Saddam was brutal, yet he was trying to keep Iraq together, the kurds and shia wanted to rule, either Iraq in entirety, or their own State.

Consider Lincoln without propaganda and the rose colored lens. He violated the Constitution and beset the south with a vengeance, in the end allowing Sherman to act as a TERRORIST, in the burning of the swath of homes and towns as his army “marched to the sea” .

Study history, humans of ambition all in all are pieces of S*** left to their own devices, there is good and evil in them, generally saying they doing their atrocity for Country or God. I’m over it, and as a populace we have to be smarter than to believe nonsensical propaganda.

Germans had no insurgency against allies after the war. I don’t think a single occupying troop was killed. Germans beaten, honor surrender. It is with assurance that I can say Parthians NEVER do. They are your enemy, forever. best to leave them alone. Occupation of such a people will be costly no doubt. More than I would pay.

In college I studied history and US foreign policy. In this, Realpolitik is how international relations operates. No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent self interest. General Douglas Kinnard taught that. He was the Commander of the Illegal Laotian invasion by us, in the Vietnam war. Nation building to him, and realpolitik adherents, is a Boy Scout affair, that usually ends in blood, and does not succeed. Or it is just used as propaganda to justify an incursion based on geo-political needs or resource extraction.

Bottom line, if you are not strong enough, you don’t get be free. Realpolitik. No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent self interest. This is what the Pres has ignored, Baker tried to tell him, Powell tried to tell him, his DAD tried to tell him, I’m trying to tell him. The guy is a dry drunk moron, who, because his brain is shot, is relying on faith in a situation that requires ALL of our faculties. Stop supporting him, we absolutely need new leadership

Screw Iraq, there are nations that deserve freedom more than they do, where we are still supporting the dictator. None of this hypocrisy is lost on them I can assure you.

Under saddam if you kept your mouth shut and did not prattle on about religious nonsense you could keep an AK and 5000 rounds of ammo in your house. Women held some of highest positions in his government . Let the shia rule and SEE what happens to women. Saddam was a bad guy no excuses for him, however he was a secularist, and promoted women and Shia, as long as their politics stayed at home. It did not work, the Shia continued to call for a theocracy and saddams demise. that is why he killed them. The propaganda surrounding removing him is almost 20 years old now. You must read history prior to 92 in order to get a picture of what Iraq really is.

Apparently we still don’t know.

It is somewhat endemic to the human race. The colonists that founded our Country petitioned the crown for redress, what the wanted and needed, and got nothing, until they were blue in the face. It was when they took up arms that they TOOK what they wanted.

Nobody can do it for you, we stood, France helped, and our boys did fight well. The Iraqis stand, we help and they aren’t very good and get their asses kicked one on one against the insurgents.

If they do not improve massively the gig is up. When we leave. The Baath wait, we should have let them rule, De-Baathification was the biggest mistake, they should have been co-opted by us. The Sunni Baath left out of the power sharing and persecuted by us, had little choice but to become insurgents, for survival. We empowered the Shia at their expense.

The Sunni Baath will fight to the death if we continue to support the Shia. That is plain.

These people have dealt with many an invader, this is their way So said the english, the crusaders were to bring God to the Muslims, we wish to give them democracy. Not to beat it to death, but the current democracy is Shia based, and Iranian Shia backed. The very person who is Shia, but still against Iranian Shias, is Moqtada al Sadr, but it appears we mean to do him in. If we do then the Shia in Iran will be in total control of Iraq. That will be the point at which there will be democracy, but hoo boy, it will yield something I know we will not want.

Seal does your professor tell what happens to old cultures that get immediate change? In my study of Revolution, all that have occurred on Earth, yes I’m boring, and studied all of them, a curious thing happens.

When old cultures get new desires and act on them, what happens next is called Thermidorian reaction, after the height of the change is seen, the old guard joins the new and co-opts it, and in a very short time almost all, not all, return to where they started, or worse a despotism.

