Iraq vs US

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I do not disbelieve your sources Laches but they are pretty onesided, especially Clinton's advisor. He has a reason for saying that, namely that as you said the US have had a history of isolationist due to its populace not being overly fond of spending resources and lives over seas so they needed a justification for intervening and their allies begging them for help is one. With this I dont say that it isnt true, I am just saying that it is a onesided point of view from a politician who has political and propaganda goals with his every statement. I would like to add though that I can very well see Italy asking for help in the Kosovo affair as they had to deal with tens of thousands of albanian refugees that crossed the adriatic sea and it would only grow worse the longer the conflict lasted. So I do not doubt that Italy wanted to pacify the area.

My problem with the kosovo intervention was that it was a NATO operation, more or less only supported by NATO. Not sanctioned by the UN whose sole reason to exist is to handle situation such as this.
Call me paranoid but I dont like it when one state with allies/cronies completely dominates world politics and dictates what is right and wrong, whom to bomb and whom not to bomb. That is a dangerous scenario in my opinion. USA is the unquestionable hegemon in the world today, no one can stand up to them. NATO and the rest of the western world do the next best thing and follow their lead. The US has absolute power in the world today, the only reason that they even go through UN or atleast try to in most instances is that they profit it on, for now. But they, as opposed to every other nation in this world doesnt *have* to abide by international laws. No one can touch them, as has been shown time and time again as the US refuses to sign vital treaties designed to make a better and safer world. They do as they please, if you look at Iraq that Bush and company lets the weaponinspectors in and supposedly support them is a show as that is what the populace wants. But they did everythin within the boundaries of the UN to stop them and now that they are in the propaganda machine is working for full power trying to discredit the weaponinspections as useless and gullible fools. The US wants their war and they will get it, with or without international support. Probably with as no one wants to get on the bad side of the power. Remember: 'You are either with us or against us'?
That more or less implies that anyone that doesnt support any action the Bush regime takes is a terrorist supportes, as many US journalists and other people have noticed as they have been the target of extensive smearing campaigns if they even question Bush's actions.
I have heard that power corrupts and I am bound to agree with that saying, seeing as the US has more or less absolute power in the world today I wonder what it can lead to but I am not hopeful.

[ November 30, 2002, 19:13: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

You're perfectly right Joacqin - as a look at the UN charter can easily show - NATO's attack on serbia was, however necessary it might have been to prevent genocide in Kosovo, an agression. It was no preventive strike, no counterattack and no Chapter VII UN-Charter operation but a willing and determined attack under violation of international law.

However, iirc the claimed reasons for that were that it would not have been possible to obtain the majority necessary to get a UN resolution since russia refused to agree. The lawful option would have been to watch serbia killing kosovars and do nothing. Silly choice, bad thing when the good-doers start off like that - violating international law at need

Weird enough our now "no-war-against-iraq - with or without UN" chancellor supported that war in Kosovo, and oh surprise, his popularity then was higher than ever before and after. However, he has always changed his political opinions based on opinion polls and necessity

That shall only show that some politician's decisions have nothing to do with foreign policy or higher ideals like humanity. An example: Our chancellor's reason to refuse war this time (and to piss off france and the US) were to

• ensure support from his social democrat-green party coalition (which has a hairy majority only - the damnation of Bush's war plans likely granted him victory in the last elections) and
• - since our armed forces are underfinanced and overstretched already anyway - to prevent a debacle when sending them in harm's way.

Since we couldn't join the coalition in a war even if we wanted (lacking modern ammo, transports, communications etc etc), it is easier for our government to refuse to participate, masking our inability with demonstrated peacefulness

[ November 29, 2002, 09:37: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Now that Bush has taken control, the US has become the world's bully. We don't like Afghanistan, so let's beat the **** out of it. We don't like Iraq, so let's beat the **** out of it. This is exactly WHY 9/11 happened in the first place!

 

You make a big mistake when you think that 9/11 happened because of Bush - he wasn't even in office long enough to do anything serious before the attacks happened. Considering the long preparation time of the attacks (approx 2 years) the terrorists must have started when Clinton was president.

Actually it was Clinton who ordered to bomb the Al Quaida camps in Afganistan after the Kenia and Mombasa embassy bombings - terrorist attacks commited by al Quaida - that killed several hundred people. Considering the now proven support of Al Quaida by the Taliban he even targeted the right baddie.

