Can you name any military equipment that we gave Iraq? I spent two years there and never saw any Iraqi Army equipment from helicopters to tanks, from APC's to small arms, from artillery to bulldozers that wasn't Russian made. Can you name any military equipment we gave them? He even used LIQUEFIED SOMAN, a persistent nerve agent made in Russia, to kill his own Kurd citizens. I'm really interested... can you name some system we gave him?
I spent one of my to years in Iraq building the NEW Iraqi Army. We had plenty of motivated recruits. I never ran into a disgruntled person from Sadaam's Army. I really don't remember the details, but I don't believe completely disappeared. The Ba'ath party folks did bolster the terrorist ranks though. The Iraqi's I knew, especially the Kurds, were much happier in a post-Saddaam world.
It's got nothing to do with Republican v. Dems - it's the Establishment. Part of the Establishment is, as Eisenhower said, The Military Industrial Complex. Modern American wars are fought for several reasons, but "national security" is not among them. War for profit is easy... each missile costs $$; driving up the debt, which is intentional, is another reason; ease with which $$ can be stolen out of the public treasury during "the fog of war"; and, the effect wartime psychology has on the population. All of those are things the Establishment would want.
You obviously have no clue about the history of America or its tradition of struggling for freedom. You really should take some time and study our Colonial story and or struggle for freedom. I suggest you learn about things like the Continental Congress, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown. Some other subjects you might study include Manassas, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the Monitor and the Merrimac. You might understand that we fought to eliminate slavery, free folks from Dachau and Bergen Belsen. You might ask france how they got their freedom back from Americans like Patton and Eisenhower. I have been in combat while you sat comfortably at home. The bad guys had eapons to kill us but we had better weapons like Javelin, Hellfire, ATACMS and JDAMS. I'm glad that most Americans were willing to give us what we needed while you would have had us die with your selfishness.
The US gave much intelligence to Iraq of Iranian movements. And when the war looked like coming to an end, the US started giving intelligence information to Iran of Iraqi movements prolonging the war by a further two years
Of course the Kurds were happy. They were given all the oil in the North! Iraqis are not happy. Kidnappings and criminal gangs rule the northern Iraqi towns. Life is much worse 20 years later than it was during Saddam's time. Only those who were a threat to Saddam's position were in danger, now the average person doesn't presume if he'll get home tonight
They poisoned our troops; The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
And they are increasingly a vassal state of Iran. We fought a war to give Iraq to Iran. Brilliant. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221211-iran-strengthens-political-economic-hold-over-iraq
I'm not talking about We the People, I'm talking about the corrupt Elite that sit above our government and country. Wars fought before WWI were, in general, fought for the reasons you stated, but that all changed with our entry into WWI. And I too am a vet, I was in Beirut in 1983.
And Bush & Co were convicted in absentia in Malaysia in 2012. That effort was led by Illinois law professor Francis Boyle. War Tribunal Finds Bush, Cheney Guilty of War Crimes (commondreams.org) As MLK noted during the Vietnam era, the US government is the largest purveyor of violence on the planet.
I never understand the term “ establishment politician’. Every single politician in DC are elected by Americans by winning election. No politician in America put gun to any citizen and force them to vote for them. Now going back to the 2004 election. Bush didn’t put gun to Americans to vote for him. Majority Americans voted for Bush on their own. Mentality of Americans back then “ So what Saddam didn’t have WMD, Saddam himself is a WMD”, “We are just making sure we kill them before they kill us.” Oh the evangelical Christians ( I am Evangelical myself) who cry in the church for unborn babies, over 200K innocent Iraq dead, they hide behind “ we need to pray for our President’ and then turn around and voted for a war criminal.
We go to war because a leader is “thorn” on our side ? Is that your justification to go to war? I must say you have a very cavalier view about a War which killed more then 200k innocent Iraqis.
Americans were financing Saddam to attack his neighbor , so I would be ok with that! By the way , America didn’t find any degraded WMD in Iraq.
if the point is “ Iraq is better of without Saddam” then that is what Bush Administration should have presented to the country and congress. Bush administration knew American people and congress would never give him authority to go to war because ‘ Saddam is bad for Iraq” , so he lied.
Only because the US policy was the neither Iran or Iraq could win a war against each other No we weren't. Yes we did.
Who is the one who "Obviously has no clue" here - completely failing to address what was said in the post about MIC . .. then whining about having to serve as if shooting people in another Nation gives you some expertice in the political affairs of State. The biggest of the clueless folks are those who think those who did not sit comfortably at home were fighting for the good of the Nation rather than the interests of the MIC .. but surely you were aware of at least that much .. having fought in a useless war or two..
I was going to insert the mandatory Trump comment but I saw that Endeavor had already done that. IMO SH was a lot like Trump in that he was the reason for his own downfall. Our intel said that he had WMDs and that was backed up by SH continually saying that he had WMDs. Had he not played his stupid games, trying to be the big man on campus, then we probably wouldn't have gotten into the war. He obviously had WMDs at some point because he used them on the Kurds. Right or wrong, he needed to be gone. In the long run, it won't matter because they whole middle East (and most of Africa) still has a tribal mentality that leads to wars, genocide, and terrorism. Until they change that, I couldn't care less about any of them.
The purpose of war is to kill. You have a very cavalier attitude about the number of American casualties though since Iraqis are the only ones you cared to mention. Anyway, I don't need to have a justification for a war that happened when I was a child.
I am glad you agree that purpose of a war is to “kill”. If that is the case then every war we get involve, we better make sure there is a very good reason to go to war. “Saddam was a thorn” is not a good reason to kill 200k innocent Iraqis.
US started supporting Iraq the moment Shah government fall in Iran. Reagan administration sent millions of US $$$ to Iraq. Here is Reagan and Aziz in Oval office.
