war what is it good for

No they shouldn't be overrun by militants, but my point is the US doesn’t stop because there are children in the way. Bombing these cities results in far more civilian casualties than military casualties. If one armies infantry is far superior to another then a ground assault should result in less civilian casualties, I do know this is not always true as not every side cares enough for their own people, shown by civilian sheilds. Those in the armed forces know the risks and accept them those who are not do not choose to put their lives at risk, therefore a civilian casualty is more tragic than a military one.

Are you in the armed forces? You seem to know how everything went down and why they could not do one thing over another. Maybe you just believe the US spindoctors, I don't know.

 

Where to start? Where to start?.........


A lot of misconceptions being thrown around.

I'll try to be brief, but it's often hard.

Point: Saddam was a genocidal maniac.

Counterpoint: No, he wasn't. Definitely a murdering thug but he was not genocidal. The definition of genocide is a systematic and PLANNED
extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.
Saddam had no plans to exterminate the Kurds. Gassing the Kurds and clearing out the Kurdish areas adjacent to Iranian border was done to suppress and punish Kurdish resistance to his rule. They had
supported Iran in the bloody 1980-1988 Iran-Iraqi War. His killing of
Kurds and Shias was a coldly calculated means of suppressing any
opposition to his regime. Bad enough, but by no means genocide.
Genocide is one of the words neo-cons like to use to overstate their
case.

Point: Saddam has gassed people numerous times.

Counterpoint: Not true. He gassed Kurds and Iranians back in 1988 as the Iran-Iraqi War was winding down. I have seen no credible evidence that he had done that on a continuing basis. Another exaggeration made to try to bolster the case for war. The Kurds actually lived in fairly peaceful autonomy after the end of the first Gulf War. The US enforcing the no-fly zone actually made a world of difference in Saddam not being able to control the region anymore.


Point: There was no opposition in Iraq capable of succeeding until we arrived.

Counterpoint: False. Actually at the end of the first Gulf War we encouraged and supported the Shias to uprise and overthrow Saddam. The Shias were actually winning until we stopped enforcing the no-fly zone for a time in southern Iraq. Saddam's air superiority over the Shias allowed him to put down the uprising.


Point: We wouldn't have bombed Zaraqawi if we knew there was a child there.

Counterpoint: Yes we would have. Zaraqawi was the highest priority target that existed in Iraq. Children killed in the process of achieving a target is considered collateral damage. The bombs get dropped regardless. Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have never been bombed if that was a concern. Bombs are indiscriminate killers, even the smart ones.

Point: It's the terrorists we are fighting in Iraq.

Counterpoint: Only partially true. No active cells existed in Iraq before the war. Saddam was a secular leader, in no way in league with Muslim fundamentalists. The fundamentalist terrorists hated Saddam and wanted to see him removed. There are terrorists in Iraq now, but they are a small number compared to the in-country insurgency lined up against us. Sunnis have controlled that country going back to the days of the Ottoman empire. The majority of the insurgency consists of the Sunnis who are deathly afraid of a Shia, Kurdish-led government. The rest consist of a number of Shias who look at the US as occupiers and who will fight to the death to see us removed.


Point: We've turned the corner and will win this war and establish democracy.

Counterpoint: We are losing this war and there exists only a microscopic chance that we could win. Read the history of Iraq. It is a country since its creation after WW1 that has been beset by nothing but internal tribal and ethnic strife. The Kurds have fought constantly to establish their own state. Of course they greeted Americans with open arms, we helped create conditions to allow them to form their own state. Watch how quickly they turn on us when the newly formed government tries to exert their control over them. Read the previous counterpoint in regards to the Sunnis.

There are no guarantees, in a country where the majority is Shia, after being long suppressed by the Sunnis, will adhere to the peaceful concepts of democracy, and not take their bloody revenge on the Sunnis. Too much history and bad blood.

The current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has stated that he plans to disarm the citizenery and disband the militias. Citizens will not be willing to give up their arms, and the majority of fighters in Iraq have their first loyalties to religious and tribal militias; not to a newly formed democratic government (in a country that has never known democracy) that has ties that are too close to the US government to be trusted.

