JonesyHmmm a ‘low SNR’ target thats a new euphemism.
Sounds like theyre talking about an ECCM filter that uses the odd fragment of a hit to assemble a ‘probable’ contact in a heavy EW environment. Used to just be called ECCM back in the day!.
Track-before-Detection will doubtless make it more snappy for the net forumites to rave on about though I guess!
JonesyGarry
By definition different situations will have different parameters. Consistency in action would be acting to the same parameters in the same way… ie potental genocide in Kosovo results in one (over) reaction while actual genocide in Rwanda results in a verbal only a reaction. See the lack of conisistency? Not about oil or money in this case, but about petty ego. This can’t be allowed to happen in Europe!!!
Yeah Garry but you are being inconsistent here yourself. Initially you have lionised the French etc who stood firm against the tyranical might of the US and now you criticise the ALLIED FORCE action?. It was the French and Germans who demanded that the US get involved in the Kosovo action. The US, as I recall it, were quite happy to let Europe clean its own house in that matter and just provide whatever logistical support was necessary. Quite a sensible position and one, which had they stayed out of the ground involvement, probably would’ve led to a much more satisfactory outcome all round.
Former colony of European power now not bending to western wants or needs. Yeah they are all totally different.
Neither Iran nor Korea were ever European colonies from my reading of history. We were involved in Iran in a trading sense and with communications links to India and had invested heavily setting up the oil industry there but I dont think we colonised the place exactly.
That was a slip… US hegemony? Why should the US dictate to the UNSC what should or should not be done?
How is it a slip?. One of the stated reasons given by the French for opposing the US intervention in Iraq was that US hegemony must be opposed. The US should not dictate to the UNSC, but, the UNSC should have some form of stricture whereby, if it imposes conditions on a state, its members are obliged legally to uphold those conditions.
There are border disputes all over the world, and incursions all the time. Just look at africa for example South Africa had lots of little forays into neighbouring countries… lots of rhetoric but little actually done.
Yes there are border disputes all over the place, but, to suggest the annexation of an entire country is a ‘border dispute’ is again disingenuous. Yet again I’ll ask the question where else has any state, oil-rich or not, been allowed to flout UNSC Resolutions for 13 years?.
He was their shining knight in the ME against the Iranian religious fanatics. Keeping the Iranians in check was enough to make him a good guy in their eyes. (ie not good… here marry my daughter, but good, you helped us with that one.. here is a cookie.)
Couldnt have put it any better myself than that last line….in fact I didn’t put it better myself!. As I said…Saddam was a tool not a ‘friend’. Once a tool is no longer of any use you put it back in its place until its needed again or, if it breaks and you dont need it any more, you throw it away. Maybe that sounds ‘unfair or ‘poor form’ in reality its the way both sides played the Cold War game unless the Soviet Union really did see the Vietnamese as close friends and allies between 1965-75!.
Doesn’t matter where it goes, as long is it keeps getting extracted from the ground and put on the open market. If it wasn’t going to Japan and Europe then Japan and Europe would have to buy elsewhere, which would drive up the cost of oil per barrel. The US doesn’t need to consume the oil from Iraq to benefit, though they benefit twice from the current situation. First the price of oil is kept lower through production of oil from Iraq. Secondly it is US oil companies that are extracting that oil so they make money too.
Ahh okay ensuring the provision of cheap oil to competitor nations is good business practise and is a redoubt to US productivity?. Hmmm, ok, not buying that theory!. Wouldnt it have been much simpler, not to mention nearer, to go lean on the Venezuelans for cheap oil for themselves and let their competitors hang?.
Cheap imports undercut our clothing industry years ago. If oil supply was cut we could probably restart our clothing industry again as china is a major source of cheap clothes here and they would be badly effected by an oil shortage.
‘Probably restart’…..’do without what we cant grow’……’oil addiction’……come clean – you dont really live in NZ do you Garry?. You are actually one of those nutty survivalists that live in fallout shelters in Montana!.
We are addicted to oil because we have a supply that is cheaper and easier to get at than the alternatives. A shortage of oil would force us to look at alternatives that are much cleaner and renewable but are immature due to lack of investment and so are currently too expensive to be viable. I have said many times that high prices of oil will create development of alternatives… don’t see oil as a good thing… it is like a drug and we are addicted. There are plenty of alternatives to get off that drug but because it is easy we are not bothering to seriously look at them.
Might suprise you to hear I actually agree with a lot of that. Difference is I’m not doe-eyed enough to believe it will change until the oil gets physically scarce not politically scarce. The other technologies are developing apace regardless and its a truism that you cannot dictate innovation. Lets get the private cars onto fuel cells first and then see where we are with the anti-oil revolution eh?.
You mean like the proof the US stumped up to legitimise the invasion. Didn’t that consist of satellite footage of a few tanker trucks seen in one satellite pass and not seen in later passes… wow high level a proof required there…
Well there was that small matter of UNMOVIC not being able to say for certain what the Iraqi mobile labs were being used for plus certain question marks about various programmes in addition to several other mountains of evidence that he wasnt being legitimate with the UN. What satellite photo’s of tanker trucks where these then Garry?
Why should it matter to the UN what nationality is on the team? Why couldn’t Iraq dictate which nationalities could provide team members? Would Russian technicians ignore vast vats of Sarin because they are Russian? What exactly are you trying to say… only US and UK technicians can be trusted? The vast majority of that 12,000 page book of all of Iraqs WMDs that was removed by the US before any of the UNSC saw it probably pertained to US company involvement in Iraqs WMDs. If anyone has anything to hide it is the US on this matter.
Hmmm how many billions did Saddam owe Russia again Garry. Their UN technicians would ignore vats of Sarin and whatever else they were told to ignore if it meant the good old Rodina was going to get its money back. Just the same for the French. Both nations proved they were more interested in cash than any other consideration with their actions in the UNSC.
So they should ignore their own relationship with countries and vote the way the US and UK tell them to vote… right…
If they are unable to exercise their duties in the UNSC they should forfeit their seat….thats nothing to do with the UK or US either….that goes on any grounds.
I said Soviet Union. Although some former republics jumped ship many others actually had to be pushed. Russia, under Yeltsen decided it could no longer carry other countries the way it had. The Red Army was an army made up of soldiers from all those neighbour states. The greatest oppressor in Soviet History was Stalin… who was from Georgia, not Russia.
