Iraqi looting goes much farther than art and antiquities

[system]

*Originally posted by december *
Spent materials from what?

The nuclear program, I am sure you were able to divine that.

Also, if the looted stuff was merely “spent materials”, then why the hysteria about the looters using it to build nuclear weapons?

Well if there is hysteria about building a nuclear bomb, then it is just hysteria. If it is concern that the materials could be used to build a dirty radioactive device (conventional weapon with radioactive materials embedded), then it seems well advised.

I am sure that you could have figured this out all by yourself, had it fit your agenda.

“Suggests”? Maybe so. But, it was hard to be certain one way or the other before the war. In fact, it’s still not clear whether Iraq was currently pursuing nuclear weapons. They certainly did so in the past. And, of course, in the future they might well have repeated their past efforts to get nuclear weapons.

Yes, indeed, suggests my dear december, suggests. For once one strips away the fabrications pimped by the Administration to get the foolish and the gullible on board, one has precious little evidence of a genuine program going on, for all that I am sure Sadaam was trying to keep the expertise and the like together for a rainy day, so to speak.

And of course, the Iraqis in pursuit of national interest may yet repeat Sadaam’s history of pursuing a nuclear capacity given the extent capacity in the region. Ridding Iraq of Sadaam did not change the logic of power.

It’s true that the US supported Iraq against Iran in their war.

Very good my dear fellow, at least we got that.

But, it’s not true that the US put Saddam and the Baath Party in power. If I’m wrong, please provide a cite.

Your default assumption should be that you’re wrong, it would improve your odds, above all when arguing with me about my region.

It is in fact true, my dear december, that the US helped the Baath into power, as a counter-weight to communist influence. Baath secularism and nationalism looked like the better deal. Tamerlane and myself have in the past cited to such, but here is a Reuters report in addition to past citations:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15254718.htm
I imagine this will, as the prior cites did, go into your “contradicts my world view so I will forget it deliberately” bin.

It’s a nasty little neighborhood I live in, with a nasty little history to go with it.

It’s unfortunate that any looting took place. And, no doubt a perfect US would have prevented all looting, all civilian deaths, and all property damage. The perfect war would have been over in less than a day, so that the Coalition and Iraqis could sit down and have tea together.

Perfect, perfect, perfect – where the fuck did perfect come from?

The reality is, there was poor planning and you can set up the straw man that there should have been no looting etc. etc. ,but that wasn’t the fucking argument, now was it my dear december. No, it was not. the fucking argument was that
(a) regional experts widely predcited serious problems for Iraq
(b) US Mil. brass anticipated the need for more troops
© Bush Admin. poopooed the lot, and thought all was fine and dandy, e.g. Rumsfeld poopooing the looting as “expected.”

In short, within the realm of reasonable planning and expectations, the post-War planning and execution has fallen quite short and done real and serious damage to the efforts to win over Iraqis, for all the twaddleheaded excuse making one might want to make.

From now on try to argue against what I actually have argued and not your pathetic straw men.

In the real world, every conquest of a country has involved looting You know more history than I do, **
Collounsbury**. How much looting was there in Iraq by the standards of other wars?

Well, interesting – I do not recall characterizations in this respect insofar as typically it is the occupiers looting. I do not recall, in the case of comparable situations such as US interventions in the Americas, nor French in Africa, where such terrible and widespread explosion of civil disorder occured. A time bomb of pent up hatreds one would have to say.

Regardless, the issue is better efforts, on reasonable standards, could have been made.

That’s a fair point, although any flaw would have served the same purpose. There would have been similar criticism if the US hadn’t prevented environmental and economic damage from numerous oil well fires, or if thousands of civilians had been killed, or if there were post-war starvation, or if Baghdad had been leveled, or if the war had dragged on and become a quagmire, or if there had been uprisings in the “Arab stree”, etc. The critics looked for an aspect that didn’t go optimally and focused on it.

