Wisdom of Captain Roderick Blaine

As usual, it astonishes me how people mindlessly spew taking points about Iraq.

Given the terms of the armistice negotiated in the first Gulf War, it was legal to resume operations against Iraq because Iraq had been violating sanctions.

Saddam Hussien (not to be confused with Barrack Hussien) was hostile to Al Quiada, but he supported other terrorists. The Iraq government was very publicly handing out checks to the families of Palistinian jihadist who committed suicide bombings in Israel. The perpetrators of the World Trade Center bombing sought refuge in Iraq. Saddam recruited and supported terrorists to assassinate Bush Sr while he was in Saudi Arabia.

It turned out that Saddam had encouraged the world to believe that he had an WMD program that he did not have. However; he had carefully preserved critical technologies that would enable rapid reconstitution of the program once sanctions were lifted. Given the eagerness with which our European "allies" were exploiting the Oil For Food program to help Saddam to violate sanctions when oil was still under $20 per barrel, it was inevitable that sanctions would be lifted.

The Iraq invasion intimidated the Iranians sufficiently that they paused their nuclear weapons program. The success of the Bush Lied, People Died mantra gave them the political cover to resume the program.

The Iraq invasion and capture of Saddam inspired Daffy Gadaffy to negotiate a peace with the US that included surrendering Libya's WMD. This included a small number of working gas centrifuges for isotope separation. Daffy Gadaffy's surrender of his WMD exposed the A Q Kahn nuclear weapons bizarre. Pakistan was embarrassed sufficiently to shut down the nuclear prostitution ring.

Everyone should ask themselves how many more countries along with North Korea would now have nuclear weapons if the US had not invaded Iraq.

Iraq
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Turkey
Egypt
Syria
Brazil?
Argentina?
South Korea?
Japan?

How many known nuclear weapons states would be massively expanding their nuclear arsenals in response to the proliferation.

Israel
India
Pakistan
China
Russia
United States

Have a good laugh ridiculing President Bush, Republicans and the TEA party. The fall of Iraq will escalate into a debacle. US troops will not be fleeing the Bahgdad embassy clinging to their helicopter skids. President Obama is far to fucktarded to order an evacuation before it is too late. When Bahgdad falls to either the Muhajadeen or Iran (who will inevitably invade to protect Shias), the 5,000 normal personel in that embassy plus the 250 US Marines that have been sent in to "secure" the embassy plus the 300 advisers (for a reenactment of Thermopyle?) will be killed or captured.

I have a very disturbing intuition about where that missing Maylasian airliner is. Expect it to Dona suicide attack loaded with 100 tons of conventionalexplosives on a US carrier or loaded with a nuke against a US city.

President Obama can be relied up to do nothing to respond in a manner to reassert US
hegemony. He will be to busy urinating and defacating in his mom jeans.

ExpectbChina and Russia to eagerely exploit the power vacuum. Europe can gloat about Russia's enfeeblement, but Russia has a shit ton of nukes and Putin has the testicular fortitude to use them.

Meanwhile, back on my mountain top in the USA, I am making pop corn.

Nameless, Bush and the Republicans are utterly irrelevant in the context of British public perception on what happened in 2003. They don't count, Tony Blair does. Regardless of how Bush rationalised invading Iraq to the American people, in the UK Blair lied and mislead his own country.

We weren't told the truth, what we got was spin, lies and half truths disguised as fact. The 'Iraq' and 'September Dossiers' were the most infamous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier

Then we had one of the UK government's leading weapon experts die in mysterious circumstances:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_%28weapons_expert%29

Blair's desire to get involved led him to take the UK into one of it's most unpopular wars, sticking our noses into other country's affairs again after Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, plus the earlier strikes against Saddam. We, the British public did not want to get involved but we were taken to war against our will by an increasingly unpopular government. Only the disarray of the Conservative opposition at the next General Election saved Labour from defeat. Current events show that 179 British service men and women ultimately died for absolutely nothing. Similarly, British casualties in Afghanistan will be worth as much when that country descends into anarchy as it will after NATO goes home.

That's why Cameron lost the vote last year on intervention in Syria. The UK public doesn't want to go through another pointless war, the Middle East can burn in hell as far as we're concerned. With the current situation in Iraq Cameron won't dare get involved officially - it would likely have a negative impact in the Scottish Independence Referendum this September, possibly ripping the UK apart and it would be political suicide with a UK General Election coming up next year.

