Iraq War 10th Anniversary: A Decade of Non-stop Winning!

[Lemur]

So, we passed the 10-year mark this weekend. Any Orgah thoughts on the subject?

New cost estimate tags our Democracy Extension at $6 trillion. The butcher's bill is a subject of some dispute (pdf warning), since we have deliberately not tracked or tallied enemy or civilian deaths.

Lots of interesting mea culpas and I told you sos being published last week.

Majority of Americans now see the 2nd Iraq war as a mistake.

Lessons learned?

[gaelic cowboy]

Hmm I suppose there easy started

[Idaho]

My opinion remains the same as 10 years ago. I'll founded, ill thought out and badly executed. A dreadful, and murderous catastrophe that could have been easily avoided by not focusing on what could be gained by corporations.

[drone]

Why do you hate freedom?

[Major Robert Dump]

Negligence and incompetence on a criminal level. Secret evidenc start a pre emptive war.

I would spit on donald rumsfield were I ever to meet him.

For the last 30 years we got to hear about carters catastrophic rescue attempt to emphasize democrats weak foriegn policy astuteness....

Let's see how often we get reminded of this war.


Also, I told you so.

[Lemur]

For the last 30 years we got to hear about carters catastrophic rescue attempt to emphasize democrats weak foriegn policy astuteness....

Let's see how often we get reminded of this war.

Oh, I think there is absolutely no question that GWB and his Iraqi adventure will have much longer-lasting and more resonant consequences than anything from Jimmy Carter.

But it's going to take some time to understand what all of those repercussions will be, not to mention the second- and third-order effects.

Meanwhile:

[HoreTore]

Easily the biggest mistake of this millennium.

While I don't think it'll have that status until the year 3000, I do believe it'll take quite some time before it's surpassed.

[HoreTore]

The first Gulf war was justified.

You mean Saddam was well within his rights to attack Iran?

[HopAlongBunny]

I actually thought Saddam was sponsored to attack Iran. The trouble only came when it was clear he could not win.

A huge military with nothing to do...that becomes a problem; especially when demobilization is not really an option. Like our games, soldiers are only an asset if they are gaining something to pay for their maintenance. Idle soldiers are a dead resource and demobilized soldiers are a danger.

[gaelic cowboy]

if ye ask me the period of 9-11 the War on Terror and Iraq 2.0 will be forgotten a lot quicker than people think a bit like the Boer War or summit

[Lemur]

the period of 9-11 the War on Terror and Iraq 2.0 will be forgotten

I kinda doubt it. We Americans prefer looking forward to looking back, but we're not complete and total idiots. And there are clearly lessons to be learned from our Iraqi excursion. Six trillion lessons, if nothing else.

a bit like the Boer War or summit

We caught them and we shot them by rule three-oh-three.

[HoreTore]

I actually thought Saddam was sponsored to attack Iran. The trouble only came when it was clear he could not win.

A huge military with nothing to do...that becomes a problem; especially when demobilization is not really an option. Like our games, soldiers are only an asset if they are gaining something to pay for their maintenance. Idle soldiers are a dead resource and demobilized soldiers are a danger.

He was sponsored insofar as he got both moral and arms support from several countries, including the US and some other western states(was it France?). To say that was the reason for the war, however, is wrong. Saddam was an expansive nationalist and a socialist. He believed in Arab supremacism and secularism; Iran opposed all of that. Iran and Iraq were as ideologically different in 1980 as Hitler and Stalin was in 1941, war was inevitable.

[HopAlongBunny]

Yes, but it was not until he became a failed asset that there was any problem with Saddam's "quirks". When the machine everyone had helped him build was turned from Iran to "softer" targets; to use it usefully in Saddam's eyes; then it became a problem.

Saddam was a bastard, no question; but as long as he was busy exterminating himself against Iran, he was "our" bastard.

This isn't so much the failure of the US Iraq War, as the failure of US policy in the region; sorry for derailing.

[Brenus]

“Let's see how often we get reminded of this war.”: No worries, it won’t be often. Righties are good at that. They made the worst mistakes and, then blame the left for the consequences.

[Greyblades]

if ye ask me the period of 9-11 the War on Terror and Iraq 2.0 will be forgotten a lot quicker than people think a bit like the Boer War or summit

Like the first British-Afghan war...