Quite correct the fault finders can always find faults and nothing is perfect. However the continued anarchy, the utter collapse of functioning society, the massive and sustained damage to infrastructure, records and now a month into occupation not only continued but increasing lawlessness, with the emergence of frankly hostile Shiite religous groups as the sole anchors in society all point to a clear failure in preparation for the post War period.
Insofar as there were continued warnings on this, it strikes me that they were right, the Bush Admin had not thought this through either thoroughly or analytically.

You may be right. You’re closer than I am. However, I’d be willing to bet that a month from now, the current problems will be solved. The critics will ignore the success. Instead they will have found something else to carp about.

Okay, define “solved” december. Define it clearly and unweasely, and then we have a bet.

For I say that it will be roughly 3 months before proper functions are back, and the country in general is largely secured, presuming large numbers of peace keepers come in.

Further to that, I also predict it will take at least that much time to get something approaching a functioning administration up and running.

Further to that, I predict serious problems resolving Shiite Arab versus Sunni Arab versus Kurd visions for the state, although some papered over pseudo-soluiton will be brought round before election time. However, unless a durable and probably mildly Islamist constitution is put into place, I also foresee serious regional/ethnic/group conflict with a real risk of terror in a 2 year time frame.

Time will tell…

Yes it will, and I recall the equally dewy eyed predictions about Afghanistan, and the catcalls when I played the pessimist and predicted a redesent into regional anarchy, return of the Talebans in the Pashtun area, and no significant capture of al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan, despite the rewards. Now what did you predict, december my man, what did you predict?

[Gairloch]

"If one is following the facts my dear fellow . . . "

Ah, I do so dearly love the tone of smug, high-minded condescension. And the fact that there were ‘spent materials’ dumped on the ground by looters eager to have the containers might give rise to any number of speculative scenarios, but such imaginative flights of potential do little to demonstrate that the invading forces were responsible for exercising police powers as well as doing their real jobs. The primary responsibility of an invading army is not to protect a damned thing other than their own lives, and if that army happens to be considerate enough to prevent the invaded from destroying their own futures then that is quite an act of benevolence. An army is not charged with preventing the local population from destroying or stealing their own goods. We are not their parents. And an invading force is not charged with creating a ‘Post-War’ scenario that satisfies anyone at all.

The assumption that anyone other than the Iraqi people is in any way responsible for the acts of the Iraqi people is absurd on its face, and no amount of ‘I just knew this would happen because I’m smarter than the fools who didn’t do what I would have done’ will relieve or transfer the ultimate responsibility. In case one was not following the facts, my dear fellow, there is a war on. Young soldiers who are being shot at don’t have time for keeping the Starbucks open so that nobody is inconvenienced. Fashioning a stance of after-the-fact quarterbacking is a luxury that has already been paid for with blood, real blood, not the blood of the self-righteous hand-wringers. The actual facts would suggest that dispatching soldiers to guard spent chemicals that may or may not be looted ranks well down the priority list, and as you have suggested yourself, these ‘nuc’ facilities had already been identified and judged relatively benign. It really couldn’t have been anticipated that the barrels would be more valuable to the population than the contents. But, if you already knew that as well, you might have spoken up sooner, thus preventing this ‘humanitarian tragedy.’ Perhaps a more thorough academic investigation of the possible, taking years and millions of dollars paid to the ‘scholars’ might have solved everything? It certainly has before.

“While there is no excuse for people to continue the illiteracy of repeating the 1,700 guestimate of the first days, equally there is no call for the equal illiteracy of the 29 figure, a quick est. of one museum’s formally id’ed missing items and not an exhaustive list – others remained to be clarified.”

So, the earlier statement in this thread, that, “I’ve read somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 pieces were stolen from Iraqi museums,” was not worthy of comment, but a refutation of that 150,000 figure to read, more accurately, “hardly any,” is subject to an accusation of illiteracy? If the true figure ends up to be 29, or 59, or 159, it is safe to say that, on a scale of zero to 150,000, a few or even a few hundred counts as “hardly any.” Again to mention, if one is following the facts, that the museum pieces stolen were not stolen by the barbarian American invaders, but by opportunistic locals. Humans are humans, and even a few American soldiers were caught trying to stash away some of the hundreds of millions of (American) dollars discovered along the way, but once again it is not the responsibility of an invading army to keep people from stealing from themselves. Soldiers are usually more interested in keeping their own heads from being blown off, and less in how many color televisions are being distributed by the non-combatants.

