Court affidavit from an NSC member.
Frankly - if you are not aware of the strenuous efforts the West put into making sure Saddam had the arms, the intel and the credits to take on Iran you are not actually qualified to express an opinion. This is common, not arcane knowledge.
We also landed on The Moon by the way, in case you’re also unclear on that point.
Meanwhile, in other news, Generalissimo Franco is still dead.
You’re not wrong, you just need to put our aid to Iraq in the proper perspective. Our support for Saddam was limited to helping him fight a common enemy, and we knew enough about what Saddam was to not sell him good stuff that could be used against us. We merely made it easier for him to buy the Soviet crap, plus intelligence on Iranian positions, which also can’t be used against us.
To say the US supported Saddam is pretty much like saying the US supported Stalin. It’s true, but in the runup to the Iraq war opponents tried to make more of it than it was. Like he was another Pinochet or Marcos, one of “our” scumbags, like the Gulf sheiks. Problem is, he never left his close relationship with the Soviet Union, which made getting close to him an issue for us even if we’d wanted to get closer.
We gave him anthrax. You directly or indirectly give mad, bad people biological and chemical weapon precursors you pretty much are giving them the ability to attack anyone.
Only mad, bad people would provide the ability to develop WMD’s to lunatics like Saddam but that’s precisely what we did.
How very funny, I seem to recall having said the exact same thing earlier. Oh yeah, that’s because I did:
Which is entirely true, Iraq was $80 billion in debt after the war, mostly to the Gulf States, then to Europe and all of $5 billion of it to the US, cite:
And if you’re trying to lump “the West” into a single entity, you’re late on your game on that one as well:
Care to try to step up to the plate and address the actual issues? That the US did not sell or give so much as a single rifle, tank, bullet, combat aircraft, ship, or artillery piece to Iraq? Or that Saddam bought the great majority of his equipment for his chemical weapons program from European companies, not US ones?
Name me a few instances of where “air power worked great until it didn’t,” and the response was to send in ground troops.
I’ll name a few recent examples of where that has not happened: Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen.
How about we just arm the Kurds so they are able to protect themselves? They are certainly willing to defend themselves, and have done a better job of it than the Iraqi military, but they need some basic stuff like, you know, bullets in order to that.
That’s because it worked. It looks like it’s working now, as the Kurds are advancing again. But one of these days, we’ll have a mission, air power won’t achieve it, and the choice will be to give up or send in ground troops.
I’ve never seen a partisan divide in how military policy is conducted, but we’re seeing it now. Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 all used America’s full range of conventional military options to achieve whatever missions they set out to achieve. Use the right tools for the job. Reagan didn’t bomb Grenada, he invaded it. Bush 41 didn’t liberate Kuwait with bombs alone. He didn’t protect the Kurds afterwards with bombs alone. But Clinton and now Obama seem to be going with an airpower-only approach to all military problems to avoid casualties. And again, so far it’s worked. But when it doesn’t, it’s going to be a big problem.
A lot of groups have “subscribed” to the same goals as Al Qaeda. The difference is that Al Qaeda actually attacked the US.
A lot of people threaten the US. It’s not practical to go to war with all of them. Hence concepts like “credible threat”. A year ago ISIS was not a credible threat to the US. Now… yeah, it’s starting to have that look. But they haven’t actually attacked the US. They might never. Meanwhile, sending US troops against them can have consequences we don’t like, such as alienating other people in the region via collateral damage, or dead and maimed Americans because, you know “ground troops” aren’t robots, they’re living, breathing, bleeding young men and women.
Jesus Christ, how you continue to be such a fucking idiot is beyond me.
a: “Air power works until it doesn’t, and then we’re screwed!”
b: “Well, here’s a bunch of examples of it working for limited objectives.”
a: “Sure, but it worked in those cases!”
You are the goddamn stupidest person of average intelligence I have ever encountered. If what you say isn’t simply factually wrong, it’s utterly unprofound.
You are the single leading candidate for a political Costanza “the Opposite” maneuver: you should be hired as a campaign adviser for a long shot candidate, and if he/she simply does the opposite of what you say they should do, they cannot lose.
(At this point i cannot tell if you are serious or i’m totally misreading your words.)
Already did and if you don’t know that the US directly and indirectly armed Iraq then you should stop talking.
If you sell anthrax to a country you are arming it. If you build a satellite downlink receiver in Baghdad for satellite intel you are arming it. If you sell military helicopters you are arming it. If you provide agricultural credits so they have currency for buying arms through CIA facilitated arms dealsyou are arming it.
A
So yes, in any meaningful and non-pedantic sense of the term the USA armed Iraq (and Iran also of course).
This was and remains the basic common knowledge that buys someone the right to express an opinion on the subject. Just like we would expect someone to know the Moon Landing was real when discussing the history of lunar exploration.
You’re probably right. Air-power will not do the job on its own. But there’s no way on earth the USA is sending the army back in. (And just for the record there was no ‘job’ to be done in Grenada.)
It’s proxy army or nothing. The Kurds aren’t it - they are interested only in defending whatever borders they think they can get away for claiming for ‘Kurdistan’. They aren’t going into Syria.
My argument was that the Democrats have gotten addicted to airpower because it’s had success. The problem is, it won’t always succeed, so what happens when it doesn’t? Do we give up, or do we take the next step to achieve our stated objectives?
Your handwaving it away as “Well, it’s always worked in the past, so what’s your beef?” is utter nonsense. It’s like saying, “MAD prevents nuclear war. So we don’t need to worry about what happens if MAD doesn’t work.”
Who said anything about the Kurds going into Syria? If they “merely” stop them at the border of “Kurdistan” that’s a positive. If the Kurds do that much the world can then decide who or whether anyone goes into Syria after ISIS. I’d be willing to argue that containment can be a positive. I don’t think the South Koreans are upset that North Korea has been “merely contained” for 50+ years, as just one example.
Or, if it turns out our objectives are achievable or they change we can do something else. Maybe it will turn out like Viet Nam where instead of throwing more young bodies into the meat grinder we got the hell out of dodge. Yes, some regard that as a failure. You know what? Getting more people killed won’t magically turn a failure into a success. Also, you can’t win every time, no, not even if you’re the US. Grown ups understand this.
If MAD hadn’t worked the question would have been moot, as none of us would be here to have this discussion.
But, that would flood Mosul, a city ISIS has taken and hopes to hold.
No, that isn’t what you wrote. You said it doesn’t always work; now you’re saying that what you really said is that it won’t always work in the future. Hint: people can see what you actually did write.
More of your typical adaher bullshit.
Plus, the whole idea that “Democrats” have been playing a “dangerous game” by not sending in airplanes, not troops. Well, guess what, genius, Bush tried things a different way and we ended up with Iraq and Afghanistan. And you’re saying Democrats are playing a “dangerous game?” You think those wars turned out better than Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, or Libya? Good lord, how many times were you dropped on your head as a child?
That would be a great argument if I had said anything about respect. But I didn’t, and so it isn’t.
You said that upthread, and I thought it was crazy then. Still do. They KNOW God is on their side. They don’t think that. No facts on the ground are going to change that.
Except they’re not crazy. Not the leadership anyway. They are establishing a state. You do that by providing infrastructure, not destroying it. The only way they are going to destroy it is if they think they will lose control of it.
So you’re arguing that “military support” consists solely of arms? If that’s the definition you’re working with, fine. But I find it…disingenuous.
On this I agree completely. Never were surgical airstrikes more appropriate.
Perfectly sensible and reasonable objections.
That would be a resounding no, to both.
Psst…Shaggy… Say it wasn’t you, dog.