Terrorists strike and then disappear in the population, borders who's enemy and who's not disappear, everyone is wearing civil clothes - and when the attacked country strikes back they use overwhelming force against people seeming inferior and innocent. By provoking a reaction terrorists justify their action - even when the reaction happens after the strike - the provoked reaction even may be the reason for a terror strike.

Who's the baddie? The one who orders a suicide bomber to drive a lorry loaded with explosives into a hotel, to blow up a bus full of civilians, to shoot down or bomb a civil airliner - or the country that attacks the camp of the suspected terror group right after - perhaps in a foreign country - in retaliation? International law is a beautiful thing - but as long as there are countries offering safehaven for bombers it is flawed, unfortunately. Btw, strikes in retaliation are allowed under international law.

Of course you cannot restrict yourself to military action. Development aid is just as important, as is enforcement of human rights standards. Some people in arab countries are against their pro-western governments because they are corrupt, brutal and unfair. With supporting them we become their enemies too.
The reasons for terror maybe widespread but get used to the fact that arab terrorists not need a necessarily rational reason to hate the west, beeing from a western country is reason enough to get killed by them.

[ November 30, 2002, 10:15: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

The Soul Seeking Forever: I agree with the general principle you seem to be expressing, which is that bombing strikes and high-handed western interference in already-troubled regions often create new generations of angry young men seeking a career in terrorism. But in the case of Osama bin Laden we unfortunately are looking at almost the exact opposite situation. For almost his entire adult life his goal has been to see Taliban-style Islamic extremism implemented across the Middle East and Africa. He is the high-handed interfering one. It is the western moves that have thwarted his evil plans - such as the presence of US troops in Yemen and Somalia, generally for totally unrelated reasons - that he is frothing at the mouth about and which is driving him to terrorism in the free world. He's got no more right to pursue extremist Islamic theocracies on sub-saharan Africa than Hitler had to push Naziism in Poland or France- that's why he has to be stopped, and why it is not "bullying" to try to do so in the case of his particular organisation.

 

The problem with america is that they are so big that they think noone will mess with them, which is a very unfounded idea, their presence in other countries only antagonises their peoples, america tries to police the world under their own laws and morals, and that doesnt work because around the world we have different beliefs and understandings.
I see the desire for america to attack iraq as hypocritical, america claims that iraq has weapons of mass destruction and the desire to use them.... america has weapons of mass destruction for definate (they got some pretty nasty stuff) and has proven in the past that they will use them, i would personally like to see america disarmed, but of course, noone has the political or millitarial power to disarm america.

i think saddam has to be dealt with, but not at the cost of the people of iraq, killing them will only fuel their anger and after such a war you can look forward to more terrorist attacks.
America has tried for years to assassinate saddam, each time they fail, because they underestimate him, you should never underestimate your foe in war, which is precisely what people are doing here in saying that iraq will be slaughtered, give them a little more credit then that, the somalians were a hell of alot less advanced that the US but their militia slaughtered an american rangers unit, it can happen.
i vote for an indepth covert operation to deal with saddam himself, but this time we'll use forces with more credit, like the SAS, french GIGN, german GSG-9, RAF edge and the RMC, maybe even throw in MI6, i'd give saddam a few days, britain has some of the finest counter insertion units in the world, we rarely miss our goals.

i notice the position of people here to automatically condemn iraq as an evil regime, but what do you actually know about iraq? or are you only going by what you have seen or read in the news?

 

What do we actually know about Iraq? Hmmm... it sounds like you may want to argue unless we've seen the tortured bodies for ourself we don't have sufficient justification to constitute knowledge.

Here is some of what I think we know, now maybe you'll argue it's prejudiced in some manner:

We know this was said and reflects the Iraqi attitude --
'Ali Hasan al-Majid, Saddam's relative who oversaw the operation, announced in May 1988: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? **** them! The international community, and those who listen to them!" from Iraq's Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds
By Human Rights Watch
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995

We know --

"Since 1975, over 4,000 Kurdish villages had been destroyed; by a conservative estimate more than 100,000 rural Kurds had died in Anfal alone; half of Iraq's productive farmland is believed to have been laid waste.

The Kurdish genocide 'fits Hilberg's paradigm to perfection,' which is summarised in the following key concepts: "definition - concentration (or seizure) - annihilation."

see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/his/Khaledtext.html

WE know this past July --

In July, two lawyers, Mohammad 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hadithi and Karim al-Shammari, were reportedly sentenced to death by a special court for alleged anti-government activities. The two were among a group of lawyers interrogated in June about the distribution of leaflets critical of the lack of independence of the judiciary. It was not known whether the sentences were carried out.

