The Invasion of Iraq

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caltrek
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The Invasion of Iraq

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How Many of Those Calling for Putin’s Arrest were Complicit in the Illegal Invasion of Iraq?
by George Monbiot
March 20, 2023

Extract:
No one can credibly deny that the invasion of Iraq met the Nuremberg definition. The Chilcot inquiry, whose terms were set by Brown when he was prime minister, was forbidden to pronounce on the legality of the war. But it concluded that “the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.” In other words, it failed to meet the UN charter’s criteria for legal warfare. The former law lord, Lord Steyn, came to the same conclusion: “In the absence of a second UN resolution authorising invasion, it was illegal”. The former lord chief justice, Lord Bingham, called the Iraq war “a serious violation of international law”. A Dutch inquiry, led by a former supreme court judge, found that the invasion had “no sound mandate in international law.

The attackers went out of their way to eliminate peaceful alternatives. Saddam Hussein desperately sought to negotiate, eventually offering everything the US and UK governments said they wanted, but they slapped his hand away, then lied to us about it. When the UN sought diplomatic solutions, US officials went into what they called “thwart mode”, sabotaging negotiations.

When the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, José Bustani, offered to resolve the impasse over weapons inspections in Iraq, the US government illegally ousted him. The first government to support his sacking was the United Kingdom’s.

The government in which Brown was chancellor was repeatedly warned that its planned invasion would be illegal.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ell-russia
Last edited by caltrek on Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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The Iraq Invasion 20 Years Later: It Was Indeed a Big Lie that Launched the Catastrophic War
by David Corn
March 20, 2023

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Before there was Donald Trump’s Big Lie, there was George W. Bush’s Big Lie.

Twenty years ago this week, Bush and his sidekick Vice President Dick Cheney launched a war against Iraq. They greased the way to this tragic conflagration with the false claims that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that directly threatened the United States, and that he was in league with al Qaeda, the perpetrators of the horrific September 11 attack. Their invasion, which led to the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians—and the violence and instability in the region that resulted in ISIS—is now widely considered to have been a strategic blunder of immense proportions. Three months before he died in 2018, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), a leading advocate of the war and the post-invasion troop surge, published his final book, The Restless Wave, which included a self-damning verdict: “The principal reason for invading Iraq, that Saddam [Hussein] had WMD, was wrong. The war, with its cost in lives and treasure and security, can’t be judged as anything other than a mistake, a very serious one, and I have to accept my share of the blame for it.”

Other one-time cheerleaders for the Iraq war have voiced regret and, occasionally, shame. In a 2018 book, Max Boot, an analyst who was once deeply ensconced in the world of neocon foreign policy, wrote, “I can finally acknowledge the obvious: It was all a big mistake. Saddam Hussein was heinous, but Iraq was better off under his tyrannical rule than the chaos that followed. I regret advocating the invasion and feel guilty about all the lives lost.” Three years earlier, New York Times columnist David Brooks, who had been a loud (and naive) beater of the war drums in 2003, opined, “[T]he decision to go to war was a clear misjudgment.”
Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... phic-war/
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

Post by weatheriscool »

It was fucking stupid! What a waste of life and money. Would have been better spent here in the United states or put in my bank account. ;)
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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Twenty Years On, George W. Bush’s Promise of Democracy in Iraq and Middle East Falls Short
by Brian Urlacher
March 18, 2023

Introduction:
(The Conversation) President George W. Bush and his administration put forward a variety of reasons to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In the months before the U.S. invasion, Bush said the looming conflict was about eradicating terrorism and seizing weapons of mass destruction – but also because of a “freedom deficit” in the Middle East, a reference to the perceived lag in participatory government in the region.

Many of these arguments would emerge as poorly grounded, given later events.

In 2004, then Secretary of State Colin Powell reflected on the weak rationale behind the main arguments for the invasion: that there were weapons of mass destruction. He acknowledged that “it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading.”
In fact Iraq did not have a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, as Powell and others had alleged at the time.
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/20-years-o ... rt-201998
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

Post by weatheriscool »

I am starting to think that the opposite happened. A lot of these southerns make up a very large percentage of our military and we sent them over their for decades! I think they agreed too much with these people and brought it back home and now we're dealing with it. It is pure shit.
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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caltrek wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 9:12 pm
ibm9000 wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:56 pm
I am more interested in understanding this war and the consequences for...
To understand this war, you have to understand war. To understand consequences, I think it is a good idea to have a look at past consequences of war, any war.
...
I don't disagree with you. The point that you keep missing is that is why we have a history section to this forum. A place where historical events can be examined and lessons extracted from a discussion of those events. So, my argument with you is concerning the best way to go about looking "at past consequences of war". Not whether we should look toward history to explore such questions.

Again, if we are going to discuss the Ukraine, then let us discuss the Ukraine. If we are going to discuss Iraq, then let us discuss Iraq. What I don't think we need to do is clutter up this thread with a discussion of Iraq and nothing but Iraq. We are then faced with either letting false equivalencies being stated without rebuttal or further context; or diverting our discussion away from the Ukraine within a thread dedicated to examining the present war in that country. Methodologically, that just does not make sense.

Now if you think my assessment as to false equivalencies is incorrect, then take that up in the Iraq thread...
Somehow, I think IBM9000 will not be taking me up on my offer, so let me elaborate for the rest of our reading audience. I think there has been far to much of a tendency, by some, to view the war in the Ukraine as a clash between two empires, at the exclusion of understanding it as a true rebellion of Ukrainian citizens against the prospect of Russian rule. As such, this rebellion certainly does take place within the context of international relations, which includes the "clash of civilizations" that Samuel Huntington warned us about. Huntington was actually a conservative who supported the war in Vietnam. I am unsure what his recommendation was regarding Iraq, but I would not be surprised if he also favored that invasion.

