antagon
The Man
- Dec 6, 2009
- 3,572
- 295
- 48
c'mon, man. a blog citing human rights watch numbers is not comparable to a peer reviewed scientific study. i don't doubt that saddam ran an evil empire, but tallying up the eighties till now in an effort to cast a comparable body count to the last decade is besides the point. sick even.
iraq has been subject to the most powerful military force in the world for 8 years amid an insurgency effort which cant be said to have been quelled. these factions targeted civilians and sheltered themselves among them. the government cant affect policy like it could before invasion. the police cant keep order. there has not been an improvement in iraqi infrastructure, there has been a decline instead. public works destroyed in the first few months of the war have never been totally restored.
how do you make a case of improvement, or rationalize it to yourself? it will take a decade or more for iraq to bounce back, easily. it would be an unprecedented miracle in an unlikely place were your cheery outlook on the country remotely true.
your timeline indicates zarqawi came to iraq around the same time we did, which i have been contending all along. your statement about saddam's collusion with ansar has been refuted. colin powell regretted his presentation of the poor intelligence which supported that claim. there is a historical relationship to iran and the group. saddam the great exterminator of kurds and arch enemy of iran was not in bed with the rebels operating on the iran border.
in 2003, i thought the war was bullshit along with the claims connecting saddam to chickenshit terror networks. i thought that powell pointing at tankers in an oil producing country and affirming them to be chemical weapons transports was playing to a naive and terrorism-sensitive america. i thought ari fleicsher was a liar and bad at it. the only cynical undertone i picked up then as to motive was the oil-for-food relationship between france russia and iraq, noting that those parties were vehemently opposing our escalation of war there. i didn't expect the war to be one of the longest in our history.
iraq has been subject to the most powerful military force in the world for 8 years amid an insurgency effort which cant be said to have been quelled. these factions targeted civilians and sheltered themselves among them. the government cant affect policy like it could before invasion. the police cant keep order. there has not been an improvement in iraqi infrastructure, there has been a decline instead. public works destroyed in the first few months of the war have never been totally restored.
how do you make a case of improvement, or rationalize it to yourself? it will take a decade or more for iraq to bounce back, easily. it would be an unprecedented miracle in an unlikely place were your cheery outlook on the country remotely true.
your timeline indicates zarqawi came to iraq around the same time we did, which i have been contending all along. your statement about saddam's collusion with ansar has been refuted. colin powell regretted his presentation of the poor intelligence which supported that claim. there is a historical relationship to iran and the group. saddam the great exterminator of kurds and arch enemy of iran was not in bed with the rebels operating on the iran border.
in 2003, i thought the war was bullshit along with the claims connecting saddam to chickenshit terror networks. i thought that powell pointing at tankers in an oil producing country and affirming them to be chemical weapons transports was playing to a naive and terrorism-sensitive america. i thought ari fleicsher was a liar and bad at it. the only cynical undertone i picked up then as to motive was the oil-for-food relationship between france russia and iraq, noting that those parties were vehemently opposing our escalation of war there. i didn't expect the war to be one of the longest in our history.