BTW some posters elsewhere have blamed the war for shortages of electric power. In fact, Saddam’s government had already screwed up electric power distribution before the war.
“It just got to be so big,” Franks said. “You had these massive campaigns, with soldiers and generals and tech crews and medical staffs and reporters and maintenance engineers and all these other people. It was such an elaborate production. I guess I just felt like, somewhere along the way, we got away from what it was all about. We forgot the thing we all got into it for in the first place: the killing.”
It’s nice to know people still know how to get back to the basics!
This knock 'em on their ass and then let them pick themselves up by their own bootstraps theory is really starting to chap my ass.
I’ll give Rumsfeld and his ilk credit for knowing one elusive truth: armed forces make shitty administrators. But if you’re going to bullshit your way into a war in an already impoverished place, for shit’s sake bring some people with you who know how to rebuild a country. Fucking Halliburton is getting paid more money than God by the feds–are you telling me they can’t fix and extend a power grid?
You should be devoting your considerable time and effort into using your voice and persistence to improve this administration so that they can at least pursue their evil plans with a degree of competence. These idiots are falling off the proverbial Segway. You should be spotting your president instead of calling it interpretive dance.
december, you are totally immune to reason. Whether things are better or worse in Iraq does not change the fact that the USA, without a valid justification, invaded a country against all principles of international law. No matter what happens later the fact that the USA violated international law is not going to change.
The fact is that the USA invaded a country and killed several thousand civilians in the process for no good reason and caused great damage to international order.
If the USA was so bent on improving the lot of the Iraqis, it should have worked towards that within the framework of the international community as represented by the UN.
December’s OP was, and I’ll quote, “conditions in Iraq weren’t as bad as the press were representing”, which seems like a valid topic for discussion to me. So what do we get for replies:
and
None of which has anything to do with the OP. He didn’t claim the war was justified, only that conditions in Iraq might not be as bad as reported. These replies, along with the live journal /Onion/blog jabs are just mindless December bashing.
His claims that conditions in Iraq are “not as bad as reported” have been thoroughly refuted already. Condition ins Iraq are what they are and, of course, they may be better than some report and worse than others report.
The fact is december is posting in order to somehow justify the invasion and the invasion cannot be justified by how good things are. Especially to the thousands who were killed or maimed for life.
Because, you see, I know december and he has tried to justify the invasion is every possible and many impossible ways. But, if not that, pray tell, what do you think is his motivation?
Read his string of posts on the justification for attacking Iraq, from all the pre-war bluster, the Hans Blix inspections, the war itself and then the lack of WMD, where December has tried time after time to justify this war based upon the reasons the US administration gave.
After all his caveats, exceptions, changes of argument, distortions, justifications, and his’ well they would have had them in years to come’ type points, I just cannnot for the life of me see how this is not part of his/her campaign to justify the US led attack on a sovereign nation without the express approval of all the UNSC.
Now that the argument about WMD has been seen to be what it is, total fabrication, this is the next nearest justification for remaining in Iraq.
Well they are better off under US occupation than under Saddam Hussain, appears to be the subtext.
That may even be true, but it still will not change the fact that the US has illegally and aggressively invaded another nation that posed no threat whatsoever to it or its citizens.
Have you ever spoken to anyone in Iraq/Baghdad? I do, daily.
Do you ever watch news channels from this part of the world, or read neutral websites such as the BBC? I do, daily.
You have not got a FUCKING CLUE what is going on in Iraq yet you wish to believe it is fairyland to suit your own warped, brainwashed, bigoted agenda.
I really wish I could have our Baghdad correspondent Saad contact you and talk some fucking sense into you. Only he can’t, because the very few precious times his satellite phone is working he needs to call us or his family. And because it is so fucking dangerous he has to get home to his house before dark, when Americans are getting up. He can’t even do a live in our programme because the SNG team won’t work after dark, so he has to pre-record.
Istara, could you expand further on your position? I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, implying lack of credibility, far from it. You seem to be in an extraordinary position as regards special insight and information, and I, for one, would be eager to hear more.
I hope you have the leisure and the inclination to comply.
The condition of Iraq was bad before the invasion, and it is bad now. The degree of negativity is really not important, in my opinion- the simple fact is that there are problems. No one, that I have ever seen, has said that the Iraqi’s were better off oppressed by Saddam. The reality that he was an evil tyrant has never been disputed by anyone on these boards. However, attempting to use a Machiavellian argument does not change the reality of the past.
The only thing that I find important is that one of the revisionist reasons we went to war in the first place was to better the lives of the Iraqi people. All the talk about Democracy and freedom from oppression. I hear about terrible infrastructural problems now, just like I did before. But I also hear about the censorship of the press under the U.S. forces (for security reasons, but nonetheless censorship).
I guarantee, if the attacks against U.S. personnel continue, you will see more draconic control measures (to protect our troops which I sure hope they do now that we are committed to this utter travesty) and things will not improve. If our government is willing to pass the Patriot Act here in America to subvert our freedoms, I cannot imagine what they will be willing to do to undermine freedom and democracy in Iraq.
But, no matter what, why do people keep on feeding December’s posts? I had high hopes earlier when I saw no replies, but they diminished quickly.
Oh crud, I just bumped the post. I guess I have falling into the trap as well.