Forget Michael Moore: THIS is why we are in Iraq

The liberation of Iraq would be the only good thing that could come out of this war, but it has been executed in such a way as to make that outcome vastly more difficult than it would have been had more time and effort gone into planning, and had the US and UK waited until this planning was finished before they went off half cocked.

ScottishJohn said:

The liberation of Iraq would be the only good thing that could come out of this war, but it has been executed in such a way as to make that outcome vastly more difficult than it would have been had more time and effort gone into planning, and had the US and UK waited until this planning was finished before they went off half cocked.

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Change that from "UK" to "tony blair" - as only about 10% of the country believed the iraqi war to be justified.

TB is just a puppet.

S Walch said:

Change that from "UK" to "tony blair" - as only about 10% of the country believed the iraqi war to be justified.

TB is just a puppet.

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While I agree that not all of the UK were in favour of the war, and there were huge demonstrations against the war, the fact is that in the Commons Vote on the War in Iraq 27th Feb 2003 Blair had 434 MPs agree with him, and only 124 against him. I would sincerely like to distance myself from this war, but the government that represent us voted for it despite the sizeable opposition. (I'm not sure 10% is a fair representation of those who were in favour of the War BEFORE it happened - I take it that this is this from a more recent pole?) Another example of how democracy does not work!!!

Our commons is full of idiots.

...simply put

ScottishJohn said:

The liberation of Iraq would be the only good thing that could come out of this war, but it has been executed in such a way as to make that outcome vastly more difficult than it would have been had more time and effort gone into planning, and had the US and UK waited until this planning was finished before they went off half cocked.

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And it remains to be seen whether the country is "liberated". I don't think you're actually free if you can't walk down the street without being shot or kidnapped or whathaveyou.

Very true, and I think this also adds to the 'botched job' element of the whole thing. I would like to think that if humanitarian issues and democracy had been the central issue in this war we would have been able to do a bit better in terms of security and obtaining the support of the Iraqi people than we have done. I think this is further proof that those issues were far from being the first priority.

S Walch said:

Our commons is full of idiots.

...simply put

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Which does not say a great deal for the nation that elected them to their positions...

So im curious as to the terrorist's in Iraq that go around killing westerners... What makes them terrorist's and not soldiars? Like if some foreign armies decided that Australia was a state that supported terrorist's and they decided to act on this. Well then i wouldn't be too hesitant to pick up arms and fight off these foreigners, i probably would tho.

But more to the point. Who on earth thinks foreign occupation goes down without having insurgents? especially when they go around shooting, and asking questions later, if at all. The only way to see if this war is successful, will be in a decades time, when all foreign armies and soldiers have been withdrawn, when iraq rules their own people on their own terms, and to see what those terms are, will there be any oppression, and resentment?

I love it when people say this war goes on with minimum casualties. Those laser guided smart bombs well it is people on the other end who direct them. And of course they've got perfect intellegence, just like the WMD we were all told about. Blowing up a hospital to kill some top grade official may be ok in you're book, but to me that constitutes a terrorism act which is in many ways just as bad as 9/11.

ScottishJohn said:

Which does not say a great deal for the nation that elected them to their positions...

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Wasn't really "the nation"

As only 20% of the country votes in elections.

Even less actually.

I didn't vote for him, and neither did my parents, nor infact, anyone in my family.

S Walch said:

Wasn't really "the nation"

As only 20% of the country votes in elections.

Even less actually.

I didn't vote for him, and neither did my parents, nor infact, anyone in my family.

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I think you'll find that the turnout in the 2001 election, while being the lowest in recent years, was still 59% of those registered to vote. There were 44 million voters registered 18 million did not vote, so 26 million did. This is about 40% of the total population. We are not talking about Tony Blair (who you would only have the opportunity to vote for if you lived in Sedgefield constituency), but the general poor quality of MPs accross the board at the House of commons, and how this reflects on the nation that elected them.

Fair enough.

OUr countries full of idiots.

...that better?

Certainly accurate!!!

