The_Pac_Mule
Refugee
And yes, it is terrible, and I am concerned, it takes a real sick person to do shit like that.
Are We Now Too Nice To Wage a Real War?
- Thread starter the iron horse
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
And yes, it is terrible, and I am concerned, it takes a real sick person to do shit like that.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
and the point of the article is that there's a new Islamist fundamentalist impulse among many Shiites that didn't exist before, and it's far more dangerous now to be gay in Iraq than before, and it's far worse to be a woman in some places in Iraq than before.
OP
OP
the iron horse
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I have not read all the replies yet, but I will
try to answer yours.
The point I was trying to make in the title
and my original post is that war is (and has always)
been a horrible and tragic event in human history.
World War Two, in my opinion, was the last war fought as a total war.
The Allies fought against the Nazis and a Japanese government bent on world domination. If you look at a 1942 map of conquest by these two powers, they were getting close to achieving their goal.
Since WW2 it seems, to me, we have tried to sanitize war.
Make it little cleaner, less destructive.
Is this a good idea?
That was my question in my original post.
Take care
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
I would say "less destuctive" would always be a good thing.
I think Jesus would say the same don't you think?
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
in what sense do you mean?
do you mean that the media has sanitized war? made it more glamorous?
or do you mean that the US Army itself has tried to make war more sanitized? smart bombs, etc. that they are amazingly accurate when they bomb? that drones can find a single person and wipe him (and perhaps a few bystanders) out, whereas in WW2 they'd level a whole town?
HyperU2
War Child
They'll release videos to the press of bombs hitting tanks and houses but not those hitting personnel.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
seeing what bombs actually do to people might make the public rethink their enthusiastic support of certain policies.
Seeing the reality of what Saddam did to his own people, his neighbors, his use of WMD on innocent civilians, as well as a basic understanding and education of how the energy reserves in the middle east directly impact the daily lives of everyone living on the planet, and how Saddam threatened that, might make those who opposed Saddam's removal from power rethink their opposition to his removal.
Who is 'we'?
AliEnvy
Refugee
Go for it then, educate us.
HyperU2
War Child
I don't know. Either way I don't want someone deciding what I should or should not see.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
What? That doesn't even make sense.
Unless you are there, that's ALWAYS going to be the case.
AliEnvy
Refugee
^ 
Good point. Although I think he'll pull an INDY and ignore it.
Good point. Although I think he'll pull an INDY and ignore it.I certainly would not think you had difficulty understanding the impact mideast oil has on the rest of the world. But if your questioning that now, or the threat that Saddam posed to Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia, I'd be willing to discuss it.
AliEnvy
Refugee
I really do want to understand it - and not in vague generalities. In plain, connect-the-dots detail.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
amazingly, the response is going to be both: vague details describing connect-the-dots generalities.
AliEnvy
Refugee
At least that would be a start!
Then maybe you could follow up with a response that is both detailed, actually informed of events in the middle east prior to 2003, explaining why Persian Gulf Oil does not impact the rest of the world, why Saddam and his behavior should not concern anyone in the world or the region, and why Saddam should be put back in power in Iraq if it were possible.
AliEnvy
Refugee
I think you're deflecting.
As you said, we need an understanding of exactly how middle east oil impacts the lives of everyone on the planet and Saddam's role as a threat in order for objectors to support US foreign policy.
Why should history vindicate Bush if you can provide the rationale now?
Well what exactly are you interested in learning? The impact of certain natural resources on the rest of the economy? Why the United States rushed troops to Saudi Arabia in 1990, then removed Saddam's military from Kuwait and southern Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Why the United States felt the need to keep sanctions on the regime that liberals claimed were killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children after the 1991 war. Why Bill Clinton himself bombed Iraq in 1998 and stated that Saddam was a threat and that the best way to end that threat was with a NEW Iraqi government. Or is it Bush's actions in 2003?
AliEnvy
Refugee
Deflecting?
Oil is vital to the global economy because it is a relatively cheap source of energy. Industrial societies require energy for transportation, Farming, electronic equipment in houses, office buildings, and places of work. Nearly everything that humans are engaged in on a daily basis requires energy. How much humans have to pay for that energy has a massive impact on economic conditions given how vital energy is to the daily lives of people in the 21st century. When the price of oil increases, the price of energy increases. This makes goods and services more expensive to people and forces them to devote more income to supplying basic needs. As people decrease spending on non-essential items, other sectors of the economy start to suffer from the lack of those funds. Business's are forced to lay off workers. Workers without income can't afford to purchase many goods and services continuing the ripple effect.
As the price of oil increases, so does the price of food. Food becomes more expensive to harvest and ship to market. This further impacts the amount of income the consumer has to spend on other goods and services.
If the increase in oil prices is very sudden or severe, it can cause a reduction in economic activity through the process above. A recession is two quarters of negative GDP growth. Such a recession occured in 1990-1991 after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Saudi Arabia did try to pump more oil to alleviate the crises, but could not prevent a recession from happening.
If enough oil supply were suddenly removed from the world market at one time, the price of energy would sky rocket do to the scarcity of means to supply it. Faced with sky rocketing cost from energy, many businesses could not afford to stay open. This would ripple through the entire economy causing huge drops in global GDP. A deep and sustained downturn of this magnitude is the definition of a depression.
