Curveball Lied! The truth comes out!

[RedRalph]

Opposed it then, opposed it now... TBH I can't think of a set of beliefs about the war that would change as a result of this. People who think ousting Saddam was a good idea will still think it was after this. People who supported war because of WMD already knew that the intelligence was false. People who didn't believe the war was justified then will certainly not believe it now. And so on...

Yeah, you're probably right on all of those counts.

I have recently lost a lot of faith in people amditting when they are wrong. It just never happens anymore.

 

[illram]

Many people that were opposed to the war at the time were yelling and screaming to anyone that would listen that Curveball was full of it and Colin Powell's speech was all based on the ramblings of a known liar who manipulated German authorities so he could get asylum.

Iraq was a politically motivated escapade based on half-truths, willful ignorance, and lies, using any meaningful definition of that word. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and tens of thousands of American (and British and Australian and our Coalition of The Willing to Be America's Little LapDog) lives have been forever altered by death, injury, or psychological trauma for this stupid, meaningless and totally unnecessary war. Not to sound like a smug douche (my farts smell really, really good people) but many of us knew it at the time and I am sorry to say we were 100% correct. For those continuing to believe it was the right decision, I don't blame you, because maintaining consistency regardless of being confronted with evidence to the contrary is a common human condition. But, know that you are wrong and always will be.

 

[Berzerker]

Would you prefer that Curveball told the truth and Saddam was still in power?

of course, thats a no brainer

 

[Silurian]

From Fuzzz,s War in Iraq unneccessary?

Originally Posted by Silurian
From The Guardian

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou...VXBPVW2_LCzOoQ

 

[Joecoolyo]

The Iraq war cost us 3 trillion dollars.

Compared to the size of the U.S. economy, that's nothing.

Military myopia?

Big Picture:
The US has been steadily losing ground and ability to influence in the Middle East since 1979. Even when it finally unleashed that massive military it banked on, it still ended up in a worse place than before. Backing Saddam against the Mullahs created a monster. Taking that monster down (unfinished) in 1991 gave the Mullahs room to manouver at the US' expense. The 2003 invasion of Iraq might have been a display of military shock and awe, but the political muddle that followed just pulled the pants of the US. (And another leg up for the Mullahs.) Kind of kills the effect of the military display. (The US might have done what the British did in Abyssinia in the 1860's — go in, smash the political structure to bits, and then bugger out asap to not get caught in the backdraft. But in this day and age that kind of naked aggression would go down even worse than an occupation.)

9/11 was the thing that seemed to buck the trend. The Iranian government ran really scared there for a while. But while Afghanistan looked like a necessary step, and a success, it's now a massive headache. And the instant international goodwill the US got over 9/11 was pissed away with unparalleled speed and comprehensiveness. (It was an instant outpouring, of doubtful solidity, but once it was there, it might have been cultivated and possibly solidified. And that certainly wasn't done.)

The US shot its wad in Iraq, and the assessment in the ME, and most of the capitals in the world, is that this final US armed response ended up a dud. The US is simply unable to do the things it claims the ability to do in the ME, and that impression is being repeatedly hammered home — lately in the US waffling over the Egyptian uprising. And the fact that these days best bud Israel doesn't give a damn what the US says, unless the US says what the Israeli govt. wants to hear. (That is to say, everyone recognises that the US can feck a nation up something fierce if it sets its mind to it. It just can't do it in such a way that it brings about the kinds of happy resolutions the US maintains it wants.)

So, My What A Big Army you've got, With Knobs On, and I'm sure you know how to use it. But when, and why? Not so sure... For quite some time when the US has made a choice in the ME, it has tended to find itself stuck deeper, its influence further eroded.

Yeah, no.

A couple things:

1) We don't have a magic wand, nobody does. When we go in somewhere as bad as Afghanistan, fighting people as tough as the insurgents, its not going to be fixed in a year, nor two. These types of battles take a long time, so we're not "losing" just because we're dealing with an extremely tough situation.

2) We're not losing influence, in fact, quite far from that. If we were losing influence, then why the hell is there a 60% approval rate among Afghans for keeping U.S. soldiers within the country? Or better yet, that "twitter revolution" not too long ago in Iran, with pro-western ideals?

