Thread for the old timers: Does Iraq remind you of Vietnam yet?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Telling the Iraqi people to "rise up against the terranical regime which has oppressed your country" does imply the U.S. would help them if they heeded the call.

Sure. If they establish something resembling control of the country and demonstrate they have a shred of popular legitimacy, we could give them diplomatic recognition, bilateral economic, humanitarian and military aid, help them through multilateral aid agencies and processes, and all sorts of goodies. It doesn't imply that we'll violate host nation agreements and go to war on their behalf.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Blaming the victim my ass. We're talking about armed rebels, who made a choice, not about the common civilians who weren't involved in any political process.

Armed rebels who were INSTIGATED by Bush personally to topple the government. Armed rebels who had been oppressed for years.

Besides, what more ****ing help did they want? We destroyed 60% of Saddam's AFV's, his three most loyal and most senior IRG divisions, most of his command and control infrastructure all over the country, almost all of his air force when you consider he didn't have access to those planes that boogied to Iran, and he was in the middle of shooting his senior officers who he blamed for failure.

So? He still had way more than enough firepower to blast a bunch of poorly armed rebels. At the very least we could have shut the skies down. By the time we did it was too late.

We had gotten military cooperation from the vast majority of the arab world, which was unprecedented, so the last thing we were going to do was lie to them and invade and overthrow an arab government when the only reason the arabs attacked a "brother arab" was because he'd done it first. We had potentially the best relations we'd ever had in the arab world, and the last thing we were going to do is knock over an arab government and have our "boys" take over.

Cool. So we can just turn our backs and lie to the rebels instead. Oh wait, Bush didn't directly come out and promise help, so plausable deniability makes lying to them alot easier.

We had a strict doctrinal avoidance of urban warfare, since this was still the era of Air-Land 2000, and our assessment was that an organized, competent revolt would topple the regime.

A poor assessment. But then, it was the rebels fault that they misreported their troop strength, right? Last I heard, most rebel groups have a fully staffed office of logistics, complete with satellite imagery.

Why the **** are we obligated to do the rebels jobs for them? We've suggested lots of things to lots of folks, but then I guess we should have invaded Cuba and Nicaragua, we should have gone back into Viet Nam in '75, invaded Afghanistan and fought the Soviets and started WW III, and we should invade on behalf of any rebels who think we should help them, because if we say so much as "have a nice day" we've obligated ourselves to bleed and die on their behalf. Bull****.

Way to take a bunch of individual situations and blanket them.

As for Cuba, yes, it SHOULD have been invaded, after Kennedy sold out the rebels. Speaking of which, Bay of Pigs and letting down the Kurds (and the southern revolt in Basra) are very similar situations.

Funny that we eventually ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq again, by the way.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Armed rebels who were INSTIGATED by Bush personally to topple the government. Armed rebels who had been oppressed for years.

Yes, President George H. W. Bush met with Iraqi dissident Abdullah al-Conscript today at the White House and promised full military support to topple the Hussein regime, if Abdullah can come up with three more guys and a Colt .45

So? He still had way more than enough firepower to blast a bunch of poorly armed rebels. At the very least we could have shut the skies down. By the time we did it was too late.

Sure, and we could have just taken over responsibility for running the whole country when the rebels demonstrated they didn't have enough support to maintain control. Hey, that's a way to bump Arkansas' and West Virginia's relative standings up - Iraq, the 51st state of the Union.

Cool. So we can just turn our backs and lie to the rebels instead. Oh wait, Bush didn't directly come out and promise help, so plausable deniability makes lying to them alot easier.

That is, assuming we lied to them in the first place.

A poor assessment. But then, it was the rebels fault that they misreported their troop strength, right? Last I heard, most rebel groups have a fully staffed office of logistics, complete with satellite imagery.

Rebelling against an established government is a risky business. If you're such a ****ing amateur that you do so with no idea of what level of support you can count on, then life will get to be a little rough. How many failed coup attempts have there been globally in the last 200 years? Then again, I suppose we should have invaded Venezuela after telling those poor people that we wouldn't mind terribly if Chavez went away.

Way to take a bunch of individual situations and blanket them.

Well, come up with a consistent doctrine. Or maybe we should just have a blanket refusal to even acknowledge the existence of dissident groups anywhere, so they don't confuse our willingness to talk with them, or our encouraging them to act at their own discretion with an advance treaty-level commitment of direct military support and use of our military as their proxies.

As for Cuba, yes, it SHOULD have been invaded, after Kennedy sold out the rebels.

Si, seeenyor, eet ees the great white man's burden to teeech the leeetle brown man how to ron hees own conntree, eeesn't eeet? Yes, that would be great for our relations in this hemisphere. Oh, the Cubans get rid of a corrupt brutal Yanquis proxy, but the guy who does it is a commie, so let's reinstall the Batististas and line a few disloyal peasants against the wall.

Speaking of which, Bay of Pigs and letting down the Kurds (and the southern revolt in Basra) are very similar situations.

