Defending the Iraq war.

[glockfan.45]

BEFORE 9/11, Sadaam Hussein could imply, "Yeah, I've got chemical (which I've ALREADY used on Iran and my own people), and I'm getting nukes, and your next, Uncle Sam".

When did Saddam threaten to nuke America? The Iraq War was the answer to a problem that didnt exist.

For now.  In a cave in Tora Bora. Until his kindeys finally give out.

If our motive was to get revenge for 9/11 and prevent further terror attacks then I fail to see how letting the mastermind of the worst terror attack on U.S soil die of natural causes is mission accomplished   .

The time to kill the snake is while you've got the hoe in your hand.

That time was in 91 during the first Gulf War.

A bunch of purple thumbs says you're wrong....

A bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out says your wrong.

[Perd Hapley]

If our motive was to get revenge for 9/11 and prevent further terror attacks then I fail to see how letting the mastermind of the worst terror attack on U.S soil die of natural causes is mission accomplished    .

Well, that's your problem.  Revenge is not a proper motive for war, so your lack of foreign policy credibility is thus handily exposed.  And "letting" bin Laden die of natural causes?  As I recall, the debacle of letting bin Laden escape from Tora Bora occurred BEFORE the Iraq war.  Again, killing bin Laden does not solve the problem of Islamic terrorism which preceded bin Laden. 


I agree that we probably should have squashed Saddam in 91, but we'd have had the same problems then as now.  And if I'm correctly informed, international support for that was not forthcoming.  And that before Americans had 11 Sept to justify it.  Imagine the howling at American soldiers dying to protect the Kuwaiti and Saudi oil fields. 

[LAK]

Some observations; hearts and minds, and total war.

Whether one cares for arab sentiment, religion or culture, the fact is that the "nations" or territory concerned belongs to them - unless we agree that we can take it by right of conquest. If those supporting all this idiocy feel that we can and should take it by right of conquest, let it be openly stated, and leave this false pretense of "spreading democracy" behind. "Democracy" is a terminal disease in any case, not something to be "spread" as desireable to begin with.

We might well conquer iraq with overwhelming military might, but with a collossal cost in terms of human life. And for what end? An open war with Iran will be a grave error - one that will likely lead to a major war in the whole region spreading into central asia. It is very likely, if not certain, that Iran has a large number of Russian type Moskit M3-82 - NATO codename Sunburn - anti-ship missiles. China has these as well.

We had a similar experience to that of the U.K. during the Falklands conflict with the Exocet missiles, when in 1987 the USS Stark was hit by two of them in the persian gulf (see link below). Sunburn is a far more advanced system, can carry a conventional or nuclear warhead, and is extremely difficult to shoot down with anything. So before we invite the destruction of a good portion of our naval fleet chasing the big London-Caspian prize - another troublesome nation with a euros currency reserve and spitting on the secular socialist government of the state of israel - perhaps we should be concerned with some pressing issues of our own.

http://navysite.de/ffg/FFG31.HTM

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[CAnnoneer]

LAK, open conquest is not politically possible unless we first get rid of liberals at home and then nuke half of ME. By contrast, establishing a secular "democracy" in the middle of the region is far less costly politically, especially if handled competently. It also may open the door to modernization of the entire region, with a concomitant progressively waning power of the religious nutjobs and stabilization of the oil supply. All of these would be beneficial developments at minimal cost. The problem is even this modest cost is too much for many libearls at home, who are too intellectually lazy or self-deluded to see the world in a pragmatic perspective.

Manedwolf, realistically we cannot get OBL without a complete overhaul of Saudi Arabia for many reasons. It would be nice to score a psychological victory by making him stand trial, but in the long run success in Iraq is immeasurably more important. For all we know, OBL might already be dead, since dialysis patients do not last long even in perfect conditions. Catching somebody who might already be dead and buried in a hole someplace in the Pakistani mountains is a silly basis for the foreign policy of a superpower.

From the above perspectives, what the Dems and their liberals have been doing since the Iraq liberation simultaneous borders on the insane, the psychotic, the treasonous, the pathetic, and the hilarous. Looking at them, I can almost agree with LAK that democracy is a terminal disease. Almost.

[Perd Hapley]

We're playing semantics with "democracy."  Obviously, pure democracy is not desirable, but that is not what anyone means when they use the term. 

