Thread: Iraq.

Originally Posted by 2stroke

Nobody could say he was a good guy but there'd probably be a million more Iraqis if he was still in power and the "coalition of the willing" had just kept their noses out. The irony of looking for weapons of mass destruction that it's been said were never there then killing masses of civillians with weapons of mass destruction, executing a deposed dictator for killing Kurds with gas and knowhow supplied by the USA just can't be overlooked. Sad how the rich and powerful can stage a war and the poor and vulnerable (on both sides) are duped into giving their lives for no real personal gain.
The country no longer even has a proper electrical system, if what you see on TV is true they have diesel gensets on the streets.

Sorry 2stroke but on this I just couldn't resist!

I don't know you personally and so have no idea of the age group in which you belong. In some ways that may be relevant.

If you check history, you'll find that dictators and the like have come and gone over the centuries. Most have been deposed violently either by their own 'subjects' or by others who see them as a threat either in a military sense, or a financial one.

We have fought wars with each other for millennia. the only difference is that now a war is fought with what I call 'full exposure' meaning that the world sees in real time what is actually happening. Yet even this is now manipulated to show 'excessive civilian casualties' by one side or the other.

Before we had laser guided bombs with 'real time video' nose cones, we, as the general public saw nothing of the destruction until after the war was over. Now we see it live. Perhaps that is why you make the comment of 'killing masses of civilians with weapons of mass destruction'.

Look up the London Blitz of wwII and see how war used to be fought. Millions of tons of bombs dropped randomly across a city. In fact many cities with CIVILIAN casualties in the tens of thousands every week along with the creation of millions of homeless civilians.

It was no better when we (the good guys) bombed the crap out of Germany in response. The result was exactly the same.

My point I guess is that to coin a phrase from Colin Powell in Gulf War I. " We haven't found a nice way of killing people yet", (he was being questioned at the time about the US using tanks with dozer blades to bury Iraqi soldiers in their trenches), war is a nasty business and we have become used to the idea that a few civilian deaths is horrific. And it is. But the fact is that in our modern wars, these deaths are minimal compared to what has occurred in the past.

Who supplies the weapons is irrelevant. If the US didn't, someone else would. The arms trade has no morality. It's all about money, nothing else.

Compared to the damage the Jihadist are doing in their own countries right now? Killing women and children in schools and market places? Be very careful to whom you point your finger about who is the good or the bad!

And these people are not fighting a war against oppression, they are fighting to say that their interpretation of THE SAME BOOK is the right one!

The Christians have done plenty of the same over the years, just most of it happened before 'history' was so immediately evident.

Oh no, I wasn't trying to say that the west were the only bad guys in this sad middle east scenario. The islamists kill many times more muslims than they do christians. And I do know my history fairly well, well enough to know that dictatorships and violent overthrow of same have been the norm in the middle east for not just centuries but millenia. Not too many Iraqis would say they're better off post "regime change" though in this case.

[QUOTE=2stroke;2165520] The islamists kill many times more muslims than they do christians.

So who is complaining.
Let them get on with it.
Encourage them even.

And I am with my family in the middle of all this !!!

Here's Why The Middle East Will Be 'On Fire' For The Foreseeable Future | Business Insider

Its not about the artificial national boundaries in the Middle East, which were largely drawn by the British in 1932 (thanks for that mess, guys), its about Shias vs. Sunnis.
The US-backed Sunni Government in Iraq under Maliki has kept the Shias down. The ISIS radicals among the Shias want a tribal state which would straddle the Iraqi and Syrian borders. The civil war in Syria has made that possible because Damascus has lost control of much of the country. In Iraq, the government in Baghdad has now lost the north to ISIS and also the area near Turkey to the Kurds.
The national boundaries drawn by outsiders are breaking down into tribal areas. There's no way American air strikes can stop this, and the US certainly won't send troops back in to fight. Plus, it would be futile anyway.
Iran and the Saudis are reportedly both involved, funding various parties.
We should just stay out of it IMHO. It was the West which caused this mess back in the colonial days. The more recent western invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have been massive disasters, just as past invasions dating back centuries have also failed. Only the locals can fix it.
Incidentally, this has NO relevance to the debate about border security here as terrorists don't travel as refugees - why would they when they can afford to fly in on visas (valid or forged)?

Disco,...Excellent post.
I do hope these guys can resolve it themselves, but I don't think it will be that easy. I feel there will be broader ramifications, and I refer to Israel, Jordon & Turkey, but more specifically Israel, which Isis have stated their desire to obliterate?
So, if Isis do eventuallyi have a "win" in Iraq, I don't think they'll stop there.
Pickles.

The US is supporting ISIS in Syria and now ISIS is the enemy in Iraq.
SNAFU

A can of worms, indeed. What's the bet that if the Americans went in, the numerous militias would unite & turn on them? Bob


BBC News - Iraq crisis: Where next in the struggle for the country?