Matthew777 said:

Horrors of Iraq's mass graves

By Sayed Mahdi Almodarresi

Our greatest tragedy may be that we tend to forget our tragedies
"Official Iraqi documents recovered after the fall of Saddam’s regime suggest a staggering 5 million executions were made during Ba’ath era alone."

The killed were killed, the captured were killed, and the injured were killed as well. No one was spared.

A body uncovered from a mass grave in Iraq

Two Iraqi women with the remains of their loved ones

Iraqis gather human remains

]An Iraqi man checks a bag containing human remains

If you've been looking for the "smoking gun", this is it.

For the sake of the Iraqi people and the world, we are executing justice against evildoers:

Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to [execute] wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Remember that not once in Fahrenheit 9/11 does Michael Moore mention the mass graves in Iraq...gee, I wonder why...

"The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States."
- George Orwell

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Just when did America decide that Sadaam was not Mr. Nice Guy - before or after it provided him with military aid to fight the Iranians. It isn't Sadaam who's changed, its US foreign policy that's changed. Unfortunately its America who provided Sadaam with the weapons to solidify his power.

jgarden said:

Just when did America decide that Sadaam was not Mr. Nice Guy - before or after it provided him with military aid to fight the Iranians. It isn't Sadaam who's changed, its US foreign policy that's changed. Unfortunately its America who provided Sadaam with the weapons to solidify his power.

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God, I've missed this...

Okay, so nobody is going to argue that the United States government, under Ronald Reagan, armed Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s. Historical fact, yadda yadda yadda, get on with it already.

Here's the question people are either forgetting or ignoring. WHY did America support Saddam Hussein? The answer is simply because at the time, Iraq was not the enemy; IRAN was. Remember the hostage crisis? 44 days, wasn't it? Those American embassy staffers who were rounded up and held for over a year by the followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

And how did the Ayatollah come into power? After all, the Shah of Iran was in charge up until 1979, wasn't he? So what happened?

http://www.iranianvoice.org/article774.html

excerpt said:

As if a light were switched off, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, portrayed for 20 years as a progressive modern ruler by Islamic standards, was suddenly, in 1977-1978, turned into this foaming at the mouth monster by the international left media. Soon after becoming President in 1977, Jimmy Carter launched a deliberate campaign to undermine the Shah. The Soviets and their left-wing apparatchiks would coordinate with Carter by smearing the Shah in a campaign of lies meant to topple his throne. The result would be the establishment of a Marxist/Islamic state in Iran headed by the tyrannical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Iranian revolution, besides enthroning one of the world's most oppressive regimes, would greatly contribute to the creation of the Marxist/Islamic terror network challenging the free world today.

At the time, a senior Iranian diplomat in Washington observed, "President Carter betrayed the Shah and helped create the vacuum that will soon be filled by Soviet-trained agents and religious fanatics who hate America." Under the guise of promoting" human rights," Carter made demands on the Shah while blackmailing him with the threat that if the demands weren't fulfilled, vital military aid and training would be withheld. This strange policy, carried out against a staunch, 20 year Middle East ally, was a repeat of similar policies applied in the past by US governments to other allies such as pre Mao China and pre Castro Cuba.

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That's right, folks...Jimmy Carter created the Ayatollah and put him in power after betraying a long-time ally. Because of Carter, Iran went from being reasonably friendly to foam-at-the-mouth anti-American. As a direct result of that, the Iran Hostage Crisis happened, and Reagan's administration decided to deal with Saddam Hussein and help him fight the Iranians. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Sure, the long-term consequences were millions of civilians dead, Kuwait invaded, and the Kurds gassed, but it's very short-sighted to blame it on Reagan alone. Had Carter not stabbed the Shah in the back and handed Iran to a psychotic Muslim terrorist leader, America would not have lifted a finger to help Saddam Hussein.

In other words, it's the Democrats' fault, but the Republicans take the blame because the media doesn't bother digging for the truth any deeper than the skin.