I heard something interesting on television the other day.  (That's a shock, I know.)  I believe they were talking to some Pakistani politico who said that any Muslim country that surrenders bin Laden is going to have some serious problems with the "Arab street."  He's a hero to a lot of people.  That's why "getting" Osama would be significant, but the fact that he eluded us for five years (so far) makes him that much more of a hero.  If we caught him or killed him at this point, he would still have made a fool of us.  And Iraq has nothing to do with that.

[Manedwolf]

It is very likely, if not certain, that Iran has a large number of Russian type Moskit M3-82 - NATO codename Sunburn - anti-ship missiles. China has these as well.

A Sunburn compared to an Exocet is like an F-16 compared to a Sopwith Camel. At the Mach 3 speed they come in at, at wave level, the current US CIWS equipment can't react quickly enough to stop them. That, and it's been estimated that if a Sunburn was launched from Iran, any of our ships in the Straits would have, at most, 20 seconds to respond before impact. 20 seconds. That's it.

And basic physics, a missile that hits that fast really doesn't even need a warhead... 

Yes, we COULD lose cruisers, even a carrier if we get into it with Iran.

[roo_ster]

Getting Frisky in the Gulf
Hokay, I'll bite.

Does anybody on htis board really believe that if we strike Iran that we'd ONLY strike nuke installations?

I mean, just because every other military strike our flyboys in the AF & Navy have conducted since Vietnam has included SAM site suppression and suppression of other targets that could possibly harm our planes and ships, can we really expect our flyboys and squiddies to take anti-shipping missiles into account? 

Give our planners some credit for knowing enemy conventional capabilities.

[Manedwolf]

Jfruser, the Sunburn can be launched from a semi truck trailer or small hidden silo.

Look at the SIZE of Iran.

Think of how hard it'd be to find everything, everywhere. They only have to miss seeing ONE, and one of our ships has 20 seconds...or less...to avoid being destroyed. These aren't scuds. They're fast, deadly, accurate, they perform evasive maneuvers as they close on their target, they perform a popup and hit down onto the deck and upper works of the target vessel, avoiding the heavier hull armor, and we've no idea how many of them Iran has. Picture what a massive metal object slamming into a ship at Mach 2.5-3 would do, even if the warhead didn't work.

And while the newer Raytheon SeaRAM can intercept them, it's not installed on most vessels. They still have the Phalanx system that they know quite well can't track and fire fast enough, it's been tested, and failed against this sort of fast-closing last-second-popup missile.

That's not even taking into account the possibility that the Exocets, of which they are suspected of having hundreds, thousands even, could be sent in hails to clog the Straits with burning, half-sunken commercial supertankers, basically turning off the oil tap from all nations that need to pass through there.

Sure, we'd 'win' in time, but...at what cost, in the lives of service personnel foremost, and economically if that sort of reprisal caused a worldwide oil panic?

[richyoung]

A bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out says your wrong.

What percentage is "a buunch"?  how do they break down vis-a-vis Kurd, Shi'ite and Shia?  DFOrmer Bath party trying to dodge the hangman's noose?  Who did the polling?  Whats the margin of error? Even the US had Torries in the early days.

[Bogie]

Hussein helped pay for stuff. Now, if Joey Banannas downtown puts out the word that Bogie's head's worth a certain sum, I am not gonna be overly concerned with his soldiers... I'm gonna go after Joey...
 
What gets me are the folks who maintain that Hussein was a candidate for sainthood - why? Because the Republicans were in office when we went into the country. If the democrats had been in power, I think there is a fair likelihood that there woulda been nukes used - They don't seem to feel they have the restrictions that the Republicans do. As it was, we went into Afghanistan, where the fundamonkeys were in full force, and then we went after the biggest, strongest, most-sabre-rattlin' outfit in the area. And did it right this time.
 
For those of you who think that Hussein should still be in power - How many dead kurds are permissible? How many raped and tortured women? How many paid "martyrs" sent to the US to kills us are okay?
 

[Matthew Carberry]

Now bogie, don't go judging other cultures by our standards.  Who are we to criticize.

Besides, slavery was legal in this country for decades, we can't point fingers.

 

[Bogie]

Screw their standards.
 
Or should we, ourselves, revert to the stone age, so as to appease those still in the stone age?
 
IMHO, if you're one of the people who maintains that we should not have removed Hussein from power, you are either ignorant of what went on under his reign, or you are aware of it, and condone it.
 
The former can be fixed, except for people who refuse to learn. I cannot deal with the latter.
 

[Matthew Carberry]

Screw their standards.
 
Or should we, ourselves, revert to the stone age, so as to appease those still in the stone age?

