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[Jude]

Constant anti-American ranting is starting to get tiring. So many people blame their country's problems on the US when in reality the vast majority of damage done to their country comes as a result of problems within the country. America and the rest of the western world are only trying to help.

I'm pretty sure the anti-American ranting in this thread is on a topic that has a little bit to do with America

namely that time when America invaded two countries to try and magically turn them into democracies overnight

One being a brutal dictatorship and the other being under oppressive rule by the Taliban. Even if America did plunge them into war, it's better than what they had and in the end they will be stable, democratic, nations.

Oh, I'm sorry, would you like to tell that to the families of the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, if not MILLIONS, of people who've been killed thanks to our blundering stupidity?

See that pisses me off even more. Americans get mad at other people who get mad at THEM over these wars? "Oh, we're trying to do some good in the world! Stop picking on us!" Yeah. I feel so bad for Americans being hated everywhere, they have it so much worse than every single Iraqi or Afghan who's been blown up, or had a family member killed or kidnapped, or had a leg and an arm blown off, or had their house destroyed or been forced to run and end up in a refugee camp somewhere.

Do Americans think about that stuff? No. because 90% of us are idiotic, self-centered dimwits who unfortunately have the world's most over-bloated military doing things in their name, and LIKE IT. And then they wonder why people decide to blow up their airplanes and buildings and military bases like it's just a total mystery that nobody could ever figure out.

[Chutney]

Well they can have much less casualties pointlessly because of oppressive rulers, or they can have those casualties in the fight for freedom/stability?

American 1: The British are taxing us and we don't even get representation, that's dumb shit! Let's oppose this and maybe gain independence!
American 2: B-but...people might *gulp* die
American 1: Good point we better just let it the way it is.

And yea it's definitely the American's fault the war happened in the first place. The average American has a say in whether or not their country goes to war, so they deserve being hated for it.

Yeah. I feel so bad for Americans being hated everywhere, they have it so much worse than every single Iraqi or Afghan who's been blown up, or had a family member killed or kidnapped, or had a leg and an arm blown off, or had their house destroyed or been forced to run and end up in a refugee camp somewhere.

American's are being blown up, American's have family members being killed and kidnapped, or are having their arms and legs being blown off. We're feeling the pain, too.

Anyways, that was all happening to Iraqi's/Afghani's BEFORE America got involved so I'm not sure if I see your point.

because 90% of us are idiotic, self-centered dimwits who unfortunately have the world's most over-bloated military doing things in their name, and LIKE IT

I wasn't aware there were that many people left in the "pro-war" camp. Most of Americans, last time polls were taking(at least I'm pretty sure this is the case) were not in favor of the war. There are people who think we shouldn't pull out, but that's not because they LIKE the war, it's more because they believe it will cause more problems than staying (which it will)

[HAMMERMILL]

I'm pretty sure everyone here is wrong with their opinion so lemme just state mine.

We invaded under false pretexts because our wonderful government trusted the word of an informant named http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant) which the US government saw as a threat to Israel. The VX nerve gas mobile weapons plants and all that. The USA's most wonderful, reliable and supportive ally, Israel, was in vauge trouble of attack.

So we invaded Iraq because of that, and when we invaded we erased their military, destroyed all of their civilian infrastructure and we provoked the latent islamofacist population in the country to take up arms against the western countries and against democracy.

Awesome!

So now we've been staying in Iraq to rebuild what we broke and make sure the nation doesn't turn into a psychotic theological shithole we would have to prompty re-invade a few years later.


Thats pretty much how it all went down, folks. It wasn't for oil. Look at the exports of oil from Iraq. Its less now then it was before we invaded.

[Neruz]

I highly reccomend Amerca's Secret War for anyone who's interested by the way. It's written by the founder of STRATFOR and he's updated it a couple of times to fix up some errors in the initial publication; it goes into serious depth and detail on the politics and strategies that were put in place and led directly to Iraq.

Iraq is but the tip of the iceberg of some seriously convoluted political manuverings with a single goal; to get revenge on Al Qaeda.

So we invaded Iraq because of that, and when we invaded we erased their military, destroyed all of their civilian infrastructure and we provoked the latent islamofacist population in the country to take up arms against the western countries and against democracy.

Completely wrong; the vast majority of the Iraqi military was nowhere to be seen come invasion day. The reason being they'd gone into hiding in northern Iraq so as to enact a gurilla war (the only type of war they had any chance of winning.)

