Chilcot Report6 July 2016

by Irn Bru Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:04 am

There is no doubt that this will be the lead story on all the news bulletins here in the UK.

The big question is will Tony hang or will it be a whitewash like they usually are?

by Irn Bru Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:30 am

Just a reminder before the shit starts getting thrown around that 138 Labour MPs put down an amendment that there was insufficient evidence of WMD in Iraq and there was no legitimate reason to go to war. It was defeated by Labour and 139 Tory MPs in the House.

Here's the vote...

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Iraq_w10

by Irn Bru Wed Jul 06, 2016 11:45 am

Here is the report - damning it is.

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

by eddie Wed Jul 06, 2016 11:52 am

LIVE: Chilcot report: 2003 Iraq war was 'unnecessary', invasion was not 'last resort' and Saddam Hussein was 'no imminent threat'
6 mins ago

Sir John Chilcot has delivered his scathing report
'No imminent threat from Saddam Hussein', he says
War 'was not the last resort'
Certainty over WMD 'was not justified'
Tony Blair set UK on path to war at least 8 months before
Planning for post-war Iraq was 'wholly inadequate'

The long-awaited official report into Britain's involvement in the Iraq War has delivered a scathing verdict on Government ministers' justification, planning and conduct of a military intervention which "went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".

Former prime minister Tony Blair presented the case for war in 2003 with "a certainty which was not justified" based on "flawed" intelligence about the country's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which was not challenged as it should have been, found report author Sir John Chilcot.

Unveiling his 2.6 million-word report into the UK's most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War, Sir John said: "We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/06/chilcot-inquiry-judgement-day-for-tony-blair-as-iraq-war-report/

by eddie Wed Jul 06, 2016 11:54 am

Greedy, power-hungry mad eyes Blair. Dirty little liar.

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Image76

by HoratioTarr Wed Jul 06, 2016 1:09 pm

eddie wrote:Greedy, power-hungry mad eyes Blair. Dirty little liar.

America's poodle. Can't stand the man.

by Andy Wed Jul 06, 2016 1:36 pm

It runs to 17 volumes and millions of words. Before being too judgmental, probably better to let the experts digest the contents in more depth than can gleaned within an hour of it's publication.

by nicko Wed Jul 06, 2016 3:43 pm

He could not wait to be Bush's best friend, did you see the sickly smile when Bush shouted "hey Blair" when Bush told him to jump he got down on his knees and pleaded "how high"

by Original Quill Wed Jul 06, 2016 3:55 pm

Biggest disappointment over here in America, where we liberals were screaming for some common sense from the one government everyone looked up to.

But he sat dreamy eyed in Bush's lap.

by Syl Wed Jul 06, 2016 7:34 pm

I hope it isn't a whitewash.
It's been well established that both Bush and Blair knew there was no WMD....but they carried on anyway.

I'm surprised so far there has bee no mention of Dr David Kelly...the man who was surely imo assassinated because he was too vocal about there being nothing to go to war for.

by eddie Wed Jul 06, 2016 8:57 pm

Syl wrote:I hope it isn't a whitewash.
It's been well established that both Bush and Blair knew there was no WMD....but they carried on anyway.

I'm surprised so far there has bee no mention of Dr David Kelly...the man who was surely imo assassinated because he was too vocal about there being nothing to go to war for.

The story of Dr Kelly's apparent suicide was laughable

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:41 am

Here’s a reminder of why some of us supported the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. (Hint: It had little to do with alleged weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with oil.)

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Saddamcrimes-e1467816005993

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Saddamcrimes-e1467816005993

What was (and remains) unforgivable, and borders on criminal, was the utter failure to deal competently with the situation on the ground in the immediate aftermath of Saddam’s ouster. For that George W. Bush must shoulder most of the blame, but Tony Blair must take his share too.

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/07/06/lest-we-forget-4/

If people believe we were wrong to oust a Tyrant that commited mass genocide, then they need their heads examined and are basically rendering those who were murdered of secondary importance to Maintaining a Tyrant being left in power. Was the belief to go to war off weapons of Mass destruction a lie?

Yes

Should there be reprecussions for these lies?

Yes

Would Saddam remaining in power have murder vastly more people?

Undoubtly Yes

How many more would have to die for the left to grasp this?
The fact that then Iran and Saudi exploited the freedom of Iraq by funding and organising insurgencies and violence, just shows the far bigger problem that needs dealing with in the Middle East. Which would have happened anyway with the Arab Springs when they would have come to Iraq. What you would have seen is a situation like Syria, with vastly more dead and injured, millions more displaced and Europe in near Anarchy at having to deal with such an influx of refugees.
A good example to compare is the fact Assad has remained in power, 500,000 are dead, near 2 million injured and 9 million displaced.
That is the reality of allowing a tyrant to remain in power

by 'Wolfie Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:59 am

PEOPLE need to remember that the second invasion of Iraq was led by a troika of allies :

GW Bush orchestrated 'Gulf War II'; aided and abetted by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice;

Tony Blair and John Howard were falling over themselves in the rush to support Uncle Sam, both grabbing the opportunity to bolster their own respective political standings;

The CIA and MI6 then based their false "intelligence" on a "what if.." essay by one British uni' student for his doctorate, when they were unable to produce any genuine proofs..

NOT ONLY Tony Blair, but also GWB, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and John Howard, should all be considerd war criminals, complicit through their dogged determination to go to war.

AND NOT a "conspiracy" in sight !
As all of those nachinations were being carried out in plain view.. Chilcot Report6 July 2016 2113235493

by Major Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:58 am

Somebody needed to rid the world of Saddam, now the world wants rid of Bliar, funny old world.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:21 am

Says everything that needs to be said.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:27 am

How anyone could be so ignorant as to defend the decision to invade Iraq, the resultant destruction of a country that had education for all (both sexes), healthcare, sanitation, water, gas and electricity, all of which have been decimated, the loss of over a million lives, etc etc, is simply beyond me. They obviously have not the slightest idea of what happened or the consequences, or simply do not want to see them. All of the consequences were known at the time, that is why we marched against it and fought against it, because we didn't want to see the world in the fucking awful mess it is now, a direct consequence of invading Iraq.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:57 am

Again I see the igorance from the deluded left again is in abundance where they relegate those who suffered persecution and those murdered through genocide of no importance to that of pandering to a dictator who butchereds hundreds of thousands.
Who then blames the west for the loss of infrusture cause in the main not by the invasion but insurgency. The very heart of the problem with the Middle East where again its the Islamic Islamists that are ignored. Or how again Iraq would have turned into Syria, where again even more lives would have been lossed in a cicil war, when the Arab Spring would have come to Iraq. These points are ignored, the plight of the Kurds is ignored and the crimes against humanity they suffered are whitewahsed by the left who apply the Neville Chamberlain effect of trying to negiatiate with a tyrant. That is the blatant inability of the left and why thery fail to seer how now again another tyrant in power has caused so many deaths.

