I initially read this with evidence to back it up in a book and here it is: The Fateful Triangle , go look it up and read it...plus, it's common knowledge Israel threatened to use nukes when they were losing the 1973 Arab-Israeli War What is your beef with the Iranian government? Let's get into the specifics...People in general disliking their governments is an international and historical phenomenon so the Iranian people disliking their government is nothing new and shouldn't be surprising, but noobdy in Iran in general is talking about overthrowing their government or initiating another revolution, people want to change the system from within, which is what has been going on since the victory of the revolution in 1979...even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has initiated reforms even though people dont talk about them and we can if you want....most people are just blinded by their hatred of the regime and can't see past that Can you back this up with evidence instead of just accusations? First, it's funny how you claim that people are ignoring me, but you keep responding to my posts Second, you have the nerve of accusing others of using a straw man argument...that's hillarious as well Let's also remember that you're the person who used a fake photo to try and back-up an argument you were making in an immigration thread and you also like to use other people's opinion as evidence in backing up your own claims Third, there is active resistance in most dictatorships in the region and I can see the similarities in the patterns of resistance in Saudi Arabia in the last decade and those that went on in Iran in the 1960s. What about the uprisings in Algeria? What about the two Lebanese Civil Wars? What about the uprisings against Saddam Hussein? Let's not forget the two Palestinian Intifadahs. Let's also not forget the attempts to overthrow the governments of Bahrain and Qatar. So there is a process of people rising up in those countries. Again, you've demonstrated your ignorance not just about Iran, but about the Middle East and North Africa in general. The reason that the people of Iran haven't risen up or violently resisted their government is because it has legitimacy, whether you like it or not. These people overthrew a US sponsored dictatorship and won power in a revolution. They also led the country through a brutal 8 year war with Iraq in which Iran was invaded, occupied, and has WMDs used against it. Moreover, after the revolution there was a referendum with an overwhelming majority voting for an Islamic Republic. Also, I will point you to the high levels of contestation and participation in Iranian elections. They have had around 20 major elections since the revolution and participation has never dipped below 50% of those eligible to vote and is usually much higher. These are the reasons that the people haven't revolted and this is also the reason that nobody has been able to answer the question I posed.
US sponsorship of terrorism against Iran http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=42505 Kucinich Questions The President On US Trained Insurgents In Iran Sends Letter To President Bush Washington, Apr 18 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, sent the following letter today to President George W. Bush: Dear Mr. President: Last week I wrote to you regarding reports that U.S. troops are conducting military operations in Iran. I have included a copy of that letter below for your information. There are also reports, however, that the U.S. is fomenting opposition and supporting military operations in Iran among insurgent groups and Iranian ethnic minority groups, some of whom are operating from Iraq. The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) is one such group. PEJAK is based in the Kurdish region of Iraq, a few miles from the Iranian border, and has staged attacks across the border in Iran since 2004 on behalf of Iranian Kurdish interests, according to an April 3, 2006 article in the Washington Times. PEJAK claimed to kill twenty-four Iranian soldiers in three raids against army bases in March. Irans official news agency also reported that three Republican Guard soldiers were killed in a gun battle near the Iraqi border in late March. Iran has denounced PEJAK as a terrorist group and has accused the U.S. of funding PEJAK. According to an April 15, 2006 article in the Economist, Iranians and Turks both believe that the U.S. is supporting PEJAK. It is hard to believe that PEJAK is operating successfully from Iraq without U.S. knowledge, support and coordination. The Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian anti-government group which has been listed as a terrorist group by the State Department since 1997, is another anti-government group that has received U.S. support. An article by Jim Lobe published on Antiwar.com on February 11, 2005 claims that Pentagon civilians and Vice President Cheneys office are among those in the U.S. government who support the MEK. His article further describes how according to Philip Giraldi, a former CIA official and a source in an article about this subject in the American Conservative magazine, U.S. Special Forces have been directing members of the MEK in carrying out reconnaissance and intelligence collection in Iran from bases in Afghanistan