Policing Debate (Moved from the Confessional Thread)

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by Josef K

Fair enough - I was a year old when 9/11 happened and so obviously I don't remember it at all. I do think it's a little unfair to say that people who weren't adults when something happened can't speak intelligently on history, but in this case since we are talking about how "the people" felt, I'll default to people like you who did live through that.

I wasn't saying people can't talk intelligently about history that happened before their time. I was just talking about people's personal recollections of the mood of the country.

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

To give you a non-American view (and I would have been 38 at the time) we all felt horrible obviously that it happened, there was an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with the USA, but then once you went after Saddam that was totally lost, and we shrugged and said "The Americans are doing what they like and using this tragedy as an excuse, a blank cheque". And just like that, opinion turned against you.

Had you gone for Afghanistan, Pakistan or even (HAH!) Saudi Arabia, you would have had some support and understanding. But we all knew Iraq was nothing more than a) revenge on Saddam by Bush and b) a grab for oil. Bush wasted any sympathy he had once he made that decision and invaded a country the US were not at war with at the time. Blair just went along with it and paid the price. We all knew that WMD stuff was pure crap, but I guess from your side, when you're hurting you just want to lash out at anyone. Hell, if Bush had said we did it you'd have supported an invasion of Ireland!

saddam was going to have to be dealt with one way or another. honestly he was probably more of a real problem than al qaeda has ever been.

[Chula Vista]

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

saddam was going to have to be dealt with one way or another. honestly he was probably more of a real problem than al qaeda has ever been.

How so?

[Oriphiel]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

How so?

I was pretty young at the time, so I might very well have my facts mixed up, but didn't Saddam invade Kuwait and start killing everyone? He's had a pretty bad reputation ever since the Gulf War. And he was pretty notorious for ignoring the U.N., refusing to let them check to see if he actually had "weapons of mass destruction". Of course, they never did find those nukes that they were looking for, but they did find stockpiles of banned chemical weapons. It's very well documented that Saddam's cousin, who he set up as the governor of Kuwait, used those weapons in an attempt to exterminate everyone of Kurdish heritage in the region.

Ali Hassan al-Majid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kurdish Genocide: Al-Anfal Campaign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Chula Vista]

Originally Posted by Oriphiel

I was pretty young at the time, so I might very well have my facts mixed up, but didn't Saddam invade Kuwait and start killing everyone?

Dude was a total dick in his region, but a worse threat then Al Qaeda to the US on a whole? No way.

W went after Saddam for financial gains and to avenge daddy, who should have taken him out as part of Desert Storm.

[fiddler]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Dude was a total dick in his region, but a worse threat then Al Qaeda to the US on a whole? No way.

W went after Saddam for financial gains and to avenge daddy, who should have taken him out as part of Desert Storm.

Basically and we justified it to the UN claiming to be the police force of the Middle East.

[Oriphiel]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Dude was a total dick in his region, but a worse threat then Al Qaeda to the US on a whole? No way.

W went after Saddam for financial gains and to avenge daddy, who should have taken him out as part of Desert Storm.

You're probably right. Like I said, I was but a baby at the time that all of this happened.

I don't disagree with you when you say that it was caused by personal vendettas and oil/money. There are many theories for why everything went to hell in Iraq, and most of them likewise blame it all on grudges and petty feuds. According to Cracked, the trigger behind Iraq invading Kuwait, kicking off the Gulf War, and setting the stage for U.S. involvement, was all because an official in Kuwait got mad at Iraq for not paying off their debt and insulted the nation's women. 5 Petty Feuds That Shaped the Modern World | Cracked.com

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

saddam was going to have to be dealt with one way or another. honestly he was probably more of a real problem than al qaeda has ever been.

His military was in tatters, he had no WMD, no real power other than his own internal as such. Chances are that IS or AQ would have come in anyway and kicked him out but I don't see where he was a threat to world safety, at least not the one the US made him out to be. Didn't you more or less get rid of him in a matter of days/weeks? Hardly a global dictator then. No more than Gadaffi or Assad I would say.

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Dude was a total dick in his region, but a worse threat then Al Qaeda to the US on a whole? No way.

W went after Saddam for financial gains and to avenge daddy, who should have taken him out as part of Desert Storm.

al qaeda is more openly aggressive/subversive... but saddam was more powerful and had a greater potential to cause problems. him 'being a dick in his region' was a problem for US geopolitical interests in the mid east. at one point, when he invaded kuwait, it started to look like he had the potential to become the major regional super power. he could've probably overrun the saudis, if the US didn't have their back, which is why they called on us to take care of him.

your narrative sounds like a lazy regurgitation of john stewart brand liberal common wisdom, tbh. clinton was also gunning for saddam throughout his entire presidency. never once was he considered not an enemy since the gulf war. and i'm curious why you think it would have somehow been fine to dismantle saddam's regime in 91 but not in 2003...

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

His military was in tatters, he had no WMD, no real power other than his own internal as such. Chances are that IS or AQ would have come in anyway and kicked him out but I don't see where he was a threat to world safety, at least not the one the US made him out to be. Didn't you more or less get rid of him in a matter of days/weeks? Hardly a global dictator then. No more than Gadaffi or Assad I would say.

err... yea his regime in 2003 was more or less a shell of its former self due to being under strict sanctions and being attacked on a regular basis for a good decade. that situation couldn't have possibly continued indefinitely. eventually he was going to have to be let out from under sanctions. and as for his people... he maintained his dominance over them through running a brutal mafia state. his regime was inherently belligerent, authoritarian, and desperately clinging to whatever power they could manage to hold on to.

i guarantee you the US could take out NK too. if you only consider a power a threat when you don't think the US could dominate them militarily, then there aren't ANY threats in the world.