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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Blaming the victim my ass. We're talking about armed rebels, who made a choice, not about the common civilians who weren't involved in any political process.
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Armed rebels who were INSTIGATED by Bush personally to topple the government. Armed rebels who had been oppressed for years.
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Besides, what more ****ing help did they want? We destroyed 60% of Saddam's AFV's, his three most loyal and most senior IRG divisions, most of his command and control infrastructure all over the country, almost all of his air force when you consider he didn't have access to those planes that boogied to Iran, and he was in the middle of shooting his senior officers who he blamed for failure. |
So? He still had way more than enough firepower to blast a bunch of poorly armed rebels. At the very least we could have shut the skies down. By the time we did it was too late.
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We had gotten military cooperation from the vast majority of the arab world, which was unprecedented, so the last thing we were going to do was lie to them and invade and overthrow an arab government when the only reason the arabs attacked a "brother arab" was because he'd done it first. We had potentially the best relations we'd ever had in the arab world, and the last thing we were going to do is knock over an arab government and have our "boys" take over. |
Cool. So we can just turn our backs and lie to the rebels instead. Oh wait, Bush didn't directly come out and promise help, so plausable deniability makes lying to them alot easier. 
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We had a strict doctrinal avoidance of urban warfare, since this was still the era of Air-Land 2000, and our assessment was that an organized, competent revolt would topple the regime. |
A poor assessment. But then, it was the rebels fault that they misreported their troop strength, right? Last I heard, most rebel groups have a fully staffed office of logistics, complete with satellite imagery. 
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Why the **** are we obligated to do the rebels jobs for them? We've suggested lots of things to lots of folks, but then I guess we should have invaded Cuba and Nicaragua, we should have gone back into Viet Nam in '75, invaded Afghanistan and fought the Soviets and started WW III, and we should invade on behalf of any rebels who think we should help them, because if we say so much as "have a nice day" we've obligated ourselves to bleed and die on their behalf. Bullshit. |
Way to take a bunch of individual situations and blanket them.
As for Cuba, yes, it SHOULD have been invaded, after Kennedy sold out the rebels. Speaking of which, Bay of Pigs and letting down the Kurds (and the southern revolt in Basra) are very similar situations.
Funny that we eventually ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq again, by the way.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
Armed rebels who were INSTIGATED by Bush personally to topple the government. Armed rebels who had been oppressed for years. |
Yes, President George H. W. Bush met with Iraqi dissident Abdullah al-Conscript today at the White House and promised full military support to topple the Hussein regime, if Abdullah can come up with three more guys and a Colt .45 
quote:
So? He still had way more than enough firepower to blast a bunch of poorly armed rebels. At the very least we could have shut the skies down. By the time we did it was too late.
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Sure, and we could have just taken over responsibility for running the whole country when the rebels demonstrated they didn't have enough support to maintain control. Hey, that's a way to bump Arkansas' and West Virginia's relative standings up - Iraq, the 51st state of the Union.
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Cool. So we can just turn our backs and lie to the rebels instead. Oh wait, Bush didn't directly come out and promise help, so plausable deniability makes lying to them alot easier. |
That is, assuming we lied to them in the first place.
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A poor assessment. But then, it was the rebels fault that they misreported their troop strength, right? Last I heard, most rebel groups have a fully staffed office of logistics, complete with satellite imagery. |
Rebelling against an established government is a risky business. If you're such a ****ing amateur that you do so with no idea of what level of support you can count on, then life will get to be a little rough. How many failed coup attempts have there been globally in the last 200 years? Then again, I suppose we should have invaded Venezuela after telling those poor people that we wouldn't mind terribly if Chavez went away.
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Way to take a bunch of individual situations and blanket them.
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Well, come up with a consistent doctrine. Or maybe we should just have a blanket refusal to even acknowledge the existence of dissident groups anywhere, so they don't confuse our willingness to talk with them, or our encouraging them to act at their own discretion with an advance treaty-level commitment of direct military support and use of our military as their proxies.
