Bush declared the end of hostilities a long time ago and now we have handed over "control" of the country to Iraqis. So what exactly are we doing there? We haven't been fighting a war for about a year now, so the only conclusion is that we are acting as peace keepers. but that's the UN's job. Obviously there are many many ulterior motives to being in Iraq than just liberation and peace keeping, that was evident long before. If we we're there just for peace keeping purposes and no other, we should have let the UN come in under terms negotiated (you know, during the past year when we supposedly weren't fighting a war) and subsequently a large portion of our troops would be home. So, what the fuck?
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What are we doing in Iraq?
- Thread starter AntoneM
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LuckyBrand
Banned
UN doesnt want to be there...
America tried to get UN to go in with peacekeepers, they said no.
You cant just leave a country and expect a flourishing democracy to just start out of nowhere and stabilization to just magically appear.
I feel like I am wasting my time after re-reading your post.. it is just so.. un-informed.
America tried to get UN to go in with peacekeepers, they said no.
You cant just leave a country and expect a flourishing democracy to just start out of nowhere and stabilization to just magically appear.
I feel like I am wasting my time after re-reading your post.. it is just so.. un-informed.
Escape Goat
Member
Preventing civil war?
Scalemail Ted
Member
OMG..you mean we still have troops in Afghanistan as well...But why??? That was so like 2002????
This thread is obviously the result of the short attention span we've created with MTV. Its all MTV's fault...and thirty second commercials...and...
This thread is obviously the result of the short attention span we've created with MTV. Its all MTV's fault...and thirty second commercials...and...
LuckyBrand
Banned
I kinda just figured we'd helicoptor troops in, shoot some people and then get them out in like a week..
what the hell is going on?!?!?!
what the hell is going on?!?!?!
The UN is not a joke... however, UN members are not prepared to send their troups and money to clean up a mess that they didnt make and that they actively protested.
As someone who was against this war even when I thought Iraq had WMD's, we have no choice but to stay now. As much as it sucks seeing our troups die, Iraqi civilians killed and foreign civilians captured, there is no other option at this point. If we leave, there is no doubt that a theocratic despot would take power and we WOULD have a breeding ground for anti-americanism and terrorists. The last thing we need is to allow another Taliban to come into existence, which is exactly what would happen.
As someone who was against this war even when I thought Iraq had WMD's, we have no choice but to stay now. As much as it sucks seeing our troups die, Iraqi civilians killed and foreign civilians captured, there is no other option at this point. If we leave, there is no doubt that a theocratic despot would take power and we WOULD have a breeding ground for anti-americanism and terrorists. The last thing we need is to allow another Taliban to come into existence, which is exactly what would happen.
The same thing we're doing in Afghanistan still. Providing security so that the government isn't toppled overnight by a bunch of extremist whackos. Do you think Afghanistan or Iraq have the security in place to keep their governments safe? Bush was in Turkey this weekend asking for NATO's support in Iraq. Karzai came to NATO begging for them to send troops to Afghanistan to help the elections go smoothly. Most of the European countries agreed to at least help train the Iraqi soldiers, but of course France/Chirac protested and even said they did not want NATO to help Afghanistan.max_cool said:
Okay, maybe joke was a bit harsh, but the UN doesn't use force when needed. And when they do, it's usually a huge amount of American forces, with small groups from the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, a few others, and a finger from France, China and others.
Over 10 years of testing for weapons in Iraq, they do nothing. It was time to take action.
Even if there isn't weapons, the lack of cooperation from Saddam's rule was enough reason. I'm not saying that I fully back Bush's reason for going to war, but it's better for everyone in the long run.
"Okay, so by keeping the troops there Iraqis will eventually "wise up" and accept democracy and everything will be sunshine and flowers? Uhh...what?"
It'll take another generation of people, with a new education. Much like Japan.
Over 10 years of testing for weapons in Iraq, they do nothing. It was time to take action.
Even if there isn't weapons, the lack of cooperation from Saddam's rule was enough reason. I'm not saying that I fully back Bush's reason for going to war, but it's better for everyone in the long run.
"Okay, so by keeping the troops there Iraqis will eventually "wise up" and accept democracy and everything will be sunshine and flowers? Uhh...what?"
It'll take another generation of people, with a new education. Much like Japan.
Phoenix
Member
teh_pwn said:
A huge reason for that is that the US has the largest easily deployable force in the world at the moment. Most times the US sends the UN a bill for its services when using its forces in these extended peace keeping roles, but that won't be the case in Iraq because its not (yet) a UN operation.
Alucard said:
That is going to be the outcome regardless. One of the problems with blowing the shit out of a country and obliterating its ability to make war and retaliate is that it takes a really really long time to recover from that. I keep remarking about how some people are always talkig about how Iraq should be able to handle its own intelligence and find terrorists and what not but ALL of the facilities used for that purpose are still in very deep bomb craters from the 'shock and awe' campaign.
"Then what you're really talking about here is an American occupation that could last decades."
Is that necessarily a bad thing? Iraq would become a prosperous nation with at least basic freedoms. The middle east could really use that.
