Military leaders are taking a hard look at its successes and failures in Iraq.

[trumad]

Question: Name me one success story that we had in Iraq. AND if it's removing Saddam---well... are we better off with him or without him?

[JuniperLea]

1. And was the price paid worth it?

Has BushCo killed as many Iraqis as Saddam has? And what's the total death toll including all American, coalition, Iraqi and Iraqi civilian?

[SwingVoter2006]

2. We need to be careful here

Speaking as an Army Reservist, I am always nervous when people go hog wild attributing mass deaths to the U.S. alone.

You don't have to be a right-winger to see that Saddam was a monster. Even worse, the U.S. supported him through several different Presidential administrations. He was our pet dictator, which is why I thought we owed it to Iraqis to remove him in 1991. We blew it, then. And so I was glad we removed him (finally) in 2003. At last, the U.S. was doing something for Iraqis that should have been done a long, long time ago. Better late than never.

How many did Saddam and the Baathists put in the ground? Estimates vary, but the mass graves speak of possible hundreds of thousands.

How many have been put in the ground by American bullets and bombs fired from American weapons and aircraft being used specifically by Americans?

Hard to say. Several tens of thousands at least, I would think. Maybe as many as a hundred thousand, which was the oft-quoted figure bandied about during the 2004 elections cycle.

How many of them were innocent? (e.g: just standing around, have nothing to do with the fighting, in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc...)

Again, hard to say. Too many people like to think every last Iraqi death since the 2003 invasion has been a wrongful death. I think this oversimplifies the issue. And while I am no fan of how the occupation or the post-Baath era has been run, you will never catch me uttering the fatuous phrase, "Iraqis were better off when Saddam was in charge!"

That's like saying the 8th level of Hell is not quite as hot as the 9th level of Hell.

Hell is Hell. The only difference being, the Hell of Saddam's Iraq was without end. The Hell of the occupation and, hopefully, a democratic post-occupation Iraq, will be finite.

Also, consider this:

How many Iraqis have died at the hands of other Iraqis, to include the ING and the insurgency? Again, hard to say.

How many have died at the hands of foreign jihadists?

I bring all this up because no single nation, no single person or persons, can be loaded down with ALL the death in that place.

There are more Bad Guys here than just a bumbling U.S.

[trumad]

3. 600,000 have died since the beginning of the war..

ya think that would have happened if we weren't in Iraq.... cause and effect...

[Kerrytravelers]

4. *cricket* *cricket*

[JuniperLea]

6. There ya go

No war would mean all those other people who killed because of the war would have had no excuse/opportunity.

And how long had it been since Saddam killed a bunch of people? Years and years. He was an immediate threat to no one. His army was broken. He had no WMD. Please.

[SwingVoter2006]

8. Why defend Saddam?

Saddam is a worm. He was a horrid dictator. He deserves the gallows. No, he deserves worse than the gallows. He deserves the plastic shredder, to which he sent many a fellow Iraqi in his day.

As to the argument, "Who did Saddam kill lately?"

Talk to the families of the missing and the dead who had their loved ones disappeared into the tender clutches of Uday and Qsay.

Christopher Hitchens is right. No matter how to slice it, Saddam and the Baathists were nasty, nasty, horrid people. Iraq is better off without them, in the long run.

[JuniperLea]

10. Who defended Saddam? You must be halucinating!

There were far better ways of getting rid of him. Ways that didn't involve the death of 600k human beings and the emptying of the US Treasury and the compounded debt of our grandchildren.

Get real. You show me where I defended that scum?

[SwingVoter2006]

15. I'm not saying YOU PERSONALLY defended Saddam

I was being somewhat rhetorical.

Given Saddam's stubbornness and ability to survive the Iranians, the first Gulf War, the U.N. sanctions... I'm not sure what, short of direct military intervention, was going to dislodge him. Moreover, I am not sure what, besides directly intervening, was going to remove the Baathist power structure; which was in many ways an even bigger menace than Saddam himself.

Sometimes, "soft" methods just aren't enough when you're dealing with entrenched autocratic fascism.

I am not saying the invasion and occupation has been perfect. Far from it. But Saddam had to go. One way or another. Or all the U.N. sanctions and threats and other stuff was just so much hot air, and should have never been implemented in the first place.

