Re: Politics and the military (Re: The rise in military science fiction)


Brett Paul Dunbar wrote:
> In message <1136903277.110703.259830@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ray
> Cunningham <raycun@xxxxxxxxx> writes
> >
> >Brett Paul Dunbar wrote:
> >> In message <1136848070.181773.138020@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ray
> >> Cunningham <raycun@xxxxxxxxx> writes

> >> >> You still haven't actually answered the question, at what point would
> >> >> you have concluded that there was no intention of actually complying?
> >> >
> >> >It's not an important question. If Iraq is not capable of attacking
> >> >anyone, or of developing new weapons, then it doesn't matter if they
> >> >still have some twenty year old stocks of mustard gas.
> >>
> >>
> >> It was a clear breach of some very specific requirements, and indicated
> >> that when he had the opportunity he would ignore demands, we didn't
> >> trust him for the very good reason that he had repeatedly demonstrated
> >> that he could not be trusted.
> >
> >So we don't trust him. So what? As long as he's not a threat, who cares
> >if he's shifty?
>
> We couldn't confirm he wasn't a threat without co-operation we weren't
> getting.

If you look back to the public statements by US officials made before
Bush decided to go to war, you'll find that they were pretty unanimous
in saying that Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat.

> >> It is a very important question, your answer appears to be never. Which
> >> makes issuing the original demands rather pointless.
> >
> >No, my answer is not 'never'. My answer is, that question is not
> >important. It doesn't matter whether he would like to start up another
> >WMD programme or not, as long as he can't.
>
> He actually could under the circumstances.

No, he really couldn't. He couldn't get any of the material he needed
for a WMD programme.

He was making it impossible
> to confirm that he hadn't, we were pretty sure that that indicated he
> had started some sort of programme. Wrongly it turned out, but in the
> absence of co-operation we couldn't convincingly confirm the absence of
> a programme. We didn't want to risk the first we knew of a programme
> being him unveiling or worse, using an operational WMD system. We
> calculated it was better to remove him rather than risk that, once we
> had decided to remove him it was likely to be better for Iraq to do it
> quickly.

As well as the statements from before the decision, we had the reports
from the earlier visits of the weapons inspectors, and the
CIA-sponsored visits of exiled Iraqis to family members in Iraq that
had been part of the old programme. There was no indication, from
anywhere, that Iraq had a functioning programme. Really, no evidence at
all. WMDs were a pathetic excuse for an invasion.


> In what way does your answer differ from never? What is your time limit?
>
> From what you have said failure to co-operate fully, as required by the
> UN resolutions, however prolonged would not lead you to conclude that he
> did not intend allowing full inspections.

You're asking the wrong question. I'm not concerned with when Hussein
was going to fully comply with the resolutions, because I don't think
it's important. That's different from answering 'Never'.



> >> >> >> The regime was constantly repressive and killing and oppressing the
> >> >> >> Iraqi population as we had concluded the Iraqi regime had to be removed
> >> >> >> we might as well end it's oppression now, the expected costs of
> >> >> >>removing
> >> >> >> and replacing the regime would be much the same either way. Once you
> >> >> >> have decided to act there is nothing to be gained from further delay.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >The level of repression in 2002 was nothing compared to that 20 years
> >> >> >earlier. Why force the issue? What had changed? Why spend 250 billion
> >> >> >dollars on _this_? Are there no other humanitarian projects that might
> >> >> >have a higher priority? Here's an idea - how about 'staying the course'
> >> >> >in Afghanistan first?
> >> >>
> >> >> The Iraq war used forces not being used in Afghanistan, which has
> >> >> actually gone pretty smoothly in the meantime, Iraq has had little
> >> >> effect on Afghanistan.
> >> >
> >> >Oh try something at least halfway plausible, for pity's sake.
> >>
> >> Afghanistan actually is doing OK, the government has been gradually
> >> extending and deepening its control over the country and the
> >> reconstruction work is making progress. Iraq really doesn't seem to have
> >> had much effect on Afghanistan.
> >
> >No, not Earth-2 Afghanistan. The Afghanistan in our timeline, where
> >there aren't enough troops in place to do any more than protect the
> >Mayor of Kabul. The one where just last week the Taliban beheaded a
> >school principal for accepting female students.
>
> Apparently you have no idea what is actually going on in Afghanistan.
> The Taliban are now a nuisance, a murderous evil nuisance, but just a
> nuisance not a threat to the government. The government while having
> limited control over some parts of the country has been able to prevent
> internecine warfare conduct reasonably free and fair elections
> throughout the country, sack a major warlord as a provincial governor of
> Herat and has been able to make a real start at building infrastructure.
>
> By the way the forces used in Iraq were heavy armoured forces, the
> forces used in Afghanistan were and are mostly light mobile forces. The
> heavy units were mostly sitting around doing nothing.

There have been about 150,000 US troops in Iraq for over two and a half
years. That's not just the heavy units, that's everything that the US
can scrape together.

> >> >> We should have removed Saddam from power twenty years earlier. His
> >> >> regime may have been less actively evil than it had been in the past, it
> >> >> was still evil.
> >> >
> >> >But not a threat to anyone, and not even much of a danger to the Iraqi
> >> >people any more. If you can live with the Saudi dictatorship, with the
> >> >Libyan dictatorship, with China, with a long list of other evil
> >> >governments and appalling situations, why the urgency over Iraq?
> >>
> >> Why live with an evil tyrant if you don't have to?
> >
> >Why pick that tyrant, and why now?
> >
> > He was still a
> >> serious danger to the Iraqi people
> >
> >Not for at least ten years
> >
> >, we have found quite a few mass
> >> graves since his overthrow
> >
> >daing from when?
>
> 1991 and earlier mostly.