and Balochistan, Pakistan since the summer of 2004. Seymour Hershs April 10, 2006 article in the New Yorker also confirms that the U.S. troops are establishing contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups in Iran. According to a government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, American combat troops now operating in Iran are working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The consultant further says, The troops are studying the terrain and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds. U.S. support for insurgent activity in Iran is not tolerable. You have claimed numerous times that the object of the so-called War on Terror is to target lawless insurgent groups. Previously I asked you to immediately report to Congress on the extent of U.S. military operations currently in Iran. Now, in light of the evidence described above, I urge you to report to Congress on U.S. support for military operations in Iran by anti-Iranian insurgent groups. It is a great breach of public trust to set this country on another path of war while keeping the Congress and the American people in the dark. I am demanding that you respond. Sincerely, Dennis J. Kucinich Ranking Democrat Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations
Many Arabs favor nuclear Iran By Jonathan Wright Reuters 18 April 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060418/wl_nm/ nuclear_iran_arabs_dc CAIRO (Reuters) - The United States found little support in the Arab world when it invaded Iraq in 2003. In a military confrontation with Tehran over Iran's nuclear program, it should not expect any more. Some Arabs, mainly outside the Gulf, are positively enthusiastic about Iran's program, even if it acquires nuclear weapons, if only because it would be a poke in the eye or a counterweight to Israel and the United States. Others, especially in countries closest to Iran, are wary of any threat to the status quo and the instability it might bring. Most in the Arab world see the U.S. and European campaign against Iran as hypocritical, while Israel refuses to allow international nuclear inspections and is thought to have some 200 nuclear warheads. "I want the whole region free of all nuclear weapons but if the West continues its double-standard approach on this issue then Iran has the right (to have them)," said Abdel-Rahman Za'za', a 29-year-old Lebanese engineer. "This could provide some balance against Israel and help the Palestinians in their negotiations. We have to take our rights because they are not going to be given to us," he added. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, said this week it saw no harm in Iran developing nuclear arms. "That would create a kind of equilibrium between the two sides -- the Arab and Islamic side on one side and Israel on the other," said deputy Brotherhood leader Mohamed Habib. Arab League chief Amr Moussa said on Tuesday policies toward nuclear programs in the region needed thorough review. "These policies which are based on double standards will blow up and escalate this issue and this escalation will not include only Iran and Israel," he said. The Arab League represents 22 Arab governments, from Morocco to the Gulf. Iran says it has no intention of making nuclear bombs and wants enriched uranium only to generate electricity. The United States says it does not believe it. Analysts said they detected a surprising level of sympathy and support for Iran in the region. WOUNDED DIGNITY "It's amazing how encouraging people are of the whole thing. Some think the Iranians are on the way to acquiring it (nuclear weapons capability) and are quite excited," said Hesham Kassem, editor of the independent Cairo newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. "There doesn't seem to be any awareness that it might be a calamity," added Kassem, who said he personally was afraid of an arms race bringing in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. Mohamed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a Cairo think tank, said: "People are very very warm about it (Iran's nuclear program)." "Anyone who challenges the United States will find a great deal of support. That's a very profitable enterprise in public opinion terms," he added. "Even if it takes an arms race, people don't mind. What we have here is wounded dignity and revulsion about the lack of fairness and double standards." Most Arab governments have called for a peaceful solution to the confrontation with Iran, in the hope that diplomacy will enable it to develop nuclear energy under U.N. supervision. If they speak about nuclear weapons, they say the whole Middle East should be nuclear-free, implicitly including Israel. U.S. officials say they can only deal with Israel's nuclear activities after a comprehensive Middle East peace. Analysts in the Gulf raised special concerns. "Gulf states are legitimately concerned about Iran joining the nuclear club," said Abdel-Khaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science in the United Arab Emirates. "The possibility of a fourth Gulf war is just beyond our ability to manage. We don't want it. It will just make life miserable and hell," he added. Saudi analyst Dawoud al-Sharayan said an Iranian nuclear bomb could give the United States a pretext to maintain its military forces in the Gulf and add to the tension. Saudi Arabia would then have the right to think about having its own nuclear weapon, he added. (Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas in Cairo, Alaa Shahine in Beirut, Miral Fahmy in Dubai and Andrew Hammond in Saudi Arabia)