[JuniperLea]

19. Just because you can't imagine a way

Doesn't mean there isn't/wasn't one. How about the Iraqi Liberation Act? How about having a plan instead of just brute force? How about at least a plan AFTER the brute force? How about the fact that Saddam was following UN orders and had no WMD and was cooperating with Hans Blix? How about the fact that the US said, put your hands up or I'll shoot and when he put his hands up, we shot anyway?

[SwingVoter2006]

27. Saddam flaunted the U.N.

Even Blix said as much. New documents released by the NYT indicate Saddam was well on his way to a nuclear program. Whatever else he was doing, Saddam was *NOT* obeying U.N. rules regarding his WMD programmes. The dismantled apparatus of his WMD programmes are currently in Syria. We have captured Iraqi officers who stated as much after the invasion.

Has the after-invasion occupation gone badly? Sure. is it Bush's fault for not having a plan? Sure. Should we wrap it up and bring the troops home? Sure. As long as we're not totally hanging Iraqis out to dry in the process. People forget how the South Vietnamese were brutalized after our withdrawal. It will be the same in Iraq if we withdraw too quickly or before the ING is ready to stand up; which they are not yet. Close. But not yet. Let's at least leave Iraq with their democracy and elected government at least having a fighting chance.

Ask any troop, does he want to come home? Sure. But many, perhaps even most, don't want it to happen at a critical juncture where the new democracy is hanging in the balance. The troops don't want their efforts gone to complete waste just because politicians here at home are bastards. Fuck Bush. It's not about that motherfucker anymore.

[Kerrytravelers]

26. So, basically, the question to you is very simple.

Did you support the Invasion when we first went in? Yes or No.


Do you still support the Invasion? Yes or No.


If you don't, when did your opinion change and why?




If you do, please tell us the exact reasons, and you will need to cite your legitimate sources with links.







Feel free to copy and paste my questions directly into your post and respond.

[SwingVoter2006]

28. Answers

Did you support the Invasion when we first went in?
Yes. Partially for the WMD reasoning, but mostly because I thought we screwed the Iraqis badly when we failed to invade in 1991, and I thought we owed it to them to try and make things right.

Do you still support the Invasion?
Yes. Saddam and the Baathists had to go. We can't rid the world of every bloodthirst dictator asshole, but where Iraq was concerned, we could at least take one of 'em out.

If you don't, when did your opinion change and why?
My opinion on the 2003 invasion has never wavered. It's my opinion on the occupation that has wavered. In hindsight, I think the President should have made a general call on 9/12/2001 for 500,000 to 750,000 volunteers to fill rapid-expansion brigades and divisions within the Army and Marine Corp; all prior servicemembers strongly encouraged to apply. This extra manpower should have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, and a total force call-up of ALL Reserves and Guard should have come into effect until Osama and all the Taliban were killed or captured, Hussein and all the Baathists were killed or captured, and both nations had enjoyed at least a year or two of overwhelming American and Coalition manpower under which the roots of democracy and the apparatus of pluralist republicanism (please note the small r, would-be flamers) would have been firmly planted. Then, we withdraw all troops save for a couple of embassies with Marines for security, and tell Afghanistan and Iraq that what happens next, is up to them. Americans can lead the Islamic horse to democratic waters, but can't make them drink. Americans can show Iraqis and Afghanis the door to freedom. They can't make them walk through.

I don't have links to support the above scenario, it is largely based on conversations I have had with my senior officers and NCO's regarding the turmoil of the occupation, and what could have been done better.

[JuniperLea]

5. The point is

The war is a direct result of GWB and his cronies. The war caused all the deaths. Period. W started the war and the war killed all those people. You can't sugar coat that or say they died because of something else.

There were other ways of getting rid of Saddam. Other, much better, less costly ways.

[SwingVoter2006]

7. Blame the British, then?

I know, the urge to blame Bush for all is quite strong. And no, I am not deflecting blame from Bush as much as I am pointing out that the fall of every sparrow in Iraq ought to not be laid at the feet of the U.S. Because really, if you want to go that route, you may as well blame the British Empire for every death in Iraq since Iraq didn't exist until after the British came in and did their thing, post-WW1.

At least SOME blame has to be placed with Saddam, who flouted the U.N., and who sent plenty of people to their doom, before, during, and after the initial day of the invasion. More blame has to be placed on external foreign fighters who have come for the bloodsport of the jihad, and don't care who they kill: Iraqis, Americans, whatever. Still more blame goes to the Iraqis themselves, whose internicine battles date back a loooooong time.

