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Paris

super spurs said:
Most people at the time thought the invasion of Iraq was at least in part in response to 9/11...

It was odd after 9/11 that Iraq was invade because of apparently weapons of mass destruction..Didn't Blair say in Parliament that these weapons could be launched against the west.
Was iraq used as a spacegoat for 9/11. ?
Click to expand...

Well I think the whole 'lying about WMD' was very 'with benefit of hindsight'. The intelligence was flawed IN THE END, and when we got in there it became apparent that Iraq did not have the capability that our intelligence services thought they did. Or at least, they were able to successfully hide the evidence of the capability in the desert or smuggle weapons over the border between the renewed requests of access for UN weapons inspectors and Saddam's agreement to co-operate.

However, even the UN weapons inspection found large quantities of chemical and biological weapons agents known to be in Iraq's possession in 1998 unaccounted for.

There is little doubt Saddam's regime were trying to develop these weapons, but it appeared their progress in doing so and of pay-load delivery systems to threaten the west was not advanced as our intelligence services feared.

Ultimately, in the context of immediate post-9/11, everyone was taken aback. It had not been thought that Islamic fundamentalist groups had the capability or inclination to launch co-ordinated large-scale attacks against western targets on that scale.

The fear was that here we had in Iraq, a pariah state right in the heart-lands of Al-Qaeda, who had refused access to UN weapons inspectors for years following the original gulf war and was known to have in its possession stock-piles of chemical and biological agents and the fear was that if the Saddam regime was continued to be tolerated, that their attempts at developing these weapons could lead to them falling into the hands of extremist groups.

My thing about the Iraq war,wasn't the war itself or the decision to topple Saddam, it was a failure to have a follow-up plan that led to stability in the region following a massive power-vacuum.

Also, once we were there the decision to pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 due to political pressure back home was disgusting and cowardly. We've basically left those nations in carnage and as a bigger breeding ground for terrorism and as a bigger threat to the west than they were before intervention.

It was a gutless and cowardly move and an insult to all the soldiers who lost their lives, as the road we'd been attempting to lead the countries down, towards democracy, peace and stability has just been torn up in a few short years following our withdrawal.
 
super spurs said:
Most people at the time thought the invasion of Iraq was at least in part in response to 9/11...

It was odd after 9/11 that Iraq was invade because of apparently weapons of mass destruction..Didn't Blair say in Parliament that these weapons could be launched against the west.
Was iraq used as a spacegoat for 9/11. ?
Click to expand...

NWND said:
Well I think the whole 'lying about WMD' was very 'with benefit of hindsight'. The intelligence was flawed IN THE END, and when we got in there it became apparent that Iraq did not have the capability that our intelligence services thought they did. Or at least, they were able to successfully hide the evidence of the capability in the desert or smuggle weapons over the border between the renewed requests of access for UN weapons inspectors and Saddam's agreement to co-operate.

However, even the UN weapons inspection found large quantities of chemical and biological weapons agents known to be in Iraq's possession in 1998 unaccounted for.

There is little doubt Saddam's regime were trying to develop these weapons, but it appeared their progress in doing so and of pay-load delivery systems to threaten the west was not advanced as our intelligence services feared.

Ultimately, in the context of immediate post-9/11, everyone was taken aback. It had not been thought that Islamic fundamentalist groups had the capability or inclination to launch co-ordinated large-scale attacks against western targets on that scale.

The fear was that here we had in Iraq, a pariah state right in the heart-lands of Al-Qaeda, who had refused access to UN weapons inspectors for years following the original gulf war and was known to have in its possession stock-piles of chemical and biological agents and the fear was that if the Saddam regime was continued to be tolerated, that their attempts at developing these weapons could lead to them falling into the hands of extremist groups.

My thing about the Iraq war,wasn't the war itself or the decision to topple Saddam, it was a failure to have a follow-up plan that led to stability in the region following a massive power-vacuum.

Also, once we were there the decision to pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 due to political pressure back home was disgusting and cowardly. We've basically left those nations in carnage and as a bigger breeding ground for terrorism and as a bigger threat to the west than they were before intervention.

It was a gutless and cowardly move and an insult to all the soldiers who lost their lives, as the road we'd been attempting to lead the countries down, towards democracy, peace and stability has just been torn up in a few short years following our withdrawal.
Click to expand...

