Kissinger says Iraq not winnable

[Drake Tungsten]

[Dinner]

Originally posted by malsa
Victims of the US / GB war on Iraq

Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo-American Aggression in Iraq (March / April 2003)

Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small children and those who have weak hearts.

http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page1.htm

Depleted Uranium-Related Birth Defects in Iraq
http://aeronautics.ru/archive/du-watch/iraq_images/

Laughable garbage. All it is is a collection of shocking photos which we have no proof are in any way related to American or British actions. It's typical BS. I beat the vast, VAST, VAST majority of those pictures are either the result of Iraqi on Iraqi violence or are completely unrelated.

Thanks, but I've seen to many of these websites completely debunked to ever believe such garbage without works cited and some sort of documentation to prove their validity. Malsa must not be the sharpest tool in the shed to believe this crap.

[Dinner]

As someone who spent 9 years in Psyops let me tell you how this propoganda garbage works. First they show you a shocking photograph and then they claim it is the actions of their enemy without ever providing ANY PROOF or scientific literature to back it up. In other words their claims are completely groundless.

Take for instance Malwa's garbage link about birth defects. He first shows lots of pictures of babies with birth defects but then makes the totally unsubstantiated claim that they are the result of depleted uranium rounds.

Ask yourself why this hasn't happened in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Panama, Kuwait, Bosnia, Lebannon, or Granada. The reason this hasn't happened in any of those locations because there has been no increase in birth defects in areas where DU is used dispite there being numerous scientific studies to search for it. Malwa is simply either a liar or an idiot. Likely both.

[Elok]

The word is "troll," Oerdin. And it looks like he got you.

[Proteus_MST]

I remember that it worked for Gulfwar 1, too.

If I remember correctly he exiled government of Kuwait hired a PR agency which then published a made up statement of a nurse telling the public that the Iraqi soldiers after their occupation of Kuwait had done horrible things like throwing babies out of incubators and the like.

Obviously it worked as it helped to convince the american government (and the UN as well) to fight against Iraq.

(only after the war the truth about the statements of said nurse was discovered)

[Ned]

Oerdin, your initial post suggests that Iraq was "winnable" at one time and is not winnable now because of Bush. Please, since you hold this view, tell us what Bush could have done differently that had he done it we would now be talking about the Iraq war in the past tense.

[Dinner]

Iraq was indeed winnable during the first year of occupation. The Iraqi people didn't really like us but at that time they were willing to suspend their disbelief about the reasons for our invasion provided meaningful reconstruction actually occured. Bush claimed that a massive wave of reconstruction was coming and the Iraqi people believed him.

After a year of nothing, and I do mean nothing, meaningful happening wrt recontruction they got progressively more pissed off at us and that is when the insurgency started. I lost track of how many times Iraqis would say to me "Saddam, got this bridge fixed in 6 months. Why can't the Americans fix it after a whole year?" or "Saddam had the power and water working with in weeks of the war yet we still only have 2 hours of power/water per day".

These people would have backed the new government and not taken up arms against the Americans if their living conditions improved and so did their employment conditions during that one year. The key would have been massive government works (employing mainly Iraqi labor instead of foreign contractors), actually getting the utilities going (instead of paying billions to American military subcontractors who had no intention of actually building anything other then milking the contracts endlessly for all they're worth), and getting the roads fixed.

We didn't do any of this and we didn't even start doing that until after the first year of occupation when the Insurgency had already gotten under way. After that the US started fixing stuff but by then it was to late; we'd used our grace period doing nothing. That just boils down to complete government incompetance. We had a clear chance to win hearts and minds by showing results and we would have gotten most Iraqis on board if we proved we did what we said but after a year of incomptance and neglect from the administration they took up arms.

The lessons to learn are have a complete plan ready before you invade. Get the public utilities working in 6 months or less and don't just pay out huge contracts to politically favored Defense Contractors in a corrupt no bid system. All that happened with those contracts is that 60%-80% got eatten up as overhead and nothing ever actually got completed on the ground. It was just a big fraud which bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars and cost us the war. We should have just hired local Iraqi companies to rebuild bridges, build new power stations, and do general reconstruction since that would have gotten the stuff repaired faster, the economy moving, and previously unemployed people jobs. Those employed people would also know their jobs depend on the government succeeding and so would actually argue against insurgency instead of for it. Lastly, disbanding the Iraqi Army and sending 1 million military aged men with military training out on the street to beg was absolutely stupid. Rumsfield and Cheney should be hanged for that as well as the corruption in the nonbid contracts. That is what cost us this war.

[Elok]

Of course, if they'd been that sensible, they wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place, seeing as it had all of nothing to do with terrorism or WMDs.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GePap
Why the hell would the US support the Kurds over the Turks???

Turkey didn't back us in our invasion and the Kurds have been our steadfast allies and have their **** together. You forget this Admin is more than willing to throw anyone to the wolves to advance their own interests.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Iraq was indeed winnable during the first year of occupation.

Which is beside the point, because the war has been immoral from start to finish. The war was wrong. I have more respect for those who still still think it's the right thing to do than those who only want to bail because we can't win. At least my opposites have conviction.

[Drake Tungsten]

The war was the right thing to do, morally. That being said, it probably wasn't a good idea.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
The war was the right thing to do, morally. That being said, it probably wasn't a good idea.

The only purpose of the war was to show the world we could do it and no one could stop us. Course they screwed something as easy as taking over Iraq up, and have damaged America's standing.

Down with the empire!

[Drake Tungsten]

The only purpose of the war was to show the world we could do it and no one could stop us.

If that were really the only purpose, we would have bugged out as soon as Saddam was captured (like Rummy wanted to). No, Bush really did believe in and support the neocon idea of replacing Saddam's tyranny with a democracy, for better or for worse.

Course they screwed something as easy as taking over Iraq up

We took over Iraq and made it look really easy. It was the building of a civil, democratic society in Iraq that we screwed up/screwed us up...

[chequita guevara]

In answer to your first statement, you're mistaking getting sidetracked for their original intent. As for number two, I accept that.

[Drake Tungsten]

In answer to your first statement, you're mistaking getting sidetracked for their original intent.

How would we have gotten "sidetracked" unless Bush really did want to bring democracy to Iraq? It's not exactly the type of project that you just stumble into on your way to the exits...