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As for Cuba, yes, it SHOULD have been invaded, after Kennedy sold out the rebels. |
Si, seeenyor, eet ees the great white man's burden to teeech the leeetle brown man how to ron hees own conntree, eeesn't eeet? Yes, that would be great for our relations in this hemisphere. Oh, the Cubans get rid of a corrupt brutal Yanquis proxy, but the guy who does it is a commie, so let's reinstall the Batististas and line a few disloyal peasants against the wall.
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Speaking of which, Bay of Pigs and letting down the Kurds (and the southern revolt in Basra) are very similar situations. |
Bullshit. We trained the participants in the Bay of Pigs, we provided them weapons, we made clear, explicit commitments of military support, we inserted Special Forces teams into Los Pinos and Camaguey to provide direct support for their operation. The two situations are incomparable.
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Funny that we eventually ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq again, by the way. |
Funny that the proxies we supported in Afghanistan are either (a) fighting us now (Hekmatyar), or (b) so inept, thuggish and unpopular that the Taleban were able to remove them from 95% of the country. (Dostum et al)
And we ended up in Iraq again because a bunch of chickenhawk ideologues decided it would be a nice test case for their Clancyesque flash and dash vision of the big bad US swinging it's **** at everyone in the world that pisses us off. 75 billion for the next month - yeah, we need to do this more often.
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S. Kroeze
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the Hague, the Netherlands, Old Europe
Dec 1999
time: 05:27
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The US never said, implied, or suggested that we would aid militarily in overthrowing the Iraqi regime. (The military/foreign policy crew at the time was intelligent enough to figure we'd have to consider arab world opinion).
What we did was let them know that if other elements within Iraq did overthrow Saddam, we wouldn't be displeased, and we'd be prepared to work favorably with a new government in Iraq. (As we would likely have been mightily displeased if someone overthrew the Saudis, because at least we knew the *******s we were dealing with)
At the time, there were strong indications of potential rebellions within the officer corps, due to the execution of numerous senior officers, as well as within the Republican Guard, or what was left of it, and our erroneous assessment was that Saddam and the Baath party were losing their grip on the country.
We were very clear with everyone that we had no desire to get involved in regime change, as we didn't want occupying powers responsibility over the whole damn country.  |
Strange.
In the media Saddam Hussein was after the attack on Quwait generally portrayed as the new 'Hitler', the greatest threat to world peace after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
In his speeches Bush sr. often used this World War II imagery.
I quite vividly remember several of his speeches in which he referred to the Nuremberg Trials after the War with Hitler. I also remember his expression a 'New World Order'.
When WW II ended with the Nuremberg Trials, a logical conclusion would be that the war against this 'new Hitler' might end with....
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Proteus_MST
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Sounds like it plays in the first half of the third Millenium.
Mostly Tanks and Infantry and the Mechs they have are mostly converted Agromechs or Industrial Mechs.
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S. Kroeze
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the Hague, the Netherlands, Old Europe
Dec 1999
time: 05:27
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Yeah, Bush worked the Hitler propaganda and a lot of stuff, but IIRC the "New World Order" nonsense started earlier, more in reference to the end of the cold war.
Bush's rhetoric towards Hussein was primarily in the early phase of getting zillions of UNSC resolutions, and getting countries to sign on with financial and military contributions to enforce the UNSCRs. We heard a pretty steady drone of how bad Hussein is, blah blah blah, but the notion of regime change by the US was dismissed immediately, as a way of getting arab support for the war. |
You might be correct on this issue, but can you provide ANY evidence (speeches by Bush, official government statements etc.) that supports your view.
To me the sudden cease-fire was a complete surprise, and normally I am not that naïve. At the time my father was dying, so it is possible I have missed something.
To this present day I am livid about it.
And by the way, even if the official stance was against 'regime change', it doesn't prove that the USA government didn't arrange all sorts of secret deals with Kurds and Shiites.
