Have we won the Iraq war? (hell, America, mission, God)

[Autodidact]

I can recommend several such books, Starfish, that support and echo what PureX is saying. I have a feeling he's read a couple of them. I've read several, myself, and agree with his analysis. In fact, I can't think of a knowledgeable, well-researched, factual book that asserts that there is a war and an enemy, and that we're winning the war and defeating the enemy. PureX has got it about nailed.

[Alceste]

Originally Posted by Starfish

I'm sure many said the same in 1945.

Wow! You're, like, the last person I would have expected to see equating the neo-cons and the Nazis!

Not that I disagree with your analysis...

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by Autodidact

I can recommend several such books, Starfish, that support and echo what PureX is saying. I have a feeling he's read a couple of them. I've read several, myself, and agree with his analysis. In fact, I can't think of a knowledgeable, well-researched, factual book that asserts that there is a war and an enemy, and that we're winning the war and defeating the enemy. PureX has got it about nailed.

Can you name a few? Authors also. Thanks.

[Alceste]

Originally Posted by Starfish

Can you name a few? Authors also. Thanks.

This one is essential for the thorough propaganda purge you will need before you do any serious reading on America's invasion of Iraq.

For non-partisan analysis, Gwynne Dyer is great. Try Future: Tense or you could try After Iraq: Anarchy and Renewal in the Middle East although it's just out and I haven't had a chance to read it myself. He also has a website with a number of articles available.

Here's one that is relevant to your OP:

The American troops will leave eventually, and probably quite soon,
but that is unlikely to be followed by an orgy of violence. The civil war
has already happened, and most formerly mixed neighbourhoods and villages
are now exclusively Shia or Sunni. That, as much as the "surge" in American
troop numbers, is why the civilian death toll has dropped significantly
over the past year.

Between four and five million Iraqis have fled their homes (out of
a population of less than thirty million), and most of them will never be
able to return to those homes. But half of them are still in Iraq, and most
of the rest are in neighbouring countries and will ultimately have to
return. They will eventually find somewhere safe to live, and they will
start to rebuild their lives....

So was it all worthwhile, in the end? That is a different
question, because the implicit comparison is between the future of the
country as it is now and the conditions that reigned five years ago when
Saddam Hussein was still in charge. Even that comparison yields an
ambiguous answer, for Saddam's Iraq was a secular society where people were
safe unless they trespassed into politics, and women enjoyed an unusual
degree of personal freedom. But it is also the wrong comparison.

This was the trick that the old Soviet Union played endlessly,
comparing the wonders achieved under Communism with the horrors of poverty
and oppression under the Tsars -- as if Russia would have stayed forever
frozen in 1917 if the Bolshevik revolution had not happened. The Chinese
Communist regime plays the same game now, pretending that it would still be
1948 in the country if they had not seized power. It's utter nonsense, and
that applies to Iraq, too.

Saddam was only executed a year ago, so he probably would still be
in power today if the United States had not invaded Iraq, but he was not
going to live forever. It's not possible to know what would have followed
him had he stayed in power and died a natural death, but would it have
involved hundreds of thousands of Iraqis tortured, shot or blown up? Would
it have led to the permanent alienation of Sunnis and Shias? Probably not.

In the meantime, Saddam posed no serious threat to his neighbours,
as his army was largely destroyed in the first Gulf war of 1991 and never
rebuilt (due to sanctions). He posed no danger at all to the United
States, since he had absolutely nothing to do with al-Qaeda (as was
confirmed by a recently released Pentagon study of more than 600,000 Iraqi
documents captured after the US invasion).

The number of Iraqis who were tortured and murdered by Saddam's
security forces in the average year was in the thousands, no more than the
MONTHLY civilian death toll from sectarian violence in recent years.
Occasionally, when there were uprisings against his rule, Saddam killed far
more people, but the last time that happened was in 1991. Nine-tenths or
more of the Iraqis who have been killed in the horrors of the past five
years would probably still be alive if Saddam was still in power. So would
four thousand American soldiers.

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by Alceste

This one is essential for the thorough propaganda purge you will need before you do any serious reading on America's invasion of Iraq.

For non-partisan analysis, Gwynne Dyer is great. Try Future: Tense or you could try After Iraq: Anarchy and Renewal in the Middle East although it's just out and I haven't had a chance to read it myself. He also has a website with a number of articles available.

Here's one that is relevant to your OP:

Thanks, Alceste. I'm working through the information. But what I'm looking for is a comparison, based on first-hand experience, between the opinions of Michael Yon, and Gwynne Dyer, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (authors in your post), since the latter three seem to disagree with the first. As far as I can find, Michael Yon is the only one who has spent time in Iraq. Maybe I missed something.

So concerning the Iraq war, the opinion of one who has lived there seems to carry more weight than the opinions of those who haven't. At least concerning the picture in Iraq specifically. That just seems logical . . .

Anyway, I'm trying to sort through it all. Thanks for your help.

[kai]

Originally Posted by PureX

Destroying Saddam's government was not a war against Iraq, it was just a war against Saddam. Nor was it a war against terrorism. In fact, we still don't really know why we destroyed Saddam's government. Saddam posed no threat to us or to anyone else. He was a bad man, and a brutal leader, but we have now killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did, and we now know he had no ability or intent to do acts of terror against anyone but his own people. so it was a war? we have killed more Iraqis than Saddam? whos we ? and got some figures to go with that?