Bull****. We trained the participants in the Bay of Pigs, we provided them weapons, we made clear, explicit commitments of military support, we inserted Special Forces teams into Los Pinos and Camaguey to provide direct support for their operation. The two situations are incomparable.

Funny that we eventually ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq again, by the way.

Funny that the proxies we supported in Afghanistan are either (a) fighting us now (Hekmatyar), or (b) so inept, thuggish and unpopular that the Taleban were able to remove them from 95% of the country. (Dostum et al)

And we ended up in Iraq again because a bunch of chickenhawk ideologues decided it would be a nice test case for their Clancyesque flash and dash vision of the big bad US swinging it's **** at everyone in the world that pisses us off. 75 billion for the next month - yeah, we need to do this more often.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The US never said, implied, or suggested that we would aid militarily in overthrowing the Iraqi regime. (The military/foreign policy crew at the time was intelligent enough to figure we'd have to consider arab world opinion).

What we did was let them know that if other elements within Iraq did overthrow Saddam, we wouldn't be displeased, and we'd be prepared to work favorably with a new government in Iraq. (As we would likely have been mightily displeased if someone overthrew the Saudis, because at least we knew the *******s we were dealing with)

At the time, there were strong indications of potential rebellions within the officer corps, due to the execution of numerous senior officers, as well as within the Republican Guard, or what was left of it, and our erroneous assessment was that Saddam and the Baath party were losing their grip on the country.

We were very clear with everyone that we had no desire to get involved in regime change, as we didn't want occupying powers responsibility over the whole damn country.

Strange.
In the media Saddam Hussein was after the attack on Quwait generally portrayed as the new 'Hitler', the greatest threat to world peace after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

In his speeches Bush sr. often used this World War II imagery.
I quite vividly remember several of his speeches in which he referred to the Nuremberg Trials after the War with Hitler. I also remember his expression a 'New World Order'.

When WW II ended with the Nuremberg Trials, a logical conclusion would be that the war against this 'new Hitler' might end with....

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yeah, Bush worked the Hitler propaganda and a lot of stuff, but IIRC the "New World Order" nonsense started earlier, more in reference to the end of the cold war.

Bush's rhetoric towards Hussein was primarily in the early phase of getting zillions of UNSC resolutions, and getting countries to sign on with financial and military contributions to enforce the UNSCRs. We heard a pretty steady drone of how bad Hussein is, blah blah blah, but the notion of regime change by the US was dismissed immediately, as a way of getting arab support for the war.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

No, he means MechWarrior: Dark Age.

Sounds like it plays in the first half of the third Millenium.
Mostly Tanks and Infantry and the Mechs they have are mostly converted Agromechs or Industrial Mechs.

[Proteus_MST]

After reading further into the site I see, that it is de facto 3080 AD, after the war with the Clans.

Interesting Scenario

Of course It seems to be somehow unusual not to have the Houses like Steiner, Kurita or Davion or the Clans in this Game

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Of course It seems to be somehow unusual not to have the Houses like Steiner, Kurita or Davion or the Clans in this Game

They are coming in the expansion.

[The Mad Monk]

Well, Kurita is there, kinda.

As are two of the clans...sorta.

[chequita guevara]

The only aspects of Vietnam I see so far are in the way the government is acting. Victory over Hussein is self-evident. Only the time frame and the cost are variable.

[DinoDoc]

TMM: What do you think of the plans to add Crimson Skies to the 'clix empire? I'm very interested in what I've seen so far.

[DanS]

MtG: I do think that instigating a revolt implies some real material support. It's certainly not benign indifference.

[chequita guevara]

I'd have to agree with the capitalist. If you tell people to revolt, you assume a responsiblity to aid them if they do so. We screwed them over, but perhaps that was intended. I doubt the US would have been too happy with a successful revolution toppling Hussein. A break-away Kurdistan and radical Iraq would have made the ME pretty unhappy.

[Myrddin]

Big difference between Vietnam and Iraq

Then it was a war to STOP a domino falling;

Now it is a war to start them falling

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Yeah, Bush worked the Hitler propaganda and a lot of stuff, but IIRC the "New World Order" nonsense started earlier, more in reference to the end of the cold war.

Bush's rhetoric towards Hussein was primarily in the early phase of getting zillions of UNSC resolutions, and getting countries to sign on with financial and military contributions to enforce the UNSCRs. We heard a pretty steady drone of how bad Hussein is, blah blah blah, but the notion of regime change by the US was dismissed immediately, as a way of getting arab support for the war.

You might be correct on this issue, but can you provide ANY evidence (speeches by Bush, official government statements etc.) that supports your view.

To me the sudden cease-fire was a complete surprise, and normally I am not that naïve. At the time my father was dying, so it is possible I have missed something.
To this present day I am livid about it.

And by the way, even if the official stance was against 'regime change', it doesn't prove that the USA government didn't arrange all sorts of secret deals with Kurds and Shiites.
After all both the Reagan administration and Cheney made deals with the Axis of Evil in Teheran! Another example of similar involvement is the support of the US to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in this same period. They provided loads of weapons.