After all both the Reagan administration and Cheney made deals with the Axis of Evil in Teheran! Another example of similar involvement is the support of the US to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in this same period. They provided loads of weapons.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:27
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S. Kroeze: Here's the timeline. We stopped operations because we were massacring large number of Iraqi troops through our helicopter gunships. Pictures were starting to come out showing the devastation on the highway of death. Powell said that such unopposed killing was "unchivalrous" and everybody agreed. Then they looked at their objectives, decided that they had been achieved, and then moved to immediately sign the cease fire. The question then is whether or not our view of the destruction caused us to shoehorn the objectives into the "complete" category.
After that, Bush said the war was over, but that the Iraqis should take matters into their own hands and overthrow Hussein. A revolt in the South then ensued, which was crushed in about a week. The Kurds were attacked in the North, and there was a huge humanitarian crisis. We dropped food to them, and eventually set up a no-fly zone to protect them.
MtG is correct in stating that Bush never said explicitly that we would help the revolution. However, some here are saying, including myself, that if you advocate the overthrow of Hussein, then that implies material support. In this view, we shafted the Shiites.
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:27
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To me, there's a big difference in the morality of these situations. I did not view N Vietnam as the embodiment of evil and S Vietnam as some innocent, moral victim. In Iraq, Saddam and his forces do embody evil and the Kurds, Shi'ites and many Iraqis (in general), while not saintly perhaps, are innocent. I do believe if we stay in there to micromanage after the war we will be subject to continued guerilla attacks. But if we don't stay in, the Ba'athists will try to regain power. There will be a civil war once Saddam is ousted, a war between the ruling Ba'athists and the Shi'ite majority and Kurds seeking reprisals against the thugs who've tormented them for decades.
Maybe (let's hope) the Iraqis will have a more philosophical approach and bury the hatchet like Cambodians did once the Khmer was kicked out of power by the Vietnamese...not likely...but years and years of violence can motivate a tired people to seek peaceful resolutions...
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by S. Kroeze
You might be correct on this issue, but can you provide ANY evidence (speeches by Bush, official government statements etc.) that supports your view.
To me the sudden cease-fire was a complete surprise, and normally I am not that naïve. At the time my father was dying, so it is possible I have missed something.
To this present day I am livid about it. |
There's a few things - the texts of the early UNSCRs from 3 August 1990 on all affirm the sovereignty of both Iraq and Kuwait. Although after the fact, both Powell's and Schwarzkopf's autobiographies reflect the same stance, and Schwarzkopf's in particular gives a lot of detail, since as CentCom commander, he was dealing directly with arab defense ministers, military leaders, and in Saudi Arabia, with heads of state.
I don't know of good online resources for Bush's speeches and press statements, etc., since that stuff is pretty selectively archived. IIRC, Bob Woodward's book "The Commanders" gets into that subject as well.
quote:
And by the way, even if the official stance was against 'regime change', it doesn't prove that the USA government didn't arrange all sorts of secret deals with Kurds and Shiites.
After all both the Reagan administration and Cheney made deals with the Axis of Evil in Teheran! Another example of similar involvement is the support of the US to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in this same period. They provided loads of weapons. |
Personally, I don't like 98% of our history dirty dealings with some of the scumbag dictators we've been in bed with, and I'd support a much more aggressive foreign and military policy if we decided we were going to rid the world of ******* leaders, and started systematically liberating countries like Zimbabwe and Myanmar. I'd just like there to be a specific commitment to that, instead of the more common general commitment to get in bed with whoever seems in the short run to be the lesser of evils.
With that disclaimer, (plus I'm a multigeneration southern Democrat with an instinctive dislike for carpetbagging Yankee Republicans, so I'm no fan of the clan, so to speak) I don't believe Bush sr. would have made such deals. First, we're simply inept at getting caught in such things, from support of Pinochet, to the Diem assassination, to Iran-Contra and the BNL scandals.
