Iraq's current situation (analysis)

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Mattel
Tell that to the Kurds who had chemical weapons used on them.

Ancient history.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Hap
Since, the US in 1861 wsn't sitting around waiting for someone else to come and liberate us . . . . WHAT?

or . . .

Since a key difference exists betwee America in 1861 and Iraqi in 2006, smart guys conclude . . . . .


You finish the sentence because while I agree with you the difference you cited exists and it maybe "key" too, so what do you conclude given the difference and similarity?  Reform dosen't take a long time?

hap

I'm simply stating that the U.S. timetable isn't necessarily an accurate expectation given the circumstances of their liberation which doesn't at all parallel our own experience. This comparison is a flawed soundbite in my opinion.

On the other hand, I suspect that the Iraqi people are more likely to sub-divide the country than to find a single unifying government in the next decade. To an extent, we went down this exact same path until the end of the U.S. Civil War. Hell... if we put the Iraqis on that timetable, they won't be truly unified for another century.

[deSelys]

Originally posted by Mattel
Tell that to the Kurds who had chemical weapons used on them.

Yup, and it happened when Saddam was still a buddy of the West....

Interesting article, Edbert.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Brenjen
My analysis is, we are on track & doing fine. Everyone knew there would be heavy U.S. casualties when we went in, you can't occupy a country for as long as ten years (that's how long they said it could take in the begining)...

Can you source that please?

...the U.S. forces just can't go into Iran & Syria to get what was trucked over to them at the momment which was the biggest portion of what he had...

Can you source that as well.  According the post invasion CIA investigation, it was concluded that Iraq had destroyed it's WMD years before.

The Iraq Survay Group's Final Report can be found here...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_rfp-07.htm

Joining the untied nations has been our biggest mistake to date,

The US didn't just join the UN, the US created it.

besides giving back territory gained by our soldiers sacrifices, it's funny, the land we took & kept we didn't deserve (Hawaii for one) & the lands we deserved we didn't keep such as France, Germany, the Iranian oil platforms in the persian gulf etc.

I don't see how the US could have kept France, the US wasn't at war with them.

It was U.S. & British jets, our pilots, our money, our nations relations with the rest of the world that the untied nations put on the table when they came up with that "no fly zone" in Iraq.

The UN doesn't put anything on the table.  Member states on the Security Council do.  And no member put the "no fly zones" on the table.  The British and Americans created the "no fly zones".  They justified the creation out of their interpretation of Security Council resolution 688.  An interpretation that was controversial at best.  Illegal under international law at worst.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1175950.stm


You can find the text of 688 here...

http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1991/scres91.htm

The Iraqi military was painting our planes with AA radar daily, we had the right to go in there as a violation of their surrender just on that alone.

Perhaps not.  Resolution 687 which contained the surrender directions for Iraq, directed Iraq to cease all hostile actions toward UN Member States.  But at the same time noted the ceasation of combat operations by Member States.  I would argue that when Britain and the US commenced combat operations in the "no fly zones" under the dubious auspices of resolution 688, they were commiting and act of war and that Iraq had the right to defend itself.

Reslution 687 can be found here as well...

http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1991/scres91.htm

...our attack on Iraq was justified & it would be justified if we stomp the guts out of any country that threatens our safety or that of any of our allies (including france & canada)

I don't see how it's been proven that Iraq was an immediate threat to the US.  If anything the opposite seems to be true.  And although I appriciate the sentitment, Canada can decide for itself who is a threat to our safety.

[Timofei]

A few thousand bodybags makes the American public understand and think the realities. It seems that it has to be reminded every for every 10..15 years, though. Short memory unfortunately. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf war, Iraq, Iran ?
And the war(s) goes on...money and oil...

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Mattel
Tell that to the Kurds who had chemical weapons used on them.

"The Halabja poison gas attack was an incident on 15 March-19 March 1988 during a major battle in the Iran-Iraq war when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces to kill a number of people in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja (population 80,000). Estimates of casualties range from several hundred to 7,000 people. Halabja is located about 150 miles northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border.

...

Almost all current accounts of the incident regard Iraq as the party responsible for the gas attack, which occurred during the Iran-Iraq War. The war between Iran and Iraq was in its eighth year when, on March 16 and 17, 1988, Iraq dropped poison gas on the Kurdish city of Halabja, then held by Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas allied with Tehran; throughout the war, Iran had supplied the Iraqi Kurdish rebels with safe haven and other military support.

...

Some debate existed, however, over the question of whether Iraq was really the responsible party. The U.S. State Department, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, instructed its diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame.

A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time concluded, apparently by determining the chemicals used by looking at images of the victims, that it was in fact Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990's. The CIA's senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war [1] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study's key points. In a January 31, 2003 New York Times [2] opinion piece, Pelletiere summarized the DIA's findings and noted that because of the DIA's conclusion there was not sufficient evidence to definitively determine whether Iraq or Iran was responsible. Pelletiere also felt that the administration of George W. Bush was not being forthright when squarely placing blame on Iraq, since it contradicted the conclusion of the DIA study. However the DIA's final position on the attack was in fact much less certain than this preliminary report suggests, with its final conclusions, in June 2003, asserting just that there was insufficient evidence, but concluding that "Iraq ..used chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in 1988" [3]. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of WMD before the 2003 invasion [4]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by babek-
In the Middle East the "Thumbs up"-gesture is considered as an obscene gesture - like the "middlefinger"-gesture in the West.

