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Does anyone still think the Iraq War was not a colossal mistake?

M

Martin

Lifer
In light of all the protests and revolutions throughout the Middle East, it's pretty hard to draw any other conclusion. Each country's protests are different, but the common causes can be broadly summarized as:

* Corruption and repression
* Lack of accountability and representation
* Economic malaise and high unemployment
* Growing young populations with no opportunities
* Rising food prices and growing economic inequality

Had Saddam not been removed, would that have kept food prices in check? Would Mubarak have stepped down voluntarily or cracked down on corruption? Would young arabs have jobs and opportunity? No, these causes don't have anything to do with either Iraq or Saddam. One would have to do some pretty wild mental acrobatics to claim that these revolutions would not have happened if Saddam was still around. Considering what's happening right now to Qaddafi (Saddam's closest living analogue), it's also hard to imagine Saddam surviving this either.

Some would claim that Iraq has been a catalyst and inspiration for people, yet you won't hear any actual protesters claim that. In fact it is Turkey, not Iraq, that people look to for inspiration. Over the past decade they have made tremendous progress towards being a stable, democratic, muslim and well-developed nation and they deserve being looked at as a model.

In essence, the Iraq War wasted hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars of money, while the change it sought to bring would have come about anyway. What a fucking waste.
 
There's no chance in hell that a revolution would have happened in Iraq without outside assistance.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/23/could-the-arab-revolution-have-removed-saddam/?hpt=T1

The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings succeeded because the military forces of those countries refused to protect the regimes by cracking down on their own countrymen. The Egyptian military's self-image is that of a force that protects the nation and the people, not Hosni Mubarak. Yes, many top officers were his cronies, but when the push came to shove, their loyalty to the state was greater than their loyalty to the regime. The same was true in Tunisia.

Saddam, on the other hand, could always count on two armed groups whose ONLY reason for being was their loyalty to him: the Republican Guard, and the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam. As they showed while putting down the Shi'ite uprising after the Kuwait war, these forces were perfectly happy to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis on his orders.

In that sense, Saddam's Iraq was like today's Iran. The regime in Tehran has been able to survive popular protests because it, too, can call on armed groups to suppress the protesters: the Revolutionary Guard and the 'Baseej" militia.

Saddam also had the apparatus of the Ba'ath Party, which had officials in every street and neighborhood, and a sizeable secret police. And finally, he allowed his people no cellphones or satellite phones, much less Internet access. (Most of these conditions exist today in Burma, North Korea and Cuba.)

So a revolution in Iraq would probably have been stillborn. Even if young Iraqis had been able to plan protests without the use of Facebook or text messages, they would likely have been betrayed by Ba'athist informers. And if they'd managed to avoid that fate, the Republican Guard and Fedayeen Saddam would have killed or jailed thousands of Iraqis to protect the regime.
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I personally believe that dethroning Saddam and installing some sense of democracy in the middle east certainly inspired many oppressed nations to want the same. Is it the cause? Probably not. Would these uprising happened without the Iraq war, maybe.
 
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I've commented before that the left did not have a good answer for Saddam; and that his removal does have some potential good for Iraq.

This does NOT endorse anything from the incredibly corrupt Republican policies, the plans for corruption that had to largely be abandoned, the loss of $20 billion of Iraqi money the US was entrusted with, the illegality of launching an aggressive war, the undermining of the UN charter, the corruption of the US decision-making process, etc.

Indeed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed among other catastrophic harms. We've also largely forgotten the massive and unnecessary losses to the museums.

The outbreak of democracy in the Middle East now has nothing to do with our going to war in Iraq.

But there is a risk, if the right funds enough propaganda to spread the lie, that this is the new 'Reagan won the cold war' lie that this 'proves Bush was right about spreading Democracy'.
 
I think it's more likely that a free Iraq served as an example to others in the middle east. They asked, why can't we have democracy? Why can't we have liquor stores? Etc.

And the trillions of dollars aside, approximately ~4,000 lives were lost in Iraq, not hundreds of thousands.
 
US made no difference in Iraq. They still hate us. They resist us at every step, and they are not interested in a representative form of government.

If they were and if it were set up as well as people claim and functioning as well as people claim, there would no longer be a need for us to have troops there.

They do not want a western way of life, and it is not our place to force one upon them. If another country wants to embrace a democratic western way of life, they are free to do so, but they need to want it on all levels and they need to fight for it themselves. We cannot provide it for them.
 
drebo said:
US made no difference in Iraq. They still hate us. They resist us at every step, and they are not interested in a representative form of government.

If they were and if it were set up as well as people claim and functioning as well as people claim, there would no longer be a need for us to have troops there.

They do not want a western way of life, and it is not our place to force one upon them. If another country wants to embrace a democratic western way of life, they are free to do so, but they need to want it on all levels and they need to fight for it themselves. We cannot provide it for them.
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Spoken like someone who's never been there and doesn't have a clue. US troops in Iraq have been doing ONLY advise and assist missions for more than a year. Everyone I know currently deployed to Iraq is bored to tears. Everyone wants to go to (southern & eastern) Afghanistan to get in the fight. We're beyond the point of evening teaching Iraqis, we're just observing Iraqis teach Iraqis at this point. Only a handful of advisors go out with Iraqi patrols now.
 
Nebor said:
Spoken like someone who's never been there and doesn't have a clue. US troops in Iraq have been doing ONLY advise and assist missions for more than a year. Everyone I know currently deployed to Iraq is bored to tears. Everyone wants to go to (southern & eastern) Afghanistan to get in the fight. We're beyond the point of evening teaching Iraqis, we're just observing Iraqis teach Iraqis at this point. Only a handful of advisors go out with Iraqi patrols now.
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Riiiight...and the presense of US soldiers is completely without meaning or threat.
 
drebo said:
Riiiight...and the presense of US soldiers is completely without meaning or threat.
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I know quite a few guys that have been to Iraq, recently, and in almost all places they said they felt as safe as they do in the states and 99% of the people are cool with them. I'd wager to say Mexico is significantly more dangerous than Iraq right now.
 
