Do you agree with Hitchens' on the Iraq War?

[Ian]

Yet another reason why Libya =/= Iraq: we never "went into" Libya. We helped with an air campaign. Massive difference, especially in terms of public relations. And it was a campaign with far greater international support than Iraq, including support from the Arab League.

To say that there was greater reason to go into Iraq than Libya is just silly, and I still think it's an opinion made with partisan blinders on. What had begun in Libya was happening whether NATO and others got involved or not. Nothing was happening in Iraq in 2003; without an invasion, the status quo would've been the same in 2004. Considering that this status quo had not been presenting a problem for us for twelve years prior, there's no reason why it couldn't have stayed so longer. There was no crisis, no casus belli other than the Bush administration's own paranoia over Saddam.

And, btw, the US wasn't getting squat in terms of oil from Libya. Oil was actually a factor (like humanitarianism or spreading democracy, a minor driver) for Iraq. As long as we're taling about minor drivers for why Iraq happened, I recall certain officials saying much of the war could be paid for with Iraqi oil...

[Audley Strange]

Cartoon fails of a basic premise: foreign policy disaster.

The Wars wasn't that. And, as Obama stated in his speech the other day, it has been a success. Unless he lied, of course.

No you're wrong. Not only did the war burn the goodwill of a genuinely sympathetic planet, it made your citizens even more attractive targets to terrorists, it lead someone, possibly Bradley Manning to give a data dump to Wikileaks which was one of the catalysts that set fire to the middle East and north Africa in which client dictators you could deal with were or are being deposed, with the increasing possibility of more hostile Islamic regimes taking their place.

Disaster is the word. The ramifications of the Iraq war has left your state mostly reviled upon the international stage, that's a success?

Lying? No. Blinkered? Sure.

[Seth]

The main 'evidence' Blaire provided was that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, ready and waiting to be used at 45 minutes notice. There were not.

That, however, is what all the best covert intelligence that world leaders had said at the time. One goes to war with the intelligence one has, not with perfect knowledge.

Besides, Saddam DID have bunkers full of Sarin-filled artillery shells and bombs, which we knew indisputably, that he used on the Kurds and that he did not get rid of according to the terms of the cease-fire agreement and 14 UN mandates over 12 years. They were not moved until just before the invasion, and were moved in more than 40 747 flights and truck convoys to Syria, disguised as "earthquake aid," where they presumably remain today, in the hands of yet another regime that needs to be toppled.

As has been pointed out elswhere, and which I will not belabor, the whole WMD thing was just icing on the cake because the 2nd invasion of Iraq was fully justified by Saddam's refusal to submit to UN inspection for 12 years, which was a violation of the cease-fire agreement that stopped him from being taken out the first time around. That alone, in and of itself, with no other justification whatsoever (though there were MANY such justifications) is adequate causus belli for the invasion.

In my estimation, the allies waited 12 years too long, and should have gone in the FIRST time Saddam played jiggery-pokey with the UN weapons inspectors.

[Coito ergo sum]

Cartoon fails of a basic premise: foreign policy disaster.

The Wars wasn't that. And, as Obama stated in his speech the other day, it has been a success. Unless he lied, of course.

No you're wrong. Not only did the war burn the goodwill of a genuinely sympathetic planet, it made your citizens even more attractive targets to terrorists, it lead someone, possibly Bradley Manning to give a data dump to Wikileaks which was one of the catalysts that set fire to the middle East and north Africa in which client dictators you could deal with were or are being deposed, with the increasing possibility of more hostile Islamic regimes taking their place.

Disaster is the word. The ramifications of the Iraq war has left your state mostly reviled upon the international stage, that's a success?

Lying? No. Blinkered? Sure.

Right, the way to be popular and have nobody want to attack us is to not fight back.

[Coito ergo sum]

Yet another reason why Libya =/= Iraq: we never "went into" Libya. We helped with an air campaign. Massive difference, especially in terms of public relations. And it was a campaign with far greater international support than Iraq, including support from the Arab League.

