Iraq War Reflections

[Heimdallr]

As I've said, the only alternative to the Iraq war would have been a way to make Saddam be a peaceful, normal member of the international community and get him to follow the resolutions he signed on to.

How would that have happened peacefully?

 

[ICametoLurk]

As I've said, the only alternative to the Iraq war would have been a way to make Saddam be a peaceful, normal member of the international community and get him to follow the resolutions he signed on to.

How would that have happened peacefully?

By putting poison in his coffee.

 

[Heimdallr]

^ So much this. I do think Saddam would have eventually been a threat. But the answer to that is to have him killed.

Failing that we should have invaded and installed a dictator who would have been loyal to us. Our troops should have died to protect us from danger, not to export democracy

For your viewing pleasure:

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/why-iraq-was-inevitable/

 

[AN/ALR56]

You people ignore the years of desperate peace proposals Saddam tried before the 2003 invasion and the fact the us government produced literally fake evidence to justify a bloody occupation.

 

[ADHD]

But Saddam tried to kill the president's daddy. The fucker had it coming.

https://archive.is/Nz5DO

And, in discussing the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Bush said: "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."

The new language in discussing his fight with the Democrat-controlled Senate over homeland security was a reaction from Bush to sharp complaints from Democrats that he was being overly political in his speeches on issues related to the war on terrorism.

 

[Tranhuviya]

You people ignore the years of desperate peace proposals Saddam tried before the 2003 invasion and the fact the us government produced literally fake evidence to justify a bloody occupation.

But he had chemical weapons tho.

 

[buffaloWildWings]

You people ignore the years of desperate peace proposals Saddam tried before the 2003 invasion and the fact the us government produced literally fake evidence to justify a bloody occupation.

Meh, it was still funny.
Almost as funny as Hitler invading Poland, but not quite.

 

[AnOminous]

But he had chemical weapons tho.

He didn't even have most of the ones we sold him.

 

[Heimdallr]

One wonders if Iraq would have been worth visiting under Saddam. Sure the guy was an ass, but at least he kept thing stable.

One wonders if say in 1996, it would have been worth while taking a tour in Baghdad?

 

[millais]

One wonders if Iraq would have been worth visiting under Saddam. Sure the guy was an ass, but at least he kept thing stable.

One wonders if say in 1996, it would have been worth while taking a tour in Baghdad?

Many of the ancient Sumerian and other Mesopotamian archaeological artifacts housed in Iraqi museums were irrevocably lost or destroyed in the post-invasion looting, so maybe for those items, it would have been worth seeing them if you have an interest in that part of ancient history.

 

[Foltest]

One of the biggest failure of the war, was disbanding the Iraqi army after the invasion was over. Now you have thousands of angry men with combat skills in the country that you can't control.
Another failure was that they understand that the invasion was the easy part.

 

[AnOminous]

One of the biggest failure of the war, was disbanding the Iraqi army after the invasion was over. Now you have thousands of angry men with combat skills in the country that you can't control.
Another failure was that they understand that the invasion was the easy part.

It still baffles me what these fucking morons thought would happen when you left a country in that region of the world with no functioning army. Did they think the Lollipop Guild would take over?

 

[CWCchange]

How could he? Austria Hungary was a Monarchy not a democracy. Hitler could not have risen to power because there were no elections. Even if there were elections, the population would never vote for him. How could a Germanic supremacist win over a population of Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs and Jews among many others?

Germany proper was the only place where Hitler could have arisen and he hated the "mongrel" Austro-Hungarian Empire anyhow

Umm, Austria-Hungary fell apart in the 1918 armistice, years before Hitler rose to power. He could have assumed control the same way he did in the Wiemar Republic, with appeasement.

 

[Gym Leader Elesa]

Umm, Austria-Hungary fell apart in the 1918 armistice, years before Hitler rose to power. He could have assumed control like he did in the Weimar Republic, with appeasement.

I think what he is trying to say is the common belief, such as that espoused by Winston Churchill, that removing the monarchies of Central Europe created a power vacuum that ultimately led to the rise of fascism when they met weak, freshly formed republics that were in chaos instead of the traditional, more stable, governments of the pre-war years. It was a fear that caused many in the Entente to try to prevent anything more radical than a constitutional monarchy at any cost. Churchill and company were right of course, there would have never been a Second World War if the Kaiser had kept his throne under a compromise system like Britain's, but Woodrow Wilson in particular needed it to legitimize his "Crusade for Democracy" as he called it. Even during the Second World War, the biggest internal threat to the German government was always the perceived legitimacy of the monarchists, and Hitler did everything in his power to appear like the natural successor of the monarchy. "Long Live Sacred Germany!" and all that. It sounds strange to modern ears, since a lot of people think of ideological monarchism as a "thing of the past" but at the time it was a pretty huge fucking deal.

That history lesson aside, I don't think the situation is comparable. Iraq had no such traditional, cooperative, government to carry out the terms of any treaty no matter how favorable or harsh, and it was the people themselves in the Middle East who were radicalized, not just a war-hawkish government. It's easy to say in hindsight I know, but the Iraq War as a fool's errand.

 

[CWCchange]

A peaceful transition to democratic systems, with figurehead monarchs or not, was impossible because all the economies were in the shitter, as well as the impending threat of communism. Iraq was screwed up because it appealed to the United States against Iran, and Soviet Union for Third-Worldism, but when the latter invaded Afghanistan, shit really hit the fan.

 

[Heimdallr]

I got to wonder though, what would President Al Gore have done about Saddam?

Just keep his country under sanctions/military fly zonee occupation until Hussein croaked?