Nobody, least of all Michael Moore or his fanbase, has any illusions about the kind of ruler Hussein was – we all know about the mass graves and the network of secret police informants – but at least he ruled a society that, against all odds under the circumstances, worked. If you kept your mouth shut about politics (and, if an attractive woman, avoided Quday and Usay’s notice), you could have a decent life, a job, freedom to walk the streets in relative safety, regular access to food and clean water and health care. The invasion fucked all that up. I doubt there are very many Iraqis who are glad it happened.
Not quite. You also needed to not be Kurdish or Shi’a.
In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities. One year later, the fate of thousands of Kurds and Shi’a who were seized during the suppression of the uprising remains unknown.
Human Rights Watch June 1, 1992Especially Kurdish.
Anfal, meaning “the spoils,” is the name of the eighth sura of the Koran. It is also the name given by the Iraqis to a series of military actions that lasted from February 23 until September 6, 1988. Relying in part on previously unpublished Iraqi government documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the Gulf War, Genocide in Iraq reveals a meticulously organized campaign incorporating prison camps, firing squads and chemical attacks. The campaigns of 1987-1989 were characterized by mass summary executions and the mass disappearance of many tens of thousands of noncombatants, including large numbers of women and children, and sometimes the entire population of villages; the widespread use of chemical weapons; the wholesale destruction of some 2,000 villages, including homes, schools, mosques and wells; the looting of civilian property; the arbitrary arrest and jailing in conditions of extreme deprivation of thousands of women, children and elderly people; the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers; and the destruction of the rural Kurdish economy and infrastructure. Genocide in Iraq is the product of almost two years of research, during which we analyzed tons of captured Iraqi government documents and carried out field interviews with more than 350 witnesses, most of them survivors of the 1988 campaign. As a result of this painstaking work, we conclude that the Iraqi regime committed the crime of genocide.
Human Rights Watch July 1, 1993Not be accused of a petty crime.
Beginning in June 1994, the government of Iraq issued at least nine decrees that establish severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion. These new decrees greatly impinge on individual human rights and constitute violations of several international human rights conventions and standards. The government of Iraq attempts to deflect international criticism of this cruelty by maintaining that the decrees were enacted to combat rising crime which, it says, is due to the poverty and desperation brought on by international economic sanctions. By implying that if sanctions are lifted and the situation improves the decrees could be repealed, Iraq appears to use these abuses as leverage for the lifting of sanctions. While arguing that the decrees serve as a deterrent to crime, the government has offered no information that they are serving this purpose.
Human Rights Watch June 1, 1995Not step on a land mine.
Iraq is severely affected by mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as a result of the 1991 Gulf War, the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran War, two decades of internal conflict, and even World War Two. Landmines and UXO pose a problem in the north, along the Iran-Iraq border, and throughout the central and southern regions of the country. The number of mines planted in Iraq is not known.
Human Rights Watch December 11, 2002And not be a member of the population at large.
For more than three decades, the government of President Saddam Hussein has sanctioned the use of the death penalty and extrajudicial executions as a tool of political repression, both in order to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror over the population at large. The executions that have taken place over this period constitute an integral part of more systematic repression - characterized by widespread arbitrary arrests, indefinite detention without trial, death in custody under torture, and large-scale “disappearances” - through which the government has sustained its rule.
Human Rights Watch March 11, 2003
It might not get to that.
Kristol says if Bush thinks Obama will, he might
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Bill Kristol is usually a pretty good reverse barometer, since he’s a gibbering half-wit. But as they say, even a blind pig uproots the occasional truffle.
Bush: “Not correct. You wanted to begin withdrawl before the surge, and before the security improvements that came with it. Without the surge, we would not have been in a position to begin bringing the troop home without disastrous consequences. Senator McCain, who supported the surge, is best suited to oversea the remaining tasks in Iraq.”
Obama: “What has changed in the last eighteen months? The surge hasn’t created any improvements in Iraq. The government is still unstable and people are still being killed by insurgents. The only difference between withdrawing now and withdrawing eighteen months ago is the hundreds of Americans who have died in Iraq during that year who would still be alive.”