Oh, come on. An air campaign doesn't have a different legal significance. We bombed the shit out of it, and killed people, including civilians. That's "going in." Moreover, we didn't just "assist" in the air campaign. Most of the air resources and missiles were American. The "leading from behind" shit was a mask.

Moreover, the Arab League's support was a quick "throw Qadaffi under the bus" announcement of support, followed by a quick renunciation of that support.

To say that there was greater reason to go into Iraq than Libya is just silly, and I still think it's an opinion made with partisan blinders on.

Far greater. To deny it is silly. The humanitarian crisis in Iraq was real. The one in Libya was predicted.

What had begun in Libya was happening whether NATO and others got involved or not. Nothing was happening in Iraq in 2003; without an invasion, the status quo would've been the same in 2004.

All that means is that the west intervenes when brutal dictators get a little shaky on the throne. When they're doing their real damage, while having iron-fisted unshakable despotic power, we sit and do nothing and let the people get wasted.
/

Considering that this status quo had not been presenting a problem for us for twelve years prior, there's no reason why it couldn't have stayed so longer. There was no crisis, no casus belli other than the Bush administration's own paranoia over Saddam.

You can't possibly believe what you just wrote.

"Had not been presenting a problem?"

"Had not been presenting a problem?"

Twelve years.... no problem?

Are you mad?

It was a constant problem. Why was the UN nailing Hussein with more and more resolutions every year? Why was there endless hand-wringing over the sanctions? Whose planes were the Iraqis shooting at during those twelve years? Whose oil-for-food program were the Iraqis circumventing over the years? What sort of nonsense is this "had not been presenting a problem?" They were one of the United States' biggest problems from 1991 to 2003, and nothing was resolving it. It was time. Intervention, if anything, was overly delayed, and late in coming.

The reaction in 2003 should have been: It's about time.

And, btw, the US wasn't getting squat in terms of oil from Libya.

Or, Iraq, for that matter.

Oil was actually a factor (like humanitarianism or spreading democracy, a minor driver) for Iraq. As long as we're taling about minor drivers for why Iraq happened, I recall certain officials saying much of the war could be paid for with Iraqi oil...

Because the Iraqis would sell it. But, of course, it never happened, because the "war for oil" bullshit was just that: so much bumper-sticker bullshit.

[Audley Strange]

Cartoon fails of a basic premise: foreign policy disaster.

The Wars wasn't that. And, as Obama stated in his speech the other day, it has been a success. Unless he lied, of course.

No you're wrong. Not only did the war burn the goodwill of a genuinely sympathetic planet, it made your citizens even more attractive targets to terrorists, it lead someone, possibly Bradley Manning to give a data dump to Wikileaks which was one of the catalysts that set fire to the middle East and north Africa in which client dictators you could deal with were or are being deposed, with the increasing possibility of more hostile Islamic regimes taking their place.

Disaster is the word. The ramifications of the Iraq war has left your state mostly reviled upon the international stage, that's a success?

Lying? No. Blinkered? Sure.

Right, the way to be popular and have nobody want to attack us is to not fight back.

No the way to be popular and have no one wanting to attack you is to not walk around the worl with your dick out pissing in people's windows and when you get it flicked by a couple of mentally challenged kids beat the shit out of their families and then blame someone else on their block for putting them up to it and then killing HIS neighbours and friends to free them from his tyranny.


Fight back? You're all over the place, was it a revenge mission or a humanitarian mission? Which is it?

[BrettA]

And please... I didn't say "assist in Hussein committing genocidal acts on his own people" - and nice, ludicrous diversion attempt - but are you thinking that the Brits never assisted with chemical weapon production or that say, without US arms, dollars, support and more that he would have been even remotely as capable in committing genocide (and everything else he did)?

US arms sales to Iraq? ...

Who the fuck said "sales"? Nice diversion, but I said "US arms, dollars, support and more" - some of which was clandestine and thus may not even be in your figures...

February, 1982. Despite objections from congress, President Reagan removes Iraq from its list of known terrorist countries. [Support]

December, 1982. Hughes Aircraft ships 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq. [US Arms, maybe even a sale...]