Apart from rhetoric and some money, we're sitting this one out to deal with our own internal problems.

Mike.

On 30 September 2004, the ISG released the Duelfer Report, its final report on Iraq's purported WMD programs. Among its conclusions were:

Saddam Hussein controlled all of the regime’s strategic decision making.
Hussein's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the regime.
The introduction of the Oil-for-food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the regime.
By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support.
Iran was Iraq's pre-eminent motivator.
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judged that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam’s belief in the value of WMD.
Saddam ended his nuclear program in 1991. ISG found no evidence of concerted efforts to restart the program, and Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after 1991.
Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions were discovered by the ISG.
Saddam's regime abandoned its biological weapons program and its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons in 1995. While it could have re-established an elementary BW program within weeks, ISG discovered no indications it was pursuing such a course.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability, which was essentially destroyed in 1991, after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs.
Saddam believed the U.S. and the coalition that threatened to go to war against him if the U.N. resolutions were not met was bluffing.

Michael Riddell wrote:Nameless, Bush and the Republicans are utterly irrelevant in the context of British public perception on what happened in 2003. They don't count, Tony Blair does. Regardless of how Bush rationalised invading Iraq to the American people, in the UK Blair lied and mislead his own country.

We weren't told the truth, what we got was spin, lies and half truths disguised as fact. The 'Iraq' and 'September Dossiers' were the most infamous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier

Then we had one of the UK government's leading weapon experts die in mysterious circumstances:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_%28weapons_expert%29

Blair's desire to get involved led him to take the UK into one of it's most unpopular wars, sticking our noses into other country's affairs again after Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, plus the earlier strikes against Saddam. We, the British public did not want to get involved but we were taken to war against our will by an increasingly unpopular government. Only the disarray of the Conservative opposition at the next General Election saved Labour from defeat. Current events show that 179 British service men and women ultimately died for absolutely nothing. Similarly, British casualties in Afghanistan will be worth as much when that country descends into anarchy as it will after NATO goes home.

That's why Cameron lost the vote last year on intervention in Syria. The UK public doesn't want to go through another pointless war, the Middle East can burn in hell as far as we're concerned. With the current situation in Iraq Cameron won't dare get involved officially - it would likely have a negative impact in the Scottish Independence Referendum this September, possibly ripping the UK apart and it would be political suicide with a UK General Election coming up next year.

Apart from rhetoric and some money, we're sitting this one out to deal with our own internal problems.

Mike.

On 23 January 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. "I don't think they existed," commented Kay. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties." In a briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kay criticized the pre-war WMD intelligence and the agencies that produced it, saying "It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing."[1] Sometime earlier, CIA director George Tenet had asked David Kay to delay his departure: "If you resign now, it will appear that we don't know what we're doing. That the wheels are coming off."[2]

Kay told the SASC during his oral report the following, though: "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion-—although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."

Kay's team established that the Iraqi regime had the production capacity and know-how to produce chemical and biological weaponry if international economic sanctions were lifted, a policy change which was actively being sought by a number of United Nations member states. Kay also believed some components of the former Iraqi regime's WMD program had been moved to Syria shortly before the 2003 invasion,[3] though the Duelfer Report Addenda (see below) later reported there was no evidence of this.

The bottom line? If Bush had not invaded Iraq, Hussien would have persuaded (corrupted) the UN into lifting sanctions. Iraq would have then collected enough oil revenue to reconstitute his WMD program, including nukes. The Uranium from Niger is irrelevant because Saddam still had the stockpile of 500 tons of unenriched Uranium that the UN had allowed him to retain possession of after the first Gulf War.

QUESTION, IF THE BRITISH PUBLIC ARE SO WAR WEARY, WHY DID FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN AGITATE FOR THE OVERTHROW OF DAFFY GADAFFY OF LIBIA? HAD GADAFFY RENIGED ON THE TERMS OF THE PEACE SETTLEMENT WITH BUSH AND RICE OR WERE FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN JUST PISSED OFF ABOUT THE CHINES GETTING LUCRATIVE OIL CONTRACTS? That fubar cost us everything that was gained in Iraq.

namelessfly wrote:QUESTION, IF THE BRITISH PUBLIC ARE SO WAR WEARY, WHY DID FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN AGITATE FOR THE OVERTHROW OF DAFFY GADAFFY OF LIBIA? HAD GADAFFY RENIGED ON THE TERMS OF THE PEACE SETTLEMENT WITH BUSH AND RICE OR WERE FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN JUST PISSED OFF ABOUT THE CHINES GETTING LUCRATIVE OIL CONTRACTS? That fubar cost us everything that was gained in Iraq.