If you want to know about Iraq, it is pretty easy to research. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, U.N., etc. not exactly what I'd call U.S. propaganda.

Do we know that the Iraqi government is bad? Yes. And I submit that if you argue otherwise you are naive or blinded by your pre-determined dislike of the U.S.

 

At Shoshino:
I think you'd better research what happened in Mogadishu a little better when you said that the Rangers there were "slaughtered." It was the other way around, the Rangers only lost 18 men and killed around a thousand. The action that took place then is considered a military victory: the Delta Force operators did capture their targets and they were extracted back to the American base. So, as I stated it was not a slaughter, and the Sumolians paid a terrible price in that exchange.

 

I would say that the Mogadishu incident was slaughter, but not of any rangers but of ill ecquipped rabble of warlords militia and civilians caught in the middle. As I have stated above so is the US extremely stronger military than any other nation on this planet. They spend a larger percentage on than military almost all other nations in the world, the only one I can come up with that spends a larger percentage than the US is Isreal. And the US has the largest economy in the world. Comparing Saddams forces with Bush is like comparing a few stickwielding cavemen with a modern army division. The only risk the US would take is that one or two soldiers would die, something that they are very reluctant with.

 

Well, I think it is dangerous to underestimate the risk, particularly if he's backed into a corner.

However, I'm really posting about the claim that the U.S. "has tried for years to assassinate Hussein."

I have never heard that. I've done a quick search on the web and could find nothing to suggest the U.S. has. I would like to see some support out of curiousity.

I also think the claims that the U.S. special forces aren't equal to anyone are laughable. I expect someone to whip out their penis any second now to start the pissing contest.

 

"In July, two lawyers, Mohammad 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hadithi and Karim al-Shammari, were reportedly sentenced to death by a special court for alleged anti-government activities. The two were among a group of lawyers interrogated in June about the distribution of leaflets critical of the lack of independence of the judiciary. It was not known whether the sentences were carried out."
uh yeah, your familiar with the concept of treason, america also hes a death penalty for that crime.

"I think you'd better research what happened in Mogadishu a little better when you said that the Rangers there were "slaughtered." It was the other way around, the Rangers only lost 18 men and killed around a thousand"
LMAO, america's millitary records dont even record that, youve been watching too much TV, the somalians, accoring to american spotters lost 3 men and an unknown number of civillians, no rangers survived, they stole the blackhawk and its technology, america pulled out on the basis of a strategic withdrawl

"And the US has the largest economy in the world."
not true; japan

"The only risk the US would take is that one or two soldiers would die, something that they are very reluctant with. "
saddam hussein has been shooting down coilition aircraft for the best part of a decade, im sure civillians dont hear about this because its 'bad news'

"I have never heard that. I've done a quick search on the web and could find nothing to suggest the U.S. has. I would like to see some support out of curiousity."
oh joy, thw web wields nothing, i guess that meands that its false, you know you have to wait between 50 and 75 years for the official publishment of millitary dossiers, for the reason to protect the human rights of anyone involved in the making of that document?

"I also think the claims that the U.S. special forces aren't equal to anyone are laughable. I expect someone to whip out their penis any second now to start the pissing contest. "
NATO rates american counter insertion 5th in the world, america even uses the training guides of foreigh CIU forces to train its own men

 

Again, the operation in Mogadishu was a *military* victory for Task Force Ranger. I've read all sorts of stuff about the operation (including a very well written book about the whole afair) and all the acounts state that the Sumolians were slaughtered. I pity any country that has to face the full military might of the US (well almost.)

 

"Again, the operation in Mogadishu was a *military* victory for Task Force Ranger"
yeah... america are going to admit that they lost arent they

"I've read all sorts of stuff about the operation (including a very well written book about the whole afair) and all the acounts state that the Sumolians were slaughtered"
yep... about as accurate as blackhawk down, what a funny movie, but than any story or movie based on millitary actions made in teh US portreys the US as hero's, according to your country U571 was an american operation

"I've never seen a definition of treason that included distributing leaflets critical of the judiciary."
to the letter of the law that is also treason in the US and the UK, the only difference here is that we dont enforce those laws because the media would eat us alive

"You're off by at least a factor of 100 when you say 3 Somalis were killed in Mogadishu. And the Rangers survived until a UN armored task force came in and saved them, so no technology was stolen by the Somalis."
there was no UN armoured task force, there were no ranger survivors, the UN gave somalia a wide berth at the time