The states that felt they couldnt go it alone clung to the carcas and got pried off as they were a resource drag. Very humantiarian of Yeltsin to throw them to the wolves like that.
Yes the Red Army was comprised of constituent-state soldiers and they all took direction from their own countries individual national assemblies didnt they Garry?. Wait I have that wrong dont I…..they did whatever they were told to do by the incumbent dictator in the Kremlin in good old Moskva!.
Its surely not the UN’s job to hold together a nation built on the dictatorial oppression of its people?.- ‘You mean like the UK?’
Not many of us like Tony Blair but I think we can fairly safely pull up short of labelling him a dictator!.
Invading a country, eliminating the current system of government and replacing it with one of your making, and then holding elections to get locals into power that would otherwise have no power… they got that power from your actions and are therefore beholden to you for giving them that power… nah that sounds nothing like colonialism… of course if this government descends into anarchy and Iraq becomes Iran jnr no doubt the west will invade again to again save the people of Iraq from themselves and reimpose a democratic government of their choosing…
Last line say it all here….reimpose a democratic government of their choosing. Can you impose a choice of free will on a populace…essentially GIVE a populace the responsibility of determining its own path then pull them back, say they got it wrong, and make them do it over?. No…I dont think you can as the electorate wont play and without the electorate to take part (as they most definitely did in the Iraqi elections) then it IS colonialism. Before that point its extremely thin as an argument point!
JonesyBecause consistency indicates truth and makes what is otherwise irratic behaviour seem more predictible.No, a more consistent arguement is oil, money, and damaged ego.
That is only viable if consistent situations arise to be dealt with consistently though Garry. The Iran issue is nowhere near the same situation as Iraq or North Korea or Rwanda or Zimbabwe. In Iraq the correct organisation to deal with Saddam Hussein was the UN because it was UN Resolutions that Hussein was flouting. That the French announced an automatic veto in order to protect their debt and to try and hobble US hegemony torpedoed that.
In North Korea the Chinese have a vested interest and sufficient diplomatic shove to make a difference on that regime so force has been largely unnecessary and probably unwise…also the country is two inches from imploding anyway so why bother!. Iran is similar but different in the sense that the regime there is unpopular but the populace is not politically incapable of moving against it – time, diplomacy and a twitchy neighbour with nukes is likely to be sufficient to see that issue resolve itself – even if it does result in an Iranian Bomb ultimately.
So what you are saying is that if Saddam was in Africa with no oil in his control the world would have acted the same?
Do you really believe that?
I am saying that if he repeated his behaviour anywhere in the world i.e invaded a neighbouring state, had the UN mobilised against him, then proceeded to flout its directives over 13 years then yes….I do believe he’d have been taken down.
Oh, he had regular visits from US diplomats. Funny thing was that the same silly old bag he had a meeting with where he said he was thinking of invading kuwaite, was the woman involved in the Somalia kokup. She didn’t tell him not to do it, so he did it. If whe had said, no, I doubt he would have done it and he would be happily killing Kurds periodically to this day.
Probably true on the score that if the US had comprehended what he actually intended to do, and told him to leave alone, he might still be in charge. Certainly the political dynamic wouldve have been a very different one – I personally think he wouldve been deposed, all on his own, because of the debts and deprivation following on from the war with Iran. Rampant supposition though.
As to the ‘regular meetings’ dont know where you get that idea from?. There were meetings certainly, but, to intimate that Hussein was somehow America’s shining example to follow in the Middle East is exaggeration in the grossest fashion.
Yes, of course. How can I suggest that the US is there for oil and oil alone if there was no oil there or oil was unimportant. Saddam was killed for oil. The Iraqi people are dying now for oil.
The fact that Iraqi oil actually, if memory serves, goes to Japan and Europe and most US consumption is provided by Canada, Venezuela and its own resources makes not one bit of difference there I guess?!.
Actually the use of oil in NZ tends to be rather less than in countries like the US. It is very rare for a house to be heated by oil in NZ. It rarely gets as cold in NZ as it does in some parts of the US.
Ahh the “I’m alright Jack” argument. Your computer…the plastic its made of is of NZ origin?. All your power down there is from renewables or nuclear is it?. The clothes you wear are all fully indigenous made from local materials?. All your food is local only produce (actually this I could understand having enjoyed a lot of NZ Lamb and butter!)…nothing is imported that enters your diet.
You are a smart guy Garry….you know full well how dependent we ALL are on oil. A sad refection for certain but undeniable.
Of course having hairy feet also helps fight off the cold..
Ahh so you are not as dependent on cheap Chinese socks as the rest of us….I understand now!.
After invading his neighbour I don’t doubt it was sorted by diplomacy. Don’t think he wanted British and US troops back in Libya.
You’ve lost me a bit here….I know the French went into Chad in the late 80’s but otherwise???. I dont think military interventionism has directly resulted in the current progress made with Qaddafi?. Unless of course it was Iraqi Freedom that made him think that he could be deposed by force and that threat brought him to the table?. If thats the case its a positive result from Iraqi Freedom surely?.
Hey it is not my fault. How many politicians are there that can be considered good moral people? I mean the joke that politicians are like nappies… both need to be changed regularly and for the same reason wouldn’t be part joke part trueism otherwise.
Hadn’t heard that joke before – very, very good!. Will be shamelessly ripping that off next opportunity I get!.
No. You are saying they helped us. I am saying that what they did they did for their own reasons that had nothing to do with helping us. It was just that the results of them achieving their goals solved our problem along the way. That means that to say they did it to help us is not true, but what they did helped us indirectly.
I said that you didnt owe them much in the way of thanks for it, but, that the Japanese ended up pushed back and away from your islands largely by the actions of the US Pacific Fleet. Which is pretty much what you say above…only when I said it I am absoltely wrong!.
The number of tourists who come over here and are driving on our roads that end up killing themselves or others because along a long stretch they forget which side they should be driving on and go around a corner on the wrong side of the road is actually rather high compared to the risk that Saddam might risk a direct attack by building and using Scud range missiles.
