Is world better without Saddam?

[The Grand Nudger]

What you fail to notice is, one error led to the other. There was one Iraqi crook, I can't remembber his name, at that time, the US were largely relying on. He was exposed, after the fact. But the damage was already done. Just the same as with the one and only WMD source, who first tried his luck with the German BND, and being found unreliablle by the Germans, offered himself up to the CIA.

Pretext to war.  Again, you and I don't have a disagreement here, it's not something either of us failed to notice.  Failure stacked atop failure.  There were already dissenting voices, even at this stage.  There were already predictions.  Rightly so.

It isn't a miracle that the predictions were right. I was watching European as well as American news coverage at that time. The Europeans foretold that there will ensue a conflict between Sunnis, not wanting to take the backseat, and the Shia majority. The American coverage did no such thing.

OFC is wasn't a miracle, neither of us believes that.  American coverage was bought and paid for.  

It's common sense, actually. And the most obvious part of it is Brehmer disbanding the Iraqui army. Probably not under his own steam, but he was the one issuing the order. So, claiming to know what you were in for, comes over as a little bit naive. It started with the little nuisances, such as securing the oil ministery, but failing to secure the museums, where countless irreplaceable artifacts were instantly looted. Probably to end up in soome private collection. And it ended with a slap to the face of countless people, suddenly losing their livelihood.

You assume that this means that we did not know what we were in for, when it very clearly shows that we we did know what we were in for.  They secured their oil interests.  You are dealing with a group of people who presented a narrative unrelated to their actual plans.  Who used manufactured evidence to pursue them.  That doesn't mean that we didn't have a plan to secure the interests of the Iraqi people, it simply means that securing the oil was higher on a list of priorities than securing a museum.  Again, we employ an army of people to generate plans for both, we sometimes select one, and not the other.  I think that both you and I would point to this as an example of american incompetence, wouldn't we?  

That's only scratching the surface, but it points to the fact of having no plan beyond toppling Saddam.

Toppling Saddam was the plan, just like Iraq had WMDs.  This, to my mind, was pretext as well. Is that not the entirety of what I'm expressing? That removing Saddam really would have been a good thing, and that we should have gone in for that reason, that we should have employed plans that would facilitate that - and it's attendent issues, rather than a plan chiefly engaged in securing oil wells and private contracts?

[abaris]

Toppling Saddam was the plan, just like Iraq had WMDs.  The plan, as you so astutely noticed above, seems to have been to secure points of economic interest and farm out contracts to private business.

Well, yes. So? Doesn't that strike you as entirely pukeworthy? Don't you feel duped?

Frankly, that leads to what I said earlier. If a dictator is toppled, it's because of economical and/or political reasons. That's but one of the reasons why I don't buy the better off narrative.

[The Grand Nudger]

It does, but no..I don't feel duped so much.  I was already thoroughly jaded, lol.  It would have been nice, however, to have salvaged something from it.  We did have plans, I can;t stress this enough, from regiment on down to unti we had plans aplenty.  Many americans can personally attest to having both seen and participated in them - for all the good they did.  The shitty plans, that we knew were shitty, far outweighed the good.

People are better off when they aren't subjected to the actions and authority of men like Saddam Hussein.  That's not a product being sold, for you to buy.   That we rarely act in service of a just cause until it is economically or politically beneficial has no bearing on the truth of that.  We may be dicks...counting coins and calculating advantage in the polls, but there are folks around the world who have it legitimately bad, even so.

[The Grand Nudger]

Have to add here, that there were forgotten entanglements that the US was in during this whole business.  We were legitimate peacekeepers positively effecting regime change in other parts of the world at the time that we were out profiteering in Iraq, showing that it could be done, that we were capable. From your POV we fucked it up because we're bad at it, and the current situation was an inevitability. From mine, we fucked it up not because we were bad at it, but because our administration went in for reasons unrelated to their PR packet, we misused and misallocated our abilities, we created the current situation...it was not an inevitable effect of removing Saddam from the region.

