Iraq, five years on
Brett over at Harry’s Place has written a rant about the Iraq War, which is typical in its attempt to muddle up various issues and then pretend the pro-war crew didn’t make miscalculations about the war on a massive scale.
He says:
The bottom line is this: Islamists have taken advantage of the instability and uncertainty following the fall of Saddam and turned Iraq into a battleground between Political Islam and The West, and of course between this Fundamentalist Islam against ordinary Muslims. Of course, I’ll get yelled at for saying this, but it must be pretty obvious by now that this is the case, even if many won’t yet admit it.
But he misses a segment before this. The instability and uncertainty were created because the idiots who took us to war had no real intention of bringing about peace and stability to the region or gave it much thought. They planned for it so badly that anyone under the delusion that Iraqis would greet them as ‘liberators’, hail the occupation and then immediately start running the country like Britain needs to be taken to a mental asylum. Or join a think-tank set up by Oliver Kamm.
I really don’t want to go over old territory like the SWP and the Stop the War Coalition and their own in-fighting. Their organisers are a bunch of opportunistic and naive fools who can’t stop fighting amongst each other. But the SWP and the StWC do not represent the anti-war movement and neither do they absolve, five years after we made this monumental mistake, Tony Blair and George Bush and their cronies of this monumentally bad decision..
Even after all the worst fears of people like myself have been realised there, we have to put up with all this self-denial bullshit on the pro-war left and the SWP.
Sure, the armed forces aren’t killing the majority of people there, though they’ve killed enough people on their own too. Remember “shock and awe”? Remember the “flattening” of Fallujah? The White Phosphorous? The “mistaken” bombing of Al-Jazeera?
The question is: who is responsible for creating such monumental instability that the al-Qaeda and Iranians were so easily able to fill the vaccuum? We know the answer to that. But it looks some people would rather not ask such questions. Thankfully though, we have Channel 4. Did anyone watch their series on Iraq last night? What did you think?
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Filed in: Current affairs, Middle East
Instability in Iraq took place for three main reasons:
- The failure of the Americans to secure power stations and other utilities immediately, and the lack of troops on the ground, as well as an inabiity to realise that even a few hundred armed terrorists can cause repeated death and chaos with modern weapns.
- The viciousness of the response from Sunni insurgents and Shia death squads, and the subsequent difficulty of combatting both at once.
- The complete lack of will in the West needed to deal with the terrorists in Iraq, as well as the pro-Saddam propagandists (Moore, Galloway, etc.). This attitude delayed an increase in troop numbers for years, despite it being desperately needed, while ensuring that America was blamed for all the deaths, even though it was the Sunni insurgents and Shia death squads doing the killng.
As usual I could kiss Sunny for writing this but he’ll have to settle for a few jars of Kronenburg 1664 instead.
It took place for one main reason Rumbold:
The invasion of Iraq by belligerent war mongerers.
Pro war people should acknowledge their moral complicity in this, but they don’t because they were arrogant and blind and racist to begin with, why will these arrogant blind racists change?
You drink beer from jars? Blimey, you do lead the high life.
Rumbold, instead of your third point, which I don’t think was that influential, I would substitute, the decision to disband the Iraqi army.
The Channel 4 documentary showed the reality of the US ’surge’ in Baghdad and ‘handing power over to the Iraqis’ in Basra by the British. In both cases, local Sunni and Shia militia, even some Al-Qaida, have been handed responsibility and large cheques. Soon the US and British troops will go and Iraq will break into its provinces with these militias in full control. The Iraqi parliament will become obsolete. Iran will be waiting in the wings.
Using post-war Germany reconstruction as the blueprint for post-Saddam Iraq was a big mistake by Rumsfold and the like. Rather than war, we should have encouraged democratic opposition, however time consuming this may have been. For now, we’re in a pickle with no end in sight.
Rumbold
Its hard to disagree with what you say, but I must object to the pro-war camps use of the STWC coalition leadership as a strawman. The truth is that they have fuck all to do with the failures of the Iraq war.
Who’s responsible? Blair and Bush.
As for the STWC leadership, the only influence and power that they have exists in the mind of those ex-SWPers at Harry’s place. Its time for the Pro-war crowd to admit that they got it wrong, instead of projecting on to the STWC coalition. It’s beyond a joke.
Also, I’ve been thinking, the main argument that pro-war apologists still put forward is that the need for war was there, but it wasn’t executed properly.
This absolves them of being wrong about the war by pinning the blame on the incompetency of the bush administration.
However it seems to me that for the war to go well, you would have needed an extraordinarily amount of things going right as you only needed a couple of mistakes to lead to the chaos we have now.
The fact that the execution of the war was so terrible, shouldn’t obscure the fact that even well thought out and seemingly sensible decisions would have still landed us in this mess.
Roohi:
Yup- just as everyone who was pro-war is responsible for the chaos, so everyone who opposed it was a fan of Saddam’s brutal regime. Lets not go down this road.
Shariq:
Agreed, and I would widen that out to include all those ordinary people whom America purged for ‘working for Saddam’, thus creating an army of angry unemployed people who have access to AK-47s and other weapons.
ZinZin, can’t you recognise the symptoms of denial and psychological projection by the racists and war mongerers of Harrys Place and other pro war maniacs and idiots? They have so much blood on their hands its unbelievable. What better way to displace that horror than to fence with irrelevant gants like the SWP? It distracts attention from their complicity in it all, and their support for belligerent war mongerers. You have to be arrogant in the first place, arrogance of this magnitude doesn’t just change like that.
That’s the false comparison that war mongerers make. The two are not comparable. But its the kind of rhetorical dishonesty and equivalence slight of hand that the war mongerers make to displace the blood on their hands. Really quite pathetic.
Zinzin:
They only have played a minior part but they have contributed to the malaise, which is a curious compromise whereby British forces are in Iraq but are restricted from doing too much. But as you say, lets focus on the those more culpable.
Shariq:
While there still would have been problems, betterplanning surely would have ensured that the stuation would have been a lot better, sooner. I suppose with regards to going to war the question is how much of a liberal interventionist people are.
Why aren’t liberal interventionists advocating going to war with China to liberate Tibet?
Dropping cluster bombs on Buddhist children in Lhasa for freedom!
Rumbold, normally from slop buckets, jars are for when we’re feeling elegant.
If I could turn the clock back five years and stop the war, I would, because of the number of Iraqis killed by terrorists or by Shia death squads, because of the way in which women and homosexuals now live in fear.
Sid:
Heh.
“They only have played a minor part but they have contributed to the malaise, which is a curious compromise whereby British forces are in Iraq but are restricted from doing too much. But as you say, lets focus on the those more culpable.”
What minor part? British forces are a minor part of the coalition forces, to suggest that they (STWC) had a minor part in the curent situation is bizarre. They had no part in it at all, the war went ahead and at that moment it becomes the sole reponsibility of the US/UK governments.
