Should people really be helping the situation in Iraq?

Heineken

I was looking at Tony Blair giving a speach during the week and it really made me think. Should European countries and other western nations send troops into iraq in order to pacify the country?
During this week the US suffered a huge loss, and it really displayed to me what the situation was actually like in Iraq. That it was so dangerous it was able to strike in a place where the men are supposed to be safe.
With elections coming up, and the insurgency only getting stronger, I really can't see how elections will run smoothly, or how any government could hold out against such violent and large resistance. The US are really just hoping for a good outcome, and it really is a gamble! Is it our duty to help in the reconstruction, even though most of us didn't believe in the war in the first place?

BigCon

No, they (U.S. and U.K.) made their bed - they can lie in it now.
It was one of the reasons put forward by a lot of commentators for not going to war - the inability to inplement a calm, safe Iraq post Saddam...

Heineken

I know but can you honestly think that having an "I told you so" attitude is any good for the people in Iraq. It could very well end up endangering peace in the middle east if some lunatics end up running that country!

sovtek

Unfortunetly the way that the Bush regime handles "allies" doesn't bode well for how things would go should countries like Germany and France send troops to Iraq. The US would still insist upon command and control and that is the root of the problem.
I don't really see the reluctance of EU countries in getting actively involved in Iraq as "I told ya so".
I think it's more a situation of just good ol' common sense.
If France sent troops in under US command and with continued US plunder then the majority of resistance fighters aren't going to give a damn how many red and blue stripes (or yellow and black) are on the occupiers uniform.
It would also be a bit stupid for France or Germany to send troops to help the US control the flow of oil coming out of Iraq without some control being given to them as well....which isn't going to happen with the current bunch of psychopaths in the White House.

Frank Grimes

Heineken wrote:

During this week the US suffered a huge loss, and it really displayed to me what the situation was actually like in Iraq.

If 13 soliders getting killed during a "war" was an eye opener for you maybe you should check out sites like this .
And, to answer your question, IMO sending more troops in will just make the situation even worse and it would also be a propaganda field day for the insurgents (an Internation occupation as opposed to UK/US occupation etc.).
[EDIT] And yes I realise there are other countries in Iraq besides UK/US but I assume the OP is referring to bigger countries joining in alongside them.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

marco murphy

And the US stoopid plan to get EU to put money into iraqs occupied country didnt work!

AmenToThat

Heineken wrote:

I was looking at Tony Blair giving a speach during the week and it really made me think. Should European countries and other western nations send troops into iraq in order to pacify the country?

The only ones needing pacifying in Iraq are the Americans and the British!
They are the criminals in this not those apposing them.

BTW the biggest slaughter of civilians in this war wasnt the bombings of the shia cities of Najaf and Karbala by Zarqawi's nuts it was and is (there is still heavy fighting going on) Fallujah where the deaths of four American mercenaries have lead to the deaths of thousands of muslims.

Moriarty

I don't think it'd work if more troops were just sent in under US control and it doesn't look like they're going to allow anyone else to take command of the military side of things for the forseeable future, so military help would seem to be unlikely.

However, the EU should be in Iraq in a large way in a humanitarian role. If, after the elections, the new government asks for non-military assistance, it should be the global communitys responsibility (not to mention in their best intrests) to assist in any way possible. As the closest major power, the EU should foot a lot of that burden. The argument about the rights or wrongs of the war are for history now, what should be focused on is how best to help Iraq.

Memnoch

i don't see how this new "government" is going to be any more representatives of the iraqi's than the current puppet selected US government.

Democratic elections seem to take on an entirely new meaning when the Bush administration is running the show

Victor

Heineken wrote:

Should European countries and other western nations send troops into iraq in order to pacify the country?

.... haven't I heard this one before?

true

Of course other nations should help the UK, US, New Zealand etc establish peace and democracy in Iraq. The Irish, French and Germans are just sitting on the fence, fat and lazy. If it were not for the US and UK, we would be speaking German or Russian.
Yet again we let them do the dirty work , and complain at the same time. A bit like when we cried over 9/11, and reassured America we were their special friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed....

