Was it Cruel and Barbaric of the United States to Invade Iraq?

[Valjean]

Probably, depending on how one defines "cruel and barbaric." But the 2003 war in Iraq was a sequel to the earlier war in 1991, which was ostensibly motivated by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (which itself might be viewed as "cruel and barbaric"). This would lead to the question as to whether U.S. interventionist policies in general are "cruel and barbaric" (which I think they are).

All wars are cruel and barbaric, by their very nature. Whether they're justified or not is a separate issue.

A lot of wars we've fought could be considered "cruel and barbaric," but then others might argue that they were necessary and good from the standpoint of practical national interests.

What "others" might they be? I'd say there were precious few wars that could unambiguously be called justified. Most are wars of exploitation or conquest.

You can only be described as overconfident, as well as reckless and feckless and irresponsible, if you think going to such a place won't end in disaster. At best the guy could hope for the arrows missing, and maybe just taking one in the thigh. That's it. It gets no better than that. For anyone. At worst, which happened, is death.

And not just his -- he could have wiped out the entire population with a simple sneeze or cough.[/QUOTE]

 

[Revoltingest]

And not just his -- he could have wiped out the entire population with a simple sneeze or cough.

[/QUOTE]
Speaking of that....

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And not just his -- he could have wiped out the entire population with a simple sneeze or cough.

[/QUOTE]
And had that happened, it would be interesting to see who's thoughts on the subject change and who's remain the same. What he did gets people killed. Literally. And not just him. I can't even really view him as caring sense he did put their health and lives at risk. Would his corpse arouse anger over "uncivilized barbarians" killing him, or would there be anger placed upon him--and rightfully so--for introducing extinction to this tribe?

 

[Valjean]

It absolutely had to happen and, contrary to popular belief, it had to happen as a direct result of 9/11.

"It?" The war?
9/11 was just a convenient excuse for a war that had already been in the Neocon plans for some time. 9/11 was a Klein moment that several different interests took advantage of.

Western Civilization was poised to enjoy the greatest economic and social prosperity in all of human history - something this world had never and now, sadly, will never, see again; Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalists who desperately wanted to see an Islamic fascist caliphate take place decided to directly and successfully destroy that possibility by crippling the centerpiece for the world's most advanced economic system and killing thousands of people in one day (and thousands more on the roads in subsequent weeks and during the ensuing two wars).

You think 9/11 was an attempt to cripple Western civilization?

What was the US supposed to do in response? Just sit back and say "oh well, I suppose they have a point there..."?

The US should have done what it did the first time the WTC was bombed by Islamists, in '93: Investigate the crime and arrest the criminals.
Why should tens of thousands of completely innocent people be condemned by declaring war? How is that morally justifiable?

Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalists brought it on themselves and the war was the best possible response to those attacks that the Western world could have produced.

Trillions (and counting), in costs, a middle East in chaos and a police-surveillance state at home is the "best response?"
A little Panglossian, wouldn't you say?

The real tragedy is that we didn't stay there permanently and begin colonizing that perennially toxic region for our further benefit.

Conquest and occupation frequently ends up an expensive morass. Our empire is already overextended and sapping our economy. Have we learned nothing from history?

How do you morally justify a predatory war?

George W had an interesting presidency too. In a few decades, people will look back on him fondly as a guy who had a lot of cute screw ups when talking to the media (and will go down as the worst public speaker in all US presidencies) but otherwise managed extremely well and bravely in the face of what could have been a catastrophic disaster.

"Could have been?"
How would you characterize the Iraq war and its continuing consequences, if not a catastrophic disaster?

That was not an issue anywhere near as important as it was made out to be. Iraq had to be toppled for the good of the world and we were right to reap the benefits of toppling them.

Spoils of war?! Seriously?

The US has rarely exerted itself for "the good of the world." I don't remember us rushing into Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda or East Timor. I don't see us rushing aid to Yemen or South Sudan.
The US does little if it (or certain special interests) can't make a profit on the deal. As a matter of fact, it often installs and protects repressive despots willing to give America economic or military favors.

 

[Valjean]

Excellent post. What has always angered me as much as the civilian suffering the war caused was the misuse of the militaries, and the deaths and injuries that resulted from it. People who volunteer to serve their country should never be sent into unnecessary wars. It's obscene to use such dedication to such foul ends.

Several sources state that George Bush, from even before the very first day he entered office, was hellbent on going to war to get Saddam. Some speculate his reason was to revenge Saddam's failed assassination attempt against his father. Others point to oil. Whatever the reasons he might or might not have had, it's agreed that he was determined to find some pretext for war long before 9/11.