In 2002, intelligence sources indicated that Saddam had WMD and could only be years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Saddam had been consistently violating UN inspections and restrictions for over a decade at this point. The sanctions and weapons embargo designed to prevent him from rebuilding much of his conventional military power had fallen apart. Saddam was trading on the Black Market had grown from as little as $100 million dollars in 1999, to over $5 Billion dollars in 2002. China was violating sanctions and the weapons embargo on Iraq by helping to install a new air defense system network for the country giving Iraq a better ability to cooridinate attacks on coalition aircraft patrolling the no fly zones over Iraq. France and Russia had also both engaged in violations of the sanctions. Sanctions vital to containing Saddam as an alternative to removing him from power!
As the erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo continued, and Saddam continued to defy the international community in resolving the issues over his WMD program, the only remaining option left was regime removal. Everything short of that had been tried and had failed to bring Saddam into full verifiable compliance with UN security council resolutions regarding his WMD programs. Essentially, all the tools to contain Saddam as opposed to removing him were failing or becoming weaker.
With containment broken, the only option left for dealing with Saddam was regime change given his past behavior. With the sanctions and weapons embargo having just recently crumbled, the longer the coalition waited to remove Saddam, the stronger he would get. The stronger Saddam became, the more costly in lives and money regime change would become. Acting later would only allow Saddam to accumulate more wealth and capabilities which would increase coalition casualties and financial cost once the decision was finally made to remove him.
When Saddam would obtain certain capabiliites such as being able to overrun more than just Kuwait and take the Saudi oil fields is not clear. Nor is it exactly clear when he could have produced a nuclear weapon or other forms of WMD. But what is clear, is that the means of preventing Saddam from obtaining such capabilties through sanctions and the weapons embargo was no longer possible given their erosion and unpopularity. Although Saddam only overran Kuwait in 1990, he did have the means to strike deep into Saudi Arabia as well. With sanctions and the weapons embargo gone, it would only be a matter of time before that level of capabilities was reached again or surpassed.
This is why regime removal became a necessity in 2003.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
no one wanted to occupy and be responsible for a Saddam-free Iraq. remember the Pottery Barn Rule?
that's why no one was willing to invade and occupy Iraq. it's not like this was a new idea, or there was some new set of circumstances on the ground in 2002 (shockingly, just a year after 9-11).
until Bush came along and had 9-11 to exploit.
that's why no one was willing to invade and occupy Iraq. it's not like this was a new idea, or there was some new set of circumstances on the ground in 2002 (shockingly, just a year after 9-11).
until Bush came along and had 9-11 to exploit.
Of course, but its also irrelevant. No one wanted to invade and occupy Afghanistan in the 1990s either for the same reason. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, circumstances made the invasion of both countries a necessity, despite the fact that it was extremely undesirable to do so because of the difficulty involved in rebuilding both countries afterwards.
that's also the reason why no one was willing to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Its also irrelevant because changing circumstances made the invasion of each a necessity.
There were a whole host of circumstances that had changed with the situation in Iraq from 1998 to 2002.
1. UN inspectors had been kicked out of the country and not allowed to return for that entire time period.
2. The best intelligences estimates and data from the United States and even countries like France and Germany showed that Saddam still had WMD. Had produced new WMD and ballistic missiles, and was estimated at only being 7 years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon. This is the NIE at the time as well the intelligence from other countries, not the alleged trumped up fantasies of "neocons". In 2002, the intelligence shows that Saddam is further along in these area's than in 1998.
3. This is probably the most important circumstance that had changed. The erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo. Saddam's black market smuggling only yielded him a few hundred million dollars in 1999. By 2002, this had increased to $5 Billion dollars! Sanctions and the weapons embargo were essentially gone by 2002. Syria was actively and openly ignoring all of the sanctions by 2002. Turkey and Iran although officially still on board with sanctions were letting millions of dollars of trade cross the borders every week. There were even violations with the Kuwait and Saudi borders with Iraq.
Then, China, a member of the UN Security Council that voted for sanctions and the weapons embargo, goes ahead and helps Saddam set up a new air defense system that can better target coalition aircraft. Russia and France had their own violations as well.
The only possible option instead of regime change for dealing with Saddam was containment through UN inspections that Saddam HAD TO FULLY cooperate with and a full proof sanctions and weapons embargo regime. These primary elements of containment still existed in some form in 1998, they did not exist to any significant degree by 2002, except on paper!
The only way to prevent Saddam from obtaining substantially more wealth and weapons capabilties was either through sanctions or regime removal. With sanctions so eroded, and even members of the UN Security Council in violation of them, the only option left for dealing with Saddam became regime change. Containment, which was always a questionable policy to begin with, can't work at all without effective sanctions and a weapons embargo. Without it, the regime must be removed because it is the only option left to insure that the events of 1990 or a far greater disaster does not occur. As soon as sanctions eroded to a significant degree, any more time spent waiting to remove Saddam would be time that Saddam would use to rebuild his conventional and un-conventional military capabilities. Although actual WMD weapons were not found after the invasion, WMD production related facilities that violated the resolutions and were never shown to inspectors were found.
As time went by a stronger Saddam would increase the risk to the Persian Gulf as well as increasing the cost in casualties and money of removing him from power. Acting in 2003 to remove Saddam rather than later, saved lives, money, as well as insured the security of Persian Gulf energy reserves, vital to the global economy.
bigjohn2441
Refugee
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2008
- Messages
- 1,593
so the Iraq war WAS about oil. I KNEW IT!!!!! 
HyperU2
War Child
There is good reason they didn't call it Operation Iraqi Liberation.
Se7en
Rock n' Roll Doggie
i could talk to a wall if i wanted to. but why would i?
Similar threads