That sounds fair, and fairness is what's most important, not "justice" or "morality" or any of that other biased stuff. 
 

IMHO, if you're one of the people who maintains that we should not have removed Hussein from power, you are either ignorant of what went on under his reign, or you are aware of it, and condone it.
 
The former can be fixed, except for people who refuse to learn. I cannot deal with the latter.
 

Now you're being judgemental again...

[Manedwolf]

In a Machiavellian sense, Hussein was most certainly a bad guy, but a bad guy whose ambitions and proximity to another bad guy (Iran, the Ayatollah) kept them both in check and out of our hair. Now Iran is most certainly in our hair.

Sort of like two equal weights on a see-saw. If you knock one off, the other is now free to rise. You either have enough resources to knock them both off at the same time, maintaining balance, or you wisely leave them be.

Even GHWB knew better. Said so in his book.

[Monkeyleg]

Manedwolf, that sounds a lot like the arguments made in the early 1940's about not declaring war on Germany, but rather letting the Germans fight the Russians, and then go after the winner.

Not that the idea wasn't without merit.

[Manedwolf]

Probably was true up to the point that Germany decided "We'll take Poland! And then we'll take..."

When Hussein did that, we DID intervene and smack him down, when he tried to take Kuwait. Before and after that, though, yes, the "balance of interfering enemies" did apply.

[RevDisk]

What gets me are the folks who maintain that Hussein was a candidate for sainthood - why? Because the Republicans were in office when we went into the country. If the democrats had been in power, I think there is a fair likelihood that there woulda been nukes used - They don't seem to feel they have the restrictions that the Republicans do. As it was, we went into Afghanistan, where the fundamonkeys were in full force, and then we went after the biggest, strongest, most-sabre-rattlin' outfit in the area. And did it right this time.

Yea...  Because modern Democrats are definitely advocates of first strike policies.   

The biggest, strongest, most-sabre-rattlin' outfit in the area was either Iran or NK.  But they had decent militaries, and we haven't done so well against them in the past.  So we went after an easy target.  Someone that was undeniable evil, but didn't have much strength left. 

 

For those of you who think that Hussein should still be in power - How many dead kurds are permissible? How many raped and tortured women? How many paid "martyrs" sent to the US to kills us are okay?

Some of us don't think the US should be the world's policemen.  There are many evil dictators around the globe.  Some are on our payroll, some ain't.   

If the US gave a damn about the Kurds, we would have given them Kurdistan.  We haven't, and we won't.  We alternated between helping them out and selling them out.  We helped them out with Operation Provide Comfort, and limited support at other times.  We sold them out to Saddam after the Gulf War, and then again when we did nothing to stop the Turkish attacks into Iraqi Kurdistan. 

And as for paid martyrs, what are you talking about?  Aside from a couple very incompetent intelligence agents, Iraq didn't launch any operations inside the US.  Closest was a half-ass assassination attempt against the first President Bush in Kuwait, with strong circumstantial evidence Iraq was behind the attempt.

Manedwolf, that sounds a lot like the arguments made in the early 1940's about not declaring war on Germany, but rather letting the Germans fight the Russians, and then go after the winner.

Not that the idea wasn't without merit.

Seeing as how Hitler killed well over 6 million people, and the USSR killed somewhere between 20 and 60 million people, I'm failing to see any lack of merit.

IMHO, if you're one of the people who maintains that we should not have removed Hussein from power, you are either ignorant of what went on under his reign, or you are aware of it, and condone it.
 
The former can be fixed, except for people who refuse to learn. I cannot deal with the latter.

Sigh.  "You are with us, or for the terrorists!"  "Black or white, grey does not exist!"  "Peanut butter, or jelly!  Never both!"

Some folks did not like Hussein, and also don't believe the US should try to be the world's policeman.  Believe it or not, usually more than two choices exist.  I personally thought that Saddam was an evil dictator who needed to be overthrown.  By his own people.  And that the people of Iraq must decide their own future.

I quoted my counterinsurgency instructor before.  I still believe his quote to be accurate.

[CAnnoneer]

Manedwolf, you continue living in the past. We cannot replay the Cold War for several compelling reasons, e.g. bastards sit on the oil we need, they won't let us cordone them off, they are less politically stable than the Soviets, they have a vicious religion to deal with, the cultural differences are far larger than with the Soviets. So we cannot just box off and forget them. Also, you continue arguing against entry in Iraq. We already are in Iraq, so half of your position is essentially a moot belated point. It only hurts 'cause it's true.

