ISIS Atrocity Tipping Point

[Airbrush]

 

What about the delusion that you can invade a country on false pretenses, expect to be hailed as liberators, set up a democracy, have it work from the outset, and be out in just a couple of years? That level of delusion?

 

That certainly is high level delusion, but brutal, blatant, world-conquest even trumps that. They believe they can conquer all nations.

[dimreepr]

 

That certainly is high level delusion, but brutal, blatant, world-conquest even trumps that. They believe they can conquer all nations.

 

 

 

Who is it you think is more delusional? This applies, equally, to both.

Edited February 18, 2015 by dimreepr

[Airbrush]

When the US invaded Iraq, because we were deluded by mythical WMDs that Hussein was supposedly going to use to attack the USA, it was not clear that action was delusional. When we invaded Afghanistan because of 9/11, that was not clearly a delusional act. According to ALL nations currently affected by the current rampage of ISIS, and according to the majority moderate Muslims of the world, ISIS is obnoxiously delusional, in the extreme.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Airbrush

[Moontanman]

At some point, if our civilization is to last long enough to evolve into "Civilization", the worlds powers are going to have to begin to deal with threats to everyone's security as a united front but until we all realize how small the world really is and how petty the things we fight over are that is unlikely to happen...

[overtone]

 

 

When the US invaded Iraq, because we were deluded by mythical WMDs that Hussein was supposedly going to use to attack the USA, it was not clear that action was delusional.

Yes, it was.

 

Delusions are clear to people not caught up in them, only. Those of us not caught up in the embarrassing panic and flailing spasms of the US reaction to 9/11 may still find it hard to believe what we saw from our neighbors and governments, but the memory is not going away any time soon: the invasion of Iraq was justified in absurdity, nonsense, flagrantly manipulative propaganda, delusion not only overwhelmingly obvious but nakedly visible in the corruption of its origins.

[Bill Angel]

What about the delusion that you can invade a country on false pretenses, expect to be hailed as liberators, set up a democracy, have it work from the outset, and be out in just a couple of years? That level of delusion?

The Allies destroyed Nazi Germany, set up a democracy in West Germany, and that country didn't descend into chaos the way Iraq did.

[overtone]

 

 

The Allies destroyed Nazi Germany, set up a democracy in West Germany, and that country didn't descend into chaos the way Iraq did.

Germany had been a secular humanist democracy for decades before the Nazis staged their rightwing military coup. They just went back to their former ways.

 

Plus, they had killed off or evicted their oppressed ethnic group - Iraq still had huge populations of Shia and Kurds, with grievances and opportunity.

 

Plus, Germany had little oil or gold or anything else a small cadre of internationally financed plutocrats would have been able to corner by getting control of the place.

 

Plus, the people who organized the rehabilitation of Germany after WWII were not in thrall to Ayn Rand or similar juvenilia, neither were they completely unfamiliar with the local cultures and customs and heritage. They did not, for example, fire from the police and other service organizations everyone ever connected with the Nazi Party; neither did they ban trade unions and leftwing political organizations; neither did they allow the looting and destruction of Germany's surviving museums and other cultural centers; neither did they abet the takeover of German industry and commercial operations by predatory foreign "investors"; neither did they "privatize" essential utilities and services that Germany had set up as socialized; and so forth.

 

So five months after VE day the streets of Berlin were not awash in sewage and without electrical power. These details make a difference.

[tar]

Overtone,

 

Interesting to me, that you speak of people "like yourself" who could see through to the truth.

 

Interesting on two fronts. One, because you don't see at all that your anti-American diatribes are shooting yourself in the foot. You could be working to remove fuel from the fire, and instead you pour on kerosene.

 

Two, we are faced with a situation where a party we do not wish to have control of large areas of oil producing land is gaining control of such. You say you saw right through everybody when Saddam forcefully took Kuwait, and that the U.S. and the coalition were ill advised to seek to remove Saddam from power. Are you saying the same now? Is stopping Daesh an advisible plan? Or are you telling us, that if the U.S. is involved it is only to enrich Halliburton and we should stay out of the situation, and let the adults of the area, figure out how the place should be run?

 

Regards, TAR

 

It seems you are saying the OP is quite correct and Western values should hold sway in the area, when you talk of the "details" of secular democracy being better than whatever Iraq has. But you poo poo any intentions the U.S. might have to offer rule of law, personal freedom, human rights, and economic growth to the area, under the protection of U.S. military and industrial power.