How much can al-Maliki be trusted to lead this country to democracy? He is a Shia whose background is with parties deeply tied in with the Islamic fundamentalist movement. He has already stated that he wishes to see American troops be withdrawn immediately. He realizes that the only hope he has for his government to survive his to cut his ties with the Americans. No government in Iraq will survive if it is looked at as being American-controlled.

And don't fall for the bs that troops will be withdrawn completely. Part of their STATED plan is to establish a presence situated there, from where they can more easily control the events that transpire in that region.

The policy and execution of this war was not conducted by the
military. Policy is usually not dictated by the military, but they always
have had a HEAVY input in matters regarding war. Development and
execution of war plans has ALWAYS been the province of the
military. This war has been conducted almost entirely by a group of
misguided, far-out on the fringe group of neocon lunatics that are
leading us in a direction that can't help but lead us to a bad end.







Before writing it off as just a leftist rant, look at some of the people standing in opposition. John Murtha, an ex-marine that has been a hawk on military matters for over 30 years. Pat Buchanan, a CONSERVATIVE, along with other conservative commentators that know it is a bad idea. Brent Scowcroft, Barry McCaffrey, Anthony Zinni, Colin Powell, Tommy Fargo, amongst many other former high-ranking military or political operatives.

The administration's policy of marginalizing the people in opposition to this war is starting to fail. There are just too many people popping up that have no relation to us crazies on the left for them to smear and brand as extremists, for people not to realize how badly we've been lied to.


So much for keeping it brief...........................

 

They are going to eventually hook up with some rich country who is going to be able to fund something. We are going to piss off an Islamic country so much they are going to say "to hell with the consequences." If it isn't brought to us in this lifetime, it will be in our children's or our grandchildren's children's time. Bush missed the day in class where they taught how these countries never forget prior abuses done upon them. Some of these people are still fighting small battles to a war that happened over 800 years ago.

America is a new country, so we don't understand time as well as the rest of the world.

And you know what I just realised? They are only doing the same thing America did in the cold war (albeit more violent), and that is to rid the world of any communist/non-democratic government. Look at us, we are still doing it today! Ironic, eh?

 

Ah but they have Rush Limbaugh, and HE will uphold the GOP's ideals. He said it himself, he won't go into retirement until everyone in the world agrees with him.

Thanks for all the information, that refreshed me from the Organized Terrorism class I took (GAWD! has it been that long?) four years ago.

 

Neo-cons like Human Rights Watch?

This right here is a falllacy. There was some Kurdish resistance to the Iraq-Iran war, but the attacks that ensued we're systematic attacks aginst the specific racial group, the kurdish.

http://www.gendercide.org/case_anfal.html

Even if that word doesn't fit, which it does considering the kurds we're a racial group, it was still politicide.

The no fly zones over northern Kurdish regions were very harmfull to the Kurdish people, as they could have no access to trade or industry with the rest of Iraq, and as a consequence, many people died.

Turkey was the primary reason the kurdish weren't provided with the legal status of a state, and as a consequence, they were sequestered in Iraq, with aging agricultural inventory and poor acess to food and medecine.

Iraq didn't have much of an air force after the first gulf war, so the idea of no fly zones was pretty ridiculous way of supressing Iraqs military. The Shia resistance was never organized to anywhere near the degree the of military prowess that the Iraqi National guard had. I don't see where you would come up with this contention.

You're just guessing that. It isn't an answer, you just state it as one, and your comparissson are bombings that happened 60 years ago.

Saddam had many financial ties to terrorist cells operating within Palestine, and Zarqawi was operating a very large terroist training facility inside Iraq at the time with complete autonomy from Iraq. It wasn't called [size=-1] al-Qaeda at the time, but it's intentions we're the same.

And all the bombing that have occured have been the result of [/size][size=-1] al-Qaeda in Iraq. While it's true that this may be smaller the the insurgency, they acted as instigators of the insurgency, attacking Shia areas, to make the Shia respond violently, attacking Sunni Mosques and blaming it on the Shia.[/size]

The Kurdish do wan't their own state, and as I've stated, are the largest ethnic group without a state.

