It's over and done but I hope we don't get all gung ho about doing the same thing with Iran. That was one of the very reasons, which I was very vocal about on here, that I would not vote for McCain. I respected what he had went through in Vietnam, and like him in some ways, but didn't trust him in that area.
LOL. So because a relatively small number of Jews lived in Palestine prior to WW2, that alone gave millions of other Jews, mostly from Europe, the right to invade and colonize the area while forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land and homes? Yeah, that makes about as much sense as tits on a bull.
European Jews had about as much claim to Palestine as I have to David Letterman's classic car collection.
I think that is what pissed the Arabs off more than anything. There was a Jewish presence in Palestine before the creation of Israel, but what claim do European Jews have on that land? None. If I was kicked out of my home in favor of someone else from some other continent? I would be pissed off too.
Since we're on the topic, a quick lesson on war propaganda:
Iraq: Part I [Spoiler alert: It wasn't true.]
Iraq: Part II
Neither was that
That top video with the Kuwaiti girl is about as believable as that father from the Sandy Hook attack that steps up to the mic laughing and then decides to suddenly go into grieving mode for the cameras. The government can't find people more believable for these hoaxes?
While our presence on the Arabian Peninsula was one of the primary sources of their hatred for us (and not our freedoms), the Iraq invasion was a recruiting gold mine for the jihadis. We could not have given them a better Christmas present.
Oh please, we give them lots of reasons to hate us. Iraq wast one of a very long list. But the media brainwashed masses only see it as Iraq and Vietnam.
Time has most certainly proven the Senator correct in many ways. He was correct in saying Saddam did not have a delivery system for WMDs--but that wasn't really the worry. A biological or chemical weapon does not need a bomb or rocket to disperse the agents. The fear was a smaller-scale attack that left no traces.
It wasn't just the Saudis we were benefiting, we stood to gain a lot by removing the rallying cry for jihadists--AND also benefit by the Saudis rising in prominence/stature by having them start to combat Iranian/Shi'a influence.
In that sense and that sense only, *some* of the geostrategic goals were successful.
But in many (arguably most) ways, I'm not disagreeing that it was a gigantic waste of lives and money. And I can absolutely understand why many people wouldn't be able to appreciate the big picture given the paltry returns in every other area.
Not to put too fine a point on it but Grahams position was butressed by the letter from the CIA Director, which he quoted in that speech and entered into the record. His assessment that Saddam would not use whatever weapons he had unless attacked was not only logical - Saddam was not suicidal - but critical information for decision makers which was ignored by most of them.
You mean, it wasn't necessarily the criminal Israeli-Zionist invasion of Palestinian lands and homes following WW2 that instigated the conflict, it was Saddam Hussein? What a brilliantly preposterous take on the history of that conflict.
Saddam was paying $30k bounties to Palestinian suicide bombers, or about 10x what the Saudis paid. His regime trained Palestinian terrorists in Iraq and provided other kinds of support to them. In addition his rhetoric was as belligerent as it comes towards Israel, as he envisioned a pan-Arab coalition under his rule or leadership immediately annihilating the state of Israel as a first step to a renewed Arab world empire. In the meanwhile he called for unrelenting attacks on Israel by any means necessary, and explicitly rejected the possibility of any kind of diplomatic settlement of the conflict. So no, I don't think it's unfair to characterize him as a major instigator of the problem.
__________________ Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.
Me either. Though I'd replace "since Vietnam" with "EVER." It's certainly up there with entering WWI as the biggest foreign policy mistake in the country's history.
While our presence on the Arabian Peninsula was one of the primary sources of their hatred for us (and not our freedoms), the Iraq invasion was a recruiting gold mine for the jihadis. We could not have given them a better Christmas present.
Ask yourself this. Would OBL have had it any other way?
I think not. IMO, our reaction to 9/11, specifically the decision to go into Iraq, was exactly the reaction he had planned. Sad, really.
Really? How many military-age sons did you send to Iraq? If you had, would it still have been worth the cost if they had returned home to you in wheelchairs and flag-draped coffins?
I highly doubt it.
Yes.
__________________ Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.
LOL. So because a relatively small number of Jews lived in Palestine prior to WW2, that alone gave millions of other Jews, mostly from Europe, the right to invade and colonize the area while forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land and homes? Yeah, that makes about as much sense as tits on a bull.
European Jews had about as much claim to Palestine as I have to David Letterman's classic car collection.
The Palestinians were not forced to leave.
__________________ Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.
In fairness though, that probably has as much (if not more) to do with Saddam's miscalculations as our own.
Up until Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US and Iraq had cordial, mutually beneficial arrangement: the US ignores his human rights record--while Saddam acts as a bulwark against Iranian expansion in the area; and Iraq in the process gets Western military equipment and other forms of aid. Not much different from what we did with Egypt from 1979-2010.
I don't think Saddam particularly liked us and we certainly didn't like him. Saddam's big mistake was overplaying his hand and invading Kuwait, figuring we needed Iraq more than we did the Kuwaitis.
Perhaps so--but the Kuwaitis were chummy with our even bigger allies, the Saudis--and with Saddam making his power move against Kuwait, neither the Saudis or the US trusted Saddam enough to let him get away with it.