 

Why this is interesting to me, is that you don't have any military and industrial power of your own to offer the region the assistance/protection of.

 

Its easy to say that Daesh is bad. Its harder to commit blood and money to defeat them.

[swansont]

The Allies destroyed Nazi Germany, set up a democracy in West Germany, and that country didn't descend into chaos the way Iraq did.

 

Germany was already a democracy before Hitler. And the false pretense for declaring war on Germany was what, exactly?

[Bill Angel]

Germany was already a democracy before Hitler. And the false pretense for declaring war on Germany was what, exactly?

The USA declared war on Germany because the USA was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and Germany was an ally of Japan. I think that the misconception of greater significance that propelled the USA into the war with Iraq was that Iraq was an ally of Al Qaeda, which had attacked the USA on 9/11.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations_timeline

[swansont]

The USA declared war on Germany because the USA was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and Germany was an ally of Japan. I think that the misconception of greater significance that propelled the USA into the war with Iraq was that Iraq was an ally of Al Qaeda, which had attacked the USA on 9/11.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations_timeline

 

Sorry, "misconception of greater significance"? That implies there was a misconception involved in getting us involved in WWII. That Japan attacked the US and was allied with Germany and Italy was not a matter of intelligence gained under duress. It was clearly and openly available information.

[Airbrush]

Yes, it was.

 

Delusions are clear to people not caught up in them, only. Those of us not caught up in the embarrassing panic and flailing spasms of the US reaction to 9/11 may still find it hard to believe what we saw from our neighbors and governments, but the memory is not going away any time soon: the invasion of Iraq was justified in absurdity, nonsense, flagrantly manipulative propaganda, delusion not only overwhelmingly obvious but nakedly visible in the corruption of its origins.

 

 

I disagree. Nobody knew the facts about Hussein's WMDs until after years of searching for them. He attacked and occupied Kuwait. He used WMDs on the Kurds, which crossed the "red line". We were not delusional to go into Iraq, only mistaken. There was no way of knowing the outcome, that Hussein's Baathists would disappear, and then reappear to lead ISIS. We were not delusional to go into Vietnam, only mistaken.

 

Attacking Afghanistan was not a delusional act. We located Al Qaeda training camps there and did the reasonable thing to destroy them and began the search for Bin Laden, who PUBLICALLY declared war on the USA. No delusion there.

 

ISIS is the most delusional organization that has existed in modern times, according to abundant evidence.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Airbrush

[CharonY]

With regards to Germany, it should be noted that it existed as a nation since 1871 (although a key point was the revolution in 1848) and had a long history of a sort of nation (though lacking a strong nationalistic cohesion). Among some scholars the patriotic movement was not terribly popular at that time, but over decades of essentially propaganda a new patriotism was created to unify Germany. It would have been interested to see what would have happened if someone went in before that and tried to unify the German states externally.

 

Iraq was an independent kingdom only since 1932, but was occupied a while after and finally the monarchy was overthrown 1958. It, was a whole, much less stable and solidified as a country than Germany and US and allied invasion of Iraq was arguably not appreciating the complex political and ethnic issues within Iraq.

 

Likewise, while the NSDAP was dismantled, old political powers, such as the SPD, but also the centrist- conservative wing revived. In parallel, a federalist system was set up and on the local level the allies relatively quickly allowed elections to take place. It certainly helped that also post-war the economic situation in the fifties flourished (known as the "Wirtschaftswunder").

 

In Iraq, however there are few parallels to be found except maybe that it was a single-party dictatorship (which again illustrates that simplistic assumptions will make lousy predictions).

 

About the delusional part, the proponents of the war probably did not care much about facts, they just cherry picked info from dubious sources. Considering there was no hard intel, but still pushed a conflict that ultimately resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. Meanwhile inspector reports as well as the UN was ignored. So the delusion was manifold, first, ignoring evidence that contradict ones beliefs. Second, and here it can be argued whether it was delusional or just ignorant (I am not sure what is worse if you risk people's life) about the structure of Iraq and what the coalition forces could realistically accomplish. Technically, information was available but as it appears, largely ignored and in parts arguably favored the insurgence and likely assisted ISIS. Yes it is delusional if people tell you not do something because of horrible consequences and your reply is naaah, it will work out great!

