Is the world safer

On its own terms, has the Iraq war made the world a safer place?

 

I'm guessing that's rhetorical...

I really don't see how it has, for one it seems to have given the terrorists an even bigger boost in terms of propaganda material, they're now "justifying" their killing hostages with the Iraq war as an excuse. If there ever was an Al-Qaeda link in Iraq, it sure wasn't substantial, since the terrorists don't seem any weaker. By going into Iraq we've basically stuck our hand into a glove of fishhooks.

 

What part of the world were these polls taken from? Iraq and Afghanistan? Any arab countries?

 

In a word, no. Unfortunately, when has the world ever been "safe?"

 

The world isn't safer, but Iraq definitely is.

 

Think about it... All the people that have been killed, civilian or military, would they have been killed by Saddam if he were still in power? Iraq is not safer today than it was three years ago in fact I think we screwed it up way beyond anything Saddam could have done. In the years to come we will see how much of an idiot Bush was for getting us into that mess. Unless... You work for Halliburton or have a lot of stock in it, then.......

 

You sure? Saddam's heydey of tortures and murders was during the eighties, I don't think he was doing anything rivalling the scale of conflict, lawlessness and killing that's been going on for the last year in the aftermath of the invasion. There hasn't been a humanitarian crisis in terms of food and water, but things aren't that much better on that front than they were before the war. Saddam's distribution of food aid was effective and efficient. That entire mechanism collapsed as a result of the war. It's a miracle there hasn't been mass starvation.

In the long term Iraq might be a "safer place" than it was under Saddam, but not for the foreseeable future if the current unrest and insurgency continues.

 

Are you kidding? Saddam was hiding weapons in schools and starving out villages that were opposed to his police state. His heyday might have been in the eighties, but there were plenty of mass graves filled and political dissidents disposed of during the 90s and..well, whatever we call this new millenium thingy. Regardless of what the media shows (which is hyped sensationalist bullshit), Iraq is a much better place now than under Saddam. The insurgents are a small minority, and the number of innocent victims post-invasion is nothing compared to the number of "enemies of the state" who were dragged away in the middle of the night under Saddam. Not to mention that people are allowed to speak freely about issues and express their thoughts without having to worry about being killed for being unpatriotic. That's got to be worth something too.

 

Let's assume you're correct- is it really proper of a US president to advance the interests of another nation at the cost of hundreds of American lives?

 

I never said I supported the war, I said Iraq was a better place now.

If you want to talk about the war, I think that it would have come down to an invasion sooner or later. If it were later, there might have been fewer American casualties and more troops from other places. But it still would have taken place. As it turns out Saddam had shipped a lot of WMD parts as "scrap metal" out just before we entered Iraq, and even in the early days of the war, so we can never know for sure what he had. He was also training terrorists for the PLO and various smaller terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East. Is all this reason for war? No, but I support the war anyway because I think people like Saddam shouldn't be allowed to govern period.

 

the point of the iraq war was to create a woorlpool sucking in all the torrorists of the mid east.

 

Trotsky, do you ever post anything that takes up more than 2 lines or has any reasonable justification?

 

I wasn't kidding, my assumption is that the number of violent deaths and injuries and the amount of crime committed has been much higher and the general level of welfare, safety and security of the average innocent Iraqi civilian has been much lower over the past year than in any year period of, perhaps, the preceding decade. The last mass graves to be filled were probably those of Shiite rebels following the first Gulf war. Sure Saddam's prisons were places of political repression and torture, and that has been ended. But most of these abuses were committed to back up Saddam's power in the 1980s, as widely documented by groups like Amnesty International. The system was still in place, but there's no sugggestion that anything on the scale seen decades ago was still going on.

For the average Iraqi civilian, life was pretty safe and secure. Even given the sanctions, the hospitals, schools and food distribution were all in pretty good shape. This infrastructure all collapsed with the war, as did the economic system and the entire structure of society. Leading to widespread looting, rival gangs engaging in conflict, and now widespread insurgency, violence and increased terrorism, both against the occupying forces and Iraqi civilians.

