Iraq - Still, In Fact, Going On

[vimothy]

In Syria, sure. I don't see that it invalidates the argument, though.

 

[sadmanbarty]

I don't know much about the Rwandan genocide or the two Congo Wars, but I think people use them as examples of disasters in cases of western non-intervention. Actual and per capita death tolls are generally considered to be in excess of those in Iraq.

 

[droid]

And dont forget Libya.

When the Obama administration began its effort to overthrow Gaddafi, it did not call publicly for regime change and instead asserted that it was merely seeking to avert mass killings that administration officials had suggested might approach genocidal levels. But the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which had been given the lead role in assessing the situation in Libya, found no evidence to support such fears and concluded that it was based on nothing more than “speculative arguments”.

The JCS warned that overthrowing the Gaddafi regime would serve no US security interest, but would instead open the way for forces aligned with al-Qaeda to take over the country. After the Obama administration went ahead with a NATO air assault against the Gaddafi regime the US military sought to head off the destruction of the entire Libyan government. General Carter Ham, the commander of AFRICOM, the US regional command for Africa gave the State Department a proposal for a ceasefire to which Gaddafi had agreed. It would have resulted in Gaddafi’s resignation but retain the Libyan military’s capacity to hold off jihadist forces and rescind the sanctions against Gaddafi’s family.

But the State Department refused any negotiation with Gaddafi on the proposal. Immediately after hearing that Gaddafi had been captured by rebel forces and killed, Clinton famously joked in a television interview, “We came, we saw, he died” and laughed.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/column...regime-change-1343405723#sthash.uzrfcrvV.dpuf

 

[droid]

In fact, its very difficult to point to more than a handful of examples of (possibly) benign military intervention in the entire recorded history of humanity.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't know much about the Rwandan genocide or the two Congo Wars, but I think people use them as examples of disasters in cases of western non-intervention. Actual and per capita death tolls are generally considered to be in excess of those in Iraq.

I believe the various Congolese wars, considered as a single conflict, are thought by many to be the bloodiest anywhere in the world since WWII.

I dunno, it's impossible to say how many of these could have been prevented by 'intervention' of some kind, and impossible also to say how many other deaths would have occurred.

Isn't the NATO air campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo War a fairly clear-cut case of humanitarian intervention, given that Kosovo isn't exactly resource-rich or of vital geostrategic importance?

 

[vimothy]

The same argument can be made to work for Syria: given that we've already destabilised the region (through inept intervention in Iraq, the Arab Spring, as well as providing encouragement, military support, flows of materiel, aid, capital, "foreign fighters", to various actors), and given that so many other powers are also "intervening" in this way, we ought really to be doing more to put the situation right. (But this way madness lies.)

 

[Mr. Tea]

(But this way madness lies.)

It's also important to avoid thinking "Well how much worse could it get?", because if history teaches us anything, it's that it can always get worse.

 

[vimothy]

And in the lowest deep a lower deep ...

 

[droid]

Isn't the NATO air campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo War a fairly clear-cut case of humanitarian intervention, given that Kosovo isn't resource-rich or exactly of vital geostrategic importance?

Nato's stated aims in intervention in Kosovo were:

1. Averting a humanitarian catastrophe;
2. Preserving stability in a key part of Europe; and
3. Maintaining NATO's credibility.​

We can dismiss the first aim as the bombing campaign escalated the humanitarian crisis - an effect clearly predicted by NATO themselves. The OSCE and many others have pointed out that in the months prior to intervention approx 2000 people had been killed on all sides, with most killings and burnings taking place in Kosovo Liberation Army territory (the standout exception being Racak). The removal of OSCE monitors and commencement of bombing radically increased violence on both sides. This has been borne out by post-war forensic war crimes investigations which have pretty much demolished NATO's humanitarian case for intervention

If you wish to avoid a humanitarian crisis, you don't take actions which will escalate the crisis.

Regarding the wider aims - I think its reasonable to assume that 'enhancing NATO's credibility' also contains a strong component of 'show the Russian's who's boss' as evidenced by the ungainly race for Belgrade. Given subsequent events its also not unreasonable to see the Kosovo as the birth of a new paradigm, the new humanitarianism as a stalking horse for future Western military dominance and US/UK intervention.