As I said, over ten years ago.

> >, he still had an army and secret police and
> >> retained the ability to massacre whenever he wished to.
> >
> >Not while the no-fly zones and sanctions were in place.
>
> Several of the mass-graves post date the no-fly zones.

Which ones. Specific locations please.

Torture of
> political opponents in prison also continued

Yes, but they aren't massacres. Torture of political opponents goes on
in the prisons of several US allies.

as did the destruction of
> the marshes and the persecution of the March Arabs.

The major attacks on the marsh arabs were pre- no fly zones. They were
one of the reasons for the instigation of the no-fly-zones.

He was continuing to
> terrorise the Iraqi people.

His grip on power was pretty shaky, his army was in bad condition, and
much of the country was off-limits because of the no-fly-zones. He was
in a box.


> >> Not too difficult to repair though and a hell of a long way from bombing
> >> back to the stone age, which is the phrase I find deeply objectionable.
> >
> >How about Bronze Age? Iron Age?
>
> No. Bomb back to the stone age was a rhetorical exaggeration of the
> effects of saturation bombing, it wasn't that accurate then. Precision
> bombing is a very different thing and causes very limited collateral
> damage.

Cluster bombing causes a lot of collateral damage, and there was a lot
of cluster bombing. But my point wasn't the collateral damage, it was
that much of the bombing was directed at Iraqi infrastructure, the
things that hold a modern society together.

> >> > The limited damage done could then be
> >> >> repaired quickly, much like was done in Serbia and Montenegro. To me
> >> >> bombing back to the stone age implies carpet bombing intended to
> >> >> devastate the state targeted.
> >> >
> >> >So you blew all that stuff up, but that's okay, because you were going
> >> >to fix it again? Have you looked at electricity generation figures
> >> >lately?
> >>
> >> The insurgents have made repairing the damage much more difficult,
> >> strangely murdering people attempting to repair stuff makes them
> >> reluctant to do so.
> >
> >Who could possibly have predicted that a US invasion of Iraq would have
> >resulted in a long-running insurgency?
>
> Honestly, we believed that those Iraqis who were glad to see the back of
> the tyrant would be more able to restrain those who resented either
> having it done for them or resented their loss of power following his
> fall. The conquest of Germany in the second world war wasn't followed by
> a long running insurgency, insurgencies happen sometimes, not all the
> time and almost never this bad.

How many occupations can you think of where the occupiers had a
different skin colour, religion, and cultural background to the
occupied, but everything went well? I'll give you Japan, but anywhere
else? How many occupations of Middle Eastern countries by Western
powers have gone well? How many occupations of ethnically divided
countries have gone well? How many large projects run by the Bush
government have gone well? Even if you think it was possible to do a
good job in Iraq, do you think those clowns were the ones to do it?



> >>
> >> >> The insurgents actually are attempting to bomb Iraq into the middle
> >> >> ages, literally in some cases.
> >> >
> >> >Oh, the new Iraq is insufficiently secular for you? I wonder why that
> >> >is...
> >>
> >> Human stupidity, like all religion, frankly the world would be better
> >> off without any religion, more secularism is always a good thing.
> >>
> >> Are you prepared to actually condemn the insurgents for actually
> >> murdering people and deliberately attempting to destroy Iraq?
> >
> >Have I ever suggested otherwise? Are you prepared to agree that the
> >Iraq invasion was a bad idea, and the Iraqi people would have been
> >better off if it hadn't happened?
>
> Some of what you have said could be read as an attempt to justify the
> insurgency, e.g. the way you attack the invasion with totally misleading
> claims (like "bomb back to the stone age") and don't actually criticise
> the insurgents at all.

When someone starts a thread arguing that the insurgency is a blessing
for the people of Iraq, I'll argue with them. My position is that the
insurgecy was a predictable result of the invasion, and that those who
triggered it bear responsibility for that. If a gate is left open in
the countryside and a dog gets in and savages a herd of sheep, it's the
fault of the dog, yes, but also of the person who left the gate open.

Ray

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Politics and the military (Re: The rise in military science fiction)
    ... There was a large sanctions programme in place ... when he was the single largest cause of human misery in Iraq. ... the aim of the bombing campaign was to use precision ... a long running insurgency, insurgencies happen sometimes, not all the ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: USA develops space-based weapons
    ... Sunnis, you see, and definitely do NOT support said insurgency. ... That leave around 18%-20% of the country as Arab Sunni. ... So that 75% amounts to around 15% of the population of the country AT ... which is hardly a big enough proportion to claim that in Iraq ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Civilian Deaths in Iraq Decrease Significantly
    ... The number of civilians killed in Iraq last month ... governed by a weak central government located in Baghdad. ... It is up to them what kind of country they ... the insurgeny -- there are more than one insurgency. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: USA develops space-based weapons
    ... Sunnis, you see, and definitely do NOT support said insurgency. ... That leave around 18%-20% of the country as Arab Sunni. ... So that 75% amounts to around 15% of the population of the country AT ... which is hardly a big enough proportion to claim that in Iraq ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Trip Report 3/25-3/28
    ... I will always say, "My country, right or wrong," but I will never say ... There weren't any members of Al-Qaida in Iraq. ... The the insurgency started. ... 3000 Americans dead, 15,00 wounded. ...
    (alt.vacation.las-vegas)
Loading