They had to be willing to risk their lives. People in the U.S. didn't want King George but nothing changed until they were willing to put their lives on the line to change it. They didn't have to be 100% unified. Those that support Saddam were obviously going to prevent 100% unification. The resistence to Saddam however should have been unified behind a leader or a cause prior to our intervention. They weren't. They all wanted to get rid of Saddam, but those opposed to Saddam didn't have any real unification wich successful overthrow would require. They didn't have to have it all worked out. But if they were serious about wanting Saddam gone, they should have at least had some plans. There is reason to believe a simliar uprising to '91 this one with our assistence wouldn't have encountered the same resistence we are now. 1. Iraqis themselves would have actually been participating in the operations from the beginning. 2. We would be there helping them at their request, as opposed to invading and occupying them. 3. That uprising would have meant popular support for what they were doing. Our invasion and occupation never had popular support among any but the Kurds. As far as don't want and didn't want... They don't want us there now, and aside from the Kurds they didn't want us to invade. There were no Shiite groups hanging garlands around the liberating U.S. soldiers as they came in. There Shiites did not speak up and ask the U.S. to come in. We weren't invited. We invaded. The activity by the Iraqis in exile was part of the problem. They weren't really in touch with what was going on on the ground. Their lies are part of the reason the administration had for believing we'd be welcomed by the populace. They are some of the group that wanted the U.S. in for their own greedy reasons in addition to any animosity toward Saddam. If Bush did all the things that Saddam did you better believe we would welcome some outside help. We would probably start the wheels in motion to put together a strong resistence, come up with some ideas of our own on how run things after Bush was gone, and talk to foreign govts. and ask them to help. After being let down in '91 The Iraqis did not do this. As far as their govt. now they didn't exactly choose it. They chose it within the guidelines we set for them. When uprisings and overthrows actually succeed it is because they have an ideal they are fighting for in the first place and set their own paremeters. This new Iraqi govt. was not an organic thing that the Iraqis developed, believed in and thought it to be something worth fighting for. That is the whole problem. It doesn't matter how wonderful the intentions may have been by the U.S. It doesn't matter how great we know our democracy to have been. The country where the war is going to take place has to believe in it, develop it, and be willing to fight for it themselves. Iraqis didn't show any real evidence of that since they were let down in '91. Even in Afghanistan they had the Northern Alliance which certainly weren't unified on everything, but they were unified in that they were currently engaged in a struggle they believed in against the Taliban. They did know they wanted to divide up the land by various warlords. They were willing to fight the right to do that. Their vision was changed and altered along the way. That is alright too. But at least they were engaged and active enough to fight for it themselves. Iraq is a situation where we stormed in, obliterated things, destroyed their security, and then said "Now you take responsibility and put it all back together as long as it is done kind of like this." That is what happened. There were some positives as well. Saddam, a cruel dictator, was removed, and won't be coming back. Look at successful revolutions and overthrows in history. They originated from within even if there was outside support. Mao in China, Castro in Cuba, The Russians in 1917, The American Revolution, etc. There is a difference in those and what is happening in Iraq.
FB, The Kurds alone are comparable to the Northern Alliance. The insurgency is a combination of Sunnis and foreign fighters - that's exactly what would have happened in your 'legitimate' scenario in '91. You can make arbitrary criteria about 'fighting for it' if you want, but they seem to BE fighting for it. Having this vision of a worked out arrangement pre-Saddam's removal just isn't realistic because the SAME lines existed then - Kurds and Shiites wanted Saddam out, Sunnis didn't. Now the Kurds and Shiites are participating in the new government, not fighting each other, and the Sunnis are leading an insurgency. There is NO difference. Creepy - I wasn't responding to you, I talking about you. There is a difference. You like to parrot the same crap over and over and you don't respond to people's points, and until you do I simply don't have the time to waste on you. My credibility on this board is far and away above reproach by you - even in the eyes of most of those who I disagree with on a regular basis.
