Skipjack,
1 million died in the fighting from 2003 to 2008?
That would be at the level of the Iran/Iraq war. Just a little biased perhaps? You really can't trust the wiki on anything where the question touches politics. (they were rather biased against Polywell - I blame the ITER Mafia - until the Navy resumed funding the project) BTW the 1 million number was first mooted by a Lancet article that was widely criticized for poor statistical methods. The hockey stick of death.
The most authoritative of the left wing sites covering the numbers puts it at under 100,000 with most of the casualties due to insurgents blowing up Iraqis. i.e. an internal power struggle. These are not uncommon after wars. See Germany 1919 or Russia 1917. Or France 1945. Or Spain 1815.
Also note that wars with insurgents are long tail wars. The fighting often continues long after the issue has been decided. See Spain 1815 to 2009.
F-22 production termination is premature
I think a US presence in the UN has its value. i.e. the veto. Also being part of the organization allows us to keep an eye on it.kunkmiester wrote:Gladly, as soon as we elect a Senate of John Boltons to do it. Problem is, we have a bunch of socialists that love the UN, and hate America. There's a few too many of them for those of us with brains to vote them out though.Then you should take the consequences and leave!
If you despise the union of nations so much, then be so honest an leave. Dont put the politically correct face on for the rest of the world and then do whatever you want anyway (as you have been doing for years now).
Part of the consequences would be saving a couple hundred billion a year, IIRC. There's actually several nations that should quit, since the UN will ultimately be worthless to them, and potentially harmful.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Yes. The Europeans were doing good business with Iraq. It was one of the reasons the "final" resolution for war didn't pass.Heck everyone was selling stuff to Iraq. Western contractors built mid range rocket factories for him and sarine gas factories.
You might want to look into - Chirac Oil For food - Or - Maurice Strong oil for food - Saddam had his uses for the Euros. And vice versa.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
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kunkmiester
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That's what the CIA is for. We just need to use it right(we should have a lot more HUMINT--"human intelligence") than we do.I think a US presence in the UN has its value. i.e. the veto. Also being part of the organization allows us to keep an eye on it.
What all does our veto do? Has it really stopped anything? And Russia has a veto as well, which has repeatedly stopped useful things. I'm not sure leaving the organization would leave us much worse off. We'd certainly save a lot of money paying rapists to "keep the peace."[/code]
Evil is evil, no matter how small
Not just the Europeans.Yes. The Europeans were doing good business with Iraq. It was one of the reasons the "final" resolution for war didn't pass.
Hello, the US was doing excellent business with Iraq too until the first gulf war (which was what I meant earlier)! The US supported Iraq in its war against Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
Bull was a Canadian and most of the modern US cannons are based on hisn designs (smooth barrel cannons such as used in the M1 A1).
He was an engineering legend. It was not right to assassinate him like that.
He was not the only one btw. Others were blown up some threatened.
A few of them without warnings, such as Bull had (supposedly, but I think it is another case of faked history) received them.
Anyway, please forgive my dislike for such assassinations and the people behind those.
Wikipedia might be, I am not.Just a little biased perhaps?
Though since anybody can edit Wikipedia...
IIRC the USA was sharing intel with Iraq. And we got under 5% of the cash business.
And the American theory in that war was: "Too bad they can't both lose."
It was a balance of power game. Saddam was losing. Help him. The game was to keep the war going.
And the American theory in that war was: "Too bad they can't both lose."
It was a balance of power game. Saddam was losing. Help him. The game was to keep the war going.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Kill Bull before the device gets built or suffer deaths in the homeland and the need to kill a lot of Iraqis to destroy the weapon.A few of them without warnings, such as Bull had (supposedly, but I think it is another case of faked history) received them.
Anyway, please forgive my dislike for such assassinations and the people behind those.
Which would you chose?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The US was doing more than just sharing Intel with Iraq. There was all sorts of support. Also in weapons, etc. Of course now nobody wants to know anything about it. Politics!
The Iraqis had more suppliers such as the USSR, the NATO nations, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Yugoslavia, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
In 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the U.S. made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), and also supplying "dual-use" equipment and vehicles. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application.[40] President Ronald Reagan decided that the United States "could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran", and that the United States "would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."[41] President Reagan formalized this policy by issuing a National Security Decision Directive ("NSDD") to this effect in June, 1982.
Bull was a non combattant.Kill Bull before the device gets built or suffer deaths in the homeland and the need to kill a lot of Iraqis to destroy the weapon.
Which would you chose?
He was an external contractor. He was not even present in Iraq. He was a free citizen of a free nation, not at war with Israel!
Also, there would have been other means to convince him than simply assassinating him!!
E.g. there are legal systems in the free world.
And if I am not mistaken, then the US constitution says that noone may his property or life taken without a prior fair process.
So no, assassinating him was wrong, period.
All you say is true. And yet the Mossad is charged with defending Israel by any means authorized by the Israeli Government. If he was warned off (likely true) then you can consider his death "suicide by cop".Skipjack wrote:Bull was a non combattant.Kill Bull before the device gets built or suffer deaths in the homeland and the need to kill a lot of Iraqis to destroy the weapon.
