Sep 25th 2014, 0:43:10
Originally posted by Pang:
It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison of isis-to-hussein.
With the 2003 war, there was a big song and dance to prove Iraq was doing things that made them worth fighting/deposing their regime in the first place.
In 2014, ISIS is outright committing atrocities, planning to take over/kill more people... and then publishing what they do on YouTube for the world to see; basically throwing down the gauntlet to the West and their regional allies.
The other piece is that the only reason this situation has come about is because of the power vacuum created by the other ill-advised war and the horrible post-invasion planning their-in.
If anything, this war is more Bush's fault than Obama's, TBH.
With the 2003 war, there was a big song and dance to prove Iraq was doing things that made them worth fighting/deposing their regime in the first place.
In 2014, ISIS is outright committing atrocities, planning to take over/kill more people... and then publishing what they do on YouTube for the world to see; basically throwing down the gauntlet to the West and their regional allies.
The other piece is that the only reason this situation has come about is because of the power vacuum created by the other ill-advised war and the horrible post-invasion planning their-in.
If anything, this war is more Bush's fault than Obama's, TBH.
I agree it is not an apples to apples comparison, but at least make sure you know what fruits you're actually comparing...
I will concede that nothing changed that warranted deposing Hussein from Iraq in 2003. However, he had a long laundry list of atrocities - which definitely included the utilization of weapons of mass destruction against Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis - that made the war very justified, but only when applied retroactively. In short, Bush did what Clinton didn't want to do, and he did not do it until he could build sufficient support from allied partners to accomplish it.
[Edit] Regardless, the manner in which we went into Iraq has no bearing on how long we should have stayed or the time frame and/or manner in which we left. We cannot consider the two as being the same thing. Even if we were not justified going in in the first place, we cannot use this alone to determine the nature in which to extricate ourselves from the situation. [/edit]
However, I fail to see how ISIS publishing their atrocities is new. Does the name Nick Berg ring a bell?
And in regards to the power vacuum, blaming this on Bush is short-sighted, ignorant, and naive. The reason there is a power vacuum in Iraq specifically is not because we went in there. It is because of the manner in which we left.
I was in Iraq. I supported Iraqi missions. They were becoming competent. They were running their own operations. Hell, in some cases, they were also running our operations. Sure, they still had a long way to go, but they were coming together to make a viable country. Unfortunately, a paradigm shift in American foreign policy caused us to pull out before the job was finished - and by job, I mean the job of rebuilding the country and providing law and order, not war. In fact, with the reliance on warrants issued by Iraqi courts, you could easily make the argument that there was no war in Iraq any longer as early as the summer of 2009.
The American troops leaving when they did and in the manner in which they did was akin to a doctor removing the stitches before the scar had sufficient time to heal. Is it any shock that the festering wound is now infected?
I fault Bush for many things and his administration deserves the scrutiny and criticism it so often receives. But this? This is not on him.
And, Monsters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.