Gauvin said:

First time I hear that from an anti-war person.... it's encouraging.

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Anti-war doesn't mean anti-freedom. As I have said again, if things turn up better for the Iraqis so much the better.

Also, the credibility of people who supported sanctions and a war which have killed at least one million Iraqis is very poor when they start getting all happy about Iraq doing comparitively well now.

Winterlight said:

Well, what do you know? George W. Bush wasn't an evil, incompetent liar after all. I bet all those "Iraq War = Fascism" and "Peace at all costs" people are crying themselves to sleep these days. No more Iraq "war" to moan about, and no Republicans in power to blame. You may think the invasion itself was wrong, but you can't say that things aren't much better there than they were before March, 2003. Today, saying Iraq is still a war (and an unjust one) just because you dislike the 2003 invasion is like saying Israel is fascistic just because you dislike the founding of Israel in 1948. Six years and sixty-one years on, respectively, and the situations are now much better.

It certainly doesn't look like a Stalingrad, Dresden, Coventry, or Verdun in Baghdad, these days... then again, the moment anyone dies in Iraq, the Bush-haters stand to order and demand trials of his administration.

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Bush did break the law on many ocassions. Far more serious laws than Clinton ever violated. Whether or not the Iraq War was justified or not is not the point when it comes to that issue. Even if he didn't invade Iraq, he would still be liable for impeachment for a number of other acts. Especially when you consider that he asked for the resignation of just about every member of his cabinet and then proceeded to pardon them all for crimes that they had not yet been officially accused of or tried for.

As for the issue of the invasion itself, we've been trying to reinvade the country since 1996. Bush merely used the war on terror as a media fuel to preclude his long planned invasion of Iraq. I've posted this video many times:



Don't let the current peacefulness be too deceptive though. There are still very serious factors that could throw the country into a civil war. It's the only reason we haven't left yet.

a war which have killed at least one million Iraqis

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Making up numbers again are we...

Sphere said:

Iraq will be stable as long as the Sunni warlords allow it to be. Creating the "Awakening" has allowed an effective partition of country between the Baghdad government and the Awakening Councils. This worked great at combating Al Qaeda by essentially turning the sunni's who were supporting them over the American side.

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The Awakening Councils are now a government paramilitary and many have disarmed. Right now much of their leaders have switched from the gun to the ballot and are represented in the Anbar Provincial Government.

However the Sunni-Shia animosity is still present as ever, and the national government has not been able to reach any sort of power sharing compromise (as the recent VP veto shows). And one huge risk that comes along with recognizing and supporting the Awakening leaders is that they have been allowed to consolidate their power and their forces.

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Actually its much reduced. Al Qaeda launched attacks on numerous Shia Pilgrims that the Shia refused to retaliate against because they wanted the peace to continue. And cross sectarian marriages are on the rise and returning to pre-war levels.

Further the VP veto was not about sectarianism but politics. The VP wants the Iraqi displaced to be able to vote, and thus win their support and seats from them.

And again, the awakening groups are part of the government.

This could put the future of the Baghdad government at serious risk when American protection leaves. If the Sunni leaders see a chance to regain power, they now will likely have the means and methods to do so. I think what is more likely though, is that the sunni west will declare full autonomy like the Kurdish north, and the country we know as Iraq will be defacto partitioned into three parts with a figure head federal government.

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Again, Sunni leaders are going to the ballot not the bullet. They gave up that fight you say in the violence of 2006-2007 when they found it was counter-productive and they were losing power due to it.

From what I understand much of the internal crime in Iraq comes from the targetting of small minorities like the Chaldeans and homosexuals... Things which the Iraqi government and judiciary have repeatedly overlooked and/or ignored, unfortunately.

Well Iraqis continue to die everyday in bombings and shootings.The war is not over but now things look more calm.Its sad though that so many people try even now to justify this operation.More than 100.000 Iraqi civilians died in "operation rebuild" of Iraq.The end(which is not near yet)does not always justifies the means...

More than 100.000 Iraqi civilians died in "operation rebuild" of Iraq.The end(which is not near yet)does not always justifies the means...

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Quite possibly, though very few of those deaths are a direct result of American actions. I think we, the United States, specifically could have taken several actions to attempt to head off the violence, of the major being not disbanding the Iraqi Army. However, at a certain point people need to recognize the culpability of the Iraqis themselves for engaging in sectarian violence which claimed far more lives than any American bombing, patrol, etc. Furthermore, I would ask you to ponder how many people "disappeared," were "kidnapped," or were simply just murdered in a given span of six years under Saddam's rule, any span in which there probably featured war, state economy-related famine, or an attempt at some type of ethnic cleansing, and with no hope of things getting any better once he was dead and one of his more sadistic sons took over.

