What have we learned from Iraq?

[Lancer]

Yeah well, we have to do something in our spare time.

Che, don't you have anything real to get stressed out about than Poly BS? None of what's said here means jack, yes? You live a block from the ocean guy, you have it made. Your beaches are nice and warm now, yes? Ours here in Oregon are cold and the sky is grey. Windy, brrr. You on the other hand can go for a nice walk and watch the tide roll in while pretty bikini clad girls go floating by...man, must be the life...

[chequita guevara]

Dude, just cuz I'm walking around with a ****-eating grin and a ten-foot boner because of my living situation doesn't mean that the direction this country is headed doesn't scare the piss outta me and make me deeply sad. The problem is a care, and I care a lot.

Check out my motto!

Sun! Surf! Socialism!

[Lancer]

Very nice.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I love how so many people forget that the believed the same evidence that convinced Bush at the time.

Powell didn't fool anone outside of the US, except those who wanted to believe.

Actually, among the American audience, Powell fooled only those who wanted to believe as well. It's just that at the time, these people made the immense majority of your population, left and right. Outside of the US, the picture is not the same, and the gullible were far less numerous.

[GePap]

We learned that war fighting capaility does not give you nation building capability.

We learned that all the experts were right about how high the cost of nation building is.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by GePap
We learned that war fighting capaility does not give you nation building capability.

We learned that all the experts were right about how high the cost of nation building is.

quite true.

It seems almost ironic that we learn this from the actions of the president who railed so hard against 'nation building' in his first campaign.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Patroklos
But to be more to the point, since as usual things must be spoon fed to you, not only did Germany and Fance puss out, they also went on a smear campaign for no other reason to keep their illegal oil profits. Without that not only would we have them and their significant reseources, but probobly a dozen other countries.

France and Germany had several reasons for doing what they did (i.e. trying to get political gain by openly opposing the US).

In my opinion, the main reason is that they hoped to re-affirm their role of leaders within the EU, as they announced Europe's opposition to the war without bothering to ask the other countries It looked like every country could have been brought to oppose the war, considering the amazing hostility to it in the public opinion.

The fact that Iraq was a client State probably weighted as well, but the money issues could have been negociated fairly easily.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Agathon
1. The vast majority of the world's citizens fear and distrust the United States, and do not believe it has the legitimacy to organize the world as it sees fit. They certainly do not see it as a beacon of liberty, but as just another nuisance superpower.

I think both before and after this war many if not most people already didn't trust any nation's government, including the word of their own. I'm not sure that the war changed anything in that respect.

Originally posted by Agathon
2. That the United States government will lambast as "anti-democratic" governments that yield to the will of the majority of their citizens (France; Germany; Turkey), while praising as "democratic" countries that do the opposite (Spain).

sadly, this has been going on for the entire history of the US.

Originally posted by Agathon
3. That the American right are even dafter than we thought they were.

I think it could look even dafter if whackos who are somehow even more extreme can be dredged up to gain control of the party.

Originally posted by Agathon
4. That the world's largest military is useless when it comes to imposing peace on a country where a significant number of people don't want it imposed. We knew this after Vietnam (but see #3).

It is hard to say if it's quite 'useless'. It is at least possible that a civil war even more violent and bloody than the current situation could have occured had the US completely pulled out immediately after capturing Saddam. I suspect that the largest military can be useful for dampening such a conflict somewhat but can never completely eliminate it on such a scale.

Originally posted by Agathon
5. That the United States is mostly talk.

Where on earth do you get this one? Did you mean to say that we learned that the US is not mostly talk? It is hard to see how going to war and spending such ungodly sums of cash and spilling so much blood can somehow be construed as out weighed by any amount of political and diplomatic noises that have come out of washington.

Originally posted by Agathon
6. That the United States does not have a free press (even the craven British press put up more resistance to Bush's lies).

It's perfectly free but it's lack of zeal in pursuit of the truth makes it useless at times That situation is quite different from that of an unfree press at least in terms of how you can address the problem if not it's results.

Originally posted by Agathon
7. Lastly, and most importantly, that evidence or rationality does not matter to the right, most of whom are still blithely lying about the reasons for war.

It matters to the right when it fits their world view.

[Ned]

Pekka, all you have to do is read Spiffor's and Agathon's posts to know that the presence or absence of WMDs in Iraq was secondary to most Europeans. The primary problem to them was Yankee imperialism that had to be stopped. (This gets back to the leftist theories about the "real" reason for the war. It's the OIL, stupid.) The fact that Powell presented weak evidence at the UN only confirmed their suspicions.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Patroklos
You are absolutely right, France and Germany made the US go it alone out of selfishness and the resistance is the result of them leaving their best freind in the lurch.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Patroklos


I love how so many people forget that the believed the same evidence that convinced Bush at the time.

I have learned the left are the number one producers of Monday Morning Quarterbacks. Some real talent there

Bull****. I posted on this very site that Powell was obviously full of ****. Over and over again. I also said that he was a very bad liar and that he seemed to be having problems presenting "evidence" he knew to be flawed. If the archives contain the thread you can find my comments there. You're talking out of your ass. Like always.

[Patroklos]

Funny how I addressed all your silly points, but you just ignored everything, but now claim I'm resorting to some mechanism?

Actually your schooling started by you name calling

Everthing that warranted a response recieved on, which considering nothing did I humored you quite a bit.

[Boris Godunov]

I already handed Patroklos his ass, KH.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Lancer
"It's easy to be a smart guy after facts are here now...... "

Yeah. Here in the US we have a saying...Hindsight is 20/20.

Go find the old threads.

I believe that I stated that what Saddam had was at most a few tons of old chemical munitions, likely in decaying condition, with absolutely zero ability to produce more.

[Patroklos]

Bull****

Keep telling yourself that.

And those who were forcasting the destruction of the world by invading Iraq were much farther from the truth from the Right Wing fairy tale (which was just that


Right Wing<--------TRUTH--------------------------->Left Wing

This is just like Vietnam right? Losers.