Poker_Peter

Heineken wrote:

I was looking at Tony Blair giving a speach during the week and it really made me think. Should European countries and other western nations send troops into iraq in order to pacify the country?
During this week the US suffered a huge loss, and it really displayed to me what the situation was actually like in Iraq. That it was so dangerous it was able to strike in a place where the men are supposed to be safe.
With elections coming up, and the insurgency only getting stronger, I really can't see how elections will run smoothly, or how any government could hold out against such violent and large resistance. The US are really just hoping for a good outcome, and it really is a gamble! Is it our duty to help in the reconstruction, even though most of us didn't believe in the war in the first place?

Well if we are against war the best way of showing that is to support the process of democraticisation in Iraq. To do so does not mean supporting the invasion of Iraq. I would hope that regardless of people's views of the invasion, which most Irish people opposed, that we do not allow that to translate into opposition to the aspect of the result of the invasion that is the present democraticisation plan whererby elections will be held to bring about a constitution which will then go to referendum whereupon a new government and assembly will be elected. I understand that is the plan to re-introduce democracy anyway. It seems perhaps too complicated to hold 2 elections for an assembly, especially compared to how the democratic transition worked in Afghanistan, but it is a hell of a lot better than anything Saddam ever thought up as a model for running a country!

Helping to build a democracy in Iraq will help to avoid a new war - a civil war in Iraq, which AQ has admitted it wants to provoke between the Sunnites and the Shias. If the US were to just up and leave now, without holding the elections, Iraq would inevitably become what Afghanistan was before the US invaded that country (a war which I regard as correct - and one I believe Irish people supported, unlike the Iraq war) i.e. a country divided between tribal/ethnic/religious warlords. Such an environment would be ripe for Osama to set up bases in like he did in Afghanistan, especially since the absence of true central authority in a country helps terrorists evade attempts to remove them from a country since the government may not control the areas the terrorists operate in.

So the EU should assist the Iraq authorities in running the elections and in terms of monitoring it so as to verify that it is free and fair. We should also help them in the fight against Zarqawi and his child-killers.

Originally posted by BigConNo, they (U.S. and U.K.) made their bed - they can lie in it now.

BigCon it wouldn't be them lying in it if they withdrew without holding elections. It would be the Iraq civilian population lying in pools of blood. What did they do to deserve that? Okay so maybe the war was wrong, but refusing to help the US democratise the country can only lead to more bloodshed in the long run at the hands of terrorists.

sovtek

Poker_Peter wrote:

Well if we are against war the best way of showing that is to support the process of democraticisation in Iraq.

It's pretty obvious, even with elections, that the "democratic" government the US plans to institute is going to be anything more than a puppet government. Even with elections the complete sell off of Iraqi assets will continue as will the control of their oil.
I can't believe anyone would call that democracy...much less sovereignty.

If the US were to just up and leave now, without holding the elections, Iraq would inevitably become what Afghanistan was before the US invaded that country (a war which I regard as correct - and one I believe Irish people supported, unlike the Iraq war) i.e. a country divided between tribal/ethnic/religious warlords.

It's funny but I distinctly remember there being no tribal/ethnic/religious warlords before the US invaded...and even still everyone in Iraq seems to be together on one thing...they want the US to leave.
As for Afghanistan it's still very much divided along those lines...the only territory the new government controls is the capitol. That's forgetting the warlords that went around threatening everyone to vote for Karzia.

Such an environment would be ripe for Osama to set up bases in like he did in Afghanistan, especially since the absence of true central authority in a country helps terrorists evade attempts to remove them from a country since the government may not control the areas the terrorists operate in.

Iraqi's were setting up their own local governments in between the fall of Saddam and the takeover of the US....who dismantled all this when they moved in.
One thing that wasn't happening before the US takover was AQ nor Bin Laden were able to operate anywhere in Iraq ('cept possibly in the north where our "allies"...the various Kurdish factions controlled everything).