The classic example is the French Revolution, which utilized many of the precepts of our own, after the Thermidore, came Robespierres terror, in which all suspected of not honoring the ideals of the revolution lost their heads. This is 3 years after the Monarchy and Aristocracy were mostly put to death. After such chaos, a military man showed up, he was Napolean, and his despotism lasted 12 odd years, in which France rolled up empires left and right. By the time he was defeated, France returned to the Republic, but the stars in peoples eyes were well gone.

Seal, Iran has been thoroughly modernized and if we had not intervened in Iraq and started banging the war drum, the change you speak of would likely have happened. It won’t happen with our military there. Promise.
The Iranians don’t trust us due to our CIA deposing their democratically elected leader Mossadegh in ’53. We installed the Shah, a ruthless dictator.

Did you know that at one time Iran possessed 320 F-14 tomcats? Still have most of them. They can deliver an SS-22 Sunburn supersonic cruise missile quite nicely. I would not want to be on any boat in the Gulf.

My reason for telling you about this Soldier is that I now have several other Soldiers, right now, who I talk to on a daily basis, who are in Ramadi. It is a whole different city now. There is still violence, but it is NOTHING like it was a year ago. The Iraqi police patrol there, and are answering all the calls that would have been handled by the US just one year ago. The Iraqi Army, is in charge there. We are the back up. Our Engineer Battalions go out and do road sweeps on a daily basis and the roads have been relatively clear. I assure you, this was not the case a year ago. Change can happen Gunther. It does take time, but more importantly, it takes patience. A quality that the “Instant” society we have become, sorely lacks.

We are a very young culture.

What I am trying to impart here is that whatever good we do is a castle in the sand, the tide will come, our efforts will be washed away. Their focus culturally isn’t ours. The mission to do good isn’t enough if you do not understand the people.

Since the time of Rome, when Parthia(iran iraq afghanistan geographically) was to be conquered, for profit, and for the good of the local peoples, the Parthians instead knew it was really about resources and controlling trade routes, in a word, money. Crassus was the ruler of Rome that invaded.(56 bce)

When his adventure in the Parthian lands were over, his legions crushed, worn out, he was captured and put to death, by pouring molten gold down his throat, in mockery of his love of money, which was a legend by then. King Orodes was a hero after this was done, all the little people loved him.

Then the crusades, then the english, now us. It is a long pattern, and as much as I am not changing your mind, we will not have the success that we hope with the people who rule the ME, I believe. It is the little people being victimized, that we try to help. The minute we leave the little people don’t get to rule, they never have. It is why we backed power in the region with saddam. Democracy is not something that is culturally like ours. It has the religious and cultural component, very unlike our own. The model does not function.

This is why I view the war as a waste. The Arabs that rule are culturally unassailable. What I fear is that in frustration we will escalate into general atrocity. I was born in Germany and the history of that affair learned as one taught by family, does not always resemble the history we are taught.

Atrocity follows when a recalcitrant people are defeated but will not act like defeated westerners. Nothing like this went on after the conquest of Germany. People lost and allies won, it was over. It is never over to a Parthian. Like wolverines, they are best left alone, the miserable creatures.

I have watched those critters interact, they do not play well with others, and for their size inflict a hell of a wound.

People will disagree immediately, I know. Along with Franklins’ adage are a few more. The other kind of fools never learn, the least foolish is the person that trusts in what others have seen and done, and with their advice, avoid the lessons of experience.

I disagree. I won’t go into detailed lists as CJ and M have covered that many many times here. I am basing my opinion on the words of actual Soldiers and Marines who are right now, as we speak sitting in Iraq, with their IBA on because they have to, and wading through ankle (knee??) deep puddles to get to chow, or the showers. And still they tell me, they are where they are doing the most good. They are accomplishing a great deal. They are making a difference in the lives of the Iraqi people they are helping. So, I don’t know that you and I can ever come to some sort of agreement on that issue. But I am willing to keep reading and trying to understand your viewpoint better.