Personal Responsibility – not something the UN needs to legislate about!. If you cannot adapt to driving on the wrong side of the road then dont bloody drive!. I freely admit that I cant get used to driving on the dark side when I’m on the continent or in the States so I fly, get trains or get a taxi if I cant get a friend, family member or colleague to drive. Its not a revolutionary concept!.
The Iraqis suspected the US members of spying long before they had proof. When they asked for US members to be removed they were told that any US members were banned from Iraq and that would mean all members would be banned and would all leave and the bombing would start because kicking out the team would be a material breach of the resolution that put them in there.
Thats a different issue though Garry. Proof had to be stumped up first – if not whats to stop them, after they get the Americans out, accusing the UK members, then the Aussies, then the Poles etc, etc until by default they’ve, the Iraqi’s, actually managed to pick the composition of the UNSCOM team they want and gotten the ones that wont cause too much trouble.
No the door has to swing both ways. The US got caught doing something improper and got its backside smacked for it with the UNMOVIC deal. Fair play Garry the Iraqi’s couldnt expect much more than that!.
And they pay such radical groups lots of money to remain safe from internal problems.
Again its a given that they would much rather have the ability to get rid of such groups in their entirety. Bombing them, as you originally alluded too, serves no purpose whatsoever when there is local engagement…..even if it is paying them danegeld!.
Thanks to the Russians and Chinese within the UNSC the UN cannot become a tool of the WEST to rubber stamp colonial invasions. If the US had their way their invasion of Iraq would have been a UN intervention and they would probably have withdrawn by now suggesting the rest of the UN pull its weight.
Which would be a bad thing how?. It was a UN resolution that ordered the liberation of Kuwait and a further UN resolution that stipulated the terms Hussein could end that war on. Why should it be the US and UK that actually provide the force to back that up?.
Also I dont recall saying I thought Russia and China should be excluded from UNSC to make it a Western rubber-stamping body (like that would happen with the French there anyway!!!). I said that I wanted them to honour their agreement and not be more concerned about arms deal repayments than upholding their UN obligations.
You mean like the failing state of the Soviet Union? What could the UN do about that? And define failing state? Like a military dictatorship? Would the US like a UN force to go into Pakistan to “help”? Would Pakistan even benefit from such help… I doubt it. If the criteria is has oil within its boundaries and opposes US hegemony then no, I am glad the UN does not perform such a role.
As am I. When was Russia a failing state?. The Soviet Union was a collection of individual neighbour states held together by the military oppression of the Red Army. Proof of that is that as soon as Gorbachev said that the army wouldnt be sent in to recover seperatist states they all cleared off as fast as possible. Its surely not the UN’s job to hold together a nation built on the dictatorial oppression of its people?.
Yes, of course. Without being able to bomb and invade countries the UN is actually ignoring international problems. Having an international forum to discuss things is sticking your head in the sand…
…and once those discussions have concluded and everyones agreed that it is simply too terrible whats happening to the Timorese (for example) they should all go off and have a spot of lunch!. Perhaps something to act on the outcomes of those discussions might be in order?.
If that is what you crave why not build a wall around the west and kick every nonchristian or commie or other undesirable out? Why not get rid of homosexuals as well and while you are at it you could simple push all of your convicts out through a gate and they could fend for themselves… that would be real justice… break the rules of society and you get sent from society.
We already have a facility to do such a thing…except like most civilised races we build a wall around those which we exclude from society and call them prisons. We tried sending them away from our society as a whole but that didnt work because 200 years later they batter us routinely at cricket, rugby and most other sports and have sent Kylie Minogue at us to prove they still hold a grudge!.
Unscrupulous nation like Ukraine and Russia… where did the Taliban get Stingers from? Who trained the 11/9 pilots that killed all those people?
The most unscrupulous nation on the planet isn’t even a nation… it is the CIA.
Hmmm yeah Kornets to Iraq makes much more uncomfortable reading than Stingers to Afghansitan doesnt it Garry…so we’ll gloss over the reports from UK and US tank crews about how they were engaged by some pretty up to date Russian ATGM’s.
Dont worry we’ll also gloss over all the reports published about surveillance and so-called anti-stealth detection systems being supplied to Iraq by Ukraine before Iraqi Freedom!.
And why should colonialism be bloodless? Do you think it should ever be OK to attack someone and not lose anything?
Dont think you can equate colonialism with the action in Iraq as Iraq was never going to end up as anyones colony. Certainly placating those with a simple political agenda is poor reason to jeopardise your armed forces to a greater degree in an attack that is virtually inescapable.
JonesyGarry
Just looking for some consistency.
Why and for what reason?. Are you likely to have a higher opinion of the US jackboot if it did go after Mugabe or any of the others?. Dont make me laugh!.
If the US went in for WMDs then it is guilty of duplicity as it knew full well there were no WMDs. If it, as it now claims went in there to get rid of a dictator, why was saddam so special
Already covered so many times in this thread. He’d yanked every chain going for 13 years and was sat in a very sensitive spot. We’ll never know if he wasnt sat over a good chunk of the worlds oil reserves whether he would have been given another 13 years….personally I doubt it…..sure you’ll say otherwise.
The reality is that the west is very consistant, it is also a liar. Saddam wasn’t killed because he was a cruel dictator… he has been that all his time in power. He was killed because he was the wests puppet and he no longer responded to control.
What control was he ever under?. He was a useful tool in a very much wider scenario, the whole Mutually Assured Destruction game?. Dont go repeating Saddams mistakes and ascribing him more stature than he warranted Garry!.
Worse he threatened a monopoly on a strategic material… oil. He had to go. Amin, pol pot, mugabe, gadaffi, they never had Saudi, Kuwaiti and Iraqi oil in their hands, or within their reach.
So you accept that Saddam was sat atop a very strategically sensitive area then?. Funny I thought from the low value you place on oil that you must ride round on dragons or something down there in middle earth!. Interesting you mention Qaddafi as well….didnt that situation get turned around with diplomacy?.
Replace Saddam with gandi, if he was offering peace and democracy to the ME and joining all the arab countries together the west would label him a communist and take him out.
Ghandi now is it?. Interesting you didnt choose Mother Teresa for your little illustration….nothing like a good bit of sensationalism in your diatribes eh?.
