Iraq

[jdobbin]

Newsweek has a interesting story this week about how Baghdad is going back to pre-industrial age ways.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20326315/site/newsweek/

While security is returning to some areas of Baghdad, modern conveniences aren't necessarily following. The Iraqi capital is no longer the place described in the old guidebooks, a metropolis of casinos, culture and Western-run hotel chains, although vestiges of that city can still be found. Instead, unceasing violence has thrust Baghdad back to a more primitive era, forcing its people to take up pre-industrial occupations and rediscover almost forgotten technologies. The collapse of municipal water services has revived the profession of well-digging, especially in the Green Zone, where foreign diplomats are reluctant to give up their flush toilets and showers. Donkey and horse carts are increasingly common on the capital's streets; the animals are cheaper than trucks and less likely to be held up in searches for hidden explosives. (A few years ago, after insurgents launched a rocket attack on the Palestine Hotel from a donkey cart, U.S. military investigators were able to follow the singed and ornery critter home, where they detained its owner.) On the lawns of mansions whose former owners are dead or in exile, shepherds now pasture flocks of sheep and goats, a sight that might be idyllic if not for the inescapable din of a city at war.

I think the biggest thing mentioned this past summer is that after so long, regular electricity is still hard to get in the capital city.

[Higgly]

I think the biggest thing mentioned this past summer is that after so long, regular electricity is still hard to get in the capital city.

Not inside the green zone which is, after all, the only thing that the Americans seem able to defend. Maybe it's all they care about.

George Bush and the Neocoms set out to change the face of the Middle East and it looks like that is what is happening. And Paul Wolfowitz has still not been brought before the War Crimes court in the Hague. How is he any better than Saddam Hussein? Come to think of it, how is Bush any better?

When the US pulled out of Vietnam, at least there was someone to surrender the territory to - the North Vietnamese. All that will be left when the Americans finally leave Iraq is chaos and murder and nobody can do a bloody thing about it. The best option would be to let the Iranians and the Syrians come in and take over. But of course, that is the unthinkable horror, isn't it? Not because it might not work, but becaise they are part of the ... wait for it .... oh wait ... the Syrians have not been made part of the ... axis of evil... bwahahaha....

[Xander]

I agree that the Americans will never be able to successfully pacify Iraq. Every time they succeed in subduing a group of militants the violence that is required to stop them will encourage even more people (predominantly young men) to take up the fight against what they see as the American insurgency into their country. Although their is no predominate enemy to turn the country over to like in Vietnam in Iraq like in Vietnam America is getting trapped into a cycle of resistance to their presence. It is impossible for America to win a military victory in Iraq.

[bush_cheney2004]

I agree that the Americans will never be able to successfully pacify Iraq.

Was Iraq "pacified" under Saddam? Is that what we should call it?

[Fortunata]

Global national has something on this today, to to their website and watch Lost in Translation.

And yes, Bush_Cheney, Saddam and sons were horrid but is what Iraqi's have now better? Most people could walk safely on the streets during Saddam but I doubt very much too many people feel safe even in their homes today. When you set out to deliberately break something you should have been prepared in advance to fix it better than it was.

[bush_cheney2004]

And yes, Bush_Cheney, Saddam and sons were horrid but is what Iraqi's have now better? Most people could walk safely on the streets during Saddam but I doubt very much too many people feel safe even in their homes today. When you set out to deliberately break something you should have been prepared in advance to fix it better than it was.

Oh, you mean like Gulf War I when much of vital infrastructure was destroyed? Or years of UN sanctions supported and enforced by Canada? No-fly zones and attacks were welcomed I'm sure. And let's not forget Operation Desert Fox. Ah yes, the world making Iraq better before Dubya came along.

[AngusThermopyle]

Oh, you mean like Gulf War I when much of vital infrastructure was destroyed? Or years of UN sanctions supported and enforced by Canada? No-fly zones and attacks were welcomed I'm sure. And let's not forget Operation Desert Fox. Ah yes, the world making Iraq better before Dubya came along.

This is an example of highly specious logic. In effect it appears that you are saying since mistakes were made previously it justifies the mistakes being made now. As for sanctions supported by Canada, that has very little to do with the previous posters point. On the other hand, the argument advanced by the previous poster was also dubious as to it's validity.

In other words, the previous posts both show themselves to be of suspect value in the context used.

[jdobbin]

Here is Dick Cheney in 1994 on why invading Iraq was a bad idea.

[Fortunata]

Oh, you mean like Gulf War I when much of vital infrastructure was destroyed? Or years of UN sanctions supported and enforced by Canada? No-fly zones and attacks were welcomed I'm sure. And let's not forget Operation Desert Fox. Ah yes, the world making Iraq better before Dubya came along.

You discount the mess to both infrastructure and livelihood that has been made by the American invasion? Are you saying that all the turmoil and chaos, loss of infrastructure, livelilhoods, life and limb are all the consequences of GWI and the UN sanctions? Are you saying that since USA invaded things are better for citizens?

[bush_cheney2004]

You discount the mess to both infrastructure and livelihood that has been made by the American invasion? Are you saying that all the turmoil and chaos, loss of infrastructure, livelilhoods, life and limb are all the consequences of GWI and the UN sanctions? Are you saying that since USA invaded things are better for citizens?