FB, what Bush Senior did to the Iraqi people in '91 was despicable. Hell, it was far worse than despicable... it was as if he went out of his way to give Saddam an excuse to murder tens of thousands. Why we should expect them to trust us today is baffling. I agree with your point. Hayes, you are too quick to make the assumption that the situation caused by our invasion and occupation of Iraq must produce the same outcome as a revolution in '91 would have. We had a huge force on the ground in '91. Had we done what we told the Iraqi people we were going to do, and helped them overthrow Saddam, those troops, in numbers events have proven were needed, numbers that were recommended by top brass and dismissed as unneeded by Bush/Rumsfeld, were right there. I doubt that the Iraqi military would have been disbanded, as it stupidly was by Rummy and Junior, but that is just my opinion. The most important difference, as FB points out, is that there was a mass uprising in '91. Had we gone in, the circumstances would have been far different. There had been no 9/11. There was no serious threat by bin Laden at that time. There is no reason to think that foreign fighters would have flocked there, with hundreds of thousands of troops backing an Iraqi revolution. Iraq's economy was far better then. The infrastructure was far better. There hadn't been years of sanctions. Huge differences in the circumstances between then and now. We blew it then by not going into Iraq to support a revolution we called for, when we had the ability to support it. We've blown it today, in Iraq, because Bush Junior has signed off on every conceivable mistake poor leadership could give us. We should never have invaded when we did, and we should have when we could have done it right, or as close to right as we were likely to get. I'll say something else... I don't care what the theocracy is doing today in Iran. They aren't gong to produce atomic weapons before the November elections, and I would be willing to bet they won't before we get a new President. Not trusting Bush to do a damn thing right, we should wait until we have a new government in the United States before we start trying to attack any other countries. I'll amend that with a novel thought... we should certainly wait until they attack us, or present a clear and present danger to the United States. A novel concept indeed. Keep D&D Civil.
. Cool. You want to attack Iran if they don't do what you and Dubya want. We all know that is the meaning of this threa. Duh, Parse away. Even you are getting confused by your style. You say 1) I defend the mullahs because I don't believe we should attack Iraq. Now you back off this self serving definition. Now 2) You give an example in support of my "support" . "if I say glynch is an idiot, and you say 'glynch is not an idiot' - then you are defending glynch." Yet you admit that I said I hate the mullahs. Thanks for discrediting yourself in the same post that you attempt to defend your silly simplistic assertion that I support the mullahs. No need to scroll through other convoluted parsings of yours. Tell me your next theory as to why I support the Mullahs. I did think that we needed to go apprehend Bin Laden. I don't think we needed to take over all of Afghanistan and start what looks to be a 50 year occupation. I opposed our war and don't think we exhausted our diplomacy prior to going into Afghanistan to apprehend the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. Well you never met a war you did not want other American's children to fight. Care to show where it gives the existing nuclear powers the right to threaten to use nukes to achieve policy goals. Do your own homework.
It is not only Sunnis and foreign fighters that are against us now. There have been Shiite militias that have also gone against us now. They don't do that when they are happy with what you are doing and want you there to do that. Like I said in '91 there were both Shiites and Kurds wanted Saddam gone, but it was still started from within, with a larger internal support. The huge difference between '91 and the recent invasion is that they wanted, and expected us to help them in '91. They did not want us there this time. The kind of support you will get when someone wants you there, is very different than the kind you will get when they don't want you there.
So true, Sam. Hayes argues from unassailable assumptions. "Containment" is an absolute. 9/11 or terrorism is a minor price for us to pay. Still stuck in his boyhood trauma about the Russians. No matter how much blowback, death or destruction is caused, no matter if we have to torture or encourage death squads, or nuke Iran, containment must continue or we will be overhwhelmed by the Arabs, the Muslims, the Iranians, the Russians, the Chicoms (as he probably rerfers to them), the Venezuelans, the Nicarguans, etc.
Where did I ever say I was in favor of attacking Iran? Duh. I appreciate the compliment but I wouldn't go that far. Lol, yes - I pointed out you hate the mullahs (although you won't say why for some reason). You also defended them, as I pointed out - no suprise there since you often contradict yourself. Right. I was just restating your position. You made the declaration that it was against the NPT. Please back it up. Uh, neoconservatives don't have anything to do with the support of the mujahadeen in Afghanistan - that was pure realpolitik, lol. Try again. Or we can cut to the chase and you can look up WHY osama said he attacked us - troops in Saudi Arabia. Troops in SA for what (one might ask)? To contain Saddam. So you can continue firing off your little witty remarks, but I'd rather you come back with a real argument. You're such a doofus. I'm arguing that containment was bad, lol. Try and keep up with the program, silly. Containment led to blowback (ie 9/11, the embassy bombings, the Cole etc). You're unfortunately confused as usual. The intervention was good because we no longer have troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia - the original REASON Osama decided to attack the US. I don't think so, Deckard. I also wish we had finished the job in '91, but the REASON Bush Sr didn't go to Bagdad is that the Arab coalition was unwilling to do so. It widely held that to continue on would have fractured the coalition. If he had gone on anyway in opposition to the Gulf and Arab states there is a good likelihood that you would still have had foreign fighters in Iraq opposing what then would have been a Western force of occupation (as it is now). Absent the large troops deployment from the Arab states also hurts your 'we would have had more troops argument.' Further, there isn't any reason (that you give at least) why the Iraqi army wouldn't have been disbanded then, as it was now (although I freely conceed that was a HUGE mistake - one that ultimately could have changed the whole outlook in Iraq). And there isn't any reason to suggest that the Sunnis would not have operated an insurgency (as now) nor that some miracle compromise would have been worked out between the parties (Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite).