In the case of the Ukraine. I think it is better to put more emphasis on the need for a peaceful settlement, and less on the need to punish Russia for its actions. I think this last act of aggression by Russia has already cost that country enough to the point of pausing and thinking twice before engaging in further acts of aggression. Further, any settlement in the Ukraine should take into account the further legitimate security needs of both Russia and the Ukraine. It should not be a simply a pause that allows Russia to better prepare for the next stage of conquest while leaving the Ukraine unarmed and unprepared for such action. Of course, reaching such a settlement appears to be far easier said than done.

Iraq was different in that the sitting government was dominated by a tyrant. Ukraine was far more democratic in its institutions prior to the invasion by Russia than was Iraq prior to the invasion by the U.S. Bush himself indicated that he was not interested in "nation building" as a follow up to the invasion of Iraq. Still, the U.S. military was left with the task of engaging in that "nation building" effort. That it did so with mixed success for Bush was almost beside the point. Leaving the question of exactly what was it that he was interested in?

The price and availability of oil for the West was probably a very important factor. Removing Hussein as a threat in the region also played a part. There also really might have been a misguided fear of the stock piling of weapons of mass destruction. Those who indicated that such a stockpiling was not taking place turned out to be correct. Something Bush claims to have been the result of bad intelligence. Implied in that is bad judgement on his part.

So, a lot of folks do look back upon that invasion of Iraq as a mistake. In the U.S., as Weatheriscool has implied, this resulted in a shift in emphasis within the Republican party. That is from being one that was prone to interventionist measures, to one that is more isolationist in its orientation. At an extreme, this has even manifest itself as sympathy for the Russian position with regards to the Ukraine. This, despite the utter moral depravity on the part of Putin and his policy. Yet another example of "just us" winning out over justice. This time to the potential benefit of Putin and danger to the Ukraine.
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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Will There Ever be Justice for the Iraq War?
by Farrah Hassen
March 22, 2023

Introduction:
(Other Words) The wars in Iraq and Ukraine may differ, but both speak to the tragic realities of war. They also make a strong case for strengthening the rule of law instead of undermining it through flimsy pretexts for endless militarism.



That illegal war killed upwards of a million Iraqis, displaced over 9 million from their homes, and destroyed the country’s infrastructure. Terrorist groups, including ISIL, emerged in response to the invasion and have continued to unleash violence. Political divisions plague the country, Iraqis continue to struggle, and the U.S. has troops there even today.

The glaring lack of accountability for our government’s actions in Iraq compromises America’s authority to meaningfully promote human rights, justice, and the rule of law elsewhere — including in Ukraine.

The invasion of Iraq directly contravened the U.N. Charter’s prohibition against the use of force in international relations. The U.S. sent 130,000 troops to overthrow Iraq’s government, without U.N. authorization and under the fraudulent pretext that the country was amassing weapons of mass destruction.

Widespread human rights violations emerged from the invasion and occupation. Among them, tens of thousands of Iraqis were arrested and detained by U.S. personnel. The majority were innocent civilians and many were abused.
Read more here: https://otherwords.org/will-there-ever ... iraq-war/
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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Senate Inks Repeal of Iraq War Approval
by Benjamin S. Weiss
March 29, 2023

Introduction:
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) — In a major step toward what would be a symbolic rejection of Congress’ decades-old approval of the Iraq War, the Senate Wednesday voted to repeal two bills authorizing military action against Baghdad.

The upper chamber approved the bill from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine in a bipartisan 66-30 vote. If signed into law, it would roll back Congress’ 2002 authorization for the use of military force that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.

A separate AUMF, the military force authorization that led to the 1991 Gulf War, would also be undone by the same bill.

Despite the bipartisan character of Kaine’s bill, several Senate Republicans offered amendments last week aimed at softening the AUMF repeals. One alteration proposed by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham would have reframed the 2002 military force authorization by restricting operations in Iraq to target Iran-backed militia groups. The senator’s amendment failed on a 36-60 vote Wednesday evening.

Some opponents of the AUMF repeal bill have suggested that walking back such authorizations could project U.S. weakness to adversaries in the region, such as Iran.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/senate- ... approval/
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Re: The Invasion of Iraq

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Twenty Years After George W. Bush's Infamous 'Mission Accomplished' Claim
by Norman Solomon
May 1, 2023

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Twenty years ago, President George W. Bush landed in a twin-engine Navy jet on an aircraft carrier, strode across the deck in a bulky flight suit and proceeded to give a televised victory speech under a huge red-white-and-blue banner announcing “Mission Accomplished.”
For Bush, the optics on May 1, 2003 could hardly have been more triumphant. From the USS Abraham Lincoln, he delivered a stirring coda, proclaiming that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” just six weeks after the United States led the invasion of that country.

But Bush’s jubilant claim unraveled as combat escalated between Iraqi insurgents and occupying forces. During the next nine years, the official death toll among U.S. troops went from under 200 to more than 4,400, while the deaths of Iraqi people surged into the hundreds of thousands. The physical wounds were even more numerous, the emotional injuries incalculable.

The “Mission Accomplished” banner and Bush’s speech going with it have become notorious. But focusing only on his faulty claim that the war was over ignores other key untruths in the oratory.

“We have fought for the cause of liberty,” Bush declared. He did not mention the cause of oil.

A few months before the invasion, a soft-spoken Iraqi man who was my driver in Baghdad waited until we were alone at a picnic table in a park before saying that he wished Iraq had no oil—because then there would be no reason to fear an invasion. Years later, some U.S. authorities were candid about Iraq’s massive oil reserves as an incentive for the war.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/b ... ars-later
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