The point is that we did not behave as every invading army in history has behaved, by looting the country ourselves. What is illiterate is not having given that much that to actual history. Give credit where it is due. The endless search for after-the-fact rationalizations of what could have been done or should have been done is just so much sour-grapes nonsense. To argue with 20-20 hindsight that perfection was not achieved and the world was not returned to the Edenic state of one’s own perfect vision is a fine demonstration of presumed intellectual superiority, from well behind the lines and after the smoke has cleared, but if the idea is to convince anyone a rather more dramatic demonstration of overall understanding might help much more than trite recitations of the political party line and smug ‘I told you so’ self-congratulation.

The facts, my dear fellow, historically and morally, are that we have and had no responsibility for any single thing that existed or exists in Iraq, and right now our only responsibility is to bring our soldiers home and let the invaded sort out the problems they allowed to be created that led to the invasion. There is no responsibility ‘Post-war’ to do much of anything. Nobody dances alone, and the innocent Iraqis were not hoodwinked by the international politics they participated in. The victors lay waste to the vanquished, and then they go home, victorious. That is history in a statement. It is up to the vanquished to figure out why they were destroyed and figure out a way to rebuild. That is reality. Do not mistake our sense of humanitarianism as some sort of right that is owed to the invaded, nor think that we are compelled in any way to protect or restore anything from the water supplies to the oil wells to the art museums. They fought. They lost. As a side benefit, they looted their own country of everything from ambulances to artworks to chemical barrels to basic things like water pumps and electrical transformers. Could we have prevented that? Probably not. Should we have prevented that? Definitely not. It’s their country – if they want to do more damage to it than the war did that’s their business. If we want to help them rebuild, that is our prerogative, not their right or our duty.

The attitude of the U.S. concerning warfare is unprecedented, but it should not be mistaken that just because we seek to aid and restore the nations we have conquered we somehow have some moral responsibility to do so, and to do so according to the whims of whining critics for whom nothing short of their own ideal world is ever good enough.

Gairloch

[Gairloch]

"If one is following the facts my dear fellow . . . "

Ah, I do so dearly love the tone of smug, high-minded condescension. And the fact that there were ‘spent materials’ dumped on the ground by looters eager to have the containers might give rise to any number of speculative scenarios, but such imaginative flights of potential do little to demonstrate that the invading forces were responsible for exercising police powers as well as doing their real jobs. The primary responsibility of an invading army is not to protect a damned thing other than their own lives, and if that army happens to be considerate enough to prevent the invaded from destroying their own futures then that is quite an act of benevolence. An army is not charged with preventing the local population from destroying or stealing their own goods. We are not their parents. And an invading force is not charged with creating a ‘Post-War’ scenario that satisfies anyone at all.

The assumption that anyone other than the Iraqi people is in any way responsible for the acts of the Iraqi people is absurd on its face, and no amount of ‘I just knew this would happen because I’m smarter than the fools who didn’t do what I would have done’ will relieve or transfer the ultimate responsibility. In case one was not following the facts, my dear fellow, there is a war on. Young soldiers who are being shot at don’t have time for keeping the Starbucks open so that nobody is inconvenienced. Fashioning a stance of after-the-fact quarterbacking is a luxury that has already been paid for with blood, real blood, not the blood of the self-righteous hand-wringers. The actual facts would suggest that dispatching soldiers to guard spent chemicals that may or may not be looted ranks well down the priority list, and as you have suggested yourself, these ‘nuc’ facilities had already been identified and judged relatively benign. It really couldn’t have been anticipated that the barrels would be more valuable to the population than the contents. But, if you already knew that as well, you might have spoken up sooner, thus preventing this ‘humanitarian tragedy.’ Perhaps a more thorough academic investigation of the possible, taking years and millions of dollars paid to the ‘scholars’ might have solved everything? It certainly has before.