No. Strictly speaking that is completely wrong. If that was accurate they would have actually directly tried to save us… as soon as we were threatened. Generally speaking they did stop the Japanese expansion and defeated them in combat and pushed them back to their home islands. Strictly speaking they did it all for their own reasons and the fact that we were saved was an unintentional byproduct of what they were doing for themselves anyway.
So you tell me I’m ‘completely wrong’ and then say precisely the same thing I did using different words?. Interesting technique you are evolving there!.
Yeah, because of the veto. There were plenty of resolutions on Israel, or the vietnam war or the war in afghanistan, or regarding taiwan. There were plenty of UN debates about French and British and American testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific….
There are plenty of UN resolutions to make everyone drive on the same side of the road….would you suggest that turning a blind eye to them would be of the same importance as Saddam abiding by his UN-set surrender terms?.
Every time the US president addresses the international community he talks about defending freedom around the world and the US being the greatest democracy in the world… well by what criteria I ask. The largest by area would currently be Russia. The largest by population would be India. Does he mean by any chance the best? Isn’t that claiming purity and whiter than white?
Oh knock off the semantics Garry for gods sake!.
The article you provided was interesting. I must have read it different to you though. It seems to support what I thought was the chain of events. That the US got caught with the spying thing…the Iraqi’s quite understandably saw their collective @rses about it and went to the UN to get the situation rectified. The UN did this with the UNMOVIC charter. Not quite the same thing as what you said which was essentially no US technicians equals material breach.
Saudi Arabia hasn’t been bombed in the war on terror because of the financial ties the US has with it. Money is politics.
Or alternatively it hasnt been bombed in the War on Terror for the same reason Pakistan hasnt…because it is at least paying lip-service to working with the US and the rest towards the same goal. I’ll guarantee you that the house of Saud has little more interest in radical Islam inside its borders than Bush has.
And no it does not trouble me that the UN has no teeth. If it did then it would just become an international tool of the west to rubber stamp its colonial invasions.
Which was the last colonial invasion the UNSC rubber stamped?.
The UN is an international forum to debate and discuss international issues. Regions can use it to give aid or assistance to those that need it. It should never be a militant jackboot to impose a political government on a country or demand a country adopt a certain culture.
If there is a failing state that is impacting its neighbours you suggest that there should be no international framework to address that issue?. So we should all stick our heads in the sand and pretend nothing bad goes on around the world is that it?. Or is it, to use your argument, because we cant fix everything that is going wrong around the world we shouldnt try anywhere because its inconsistent!. To think they say the world is getting smaller!.
If you think the UNSC is to stop all wars and defeat all dictators and right all wrongs then you are a dreamer, worse than that you are a fool to think it could ever be that. If you realise international law means nothing and it is everyone for themselves then you are closer to reality than some rubbish about the west being some new great positive power that will lead the world to prosperity if only those dumb muslims and hindus and other non christians would only take up western cultural values and ideals…
…and woe betide if it should ever get any better than that!.
Abu Graib was on Telly because they had pictures. No pictures no story no change. How many other detention centres are there and do they all treat the people within their walls well? I doubt it, remember those guards are guys like Phantom II… lose a few mates to IEDs and the locals all start looking like the enemy. A few night raids to round up some young men to talk… I am sure they don’t lay a hand on them… No US soldier can be brought before an international court for warcrimes…
…and you have as much proof saying that as I do if I said there were some detention facilities that are so well run that inmates dont want to leave and go home.
Yeah saddam was busy exterminating all Shia…. but if they were all treated so very badly why didn’t the rise up? The reality is that it was only troublemakers that got the treatment. The agitators. Keep your mouth shut and you would have no problems at all.
They didn’t rise up because they tried once and got their backsides kicked from here to hell and back.
Impose all your sanctions, military first, luxury economic next and basic necessities last. If Saddam was still alive and had the economic sanctions removed you could limit his oil exports so he doesn’t get enough money to build a large powerful military. I mean even if he got M1A2s what difference would it really make? What tank can survive a 250kg LGB? He could spend billions and billions on defence for the next ten years and still not be able to defeat the US, or even seriously threaten it.[
This was my point from the start. Saddam was building palaces Garry…..was he doing it because he didnt have sufficient accomodation do you think?.
Nope.
He was doing it to show the UN that he didnt care what sanctions were placed on him because he’d go right on spending what he wanted however he wanted!.
Sanctions had failed there because he cared not one jot about the privations of most of his people. All it would’ve taken was some unscrupulous nation acting in their own financial interest….perhaps Ukraine or Russia maybe….and the weapons catalogue would be back on Saddams coffee table. That means more UK forces dead when they eventually do have to take him down….no thanks!.
JonesyLittle quibble, Jonesy: Israel’s only been invaded with the intent of wiping it off the map once, in 1948. 1973 was an invasion of occupied territories, not Israel, with much more limited aims (the Egyptians didn’t even have a plan for occupying all of Sinai, let alone invading Israel), & in all the other wars Israel did the invading.
Point taken!. It was the 6-Day War and Yom Kippur that I was referring to, naturally, in addition to 1948 and it was more off-the-cuff than anything else. Just finished a fascinating book on the 6-Day War and the level of collusion between the Arab states on that one, for my money, dont lend the activities of those states as easily being described as ‘Defensive’. Completely unrelated issue though and not a topic of debate on this thread I think you’ll agree!.
JonesyYou see the problem I have here is that you are that busy opportunistically revising history that I’m not actually sure what is the famous Garry sarcasm and what you actually really do mean.
I mean WTF does Robert Mugabe have to do with this?. You going to castigate the West for not dealing with Pol Pot or Idi Amin….how about Genghis Khan too?. Yup the Yanks let Pontius Pilate off so they are inconsitent therefore they are not allowed to act in Iraq without getting all that comes to them!.
Jumping out of the analogy saying the US helped Iraq by getting rid of saddam… is a bit like the US claiming they helped New Zealand in WWII and saved us from speaking Japanese.
…and, strictly speaking, that is accurate. The Japanese did move against Australia in that war and had that action resulted in a Japanese occupation do you think they would have left a convenient base for counter attack alone?. The Yanks were not out there to save your island and, as such, you may not owe them anything in return – the fact remains, however, if you like your current lifestyle you have it, in small measure, thanks to the US Pacific Fleet!.
