20 Years Ago I Happily Cheered On the Iraq Invasion... that was stupid

[Fergasun]

I have seen a lot of articles talking about the 20 year anniversary of the Iraq invasion.  Lots of defensivity from our leaders, media finger pointing, etc. 

 

I was younger.  I was dumber.  I thought it would be better to "fight them there than fight them here".  I didn't even care much about whether or not finding WMD was important if we are being honest. I didn't want a 9/11 to happen again in America.  

 

The Iraq War invasion was awesome to watch unfold on Fox News day in and day out.  I even read Russian propaganda reports that made it sound like our media was lying.  I cheered on as we toppled Saddamn's statue (probably the Iraq people did it), caught him and his children, etc. etc. It slowly turned into a disaster and obviously "we broke it so we should fix it" is a dumb idea.  We could have backed put once we removed Saddam... we wanted control.  

 

We are probably beyond the GWOT phase of American history.  Domestic, gun violence is a larger treat than 9/11 like attacks.  Probably because we wasted trillions of dollars and undue politocal energy on this.  Not sure, but that is probably more likely due to CIA/FBI/National Security spying and hyper vigilence.  The GWOT, "preemptive attack" argument and Iraq invasion is a black eye that Americans should teach to future generations.  My trust in politicians was way too high and naive at that time.  

 

I am sorry for all the Americans and Iraqis (and others) whose lives were ruined by the invasion I cheered on.

[PokerPacker]

Honest question: How is Iraq today?  Nobody seems to talk about it.

[tshile]

Saddam was a terrible person that needed to be tried for his crimes and executed. I’m glad we made that happen. 
 

The rest of it certainly could have and should have been done different. 
 

and nation building is a waste of time and money. It’s one thing to help people that want it (like say, potentially Ukraine if they win), it’s another to force it on people that don’t want it or aren’t willing to do what it requires. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

It seems strange to me that Russia would point to Iraq when trying to justify their invasion of Ukraine. It didn’t work out for us, it won’t work out for them.

[PleaseBlitz]

Does anyone else think that OBL "won"?  I do.  His goal was to cause as much damage to the US and the West as possible.  His plan not only killed 3,000 plus people directly, but he caused us to spend $3 trillion that could have been better used doing almost anything else, countless deaths of US service people, changed US domestic policy for decades and irreparably damaged the US' standing in the world.  Today, the Post's foreign policy columnist, David Ignatious, had the following exchange in a chat:

 

Quote

Reader:  The global community has been unable to form an all-encompassing grand coalition against Russia's naked aggression against Ukraine. "Only" 142 countries voted for the UNGA resolution condemning the RF. It should have been a "no-brainer" for 190 countries. To what extent can we chalk this up to another one of the myriad unintended negative consequences of Bush's 2003 invasion if Iraq?

 

Ignatius:   Painful truth in what this questioner says. Iraq left a deep residual mistrust in the world of American intentions--and also of our ability to deliver results. On this 20th anniversary of the war, we have to be honest about its consequences--and people like me who argued that it was justified have to admit that we were wrong. We are still paying the costs.

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

6 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Does anyone else think that OBL "won"?  I do.  His goal was to cause as much damage to the US and the West as possible.  His plan not only killed 3,000 plus people directly, but he caused us to spend $3 trillion that could have been better used doing almost anything else, countless deaths of US service people, changed US domestic policy for decades and irreparably damaged the US' standing in the world.  Today, the Post's foreign policy columnist, David Ignatious, had the following exchange in a chat:

 

 

 

Well, he’s dead. If death is winning, yes he won.

[Captain Wiggles]

18 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Does anyone else think that OBL "won"? 

 

Kinda but certainly not in the way he initially intended. His plan was to draw US forces into Afghanistan for a decisive defeat. Similar to the USSR defeat there decades earlier. The main goal in his mind was to bankrupt the US. He failed in that regard. 

 

Bin Laden certainly did change the landscape of both America and Afghanistan. He managed to radicalize the population of Afghanistan against America as well as Americans against Muslims. So in some way he kinda achieved his goal. 