Simple - Cameron didn't ask us. Like any democracy, we elect governments based on what they promise to do domestically. We don't elect them based on what they promise to do in foreign policy, we know they won't keep them. Action in Libya was controversial at best. Some supported removing Gaddafi, others thought it was just an exercise at obtaining more oil.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/yougov-cambridge/a-reluctant-responsibilit_b_930548.html

Thus, despite humanitarian ideals, the vast majority of voters are not multilateral cosmopolitans, ready to sacrifice with blood or money for the lofty goals of protecting human life and a global common good. Britons are attracted to upholding liberal ideals - 'saving strangers' - especially where national interests coincide. And we appreciate this must incur costs, so long as the state or someone else pays. When these costs come home to roost, our convictions falter. Interestingly, whether the UN renews its authorisation of the use of military force by NATO or not matters little to the public's support (24% versus 20%) for an ongoing campaign.

We prefer the perspective of identifying and going after an evil-wrongdoer than the messier ethical challenge of taking sides in a civil war. Britons support airstrikes (46%) and sanctions (58%) against Gaddafi, less so supplying weapons to rebels (38%), giving them financial aid (24%) or deploying our own ground forces (18%). And two-thirds of British voters were opposed, ambivalent or unsure about recognising the NTC as Libya's legitimate government, two weeks before the UK did exactly that.

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/blogs/thepoliticswire/697/Intervention-in-Libya-and-public-opinion-around-our-involvement.aspx

http://www.leftfutures.org/2011/04/public-opinion-shifts-against-libyan-intervention/

The subsequent chaos in the country turned UK public opinion completely off intervention, anywhere, hence 60% public opposition to action in Syria.

Mike.

Re: Duelfer Report.

All it proves is that what the British public were told at the time by Blair's Labour Government was a pack of lies. Regardless of future potential, Iraq didn't have WMD at the time of the invasion.

Blair said Iraq did.

Blair said that Iraq was an immediate threat to the UK.

Blair lied.

Blair lied, British soldiers died because of them, end of story.

In the UK, that's all that matters.

Your not going to be able to persuade anyone in the UK otherwise.

Going further into events post the 2010 General Election, Cameron and Clegg have had a major shot across the bows in the Local Council Elections in England and Wales as well as the European Parliamentary elections. The rise of UKIP is a reaction against the current round of economic austerity and the stupid levels of immigration caused by Labour's policies under Blair and Brown when they were in power.

Like in the US, we can only get rid of an unpopular administration at election time. Labour had it's reckoning in 2010. Cameron and Clegg will have an interesting time next year.

Mike.

Key Phrase:

"Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs."

Blair was wrong about the current status of Iraq WMD in 2003 as was Bush but that does not prove that they lied about it.

Intelligence analysis is very subjective and heavily influenced by recent events and anxieties. The 9-11 attacks provoked outrage about intelligence failures. The US was determined to not fail to connect the dots again. As a result, worst case assumptions were influencing analysis.

Also consider the gaps in the post invasion analysis. The ISIS rebels recently captured a chemical weapons complex. Much of these facilities were destroyed by bombing during the first Gulf War. However; surviving storage bunkers that allegedly contained chemical weapons that Iraq had DECLARED were never searched either after the first gulf war or after the second. Is that stuff still there? Given the large volume, is it reasonable to characterize it as "militarily insignificant.". Is it insignificant infused in terrorist attack?

Michael Riddell wrote:Re: Duelfer Report.

All it proves is that what the British public were told at the time by Blair's Labour Government was a pack of lies. Regardless of future potential, Iraq didn't have WMD at the time of the invasion.

Blair said Iraq did.

Blair said that Iraq was an immediate threat to the UK.

Blair lied.

Blair lied, British soldiers died because of them, end of story.

In the UK, that's all that matters.

Your not going to be able to persuade anyone in the UK otherwise.

Going further into events post the 2010 General Election, Cameron and Clegg have had a major shot across the bows in the Local Council Elections in England and Wales as well as the European Parliamentary elections. The rise of UKIP is a reaction against the current round of economic austerity and the stupid levels of immigration caused by Labour's policies under Blair and Brown when they were in power.

Like in the US, we can only get rid of an unpopular administration at election time. Labour had it's reckoning in 2010. Cameron and Clegg will have an interesting time next year.

