How is everything not collapsing in the US?

[Farm Boy]

The invasion of Iraq may go down in history as one of the worst things this country ever did, but it didn't hurt us.

Have to cast the net awful wide to get that us. It certainly hurt people I grew up with.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Have to cast the net awful wide to get that us. It certainly hurt people I grew up with.

You have to keep in mind the "greater good" and how we sacrifice many individuals to keep that "greater good" alive and well. The fact that they are your friends or mine from days gone gone by is of little consequence. All those who died or who are dying in nursing homes today have done so for the "greater good" of Trump's economy. Just think about how happy all those mothers are to have given up their sons and daughters so Republicans can bask in glory.

 

[Farm Boy]

It certainly didn't seem to help with the glory or prestige either, if we're talking about Iraq take 2.

We're Republicans, by design of the system, but Trump has certainly never been glory there either. Voted against him for president 3 times so far, so again, I guess we gotta keep that net wide?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Have to cast the net awful wide to get that us. It certainly hurt people I grew up with.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant it doesn't seem to have severely impacted the United States' position as a global superpower. It certainly did hurt Americans, though. Wikipedia cites the U.S. Dept. of Defense website's numbers, 4,424 deaths of US personnel and 31,952 wounded, as of 29 June 2016. Add to those numbers the friends and family of those people, those within "1 degree of separation", and we're probably talking about a couple-hundred thousand Americans directly affected by the war in Iraq. In 2008, Joseph Stieglitz and Linda Bilmes published The Three Trillion Dollar War, which tried to estimate the long-term financial costs of the invasion to the US (I haven't read the book myself, only about it, so don't consider this mention an endorsement). I don't know if they, or anybody else, has tried to tally that bill in the 12 years since.

And that's just the United States. A 2006 study by Johns Hopkins University, published in The Lancet, estimated over 600,000 "excess" Iraqi deaths in the 3 years since the US invasion. [BBC News, 11 Oct 2006 - "'Huge rise' in Iraqi death tolls"] In the aftermath of the invasion, I remember there was some talk about the "brain drain" from Iraq, as it related to the challenge of rebuilding the country over the long term. I don't know if anyone was able to encapsulate the long-term damage to Iraq. I don't know if anyone even tried.

And, finally, there's no way to even hazard a guess at the "opportunity costs" of waging such useless, manufactured wars. One of my professors in college liked to say of the Vietnam War, that the cure for cancer might have died, face-down in the mud. A kid who died at 18 in 1968 would be 70 this year. Who knows what contributions to humankind they might have made in those 52 years?

 

[r16]

ıraq's disintegration was meant to create 'stan , a Kurdish nation state . For further action elsewhere . While lraq was devastated and Syria has equally suffered , lran survives American hostility , American friendship and American hostility once again . While political spadework up North , the New Turkey successfully creates ever larger numbers of atheists and deists . As for defeating El Kaide , it was never a threat to America , the game requires America to kill its assets regularly because and despite all that the 'stan Special aka lSlL , the grave threat to justify this Kurdish Nation thing , actually defeated the Barzani branch of the scheme so convincingly that America had to extra polish the seperatists , making it practically impossible for New Turkey to watch / sell the country for personal gain . Which also beneficially brought back the Cold War by creating a necessity and vacuum for Russia to play . Yes , ı would really prefer the orbital bombardment of the US .

 

[Farm Boy]

Gdiaf, I guess? Armenia take 2, new and improved? Or something else, whatever the sentiment happens to be.

 

[r16]

sorry , can't understand the shorthand . And , well , the demands of Armenians were also effective ; the Kurdish "elites" offering to clear up like 1 million persons worth of space like vacating some villages and stuff , because it is like known whatever took place was happily practised during transit , like one man becoming famous for kicking Armenians one by one off some cliff . While the Syrian desert and starvation part became possible and more effective with state ineficiency and like this famine thing . Yes , there were Kurds who risked stuff by hiding or saving Armenians . There were also those who took slaves or killed brothers or husbands for concubine business . East joined Kemal's thing , despite the lure of the British gold or the thing that there would be an American mandate , if Kurds had shown "more interest" in becoming American boots on the ground . But they needed a "blanket amnesty" for whatever they did and we did know they did . lt was only after they were secured from lrish sergeants and Scottish corporals , because ı obviously don't like the English officers stuff , guided by some venomous stuff like justice , the Kurdish elites took British good and rebelled so that lraqi oil could be secured . That it became known that the Kurdish elites would pay the compensations to the Armenians so effectively killed their wishes to collaborate with the Armenians , a hundred years after . But yeah , ı would prefer the orbital bombardment of the US .

