, is a red herring. NK restarting its nuclear programme was a piece of very bad tming for the US and something it had to respond to, but it wasn't something the US was overly concerned about at the time as it would divert efforts away from the middle east - as time seems to have shown.

Now, a lot of people have risked (and indeed given) everything for other motives and i am not in any way trying to demean their efforts. Equally the personal reasons why Joe Bloggs from Glasgow is risking his life in Basra are not necessarily the same as the President's / Prime Minster's / Advisers / Military personnel's reasons and it is those that i am trying to uncover here.

It isn't also that a lot of good hasn't come out of the regime change in Iraq, and it isn't that this wasn't a motivation of the power brokers. All of this probably was. But i don't think they were the primary reasons, and therefore that it why it was hard sell at the beginning and a hard sell now.

Now, where did i put my asbestos underpants ?

turnagainarm

When do you think the cease-fire was broken? Years ago?

Why didn't US approach security council then?

Iraq was justified in kicking out the UN insepection team because some of the team members (like Scott Ritter) were American spies.

I would say sending spies in the guys of wepon inspectors should also be considered violation of internal laws?

Turns out there was no WMD in Iraq as Iraqis had repeatedly made known.

It was Bush & Blier who lied, turns out Iraq was not lying when it said it did not have WMD.

US cheif wepons inspector in Iraq is soon going to publish his report, from what I have read about it in media, it becomes so obvious what Bush & Blier were blatently lying.

I guess you are too blind a Bush supporter and you can't understand that Bush was lying or it ok for you if your leader lies.



He did. Read the following interview posted of OoE. Kofi Anan says another UNSC resolution was required. US did not wait for it.

The 300 figure I quoted I didn't really pull out of my hat, I did read it somewhere, and I am not even going to bother to look up your source, I know your 2200 is on the high side, actually Kuwaiti deaths was lower than that.

For me difference in 2200 and 10's of thousands is order of magnitude.
Anybody who says 10's of thousands of Kuwaitis were killed is a LIER. I made my post to counter that LIE.

Let's see at the begining of Iraq - Iran war you were 11, when the war ended in 1988, you were 19, so I am guessing you got to vote in the 1988 presidential election.

Iraq was not an issue in the 1988 presidential election.
Iran Contra scandal was and I remember Bush I saying that he was outside the loop, obviously a lie.

No it does not make it right, but then it makes US no better than Saddam.

I am not saying he did.

No death of 1/2 million children because of US sponserd sanctions was not justified, and US must share some moral culpability for death of those children along with Saddam.
That is how I see it, and that is how I will continue to see it.

Bush I excuse for keeping Saddam around was that he was supposed to act as a counter weight to Iran, else Iran would have become the dominant power in ME.

I agree that Clinton should have resolved issues with Iraq with the help of international coperation.

Yes I knew that a upto 60% Iraqi people were dependent on UN food for oil program for their food supply, that is why I pointed out to you that when you said that money from oil for food program did not go to the people, you were wrong.

Well if you still support Iraq war then you are a now a minority in your own country, because majority of the American now say that it was wrong to attack Iraq and I agree with them.

Sorry, I still don't buy the "freedom" argument, because right at this moment US is supporting dictators who are denying their people basic rights and freedom.

No it does not, that is what I am pointing out to you, that while your country is "liberating" 25 million Iraqis, it is supporting Musharraf who is dictator and came to power threough a military coup. Do you understand that supportng a dictator like Musharraf results into suppression of democracy for 150 million Pakistanis, and thus their freedom?

Can you see the double standard?

I just don't buy that USA attacked Iraq for altruistic reasons.

Musharraf is a dictator, his dictatorship is denying the people of Pakistan democracy, and their democractic rights, by supporting him US in a way becomes a party to denial of fundamental democratic rights to 150 million Pakistanis.

USA should not support Musharraf or any other dictator/despoit/autocrat PERIOD. But the sad fact is that USA still support dictators, while at same time goes blah blah about "freedom & democracy", that is what I call double standard.

Should USA remove Musharraf, a dictator by military intervention, NO.