Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Iraq. Should we have gone back?

I was recently tweeted by DrCMG. She tweeted in response to my retweet of a report that millions were being spent in ad campaigns for the "Health Reform Bill." Her response "Millions have been spent on an unnecessary war and secret assassination attempts" A response obviously given to elicit a response. So in my normal style, never baking down from a debate or argument, I went on a tirade in Twitter responses. I probably put too much attack in it along with my points and scared her from any fight because all she gave me back was "What r U talking abt?! You think we should have been in Iraq? Cool..we disagree, but take it light Just philosophy Urs N min" She didn't like me pointing out fact based arguments against her. Even corrected her to say it was Billions not millions spent which I guess strengthens her argument, but since BO has spent trillions, not really.

If your argument is money, BHO has spent many times more in six months than Bush did during the entire war Pre-cease-fire and post cease-fire combined. And with it he has done nothing, but put us further into a recession.

This brought me into the argument about the Iraq war. At least I began to stew a bit. It was obvious she would not debate me (Again, probably my fault she apparently thinks I'm a loon) So I figured I'd lay out my point of view on the subject.

First, I am not so much going to focus on the tactics used to fight this war. That would amount to Monday morning quarter backing and being IN the heat of the decision making is much different than sitting back as the years pass and picking it apart. I agree we have made some tactical mistakes and also many victories. This is true with any war. What I would rather look at is why are we there?

First what was the history in this region. The middle east has been a territory of turmoil since the beginning of recorded history. The fights include many religious beliefs in conflict with one another and disputes over land rights. This wasn't only with Israel. When the boundaries were written out to determine borders in the region many took exception to it. In our generation one of these Countries with a land dispute was Iraq. They took exception that when the boundaries were written it left them land locked from the Persian Gulf. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti mostly know simply as Saddam Hussein had risen to power as a dictator over Iraq. Once a Vice President under an ailing General(his cousin who died under suspicious circumstances) he commanded control of an extremely large army. Eventually he used that army to take control of the Oil monopoly and eventually became a self appointed President and dictator over the country. He killed any person who opposed him or threatened his position to include his own family members. He was a member of the Baath Party which was created in the 1940's by Michel Aflaq who was a supporter and emulator of the Nazi party. The political party supported and emulated the Nazi Party in many ways. Hussein idolized Stalin openly and like Stalin he assassinated any who opposed him to include Women and children. Hundreds died. Some who attempted to overthrow him, but others simply because they were in the same villiage or because they opposed the Baath party. He murdered Kurds who opposed him by the hundreds. His oppression by murder can only be equated to as genocide. Ok, so is the picture clear yet? Is this a guy you would call a humanitarian or someone you'd like your daughter to marry? Clearly the answer is NO!