So the EU should assist the Iraq authorities in running the elections and in terms of monitoring it so as to verify that it is free and fair. We should also help them in the fight against Zarqawi and his child-killers.

Should the EU also help the US fight resistance to their occupation of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to them? Should the EU also help the US in selling off all Iraqi assets to their own corporations who are already profiteering of this war? Should the EU also help them kill 5-15 Iraqi civilians per day?

BigCon it wouldn't be them lying in it if they withdrew without holding elections. It would be the Iraq civilian population lying in pools of blood.

They weren't lying in pools of blood before the US moved in. One might wonder what the central factor is in all this violence and then consider removing that factor.

Okay so maybe the war was wrong, but refusing to help the US democratise the country can only lead to more bloodshed in the long run at the hands of terrorists.

What makes you think that a country that invaded another country without provocation is going to have the interest of the inhabitants of that country. What makes you think that they will be interested in bringing about true democracy and sovereignty? That's not even considering the past 50 years of US intervention.

Victor

Poker_Peter wrote:

BigCon it wouldn't be them lying in it if they withdrew without holding elections. It would be the Iraq civilian population lying in pools of blood.

It is almost exclusively the Iraqi civilian population lying in pools of blood already.

sovtek wrote:

It's funny but I distinctly remember there being no tribal/ethnic/religious warlords before the US invaded

There were warlords, but not blooded to the extent they have been now. There was substantial devolution to regional and tribal government in Iraq in the 1991-2003 period - the price Saddam was willing to pay to keep overall control.

cdebru

should we send in troops to fight alongside the insurgents who are trying to rid their country of a foreign invading power
and help them to rebuild their country once they have driven out the US/UK

Moriarty

.. and the funniest thing about that ^ sort of thing, is that it's actually the perfectly logical conclusion of the 'ra mindset.

cdebru

Moriarty wrote:

.. and the funniest thing about that ^ sort of thing, is that it's actually the perfectly logical conclusion of the 'ra mindset.

its the perfectly logical conclusion of anyone who does not support this illegal war and wants would like to end the suffering of the ordinary Iraqis

Heineken

Yes, I'm not saying that I agree with the war, OR saying that we should help the US forces for no reason.

I'm merely asking the question that is it our DUTY to make sure that Iraq shouldn't fall into the hands of some random warlords, thus ruining the country for decades. Then when all this fighting stops, and some lunatic who's probably been supported by the US comes into power, we're back where we were in the late eighties/early nineties with Saddam - or even worse!

I was of the view that this was THEIR war for a long time and felt a strong sense of "I told you so", but these are actual human lives that we're talking about here. Sending forces to help fight the insurgents? Are you insane? Do you actually know what the inurgents ultimate goal is? Or how that bodes for the people in Iraq?

Moriarty

cdebru is attracted to terrorist organisations like a pig to shít. He supports the provos up north, and it's a fair bet that he supports FARC/Eta/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al Qaeda/yadda yadda yadda aswell.

cdebru wrote:

its the perfectly logical conclusion of anyone who does not support this illegal war and wants would like to end the suffering of the ordinary Iraqis

No it's not. Presumeably you opposed the Iraqi war because you didn't want to see civilians hurt and killed in Iraq - or at least, that's the excuse you'll use. Now that the war has happened it no longer seems to be about the well-being of civilians, but plain 'haha i told you so!' childishness.

If you were against the Iraqi war solely because of humanitarian reasons, I can't think of a single legitimate reason why you'd be against EU non-military support at this point.

cdebru

Moriarty wrote:

cdebru is attracted to terrorist organisations like a pig to shít. He supports the provos up north, and it's a fair bet that he supports FARC/Eta/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al Qaeda/yadda yadda yadda aswell.



No it's not. Presumeably you opposed the Iraqi war because you didn't want to see civilians hurt and killed in Iraq - or at least, that's the excuse you'll use. Now that the war has happened it no longer seems to be about the well-being of civilians, but plain 'haha i told you so!' childishness.

If you were against the Iraqi war solely because of humanitarian reasons, I can't think of a single legitimate reason why you'd be against EU non-military support at this point.

no i would not support your list
and i dont support the provisional republican movement.