 

I suspect this is because politicians are protected from the consequences of their actions. In other occupations if you, despite all warnings, cause the death of people (much less thousands of them) you can't just talk you way out of it. At worst they lose a re-election.

Edited February 19, 2015 by CharonY

[Airbrush]

.....the proponents of the [iraq] war probably did not care much about facts, they just cherry picked info from dubious sources. Considering there was no hard intel, but still pushed a conflict that ultimately resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. Meanwhile inspector reports as well as the UN was ignored.....

 

There was plenty of "hard intel". We knew that Saddam Hussein was a petty criminal who rose in the Baathist ranks. We saw his brutal tactics against his political rivals. We saw him attack Iran for a 10-year war. We saw him invade and occupy Kuwait. We saw him set all the oil wells on fire in Kuwait, after he realized he was getting kicked out of Kuwait. We saw him kill thousands of Kurds with gas.

 

You don't know how much the proponents of the war cared about the facts. You don't know they "cherry picked" info from dubious sources. I argue they stretched, but with valid intentions. The Iraq war was a mistake, not a delusion. Hind sight is 20 20 vision. You are the armchair quarterback that knows the best plays, AFTER the fact. The UN inspectors were denied access by Hussein. AFTER the war the inspectors searched for the nukes and bio weapons we suspected he had, but it took time to realize they did not exist. Not a delusion, only a mistake, like the Vietnam war was a mistake.

 

Since ISIS leadership is probably populated with Baathists, who did Hussein's dirty work, thus beheading and burning people alive - let's see what Wiki says about "Ba'athism". It appears that ISIS is based on secular ideology, but masquerading as religious.

 

"Ba'athism (Arabic: البعث‎ al-ba‘ath meaning "renaissance"/"resurrection") is an Arab nationalist ideology that promotes the development and creation of a unified Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary government. The ideology is officially based on the theories of Zaki al-Arsuzi (according to the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement), Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar.

A Ba'athist society seeks enlightenment, renaissance of Arab culture, values and society. It supports the creation of single-party states, and rejects political pluralism in an unspecified length of time – the Ba'ath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an enlightened Arabic society. Ba'athism is based on principles of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, as well as social progress. It is a secular ideology. A Ba'athist state supports socialist economics to a varying degree, and supports public ownership over the heights of the economy but opposes the confiscation of private property. Socialism in Ba'athist ideology does not mean state socialism or economic equality, but modernisation; Ba'athists believe that socialism is the only way to develop an Arab society which is truly free and united.

The two Ba'athist states which have existed (Iraq and Syria) forbade criticism of their ideology through authoritarian governance. These governments have been labelled as neo-Ba'athist, because the form of Ba'athism developed in Iraq and Syria was very different from the Ba'athism of Aflaq and al-Bitar; for example, none of the ruling Ba'ath parties actually pursued or pursues a policy of unifying the Arab world."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baathist

Edited February 19, 2015 by Airbrush

[Hans de Vries]

Ba'ath party was not fully secular. Iraqi Ba'athists were characterized by their massive, almost obsessive hatred of Shia Muslims. Saddam hated them so much that he said even if his finger was Shia, he would cut it off.

[Bill Angel]

Sorry, "misconception of greater significance"? That implies there was a misconception involved in getting us involved in WWII. That Japan attacked the US and was allied with Germany and Italy was not a matter of intelligence gained under duress. It was clearly and openly available information.

By "misconception of greater significance" I was referring to two misconceptions that served as the basis for invading Iraq: that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he had links or an alliance with Al Qaeda. I would rate the second misconception to be of greater significance than the first (possession of WMDs). Others might disagree.

[overtone]

 

 

One, because you don't see at all that your anti-American diatribes are shooting yourself in the foot

You have yourself and your ugly, corrupt, ignorant, violent, and dangerous political faction confused with the entire country of America, apparently. There's a difference.

 

 

 

Nobody knew the facts about Hussein's WMDs until after years of searching for them.

Oh baloney. Sure they did. We all did. The UN inspectors were right there, on the ground, vetting every single legitimate intelligence indication of a scrap of a WMD; the claims of weapons programs and horrible looming threats and the new Hitler were comical exaggerations; the whole thing was as blatant and farcical a propaganda operation as one could imagine.