The claims to deaths attributed to the western invasion are best flawed and poorly document, based off polls made to Iraq people, who they themselves attribute deaths to the allies, which is blatantly absurd.

"The Real Iraq Body Count: What You're Not Supposed to Know", by Glen Reinsford, attacks the moral corruption of Iraq Body Count:

"These ordinary Iraqis were victims of senseless violence. Were they killed by an American bomb or a Saudi suicide bomber? Hint: IraqBodyCount doesn't want you to know."
"enter IraqBodyCount.net, an anti-war organization that was envisioned even before the Iraq War began, with the heady ambition of documenting each and every victim of American aggression in order to turn public opinion against the action to remove Saddam ... Somewhere along the way, however, the harsh reality began to sink in that America was acting as no other country in history has ever acted to prevent civilian casualties in warfare. As a matter of fact, more American troops have been killed in the conflict than have civilians been killed by Americans. Americans are literally taking casualties to prevent casualties on the part of Iraqi civilians. Though mere mortals might be prompted to reconsider their prejudices at this point, the folks at IraqBodyCount reacted by quietly changing their mission to include the victims of terrorists - the very people that the Americans are trying to stop. Their dubious body-count even includes members of the Iraqi security forces, who are part of the coalition. ... Another big problem with IraqBodyCount's statistics is that it even includes the terrorists themselves. ... In fact, if you .. browse their database, you'll notice that the tables are conspicuously missing a column - the party responsible for each attack. There's a reason for this, as we discovered when we analyzed each incident to answer this question. It turns out that the vast majority of civilian deaths are caused by Islamic terrorists, and that very few are from American bombs and bullets. This is because (unlike the terrorists) the Americans aren't in Iraq to kill civilians. ... In 2006, the number of civilians who died in encounters between the Americans and the terrorists was about four times lower than the number of U.S. troops killed. In short, civilians in Iraq aren't dying from the war. They are being murdered by Islamic terrorists."

http://markhumphrys.com/iraq.dead.html

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:01 pm

Good grief, pig ignorant doesn't begin to cover that.
Who stopped the insurgency?

Perhaps you would like to read the Chilcot report and have just a little understanding of what happened and why.

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:05 pm

sassy wrote:Good grief, pig ignorant doesn't begin to cover that.
Who stopped the insurgency?

Perhaps you would like to read the Chilcot report and have just a little understanding of what happened and why.

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

Yes good greif esplain how both Germany and Japan after liberation did not descend into an insurgency and were able to bring strong economies again.
Stop posting up left wing bullshist to whitewash any blame from islamism, as the Iraq report inquiry was farical as seen.
Again it does not even go on the many points I have mader

Again your views would have seen now at least 15 million Iraq refugees, at least another million dead at the hands of saddam.
Some of us do our own research and not some load of crap that is notr worth the paper it is written on

Again the left cannot answer points
They relegate the genocide of those murdered of of no need to invade based on bullshit

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:07 pm

Germany and Japan after liberation did not descend into an insurgency

And that, without you even realising, shows the utter depths of your ignorance.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:10 pm

sassy wrote:Germany and Japan after liberation did not descend into an insurgency

And that, without you even realising, shows the utter depths of your ignorance.

Bullshit aleart, show me the evidence that they descended into a decade long conflict of constant terrorism?

Seriously lets see the evidence and how and why they actually went onto rebuild their economies and no the Cold war is not terrorism, or an insurgency

In your own time dummy?

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:11 pm

Work out the difference in the situations and dynamics yourself Didge, it's pathetic you don't understand them, and I'm not spoonfeeding you. Go back to your Irish bloggers, such an authority lol

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:15 pm

sassy wrote:Work out the difference in the situations and dynamics yourself Didge, it's pathetic you don't understand them, and I'm not spoonfeeding you. Go back to your Irish bloggers, such an authority lol

So you have zero evidence and that you just basically lied yet again

So you are full of shit as per usual

As stateds its easy to see what the problem is as many countries liberated look to rebuild their nations.
This did not happened, because it became the battleground for supremacy by Shia and Sunni's insurgents, funded and organised by the Gulf States, Suaid, against Iran. Again the regressive simple when faced with facts looks to blame the west. So you tell me Sassy, why when freed from a Tyrant would you blame the west for providing you the means to be able to have a new start?
In other words you are full of shit

by eddie Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:25 pm

Didge are you saying the report is wrong or are you defending the war in Iraq?

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:30 pm

eddie wrote:Didge are you saying the report is wrong or are you defending the war in Iraq?

The report has been delayed so many times, it has become the position of a joke for sometime where also we see constantly all the time the position to blame the west for basically removing a genocidal tyrant from power. In so many situations nations have rebuilt themselves and what is ignored evertime is how the country was used as a Battlegound for supreamcy over the two many doctrines of Islam. Hundreds of thousands died through terrorisms, murder and some of the worst barbarity since before ISIS itself. It fails to understand how again a nation when given an opportunity should have been given a chance to rebuil itself and many of the Muslim nations that funded and organized the violence should be held accountable. Poor Governance by the US also did not help and this also is part of the blame, but not the main cause. I am not disputing the lie that was used to go to war, as being wrong and accountable, but for people to even claim its wrong to have invaded, when we could remove a despot, is blatantly abusrd and defending such a tyrant staying in power not even contemplating how many more would have died with Saddam remaining in power. You only have to look no further than Syria to see that the same would have happened in Iraq with the Arab springs.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:38 pm

I shall post this again

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Saddamcrimes-e1467816005993

#

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/07/06/lest-we-forget-4/

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:44 pm

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

PEOPLE need to remember that the second invasion of Iraq was led by a troika of allies :

GW Bush orchestrated 'Gulf War II'; aided and abetted by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice;

Tony Blair and John Howard were falling over themselves in the rush to support Uncle Sam, both grabbing the opportunity to bolster their own respective political standings;

The CIA and MI6 then based their false "intelligence" on a "what if.." essay by one British uni' student for his doctorate, when they were unable to produce any genuine proofs..

NOT ONLY Tony Blair, but also GWB, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and John Howard, should all be considerd war criminals, complicit through their dogged determination to go to war.

AND NOT a "conspiracy" in sight !
As all of those nachinations were being carried out in plain view..

Just a little domesticity for comparison: Now I publicly called for a war crimes prosecution of VP Cheney, who was the prime instigator of the whole thing. He was not prosecuted.

Now the Republicans spend $-millions to accuse Hillary of some wrongdoing in Benghazi!? It comes to nothing. But hey, it was a fookin' war...the bad guys never got the memo not to invade Libya. It was the same $17-trillion war that Cheney started.

major wrote:Somebody needed to rid the world of Saddam, now the world wants rid of Bliar, funny old world

.

One sniper and a good plan would have been all that was required. Jeezuskrist...did we need $17-trillion and 10-years for that?