Bush: Do you read the New York Times, Senator Obama. I do*. Let me quote from an article published just a few days ago:
"The quarterly ‘State of Iraq’ update that the Times gave this Sunday showed key political progress for the first time since they have been keeping score:
“There are still lots of problems in Iraq, and I know it’s late in coming, but I promised the American people that we would stand down as the Iraqis stood up. They are now standing up, and we are beginning to stand down. The situation is still fragile, and will require a steady hand in case things flare up again. Senator McCain can provide that steady hand, and won’t make promises to withdraw on some predetermined timetable that does not reflect the situation on the ground.”
“Senator Obama, I know you are a patriotic American and that you want is best for this country. But on this issue I must disagree with you. Had we pulled out when you wanted us to-- when the violence was at its peak-- we would not be seeing the relative stability we’re seeing in Iraq now. I know you have not traveled to Iraq since the surge was in full effect. I highly encourage you to do so and see for yourself what the NYT is reporting. In fact, I suggest you travel there with Senator McCain, as he has suggested, so that you both get the same chance to see the same things and report back to the American people what you’ve found. Much has change since the one trip you have made there as a Senator over 2 years ago.”
*OK, I made that part up about Bush. 
Splendid. We have progressed from total clusterfuck to not very good. Oh, boy!
The purpose of the surge WAS to give the politicians “breathing room” so they could “work out a compromise”, right?
How’s that going, everyone? You can kill every Al Queda member a dozen times (and I suspect they have, if you catch my drift), but it DOESN’T MATTER. Win the war, lose the peace, and you’re worse off than when you started.
-Joe
The defeat of Al Queda in Iraq isn’t that important, in and of itself. It could lead to the complete defeat of Al Queda in Iraq, which is a springboard to the *total * defeat of Al Queda in Iraq!
Meanwhile, the Maliki Shia pro-Iranian faction is defeating the Sadrist Shia pro-Iranian faction, which could lead to a stable, secure pro-Iranian Shia government, which might not have been possible without US assistance.
Ah! Smells like victory! Or teen spirit. Anyway, it smells.
Electorate: Yeah, yeah, bla bla bla. You screwed it up, and now you’re trying to minimize the political damage to your side.
FactCheck.Org: Bush is largely correct here. Senator Obama has never predicated the withdrawl of troops on any particular progress or milestone in Iraq. The President is not doing what Obama asked him to do, which was to begin withdrawl instead of proceeding with the surge. Whether there is sufficient progress in Iraq to justify the President’s move is open to debate, but all objective sources have noted that there has been progress-- including Senator Obama himself.
In the event the OP comes true, I predict lots of pundits will publish “Mission Accomplished” pictures with a 5-year-old file photo of Bush in front of his vaunted sign.
Which is a shame, really — having already crowed victory once, Bush can hardly take credit for it even if it does become true. The press would be justifiably cynical about a second declaration of victory.
Not to mention calls of an “October surprise”.
I’m standing by my previous post. Whatever’s happening in Iraq, it doesn’t smell like victory. The Bush administration keeps redefining what its goals are in Iraq and then failing to reach them. So it just redefines the goals. Eventually, you reach a point where you’ve defined “victory” as whatever conditions exist in the field.
It’s been five years. Iraq doesn’t have a stable government. It doesn’t have a stable economy. Large sections of the country want to secede. Various factions want to kill each other. There are roving bands of crazy people wandering around killing people. American soldiers are being killed on a regular basis. The chaos and violence rise and fall but there’s no sign of it stopping.
Does it sound like a situation where we’re winning?
I say we just cut to the chase. Declare that our goal was to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime. Point out that we did so. Bring all the troops back home and have a victory parade.
Iraq was fucked up before we got there. It’s been fucked up all the while we’ve been there. It’ll still be fucked up long after we leave. This sucks if you’re an Iraqi. But we apparently are unable to fix things in Iraq so what are we doing there?
Leave?
Sure. We’ll leave someday. We even left Vietnam after sixteen years.
Yeah, but Vietnam wasn’t overrun with filthy, subhuman towelheads who control our erl.
The ‘erl’ will run out, someday. So, we will definitely leave. Someday.
“I think the American people are smart enough to see through this cynical eleventh-hour reversal of your Administration’s long-stated policy of maintaining a massive U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Iraq has been and remains in a civil war of varying intensity, with little if any progress on the political front among its leadership, still badly fractured along ethnic, religious and regional lines. I repeat: What, other than Sen. McCain’s standing in the polls, has changed to lead to this whiplash-inducing shift in your Iraq policy, Mr. President?”