Iraq war

[Yzerman]

Seen as it has now been 5 years since the invasion of iraq they were showing programs on it last night i watched a few of them. Most of them to me seemed like they were saying that it would have been better to leave saddam in charge because of the struggle they are having trying to install a government there.
The people may have had more stability under saddam but i dissagree that it would have been better to leave him in charge.

what are your views on this now?

[meow]

I think they should of finished the job after they invaded kuwait, or not gone in under false pretences of wmd.

its a mess now, and it will be a miracle if it gets any better such that they can leave any time soon, or if it is ever actauly better off to an extent they offsets the suffering cuased by the war to both sides.

[Sash]

I just think we should get our troops out of there. It's not our fight imo and only harm can come from us trying to help people that the majority of don't want to be helped. Same with Afganistan, why are our troops there? Why is our country basically defenceless? Because we are too busy rescuing countires that really don't want our help, but because we are seen as a bigger brother, we go wading in to help? Bring our troops home, and let them sort themselves out. Who helped us out with the IRA? hmmm no-one.

[Eraserhead]

The thing is governments rarely help other countries out of the goodness of their hearts. There's always some benefit to their own country. It's disadvantagous to us in the west to have a crazy fool like saddam in control of large oil reserves. It's probably bad also to have people like the Taliban in Afganistan in charge of an entire country and it's resources. Installing or maintaining governments that are simpathetic to our political aims in those countries always seems to be the way.

Whether these things are worth fighting wars over is something else. Stopping Kurds from being bombed with chemicals seems a worthy reason for invading a country but I doubt that's the primary reason behind the governments actions.

[teflon]

Originally Posted by Sash

I just think we should get our troops out of there. It's not our fight imo and only harm can come from us trying to help people that the majority of don't want to be helped.

I have a bit of a problem with that viewpoint. I hear it a lot these days from all sorts of people, including people I imagined would be slightly more thoughtful.
I think it comes from 2 different sources, the first and less common being those who know people serving in the army or even those who got killed out there. That is completely selfish, although understandable, such is the curse of the ego.
The second source I believe is a sort of blind idealism, the sort of idiots who parp out ridiculous oxymorons like 'illegal war' and those who smash up McDonaldses and Porsches during 'peaceful street protests', being the extreme end of the scale. But to use the fact we perhaps shouldn't have invaded in the first place for pulling out now is absurd and a non-sequitor.

We have to look at the situation as it is now, the coalition troops are the only thing that seem to be holding the Iraqi society together, they bloody hate each other those different Islamic sects. There is virtually no police, army, electricity, running water, food, petrol, and in a situation like that, without any sort of order, there would be complete chaos. Yes it was our armies who fucked up all their police, electricity, running water etc, so we surely have a duty to fix it? If we can. Pulling out would make it the most evil act visited upon any group since the Holocaust and I don't believe that is hyperbole.

If we leave and those Sunnys and Shites start slaughtering each other, and both turn on the Turds and slaughter them, something like 10 million people could die, war would spill over into neighboring countries, and I guarantee you every last remaining Arab would absolutely hate Britain and America. For generations to come, we would be being pelted with whatever they could come up with between them, and it wouldn't be long before that was Iranian nukes. Israel would start nuking folk, China and Russia would crap themselves, you know how that nightmare ends.

So yeah, lets pull out of Iraq, our poor little soldiers who VOLUNTEERED to go and MURDER foreigners for MONEY must be protected at all costs. So what if it does lead to, at best, an entire civilization being destroyed and hundreds of years racial hatred, suicide bombings etc, and at worst global nuclear armageddon. At least some spoiled middle class vegetarians who walk around their Notting Hill townhouses with no socks and shoes on can appease their militant consciences.

[Detomah]

Before the first Gulf war both the British and US governments had strategically placed people within Saddams palaces and the likes and given the command they could have taken down Saddam and all his minions in one fail swoop, without the need for either Gulf war and the subsequent years of our soldiers lives being at risk to try and sort out this mess. The command never came and the rest as they say, is history.