So now we've been staying in Iraq to rebuild what we broke and make sure the nation doesn't turn into a psychotic theological shithole we would have to prompty re-invade a few years later.

There's no real reason to re-invade, all the objectives have either been achieved or failed, re-invading Iraq serves no purpose.

Thats pretty much how it all went down, folks. It wasn't for oil. Look at the exports of oil from Iraq. Its less now then it was before we invaded.

That's probably because the U.S. invaded.


I didn't say the U.S. would flood the market with cheap oil, i said that they could threaten to do that so as to apply pressure on the House of Saud; the House of Saud knew that they could not underestimate American technical prowess and that even if it were unlikely, if the Americans did flood the market with cheap oil then the entire country of Saudi Arabia would topple and fall, quite simply they couldn't take the risk, no matter how unlikly that risk would be.

[HAMMERMILL]

The vas majority of the Iraqi military, as an organization was destroyed. There was no organized resistantce after a few days of invasion.

Sure, plenty of former troops survived and plenty of those former soldiers became IA and IP and IBP soldiers.

Iraq would turn into another Afghanistan if we had simply pulled out. A place where terrorists plotted against us and our allies and we would need to intervene because of a 9-11-redux style event.

http://internationaltrade.suite101.com/article.cfm/iraqs_trade_buddies

Besides that, its shown that Iraq is a tiny contributor to American oil suppy. About 2.5% of the oil America has in its domestic supply, the same as it was in 2002 before we invaded.

Also, the Iraqi GNP has actually increased from when it was 2002 to 2009.

Check the facts. Most of these theories do not stand up to reality.

[Neruz]

You appear to have forgotten to type a reply.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Jude wrote

Do Americans think about that stuff? No. because 90% of us are idiotic, self-centered dimwits who unfortunately have the world's most over-bloated military doing things in their name, and LIKE IT. And then they wonder why people decide to blow up their airplanes and buildings and military bases like it's just a total mystery that nobody could ever figure out.

I am amazed at this.  Jude, you appear to have an incredible amount of rage towards your own country.  Based on your comments, the rage must go back for 25+ years or more (considering your "blow up ... military bases" remark, which I took as to mean this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing).  When did this start for you?

[Neruz]

The vas majority of the Iraqi military, as an organization was destroyed. There was no organized resistantce after a few days of invasion.

The vast majority of the Iraqi military wasn't there. The resistance encountered in the field by American forces was minute; the battle plan called for taking Baghdad, and it was expected that doing so would require punching through the entire Iraqi army and mark the end of the war. Instead Baghdad was taken with relatively little resistance and the Iraqi army, apart from a few scattered divisions, was nowhere to be found.

There was an organised guerilla campaign against occupying American forces almost from day one, the Americans just refused to admit this fact for some time until it became so blindingly ovbious that it was impossible to ignore; that was a failure of American intelligence, they didn't know that Saddam had plans in place for a large-scale guerilla campaign.

Iraq would turn into another Afghanistan if we had simply pulled out. A place where terrorists plotted against us and our allies and we would need to intervene because of a 9-11-redux style event.

I'm just going to let Robin respond to this one;

Besides that, its shown that Iraq is a tiny contributor to American oil suppy. About 2.5% of the oil America has in its domestic supply, the same as it was in 2002 before we invaded.

And?

[Muz]

I'm not surprised that Jude is annoyed. The main factor why America has terrorists is because of its foreign policy. Their military bullies weaker countries into submission... the only way someone could fight back is by hitting them in the soft parts - civilians. There's no guilt about it either, because the USA military has killed their civilians. 3K people died in the 9/11 incident? That's nowhere near the 100K+ civilians killed by collateral damage.

If Americans can feel so grieved that a few of their people are killed by cowardly suicide bombers, imagine how grieved Middle Easterners feel about their people getting killed by cowards in tanks, planes, and precision weapons. It's worse. So much worse that people are willing to die to get revenge.


I do agree with what HAMMERMILL wrote though. Pulling out of Iraq leaves a massive power vacuum. Afghanistan had that thing for a while. Democracy doesn't work in Afghanistan, because it's just against their culture. You might as well try to force America into a monarchy.

Iraq now has no strong leaders. Dictatorship worked very well in Iraq. It was cruel and harsh for the civilians, but it was what kept order for decades. Now that all their leaders are dead, pulling them out of Iraq would force them into the hands of some puppet, who'd probably be killed by a real man. You'd have a lot of people fighting for power. You'd have mafias and gangs trying to take control of the oil supplies.

