Another yes for damn fool war. Not a Vietnam, due only to the smaller number involved, but certainly a damn fool war.
Well, y’know, Vietnam started out small, too. We kept putting more troops there because the locals didn’t like us, and because we were trying to stabilize a pro-American regime that the locals didn’t like, either.
Sound familiar?
Too soon to tell.
The first empire of the capitalist empire successfully assimilated a much-needed resource in the same way Walmart acquires/buys-out key suppliers – same principle. Given that oil is the life-blood of this empire (and it is), the US could not continue to rely so heavily on the increasingly volatile House of Saud; as per The Cheney Report, the US knew it had to diverse, and then 9/11 came along to show how very urgently that need was.
So was this regional realignment a success ? sure it was, without it the empire would be over-exposed and and fragile; power could decline surprisingly rapidly (it would only take a couple of changes in Governments). With the oil, the empire is much more secure.
Imho, that’s all we need to know.
‘capitalist era’ if you will.
Hey whats so foolish about it - you got all that oil doncha’?
Yes it’s too early to tell how well or badly things will turn out - I hope to God things turn for the better, not just for the sake of the Iraqis, but for all of us in the West and the Muslim world who will be in the shit if Iraq and Saudi fall into anti-western hands. It certainly won’t be seen as a footnote.
Russia could walk away from Afghanistan when the price got too high, ditto with America and Vietnam - that is not an option here.
Regardless of how things work out, however, personally I think this counts as a “Damn Fool” war - the West’s support for Saddam, Saddam’s stupidity (not to mention brutality), the incredible naivety of the Neo-Con clique that planned the war (including making sure there were detailed plans for protecting the oil-fields after the war - but not a thought about the civilian infrastructure, the hospitals, water supplies, etc), the unbelievable slack-jawed willingness of many people in a democracy (particularly in the US) to be lied to about the causes of a war.
Ironically, the only thing that wasn’t particularly “foolish” were the lies about the WMDs - it was a perfectly reasonable assumption that, given Saddam’s history and nature, some kind of weapons would be found in Iraq and that they could be “sexed up” as a “told you so”. I personally was sure that they were going to get away with that one
However foolish the means, I hope that Iraq and Afghanistan will become the first democracies America has helped into being - it will be a reversal of it’s previous habit of destabilising, and over-throwing democratically elected governments - now that really was foolish!
:dubious:
Do you have a cite for this? Seriously, I’d like to read more if available. Thank you,
I hated Hussein as much as the next rational being, but the manner in which his overthrow was shoved down the world’s throat makes me say “damn fool war”.
Beelzebubba, no cite is ever likely to be available for the Al Q thing, since it’s a secret organization, but anyone who looks at how terrorism happens is highly likely to conclude that the prevailing attitude and the shocking plummeting of favorable opinions of the US in Arab (and other) countries will surely conclude that the recruiting grounds, alas, have never been more fertile for Al Qaeda. British intelligence has certainly made these claims recently, as has the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
$87 million dollars plus god knows how much for the war itself, and my gas prices are still through the roof…
yes
I’m leaning toward “damn fool war.” I should mention that at the advent of the invasion, I was leaning toward thinking maybe the war was necessary. I cannot say that now.
I disagree that Iraq becoming a free state (which I see as unlikely) whould thereby remove the foolishness of the motivations of going to this war. For me, this is not an “ends justify the means” situation. The administration has openly lied to the UN, NATO, Congress, and the American people; and Bush himself, in the paraphrased words of Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector for the UN in Iraq, is either a liar or one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of the United States.
Bush and members of his administration have lied repeatedly about the reasons for going to war and about the evidence supporting those reasons. The have used and manipulated public fear to curry favor for their diastrous foreign and domestic policies.
Final word: as Vladimir Putin put it, loosely paraphrased, whether Al Qaida terrorists really had a foothold in Iraq before the war is very unlikely, but it is very likely that they do now. If there really are hidden WMDs in Iraq, doesn’t it disturb anybody that they have been unsecured for this long? And that terrorists are running amok in the country? And that Bush himself openly invited fire on our troops (“bring 'em on” etc.)?
How anybody can support this jackass we have for president is beyond me.
I’m thinking “Damn fool war” is giving the war too much credit.