1982-1988. Defense Intelligence Agency provides detailed information for Iraq on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb damage assessments. [Support]

November, 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran. [Support]

November, 1983. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government... [Support]

October, 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act. [Arms and Support]

December 20, 1983. Donald Rumsfeld , then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support. [Support, and with material support, likely arms(?)]

July, 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. [Support]

January 14, 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application. [Support]

March, 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the US becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons. [Support]

May, 1986. The US Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax. [Support and more]

May, 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade botulin poison to Iraq. [Arms & Support]

March, 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. [Arms and Support]

April, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of chemicals used in manufacture of mustard gas. [Arms (chemical) & support]

(1987 - 1988: Use of chemical weapons against Kurds and Iran)

September, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq. [Arms & support]

September, 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and economic objectives." [Support]

December, 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons. [Hey, A Sale!]

July, 1991 The Financial Times of London reveals that a Florida chemical company had produced and shipped cyanide to Iraq during the 80's using a special CIA courier. Cyanide was used extensively against the Iranians. [Arms & Support]

June, 1992. Ted Kopple of ABC Nightline reports: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush Sr., operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980's, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into [an aggressive power]." [Support]

July, 1992. "The Bush administration deliberately, not inadvertently, helped to arm Iraq by allowing U.S. technology to be shipped to Iraqi military and to Iraqi defense factories... Throughout the course of the Bush administration, U.S. and foreign firms were granted export licenses to ship U.S. technology directly to Iraqi weapons facilities despite ample evidence showing that these factories were producing weapons." Representative Henry Gonzalez, Texas, testimony before the House. [Arms & Support]

August, 2002. "The use of gas [during the Iran-Iraq war] on the battle field by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern... We were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose". Colonel Walter Lang, former senior US Defense Intelligence officer tells the New York Times. [Support]

Yes, I think Iraq would've been about the same without the US's contribution. UK was even less.

LOL... Head-willfilly-in-sand, CES. And none of that addresses Brit help with chemical production.

[tattuchu]

Fighting back against the people who actually did it might have been a more appropriate response.

[Coito ergo sum]

[
No the way to be popular and have no one wanting to attack you is to not walk around the worl with your dick out pissing in people's windows and when you get it flicked by a couple of mentally challenged kids beat the shit out of their families and then blame someone else on their block for putting them up to it and then killing HIS neighbours and friends to free them from his tyranny.

Of course, that's not a fair analogy for what the US did or does.

Fight back? You're all over the place, was it a revenge mission or a humanitarian mission? Which is it?

It was both. Obviously, we were fighting back against Al Qaeta, but the larger war on terrorism includes, as I said, all terrorist organizations of global reach, state sponsors of terrorism, those who harbor terrorists, and rogue nations. The idea of the larger war on terrorism is to defeat as many of the forces as possible that are liable to engage in further attacks, and to cut the heads of organizations and regimes that foster this kind of thing. One of the ways to ensure that a particular state does not engage in this kind of thing is to free its people from the grip of megalomaniacal despots, like Hussein, and let them live in a representative republic, like Iraq has become.

[Coito ergo sum]

Fighting back against the people who actually did it might have been a more appropriate response.

We did too.

[Audley Strange]

[
No the way to be popular and have no one wanting to attack you is to not walk around the worl with your dick out pissing in people's windows and when you get it flicked by a couple of mentally challenged kids beat the shit out of their families and then blame someone else on their block for putting them up to it and then killing HIS neighbours and friends to free them from his tyranny.

Of course, that's not a fair analogy for what the US did or does.

I think it pretty accurate with regards to the situation.

Fight back? You're all over the place, was it a revenge mission or a humanitarian mission? Which is it?

It was both. Obviously, we were fighting back against Al Qaeta, but the larger war on terrorism includes, as I said, all terrorist organizations of global reach, state sponsors of terrorism, those who harbor terrorists, and rogue nations. The idea of the larger war on terrorism is to defeat as many of the forces as possible that are liable to engage in further attacks, and to cut the heads of organizations and regimes that foster this kind of thing. One of the ways to ensure that a particular state does not engage in this kind of thing is to free its people from the grip of megalomaniacal despots, like Hussein, and let them live in a representative republic, like Iraq has become.[/quote]

HORSESHIT!