 

[FriendlyFire]

I
Iraq is where we finally pinned Al'Qaida down and forced them to fight us in a protracted campaign that drained them of resources and personnel. Iraq was an effective battleground for this purpose because while Saddam's regime and the people of Iraq had no real love for the US, they also weren't supportive of Al'Qaida like Afghanistan was. That worked to our advantage because it allowed us to make temporary alliances with other insurgent groups in Iraq who wanted Al'Qaida dead just as much as we did.

Yes it was all a trap for AlQeda, thats why Gen Paetraus flew to Badghdad to beg Bremmer not to disbanded the Iraq Army and instead use them to maintain order.
All those pro-western idealist that put themselves forward for the Iraq election, that came forward to help the US were slaughtered and killed while the US denied that anything was going wrong.
Its nice how paper over the fact that Paetrus had to ally with the very same insurgents that were killing US personal, which could have been avoided in the first place.

What a great strategy, make sure to tell all future Republicans Presidents about this so they can repeat the same "Success" in the near future.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It, along with the simultaneous war in Afghanistan, effectively destroyed Al'Qaida as an international organization and reduced them to just a bunch of localized factions claiming to be Al'Qaida that had no real ability to plan or execute any plans outside of their localized area.

Iraq is where we finally pinned Al'Qaida down and forced them to fight us in a protracted campaign that drained them of resources and personnel. Iraq was an effective battleground for this purpose because while Saddam's regime and the people of Iraq had no real love for the US, they also weren't supportive of Al'Qaida like Afghanistan was. That worked to our advantage because it allowed us to make temporary alliances with other insurgent groups in Iraq who wanted Al'Qaida dead just as much as we did.

I kind of agree that this is how things played out but I reject any suggestions that this was the grand strategy going into the war.

And, finally, there's no way to even hazard a guess at the "opportunity costs" of waging such useless, manufactured wars. One of my professors in college liked to say of the Vietnam War, that the cure for cancer might have died, face-down in the mud. A kid who died at 18 in 1968 would be 70 this year. Who knows what contributions to humankind they might have made in those 52 years?

Similarly, the Apollo program was killed by Vietnam which set back NASA quite substantially. Given how much economic value we've gotten out of space technology, I also wonder how much richer we'd be now had we not made the choices we did back then.

 

[warpus]

The invasion of Iraq may go down in history as one of the worst things this country ever did

Erm.. I mean you guys have done a lot worse than that. At least that invasion had a quasi sort of justifiable reason. The overthrow of democracies to install dictators though? That seems a lot worse to me. Look at a place like Chile, they will probably never forget that. At least in Iraq there was actually a dictator in charge who was occasionally causing trouble in the region. In many of those other countries you guys messed up that was not the case.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Iran 1953

 

[EgonSpengler]

Iran 1953

If I stood outside the local supermarket today and asked people who Mohammed Mosadeq was, what do we suppose the rate of positive responses might be? I think the Dulles brothers had been largely forgotten by the time I was a kid. 3,000 people attended John Dulles' funeral at the National Cathedral, but by the time I was in grade school, I think his name was never mentioned except maybe in reference to the airport. I don't know if I even heard the name Allen Dulles before I was 30. I suppose the public school curriculum could have changed in the years since.

 

[amadeus]

If I stood outside the local supermarket today and asked people who Mohammed Mosadeq was, what do we suppose the rate of positive responses might be?

Zero if you asked me. I would rate him negatively.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Erm.. I mean you guys have done a lot worse than that. At least that invasion had a quasi sort of justifiable reason. The overthrow of democracies to install dictators though? That seems a lot worse to me. Look at a place like Chile, they will probably never forget that. At least in Iraq there was actually a dictator in charge who was occasionally causing trouble in the region. In many of those other countries you guys messed up that was not the case.

Iran 1953

These never got the reappraisal they should have, sadly. It took Japan literally like 60 years to apologize (and acknowledge) the Nanking massacre. Still the US has not paid repercussions, not even paid lip-service really, to the fact that they essentially destroyed Chilean democracy for decades and plunged the people into a horrific police state, had thousands murdered, and so on.

The only consolation the Iranian people ever gotten was Albright doing some half-assed "well, we screwed up" speech.

It's no wonder then that many people hold grudges. If you go to Iran you'll find the political climate is rife with (anti-American, anti-Israeli) conspiracy theories, and really who can fault them, when both the US and UK literally did conspire to **** over their populace in order to turn a profit.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

How often do countries actually apologies for stuff. Like I'm not sure Sweden have apologiesed for stuff like the mass murders of thirty year war or forcing Norway into a union, let alone for more recent stuff.