In 1991 hussein gathered his troops and attacked his neighbor Kuwait hoping he could win and have clear access to the Persian Gulf. Kuwait being an ally to the United States and the UN was defended by the UN. A defense which predominately was made up of US forces (not to undermine the roll other countries played, but we took the lead.) The UN combined forces destroyed Iraqi forces(then the second largest army in the world.) Most of his forces surrendered as soon as the saw allied forces or even camera crews. His most loyal troops retreated burning any oil field they came by as they passed(How many carbon credits did the US earn for putting out those fires :-)) It was a decisive victory, but the war never officially ended. Much like the North Korean war there was simply a cease-fire agreement (officially we were still at war with both) As a part of the cease-fire agreement UN inspectors were to be allowed to inspect sites where chemical weapons were once produced. Also under the cease-fire iraq was to destroy the chemical weapons they had already produced. An embargo was in effect. The embargo put in place many trade sanctions and allowed the search of any ships in/out of iraq to insure they did not contain weapons materials. Saddam Hussein at first looked as if he would comply, but soon he stopped letting the inspectors in the country, once there they could not inspect sites they had specifically designated in the cease-fire and they were not being allowed to board ships bearing the Iraqi flag. Diplomacy prevailed for some time and rumors abound that Hussein was again developing a chemical weapons program. This claim was supported by the lack of cooperation with the UN inspectors. Still diplomacy continued until Hussein continually refused to support the embargo. Rumors were now being supported with intelligence that chemical weapons were being made in Iraq. Intelligence which was promoted by Hussein in an attempt at power over the UN. The UN had come to be known as a power which would not support the use of force to back up diplomacy, especially with its members and Iraq is a member of the UN. In March of 2003 the United States concluded that diplomacy had reached its end and the disregard of the cease-fire agreement could no longer be tolerated. The US and allied troops attacked Iraq in hopes to overthrow Hussein and install a locally independent democracy in the country. We were also to look for the rumored chemical weapons or WMD's(a point Bush pushed as one of the major motivations for the war.) This action was backed by the American public and by both parties in the House. The American public expected another sweeping victory which would be over a month or two after experiencing the sweeping victory in Kuwait. Hussein was found hiding in a hole on December 13, 2003. Just 9 months after cease-fire dissolved. This was not fast enough and the American public turned on president Bush for it. No WMD's were reported found and several tactical mistakes were made. Most importantly the support of the Iraqi people which was expected did not occur. After so many years of a ruthless dictator they did not know how to stand up for themselves any longer and even after his capture Hussein had a following of loyal troops who were killing numerous Iraqi's and Americans. The American press spouted out the numbers of Americans dead every day. While each death was a tragic loss, the numbers were extremely low, especially when put side by side to any previous American war. More soldiers have died in single battles in previous wars than have died in Iraq. Again I definitely do not want to undermine the tragedy that is associated with any hero who honorably died in service.

The numbers have bolstered. It is impossible for me to find the correct number of Americans who died in battle because they are combined with those who die in Iraq because of natural causes and training exercises. Let me clarify again for the Liberals who will say I don't care about human life. I am making this distinction because soldiers die during peace time and during war. Accidents happen in the United States all the time. Helicopters crash, there are accidents with weapons, falls, parachutes don't open. These are numbers that we will see regardless if they are in Iraq or the US. I am of the belief that even the deaths attributed to training accidents or even car accidents while not a work are honorable deaths of a hero. They train to be the best and so they are. Hero is also a word I do not use easily. I am not a hero, a sports figure is not a hero, I recently heard Michael Jackson was a hero, No. Heroes can be found every day in our armed forces though.

So the arguments against the war are usually motivated by emotion and almost always based on these numbers. People expected a sweeping victory with minimal loss of American life. Well, comparatively that is exactly what we have achieved. When you attack a countries army in it's homeland it will always be more difficult that meeting them on land foreign to them. They are dug in, they have built in defenses. In every war there will be collateral damage. A term I don't really like because it in itself minimizes the tragedy it is speaking to. Hussein used school children as human shields. Bombs missed and innocent people died. Tragic indeed, but the precision attacks of this war are a far cry from the carpet bombings of old. Let us also not forget that iraq was an ally to Al Qaeda and was a home to terrorist AS WELL. Not a major hub for Al Qaeda, but in the center of a region that is. Just an attributing factor to our motivations of the cease fire (although Bush clung to this one pretty tightly too after 9-11.)

Arguments against ending the cease-fire:

We didn't give diplomacy a chance:

in 1991 the cease-fire was signed (itself a sign of diplomacy in action)
in 2003 it dissolved. That is over ten years of diplomacy met with nothing but distain by Hussein

Bush Lied:

Ok, this one is just stupid. It has to do with the fact that no WMD's were located. First this doesn't mean they didn't exist. Second there has been no evidence found which supports the claim that Bush or the House knew there were no WMD's in fact everything they had showed otherwise and Hussein was playing into the claims in hopes to institute fear and leverage.

Bush is just finishing what his father did not, it's revenge:

His father is the one who signed the cease-fire. There may have been a certain amount of distain because his fathers cease-fire was not being respected, but that doesn't change the fact that any violation of the cease -fire would be grounds for assault. We tolerated many continued violations before breaking the cease-fire.

Bush is a baby killer:

I've said enough above on this one, not going to respond further to those loons.


So did I and do I support the Iraq war breaking of the cease-fire? YES and YES.

1 comment:

  1. Another Well Written Post DJ! Keep em Coming! Love How Your Mind Works! ;)

    ReplyDelete