The irony goes: Saddam had every right to be pissed at the Kuwaitis. A very large oil field was located on the border between the two countries (with the majority of the oil field being located in Iraq) and the Kuwaitis were taking more then their "fair share" as it were and tying the matter up in international courts without conceding anything to the Iraqis. Had Saddam asked the US to lean on the Kuwaitis to stop taking so much, we probably would have agreed.
This addresses 1992 fine, but doesn't address 2002. He was neutered and was no threat. Back channel deals could have been presented that preserved his power and he wouldn't have done a thing to us. Saddam has always been about Saddam and that wasn't going to change.
I said it then and I'll say it again: The foreign policy equivelent of kicking over a fire-ant hill.
This addresses 1992 fine, but doesn't address 2002. He was neutered and was no threat. Back channel deals could have been presented that preserved his power and he wouldn't have done a thing to us. Saddam has always been about Saddam and that wasn't going to change.
I said it then and I'll say it again: The foreign policy equivelent of kicking over a fire-ant hill.
Was Stalin always about Stalin?
__________________ Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.
It's over and done but I hope we don't get all gung ho about doing the same thing with Iran. That was one of the very reasons, which I was very vocal about on here, that I would not vote for McCain. I respected what he had went through in Vietnam, and like him in some ways, but didn't trust him in that area.
Hardly. We are now hopelessly entangled in that social and cultural cesspool of a region. The legacy of this will haunt us for the next 50 years, minimum.
Absolutely. And he was Saddam's hero by all accounts, the blueprint if you will. But we never had Stalin by the balls the way we had Saddam post-1992 and, thus, were never able to present that kind of scenario to Stalin.
If put in a similar position (no fly zones over 2/3 of the country, ravaged military, ZERO ability to mount any kind of offensive attack), then sure, I think similar strategies would have worked with Stalin.
Absolutely. And he was Saddam's hero by all accounts, the blueprint if you will. But we never had Stalin by the balls the way we had Saddam post-1992 and, thus, were never able to present that kind of scenario to Stalin.
If put in a similar position (no fly zones over 2/3 of the country, ravaged military, ZERO ability to mount any kind of offensive attack), then sure, I think similar strategies would have worked with Stalin.
I think you should undertake the study of Stalin with a bit more intensity.
Saddam was an inherently destabilizing figure, under those toothless "no fly zones" his regime trained and supported international terrorism and never gave up its aspiration for WMD, and he was not contained in fact he had effectively defeated containment circa 1998 (the cruise missiles we sent over there may as well have been flying white flags), he was the symbol par excellence of the impotence of both the UN and the US and the idea that clever brinksmanship and diplomacy could always paralyze and nullify the liberal regimes of the west. He could neither be reformed or contained, and like a slowly growing malignant tumor had to be removed now that the patient was aware that his life was at stake.
__________________ Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.
I think you should undertake the study of Stalin with a bit more intensity.
Saddam was an inherently destabilizing figure, under those toothless "no fly zones" his regime trained and supported international terrorism and never gave up its aspiration for WMD, and he was not contained in fact he had effectively defeated containment circa 1998 (the cruise missiles we sent over there may as well have been flying white flags), he was the symbol par excellence of the impotence of both the UN and the US and the idea that clever brinksmanship and diplomacy could always paralyze and nullify the liberal regimes of the west. He could neither be reformed or contained, and like a slowly growing malignant tumor had to be removed now that the patient was aware that his life was at stake.
Good points all. But I still think it would have been worth a shot to at least offer him a chance to get on the right side of 9/11 (Jesus, even the f-ing Iranians were our "buddies" then). I think, his power preserved, he might have bitten. Hell, I might have used his "little shop of horrors" as a final destination for the worst of the worst that we captured.
As for Stalin, where am I wrong? I guess we could look at his attitudes toward the Allies pre 1941 (while he was carving up 1/2 of Poland) vs. post-Barbarossa. Certainly, with the Nazi knife to his balls, he was a lot more . . . ahem, plyable. And yet, as his troops mount up victory after victory, he becomes a lot less so, even confrontational by 1945.
One last thing. We had build up a lot of, if you will, moral equity with the world after 9/11. Everyone, for the most part, backed us in Afganistan. Iraq was the classic overreach that tossed all of it out the window and represented the worst fears - real or not - of people in that region (and around the world) re. the USA and our motives.
In the end, I'm not sure the benefits you presented outweigh that loss of equity. At least not in my opinion. I believe we had a powerful thing going and squandered our opportunity to maximize it to the fullest.
Those who prefer Saddam's regime to the current regime in Iraq either have forgotten or never knew just how destabilizing that regime was in terms of both regional security and US interests. The Baath Party was founded in a totalitarian militarist ideology that is only comparable to Nazism or imperial communism along the lines of Stalin. Minimizing the danger that regime represented over the long term is an exercise in wishful thinking. In addition, the entire concept of collective security was bankrupt unless Saddam was confronted.
Pure insanity.
For all of his bluster, Saddam was the area's sole secular strongman.
Taking him out allowed free reign for the dangerous Muslim extremists in the region.
__________________
The poster formerly known as shabadoo25
Linear Mode
