Iraq - Tens Years After
 

I know that Pete gets a woody when he sees Iraqi women with purple thumbs, but a report issues by Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies shows that the Iraq War will cost us $2.2 Trillion, plus $3.9 Trillion in servicing the interest on that debt through 2053. Beyond that, a total of 190,000 people were killed (among which were 4,488 soldiers and at least 3,400 U.S. contractors).

And what did we get for this? A strengthened Iran, not to mention these other side benefits:

• Terrorism in Iraq increased dramatically as a result of the invasion and tactics and fighters were exported to Syria and other neighboring countries.
  
• Iraq’s health care infrastructure remains devastated from sanctions and war. More than half of Iraq’s medical doctors left the country during the 2000s, and tens of thousands of Iraqi patients are forced to seek health care outside the country.
  
• The $60 billion spent on reconstruction for Iraq has not gone to rebuilding infrastructure such as roads, health care, and water treatment systems, but primarily to the military and police. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found massive fraud, waste, and abuse of reconstruction funds.

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/03/warcosts

And the GOP is the party of national security and fiscal responsibility? Somebody 'splain that to me.:confused:

Hi Finn, Have you seen the documentary "Iraq For Sale"?

I haven't. But I did read about the nature of their 10th anniversary celebration:

By mid-afternoon today, there were "52 dead and nearly 180 wounded in separate attacks that included 16 car bombs, 2 adhesive bombs stuck to cars, and 1 assassination with a silenced gun."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/wo...niversary.html

Still a shithole?

Dave

Sticky bombs? That's old school, WWII stuff. Effective if you don't get shot trying to stick it onto a target.

+1.....
Iraq is a very violent place...right now there is a smoldering Sunni insurgency as evidenced by today's coordinated bombings. I think at this point it will be a race between an insurgency and the increase in wealth brought by oil production that will decide Iraq's future. Hopefully a better economy fueled by oil production will win out in the end. I am not optimistic however.

Yeah, still a shithole.

Dave

The Shia-dominated south and the Kurdish north are both relatively peaceful. However, central Iraq is problematic because the sizable Sunni minority feels pretty shit-upon by the Shia-dominated Maliki government.

Right. The country is filled with religious freaks who refuse to share space with other religious freaks.

Until they get their idiot religious leaders out of power and relegated to the sideshow, where all pinhead religious leaders belong, Iraq will be a shithole forever. What good is the right to vote when everyone thinks they will burn in hell for voting for anyone but the local Theo-dictators?:confused:

Church + State = Unreasoning, dogmatic, inflexible tyrants who base all of their decisions on fairytales, hallucinogenic fantasies, personal prejudices/hatreds and books written by men claiming to be prophets of "God", under the pretext that you will do as "God" (they) say, or you will, ostensibly, burn in hell.

I'll take the chance that I might burn in hell in the next life, rather than obey such men in this one. There's something about thinking for yourself that just bursts with the sweet smell of freedom.

Thank "God" for the 1st Amendment. (Pun intended.)

Regards,
Dave

And now the Islamists seem to be asserting control over the rebel-held areas of Syria.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...239_story.html

What was that, we were told?

"Spreading Freedom and Democracy throughout the world." from both Bush and Obama?

What a joke.

Dave

Still no WMDs?

Tony Blair is calling for UK intervention in Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21602723

Every one pokes fun at Joe Biden but he had the best plan for Iraq. Create a federation of three self governing states, one Shia, one Sunni and one Kurd.

He and his mentor, Dubya, can go to a sporting goods store, buy a AR15, and go have some fun over in that shithole sandbox.

Yes Finnbow....it is always an easy proposition when someone else's boot is on the ground.....

What's different between Libya and Syria? Outside of the S, L, and interchanged I and Y ;)

Pete

Nothing. Their brains have all been baking in the sun too long. Same problem with Arizona and Texas.

Regards,
Dave

The b and the r

http://static.mhpbooks.com/wp-conten.../homer-doh.jpg

:D

Kind of like going back to the Ottoman Empire that existed before WWI.

It was Britian, France, and the US that royally screwed that region when they broke up the Ottoman Empire after WWI. These three countries bear a lot of responsibility for the sectarian violence in Iraq by their actions after WWI and the ten year long war they all started by invading a sovereign country, that had nothing to do with 9/11.

This group of bozo's are directly responsible for getting the war started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...erican_Century

What a bunch of chicken hawk assholes. Jeb Bush is one of the signers of their 'Statement of Principals'. He is going to have a lot of 'splanin to do if he decides to run in 2016.