Wrong Hayes. Dead wrong. Let's trace the roots of neo-con jobbing back to its founders in the 70's Jeane Kirkpatrick - adviser to Carter and Reagan huge supporter of arming the mujihadeen and Neocon grande dame. Sen. Scoop Jackson - Father of neocon-ism, bigtime Afghanistan hawk Richard Perle - aide to Scoop Jackson Douglas Feith - aide to Scoop Jackson Paul Wolfowitz - worked with Scoop Jackson Elliot Abrams - aide to Scoop Jackson ...and don't forget the principal Afghan armorer Ronald Reagan, neocon president extraoirdinaire. See a pattern here? All these people were hardcore anti communists who supported arming the mujihadeen due to the inherent moral evil of communism. Neo-cons (many of them beginning as democrats under Carter) were the primary motivating force behind aiding Afghan radicals. The moral evil they saw in communism was greater than what they saw in Islam. Here's a quip from neo-con bad boy Richard Perle: You're wrong, dead wrong, to suggest that arming the islamic radicals in afghanistan wasn't a neoconservative idea. Communism was a godless soul crushing evil empire that had to be stamped out. Islamic radicals were pious people of the book. The neo-con choice was easy then, and it showed. That's why they caused 9-11.
I don't think so. Reagan was a conservative hardline anti-communist. Think about it. What is neoconservatism? How do you distinguish it from Realism? It appears to you that they are the same thing. A neoconservative supports exporting democracy through force, if necessary. That's why they are called 'hard wilsonians' Yet Reagan supported dictators and democracies alike (Suharto, Pinochet, Marcos, Apartheid in South Africa). He was engaging in a global battle against communism and the record clearly shows a despotic proxy was as good as a democratic one. I've seen these assertions of Reagan as the first Neoconservative President but I don't think it makes much sense. If you can help me resolve that then I'm all ears. However, even if you're right - the decision to supply Afghan rebels didn't cause 9/11. Stationing troops in Saudi Arabia did. As I've pointed out in other threads, if your position is that you can pull out an link in the long causal chain and argue its an alternate cause then any causal discussion decends into infinite regression. 'Well, his mama bearing Osama is the cause of 9/11' is the kind of analysis you end up with. You're a lawyer so you should be familiar with necessary vs sufficient. The experience in Afghanistan may have been necessary for Osama to end up where he was, but it was not sufficient to get him to attack the US. THAT variable was the decision to station troops in Saudi Arabia. THAT is the direct link. The presence of U.S. and other non-Muslim troops in SaudiArabia after the 1991 Gulf War inspired Bin Laden to renew his commitment to defensive jihad and to advocate violence against the Saudi government and the United States. Declaration of Jihad. In the early 1990s, Bin Laden emphasized his desire to secure the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Saudi Arabia at all costs. BinLaden criticized the Saudi royal familypubliclyand alleged thattheir invitation of foreigntroops to the Arabian peninsula constituted an affront to the sanctity of the birthplace ofIslam and a betrayal of the global Islamic community.4Finding his rhetoric and effortsrebuffed by Saudi leaders, Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia and his ire increasingly focused on the United States. Following a period of exile in Sudan andAfghanistan in which his radical views sharpened, Bin Laden issued a declaration of jihad against the United States in 1996... CRS Report to Congress When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden wanted Arab veterans of the Afghan war to help the Saudi army defend Saudi Arabia. He saw the arrival of American troops to confront Saddam—and the continued U.S. military presence in the Gulf after the war—as a violation of the sanctity of Muslim territory. http://www.cfr.org/publication/9951/#2 Bin Laden's anger with the United States stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the U.S. to stage attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the U.S. victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent. In a CNN interview with bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places." In 1996, bin Laden issued a "fatwah," a religious ruling urging Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. A second fatwah in 1998 called for attacks on American civilians. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/binladen.profile/ Lee Hamilton, Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission: For example, we put troops in Saudi Arabia. I supported that. I think the Congress supported it without objection back in the early 90s. That was the thing that apparently triggered Osama bin Laden, putting American forces on sacred soil... MATTHEWS: And keeping them there for 10 years. HAMILTON: That's correct, if we are to believe what Osama bin Laden has said. So here's a policy, unanimously agreed upon in the United States government, one that I still think was correct. But nonetheless, had the unexpected consequence that it triggered Osama bin Laden. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5228545/
I agree with Hayes on this one, Reagan was more of a 'realist' (at least in practice) than a neoconservative.
