This piece seemed to be pretty well written, and definitely worth sharing. Perhaps people need to be reminded, that, as the Title goes, "Iraqis are people, too!"
This is a War we're talking about, not a Football Game. People need to get real, and get serious. Because, this is literally a matter of Life and Death. Not a Game.
What's it going to take for people to wake up and 'get' this?
I would agree the the Iraqi's are people too. But I would also suggest the Iraqi people are actually better off now than they were under the rule of Saddam...
Yes, LR. they are so much better now that peace and prosperity has replaced the chaos of Saddam's rule. Really. Who needs all that electricity on 24 hours a day, anyway? It just encourages people to stay up late at night and not get enough rest.
Posts: 17215 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
And the people being tortured to death, or blown up by car bombs, every day now are much better off than those tortured to death under Hussein. They're dying in a democracy. And the four million internal and external Iraqi refugees are enjoying a revitalising change of scenery.
The US has taken four years, is spending a trillion dollars, and has gotten hundreds of thousands killed. At that enormous expense, you'd expect it to be beyond debate whether or not life is better in Iraq. It clearly isn't. Maybe bombing a country to pieces isn't always the best way to change its government.
If you guys are so absolutely sure that the Iraqi people, and their future, are not better off without Saddam please post a legitimate list of the positive vs the negative things affecting, or what will affect, the Iraqi citizens as a direct result of this 'war'.
Please be diligent and thorough as due to the overwhelming amount of bias in the press to cover primarily the negative items, it may prove to be a bit of work.
I know, I know, it's not your responsibility to prove you're right, it's ours to prove you're wrong. Poppycock! Put your money where your mouths are, and post respectable sources only, and be fair, lest ye be flogged by the whips of bias news coverage.
The list you want has been posted in pieces all over this forum. If you don't want to look it all up, I, for one, am not going to waste my time trying to get you to understand. Keeping up, despite your claim, is your responsibility. LR made the claim that they are better off now. No one has addressed any of the examples of how they are not better off. Why not ask him to back up his claim with a legitimate list?
Posts: 17215 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
No, it was not necessary to launch an invasion of Iraq, that has destroyed the country's infrastructure and brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands, to remove Hussein from power.
There are obviously benefits to the Iraqis from no longer being under Hussein. Whether or not life in general for most Iraqis is better now than before the invasion is clearly debatable, and such a vague idea it would be difficult to arrive at a conclusion.
We do know that (as mentioned above and elswhere) there are more daily deaths and tortures than under Hussein. What law and order there was has disappeared in sectarian fighting and ethnic cleansing. Terrorists are far more active in Iraq than before the invasion. There are millions of internal and external refugees who have appeared since the invasion. Iraq's oil is going to be taken over in a old fashioned, imperialist "rob the natives" production sharing scam - but I guess ordinary Iraqis never saw much oil money anyway.
On the other hand, Hussein's dictatorship is over and people no longer have to fear his secret police - but they have to fear, or shelter behind, sectarian death squads instead. His genocidal campaigns against the Kurds, and Shia of the south, will not recur - but how likely were they to recur anyway? They had taken place at the end of the Iran/Iraq and Gulf Wars, twenty and ten years before the inavsion. There wasn't any sign of any such other genocidal campaigns being imminent. Sanctions have stopped - but the economy has collapsed.
While we could discuss endlessly the different kinds of horror the Iraqis have faced before and after the invasion, what no advocate of the war can do is make the case that the bloody fiasco of "shock and awe" and its aftermath were necessary to remove Hussein. There are infinitely more effective and less catastrophic ways to remove unpopular dictators.
Is al-Qaeda better off since the invasion of Iraq?
'Captured al-Qaeda documents reveal that Osama bin Laden’s principal goal in the 9/11attacks was to lure the United States into a clumsy counterattack in the Middle East that would alienate Muslims, help al-Qaeda recruit more jihadists and bog down the American military in a no-win war.
Though bin Laden was mistaken in believing that Afghanistan would become the central front, he was right in pretty much every other part of his plan. At the time of 9/11, al-Qaeda was a fringe player in the Muslim world, with its leaders driven into exile and holed up in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Bin Laden understood that his movement had little hope if it couldn’t sharpen the animosities between the West and Islam – and force Muslims to pick sides between the U.S. “crusaders” and the “defenders of Islam.” He sought to position his terrorist movement as the chief beneficiary of that dividing line.
But bin Laden’s gamble over 9/11 was that al-Qaeda’s leadership might not survive a precise blow by the Americans.
According to Ron Suskind’s book, The One Percent Doctrine, bin Laden almost miscalculated by underestimating the ferocity and effectiveness of the original U.S. offensive in fall 2001. As he found himself cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, bin Laden apologized to his followers for bringing them to the edge of destruction.
But then, in what may go down as one of the biggest military blunders in U.S. history, President George W. Bush failed to deploy American troops to block bin Laden’s escape routes, relying instead on Pakistani forces that were slow to move into place. Bin Laden and some of his top lieutenants escaped on horseback.
Bush then compounded his error by redirecting the focus of U.S. Special Forces from Afghanistan to Iraq. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were badly bloodied but survived – and began to regroup...