The STWC are a safe easy target for the Pro-war left and right. If they didn’t exist they would have to invent them.
ZinZin:
I am talking about the general attitude of people like the StWC, not them specifically. If they were simply ant-war, then fine, but they are not. They are anti-America, which doesn’t help the Iraqis.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, even from ‘liberal’ racist interventionist warmongerers blinded by their own arrogance.
Rumbold
How did the war help the Iraqi’s?. The STWC are a red herring, not a red menace.
I didn’t actually march against the war, although my daughter did – with my proud blessing. But it seemed obvious to me from the start that the war was wrong. Not because Saddam should not be brought down, I wanted him brought down during all those years he was propped up by the west, but because the motives behind the war – and hence the objectives on the ground – were so patently wrong. As Rob Newman put it, it was a punishment beating, pour encourager les autres.
Yes, the aftermath was catastrophically handled, but that was not an incidental failure of planning. It was inherent in the bad faith with which the venture was conceived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HcEgntmBL0
Interesting choice of “bottom line” from Brett, quoted in the article. It seems obvious to war-critics that this choice of bottom-line is convenient and partial. But maybe our “bottom-line” simplifications are too: that it was incompetently fought or planned from the US/UK side (thereby marginalising arguments over its morality or legality) or that it was immoral in principle (thereby gaining credibility for an otherwise unpopular point of view on the back of the actual human cost beyond what was expected) or illegal (thereby not facing up to the question of when there might be a moral case for humanitarian intervention) or that it was based on lies (which suggests honest imperialism or aggression would be preferable) and so on.
We can pick holes in anyone’s bottom line, because there is a mess of principles and of motives which we all juggle with, and we are all better at spotting elements of bad faith in people we disagree with.
Personally I am sad that after five years, there is still little discussion about the principles for future interventions which we would be happy to be applied consistently by all States. A safer world would be one where there is some restraint on “might is right”.
I am sad that human rights of Iraqis – so unimportant to the UK Government when Saddam Hussein was an ally, so important when he became a foe, have become unimportant again now they are seeking asylum or fleeing militias. Maybe our bottom lines keep seeming to shift, because we might not be able to admit to ourselves what the bottom line really is.
When will the threshold be reached for invading China – what is the bottom line for Tibetan freedom, or disaming Hu Jintao?
The war was started for reasons other than to bring stability to the region and now the project is failing the right is blaming everyone but itself for its poor planning and the fact that they were not welcome as or see as liberators but viewed as occupiers.
Simply put the war itself was based upon lies and false assertions.
The war was planned by people who had no military experience or knowledge and had no knowledge of the local situation or understanding of religion and culture in the region.
Basing war doctrine on experiences from 50 years ago was plain stupidity and gross laziness and negligence.
The consequences are great as in future leaders will have a difficult time persuading people to go to war even if the cause is justified.
Also the hypocracy in bringing forward a solution for Iraq when the I/P issue had been waiting and desperatly needs attention for so long.
Also the lies of the right when they went to war it was to remove a danger and when that didn’t materialise then it was toi remove Saddam so why not have removed Milosovic by force?
Mr Blair, speaking to the House of Commons, 18 March:
“1441 is a very clear resolution. It lays down a final opportunity for Saddam to disarm. It rehearses the fact that he has been for years in material breach of 17 separate UN resolutions.
It says that this time compliance must be full, unconditional and immediate… Iraq has made some concessions to co-operation but no-one disputes it is not fully co-operating.
Iraq continues to deny that it has any WMD, though no serious intelligence service anywhere in the world believes them.”
So what about other outstanding UN Resolutions?
Also now why does Blair continue to shift ground and deny that he essentially lied to the people – and is every intelligence agency in the world now useless!
There are serious issues here as Blair, Bush and co. have pushed the world to the bring of another war with Iran.
Is the Middle East more secure now? No.
Have the serious issues in the Middle East been addressed? No.
So the right has misled the people and is now shifting blame instead of accepting responsibility for its actions.
Right now with the suffering the world needs to accept Bush, Blair, Chenney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Straw, Hoon, Powell, Feith, Wolfowitz, Pearle and co. as being responsible for this fiasco and they shouldn’t be deemed fit to hold public office ever again.
‘…the principles for future interventions which we would be happy to be applied consistently by all States.’
Damn right. I believe liberal interventionism can not only be positive, but is sometimes a moral imperative. Sierra Leone and East Timor being the templates, Rwanda the great failure to act when effective action was possible.
The architects of the Iraq disaster try to hide behind that principle and so contaminate it, which is another crime on their heads.
The architects of the Iraq disaster try to hide behind that principle and so contaminate it, which is another crime on their heads.
Gosh that’s brilliant. Wish I’d said that.
If Liberal Interventionism by the right doesn’t apply across the board but only where it suits the rights. That isn’t just of fair by corrupt interventionism.
It is this policy which fuels the major issues facing the world.
Gosh I agree with Avi Cohen, I think need a lie down in a darkened room.
Those who brand all those who supported the war as racist must recognise that every poll of Iraqi people since the war has shown between 50 and 75% in favour of the invasion.
Whatever the mistakes,those against the war must not pose as representing Iraqi opinion.
‘Wish I’d said that.’
You will, Sid, you will.
To lose one war may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Jeez are we still discussing this?
I would love to know what all the critics of the invasion of Iraq think it would be like now in Iraq and the Middle East if there had been no invasion.
Would all those regularly murdered by the Saddam regime be alive?
Would there be no Iraqi WMD?*
Would all be coming up roses between Iraq and Iran?
Would no one, no country, be threatened by the regime?
Who would be in line to replace the dictator?
I really want to know the answers to these questions.
* A long time ago I did a physics degree (in the UK) and one of my fellow students was an Iraqi girl. We were the only two of our year to get thirds, she because she was very nervous in exams, and me, because I was not very good at physics.
Good post Sunny. But as someone else, ZinZin, points out the SWtC is a not at issue here. Its Harry’s Place in its entirety (not just Brett) which has worked furiously to fling mud and worse at anyone and everything to cover their own deceit (not miscalculation). The best thing you did was not sign up to their joke of a manifesto of further interventions as and when wanted (not needed). So the only reason for referring to HP should be their duplicity.
I have far more time for the likes of Johann Hari (always a good read) for acknowledging his mistake in supporting the war than for all those others who have sunk so low that they do not even want the consideration of pursuing peace. Yes that’s Olive Oil’s position.
As for those that took us to war, not an insignificant number of them were responsible for involvement in Latin America where death squads were the order of the day. Where catholic religious leaders were murdered, for responding to calls for human rights.
All in all I am still not convinced that the chaos created in Iraq was unintential.
Anyone recall musings of Rumsfeld’s coterie on the subject of draining swamps? And the idea that Iraq could be where all those AQ’s are drawn in before the swamp is drained?
Remember that?
And whilst that process goes on, the bases become de facto permanent structures.