"Japan's GDP is on the order of half of the U.S.'s"
economic strength is not based on GDP, its based on the productivity of the workers, and given the ratio of workers in america to their GDP and the workers in japan and their GDP, japan has a stronger economy

"Hussein has been shooting at coalition aircraft, not shooting them down."
trust me, he's been shooting them down, ive lost 2 friends to SAM's near the no-fly-zone

"So the fact that you assert certain information about assassination attempts should be taken at face value? Especially given how accurate your other "information" has been?"
my information is accurate, the only differnce between mine and yours is that mine didnt come from books or media
at the end of the day i dont care whether you believe me or not, im not going to lose any sleep over it, im just presenting you with some facts you have a mind, believe them or not

[ December 01, 2002, 13:34: Message edited by: Shoshino ]

 

Indeed, I saw Black Hawk Down too and I was pretty surprised when I surfed the web for more information. After that it looked a little different, less heroic:

The US troops failed to cooperate, actually they made a devastating impression on the other nations, often characterized as beeing arrogant and overbearing. They failed to share informations with the other nations of the UN task force. They also failed to recognize that Aidid received qualified military training at military academies in italy and russia - and especially the russians put an emphasis on urban combat (after their success in Stalingrad). For the US the somalis were just a mob of "slims" - and they overlooked that the mob not only had good leadership but that quite likely the average 17 year old "slim"-fighter had more combat experience than any of the rangers deployed there. They payed for their arrogance.

They also allowed the somalis to get used to their tactic - the famous mission was the 6th of it's kind, almost identical to the previous ones. It was also decided not to use 40mm weapons, which are especially effective in urban combat, because the fragmentation effect could hit non-combattants. On the other hand the US commanders allowed their force .50 cal SMGs which are able to shoot through walls, beeing not less dangerous to civvies and later went over to use heliborne miniguns as well. It is better to equip a force with *all* the tools it has trained with, if you care for the lives of your soldiers - if you consider them mature enough to risk their lives in combat, you should consider them mature and sensible enough to use their weapons not against civilians.

The US rangers who decided to only use the front armor plate of their flak jackets and got shot in the back suffered double damage as the front plate reflected the bullet back into the body for a second wound (their unit commanders should be court-martialed for tolerating that).

There also happened a couple of silly leadership misdecisions such as Les Aspin's decision not do deploy armor to Somalia. Maybe even worse was that the local commanders accepted that - after calling for it. Also the commander in Somalia decided to send the two AC-130 Gunships under his command back to italy to give Aidid a sign to encourage him to surrender The result was a serious lack of fire support.

Actually, even theough in the movie only a couple of weird looking, unwilling and incooperative Pakistanis saved the task force, the US rangers owe their lives to malaysian troops, who formed the bulk of the rescue force. The delay of the rescue force was not so much because of lack of cooperation form their side. Unprepared and uninformed about the US operation they weren't even in a state of readiness, so they had to consider the sudden, intense firefight in the city to be one of the usual internal somali fightings. That and *planning* eventually caused the delay (for the *gung-ho* fraction - planning is no sign of cowardice).

For me the failure of Task Force ranger is the second most dilettantic operation of the 1990s - after russias incredible attempt to storm Grozny with the only difference that the russians used poorly trained troops criminally and the US did the same to crack troops (which also explains the lower US number of victims). The US have been lucky, it could have been much worse.

[ December 01, 2002, 17:57: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

First, you ask for some sort of support that Iraq is a bad regime. Then you ignore that little genocide thing in a rush to say imply there is nothing wrong with the murder of lawyers for suggesting that Iraq needs an independent judiciary going so far as to claim it is treason and implying the U.S. would find it to be the same. As a J.D. I'm surprised to hear this since I was unaware that passing out flyers in the U.S. was punishable by death, I'd like it if you could provide some support. Or were you really going to try to compare treason in the U.S. with passing out flyers in Iraq? No, that couldn't be, that would be entirely laughable as it is such a ridiculous comparison and I know you wouldn't use ridiculous comparisions.

Two, apparently coalition aircraft have been being shot down. I would like some support to show the numbers please. Oh, what's that, a giant conspiracy to hide this from us? I'm confused, it wasn't just U.S. aircarft you said coalition aircraft. The conspiracy is widespread indeed then. Illuminati are peeking around the corner I'm sure.

Third, once again you refuse to provide any support that the U.S. has attempted to assassinate Hussein. The U.S. government must have fooled the world and its media on this score but they couldn't fool you could they? You say that the documents verifying this are classified and won't be made public for many years. You've given yourself up though, for you to have seen these classified documents that must make you.....007! I have a few questions Mr. Bond, how did you infiltrate the Pentagon? I imagine it was an exhilirating experience. Also, Mr. Bond, did you discover anything of the cover-ups of the alien landings? Finally, and most importantly, Mr. Bond you have been with numerous beautiful women, who was the most memorable?

