Remember, SH was only there in the first place because our CIA propped him up and helped him through the Iranian War. And remember we only needed an Iraqi in that position because our imposed Iranian leader, the Shah – who we stuck in there 20 years prior – was finally overthrown by Iranians who preferred the harshly anti-West and islamist Ayatollah.
If we could only mind our own business…
I’m afraid so-we seem to be getting a steady stream of misinformation:
-mistranslations of Ahmadinejad speeches (wherein he calls for the “destruction of Israel”
-steady reports about Iranian bomb-making efforts (despite the 2003 CIA report stating that “no credible” Iranian nuclear bomb effort is in evidence)
-the hijacked drone story
Meanwhile, right-wing Israeli politicians continue to spew misinformation as well
A war with Iran will be a disaster!:smack:
An occupation of Iran would probably be a disaster. A war with Iran would probably be a cakewalk. Isn’t that the lesson of Iraq?
“… why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?”
Quoting someone from the internet here
Oh please, two nuns and a syphilitic cow could have beaten Iraq in 2003 and everyone knew it. The US had already learned firsthand how pitiful and pathetic the Iraqi military was in 1991, where they were crushed in a 100 hour ground war where prisoners were being taken at a rate of well over 1,000 per hour. On the few occasions where the Iraqi Army or Republican Guard did try to stand their ground and fight it was a turkey shoot, see Medina Ridge, 73 Eastings, Al Busayyah, Phase Line Bullet, Rumalia, etc. This was of course before the Iraqi military had been gutted by the 1991 war and then suffered 12 years of sanctions. The only people who try to compare it to the fall of France are Rumsfeld and his merry band of idiots who deliberately kept US forces as small as possible in order to prove 'the Revolution in Military Affairs’™. Note that this precluded having troops to occupy the country on hand to prevent everything not nailed down being looted. I’m on record here as calling Rumsfeld the antichrist back in 2003.
Compare this to the handling of the 1991 war (sorry Magiver, but you are inventing history by claiming there was any sort of mandate to remove Saddam from power in '91). George Bush Sr. did a magnificent job as a statesman and as commander in chief. He took the immediate position that Iraqi aggression against Kuwait would not stand, completely isolated Iraq in the UN and proceeded to put together a coalition that was an actual coalition, not some bullshit ‘coalition of the willing’. The coalition sent large numbers of actual combat troops to participate in the war. France and Britain both sent an entire division, Egypt a corps of two divisions, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia both put together forces of roughly a reinforced division each, and Oman, Senegal, the UAE, and Morocco all sent substantial ground combat forces.* On top of this, in a sign of just how effective Bush Sr. was diplomatically, Syria sent an armored division. A year earlier people would call you insane if you were to say the US was ever going to fight alongside with Syria. When it came to being commander in chief, he didn’t leave it to his Secretary of Defense to go about turning down requests from the military for a larger force left and right. He essentially gave the military a blank check; when he discussed the forces to be sent with Powell, Bush just asked what he needed and sent it. Finally he was smart enough not to do anything stupid like drive on to Baghdad and splinter the coalition.
*Additionally, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Singapore and Spain all sent naval vessels, combat aircraft, support troops or some combination of the above. Japan and Germany, both precluded from sending combat forces abroad by their constitutions donated a combined total of $16.6 billion.
No, he called for it to be wiped off the map and his own official translators certified that translation was accurate.
Fictional. And you’re ignoring the IAEA report, bizarrely.
“The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.” - Mark Twain
We could have agreed to stop short of the German border, where was the mandate to conquer Germany and prosecute their citizens for war crimes? We could have Nevil Chamberlain’d an end to it and walked away.
When you go to war it’s generally to defeat an enemy and in this case we were landed with the responsibility of policing Iraq after the cease fire. To say we did not have a mandate ignores the military force of the no-fly zones which was effectively an extension of the war.
We already had a foothold with those who were protected by the no-fly zone. If Iraq was forced to surrender up front there is no reason to think it would not have been the beginning of the Arab Spring and the start of free elections.
Have you looked at Iran lately? the populace isn’t exactly in love with the current regime.
An arrest warrant has been issued for one of the Vice Presidents of Iraq (a Sunni Arab), on charges that he’s been using his bodyguards to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks.
So, either the (Sunni) Vice President is a terrorist. Or he’s not a terrorist, and the (Shi’ite) government just had him arrested anyway. Either way, not looking real good for the new day which is dawning in Iraq.
Hmmmm… the question then is: How can this be spun as Obama’s fault?
Lol.
Well, that’s not quite true. “We” (that is, Bush I) told the Kurds and other dissident elements to revolt in 1993, and then let them get slaughtered after we pulled out. I doubt they were over that.
Dick Cheney explaining why we didn’t occupy Iraq the first time around. We’d be exactly where we are now, only 8 years farther in.
No, it wasn’t; they missed the carrier group.
Yeah, but, then we would’ve pulled out our troops eight years ago!
You seem to forget the no-fly zones established because of that.
I wasn’t aware you valued the opinion of Dick Cheney but we were already entrenched in the region before the 2nd gulf war. We could have forced SH to surrender and walked away and been none the worse for it. The elections were and will be at the discretion of the Iraqis with or without our help. If they can’t handle it, fuck em. They can kill each other until hell freezes over. All we can do is keep them from invading Kuwait and other countries that provide oil. The 2nd Gulf War was a huge quagmire that could have been avoided if we had just pushed through and demanded SH leave the country. He could have taken his sacks of gold and lived out his life anywhere on the planet without all the hassle. considering we sliced through the 3rd largest standing army in the world like butter he really didn’t have much choice at the time.
Except that when we did get around to conquering Iraq, the exact opposite happened; pro-democracy movements all over the region took a serious hit. It’s ridiculous to think that mass slaughter & destruction are going to serve as a good advertisement for democracy, and almost as silly to think that we’d ever willingly install anything but a puppet government. America is the enemy of democracy outside its own borders, and always has been.
Dick Cheney obviously didn’t value the opinion of Dick Cheney, but he was obviously right about this.
Well yes but looked how the war started. The first 5 seconds were narrated with “shock and Awe” bullshit which came off as politically ugly. SH had years to consolidate his power again and rally support against the great invaders. And by this time we had already shown what we were capable of so the army was just going to melt into the background. This is in contrast to first Gulf war where we had them on the run in a clearly defined war where defeat and surrender were days away. All the moral wind of forcing SH out for invading Kuwait was taken out of the sails by the time the 2nd Gulf War started.
I seriously doubt anyone outside the US cared about the “shock and awe” narrative - or even heard about it.