Name one country on the UNSC that hasn’t ignored a UN resolution? Add Israel to that list as well, and probably a few other countries too. Hundreds of thousands of people were butchered to death… hacked into pieces. I am just clinging on to the idea it is oil because I would really hate to think it was skin colour.
I cant think of one country on the UNSC that has been allowed to ignore a UNSC Resolution for 13 years!. In fact I cant think of any other country thats been given that kind of free run. Israel perhaps but then I guess having three major invasions aimed at wiping you off the face of the map within as many decades and the stick of the Holocaust to beat people with buys a little latitude on that score!.
The US claims it is the purest white. I am a US basher for claiming it is a darker shade of grey.
Who in the US claims it is the purest white?. Thats such a laughable statement I find it hard to believe you wrote it!. Tinfoil hat time Garry?.
The Iraqis already tried to refuse the American “technicians” within UNMOVIC and they were told that was the same as non compliance… take the Americans as well or none will go and the bombs will drop. Otherwise of course he would take that option… even if he didn’t suspect the americans.
Proof of that would be nice. IF it is the case then thats an amazing indictment of the UN. Non-involvement of US presence in UNMOVIC equivalent to non-compliance….thats absurd!.
The UNSC is a joke and it is the UNSC members that make it a joke. That UNSC resolution was politic talk and could have been interpreted a thousand ways. The US took an extreme version. The reality is that the terms of any UNSC resolution are politically motivated anyway.
Does that not trouble you at all though. Perhaps your answer to it would be to replace it with the Comintern perhaps but for me personally I’d like to see a stong and credible UNSC. Something France and Russia for two do not seem interested in.
So for the forseeable future you have no power, have to walk through a war zone to get water, zero medical care, zero job, and you have to dance to two different tunes depending upon who the audience is… if you get it wrong the sunnis will bomb you or the Americans will take you to Abu Grab prison for a bit of water torture and sexual humiliation. Till the Americans leave then you get a future of civil war for a decade or so with Saudi Arabia funding and supporting the Sunni and Iran likely supplying the Shia and possible US support for the Kurds.
Well in fairness Abu Graib was how many people and was put a stop to – does it compare with the Mukhabarat operations in Saddams Iraq….no so lets not be disingenuous about things shall we?. The Sunni’s will not bomb you for speaking out of turn. The civil war may happen, but, will end and then the rebuilding can start. If the civil war can be staved off then the rebuilding can start all the sooner. The point is there is no Saddam and no Mukhabarat.
And exactly what trouble could he have stirred that the west could not have dealt with?
Dealt with how Garry?. With an invasion perhaps….only after he’d re-armed and was back up to full strength. That would make it much fairer in your eyes would it?. Spare us from civvies who want to see a fair fight!:mad:
JonesyIndeed. It’s just a pity that so many other people have suffered along the way.
As I said to Flex: Amen
Back to the official issue: the Saddam saga demonstrates, to me, the dire necessity of avoiding the same mistakes in Iran. Fortunately, the US govt seems to understand that. Unfortunately, so does the Iranian govt, which strengthens their hand.
Nice bridge back to the original point of the thread. In Iran Ahmadinejad’s chair aint quite so comfy as Husseins was so his ability to ‘play’ the UN must be undertaken whilst maintaining a good watch over his shoulder to make sure no-one is creeping up behind him.
I think your right, that the US knows that polarising Iranian youth against them through military action is ultimately self-defeating and probably something Ahmadinejad is wearing through the mat praying for!. Here’s hoping sense prevails and if our Iranian friend stays his current course that one of the reformers gets to tap him on the shoulder and pack him off for a bit of a rest cure somewhere nice and out of the way!!!.
JonesyHi Swerve
But that wasn’t the accusation against him in 2003. It was that he still had an active WMD programme, had concealed stockpiles of chemical weapons ready for use, & had an active delivery vehicle programme, specifically, the same as before, missiles beyond the MTCR threshold.
In fact, we now know that he had none of the above. He was, at most, trying to hang on to some of the capability to revive his development programmes in the future.
OK that cannot be disputed bar one very salient point – we only KNOW for certain the situation now because of the Iraq Survey Group’s work post IRAQI FREEDOM. Before 2003, very simply put, the evidence was not presented sufficient to give Hans Blix’s team the confidence to say that the Hussein regime was in compliance with the obligations of its ceasefire terms and had satisfied the criteria to start lifting sanctions.
I said at the time and I’ll say it again now – it was not the job of the UN Inspectors, of whatever nationality, to go and find weapons. The onus was on Iraq to provide documented and verifiable evidence of the status of its various programmes. It did not do so in the specified time from the end of Desert Storm, which if memory serves was 15 days for full disclosure, it did not do so in 10 years after. That is, anyway you look at it, material breach.
His chemical weapons stockpiles had been destroyed, despite his attempts to hide them. The few shells & bombs which have turned up have all been old, corroded, & more akin to WW1 duds turned up by ploughs in the 1920s & 1930s than stockpiled weapons. They’re almost certainly just dregs, lost in the accounting (remember that he had the sort of bureaucracy that kept secrets from itself – a sure recipe for confusion).
Accepted but, in fairness, if you could accidentally lose a number of inexplicably pre-filled chemical cargo shells ‘in the system’ could not a number of also filled rocket warheads, for example, also be more intentionally ‘lost in the system’?!. Was Saddam’s regime trustworthy enough to take on faith that those shells actually used in IED’s really were ones ‘just lost’ or does some former-regime chappie somewhere know just which spot to dig in to find a nice large cache of chemical weapons?. Answer is we dont know either way – I’m sceptical after the information leaks that lead to Desert Fox in ’98.
Couple this with the Comms intercepts from the Iraqi Army head shed giving special weapons battery release to deployed artillery units (that got perverted into the now-infamous ’45 minute’ claim) and to me the balance of probability comes down that Hussein wasnt innocent, mistaken and misunderstood and he thoroughly deserved what landed on him.