Economics is tough. Deciding which economy is the strongest is one of those things that turns on how you want to define it which necessarily becomes circular. It's another pissing contest, but right on cue you've whipped out your penis and put it on display for us all. Thanks for that.

Finally, the one I think you might be able to provide support for, could you show me where NATO belittles the U.S. Special Forces (is it our Special Forces or our Special Operations? Our Special Ops is our elite group not our Special Forces you know, what am I saying, of course you knew that.) I'm just curious to see it.

 

there is a former MI6 agent spending a good part of the rest of his life in jail for giving information out, I like him am bound by my signiture on a little piece of paper called the national secrets act, i on the other hand like my job and dont want to spend time in jail.

anti-government activities are illigal in both the UK and the US, and there was a day when we used to hang people for speaking out against the government

coalition aircraft is the term used for british and american warplanes, like the planes which patrol the no-fly-zone, like the planes which are not immune to stingers.

as for the ability to read classified documents, well.... it would be a stupid idea not to allow an intelligence operator to read the very documents he has to analyse and catalogue wouldnt it?, maybe your government does that, probably why american intelligence is a mockery.

"Mr. Bond you have been with numerous beautiful women, who was the most memorable?"
well, when i was in columbia there were a few beauties there, they actually came and paraded themselves outside the gates to our base, how could we resist?
most memorable, was a girl i slept with in pargue... she would to anything, and she had some good stamina too.

"It's another pissing contest, but right on cue you've whipped out your penis and put it on display for us all. Thanks for that. "
i got an A for economics at A level, your the one who is inciteing a pissing contest.

NATO doesnt make differences between special forces and special operations, they all fall under a category known as 'counter insertion', usually rated by how often they are deployed and their success to failure ratio,
SAS are #1
belgum's 5th para's are #2
german GSG-9 #3
i dont have the list off hand, but i know that the CIA is 5th, and the seals are 6th

and i didnt say that they belittle them, i said that they dont rate them highly

as much as i love to argue with you, im back in work tomorrow, so i wont be able to reply for sometime, this thread will probably have died by then, though it may be interesting to come back and read the replies

 

I have to disagree about the GSG-9 - they are good for counter-terrorist use only, actually they excell there. However, the german armed forces KSK is our counterpart to the SAS. Similary structured as the SAS they are operating alongside allied special forces in Afganistan atm. AFAIK they have gained a pretty good reputation during their operations in Kosovo and ex-Jugoslavia. However, they operate under strict secrecy and you don't hear much about what they do - and since they are relatively young they may not yet have made it into the list.

The israelis have pretty good special forces, just as France. However, they are operating very secretly - which on the other hand is an excellent sign of their abilities - and, they are non-NATO

PS: Counter-insertion? Not, perhaps, counter-insurgency?

[ December 01, 2002, 18:37: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Well, you can't argue with someone that refuses to argue. In order to argue you need to offer some support. You refuse to do so. Continuously.

You continue to make silly comparisons. Like comparing passing out pamphlets in Iraq to something which would constitute treason in the U.S. or U.K. That's silly. There is anti-government meetings in the U.S. all of the time. Every day in D.C. there are protests about a potential conflict in Iraq. Your comparisons are incredibly off base. And I noticed the lack of support.

Now you are claiming to have read secret U.S. documents, eh? Well, ok, I've read secret documents too! Did you know the queen of England is actually forming a secret plan to dominate the world along with Hussein? It's because they feel a kindred for each other since they're both transvestites. Yeah! That's the ticket.

See, you can't argue with that. And we can't argue with you.

Oh, and lots of people get high grades in economics. If you did you'll know how debatable the subject is. Pointless.

You once again refuse to support the claim of multiple lost aircraft. Illuminati again?

Oh, and you gloss over that whole genocide thing again.

[ December 01, 2002, 18:39: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

Hey Shoshino! how about some solid proof about what you are talking about rather than obscure references to people you supposedly know or things you have supposedly read or seen? I'm a man of logic and without logical and strong proof I will discount anything that does not fall under the strong evidence category.
For your information I do not watch much television (though I did see the movie Black Hawk Down) I've seen other documentaries and read books on the subject. What have you read? what have you seen that is creditable and doesn't reek of paranoya? please enlighten me!