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:45 pm

Original Quill wrote:
WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

PEOPLE need to remember that the second invasion of Iraq was led by a troika of allies :

GW Bush orchestrated 'Gulf War II'; aided and abetted by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice;

Tony Blair and John Howard were falling over themselves in the rush to support Uncle Sam, both grabbing the opportunity to bolster their own respective political standings;

The CIA and MI6 then based their false "intelligence" on a "what if.." essay by one British uni' student for his doctorate, when they were unable to produce any genuine proofs..

NOT ONLY Tony Blair, but also GWB, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and John Howard, should all be considerd war criminals, complicit through their dogged determination to go to war.

AND NOT a "conspiracy" in sight !
As all of those nachinations were being carried out in plain view..

Just a little domesticity for comparison: Now I publicly called for a war crimes prosecution of VP Cheney, who was the prime instigator of the whole thing. He was not prosecuted.

Now the Republicans spend $-millions to accuse Hillary of some wrongdoing in Benghazi!? It comes to nothing. But hey, it was a fookin' war...the bad guys never got the memo not to invade Libya. It was the same $17-trillion war that Cheney started.

War crimes?

Based on what, liberating a country from a known genocidal killer?

Wow

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:55 pm

didge wrote:War crimes?

Mother Jones 4.26.2012 wrote:On Thursday, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, became the first head of state convicted of war crimes by an international court since German naval commander Karl Dönitz (Hitler's successor) faced judgment at the Nuremberg trials.

The court at The Hague found Taylor guilty of providing weapons and technical support to Revolutionary United Front rebel forces fighting in the brutal civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002. (The rebels paid Taylor in blood diamonds in exchange for his support.) The RUF army gained international notoreity for its child soldiers, sadistic attacks on civilians, and widespread use of torture. Announcing the verdict, presiding judge Richard Lussick called Taylor's support for the RUF fighters "sustained and significant." Taylor will serve out his sentence in a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom.

VP Cheney lied and manipulated to involve the nation in an unwarranted war, contributed resources, and aided and abetted rape, torture, kidnapping, rendition and murder.

The US doesn't need the International Court. It has its own laws covering the matter.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 4:59 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:War crimes?

Mother Jones 4.26.2012 wrote:On Thursday, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, became the first head of state convicted of war crimes by an international court since German naval commander Karl Dönitz (Hitler's successor) faced judgment at the Nuremberg trials.

The court at The Hague found Taylor guilty of providing weapons and technical support to Revolutionary United Front rebel forces fighting in the brutal civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002. (The rebels paid Taylor in blood diamonds in exchange for his support.) The RUF army gained international notoreity for its child soldiers, sadistic attacks on civilians, and widespread use of torture. Announcing the verdict, presiding judge Richard Lussick called Taylor's support for the RUF fighters "sustained and significant." Taylor will serve out his sentence in a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom.

VP Cheney lied and manipulated to involve the nation in an unwarranted war, contributed resources, and aided and abetted rape, torture, kidnapping, rendition and murder.

The US doesn't need the International Court. It has its own laws covering the matter.

Karl Donitz?

WTF

Again this was a nation that should have been liberated in the First Iraq war, which would have then saved hundreds of thousands of lives. This is what you miss, where again the Arab spring would have come to Iraq and you would see twice as big as a problem as we now have with Syria, with one tyrant in place which has cost the deaths of half a million.
If removing a tyrant based on a lie to you is a war crime, then this is why the left are so much in a perpetual state of confusion.
The war may have been started off a lie, but that does not mean the war was not necessary, unless of course you believe those that suffer count for nothing under Saddam, of that he would have gone on to kill many more.
A means to an end was the necessity of removing a genocidal tyrant.
So they lied about going to war, how many have in conflicts?
How many have ever been prosecuted?

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:21 pm

didge wrote:If removing a tyrant based on a lie to you is a war crime, then this is why the left are so much in a perpetual state of confusion.

Removing the tyrant was not the basis of the Iraq War II, as the additional ten-years and $17-trillion in expenditures evidence. This was a genocidal war based on greed. The closest analogy is Charles Taylor, who was sentenced to 50-years for his crimes.

The Iraq War II had all the trappings of the Taylor case: kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder...along with avarice as its motive and indifference as its moral code.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:26 pm

A Prime Minister cannot take the country to war without the backing of Parliament.   In order to get that backing, Blair lied, lied and lied again.
Lying to Parliament is an offense and there is talk of having him impeached now the Chilcot report has come out.   I hope they do it.

Didge puts forward exactly the same arguments and Blair did in his statement yesterday.   Because of what he said in his statement many now think Blair has gone right over the edge and is completely mad.

And let's not forget what he said last year:

'I'm sorry': Historic moment Tony Blair FINALLY apologises for Iraq War and admits in TV interview the conflict caused the rise of ISIS

Former PM makes the confession after 12 years of refusing to apologise
Blair says he is sorry for his conduct which has now led to 'hell' in Iraq
Says there is an element of truth that the war caused the rise of ISIS
Comes after Lord Blunkett revealed he had challenged Blair about the war

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3287982/I-m-sorry-Blair-takes-blame-Iraq-War-admits-conflict-caused-rise-ISIS-astonishing-apology-TV-show.html#ixzz4Dk0VrUSu
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:27 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:If removing a tyrant based on a lie to you is a war crime, then this is why the left are so much in a perpetual state of confusion.

Removing the tyrant was not the basis of the Iraq War II, as the additional ten-years and $17-trillion in expenditures evidence. This was a genocidal war based on greed. The closest analogy is Charles Taylor, who was sentenced to 50-years for his crimes.

The Iraq War II had all the trappings of the Taylor case: kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder...along with avarice as its motive and indifference as its moral code.

Irrelevant, the point is he should be removed if we can, because of the basic need to protect human life, from someone who was constantly robbing them of their liife.
If money is again more important to you than the value of life,l itself and the protection of that life, through the course of a war, then you have all your priorities all screwed up

I suggest you read my signature again

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:31 pm

From people who are there and were there:

Wael Al-Sallami, born and raised under Saddam's regime.
150.3k Views · Featured in The Huffington Post and Business Insider · Upvoted by Brian K. Price, 20 year (and 2 war) military veteran, 34 years of martial arts experience and Paul Denlinger, Lived in Tunisia
Most Viewed Writer in Iraq with 8 endorsements

I'm an Iraqi citizen and was just shy of four months old when the Iran-Iraq war ended. At three, I survived Gulf War I and then lived through the economic sanctions for the next 12 or so years. At age 15, I witnessed Gulf War II and spent my teenage years struggling through its aftermath. So needless to say, I spent my early years during Saddam's worst days; that is, when he turned from America's favorite ally to its sworn enemy.