...And the second British-Afghan war...

...And the Russian-Afghan war...



Why did we think they would do well again?

[gaelic cowboy]

I kinda doubt it. We Americans prefer looking forward to looking back, but we're not complete and total idiots. And there are clearly lessons to be learned from our Iraqi excursion. Six trillion lessons, if nothing else.

I meant more like how in the grand scheme it wont seem so important one day


any UK or Irish orgahs might turn on BBC 1 as there is summit about the faked WMD intelligence

Panorama: The Spies Who Fooled The World

Iraq: The spies who fooled the world

might be interesting

[Strike For The South]

I was 12 when this war started.

Every night I thank my stars that the terrorists are being killed in Iraq rather than over here.

I would insert pictures of dead innocents at this point but its become such a self indulgent, masturbatory exercise in smugness, even for me.

I wouldn't piss on Rummsfeld if we was on fire.

[Sarmatian]

Majority of Americans now see the 2nd Iraq war as a mistake.

Lessons learned?

Irrelevant, since the majority of Americans don't make those decisions.

[Idaho]

The spies who fooled the world?! WTF... no one was fooled at the time. Two million of us marched through London declaring the war plan was complete BS.

[gaelic cowboy]

The spies who fooled the world?! WTF... no one was fooled at the time. Two million of us marched through London declaring the war plan was complete BS.

indeed I wondered at that myself

[Montmorency]

Two million of us marched through London declaring the war plan was complete BS.

Why do you hate freedom?

Indeed, I wondered at that myself.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Papewaio]

Title: War in Iraq.
Subtitle: Do it yourself Quagmire

WMD, nope.
Mission complete, nope.
People would want democracy installed at gunpoint, nope.

$6 Trillion split between the military industrial complex and local strongmen, yeap.

Tastes like win to me.

[Idaho]

Interesting that the org seems to be united in opposition to the war now. Whereas back then there were a few voices in opposition and the vast majority of American posters where fully behind Bush.

Can we dig up the old thread?

[HoreTore]

Interesting that the org seems to be united in opposition to the war now. Whereas back then there were a few voices in opposition and the vast majority of American posters where fully behind Bush.

Can we dig up the old thread?

As commanded!

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...aq-War-illegal

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...he-War-on-Iraq

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...less-insurgent

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...s-under-Saddam

That's a few with some discussion on it, let the witch hunt begin!!!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As commanded!

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...aq-War-illegal

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...he-War-on-Iraq

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...less-insurgent

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...s-under-Saddam

That's a few with some discussion on it, let the witch hunt begin!!!

Scanned the first thread for a bit. An active Pindar, Prole' in her finest fettle, Redleg....fond memories of arguments past. Now, If I could only see a recent post or two from Gawain and if Tribesman had managed to avoid the boot....

[Idaho]

Can someone skim through and find my, no doubt, utterly brilliant and frighteningly prophetic posts from that time?

[Ronin]

The Iraq war, the only thing more winning than Charlie Sheen

[gaelic cowboy]

Was driving listening to radio an the DJ was talking about Iraq an how everyone lost there heads back then over the Dixie Chicks.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys, New Europe/Old Europe, the Coalition of the Willing Billing, something about "You forgot Poland" there was a lot of hysteria going about.

Not America's finest hour domestically never mind in the war itself

[Major Robert Dump]

Awesome threads...

I just voted in the poll on healthcare....

[Major Robert Dump]

I have only gotten backwards to page 260, so if someone wants to pick up the torch and continue from 260 knock yourself out.... most of these are from summer 2005.... not sure if it stays this way, and I don't want it to become a "pick on poster X" fest, but it looks like the overwhelming majority of the discussion panels were the same in every thread.... I would also point out that this is before things started to get really bad in 2007...

notable insult: "Saddam Apologists"

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...Scandel-Update

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...h-and-Iraq-War

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...d-for-al-Qaeda

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-going-on-here

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...maker-s-U-turn

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...r-going-strong

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-the-U-S-media

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...etnam-and-Iraq

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...17-Club-G-itmo

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...y-Iraq-Opinion

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ed-in-Iraq-war