Quantifying failure

[tinselwolverine]

I was saying it happens and all wars suck, I thought I was pretty clear.

Well, they don't all completely suck; if it weren't for the War of 1812, we would never have gotten Francis Scott Key's first verse of The Star Spangled Banner to be played at the start of sporting events here in the United States; and also when one of or a team of our Olympician athletes wins a gold medal, and shit like that.

 

[turok]

w/o looking it up, seems to me that Saddam was already involved in attempting to remove the US dollar as the standard or base currency for OPEC oil trades and was trying to convince the other oil producing member nations to agree to replace it with the Euro?

A "WMD" that would obviously decimate the US and its allies economically far more effectively IF Hussein was successful, than those needing to be launched and detonated.

 

[redandguilty]

Agree with the idea that it was about money, not oil money, military-industrial complex money. It was driven by the people that got the $1.7T. Why can't the people that would make a ton of money if we rebuilt bridges, roads, rails, or powergrid learn how to buy some decent lobbyists instead?

 

[Thumb]

Agree with the idea that it was about money, not oil money, military-industrial complex money. It was driven by the people that got the $1.7T. Why can't the people that would make a ton of money if we rebuilt bridges, roads, rails, or powergrid learn how to buy some decent lobbyists instead?

Or better yet, why can't the warmongers be the ones to put on the boots and helmets and get fed through the sausage grinder instead of brave young men and women who willingly serve and often die, while others are counting their money.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Agree with the idea that it was about money, not oil money, military-industrial complex money. It was driven by the people that got the $1.7T. Why can't the people that would make a ton of money if we rebuilt bridges, roads, rails, or powergrid learn how to buy some decent lobbyists instead?

Exactly.

Specifically, Rumsfeld, early during the Iraq conflict referrred to oil being "fungible."

Certainly currency is about as fungible a commodity as you can get-currency trades on the spot market 24/7; I've been through plenty of international airports in the wee hours when the currency kiosk was open.

So I don't really understand how euro based petro would have been crippling to the United States.

 

[Michchamp]

...

If I wished for anything, it's that people would stop making excuses and trying to justify it with the "Oh, no WMD's but we ousted Saddam and installed democracy, therefore making everyone in Iraq's lives better"...

I don't understand how people could even say that... everything Saddam did to his people that was bad... torture, murder, oppression, etc. etc. WE DID TO THEM TOO! And if we weren't turning over Iraqis to be tortured to death by other Iraqis... we were doing it ourselves! There's photographic evidence of it.

AND we destroyed the power grid, sewage systems, et al, and never rebuilt them (see, e.g. the billions for "reconstruction" that disappeared). We removed the power structure and authority that was keeping the shiites and sunnis from killing eachother resulting in a horribly murderous civil war that left thousands upon thousands dead.

so if anything, Iraq is unquestionably and objectively worse off after we left. AND we are worse off too, because we lost thousands of American lives, even more physically or psychologically devastated, and dumped massive costs on future generations. We also flushed whatever national goodwill people still felt towards us down the toilet and further trashed the separation of powers, leaving us looking more and more like a totalitarian government ruled by a powerful executive and less like a constitutional republic.

it was a calamity. a disaster of epic proportions.

 

[redandguilty]

I don't understand how people could even say that... everything Saddam did to his people that was bad... torture, murder, oppression, etc. etc. WE DID TO THEM TOO! And if we weren't turning over Iraqis to be tortured to death by other Iraqis... we were doing it ourselves! There's photographic evidence of it.

AND we destroyed the power grid, sewage systems, et al, and never rebuilt them (see, e.g. the billions for "reconstruction" that disappeared). We removed the power structure and authority that was keeping the shiites and sunnis from killing eachother resulting in a horribly murderous civil war that left thousands upon thousands dead.

so if anything, Iraq is unquestionably and objectively worse off after we left. AND we are worse off too, because we lost thousands of American lives, even more physically or psychologically devastated, and dumped massive costs on future generations. We also flushed whatever national goodwill people still felt towards us down the toilet and further trashed the separation of powers, leaving us looking more and more like a totalitarian government ruled by a powerful executive and less like a constitutional republic.

it was a calamity. a disaster of epic proportions.

Someone on NPR was saying the other day that if you survey Iraqis and try to nail down exactly why it's worse now, it's the uncertainty more than anything. Everything is so fragile right now; nobody feels secure. The other stuff you mention, power grid, sewage system...a lot of that is up and running. Power grid is up to double the pre-war capacity.

 

[Michchamp]

Someone on NPR was saying the other day that if you survey Iraqis and try to nail down exactly why it's worse now, it's the uncertainty more than anything. Everything is so fragile right now; nobody feels secure. The other stuff you mention, power grid, sewage system...a lot of that is up and running. Power grid is up to double the pre-war capacity.

We've been out of there for a couple years, so it's no wonder they were able to get it up and running again.

