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Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

theguardian.com

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Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#241

Post by queuebert »

oaiey wrote: post #218
queuebert wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial Iraq invasion was to enforce Kuwaiti sovereignty and stop Saddam's unilateral aggression which was destabilizing the region. We tried bribing him with aid, but he still invaded, so the U.S. kept true to their promise to enforce agreements. The U.S. helped a small country and protected its image. The second Iraq war may or may not have been WMD based, but Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of mostly…

Please do not forget to mix oil in the ratio.

The interest in regional stability is probably rooted in oil. The U.S. hasn't taken any captured oil fields and sold the oil for themselves, as far as I know, so I think they just want the region to be a stable, predicable marketplace for dead dinosaurs.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#242

Post by sudosysgen »

queuebert wrote: post #214
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194

I'm amazed at how many people still see the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions as correct moves. Just last week I was having a friendly mostly non-political conversation with two of my coworkers and then the topic verged to the military and then to the Iraq wars. (For context, I'm Canadian and they're both US ex-pats in Canada.) Both had the opinion, still, that the Iraq war was the correct move at the time. But coul…

The initial Iraq invasion was to enforce Kuwaiti sovereignty and stop Saddam's unilateral aggression which was destabilizing the region. We tried bribing him with aid, but he still invaded, so the U.S. kept true to their promise to enforce agreements. The U.S. helped a small country and protected its image. The second Iraq war may or may not have been WMD based, but Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of mostly…

This is an unfair answer.

The Second Iraq War was not based on any altruistic motive. If it was, the US would say so, instead of manufacturing evidence for WMDs. We can safely conclude that the actual reasons for the invasions are something that the US government wanted to hide.

Beyond that, the war in Iraq killed more people than Saddam Hussein's genocide, so that justification simply doesn't fly. It's complete bogus, through and through.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#244

Post by vlan0 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #203
em500 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial invasion in 2001 had 100% support Congress and IIRC 80%+ popular support. So yes, not invading was unthinkable.

That's a very heavy accusation to lob at the US people I think. Who says this and where does the 80% number come from? And why would the US people want their country to invade a country on the other side of the world, that was no threat to them and was clearly not capable of defending itself against the might of the US army? Why would the US people want their country to invade anyone? And 80% of them? This I find ver…

There are likely many factors. In terms of civilian supporting the invastion, or at the very least, being neutral on invading was very much a popular opinion. Patriotism was extremely high following the attacks, and whether it was correct or not, many folks would see not supporting the invasion as unpatriotic. So likely do to social norms and group dynamics, it was unpopular to be against the war.

It might be hard to understand for folks that didn't live in the US during that time. A time when TV and print media were very much king. To paint the picture more clearly. Imagine a 24-hour news cycle on nearly every single TV channel. Even non-news channels discontinued normal programing to broadcast one of the big news stations. Every newspaper has massive headlines covering the content. For days and weeks there was no escaping the media barrage. It definitely warped folks perception.

Bonus: Anthrax scare directly after didn't help either. https://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/93170200/timeline-how-the-ant...

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#245

Post by koheripbal »

em500 wrote: post #222
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very heavy accusation to lob at the US people I think. Who says this and where does the 80% number come from? And why would the US people want their country to invade a country on the other side of the world, that was no threat to them and was clearly not capable of defending itself against the might of the US army? Why would the US people want their country to invade anyone? And 80% of them? This I find ver…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_o... https://web.archive.org/web/20140203074515/http://www.aei.or... (p.58: "Do you approve or disapprove of the current U.S. military action in Afghanistan?")

better source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/9994/public-opinion-war-afghani...

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#246

Post by gmuslera »

noelsusman wrote: post #225
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194

I'm amazed at how many people still see the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions as correct moves. Just last week I was having a friendly mostly non-political conversation with two of my coworkers and then the topic verged to the military and then to the Iraq wars. (For context, I'm Canadian and they're both US ex-pats in Canada.) Both had the opinion, still, that the Iraq war was the correct move at the time. But coul…

The original justification famously turned out to be complete nonsense, but Iraqi citizens are better off today than they were in 2002. That came with a huge cost, mostly born by Iraqi citizens, but it is true.

The surviving Iraqi citizens may or not be better. Once you are dead doesn't matter if things got better anyway.

There are pretty big numbers in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War and then you should start counting the millions that were displaced, which situation may not be the best.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#247

Post by bayesian_horse »

vxNsr wrote: post #183
bayesian_horse wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you are referring to actually says the story is probably true, but that the confidence of the intelligence community in this finding is only "weak to moderate". The much bigger problem was that Trump said outright this story is fake, instead of holding Putin's feet to the fire or getting behind the issue at all.

If every US president held Russia’s feet to the fire when the CIA had “weak to moderate” intel we’d be banging two rocks together for fire because WW3 would’ve happened already. Stop pretending to care.

Because there is no middle ground between sucking up to Putin and going to nuclear war with him.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#248

Post by bilbo0s »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #233
noelsusman wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original justification famously turned out to be complete nonsense, but Iraqi citizens are better off today than they were in 2002. That came with a huge cost, mostly born by Iraqi citizens, but it is true.

I'd like to hear that claim (better off today) confirmed by an Iraqi, or a statistically significant % of them, before I accept it.

I think the honest answer is that, like most claims about others, it's true for some, but probably not for all.

It's hard to make the claim that every Iraqi is better off. That claim is obviously baloney.

But we can say that some are better off. It's clearly debatable by reasonable people whether or not a war was needed to make that group of people better off? Trying to be objective myself, I'm willing to concede it may not have been. But others might disagree.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#249

Post by koheripbal »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #198
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In late September and early October of 2001 when plans were being drawn up it was.

Why exactly? I don't understand. I never understood what was the real reason for the war. Multiple theories have been put forward that I am aware of but they all seem (to me) to be "just so" stories trying to find a post-hoc explanation for what seemed to be an invasion completely without reason. Oil interests, heroin trade, geopolitical advantage, democracy and human rights (actually that was one of the explanations…

> revenge for 9/11, none of all that makes any sense

Attacking al-quaeda after 9/11 didn't make sense?

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#250

Post by calsy »

queuebert wrote: post #214
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194

I'm amazed at how many people still see the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions as correct moves. Just last week I was having a friendly mostly non-political conversation with two of my coworkers and then the topic verged to the military and then to the Iraq wars. (For context, I'm Canadian and they're both US ex-pats in Canada.) Both had the opinion, still, that the Iraq war was the correct move at the time. But coul…

The initial Iraq invasion was to enforce Kuwaiti sovereignty and stop Saddam's unilateral aggression which was destabilizing the region. We tried bribing him with aid, but he still invaded, so the U.S. kept true to their promise to enforce agreements. The U.S. helped a small country and protected its image. The second Iraq war may or may not have been WMD based, but Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of mostly…

The problem is that none of those answers were provided as a reason to instigate a 2nd war and occupation of Iraq.

Its an attempted justification of a pointless war, an excuse. 'We got rid of the bad guy', If someone bombed your cities, destroyed your power and water supply while going on to occupy your country for years leading to the deaths of 100,000s, would you hail them as liberators?

As for Iraq, its completely destroyed. Saddam was peanuts compared to the unholy inferno the US brought down on Iraq. Good guys don't instigate wars and decimate cities. The US spent 100s of billions to 'fight terror'. How do you fight terror? With terror apparently.

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