EU non military support of who
ordinary iraqi civilians
or the puppet US picked government

as i have said before this situation is either going to be solved by the americans leaving or the americans killing every last iraqi that opposes them
personally i prefer the americans leaving
we all know that they will leave eventually
eventually the people in charge of the insurgency will be talked to so why wait do it now

elivsvonchiaing

cdebru wrote:

as i have said before this situation is either going to be solved by the americans leaving or the americans killing every last iraqi that opposes them
personally i prefer the americans leaving
we all know that they will leave eventually
eventually the people in charge of the insurgency will be talked to so why wait do it now

No. Not a simple as that imho. Think what will happen is this... Shi'ites will win election with massive dissatisfaction in N Iraq. Civil war. Secret treaty of South with Iran - deal is - nuke - 'em. We want a Shi'te federation or something.

It is too late for any intervention here imho - they (iran)will continue to refine uranium - they already probably have enough for a small one - there are enough nuclear scientists getting sacked 'coz they slip up and say "Do want tritium with that?" - "Sorry I meant to say fries!".

There will be many versions of "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" - The real trick will be which nations/terrorists get sold the "duds".

Can only see biological/chemical as preferred weapons of terrorists for this reason!

Iran though could be a problem when shi'ites win and civil war follows...

AmenToThat

true wrote:

Of course other nations should help the UK, US, New Zealand etc establish peace and democracy in Iraq. The Irish, French and Germans are just sitting on the fence, fat and lazy. If it were not for the US and UK, we would be speaking German or Russian.

Its because of the UK that we are speaking English now or did the last 800 years not happen?
Wasnt it the Brits who came up with the ethnically unworkable version fo Iraq we have now (the biggest and most moderate by all accounts, Sunni party withdrew from the elections today) and the leader of the largest Shai party was attcked today killing 15 of his associates.
Youll forgive me if I dont feel Ireland should rush to help America and Britain at the present time, they are the problem not the solution!

AmenToThat

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

No. Not a simple as that imho. Think what will happen is this... Shi'ites will win election with massive dissatisfaction in N Iraq. Civil war. Secret treaty of South with Iran - deal is - nuke - 'em. We want a Shi'te federation or something.

From my limited understanding of the situation I dont think its even going to be as simple as the vision you have outlined!

What has been overlooked here is the fact that there is two Shia camps now forming, one run by Al Sistani who has been careful to bring along some moderates and even a couple of Sunni but is also heavily centred around Shia religious parties many with links to Iran.
Then there is Allawi's secular Shia coalition with a very "American reublican" style of polotics....privaties everything and throw yet more hundreds of thousands or Iraqis on the scrap heap.
How these two camps are going to play out in the comming weeks and months is literally anyones guess!

Theres also some fella call Al Sadra anyone remember him?
Who is still working hard in the slums who hasnt even put any candidates up for election despite widespread support from the young and marginalized shia community........anyone want to hazard a guess at his long term plans?

elivsvonchiaing

AmenToThat wrote:

From my limited understanding of the situation I dont think its even going to be as simple as the vision you have outlined!

What has been overlooked here is the fact that there is two Shia camps now forming, one run by Al Sistani who has been careful to bring along some moderates and even a couple of Sunni but is also heavily centred around Shia religious parties many with links to Iran.
Then there is Allawi's secular Shia coalition with a very "American reublican" style of polotics....privaties everything and throw yet more hundreds of thousands or Iraqis on the scrap heap.
How these two camps are going to play out in the comming weeks and months is literally anyones guess!

Theres also some fella call Al Sadra anyone remember him?
Who is still working hard in the slums who hasnt even put any candidates up for election despite widespread support from the young and marginalized shia community........anyone want to hazard a guess at his long term plans?

What has happened is not simple...

I do agree It's not as simplistic as I have put it - what will happen all of Iraq will be cast into a "mash" after elections - the "mash" will ferment!

Fermentation is inevtable!
Having said that I take no sides whatsover!