Don’t get me wrong: Saddam was an evil git, & a chancer who constantly pushed against the restrictions imposed on him, trying to find how far he could go before provoking a response, trying to conceal what he could (but he failed). The world is better the fewer such people there are, & I wish he’d been toppled (& preferably topped – by his own people, not ours) in 1991. But the way he was overthrown in 2003, the flimsy excuses offered, the invention of evidence or insistence on believing in “evidence” which was no such thing, & (most of all) the monumental male hen-up (that’s a stupid bit of censorship software) of the occupation of Iraq discredited those who ordered his overthrow, & makes it harder to act in other cases where some tyrant who’s threatening his neighbours, or us, could do with being got rid of. It also distracted us, the Yanks, & everyone else from Afghanistan, when we had a chance to get that right. And now we’re paying the price.
All in all, I think it was a disastrous mistake.
First comment ‘male hen-up’ is a classic and is going into the lexicon by hook or crook!.
Seriously, to be honest with you Swerve, as I said to Garry I’m afraid whatever justification the politicians use is of absolutely no interest to me. I didnt pay any heed to them back then and I’m not interested in what they said now. I said at the time that we needed to go in for three reasons – firstly that we should have done the job in 91 – mandate or bloody not – and we’ve let a lot of people down by leaving the twit (choose a letter to substitute for the ‘i’!) in place as long as we did.
Secondly the oil there and in the neighbouring countries that he could get at with chem weapons really was, and still is, of paramount importance to the global economy (I was thinking of the forecourt riots during the fuel strike we had a wee bit earlier in Blairs term) and, most importantly, Saddam in 2003 was weak and still had the sanctions in place. It was my view then that the sanctions would’ve had to be lifted to prevent complete humanitarian disaster in the country and Hussein would’ve capitalised on the deal and rearmed. It was my view that giving him another 10 years squirming room would make the eventual job so much harder and more costly for us to achieve when giving him that time was not justified.
As I’ve said the problem with this whole thing has been the absolute lack of forethought on behalf of the US and UK governments for planning the recovery of post-Hussein Iraq. That gap, added to the legacy of the 1991 betrayal of the Shi’a plus basic human-greed internal power politics between the three factions in Iraq, gives us the situation we see today.
Is it a disasterous mistake?. Its not good thats for certain but, for me, it boils down to the same question that went unanswered in 2003 – what was a viable alternative for dealing with him?.
JonesyGarry,
A bit like a drunk driver killing a child molester while drinkdriving really though isn’t it?
Interesting analogy….how much sympathy would you feel for the child molester?
What we are really dealing with is a lack of spine. The whole world has dictators in power. The whole world is still full of countries that still don’t enjoy western democracy. Why single out Iraq for freedom from Saddam? Why was there so much energy and power and money and military forces available to deal with Saddam? Where was all of that when Rwanda collapsed?
When did Rwanda ignore 15 years of UN resolutions placed against it? North Korea and Iran are now breaching IAEA rules and diplomacy is handling it. Iran has oil so by your rules Garry shouldn’t US/UK forces be foot patrolling Isfahan?. Oops nope were not so Garry next bright idea hey?. Saddam was a case of unique circumstances, including incurring the displeasure of Senior Bush, nowhere else meets the criteria yet so there’s your answer!. Simple really!.
The reality is that it was about oil. If there was no oil in the ME the US wouldn’t pass water over the region let alone mount an invasion and occupation on two countries in the region. But can’t admit it is about oil… makes America and the West sound like real ba$tard$ if they only help others when they are helping themselves in the process.
Hmmm it wasnt all for true philanthropy therefore its a tainted exercise. How black and white we do see the world!
The only opportunity the west gave him was to give up WMD that he didn’t even have. Wonder how he could ever have managed that? After it was proven that UNMOVIC were passing on information about Saddams whereabouts that the US was using to try to kill Saddam would anyone not kick UNMOVIC out?
No you would kick out the American members of UNMOVIC and take away the Secret Service minders to prove your hands are clean and set the rest of the world against the US!!!. Too many dupes or those who claim ‘not to care either way’ after bleating loudly and at length would lap it straight up!.
And full cooperation probably would have led to a successful US strike on Saddam. That would have made the US very happy, but I doubt that would have been something Saddam would have been interested in assisting with.
….and yet where is he now?. He did so well out of his intransigence didnt he!!!.
It was all a load of bollock$ anyway. The main technical personel in both groups were american and all they were interested in was finding evidence they could take back to bush to prove he had WMDs. When they didn’t get that proof they claimed he was hiding something. Guilty till proven innocent… american justice.
WMD’s he had actually used so it was known he possessed them. Its only known now that no huge stockpiles were at readiness because the ISG got full and unrestricted access to Iraq’s facilities AFTER Iraqi Freedom took Hussein off the throne. If you recall before that no-one was certain. If you also recall chemical shells have been used on coalition forces as IED’s so the ‘no WMD in Iraq’ claim is a little fallacious – you’re best saying ‘no major WMD stockpiles have been found in Iraq, Garry, its much more accurate.
And how could he have done that? By risking his own life by making himself a target? I doubt that.
As stated if staying alive was his goal he had much better courses of action open to him than hiding down a hole in some desolate farm in the back of beyond!.
But the instant that new ally compromises the wests interests they attack him directly. Hope China took note of all this. They were a useful ally against the Russians, but have little really in common with the west… when taiwan takes that little step we shall see no doubt.
New ally?. He was a new ally in 1978 – by 1990 he overstepped the bounds and, after fair warning…how long did Desert Shield go on for?…he got pushed out of where he didnt belong and that was that. I dont know Garry first you are criticising the Coalition for not supporting the Shi’a uprising THEN your criticising the US for not being good allies. Could it be that you are being just a little opportunistic here?.
You are forgetting that malnutrition was a western sanction thing… a weapon they love to inflict on the peoples of countries in the vain hope it might save them the cost of an invasion and result in the people turning on their government. Of course all it really does is cause suffering amongst those the west claims to want to help, but in actual fact are totally indifferent to. The only countries under sanction have oil or p!$$ed the US/UK off in some small way.
Yes…sanctions that Hussein was absolutely powerless to prevent to save his people. Oh….no….thats not right is it?. He could have come clean about his stockpiles of prohibited materials and saved hundreds of thousands of lives couldn’t he….but that didnt happen until 1998 when his cousin defected with the real list!