How many members of Noraid were sent to Guantanamo?

A good way to free a people from the grip of a megalomaniac would be to kill the megalomaniac, not to kill the citizens, though I guess that is one way to liberate them from tyranny.
Saddam had to go, yes. The opportunity though was taken rashly, was ill-conceived, badly timed and ended up utter shambles for most of the war because of such. I would suggest that the commitment to get rid of Saddam was confused in the minds of the public deliberately as a pretext for the invasion, which was an error. I also think that by doing so, they conflated a population who needed liberty with a small well funded criminal organisation in both their own minds and that of the public and thus the troops and in doing so endangered the mission before it even started.

I suggest again it was war fever, everyone whipping each other up into a paranoid frenzy which then used opportunistically and turned ugly for the people of Iraq. I said it prior to the war and nothing I have seen yet suggests otherwise. Good intentions mean fuck all when your actions cause worse problems than they are meant to solve.

[tattuchu]

Fighting back against the people who actually did it might have been a more appropriate response.

We did too.

Originally. Right at the start. And directly.

[Coito ergo sum]

[
No the way to be popular and have no one wanting to attack you is to not walk around the worl with your dick out pissing in people's windows and when you get it flicked by a couple of mentally challenged kids beat the shit out of their families and then blame someone else on their block for putting them up to it and then killing HIS neighbours and friends to free them from his tyranny.

Of course, that's not a fair analogy for what the US did or does.

I think it pretty accurate with regards to the situation.

Over the top hyperbole, in my opinion.

Fight back? You're all over the place, was it a revenge mission or a humanitarian mission? Which is it?

It was both. Obviously, we were fighting back against Al Qaeta, but the larger war on terrorism includes, as I said, all terrorist organizations of global reach, state sponsors of terrorism, those who harbor terrorists, and rogue nations. The idea of the larger war on terrorism is to defeat as many of the forces as possible that are liable to engage in further attacks, and to cut the heads of organizations and regimes that foster this kind of thing. One of the ways to ensure that a particular state does not engage in this kind of thing is to free its people from the grip of megalomaniacal despots, like Hussein, and let them live in a representative republic, like Iraq has become.

HORSESHIT![/quote]

No, it's accurate.

How many members of Noraid were sent to Guantanamo?

0, as far as I know. Why in the world would that matter? The Brits are on the IRA watch. The global war is a big job, gotta divide tasks. Also, it's not about "fairness." I mean, we're not doing studies to make sure Guantanamo is populated by a proportionate cross section of scumbags from every race, color, creed and religion. It's pretty much a "take them as they come" operation.

A good way to free a people from the grip of a megalomaniac would be to kill the megalomaniac, not to kill the citizens, though I guess that is one way to liberate them from tyranny.

Well, that's what we did. Well, we deposed him. Instead of shooting him unarmed in cold blood when he was captured, though, we did the horrible thing of arresting him, and handing him over for trial. Fuck, I didn't know, Audley, that this idea of busting into rooms and putting bullets in unarmed people, and sending drones to kill terrorist "suspects" was the new "ethics." Who knew that it was better to kill them than to capture them? I'll make a note of that for future reference.

You should, then, be quite pleased that Saddams entire regime of criminals and despots was taken down, one-by-one, many of which were killed. That should be in line with your suggested course of action.

Saddam had to go, yes. The opportunity though was taken rashly,

It was only agonized over and argued about for a year before the March 2003 invasion, and before that, we only agonized over it and tried to avoid it for 12 years after we ousted the guy from Kuwait. Rash? Not hardly. It was the most publicly pondered over and debated war in American history.

was ill-conceived, badly timed and ended up utter shambles for most of the war because of such. I would suggest that the commitment to get rid of Saddam was confused in the minds of the public deliberately as a pretext for the invasion, which was an error. I also think that by doing so, they conflated a population who needed liberty with a small well funded criminal organisation in both their own minds and that of the public and thus the troops and in doing so endangered the mission before it even started.

The war has been a success.