McCain understands it – ‘even if it takes a 100 years’. With a bit of luck the oil will have run out in the next 25. Lets hope it does for the sake of the Iraqi people (and all the others of the middle east).
But perhaps that would be just long enough to deliver total spectrum dominance.
Good God, they’re still at it, aren’t they?
Allow me to summarise Brett’s post, for those with short attention spans…
I may have been caught on CCTV shoving my head up my arse, but terrorists are evil! They massacre people and blow up holy shrines!
Now, I ask you, if terrorists are evil, how could I possibly have shoved my head up my arse? And stop waving that CCTV tape, that’s Michael Mooron pro-fascist propaganda.
Basically, he wants to claim the fallen statue in Firdoz Square and the purple-fingered Iraqis for Decency, while laying the blame for the current debacle at the door of anyone who disagrees with him. The correct name for this kind of behaviour is “nasty, disingenuous wriggling” and it should be given short shrift.
This is before we get to the part where he admonishes everyone for being stuck in the pre-war arguments after he spends the post putting the boot into the StWC – an organisation that has lived untroubled by media attention since before the invasion.
I used to think that the Decent Left were an entertaining anachronism; an amusing example of what can happen when rampant ideological mania starts shutting down the brain’s critical faculties.
Having read the pro-war left’s recent musings, it’s pretty obvious that they’re a menace to themselves and everybody else, and should be ridiculed in the most merciless terms when encountered.
Their tiresome critiques amount to a particularly snide form of concern-trolling and they seem only to want to sow enough doubt in the minds of reasonable people to convince them to acquiesce to fucking stupid foreign policy schemes.
I’d advise treating them with the same level of patience, civility and intellectual charity that they allow anyone to their left – absolutely none whatsoever.
Flying Rodent,
I read the stuff on Harry’s Place, and, what can you say? It is a pretty one-sided view of the arguement. And here I will present an arguement that they hate.
We are culpable. We are supposed to be the big boys. We managed to put our Nuclear Weapons Inspectors into a country, and they found nothing.
We are culpable, we sit comfortably behind our computer screens and say or do nothing about Marsh Arabs or Kurds. Indeed encourage the uprising and then give no support. How would Iraq have been if the Marsh Arabs had won? Or the Kurds had managed to break away? Our keyboard warriors on the decent wing have only silence to offer on that possibility now.
We are culpable, because we couldn’t make sanctions, nor a no-fly zone actually work.
We are culpable, as corruption at a UN level messed up the oil for food programme.
We are culpable, because we believed that spun evidence – yellow cake, anyone – had any semblance of reality.
We are culpable, because we ‘believed’ that we were under imminent threat from a third world dictatorship that apparently was unable to shred Swedish virgins without us knowing.
We are culpable, for assuming any relationship between Al Quaida and Iraq, prior to the invasion.
We are culpable for thinking Hans Blix was an idiot.
We are culpable for assuming that the CIA didn’t know what they were talking about.
We are culpable, fucks sake, add your own.
For all those who keep asking or implying that those who speak against the lies used to go to war were for Saddam this is a damn lie.
If Saddam was the issue the why:
a) Lie about the need to go to war.
b) Not have stepped in earlier to get rid of Saddam
c) why sell him equipment to make weapons when you know he was a nasty scumbag
These are fundemental questions that Blair, Bush and others won’t answer because they lied.
If the justification for going to war was to bring about the end of the suffering of the Iraqi people then why stop there why not invade other countries to stop suffering their?
The fundemental point is that the principle – the high and mighty principle being bandied about to cover a lie then isn’t being urged in other cases.
A lie even when it is covered by rose petals is still a lie. They lied to go to war and haven’t made the world a safer place. In fact thye have simply accelerated the race for nuclear arms in the Middle East because countries are now afraid of being invaded.
These are the legacy and consequences of the lies in the longer term. There are just to many lies and broken promises to justify the outlandish claims.
Sid – Thank you.
Douglas Clark – excellent post – one of the best on the subject.
Also for those at Harry’s Place who advocate intevention as a policy then why not invade Israel and the West Bank to get rid of the madness there?
Why is that immune from their policy. This highlights the hypocracy of their claim as there is so much suffering on both sides and people being killed so why not invade?
Before people jump in from both sides the argument here is to highlight the stupidity of the argument used by the right. I am not advocating invasion here but just asking why not? Why not invade allies to get rid of suffering?
It shows these people for what they are – liars who promised to help solve major world problems f the world gave them some slack on Iraq and they lied and did nothing.
Why not invade Uzbekistan to end suffering there – well they let them use bases that why they didn’t need to invade.
Why not invade China to stop the problems and suffering in so many provinces as we see the suffering in Tibet and Xijang.
Why not invade Burma much easier and very brutal.
The question is why be selective about where you intevene?
i guess i’d agree with rumbold @ #1 and #12, with the addition of the fatally flawed debaathification strategy and the disbanding of the army (#5). in fact, i am astonished at quite how incompetent the handling of the post-war administration and reconstruction has been even without the insurgency and meddling by iran, pace #6, albeit i will concede as a supporter of saddam’s removal that shariq has a point. unfortunately my position’s not that useful, because it was always that this stuff should have been done in 1990 but wasn’t for reasons of not upsetting the syrians and turks, so the kurds and the iraqis all got shafted with another 13 years of sanctions and saddam.
i agree that the STWC are to a certain extent straw men, just as the left has its straw men. however, this should not prevent us from serious criticisms where warranted. on the whole i think this is a perfectly valid and well-argued piece.
roohi:
positions like yours are indicative of precisely why it is so difficult to have a reasonable, balanced and rational debate without a bunch of doctrinaire name-callers butting in.
as for “why aren’t we declaring war on china?”, only the most naive, cloth-headed armchair liberals would deny that realpolitik and diplomacy have a commanding voice in this equation and apparently expect all international interactions to be run by bono and the guardian. as you well know, the reason we haven’t “done anything” about china is that:
a) they have nuclear weapons
b) we need them to manufacture stuff and buy stuff
c) they’re MASSIVE and couldn’t possibly be occupied
d) they have enormous conventional forces
e) in the long run, they’ll have to liberalise in order to grow their economy – money will do the work instead of bombs.
this is straw-mannery par excellence. as for burma, unfortunately, despite the bastards who run the place, no other nation-state really has that much stake in what happens. how about sudan? how about zimbabwe? once you start, you’d never be done.
ultimately this is about the fact that nation-states by definition look after their national interests, which makes them selfish, inconsistent and hypocritical (why is it that none of these angry-stop-the-war-and-blame-america-niks can spell “hypocrisy”?)
iraq, in my opinion at the time, was a “clear and present danger”. i *still* don’t agree that the WMD “never existed” – they certainly existed at halabja. i continue to believe they were very well hidden, or smuggled over the border to syria. i think the PR case for the war was in many cases built on extremely flimsy evidence, but i still think the risk was there that saddam could have passed them on to militants – it is certainly a fact that he funded extensive hamas suicide operations against israelis so the links were there if he needed them. the same can be said for iran, although now of course there isn’t the political will to confront them. almost the only good thing is how scared it made the libyans and syrians, the former abandoning their WMD entirely and the latter scaling down their attempts to keep lebanon under their thumb – again, the iranians were unfortunately the beneficiaries, due to our inability to solve that particular issue.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Also perhaps Harry’s Place could address a crucial question namely if the war was so justified and planned well by the right then why is Bliar taking every job under the sun to rebuild his shattered reputation?
