Uncle oSAMa wants you.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ming
So he is willing to sacrafice his own people just for the sake of making a political statement... Now there is a good leader for you...

Is there any other kind?

[chequita guevara]

He couldn't do anything about clean water, even if he spent all his resources on that alone. It requires chlorine, which he's not allowed to have, cause it can be turned into poison gas.

You'd think that perhaps the UN/US could build water chlorination plants that are overseen by the UN so that they can verify that none of the materials needed are diverted.

Yeah, we are the bad guys on this one. Madeline Albright said so. She said a half million dead Iraqi children was a good price.

[Ming]

Hmmm... you would think that he would have complied fully with the sanctions that HE agreed to when he saved his own butt when he surrendered... and then the sanctions would have been lifted. But no... he went back on his word... but it's our fault...

Last time I checked, he started the war... he brought this all on his own people because of HIS greed. And again... he is too busy spending the resources he has for his own goals, not the goals of his people. So place the blame where it belongs...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Uncle oSAMa wants you.

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by DinoDoc

PS We didn't turn Iraq into a stone age country or kill a million of its citizens either.

There's a million dead Iraqis and we bombed pretty much all of their modern infrastructre.

They were able to get light bridges across the rivers within weeks. Heavier transport links are more limited, but that's solveable by logistics.

A million deaths (some 5% of the population) in a decade is sorta normal - virtually everyone who died in Iraq for any reason since the Gulf war is thrown into that figure, which is BS, just like the 100,000 KIA during the war. Most of the Iraqi pukes were smart enough to desert or stay dismounted from their IFVs. Only tank crews can be pretty conclusively fully manned. A lot of the estimates of 100,000 KIA in the war were based on the assumption that burned out IFV's were fully manned. (would YOU look to verify? ) Later review of Iraqi documents showed most of the Iraqi divisions were substantially understrength, so the bodies weren't there to get killed.

The points the the whiners about poor picked on Iraq happily ignore are first: sanctions allow the Iraqis to trade oil for food, medicine and basic humanitarian supplies. Second, despite sanctions (which I've long opposed because of their token symbolism and lack of effectiveness), Saddam has managed to substantially rebuild his military, keep it's equipment running, keep it armed and fueled, all while building presidential palaces, monuments to himself, and staging this week's referendum.

The biggest point people ignore is the degree of state involvement and control over the Iraqi economy - Saddam wants to claim that a demolished facility for BW research was really a plant for diptheria vaccines, his government will assure a shortage of domestically produced vaccines.

The simple fact is that Saddam is a national "leader" opposed to the US, so all sorts of lefties want to make him out to be a hero, (without admitting it), so they whitewash his actions in contributing to the present situation in Iraq.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
He couldn't do anything about clean water, even if he spent all his resources on that alone. It requires chlorine, which he's not allowed to have, cause it can be turned into poison gas.

You'd think that perhaps the UN/US could build water chlorination plants that are overseen by the UN so that they can verify that none of the materials needed are diverted.

Yeah, we are the bad guys on this one. Madeline Albright said so. She said a half million dead Iraqi children was a good price.

No, she didn't say that. She responded dismissively to a loaded question.

You do NOT need chlorine to produce domestic potable water of a quality considered acceptable in the US - even sterile water for hospital use. You sure as hell don't need it for typical semi-developed water quality.

When chlorine is used in the most of the western US, (I haven't done water agency work outside that area) it's typically drip fed at individual wells at the wellhead (we're talking typical water production utility), and the wellhead output goes direct to a distribution system without further treatment. If you're extracting from a river, or large enough lake or reservoir, you have treatment issues, but filtration, light UV illumination and permanganate work quite well - and there are other ways of treating water as well.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Uncle oSAMa wants you.

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Nor did Iraq sneak attack Kuwait. It had warned Kuwait several times in 1990 that it would invade if they didn't stop the slant drilling and over production of oil whih was killing Iraq's economy.

Two separate issues here - slant drilling and overproduction. The real economic issues were Iraq's fault - they started the war with Iran, and fought a static war in close proximity to the main oil field basin shared by Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. They effectively killed their own oil production. The Kuwaitis did relatively little slant drilling (had the Iraqis not started a war with Iran, they could have reciprocated and then worked out a deal on well proximity and density), but they did put a lot of new production wells into a disputed border area.
Saddam didn't need to invade all of Kuwait - even with a military option, all that would have been needed to be done was to go into the border area, secure it, have oil workers cap the wells, then take the well pumps back into Iraq and leave. Nice message sent to the Kuwaitis, nothing the rest of the world would have got too involved in, but hey, why do that when you can invade and make up some crap about the 19th province of Iraq. (Wonder if Saddam ever played golf and hung out at the 19th hole? ).

The other issue was overproduction, and that's not something that Kuwait did to Iraq, but an on-again off-again issue within OPEC on quotas. Since Saddam had cut his own throat on oil production, he wanted to see a sharp enough rise in price to make up the revenue shortfall, since the 40 billion he got from the US (~6 billion) and the other arabs (over 30 billion) weren't enough to prop him up through the war with Iran.

Any way you try to spin it, reality comes back to Saddam's mismanagement and megalomania.

The Saudi's took him seriously and tried to pressure the Kuwaitis to back down,

Nobody took Saddam seriously - the whole dispute had been submitted to the Arab league, but the Saudis traditionally are businessmen with money to burn, so they're smart enough to figure if you buy someone off to go away, in the long run, you make more money.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Afganistan was stable under the Taliban,

Liar. there was continuous civil war during the Taliban regime. Remember the Nothern alliance, and other organized resistance?

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola

Liar. there was continuous civil war during the Taliban regime. Remember the Nothern alliance, and other organized resistance?

Hmm...IIRC, the Taliban was firmly in control of what it was holding. Almost everywhere in Taliban-controlled territory was "safe" (well, not really....but you know what i mean). Now, IIRC, Kabul is the only 'safe' place and the rest of Afghanistan is a war zone. Completly and totally a war zone.

[Lefty Scaevola]

By that logic, everything off the front line , on either side, in a civil war is "safe" and "orderly".

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000


Hmm...IIRC, the Taliban was firmly in control of what it was holding. Almost everywhere in Taliban-controlled territory was "safe" (well, not really....but you know what i mean). Now, IIRC, Kabul is the only 'safe' place and the rest of Afghanistan is a war zone. Completly and totally a war zone.

Exactly what is your definition of safe? That or you dont Remember correctly

[chequita guevara]

The Taliban held 90% of the country. In the areas they held, crime dropped considerably. I'm not saying it's a regime I'd want to live under, but after decades of constant fighting and terrorism the people of Afganistan welcomed the Taliban.

Even now, some folks are longing for the days of stability under the Taliban, which is really sad.

[Drake Tungsten]

I hate you so much right now, Che. Seeing those stupid ads in the New York Times every day is bad enough and now I have to see them on Apolyton? Can't I get away from this ridiculous propaganda?!?

[Immortal Wombat]

oh-kay... so the line about stability is tenuous at best, now anyone wanna stop straw-manning the argument, and take the rest of it down?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Sounds like ol Saddam could use some "Destabilizing", whatever that means.

I believe the prefered term in the US Intel community is "Regime Changering".

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC Iraq invaded Kuwait because they didn't feel they should have to pay off loans that Kuwait made to help finance the Iraqi war effort in the Iraq - Iran war.