History Iraq War - the washup

[MaddAdam]

As I write, Jazeera is showing the last US troops heading over the border into Kuwait.

I recall vividly rushing home from work in Dublin in March 2003 and stopping only to get a sixpack so I could watch the initial invasion.

Recall the armoured punch into Baghdad being shown live.

Met a guy when I was travelling in the Mideast who was actually in the famous press conference Comical Ali gave where he was declaring how the Americans would have their guts grilled in hell while an M1A1 Abrams rolled into view in the background.

Consider that a bloke drafted this year would have been 10 years old when the war started or that the war was going for roughly half the time I've been able to vote.

Did America LOSE the war?

Was IRAN the big winner as many allege?

What kind of Iraq will see in the years and decades to come?

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Iran was definitely the big winner.

 

[00Stinger]

Iran was the winner as the balance of power in the region shifted their way.


America won the actual war as the objective was to overthrow Saddam. However they got locked down into a timely and costly exercise. One which they didn't expect, however was probably not a bad thing. Had America finished up in Iraq in 1-3 years, there was probably a good chance Bush would have tried the same in Iran or North Korea before he finished in office.

 

[rayven]

The Taliban.

 

[Malifice]

Yanks still get their puppet state in the ME, and control of the oil.

Saudi Arabia, Islamists and fundamentalism also a big winner.

 

[blackcat]

As I write, Jazeera is showing the last US troops heading over the border into Kuwait.

I recall vividly rushing home from work in Dublin in March 2003 and stopping only to get a sixpack so I could watch the initial invasion.

Recall the armoured punch into Baghdad being shown live.

Met a guy when I was travelling in the Mideast who was actually in the famous press conference Comical Ali gave where he was declaring how the Americans would have their guts grilled in hell while an M1A1 Abrams rolled into view in the background.

Consider that a bloke drafted this year would have been 10 years old when the war started or that the war was going for roughly half the time I've been able to vote.

Did America LOSE the war?

Was IRAN the big winner as many allege?

What kind of Iraq will see in the years and decades to come?

nah, Iran and Shiites were not the winner. The toehold in the ME with the embassy in Baghdad, is still gonna put the living daylights frighteners to others, cos they know after 'Raq, Libeeya, that Us'o'A have their neocon project well into phase two, to remodel the ME, or destroy the states they attempt to model.

Iran still having scientists assassinated by MEK under auspices of US and/or Israel.

Syria now in the gun sights.

I dont see how anyone can believe Iran are in a stronger position when Israel and the US are more bellicose than ever, and have their back up, and now have troops, but not a government deficit to play with.

If a GOP candidate is successful in unseating Obama, watch out. And I for one think Obama has been worse than Bush. Chomsky says so too. I think killing Bin Laden gets him over the line, but the tanking employment numbers, could put halt to the reign.

Iran was definitely the big winner.

Iran was the winner as the balance of power in the region shifted their way.


America won the actual war as the objective was to overthrow Saddam. However they got locked down into a timely and costly exercise. One which they didn't expect, however was probably not a bad thing. Had America finished up in Iraq in 1-3 years, there was probably a good chance Bush would have tried the same in Iran or North Korea before he finished in office.

they fomented the sectarian crisis and internecine war. This is what is conquer divide 101 for the Clean Break neocons.

Yanks still get their puppet state in the ME, and control of the oil.

Saudi Arabia, Islamists and fundamentalism also a big winner.

No one in the ME has won here. No one. And the US people and the Israeli people did not win. Ideologists and neo-cons in American won tho' ironically, they at once, entrenched their power, yet have put a down payment on the catalyst for their demise with their gov't debt. US is like a 1990's binging Christopher Hitchens trainwreck waiting to happen.

 

[J_Moore]

I heard an excerpt of the Iraqi army band playing on a news report this morning; oh boy, is that country ****ed.

 

[Paradigm]

Just glad we are out of there. Glad Saddam is dead. Glad Bin Laden is dead. Glad Gadaffi is dead. Leave them to it. They'll either all self destruct....or hopefully prove me wrong and the Arab Spring will change things.

Being doing it for thousands of years...nothing really has changed. Long as they're fighting each other they're leaving us alone.

Simplistic I know.

But I am over all this.

 

[MaddAdam]

This is what I posted on another site about why I don't think America can be said have lost Iraq.

They still have that giant Vatican sized embassy in Baghdad which is packed full of **** knows what. They are currently conducting a high intensity but low visibility war of sabotage against Iran. Al Qaeda in the form it was September 10 2011 is defeated as a force that can project internationally. They still have 4000 troops in Iraq and the Kurds onside.

I'm not saying it went all to plan from March 2003 but it certainly isn't an unquestioned strategic defeat on the scale of Vietnam. I think enoygh of their goals have been achieved and are being achieved to call it a scoring draw.


The Qaeda in Iraq thing is particularly instructive. The invasion gave Qaeda exactky what it had always wanted - the chance to fight on home sand against aggressive Crusaders in a totemic Muslim country.