Couple of things,

1.Sadam and al quida were ideologically opposed, it the Iraq war that have lead to alquida and Isis's rise in Iraq.
2, there was always serious questions about the intelligence on WMD
A) the requesting of sexing up documents
B) bushes alleged desire to go to war with Iraq emmediately after 911, and for him allegedly asking for a link between 911 and Iraq (no link existed by the way)

One for the atheists out there, bush is quoted as saying

"GHod told him its the right thing to do' or something of the sort.

In addition, sadam was an evil ******* for a long time, when he was gassing Kurds in the thousands the west done nothing, when he conducted ethnic cleansing and arabization of Kurdish and Turkimen lands the west done nothing. When he put down Shia uprisings in the most brutal of manners, the west done nothing...... But when there was dollars to be made and and excuse to do it for (911) the west went all in, you obviously know more than I about whether the war was legal or not, and I accept your expertise on that

What's your views on what's written about Saddam wanting by on trade oil in other currencies other than the dollar.
 
DTA said:
Couple of things,

1.Sadam and al quida were ideologically opposed, it the Iraq war that have lead to alquida and Isis's rise in Iraq.
2, there was always serious questions about the intelligence on WMD
A) the requesting of sexing up documents
B) bushes alleged desire to go to war with Iraq emmediately after 911, and for him allegedly asking for a link between 911 and Iraq (no link existed by the way)

One for the atheists out there, bush is quoted as saying

"GHod told him its the right thing to do' or something of the sort.

In addition, sadam was an evil ******* for a long time, when he was gassing Kurds in the thousands the west done nothing, when he conducted ethnic cleansing and arabization of Kurdish and Turkimen lands the west done nothing. When he put down Shia uprisings in the most brutal of manners, the west done nothing...... But when there was dollars to be made and and excuse to do it for (911) the west went all in, you obviously know more than I about whether the war was legal or not, and I accept your expertise on that

What's your views on what's written about Saddam wanting by on trade oil in other currencies other than the dollar.
Click to expand...

I don't actually think Al Qaeda is or has been that powerful in Iraq. Its power was always in Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and in parts of Pakistan.

I don't think the Saddam regime was linked to 9/11 in anyway, but the link was made in the minds of the US and her partners post 9/11 and 7/7. It was a link out of fear.

It was f*** we have this douchebag trying to develop these weapons and what if they get into the wrong hands. Remember, America and the west were caught with their pants down 9/11 and 7/7. They thought these extremist groups would never directly attack western targets on western soil. They thought they'd limit themselves to kidknap and ransom or murder of westerners in their own states.

They panicked.

Thinking about it, Saddam was a horrible dictator, but he did one thing, he ruled Iraq with an iron fist. There was no extremism in Iraq. It wasn't tolerated by Saddam and his regime.

I don't think the West went into Iraq for money. That's an opinion formed by conspiracy theorists. The same nut jobs that believe 9/11 was an inside job.

It doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There was no money to be made for the West out of Iraq. In fact, the invasion has cost us billions and indirectly contributed to the global economic crash by increasing investor uncertainty.

Bush was a complete doughnut. The whole invasion was a PR disaster. Bush and his allies were thick. They didn't need a link between 9/11, sexed up intelligence documents or ridiculous claims about Iraqi military capability. They just needed Iraq's non-compliance with multiple UN resolutions and the party line just needed to be in the wake of 9/11 and 7/7 we face an unprecedented and to now unconsidered threat to our national security and we can no-longer tolerate rogue pariah states in the middle east.

So while many of the aims can be legitimised, the invasion was rushed, badly thought out, without a long-term plan or goal to achieve, it was justified by horrific and unnecessary PR and has left the region in a far worst state as a result.
 
NWND said:
Well I think the whole 'lying about WMD' was very 'with benefit of hindsight'. The intelligence was flawed IN THE END, and when we got in there it became apparent that Iraq did not have the capability that our intelligence services thought they did. Or at least, they were able to successfully hide the evidence of the capability in the desert or smuggle weapons over the border between the renewed requests of access for UN weapons inspectors and Saddam's agreement to co-operate.

However, even the UN weapons inspection found large quantities of chemical and biological weapons agents known to be in Iraq's possession in 1998 unaccounted for.

There is little doubt Saddam's regime were trying to develop these weapons, but it appeared their progress in doing so and of pay-load delivery systems to threaten the west was not advanced as our intelligence services feared.

Ultimately, in the context of immediate post-9/11, everyone was taken aback. It had not been thought that Islamic fundamentalist groups had the capability or inclination to launch co-ordinated large-scale attacks against western targets on that scale.