Your conclusion is shoddy at best, and assumes that people in the middle east all take their opinions after the government they live under. Or better yet, believe in the ideals of the insane 3,000 or so extremists that are making our job down there so much harder.

 

[RedRalph]

Jesus Christ Joecoolyo, you think US influence is INCREASING in the ME?

 

[Berzerker]

Should we have kicked Saddam out of Kuwait? Thats what led to 9/11 and the lies responsible for the 2nd gulf war... 2 Bushes and a Clinton = disaster, they make Carter and Reagan look like geniuses.

 

[kojimanard]

Should we have kicked Saddam out of Kuwait? Thats what led to 9/11 and the lies responsible for the 2nd gulf war... 2 Bushes and a Clinton = disaster, they mak Carter and Reagan look like geniuses.

What? Every president would have kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Bush did it very well, with very limited casualties.

 

[Dachs]

Removing Saddam was probably the greatest military defeat in US history. It was an insane action.

Are you capable of not employing outrageous hyperbole

like

please

 

[Cutlass]

Are you capable of not employing outrageous hyperbole

like

please

If it bothers you that much, don't read my posts.

 

[Dachs]

If it bothers you that much, don't read my posts.

not a useful suggestion

One of the options is to put some of the worst offenders on ignore. If these worst offenders have a history of actually having nothing of value to say, and are seriously detrimental to your enjoyment of the forum, then they're best ignored. It takes a little bit of willpower to not peak as much as you're curious, but the long-run benefit is that you can have good discussions with people who are also ignoring half (or more) of the painful posts.

When they say something that's quotable, you'll see their comments in the quoted box. Sometimes, you'll be encouraged to figure out what their whole comment was, and 'view post'. Other times, you'll giggle with delight that you don't have to read the majority of their posts.

For that to work you'd need a majority of people to ignore a handful of posters. How is that any better than a "bully squad"? How is that not just the epitome of elitism?

And it still does nothing to address the actual problem. There's no feedback. Ignored users don't know how bad their posts are. With a rep system, there is a mechanism for improving behaviour.

And what if a user does improves his posts? Dom3k, to take a recent self-identified example in OT (not quote-wars, but similarly "bad" posting), has indeed improved his posting since April last year. But I would never know, and I would never read any of his posts now, if I had him on ignore based on his April posting style.

And that's just when it works!

 

[Verbose]

Your conclusion is shoddy at best, and assumes that people in the middle east all take their opinions after the government they live under. Or better yet, believe in the ideals of the insane 3,000 or so extremists that are making our job down there so much harder.

Simply put: No I don't.

You think my little write up is a shddy conclusion. Well, I'm sincerely flabbergasted you think the US influence is increasing. And you base that on?

 

[GamezRule]

Most Army officers believe that the Iraq war "broke the military."

 

[Silurian]

Most Army officers believe that the Iraq war "broke the military."

Was that Iraqi army officers.

 

[ParkCungHee]

No, we almost lost a division.

We nearly lost several divisions, including the only Marine Corp division. Yes, the marine corps on paper would have existed, but the lost of manpower and expertise would have been so tremendous that it would have needed to be rebuilt from scratch.

And in the end we had a stalemate.

No, China pretty well kicked our asses and we never got back to where we were before they showed up.

Never was the US threatened.

And it's not threatened by the Iraq war. A better analogy would be if we had nearly lost all of the troops in Iraq.

 

[Berzerker]

What? Every president would have kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Bush did it very well, with very limited casualties.

Every Prez? Really? George Washington would have led an int'l force to remove Iraqis from Kuwait? If you had read the rest of my post, I pointed to 3 Presidents - 2 Bush and 1 Clinton - for events leading up to 9/11. It wasn't that Bush 1 expelled Saddam from Kuwait, it was that he left our troops over there followed by Clinton and Bush 2 - that led to 9/11 and the "war on terror". But Bush 1 set the stage, he established the policy of "containment".

Following the disaster in Vietnam Carter kept us out of 3rd world civil/cold wars and took advantage of the Russians in Afghanistan, and with one painful setback in Beirut, Reagan followed and expanded that policy and Russia quit the cold war a decade later. Bush 1's initial reaction to Saddam invading Kuwait was the right move - he wasn't overly concerned about it. Then Maggie Thatcher got him on the phone and told him to not go wobbly - the damn Brits created that mess over there with colonialism and then they got us stuck in the muck. Not surprisingly we got stuck in Vietnam after France lost control of their colony after WWII... Europe has caused all sorts of messes we get to try and clean up with blood and treasure.