 

At one point we had the US Secretary of State warning us that Saddam was on the point of developing his own suitcase Bomb, which he would then give away to Al Qaida jihadists to use against America. You can't make this shit up.

 

The topic in the anti-war circles was not whether these absurd quantities of invisible weapons existed as described, but how W&Co were going to handle not finding them - how would the American people react to a betrayal of that scope and consequence, and how that reaction was going to be deflected. The two main schools of thought were that 1) they were going to sneak in some WMDs, salt a site, or 2) they were going to rig evidence of the bad stuff having been removed in the nick of time.

 

There was also a naive hope that when faced with the facts the American people would break out the garlic and silver pitchforks and evict the vampires from the castle.

 

But everybody expected at least some kind of face saving lie with effort put into it, some recognition of the enormity of what had been done. Nobody expected W to treat the whole thing as a joke - mime looking under his desk in the Oval Office, smirk and shrug. That stunned me, watching the American people get shit on like that by their President. That, I did not see coming.

 

 

 

 

He attacked and occupied Kuwait. - -

He had legitimate grievance against Kuwait, and had been manipulated into thinking the US would stand aside or even support him - he was, after all, the most Westernized power in the Islamic world, and an enemy of Iran, and had been installed with the help of the CIA originally, and was easily convinced the US looked on him with favor; whereas Kuwait was a backwards Islamic thugocracy running on oil where women had no rights. Here: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/april.html

 

This was all common knowledge by 2003.

Edited February 20, 2015 by overtone

[MigL]

I think the American administration acually expected to find WMDs in Iraq.

Because they ( or previous administrations/allies ) had probably sold WMDs to them.

They were surprised to find that S. Hussein had actually destroyed them.

 

More than likely they were looking for a Middle eastern country that could be easily/quickly converted to Western style democracy and serve as a catalyst for the rest of the region. Iraq, because of its secularism and high education level of the populace, probably seemed like the most likely candidate.

 

Unfortunately, it has become a spectacular failure, and seems to have pushed the whole region into the opposite direction.

Edited February 20, 2015 by MigL

[Bill Angel]

He had legitimate grievance against Kuwait, and had been manipulated into thinking the US would stand aside or even support him - he was, after all, the most Westernized power in the Islamic world, and an enemy of Iran, and had been installed with the help of the CIA originally, and was easily convinced the US looked on him with favor; whereas Kuwait was a backwards Islamic thugocracy running on oil where women had no rights. Here: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/april.html

 

This was all common knowledge by 2003.

 

One part of the transcript that you cited was particularly interesting:

Journalist 1 - Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?(Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

 

Journalist 2 - You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait ) but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the opposite - that America was not associated with Kuwait.

 

Journalist 1 - You encouraged this aggression - his invasi on. What were you thinking?

 

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.

The transcript makes it sound as if the US Government thought that Saddam could be appeased in much the same way that Western European powers thought that Hitler could be appeased before war was actually declared when he invaded Poland. Edited February 20, 2015 by Bill Angel

[CharonY]

It requires quite a stretch to build a parallel there.

[Essay]

More than likely they were looking for a Middle eastern country that could be easily/quickly converted to Western style democracy and serve as a catalyst for the rest of the region. Iraq, because of its secularism and high education level of the populace, probably seemed like the most likely candidate.

...and this would have been a good thing; a good strategy?

===

 

And regarding the OP:

I guess it's a good thing that we are no longer "war weary."

 

~

[Ten oz]

I think the American administration acually expected to find WMDs in Iraq.

Because they ( or previous administrations/allies ) had probably sold WMDs to them.

They were surprised to find that S. Hussein had actually destroyed them.

 

More than likely they were looking for a Middle eastern country that could be easily/quickly converted to Western style democracy and serve as a catalyst for the rest of the region. Iraq, because of its secularism and high education level of the populace, probably seemed like the most likely candidate.

 

Unfortunately, it has become a spectacular failure, and seems to have pushed the whole region into the opposite direction.

I do not believe the administration believed or cared about WMDs in Iraq. For starters following United Nation Security Council Resolution 1441 inspectors were in Iraq investigating the WMD claims. Lead investigators and members of the U.S. administration repeatedly asked for time to complete their inspections and were overridden. Within a few months of going into Iraq the UN inspectors release a reports indicating Iraq did not have WMDs.