I suggest again it was war fever, everyone whipping each other up into a paranoid frenzy which then used opportunistically and turned ugly for the people of Iraq. I said it prior to the war and nothing I have seen yet suggests otherwise. Good intentions mean fuck all when your actions cause worse problems than they are meant to solve.

Well, they haven't. They've assisted in the war on terrorism globally. Initially, other tinpot dictators like Qadaffi came clean. Note who he came clean to, my friend. Did he go to the UN and disclose his stocks of weapons and nuclear programs? Nope! He came, hat in hand, to the US and the UK. I wonder why that is?

The budding democracy in Iraq is showing the world that it can work there, and it can work anywhere. The ripple effects are great.

[Seth]

No the way to be popular and have no one wanting to attack you is to not walk around the worl with your dick out pissing in people's windows

We generally don't piss in people's windows unless they piss in ours first, or threaten to launch nuclear, biological, chemical or terrorist attacks against us.

Fuck popularity. I don't care if the US is popular with terrorists and their sycophants, or with tyrants and despots. I want them to FEAR us and what we can and will do to them if they fuck with us or our interests abroad.

Fight back? You're all over the place, was it a revenge mission or a humanitarian mission? Which is it?

We don't do "revenge" missions, we do public sanitation missions by taking out the garbage of the world for those pussies and cowards who haven't the balls to do so themselves.

[Seth]

A good way to free a people from the grip of a megalomaniac would be to kill the megalomaniac, not to kill the citizens, though I guess that is one way to liberate them from tyranny.

Megalomaniacs, tyrants and despots do not attain or hold their seats of power without considerable help from sycophants, supporters and wannabe despots, including members of the military, the despotic government, and other like supporters who come to the defense of the tyrant because they want to maintain their privileged positions near the seat of power.

So, it is usually necessary to attack and kill the forces behind the tyrant in order to de-throne him, and that was precisely the case in Iraq. That Saddam's supporters were "citizens" is irrelevant, what matters is that rather than surrender to our forces and stop supporting the despot, they took up arms in his behalf, and supported him in other ways, which made it necessary for us to battle them to get to Saddam. That's their fault, not ours.

Saddam had to go, yes. The opportunity though was taken rashly, was ill-conceived, badly timed and ended up utter shambles for most of the war because of such.

No it wasn't. It was a brilliantly executed military plan to cut off the head of the snake and dispose of the writhing remains before Saddam knew what hit him, thus the middle-of-the-night carefully targeted cruise-missile attacks on his military facilities followed by a lightning invasion that decimated his military, which surrendered almost immediately, except for the hard-line militants and Republican Guard forces loyal to Saddam. It was an astonishing military victory that was more bloodless than almost any other in the history of warfare.

The ensuing decade and more of terrorist infighting and nation-building resulted in relatively few deaths caused by American forces, with most of the carnage being wreaked by Iraqis against other Iraqis, all of which we spent nearly a trillion dollars trying to prevent, repair and avoid.

I would suggest that the commitment to get rid of Saddam was confused in the minds of the public deliberately as a pretext for the invasion, which was an error.

I would suggest that most of the public who were open-minded about the matter fully understood the need for invasion, which is why the country largely supported it. The anti-war cranks and America haters are never going to accept any military action by the US as legitimate or necessary, but, well, fuck them, who cares what they think?

I also think that by doing so, they conflated a population who needed liberty with a small well funded criminal organisation in both their own minds and that of the public and thus the troops and in doing so endangered the mission before it even started.

Except they didn't, and you're making it up.

I suggest again it was war fever, everyone whipping each other up into a paranoid frenzy which then used opportunistically and turned ugly for the people of Iraq. I said it prior to the war and nothing I have seen yet suggests otherwise. Good intentions mean fuck all when your actions cause worse problems than they are meant to solve.

It wasn't our actions that started it, it wasn't our actions that caused the worst problems, and it was our actions that took down a despot who murdered millions of his own people with impunity for decades, invaded his neighbors, used WMDs on his own people and threatened to use them on everyone else. How our intervention, with the relatively few deaths our military caused either directly or indirectly, is "worse" than what Saddam and his sons were doing to Iraq is a puzzlement, and can only be explained by your gross ignorance or deliberate anti-American bias.