Nebor said:
I think it's more likely that a free Iraq served as an example to others in the middle east. They asked, why can't we have democracy? Why can't we have liquor stores? Etc.

And the trillions of dollars aside, approximately ~4,000 lives were lost in Iraq, not hundreds of thousands.
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Like I said, everybody looks up to Turkey and not Iraq and with very good reasons. While not perfect, Turkey does offer a real, workable model that its neighbours can follow (and yes, getting liquor is not a problem in Turkey)

Also, I know this might be a minority opinion, but I consider Iraqis to be humans as well. Radical, I know.
 
The right will try and rewrite history and spin this fuck up into something great. They will try and put gee dub on some pedestal in 30 years.
 
Martin said:
Like I said, everybody looks up to Turkey and not Iraq and with very good reasons. While not perfect, Turkey does offer a real, workable model that its neighbours can follow (and yes, getting liquor is not a problem in Turkey)

Also, I know this might be a minority opinion, but I consider Iraqis to be humans as well. Radical, I know.
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Except that Turkey has a persecuted minority, the Kurds, as part of that not perfect.
 
TechBoyJK said:
There's no chance in hell that a revolution would have happened in Iraq without outside assistance.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/23/could-the-arab-revolution-have-removed-saddam/?hpt=T1



I personally believe that dethroning Saddam and installing some sense of democracy in the middle east certainly inspired many oppressed nations to want the same. Is it the cause? Probably not. Would these uprising happened without the Iraq war, maybe.
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Qaddafi certainly has no qualms about using savage violence against his people and that seems to have only angered them more. If he falls, it would invalidate claims that Saddam would have been different, especially considering the large, angry, repressed Shia majority.
 
Nebor said:
I think it's more likely that a free Iraq served as an example to others in the middle east. They asked, why can't we have democracy? Why can't we have liquor stores? Etc.

And the trillions of dollars aside, approximately ~4,000 lives were lost in Iraq, not hundreds of thousands.
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Whoa, where did you make up that number from? Ending 2009 there were about 4200 US casualties. Seems you are forgetting someone.
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
Whoa, where did you make up that number from? Ending 2009 there were about 4200 US casualties. Seems you are forgetting someone.
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Wow. People joke that Americans don't consider Iraqi lives to be worth very much, but apparently you guys don't think they're worth anything at all.
 
Rumsfield not listening to the joint chiefs before the war and Paul Bremer firing the iraqi army... those were colossal blunders.
 
rudder said:
Rumsfield not listening to the joint chiefs before the war and Paul Bremer firing the iraqi army... those were colossal blunders.
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Did you watch the Daily Show last night? Rumsfield was on and admitted said he had no idea what was going on. Hell, he even said there was no al Queda Saddam link.
 
Nebor said:
I think it's more likely that a free Iraq served as an example to others in the middle east. They asked, why can't we have democracy? Why can't we have liquor stores? Etc.

And the trillions of dollars aside, approximately ~4,000 lives were lost in Iraq, not hundreds of thousands.
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And you believe the bullshit that you are spreading.

Iraq War Body Count -- Documented civilian deaths from violence 99,712 – 108,866, 2003-2011

Casualties of the Iraq War -- Wikipedia

Iraq Family Health Survey - 151,000 deaths - March 2003 to June 2006

Lancet survey - 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths - March 2003 to June 2006

Opinion Research Business survey - 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict - March 2003 to August 2007

Associated Press - 110,600 deaths - March 2003 to April 2009

Iraq Body Count project - 98,170 — 107,152 civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. 150,726 civilian and combatant deaths[1] - March 2003 to October 2010

WikiLeaks. Classified Iraq war logs[1][2][3][4][5] - 109,032 recorded deaths - January 2004 to December 2009
 
iGas said:
And you believe the bullshit that you are spreading.

Iraq War Body Count -- Documented civilian deaths from violence 99,712 – 108,866, 2003-2011

Casualties of the Iraq War -- Wikipedia

Iraq Family Health Survey - 151,000 deaths - March 2003 to June 2006

Lancet survey - 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths - March 2003 to June 2006

Opinion Research Business survey - 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict - March 2003 to August 2007

Associated Press - 110,600 deaths - March 2003 to April 2009

Iraq Body Count project - 98,170 — 107,152 civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. 150,726 civilian and combatant deaths[1] - March 2003 to October 2010

WikiLeaks. Classified Iraq war logs[1][2][3][4][5] - 109,032 recorded deaths - January 2004 to December 2009
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I was only including coalition military members. Iraqi deaths are so poorly tracked, studied and reported that the numbers may as well be made up. Besides, they're getting all of our help, money and infrastructure for FREE.

For what it's worth, I would have rather America not have gone to Iraq in the first place. I wouldn't trade one American live for a million Iraqis, and I wouldn't trade American lives for a democratic government that they're just going to fuck up in a few years anyway. But what's done is done, so let's just try and make the best of it.
 
Martin said:
In essence, the Iraq War wasted hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars of money, while the change it sought to bring would have come about anyway. What a fucking waste.
Click to expand...

For how swiftly you denounce the idea that Saddaam's removal had anything to do with these other uprisings, you make a pretty broad leap to assume it WOULD have happened in Iraq no matter what.

I'm not defending or attacking the justification for the war, either - just that your post is based on lots of conjecture and opinion, very little fact, and yet you're trumpeting it like its The Word.
 
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