I'm sorry that this whole thing doesn't satisfy a very Catholic idea of "no evil justifies good" but in terms of long-term justice and politics, this is pretty damn fine. I do understand if many Iraqi families aren't exactly falling over themselves in an attempt to agree with me here, though.

At least the Yanks had better luck in the middle east than the commies...

That's what happens when you rely on cooperation rather than cruelty.

motiv-8 said:

Quite possibly, though very few of those deaths are a direct result of American actions. I think we, the United States, specifically could have taken several actions to attempt to head off the violence, of the major being not disbanding the Iraqi Army. However, at a certain point people need to recognize the culpability of the Iraqis themselves for engaging in sectarian violence which claimed far more lives than any American bombing, patrol, etc. Furthermore, I would ask you to ponder how many people "disappeared," were "kidnapped," or were simply just murdered in a given span of six years under Saddam's rule, any span in which there probably featured war, state economy-related famine, or an attempt at some type of ethnic cleansing, and with no hope of things getting any better once he was dead and one of his more sadistic sons took over.

I'm sorry that this whole thing doesn't satisfy a very Catholic idea of "no evil justifies good" but in terms of long-term justice and politics, this is pretty damn fine. I do understand if many Iraqi families aren't exactly falling over themselves in an attempt to agree with me here, though.

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Well at least under Saddam you could walk the road without fearing that someone would kill you in cold blood

BlackPirate said:

Well at least under Saddam you could walk the road without fearing that someone would kill you in cold blood

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Or some drunk Republican Guard Sgt who wanted to rape a young kid could do it without fear of being in trouble by his superiors.

Yeah - no fear.

Well at least under Saddam you could walk the road without fearing that someone would kill you in cold blood

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Not really.

Ænema said:

Or some drunk Republican Guard Sgt who wanted to rape a young kid could do it without fear of being in trouble by his superiors.

Yeah - no fear.

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Xmmm Saddam had a regime that was brutal but crime didnt existed.I dont want to sound like Saddams regime apologetic but you must try to find better arguments to convince me that this war really worthed.

Crime didn't exist?

In which alternate reality?

BlackPirate said:

Well at least under Saddam you could walk the road without fearing that someone would kill you in cold blood

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No.

BlackPirate said:

Well at least under Saddam you could walk the road without fearing that someone would kill you in cold blood

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yeah If your Kurdish you can expect to waking up, and within a half hour be spitting your guts out on the side walk from a gas attack. Yup, those were teh good 'ol days

as for what s.rwitt said, same thing ive been hearing from other Marines, they dont wanna go back to Iraq because it was boring. I do have an acquaintance in the army who just got deployed and hes scared , or thats what his face book status seem to say.

BlackPirate said:

Xmmm Saddam had a regime that was brutal but crime didnt existed.I dont want to sound like Saddams regime apologetic but you must try to find better arguments to convince me that this war really worthed.

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Never said it was worth it, and I'm not going to debate you on that - I was just making a point about how irrelevant your post was.

And yes stuff like that happened, not only to Saddams own people, but the Kurds as well.

This will look good on Bush's report card, bringing a beligerant tyrants country an elected governing body is quite an achievement. Assuming everything continues progressing towards complete stabalisation i wonder how Iraqi history books will paint Bush.

on a side note it makes me sick that Obama is sitting with his thumb up his ass not sending more troops to A-Stan, soldiers are dying while he dicks around, him.

I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I'm suprised and impressed that Obama hasn't attempted to take credit for the relative pacification of Iraq.

BlackPirate said:

Xmmm Saddam had a regime that was brutal but crime didnt existed.

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Dictatorships are notorious for law & order, that goes without saying. Enforcing order through fear and coercion without having to worry about such pesky things as human rights is obviously much easier and much more effecient. George W. Bush is known for a sound byte in which he says "It would be a lot easier if I were a dictator", it's been taken out of context repeatedly, but these is what I'm sure he meant.

I remember an article about a Chinese pro-democracy blogger who was abducted from his apartment by the police while his wife was in the other room, and she did not even know. That's why dictatorships have the appearance of law & order, secret police, abductions, and a wave of panic and fear that you can actually sense in the air.

Saddam's Iraq has been accurately described as a Republic of fear. He maintained power through threats of death, rape and torture, and the credibility of these threats, I assure you, were never questioned by the Iraqis for obvious reasons.

BlackPirate said:

I dont want to sound like Saddams regime apologetic

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Then stop apologizing for Saddam's regime, that is what you're doing you know, whether you think so or not, defending it as a relatively safe country, crediting Saddam's government as the glue that held everything together, who the do you think has been one of the main forces harassing, kidnapping, murdering, and bombing democrats in Iraq? Who has been one of the major forces destabilizing the country? Much of the same forces you credit for having kept it all together before the war! Funny that!