 

I still have the same opinion now as I did 20 years ago. The Iraq invasion was wrong but it was good for the military industrial complex. I'll never forget the day my Raytheon stock split 2:1 back in 2005. 🤑

Edited March 22, 2023 by Captain Wiggles

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Kinda but certainly not in the way he initially intended. His plan was to draw US forces into Afghanistan for a decisive defeat. Similar to the USSR defeat there decades earlier. The main goal in his mind was to bankrupt the US. He failed in that regard. 

 

Bin Laden certainly did change the landscape of both America and Afghanistan. He managed to radicalize the population of Afghanistan against America as well as Americans against Muslims. 

 

Maybe not exactly the way he planned, but certainly the US spent an absolute ****ton of blood and treasure and badly damaged its international standing.  

 

1 minute ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

I still have the same opinion now as I did 20 years ago. The Iraq invasion was wrong but it was good for the military industrial complex. I'll never forget the day my Raytheon stock split 2:1 back in 2005. 🤑

 

Sure was.  $3 trillion could have been good for the healthcare industrial complex or the education industrial complex or the infrastructure industrial complex or the science industrial complex or a hundred other things were the country would have gotten a much greater ROI and other stocks would have crushed. 

[Captain Wiggles]

We lose more Americans in a two week period to Covid even now than we did during the entire Operation Enduring Freedom. That's mind boggling. 

[tshile]

Um. Are the deaths of US service members countless? As far as I can tell they’re incredibly low for 20ish years of war through two countries. What are we, less than 6k deaths? That’s pretty awesome and remarkable in context. 
 

and he won? We’re still as entangled in the Middle East as ever, they never conducted anything close to a meaningful operation since. Their organization is a shell of the track it was on beforehand. Even the Taliban is supposedly refusing to worn with Al Qaeda. 
 

we spent a bunch of money and made travel a pain in the ass and both seem to be inconsequential with respect to OBL “winning”. And for the most part the Middle East remains a ****hole mired in endless conflict with them killings themselves over religious differences 

 

and LOL at this idea we lost standing in the world - with who? Europe 😂 sure… they said certain things but push come to shove they’re still with us. China, Russia, Iran, Syria? 😂 yeah not invading Iraq would have changed that dramatically

 

and no I don’t believe for one second that money would have been spent on poverty, education, or anything else that matters if it weren’t spent on the wars. We’ve under invested in those categories not because we spent money on these wars, but because our government failed to execute those ideas (figure out who to blame yourself it’s not hard). 
 

there’s plenty of criticism for how Iraq and Afghanistan were conducted. And different people can reasonably find different ways to criticize either or both. 
 

but world standing and not investing in ourselves isn’t it. 
 

and while I think there’s plenty of criticism about homeland security, I think a lot of people have no real idea how many problems it’s creation fixed. A big reason 9/11 was allowed to happen was because of how disjoint our intelligence and law enforcement orgs were (and some problems there remain still) 

Edited March 22, 2023 by tshile

[Riggo-toni]

I was undecided at the time - when my Mom asked me what I thought, I said ask me again in 10 years.  One thing I did feel strongly about was that the country needed to be broken up because it could never survive as a democracy just as Yugoslavia couldn't survive. Iraq is not a nation; it was a **** creation of the Brits to keep the area in friendly Hashemite rule.

[tshile]

According to Wikipedia there were 4809 coalition deaths. ~4400 were US related. 
 

that’s not a lot 

 

it’s not even close to a lot. It’s certainly not countless. 

2 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

I was undecided at the time - when my Mom asked me what I thought, I said ask me again in 10 years.  One thing I did feel strongly about was that the country needed to be broken up because it could never survive as a democracy just as Yugoslavia couldn't survive. Iraq is not a nation; it was a **** creation of the Brits to keep the area in friendly Hashemite rule.

My understanding is much of the Middle East boundaries were based on the western idea of dividing along geographical features. Which turned out to be a bad and ignorant way of doing it. 

[Captain Wiggles]

Meanwhile how many civilians were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001? Oh about 400k. 😒

[Corcaigh]

If what the intelligence forces were saying was true about Saddam’s nuclear and bio weapons programs then I could see a justification for invasion.