But was it really safer back then? Did America really help? Or was it actually worse before 2003? Personally, I think those are all misguided questions and here is why:

Iraq was a wealthy nation throughout the 70's and 80's, despite the fact that it underwent an eight-year long war with its neighboring nation, Iran. The graph below closely follows the timeline I gave in Did the west encourage Saddam Hussein to attack and invade Iran in 1980? If so, how did they do it?. A decline is recorded around 1980 (the beginning of Iraq's war with Iran), followed by a steady recovery starting 1982, and coinciding with America's very public financial and political support for Iraq.

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Main-qimg-63e5f0f0ba86d8c2db02ddcb7a473484?convert_to_webp=true

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 Main-qimg-63e5f0f0ba86d8c2db02ddcb7a473484?convert_to_webp=true

Iraq GDP 1960-2011 (Current US$) - Source: Iraq - GDP

Coming out of the war, Iraq needed a lot of capital to rebuild its damaged infrastructure. However, Kuwait was lowering oil prices in a successful attempt to harm Iraq's economy. Saddam tried negotiating with Kuwait on several occasions, but to no avail–Kuwait didn't back down. So he decided to "take back" Kuwait.

Historically, Kuwait was a part of Iraq, and Saddam used this fact to cover up his blood-thirst. The results were devastating for Kuwait, a much smaller country with a fraction of Iraq's population. Responding to Kuwait's call for help, the US attacked Iraq in turn and the latter failed to defend itself against the former's military might. This explains the sharp decline around 1990 in the graph above. Fortunately for Saddam, however, the American troops backed down without capturing him and ending it all. The US then sought to enforce economic sanctions on Iraq, thereby sentencing Iraqis to a slow death. In the meantime, Saddam went on building lavish palaces for himself.

At the time, we were a family of two boys and a little girl. Formerly a government employee and now a Ph.D student, my father received a reduced salary of 8000 Dinars, while my mother, a full-time school teacher, was paid 3000 Dinars. The combined monthly income of the family, i.e. 11000 Dinars, was the equivalent of ~$6. Most other government employees made similar figures. Those were by far the worst years of my life, and I've lived through some serious crap, trust me.

Towards the end of the 90's, things began to look better. Saddam was sensing his end and he tried to make a few improvements in income and infrastructure. He even tried to introduce a controlled version of satellite TV and wireless cellphones. But alas, America struck again in 2003; this time with the intention of removing Saddam while not really trying to avoid civilian casualties. Another important distinction here is that Iraqis didn't care to defend their country anymore. They just sat back while the US troops took over.

This is why this, and all similar questions, are misguided. Iraq was safer and much wealthier before any American intervention. It was Americans, their support for Saddam, and later their war and sanctions on him that made Iraq such a terrible place to live. It then shouldn't come as a surprise that Iraqis had grown sick of their way of life. So much so that they sat back and watched America "save" them from its own doing.

And that, my friend, is the most hypocritical move in modern history! Furthermore, the war didn't improve things much anyway; on the contrary, it worsened the whole situation. Instead of living safely in poor conditions, Iraqis became somewhat wealthy, but lost all measures of personal safety. Where once they just had one tyrant to be afraid of, now they have hundreds more! Even keeping their mouths shut, which used to keep them safe, didn't help anymore. People were dying for having the wrong religion, place of birth, or even the wrong name! The year 2006 was worse than 1991 and 2003 combined. Militias took over the streets, and it was chaos.

Post 2007, the violence surges became more tame; Babylon, where my family lives, was becoming a safer place to live. Baghdad and few other cities were struggling still and took longer to stabilize. Though every now and then, we still have the occasional suicide bombing and kidnappings here and there.

My family's income has seen a tremendous boost since 2003, and they now live comfortably. That being said, my brother has survived a car bombing and I about four thus far. Families that live in more dangerous cities, like Baghdad and Mosul, consider themselves lucky to be able to say the same.

In summary, Iraq was very safe for most of the Sunna before 2003, but was hostile towards the Shia and Kurds, depending on their affiliations. After 2003, the Sunna descended to become the oppressed minority while the Shia took control of the central government. That being said, the Shia still struggled with Sunni threats like Al-Qaida (and now ISIS); all the while the Kurds built a very stable regional government. It's like what they say about San Francisco; if you don't like the weather there, just wait ten minutes. With such a dichotomized atmosphere, who has the upper hand as opposed to who falls victim to the most dangers has followed a similar pattern for an eternity. So if you want to see what happens next; if you want to see who lucks out this time, just wait ten minutes.

Vladislav Guerassev, worked hard to repair the world with not much to show for it
12.8k Views
Here is my one dinar input to this discussion.

I spent eight months in Iraq as a staff member of UNIRCU (UN Iraq Relief Coordination Unit – now long forgotten) in from May – December 1991. The most of that entity’s work was in Kurdistan (maintaining a 600-strong multinational force of UN Guards there) along with some rehabilitation and reconstruction input in the heart of the country and in the marshes in the south. Since then I keep in touch with three of my former Iraqi colleagues, all of whom had emigrated to Canada
since.

I spent half of my life before in the Soviet Union, so I have a good benchmark, a reference point to judge any totalitarian regime. In the USSR, there was no freedom of religion whatsoever (at least not if you wanted to be an active citizen), no free travel abroad whatsoever, no room for any private initiative, persistent scarcity of consumer goods and mediocre (albeit free) healthcare and education.

In contrast, in Iraq as I saw it in 1991 (after the first Gulf war) there was still the freedom of religion along with a firm policy of secularism. Among my staff in Baghdad, there was a retired Army major (retired because Saddam drastically reduced Army after the first war) who was a Kurd (which sounds as a surprise to most of my American friends who believe that under Saddam a Kurd would have been shot dead on sight), two Coptic Christians, an Armenian (Christian, naturally) along with Arab Iraqis.

Despite sanctions, there were plenty of consumer goods in
private shops (remember, my comparator was the USSR), private restaurants were doing a brisk trade, people were enjoying “mozguf” on the river bank, alcohol was available for those who wanted to buy it, a burka-covered or veiled lady was a rare sight in Baghdad and gas was available plentifully and cost nothing (at least for those who had US$). All utilities worked mostly normally after the post-war reconstruction.

One notable point for me was the quality of healthcare. I have visited (as part of my work) the Al-Yarmuk hospital in Baghdad and was astounded (to my unprofessional eye) how superior it was to any public medical facility that I knew from my plebeian Soviet experience and to any others that I saw in other Arab countries. Later on, in Dohuk, I went to review the hospital there with a medic Lt.Col of Czechoslovak (there was such a country then) Army as a UN evacuation point (the emergency facility where you bring your wounded for
treatment) and still remember his words: “I would be a happy man if there was
at least one such a hospital in Czechoslovakia”. And his county was one of the
most developed in the Eastern Europe.

Almost all of Iraqi professionals (engineers, administrators, technical managers) whom I dealt with spoke very good English which was not common then in the Middle East. Most of them got their professional degrees in Germany,
UK or (not so often) in France. I understood that if they were at the top of their BA class in Iraq, their MA abroad would have been paid for by Iraq (they had to leave some lien on their parents’ property to guarantee their return from abroad).