Which would you chose?
He was an external contractor. He was not even present in Iraq. He was a free citizen of a free nation, not at war with Israel!
Also, there would have been other means to convince him than simply assassinating him!!
E.g. there are legal systems in the free world.
And if I am not mistaken, then the US constitution says that noone may his property or life taken without a prior fair process.
So no, assassinating him was wrong, period.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
ROFL!All you say is true. And yet the Mossad is charged with defending Israel by any means authorized by the Israeli Government. If he was warned off (likely true) then you can consider his death "suicide by cop".
You can not just kill people because they are inconvenient!
There is no law against doing business! You are a libertarian yourself and you think like that? This sounds more fascist to me than libertarian!
Besides, the Mossad has no right as a police in Belgium and proper police protocol was not fullfilled. So no, it was still murder!
Yes, hence "no one knows." They may have been destroyed, they may have been moved to Syria (North Korea did that), they may be hidden under the desert somewhere.They weren't "suspected" they were actually used. What no one knows, to this day, is what happened to them. Saddam refused to cooperate with
Well, once the war was won, they looked and did not find anything.
That is the Lancet "excess deaths" estimate. It has been widely debunked as using extremely poor methodology (the raw data has never been produced) and is fairly obviously wrong as that number of dead in 5 years would have filled every cemetery and required mass graves besides.Well according to Wikipedia 1 million have died in Iraq due to the fighting.
The reported number dead is probably also too high, as media tend to exaggerate, and does not exceed 100,000 by any estimate.
They inevitably had to solved on the way to something resembling liberal democracy. Could it have gone better? Yes, but...The internal power struggles are a direct result of the power vacuum left behind bei Saddam.
In fact, very few people expected it, which is why in 2003 there was so much pressure to have a "light footprint" and "let Iraqis handle Iraqi problems" for fear the occupation would seem too heavy-handed. So U.S. troops sat in their bases while the insurgents organized.Come one, everybody knew that this was going to happen.
The pathology of Iraq was hard to diagnose when the place was a closed-off police state with no real news media. This is the same problem that led Sovietologists in the mid-1980s to conclude the SU was as healthy as ever. It's very hard to get information about these societies.
Because our feckless corrupt allies in Europe didn't want to lose their business deals, and our venal corrupt undemocratic allies in the Gulf had no love for liberal democracy and tens of billions in loans to Saddam.Why do you think Saddam was not removed much, much earlier?
He got very little support from the U.S. beyond the symbolic. Less than 1% of his weapons were U.S.-made. It was useful to have an enemy of Iran, true, but we didn't do a whole lot to help him.The US knew it before 91 too. Why otherwise did you support him all the years before 91? Why? Because he was convenient!
Heck everyone was selling stuff to Iraq
This argument has never made any sense. The region wasn't stable, and Saddam's Iraq certainly wasn't stabilizing anything -- it was constantly starting wars, financing terrorism, using WMD, and engaging in genocide.Saddam is needed for stability in the region.
Last edited by TallDave on Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:47 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Maybe they just were not there, as many of those that opposed the war thought? Saddams WMD infrastructure was dismantled after the first Iraq war. He was resisting UN inspectors, but I think that was mostly for show.Yes, hence "no one knows." They may have been destroyed, they may have been moved to Syria, they may be hidden under the desert somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... 93Iraq_warHe got very little support from the U.S. beyond the symbolic. Less than 1% of his weapons were U.S.-made. It was useful to have an enemy of Iran, true, but we didn't do a whole lot to help him.
That does not speak for your generals.In fact, very few people expected it, which is why in 2003 there was so much pressure to have a "light footprint" for fear the occupation would seem too heavy-handed.
Lots of people who oppose the war now claim they always knew they weren't there, but in fact very few people made this claim at the time. The consensus of the intel community (not just U.S., but around the world) was they existed and were being hidden.Maybe they just were not there, as many of those that opposed the war thought?
What actually happened to them, no one knows for sure. The most widely accepted notion is that they were destroyed during one of the volleys of airstrikes from 1991-2003.
I'm very familiar with that link. If you read through it, there is little actual support detailed there beyond a few advisers and some kind words, and many of the links are dead or go to sites that are not considered credible. It also supports the assertion that less than 1% of Iraqi arms were U.S.-made -- this despite the fact Iraq was the world's largest arms importer for a period in the 1980s. Iraq was armed almost entirely by Russia and Europe, with the U.S. playing at most a facilitator's role.
Yes, it does. There was quite a bit of debate about how much was needed to overthrow Saddam, but very little about how much would be needed afterward (in fact, even a lot of the immediate postwar planning had to be scrapped because it dealt with disaster scenarios that never materalized because the regime fell so easily). I remember on the day of the invasion in 2003 a former general was saying "We didn't bring enough armor to this fight." But the regime fell like a house of cards a little while later.That does not speak for your generals.