The fear was that here we had in Iraq, a pariah state right in the heart-lands of Al-Qaeda, who had refused access to UN weapons inspectors for years following the original gulf war and was known to have in its possession stock-piles of chemical and biological agents and the fear was that if the Saddam regime was continued to be tolerated, that their attempts at developing these weapons could lead to them falling into the hands of extremist groups.

My thing about the Iraq war,wasn't the war itself or the decision to topple Saddam, it was a failure to have a follow-up plan that led to stability in the region following a massive power-vacuum.

Also, once we were there the decision to pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 due to political pressure back home was disgusting and cowardly. We've basically left those nations in carnage and as a bigger breeding ground for terrorism and as a bigger threat to the west than they were before intervention.

It was a gutless and cowardly move and an insult to all the soldiers who lost their lives, as the road we'd been attempting to lead the countries down, towards democracy, peace and stability has just been torn up in a few short years following our withdrawal.
Click to expand...


Saddam could have had some weapons of Mass Destruction...who knows...I have to say I don't know why the invasion of Iraq happened ..I still think its a mystery...The only person who does know more than anyone ...is George Bush!

Tony Blair had already said we would stand shoulder to shoulder with The United States and I think he was doing his damnedest to fall in line with whatever the USA were going to do. Not being an expert in middle east matters ...all I know is that Saddam was not involved in radical Islam ....so why invade Iraq?

As for the war itself...A complete disaster................and so sad....for lives lost especially for innocent people in Iraq. I don.t understand BTW the conflict between Sunnie and shiites Muslims..sorry about the spelling there...
 
DTA said:
Couple of things,

1.Sadam and al quida were ideologically opposed, it the Iraq war that have lead to alquida and Isis's rise in Iraq.
2, there was always serious questions about the intelligence on WMD
A) the requesting of sexing up documents
B) bushes alleged desire to go to war with Iraq emmediately after 911, and for him allegedly asking for a link between 911 and Iraq (no link existed by the way)

One for the atheists out there, bush is quoted as saying

"GHod told him its the right thing to do' or something of the sort.

In addition, sadam was an evil ******* for a long time, when he was gassing Kurds in the thousands the west done nothing, when he conducted ethnic cleansing and arabization of Kurdish and Turkimen lands the west done nothing. When he put down Shia uprisings in the most brutal of manners, the west done nothing...... But when there was dollars to be made and and excuse to do it for (911) the west went all in, you obviously know more than I about whether the war was legal or not, and I accept your expertise on that

What's your views on what's written about Saddam wanting by on trade oil in other currencies other than the dollar.
Click to expand...

I thought the no-fly zones enforced throughout the period between the two gulf wars were put in place exactly to stop Saddam from ethnically cleansing those areas? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones)

You're probably right saying that not enough was done to stop Saddam performing brutal acts on people within his own borders (learned some time ago to stop saying "his own people"). But I don't think it can be rightly said that nothing was done.

Saddam should have been stopped in the first gulf war, but wasn't. IIRC this was because the Saudis were happy to keep him around.

super spurs said:
Saddam could have had some weapons of Mass Destruction...who knows...I have to say I don't know why the invasion of Iraq happened ..I still think its a mystery...The only person who does know more than anyone ...is George Bush!

Tony Blair had already said we would stand shoulder to shoulder with The United States and I think he was doing his damnedest to fall in line with whatever the USA were going to do. Not being an expert in middle east matters ...all I know is that Saddam was not involved in radical Islam ....so why invade Iraq?

As for the war itself...A complete disaster................and so sad....for lives lost especially for innocent people in Iraq. I don.t understand BTW the conflict between Sunnie and shiites Muslims..sorry about the spelling there...
Click to expand...

Any reason to be less sorry for the lives lost and suffering of Iraqi innocents during the Saddam era? Suffering that would almost certainly have gone on without the war. Reporting of that suffering has been much less widespread, I remember seeing estimates of 100.000 dead per year due to Saddam, but no source right now and I'm not sure if reliable numbers are available at all.

Iraq was a disaster zone long before the second gulf war. Well on its way to becoming a failed state it was one of the worst regimes human beings have ever inflicted on other human beings. I don't think anyone can claim to know a way out of that that would be quiet and peaceful. No doubt errors were made during the war, huge errors that should have been avoided. But see no real reason to think the overall situation would have been better if Saddam was just left in charge and the country then inherited by (one of) his sons.
 
Brain Your quite obviously an intelligent guy, but massively ill informed on these issues... I believe the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq was some time in the late 80s and the ethnic cleansing and arabasation of areas predated that greatly, in fact Mosal was a Turkmen and Kurdish city, but not any more.