They were all punctual, reliable and trustworthy (I was very impressed, especially because I was transferred to Iraq from Kuwait). There was no “mañana syndrome” among them.

I (and anyone) could walk without fear to my Al-Hamra hotel at any time after dark. The violent crimes were exceedingly rare; rape was almost
unheard of.

That was the snapshot of my time in Baghdad in 1991.

P.S. And contrary to what was said above, Saddam did not "kill a million of Shiates, Kurds and Christians". Please do you homework and then you would be able to have an informed opinion.

TO SUM UP: not to leave a false impression that I am writing
an ode/paen to the benevolence of Saddam, let me summarize my take of Iraq
under him. You could have had (especially before the Iraq-Iran war) a good quality of life under the Saddam regime, with the modern social security safe nets, etc., travel abroad, practice your religion (whatever it was) or have none and so on, UNLESS you got involved in some dissident political activity (and any slight sign of disrespect or criticism of Saddam counted as one). If you did, the
consequences would have been swift and deadly.

Still, it compared favorably with other totalitarian regimes (USSR , GDR, North Korea, etc.) that I have knowledge of, where the punishment for dissent was on par with the Saddam’s one, but the everyday quality of life was incomparably inferior.

In other words, he was a rather benevolent tyrant: if you did not cross him and paid your respects, he allowed you to live as you please. A much better deal, I would say, than you could have currently, for example, in Saudi Arabia or
Iran.

Not that I wish it to anyone to be his subject, but a better option than in quite a few countries of the world currently.

WHAT DO WE HAVE CURRENTLY? A country split along religious chasms,
where Christians are preyed on, Sunnis and Shias are at each other throats, with no "first amendment" freedoms to speak of, where women are forced to adhere to the Iran-type dress code, where secularism had evaporated, where personal security is on par with the Wild West of yore. The government is basically impotent, the utilities are intermittent, petrol is in short supply, and to organize the Arab League summit, the Government wastes millions of US$ and shuts down Baghdad for a week.

And all this misery was earned at the cost of some 5,000
dead American soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqi dead? Does it make any
sense?

https://www.quora.com/Is-Iraq-a-better-place-or-worse-to-live-since-the-fall-of-Saddam-Hussein

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:35 pm

Great one person biased against the West

Excellent, now how about actually answering the points made throughout which you have failed to do so.
Or the very fact how you simply relegrate the victims of Saddam to zero importance.
Or are you going to make up more lies about Germany and Japan, to deflect away from the real problem that denied Iraq, rebuilding, Islamism, from the Gulf States and Iranian Shia theocracy?

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:46 pm

Didge wrote:
Original Quill wrote:

Removing the tyrant was not the basis of the Iraq War II, as the additional ten-years and $17-trillion in expenditures evidence. This was a genocidal war based on greed. The closest analogy is Charles Taylor, who was sentenced to 50-years for his crimes.

The Iraq War II had all the trappings of the Taylor case: kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder...along with avarice as its motive and indifference as its moral code.

Irrelevant, the point is he should be removed if we can, because of the basic need to protect human life, from someone who was constantly robbing them of their liife.
If money is again more important to you than the value of life,l itself and the protection of that life, through the course of a war, then you have all your priorities all screwed up

I suggest you read my signature again

I refer you to my answer to major a few posts back:

major wrote:Somebody needed to rid the world of Saddam, now the world wants rid of Bliar, funny old world

.

Original Quill wrote:One sniper and a good plan would have been all that was required. Jeezuskrist...did we need $17-trillion and 10-years for that?

The idea that we needed to spend $17-trillion, hundreds of thousands of lives, and take 10-years to take out one dictator is irrational. Besides, when he was caught and arrested--December 13, 2003--according to your rationale we should have packed up and left. As they said on the deck of the USS Lincoln, "Mission Accomplished".

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 1433837383949431621

Chilcot Report6 July 2016 1433837383949431621

But for some reason, the war continued. What on earth was that reason, didge? Perhaps greed? Oil? Humanitarianism...pfffft.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:52 pm

Original Quill wrote:
Didge wrote:

Irrelevant, the point is he should be removed if we can, because of the basic need to protect human life, from someone who was constantly robbing them of their liife.
If money is again more important to you than the value of life,l itself and the protection of that life, through the course of a war, then you have all your priorities all screwed up

I suggest you read my signature again

I refer you to my answer to major a few posts back:

major wrote:Somebody needed to rid the world of Saddam, now the world wants rid of Bliar, funny old world
.

Original Quill wrote:One sniper and a good plan would have been all that was required. Jeezuskrist...did we need $17-trillion and 10-years for that?

The idea that we needed to spend $17-trillion, hundreds of thousands of lives, and take 10-years to take out one dictator is irrational. Besides, when he was caught and arrested--December 13, 2003--according to your rationale we should have packed up and left. As they said on the Lincoln, "Mission Accomplished".

But for some reason, the war continued. What on earth was that reason, didge? Perhaps greed? Oil? Humanitarianism...pfffft.

Wrong, as that one man would have been succeeded by his son, who was no better.
Someone always succeeds and how and why you have to remove a regeme.
Why do you think the British who did have a plan to shoot Hitler by a sniper shelved this plan?
Again the war of liberation lasted one month and the expense would not have been billions as you claim, which many billions were needed to help Iraq, as we did with Germany and Japan bounce back and recover.
Insurgents put paid to any idea of freedom for Iraq and turned the area into a battlground over Islam, which caused hundreds of thousands of people butchered simple over people fighting to gain supremacy for one doctrine of Islam over the other.
We should have liberated Iraq after the First war, but the conflict is still going on with islamism, which you fail to grasp and that problem is growing. Its an ideology that is at odds with are very way of life and countless millions of Muslims also.
They suffer whilst we again could go in tomorrow and destroy ISIS in a matter of days.
How many more have to suffer due to incompetant indifference and hence why taking out the head is never the answer, as many more grow back from the source like the Hydra body itself.

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:07 pm

didge wrote:Wrong, as that one man would have been succeeded by his son, who was no better.
Someone always succeeds and how and why you have to remove a regeme.
Why do you think the British who did have a plan to shoot Hitler by a sniper shelved this plan?
Again the war of liberation lasted one month and the expense would not have been billions as you claim, which many billions were needed to help Iraq, as we did with Germany and Japan bounce back and recover.

I'm wondering...where have you been for the past 13-years? Are you arguing that we are better off with Iraq in the condition it's in today because we eliminated Saddam's sons? Ridiculous!

Exactly what do you think that the additional $17-trillion, hundreds of thousands of deaths and destruction, and additional 10-years, the kidnappings, the rapes, the tortures and murders, bought us? Peace?

What the hell is humanitarian about killing babies and raping teen-aged girls? Is that your "Mission Accomplished"?