You keep repeating this: "The intervention was good because we no longer have troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia - the original REASON Osama decided to attack the US" as an unassailable fact. There is no reason, given good leadership from the White House, that we couldn't have redeployed then, just as we have post-9/11. (I would add good leadership from the royal family in Saudi, but I don't want to be ludicrous... that's like expecting good leadership from Bush Junior, an absurd fantasy) I think I mentioned this quite a while back (troops in SA pissing off bin Laden) in passing, and you jumped on it. That's how I recall it, at any rate. I never considered it more than one factor among many for Osama's mad acts, and we could have (and should have) recognized the problems inherent in having troops and bases in Saudi Arabia, and redeployed. In response to this: "the REASON Bush Sr didn't go to Bagdad is that the Arab coalition was unwilling to do so. It widely held that to continue on would have fractured the coalition. If he had gone on anyway in opposition to the Gulf and Arab states there is a good likelihood that you would still have had foreign fighters in Iraq opposing what then would have been a Western force of occupation (as it is now). Absent the large troops deployment from the Arab states also hurts your 'we would have had more troops argument.' Further, there isn't any reason (that you give at least) why the Iraqi army wouldn't have been disbanded then, as it was now (although I freely conceed that was a HUGE mistake - one that ultimately could have changed the whole outlook in Iraq). And there isn't any reason to suggest that the Sunnis would not have operated an insurgency (as now) nor that some miracle compromise would have been worked out between the parties (Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite)." I give you: The United States, especially Secretary of State James Baker, assembled a coalition of forces to join it in opposing Iraq, consisting of forces from 34 countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States itself. US troops represented 74% of 660,000 troops in the theater of war. Many of the coalition forces were reluctant to join; some felt that the war was an internal Arab affair, or feared increasing American influence in Kuwait. In the end, many nations were persuaded by Iraq's belligerence towards other Arab states, and offers of economic aid or debt forgiveness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War And a lot of irony... (from Wikpedia) There was some criticism of the Bush administration for its decision to allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power, rather than pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed, Bush and Brent Scowcroft arguing that such a course would have fractured the alliance and would have had many unnecessary political and human costs associated with it. In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point: "I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."[15] Instead of greater involvement of its own military, the United States hoped that Saddam would be overthrown in an internal coup. The Central Intelligence Agency used its assets in Iraq to organize a revolt, but the Iraqi government defeated the effort. On March 10, 1991, Operation Desert Storm began to move 540,000 American troops out of the Persian Gulf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War Hayes, the numbers aren't comparable. And my belief that an occupation then would have been far different is a very reasonable one, based on the facts that exisited then. As FB pointed out, you had a genuine and spontaneous uprising. They were sold out far worse than the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. The number of dead and maimed was enormous. Saddam went into parts of southern Iraq and destroyed the ecology, to punish those that had fought, thinking they would get support from the hundreds of thousands of US troops, naval and air power, with divisions parked around the country. That doesn't even mention the NATO troops present from our allies that weren't from the region, in the tens of thousands, including a French division. In my opinion, you have fixated on this with a rather narrow focus. Expand yiour mind! Keep D&D Civil.
So, with this whole screed Hayes, what evidence have you provided that Arming of the mujihadeen was not a Neocon tenet during its formative years? Zero. Because it was. You can sit around and claim that Reagan wasn't one, but that doesn't make it true. http://www.neoconservative.net/ hell you could even claim that Scoop Jackson and his minions weren't ones either. That form of denial is common to a lot of other posters in other areas. But it doesn't make things true. Honestly, the fact that you're p***y-footing around the intellectual bases of your support for a policy and have to rely on these silly causational theories by erecting walls of denial and rhetoric is probably more telling than anything. It's not going to change the heinous mess on the ground - neocons and their specious reasoning, no matter what the theoretical underpinnings, have been proven failures in practice, most glaringly so in Iraq. And that's the underlying reality of all this, and I don't really think there's that much more to say.