Knorf
I predict US stuck in Iraq until a Democrat wins election. Democrat, not bound by the dictates of the powerful NeoCon lobby, immediately makes the logical concessions to give UN the control it wants. US slowly pulls troops out. Issue fades from US public view much as Kosovo has.
History, (other than Iraqi history) will judge it as a minor footnote. Did your history class judge the US involvement in the Phillipines (1898-1902) as a damn fool war, or just mention that it happened? Or maybe glossed over it entirely?
I must disagree with Wang Ka. I have heard people attempt to make the comarison to Nam before. But Iraq is very little like Viet Nam. Most casualties in Nam came from the NVA, not the Viet Cong. There is no equivalent to the NVA in Iraq. Both NVA and VC were supplied by large world powers. Iraqi resistance has no major overt outside support. In Nam, most soldiers were drafted. In Iraq, all soldiers are volunteer and well trained.
(Of course, I will give you that like Nam, they are well trained for the job of fighting and not trained at all to win heart and minds. We will continue to lose troops in ones and twos, but even if we occupy for 10 years, deaths will not hit the 10’s of thousands as they did in Nam.)
You are correct, BoringDad, in that Iraq has no real equivalent of the NVA.
You are also PROBABLY correct, IMHO, when you say that deaths will not hit the tens of thousands. At an average of two soldiers a day, after ten years, we will only see a few thousand dead Americans.
The fact remains, however, that we are attempting to create our own form of government in Iraq – a government that a large section of the native population views with suspicion at best, and wants to line up and shoot at worst.
And, in the meantime, they don’t want US there, either. And a fair number of them are perfectly willing to blow themselves up if they can take some Americans with them. Hell, they don’t even need to do THAT, apparently. They’re doing a reasonable job with roadside bombs.
And they are being supplied and funded from somewhere. I have no doubt whatsoever that if this goes on, there WILL come a situation where an organized resistance movement, supplied and funded from outside Iraq, will go so far as to take military action against us there.
There are those who would say this is already happening NOW, but I can’t cite that.
I’ve yet to see a comprehensive outline of our plan to put Iraq back together. Dates, missions, costs, all laid out for us to contemplate.
If the U.S. had no poverty, I’d support our government giving up that much $$ - but somehow I just feel any country near the Holy Land is simply doomed. People want to kill others and themselves on the basis of religious differences. Now, how in hell are we ever going to be able to change that mindset?
Let’s predict the end of the Iraq occupation - it will end how? I’m betting we pull out eventually. History will judge whether our war was worth the price.
That’s not the problem in Iraq, and it hasn’t been for a long time (if it ever was). There will be tensions between the Sunni and Shia, but they’re not killing each other right now, they’re killing Americans. The situation doesn’t compare to Israel/Palestine at all as far as I can see.
So, you’re saying there was no religious turmoil in Iraq before we invaded? No torture or death related to religious beliefs?
Oh, forgot to mention…
While History will see this war as a footnote, I personally thought it was a crappy idea. I agree with Wang-Ka that a large portion of Iraq does not want us there, and the US is unlikely to succeed on it’s own.
Imagine if the public had all the facts up front…
"We are planning on spending an additional discretionary $100 billion next year. We plan to get this $100 billion from your childrens future earnings. What should we spend it on? Housing for the poor? Upgrade schools across the US? Pay down the loans that we have already taken out on your childrens future?
"Or, how about this idea! We can spend it to blow the crap out of Iraq because there is a chance that someday they just might regain capacity to make nukes or Bio weapons. Which, incidentally, is exactly the same risk we face from ANY third world nation we have abused. Then after we blow them up, we can pay to rebuild their country! Which will never work! And in the process, we can make the whole world hate us, and breed more terrorists!
“That way we are always on a war footing and people like to vote for Republicans during war! Isn’t that neat how it works out?”
Well, I think Japan is a democracy now. And Germany is again a democracy. And South Korea is a democracy. I guess they aren’t all evil then.
I agree that Saddam was a bad bad man. He needed some serious whupping. But… what about all the other tinhorn abusive dictators around the world? Are we now going to take them ALL out as they crop up? Can we afford to do that? I was in the “Why Iraq, Why now?” camp.