[Monkeyleg]

Manedwolf: "Probably was true up to the point that Germany decided "We'll take Poland! And then we'll take..."

No, after the invasion of Poland, the US still didn't intervene. (Of course, FDR was goading Hitler by sending munitions to Britain under ships flying the US flag).

RevDisk: "Seeing as how Hitler killed well over 6 million people, and the USSR killed somewhere between 20 and 60 million people, I'm failing to see any lack of merit."

I'm not arguing any sort of "relative" merit. There's little relativity between murdering six million over the period of seven or so years, or murdering 20 to 60 million over decades.

I was only mentioning the point that many prominent leaders at that time--including Truman--advocate we let the Nazi's and the Soviets fight it out, and then declare war on the victor.

From the standpoint of defending the defenseless, that sort of isolationism was a terrible idea. Let it be noted, though, that the Allies did almost nothing to free the prisoners in the concentration camps. Allied planes flew over Auschwitz every single day to bomb some second-rate munitions factory, and never once heeded the advice of the members of the Jewish underground to bomb Auschwitz.

From a purely strategic point of view, the let-the-Germans-fight-the-Russians argument  made sense then, and still does today. The only fly in the ointment was Great Britain. While the Nazi's couldn't have successfully launched a ground invasion and captured Britain, the V-2's could have decimated the large cities in Britain, while the German forces concentrated their troops on Russia.

It's easy to be an armchair general with 20/20 hindsight, isn't it?

[Manedwolf]

Manedwolf, you continue living in the past. We cannot replay the Cold War for several compelling reasons, e.g. bastards sit on the oil we need, they won't let us cordone them off, they are less politically stable than the Soviets, they have a vicious religion to deal with, the cultural differences are far larger than with the Soviets. So we cannot just box off and forget them. Also, you continue arguing against entry in Iraq. We already are in Iraq, so half of your position is essentially a moot belated point. It only hurts 'cause it's true.

I actually agree with quite a bit of that, but the thing is...our military is just not big enough to handle it all, not unless we literally were to wipe out everyone in the immediate area and resettle it. All we can do...and have done...is fight little fights that end up just tangling things further. Especially when our "allies" turn on us, as they always do in the region. Bin Laden was Mujahadeen, all of that.

The "big picture" I see is that what gave them all that power is...oil, and the money that came in like a sea with that in the 20th century. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, I think they would have reverted to a few centuries of camel-jockeying and tribal fighting with antique weapons that didn't bother anyone else outside....but for the oil.

Oil has funded the power of absolutely unreasonable people, funded their rise and influence in the world, because, as a simple fact of life now, we NEED the oil that's under their sand to continue the civilization we've built.

A decade ago, the answer might have been a bit easier...that there should be nuclear reactors all OVER the US, along with coal-to-oil technology. We have centuries of coal left in the US, and bringing back that industry would allow private companies to totally revitalize the economy of the former coalmining regions. Pulling the rug out from under the middle east's only commodity would let them sink back into unfunded tribal warfare without the assets to continue to threaten anyone outside. They don't traditionally have stable forms of government, they tend to have backstabbing, primitive theocracies or dictatorships with coups always waiting in the wings. They'd not last long without the billions pouring in every day.

Now, it's not so easy, because we're not the only customer. China's meteoric industrial and economic rise is buying more and more oil from them every day as cars replace bicycles. India is buying lots more as well. So even if we said "We don't need any of your oil", they'd still have enough revenue from other customers to continue the status quo, still be rolling in money.

So what do we do? There really is no easy answer, I think. No, we can't nuke upwards of a billion or more people. We can surgically eliminate the unreasonable and fanatical leaders as they appear, but we're not really doing that. The failure to eliminate bin Laden, which would have been ACCEPTED there as "an eye for an eye" was likely seen as weakness on our part. Now, instead of being a pariah, he's praised. He's a symbol. Instead, we got into a quagmire that, to me, in terms of knocking down Islamic extremism, was rather like fighting a fire with a spray of gasoline. All we did was inflame them, cause more and more people to become recruits, and in the long run, make it all worse for ourselves.

What's the long-term answer? I don't know. Islamic extremists are one of the most profound dangers to the continuance of civilization that the world has ever seen. But what we've done so far with Iraq seems to have taken a bad situation and made it worse.

And continues to do so. 

