BF2S Forums Interrogator: Invasion Surprised Saddam

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

David.P wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Fair enough.  I will take your failure to address the rest of my post as evidence that you agree with my opinion.

Cognitive Dissidence in action! Funny you said i was the Master of it.

Haha.  It is cognitive dissonance.  Read up on it to get a better grasp.

Either way you're bullshitting.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

10pm on a sunday?

11pm right now.  I have to be here until the last plane lands.  Right now it looks like it will be 1am or so.

I'll try to put in my two cents on some points bieng argued:
The US is always criticized by people who's countries cant do anything but watch from the sidelines. This is a cold hard fact! Not much more to say on that.
KEN, to say I live in plush OC because my parents moved there is a week response to a deep question. Why are we so rich? It has a lot to do with decisions made by our previous leaders that include choosing allies and going to war when those alliances were threatened.

Last edited by rawls2 (2008-01-27 21:04:49)

RDX-FX wrote:

Tell that to a few hundred thousand Kurds he used chemical weapons on.

Why did the US take precisely zero action in during the Al-Anfal campaign then? It wasn't exactly a blip in time nobody noticed, 1986-1989.
Why did the US continue selling Saddam weapons and buying his oil?
At that time he had WMD and was using them on Kurdish civilians, but that was OK - he was a US ally back then, the US was supporting Iraq in the war against Iran.
When the US invaded he didn't have WMD, he had destroyed them years previously.
If you think they are buried in the desert why is no-one looking for them?

When they start lobbing chemical-warhead scuds at one of our allies, it becomes our business (Israel).

Were any chemical warheads actually fired? They were simple explosives as far as I remember
But not much action was taken then either was it? The US army stopped at the Iraqi border. Iraq was too useful as a counter to Iran.
And since when was Israel a US ally? Name a single event when the Israelis have fought alongside the US, or done anything at all for the US?

When they invade and annex one of our allies, it becomes our business (Kuwait).

The US had their eyes off the ball and gave the green light to Saddam to invade. Sending a woman as Ambassador to an Arab country is just not clever politics BTW. Most Arabs would view it as an insult.
And how exactly was Kuwait a US ally? Kuwait was an ally of Iraq, they just got stroppy about debts and caught siphoning Iraqi oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait

The Iraqis have the view Kuwait, with its rich oilfields, should be part of Iraq - which it was before the Ottoman empire was broken up by the British. The Iraqis were taking back what the British stole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_empire

When they use chemical warfare and nerve agent on a few hundred thousand of their own people, it becomes everyone's business.(unless you think gassing a bunch of Jews in Nazi Germany was an internal problem that should've been left to the Germans to handle...)

Of course not. Its the job of the UN. I guess the US has a seat on the UN security council, they could have stopped cashing Saddams cheques and sending him arms for a moment and done something. Instead they did nothing - so whats your point? How does that justify attacking Iraq 15 years later?

If the US is so bothered about genocides there are plenty ongoing around the world they could get involved in right now.
The US wasn't concerned about the Kurds any more than they are about Sudan, Tibet, Zimbabwe or anywhere else.

The argument about Iran not starting wars doesn't really stand up.

The excuse for invading Iraq was Saddam had WMD (nope) and supported terrorism (nope).
Citing a genocidal campaign 15 years prior, about which the US did nothing at the time, is a bit weak.

If Iran is a fine peaceful nation with no connection with terrorism why is Duhbya threatening them now?
I have no doubt Iran has WMD of various sorts, just not nukes for now.

ATG wrote:

Pity, in a way, that they fucked it up so badly.
The primary fuck up?  Companies like Halliburton making millions/billions off the war.
A draft was what was needed, if we were going to kick some middle eastern terrorist asses with boots on the ground.

A draft is not what this country needs, wants, or should have. Conscription merely lowers overall morale, degrades professionalism, and gives more impetus to the protest against the war back home. What should happen is what is taking place now. Professional troops doing professional jobs, and imparting professional advice to the Iraqi forces to combat  the insurgency. That is what should have been done in Vietnam, and that is what is being done right now. We did a 21K troop surge, and that's all we needed, because the Insurgents, contrary to CPoe's favorite source, Al Jazeera, are getting their asses handed to them.

Conscription may work for an immediate domestic threat (hence the National Guard), but the only country that actually could use conscription is Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland--but those guys don't need to be drafted, any sign of trouble will get blown away by every single firearm that country has.