He begged old Bambi Bush to let him have the Middle East Envoy role and was so despised by everyone else that the USA had to pay his salary so good was his reputation that he went running for the job instead of the UN coming to him.
Every fews days he is taking a new role to repair his pathetic image across the world. Why do this if your reputation following the war is already so good as surely you’d bask in the glory.
Why is it that people like Doggie Feith are trying to absolve themselves of blame. Obviously ole Harry’s Place is so busy still trying to justify things they haven’t seen their idols blaming Blame Game. Yes Blame Game this new Easter Gift from the right – can you blame veeryone else for your mistakes – stricly a limited edition game.
Why is it that people in the UK and USA no longer trust politicians? Why is it that people are reluctant to sanction new intervention or war?
It is because of the lies which these people told which has changed the face of politics forever.
The legacy of Iraq and consequently of Bliar, Bambi Bush and the right is that:
People don’t trust politicians
The original war aims failed
Bliar and Bambi didn’t address the issue of the region as promised and people are still suffering.
i think the PR case for the war was in many cases built on extremely flimsy evidence,
*Only* the PR case? That’s viewing the entire war effort as being morally and technically faultless, but tragically failed by a bunch of PR execs. That’s astonishingly blinkered and I’m surprised that that bunkum is coming from you BB.
BB – the links you use to justify the linkage between Saddam and extremist groups is factually incorrect. Yes Saddam funded Hamas for popularity reasons and thus paid families of suicide bombers.
But he wouldn’t have had any reason to escalte mattesrs by supplying these groups with WMD’s because then he would be directly attacked. This is all indirect and low scale.
It is the same with Iran they won’t do such things because then the reprisal is direct and not indirect.
Thus the link which is being made is totally false as the leadership in either country won’t take on Israel directly because of the response and they won’t do it using WMDs.
What they will do is participate in a low scale (for them) proxy war with Israel. No a major scale war which brings massive reprisals.
It is fairly easy to buy WMD material from the old USSR so why would states risk such an escalation with a nuclear armed Israel. It simply isn’t worth the risk.
If Israel is attacked using chemical or low grade nuclear material then it will use nuclear weapons against the offending state and they know that. Hence even Saddam wouldn’t be so stupid.
The proxy wars are conducted at a level that Iran and Israel can manage and if people think they don’t talk about major escalation issues then you are mistaken.
Yes, yes *pats rumbold on the head* it had nothing to do with the fact that the country was illegally invaded on a false pretext, or the US/UK’s subsequent tactics in Iraq (and Sunny, along with the virtually indescriminate flattening of areas of civilian inhabitation you forgot Abu Gharib, or the US’s clandestine support for sectarian death squads, the use of mercenaries, etc).
Yes, and blaming the Stop the War coalition and George Galloway, that also takes us right to the crux of the matter: the traitorous anti-war movement stayed our hands when we should have been meteing out the most extreme punishment to the Iraqi “terrorists” (who were of course to a man all sectarian terrorists and militias, there weren’t groups who were concentrating on targeting the coaltion invaders of their country who of course had a god given right to be there). Also, Nurse, quick the medicine!
Back to the real world, how many times do I have to bring up a point that has been voiced many times but not in mainstream circles, namely that under international law, in particular given the precedence of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, initiating an aggressive war leaves you liable in an extremely important respect for ALL the consequences of that war? The coalition forces either knew that sectarian bloodshed was a likely consequence (which frankly any idiot could figure out) of invading Iraq and dismissed the probable toll; or they didn’t even bother considering it, an absolute contempt for the lives of millions of Iraqis disguised as extreme negligence . Either way it makes them guilty.
Anas,
I completely agree with that. What a strange coalition, Avi Cohen, Sid, you and me. All agreeing with each other. Wonders will never cease!
Oh, and that chap Sunny Hundal too
#42- brilliant, Anas.
Deffo Douglas, we are a coalition of the odd.
An interesting issue that should be addressed here is the extent to which the failure of the massive anti-War protests prior to the Iraq War has fuelled disillusionment with the political process and a tendency especially amongst the young of a disengagement with politics. I think the effect has been profound.
In fact the effects of the War have been profound in so many ways not directly related to the mountain high piles of Iraqi bodies it has generated, the millions displaced or the fact that it has proven more more of a disaster to Iraqi society than the brutal Mongol invasions, e.g., its disruptive and extreme effects on the world economy, politics in the US and UK, its effects on the Islamic world in general.
Oh yeah and Harry’s Place…wtf? Why take anything any of their commentators says as anything but a lame joke.
And today here is just some of the news from Iraq on the 5th Anniversary.
Anas,
There used to be a magazine called ‘Back Brain Recluse’. What worries me is that you are my back brain recluse.
So, I agree completely with you about the perception that massive demonstrations, across all political guidelines, made no difference to the Blair administration, and that that really pissed people off about politics. It did it for me, and I suspect it did it for you too.
Good to see you writing here again.
I’ll keep this short.
The invasion of Iraq was wrong. Dead wrong. Absolutely wrong as well as illegal.
No amount of belly arching and chest beating will get over this singular truth. There is a “easy” way for the pro-invasion lobbyist to win this agrument. Show us the WMD’s.
Good points Anas, nice to have you back.
There is a argument that the failure of the Anti-War demo’s to stop the invasion, directly lead to the London bombings of 7/7. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
You know one other major outcome of the Iraq War which again has had significant impact is simply the fact that a sitting Prime Minister actullay didn’t listen to the will of the people and didn’t actually care about what the people thought on such a major international issue that has ramifications for decades to come.
Yes his job is to take these decisions but he railroaded the decision through – hardly democratic in itself. He threatened MP’s who didn’t side with him – again hardly democractic.
Then the Lord Hutton enquiry was so narrowed in its scope that it was meaningless – but did Bliar or the right care – no.
Then when proven wrong when no weapons were found he never apologised to the people of this country, or Iraq or the world for the mess he had created. Teh man is so vain he couldn’t see anything wrong.
The people of this country have also not been allowed to know where the claims of 45 minutes came from but does Bliar or the right care – no.
Essentially democracy was put to one side as Bliar sought to go on his own agenda. Yet Bliar and the right don’t care.
Also what chance did the Iraqi’s have when Bliar couldn’t even be bothered to ensure that his troops had adequete equipment?
