Is this Dubya's legacy?

The Coffee Shop
1

So what has this war proved" Wasn’t it supposed to bring “democracy and stability” to Iraq? Fail?

"While Vienna continues to be the best place in the world to live, Baghdad holds onto its title as the worst.

Political turmoil, poor security enforcement and constant terrorist attacks have kept Baghdad at the bottom of Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living rankings for the last six years.
Coming in just ahead of Baghdad on the 221-country list are Bangui, Central African Republic (220), N’Djamena, Chad (219), Port-au-Prince, Haiti (218) and Khartoum, Sudan (217).
“Most of the low-scoring cities are in countries with civil unrest, high crime levels and little law enforcement,” says Senior Researcher Slagin Parakatil …For this year’s survey, Mercer also looks at personal safety identifying the most and least safe cities in the world. Baghdad also ranked at the bottom of this list…“Cities ranked at the bottom of the list do lack adequate infrastructure such as reliable portable water, reliable electricity or even public services,” he says in an online video. “The continuing personal safety issue in Baghdad is a major contributor to why it is ranked relatively low in both of our rankings.”
Other reasons for cities receiving low ratings are political and economic unrest, high volatility and terrorist attacks both on locals and foreigners."

2

I’ll be the last person to suggest that this war has been “good” for Iraq or Iraqis…they have suffered tremendously over the past 8 years since the invasion. However, I would submit that it would appear that Iraq may be on its way to some semblance of stability and perhaps some sort of democracy. I would also suggest that if Saddam had been in power for the last 8 years, it would have been pretty miserable for the Iraqis, as sanctions would have likely been ratcheted up to keep Saddam in his box, and we all know that the folks that suffered during the sanctions wasn’t Saddam or the top Baathists, but the Iraqi people. Would it have been worse for Iraq to have endured another 8 years of Saddam vice 8 years of civil war/insurgency? We’ll never know the answer to that. Certainly, there was terror and violence in Iraq during Saddam’s reign, only it was inflicted on the people by the regime, and not by terrorists.

Spot

3

We went to Iraq to stop an imminent WMD attack on the US.

Please, stay with the program you unpatriotic commie.

4

Not to high jack this thread but check this out. It’s a start.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/...ext=va&aid=27969

5

If you think that farce was anything but a kangaroo court with a pre-determined outcome, you’re delusional. However, if you agree with much of what is on that site, can I assume that you will soon be clamoring for them to try President Obama for waging aggressive war against Libya?

Spot

6

If you think that farce was anything but a kangaroo court with a pre-determined outcome, you’re delusional. However, if you agree with much of what is on that site, can I assume that you will soon be clamoring for them to try President Obama for waging aggressive war against Libya?

Spot

How about all those folks killed by drones in Pakistan? Oops, forgot; Obama killing good Bush killing bad. 50+ is simply another of those whose agenda is so far out of touch with reality that they will fall in lock step with those who think like the farce of a tribunal he posted a link to.

7

Yup, Iraq is Bush’s primary legacy (his other two being 9/11 and the 2008 financial collapse). A historic combination of dangerous naïveté coupled with utter incompetence.

8

Yup, Iraq is Bush’s primary legacy (his other two being 9/11 and the 2008 financial collapse). A historic combination of dangerous naïveté coupled with utter incompetence.**

Blaming Bush alone for the 2008 financial collapse does not jive with the history of what happened. The seeds of 2008 were sown by previous administrations as much as anything Bush did or didn’t do. If you are claiming that it happened because of Bush’s incompetence, then you should be prepared to say the same thing about the Clinton administration and also many Democratic Congressman.

Spot

9

What has truly shocked me was reading that Bagdad is now the least safe city in the entire world according to this report. There is no evidence that all this effort of the invasion of Iraq has brought anything resembling stability or democracy to the country. This has been a very costly war to the USA in terms of dollars and human life. I was never a supporter of the Iraq war in the first place, always believing the real war was in Afghanistan after 9/11, but this seems to confirm my worst feelings about the validy of the Iraq conflict.

10

A few things you should probably consider…

  • Baghdad was probably at least as non-safe under Saddam as it is now. It’s just a different set of people making it non-safe.

  • I would take that report with a grain of salt…just of bit of digging would make it appear that the folks doing the report could be a tad biased. I’m not saying the report is incorrect, but it appears to me that the group doing the report appears more than a little biased. Go figure that a group from Europe decides that all the best places to live are in…Europe.

  • No evidence of democracy? Care to tell me how many election occurred during Saddam’s rule?

  • No evidence of stability? How many lives were lost under Saddam’s rule on a yearly basis?

It’s easy to condemn post-invasion Iraq and the US, but try to keep a bit of perspective.

Spot

11

How about all those folks killed by drones in Pakistan? Oops, forgot; Obama killing good Bush killing bad. 50+ is simply another of those whose agenda is so far out of touch with reality that they will fall in lock step with those who think like the farce of a tribunal he posted a link to.

I have no agenda and I hope Obama is delt with as well, all I know is tens of thousands of humans have been slaughtered because of Bush, how could any rational person support this.