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:08 pm

I read the Chilcot report as I travelled across Syria this week and saw for myself what Blair's actions caused

What’s the difference between Iraqi WMDs that don’t exist, 45-minute warnings that are falsities, 70,000 non-existent Syrian “moderates” and a fictitious NHS windfall of millions if Britain left the EU?

I guess a Nuremburg trial might have been a better place to sort out the minutiae of the Blair-Bush crimes we committed to go to war in the Middle East. We brought about the deaths of up to half a million people, most of them Muslims who were as innocent as Blair was guilty. A Nuremburg-style court might thus have concentrated more on the mass Arab victims of our criminal expedition than the heinous guilt and “profound regret” – his words, of course – of Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara.
Sure, Blair lied about the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before going to war, then lied about the Foreign Office warnings of the chaos that would overwhelm Iraq and now – today – pretends that the Chilcot report has proclaimed him innocent when in fact it says he is quite the opposite.
But a prolonged study of the report, rather than the necessarily swift precis we have been fed these past few hours, may produce lines of enquiry far more distressing than the conclusions in the easy-to-regurgitate, simplified and shorter version handed out to the media. Besides, our concentration on the iniquitous Blair and his lies, while itself an understandable response to Chilcot, has provided a worrying diversion from the mendacity that still today afflicts our political class, our prime ministers and party leaders, and their insulting attitude towards those they claim to represent.
Hearing the first news of Sir John Chilcot’s epic work of literature while I was travelling across Syria was a disturbing experience. Not just because the plague of Islamist cruelty spreading outwards from Raqqa was (despite Blair’s nonsense to the contrary) a direct result of the Iraqi inferno; but because our own present, though discredited, Prime Minister used Blairite falsehoods to persuade MPs to bomb Isis targets in Syria last December. Remember the nonsense about the 70,000 “moderate” rebels who needed our help, even though they don’t exist and were manufactured by the very same Joint Intelligence Committee on which Blair relied for his criminal adventure?

And when MPs questioned this claptrap, they were haughtily put down by General Gordon Messenger, deputy chief of the defence staff, who said that for security reasons these various rebel units could not be named – even though we know the identity of these ragtag CIA outfits and of their inability to fight anyone. The appropriately named Messenger went along with David Cameron’s fantasy and was duly promoted, just as John Scarlett, the JIC’s chairman who provided all the duff “intelligence” to Blair, was later knighted.
And so we went to war against Isis in Syria – unless, of course, Isis was attacking Assad’s regime, in which case we did nothing at all, despite all the outrageous huffing and puffing of Hilary Benn about pre-war fascism. Condemn Blair we will, poor chap, but don’t think that anything changed in the six years Sir John spent writing up his Biblical tome.
And that’s the problem. When Blair can say, as he did the moment the Chilcot report was published, that it should “lay to rest allegations [sic] of bad faith, lies and deceit” – without a revolution in the streets against his bad faith, lies and deceit – then you can be sure that his successors will have no hesitation in swindling the public again and again. After all, what’s the difference between Iraqi WMDs that don’t exist, 45-minute warnings that are falsities, 70,000 non-existent Syrian “moderates” and a fictitious NHS windfall of millions if Britain left the European Union?

There are many versions – and misquotations – of that most cynical of Nazi propagandists, Joseph “the bigger the lie, the better” Goebbels, but it is impossible not to be shocked by some of his observations. “The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence,” he wrote in 1941. “Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
What is chilling about these words is not that the wartime English Goebbels maligned, nor that Churchill (who was his special target) did actually lie. Given the struggle against Nazism – and despite Churchill’s observation that truth in war should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies – the British had a virtuous ability in the 1939-45 conflict to tell the truth even when a bit of Blairite flummery might have sufficed to cover up Britain’s defeats. No, what is frightening is that Goebbels’s words apply so painfully to English politicians today.
Who do we know after the report, for example, who keeps up their big lies even at the risk of looking ridiculous? I fear, in an awful way, that small men who want to walk in big shoes – who actually think they are Churchill and take their country to war – are committing the very lies of which their political ancestors were largely innocent. Perhaps the key to all this was captured in Sir John’s contention that Blair relied more on his “beliefs” – whatever that dangerous word obscures – and the judgement of others.

Thus he can tell us – and tell me as I drove in from the Syrian desert city of Palmyra whose desecrators brought their vile practices from the Iraqi disaster that Blair helped to create – that “I do not believe [that Saddam Hussein’s removal] is the cause of terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world”. All this duplicity, of course, is to form part of the “full debate” that Blair now threatens in the aftermath of the Chilcot report.
He is going – heaven spare us -- to “set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience”. But Blair doesn’t need to bore us with his lies all over again. They’ve already been imbibed by Dave “70,000 moderates” Cameron and the Brexit lads who are now self-destructing amid the very lies they told – and which may achieve all that Goebbels wished for this country: the end of the United Kingdom.
In this context, the Chilcot report is not so much a massive work of investigation into the sins that took us to war in 2003, but just another chapter in the story of our inability to control a world in which Britain’s public relations politicians treat their people with contempt, kill some of their soldiers and slaughter hundreds of thousands of foreigners without any real remorse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-read-the-chilcot-report-as-i-travelled-across-syria-this-week-and-saw-for-myself-what-blairs-a7123311.html

Blair thinks he's a demi-god and is as mad as a hatter now.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:09 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:Wrong, as that one man would have been succeeded by his son, who was no better.
Someone always succeeds and how and why you have to remove a regeme.
Why do you think the British who did have a plan to shoot Hitler by a sniper shelved this plan?
Again the war of liberation lasted one month and the expense would not have been billions as you claim, which many billions were needed to help Iraq, as we did with Germany and Japan bounce back and recover.

I'm wondering...where have you been for the past 13-years? Are you arguing that we are better off with Iraq in the condition it's in today because we eliminated a Saddam's sons and SIL? Ridiculous!

Exactly what do you think that the additional $17-trillion, hundreds of thousands of death and destruction, and additional 10-years, the kidnappings, the rapes, the tortures and murders, bought us? Peace?

What the hell is humanitarian about killing babies and raping teen-aged girls? Is that your "mission Accomplished"?

I guess so, he's as mad as Blair.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:10 pm

Is this all Sassy is going to do, spam countless article and avoid and disrupt Quill and myself having a debate?

Points still stand and the most important Sassy for you.

Do you believe Saddam would have not continue to murder if left in power, considering hundreds of thousands disappeared under his regeme?
Do you not care for those suffering or does that only matter when you falsely claim this of Israeli's daily?

by Tommy Monk Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:13 pm

sassy wrote:I read the Chilcot report as I travelled across Syria this week and saw for myself what Blair's actions caused

What’s the difference between Iraqi WMDs that don’t exist, 45-minute warnings that are falsities, 70,000 non-existent Syrian “moderates” and a fictitious NHS windfall of millions if Britain left the EU?

