Well, the US has really been pushing hard for Turkey to enter the EU, which actually might be hurting Turkey’s chances given the US’ standing in the world. Iran has been lobbing shells into Kurdistan and Turkey had sent some special forces into Kurdistan to destablize the region, but they were caught by US special forces. This incident is the basis for a very popular anti-American movie in Turkey (the Wolves of Iraq).
That’s assuming that they have any interest in killing soccer moms. It is clear that the majority of the fighters killing US troops are doing so because we have invaded and now occupy their country. Had we not invaded, the majority of these fighters would have no interest in killing Americans.
There seems to be a misconception that there are a finite number of terrorists and when we kill the last one, we are done. But new terrorists (or insurgents, or whatever you want to call them) are made every day. They are made when we round up all the men between the ages of 16-50 and send them to Abu Ghraib, which happened in 2003 and 2004. Terrorists are made when a scared 18 year old US soldier slaughters a family in a car that gets too close to his convoy (which has happened to people I know here).
Here is a link to a story in the Washington Post about some of the mistakes the US made here. It details one unit that would arrest every male in a town between the ages of 16 and 60 and send them to Abu Ghraib where they would then be recruited and trained by insurgents already doing time.
In my experience, almost every Iraqi I know says things were better under Saddam. And they aren’t saying things were good then, they hated Saddam (a lot of them do anyway), but you could go to the store, you could go outside of your house, there was electricity and working hospitals. We’ve taken a nation where the people were already suffering and made it much much worse and now we’re just going to kind of wander off and ask “why do they hate us?”
Fighting ruthless, brutal enemy soldiers is not cowardice. We are their invaders and conquerers, we are their enemies. It is the clear duty of the Iraqis to kill as many foreign soldiers as they can. The last thing they owe us is gratitude; as madmonk28 pointed out, we are the people who have managed to make Saddam’s reign the “good old days”. They owe us hatred and contempt, not gratitude.
** Der Trihs** They were fucking grateful enough when US troops were pulling down those statues of Hussein.
Don’t talk to me about ruthless brutal enemy soldiers, talk about the torture chambers that Hussein had, talk to me about the thousands of people that just vanished under that pricks despotic rule, those were the good old days I guess.
Talk to me about those days or don’t talk to me at all.
In any event I have you pegged as anti American every fucking thing so don’t talk to me EVER.
:rolleyes: Ah, the famous staged photograph of them pulling down that statue. That was exposed as propaganda years ago.
Compared to what we have turned Iraq into, yes. Certainly it was better for women; they could walk the streets without burkhas, get an education and a job and so forth; right away that’s 50% of the population better off under Saddam. As for torture chambers and people vanishing, we are torturing and killing them, and so are the various factions; the difference is Saddam typically left you alone if you kept your head down. Nowadays there is no safety. The economy of course was better under him.
Did this become the chowder message board when I wasn’t looking ?
That is an important point. It was US troops pulling down the statue, not Iraqis. While the image was evocative of the scenes from Eastern Europe of the statues of Lenin coming down there is a major difference: Eastern Europeans pulled down the statues of Lenin. They did it themselves and had a history of advocating for democratic change. Poland, for example, has a long history of social elements aspiring towards democracy dating back to at least the age of reason. It wasn’t imposed from outside.
I don’t agree with Der Trihs characterization of US troops as being ruthless. That certainly hasn’t been my observation of the behavior of US troops (especially as compared to the behavior of troops from other nations I have seen in Kosovo, Afghanistan and elewhere), although there certainly have been troubling behavior by some troops and even units.
I think any occupying military that cannot communicate with the populace, doesn’t understand the culture and is in the middle of a nasty insurgency is going to get its self in trouble and take actions that engender increased hostility.
All of this was predictable and indeed elements from within the US government and outside of the government tried to warn the administration and the American public.
All hail our great heroes. Stand back and admire the courage it takes to slay women and children from 20,000 feet just because you ‘suspect’ some men in the family of having links to al Qaeda.
