US 'arrogant and stupid' in Iraq

Iraq Forum

US 'arrogant and stupid' in Iraq

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/1818/42226572get203bodymosquewo4.jpg

Well - it was arrogant and stupid to invade Iraq, particularly without an exit strategy. Why would anyone think that while the US is inside the country, blowing things up, getting shot at, that IQs would've improved any.

These people have a concrete belief in the power of their weapons, that to "win" in a country like Iraq all you need to do is have much more powerful guns. It is unbelievable that the lessons of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Palestine, et al, weren't thought through before the invasion - but then, arrogant and stupid people - of which Dubya, Rummy and Dastardly Dick Cheney most certainly are - have this implicit belief in their own rightness.

Doesn't help that they think God - that big benevolent magical man in the moon - is going to grant them victory.

Crazy - but then the idiots that believe there are 72 virgins waiting them (and how about that for a random number) are equally f*cked in the head.

Could be a long war.

Hi Coogee, long time no see.

You definitely have a way with words, man

thanks dude. yeah been a while away from the InReview slanging match - got a tad frustrating banging heads with Curley Joe and the other shouters - but with Iraq a horrible clusterfudge and our "leaders" making rhetorical noises about "styaing the course" and not "cutting and running" (like slogans make it right to continue the slaughter), I felt like venting myself so here we is once again, disuccsing the size of the quagmire, and the rightness of invading poor old Iraq.

I mean - no-one's saddened that Saddam's not the leader anymore - but at what price. How many more kiddies and families need to be slaughtered before we think of Another Way?

America's unprovoked attack on Iraq was wrong in so many ways and the arrogance and stupidity of Blair and the Bush administration was clear to millions of people before it began. Both recklessly ignored advice, ignored history, and ignored the need for a post war plan, and have continued to lie, conceal, and fog the reality in Iraq for the last 3 years. Now we are witnessing the astonishing sight of Bush going to his daddy to get help, by sending in Bush snr's old policy adviser - James Baker - to find any kind of solution to the quagmire Bush jnr created. If the Baker leaks are true then we may soon see the Bush admin begging Iran and Syria for help in Iraq.

And all this talk of Iraq being a failed democracy, it's just more fog and misdirection. Bush went into Iraq to slice the country up and bring to power a US friendly government that would give and maintain American access to this vital and resource rich important area of the world.

Then again, wasn't Iraq something to do with WMD?

"clusterfudge"

Priceless.

And welcome back Coogee

-HECK!

According to Robert Fisk, an experienced British reporter in Iraq:

'On 25 May 1994, the US Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs produced a report entitled "United States Chemical and Biological Warfare-related Dual-use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the Health Consequences (sic) of the Persian Gulf War". The report informed Congress about US government-approved shipments of biological agents sent by American companies to Iraq from 1985 or earlier. These included Bacillus anthracis, which produces anthrax; Clostridium botulinum; Histoplasma capsulatum; Brucella melitensis; Clostridium perfringens and Escherichia coli. The same report stated that the US provided Saddam with "dual use" licensed materials which assisted in the development of chemical, biological and missile-system programmes

Thank heavens he [Saddam Hussein] didn't mention the £200,000 worth of thiodiglycol, one of two components of mustard gas we (British) exported to Baghdad in 1988, and another £50,000 worth of the same vile substances the following year.

We [the British] also sent thionyl chloride to Iraq in 1988 at a price of only £26,000. Yes, I know these could be used to make ballpoint ink and fabric dyes. But this was the same country - Britain - that would, eight years later, prohibit the sale of diphtheria vaccine to Iraqi children on the grounds that it could be used for - you guessed it - "weapons of mass destruction".

Would the Americans and British dare touch a trial in which we would have not only to describe how Saddam got his filthy gas but why the CIA - in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi war crimes against Halabja - told US diplomats in the Middle East to claim that the gas used on the Kurds was dropped by the Iranians rather than the Iraqis (Saddam still being at the time our favourite ally rather than our favourite war criminal) Just as we in the West were silent when Saddam massacred 180,000 Kurds during the great ethnic cleansing of 1987 and 1988.

I travelled on the hospital trains that brought the Iranians back from the 1980-88 war front, their gas wounds bubbling in giant blisters on their arms and faces, giving birth to smaller blisters that wobbled on top of their wounds. The British and Americans didn't want to know. I talked to the victims of Halabja. The Americans didn't want to know. My Associated Press colleague Mohamed Salaam saw the Iranian dead lying gassed in their thousands on the battlefields east of Basra. The Americans and the British didn't care.'

Preston

Well - someone had to be making the horrible bloody stuff, more than likely be the wealthy countries selling it to the poor. But it's only ever because of our own self-interest. Mate - we care about ourselves. Anything about the "freedom of the Iraqi people" or all that is so much hot air - we don't care about the people, we've never cared about the people. Saddam gassed all those kurds 18 years ago, and it wasn't until a bunch of arseholes bombed the twin towers we decided we should do something about it (though how Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 ... etc, that subject might've been covered) - anyway, we don't care care there's slaughter in Sudan, Congo, Zimbabwe, Kosovo, Chechenya - but live in a place with a massive supply of oil, buddy, and oh - we want to liberate you!

Basest hypocrisy.