10 Iraqi War Myths.

[dude1394]

All 10 are worth reading but this one does encapsulate much.
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/topt.../20070128.aspx

10- The War in Iraq is Lost. By what measure? Saddam and his Baath party are out of power. There is a democratically elected government. Part of the Sunni Arab minority continues to support terror attacks, in an attempt to restore the Sunni Arab dictatorship. In response, extremist Shia Arabs formed vigilante death squads to expel all Sunni Arabs. Given the history of democracy in the Middle East, Iraq is working through its problems. Otherwise, one is to believe that the Arabs are incapable of democracy and only a tyrant like Saddam can make Iraqi "work." If democracy were easy, the Arab states would all have it. There are problems, and solutions have to be found and implemented. That takes time, but Americans have, since the 18th century, grown weary of wars after three years. If the war goes on longer, the politicians have to scramble to survive the bad press and opinion polls. Opposition politicians take advantage of the situation, but this has nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with local politics in the United States.

[rmacomic]

The only problem I see with that is they weren't asking for democracy, they are having it forced upon them. Historically when a nation becomes democratic, the first thing they do is throw out any foreign presence. We did it to the British, as did India. What happens when they have a democracy and elect someone like Ayatollah Sayyed? Do we go back in and say "No, you can only have a democracy if you elect people we've pre-approved."?

Just a thought.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

All 10 are worth reading but this one does encapsulate much.
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/topt.../20070128.aspx

1-No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Several hundred chemical weapons were found, and Saddam had all his WMD scientists and technicians ready. Just end the sanctions and add money, and the weapons would be back in production within a year. At the time of the invasion, all intelligence agencies, world-wide, believed Saddam still had a functioning WMD program. Saddam had shut them down because of the cost, but created the illusion that the program was still operating in order to fool the Iranians. The Iranians wanted revenge on Saddam because of the Iraq invasion of Iran in 1980, and the eight year war that followed.

huh? "no weapons of mass destruction" is a myth? NO, it isn't, and the verbage doesn't dispute that there WERE NO WMD!. it suggests that IF allowed there COULD be a ramp up in the pursuit, but the FACT is there were no wmd.

3-Sanctions were working. The sanctions worked for Saddam, not for Iraq. Saddam used the sanctions as an excuse to punish the Shia majority for their 1991 uprising, and help prevent a new one. The "Oil For Food" program was corrupted with the help of bribed UN officials, and mass media outlets that believed Iraqi propaganda. Saddam was waiting out the sanctions, and bribing France, Russia and China, with promises of oil contracts and debt repayments, to convince the UN to lift the sanctions.

the sanctions were there to prevent hussein from obtaining arms and weaponry, and most important to the item 1 of this piece to stop any wmd program. clearly they were effective in this regard. the corruption of the oil for food program did not provide hussein with any weaponry or any wmd, so YES they worked.

4-Overthrowing Saddam Only Helped Iran. Of course, and this was supposed to make Iran more approachable and open to negotiations. With the Iraqi "threat" gone, it was believed that Iran might lose its radical ways and behave. Iran got worse as a supporter of terrorism and developer of WMD. Irans clerical dictatorship did not want a democracy next door. The ancient struggle between the Iranians and Arabs was brought to the surface, and the UN became more active in dealing with problems caused by pro-terrorist government of Iran. As a result of this, the Iranian police state has faced more internal dissent. From inside Iran, Iraq does not look like an Iranian victory.

Iran has a) moved futher towards their goal of gaining nuclear weaponry, b) increased its ability to affect the politics inside Iraq, c) increased its influence in the entire mideast (see the hezbollah/Israeli conflict), and most important d) become more confident that it can act with little consequence.

tell me, just how has the iraq conflict hurt Iran? apparently it hasn't....