Secondly in the build up to war the administration repeatedly mentioned that Saddam had used WMDs on his own people. While true the argument was rather frivolous since A - the United States had supplied Iraq those weapons and B - those events had taken place prior to the first Iraq war Desert Storm (90' - 91'). So if those crimes weren't bad enough to remove Saddam during Desert Storm how could they possibly justify removing him a decade later? Not only had Saddam already used WMDs ahead of Desert Storm but he also had invaded Kuwait and scud bombed Israel. Yet he was left in power. Then in 2003 and over a decaded of Saddam being marginalized it was suddenly critical to go back in even as the United Nations advocated for inspections?

9/11 changed everything was the slogan. The United States could no longer wait for bad actors to act. Preemptive messures were in order. Good slogan but why Iraq? Al Quada had a much greater influence in Pakistan than Iraq and we know for a fact that Pakistan in a NUCLEAR power. As recently as 1998 the Pakistan Gov't detonated several nuclear devices in the Ras Koh Hills as a show of force to India. So if the plan was to preemptively get WMDs away from countries who housed terrorists I think the country where Osama Bin Laden was eventually killed was a more obvious place to start.

[DimaMazin]

Iraq was under some control of Russia. War in Iraq stoped propagation of Russian destructive policy for some time. I clearly was feeling it .

[MigL]

Exactly Ten oz, The US administrations all knew S. Hussein had WMD before the first Gulf war, and also afterwards; he used them on that small southern Iraqi village ( whose name escapes me at the moment ) against the ( US inspired ) uprising. Yet, as you say, he was left in power. Obviously then, WMDs were not a justification for continuing or going to war.

 

They were, however, an easily swallowed excuse for GWB's 'master' plan of transforming the whole region into Western style democracies.

 

I'm not saying this was a good strategy or well-thought-out plan. It was certainly ambitious but definitely in need of a reality check.

And reality has come back to bite the US ( along with the rest of the region if not the World ) in the ass.

 

Edit:

As for places like Pakistan, I agree with you they are even more radicalized. The nuclear weapons are a game changer however. Iraq can be attacked with conventional forces, but Pakistan would have no qualms about using its nuclear arsenal if attacked conventionally. They can no longer be strong-armed by force. Just like North Korea, they can now do what they ( the leaders ) want, and all we can do is appease them, as direct confrontation would risk, at least, unilateral nuclear detonations in heavily populated areas.

Edited February 20, 2015 by MigL

[tar]

Overtone,

 

"You have yourself and your ugly, corrupt, ignorant, violent, and dangerous political faction confused with the entire country of America, apparently. There's a difference."

 

I have nothing confused. I know my country, and many people in it. The stupidity of Palin or the one note song of Fox is not "my" faction any more than the "weather underground" is, or Al Gore's Al Gazera is, or Al Sharpton's is, or Bernie Madoff's is, or your party of one, is.

 

I have consistently given everyone the benefit of the doubt, including the drug dealers in Paterson. They are somebody's son/cousin/father/...whatever and are Americans. They need straightening out, but they don't need to be thrown out of the nation.

 

My big gripe with you, is that you pretend to love everybody and you pretend you have the clear vision that would remove all the evil in the world, if you were just in charge and all the "people like me" should somehow evaporate, when, if you add up all the people you figure are stupid and ugly, you are left with a "real America" that has no members.

 

I asked you before who your confederates are, and you have not answered. Perhaps you are too elite to answer such questions from the rabble.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Just to counter your expectation that Bush was going to "seed" some WMDs to save face, consider the fact that he did not. In addition, I would like to remind everybody that as U.S. troops approached Baghdad Saddam dug a huge trench around the city, filled it with oil and lit it on fire. It is not impossible he threw some of the evidence of his criminality into the trench. It is also not impossible he transferred a few items to Syria or had them buried there. The fact that the inspectors did not find anything "after" Saddam let them in, does not prove their non-existence.

 

If some of those weapons are still under the control of Saddam's guard, they might come back to bite us, yet. If you can guarantee me that there are no such stocks of weapons buried under Syrian sand, then fine. If you can not guarantee me such a thing, then don't talk about the U.S. actions in Iraq, as if Americans did not have everything to do with such actions, with our eyes completely open.

 

And I ask you again, in reference to this thread, if you think whether the U.S. would be well advised, or ill advised to attempt to stop Daesh with our blood and money.

 

Regards, TAR