Their isn't even a war as you've pointed out, theres oposition and insurgency to a legitamate Iraqi government.

Now their armed forces are taking the lead in defending aginst offensive raids by Islamisic facists.

It's tough, and their are many bombs going off in Baghdad today, but laying down and letting another strongman take over Iraq to strategically commit acts of genocide aginst the population isn't an option.

There are no guarentees. That's why it's important we do everything possible to help the newly formed Iraqi government defend itself. If you look at what's happening in Iraq today, it's not Sunni's vs. Shia, it's terrorists vs Iraqi's.

Al-Maliki is an Iraqi nationalist, which makes him much more trusted by the general Iraqi population, as he doesn't have particularlly warm relationship with Iran, which is among the Sunni's main grievance with a new Iraqi government.

And he vowed to crack down on violent militias, he never called for disarming the citizenry.

It's a country that has never had the oppurtunity at democracy. Now that we're their, we can at least give them a shot at it.

I'm a liberal, and as such, I think we should move in a stated direction viewed by our people.

However, the opinions of some Ex Military commanders and paleo-conservatives shouldn't effect our current policies dealing with Iraq.

http://www.slate.com/id/2138332/
http://www.slate.com/id/2131189/

If you've been lied to, you've let yourself be lied to. Iraq was a very dangerous place, and letting it stay under the slavery conditions of oil for food was contrary to the Human Rights positions that the United States should stand for.

It was also a backbone for Islamist training centers, as are other places in the world, such as Syria and Somalia, but those should be treated in a different manner other then Iraq.

In the future, lets keep this a little breifer please. I know it's a complicated subject, but I just don't have the time this weekend to be the only person on a hippie board defending Iraq.

Take it easy darkside.

 

I do apologize for the length., but as you state, it is a complex subject.
This will be long, but it will probably be my last chance to post for awhile.

You will have the last word in responding to this.

Hopefully you can continue to indulge an old man.

You make a good point, the overstatements aren't confined to just the right, it also occurs on the left. My point would be that the extermination of the racial group is the part of the definition of genocide I take issue with. There is no doubt that he engaged in a wholesale slaughter of the Kurds; my issue is that I don't believe his intention was to totally eliminate the Kurds, it was more to kill enough to achieve pacification and eliminate their resistance. I have seen some sources that indicate he might have been attempting genocide; but nothing definitive. For the most part when he cleared the Kurds away from the Iranian border he primarily moved them. If his true intent was to totally eliminate the Kurds, you would think he would have just murdered them all, rather than just move them for the most part. It's obvious that we are more parsing our words, more than anything. My intent was more to point overstatements don't serve the advancement of a cause, when the truth is bad enough. Your cited source proves that this occurs on both sides of the issue.

I think your argument on this one is a little bit thin. The vast majority of my readings indicate that it was effective. The initial intent of the no-fly zone was humanitarian and not military. It succeeded in allowing the Kurds create an autonomous state, with very little influence being able to be exerted by Saddam
.
I include a few sources:

This from a CNN.com article called 'Iraq tests no-fly zones':

"US., British and French warplanes began enforcing two no-fly zones over Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to stop Iraq from using its air force against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south.

Iraq has tested the southern no-fly zone repeatedly, especially in recent days, with fighter planes and helicopters. Despite the violations, the no-fly zones have been 100 percent effective in protecting Iraqi minorities, military sources told CNN.

Correspondent Carl Rochelle contributed to this report."