It won't be a full blown occupation for decades. More like a few years and then occupation will get lighter as time goes on. I think we occupied/helped rebuild Japan for 8 years.
Is that necessarily a bad thing? Iraq would become a prosperous nation with at least basic freedoms. The middle east could really use that.
It won't be a full blown occupation for decades. More like a few years and then occupation will get lighter as time goes on. I think we occupied/helped rebuild Japan for 8 years.
LuckyBrand said:
You can't just invade a country and expect a flouriching democracy to just start out of nowhere and stabilization to just magically appear.
I feel like I am wasting my time after re-reading your post.. it is just so.. un-informed.
^^ that was easier than I thought just had to change one word.
Afghanistan, is not the same situation. The US did not occupy and run Afghanistan for an extended period of time. We are still there more or less to flex muscles and show that the current government has our support, there were approximately 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan after one year there are over 100,000 US troops in Iraq after one year.
max_cool said:
Thats because Iraq is a completely different country. It has deeper divisions that could easily lead to civil war, Afghanistan doesn't require the same amount of security. Especially when Afghanistan doesn't have atleast one bomb going off a day, killing innocent civilians
Firest0rm said:
Congrats, you are a complete moron. Afghanistan is just as divided as Iraq ever was, and has just as many, if not more, individuals activily trying to off the US backed ruling party. As far as division goes, Afghanistan is made up of just as many different ethnic groups at each others throats as most middle eastern countries, and we have empirialism to thank for that.. the only reason that we dont have more troups being killed in Afghanistan is because we have roughly 1/10th of the troups in that country as we do Iraq... not to mention Iraq is a significantly more developed nation with larger city centers which leads to more congestion of people.. which will also lead to higher death totals per attack.
StoOgE said:
First most middle eastern countries don't have that many different ethnic groups. Majority of them are 95% Sunni with a few exceptions like Lebanon. So don't make generalizations. Second in your post you just brought up a reason to why there are more soldiers in Iraq. There's a higher congestion of people which is true, and 10,000 soldier's wouldn't be able to do a thing. Their having a tough time with over 100,000 soldiers as it is. And last, please don't turn to name calling, it doesn't add any kind of weight to your post.
My question stands. Did we invade Iraq to conduct peacekeeping missions? Were there other reasons? If there were other reasons, what have we done for those other reasons. As far as I can tell, the reality is that we invaded Iraq in order to conduct peacekeeping missions because that is exactly what we are doing.
Fine, most middle eastern countries that are large area wise have fairly large sections that are ethnically divided, smaller nations like UAB or Jordan dont have the area to get the larger divsions. However, the European powers that be arbitrarily making countries out of land they aquired has lead to a great many of our current problems in the world. If they could have just gone along with natural alliances when making their new countries, the world would be a much better place... but arrogance or indifference prevailed again. Also, grouping all Suni together is misleading as well, since there are large striking divisions within those groups.
As far as troup distribution goes, I never spoke as to which country I thought should have more troups in it.. I think Iraq is MUCH closer to having the amount of troups needed in that region than is Afganistan, but both are woefully inadequate. I blame the war in Iraq on that.. we spread ourselves far to thin, but spilt milk at this point.
However, I think you are making one mistake.. you claim the larger congestion of people means Iraq needs more troups.. I would agree that for peace keeping purposes that would be accurate.. but most of what we are doing in Afganistan is not peace keeping but a large scale man hunt.. we have that duality between hunting down our enemies and peace keeping in both countries, but Iraq seems to be more a peace keeping mission and Afganistan more of a manhunt.. given the size, topography and population distribution in Afganistan I would say you would need a very large amount of troups to have any real chance of success at all.
At this point though it seems to be too late to get international support of any significance to help share the burden in Iraq.. I think perhaps Afganistan is not a lost cause and maybe we should get more UN support of troups there so we can syphon more of our troups over to Iraq.
As far as troup distribution goes, I never spoke as to which country I thought should have more troups in it.. I think Iraq is MUCH closer to having the amount of troups needed in that region than is Afganistan, but both are woefully inadequate. I blame the war in Iraq on that.. we spread ourselves far to thin, but spilt milk at this point.
However, I think you are making one mistake.. you claim the larger congestion of people means Iraq needs more troups.. I would agree that for peace keeping purposes that would be accurate.. but most of what we are doing in Afganistan is not peace keeping but a large scale man hunt.. we have that duality between hunting down our enemies and peace keeping in both countries, but Iraq seems to be more a peace keeping mission and Afganistan more of a manhunt.. given the size, topography and population distribution in Afganistan I would say you would need a very large amount of troups to have any real chance of success at all.
At this point though it seems to be too late to get international support of any significance to help share the burden in Iraq.. I think perhaps Afganistan is not a lost cause and maybe we should get more UN support of troups there so we can syphon more of our troups over to Iraq.
The sunni division is a minor division, its not something that would lead to a civil war. Sunna and Shia have a major reason for going into a civil war that dates back to over a thousand years. I'd like to continue in this discussion but I have to go sleep its 1:16 am here. I'm gonna try to record the trial today, only problem is I don't know when 
.