No, no no! The Bushes don't have to explain anything. Their family is a dynasty! Don't you realize that?:rolleyes:

"...moral clarity......"? WTF? What "moral clarity" do these people possess to speak of?:confused: What, they think because they are polite and refrain from using profanity and wear their flag lapel pins and pray for the troops (as they tell lies and send them off to die in a bullshit war) that it's all "moral" a-a-a-and........Boy, I'll tell you what.............Ima have to have a drink on that one. Holy shit.....

Regards,
Dave

God damned liars and war criminals are how I view Dubya & Cheney. No hyperbole and no qualifications. I'm watching "The World According To Cheney" right now. Sick bastards.:mad:

Imperialism didn't die with Great Britain getting out of India...

No, 'one world' is alive and well, Bush or Obama. You'd think after a fashion the left would be pleased, as the more centralized the government becomes worldwide the more uniformity can be forced ;)

So what happened to 'blood for oil'? Seems that might have been a little disproved.

Pete

Aren't you getting tired of making bogus arguments in support of the Iraq war? BTW, pretty much all of the northern European social democracies opposed our invasion. Freedom fries, anyone?

They're only into bombing.

If we do it.

I'm feeling sarcastic ;)

Pete

I gotta say that the French-led liberation of Libya was far better managed (with far fewer casualties) than our Iraqi clusterf*ck.

They are two completely different things, no? And I'd argue, considering the cost and material, that their leadership was figurative.

Pete

These wars were different in the sense that unrest and slaughter in Libya, by virtue of its location in north Africa, represented a threat to Europe. Iraq, by contrast, didn't really threaten anybody other than Iran and its desire for regional hegemony, something we greatly enhanced by the war.

Kuwait may beg to differ. Saudi Arabia too.

I'm sure Israel loved the suicide bomber payments.

Pete

They sure as hell didn't threaten us. Saudi Arabia and Israel are both armed to the teeth with state of the art armaments we supply them. Let them fight their own battles. The Kuwaiti thing had been resolved for a decade prior to Dubya's invasion. Saddam had no interest in trying that again and, for that matter, invaded Kuwait only after April Glaspie gave the a green light.

Funny we had troops in Saudi Arabia, if they were so tough ;) Regional stability in that part of the world is in everyones best interest, 'cept the radicals.

Sure we could've tossed a few missiles at Afghanistan and gone back to our sweet obliviousness. Then what, Sears Tower?

I hear that green light thing pretty often. I'm dubious.

Pete

You may be. Apparently, Saddam wasn't.;)

That's what I hear. Neither his brother Neil or Jeb were charged with crimes in the savings and loan collapse even though both were deeply tied to it. I am sure poppa Bush has done some dicey stuff in the Carlyle Group deals. W was to stupid to even play like he was a businessman.

I think 2016 is to soon for another Bush. W kind of killed the brand. I do think Jeb is smarter than any of the bozo's this last go around. Maybe not Gingrich but, you remember when he told the truth about Ryan's budget saying it was social engineering and got beat down by the Republican base. I just don't see Jeb bending over for the far far right like Romney did.

Of course not.

They are Republicans, flawless, super-human perfection annointed with the Blood of the Lamb, blessed with Godly righteousness and peerless honor incapable of any wrong doing whatsoever. Why even their shyte smells of Lilacs and their arses are like the trumpets of angels, their farts heralding in Utopian vistas of harmony and proserity for all................

Yeah, I think it's a bunch of crap too.

Dave

Not really, all the major oil companies have split up the Iraqi oil fields. They used our Troops blood to seize the nationalized oil fields they could not get their dirty hands on before, and they got the oil. Kind of like the allies did after WWI. Britain alone received over 90% of the oil profits from the Iraqi oil fields in 1918.

It was never about helping the average citizen, of any country, profit from the Iraq war or even pay for the Iraq war so Joe blow did not have to. Nope, they are just a bunch of lying assholes divvying up the money from oil our troops fought for, and some died for, as their blood spilled on to the oil tainted ground of Iraq.

Correct. "We, the people" didn't get anything for it but the opportunity to send our kids to do their dirty work for them and the pride in knowing they did a good job of it.....well, the ones that survived, anyhow.

I take that back. We did get something for it; We got stuck with the bill. You know, the one that tanked our economy and cost so many of us our jobs. And now, we're called the 47% and told we have to give up "entitlements" so the GOP can handout fat tax cuts to the same people.

Sweet deal, if you can get it that way.....Americas elite have truly been blessed, haven't they?

Dave

Heheheheh.:D