There's several hundred books on this subject. Decent little PDF here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01402390308559309

 

[sadmanbarty]

I dunno, it's impossible to say how many of these could have been prevented by 'intervention' of some kind, and impossible also to say how many other deaths would have occurred.

It's not necessarily the question of preventing these things, but lessening the number of deaths once they've begun.

Some would argue that the surge in Iraq and the effective counter insurgency polices that ensued helped reduce the extent of the civil war.

What would Isis done to the Kurds if not for US air support?

Patrick Cockburn argued that Russian intervention in Syria would be positive. Firstly it would create a stalemate which would eventually lead to a political solution. It also meant that the great powers would assert their authority over their respective proxies, meaning they could organise ceasefires, humanitarian aid, etc.

These are of course all contentious claims to start with. Also I don't know enough about the african conflicts to see how applicable they are.

 

[vimothy]

We can dismiss the first aim as the bombing campaign escalated the humanitarian crisis

What do you mean by, "we can dismiss the first aim"?

 

[droid]

What do you mean by, "we can dismiss the first aim"?

Because its quite clearly bullshit as NATO took actions that they knew would only increase the humanitarian crisis.

 

[vimothy]

In other words, it was a stated aim, but not a real aim, and there's some evidence (such as internal documents) that supports this?

 

[droid]

Evidence that NATO knew intervention would worsen the crisis? its so abundant I barely know where to start.

NATO Commanding General Wesley Clark explained that it was “entirely predictable” that the atrocities on the ground would escalate as a consequence of the bombing. “The military authorities fully anticipated the vicious approach that Milosevic would adopt, as well as the terrible efficiency with which he would carry it out”, he confessed.

On the purpose of the bombing, Clark also clarified, “We were operating, however, under the instructions from the political leadership. It was not designed as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing. It was not designed as a way of waging war against the Serb and mob forces in Kosovo in any way. There was never any intent to do that. That was not the idea.”

The Chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, similarly observed that, “Our intelligence community warned us months and days before that we would have a virtual explosion of refugees over the 250,000 that was expected as of last year, that the Serb resolve would increase, that the conflict would spread, and that there would be ethnic cleansing.”

Goss remarked further that, “One of the consequences surely would be that if you stick in this nest, you’re going to stir it up more, and that was one of the things that might have happened and in fact that is one of the things that did happen because Milosevic did in fact, instead of caving in, he reacted by striking back harder against the Kosovars, harder, more quickly, more ruthlessly.”

The intelligence community’s predictions in that regard “were very accurate”, Goss boasted.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com...nlearned-from-the-u-s-nato-bombing-of-kosovo/

 

[droid]

WSJ on this in '99:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/pearl123199.htm

"Rwanda was a true genocide. Kosovo was ethnic cleansing light," says Emilio Perez Pujol, a Spanish pathologist who exhumed bodies after both conflicts. In his sector of western Kosovo, he says, the United Nations told him to expect as many as 2,000 victims. His team found 187 corpses, none of which showed evidence to confirm local accounts of mutilations.

Some human-rights researchers now say that most killings and burnings occurred in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army had been active, or in urban streets that backed into rural areas where KLA fighters could infiltrate. They say the Serbs were trying to clear out areas of KLA support, using selective terror, robberies and sporadic killings.

But really, there are mountains of evidence on this. its the crucible and the template for the new humanitarianism and has been thoroughly dissected.

Deserving of its own thread, but probably has one already.

 

[droid]

On the subject of polls.

POLL: Iraqis Say They’re Worse Off After War, View Iran Unfavorably

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/12/20/393290/poll-iraq-war-iran/

YOUNG IRAQIS OVERWHELMINGLY CONSIDER U.S. THEIR ENEMY, POLL SAYS

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/13/young-iraqis-overwhelmingly-consider-u-s-their-enemy-poll-says/

 

[droid]

On the idea that you can take Saddam's past actions and extrapolate future events from them. This guy has done the calculations.