Speaking of which, there's your main reason - Bush was in serious damage control mode, keeping heat off of just how much we'd supported Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war, and Bush had had to play the "I was out of the loop in that one" defense when Poindexter and Ollie North got caught playing Iran-Contra. With the BNL scandal about our bogus government loan guarantees to Iraq, then the embarassment of a war with Hussein just a few years later, I think the Bush admin would just be too politically gunshy of making such a deal with rebel elements in Iraq, lest public attention really get focused on taxpayers having to make good those billions in loan guarantees.
Support to the mujahedin in Afghanistan was never very "covert" - everyone knew about it. Since it was in the guise of fighting the Soviets, that was one of those deals that nobody felt a need to hide from a domestic political standpoint.
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Alexander's Horse
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Panmunjon, hands up!
Jan 1970
time: 15:27
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ANALYSIS: Eerie echoes of war
By RICHARD SALE, UPI Intelligence Correspondent
Reading in Thursday's Los Angeles Times that the supply lines for U.S.
3rd Division "have been stretched," and that the division was "alarmingly
low on water and also in danger of running out of food," made me think of
the eerie resemblance, so far, of the current U.S. war with Iraq and the
disastrous British campaign there in 1916.
In November of 1914, after Britain had declared war on Turkey, the
British Arab Bureau in Cairo had tried to foment an Arab rebellion that
would topple the Ottoman Empire. What followed was a horrible catastrophe,
much of it having to do with overextended supply lines and not having
enough effectively massed troops.
In 1914, as the war began, there were small numbers of British troops in
Iraq or Mesopotamia as it was called, stationed there to protect British
oil supplies in Iran. Soon several thousand more British forces appeared
to occupy the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
The Turkish response was feeble: Basra was miles distant from the main
Turkish forces massed at Baghdad. But in April 1915, an ambitious new
British commander, Sir John Nixon, had arrived on the scene, and he was
quick to sent his best operational officer, Maj-Gen. Charles Townshend, in
search of new victories. Despite Townshend's reluctance, Nixon sent him
marching up to Baghdad.
As one historian noted, such a march would have required for its success,
large masses of troops, hospital equipment, river transport, artillery and
supplies plus a mastery of logistics to have any chance at all. The
country was mosquito infested and there were no roads. More importantly,
the troops would need tons of ammunition and food, because the troops were
marching rapidly away from their secure supply line in the south.
Townshend furiously fought his way through to Ctesiphon, only 25 miles
from Baghdad, but soon the Turks had a new, very capable German commander,
Field Marshal Colman von der Goltz who quickly marshaled 40,000 new
Turkish troops to confront Townsend's force of 4,500, which was running
increasingly short of food and ammunition.
Townshend suddenly knew he was in trouble. Townshend wanted to retreat
250 miles south and make a stand, but his troops
were worn out, and he placed his forces on the defensive at al Kut, then a
mere mud village in a loop of the river. Goltz moved to besiege him and
sent more troops south the block any escape.
Or rescue. Townshend had food to last until April (chiefly because his
force had
suffered a thousand casualties), but he played a disastrous card, telling
superiors he could only hold out until January of 1916. This meant that
instead of putting together a relief force that could deal a single,
massive pulverizing blow to the Turks, the British rescue forces were
rushed in piecemeal and were destroyed piecemeal: they suffered 25,000
casualties.
In April, Townshend finally surrendered after a siege of 146 days. By
then he was mentally unbalanced, but the Turks allowed him to live in
luxury in captivity at Constantinople. His men were less fortunate.
Between the beginning of the campaign until Townsend's surrender, he had
lost 10,000 men. Those that lived to surrender all died as captive slaves
on Turkish railway gangs.
To David Fromkin, a prominent Middle East historian, the tragedy lay in
trying to go too far with too little, and with the fact Townsend kept
moving to the very end of his supply line while his enemy waited,
well-supplied, well-led, at the very beginning of his.
It was a humilating defeat inflicted by an enemy the British had always
pictured as ineffectual.
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