Why when Bliar went to Iraq did he expect a level of protection he failed to provide his own troops.
The money Bliar spent on his folly could have been better spent on healthcare and education in this country. Instead of making the world safer Bliar and Bambi made it unsafe. Instead of focussing on the issue at hand namely extremism and terrorism Bliar and Bush looked the other way to an issue though important wasn’t the central problem facing the world which was terrorism and extremism and not Iraqi WMD’s. That is the greatest lie which has diverted attention from the issue.
Surely history should judge these two circus clowns for this rather than whitewashing their sordid role in this matter.
And let us not forget that these people are also currently suffering in Iraq:
http://www.iraqprayer.org/persecution.htm
What have the American forces, or the current Iraqi Government done to stop their persecution?
What’s worse, these poor folks’ lot is unlikely to improve even if America and the UK finally does the correct thing and pulls out.
The war was never to help the Iraqi people that was just a nice addition. It was all about cheap oil and securing supplies to oil. It was also to stop the move to sell oil in Euros which would cripple the USA and to a lesser degree the UK.
Basically when buying oil in dollars the USA as the producer of dollars practically gets it oil free as everyone has to buy in dollars.
If it went to Euros then the USA would have to buy euros on the market to pay for its oil. They can’t afford that.
Hence the PetroDollar cycle and the threat to break this is what spurred the US on.
From the Independant yesterday, Robert Fisk has an excellent insight into this very subject:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn-797816.html
“Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a “hell-disaster”.”
…
“Pat Buchanan, written five months earlier; and still, today I feel its power and its prescience and its absolute historical honesty: “With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla war.
“They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.”
…
“America’s massive military prestige has been irreparably diminished. And if there are, as I now calculate, 22 times as many Western troops in the Muslim world as there were at the time of the 11th and 12th century Crusades, we must ask what we are doing. Are we there for oil? For democracy? For Israel? For fear of weapons of mass destruction? Or for fear of Islam?”
In conclusion he writes:
“It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror – yes, our terror – of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and “terror”. But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and “terror”. It’s not too complicated an equation. And we don’t need a public inquiry to get it right.”
Also from yesterday thye had other very good articles:
Patrick Cockburn: This is the war that started with lies, and continues with lie after lie after lie
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-this-is-the-war-that-started-with-lies-and-continues-with-lie-after-lie-after-lie-797788.html
Our legacy is a dark and forbidding place of militias
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/our-legacy-is-a-dark-and-forbidding-place-of-militias-797787.html
Five years after the invasion, the totality of our failure is clear
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-five-years-after-the-invasion-the-totality-of-our-failure-is-clear-797759.html
“Even now, the removal of that dictator remains the single attainment of an enterprise that was always as flawed in its genesis as in execution. Iraq is a war-torn and wasted land. Estimates of its civilian dead range from almost 100,000 to more than 10 times as many. More than two million of its people have fled. The indiscriminate killings may have slowed, but ethnic cleansing continues apace.
Any semblance of democracy is confined to the Kurdish region – as it was before the war. The government and parliament are corralled in the Green Zone, walled off from the citizens they are supposed to serve.”
Prehaps those at Harry’s Place should remember this rather sombre factual note. What they have created is in fact a hell hole for the people whoi live their that is the end result for all those who supported this war.
But one thing I would say is that it isn’t just the Iraqi people suffering from this folly, it is the families in the USA and UK whose loved ones were killed on these lies. Also the entire region is suffering. The suffering in Israel and Palestine is also clear as they head towards this same mess as Bliar and Bush-Whacked couldn’t be bothered helping them to come to an agreement.
But no-one who is in power cares.
That is the tragedy of this whole mess.
From the Independant yesterday, Robert Fisk has an excellent insight into this very subject
A fine example of tautology!
Still Avi, most Iraqis think the decision to remove Saddam in 2003 was the right one. More than any other nation. But it’s easy to forget what they think….
Still Avi, most Iraqis think the decision to remove Saddam in 2003 was the right one.
An even finer example of a tautology. Since Iraqis may have wanted Saddam to be removed but they wouldn’t have wished the situation they are in now in their worst nightmares. Do please stop projecting your wishes on the Iraqi people.
In fact despite all the violence most Iraqis are optimistic.
Most iraqis say that it will have been justified if it results in a stable democracy.
I am merely pointing the statistically collected opinions of the Iraqis. It’s a bit hard to swallow, if you opposed the Iraq war all along. It’s almost like the ‘anti-war’ crowd want it to fail. Many do. They NEVER talk about the good things happening now or the good thinks that may lie in the future.
Those nasty Americans have made a real hell hole of Falluja haven’t they?
An even finer example of a tautology. Since Iraqis may have wanted Saddam to be removed but they wouldn’t have wished the situation they are in now in their worst nightmares. Do please stop projecting your wishes on the Iraqi people.
Crikey, what a funny thing to say given the evidence:
From today’s perspective and all things considered, was it absolutely right, somewhat right, somewhat wrong, or absolutely wrong that US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in spring 2003?
That’s a question from the recent BBC poll and it divides 49% supporting and 50% opposing, with the trend very much showing increasing support. Other polls have shown small majorities supportive of the action taken in 2003.
I know this is bad medicine for those who’ve spent the last 5 years convincing themselves and others that they know the minds of every Iraqi, but there you have it.
There’s certainly a lot of wish “projection” taking place both on this thread and in the wider debate, but the idea that most of it is coming from the pro-war side is just too funny.
I know this is bad medicine for those who’ve spent the last 5 years convincing themselves and others that they know the minds of every Iraqi, but there you have it.
Perhaps that the bad medicine is what prowar folks like you are being forced to swallow, but you wouldn’t know given your lack of response to it. That charge about knowing the minds of every single Iraqi should actually be directed at people who benefit from a smug glow of pride when links from the New York Post show a few Iraqis in bike races in Fallujah as indication that their war has succeeded.
So you don’t believe the polls Sid?
Do you believe the numerous studies on the numbers of Iraqi dead? At least they’re peer-reviewed, something that can’t be said about your polls.
They’re not my polls and I tend to believe that the largest WHO survey (1000 clusters) not the tiny Lancet one (47 clusters)is likely to be closest to the truth.
Why don’t you believe the polls?
Roohi:
Who said I was a liberal?
Don:
I supported the war because of that principle. The question is, when should it be applied, and who should apply it? A security council with China and Russia on it?
Anas:
I doubt that had an effect on the levels of violence. Do you think that Sunni suicide bombers or Shia death squads care whether or not the UN authorised it? I doubt those who blew up the UN building did. There are plenty of valid criticisms to be made, but I have never understood why the ‘illegal’ one seems to inspire such emotion. It seems to suggest that if a handful of countries, some dictatorships like Russia and China, had voted in favour, then everything would have been okay.
Avi, excellent contributions. And thanks for the links.
Why don’t you believe the polls?