 

[warpus]

"400 years ago Sweden pulled some stuff that at the time was not out of the norm, that should excuse all this evil we are doing today" - America, probably?

Is that a good standard?

This is not about Americans like you or that other poster over there by the way. I am talking about the superpower that's ran by a small subset of Americans. A lot of people can take things said about their country quite personally, but that's one of the reasons why nationalism is so bad. It makes you blind to the crimes of those who lead you, and when it doesn't, it makes it more likely that you'll excuse their actions.

It's important to every once in a while point out that.. Hey.. Remember.. America are not "the good guys". That's just propaganda. In international relations there is no such thing as the good guys

 

[yung.carl.jung]

How often do countries actually apologies for stuff. Like I'm not sure Sweden have apologiesed for stuff like the mass murders of thirty year war or forcing Norway into a union, let alone for more recent stuff.

Very often, actually. Ever heard of 80 years of German politicians visiting graveyards of WW2 or Holocaust victims, giving speeches, public apologies, et cetera? This stuff is kind of important for international relations.

That's just propaganda. In international relations there is no such thing as the good guys

I totally agree on everything, but honestly, the Kurds were pretty much always the good guys. They were also always the ones getting screwed.

If there is such a thing as a historical good guy -- It's them

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Very often, actually. Ever heard of 80 years of German politicians visiting graveyards of WW2 or Holocaust victims, giving speeches, public apologies, et cetera? This stuff is kind of important for international relations.

Very often? You are talking about one country and one conflict. Right now in US they tore down status of past tyrants like Colombus but this was not done by US government but by private organizations or people.

"400 years ago Sweden pulled some stuff that at the time was not out of the norm, that should excuse all this evil we are doing today" - America, probably?

Who determine the norm, at what time must the event happen for a country to apologies? The evil done in thirty year war is comparable to WW1, WW2 and the idea such evil was acceptable is questionable, given people before that time had already been executed for what today could be called war crimes.

We should stop making up excuses for countries past crimes, otherwise we risk to justify current and future crimes.

This is not about Americans like you or that other poster over there by the way. I am talking about the superpower that's ran by a small subset of Americans. A lot of people can take things said about their country quite personally, but that's one of the reasons why nationalism is so bad. It makes you blind to the crimes of those who lead you, and when it doesn't, it makes it more likely that you'll excuse their actions.

And that is the danger of ignoring past crimes, if something like 30 year war can be ignore and the perpetrators be seen as heroes, what do you think that do for future generations?

It's important to every once in a while point out that.. Hey.. Remember.. America are not "the good guys". That's just propaganda. In international relations there is no such thing as the good guys

Yes, but the issue with past conflicts are they are often made into semi legendary events about good vs evil for nationalist purposes.

 

[Hrothbern]

Very often? You are talking about one country and one conflict. Right now in US they tore down status of past tyrants like Colombus but this was not done by US government but by private organizations or people.

One of the main functions and capabilities of a government is to enable settings that lead to desired results...
and disable elements that have negative effects on those settings.
By exception governments really do something really directly themselves.

 

[r16]

don't worry people , there will be a lot of lip serrvice for the Kurds again . Though you will never hear about shiny uniforms aka Barzani's Peshmergas meeting a bunch of hear eaters , quiet likely at least one third of Kurdish etnicity aka lSlL on some hill in some place called Sinjar or whatever and there was no American air support available and the shiny uniforms bolted , because . This was the peak of lSlL depradations ! 250 000 Yazidis on the mountaintop , because the American Occupation did not let Yazidis to have 1 percent of the weaponry that was available the shiny uniforms . Children to eat poisonous grass , children to drink blood from their parents' veins , they lost a 2 and a half years old for a day and his eyeballs were "burned" in the sun . Of course , Americans have forgotten , they will tell you they were behind that . To legitimize the seperatists who are never afraid of lSlL , boldly arriving and saving the Yazidis , also securing the pipeline route to the Med after the "correction" of some other Ottoman population policy of centuries old . lf that didn't mean we all dead , ı would really love you to watch a year or two of Kurdish rule and see how noble they are . Hey , wait , that happened , didn't it ? Ethnic cleansing of Arabs under American protection , because lSlL vermins started it . But don't worry , the Kurdish star will shine again ... Except when New Turkey needs to win the elections , you will then see none of the Kurds becoming dead . Biden was there , you know , when these electioneering began ...