 

But what gave me huge pause was one technical FACT used over and over to make the case for invasion and that was the aluminum tubes that were intercepted in Jordan. The intelligence services insisted that they were for centrifuges rather than rocket parts, and this was their best evidence that Saddam had restarted his nuclear weapons program. The problem was that the tubes were the wrong size for a centrifuge so the Iraqis must be creating a different design according those making a case for war. If the Iraqis were going to order parts you would think they would order something that would fit their existing designs. But even when faced with clear technical facts the intelligence services were comfortable twisting them to get the story they wanted.

 

Years later I was at an event where CIA satellite photos of nuclear research sites were shown and the fact that there was construction activity in the area again at the time before the invasion was apparently evidence of a fast-tracked nuclear bomb program, rather than any other number of possibilities.

 

The intelligence services failed terribly in their primary responsibility of, you know, providing reliable actionable intelligence.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Corcaigh

[tshile]

1 minute ago, Captain Wiggles said:

Meanwhile how many civilians were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001? Oh about 400k. 😒

Human rights watch puts deaths to atrocities Saadam committed in the 250-290k range. 
 

and that’s just the ones they know about and only under him. 
 

🤷‍♂️ 

2 minutes ago, Corcaigh said:

If what the intelligence forces were saying was true about Saddam’s nuclear and bio weapons programs then I could see a justification for invasion.

Another issue at the time that most people forget (but I believe is detailed and backed up quite well in the 9/11 commission report and I’ve never seen it refuted (that I’ve never seen it means nothing other than to give me an excuse if I’m wrong…))

 

Saadam was actively courting OBL to set up shop in Iraq. I forget if that was just prior to 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan or just following. But they seemed to have strong evidence he was trying to get Al Qaeda to move to Iraq. 

[tshile]

I think a huge part of what muddies the water on Saadam and Iraq is the yellow cake thing. That was what the admin harped on the most. It’s what they presented to the UN. 
 

however there were a number of reasons that justified removing him from power. 
 

the yellow cake thing and the WMD thing were and are the ones that get the most attention, and turned out to be at best wrong (and we know there’s several other levels to consider other than “wrong”) 

 

but there’s a lot of other reasons there too and while I think that reasonable people can argue those reasons didn’t justify a war, I also think there are reasonable people that can say they did. And I think both sides of that can be right and reasonable without the other side being wrong and unreasonable. 
 

but the wmd/yellow cake thing royally screws up attempting that discussion. 

Edited March 22, 2023 by tshile

[Mr. Sinister]

58 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Does anyone else think that OBL "won"?  I do.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, mission accomplished, unfortunately 

[Corcaigh]

16 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

Another issue at the time that most people forget (but I believe is detailed and backed up quite well in the 9/11 commission report and I’ve never seen it refuted (that I’ve never seen it means nothing other than to give me an excuse if I’m wrong…))

 

Saadam was actively courting OBL to set up shop in Iraq. I forget if that was just prior to 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan or just following. But they seemed to have strong evidence he was trying to get Al Qaeda to move to Iraq. 

I think the 9/11 commission report and multiple other declassified documents showed the opposite (I.e. that there was no relationship). But I don’t know how prevalent the view or claimed evidence was of a relationship prior to the invasion. They seems to put a lot of stock in the stories they were told by dissidents who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by having Saddam removed.

 

And while we created a hell of a mess, OBL by no means achieved his goal which was to remove US presence from the Middle East and East Africa, particularly Saudi Arabia.

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Corcaigh

[CobraCommander]

Yeah no. I didn't support it at the time and still don't. I don't support a lot of our wars to be honest or anyone's wars for that matter. Send the poor to die for the rich. Sick thing. 

[tshile]

7 minutes ago, Corcaigh said:

I think the 9/11 commission report and multiple other declassified documents showed the opposite (I.e. that there was no relationship). But I don’t know how prevalent the view or claimed evidence was of a relationship prior to the invasion. They seems to put a lot of stock in the stories they were told by dissidents who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by having Saddam removed.