Yea - go, friggin’ us. And don’t you dare even think about deploying the ‘at least we aren’t as bad as Saddam’ defence. That lost its wings here a long, long time ago, apart from it being a metric no decent human being would hold as acceptable.
Whenever a disaster strikes whether natural or man made which is the first country to offer aid and assistance?
You got the USA!!
You don’t see hordes of people dancing for joy in the streets of America because some distant country has hit hard times…no you don’t.
However let something happen to the USA or any of her allies and what do we get?
Fucking dipsticks crawling out burning flags, ululating and screaming with happiness because of this…think 9/11 and 7/7.
As for that photo being staged…are you nuts or what? propaganda? I assume you have a cite for this.
Did I mention mass graves in my earlier post?.
Do you not think if the Iraqis had just left the USA and her Allies to get on with the business of rebuilding the country instead of hampering them at every possible opportunity then things MAY just be a bit better…MAY even be a whole lot better.
TORTURE
SH did this on a massive scale and whilst admitting that allied troops have been found guilty of the same crime it is nothing compared.
It does not excuse the allied troops, they should suffer all the penalties of law, both civil and military.
That you don’t know this - a fact so well known as not to be in dispute since practically the moment it happens - disqualifies you from expressing any opinion on the matter of Iraq and absolves all of us from paying any attention to your uninformed ranting.
I draw your attention to the motto of this board which reads; ‘Fighting’, not Displaying’ Ignorance since …
chowder, I see two acceptable responses to being proven wrong. The first is to say something like “Oh golly, you are right and I was wrong.” The second is to find more evidence to support your opinion. “Up yours sunshine” is neither.
Most Iraqis want the US out. I don’t blame them. But I think we need to figure out a strategy to do so that minimizes the carnage. Maybe it’s simply pulling out. Maybe it’s partitioning the country. As bad as it was to go in without thinking, it might be worse to go out without thinking. I think the White House should be looking for an exit strategy rather than a victory strategy, but that might have to wait until a grown up is in charge.
Cutting. My point stand that coming to GD, rather than the Pit, to impress us with your grasp of a subject requires you to actually know something about the subject under discussion. Which by your own words you have revealed yourself to not have.
If you want to insult and berate those of us who have turned out to be right all along about Iraq, the place for that is the Pit, not GD.
The fact of the matter is that your view of Iraq is incorrect and has been demonstrated to be so. Torture is now worse than Saddam, the death toll is immense and continues to rise, UK and US troops are killing innocent people on the merest suspicion that someone near them may be dodgy and the Iraqi people want us out.
If you have something other than rants to bring to the table, by all means do so. which means arguments backed up by cited facts. Otherwisse the correct forum is The Pit.
By every standard from levels of violence, torture, the provision of services, death tolls, to as the recent report shows, increasing the threat of terrorism our intervention has made Iraq a worse place.
And as the cited poll shows the percentage of iraqi’s who think overthrowing Saddam was worth it has fallen from 77% to 61% since January of this year.
And now The President of The Green Zone advocates building a moat around Baghdad, which as an informed commentator I’m sure you need no cite for. When things have got so bad you have to think about building a moat around one of the largest cities in the world I submit the possibility that things may not actually be going very well, for your erudite consideration.
But, no doubt once the moat is built and it is fully stocked with sharks with laser beams on their head, everything will be just fine.
Shall we take another look at just how great everything is going?
If people like Der Tris are angry they have every right to be angry. That anger is based on an understanding of what is going on backed up by the facts.
People tend to smear their views of pre war Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan was under Taliban rule and oppressed women. In Iraq over 50 % of the college students were women and half the professional positions were held by women. Most wore western style clothes. Sadaam was a prick but the day to day life ws not like the Taliban rule.
This info comes from blogs by Iraqis who have lived their lives there.I am sure a politician who pissed off Sadaam would have a short shelf life but business and the srreets were safe.
The blogs also discribe the horror of living there now.They get it from all directions.