[abaris]

People are better off when they aren't subjected to the actions and authority of men like Saddam Hussein.  That's not a product being sold, for you to buy.   That we rarely act in service of a just cause until it is economically or politically beneficial has no bearing on the truth of that.  We may be dicks...counting coins and calculating advantage in the polls, but there are folks around the world who have it legitimately bad, even so.

Quite a differnt debate, actually. Can it be called freedom, if you are allowed to be killed as a free person? If you got nothing to eat, not even have access to the most primitive commodities? To grow up in an environment, not offering any chances?

The invasion was more than 12 years ago. There's a whole generation growing up, knowing nothing but violence and poverty. What do you think, they will do as grown ups?

And by the way, these are the current figures from Iraq body count: 151,013 – 170,381.

[The Grand Nudger]

None of those things, being killed by a rando, or starving, or lack of access to commodities, were an inevitable consequence of the removal of Saddam (frankly, food and access to commodities almost screams USA, USA, USA...and yet....).   Enough wealth disappeared into the sand to handle the last two, and yet strangely™ they don't seem to have received quite as much as we payed for................

I expect a great many of them to die hating the US, decades from now, regardless of whatever else happens between then and now.  I expect some of them to die hating the US presently.  Many already have.

[abaris]

None of those things, being killed by a rando, or starving, or lack of access to commodities, were an inevitable consequence of the removal of Saddam (frankly, food and access to commodities almost screams USA, USA, USA...and yet....).

Does it scream that? Do you think, Iraq is better off now than it was 12 years ago when it comes to basic needs?

I overlooked your previous post. What do you mean by legitimate peacekeepers? Please don't give me Germany or Japan, since that argument already was stupid in 2003. But if you do, here's what's different. Germany, as well as Japan already were highly industrialised countries with a largely homogeneous population. Germany with a tratdition of parliamentarism that reached back 60 years before Hitler came to power, In some regions as far as 90 years. So there was only a 12 years break. Both were grown countries, not drawn up at a colonial office in London. And both adhered to Western culture. Which may sound odd in the case of Japan, but since the late 19th century, they largely look to the West when it comes to economy as well as society.

So no, it didn't work. It only worked in an environment, similar to the US.

[cocunningham]

Well I think there are several different conversations going on. Would Iraq be more stable without our involvement I think everyone agrees and there would be fewer Iraqi casualties. To why we meddled is the same reason we've been meddling for over a century and that's the resources in the area. If we were concerned with humanitarian aid we would be more involved in Africa and taking in more Syrian refugees. If it was because of a risk to national security we would have gone after north Korea. To say we will give dictators a free pass we've been doing that already unless we see means to gain from overthrowing them.

To the presence of ISIL if not them it would have been another group that would be a major threat. every time one group is beaten back another fills its place. The reason for this is because the resentment for foreign involvement is there to be iincited into violence. Foreign countries have been invading, manipulating politics to establish sympathetic governments, and even altering borders as we see fit. If the roles were reversed we'd be pretty pissed as well. We went to arms because we didn't have representation on our taxes.

So do I feel Saddam was an cruel leader, yes. But my question is at what point did the Iraqi people get a say in this?

[downbeatplumb]

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the actual invasion, the world is not better with Saddam removed only because the geniuses at the US did not have any plan beyond getting rid, they left a vacuum which was surrounded by opportunistic violent people. They tried to invade on the cheap and cost the whole world dearly.

[abaris]

They tried to invade on the cheap and cost the whole world dearly.

Well, but it didn't come cheap. Not even for Americans. More than 4000 casualties and an estimate of 30.000 wounded, not counting the PTSDs, isn't exactly a bargain. That's the highest loss since Vietnam and the only reason why people didn't take the streets, as they did back then is, that there isn't a draft anymore. And, with most soldiers coming from poor environments, most people don't give a damn outside the support the troops routine.

I remember what my response was to a flag waving chair farting patriot, back in 2003, when he claimed it would be cakewalk. No doubt, it will be easy in, but will it be easy out?