Because they’re not peer-reviewed. Have you got any meta-data on the polls? What are their sample sizes? What is the breakdown by ethno-religious democgraphics?
Cos Sid didn’t support the war. Sid *knows* things are completely terrible in iraq with no hope whatsoever and if polls say anything that even mildly challenges this anti war dogma then the polls must be wrong. Everytime…
Well I lived through a tiny little war in 1971 which didn’t involve cluster bombs, stealth bombers, high impact munitions, white phosphorus, and you know what – it was not a good experience, the scars of war remain for generations. So if you think the Iraq over the last 5 years has left Iraq in a position to be a healthy democratic state anytime soon then you’re a deluded cunt. Check your hubris at the door when you comment on PP, otherwise go blow smoke up the arse of the prowar folk at Harry’s Place.
All the information you need for the latest poll is here Sid.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf
This is the information I gleaned on the sample data:
“This poll, marking the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war on March 19, 2003, is
the fifth in Iraq by ABC News and other media partners. It consists of face-to-face
interviews with a random national sample of more than 2,200 Iraqi adults.”
hardly exhaustive.
Perhaps that the bad medicine is what prowar folks like you are being forced to swallow, but you wouldn’t know given your lack of response to it. That charge about knowing the minds of every single Iraqi should actually be directed at people who benefit from a smug glow of pride when links from the New York Post show a few Iraqis in bike races in Fallujah as indication that their war has succeeded.
So that’s how it works…
Polls show that Iraqi opinion on the war is pretty much evenly split, so Sid starts talking about bike races in Fallujah?
Have you got any meta-data on the polls?
Quie right. Who needs polls when to get the inside track on Iraqi thinking you simply have to visit PP? Why should we invest more faith in a poll of actual Iraqis than a comment by anti-war blogger Sid?
Thanks for setting me straight, Sid.
Fine.
No point in you commenting then is there?
No problem Brownie, I’ll always be indebted to you to point out how to be a patronising jerk.
If you discard peer-reviwed studies and then come here flouting polls by the BBC as definitive, do you expect anything other than derision.
Loved your polls and your puff piece on Bernard Manning. Great stuff.
Brownie, Marvin
If you run a poll at the time of ‘Shock and awe’ followed by one after a million have died but things start getting quieter, what results do you think you get?
And so 60% or whatever it is think things are getting better. Better than what?
Isn’t this the same hook Bush and McCain hang their hats?
I am with Sid, and the vast majority of people on this planet. Go poll them and then prove me wrong. No metadata required.
Plain old common-sense versus an innate desire to play with bombs and other peoples’ lives. I am sure Sid has better phrases for you than I care to use.
Rumbold
Principles an excellent thing to have , its good to have moral markers, even if we don’t necessarily live up to them.
Liberal intervention is a principle that is by your own admission selectively applied and only against those that the US/UK disapprove of. In the case of Iraq the liberal intervention arguments played second fiddle to WMD, those at Harry’s place know this and as the WMD have not turned up, no surprises there, they resort to moral blackmail.
Five years on and I am still waiting for the Pro-war left to hold its hand up and admit that it got it wrong. Instead, we get denial, projection and the same old tired critique of the StWC.
Meanwhile, In Iraq the civil war is postponed, and will be rearranged for a future date, when the US/UK forces leave.
Look why does everyone keep pointing back to oh we removed Saddam – if that was the original aim then that should have been stated.
It only became the aim when WMD’s didn’t materialise.
Also if interventionism is the new policy to remove dictators that the masses don’t like then why are other countries not being invaded?
Zimbabwe being a prime example of a place where people are hurting.
Milosovic was another but they didn’t invade Serbia now did they.
So it is nonsense to say this was the intention. I don’t get why people don’t understand that.
You were lied to and you are making excuses for being lied to.
If the intention was to help the people of Iraq then it should have been done a long time ago.
Also if the war is such a success then why is Bush buying off militia to support him and what happens to his aim of democracy when he leaves? Militia and democracy don’t go together.
Also I doubt your surveys were carried out over a cross section of society but most likely in heavily controlled areas like the Green Zone. So they are pretty meaningless.
Also as you put so much stock in surveys most Iraqi’s want the Americans to leave so why don’t they cause your survey said so?
Some people will buy any myth as long as a Conservative puts it out!!
No problem Brownie, I’ll always be indebted to you to point out how to be a patronising jerk.
You might want to consider rewording that. I don’t think you’ve quite managed to make the intended point.
If you discard peer-reviwed studies and then come here flouting polls by the BBC as definitive, do you expect anything other than derision.
You do realise that what you’ve written there amounts to an admission that the polling evidence does indeed contradict your prejudiced notion of what Iraqis believe, but that you think this is justified because in the past you’re adamant I’ve done X (which I haven’t, as it happens)? In other words, you’ve moved on from denial to ‘whataboutery’?
Oh, and “polls by the BBC” won’t wash. I can provide you with links to several other polls asking similar questions about the Iraqi verdict on the invasion and the results are the same or thereabouts. But, really, what would be the point? You *know* what Iraqis believe already, don’t you Sid? I mean, you were in a war, once. In 1971.
Loved your polls and your puff piece on Bernard Manning. Great stuff.
oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The typed equivalent of “yeah but…no but…yeah but…”. I guess it was just a matter of time.
I am with Sid, and the vast majority of people on this planet. Go poll them and then prove me wrong. No metadata required.
Hold up, do polls mean anything or don’t they? If they don’t, then your entreaty here is meaningless. If they do, then at least have the intellectual and moral courage to acknowledge what Iraqis themselves say about the war that you didn’t want. It’s not as if it’s all bad news for you guys. Approximately half of Iraqis side with you. I have no problem acknowledging this fact. Do you have such little faith in the robustness of your own arguments that you have to pretend that the other 50% of Iraqis should have their views ignored?
This is intellectual cowardice writ large. It seems I overestimated PP.
fuck off Brownie, you are a first class twat.
Is that all you got, punk?
You have a great Easter.
I am with Sid, and the vast majority of people on this planet.
Except of course the Iraqis …. Sorry. Could not resist.
Anyway, there’s no point in furthering this anymore. Gets too personal too quickly. There’s good intentions on both sides, it’s just very very polarised. I really can’t be fucked with getting worked up to be honest.
Personally I live in the hope that one day Iraq can be a stable democracy, and something that the world can be proud of.
It’s all about the iraqis.
Now, lets hope the jihadis and the militias get tired of all this killing.
As a smart man once commented, the Iraqi resistance has got to be one of the only resistances that actually causes the occupying forces to stay longer than they want to.
Glad to see the old confidence is back, Brownie… Between this and your Incredible Hulk impersonation on HP’s Not-Our-Fault-A-Thon, I’d say this is a storming return to form.