I guess a Nuremburg trial might have been a better place to sort out the minutiae of the Blair-Bush crimes we committed to go to war in the Middle East. We brought about the deaths of up to half a million people, most of them Muslims who were as innocent as Blair was guilty. A Nuremburg-style court might thus have concentrated more on the mass Arab victims of our criminal expedition than the heinous guilt and “profound regret” – his words, of course – of Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara.
Sure, Blair lied about the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before going to war, then lied about the Foreign Office warnings of the chaos that would overwhelm Iraq and now – today – pretends that the Chilcot report has proclaimed him innocent when in fact it says he is quite the opposite.
But a prolonged study of the report, rather than the necessarily swift precis we have been fed these past few hours, may produce lines of enquiry far more distressing than the conclusions in the easy-to-regurgitate, simplified and shorter version handed out to the media. Besides, our concentration on the iniquitous Blair and his lies, while itself an understandable response to Chilcot, has provided a worrying diversion from the mendacity that still today afflicts our political class, our prime ministers and party leaders, and their insulting attitude towards those they claim to represent.
Hearing the first news of Sir John Chilcot’s epic work of literature while I was travelling across Syria was a disturbing experience. Not just because the plague of Islamist cruelty spreading outwards from Raqqa was (despite Blair’s nonsense to the contrary) a direct result of the Iraqi inferno; but because our own present, though discredited, Prime Minister used Blairite falsehoods to persuade MPs to bomb Isis targets in Syria last December. Remember the nonsense about the 70,000 “moderate” rebels who needed our help, even though they don’t exist and were manufactured by the very same Joint Intelligence Committee on which Blair relied for his criminal adventure?

And when MPs questioned this claptrap, they were haughtily put down by General Gordon Messenger, deputy chief of the defence staff, who said that for security reasons these various rebel units could not be named – even though we know the identity of these ragtag CIA outfits and of their inability to fight anyone. The appropriately named Messenger went along with David Cameron’s fantasy and was duly promoted, just as John Scarlett, the JIC’s chairman who provided all the duff “intelligence” to Blair, was later knighted.
And so we went to war against Isis in Syria – unless, of course, Isis was attacking Assad’s regime, in which case we did nothing at all, despite all the outrageous huffing and puffing of Hilary Benn about pre-war fascism. Condemn Blair we will, poor chap, but don’t think that anything changed in the six years Sir John spent writing up his Biblical tome.
And that’s the problem. When Blair can say, as he did the moment the Chilcot report was published, that it should “lay to rest allegations [sic] of bad faith, lies and deceit” – without a revolution in the streets against his bad faith, lies and deceit – then you can be sure that his successors will have no hesitation in swindling the public again and again. After all, what’s the difference between Iraqi WMDs that don’t exist, 45-minute warnings that are falsities, 70,000 non-existent Syrian “moderates” and a fictitious NHS windfall of millions if Britain left the European Union?

There are many versions – and misquotations – of that most cynical of Nazi propagandists, Joseph “the bigger the lie, the better” Goebbels, but it is impossible not to be shocked by some of his observations. “The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence,” he wrote in 1941. “Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
What is chilling about these words is not that the wartime English Goebbels maligned, nor that Churchill (who was his special target) did actually lie. Given the struggle against Nazism – and despite Churchill’s observation that truth in war should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies – the British had a virtuous ability in the 1939-45 conflict to tell the truth even when a bit of Blairite flummery might have sufficed to cover up Britain’s defeats. No, what is frightening is that Goebbels’s words apply so painfully to English politicians today.
Who do we know after the report, for example, who keeps up their big lies even at the risk of looking ridiculous? I fear, in an awful way, that small men who want to walk in big shoes – who actually think they are Churchill and take their country to war – are committing the very lies of which their political ancestors were largely innocent. Perhaps the key to all this was captured in Sir John’s contention that Blair relied more on his “beliefs” – whatever that dangerous word obscures – and the judgement of others.

Thus he can tell us – and tell me as I drove in from the Syrian desert city of Palmyra whose desecrators brought their vile practices from the Iraqi disaster that Blair helped to create – that “I do not believe [that Saddam Hussein’s removal] is the cause of terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world”. All this duplicity, of course, is to form part of the “full debate” that Blair now threatens in the aftermath of the Chilcot report.
He is going – heaven spare us -- to “set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience”. But Blair doesn’t need to bore us with his lies all over again. They’ve already been imbibed by Dave “70,000 moderates” Cameron and the Brexit lads who are now self-destructing amid the very lies they told – and which may achieve all that Goebbels wished for this country: the end of the United Kingdom.
In this context, the Chilcot report is not so much a massive work of investigation into the sins that took us to war in 2003, but just another chapter in the story of our inability to control a world in which Britain’s public relations politicians treat their people with contempt, kill some of their soldiers and slaughter hundreds of thousands of foreigners without any real remorse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-read-the-chilcot-report-as-i-travelled-across-syria-this-week-and-saw-for-myself-what-blairs-a7123311.html

Blair thinks he's a demi-god and is as mad as a hatter now.

Funny... it only came out yesterday morning and is over a million words...

lol!

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:26 pm

didge wrote:Insurgents put paid to any idea of freedom for Iraq and turned the area into a battlground over Islam, which caused hundreds of thousands of people butchered simple over people fighting to gain supremacy for one doctrine of Islam over the other.

So you wash your hands of any consequences of the lies? It's nothing to do with our greed. It’s those terrible people we liberated, and their confusion over religion.

Did you ever consider that if Cheney wasn’t so covetous of all that Oil, he might have given some consideration that such was the exact consequence you could expect? Hey, we took the lid off. You can't rattle a beehive and then say those confused bees are misinformed about their religion. We were, and continue to be the best recruitment tool for ISIS and anything else that replaces it.

didge wrote:We should have liberated Iraq after the First war, but the conflict is still going on with islamism, which you fail to grasp and that problem is growing. Its an ideology that is at odds with are very way of life and countless millions of Muslims also.

The first Iraq war was the intelligent one. We didn’t attempt to blow up the entire superstructure of the Middle East. We had a purpose: free Kuwait. As Karl Von Clausewitz said, you must have a reason for going to war…and I’ll add: or else, you’ll have no endgame. And that’s exactly the situation we have today.

didge wrote:They suffer whilst we again could go in tomorrow and destroy ISIS in a matter of days.
How many more have to suffer due to incompetant indifference and hence why taking out the head is never the answer, as many more grow back from the source like the Hydra body itself.

Um…any thoughts about the next one, the one that will replace ISIS?

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:33 pm

didge wrote:Do you believe Saddam would have not continue to murder if left in power, considering hundreds of thousands disappeared under his regeme?
Do you not care for those suffering or does that only matter when you falsely claim this of Israeli's daily?

Suffering? Do you think that the kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder that went down after Saddam was eliminated, was an improvement. Hard as it is to realize, the people of Iraq were much better off then.