Another:


"THE KURDS OF IRAQ: RECENT HISTORY, FUTURE PROSPECTS
By Carole A. O'Leary




Despite various internal difficulties and constraints, including the strong opposition of neighboring countries and both external and internal embargoes on the region by the Iraqi government, all basic public services have been provided to the extent resources have permitted. Freedom of speech and of free movement is respected. Local NGOs have been established and the three universities are working with U.S. and European partners to develop new academic programs, reform and update curricula, and provide faculty training opportunities. The region's leadership has allowed satellite television with over 500 channels to be available to anyone who can purchase readily available hardware. Private companies provide uncensored international phone service. Unlimited and uncensored Internet access is also available from private, independent sources. According to Human Rights Watch, the leadership of the region has made notable progress in promoting and protecting the basic rights of the people of liberated Iraqi Kurdistan.(6)

With assistance from the international community, hundreds of destroyed communities were reconstructed and tens of thousands of families were able to return to their original homes between 1991 and 1997. Despite serious problems due to inefficiency, intransigence and the efforts of Baghdad, the oil-for-food (SCR-986) program that began functioning in 1997 continues to provide the region with substantial resources from Iraq's public oil wealth for health care, reconstruction, and education. The KRG directly cooperates with twelve UN agencies in the region, including nine involved in the management of the oil-for-food program

"By containing Saddam Hussein's regime with the no-fly zones, we confined his military to a well-defined box, ultimately preventing him from rebuilding the bulk of his military infrastructure," said Gen. James L. Jones, commander of U.S. European Command headquartered at Stuttgart, Germany. "Our U.S., British and Turkish combined joint task force prevented him from further attempts to oppress and attack his own people as well as neighboring states."

As the "Green line" was established to separate Iraqi ground forces from the Kurdish populations in northern Iraq, Operation Northern Watch slowly brought stability to the region. However, ,this stability did not come without some risk. Though not officially at war, coalition aircraft flying in the no-fly zones were engaged by surface-to-air threats on nearly every mission. Anti-Aircraft-Artillery fire was the most common threat and usually seen firing from multiple locations on each mission. There were also surface-to-air missiles and a wide assortment of targeting radar threats to deal with. "

Just can't agree with this one. The Shias actually controlled Southern Iraq and were at the outskirts of Baghdad in a matter of days. The refusal to enforce the no-fly zone and not provide any type of support allowed Saddam to send out helicopter gunships and decimate the opposition that helped turn the conflict in Saddam's favor.



More sources:

"Washington Post: Gen. Schwarzkopf is skeptical about U.S. action in Iraq
1/28/2003


Schwarzkopf in particular draws fire for approving a cease-fire that permitted the Iraqi military to fly helicopters after the war. Soon afterward, Iraqi helicopter gunships were used to put down revolts against Hussein in the Shiite south and the Kurdish north of Iraq. Only later were "no-fly zones" established to help protect those minorities."


The effect Saddam's helicopter gunships had on turning the tide in the insurgency is discussed in this frontline documentary:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/


It is also discussed in my answer to your previous point.

Okay, here is a more recent bombing that occurred in Kut when they were engaged with al-Sadr. They were bombing in an area that they knew contained civilians, but where willing to bomb in order to minimize their casualties:

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040812170350.4tvl64e1.html

I'm not making any value judgement on this; war is a messy, messy business and often your only decisions can be based on choices between evils. If you want to believe they will pass up an opportunity to get a high value target to save innocent lives, that is your prerogative, you will just never get me to believe that. I don't believe the nature of warfare has changed that drastically in 60 years.

Of course he did, that's no secret. You can make that claim for every country that exists in the Middle East other than Israel. The one thing that unites virtually all Muslims is their hatred of Israel and their support of the Palestinians.

Ah ha! You're agreeing with me! Probably just a misuse of the word autonomy, but true nonetheless. Any active terrorist cell that was in Iraq pre-war, was operating in northern Iraq with complete independence (autonomy) from Saddam's regime. No credible intelligence has emerged that directly ties Saddam to terrorist activity. It wouldn't make sense if it would. Saddam was one of the sworn enemies of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations.

I'm hoping out of all the links I provided, this will be the one that you read. It is a CIA agent that was previously directly involved with the intelligence that was used to make the case for the war in Iraq. He discusses how intelligence was 'cherry-picked'. Even if you choose to disbelieve his premise, it does provide an interesting view of the CIA's inner-workings:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

Ahhh! Just as I can't state definitively that Zarqawi would have been bombed if we knew children were there; you can't make the statement all the bombing is a result of al-Qaeda. There is no way either side can determine all the guilty parties involved with the bombings.