There was no internal terrorist threat under Saddam. There hasn't been open civil war between rival factions yet, but that's a clear danger. Not to mention all the unexploded cluster munitions in many cities and thousands of tons of depleted uranium deposited in the country for the second time in 12 years. So I don't think Iraq is any safer than it was before the war. For many people, taking all these factors into consideration, the situation is probably a lot worse.

But we've both made assertions and assumptions. There's not much further we can get with this apart from agreeing to disagree, in absence of documentary evidence of the level of abuse occurring in the final stage of Saddam's regime, and the level of innocent suffering that has taken place over the past year. Both are statistics which are inherently difficult to objectively calculate.

Some interesting articles on the subject:
Channel Four News poll of Iraqi opinion on their own safety
Hans Blix speech: Iraq and the world is not safer than before
MSNBC: Iraq is a battleground for a global terrorist insurgency

 

Interesting links, but i think youll find the information in the link below exposes certain falsehoods in the claims about Iraqi opinion of the coalition contained in your first link.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm

 

Indeed, one of the most important falsehoods is that Iraqis didn't support the invasion and removal of Saddam from power by the Coalition.

As LickHERish's link clearly states,

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

But of course you conveniently ignore the central topic of the entire article. Nice filter you continue to display toward reality.

 

Quote:showmet
Saddam's distribution of food aid was effective and efficient. That entire mechanism collapsed as a result of the war. It's a miracle there hasn't been mass starvation
From :
http://www.iacenter.org/oppsan99.htm
1.5 million people in Iraq, over half of them children under five, have died as a direct result of the sanctions
Lets see 8-10 year period, 150,000 killed per year.. 75,000 children each year died before the war due to sanctions alone.. How many are dying now?

Quote
For the average Iraqi civilian, life was pretty safe and secure.
It was so "safe and secure" that everyone of them voted for Saddam. I mean
100% of the people for Saddam (no one voted for anyone else). Life was also "Safe and secure" in pre-war Germany for the Average German also.

and thousands of tons of depleted uranium deposited in the country for the second time in 12 years.
In the first war, it has been estimated 350 tons of DU were used. Most all of which was used in the desert or unpopulated areas. Those exposed to it were more worried about being killed by the blast and fire than alpha radiation. Anytime you want to speak about the effects of DU and the tenth thickness of an alpha partical, I'd be more than happy to discuss it.
I am still looking for the amount of DU used in the 2nd Iraq war. If you have any "URL's" I'd be happy to look at them.

 

Hey all,
Am I the only one who saw that there were COORDINATED and COMPLEX attacks in Iraq today? Obviously they have been bombing and such all over the place, but the most recent attack was obviously very well coordinated and controlled to send a message- GET OUT! I wish I was wrong about the Iraq war and i wish we were doing the right thing but we are NOT! I know this is said alot but this is the next VIETNAM! Iraq = BIG F'ING MISTAKE. I know this has all been said before but I just needed a place to rant my frustration. Continue writing your senators and representatives in congress and attending anti-war dems!!

 

As I said, I don't know. I'd like to find out, but we don't tend to report things like Iraqi deaths in the Western media. Particularly not when they are a direct result of our governments' actions - UN sanctions, military invasion, etc. I'd be extremely surprised if there were a sudden miraculous upturn in distribution of food and medecines given the total collapse of the distribution infrastructure as a result of the war. I suspect a great many more people will have continued to die unnecessarily. As I said, it's a miracle the humanitarian crisis hasn;t turned out to be much worse than it seems to be.

Entirely true. The old saying that "in Mussolini's Italy, at least the trains ran on time" would not be an inappropriate way of looking at the food distribution programmes, not to mention Saddam's brand of safety and security for the people of Iraq.

I read an estimate that it was around 1500-2000 tons this time round - obviously in a much wider range of locations, many of them densely populated. The effects of this will take years to be fully known and like last time, will manifest itself as an increased rate of cancer and birth defects.

 

i never supported the war. i never supporting anything thatt came out of bush's mouth. luckily i don't have him leading my country. but yea great attacks. i loved seeing the one yesterday. the parking lot they hit. the american bomb. the presision one. good shooting.