At war, again

ISIS, Boko Haram and Batman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10...span-region&_r=0

ISIS/ISIL is mere blowback from the illegal 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. PNAC/AIPAC and other Zionist Jewish organizations controlling US foreign policy spells trouble. UK is the lap dog of US. Downing Street memo. Sticking your nose where it does not belong comes back to haunt you. Now you pay.

So much for pax Americana...

BBM

ISIS and others are much more fundamental than a "mere" blowback from the NATO led invasion of Iraq. They might occasionally try to "blame" previous engagements for their existence and activities, but they would have emerged in one form or another with or without Saddam or any Gulf war. Problems in Syria were a more direct catalyst for their emergence and the UK hasn't invaded Syria in recent years.

The Nato led invasion of 2003 wasn't illegal. It wasn't a good move IMHO, but it wasn't illegal.

Well Don, I think you are wrong, but I'm not about to spend any energy trying to convince you. It is contentious to say the least. Do you know anything about the PNAC, or Peak oil? How about the Downing street memo?

Legality of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project for the New American Century - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Downing Street memo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reason George HW Bush refused to remove Hussein in 1991, was because he knew that Saddam, as evil as he was, was the only one who could prevent exactly what we are seeing today with ISIS. George W Bush and his lap dog Blair weren't nearly as bright...

Please educate yourself...

BBM

Despite the unecessary and offensive remark at the end of your post, I will respond.

You accept that "it is contentious" That is not the same as your initial statement that it was illegal.

I made it clear that in my opinion, the Nato led invasion of 2033 wasn't a good move. The west was better off with Saddam in control. I expressed the same opinion about the subsequent changes in Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Syria at the time when each of these arose.

I would venture that something that appears legal, the proposition for which was made under false pretenses, is illegal.  Especially knowingly made under false pretenses, which I believe was the case.

I always wondered why George Bush senior never finished Saddam Hussein off in the First Gulf War.

But I think I can see it now.

Saddam Hussein was the least bad option. And the truth of that is being demonstrated daily. Which is far from saying that Saddam Hussein was anything other than a monstrous dictator. 

Now that Iraq is destabilised [by the Second Gulf War], I have no idea what the solution is. I doubt starting a Third Gulf War is going to help. Shall we have one every ten years for Eternity?

I agree with Dr Mark's post above, so far as any of us can know for certain what the motivation was for George Bush junior being so apparently determined to depose Saddam Hussein, but that was the policy of the USA and though it made me shake my head at the time, it was essentially a question that would not be any of my business, except that what was more amazing to me was the Tony Blair seemed to singing from the same song sheet. Now that is my business as a citizen of the UK.

No doubt the secrets will be kept secret for so long that none of us in this discussion will be alive to see the real truth.

ATB from George 

I believe George Bush deliberately stopped at the Iraq border for one main reason.  The support deal with the other Arab nations - Saudi Arabia in particular - was to drive Saddam out of Kuwait,  nothing more.  To have gone on would have lost the support needed to use Saudi as a command & supply base. It would have seriously risked diplomacy in the region & the resultant stretch on US logistics would have made a successful invasion next to impossible.

The massacre on Highway 80 destroyed much of Iraq's army & was about as far as US could have gone with a retaliatory action & clean exit.

Dear Mike,

Thanks for your post. I have heard that explanation before, and on one level it makes complete sense.

Perhaps the reasons the Saudis would not support more was that they knew Saddam Hussein was the least bad option?

ATB from George

The West's involvement in the Middle East has never worked. It won't now.

Leave them to it and negotiate or otherwise deal with what is left.

Why stop at 1991? We could track back all the way to the stone age in search of ISIS roots which could conveniently 'explain' our current world views..

ISIS was allowed to trickle from its recent birthplace (Syria) to Iraq as a lesson to its democratically elected PM Maliki who 'forgot' that he was governing a country and not just a Shia click. Hopefully, the new guy, Haider al-Abadi, will be able to close ranks and unify the country. If that occurs, the Iraqis will be able to rid themselves of ISIS without anybody's direct help.