These people will slowly be very rich, very violent, and very disorganized. If you think that Afghanistan was a rowdy place, imagine what a country with weapons research, money, shattered infrastructure, and an immense hatred for America would do if left alone. It's a very similar situation to the one that started Germany's WW2.


BTW, just because the oil isn't going to America, doesn't mean that Americans are selling it. Nobody said the American government was keeping the oil... people say the invasion was because the friends of the former president were making money from it. Though what I fail to see is where the money went. To Enron? Because it's certainly not in the USA treasury, lol.

[Neruz]

Attacking America is just a means to an end for Al Qaeda; the end being a general Islamic uprising, toppling the current Islamic regimes and replacing them with regimes that would take their clues from Al Qaeda, fortunately despite the various tactical failures on the part of the Americans, their reaction was sufficient to undermine the coin that Al Qaeda bought with the September 11 attack, and no such uprising has taken place.

Furthermore, the U.S. have been quite effective at causing the current Islamic regimes to align themselves with America and against Al Qaeda, there are a few exceptions (such as Syria) but strategically the Iraq War was a success.

The problem arises when you realise that the U.S. Government basically made shit up when trying to justify the war to the rest of the world and to it's own people, and as an occupation, Iraq has been less than impressive. This, combined with the percieved failure of all tactical objectives (i say percieved, because what the U.S. claimed were their objectives were complete bullshit made to try and justify what looks like a pretty bad reason to go to war to a westener) has resulted in serious public backlash, and that combined with some good old political betrayal that the U.S. has gained such a reputation for in the Middle Eastern region has left them with a bit of a mess.


They can't pull out of Iraq, because if they do invariably Iran and Saudi Arabia will immediately make landgrabs, but they can't stay in Iraq, because the public doesn't want them to.

Bit of a corner they've backed themselves into there.

imagine how grieved Middle Easterners feel about their people getting killed by cowards in tanks, planes, and precision weapons. It's worse. So much worse that people are willing to die to get revenge.

Eh, not so bad. Western society freaks out over death because we see so little of it, most of the people still alive in areas like Afghanistan and Iraq are fairly battle hardened by now; constant war desensitises people, and you'll be hard pressed to find a place where war is more constant than the Middle East.

[Muz]

They can't pull out of Iraq, because if they do invariably Iran and Saudi Arabia will immediately make landgrabs, but they can't stay in Iraq, because the public doesn't want them to.

Heh, that's not really a bad outcome. What they could do is leave it to Saudi Arabia (their allies, last I checked) to grab the land and sell the oil to them for cheap. Sounds like a win-win situation.

[Neruz]

They can't pull out of Iraq, because if they do invariably Iran and Saudi Arabia will immediately make landgrabs, but they can't stay in Iraq, because the public doesn't want them to.

Heh, that's not really a bad outcome. What they could do is leave it to Saudi Arabia (their allies, last I checked) to grab the land and sell the oil to them for cheap. Sounds like a win-win situation.

The House of Saud are technically allied to the U.S. The Saudi Arabian people, not so much.

Additionally, letting Saudi Arabia take Iraq would thougherly piss off just about every single Islamic group in the region, particualry the Shiites, who were promised control of the region by the U.S. and dumped as soon as their usefulness expired (which wasn't really unexpected, considering it echoes what happened in Afghanistan and caused the foundation of Al Qaeda in the first place), but those Shiites are aligned with Iran, so if Saudi Arabia tries to move in and take Iraq, Iran will be forced to declare war on Saudi Arabia, and a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran will not be a pretty thing at all.

[sneakey pete]

I have to agree, the "oh but its worth the death, we're bringing stability and democracy!" is a load of crap. Its been 6 long fucking years in iraq and there's still bombings, still violence. People aren't pissed about your intentions, they're pissed about your implentation. You fucked up in iraq.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

If we blame the freemasons and jews, we get a full quota of conspiracy theories in this tread.

[Neruz]

I have to agree, the "oh but its worth the death, we're bringing stability and democracy!" is a load of crap. Its been 6 long fucking years in iraq and there's still bombings, still violence. People aren't pissed about your intentions, they're pissed about your implentation. You fucked up in iraq.

Yes and no, initiall Iraq was a great success; after America invaded they were Hated and Feared, which was a substantial imrprovement from the previous state of affairs of Hated and Despised. Unfortunately their followup occupation sort of reversed alot of that and most of the Islamic world considers the Americans soft and weak again.