To simply blame it ALL on Bush is too reductionist a picture, IMHO.

[NNN0LHI]

9. You can try putting lipstick on this pig all day and its still a pig n/t

[SwingVoter2006]

11. Care to explain?

If Saddam is the pig in question, then I agree.

Somehow, I think you're not talking about Saddam.

[JuniperLea]

14. You are defending an illegal war

And a bunch of murderers. Your defense is the lipstick.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

18. Are you mad?

Do you think we will be better off with some Iranian ayatollah replacing Saddam in Iraq?

Because that is exactly what is going to happen now thanks to people like you with your your laudable goals!

Don

[JuniperLea]

22. PSSSST...

Freeper... I'm tellin' ya.

Check the date... Nov 09th 2006

[NNN0LHI]

23. Might be? We can flip some of them if we stay on message n/t

[JuniperLea]

21. Bullshit.

It wasn't worth the cost. There were other ways to do it and Bush ignored them and clearly you are oblivious to them.

You are sounding an awful lot like a BushBot/Freeper.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. All day long, yes indeed!

[JuniperLea]

13. The British were tools in the current war

Quit defending Bush and his fellow murderers.

Your drawing back to the creation of that country is pretty naive. You would have to go back to God for creating all those people to begin with.

Bush started the war for no good reason. There was no immanent threat.

You are really sounding like a Freeper. Are you sure you're in the right place?

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JuniperLea]

20. Bullshit.

Take your straw men elsewhere. Back to Freeperville, preferably.

[Kagemusha]

24. You're being fair.. people just don't want to hear some aspects of it

The thing is, we're not Martians impassively looking upon the situation. We're (by and large) Westerners, usually Americans, who see "our" involvement in Iraq and what has been spawned by that involvement. It's sad that we can even have a fair argument about if Iraq was better off under Saddam! And yet, surely we can.

Bush is only part of the equation but, I think it's fair to say, he's the only part of the equation people here think they can do something about, hence the powerful emotions involved.

[ljm2002]

25. "I never defended Bush. Not once in this entire thread."

But you were first to accuse another of defending Saddam, who also "never defended Saddam, not once in the entire thread."

You're the one who tried to make the argument about Saddam, when it is not. That was never a stated reason for invading Iraq, not until after the fact. You probably believe that the staged takedown of Saddam's statue was cheered by a huge Iraqi crowd too.

In any case your arguments are specious. The war was based on lies. The death and destruction that have been a direct result of this criminal undertaking are on us -- specifically on Bush and his cronies, aided and abetted by an enabling Congress, some of whom supported anything Bush wanted to do, and others of whom were simply doormats and enablers attempting to protect their political hides while scuttling any semblance of principles.

No one here is unaware of the fact that Iraq is a divided country and has been since the British partitioned the Middle East 'way back when. So what? Even if you could justify our invasion under false pretenses of a country that was no threat to us and that had nothing to do with 9/11 (and you cannot) -- even if you could do that, it would not alter the fact that we had no plan for securing the country after the invasion, we attempted to occupy it with insufficient numbers of boots on the ground, we failed to guard the armories, etc., etc. ad infinitum -- Bush and cronies botched the job big time, and we and the Middle East are paying now and will pay for many years to come.

[SwingVoter2006]

29. Question for those who cry, "FREEPER!"

1) Isn't it against the rules to call other people here "FREEPER!"?? I think someone told me that this morning.

2) What is "FREEPISH" about thinking Iraqis deserve better than Saddam and baathist tyranny, even if delivered inexpertly by the bumbler Bush? A chance at freedom and democracy is still a chance/ With Saddam and baathists in control, there was no chance. No chance whatsoever.

[Kerrytravelers]

30. You actually still support this invasion. That is quite telling.

We're not talking about supporting the troops or supporting a sensible exit strategy, but actually supporting the invasion and occupation, which you said directly, in the links above.

After all that's been proven, disproved, spun and exposed, that someone could still actually delude themselves that this invasions is anything but a power grab in the Middle East for a multitude of reasons is really just beyond me.

In addition, you have been very argumentative to many DUers today http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2657190 and have made some seemingly homophobic statements in another http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2665838 , I'm not sure if you're here to convince us or if you would like us to explain to you our feelings and beliefs. Personally, I'd rather you just be honest about your intentions.