Ok Don, if you want to play hardball, then please explain in detail the legal rationale for the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Remember that under the UN Charter, it is illegal for any nation to invade any other sovereign nation, unless that nation is under attack from said nation, or the threat of attack is imminent. How does this apply in this situation?

Also, please describe in detail, the legal rationale for Obama's drone attacks in Somalia. Yemen, and along the Af/Pak border. Is Obama's Tuesday morning "kill list" legal as well?

In your world, does "might" make "right"? It doesn't in mine. The UN Charter is in place to protect the weak from the strong.

What about the "Downing Street memo"? Why did the US need to reassure the UK that the evidence would be "fixed" to justify the invasion?

Do tell...

BBM

Oops, I almost forgot...

Don, while you're at it, tell me what you think of General Wesley Clark's 2007 speech...

Wes Clark and the neocon dream - Salon.com

BBM

I like a man who is true to his word.

Given your subsequent posts, I like you...................... but i'm not going to do your work for you.

Wrong !

The war in Dhofar worked.

A war that was caused by a regime propped up by Britain being totally restricting of Dhofar.

I had to look it up of because the War from 1962 to 1976 is now more than half a lifetime ago.

Had the British not been supporting the regime in Oman, the problem would never have led to a War. 

Everything points to that apparent [if seeming] fact that any intervention by the West in the Middle East as being a "cause" of War, and not the cause of eventual peace.

The West needs to learn that we are not some super-race who can dictate to others our own set of priorities and moralities in a post British Imperial World. We need to let Turkey and Saudi Arabia for two examples take the lead in the fight against ISIS, and they will if we don't - they both have much to loose if they don't, but in the West all we can achieve is to make even more enemies in the region, by taking sides.

ATB from George

You would be doing yourself a great favour by spending less time deflecting the discussion away from the topic, and actually educating yourself for once. You seem stubborn and unwilling to learn.

I was eager to have an intelligent discussion, and was open to being proven wrong, but you don't seem to have anything to offer.

I guess I overestimated you...

BBM

Dhofar? Well  if that is the best example you have then I am truly crushed! Dhofar? jeez.

Lionel,

You made an absolute statement. It was simply wrong.

Dear Don,

The British were supporting the Oman regime in a Medieval Tyranny. Shame on Britain. 

I was 14 years old in 1976. I had begun to work for a living [unpaid] on the home farm outside school hours and during the holidays from school. I have no recollection of the Oman War. 

It would be better for Britain to drop its Empire aims, then and now.

1. What is a successful conclusion to the Oman War, and in your opinion what good came of it?

2. Did you support the Falklands War?

According to the answers to these questions I have further points to make, if you would be so kind as to answer the questions.

ATB [so far] from George

Dear Don,

Thank you for your straight forward answers. On this Forum [as in normal life] such candid answers are as rare as they are valuable. In other words, "Very!"

Thanks.

I shall not enter a debate about Britian's Imperial past in Oman. You are right about forty years of prosperous history since the end of the Oman War, and for that let us be equally happy. though it took regime change for all that ...

But I am also glad of your response about the Falklands War, which conflict was also well outside of the UK's natural European sphere of influence. 

On this one I have very strong views, and views that I shall back up from with support from those who fought Nazism in WW II. You may not agree with the conclusions, but I hope that you will read them with patience, even if you cannot be persuaded to a different view.

That, however, is for tomorrow, as I have to ascent the Wooden Hill and sleep, ready for tomorrow's travail. Please do read for a post tomorrow evening on this.

According to your last words above, this a free Internet Forum, and you are of course entirely free to not respond ...