I distinctly remember a pre invasion discussion where Jonesy even admitted it was all about oil and the “world economy” and I predicted that because it was all about the oil that the people of Iraq would be neglected and a power vaccuum would form.
You distinctly remember it wrong then!. I said I didnt care if Bush and Blair were going in for the oil because it would ultimately see the riddance of Hussein. I still dont particularly care if this all WAS for the oil on Bush’s part because Saddam has gone…never to come back…and that is job done. I think that someone being willing to take action behind a UNSC Resolution has made the UNSC a lot more robust-looking than it did up til 2003 – I just wish it wasnt the Americans who had to do it. No chance that the Russians or the French would sully their hands of course….Hussein owed them too much money!.
You mean the way they learned their lesson with saddam and kicked him out after they knew what sort of man he was in the early 1980s? Funny how Saddam wasn’t so bad that the Iraqi people kicked him out yet the Shah of Iran was so bad that the people of Iran actually rose up and did kick him out. It seems the people of Iran and the People of Iraq don’t think the same about what is intollerable as we do in the west… not something I would expect Phantom to get cause he doesn’t care about iranians or iraqis or anyone else but mericans, but I’d think you have some thoughts about that Jonesy.
Er I did….I was the one that pointed out the difference in Iranian and Iraqi political fervor….Flex confirmed the same for me?.
Considering a lot of those marsh arabs that are no longer marsh arabs because they answered George Bush Snrs call for them to rise up against saddam and then left them hanging in the breeze. But who is really to blame here? George Bush snr I’d say…
I’d agree it was Bush Snr’s fault…and John Major’s and all the other leaders of the coalition forces. Hang on though didnt you say before that the US would have been a bad ally of Iraq if it went in and deposed Saddam???. Contradicting yourself AGAIN Garry?
I know a lot of old people who would happily give up their freedom just to get a roof over their heads and three square meals a day. Freedom means nothing when the neighbour is a bomb maker and if you squeal you are dead and if the Americans find out you will probably suffer in the firefight anyway, and the only real jobs going is being a target in the police and army… even standing in line to join is not safe.
Hmmm as opposed to short food and water rations for the whole forseeable future, power brownouts, zero medical care and if you dont sing Saddams praises for your continued lot in life you get to watch while the secret-service rapes your wife and children in front of you as a punishment!. Hmmm happy life in Saddams Iraq….oh unless you are a Sunni of course!. Get real Garry!
You know what….I think I’ll give it up there as I’ve made all the points I think I have to!
JonesyFarooq,
I would respectfully disagree on this. I would have been more than happy to agree with the notion of “cold war realities” dictating absolute and desperate measures resulting in coups like the ones that i mentioned. Actually this very Operation Iraqi Freedom negates any such notions. The
way hysteria was built up in media, everyone was made silent and compliant. Those who didn’t buy the cooked up nuclear weapons threat ended up being branded non-patriotic at home and anti-american abroad.
Equally respectfully I dont think that the political ‘justifications’ for the invasion have any bearing on the future potential of US or UK ‘dirty tricks’ in the Middle East. The hysteria over here in the media was universally anti-war and still is and from what I’ve seen of the US media there are polarised attitudes over there more so than here.
If you are meaning that the legacy of this war is that the incumbent US leadership is able to whip the populace into a killing rage, through the media, and turn them loose on whichever small country hasn’t paid its danegeld that week I dont think, from my own perpsective only, that there is a very strong possibility of that at all.
Even though cold war is over, there can always be found “the next big evil” to rally the nation and it’s devices.
I’d say that this has already been found in the War on Terror. There is no doubt that the WoT has the potential to be blurred to fit whatever agenda the US administration wants it to – Terror being a wide target set after all. That it hasn’t struck at targets in N.Korea or Iran (ok…yet!) is indicative that there are other factors at work in the administration other than a slavering desire to kill!.
Alot of nations, small nations specially feel threatened by all awe inspiring govt of US which even though could get elected in a campaign run on domestic issues could throw nations in the fire of wars and civil wars. The most funny part is most americans would feel surprised when they come across the animosity of affected nations. After all they did was elect a president who would fix their social security or health care for example.
Cant say I disagree with that but, again with the greatest of respect, its sort of like commenting that tap dancing on the moon would be difficult!. Its no suprise to anyone but difficult to extrapolate a point from!.
In the context of the thread you raised the point that there is little to stop the US going back into Iraq to meddle with whatever regime it manages to conjure up to govern itself successfully (admittedly should that happy event ever occur!). I’ve agreed with the proviso that the prime reason for the original meddling is now gone and there seems, at face value, to be little profit for the US going back should the new Iraqi regime turn its back on them.
We can debate potential scenarios for the US doing so but I dont necessarily think this thread, on this board, is the proper place to accomplish this. Perhaps a more generalised thread on the General Discussion board?.
JonesyFirst it is great that you work in a lab, so we belong to the same community. I graduated as Molecular Microbiologist but now working on HIV.
Not that kind of lab I’m afraid. Its basically a communications equipment bay….essentially a large room filled with equipment racks that we go into, play with a load of hideously expensive equipment and, occaisionally, get it to explode….hence ‘lab’. Not quite as worthy work as trying to nail down HIV!.
It means, when it comes to charity, help your relitives, then the orphans, then the poors and then anybody else.
Yep I remember that bit….sounded very close to the Western epithet of ‘Charity begins at home’. Wondered at the time if the root derivation of that was in Islam perhaps!.
Anyway I’m just answering to thank you for your response as, like I said, I’d not wish for this thread to be curtailed prematurely for going any further off the topic than it already has.
JonesyI’ve heard of this ‘Muslim Uma’ before Qsaark and have been curious about it.
I had a conversation with several Muslim colleagues here in the UK, at least one who is very observent and would nip off to a quiet part of our Lab to pray at the requisite times, and I had a great conversation with them on the level of belonging to the brotherhood and whether or not that meant more to a Muslim than, for example, the concept of nationality.
Without a moments hesitation one, the observent one, said that his national identity meant more to him than his religious identity – that he would be more inclined to assist a member of his own country (Bangladesh originally) than a Muslim from another country. The others pretty much followed suit when the question was put in those terms – they’d sooner assist someone in their own lands rather than someone who claimed to be a Muslim from another land!?.
