Is a pretty awful argument tbh.
Natural causes probably killed a few as well.
I bet more people wanted them there than didn't.. So because of a minority (terrorists / extremists) we should not have gone in?
So, that whole Iraq invasion thing was a good idea then...
- Thread starter Mr Badger
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Is a pretty awful argument tbh.
Natural causes probably killed a few as well.
I bet more people wanted them there than didn't.. So because of a minority (terrorists / extremists) we should not have gone in?
Soldato
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I'm guessing they wanted Saddam gone but they never expected to be living in a war zone 10 years.
Say what you like but Saddam ruled with an iron fist to keep the various factions apart and under control.
I am sure far less people died under Saddam in 3 decades than under 'us' in 1 decade
I expect they sell the oil in dollars too which gives the yanks a chance to sell dollars for stuff so folk can buy oil, every time the yanks disrupt the flow of oil in the world folk who want oil have to buy many more dollars first, before the attack on Iraq oil was $10/20pb now its $80/110pb, I wish I could make the world buy rubbish paper off me to buy the oil they need to live.
UK oil co's have the same shareholders as Dutch, French or yank oil co's, they are not owned by nations just plutocrats.
No one expected it to last 10 years. But I agree there are elements to the 'better the devil you know' argument. He did a good job keeping things 'under control', but his means were hardly saint worthy.
We got rid of him and tried to give them better, we gave them a fighting chance to improve their democracy, they weren't up for it.
Soldato
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I'm going to get stick for this but really an extermination rather than war is needed
Nah, I personally think we should just "purge" that entire part of the world. Would solve so many problems in the long run and dealing with the "human" issues afterwards would be short term since the next few generations wouldn't care and just write about it in history books, but it would do the world good.
As someone already explained, it was pretty much better back then for them as well as for the people of Libya and Syria .
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^ Yes we got rid of him but were clueless how to rebuild a nation and not understanding their culture but tried to force our ways of governance on them. We just put corrupt war lords and part time politicians in play to do our dirty work.
Soldato
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You can't give democracy by a bullet - history has proven this many times.
We should have done our homework before starting wars, all we had to do was look at Afghanistan for a local example
What I said earlier, it's rinse and repeat with these guys in the middle east.
We just couldn't afford to do nothing as they were swinging from the rafters demanding that the US and us help out.
Going back to what you said earlier. It's estimated that Saddam killed 900,000 in 3 decades(1980 - 2009). 3% of the country?
Wasn't the estimation of the war 100,000 civilians?
Whether it was worth it I guess will differ from opinions.
Good thinking Hitler.
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Wut? Who was swinging from the rafters? If I remember correctly tony Blair sold a lie to get the war he wanted rather than a war to "save the people". Is this some sort of revisionist fantasy?
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Syria and Libya are a slightly different kettle of fish. But the situation in Iraq was pretty dire, especially due to the ongoing sanctions.
Libya and Syria obviously had stability, but they were still ruled by a dictator who was slowly sucking the marrow from the bones of their people. Obviously the present situation in both countries is not good, but our own nation went through hundreds of years of civil strife before we got where we did.
If liberals are too scared of blood, they ought to stop trying to moralise to the rest of the world. If they believe what they have to say, then they ought to be willing to pay the blood price.
So no one in Iraq wanted us to intervene and get rid of Saddam?
I'm not commenting on how we went about trying to justify going in there.
You can't start a full scale war because people in another country disagree with their leader, however unfortunate that is. But in some situations, war is the only way to get rid of said leader.
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You cant justify for something 10 years on, if it was a pressing matter it would have been headlining at the time. As it wasn't, we were told something else.
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And how does that apply to Iraq as clearly they were no threat to us, we're in a worse position now than before. How has our prosperity been approved from the bloody war that cost lives on both sides and billions?
So essentially you are telling us not to take anything you say seriously? Ok got it.
True, maybe, just maybe, our leaders did genuinely think there were WMD's based on various maybe limited intel. This would have obviously been the headlining issue, as it was. And they got it wrong spectacuarly. But again I am not arguing how they went about it.
I am just correcting people who sit there and say no one in Iraq wanted our help, that is simply not true.
The will of a few people...
Let's not forget, the reason he has held on so long (and may actually win) is because he has a significant proportion of the country behind him. Even moreso now, you have a choice of Assad, a reasonably benign (fairly progressive) dictator or a load of extremist mentalists bent on forcing you to change your way of life. The only reason this was carried on as long as it did was the arming of rebels by the west (and other ME countries) and subsequently (and more importantly) the uptake of jihad by foreign nationals that have done far more than the local rebels ever managed.
What is happening in Iraq now is in part due to the confidence and linking up of extremists that were drawn to Syria. Let's hope the seats arms aren't now being used against Iraq...
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I'm sure most people are not that naïve.
Help from what, if anything they would have wanted help decades ago when Saddam was gassing his own people. The Iranians probably wanted help too when we were supporting the same regime murder their people...
Actually many, many people expected it to last 10 years and be a mess for years afterwards.* I'm sure the government's must have known this was likely too but still decided to go on their crucade. If they didn't then they really were worse than we thought.
*Easy way of checking, check old threads on this subject...
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No he held on because he has control of the Army (largely Alawhites), has used chemical weapons and has all the advanced weapons including aircrafts, going up against a bunch of folk with AKs. Has been backed up by Iran and Russia with Hezbollah and Iran providing well trained hardened troops.
We have a choice of a brutal dictator (long history of brutality aka his father) or NOW a strong presence of extremists. Thing is we wouldn't have that problem if it wasn't for Assad as I explained above people have turned to extremists out of despair. It was not like that at the beginning.