The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[kandrathe]

Please, get it right. The story is about a carrot tied to a stick so that it is always out of reach. It's about promises made in bad faith. It has damned all to do with reward and punishment. Don't join the ignorant masses in misusing this bit of our heritage.
If you want to know the future, look at the past.

There are two usages according to Oxford English Dictionary, “carrot, sb. Add: 1. a. fig. [With allusion to the proverbial method of tempting a donkey to move by dangling a carrot before it.] 2. An enticement, a promised or expected reward; freq. contrasted with “stick” (=punishment) as the alternative.” I'm using the later.

Hussein was a bastard, but he did keep the country stabilized throughout his tenure. All we've accomplished is destabilization.

That is debatable. With his propensity to actually use his army for conquest, and his desire and willingness to use proscribed weapons, and his use of vast wealth to employ covert forces to attack western powers he was at that point of being more unstable than stable. His rape of Kuwait was his undoing, it just took a decade of trying to negotiate the bastard into reasonableness that failed.

And given our actions in Gitmo and elsewhere, I don't think we can even claim much of a moral superiority.

Some of it is over blown, but given the choice of torturer, I'd still prefer Gitmo over the dungeons of Saddam. This is the age old question of how you can beat an opponent without stooping to their level. For the US at least, we try to walk that fine line between legal and war crime. It's a dastardly place to be. The war on terror is no battle for boy scouts, and so we will be tainted by the things we are doing.

What made it our concern apart from our commitment to the UN? No. Shrub wanted to show his was bigger than his father's, and the Texas Oil Gang wanted to get richer.

Perhaps. I think there is more to the political connections of Iraq, Syria, Yemen than you might think.

And Powell was either a fool and a dupe or he sold out.

I believe Powell presented the CIA supplied information in good faith, and knowing that it was all slanted against Iraq. The US was committed to the war far before the UN was involved, and as I said, far before Bush became President.

Since it is our continued presence that is largely to blame for the strife and death, staying is worse than leaving.

That is hard to say. You believe it to be so, but I'm afraid of another Mogadishu/Beirut civil war in Baghdad for a decade. Meanwhile, the camps and trained guerrillas would be seeded around the globe for more acts of terror.

Ever heard of throwing good money after bad?

I considered that. I'm optimistic that we've passed the midway mark. It will be 3x as expensive as we first predicted. But, that is the nature of optimism.

Since the people of Iraq don't seem to be interested in cleaning their own outhouse, why should we give a damn. Yeah, we overthrew a working government. But that government came out of a period of chaos. So, let them do it again. Except for supplying large quantities of funds to fuel the endemic corruption of that region, we're really not contributing squat.

That would be one strategy. The killing fields of Cambodia come to mind, as well as many other aftermaths of "cut your losses and leave a mess" actions of previous conquests.

Yeah. And pigs will fly. The US citizens will foot the bills (and not just this generation) and Exxon will reap the profits.

Maybe. Again, I suffer that ailment of optimism.

Apples to cowpies. Iwo was a step in the process. A process that was forced onto this nation. Iraq is the goal, although I'm damned if I can figure just why.

I realized the discrepancy in making the comparison. Yet, I was considering the human costs of the WWII tactic of sending 10,000 men straight into 20,000 defenders, suffering 95% casualties. And, then consider what was gained; an airstrip to project your force further toward Japan, versus one of the richest oil producing regions in the world. I'm not suggesting that US acquired Iraq, but that with a pacified Iraq it would perhaps be "on our side" as we consider the Saud's "on our side".

We went in under the lie of WMD. Since there weren't any, we failed to secure them.

The term "lie" is used overly by one political faction that seeks political gain. I'm not certain it was a lie, versus exaggerated inaccuracies propagated and amplified by every intelligence service in the world. Although, part of the blame lies with Saddam and his games with the UN weapons inspectors who were seeking the truth.

Everything since has been lies to cover lies. As each reason to enter and continue the war is exposed as another Shrub and Gang falsehood, a new, equally bogus reason is raised. And a sufficient portion of the nation is sucked in.

A pretty broad, and sweeping generality and you give no disputable facts. I'll take it as your opinion.

Those too stupid to look at history are doomed to repeat it. Show me when, at least from the assassination of Genghis Kahn's ambassadors till now, Baghdad has ever been rational. Perhaps ffifer has developed a pill that turns barbarians into civilized people. If so, news hasn't reached here yet.

My prom date was an Iranian. A very nice girl until she got swept up into the Khomeini revolution. I'm not willing to be bigoted against them as people with brains and hearts like you and I. I am against the barbaric 12th century philosophies being preached by the Imams. I'm against the tyrants, the cruelty and the murder.

Have you noticed that Russia is now a mobocracy verging on becoming a dictatorship?

Although, their need to shatter the world with a volley of nuclear warheads has diminished. New day, new problems. I could diverge here into a discussion of the need for a moral compass, but let's not.

That *Communist* China is the biggest investor in our economy?

Power is power. In this case, China has found it has economic power and is wielding it.

Both those countries are a bigger threat to our existence than they were during the Cold War -- not least because we at least perceived them to be a threat then. So, yeah, right, it all worked out so well.

I'm uncertain what the outcome of China will be, but I fear as you do that as China asserts itself as the dominant economy, the rest of the world will suffer greatly. Tibet may merely be the beginning of the next global conflict.

THERE IS NO SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION!!!!!!! You have a culture (using the word in its loosest possible way) that only understands strong-man rule. Sure, they'll agree to elections. And terrorism is their preferred method of campaigning. When the election is over, the losing sides revert to the rule of the AK-47.

You might be right. Again, I suffer from an excess of optimism in humanity. Contrast "the HUN" from WWII to modern Germany. Contrast the savage Japanese officer beheading American prisoners versus a modern Japan. Cultures can change, and I'm hopeful that in time the barbarity will subside.

Sometimes the only rational thing to do is admit your mistakes and walk away. Lacking any plan better than a one hundred occupation (and, no, it will not be like that of DEFEATED Japan nor of CIVILIZED Europe), then pulling out is the only rational option.

"Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist." -- George C. Marshall, June 5, 1947 (link)

People get the government they deserve. Iraq got Hussein because that's all that works there.

I disagree.