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The Iraq war successful

UtahBill said:
Islamic golden age? how many centuries ago was that?
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about 11 or 12. (odd, I just found out that your message must be at least 10 characters long. never been on a board that required a minimum message length before)
 
OscarB63 said:
about 11 or 12. (odd, I just found out that your message must be at least 10 characters long. never been on a board that required a minimum message length before)
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I guess if you peak early, there is nowhere to go but down.....
Compare modern accomplishments of Islam to those of Judaism, and there are very, very few Islamic names on the list of Nobel prize winners, but lots of Jews.

It is as simple as noting who had done things FOR humanity, or TO humanity....and most cultures have some old skeletons in their closets. Seems some of the Islamic peoples aren't shamed by those kinds of deeds, even glorify them.
It should be up to the modern, and moderate, Islamic world to deal with those among them who are stuck in the past.
 
UtahBill said:
I guess if you peak early, there is nowhere to go but down.....
Compare modern accomplishments of Islam to those of Judaism, and there are very, very few Islamic names on the list of Nobel prize winners, but lots of Jews.

It is as simple as noting who had done things FOR humanity, or TO humanity....and most cultures have some old skeletons in their closets. Seems some of the Islamic peoples aren't shamed by those kinds of deeds, even glorify them.
It should be up to the modern, and moderate, Islamic world to deal with those among them who are stuck in the past.
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all you have to do is look at the middle east. look what the jews have done with Israel and then look at what the muslims have done with the rest of the area. same climate but yet Israel is clean and they actually grow crops, etc. the rest of the place is basically a ****hole
 
all you have to do is look at the middle east. look what the jews have done with Israel and then look at what the muslims have done with the rest of the area. same climate but yet Israel is clean and they actually grow crops, etc. the rest of the place is basically a ****hole
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I wouldn't judge the whole ME by looking at a warzone. The Gulf states are filthy rich and are mostly modern and clean. Iran may be run by theocrats, but it is still is a decent place to live otherwise.
 
rathi said:
I wouldn't judge the whole ME by looking at a warzone. The Gulf states are filthy rich and are mostly modern and clean. Iran may be run by theocrats, but it is still is a decent place to live otherwise.
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Don't know, I took a 4 day pass to Qatar, it's not a warzone and it was pretty desolate and dirty too. unless you are filthy rich in the gulf states your standard of living is pretty shabby. from what I have seen, there is no middle class. people are either veery, very rich or very, very poor.
 
UtahBill said:
I guess if you peak early, there is nowhere to go but down.....
Compare modern accomplishments of Islam to those of Judaism, and there are very, very few Islamic names on the list of Nobel prize winners, but lots of Jews.

It is as simple as noting who had done things FOR humanity, or TO humanity....and most cultures have some old skeletons in their closets. Seems some of the Islamic peoples aren't shamed by those kinds of deeds, even glorify them.
It should be up to the modern, and moderate, Islamic world to deal with those among them who are stuck in the past.
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Unfortunately its a 'past' that much of the population seem happy to carry on living. Our perception [the West] on many aspects of the ME, is simply that, our perception which is not necessarily shared by the region we scrutinize. So, as we often try and look at the region comparatively, we make the mistake of comparing two totally dissimilar countries which most definitely proves very little.
I'm not disputing the ME has lagged in many areas of what we perceive measures a societies worth, but oddly oil has probably acted as an achilles heal, being in some instances the sole driver of an economy [a well known fact].

Paul
 
I think its rather early to declare the Iraq war a "success", unless you're speaking strictly in military terms. In which case, yes, we sucessfully crushed the military of a nation that is a fraction of our size and was subject to a major economic embargo for roughly a decade. I don't think that outcome was ever in doubt.

But speaking in reality, sucess has been defined as creating a stable, democratic Iraq that will be a western ally in a volatile region. We have yet to see if that goal has been truly achieved and likely won't know for years. I'm skeptical of Iraq's chances, but only time will tell.

And in my opinion, even if that goal is achieved, I have to question if it worth the economic and human cost to our nation. I'm not at all convinced the benefits of a stable democratic, pro-western Iraq can justify the billions of dollars and the thousands of lives we spent there. Perhaps, I'm wrong. In fact, I hope so. Otherwise, the Iraq war can only be viewed as a needless and self inflicted American tragedy.
 
mikhail said:
Which for me sums up alot of the left they are the first people to stand up bravely and demand Don Imus is fired but when it comes to a middle east Hitler a proven ethnic cleanser you would rather he stay in charge.
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Bull****.