And it’s good to see the old certainty when dealing with statistical analysis too… No quibbling over discrepancies or “main-street bias” this time, I see, just immediate acceptance – in fact, an instant leap to cram it down the throats of your ideological foes…
So, since you’re urging us anti-war types to reconsider our beliefs in light of this poll, how’s your own analysis going?
I gather that large parts of Iraq look a bit like downtown Tehran at the moment, especially the Shiite areas. It certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that a large proportion of that 49% are happy about the invasion because it’s given them the perfect opportunity to set up their own repressive Islamic Republic. That’s their prerogative, and probably better than living under Saddam, but I wouldn’t have thought it would be the Decent Left’s preferred outcome.
Or, who knows, maybe they’re committed to a process of democratic secularisation and human rights.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that neither of us know the minds of Iraqis, but I’m absolutely certain their priorities and ours don’t much overlap.
Something to bear in mind before mounting your high horse with all these negativist liberals, don’t you think?
‘Except of course the Iraqis …. Sorry. Could not resist.’
That’s the central point being made by the pro-war crowd. Sid rightly questions the veracity of the polls you use as a crutch, and you question his or our fraternity with Iraqi humanity. This is the same tired argument which asks would you rather have Saddam back. Worthless. But if you can’t see it, then there is no debate to be had. Not with you.
To show you how much I am with the Iraqis, I ask you to join me in proposing reparations for every Iraqi killed since the invasion to be paid out of US/UK coffers proportionately split. Not out of Iraq’s oil. And not the simple $1000 blood money typical of imperialists; but similar amounts as any US citizen might be awarded by US courts.
Intellectual cowardice is unable to concede peer-reviewed studies but uncritically accept incremental polls which suggest that, say, 70 dead Iraqis killed in atrocities this month is better than 71 last, but who still have no schools no running water or electricity since 2005.
But hey, we have 2298 Iraqis polled by ABC in the Green Zone to tell us things are better for them, so we must be winning the war – and all is good. Syndicate that to BBC, AP, Fox. We’re winning the fucking war!
Harry’s Place hasn’t had an original idea since 2003. If it weren’t for David T, all it would amount to is the same prowar guff replayed to an echo chamber of mutual masturbators. Oh and posts about Bernard Manning being a top bloke.
PP on the other hand, well…we got blog.
Sorry to say Sid, even David T is proving to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
‘This is intellectual cowardice writ large. It seems I overestimated PP.’
Quite the opposite. PP has evolved and developed a backbone.
Brownie,
I hope you are still reading this thread, although I doubt it. You and your chums on Harry’s Place had me pretty well convinced that what we were doing in Iraq was the equivalent of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. A just and reasonable proposition.
But one that turned out to be dust, Brownie, dust. And you are still pushing the same line. I said at the time that the death toll was now unacceptable, that nothing justified the half million or so folk that had died.
You, coming back with justification on behalf of those that are still alive is pretty sickening.
The death toll is now around the million mark. It just gets worse the longer it goes on, and it frankly does you a dis-service as a human being to be on that side of the arguement.
Dead people can’t vote in your stupid polls.
Sid,
There are grounds for calling the ABC/BBC opinion poll a fraud, but it is quite clear that they did poll across the provinces and not just within the Green Zone.
It would be somewhat amazing, would it not, if Kurds thought things were worse, than under Saddam? So you could expect a high positive – from a Harry’s Place viewpoint – vote there.
Which is exactly what the BBC tells us. Here is an extract from them:
That Kurdish vote is what I think Brownie relies on, it skews the figures.
It is also not correct to claim the sample size was inadequate, it is, in fact quite adequate.
What is not at all clear is on what basis the correspondents were supposed to answer. Was it a harking back to the days of Saddam, or was it last year? That is not at all clear in their methodology. Correct me if I am wrong.
Actually, the ABC/BBC poll is skewed toward the Sunnis,with a 30% weighting.
tim,
hmmm. You could be right. Please point me to where you get that weighting from.
Anyway, I found this from the time of the election.
Seems to me then that, on face value, there is a 50% overstatement of the Sunni position in the BBC/ABC poll. Why would that be?
More urbanise I think.
They used to use 35%!
I posted a link earlier in the thread.
It explains why this poll is always more “pessimistic”
than other pollsters.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2954886
I doubt that had an effect on the levels of violence. Do you think that Sunni suicide bombers or Shia death squads care whether or not the UN authorised it?
To an extent, that is obviously true: supposedly, the actual legality of the war comes down to the exact position of a comma in one of the UN resolutions. Move the comma in either direction, and nothing much changes: thoughtful legal scholars will still say the wars legitimacy is ‘questionable’, SWP-equivalent ones will call it simply ‘illegal’, government-affiliated ones the opposite. The media and audience will repeat whichever reinforces what they think for other reasons.
The thing that actually matters is perception, and the consequences of that perception: legitimacy.
If the war had been widely perceived as the world uniting to rid itself of a dangerous tyrant who had just gone too far, for too long, it is quite likely the Iraqi army would have surrendered en-masse early on, and cooperated as a whole in setting up a successor regime. By now, the biggest news might be occasional riots by those not sharing in the booming economy.
On the other hand, look at exactly the same events as a foreign invasion by the USA (with a few lackeys), going underground and cooperating with al Qaeda to kick off an insurgency starts to look like an appropriate plan. Which is how we got to where we are.
At the risk of pissing-off everyone simultaneously, here’s my view:
Bush’s key mistake, worse than a crime, directly parallels that of Arafat. Both were faced with an unjust situation, where the successful use of force would be justified on both liberal and humanitarian grounds. Both epically fucked it up, at the military and political levels. They failed to maintain a united front (Hamas : France), failed to maintain the moral high ground (torture : terrorism), failed in strategy (withdrawal in 2004 : Oslo). The justice of their cause was used not as an asset, but as spending money, as an excuse for their failure and corruption. This allowed them to continue on, making more and bigger mistakes until the well of legitimacy finally ran dry.
Compare with either Blair/Serbia, or, in particular, Mandela/South Africa. If you focus solely on abstract, universalised definitions, ‘imperialist’ or ‘criminal’, then you can’t avoid being obviously wrong about one of the four cases. Politics, life, is more complicated than that. You can’t switch off any part of your brain, use any less than your full facilities, disregard any inconvenient facts, and have any hope of being in the right.
On a technical point about surveys, from tim’s link:
Experimentally, weighting these results to 30 or even 25 percent Sunni Arab would change numbers on which Sunni Arab and Shiite divisions are greatest, but the average change across all questions would be one or 1.5 percentage points (depending on the weight used), and none of the differences would alter any of the fundamental conclusions in our analysis.
That explains why it is a lot easier to measure common things, like opinions (everyone has at least one), than relatively rare things like violent deaths. A subtle systematic bias that affects 20 out of 2000 samples makes an insignificant difference in one case, and multiplies the number by 10 in another.
That’s why Iraqi opinion polls generally give similar results, but the various mortality surveys give very different ones.