Iraq was in the Neocons' crosshairs long before 9/11: Project for the New American Century - Wikipedia

in 1998, Kristol and Kagan advocated regime change in Iraq throughout the Iraq disarmament process through articles that were published in the New York Times.[22][23] Following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, core members of the PNAC including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Zoellick, and John Bolton were among the signatories of an open letter initiated by the PNAC to President Bill Clinton calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein

 

[Valjean]

In addition to world domination, and, of course, the glory, a war in Iraq would be profitable to the Military-industrial complex and related industries. It would be a valuable military outpost in a strategic region, and several oil companies had already mapped out regions for exploitation.

 

[Valjean]

"We" whom? I had not idea, and that was not what the president was telling us.

We liberals, of course.
So why were you listening to the president? Hadn't PNAC/RAD and other widely circulated statements and exposé's made the administration's bias clear?
The foreign press, progressive magazines, newspapers, radio shows, historians, academics and even military pundits had flooded the media with the very well researched facts.
How such a large segment of the public remained ignorant of this incessant barrage of facts and citations amazes me.

If you knew all this why didn't you say so before Saddam did it? What's with all this "We knew" stuff? Maybe you knew and didn't tell anybody.

Before Saddam did what?

Is 'Primitive' another way of saying 'Backward' ?

No. It refers to a simple, homogenous, egalitarian culture, with a simple toolkit, such as a hunter-gatherer band; as opposed to a complex, hierarchic, coercive society of religious and occupational specialists, written language, complex technology and monumental architecture, like a civilization.

So you desire to put a shiny bubble around these people in order to preserve their culture from missionaries. Ok, I get that you have such an opinion. I don't have a fondness for missionaries, either, but it's a far cry from killing whoever shows up on the sand. I also don't see why I should be concerned about preserving their culture from every outside influence.

I want to preserve their peace, happiness, dignity and their value as a people.
A culture is a valuable and beautiful thing, but very fragile. Once broken it can't be repaired. It's a treasure gone forever.

 

[columbus]

If you knew all this why didn't you say so before Saddam did it?

I knew!
I did say it!

I was out on the street carrying signs! Why didn't you listen?
Tom

 

[Valjean]

I knew!
I did say it!

I was out on the street carrying signs! Why didn't you listen?
Tom

Apparently many people got all their news from local TV -- stations owned by the same conglomerates that stood to profit from a good war.

Me, I had a sign and was teargassed.

 

[columbus]

Me, I had a sign and was teargassed.

Dang,
You're so much better than me.
I only had polar pop cups thrown at me from cars and people stop coming to my business.

I wanna be teargassed! By a Christian!
Tom

 

[Brickjectivity]

How such a large segment of the public remained ignorant of this incessant barrage of facts and citations amazes me.

At the time I leaned towards the republicans. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and the armed forces may not act without informing the president. If I recall at that time there were the dems and the republicans, but you prefer the euphemism of 'We liberals'. Ok, so you 'Liberals' somehow failed to make yourselves known enough to penetrate the fog of the president's official communications. All of you knew things that the entire other half of the country did not. That's an amazing story. Its also amazing how elections became about 50/50 during my lifetime.

How such a large segment of the public remained ignorant of this incessant barrage of facts and citations amazes me.

It should. Maybe you should rethink your behavior towards people across the aisle. Maybe you could be just a tiny part of why the information never got across?

...It refers to a simple, homogenous, egalitarian culture,...

Wishful thinking, and I think you are making it up as you go along. Egalitarians believe all people are equal. Its just part of a bad assumption that people are naturally egalitarian, but we aren't. Don't ignore history and then complain that people are ignoring your voice. Show me a primitive egalitarian culture. You know what if I am wrong and people are naturally egalitarian then what happened to the world? Why for example were Bora Bora practicing cannibalism? Why was a Viking woman's highest honor to become a man? Why these things if we are naturally egalitarian?

I want to preserve their peace, happiness, dignity and their value as a people.

Assuming they live in peace, which is a ridiculous assumption, sure. Assuming they are egalitarian, happy and full of dignity, sure. Under those circumstances don't you think they would be more sociable when strangers appeared?

 

[Brickjectivity]

I knew!
I did say it!

I was out on the street carrying signs! Why didn't you listen?
Tom

Good try. Very good effort.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I don't know if I would agree with that. I think a lot of it was due to conscience. They realized that what they were doing was morally wrong, so they tried to change their ways - and their collapse soon followed. It would be comparable to what would happen if the United States decided to give back all the land that was stolen from the Native tribes. The U.S. would collapse, too.

