if george bush - the father, finished iraq...

the friendly iraqis would have been immediately freed and not murdered by saddam when we pulled out in 1991

it would have set an example for the other mid east dictatorial oil states.... and their populations would have naturally gravitated toward revolution if iraq was freed the first time around and made an example of

thats generally what you do once you declare war on a country.... once you win, you regime change them
the arab world only respects when you kick their ass.. not when you run away

so i say bush sr failed, in a shortsighted decision not to go a few hundred miles into a baghdad and take down saddam aswell, in 1991...
it would have sparked an iraqi popular revolution and we would be dealing with very few, if any.. insurgent fighters today

btw the troops we currently have in iraq were double in `91...
we are working at roughly 50% capacity vs the previous war

in 91 bush sr. pulled out for political reasons, appeasing the saudis was a large part of that decision...
also bathists in syria and iran would fear a crusade, we would be forced to clean up the entire middle east from the bath party/radicalized islam/wahab/saudi
(this is what we are having to do now anyway - with half the troops though)

plus, bush sr's advisers knew about the 3 separate factions in iraq that would each want a 'freed' country for themselves... policing a civil war wouldnt be fun, so we didnt finish the job


we completely destroyed his regimes military and could have finished the regime change with not too much effort from that point
but since we gave saddam back his country... (oh sorry, did we just kick your ass? nm later, pz)
saddam just killed all the known revolutionaries later when no one was looking..
the same people who _would have_ welcomed us like the french if we went to finish baghdad in 1991

the hole we are in now, if you trace it back... leads to one political decision george bush sr made based on particular affiliations in 1991... during which time he had double the troops we have now, and a mostly willing population in the streets

we added 3-5 years to this little expedition by procrastinating

oh no~

but 20/20 is hindsight lol

President Bush Sr. pulled out because he felt that taking over Iraq was strategically unwarranted, putting the US in an extremely vulnerable position as the ENEMY OF ISLAM in 1991.

As it stands, today we're the #1 scapegoat and enemy of Islamic radicals regardless, so invading Iraq allows the focus of guerilla factions to shift from the US to the Middle East, wherein Iraqi civilians die instead of American civilians.

ok, i'm done talking out of my ass. have a merry christmas, all

>ENEMY OF ISLAM
this seems to have been inevitable, atleast in the propaganda sense of "ENEMY OF ISLAM" its easy to repeat on media like al jazeera or in 100% state-funded schools

not like it would be easy either way, but the doctrine of pre-emption that we now follow... was _not followed in 1991 when sr's decision was being considered

of course we had no way of knowing then... size the problem would become 10 years forward

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these isms wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government— and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

oh please, stop comparing WWII to iraq. They're not even close.

Indeed, but this quote was about WWI. ^_~

>>4
lol sux for europ loooool
america did it all! i always knew it, secretly

I'm noticing a trend of Presidents who, once getting started, don't know when to pull out.

>>8
no, iraq needs to be finished and fixed...
pulling out before stability was never an option, even if kerry was elected

I was talking about Clinton. Badumpbumpching!

Clever anal-ysis, that... ~.~

And yeah, comparing the Iraq war to WW2 is stupidity.

Bush Sr. did not go into Iraq because he said there was no viable way to get out. He knew the mess going into Iraq would make, and he knew that staying and occupying Iraq was not a workbale option.

>>9

There is no fixing Iraq.  It was a glass ball, the US was a hammer.  Iraq, on the other hand, is a very good example of why exactly the US doesn't just go around toppling stable dictatorships and converting their populations to christianity (<3 anne coulter).

>>4

and what of the german spring offensive in 1918? had the americans not been there, the stiffening of british and french lines with american troops would not have occurred, and the germans might have been able to break through the french lines and exploit the success.


the reason why bush sr. didn't go into iraq was because the un forces would not continue to fight during the holy month of ramadan. their mandate didn't extent that far. equally, there were fears that, given a non-dictatorial government in iraq, the shiite majority would have risen up against a weak democratic government. surely enough, there was an uprising (albeit at the urging of the cia), and it was brutally supressed. if anything, one can speculate that this was a pre-emptive move to re-stabilize iraq by having saddam's enemies expose themselves, and so as to facilitate their systematic destruction, and ensure saddam's continued rule.

the problem that policy makers faced was a weak democratic iraq. it would be prone to demands by kurds in the north for separation, and, equally, the demands of the shiite majority. internal strife would push iraq to a boiling point, and turn it into a pot of continual conflict in the middle east. worries that other nations - saudi arabia & iran in particular - might step in to take what spoils they could from an ailing iraq were at the top of their list of concerns. a war in the middle east would not be in the united states' interests, and therefore they could not afford to let this scenario play out.

right now we see in iraq a campaign of bombing that isn't just targetting soldiers, but shiites as well. the aim is to help fan the flames of a civil war, that would not only make the united states' occupation much more difficult, but might give an excuse for sunni-arab states a reason to step in. they are attempting, equally, to derail the election - an election where shiites, who form the majority of the population of iraq, have much to gain, and the sunnis much to lose.

the united states faces similar problems that it did in the last invasion, except for that this time, the job must be seen to a conclusive end: a stable, democratic iraq.

whether or not that's going to happen is a different question altogether, however.

i thought it was us getting involved in the first gulf war that pissed so many muslims off in the first place...