Borealis said:

That's right, folks...Jimmy Carter created the Ayatollah and put him in power after betraying a long-time ally. Because of Carter, Iran went from being reasonably friendly to foam-at-the-mouth anti-American. As a direct result of that, the Iran Hostage Crisis happened, and Reagan's administration decided to deal with Saddam Hussein and help him fight the Iranians. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Sure, the long-term consequences were millions of civilians dead, Kuwait invaded, and the Kurds gassed, but it's very short-sighted to blame it on Reagan alone. Had Carter not stabbed the Shah in the back and handed Iran to a psychotic Muslim terrorist leader, America would not have lifted a finger to help Saddam Hussein.

In other words, it's the Democrats' fault, but the Republicans take the blame because the media doesn't bother digging for the truth any deeper than the skin.

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Democrat, Republican...it's all the US government. The Democrat/Republican distinction means very little to most other nations, especially since the there is so slight a difference between the US's two parties compared the the differences between parties in many other nations. It's not a matter of one party or the other - it's the simple fact that the US government as a whole needs to realize that all actions in int'l relations have long-lasting effects on real living people and that this is not just a game of Risk. It's simply not acceptable to play this game of pitting one nation against the other, especially when it is done with so little regard to the long-term consequences and humanitarian effects. This applies to both Democrats in the US and Republicans.

Borealis said:

God, I've missed this...

Okay, so nobody is going to argue that the United States government, under Ronald Reagan, armed Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s. Historical fact, yadda yadda yadda, get on with it already.

Here's the question people are either forgetting or ignoring. WHY did America support Saddam Hussein? The answer is simply because at the time, Iraq was not the enemy; IRAN was. Remember the hostage crisis? 44 days, wasn't it? Those American embassy staffers who were rounded up and held for over a year by the followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

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Yup, we did support Iraq because we didn’t want Iran messing with our investments in the Middle East; namely in places like Saudi Arabia, Oman, etc.

Borealis said:

And how did the Ayatollah come into power? After all, the Shah of Iran was in charge up until 1979, wasn't he? So what happened?

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Khomeini came into power via a United States backed revolution, that forced the Shah to flee into exile. Khomeini was a nut job. I suggest you do some reading about the Iran-Iraq War.

Borealis said:

That's right, folks...Jimmy Carter created the Ayatollah and put him in power after betraying a long-time ally. Because of Carter, Iran went from being reasonably friendly to foam-at-the-mouth anti-American. As a direct result of that, the Iran Hostage Crisis happened, and Reagan's administration decided to deal with Saddam Hussein and help him fight the Iranians. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Sure, the long-term consequences were millions of civilians dead, Kuwait invaded, and the Kurds gassed, but it's very short-sighted to blame it on Reagan alone. Had Carter not stabbed the Shah in the back and handed Iran to a psychotic Muslim terrorist leader, America would not have lifted a finger to help Saddam Hussein.

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Reagan was not a bad president solely because of this. His handling of the Cold War (i.e. not making deals with the Russians because he didn’t want to abandon his nutty Star Wars plans), as well as his fundamentalism, among other things, made him a bad president. The United States also operated in the Iran-Iraq War, which we promised not to do so. We bombed Iranian freighters, among other things, while supply Saddam Hussein with tons of weapons.

Borealis said:

In other words, it's the Democrats' fault, but the Republicans take the blame because the media doesn't bother digging for the truth any deeper than the skin.

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You really have a partisan bone to pick with Carter, don’t you. The only reason Reagan won in 1980 was because of the October Surprise. If you don’t know what the October Surprise was, it involved Ronald Reagan making a secret deal with the Iranians. He was ALSO responsible for the Iran-Contra affair. Trading weapons for hostages, and those weapons go to back a rebellion in a Latin American country (Nicaragua I think it was). That is why Reagan was bad.