That's why the right-wing often lambastes the left-wing and favors "national interests" over moral conscience (even as they try to claim the moral high ground).

That may also explain why Russia is the way it is now, since they've learned the hard way that "doing the right thing" may often turn out terribly wrong.

Perestroika and Glasnost were part of the entire thing, sure, but my point was that the USSR didn't voluntarily collapse because they saw their military was inferior after watching the events of the Gulf War.

 

[Valjean]

At the time I leaned towards the republicans. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and the armed forces may not act without informing the president. If I recall at that time there were the dems and the republicans, but you prefer the euphemism of 'We liberals'. Ok, so you 'Liberals' somehow failed to make yourselves known enough to penetrate the fog of the president's official communications. All of you knew things that the entire other half of the country did not. That's an amazing story. Its also amazing how elections became about 50/50 during my lifetime.

I answered "we liberals" only because you asked "we whom?"

The information was out there, just not often broadcast on NBC, CBS, Fox or ABC.
The American mainstream media is censored. Thanks to deregulation, most major network TV and radio stations have been consolidated into a handful of corporate conglomerates. They're not going to broadcast anti-war stories that would loose business for affiliates like General Electric.

"The information" was in the foreign press, like The Guardian, BBC or Liberation; it was on NPR and PBS. It was in The Nation, Mother Jones and In These Times magazines. There were radio programs like Democracy Now, the Ed Schultz Show, the Thom Hartman Show, the Randi Rhodes Show and many others.
There were even editorials and exposés in US papers like the New York Times or Washington Post.
Did you read/listen to/watch any of these at the time?

It should. Maybe you should rethink your behavior towards people across the aisle. Maybe you could be just a tiny part of why the information never got across?

You're blaming us for not telling you? We did -- you didn't listen. It didn't get across because the mainstream media weren't reporting it and the mainstream population wasn't interested in listening to anything else.

Wishful thinking, and I think you are making it up as you go along. Egalitarians believe all people are equal. Its just part of a bad assumption that people are naturally egalitarian, but we aren't. Don't ignore history and then complain that people are ignoring your voice. Show me a primitive egalitarian culture. You know what if I am wrong and people are naturally egalitarian then what happened to the world? Why for example were Bora Bora practicing cannibalism? Why was a Viking woman's highest honor to become a man? Why these things if we are naturally egalitarian?

You've never taken an anthropology class, have you? Egalitarian, non specialized, non hierarchical societies are the hallmark of hunter-gatherer cultures. I'm not making anything up, its Anthro 101.
Early men and women were equal, say scientists
Inequality: Why egalitarian societies died out
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...r-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways

Assuming they live in peace, which is a ridiculous assumption, sure. Assuming they are egalitarian, happy and full of dignity, sure. Under those circumstances don't you think they would be more sociable when strangers appeared?

No, not when strangers were terrifying, magical beings, and clearly a dire threat.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I answered "we liberals" only because you asked "we whom?"

The information was out there, just not often broadcast on NBC, CBS, Fox or ABC.
The American mainstream media is censored. Thanks to deregulation, most major network TV and radio stations have been consolidated into a handful of corporate conglomerates. They're not going to broadcast anti-war stories that would loose business for affiliates like General Electric.

"The information" was in the foreign press, like The Guardian, BBC or Liberation; it was on NPR and PBS. It was in The Nation, Mother Jones and In These Times magazines. There were radio programs like Democracy Now, the Ed Schultz Show, the Thom Hartman Show, the Randi Rhodes Show and many others.
There were even editorials and exposés in US papers like the New York Times or Washington Post.
Did you read/listen to/watch any of these at the time?

I get my news from BBC now usually.

You're blaming us for not telling you? We did -- you didn't listen. It didn't get across because the mainstream media weren't reporting it and the mainstream population wasn't interested in listening to anything else.

Not blaming for not saying things, but I am pointing out that there is a 50/50 split and part of it is that there is a communication breakdown. Remember when you mentioned "An incessant barrage of facts?" The incessant barrage of facts method has not been working. There's been a serious breakdown in trust.

You've never taken an anthropology class, have you? Egalitarian, non specialized, non hierarchical societies are the hallmark of hunter-gatherer cultures. I'm not making anything up, its Anthro 101.
Early men and women were equal, say scientists
Inequality: Why egalitarian societies died out
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...r-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways

Why no I have not taken a class in anthropology, and neither have most people. Its a fairly expensive and specialized thing. Considering that I understand why you'd want to preserve the culture.

 

[Stevicus]

Perestroika and Glasnost were part of the entire thing, sure, but my point was that the USSR didn't voluntarily collapse because they saw their military was inferior after watching the events of the Gulf War.

