Did we learn the lessons yet?

[Spartanmack]

I know the popular take on Iraq is that Bush wanted a war and lied to get it, but there was a little more to it than that. People either forget or weren't aware of the internal politics that led Saddam to do crazy shit. The Sunni minority ruled over the Shi'ite population through oppression. He acted like he was pursuing weapons and kicked out inspectors because he needed people in Iraq and neighboring countries to believe he had them and be afraid.

To some degree I fear we have a similar thing with Putin. He's doing what he has to do to stay popular in Russia. Sadly, that means giving the middle finger to everyone else.

(As an aside,while it turns out Saddam's WMD program was a farce, there still hasn't been any real proof that we actually knew it was all a farce. There was some evidence that some of it was a farce and Iraqi weapons engineers lying about their progress; at least some of that was known. But there were plenty of smoking guns intentionally created by Saddam, and I don't know for sure what the Bush admin's real take on it was. I could believe that the Bush administration knew Iraq didn't have a real WMD program, but that hasn't actually been proven. I'd love it if our reporters would keep digging into things like who created the fake yellowcake documents to find evidence of what was known by who.)

Holy shit, I agree with Gulo and Michchump on separate points in the same day. I need to go check my temperature but first, let's not forget that he completely defied international sanctions for over a decade - he bombed and poisoned his own people, defied the no-fly zone, ran an end around with the bogus Oil for Food program (which only served to enrich a bunch of UN officials) and pursued a WMD program. I find it ridiculous that people claim we went to war based on false pretenses just because we didn't find actual weapons. We clearly found evidence of his weapons program. It's a good thing that we disrupted him before he actually had the weapons.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I think we've done all the right things so far in Ukraine, and I don't agree with some of the criticism (a lot of it from the left) that the US is in the wrong in Ukraine, or should completely stay out of it or even condone the shit Putin has done.

Rather than go to war with Russia, maybe the US should use this as an international precedent to send the military into Mexico and Latin America and clean up the drug cartels and the corrupt governments in our OWN back yard.

Then on into Canada to cop some good beer eh?

 

[Gulo Blue]

Don't forget that he completely defied international sanctions for over a decade - he bombed and poisoned his own people, defied the no-fly zone, ran an end around with the bogus Oil for Food program (which only served to enrich a bunch of UN officials) and pursued a WMD program. I find it ridiculous that people claim we went to war based on false pretenses just because we didn't find actual weapons. We clearly found evidence of his weapons program. It's a good thing that we disrupted him before he actually had the weapons.

We found evidence of a fake weapons program. Unless you're counting long range conventional payload missiles.

 

[Spartanmack]

Rather than go to war with Russia, maybe the US should use this as an international precedent to send the military into Mexico and Latin America and clean up the drug cartels and the corrupt governments in our OWN back yard.

Then on into Canada to cop some good beer eh?

Why not both at the same time - we don't need the Coast Guard in Mexico!

 

[Michchamp]

Whoa... I'm not agreeing we should've invaded Iraq in 2003. That was a completely fucking disastrous decision for everyone but the defense contractors and Blackwater.

 

[Spartanmack]

Whoa... I'm not agreeing we should've invaded Iraq in 2003. That was a completely fucking disastrous decision for everyone but the defense contractors and Blackwater.

Holy shit, I agree with Gulo and Michchump on separate points in the same day. I need to go check my temperature...

That was in reference to agreeing w/ you re: the stupidity of going to war with Russia.

 

[Michchamp]

oh okay, I see now

 

[biggunsbob]

So fighting Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan - killing the people who murdered over 3k civilians on American soil on 9/11 was a war not worth fighting but facing down Russia and potentially releasing a nuclear holocaust that could wipe out the entire planet because of a civil war in the Ukraine that has harmed ZERO Americans is a worthwhile endeavor. Interesting.

Pretty Much fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.. That was Bushes trumped up war...

 

[biggunsbob]

Hitler attacked a country ill prepared to defend itself but unlike the French, the Russians were never close to surrender. Hitler stupidly fought a war of attrition with Russia that he was never going to win. North Africa was a drop in the bucket and was over in 1943 and never anywhere near 1/3 of Hitler's troops. Here are Hitler's total German troop counts by year with the % of troops in the east:

1941 - 3.767mm (76%)
1942 - 3.720mm (80%)
1943 - 3.933mm (63%)
1944 - 3.370mm (62%)
1945 - 2.330mm (60%)

In that time period the Soviets killed 4mm Germans soldiers and captured another 3.3mm. Again, 80% of German casualties were in the eastern theater. And if you think it wasn't a race, look at what Russia had to lose if they didn't push as far west as they could before Hitler surrendered - I'm pretty sure Stalin had a sense of urgency.