Pulling our troops out now would be worse than having left Saddam to run Iraq. They are in the middle of a job and need to see it through to the end. What it does need though is proper governmental backing, so that our troops can do their job properly, properly equiped, proper support from other countries and a damn sight less meddling and interfering from the various media groups out there.

If the British Forces were not in Iraq or Afghanistan, they would simply be somewhere else and likely in just as much danger as they are in now of losing their lives.

The reasons for invading Iraq, AKA due to "WMD" in my opinion still remains correct. They clearly had enough to attack the Kurds with several nasty chemicals and Chemical Ali didn't get his name for playing around with a kiddies chemistry set. Having UN inspectors visiting Iraq to check for such things simply forced Iraq to bury what they had deep under ground in the desert as they have done with so many of their arms and so many still remain undiscovered now, or failing that, they simply got some out of the country to their friendly neighbours. Obviously without finding them it's impossible to prove though.

You've got to remember, the British forces is not a conscription force, it is a paid career and a well paid one for most at that and before signing up, anyone joining is made well aware of the risks involved and all kinds of disclaimers and life insurance policies and the likes have to be filled in to cover any/all eventualities. So while it may be sad to see and hear members of our forces being killed (someone I served with in the RAF was killed just last week and it's very sad to hear of such things on the news), they have just as much chance of having a long career, recieving a great pension and being retrained for almost any career they want before entering civvy life afterwards. Most people in the forces love to have the opportunity to actually do something worthwhile and what they are trained to do, rather than being stuck on some stupid British forces base doing guard duty, drill practice, camp exercises and bull nights (block cleaning). Despite the risks of being blown up, shot or something like that, the actual buzz of active duty is immense, that and the extra pay for being on active duty and the nice disembarkation leave when you return home.

We've started something over there and we have to have the conviction to finish the job properly, or we will become targets for every western hating person in the world. I mean, you just have to look at Somalia, where America started a similar thing, but pulled out after failing to secure peace in the region and the country basically went to shit and is now run pretty much by drug barons and war lords (watch the film Black Hawk Down, as that's set in Somalia). The US government has done it a few times in the last few decades and everytime, they've made enemies, Britain really doesn't want to start getting tarred with that very same brush.

Didn't see Teflons post while doing my one, so we may overlap on certain things.

[Mankind]

That was poetry tef

[Sash]

I understand your point and probably would have a similar view except all you really see on the TV or in the papers is how much people don't want our troops to help, but yes I can understand why we should. I certainly wouldn't say we go in Gun ho and then not bother to help stabilise the country, that is just wrong. It was why are they there in the first place? But then again just from looking at the Tibet/China situation does actually want me to ask why we are not intervening in that situation, or in the very least, boycotting the Olympics.




I'm not an oxymoron though

[meow]

wow nice post from teflon, i tried to karma you but im not very good at spreading it around ....

I think its just so unpaletable to a lot of people too so its dificult for them to take a rational view on it, they just dont want it going on. but its the people over there now that are doing the harm, I dont think we made them like that by invading, we may have changed the situation a lot, and thats allowed bad things to happen, but if we pull out and they kill each other its their choice, they are the ones to blame.

and oh the irony of an 'illegal' war lol.

I think If we did pull out now it would be such a mess, and anything could happen after that.

but theres also the isue of wether we can actually ever withdraw without it being a total mess, and if staying their longer just means when we inevitably withdraw wich we must do as we cant stay there forever might actually make the result worse.

I dont think the people in charge have a clue whats going on, even less of how to fix it, certainly they didnt have a clue as to what to expect.

[kevin]

iraq is doing prity well now and its getting better. we'll be based there for a while but the iraqi soldiers would be able to control things.

[teflon]

Originally Posted by kevin

we'll be based there for a while

I'm willing to bet that the Americans are still there in 100 years. Not just because I'll be dead by the time it comes to paying up, but they're still in Germany and Japan. If one country beats another militarily they retain a presence there until their 'empire' dies. Rome and Macedonia and latterly Britain always did.

If you actually meant you personally are being posted to Basra then gl. I hear it's decent money.

[kevin]

im in basra now. in years to come, closest main presence we will have will be in kuwait.