We have only your ethnocentrism to say that we did good. We raped, tortured and murdered...that doesn't speak very well for post-Saddam Iraq. And now look at the whole region...a massive civil war that will last probably for centuries. An argument can be made, he did better.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:34 pm

Original Quill wrote:
So you wash your hands of any consequences of the lies? It's nothing to do with our greed. It’s those terrible people we liberated, and their confusion over religion.

didge wrote:It has nothing to do with greed as the US as seen did not benefit at all from Oil anc it faced them with a huge debt which really debunks the daft left wing claim that it was over oil. Should those who lied be prosecuted based on a lie?
Yes
For War crimes?
No, as how can you possible call it a war crime to remove and liberate a nation from someone who commited mass genocide

Did you ever consider that if Cheney wasn’t so covetous of all that Oil, he might have given some consideration that such was the exact consequence you could expect? Hey, we took the lid off. You can't rattle a beehive and then say those confused bees are misinformed about their religion. We were, and continue to be the best recruitment tool for ISIS and anything else that replaces it.

didge wrote:Could not care one issue with Cheney, he is irrelevant to any of the points at hand in regards to removing a mass murderer

The first Iraq war was the intelligent one. We didn’t attempt to blow up the entire superstructure of the Middle East. We had a purpose: free Kuwait. As Karl Von Clausewitz said, you must have a reason for going to war…and I’ll add: or else, you’ll have no endgame. And that’s exactly the situation we have today.

didge wrote:So did the second one, the liberation of Iraq from Saddam and his regeme as it was not only the weapons of mass destruction that was called as a reason to invade but his human rights record, which many people simple and easily forget
I know of no better reason than removing a mass murder who caused millions of deaths both through war and actual murder?
So again we are back to the "Quil fuck em" attitude, its no my problem syndrome, which would have seen countless more suffer and died during WW2.

Um…any thoughts about the next one, the one that will replace ISIS?

There will no doubt be plenty more until we neutralize the islamist threat.
You clearly do not Von Clausewitz and what to do with an extreme enemy and to apply total war.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:36 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:Do you believe Saddam would have not continue to murder if left in power, considering hundreds of thousands disappeared under his regeme?
Do you not care for those suffering or does that only matter when you falsely claim this of Israeli's daily?

Suffering? Do you think that the kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder that went down after Saddam was eliminated, was an improvement. Hard as it is to realize, the people of Iraq were much better off then.

We have only your ethnocentrism to say that we did good. We raped, tortured and murdered...that doesn't speak very well for post-Saddam Iraq. And now look at the whole region...a massive civil war that will last probably for centuries. An argument can be made, he did better.

We liberated a nation.
You igore again who exploited this and shift blame back to the allies.
Again how was it that other nations once liberated have grasped this chance to rebuild?
Why is it though with two Islamic nations in Afghanistan and Iraq, we see the opposite?
Its simple, the ideology of islamism

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:37 pm

didge wrote:There will no doubt be plenty more until we neutralize the islamist threat.
You clearly do not Von Clausewitz and what to do with an extreme enemy and to apply total war.

It isn't our problem, and it never was. It is only by the convoluted reasons that got us involved, that we are left with the inheritance.

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:38 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:There will no doubt be plenty more until we neutralize the islamist threat.
You clearly do not Von Clausewitz and what to do with an extreme enemy and to apply total war.

It isn't our problem, and it never was. It is only by the convoluted reasons that got us involved, that we are left with the inheritance.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.

–Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1986

by Guest Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:39 pm

Original Quill wrote:
didge wrote:Do you believe Saddam would have not continue to murder if left in power, considering hundreds of thousands disappeared under his regeme?
Do you not care for those suffering or does that only matter when you falsely claim this of Israeli's daily?

Suffering? Do you think the kidnapping, torture, rape, rendition and murder went down after Saddam was eliminated. Hard as it is to realize, the people of Iraq were much better off then.

We have only your ethnocentrism to say that we did good. We raped, tortured and murdered...that doesn't speak very well for post-Saddam Iraq. And now look at the whole region...a massive civil war that will last probably for centuries. An argument can be made, he did better.

As the man on the radio said yesterday, the one that pulled down Saddam statue with the help of the American troops, 'I wish I could turn the clock back, then we could walk down the street in safety, today nowhere is safe'.

It is an image seared in the minds of war-ready and war-weary Americans alike. Just weeks after the invasion of Iraq, American armored vehicles bore down on Firdos Square in downtown Baghdad, where an emboldened man had already taken a sledgehammer to the base of a statue of Saddam Hussein.
That man, Kadhim Sharif al-Jabouri, had once repaired the Hussein family's motorcycles, but was also imprisoned by Hussein after falling out of favor. He says that 14 or 15 members of his family were executed by Hussein's regime.

In an interview aired Tuesday by the BBC, more than 13 years after the invasion, Jabouri speaks of his longing for the relative peace of the years before it.
“Now, when I go by that statue, I feel pain and shame. I ask myself, why did I topple that statue?” said Jabouri. The toppling of the statue became the iconic image of the beginning of the invasion. It conveyed hope — although many have since alleged that the whole scene was more or less staged.
“I'd like to put it back up. To rebuild it. But I'm afraid I'd be killed,” said Jabouri.

Iraq is yet to fully emerge from the bloodbath the invasion precipitated. And early Sunday morning, Isis terrorised Baghdad once again with the deadliest single bombing since the year the invasion began: 2003. More than 200 were killed as they shopped for gifts for the upcoming Eid holiday, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Witnesses said many of the dead were trapped in the inferno of a shopping mall, their bodies melted.
The shopping mall was in Karrada, a neighborhood just down the road from Firdos Square, where the statue Hussein had built for himself for his 65th birthday once stood.

Jabouri has long since left Baghdad, which he found to be too unsafe for his family. He now lives in Beirut, along with more than 1 million refugees from Iraq, Syria and Palestine, who have added incredible stress to Lebanon's public infrastructure and services. Once a weightlifter and wrestler, he now continues with the hobby that brought him into contact with the Hussein family in the first place: motorcycle repair.

He, like many interviewed in my colleague Loveday Morris's reporting, blames the current situation squarely on the Iraqi government. After the American invasion, he says, things got worse every year. “There was corruption, infighting, killing, looting. Saddam killed people, but it was nothing like this current government,” he said. “Saddam is gone, but in his place there are 1,000 Saddams.”
And that government was instituted by the invading coalition. For them, Jabouri had these words: “Bush and Blair are liars. They destroyed Iraq and took us back to zero, and took us back to the Middle Ages or earlier. If I was a criminal, I would kill them with my bare hands.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/chilcot-report-iraq-war-saddam-hussein-s-statue-man-who-helped-destroy-wants-him-back-a7123121.html

by Original Quill Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:39 pm

didge wrote:We liberated a nation.

Only to replace it with rape, torture, kidnapping and murder. And a legacy of constant confusion and civil war.

We should be proud??

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