But in my opinion a lot of the problems in Iraq and Syria lie with the colonial powers ill conceived and selfish construction of these states.... And to achieve peace New states need to be formed Iraq needs to be split between Kurds, Turkmen, Sunni, and Shia Arabs (the later of which may join with Iran). Syria with the alwaite, Kurds and Turkmen. If this is promised then Isis can be defeated by those groups already there, as further western involvement will exasperate a already dire situation.
 
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DTA said:
Brain Your quite obviously an intelligent guy, but massively ill informed on these issues... I believe the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq was some time in the late 80s and the ethnic cleansing and arabasation of areas predated that greatly, in fact Mosal was a Turkmen and Kurdish city, but not any more.

But in my opinion a lot of the problems in Iraq and Syria lie with the colonial powers ill conceived and selfish construction of these states.... And to achieve peace New states need to be formed Iraq needs to be split between Kurds, Turkmen, Sunni, and Shia Arabs (the later of which may join with Iran). Syria with the alwaite, Kurds and Turkmen. If this is promised then Isis can be defeated by those groups already there, as further western involvement will exasperate a already dire situation.
Click to expand...

No he is correct, the Northern no fly zone was put in place to protect the Kurds and the southern no fly zone was put into protect the marsh Kurds, both of which were persecuted before the first Gulf war and after due to them rising up against Sadam during the war.
 
He is incorrect in relation to my original post that he quoted, the gulf war and subsequent No fly zone came much later then when Sadam used chemical weponds on thousands of Kurds.... My point was ..... When he was doing this to the Kurds, the west done nothing, arabazation.... Nothing...... Brutally putting down Shia rebellions..... Nothing..... Death of a million in the Iran Iraq war..... Encouraged, funded etc etc...... So yes Sadam was a piece of sh I t, has been for a long time and while he was being an evil peace of sh it we (the west) were his best mates
 
DTA said:
Brain Your quite obviously an intelligent guy, but massively ill informed on these issues... I believe the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq was some time in the late 80s and the ethnic cleansing and arabasation of areas predated that greatly, in fact Mosal was a Turkmen and Kurdish city, but not any more.

But in my opinion a lot of the problems in Iraq and Syria lie with the colonial powers ill conceived and selfish construction of these states.... And to achieve peace New states need to be formed Iraq needs to be split between Kurds, Turkmen, Sunni, and Shia Arabs (the later of which may join with Iran). Syria with the alwaite, Kurds and Turkmen. If this is promised then Isis can be defeated by those groups already there, as further western involvement will exasperate a already dire situation.
Click to expand...

But the no-fly zones were put in place to stop Saddam from repeating those horrendous acts. Certainly not enough, but it's something. And more than any other part of the world did to help the Kurds in Iraq I would claim.

No doubt terrible realpolitik decisions were made by the US regarding Saddam in the 80s.

I agree that a separation of several individual nation states seems like a good solution. And that the construction of those states were exactly as you say.
 
braineclipse said:
But the no-fly zones were put in place to stop Saddam from repeating those horrendous acts. Certainly not enough, but it's something. And more than any other part of the world did to help the Kurds in Iraq I would claim.

No doubt terrible realpolitik decisions were made by the US regarding Saddam in the 80s.

I agree that a separation of several individual nation states seems like a good solution. And that the construction of those states were exactly as you say.
Click to expand...

When sadam was actually using chemical weapons on the Kurds I would argue that Turkey is the country that done the most to help them (despite its own oppressive and some time historically horrible treatment of the Turkish Kurds). They let in up to 1million Iraqi Kurds in to the country as well as other assistance, that may have been partly because at the time the prime minister of Turkey was half Kurdish, but still Turkey done more at that time for the Iraqi Kurds then any other. Country, at least in my view.
 
Citizen on citizen shootings are hardly irregular in the US - so doesn't make it sensationist enough to be news worthy.

If it was a police officer - news worthy, bad government etc etc
If a Muslim pulled the trigger - Fox news worthy
Citizen on citizen - the byproduct of the right to bare arms and just "another one"
 
monkeybarry said:
Citizen on citizen shootings are hardly irregular in the US - so doesn't make it sensationist enough to be news worthy.

If it was a police officer - news worthy, bad government etc etc
If a Muslim pulled the trigger - Fox news worthy
Citizen on citizen - the byproduct of the right to bare arms and just "another one"
Click to expand...

Surely depends on the motivation behind the event just like in Paris?
 
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