The middle finger gesture comes from English bowmen showing the French they still had their fingers to pull back the bow.

The Mongols pinched the bowstring between their thumb and index finger rather than the european style of using three fingers to pull a bow.

I wonder if there is a similar story of the Mongols showing Arabs their thumbs in defiance...

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by babek-
So it was extremely funny to see all the iraqis who were given their "liberators" this guesture, when they were driving though Bagdad, who were answering with the same guestures.

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Do you have pictures of this? I don't recall seeing this on TV. I do recall many people lining the streets and clapping their hands in unison.

Babek.? Hello?

[~Caligula~]

Originally posted by Boroda

Frankly speaking I'm sick of all this "liberation" nonsence. I was born in a country that declared such a "liberation" a sacred thing, and I am surprised by the people who sincerely believe in such stuff.

well..the russian way of liberation has a twist to it...and u`ve never even been on the recieving end of it

[Hap]

Originally posted by Sandman
I'm simply stating that the U.S. timetable isn't necessarily an accurate expectation.

I'd be happily surprised if during my lifetime Iraq enjoys peace without tyranny.

hap

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The middle finger gesture comes from English bowmen showing the French they still had their fingers to pull back the bow.

The Mongols pinched the bowstring between their thumb and index finger rather than the european style of using three fingers to pull a bow.

I wonder if there is a similar story of the Mongols showing Arabs their thumbs in defiance...

Mongols occupied Russia for 300 years, but in Russia "thumb up" means "good", "way to go".

BTW "Mongols" is in fact a name of a very small tribe where Ghenghiz was from.

[Dago]

Originally posted by babek-
In the Middle East the "Thumbs up"-guesture is considered as an obscene guesture - like the "middlefinger"-guesture in the West.

So it was extremely funny to see all the iraqis who were given their "liberators" this guesture, when they were driving though Bagdad, who were answering with the same guestures.

Image this with middlefingers in an western country.

So at least there is still some fun in all of the nonsense of the War in Iraq.

Funny, I lived in the Middle East and that was never a bad sign there,  it was just the same as it is here.  

Sounds like a bunch of BS.

[~Caligula~]

Originally posted by Dago
Funny, I lived in the Middle East and that was never a bad sign there,  it was just the same as it is here.  

Sounds like a bunch of BS.

yup..i live in the mid east and i`ve never heard about it

[Brenjen]

Can you source that please?

 Can I source what? The president of the United States exact words that repeated over & over in pulic in front of cameras that U.S. troops could be required in Iraq for as long as 10 years? Not without looking up the links, if it bothers you, you look it up. It is no state secret.

Can you source that as well. According the post invasion CIA investigation, it was concluded that Iraq had destroyed it's WMD years before.

 Post invasion CIA report? The Iraqi Survey Group was an international 1,200 person group, not a CIA operation per se, & from what I have read in the very link you gave, they did hide their activities & the report does not mention the sattelite imagry of the truck convoys leaving Iraq & entering Syria & Iran which was also shown on news outlets over & over again...again I say, if you want the proof, look it up yourself.

The US didn't just join the UN, the US created it.

 I never said the U.S. didn't help to create the U.N. I said joining the U.N. was our biggest mistake, creating it would have been fine if we hadn't joined it too. So what's your point?

I don't see how the US could have kept France, the US wasn't at war with them

 Then you don't see very well. We were at war with anyone shooting at us & the vichy french were shooting at us. Besides, when you have boots on the ground & you control the territory, you can keep whatever you want to keep. You make some connection between being at war with someone & keeping the territory you occupy & there is no connection. For instance; We didn't declare war on Hawaii....a handful of sailors with rifles took it on a whim, no war declared & right or wrong it belongs to the U.S.

The UN doesn't put anything on the table. Member states on the Security Council do

 Wouldn't you call that splitting hairs since the "security council" is ap art of the U.N.?

Perhaps not

 No perhaps not too it. If we win a war & the enemy signs a cease fire & then violates it, we can do whatever we want up to & including carrying on with hostilities.

I don't see how it's been proven that Iraq was an immediate threat to the US. If anything the opposite seems to be true. And although I appriciate the sentitment, Canada can decide for itself who is a threat to our safety.

 You dont? I suppose you think govts. who openly call for the destruction of canada aren't a threat? Govts. who pay suicide bombers surviving family members huge ammounts of cash as a pay off for their service aren't a threat?? LOL!! You bask in the security provided to you by your proximity to the U.S. & you want to act smug & superior? Oh Canada can indeed decide for itself who's a threat to them & who will be the first ones called to help you when you encounter that threat? The United States of America, that's who. Be glad I'm not in charge of the U.S. military or our foriegn affairs, I wouldn't help canada fight off the flu. After you got your hats handed to you & shown the door, I'd come in & retake the country & keep it. I would then kick all of you out & cut down half the timber to build resort lodges so decent American people could have a nice place to vacation in the summer.

[Hangtime]

there are times when the term 'arrogant american pig' is soooooooo appropriate.

brenjen.. the last paragraph was a bit much.

it is unfortunate that not a few american citizens put maple leafs on their backpacks when touring abroad.. makes you wonder why most american civilians, caught outside their comfy towns and in harms way in foriegn lands suddenly wake up to the reality that there is price for being arrogant... and it's usually on their heads; for as long as it's attached to their neck.