Mike.

namelessfly wrote:Key Phrase:

"Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs."

Blair was wrong about the current status of Iraq WMD in 2003 as was Bush but that does not prove that they lied about it.

Intelligence analysis is very subjective and heavily influenced by recent events and anxieties. The 9-11 attacks provoked outrage about intelligence failures. The US was determined to not fail to connect the dots again. As a result, worst case assumptions were influencing analysis.

Also consider the gaps in the post invasion analysis. The ISIS rebels recently captured a chemical weapons complex. Much of these facilities were destroyed by bombing during the first Gulf War. However; surviving storage bunkers that allegedly contained chemical weapons that Iraq had DECLARED were never searched either after the first gulf war or after the second. Is that stuff still there? Given the large volume, is it reasonable to characterize it as "militarily insignificant.". Is it insignificant infused in terrorist attack?

Unfortunately, Nameless, when it comes to Tony Blair and his actions, there is no logic or reason. He's far too hated a figure for that to happen. He could say water is wet and no-one in the UK would believe him. The immigration policies his government followed have left the UK with a sizable... "problem", shall we say. An extra reason why he's hated and a fruitful recruiting ground for ISIS and groups like them. Luckily the Muslim population of Scotland is so small (less than 80,000) and reasonably well integrated, although extremists have appeared fighting in Iraq and Syria. I can't honestly say I'd like to live in certain parts of England at the moment.

Mike.

To further elaborate on the problem faced by the UK because of the radicalisation of some the young male muslim population, here's some links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27974840

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27968963

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27952874

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2664118/MAX-HASTINGS-Yes-West-fought-Muslim-world-centuries-But-Islam-accept-blame-todays-bloody-chaos.html

The saying "you make your bed and you lie in it" springs to mind. Whether this would've happened without foreign intervention in the area is hard to say. It all depends on whether the Muslim hierarchy in the UK can be truly effective in combating radicalisation in their communities. So far they've played the blame game. It could easily be that Islam is going through both it's own equivalent of the "Medieval Crusades" and the "Thirty Years War" at the same time.

It makes emigration sound attractive.

BTW, don't eat so much popcorn. It won't do your Calorie intake much good!

Mike.

I am in total agreement with you regarding Tony Blair's lax immigration policies. While the influx was not unprecedented, it was becoming obviously problematic. Neither Bust thrilled me with their immigration policies and Senator John McCain was a complete idiot about the issue. Senator Ted Cruz (who just renounced his Canadian citizenship and therefore is not Constitutionally qualified to be President) is far more responsible in his position.

Interestingly; K T McFarland who is a former National Security adviser was on FOX News this morning advocating that we respond to Iraq by staying the he'll out, concentrating on drilling our way to energy independence, controlling our border and building a comprehensive ABM system. She was finally saying what Governor Palin has even saying for years. Itmakes me regret that my wish that Senator McCain had defeated Obama to become President, then died on the night of his inauguration. We would then have POTUS Palin.

Michael Riddell wrote:

namelessfly wrote:Key Phrase:

"Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs."

Blair was wrong about the current status of Iraq WMD in 2003 as was Bush but that does not prove that they lied about it.

Intelligence analysis is very subjective and heavily influenced by recent events and anxieties. The 9-11 attacks provoked outrage about intelligence failures. The US was determined to not fail to connect the dots again. As a result, worst case assumptions were influencing analysis.

Also consider the gaps in the post invasion analysis. The ISIS rebels recently captured a chemical weapons complex. Much of these facilities were destroyed by bombing during the first Gulf War. However; surviving storage bunkers that allegedly contained chemical weapons that Iraq had DECLARED were never searched either after the first gulf war or after the second. Is that stuff still there? Given the large volume, is it reasonable to characterize it as "militarily insignificant.". Is it insignificant infused in terrorist attack?

Unfortunately, Nameless, when it comes to Tony Blair and his actions, there is no logic or reason. He's far too hated a figure for that to happen. He could say water is wet and no-one in the UK would believe him. The immigration policies his government followed have left the UK with a sizable... "problem", shall we say. An extra reason why he's hated and a fruitful recruiting ground for ISIS and groups like them. Luckily the Muslim population of Scotland is so small (less than 80,000) and reasonably well integrated, although extremists have appeared fighting in Iraq and Syria. I can't honestly say I'd like to live in certain parts of England at the moment.

Mike.