Poker_Peter

sovtek wrote:

It's pretty obvious, even with elections, that the "democratic" government the US plans to institute is going to be anything more than a puppet government. Even with elections the complete sell off of Iraqi assets will continue as will the control of their oil.
I can't believe anyone would call that democracy...much less sovereignty.

We have no reason to believe that the new Iraqi government would not have the power to renationalise the oil-industry if they had an elected mandate to do this. I think the US would accept that. After all, they finally accepted Hugo Chavez as President of Venezuela after the referendum recently approved him staying in power.

It's funny but I distinctly remember there being no tribal/ethnic/religious warlords before the US invaded...and even still everyone in Iraq seems to be together on one thing...they want the US to leave.
As for Afghanistan it's still very much divided along those lines...the only territory the new government controls is the capitol. That's forgetting the warlords that went around threatening everyone to vote for Karzia.

The UN (hardly a US puppet given its failure to endorse the Iraq war) observers ruled that the Afghan elections were free and fair. Remember, some of the other candidates were warlords too. You say the government there only controls Kabul, but Karzai has succeeded in replacing regional governors so that would suggest otherwise.

Iraqi's were setting up their own local governments in between the fall of Saddam and the takeover of the US....who dismantled all this when they moved in.
One thing that wasn't happening before the US takover was AQ nor Bin Laden were able to operate anywhere in Iraq ('cept possibly in the north where our "allies"...the various Kurdish factions controlled everything).

So you think Moqtada Al Sadr should have been let control Shia areas? He would surely have created then an Iranian-style theocracy where women can't drive cars etc. I suppose if he wins the elections he will have a mandate for that, but at least then he'll have been elected. When these new elections happen, the US should leave and most likely will leave, maybe one or two airbases aside to pressure Iran to comply with their agreements on ending uranium enrichment (which they should comply with).

Should the EU also help the US fight resistance to their occupation of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to them? Should the EU also help the US in selling off all Iraqi assets to their own corporations who are already profiteering of this war? Should the EU also help them kill 5-15 Iraqi civilians per day?

The resistance is mostly by foreigners such as Zarqawi (a Jordanian) and others who have flooded into Iraq from Syria (also a Baathist state). Apart from that, the only resistance now comes from Sunnites who are opposed to losing their thousand-year domination of Iraq. The slaughter of innocent civilians does not deserve the term "resistance". Perhaps the fighters in Fallujah who fought the US soldiers could be called this, but I think that we in the West should not lend legitimacy to the opponents of democracy, regardless of whether the invasion was right or wrong.

They weren't lying in pools of blood before the US moved in. One might wonder what the central factor is in all this violence and then consider removing that factor.

Are you serious? Tell that to the people of Hallabjah who were slaughtered by Chemical Ali in 1988. And don't forget this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2956129.stm

Mass grave' found in Iraq
Graves outside Kirkuk
Kurdish officials say the dead are victims of Saddam Hussein
Kurdish officials say they have found a series of mostly unmarked graves that contain about 2,000 bodies outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

They say the area was used by the Iraqi army to bury Kurds they killed in the late 1980s.

During that period at least 100,000 Kurds were killed in Saddam Hussein's policy of ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

The site of the graves lies close to an old Iraqi base, but so far there has been no independent verification or extensive excavation of the site.

Bodies recovered

BBC correspondent Dumeetha Luthra says some of the graves are marked, the rest lie in unmarked mounds.

Kurds did dig up two graves on Wednesday and say they found a woman wrapped in plastic and covered in dried blood.

The other grave, they say, held a man with remnants of a Kurdish fighter's uniform.

Our correspondent says people have been told not to tamper with the site.

She added the fact that no-one was allowed to see the bodies being buried is suspicious.

In 1988 Saddam ordered a massive operation known as the Anfal Campaign against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.

In one incident, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin who was also known as "Chemical Ali", directed a poison gas attack on the town of Halabja.

And if that's not enough proof for you that there was plenty of blood flowing before the Americans went in, read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738368.stm

Babies found in Iraqi mass grave
Investigator Greg Kehoe at the Hatra grave site
A US investigator said bodies were bulldozed into the graves
A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under Saddam Hussein.