Well it seems that people forget that war is one of the most horrible things.War must be a sollution only in rare cases.In this case war wasnt necessary(and stop arguing omg the Kurds were supressed etc because this happens in many places on earth).Many radical elements from and around middle east were attracted by the US invasion(something that US knew very well that would happen).The US chose a battlefield for the war of terror and this despite the fact that they knew it would cost thousands lives.

BlackPirate said:

Well it seems that people forget that war is one of the most horrible things.War must be a sollution only in rare cases.In this case war wasnt necessary(and stop arguing omg the Kurds were supressed etc because this happens in many places on earth).Many radical elements from and around middle east were attracted by the US invasion(something that US knew very well that would happen).The US chose a battlefield for the war of terror and this despite the fact that they knew it would cost thousands lives.

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Two wrongs don't make a right.

Kinda random question but I can't remember, whats the official reason for the war? Was a lot of talk about mass destruction weapons, sadam dictator gotta get rid of him, 9/11 etc, is it still the weapons?

Borgoroth said:

Kinda random question but I can't remember, whats the official reason for the war? Was a lot of talk about mass destruction weapons, sadam dictator gotta get rid of him, 9/11 etc, is it still the weapons?

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Yeah some where along those lines.

BlackPirate said:

Xmmm Saddam had a regime that was brutal but crime didnt existed.I dont want to sound like Saddams regime apologetic but you must try to find better arguments to convince me that this war really worthed.

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actually if you look at his sons..... His son murdered and raped countless women. If you think Saddam was bad, his sons were ten times worse.
His son nearly lost his position as crown prince after he killed a high up official in anger.

Iraq has always been at the bottom of the list in every quality of life category, when compared to every other nation in the region. Most of the time, dramatically so. In that respect, things could only have gotten better, whether under Saddam, or under a freely elected government.

For a time, in the 70's, Iraq was categorized as a developing country, with an increasing standard of living. Saddam initiated involuntary education programs, etc. Then he went off the tracks, and over the decades, he became increasingly harsh in his policies, became more and more unpopular, and spent more and more of his GDP on what he percived as clear and present dangers to his rule. As we know now, this reached levels, where as many as 300,000 Iraqis were killed, or 'disappeared', in the 80's, due to Saddam's growing paranoia.

He appeared to back off, or reign in the secret police, and their indiscriminate arrests and killings, after the first gulf war. But make no mistake, thousands of people were still being killed or disappearing every year. And the sanctions, only led to less and less going to the people, while he lived in luxury.



In the end, people on both sides can find numbers to support their arguments that Iraq is worse, or better off. There are some areas where things have gotten worse in Iraq after the invasion. Most notably, the dependency on oil revenue, due to a decline in other sectors that were once adequate, but never thriving. It is hard to find good paying jobs. Life expectancy has dropped, due to terrorism, and infant mortality has risen slightly, while overall, health care has gotten much better.

Perhaps the biggest improvement in Iraq, has been education. It is a dramatic improvement. Students in Iraq's primary, secondary, prep, colleges, and post-graduate schools have all seen increases, with only those in kindergarten going slightly down since the invasion. Now, 86% of Iraqis have access to quality education.

Inflation was always a key issue in Iraq, but the Central Bank has gotten it well under control starting in 2003. Per capita GDP has also risen dramatically.

Overall, the trend is that most every aspect of Iraqi life has improved since 2003, and will only continue to do so. In a country like Iraq, access to education is hugely important, and the US has focused on that in a big way, and have seen great success in doing so.

BarnabyJones said:

In the end, people on both sides can find numbers to support their arguments that Iraq is worse, or better off.

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Yes, isn't that how it always is.


In any case, while I am glad for any advancements that they may have made, if we, the US, are making a commitment to make the world better, irrespective of the benefit to us, I wonder why we could not have done a more efficient course of action. We probably could have funded a malarial reduction program for all of Africa, and saved astronomically more lives, at a fraction of the cost...

I guess explosions are just more dramatic.

Downey said:

yeah If your Kurdish you can expect to waking up, and within a half hour be spitting your guts out on the side walk from a gas attack. Yup, those were teh good 'ol days

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And who exactly provided him with the technology to make this gas?

And who exactly provided him with the technology to make this gas?

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You do realize that the US provided him with that so he could fight a US enemy, Iran, not Kurdish civilians, correct? You're doing the same thing people do when they say "Amerika supported Osama Bin Laden" or "Amerika supported Stalin".