[LAK]

CAnnoneer

LAK, open conquest is not politically possible unless we first get rid of liberals at home and then nuke half of ME. By contrast, establishing a secular "democracy" in the middle of the region is far less costly politically, especially if handled competently. It also may open the door to modernization of the entire region, with a concomitant progressively waning power of the religious nutjobs and stabilization of the oil supply. All of these would be beneficial developments at minimal cost. The problem is even this modest cost is too much for many libearls at home, who are too intellectually lazy or self-deluded to see the world in a pragmatic perspective.

The liberals? Who are they? As I see it they occupy the WH and almost the entire U S Congress.

Iraq was in the process of a thorough modernization during the 1970s. It amazes me that the myths of life in general, education and culture iraq under Hussein still exist.

The notion that iraq is going to become some beacon to be desired by the rest of central asia is plain foolish. For our gov to be foisting that bs on an educated western populace in the light of the history of the region going back to WW1 is perhaps a better indicator of just how uneducated many of us are.

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[CAnnoneer]

The liberals? Who are they? As I see it they occupy the WH and almost the entire U S Congress.

Yes, start with most Dems in congress, plus some neo-con closet-leftists, plus NAU supporters. They need to be gone, together with the PACs that fund them.

The notion that iraq is going to become some beacon to be desired by the rest of central asia is plain foolish. For our gov to be foisting that bs on an educated western populace in the light of the history of the region going back to WW1 is perhaps a better indicator of just how uneducated many of us are.

So, you believe that tribalism will always win and these people will forever remain crazy-sand-monkeys hellbent on killing one another, ad infinitum. The same argument could have been made in early 1800s about Europeans and again in early 1900s about Europeans. A century later, war in Europe is unthinkable and they are rapidly integrating in EU. Therefore, tribalism will not win forever. The problem is, we cannot let them smash one another for the next 100 years and figure it out on their own, because our civilization needs the oil under their very feet and our economy cannot tolerate shocks in oil supply. Thus we are forced to put them through a crash course in modernization of political thinking. It is a rough deal but the alternative is far worse for everybody.

[Manedwolf]

A century later, war in Europe is unthinkable and they are rapidly integrating in EU. Therefore, tribalism will not win forever.

Ironically, though, their integration and willingness to declaw themselves is what's allowing the Islamist extremists to overrun their culture. They're tolerating intolerance. That's going to end badly.

[LAK]

CAnnoneer

So, you believe that tribalism will always win and these people will forever remain crazy-sand-monkeys hellbent on killing one another, ad infinitum. The same argument could have been made in early 1800s about Europeans and again in early 1900s about Europeans. A century later, war in Europe is unthinkable and they are rapidly integrating in EU. Therefore, tribalism will not win forever.

To say that war in europa is unthinkable is very naive, or reflects a simple lack of general knowledge. Rapid EU integration has been underway since the 1960s, the fact that more countries from the former east bloc are being drawn in now does represent some kind of new beginning.

As Manedwolf points out, in other words, the attempted homogenization in europe is not going to work. Just as it will not work here down the road either. It is only a decade ago that there was major conflict in the balkans, and it has never gone completely away.

What you are in essence suggesting is that the pipedream called "peace and security in every land" is going to someday become a reality via the current process and agenda. Not going to happen.

It is not tribalism that is the problem, it is culture and religion. And rightly so. Attempting to homogenize conflicting or significantly different cultures, religions and even language is a nonstarter - a dead horse.

The problem is, we cannot let them smash one another for the next 100 years and figure it out on their own, because our civilization needs the oil under their very feet and our economy cannot tolerate shocks in oil supply. Thus we are forced to put them through a crash course in modernization of political thinking. It is a rough deal but the alternative is far worse for everybody.

We have oil - we do not need theirs. Before we give anyone crash courses in anything involving acts of war; destroying infrastructures, and leaving the majority of their population wide open to murder, rape, torture and robbery for years on end, we need to give the people blocking our independence, culture and wealth as a nation here at home a lesson in dealing with political subversion and ideologies hostile to our ideology, constitution and system of government as a constitutional republic. And stop using those people as an excuse to trample roughshod over those beyond our borders.

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http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[wmenorr67]

Quote
A bunch of purple thumbs says you're wrong....

A bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out says your wrong.

I for one in my own on the scene observations have not seen a bunch of Iraqis screaming for us to get out.  Unless you have had the chance to view the situation first hand and not through the eyes of a television camera you wouldn't know that.  Most of the Iraqis screaming for us to leave are in the minority and most of the insurgancy is either from Iran and/or funded by Iran.  In my opinion any attack on Iran would be justified since they are a supporting cast member in this conflict.