I agree, although it wasn't "purely economic" either. It was a combination of factors, many of which were internal.

 

[Stevicus]

I answered "we liberals" only because you asked "we whom?"

The information was out there, just not often broadcast on NBC, CBS, Fox or ABC.
The American mainstream media is censored. Thanks to deregulation, most major network TV and radio stations have been consolidated into a handful of corporate conglomerates. They're not going to broadcast anti-war stories that would loose business for affiliates like General Electric.

"The information" was in the foreign press, like The Guardian, BBC or Liberation; it was on NPR and PBS. It was in The Nation, Mother Jones and In These Times magazines. There were radio programs like Democracy Now, the Ed Schultz Show, the Thom Hartman Show, the Randi Rhodes Show and many others.
There were even editorials and exposés in US papers like the New York Times or Washington Post.
Did you read/listen to/watch any of these at the time?

You're blaming us for not telling you? We did -- you didn't listen. It didn't get across because the mainstream media weren't reporting it and the mainstream population wasn't interested in listening to anything else.

It's not just the media. Part of the reason why it's so easy to spread this disinformation is because of an educational system which doesn't put much focus on world history, geography, or world events. I don't know that it's strictly a "liberal vs. conservative" divide, though, since my observation has been that liberals and conservatives often see and portray the world in strikingly similar ways. Their only real difference is that liberals tend to be more dovish in advocating diplomacy over militarism, but not by much. In practice, both major parties have engaged in basically the same foreign policy since WW2, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative.

 

[Stevicus]

All wars are cruel and barbaric, by their very nature. Whether they're justified or not is a separate issue.

Yes, I agree. For the most part, justification for U.S. wars (in modern times, at least) has been within the same basic theme: "Making the world safe for democracy." It's all about "freedom," one way or the other. In Korea and Vietnam, it was about saving the people in those countries (and neighboring countries) from the "evil commies." Likewise for any wars by proxy or military coups or other covert actions perpetrated by our government, whether in Chile or Guatemala or Iran or the Congo or any number of other places we've stuck our noses in.

Of course, whether it was really about "freedom" is another story, but the actual truth never really mattered that much to the propagandists.

What "others" might they be? I'd say there were precious few wars that could unambiguously be called justified. Most are wars of exploitation or conquest.

It depends on which war. Technically, they can't be wars of conquest, not since the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed, which outlawed aggressive warfare. The UN Charter, which we also signed, echoed this outlawing of aggressive warfare. That's why we had all those wars by proxy, so that we could technically be off the hook. That's why all those covert, black ops, so that our government could always claim "plausible deniability," which could then be used to discredit and ridicule so-called "conspiracy theorists" because they had no "proof." But what can one expect when the government is run by the Mob, who routinely killed off witnesses and destroyed evidence so they could then say, "Hey, youse got no proof! Youse got nuttin' on us! Ha!"

 

[Valjean]

It's not just the media. Part of the reason why it's so easy to spread this disinformation is because of an educational system which doesn't put much focus on world history, geography, or world events. I don't know that it's strictly a "liberal vs. conservative" divide, though, since my observation has been that liberals and conservatives often see and portray the world in strikingly similar ways.

Good points.

Their only real difference is that liberals tend to be more dovish in advocating diplomacy over militarism, but not by much. In practice, both major parties have engaged in basically the same foreign policy since WW2, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative.

Well, there are liberals/progressives, and then there is the Democratic party. There's a widening chasm between them.

As for 'the only real difference', I see your point, but I think there's more to it than that, particularly between "the Right" and "the Left." In some ways we're practically different species.

I get my news from BBC now usually.

Not blaming for not saying things, but I am pointing out that there is a 50/50 split and part of it is that there is a communication breakdown. Remember when you mentioned "An incessant barrage of facts?" The incessant barrage of facts method has not been working. There's been a serious breakdown in trust.

I agree. It's a serious problem. People are easily enough hoodwinked and manipulated as it is, without an actual, long-term political strategy to do so; to keep the full story from the masses and to foment distrust so any news that gets through is rejected.

 

[Stevicus]

Good points.
Well, there are liberals/progressives, and then there is the Democratic party. There's a widening chasm between them.

As for 'the only real difference', I see your point, but I think there's more to it than that, particularly between "the Right" and "the Left." In some ways we're practically different species.

I think that's what they want people to think. The widening chasm is mainly between the rich and the not rich, while the elite in both major factions control the game.

That's not to say that the elite are all of one like mind. There are some issues upon which they disagree, although they're mostly symbolic, superficial, and irrelevant to the needs of the masses.