Now maybe its just that I work with a right bunch of selfish twerps (they’ll forgive me this!) but they are a good bunch of lads and, somehow, I dont see it?!.
Anyway this is a whole different discussion probably qsaark and probably one I’ll try hard to dodge before I inadvertently insult the whole Islamic faith!. Perhaps a new thread on the General Discussion forum before this thread gets closed down for meandering off its original topic…..we must be fairly close to that already!!!
JonesyFarooq,
Of course such a thing is possible…one might suggest that the political dynamic is now changed and that the cold war rivalries that made Iran important to the US are now dead and gone. Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism and pursuance of nuclear weapons, denied or not, does put it back in the US sights of course but these are much more negotiable issues than 70’s era nuclear ragnarok.
Currently though the US seems to be content to let diplomacy run its course on the Iran issue just as they have with North Korea. Iraq was a special case, as I see it, in that they did actually commit aggression that the UN opposed, proceeded to flout UN Security Council Resolution after Resolution and, possibly worst, really got up the nose of the sitting US Presidents daddy!.
Now, apart from the small issue of threatening to turn Israel into a self-illuminating car-park (something personally I feel the Israelis should be, and are, more than capable of forestalling by themselves!), even Iran’s current Regime arent in the same league. The rumblings are that Ahmadinejad aint that popular at home and the Iranians are not the Iraqi’s when it comes to being unhappy with the political leadership!.
The point being that, without the Iranian Revolution, there would have been little reason for the US to be involved with machiavellian plots supporting Saddam, now, with no new Iranian Revolution feasibly on the horizon there seems little reason for the US to interfere with any new Iraqi political machinery.
JonesyFlex
I cannot say that I know how much an average Iraqi values a freedom of speech in the face of all-present danger to go out on the street or lack of basic things like fresh water or electricity. Freedom of speech is an important social demand which only becomes visible after the very basic needs (hunger, thirst, safety) are fulfilled (which is often than not not the case).
Again though Flex, as I said to Hurrifan, things were no better for the general Iraqi citizenry, barring the Sunni’s of course, in pre-IRAQI FREEDOM Iraq under the UN sanctions that Hussein was so effectively ignoring.
I can only go by what I am told of the situation in Basra but people arent gnawing on rats to survive over there…..its not a lack of food and water they are suffering. Its the security side of things coupled to a lack of jobs and prospects – which are essentially one and the same problem.
The insurgency, be it Sunni or Shi’a, cannot let the population restore normality and get investment going – to get mass employment restarted – because satisfied people tend to be politically inactive. The radicalisation of the populace works for the insurgent and having to get up for work at 7am the next day tends to sap ones radicalism!. Sounds flippant but its true. this is the reason why the Iraqi police force has been hit so hard and infiltrated so deeply. If you prevent law and order you keep the ‘peasant sea’ Mao talked about so accurately where you want them.
This creates the perverse situation where the insurgency preys upon Iraq’s civil infrastructure to keep the civil population on side and, in their words, to build their idea of the perfect civilised society. Go figure that one out if you can!.
Upshot of all of that nausea is that, constricted as they were under Hussein, they had no chance whatsoever and no hope of things getting better…in fact looking at Husseins Junior….every chance of things getting far worse!. Now though they at least have a chance at something better and are learning lessons for themselves as a people.
Again I cant speak for anywhere other than the parts of Basra I’ve been told about but a lot of good people have gone over there and tried their level best to help. I’ve been told stories of hospitality from Iraqi families towards our lads that would make you cry….in fact I’ve seen one REME corporal, a big tough lad at that, literally in tears when he was telling me about one family that tried to give him their eldest boys bike in exchange for him getting the electricity back on in their house. Its by no means universal that Iraqi’s hate the west and all the evils it stands for!.
There is an almost certain possibility that after Iraqis go for reactionary Al Sadr types, they won’t be given opportunity to return back after learning their lesson. Compare to Iranian revolution in 1979..
That is a good comparison though Flex. I claim to be no expert on Iran but, as I understand it, the radicalisation of the Iranian populace died away fairly quickly after Khomeini went too far with the religious zealotry bit and, when Rafsanjani took up the reins Iran was making giant steps economically and thriving.
After him Khatami was also a highly respected and popular figure in Iran despite being a reformer. They seem to have come unglued a bit with this Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bloke but the political scene over there doesn’t seem, to the casual inspection, to be too reminiscent of Hussein’s regime at its peak!.
JonesyHurri,
Can see where you are coming from and i suppose it depends on which casualty figures you believe.Some sources claim that its past 100k civilian casualties, that seems impossible .But then given the sort of firepower present and the kind of war being fought is it maybe we are looking at,,,,
In this circumstance, being callous, I dont think the numbers of dead and injured actually have any bearing on the situation. There was one statistic, I believe from Amnesty, that stated Hussein had directly and indirectly caused the deaths of 1 million of his own citizens from the end of Desert Storm to just before the IRAQI FREEDOM intervention. Couple the repression of the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds with the hoarding of food supplies to the Sunni minority and I dont find that figure completely unbelievable. Despite this, or more likely because of it, the greater populace was unable to act against his regime.
Personally i dont think that SH, evil murdering scum that he was, could have killed the same numbers as have died so far…and thats the problem its only ” so far “..there is really no sign of an end to it. And in addition lets not forget that as you referred to above its not just the deaths, as reprehensible as they are, that we have to take into account…What about the total disintegration of the society?
I actually like the analogy employed above about Saddam being the RSJ in the edifice that was Saddam’s Iraq. Knock out the joist and the whole ‘rotten edifice’ falls to rubble. What that picture omits is that the building was a prison of the worst kind and, whilst people are undeniably metaphorically and physically now living amongst the rubble, at least they are free and there is enough rubble laying around to rebuild a new structure that may be a bit less oppressive.
Its scary to think that those who planned this didnt make any sort of allowance for the aftermath.
Undeniably true – I dont think even the staunchest Bush or Blair-ite would argue that one.
And these are the people who we are expected to depend on to save our “way of life”?…ohhh boy!
Who is trying to save our way of life?. The only threat my way of life is under, as far as I can determine, is from the current Labour government and its ID card scheme. That is not a subject to be discussed in this forum though!
Sign In
