Alborz Taha

Thousands of orphaned children,
Thousands of unattended families,
Streets covered with corpses of innocent civilians,
4-5 million Iraqis displaced inside Iraq and refugees in neighboring countries,
Full devastation of Iraq's social and economical infrastructure
………
Please join our campaign to save Iraq at this very crucial moment.
Sign for a democratic Iraq.
It does not take you more than a few minutes to join a campaign to save the future of Iraq.
We deeply appreciate your humanitarian concern in this regard.

Visit our petition at:

Save Iraq ÃäÞÐæÇ ÇáÚÑÇÞ Petition

Speedy

So is this another petition calling for the invasion of Syria and Iran?

Kansas Bear

And all this existed during Saddam's reign!

Julie

Condi Rice said today that the US needs to protect Iraq from Iran.

Excuse me, but isn't that what Saddam was doing?

I must have missed something somewhere.

Bluesman

No doubt you've missed a great many things. You continue to do so.

NO, Saddam was most certainly NOT protecting Iraq, he was keeping it as his personal plaything, and, by launching a disastrous war with Iran, he made Iraq vulnerable to them.

Saddam PROTECTING his country? How, by allowing his psychopathic sons to murder and rape at will? By launching not one, but THREE different losing wars?

You seem to have missed something, yes.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Bluesman

I'm fully engaged in a current - and REAL - effort to save Iraq right now. I prefer mine to yours.

Julie

Saddam's "disasterous" war with Iran? Didn't we aid and abet him in his defeat with Iran? Why so pray tell? Must have been a good cause for him to go to war with Iran for the US to help him...hmmmm?

Iran was after Iraq then, just like Iran is after Iraq now. No, I didn't miss ANYTHING.

But it's real funny how you can manipulate certain events to fit the current situation at the time. That's why you are a Republican and I'm a Democrat.

Bluesman

You're a Democrat because you're not a well-informed person. I, on the other hand, AM, therefore I'm a Libertarian that votes Republican.

Just to TRY - in vain, I have no doubt - to try to make you just a bit less ignorant, there was a dam' GOOD reason to support Saddam against the Iranians:

See, we could use the Iraqis as a big club to beat our worst enemy in the region - Iran - over the head. If it works, GREAT, Iran is neutralized, and our worst foreign policy headache - brought about completely and totally by Democratic Party fecklessness, I'd like to point out - is wiped away with no American blood being spilled to make it happen. Now, THAT is a sharp move, beyond the comprehension of all them pointy-head Democrats and their natural allies, the State Department's time-serving bureacrats.

If it does NOT work, well, didn't cost us much to bleed the Iranians a bit, AND we don't have to worry too much about Saddam, either.

It was a GREAT power-play, and the reason it didn't play out well was because the Democrats managed to scuttle the whole shebang. In making certain - AGAIN - the an American strategy was going to fail, they managed to go right down the middle of two desirable results, and find the only way to turn a metaphor of a bowling alley upside down: on either side of the lane the Democrats chose was a strike, but the Democrats put the ball right in the gutter that runs down the middle. Nice goin'; really creative way to manage an American defeat when we weren't even doing the fighting, and seemingly the only countries that could be harmed were two thug regimes. (As Henry Kissinger said of the Iran-Iraq War, 'It's a shame they can't both lose.' Kissinger, by the way, is a REPUBLICAN.)

But oh, no - either of those outcomes just wouldn't DO, and the Democrats managed to strenghten and encourage BOTH enemies simultaneously, AND inflict a wound on their most-hated foe (no, silly, not Saddam or the ayatollahs...I'm talking about REAGAN!), the most-hated until Dubya came along and drove them mad with fury that he'd actually seek to defend the United States.

ANYhoo, YEAH, you're not up-to-speed on this topic (or many others that come to mind right off the bat). But how did I do? Are you any more informed than you were, or did that just bounce off you...again?

Julie

In 1982, the U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq. Why didn't we allow Iran to overthrow Saddam? What has changed from then until now? Why is it okay for the US to overthrow Iraq but not Iran?

Desert Storm under Bush Sr., even Cheney said a full invasion of Iraq would be a "quagmire." What has changed from then until now?

Blues, these are the same damn people who were in office then, that are in office now, who were the architects of the invasion of Iraq.

What has changed? And, please do not say 9/11.

Shipwreck

You've got it the other way around. It's Iraq that actually invaded Iran on 22 September 1980.

__________________
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9)

Bluesman

Correct.

Because if ANYbody got overthrown, the preferable outcome was the IRANIANS losing to Saddam, not the other way around. As bad as a Saddam victory would be, and Iranian one was Gotterdammerung. (And keep in mind: if the Democrats get their way and we retreat from Iraq...that very outcome, so unthinkable, may very well occur.)

And then Iran gets a nuke.

And you don't see what the big deal is, whether Iraq or iran controls both countries.

Mighta heard we fought a war or two against Saddam. He INVADED KUWAIT, so that purty much changed our relationship with him (although as soon as he had become more of a liability than an asset - that is, he settled his war with the worst of our regional enemies - the Iranians - we kicked him to the curb).

But it's not so much what's changed (and your asking that question tells me you not only don't know the very simple and obvious answer to THAT one, but far more importantly, the answer to the NEXT one, to wit but what's remained constant: IRAN is the worst and most dangerous enemy in the region. It always was, ever since the shah was overthrown by the ayatollahs (and, again: this was absolutely the fault of the Democrats and their policy - unchanged since 1948, the year China was lost to the communists...by the Democrats...of cutting adrift vitally-important strategic allies, who are invariably replaced by the most intractable and dangerous enemies).