 

[kojimanard]

Every Prez? Really? George Washington would have led an int'l force to remove Iraqis from Kuwait? If you had read the rest of my post, I pointed to 3 Presidents - 2 Bush and 1 Clinton - for events leading up to 9/11. It wasn't that Bush 1 expelled Saddam from Kuwait, it was that he left our troops over there followed by Clinton and Bush 2 - that led to 9/11 and the "war on terror". But Bush 1 set the stage, he established the policy of "containment".

Following the disaster in Vietnam Carter kept us out of 3rd world civil/cold wars and took advantage of the Russians in Afghanistan, and with one painful setback in Beirut, Reagan followed and expanded that policy and Russia quit the cold war a decade later. Bush 1's initial reaction to Saddam invading Kuwait was the right move - he wasn't overly concerned about it. Then Maggie Thatcher got him on the phone and told him to not go wobbly - the damn Brits created that mess over there with colonialism and then they got us stuck in the muck. Not surprisingly we got stuck in Vietnam after France lost control of their colony after WWII... Europe has caused all sorts of messes we get to try and clean up with blood and treasure.

You should use a little common sense; it was obviously implied that I was referring to post-WWII presidents when the issue such as an invasion of a sovereign state would have been a subject that a US President would address. To make it completely clear, every President after WWII would have used military force to get Hussein out of Kuwait.

What is your source that Bush wasn't concerned until Thatcher called him? I never heard that before. His public comments were that "this will not stand" from the beginning. The situations you mentioned are not remotely similar. Analogies are easy to state but are typically worthless (you will end up in a pointless discussion comparing the situations).

Of course, there may have been downsides to kicking out Hussein. But what would have happened if he were allowed to stay? I hate to think about what that madman would have done with all that oil (that's why Hussein did it of course)

 

[Berzerker]

You should use a little common sense; it was obviously implied that I was referring to post-WWII presidents when the issue such as an invasion of a sovereign state would have been a subject that a US President would address. To make it completely clear, every President after WWII would have used military force to get Hussein out of Kuwait.

What is your source that Bush wasn't concerned until Thatcher called him? I never heard that before. His public comments were that "this will not stand" from the beginning. The situations you mentioned are not remotely similar. Analogies are easy to state but are typically worthless (you will end up in a pointless discussion comparing the situations).

Of course, there may have been downsides to kicking out Hussein. But what would have happened if he were allowed to stay? I hate to think about what that madman would have done with all that oil (that's why Hussein did it of course)

Here's a little common sense, instead of blaming others for reading what you type, type what you mean, not what you mean to imply. And I dont think every post WWII prez would have done what Bush did - like Korea and Vietnam would have allowed for such a "luxury" - so your unsupported assertion leaves us pissing in the wind. Its a well known fact Maggie Thatcher had to call Bush to tell him to kick Saddam out, his initial reaction was not "this will not stand". And that "madman" would have sold the oil. He was our buddy, remember? He liked Reagan...

 

[kojimanard]

Here's a little common sense, instead of blaming others for reading what you type, type what you mean, not what you mean to imply. And I dont think every post WWII prez would have done what Bush did - like Korea and Vietnam would have allowed for such a "luxury" - so your unsupported assertion leaves us pissing in the wind. Its a well known fact Maggie Thatcher had to call Bush to tell him to kick Saddam out, his initial reaction was not "this will not stand". And that "madman" would have sold the oil. He was our buddy, remember? He liked Reagan...

Look, of course at the time Washington did not even know about Kuwait. I find it hard imagine that anyone would even it use that as a counter-example. I asked for your source about that "well known fact" Provide a meaningful source, not just what your teachers told you.

You didn't address the most meaningful point: what would have happened if Hussein had been able to keep Kuwait. He was a Hitler-like character, only interested in expanding his influence.

 

[Berzerker]

it aint about what Washington knew, the mindset of the Founding Fathers was not getting into other people's wars half way around the world. And I was out of school before Reagan even got elected.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...itains-special-relationship-with-America.html

I'm surprised you knew nothing about Maggie and George