No, apparently you wish to say these things for me. Certainly Gulf War I, that blessed event sanctioned by the UN, caused a significant portion of the damage, and sanctions stifled attempts at rebuilding, even when funds weren't being blown by Saddam and sons.

Some citizens most certainly are better off now than before.....they have said so themselves.

[bush_cheney2004]

This is an example of highly specious logic. In effect it appears that you are saying since mistakes were made previously it justifies the mistakes being made now. As for sanctions supported by Canada, that has very little to do with the previous posters point. On the other hand, the argument advanced by the previous poster was also dubious as to it's validity.

I don't recall saying that mistakes were made in either case, just that the policies have been consistent from Iraq's viewpoint. The bombs don't know if it was Bush Sr., Chretien, Clinton, Blair, or Bush Jr. who dropped them on target.

[Topaz]

Lets remember that when the sanctions were put into place and Hussein was selling oil for food, or whatever, it was North Americans companies doing the buying, then it was it an American President that did drop those bombs and the people on the ground, the innocent citizens, DO know who dropped those bombs, especially in Fallujah, where women and children were burned from the added ingredients of those bombs. No one wins in war, and Cheney knew this back in '94 and he knew it in '01 but hey, the Cheney and Bush family have make millions, while Iraqis don't have much of a country or life.

[bush_cheney2004]

Lets remember that when the sanctions were put into place and Hussein was selling oil for food, or whatever, it was North Americans companies doing the buying, then it was it an American President that did drop those bombs and the people on the ground...

The "people" already had bomb damage experience from 1991....even Canada helped to rain death from the sky:

In the beginning the CF-18s began sweep and escort combat missions to support ground-attack strikes by Allied air forces. However during the 100-hour Allied ground invasion in late February, CF-18s also flew 56 bombing sorties, mainly dropping 500 lb (230 kg) conventional ("dumb") bombs on Iraqi artillery positions, supply dumps, and marshaling areas behind the lines. At the time the Canadian Hornets were unable to deploy precision guided munitions (PGMs). [Wiki]

Edited August 22, 2007 by bush_cheney2004

[Fortunata]

No, apparently you wish to say these things for me. Certainly Gulf War I, that blessed event sanctioned by the UN, caused a significant portion of the damage, and sanctions stifled attempts at rebuilding, even when funds weren't being blown by Saddam and sons.

Some citizens most certainly are better off now than before.....they have said so themselves.

Did GW1 cause more damage than this war?

[bush_cheney2004]

Did GW1 cause more damage than this war?

I don't know....certainly the Americans and British did not spend billions on reconstruction contracts after GW1.

During the first Gulf War, attacks against Iraqi infrastructure by US-led military forces claimed a minimum of 110,000 civilian casualties.24 The vast majority of deaths were caused not by the direct impact of bombs but by the destruction of the electric power grid and the ensuing collapse of the public health, water and sanitation systems, leading to outbreaks of dysentery, cholera, and other water-borne diseases. The first post-war epidemiological survey throughout Iraq in August 1991 reported the deaths of 47,000 children under the age of five.25 The first United Nations mission to post-war Iraq documented how “apocalyptic damage” to the infrastructure had reduced the country to “the pre-industrial age.”26

http://cesr.org/node/21

[jdobbin]

Bush for the second time in two days compared Iraq to Vietnam.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20385843/

- Citing America's war experience in Asia, and even Vietnam, President Bush on Wednesday made the case for staying the course in Iraq and reiterated his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the president compared the war in Iraq to U.S. involvement's in Asia that lost popular backing but which he argued eventually proved its worth and led to lasting peace.

“We are still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we know how the others ended, and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today,” the president said.

If Bush is supporting Maliki, it must be...Wednesday.

This Vietnam comparison would be a little more believable coming from someone who had advocated not leaving Vietnam at the time instead of raising it only now.

[bush_cheney2004]

This Vietnam comparison would be a little more believable coming from someone who had advocated not leaving Vietnam at the time instead of raising it only now.

The Vietnam comparison is as good as any....all analogies eventually fail. Still, he couldn't very well choose a non-American experience, such as the British in Malaysia (won), or French in Algeria (lost). He could have chosen the US experience in the Philippines (won), where insurgent battles raged on until 1913, long after the Spanish-American War.

[M.Dancer]

Bush for the second time in two days compared Iraq to Vietnam.

The irony is overwhelming.

While I was never one to compare the Iraq Quagmire (IQ) to vietnam, there were those who did and got serious opposition from those who were quite frightened of the analogy (lest it be true, which it ain't).

I have always believed that a closer analogy existed and it was Afghanistan under the Soviet occupation. I for one don't think an early withdrawal of US and coalition forces will result in the unification of the country and the eventual raproachment with the west...like vietnam.....

....I do see an early withdrawal of US forces plunginging the anciant Ottoman provinces into chaos and there arrisiing a Taleban entity that will brutaly try to bring order.....and this must never be allowed to happen.

Hence the Quagmire.

[jdobbin]

Blow the whistle on illegal activity in Iraq and face torture from American troops?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers — all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.

“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”

This is one of many reasons why people start questioning what is going on in Iraq.

Edited August 25, 2007 by jdobbin