Where do you get this better trained and better equipped shit? You act as if the Russians are like the Afghani security forces that smoke opium all day, buttfuq each other all night and can't do a jumping jack. They have Germany dramatically out-spent, out-manned, out-gunned and have a superior air force and navy PLUS the fact that the Russians actually have experience fighting a few wars recently. But by far, the best the best part of your argument is you start off by saying "setting aside the fact that Russia can blow up everyone and everything in Germany almost 8,000 times over..." before making these ridiculous claims of Germany military dominance over Russia.

Lets not Forget American helped out Russia a lot as they were giving territory ...Lend lease...Ect...

 

[Spartanmack]

Pretty Much fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.. That was Bushes trumped up war...

I didn't even mention Iraq in that post and as I said in other posts, my support for the Iraq war is not predicated on WMDs - at least not solely or even primarily.

 

[Spartanmack]

Lets not Forget American helped out Russia a lot as they were giving territory ...Lend lease...Ect...

Sure, I never said they did it all by themselves but we helped a lot of people with the lend lease program - it was our main form of involvement in Europe as well from '39 thru '41 until we got directly involved in Europe in 1942. The fact remains, the Russians killed a lot more Germans and faced a much bigger piece of the German forces...

 

[Gulo Blue]

Pretty Much fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.. That was Bushes trumped up war...

I don't think Bush ever claimed that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. They tried to show ties between Iraq and al qaeda, but it was two meetings after 9/11 that they kept bringing up.

Don't get me wrong, I was against that war back when it started. I'm not pro-Iraq war or anything.

 

[biggunsbob]

Sure, I never said they did it all by themselves but we helped a lot of people with the lend lease program - it was our main form of involvement in Europe as well from '39 thru '41 until we got directly involved in Europe in 1942. The fact remains, the Russians killed a lot more Germans and faced a much bigger piece of the German forces...

We all know Russia killed more Germans in WWII.... Germany lost 7 to 9 Million people...The Soviet Union lost 21-28 Million depending on the Figures you us.. As you said most of those were on the eastern front... Not sure what we should do with Putin but he is a real problem right now...Although I do think Nato and the American Military are a lot better then Putin's guys..

 

[Gulo Blue]

Here's the bipartisan report on what Bush said and what was and wasn't supported by the intelligence community at the time.

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

It's long, but the conclusions are in bold so you can quickly find the interesting parts.

 

[Thumb]

But by far, the best the best part of your argument is you start off by saying "setting aside the fact that Russia can blow up everyone and everything in Germany almost 8,000 times over..."

I never actually said that, you shouldn't paraphrase in quotation marks.

What I said was "nuclear warheads not withstanding". Because they are irrelevant. They will not be used anyways, and if they are then we are all radioactive dust anyways. Germany does not need nukes because of NATO. The first idiot to push the button kills us all anyways.

 

[Thumb]

Although I do think Nato and the American Military are a lot better then Putin's guys..

Exactly.

The German military is state of the art. The Russian military is not.

Russia has the advantage in sheer numbers of planes, tanks, etc. but much of it is decades old.

Germany has the technological advantage.

Remember the Republican Guard in Iraq was once like the 5th or 6th largest standing army in the world...what did they last against superior technology and state of the art weapons systems? A few weeks?

 

[biggunsbob]

Exactly.

The German military is state of the art. The Russian military is not.

Russia has the advantage in sheer numbers of planes, tanks, etc. but much of it is decades old.

Germany has the technological advantage.

Remember the Republican Guard in Iraq was once like the 5th or 6th largest standing army in the world...what did they last against superior technology and state of the art weapons systems? A few weeks?

Yup.. those poor Iraqis sitting in those old Russian T-72 tanks..Yikes...

1.The Coalition main battle tanks, such as the U.S. M1 Abrams, British Challenger 1, and Kuwaiti M-84AB were vastly superior to the Chinese Type 69 and domestically built T-72 tanks used by the Iraqis, with crews better trained and armored doctrine better developed.
2.The use of GPS made it possible for Coalition forces to navigate without reference to roads or other fixed landmarks. This, along with aerial reconnaissance, allowed them to fight a battle of maneuver rather than a battle of encounter: they knew where they were and where the enemy was, so they could attack a specific target rather than searching on the ground for enemy forces..
Now we move on to the planes we use...Holy batman!!!! The Gadgets we have!!!!

 

[biggunsbob]

But again the first button pushed we are all dead in less then a year if more go off... Well you guys are... Old Guy Bob inherited some guns from his old Man.... I now own a .357

"Make my day Vlad"

 

[biggunsbob]

Heck I would not want to take on the German's.. Those guys knew how to build weapons...
But then again our ideology that was from Private to general carried the day back in WWII. Plus they are on our side now.

 

[Michchamp]