I doubt that had an effect on the levels of violence.
Well I think the fact that the country was invaded was the prime cause of all the violence, no? And yes, I do like to point out the fact that the invasion was illegal whenever I can, because it was. The UN however massively flawed it is as an institution given the primary role of dictatorships like China, along with international law, is meant, however ineffectually, to prevent, or at least dissuade certain groups of countries taking it upon themselves to invade/blow up other countries when not under immediate threat. Are you suggesting we just dump the pretence of the UN and international law altogether?
…and actually, I do think the fact that Iraq was invaded in defiance of the international community might well have boosted, at least, foreign jihadi recruitment.
The stuff about the polls is interesting — and I could only give the abcnews link a brief look. Personally I’m happy about the (small) increase in optimism among Iraqis that the polls, if accurate, purport to show — after how many deaths and how many millions displaced?
And even if 49% according to the poll think the invasion was right – 51% are still against it (95% of Sunnis), which I suppose is a kind of success for those who supported the war: gradually decreasing the majority of people against the invasion which you carried out to liberate them. (Altho, who knows what’ll happen to that figure if the effects of the surge — due in large part to our cosying up to nasty sectarian fundamentalist militias with hairy faces and lots of weapons — prove to be unsustainable).
Also the poll shows that 42% support attacks on US forces, which is a lot of people — again a kind of success only 42% (62% of Sunnis), which is a few million I guess, of the population you set to liberate think it’s OK to attack you, you have to take your succour where you can.
And of course it’s unwise to think of Iraqis as a single monolithic block given we’ve done so much to create civil strife, both ‘unintentionally’ and as part of a strategy of divide conquer, so it’s probably more important than ever to break down these polls in terms of the opinions of the winners and losers — which sadly means pro-war pillocks have even less mileage from the poll given the overwhelmingly negative opinions of the sunni population, now a beleaguered minority. That is again if we take the poll as accurate.
Thanks for the nice words,sid, douglas, zz. Sorry to
see you’re shutting down your blog because of the trouble you’ve been getting, Zinzin. Hope it starts up again soon.
Quite the opposite. PP has evolved and developed a backbone.
Glad to hear that Refresh
Anas
Excellent post #94. Its heading for a civil war along religious/ethnic lines.
I hoped that the occupation would be a success, but after 5 years and no discernable improvement in everyday life for Iraqis it has failed. No security, no electricity and rather bizarrely no petrol. If the US/UK actually took reconstruction seriously they would not have the clusterfuck that exists today.
Thanks for your concern Anas, nothing I can do about that I’m afraid. That blog is now part of a civil case, which will inevitably mean restricting my blogging activities.
Well it’s still good to see you here on PP, ZZ.
I should have said developing.
We will all know when its fully developed – and it will be there for all to see.
Refresh,
This site now has both a backbone and quite a lot of brains too. It is evolving into something quite interesting. This child is growing into an adult. Who will not be pushed around.
I’m not sure, exactly, what it is, but as long as it keeps the wide range of commentators that it has, it will go, IMVHO, from strength to strength.
You can actually watch commentators mature. They are influenced by what is said on here. No, I am not going to name names. They know who they are. And they are all good, decent people.
So I’ll leave you with this.
I was not lying to Brownie, when I said what I said at 86. I was semi-convinced that they had a case. When you eventually realise that you’ve been sold snake oil, you do tend to react badly.
I think Brownie is a ‘decent’ human being, who, unfortunately, seems able to deny death toll figures that even Norman Geras found deplorable.
Brownie is, allegedly a citizen, planet Earth?
No, he is just another denialist. He denies whatever it suits him to deny, that second, that minute, that hour, that day.
Frankly, if I didn’t think there was a decent person inside that husk, I’d have given up on him long ago.
Douglas, it is indeed maturing. And its been a long hard struggle getting to where we are today. And you too have played your part.
Your comments to Brownie are to be commended.
I believe HP as a comrade of PP has long passed its sell by date, it was painful to see many worthier friends dropped over the last couple of years and find the diversionary HP still here. I just wasn’t very clear. Sorry.
But coming back to Brownie, I am with you – hate the sin not the sinner.
Refresh,
Quite. He seems to me to be unable to rise above his juvenile and irresponsible attitude. Perhaps, after a wash and a shave, he could become a Pickled Politics commentator?
Too much to hope for…
Refresh,
I was going to let this go, but I can’t:
Thanks, thank you very much. I sincerely believe that this forum is a force for good. We might disagree with each other sometimes, but we do seem to have mutual respect. Which is something we should all be aiming for, I think.
It is maybe worth saying that the likes of Sonia Ali and Sunny Hundal would definitely get my vote, these days. I’m not so sure they would have, say three years ago. Call me a late enlightened twit, but I have nothing but respect for folk that can hold an arguement together. Which is not something you see a lot of. And that they do, IMVHO.
Haven’t been keeping up with the general nastiness the lowlives over at HP have been getting up to (frankly why bother?) but as the estimable Mark Elf has pointed out (along with many others I’m sure) it wouldn’t be unfair to call it a hate site:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/03/harrys-hatesite.html
Newsnight is well worth watching today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2008/03/tuesday_25_march_2008_1.html
It reports that much of the presentation given by Colin Powell to the UN was in fact discredited evidence which the CIA and MI6 had said was fabricated. The evidence was supplied by an agent named Curveball and in fact it wasn’t true.
Curveball alledged that:
Iraq had mobile chemical weapons factories – this was a lie.
Iraq had an agent in London – apparently it turns out this was a reference to a 16 year old boy doing GCSE’s.
Powell claimed this agent was an eywitness to an accident in Iraq when in fact the agent wasn’t even in Iraq at the time and thus couldn’t have been an eyewitness.
MI6 said that the testimony from this German Agent bore the signs of someone who was fabricating. This advice was ignored.
Powell presented the evidence without proper checks and despite cautionary notes and cals by some within the CIA to remove it from his speech.
In addition what is emerging is that the nuclear claim was obtained using torture.
The whole evidence used to get support for the war was in fact based upon lies and where Intelligance Agencies questioned the evidence this was ignored to the point that Bliar said no agency in the world believed Iraq wasn’t producing WMD’s – again not true as his own Intelligence Agency doubted the evidence.
The simple fact is the world was lied to in order to take the West into a premeditated war. Bliar ignored the caution of his own intelligence agency which had deemed the agent a fabricator.
Thus in fact democracy itself was undermined by leaders bent on deceiving people to go to war. How on earth can anyone defend these people or the war?
It is indeed a sad fact that news reporting has been dumbed down to such an extent in the USA and is starting to happen in the UK that those who question the aims of the right are called unpatriotic.
Yet lying and causing massive civilian deaths and untold suffering is rewarding as being patriotic and spreading democracy. Thus stand Bliar and Bushy who have hoodwinked so many to believe the falsehoods.
I wonder if people are truely proud of going to war based on a lie.