And they ****ed it up. Support in Iraq and beyond for Qaeda collapsed during the war. Qaeda were revealed to be bloodthirsty psychopatghs more concerned with fighting sectarian war against Shia than actually fighting jihad. Also, their complete lack of regard for casualties inflicted on Iraqis in their operations lost them huge support. Didn't learn the lesson the IRA did - don't kill your own. In the end even the stout Sunnis of Anbar were willing to, holding their noses, accept American cash and turn on the jihadis than see any more nightmare bombings on markets etc and the imposirtion of a foreign form of Islam.

Before the end of the Iraq War the Qaeda nightmare had come to pass - the likes of Gaddafi and Mubarak ovethrown largely be people power.

And guys who should be their natural allies like whatisface from the LIFG have now concluded it is better to work with the Yanks in the hope of setting up Saudi/Kuwait type states - where you can be as pure in Islam as you like internally as long as you play ball externally - than join the unremitting Teatowel Headdress Trotsky jihadist movement.

Iraq ruined Qaeda more than a billion drone attacks.

 

[Bomberboy12]

There are no winners in this war.

Between 100,000 and 130,000 (possibly more) Iraqi's have been killed as a result of this illegal war. That's what the US government is willing to do to gain a foothold in the mid east. It ends with a whimper from the western media too which is digusting. Given what the west has done to this nation the only way they can go to making up for it is increasing refugee numbers from there, Australia included. Although nothing can really make up for murdering innocent people.

The United states has provoked so much that in another couple decades there will be a grown up generation of Iraqis aiming to pay them back for turning the place into the crater it is. A new 9-11, and then the US will blame them and it will al start again.

 

[blackcat]

said it before, say it again, Chilcot Inquiry dies a still birth, media and punters wringing hands over Millie Dowler and Madeleine McCann and Lord Leveson gets prominent exposure for the Murdoch family they get the stocks.

Blair gets plum ME peace envoy and chairmanships of big hedge funds, Alistair Campbell back to weaving the dark arts of far king up folks lives.

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

 

[Malifice]

Just glad we are out of there. Glad Saddam is dead. Glad Bin Laden is dead. Glad Gadaffi is dead. Leave them to it. They'll either all self destruct....or hopefully prove me wrong and the Arab Spring will change things.

Being doing it for thousands of years...nothing really has changed. Long as they're fighting each other they're leaving us alone.

Simplistic I know.

But I am over all this.

They might even catch up to the Europeans in another few centuries if they keep going at this rate.

 

[Malifice]

The United states has provoked so much that in another couple decades there will be a grown up generation of Iraqis aiming to pay them back for turning the place into the crater it is. A new 9-11, and then the US will blame them and it will al start again.

Which would be a fantastic result for America.

Justification to implement more draconian domestic policy, continued increase in 'defence' spending, deploy special forces around the globe to destabilise regions, invade resource rich nations... such as Iran perhaps.. all around the time of Peak Oil.

Its the Neo Con way.

Foreign enemy (preferably an Ideology) that can be defined as 'evil' (so in contrast the USA is definable as good), and that needs 'extraordinary measures' to combat it.

Justifies all sorts of s**t.

First was the war on Communism, then the war on Drugs.

Now the real pearler - 'the War on Terror'.

The Yanks couldnt have done it better if they engineered it themselves.

 

[TheHeatleyStand]

This is what I posted on another site about why I don't think America can be said have lost Iraq.

They still have that giant Vatican sized embassy in Baghdad which is packed full of **** knows what. They are currently conducting a high intensity but low visibility war of sabotage against Iran. Al Qaeda in the form it was September 10 2011 is defeated as a force that can project internationally. They still have 4000 troops in Iraq and the Kurds onside.

I'm not saying it went all to plan from March 2003 but it certainly isn't an unquestioned strategic defeat on the scale of Vietnam. I think enoygh of their goals have been achieved and are being achieved to call it a scoring draw.


The Qaeda in Iraq thing is particularly instructive. The invasion gave Qaeda exactky what it had always wanted - the chance to fight on home sand against aggressive Crusaders in a totemic Muslim country.

And they ****ed it up. Support in Iraq and beyond for Qaeda collapsed during the war. Qaeda were revealed to be bloodthirsty psychopatghs more concerned with fighting sectarian war against Shia than actually fighting jihad. Also, their complete lack of regard for casualties inflicted on Iraqis in their operations lost them huge support. Didn't learn the lesson the IRA did - don't kill your own. In the end even the stout Sunnis of Anbar were willing to, holding their noses, accept American cash and turn on the jihadis than see any more nightmare bombings on markets etc and the imposirtion of a foreign form of Islam.

Before the end of the Iraq War the Qaeda nightmare had come to pass - the likes of Gaddafi and Mubarak ovethrown largely be people power.

And guys who should be their natural allies like whatisface from the LIFG have now concluded it is better to work with the Yanks in the hope of setting up Saudi/Kuwait type states - where you can be as pure in Islam as you like internally as long as you play ball externally - than join the unremitting Teatowel Headdress Trotsky jihadist movement.

Iraq ruined Qaeda more than a billion drone attacks.