I don’t even know where my kindle is and it would have to be charged, so I cannot go pull it myself. 
 

but looking at news reports I think we may be talking about different things. It’s also possible I’m just completely wrong. 
 

I’m talking about Hussein wanting OBL to set up camps in Iraq and use areas of Iraq for training. 
 

what I believe the commission did find, and what all the articles im finding about it now seem to be saying, is Hussein had no connection to the 9/11 attack. Either in funding with money, helping orchestrate, or sending supplies etc. 

 

those are two totally different things. 
 

That’s the way I understand it, but again,  im not against the possibility im wrong. It’s just not what I remember from reading the report. 
 

Edited March 22, 2023 by tshile

[Riggo-toni]

14 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

🤷‍♂️

Another issue at the time that most people forget (but I believe is detailed and backed up quite well in the 9/11 commission report and I’ve never seen it refuted (that I’ve never seen it means nothing other than to give me an excuse if I’m wrong…))

 

Saadam was actively courting OBL to set up shop in Iraq. I forget if that was just prior to 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan or just following. But they seemed to have strong evidence he was trying to get Al Qaeda to move to Iraq. 

I don't think so. Ansar al Islam, the Al Quaeda affiliate in Iraq run by Zarqawi, was located in the northern portion of Iraq - just inside the US protected no fly zone, but far enough away from any Kurdish towns to be bothered. The US could have probably taken him out with an airstrike, but that would have meant one less justification for invading and it would have made us look trigger happy. Bin Laden reportedly hated Zarqawi, but Powell's UN speech made him a sort of celebrity, and Bin Laden brought him into the fold. Thus Ansar al Islam became Al Qaeda in Iraq, and would eventually morph into ISIL.

Most people don't realize OBL turned against the US and the Saudi Royal family because he wanted to go into Kuwait and fight the Iraqis, but the Saudis turned him down and went with the American led coalition instead. 

[Captain Wiggles]

Saddam was an anti islamist and secular leader. If anything he and Bin Laden were on opposite sides of the spectrum. They never had any intention of working together on anything. Saddam embraced western liberalism in a lot of ways compared to neighboring countries. 

 

Hell Bin Laden was butthurt the Saudis turned to America to defend them during the Gulf War instead of his Mujahideen. That's what started his bigly heel turn against the West. 🤷‍♂️

[@DCGoldPants]

Wild times. Going back either further, when the Gulf War hit, my Dad was still a Reporter/Anchor downtown and I remember he hooked my class up with all kinds of materials they had on the region and what we knew about Saddam/Iraq back in the early 90s. VHS tapes of stuff.

[tshile]

@Corcaigh

 

I only did a brief look to make sure I’m not losing it. I grabbed the official gov’t PDF

 

Page 61 goes over the start of OBL’s relationship with Iraq, it circled back to it on page 66. On page 66 is where safe haven and numerous trips from Iraqi officials to Afghanistan and OBL and his staff to Iraq for meeting about all this is laid out in detail. 
 

OBL started out funding anti-Saadam groups, but by mid 1998 the two were talking about setting up shop in Iraq. And they talked about it a lot. 
 

which really brings me back to the “did OBL win” question. 
 

if you read those sections, and it’s documented thoroughly elsewhere, OBL’s chief grievance with us was that we were so heavily involved in the Middle East. In fact the commission report talks about how OBL protested the Saudis working with us to help Kuwait, back when OBL was anti-Saadam. 
 

their shared hatred for us, is what brought them together. 
 

OBL’s mission was to make us pay for our constant meddling in the Middle East. 
 

he failed miserably. We’re still there, and we will always be there. No, he didn’t win. 

[@DCGoldPants]

3 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

Saddam was an anti islamist and secular leader. If anything he and Bin Laden were on opposite sides of the spectrum. They never had any intention of working together on anything. Saddam embraced western liberalism in a lot of ways compared to neighboring countries. 

 

Hell Bin Laden was butthurt the Saudis turned to America to defend them during the Gulf War instead of his Mujahideen. That's what started his bigly heel turn against the West. 🤷‍♂️

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/opinions/saddam-hussein-iraq-war-interrogations-george-piro-bergen/index.html

 

This is an interesting read that just came out recently.