If it required the death of a few thousand american soldiers to fire Don Imus I'd be against it. If I could have signed a petition and made a few angry phone calls to remove Saddam from power I would have. The two have nothing to do with eachother and the idea that the left loved Saddam is laughable. The rest of your post isn't even worth my time.
 
ose and personal what a crap hole the place is. I fully expect that within 6 months of the withdrawal of US support, the whole place will collapse in upon itself. After thousands of years of despotic and dictatorial leadership those people have no concept of self-government. Most of the average Iraqis are so poorly educated that they don't have a clue what is going on. Most of them don't even have access to clean water. They could care less about politics.

I do realize now why it is so easy to recruit suicide bombers from that region. If I knew I would have to spend the rest of my life living there...I would want the rest of my life to be as short as possible.
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Perhaps that's because their infrastructure was largely destroyed through bombings and sanctions. Prior to 1990 the Iraqi education system was one of the most prominent in the region.

all you have to do is look at the middle east. look what the jews have done with Israel and then look at what the muslims have done with the rest of the area. same climate but yet Israel is clean and they actually grow crops, etc. the rest of the place is basically a ****hole
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Oh? And you have been to every single city in every single country in the Middle East?

Also, judging an entire country based on a single 4-day trip to that country is beyond stupid.
 
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Khayembii Communique said:
Prior to 1990 the Iraqi education system was one of the most prominent in the region.
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I guess that's why most of them who could afford it sent their kids to the US to attend college.



Also, judging an entire country based on a single 4-day trip to that country is beyond stupid.
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not when the country is the size of a postage stamp and you travel from one end of it to the other over the course of that 4 day trip...unless, of course there was some sparkling clean utopia there that they purposely hid from me.
 
OscarB63 said:
I guess that's why most of them who could afford it sent their kids to the US to attend college.






not when the country is the size of a postage stamp and you travel from one end of it to the other over the course of that 4 day trip...unless, of course there was some sparkling clean utopia there that they purposely hid from me.
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Which Iraq did you visit? It is twice the size of Idaho. Hardly a postage stamp.
 
UtahBill said:
Which Iraq did you visit? It is twice the size of Idaho. Hardly a postage stamp.
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the reference was not to Iraq but to Qatar (The Qatari peninsula juts 100 miles (161 km) north into the Persian Gulf from Saudi Arabia and is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut, USA)
 
OscarB63 said:
the reference was not to Iraq but to Qatar (The Qatari peninsula juts 100 miles (161 km) north into the Persian Gulf from Saudi Arabia and is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut, USA)
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In a thread about Iraq war, I assumed your post was about Iraq. My bad....
 
I guess that's why most of them who could afford it sent their kids to the US to attend college.
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Nope.

not when the country is the size of a postage stamp and you travel from one end of it to the other over the course of that 4 day trip...unless, of course there was some sparkling clean utopia there that they purposely hid from me.
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Oh man no way you traveled from one end to the other?! Wow congratulations!

Oh wow this looks filthy I can't believe people even live there!
 
Oh so you're saying that an entire country shouldn't be judged by a very small portion of that country, as that small portion could be unlike the rest of the country?
 
USA-1 said:
I knew the surge would accomplish exactly what it did. I was 100% correct on my prediction
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seems i remember something about how more targets weren't going to fix a civil war..... ?

Now lasting peace and a stable Iraq? Not gonna happen.
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based on what?

My prediction. There will be a major power play. The real threats that have been patient, quiet and waiting for us to leave will make their move. The ones smart enough to know that they can not win over the US military.
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ah. the 'real threats' that havent' been involved. who are they?

When chaos does breaks out again should we go back in with another surge?
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if it happens, then yes. the consequences are simply too dire to do otherwise.

Nevertheless, they certainly want to convince the American people that their nation has won a war in Iraq. If you walk down the street of your home town and ask people what winning in Iraq means here is some of the things you might hear:

1. We successfully got rid of Saddam Hussein and his dictatorship
2. We defeated the regular Iraqi army that was fielded against our forces
3. We have successfully brought democracy to Iraq
4. We prevented Saddam Hussein from developing and using weapons of mass destruction
5. We destroyed Al Qaeda's ability to use Iraq as a stage for terrorist attacks against the U.S.

Numbers 1 and 2 are true and constitute the classical definitions of "winning" a war. If anyone had pushed John McCain to define his terms he may well have fallen back on these traditional criteria for success. Number 3 is highly questionable. After our invasion, we configured elections for Iraq which were then held in the midst of a civil war. It is now apparent that the Iraqi people are so divided, both ethnically and in terms of religious sects, that the electoral process has only led to stalemate.