5-The Invasion Was a Failure. Saddam's police state was overthrown and a democracy established, which was the objective of the operation. Peace did not ensue because Saddam's supporters, the Sunni Arab minority, were not willing to deal with majority rule, and war crimes trials. A terror campaign followed. Few expected the Sunni Arabs to be so stupid. There's a lesson to be learned there.

too early to say the war is/was a failure. yet to claim the removal of a "police state...was the objective of the operation" is revisionist history at its best. the rationale was wmd, and the purported ties of hussein to terrorism, both of which have been shown to be hollow.

7-Iraq Is In A State of Civil War. Then so was Britain when the IRA was active, and so is Spain today because ETA is still active. Both IRA and ETA are terrorist organizations based on ethnic identity. India also has tribal separatist rebels who are quite active. That's not considered a civil war. This is all about partisans playing with labels for political ends, not accurately describing a terror campaign.

I would not say it IS in a state of civil war, yet to try and say that it is no different than britian, spain and india is insulting the reader's intelligence. the violence is much greater, the loss of life is many times as much as any of these other countries. if Iraq is not in a state of civil war, it's very, very close.

all in all a puff piece.

[TheBlueVan]

all i want to do is get out of the middle east. let them have their little dictatorships. what we need to do is either develop an effective fuel alternative or just pump the ME dry, then the sheiks and governments wont have millions of dollars to spend blowing up other people.

[AxdemxO]

Umm I am sure I can find a site that says that none of those are myths and are all truths, but i can imagine ur response so i wont waste my time

[dude1394]

Thanks for the "contribution".

[big_pth]

Look, if you have to have reason after reason for a war and you have to defend your actions in causing said war, then you probably should not have gotten into it. Afghanistan was to place were all of the terrorists were, and still are. They were the ones we should have thrown all of our power at and wiped them off the planet. Iraq could have waited. Now, we never got Bin Laden, the Taliban is still a force, and we still have not made Iraq a stable place. But, we DID get Sadaam, who tried to kill Bush Sr. So, it is all good.

[FishForLunch]

You hear all the time from the democrats that we did not get Bin laden because we were distracted by Iraq. So will the democrats increase troops in Afganistan and force pakistan to give up the Talibs in Quetta, once queen Hillary ascends to the throne? Retreat from Iraq and move the troops to Afghanistan. One thing we can be sure about is, if the afghanistan situation get as bad as Iraq the democrats will be demanding a retreat from there as well, it is just a matter of time.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

too early to say the war is/was a failure. yet to claim the removal of a "police state...was the objective of the operation" is revisionist history at its best. the rationale was wmd, and the purported ties of hussein to terrorism, both of which have been shown to be hollow.

Mavdog, you are not a very good liar.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=2679
21 Rationales for War

Want a reason for war with Iraq? Here are 21. A study by Devon Largio, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, reveals that between September 2001 and October 2002 10 key players in the debate over Iraq presented at least 21 rationales for going to war. Largio examines the public statements of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John McCain, Richard Perle (then chairman of the Defense Policy Review Board), Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The table below illustrates who deployed each rationale.

[dude1394]

Oohh...beautiful graph. I'm printing it. Maybe wallpaper?

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

Mavdog, you are not a very good liar.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=2679
21 Rationales for War

Want a reason for war with Iraq? Here are 21. A study by Devon Largio, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, reveals that between September 2001 and October 2002 10 key players in the debate over Iraq presented at least 21 rationales for going to war. Largio examines the public statements of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John McCain, Richard Perle (then chairman of the Defense Policy Review Board), Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The table below illustrates who deployed each rationale.

can you force yourself to not hurl invective such as "liar" when it is uncalled for? my suggestion is that the discussion remain civil, which I realize is not typical for the current occupants of the white house and their proxies, but yet at the same time is the way that mature people act.

first, why would the comments by those outside of the current administration be included? the question is not what lieberman or daschle said, it was what the current administration gave as reasons for an invasion. after all, the article in question said "Saddam's police state was overthrown and a democracy established, which was the objective of the operation..." not one of many, but "THE".

second, could you explain what "for regime change" constitutes? does it mean regime change for the sake of regime change, or from the conduct in the first gulf war, or of the violations of the ceasefire from that conflict, or is it just because they were bad people? it certainly doesn't mean "police state" on its own...

third, the graph does support my statement as at best only a couple of the reasons relate to the plight of the iraqi people, and the rest, over a dozen btw, have NOTHING to do with a "police state", and the most mentioned (and underscored by the graph you provide) was WMD.