12

Any positives weren’t worth the US lives lost.

13

How about all those folks killed by drones in Pakistan?

I applaud your humanitarian concern.

But play a game, here. You’re Obama, and just took office in 2008. What do you do? The U.S. is coming of a (relatively) successful “surge” in Iraq, where the increased in drone strikes through 2007 where given a lot of credit in “decapitating” Al Qaeda in Iraq. Bush, prior to your taking office, moved Petraeus - the dominant figurehead of the “surge” - to CENTCOM both to attempt to replicate the surge strategy in the increasingly troublesome Afghanistan. You get briefed by Petreaus as soon as you take office with his plan.

So do you

A) Pull out relatively rapidly. End the mofo.
B) “Stay the course,” but without drones. Go old-school.
C) Take Petraeus’ advice

I’d argue that A), and B) both result in more civilian casualties than C).

A) results in massive Afghan casualties because the Afghan “government” likely would have collapsed fairly quickly, and there’d be a “reckoning” to anyone who was friendly with the U.S. Case in point the rapid pullout of the Soviets in the 80’s. 12,000-15,000 civilian casualties in the Battle of Jalalabad alone. (vs. a few hundreds of civilians killed by drones by most estimates) Beyond just the dead bodies there’s the ethical dilemma of the U.S. having promised friendly Afghans since 2002 that we’d stand with them until they had a fully stable government:

“By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall.” (Bush, 2002)

As Obama, I’d have had a hard time just saying, “Never mind what Bush said, it’s not working out, we’re out of money, so we’re out.” and watching the ensuing bloodbath on CNN. Not saying I wouldn’t have done it, just that it’d be super hard. If you claim that decision is “easy” I could probably no long applaud your humanitarianism.

B) Without drones, you’re putting more boots on the ground in really, really bad territory., More U.S. troops coming back in caskets. So trade a few hundred Afghan/Pakistani civilians for, I don’t know, dozens/hundreds more U.S. deaths? And possibly the same number of civilian deaths. (the bad guys surround themselves with civilians, and dress like civilians, so when shooting starts, stuff happens). Is that an easy choice for you?

So, no, don’t see it was Obama geefully bombing people with an XBox controller. Show me a course he could have taken that didn’t involve a lot of body bags.

14

“Any positives weren’t worth the US lives lost”

The worst part is that there aren’t really any measurable positives. What has been accomplished? At least under Saadam there was working electricity and toilets as well as no crime on the streets. Not to mention the fact there never was any WMD’s. Iraq wasn’t supporting terrorism or had anything to do with 9/11. Sure it was a dictatorship, but now its the wild west, or should I say wild mideast with nothing that remotely resembles anything of a working government or law and order. I still think of ol’ Dubya on that ship declaring “mission accomplished”. All we can say is show us the proof Mr. Bush.

15

** I would also suggest that if Saddam had been in power for the last 8 years, it would have been pretty miserable for the Iraqis, as sanctions would have likely been ratcheted up to keep Saddam in his box, and we all know that the folks that suffered during the sanctions wasn’t Saddam or the top Baathists, but the Iraqi people. Would it have been worse for Iraq to have endured another 8 years of Saddam vice 8 years of civil war/insurgency?**

I agree that the last 8 years would have been miserable but would suggest that Iraq would have followed the Arab uprisings and Hussein would be in a similar position to Gaddhafi and Assad. The difference being it would have been their choice, their revolution and their ultimate decision on who will govern.

I think you also have to link it to Afghanistan because the shifting of focus from there to Iraq meant problems in both places so in my opinion the war in Iraq was a disaster for both Iraq and the people of Afghanistan.

16

** I would also suggest that if Saddam had been in power for the last 8 years, it would have been pretty miserable for the Iraqis, as sanctions would have likely been ratcheted up to keep Saddam in his box, and we all know that the folks that suffered during the sanctions wasn’t Saddam or the top Baathists, but the Iraqi people. Would it have been worse for Iraq to have endured another 8 years of Saddam vice 8 years of civil war/insurgency?**

I agree that the last 8 years would have been miserable but would suggest that Iraq would have followed the Arab uprisings and Hussein would be in a similar position to Gaddhafi and Assad. The difference being it would have been their choice, their revolution and their ultimate decision on who will govern.

I think you also have to link it to Afghanistan because the shifting of focus from there to Iraq meant problems in both places so in my opinion the war in Iraq was a disaster for both Iraq and the people of Afghanistan.

I would argue it would be more like Syria. Killing at will with no consequences. He had been able to do it for years so what would have changed. If more people would rise up he would just issue more bullets to his people who were more than willing to kill at his command.

17

I would argue it would be more like Syria. Killing at will with no consequences.

That may be more accurate but I would still argue that it would have been far better for the Iraqi people to decide their own fate. There are 4,000 dead in Syria but they are in control of their own destiny. Iraq lost at least 100,000 people and America lost 4,000 soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars and it is not over yet. We may still see a Syria like situation once the U.S soldiers leave.