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Bereta_Eder
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you only killed 10,000?
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Bereta_Eder
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Tell'em Mobius
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Bereta_Eder
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Bullshite! Noone believes it the american occupation force tells it FFS! What do you need more? Its like Nazi germany says we didnt kill any jews.
however you killed 10,000 that's a fact and the Iraquis want you out even if they take you 1 by 1, or so it would seem dear
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oedo
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and the revolution
Feb 2000
time: 05:31
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quote:
The Ghosts of 1991
By Peter W. Galbraith
THE WASHINGTON POST Saturday, April 12, 2003; Page A19
Can it be that the events of 2003 in Iraq have finally dispelled the ghosts of 1991? The answer may not be quite as obvious as the welcoming throngs make it seem.
Just 12 years ago, the Shiite Muslims who constitute a majority in Iraq and in the city of Baghdad were betrayed by the United States - - an act that may have cost them as many as 100,000 lives. That recent history -- of which the Shiites are understandably a good deal less forgetful than we -- explains why the Shiites in the south initially greeted invading American and British forces with a good deal more reserve than expected. And as the continuing turmoil in southern towns and cities makes clear, building a democratic state in Iraq over the long term will depend to a large degree on how strong and lasting a trust we can build among these people.
The spontaneous Shiite uprising of 1991 consumed the southern part of Iraq right up to the approaches to Baghdad. Rebels came to U.S. troops, who were then deployed in the Euphrates Valley, begging for U.S. intervention. The Shiite political parties sent emissaries to the few Americans who would see them. To this day, I am haunted by the desperation in the appeals made to me by one group, as they realized time was running out for their countrymen.
Many of the problems we face now and in the future with Shiites likely have to do with the way the first Bush administration responded to those appeals. On Feb. 15, 1991, President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi military and people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. On March 3, an Iraqi tank commander returning from Kuwait fired a shell through one of the portraits of Hussein in Basra's main square, igniting the southern uprising. A week later, Kurdish rebels ended Hussein's control over much of the north.
But although Bush had called for the rebellion, his administration was caught unprepared when it happened. The administration knew little about those in the Iraqi opposition because, as a matter of policy, it refused to talk to them. Policymakers tended to see Iraq's main ethnic groups in caricature: The Shiites were feared as pro- Iranian and the Kurds as anti-Turkish. Indeed, the U.S. administration seemed to prefer the continuation of the Baath regime (albeit without Hussein) to the success of the rebellion. As one National Security Council official told me at the time: "Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime."
The practical expression of this policy came in the decisions made by the military on the ground. U.S. commanders spurned the rebels' plea for help. The United States allowed Iraq to send Republican Guard units into southern cities and to fly helicopter gunships. (This in spite of a ban on flights, articulated by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf with considerable swagger: "You fly, you die.") The consequences were devastating. Hussein's forces leveled the historical centers of the Shiite towns, bombarded sacred Shiite shrines and executed thousands on the spot. By some estimates, 100,000 people died in reprisal killings between March and September. Many of these atrocities were committed in proximity to American troops, who were under orders not to intervene.
In recent years Baghdad has shortchanged the south in the distribution of food and medicine, contributing to severe malnutrition among vulnerable populations. Some 100 Shiite clerics have been murdered, including four senior ayatollahs. Draining the marshes displaced 400,000 Marsh Arabs, destroying a culture that is one of the world's oldest, as well as causing immeasurable ecological damage.
The first Bush administration's decision to abandon the March uprising was a mistake of historic proportions. With U.S. help, or even neutrality, the March uprising could have succeeded, thus avoiding the need for a second costly war. (Bush's defenders insist the United States had no mandate to carry the war to Baghdad, but this is beside the point. The uprising started after the Gulf War ended, and the United States was positioned to easily down Iraqi helicopters and halt Iraqi tanks.)
The current President Bush cannot escape these ghosts. An American may understand what happened in 1991 as carelessness -- inexcusable but not malicious. An Iraqi Shiite saw a superpower that called for a rebellion and then ensured its failure. Naturally, he assumed this was intentional. In the months and years to come, many Shiites may take a lot of convincing about U.S. motives and reliability.
President George W. Bush has done much right that his father did wrong. His administration has been in constant contact with the Iraqi opposition. Humanitarian supplies are being rushed to southern Iraq, and clear warnings were issued against those who might have committed atrocities in the first days of the invasion. Unfortunately, the president carries a national and family legacy that many Iraqis associate with deadly betrayal. Overcoming that legacy has only begun. It is one of the critical challenges that lie ahead.
The writer, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, is a professor at the National War College. He was in rebel-held Iraq during the 1991 uprising. |
http://www.puk.org/web/htm/news/nws/news030412e.html
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johncmcleod
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Coeur d'Alene, ID, USA
Jan 2002
time: 21:31
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quote:
It will prevent another 300,000 from dying. |
I highly doubt it. Saddam hasn't murdered a lot of people for a while.
That article was a good one by the way.
And, if the war supporters would like to make this an Iraqi-war debate thread, that's fine with me. Even though I have poor debating skills, it is so easy to prove that the war was wrong that even I can probably do it.
Here are just a few of the reasons not to go into Iraq.
Blatant violation of international law.
The Iraqi people won't get the benefit of the oil.
The world hates us even more now. More terrorists
will be recruited, more lives will be lost from their attacks.
Our troops are in a terrible position right now, and
it is causing many lives to be lost.
The war is taking away many troops from other places they could be, such as Afghanistan or another intervention that might be needed.
Saddam has no WoMD.
Saddam will probably not be killing people because he
is skating on thin ice.
We won't be able to put together a democracy there.
The Iraqi people don't have much say in how their
government is being formed.
The war has cost many (estimates around 50,000) innocent lives.
Iraqi infrastructure has been wiped out. There has
been much bad looting.
The war has cost a whole lot of money, which is
putting the US in major debt.
The policy in Iraq is telling other nations, "If you
want to disagree with the US you better have nukes."
It also is telling the world that international law is irrelevant, and I don't think anyone would think that's a good idea.
If there was any WoMD, it probably is in the hands of
someone we don't trust now after the anarchy and the looting.
As for the weapons argument, it holds no weight. Why would Saddam blatantly attack the US? He would just get invaded in retaliation instantly and no one would oppose it. He also wouldn't give any weapons to Al-Quada, it would mean he'd have less for himself, it would mean if there was a terrorist attack with those weapons he'd get blamed (he even got blamed for 911), and there is no connection between him and Al-Quada. That's what the CIA says and it makes sense. He oppressed the Shiites in Iraq, and Al-Quada is made up of Shiites. They don't like him. Also, the weapons of mass destruction he did have were anthrax and a few bio-chemical agents, nothing that could seriously hurt people. The weapons inspectors that left in 98 said that he destroyed them all, and guess what? We've found no WoMD. So basically the weapons argument is nothing but propaganda and Americans are stupid enough to believe it.
The humanitarian argument is stupid also. There are so many other brutal dictators that murder just as many people (especially in the Congo) and we could go there with not nearly as many problems as we would going into Iraq, but we don.t The place we intervene in is the one that will hurt us. Additionally, the US does not act in the interests of other people. We do not have a good human rights record, so I don't think we'd invade another country for altruistic reasons.
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09-11-2003 04:12
noone believes it. 
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