ATB from George

Dear Don,

At the time I was very much in favour of beating the Argentinians in 1982. But after discussing this with two WW II veterans, I changed my mind. One was a my Norwegian grandfather, who was a leader in Group Thirteen [Ostfold Group or more definably for a British audience that area between East of the Oslo Fjord, and South of Oslo, which was a very significant area for the Nazi Germans, who built what is now Rygge International Airport on part of my grandfather's cousin's farm as a big airbase to raid shipping in the Skagerak, between Norway and Denmark] of the Companie Linge - what we call the Norwegian Resistance as a cover all. Though the areas were specific and operated on a more or less Army Regimental basis. The other veteran was my eldest English uncle, he was in the Second War from day one and ended up in the Occupying Forces in Austria in 1946, before being demobbed as he was only a Territorial. He ended as a Major. His stories about repatriating Russian POWs from Austria [Harold Macmillan was the political office in charge of that horrendous operation] were heart rending, and he became very suspicious of War and the political aims.

Both considered the idea of Britain having a Territory such as the Falklands ludicrous in the modern world. And apparently the governments in London [both Labour and Conservative] shared this view, and had been discussing a Condominium between Britain and Argentina as a prelude to complete Argentinian Sovreignty of the Falklands. However this process was gradual [and had been going on for many years prior to the War], and the Military Junta in Argentina lost patience, and invaded. 

Mrs Thatcher set about setting up the Task-force, and of course once that happened no turning back could be countenanced, though the only loss if it had been turned round would have been Mrs Thatcher's reputation. 

But let us examine the costs, on both sides.

The Falklands in 1982 had a population of 1820 people. Its land area is 12,200 square kilometres or multiply by 100 to get 12,200,000 Hectares. Even on current 2014 valuation of £1500 per Hectare for sheep grazing land in Wales this gives a total value to the land as £1,830,000,000. About £1.9 billion.

Had this been [at British Tax-payers expense] shared between the complete Island population of 1820 in 1982, then each would have got on average of £ 1,005,495. 

As the cost of the War was reckoned in financial terms with the sending of the Task-force [£1.5 B], and repairs and replacement of lost ships [six], and aircraft [34] and repairs to damaged equipment and other sundries, reckoned at another £1.5 Billion. The War cost more than the entire value of the land and property holdings by [even working on today's valuation of property values] of a fifty percent margin. Corrected for a tripling at least of property values since 1982, and the maths soon prove that the enterprise was madness economically, even without the tragic costs in human lives, and permanent disabled survivors.

I am quite sure that had each Falkland Islander been offered even a fraction of the cost of the War - as expended on each in the event - they would almost all have been happy with their Lottery Win to return to Britain ...

But that leaves out that each Falkland Islander kept as British on that desolate pair of Islands costing Britain 255 men killed. 1820 Falklanders saved at the cost of 255 dead British men, who had signed up to defend Britain. What a completely un-necessary and tragic outcome, even without considering the permanently wounded and disabled.

This even discounts an estimated more than six hundred Argentine military deaths ...

Almost two to one of deaths for each Falklander so as to preserve a British Dependent Territory. 

The population of the Falkland Islands certainly had a fright, but not one was killed by the Argentine Armed Forces, though three died from accidental British shelling.

What should have happened was a conference with Argentina over the future of the Islands, and Britain should have handsomely rewarded those Falkanders who wanted to return to Britain.

The Falklands War was a complete and tragic folly, in my humble opinion. But most of all it was a moral outrage, unjustifiable in any logic or humanity.

ATB from George

George -

Do you believe in self-determination? The right of people to choose their sovereignty?

Do you think fascism is A Very Bad Thing? I'm assuming that as a civilised person, you do, and that you also support the principle of S-D.

The people of the Falklands (which were unoccupied when they were discovered by the Europeans in the very late 17th Century) want to be British. In 1982 they were invaded by a fascistic military junta from Argentina. In the only positive act of her wretched 11 years in charge, Mrs Thatch sent a task force to protect those people.

The deaths of all those young, largely innocent Argentine conscipts has to be laid at the door of Galtieri and his cynical, vicious dictatorship.

Until the people of the Falklands decide otherwise, we have a duty to protect them from aggressive foreign incursion, be it from Argentina or anywhere else. The size and population of the Falkands, and the cost of this protection, is neither here nor there.