That is an unitendedly EXCELLENT question. I know you didn't ask it in the spirit that I'm going to answer it, though, as the question as you've asked it is meant to imply that we shouldn't have done EITHER, and the way I'm going to answer it is because we should've done BOTH. But as dalem is fond of pointing out (correctly): 'We fought in Iraq so that we wouldn't have to fight everywhere else.' And, if the Democrats weren't so hell-bent on losing this war, it may have worked out that way.

Take a look at your map, and you'll see that Iraq is right in the big fat middle of our worst problems: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and the Persian Gulf. Imagine, if you can (and as a Democrat, that's a doubtful proposition), that an American ally, armed and trained by us, guaranteed by us, backed by us is RIGHT THERE, cheek-by-jowl with our enemies. If the undermining that has gone on had NOT happened and the insurgency had collapsed...this would be OUR ENEMIES' crisis, not ours. Imagine the ayatollahs, the sheiks, the thug regimes all around Iraq being worried about THEIR borders and who's crossing them in the middle of the night. Imagine the example set by the Iraqis to their neighbors, as they got wealthier and freer, and those other captive peoples wondered, 'Why not us, too?'

THAT is the set-up of the pieces in 2003. But in 2006, after a full-court press by Democrat defeatists, we're back on OUR heels, wondering if we can even a achieve a draw against a few thousand punks with rifles, much less a world-changing strategic victory.

I blame YOUR PARTY, because the play was excellent; but none of us counted on quite how treacherous Democrats were prepared to be to defeat their own country and re-claim power.

Our own fault, really. The signs were always there, ever since the Democrats stopped supporting their own country, and started rooting for our enemies.

They were wrong, and I knew it at the time, too. We pulled our punch, and in war, that is ALWAYS a mistake. In a war with ARABS, that's doubly true, as they take it as weakness (which it really is, after all), and they think they beat you on points.

We should've immediately turned towards Baghdad, and crushed Saddam then and there. But it was a miscalculation based on something that WAS still true: IRAN is FAR more dangerous than Saddam's Iraq, so if we topple our 'counter-weight', do the Iranians stand to benefit? I thought it was a specious argument then, and I still do.

So, we listened to our Ivy League nitwits at the State Department (most apt nickname in the entire Federal Government: 'Foggy Bottom'), and we compounded the mistake by giving the signal for the Shiites to rise against Saddam...and then stood by and watched while he slaughtered them. We're still paying for that mistake, because an Arab's memory is longer than a Scottish pawnbrokers', and his sense of grudge and revenge makes a Sicilian seem like the soul of conciliation.) Is it any wonder it's tough to get the Iraqis to commit their families' lives to our word when Dubya's daddy, a Republican (sort of), screwed 'em then, and Democrats want to screw 'em NOW?

See above.

Why can't I say '9/11'? You believe what the Democrats say, that Iraq isn't part of the Global War on Terror? Well, it dam' sure IS, and the world that saw such awful calls after Gulf War I is GONE. The world HAS changed, and that you would ask that - 'What has changed?' - shows a mindset so blinkered, so detached from reality that there is simply no way of getting through to you.

Do you not KNOW what has changed and how and why since 9/11?

dalem

Blues-

Excellent post. In 1991, I think it was mainly that we were simply unprepared to act so decisively in a geopolitical sense. Militarily we would have smooshed the Iraqis and been sitting in Baghdad no problem, but on a larger scale we weren't ready for altering the structure of the M.E. so drastically, and propping up a new ally (Iraq) against an old enemy (Iran). That is the quagmire I think people were desperate to avoid - a regional one.

When the Sovs collapsed I remember having a conversation with a friend of the family (Navy guy, asst CAG on the Kennedy for a bit I think) about how dissapointed I'd be if America didn't take the moral high ground over the next few years and be more assertive with our foreign policy. Sure the French and Russkies and UN would whine and cry, but they wouldn't really DO anything.

Then I voted for Clinton. Yikes!

-dale

Bluesman

I thank you; I believe it's one I'll look back on with pride in years to come.

Of course, if President Hillary is elected, it may be used as evidence against me. I may have to answer for heresy to her, or pay with my head the price of offending our new Muslim overlords.

Yeah, I heard the argument, but I never bought into it. Here's the deal: every single time we let the Arabs off the hook in a war, they think they won. We busted Israel's balls about wiping out a trapped Egyptian army in the Sinai, so they let 'em go, and Egypt comes off thinking they foxed the Jooooos.

They've got to know they've been defeated. And when we got all nervous about finishing the job, they took that to mean we're not serious people, and then we proceeded in the next ten years to reinforce that notion. No wonder Saddam didn't think we'd really come for him; we'd flinched from it every time before. We trained him to provoke us.

Nobody's perfect, man.

Julie

I know that silly, but it doesn't change the fact that Iran has always been interested in over-powering Iraq, they have just been waiting on, and taking advantage of every opportunity.

Julie

I know this, but this Administration (Cheney and Bush) should have know this as well prior to invading Iraq, and took proper precautions to alleviate Iranian insurgency. THAT's where the problem is.


Correct.

Again correct, and this Administration knew the take on Iran prior to invading Iraq, and should have taken precautionary measures.


I agree on should have done BOTH, and if that wasn't feasible, precautionary measures (more troops) should have been figured into the invasion to prevent such a disaster. Fact is, it WASN'T, and you can not blame the Democrats for that.

There was not a more knowledgeable Cabinet as to Iraq, than in the Bush Administration, that could have pulled it off, i.e., Bush, Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld. They had 90% American support and confidence behind them, and a Republican majority as well as many Democrats backing them. They had all the resources needed for a successful invasion. How they screwed all that up is still beyond me.

Americans voted in the Democrats in 2004 because we all see the Republicans missed the whole picture with Iraq, which has resulted in a worse scenario than what should have been.

You want to blame the Democrats for their dumbasses, you go right ahead. But I say, you're wrong in doing so.