America is clearly the big loser.
lied about having a war.
lost thousands of troops.
handed over the oil to Iran sphere of influence.
de stabilized a nation.
got itself into a mountain of debt.
left behind an embassy it wont be capable of defending when the locals choose to take it.
lost any real influence it has in the area.


some gains are short term gains but that wont sustain itself in future.

history is the great leveler.

 

[Spiritof82]

Did America LOSE the war?

America is yet to win a war they started since the US Civil War, the two world wars don't count as the yanks hung off in the background and didn't get involved until the war was well underway (the First World War was almost over when they joined in), and Korea and Vietnam could be classed as draws.

 

[blackcat]

America is yet to win a war they started since the US Civil War, the two world wars don't count as the yanks hung off in the background and didn't get involved until the war was well underway (the First World War was almost over when they joined in), and Korea and Vietnam could be classed as draws.

nah, America won no doubt. This is the last gasp of empire. They hit their apogee in the 60's and have been on a slow decline since, and they need their PNAC adventures to re-instill their existential purpose, the manifest destiny and exceptionalism.

They got off one final shot.

Ever had your parents read you the children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

 

[Wednesday]

There are no winners in this war.

Between 100,000 and 130,000 (possibly more) Iraqi's have been killed as a result of this illegal war. That's what the US government is willing to do to gain a foothold in the mid east. It ends with a whimper from the western media too which is digusting. Given what the west has done to this nation the only way they can go to making up for it is increasing refugee numbers from there, Australia included. Although nothing can really make up for murdering innocent people.

The United states has provoked so much that in another couple decades there will be a grown up generation of Iraqis aiming to pay them back for turning the place into the crater it is. A new 9-11, and then the US will blame them and it will al start again.

Given 1 million or so Iraqi's died in the decade prior to 2003, some might say 100,000 deaths in the following 8 years is a good result.

 

[Malifice]

Given 1 million or so Iraqi's died in the decade prior to 2003, some might say 100,000 deaths in the following 8 years is a good result.

You refer to casualties in the (US backed) Iraqi War with Iran?

Or the subsequent (US enforced) food sanctions for Iraqi Oil?

 

[John]

If various sources are taken into account the following deaths could be claimed to be as close to reliable at this point in time.

300,000 died under Saddam with 180,000 of them being Kurds.
Iran Iraq war with say 700,000 dead.
Gulf War say 100,000 dead.
The embargo 350,000 dead.
The US occupation 150,000.

The Gulf War, embargo and occupation wins with a collective 600,000 over Saddams 300,000 from 1979 to 2003.
Put 700,000 Iranians and Iraqis where you personally feel they should be.

Is Iraq better off without Sadddam? IMO yes of course.

Did the US intend save Iraq for moral reasons? IMO emphatically no. The US went in for reasons of energy security. One just has to read Unicols involvement in Afghanistan and it's rivalry with Bridas, an Argentinean oil company to understand that .

Do I cast a moral judgement over all this? Does anyone care as to Uganda's Bush War from 79 to 86 in which it is thought that 300,000 died? Angola from 75 to 02 with 500,000 thought to have perished? I have no answer's other than to say that man's inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze and with that in mind we humans actually live in the most peaceful times in recorded history. Make of that what you will.

 

[medusala]

Yanks still get their puppet state in the ME, and control of the oil.

Please enlighten us as to who owns the oil, who has won contracts and what the profit share is

Given what you wrote you must know this.

 

[Lets Roar like '44]

Now all we need is Bush to be charged with War Crimes and we can all live happily ever after.

 

[Malifice]

If various sources are taken into account the following deaths could be claimed to be as close to reliable at this point in time.

300,000 died under Saddam with 180,000 of them being Kurds.
Iran Iraq war with say 700,000 dead.
Gulf War say 100,000 dead.
The embargo 350,000 dead.
The US occupation 150,000.

• Iran - Iraq war with say 700,000 dead. (A war supported by the USA, including arming and aiding Sadam directly in missile strikes and chemical weapon attacks agaist the Iranians)
• The Gulf War left 100,000 dead (mostly killed by the US).
• The US led embargo for Oil killed 350,000.
• The US occupation of Iraq killed a quarter of a million more.

Im sensing a trend here.

 

[medusala]

The US led embargo for Oil killed 350,000.

US?

Or UN?

And where are the oil stats you are so au fait with?

 

[Malifice]

US?

Or UN?

And where are the oil stats you are so au fait with?

Heres a start:

BAGHDAD, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Iraq raised the price of Basra light crude to U.S. buyers for January by 10 cents, at a discount of $1.50 per barrel below the Argus (ASCI) benchmark, the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) said on Sunday.

The January official selling price for Kirkuk crude for U.S. refiners was raised by five cents, at a premium of 15 centsto the ASCI benchmark.

The price for Basra light crude for Asian buyers was raisedby $1.10, at a premium of $2.90 to the average of Oman/Dubaiquotes.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/11/iraq-oil-osp-idUKL6E7NB0DX20111211

Oil reserves in Iraq will be the largest in the world according to recent geological surveys and seismic data.[1] The Iraqi government has stated that new exploration showed Iraq has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with more than 350 billion barrels

 

[medusala]

Heres a start:

Doesnt address the isssue of ownership nor of which companies have received service contracts.