The most recent elections (March 2010) have not produced a conclusive winner and the various Iraqi parties have not been able to negotiate a stable coalition government.
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war is not strictly defined by large battle formations crashing into each other. arguably, that isn't even the historic norm for warfare. certainly it isn't the only kind of war that the US fights or has fought or should fight.

but look at your goalposts. the iraq war is a failure because their democracy is in a stalemate? goodness, what did you consider the US when our government shut down in 1995?

democracy (messy, corrupt, and problematic) is now the general assumption in that state. as for the mythical infamous religious and ethnic divisions; claims of their eruption are wildly overrated or exagerated. it's worth noting that both Qods and AQI have attempted (with success mostly limited to Baghdad) to spawn ethnic/religous divison. it's worth noting that because one doesn't have to foment what exists naturally; and the Iraqi people largely seem to have told both belligerents to get stuffed. much of the Iraqi populace is actually mixed; families have shia and sunni branches. shia fought willingly and well against Iran in the Iraq-Iran war, and seem to have generally rejected Sadrist calls for Iranian subservience / twelver theocracy.

The resulting political vacuum has once more opened the door to civil war
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this would be the oft-predicted never seen Iraqi civil war? and how exactly does a hung parliament produce a conflict that the bombing of the golden mosque and ethnic cleanisng campaigns did not?

and terrorist attacks on civilian targets are on the increase
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:shrug: which we knew was going to happen; what is left of the vestiges of AQI are desperate to try to delegitimize an Iraqi government clearly acting independently; and Iranian backed extremists (though similarly marginalized), are equally desperate to do the same. but a series of car bombings in Baghdad doesn't mean the government will dissolve overnight anymore than the 9/11 and anthrax attacks convinced Americans to turn back to the British Crown.

Numbers 4 and 5 are false and always have been. They are two major variants on the lies fed to the American Congress and people by the administration of George W. Bush.
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handled above. the fact is that in todays world; realism simply is no longer realistic. especially given that we are no longer the only universalistic creed-based nation around.
 
It would have been the same thing as stating that the Axis won over the Allies in WWII
 
cpwill said:
seems i remember something about how more targets weren't going to fix a civil war..... ?



based on what?



ah. the 'real threats' that havent' been involved. who are they?



if it happens, then yes. the consequences are simply too dire to do otherwise.



war is not strictly defined by large battle formations crashing into each other. arguably, that isn't even the historic norm for warfare. certainly it isn't the only kind of war that the US fights or has fought or should fight.

but look at your goalposts. the iraq war is a failure because their democracy is in a stalemate? goodness, what did you consider the US when our government shut down in 1995?

democracy (messy, corrupt, and problematic) is now the general assumption in that state. as for the mythical infamous religious and ethnic divisions; claims of their eruption are wildly overrated or exagerated. it's worth noting that both Qods and AQI have attempted (with success mostly limited to Baghdad) to spawn ethnic/religous divison. it's worth noting that because one doesn't have to foment what exists naturally; and the Iraqi people largely seem to have told both belligerents to get stuffed. much of the Iraqi populace is actually mixed; families have shia and sunni branches. shia fought willingly and well against Iran in the Iraq-Iran war, and seem to have generally rejected Sadrist calls for Iranian subservience / twelver theocracy.



this would be the oft-predicted never seen Iraqi civil war? and how exactly does a hung parliament produce a conflict that the bombing of the golden mosque and ethnic cleanisng campaigns did not?



:shrug: which we knew was going to happen; what is left of the vestiges of AQI are desperate to try to delegitimize an Iraqi government clearly acting independently; and Iranian backed extremists (though similarly marginalized), are equally desperate to do the same. but a series of car bombings in Baghdad doesn't mean the government will dissolve overnight anymore than the 9/11 and anthrax attacks convinced Americans to turn back to the British Crown.



handled above. the fact is that in todays world; realism simply is no longer realistic. especially given that we are no longer the only universalistic creed-based nation around.
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Time will prove that all my predictions will come true. We have won nothing in Iraq and the war there will never end.
 
roughdraft274 said:
Bull****.

If it required the death of a few thousand american soldiers to fire Don Imus I'd be against it. If I could have signed a petition and made a few angry phone calls to remove Saddam from power I would have. The two have nothing to do with eachother and the idea that the left loved Saddam is laughable. The rest of your post isn't even worth my time.
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So you have proven my point you only wanna stand up to things that are easily done without causing you any pain.
 
I can't really say that the Iraqi war was a complete success. I mean-not all objectives have been met.
But it was not a failure either, as is the case with most wars in history.
I've actually wrote about it on my blog - Responsibility of an Empire
 
It can only be considered a "success" if you don't factor in:

A. The costs of achieving it.

B. The fact that the "objectives" were changed and widdled down.


And Pyrrhus of Epirus had a victory too ;)
 
Really successful, or by French standards?
 
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