 

[redandguilty]

We've been out of there for a couple years, so it's no wonder they were able to get it up and running again.

looking at the wikipedia chart, the surprising drop (to me) is from 1990-2003

Year Production (MW)
1955 50
1990 9300
2003 3300
2003 4470
2006 4280
2008 6000
2010 8000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Iraq

 

[Michchamp]

well... we bombed their infrastructure back into the stone age in '91.

after that, they were under some pretty crippling sanctions.

 

[redandguilty]

well... we bombed their infrastructure back into the stone age in '91.

after that, they were under some pretty crippling sanctions.

Over such a long period of time, I'm thinking it was the sanctions.

 

[Michchamp]

its hard to draw an accurate picture of what it was like,from aggregate numbers and anecdotal evidence, I guess. would be interesting to know exactly who had power and sewage and when. I guess either way, its a minor pt, since killing, maiming, and torturing people is the greater harm I mentiobed (at least in my book). but its nice to know the power is back on... now in 2013... about 10 years after we invaded

 

[TheVictors]

I remember an old MASH episode (which would have been filmed in the post-Vietnam era and early/mid-70's) where MacLean Stevenson's character was trying to defend the US Army's presence in South Korea and justified it because some town was now going to have its first ever soft ice cream dispenser!!

If not for oil or other resources, we seem to engage in nation building so long as the post-war nation most closely resembles a Strip Mall from Anywhere, USA.

"Of course they're better off ....they have McDonald's now!!"

 

[Michchamp]

I remember an old MASH episode (which would have been filmed in the post-Vietnam era and early/mid-70's) where MacLean Stevenson's character was trying to defend the US Army's presence in South Korea and justified it because some town was now going to have its first ever soft ice cream dispenser!!

If not for oil or other resources, we seem to engage in nation building so long as the post-war nation most closely resembles a Strip Mall from Anywhere, USA.

"Of course they're better off ....they have McDonald's now!!"

there is an episode of South Park where Stan and Kyle ask Uncle Jimbo about the Vietnam war for their school project and he gives them a long absurd story about how he and Ned were fighting to protect the Log Ride at the Vietnam amusement park from the Viet Cong. They show Jimbo and Ned riding the Log Ride at the end of Jimbo's flashback sequence.

Come to think of it... ironically, that may be a more realistic understanding of the war than the official explanation, and "Domino Theory" and all that.

We go to foreign countries... set up bases... kill anyone who tries to attack them (and also other people that simply get in the way)... sometimes we leave our bases "on patrol" and get shot at or bombed by the same people trying to attack the bases. then after enough time passes we withdraw "with honor" and come back home, and no one remembers why, and no one is ever held accountable for the decision or our actions.

 

[byco42]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VHKpGJX29s

"Inside every Gook, there is an American trying to get out."

 

[Michchamp]

Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote this retrospective of the results of the War. A lot of press coming out about it, as it's the 10 year anniversary of our invasion.

he also wrote this essay at the time, putting what was going on in Iraq into perspective by adapting the statistics on an American scale.

 

[Michchamp]

in the Huff Post, there's an article about how badly the mainstream media failed during the Iraq War.

20+ years of propaganda (not sure what else to call it) claiming the media had "a liberal bias" paid dividends.

in the run up to the Iraq War, Cheney could cite to the New York Times during Meet the Press, and the implication to the public was "even the liberals agree we need to invade" which made it appear there was no political opposition. In truth, the New York Times articles were based on claims the administration fed to the Times, which then reprinted them, creating a closed loop of information.

Phil Donohue, maybe the only mainstream media figure to question the administration's claims and the established need for an invasion was fired by MSNBC (considered to be THE epitome of liberal bias in among the major networks).

all so awful.

the article points out probably the most disheartening aspect of it, namely all those figures that cheered the war on and were instrumental to selling it are still on TV. They suffered no loss of credibility for their actions, and most of the public has no idea anyway.

 

[redandguilty]

Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote this retrospective of the results of the War. A lot of press coming out about it, as it's the 10 year anniversary of our invasion.

he also wrote this essay at the time, putting what was going on in Iraq into perspective by adapting the statistics on an American scale.

As much as I'd like to agree with any anti-war article, I think this guy goes too far to assert that an Iraqi Spring would have driven regime change anyway. I would also balk at the suggestion that things would have been any better for Sunnis in an Iraq where an Iraqi Spring did overthrow the regime. It just as easily could have been worse. What's happened in other cases where a minority in power was overthrown?

 

[redandguilty]

I like the American scale article though.

 

[Michchamp]

As much as I'd like to agree with any anti-war article, I think this guy goes too far to assert that an Iraqi Spring would have driven regime change anyway. I would also balk at the suggestion that things would have been any better for Sunnis in an Iraq where an Iraqi Spring did overthrow the regime. It just as easily could have been worse. What's happened in other cases where a minority in power was overthrown?

well, I don't think it could possibly have been worse than our overthrow of Saddam was for ALL Iraqis.

also, some commentators make the point that the Arab Spring revolts were driven by wikileaks publication of a lot of the stuff that was stolen and provided by Bradley Manning, which occurred when he was stationed in Iraq, so it might be moot anyway.