Also, when we destroyed Saddam's government, we left Iraq open to a civil war to decide who is going to run it next. And the puppets we put in place and call their government are powerless to stop it. This is the way it is with most nations when a brutal dictator is removed from power. It leaves a power vacuum that the various factions will fight to try and fill. I agree here except for the fact the Iraqi government is there by Iraqi consensus and recognised by the UN.

So far this has not been resolved, because we have not allowed them to have their civil war, and thus to decide who will run their nation, next. So we are in effect at a stand-still. If we pull out they may fall into civil war, and the winner of that war may not wish to be our friends. Who could blame them at this point? If we stay, we just indefinitely put off a civil war that Iraq needs to decide who is going to take the nation forward, and we continue to weaken our own position economically and militarily throughout the world. who is them? and if there was a civil war you like most people that dont really know much about Iraq seem to ignore the very existance of the Kurds who are one third of the country. any civil war would mean No Iraq at all in my opinion , just a fractured region with sections in the south influenced by Iran and the sunni sector influenced by Syrria. unable to function as a country at all.

So there is no "winning the peace" in Iraq, for us. If the Iraqis want peace they well have it, and if they want a civil war, they will have it, sooner or later. Their decision is their decision. It has nothing to do with us except that the longer we occupy their country, the longer it will be before they can make their decision, and carry it out.
well if only it was their decision , with such a high turnout at the elections etc they have already made their decision but unfortunately for them other people have other intentions for Iraq.
We're just wasting time and money holding Iraq in a state of suspension.

what gives you the impresion its in a state of suspenson? perhaps you should choose some of those books you read a little more carefully or read some of the reconstruction efforts by a lot of peple in Iraq.

[kai]

Originally Posted by Autodidact

PureX has it nailed. His posts indicate to me that he has thought, read, and knows a lot about the situation, and I agree with everything he's saying.

his thoughts indicate to me that he has read a lot of negative views on what is actually happening in Iraq , in all the threads i have posted in i am probably the only member to have even bothered to look at the reconstruction efforts and to look at the will of the people for example in their turn out at their first ever election etc.

you can sit wherever you are for ever if you like and pick and choose what you read about Iraq, while while other people risk their lives building schools ,water ways ,power stations ,roads , hospitals etc etc .

and they are risking their lives because other people don't want Iraq on the map at all.

[Alceste]

Originally Posted by Starfish

Thanks, Alceste. I'm working through the information. But what I'm looking for is a comparison, based on first-hand experience, between the opinions of Michael Yon, and Gwynne Dyer, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (authors in your post), since the latter three seem to disagree with the first. As far as I can find, Michael Yon is the only one who has spent time in Iraq. Maybe I missed something.

So concerning the Iraq war, the opinion of one who has lived there seems to carry more weight than the opinions of those who haven't. At least concerning the picture in Iraq specifically. That just seems logical . . .

Anyway, I'm trying to sort through it all. Thanks for your help.

Doesn't seem logical to me. Apparently 90 % of the soldiers in Iraq think the war has something to do with al Qaeda and the attack on 9-11. That statistic alone should be enough to suggest that just being in Iraq does not necessarily make you a very astute observer. Michael Yawn has an extremely romantic, rosy view of American soldiers (I read about him and looked at his blog). He used to be one. He is obviously not objective or rational, and from the look of things spending time getting chummy with soldiers in Iraq has only made him less so.

Gwynne Dyer, on the other hand, is an ex-navy, world-renowned professor of military history and the other of dozens of books of analysis of foreign affairs. The fact that he has not spent several glowing, happy months building amorous personal relationships with American soldiers who overwhelmingly have no idea why they're even in Iraq only enhances his objectivity. As an academic, he relies on research instead of warm fuzzies.

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton don't write about the situation in Iraq or its outlook for the future. They are researchers of propaganda, and were living in the US while researching the PR efforts to promote the war in Iraq. The book will help you address a number of fallacies in your view of the invasion of Iraq by understanding in detail where they came from.

[kai]

Originally Posted by Alceste

. That statistic alone should be enough to suggest that just being in Iraq does not necessarily make you a very astute observer. Michael Yawn has an extremely romantic, rosy view of American soldiers (I read about him and looked at his blog). He used to be one. He is obviously not objective or rational, and from the look of things spending time getting chummy with soldiers in Iraq has only made him less so.
Gwynne Dyer, on the other hand, is an ex-navy, world-renowned professor of military history and the other of dozens of books of analysis of foreign affairs. The fact that he has not spent several glowing, happy months building amorous personal relationships with American soldiers who overwhelmingly have no idea why they're even in Iraq only enhances his objectivity. As an academic, he relies on research instead of warm fuzzies.

it seems very logical to me if a large portion of soldiers in Iraq have encountered Alquieda in Iraq.
i love academics ,they really get in there ha ha, why listen to people in Iraq when you can read all about it from an academic.

[Alceste]

Originally Posted by kai

it seems very logical to me if a large portion of soldiers in Iraq have encountered Alquieda in Iraq.
i love academics ,they really get in there ha ha, why listen to people in Iraq when you can read all about it from an academic.

Yeah, kai, I'm sure 90% of American soldiers have personally had interactions with members of al Qaeda in Iraq who explained to them (in English) Saddam was behind 9-11. There's absolutely no possibility they might have picked up this impression from somewhere else!