...Al-Qaeda’s leaders recognized that their greatest strategic vulnerability would come from the United States withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Not only would that deny al-Qaeda its chief recruitment attraction but it could free up American troops for a renewed offensive against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
It was as if al-Qaeda had its own version of Bush’s line about fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them in America, except al-Qaeda’s version was that it was best to keep U.S. troops tied down in Iraq so they couldn’t fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Plus, there was concern about an al-Qaeda collapse inside Iraq if the Americans departed too quickly and the young jihadists gave up the fight and went home.
According to a captured July 9, 2005, letter, attributed to Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leaders fretted that a sudden U.S. withdrawal from Iraq might touch off the disintegration of their operations there.
“The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal,” said the “Zawahiri letter,” according to a text released by the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.
In another captured letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, another senior al-Qaeda operative, known as “Atiyah,” wrote that “prolonging the war [in Iraq] is in our interest.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]
Al-Qaeda’s “Bush-second-term” strategy now appears to be paying big dividends. Al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies are back on their feet and back on the offensive in Afghanistan. New al-Qaeda units also are undergoing training in Pakistan.
In Iraq, al-Qaeda still makes up only a small percentage of the armed insurgency – probably less than five percent – but it benefits from the arrival of new recruits and the opportunity to test out military tactics against the Americans.
Plus, al-Qaeda has been rebuilding its command-and-control structure.'www.consortiumnews.com
'Civilian casualties are on an upward trend, according to monthly figures from Iraq Body Count.
Their figures suggest more than 2,300 people were killed each month in October, November and December 2006.
The UN put civilian deaths at record levels, with more 3,700 fatalities logged for October.
Many of the killings involve torture and kidnapping, and are typically sectarian in nature.' news.bbc.co.uk
'Secret police, torture, murders, targeted assassinations, chemical weapons, and the destruction of wetlands (more specifically, the destruction of the food sources of rival groups) were some of the methods Saddam Hussein used to maintain control. The total number of deaths related to torture and murder during this period are unknown, as are the reports of human rights violations. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.'Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
How do you compare these two periods? Does it make any sense to say one is better than the other?
We maybe need to consider the opportunity cost of the Iraq invasion. If Bush had decided to keep the focus of aggressive military tactics on Bin Laden and his followers, and instead given just a fraction of the billions actually spent in Iraq to fund an effective internal opposition, could the transition to democracy have occurred without a breakdown of law and order?
What people fail to realize is that it was the U.S. Government who put Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, in the first place. Way back in the 1960's! The man was trained by the C.I.A.! And, as it is well known in the spy world, "once a spook, always a spook." In short, Saddam was a puppet. As much as any of the newly appointed "leaders" in Iraq are!
Stop scrutinizing down on the puppets, and try looking up at who's pulling the strings, if you truly want to know who is running the show.
Rather than blaming the Republicans or the Democrats or Saddam or bin Laden or Al-Queda or the boogeyman, try asking yourself the following questions:
1. Why are we at "War"?
2. Who are we really at "War" with?
3. Who stands to profit from this "War"?
4. Who stands to lose?
5. Who has the power to cover it up?
Once you've honestly answered those questions with true objectivity, then you'll have a much clearer perspective on things. You may not like the inevitable conclusion, but there it is.
To initialize a very much needed effort to help preserve the human species and our advancement in the universe.
2. Who are we really at "War" with?
Religious fanatics who selfishly and unreasonably take the lives of others in order to promote their own unfounded well-beings in a ridiculously fabricated afterlife.
3. Who stands to profit from this "War"?
The Human Race.
4. Who stands to lose?
The Human Race.
5. Who has the power to cover it up?
The MEDIA.
You're right, Valor, I have a much clearer perspective on things. I sure hope you do now.
Religious fanatics who selfishly and unreasonably take the lives of others in order to promote their own unfounded well-beings in a ridiculously fabricated afterlife.
That would be al Qaeda. I think Valor D was talking about why the US went to war with Iraq.
How has the human species benefitted from the US invasion of Iraq, and its catastrophic aftermath?
"That would be al Qaeda. I think Valor D was talking about why the US went to war with Iraq."
Read it again: "To initialize a very much needed effort to help preserve the human species and our advancement in the universe."
"How has the human species benefitted from the US invasion of Iraq, and its catastrophic aftermath?"
Do you know what "initialize" means? Patience, my friend.
No thanks to people with yours and bik's mindset, it is going to take a very long time. Even the Dems won't be able to deny the actions that will continue to be necessary.
The US has brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, for very questionable benefits after four years of chaos and slaughter - but it's OK because at some unspecified point in the future the human race's advancement in the universe will benefit?
OK. Maybe we should be patient. In the meantime could you give any idea of how this is going to play out?
How will the human species benefit from the US invasion of Iraq, and its catastrophic aftermath?
How will the human species benefit from the US invasion of Iraq, and its catastrophic aftermath?
Hopefully, we will learn a valuable lesson: that democracy can never be successfully imposed by force of arms from without. Also, that the congress must never abandon its sole constitutional authority to launch war; especially a pre-emptive one.
Topic Closed