.max_cool said:
I have allways thought that this war was never about WMD's, oil or even some sort of strange family grudge between Bush and Saddam.. or even to distract the US people from the Saudi's (as moore suggests). I think the WMD bullshit, the bullshit about Saddam gassing his own people (yeah, it happened, but we didnt seem to mind too much at the time), and the Iraq-Alquida link bullshit were all simply means used to sell the war to the people.
At this point it seems clear that the long term plan with Iraq was to set up a democratic state in the middle east. If you listen to what most of the administration is saying lately it is in regards to other nations embrassing those ideals as well (and have even leveled thinly veiled attacks at the Saudi royals). The general thought seems to be that if you set up a stable working democracy that has a better working relationship with the west that other nations would follow suit. This could lead to more secular governments (like our own) that would be easier to deal with and lead to a more lasting peace than you can get when you have various theocracies fighting religious wars with one another. It seems at least to be a noble ambition, but I disagree with the means whole heartedly.
20 or 30 years from now, Bush and co may wind up looking like visionaries when this whole thing blows over.
Nintendo Ate My Children
Member
We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein violated the 1991 treaty that Iraq agreed to after Gulf War I (and subsequent UN resolutions) by kicking UN weapons inspectors out of the country in 1998. After the U.S. and Britain began massing troops on his border, he allowed weapons inspectors in, but continued to deny access to certain sites. Saddam said that allowing inspectors to go wherever they wanted violated Iraq's sovereignty; the U.S. and Britain said that the original treaty and UN resolutions aren't up for negotiation.
Barring any political rhetoric or conspiracy theories, I think that's pretty well it in a nutshell. Barring any political rhetoric or conspiracy theories, of course.
That's why we invaded Iraq, we are still in Iraq because one does not overthrow a 30 year old dictatorship in a massive country of over 25 million people and then skip town.
Mostly what we're doing in Iraq is enjoying the hummus, learning a little about Islam, and trying to get the hotter chicks to lose more than just their burqas.
Oh yeah, and getting blown up, kidnapped, and altogether at risk as much, if not more, than we were before entering the country and taking over.
Oh yeah, and getting blown up, kidnapped, and altogether at risk as much, if not more, than we were before entering the country and taking over.
Hey, the defense department needed a good reason to ask for half a trillion dollars.
Halliburton needed some reasons to milk taxpayers like you and me for billions of dollars.
We're there to keep Iraqi oil flowing, such that they can afford to buy stuff from US companies with ties to the Bush family.
We're also there such that the people who remain in power _understand_ that they have to buy stuff from Bush's friends, and not from some (God forbid) French or German companies.
Halliburton needed some reasons to milk taxpayers like you and me for billions of dollars.
We're there to keep Iraqi oil flowing, such that they can afford to buy stuff from US companies with ties to the Bush family.
We're also there such that the people who remain in power _understand_ that they have to buy stuff from Bush's friends, and not from some (God forbid) French or German companies.
ManDudeChild
Member
A question I've always asked since this all began is: what makes the U.S. think everyone wants democracy. To that end, that democracy will magically solve all the problems. In my opinion, it's somewhat of a bold and dangerous assumption to make.
ManDudeChild
Member
Tekky said:
Evidently not the general population of the U.S.
Actually, it's not just that UN members are unwilling to send troops and money to clean America's mess, it's that even if the UN gets involved, the US is not willing to give up control, one of the preconditions for UN involvement.
The US is in no position to bargain in this case, yet it expects the UN to simply come in and rescue it from a cuagmire. That's why nothing happens. You need someone new in the White House.
The US is in no position to bargain in this case, yet it expects the UN to simply come in and rescue it from a cuagmire. That's why nothing happens. You need someone new in the White House.
Nintendo Ate My Children said:
But why wait until 2003 if that is the case? Saddam has been pulling this crap ever since the end of the gulf war. If Bush was so staunch a supporter for making Iraq live up to their treaty why didnt we invade in early 2000? Why wasnt it a campaign promise that we would take care of Saddam? Why did the administration downplay Saddams threat in 2000 and early 2001? Why did they go on record to say that Saddam was contained and no longer a threat? Its not as though we woke up one day in early 2003 and realized that Saddam was an asshole who wasnt cooperating fully.
You can call it a conspiracy theory all you want, but the president KNEW that Saddam wasnt trying to get nuclear weapons. His fathers own former ambasoder to Iraq (who happened to be sent to Niger to investigate the possibility of that country smuggling uranium out of the country) told him it was impossible. When he went to the media after the state of the union adress to call bullshit on the claim, his wifes name (she is a CIA operative) was leaked to the press.
Ironically for a guy telling us that his explenation is correct barring any political rhetoric seems to be towing the party line pretty well.
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
Doonesbury
Nintendo Ate My Children
Member
I wasn't dismissing political rhetoric that opposes the Iraq war, I was just trying to present an answer that was as simple and dispassionate as possible. Let's just say that my answer will be a lot more like the one in history books than your response.
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