>>15
no it was some european idiots back in the middle ages that pissed so many muslims off in the first place...

>>16
So why do they hate America's guts and not Europe's? Oh, I'm sure they don't like Europe either, but nothing on the scale of their rabid anti-Americanism.

Actually if you are talking about the Crusades they were the medieval era. In the past three hundred years or so, certainly in the Victorian period Europeans have been friends to Muslims, at least the Ottoman Empire which was cynically used by European powers to control Russian and Austrian expansion.

Later the British Empire all but propped up the Ottomans.

Though if you want to know why "They" hate America, just look at the key factors, Israel, support of oppressive oil rich regimes like the Saudis, corporate exploitation and the lack of US diplomacy in favor of war.

they ARE the oppresive oil regimes >>18

Your point being, >>19? If I understand you correctly, you're saying it's the Arab's fault?

Well, perhaps it is. But let's say you live in the US, and (somehow) Cuba becomes a massive world power, replacing the US president with someone who supports Cuba's interests and is an all-round oppressive asshole to people in the US. Now, who do you think you'll be pissed at?

>>18
True, alot of the issues started in the last 100 years.  Alot of it is due to British and (suprise, suprise) French colonialism.  "A History of the Modern Middle East" by Cleveland is a good book that goes over much of it.

Honestly, looking at much of it, I think Arab terrorism it just pure arrogance; if it was all about how America's treating other nations, than we ought to be seeing alot more looneys blowing us up.  Look at the Ottoman history, their star fell a long time ago, and its desendents never got over it.  Yes, my explanation seems juvenile, but why isn't the UK getting the same crap we are?  Don't they have similar policies, and even more history in the area, than we do?  It's that America is on top, and they're not.  Look at the nations that decry the US the most, aren't the bulk of them previous world powers?

USA inherited UKs mess. As long as people are dependant on stuff-which-resides-under-other-people, we're going to have to deal with those people.

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If the arabs are still pissed at something which happenned 800 years ago. Why aren't europeans still pissed at the ottoman invasions in the 16th and 17th centuries in which most of the balkans was held under ottoman rule?

Terrorists will tell you it is because the ottomans were not despots or europeans are weak. As a liberal this is probably what you enjoy believing.

Though in truth it is because europe nowadays consists of democracies which prefer peace and trade to war with Turkey. To the point where Turkey is being given serious consideration into being permitted to join the EU.

bump

Bump

>>1
I doubt there were many friendly Iraqis, as they understood it quite well that America wants oil, while Iraqi population is a nuisance, which likely be genocided one way or another. But Saddam kept oil price high and transferred large part of oil profits to help population. Besides, Saddam was loyal and devoted to Iraq, because he had nowhere to run.

>>28
Moreover, Saddam's government was relatively secular, and now Iraq is going to get a hardcore fundamentalist regime just to overthrow pro-American puppets, who channel most of the oil money out of the country, impoverishing population.

>>28
warfare is complicated, it involves a lot of economics and negotiation

the us army can wipe out an iraqi militia like ghengis khan would but they would gain little from the land they occupy and few population to run the oil wells and supporting industries, the iraqi militias survive because they are well adapted to the economic resources they can obtain from the area and their connections to other power groups

the militia are not an expensive army, what they do is make better use of limited resources

even if a militia is powerless compared to a neighbor they can give most of the oil to their neighbor and skim a little bit off the top and their neighbor will tolerate it because they don't want to cause political instability and guerrilla warfare, a balance of power is achieved, which means peace

hypothetically... america could train special forces who are far better than the militia and train spies, psychologists, businessmen and cultural experts to negotiate with neighbors and do a far better job

sounds silly but it is good to look at the abstract theory and ask why don't we? because there are so much more profitable ways to use these guys, so that explains why we left most of the iraqi militias alone

we're never going full genocide and i oppose this morally, im not naive though and i know these things were commonplace in wars in history before, ghengis khan for instance

i was talking about a show of force, a proper post-ww2 style occupation, our wars in iraq frankly left people confused, we knock out this dictator who dominated their lives for decades, then what..

>>30
few population to run the oil wells and supporting industries
America doesn't employ Iraqis in oil industry, because America has it's own job shortage, while Iraqis are uneducated, untrained and have incompatible mentality.

Then Iraq has no supporting industries - just a useless desert.

America fears only Russia and China, who have all reasons to support Iraqi resistance.

For example, Russia arms Arabs, because: high oil price is good for Russia as oil exporting country and slows down American economy, giving Russia more leverage in cold war.