Some pertinent observations from the comments: http://web.archive.org/web/20050310174522/http://blogoram.com/000184.php

...including death stats from the Iran/Iraq war is simply misleading. The counter, if you want it taken seriously, should reflect those deaths and refugees which were a background feature of life under Saddam. It may be a much reduced figure, but more reflective of the actual pre-war situation. Let's face it - Saddam was in no position to repeat such a massive aggressive conflict as that war. Albeit thanks only to the prior efforts of the US and allies since the first Gulf War.

I am, and was, pro-military intervention in Iraq, but a counter like this does more harm to the cause than good.

Dear Lord, this is possibly the most pathetic excuse for logic I have seen in months, even in the blogosphere. Imagine the following hypothetical situation:

John is a kitten killer. All his life (since 1970) he killed on average 10 kittens every day, though most of them in single large events where he killed thousands at once. In 1991, he was caught and thrown in jail, where he can only kill a very few kittens who wander in - one every few years. In 2004, he is murdered in jail. The assailant claims credit for "saving the lives of 10 kittens every day". But wait -- he was already in jail! Don't the police and DA that locked him up in 1991 get the credit?

The point is, nearly every death and refugee you include occurred before 1992. From then till 2003, Iraq was under constant military surveillance, imposition of sanctions, and a no-fly enforcement of over 40% of the country's territory. All this had been set up specifically to prevent the repeat of the atrocities you list.

Furthermore, it was working: Iraq prosecuted no wars and no significant attacks on the Kurds or Shiites between 1993 and 2003. Nor is there any evidence that Iraq posessed the capability and means to conduct such events in the forseeable future. Yet the Iran-Iraq war, the Kurdish cleansing, and the Shia/Kurd 1991 uprising account for 91% of all the deaths you use in your math!

The only items which extended beyond 1992 were the political/opposition killings (2040 over presumaby his entire reign 1968-2003) and the prison cleansings (7000 from 1988-1999). Divide those two by the number of days in those periods and you get a combined average 1.9 deaths per day. That's rather different from your ludicrous number of 138.

This is just fundamentally fallacious logic and you are either cynical or disingenuous or dumb or you think this is a big joke .

You get to pick one.

One time historical events that occurred in the past do not repeat themselves over and over in some self replicating loop.

Indeed he killed X number in the past ( I will grant you some large number for argument sake) but that does not mean you can then average it out over time into the future.

It is just so exasperatingly stupid that I an barely contain my contempt.

 

[sadmanbarty]

On the idea that you can take Saddam's past actions and extrapolate future events from them. This guy has done the calculations.

Some pertinent observations from the comments: http://web.archive.org/web/20050310174522/http://blogoram.com/000184.php

I haven’t read the link, only the stuff you’ve quoted (its late, so don’t want to do too much homework before bed). Though I did see that this stuff was posted in 2004 (so no arab spring/winter in anyone’s calculations).


Droid, would you have been in favour of keeping the sanctions on, or was there another option?

I have seen some observers state that the sanctions weren’t sustainable in the long run due to an increasing lack of support for them by the international community and corruption, in which case it’s not implausible that Sadam could have been in a stronger position. I think people also point to North Korea as an example of developing these programs despite UN sanctions (though of course, Iraq didn’t have an equivalent of China). Again, I don’t know how accurate all that is. I think US intelligence was suggesting at the time that Saddam did have long-term goals of remilitarizing, which may well have resulted in increasing military adventurism (Sadam’s Iraq can’t really be viewed as a rational actor). I don’t think another Shia revolt was implausible, with twenty years past since 1991 (the sunni's revolted in syria again, despite the Hama massacre, likewise this intifada is only 10 years after the 2nd intifada, though of course Israel-Palestine is a much smaller scale conflict). Kurdish autonomy I’d imagine would be secure due to no-fly zones.

 

[droid]

(Sadam’s Iraq can’t really be viewed as a rational actor).

Why?

 

[sadmanbarty]

Why?

Dissent (or even mild disagreement) within the Baath party was systematically eliminated to the extent that everyone in the government pretty much had to agree with anything Sadam proposed. It was incredibly risky to tell Sadam that the invading Kuwait was a bad idea, America will actually invade, etc. As such, issues of foreign policy were at Sadam's whim.