“While there is no excuse for people to continue the illiteracy of repeating the 1,700 guestimate of the first days, equally there is no call for the equal illiteracy of the 29 figure, a quick est. of one museum’s formally id’ed missing items and not an exhaustive list – others remained to be clarified.”

So, the earlier statement in this thread, that, “I’ve read somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 pieces were stolen from Iraqi museums,” was not worthy of comment, but a refutation of that 150,000 figure to read, more accurately, “hardly any,” is subject to an accusation of illiteracy? If the true figure ends up to be 29, or 59, or 159, it is safe to say that, on a scale of zero to 150,000, a few or even a few hundred counts as “hardly any.” Again to mention, if one is following the facts, that the museum pieces stolen were not stolen by the barbarian American invaders, but by opportunistic locals. Humans are humans, and even a few American soldiers were caught trying to stash away some of the hundreds of millions of (American) dollars discovered along the way, but once again it is not the responsibility of an invading army to keep people from stealing from themselves. Soldiers are usually more interested in keeping their own heads from being blown off, and less in how many color televisions are being distributed by the non-combatants.

The point is that we did not behave as every invading army in history has behaved, by looting the country ourselves. What is illiterate is not having given that much that to actual history. Give credit where it is due. The endless search for after-the-fact rationalizations of what could have been done or should have been done is just so much sour-grapes nonsense. To argue with 20-20 hindsight that perfection was not achieved and the world was not returned to the Edenic state of one’s own perfect vision is a fine demonstration of presumed intellectual superiority, from well behind the lines and after the smoke has cleared, but if the idea is to convince anyone a rather more dramatic demonstration of overall understanding might help much more than trite recitations of the political party line and smug ‘I told you so’ self-congratulation.

The facts, my dear fellow, historically and morally, are that we have and had no responsibility for any single thing that existed or exists in Iraq, and right now our only responsibility is to bring our soldiers home and let the invaded sort out the problems they allowed to be created that led to the invasion. There is no responsibility ‘Post-war’ to do much of anything. Nobody dances alone, and the innocent Iraqis were not hoodwinked by the international politics they participated in. The victors lay waste to the vanquished, and then they go home, victorious. That is history in a statement. It is up to the vanquished to figure out why they were destroyed and figure out a way to rebuild. That is reality. Do not mistake our sense of humanitarianism as some sort of right that is owed to the invaded, nor think that we are compelled in any way to protect or restore anything from the water supplies to the oil wells to the art museums. They fought. They lost. As a side benefit, they looted their own country of everything from ambulances to artworks to chemical barrels to basic things like water pumps and electrical transformers. Could we have prevented that? Probably not. Should we have prevented that? Definitely not. It’s their country – if they want to do more damage to it than the war did that’s their business. If we want to help them rebuild, that is our prerogative, not their right or our duty.

The attitude of the U.S. concerning warfare is unprecedented, but it should not be mistaken that just because we seek to aid and restore the nations we have conquered we somehow have some moral responsibility to do so, and to do so according to the whims of whining critics for whom nothing short of their own ideal world is ever good enough.

Gairloch

[Gairloch]

Damn. I hate it when it does that.

[RandySpears]

Gailroch:

1. An occupying force is indeed responsible for upholding law and order, and keep the country up and running so to speak, whether you believe it or not, under the Geneva Convention. It has been discussed on these boards before.

2. The US has a responsibility to the US public to prevent the spreading of radioactive materials that could be used for terrorism, given that this was a explicit goal used to sell this war. Adressed more eloquently in Collounsburys reply to December.

[RandySpears]

…and the moral justification for (1) would be that the bigger guy should not be allowed to budge in, drop a few bombs, take military control, happily let the country fall into anarchy and ruin, and then move on.

Although I notice that you would find nothing wrong with such a scenario in the case of Iraq as long as your “boys” are o.k.

Some “liberators”, huh. Nice.

[capacitor]

Also Gal, the Coalition forces created the vaccuum of authority there, but they turned it on in reverse.