Surely after one reads Lucretius' post and Borealis' post we would learn that the Middle East isn't a place to fool around with, for example not a good place to build a nation. Surely we would learn that almost all of our operations in the middle east have done more harm that good. Surely we would recognize the fact that our actions, which are perceived by them as an attack on the Islamic faith, thus worthy of Jihad, give terrorists more material for recruits. Right? Is it just me or do I place too much faith in humankind's ability to think rationally?

Matthew777 said:

For the sake of the Iraqi people and the world, we are executing justice against evildoers:

Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to [execute] wrath upon him that doeth evil.

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He says to submit to your government. But consider these facts: Paul ran from the authorities in 2 Corinthians 11:33; Joseph and Mary, by God's direction, ran away from King Herod into Egypt; consider Acts 5:29:"But Peter and the apostles answered 'We must obey God rather than men'". So either Paul is either a liar or ignorant, which he is neither, or there is more to Romans 13:1-7 (and Peter 2:13-18) than we are reading.

It is most likely rhetorical misdirection. The Roman government was hardly an "ordinance from God" (Romans 13:2), neither are communist governments, neither are tyrannical Islamic governments. The Roman authorities would most assuredly get their hands on that epistle; Romans 13:1-7 kept them relatively safe.

Lucretius said:

Yup, we did support Iraq because we didn’t want Iran messing with our investments in the Middle East; namely in places like Saudi Arabia, Oman, etc.

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An eminently logical, if not-so-pleasant, reason. The results weren't pleasant, but what was the alternative?

Khomeini came into power via a United States backed revolution, that forced the Shah to flee into exile. Khomeini was a nut job. I suggest you do some reading about the Iran-Iraq War.

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I agree, Khomeini was a nut-job. And, as you put it, he was aided by an American government that wanted to meddle in Iran's affairs instead of leaving the Shah, who by all accounts was as pro-Western a leader as the Middle East had seen in a long time, to his own devices. I find it very odd that many people will complain about America meddling in Arab affairs today, and blaming America for Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, but completely ignore Jimmy Carter's role in enabling Saddam's rise by enabling Khomeini.

Reagan was not a bad president solely because of this.

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He wasn't a bad president, period.

[QUOTE[His handling of the Cold War (i.e. not making deals with the Russians because he didn’t want to abandon his nutty Star Wars plans), as well as his fundamentalism, among other things, made him a bad president.[/QUOTE]

His handling of the Cold War can be boiled down to a simple phrase: he won. And he won despite the negative attitude of every media outlet in America, every intellectual's belief that the Cold War was unwinnable, and despite the continuing urging from left-wingers to 'make deals' with the Soviets instead of ending their totalitarianism once and for all.

As for his fundamentalism, if being religious makes a bad president, then I suppose they were all bad presidents, since every single one of them was religious; there has never been an atheist president.

The United States also operated in the Iran-Iraq War, which we promised not to do so. We bombed Iranian freighters, among other things, while supply Saddam Hussein with tons of weapons.

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I'm not defending the Iran-Iraq war; I'm condemning the reasons it had to happen in the first place, much the same as I condemn the reasons WWII was necessary.

You really have a partisan bone to pick with Carter, don’t you.

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Not really. I have a bone to pick with him because of his inept handling of the economy, not to mention the fact that because of him Khomeini turned Iran into a terrorist state. That bothers me for some reason.

The only reason Reagan won in 1980 was because of the October Surprise.

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Because the double-digit unemployment and skyrocketing inflation and interest rates had NOTHING to do with Carter's defeat.

If you don’t know what the October Surprise was, it involved Ronald Reagan making a secret deal with the Iranians.

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Prove that without referring to a tin-foil-hat website.

He was ALSO responsible for the Iran-Contra affair. Trading weapons for hostages, and those weapons go to back a rebellion in a Latin American country (Nicaragua I think it was). That is why Reagan was bad.

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Iran-Contra was badly handled. No arguing there. However, that has nothing to do with whether or not Reagan was a good president. He reduced taxes, America's economy jumped out of the Carter-era mudslide and did a complete 180°, and defeated the Soviets and ended the Cold War without shooting a single bullet or missile. THAT made him a great president.