You said a lot in your previous post, Sam, which I found damned interesting. Conservatives here, of whatever stripe, tend to forget that Democratic Administrations and Congressional leadership were indeed fervent anti-communists, and were in power when we went to war during most of the modern era. This idea that if you are a liberal, and/or a Democrat, that you automatically don't believe in a strong defense, and the defense of our freedoms, is just so much BS spewed out by the GOP these last several years. In my opinion. Keep D&D Civil.
Well, it IS a fact. It is a fact that Osama names troops in SA as the reason he decided to attack the US. You can counterfactually hypothesize on what could have been all you want, it makes for interesting reading, but what happened - happened. Even if this is so, it still wouldn't have put the three groups any closer to being 'unified' as FB demands, nor would it have prevented a Sunni insurgency, nor would it have prevented foreign fighters from coming into Iraq - especially since such a move was opposed by the Arab/Gulf States. Coalition Warfare in Iraq: Then and Now Rick Russell A common critique of the Bush administration's war in Iraq is that George W. Bush failed to diplomatically harness as broad a coalition as his father George H. W. Bush had in the 1990-91 Gulf War. This common wisdom holds that had the current President been as much of a statesman as his father, the situation in Iraq would be far more stable and certain than it is today. Rarely, if ever, do the media, commentators or people on the street challenge this common wisdom. Arab forces from Egypt, Syria and the Gulf Cooperation Council added much political clout to the coalition, but little in the way of proficient men or arms for waging war. Their major, if not only, contribution in battle was to carry the Kuwaiti flag into Kuwait City after it had been liberated by American and British forces. The more significant contributions from the Arab Gulf states came in the form of financial backing, the provision of facilities and transit rights for the British and Americans forces waging the campaign. Often overlooked today is that Arab opposition to marching coalition forces into Iraqi territory stymied any ambitious strategic thinking in Washington and London to set the removal of Saddam's regime as the political objective for Desert Storm. Fast forward to examine the current conflict in Iraq and a sense of déjà vu arises when examining the military contributions to ousting Saddam's repugnant regime and the counterinsurgency operations now underway.... American and British forces did not use outer space as the staging point for the campaign against Saddam; they used received logistics, command and control facilities, airspace transit rights, port access and airbases to varying degrees from the Arab Gulf States much as Washington and London had in the earlier war. While many Gulf States publicly denounced American and British war efforts in craven pandering to Arab public opinion, they privately lent the support needed to wage the war. Richard L. Russell is a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and teaches in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue27/Vol3Issue27Russell.html I'm not sure what this means, Deckard. This is only one of many reasons why I support the intervention in Iraq. I'm not sure why that's a narrow perspective. And this spinoff discussion about '91 vs now is only a small segment of my discussion with FB. If being an anti-communist is the main determinant of whether or not you're a neoconservative, then Joe McCarthy was a neoconservative. I don't think so. I pointed out that Reagan had policies inconsistent with what we now call neoconservatism. Especially in light of our current engagement in Iraq, where 'neoconservatives' called for the intervention specifically because we had the power to remove a despot and promote democracy. That is not consistent with Reagan's policies. What evidence have you presented, Sam? Yes, you provided a list of who worked for who, but that doesn't prove anything since many people work in multiple administrations in multiple offices in multiple departments. You have a website that celebrates Reagan as a neoconservative - ok - I already agreed that some people say he was the first neoconservative President. However, I point out the problems with that attribution. You don't answer, you just deride. I'm afraid your derision doesn't make anything true, nor does it sweep under the rug points counter to your own. It is a minor point anyway. I provide four references to my causal argument - you provided none to your alternate causality argument. Osama didn't decide to attack the US in the 80s in Afghanistan. He decided to attack the US because of containment. I disagree. I provide a pretty solid causal argument. I defend it, you revert to saying I'm in denial. OK, not the strongest reponse. You can certainly pop in and express your opinion in any thread and assert that Iraq is a failure - that anyone who thinks otherwise is silly or in denial. I disagree. And its obvious you don't have anything else to say.
