Does the USA have a responsibility to help the Iraqis?

Gee whiz Gongshaman, sounds a lot like the US.

 

Yes, but if we'd never gone into Iraq and Saddam was still in power, how do you think the recent Syrian thing would have gone down

 

Odon

It’s a history book, are you saying that history books are not useful for trying to understanding the past, my argument is that recent past events have an impact on the now, and its useful to understand the now by looking at the past.

Does responsibility for past actions and mistakes stop with a change of administration?

I think I as a British citizen hold some responsibility for the state of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the collective even though I didn’t vote for the government that did it and actively campaigned against it. To me that is part and parcel of the democratic process.

It wasn’t done in my name but it was done by my country.

 

vanilla

As was argued at the time there were ways of helping to topple Saddam that wouldn’t have involved invasion.

Saddam was weak by then and the Kurds were already autonomous.

But those ways would not have fitted in with what the neo-con’s in control of the Bush admin wanted, that was the problem.

 

I'm old enough to remember what was occurring in those years.
I'm also aware enough to know of various opinions that are out there.
This one is obviously going to follow along the same lines as your own, isn't it?
My point is, a decade has passed since those times.

The feeling I get from recent reports, is that certain people are remembering a decade ago, and referencing the recent events (the apparent murder of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers) and ignoring everything in-between.

I do not need to read what seems to be a lopsided version of events and analysis.
I have you here, don't I?

My point is, you didn't mention the Obama Admin' anywhere in your post.

I don't feel any responsibility, personally.

Okay, okay - you take the bad 'n I'll take the good, hows that?

 

Why did you not choose:

'LITTLE AMERICA'

"A searing indictment of how President Barack Obama’s 2009 Afghanistan surge was carried out. . . . Solid and timely reporting, crackling prose, and more than a little controversy will make this one of the summer’s hot reads.”

'When President Barack Obama ordered the surge of troops and aid to Afghanistan, Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran followed. He found the effort sabotaged not only by Afghan and Pakistani malfeasance but by infighting and incompetence within the American government: a war cabinet arrested by vicious bickering among top national security aides; diplomats and aid workers who failed to deliver on their grand promises; generals who dispatched troops to the wrong places; and headstrong military leaders who sought a far more expansive campaign than the White House wanted. Through their bungling and quarreling, they wound up squandering the first year of the surge.'

?

 

it seems like your solution to all the bad stuff you mention above is for the US to go back and do some more of the same thing.
edit:except this time not spend time looking for wmd's

 

Here's the thing....we talk a lot about standing up for democracy and freedom. We say that when the people of a given country stands for democracy, we will stand with them. But the reality is that we don't want them to realize their true potential. We do not want other countries to grow strong enough to challenge us. We want them strong enough to cooperate with our agenda and weak enough that we can dictate their policy or even let (or cause) them to collapse. We want resources and actually care very little about whether or not they kill each other as long as it doesn't interfere with our policy. So whatever we do in Iraq will be about our interests, not theirs.

You can hear a bit about how we go about foreign policy here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8

Think about that link the next time you hear a politician talking about protecting "US interests" in a given region. They aren't talking about my interests or your interests. They are talking about corporate interests.

 

Odon

I’m old enough also but I also read a lot then and since, I was not in Iraq and I wasn’t involved in operations there, but I’ve read those that were and talked to some.

So what’s your version of events and what is it based on?

Which people?

How do you know if you haven’t read it?

I was talking of the invasion and the mistakes made by the neo-con elements in the government of the time during the early occupation, that wasn’t the Obama Admin. I haven’t got to the Obama Admin, yet.

I didn’t say personally.

 

odon

I’ve read it as well and its a very good book BUT as you point out it is about Afghanistan and I was discussing Iraq.

PS have you read Little America?

 

True enough...

I'm not going to run through everything.
However, I did say: 'Sure, if they want our help.' (meaning It wasn't just the US involved)
That is based on the fact the Iraqi government has taken back ownership of it's sovereignty, and It's own destiny:

U.S. Hands Over Sovereignty to Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S.-led coalition transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government two days early Monday in a surprise move that apparently caught insurgents off guard, averting a feared campaign of attacks to sabotage the historic step toward self-rule.

Legal documents transferring sovereignty were handed over by U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer to chief justice Midhat al-Mahmood in a small ceremony in the heavily guarded Green Zone. Bremer took charge in Iraq about a year ago.

"This is a historical day ... a day that all Iraqis have been looking forward to," Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer said. "This is a day we are going to take our country back into the international forum."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/us-hands-over-sovereignty-to-iraq/229971.html

The 2008 status-of-forces agreement between the US and Iraqi governments requires all American forces to be withdrawn by the end of 2011.

"It's a day that Iraq gained back its sovereignty. Iraq is now its own master," al-Maliki said.