US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s.

The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said.

They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity.


Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a matchstick
P Willey
US investigating anthropologist
It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific exhumation of a mass grave.

"It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," Greg Kehoe, an American working with the IST, told reporters in Hatra, south of the city of Mosul.

"Someone used this field on significant occasions over time to take bodies up there, and to take people up there and execute them."

Tiny bones

The victims are believed to be Kurds killed in 1987-88, their bodies bulldozed into the graves after being summarily shot dead.

Map of Iraq
One trench contains only women and children while another contains only men.

The body of one woman was found still clutching a baby. The infant had been shot in the back of the head and the woman in the face.

"The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks," said US investigating anthropologist P Willey.

"Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a matchstick."

Mr Kehoe investigated mass graves in the Balkans for five years but those burials mainly involved men of fighting age and the Iraqi finds were quite different, he said.

"I've been doing grave sites for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this, women and children executed for no apparent reason," he said.

Long search

Kurds demonstrate in Halabja
Iraq's Kurds are hoping for justice at last
Mr Kehoe said that work to uncover graves around Iraq, where about 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during Saddam Hussein's regime, was slow as experienced European investigators were not taking part.

The Europeans, he said, were staying away as the evidence might be used eventually to put Saddam Hussein to death.

"We're trying to meet international standards that have been accepted by courts throughout the world," he added.

"We're putting a package together on each body removed - pictures of bones, clothes, a forensic report."

Iraq's human rights ministry has reportedly identified 40 possible mass graves across the country.

The dig at Hatra, where a makeshift morgue has been erected, was due to be completed on Wednesday.

What makes you think that a country that invaded another country without provocation is going to have the interest of the inhabitants of that country. What makes you think that they will be interested in bringing about true democracy and sovereignty? That's not even considering the past 50 years of US intervention.

Well they brought about a FAR better human rights situation in Afghanistan than under the Taliban (4 women in the Cabinet). I think that while US support for dictatorships in the past needs to seen against the backdrop of the Cold War.

Heineken

Poker_Peter wrote:

We have no reason to believe that the new Iraqi government would not have the power to renationalise the oil-industry if they had an elected mandate to do this. I think the US would accept that. After all, they finally accepted Hugo Chavez as President of Venezuela after the referendum recently approved him staying in power.

I would definitely support a renationalisation of the iraqi oil industry. I mean what non corrupt government would accept these no-bid deals that went through which ripped iraq off. But it wont happen for a long time. Maybe it will be too late for the iraqi economy because they will be unable to renationalise for as long as US troops are there, and by the time they leave we'll all probably be flying around in rocket cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells :rolleyes:

Moriarty

Afaik all the oil companies are still under 100% state ownership.

sovtek

Moriarty wrote:

Afaik all the oil companies are still under 100% state ownership.

Not for long it seems

"The United States is helping the interim Iraqi government continue to make major economic changes, including cuts to social subsidies, full access for U.S. companies to the nation's oil reserves and reconsideration of oil deals that the previous regime signed with France and Russia."

Victor

AmenToThat wrote:

Wasnt it the Brits who came up with the ethnically unworkable version fo Iraq we have now

Not quite, the Ottomans before them used the Sunnis to dominate the Shias.

Poker_Peter wrote:

I think that while US support for dictatorships in the past needs to seen against the backdrop of the Cold War.

Now they use "democracy" to dominate people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360236,00.html

magick

True:

Of course other nations should help the UK, US, New Zealand etc establish peace and democracy in Iraq. The Irish, French and Germans are just sitting on the fence, fat and lazy.

Or they dont want their troops killed?

Yet again we let them do the dirty work , and complain at the same time. A bit like when we cried over 9/11, and reassured America we were their special friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed....

Yup and the first contry to reassure was France ! though a good friend tells you when your doing something stupid and Iraq was a bit silly with the whole WMD story. though if you feel the Irish or French or Germans are fat and lazy, then sign up to one of those armies help out in Iraq and put ur money where your mouth is