[Usually Lurkin]

are you serious?

[Mavdog]

are you?

[mcsluggo]

You hear all the time from the democrats that we did not get Bin laden because we were distracted by Iraq. So will the democrats increase troops in Afganistan and force pakistan to give up the Talibs in Quetta, once queen Hillary ascends to the throne? Retreat from Iraq and move the troops to Afghanistan. One thing we can be sure about is, if the afghanistan situation get as bad as Iraq the democrats will be demanding a retreat from there as well, it is just a matter of time.

hmmm. valid question.

but a HUGE difference in Afghanistan versus Iraq is that we are not standing largely alone in Afghanistan like we are in Iraq (with, of course the Iraqi government). In afghanistan there is a TRUE broad based international presence, as opposed to the mostly illusory "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. It turns out that having international support may actually account for something.

Who'd've thunk it?

[big_pth]

Originally Posted by FishForLunch

You hear all the time from the democrats that we did not get Bin laden because we were distracted by Iraq. So will the democrats increase troops in Afganistan and force pakistan to give up the Talibs in Quetta, once queen Hillary ascends to the throne? Retreat from Iraq and move the troops to Afghanistan. One thing we can be sure about is, if the afghanistan situation get as bad as Iraq the democrats will be demanding a retreat from there as well, it is just a matter of time.

To answer your question, I don't want Hillary anywhere near the Democratic nomination. She is a special interest, big business shill, and I don't want ANYONE like that in the White House. If I were running things, right now in the present situation, I would move the US troops from the places like Baghdad, and put them in places to secure the borders of Iraq. I would also move a large number from Iraq to Afghanistan, and then concentrate on wiping the Taliban and Bin Laden off the face of the earth. Then, I would start giving the Iraqi sects warnings, and back those warnings up with fuel-air bombs on their strong holds. They only know and respect two things: Strength, and Fear. Either fall in line or get burnt to a crisp. It is the only way I see to deal with the situation as it currently stands.
You made a point at the end about the situation getting as bad as Iraq. Afghanistan is a whole other bag of chips than Iraq. In Iraq, you had three separate sects/cultures in the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. They all dislike each other, and were a nation only because they were more scared of Saddam's crazy butt. He kept them in line with guns and the willingness to use them. With him out of the picture, it became open season on each other. Afghanistan is different, in that they are mostly Sunni, with small minorities of Shia and other religious, non-Islamic groups. There are some slight ethnic divisions, but nothing to the extent of the Iraq Shia/Sunni conflicts. The main issue there right now is that the Taliban were beaten, but not destroyed, and now are making more noise. Had we concentrated our efforts and troops solely on the Taliban and OBL, there is a good chance we could have wiped out the group and killed the man. Instead, he remains free and is basically a figurehead showing America's weakness in not being able to catch him. The Taliban have had the time to rebuild themselves, thanks to our lack of troops in the regions they fled to. We still have the support of the majority of the world and the Afghani tribes in our efforts there. Iraq, not so much.

[TheBlueVan]

the problem w/ that is a lot of the Iraqi extremists dont give a sh-t if you threaten to kill them. they dont care if they die, as long as they can kill americans/shiites/sunnis

[Usually Lurkin]

I grabbed the first useful Iraq war thread I found in order to post this:

http://www.moderaterisk.net/2007/04/...rmant_hell.php

If you can go through the story that's linked and still think that invading Iraq wasn't worth it, you probably need sensitivity training classes.