The purpose of al-Qaeda was to instigate violence amongst the two parties. The greatest probability was that would have occurred on it's own. The fact is that Sunnis are killing Shias and Shias are killing Sunnis. What al-Qaeda accomplished was to speed up the process.

Once again we are parsing words, war, opposition and insurgency; opposition and insurgency works fine for me. I do take issue with legitimate Iraqi government though. No matter what you or I believe, that determination will be made by the Iraqis. We will just have to wait and see how that one plays out.

In the end, that won't be our decision. Even if we could establish a democratic regime, there is so much turmoil and factionalism going on that country, it is hard to tell what form a long-standing government will consist of. The natural forces would lead to 3 separate countries, but there is no way that would happen because it would not follow the plan that the Bush admininstration is trying to implement.

I can agree with that, there are no guarantees.

And one of those ways to defend them might be by getting out. With this administration , I don't see that happening. The last comment I don't agree with. It basically almost boils down to everybody vs. everybody. I think you will see that the uniting of varying factions is going to be an extremely difficult process. It's one big clusterf___, I think you can fill in the blanks.

Here is an excerpt from an article by al-Maliki that I draw that conclusion from:

"To provide the security Iraqis desire and deserve, it is imperative that we reestablish a state monopoly on weapons by putting an end to militias."

Granted, it is not directly stated, but I took the meaning 'a state monopoly on weapons' as a disarming of it's citizens. I admit it can be interpreted differently, but will concede on it because whether true or not, I don't consider it a huge point in my argument.

Al-Maliki was part of a post-war committee that forced out quite a number of Sunnis from jobs on suspicions of being Baathist party members. That created quite a bit of ill-feeling on the Sunni's part. His Shia party affiliations are also ones that give the Sunnis pause. It's yet to be determined how 'accepting' the Sunnis are of him.

It has no history of democracy, but there have been attempts at democracy. In the 1920's the British tried to establish a constitutional monarchy (the British form of democracy), but failed due to the religious and tribal differences, and the fact that the elected politicians lacked any legitimacy. This was based on the fact that Iraqi's looked at the new government as political institutions created by a foreign power.

Ahhh! Chris Hitchens. A brilliant man, but definitely a gadfly. Very Jerry Rubin-like in his swing from the extreme left to the extreme right. My issues with him is that he is very good friends with Wolfowitz (the originator of this policy that is driving this war) and Ahmad Chalabi, one of the most despicable so-called 'Iraqi leaders' that we have supported. He was a provider of a great deal of the bad intelligence that led us to war. Reading anything about him is very enlightening.

I did read the articles and my most serious issue with him is that he bases most of his claim on Iraqi ties to terrorism, on the work of Stephen Hayes. He claims that his work is unrebutted. Hardly true. His intelligence is extremely shaky. The Defense Department has disavowed his intelligence. Here are sources for the rebuttal:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=stephen+hayes+media+matters&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=sbc-web&x=wrt

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=7815

Huh? I honestly don't know what that means. If someone wants to lie to me, I really don't know how to prevent it. A punch to the mouth? Not that I'm always adverse to that solution, but I am trying to change my evil ways.

Yes, oil for food contained corruption, but the case has been overstated. The reason for wanting to take the UN down is contained in Paul Wolfowitz's Defense Policy Guidance that forms the present policy. The food for oil program, despite elements of scandal and inefficiencies, did accomplish a lot of good for the common Iraqi citizen. The counter argument is contained here:

http://www.oilforfoodfacts.org/

I just wish as much indignation would be shown to the shady dealings of Halliburton. You know, clean up our own house before worrying about someone else’s house?

Don’t agree with that one for the reasons I have already amply stated.

I apologize once again for the length, but this will probably be my last post for awhile. I realize you are working as a one-man army for the most part on this issue. I had a lot I wanted to get out before I depart. I respect the fact that you can make an intelligent counter-argument.

The speaker yields the floor.

Take care, my worthy opponent.