"I promise you the sectarian war will not return," he said in his speech. "We will not allow it. Iraqis will live as loving brothers."

Security concerns

Iraqis have mixed views about the US drawdown. A poll conducted this month by the Asharq Research Centre found that 60 per cent of Iraqis believe this is the wrong time for US troops to leave.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/08/20108311332701528.html

So, if they want US help, they have to ask for it, and the US can say what help that will entail. Or say, No.

Certain people

Ok, the majority of the media I have been reading recently.

 

The second argument is that but for the invasion of 2003, Iraq would be a stable country today. Leave aside the treatment Saddam meted out to the majority of his people whether Kurds, Shia or marsh Arabs, whose position of ‘stability’ was that of appalling oppression. Consider the post 2011 Arab uprisings. Put into the equation the counterfactual – that Saddam and his two sons would be running Iraq in 2011 when the uprisings began. Is it seriously being said that the revolution sweeping the Arab world would have hit Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, to say nothing of the smaller upheavals all over the region, but miraculously Iraq, under the most brutal and tyrannical of all the regimes, would have been an oasis of calm?

Easily the most likely scenario is that Iraq would have been engulfed by precisely the same convulsion. Take the hypothesis further. The most likely response of Saddam would have been to fight to stay in power. Here we would have a Sunni leader trying to retain power in the face of a Shia revolt. Imagine the consequences. Next door in Syria a Shia backed minority would be clinging to power trying to stop a Sunni majority insurgency. In Iraq the opposite would be the case. The risk would have been of a full blown sectarian war across the region, with States not fighting by proxy, but with national armies.

So it is a bizarre reading of the cauldron that is the Middle East today, to claim that but for the removal of Saddam, we would not have a crisis.


http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/iraq-syria-and-the-middle-east-an-essay-by-tony-blair/



Syria policy has played a major role in fomenting the conditions that allowed ISIS to capture Mosul. Ankara, by ignoring its own border security, had allowed its Syria border to become a two-way "jihadist highway." Thousands of international jihadists used this highway to reach Syria. Though al-Qaeda outfits did not topple the Damascus regime, they made a "jihadist bonanza" of northern Syria thanks to this highway. From there, they linked with al-Qaeda in Iraq, advancing along the Euphrates Valley.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...a-isis-turkey-mosul-iraq-syria-consulate.html

 

odon

We were discussing the early occupation and what I see as the mistakes made – your reply has nothing on that.

I didn’t mention later events or the exit of US troops which were much later.

Any examples?

 

YOU are. I am not.

You asked me for MY view, and I gave it, I hope.

Pick any mainstream media outlet you like.
In particular, The Indy and The Guardian - but they all have been pretty much the same.

They pretty much all seem to say the current situation/events are a direct result of the 2003 invasion.

Ignoring anything in-between.

The Guardian view on the Iraq crisis: a case of blame and shame
Did the 2003 invasion of Iraq lead to the political and military crisis it faces today?

Once in, the occupiers [no bias here folks] could have done far more to remedy the deficiencies they had helped to cause. Instead, they compounded them. That is why we are in the situation we are in today.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/15/iraq-crisis-blame-shame-tony-blair

btw


"I think I as a British citizen hold some responsibility"

"I didn’t say personally."

Isn't I, personal?

 

You misspelled the word duh.

Ho-hum snooze? Like I said . . .?
__________________________

Could you elaborate?

 

I didn't

DEH
The verbal response to someone who does or says something stupid, idiotic or asinine.
Dave turns to walk out the door to my office, but instead runs into the wall.

My response: "DEH!!"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=DEH

' most of the responses are based on should the US have been there in the first place/they were the instigators 'everything is their fault' moving forward. So it just drags up VERY old prejudices.'

I have been here long enough to know your typical response. And you did not disappoint.

Feel free to return the sentiment.

It is feared as many as 1,000 servicemen from the base may have been executed.



This is not 'normal' is it?

 

Correct! Things are not back to normal. So, what do we owe to the Iraqis in light of the fact that the invasion was illegal and based on known lies?

 

My basic premise is:
'we' did our bit, they asked us (combat troops) to leave .
They took ownership (see previous post).
They have to ask us to return, if they wish.
It's not up to us if we go back (full throttle) or not.
At this point 'we' owe them nothing (imho).

A lot of Iraq is 'normal'

http://www.worldmag.com/2014/06/globe_trot_baghdad_calm_and_normal_as_the_rest_of_iraq_burns

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1863348_1809057,00.html

 

Do you believe that we owe the Iraqis justice by way of bringing those responsible for the lies that led to the destruction of their country and the murder of their people to . . . justice? Do you believe that responsibility extends that far?

 

I mean, isn't truth, justice, and the American way an essential part of the "democracy" we said we were "bringing" to them?