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I was in high school while the Iraq War was mostly happening, and I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Now that I'm reading all your posts and other things, holy poo poo that was a disaster 
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Jul 22, 2014 23:19
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karl fungus posted:I was in high school while the Iraq War was mostly happening, and I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Now that I'm reading all your posts and other things, holy poo poo that was a disaster It is really hard to overstate just what a pack of lightweights and dilettantes the Bush administration sent over to run Iraq. "Hey, you know what totally wouldn't result in pissing off a bunch of young men with military training, and also putting them at loose ends in the ruined economy of early occupation-Iraq? Disbanding the entire Iraqi military! What a great idea, let's get on with that!"
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Jul 22, 2014 23:24
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karl fungus posted:I was in high school while the Iraq War was mostly happening, and I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Now that I'm reading all your posts and other things, holy poo poo that was a disaster I don't know if it's still on Netflix (or if you can find it...somewhere else) but the PBS frontline "Bush's War" would be a real eye opener for you. At every decision point in Iraq, choose the worst thing you can think of. The real thing that happened will most likely be worse, or at the bare minimum, dumber.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:27
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Femur posted:Within the green zone, there was a tent with 2 guards, where a Halliburton accountant sat in front of a safe with $3m cash refilled daily. All you needed was an paper invoice to get money, there is no controls other than that. Do recall that we shipped $12 billion in cash to Iraq in 2004 (that's over 132 tons before the shrink wrap) only to have more than half of it disappear. It took something like 7 years to figure out that the money (supposedly) ended up in the right place.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:40
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Do recall that we shipped $12 billion in cash to Iraq in 2004 (that's over 132 tons before the shrink wrap) only to have more than half of it disappear. It took something like 7 years to figure out that the money (supposedly) ended up in the right place. You recall correctly.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:43
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Captain_Maclaine posted:It is really hard to overstate just what a pack of lightweights and dilettantes the Bush administration sent over to run Iraq. "Hey, you know what totally wouldn't result in pissing off a bunch of young men with military training, and also putting them at loose ends in the ruined economy of early occupation-Iraq? Disbanding the entire Iraqi military! What a great idea, let's get on with that!" Well it makes (some) sense, the former Iraqi army had been involved in slaughtering Kurds and Shi'as and was feared to be loyal to Saddam who was still in the hiding... it'd been like letting the remnants of Waffen SS form the new Bundeswehr in post-war Germany. But then they'd had to have propped the lack of domestic security forces by bringing in more occupation troops, which would have been expensive, and the economic rebuilding was bugged by corruption. But fear not, I'm sure we'll be finding Saddam's hidden WMD any day now!
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Jul 22, 2014 23:47
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Do recall that we shipped $12 billion in cash to Iraq in 2004 (that's over 132 tons before the shrink wrap) only to have more than half of it disappear. It took something like 7 years to figure out that the money (supposedly) ended up in the right place. I'm sure these smartly-dressed CPA officials packaged all of this Iraqi cash up neatly after posing with it. Only then did it vanish. 
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Jul 23, 2014 00:00
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Badger of Basra posted:Does this actually involve him doing anything? There's a lot of not-peace in the Middle East right now and he's invisible. Sucking up the Gulf emirs and Sisi in Egypt and making money hand over fist. Who says
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Jul 23, 2014 00:06
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Nenonen posted:Well it makes (some) sense, the former Iraqi army had been involved in slaughtering Kurds and Shi'as and was feared to be loyal to Saddam who was still in the hiding... it'd been like letting the remnants of Waffen SS form the new Bundeswehr in post-war Germany. Some (though admittedly not many) members of the Waffen-SS were let into the Bundeswehr, actually, as were many former Wehrmacht men who's hands were just as bloody as those who'd worn the twin lightning bolts. Though as you acknowledge, the larger point was that regardless of whether any CPA actions made sense in a vacuum, they were more or less all horribly bungled in those odd instances where they weren't rotten as hell.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:39
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Nenonen posted:Well it makes (some) sense, the former Iraqi army had been involved in slaughtering Kurds and Shi'as and was feared to be loyal to Saddam who was still in the hiding... it'd been like letting the remnants of Waffen SS form the new Bundeswehr in post-war Germany. But then they'd had to have propped the lack of domestic security forces by bringing in more occupation troops, which would have been expensive, and the economic rebuilding was bugged by corruption. But fear not, I'm sure we'll be finding Saddam's hidden WMD any day now! Well, the Waffen SS was actually not that much more criminal than the normal Wehrmacht, and was conveniently "scapegoated" for that stuff by all (and I mean all, even the Soviets/East Germans) involved parties. Higher rank Wehrmacht personell were indeed very very involved in building up the Bundeswehr (and even the East German NVA). The actual Waffen SS saw more use in the Foreign Legion though. People in Wehrmacht uniform with arms were employed by the British until 1947 or so to guard installations. I dont even begrudge that, given the old powers a way to participate in the new order is incredibly important to forestall a Civil War or insurrections (only reason that the more forcefull Soviet purging of Nazis didnt lead to a full scale insurrection was that these People to be purge would relocate westwards, in a way, Nazis in East Germany still had a way out), as is giving them certain safeguards from persecution, or at least clearly deliniated boundaries of what past behavior will be persecuted. This was the big importance of Nurembergs 3 acquitals. Applying that to Iraq would be by no means trivial. The situations simply arent comparable. For Starters, Sadamm had a lot less on his rapsheet than Hitler, the amount of anti-Sadamm People with grudges and the will to act on them was far higher in Iraq, and allied policy making on Germany was far more informed then US policy making on Iraq. There was also a total lack of a unifying threat. The Soviet threat played a huge role in restablishing a cohesive West German national narrative. There was no such "bigger threat" in Iraq. US attempts to paint Iran as one were either ridiculous or even backfired.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:48
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Do recall that we shipped $12 billion in cash to Iraq in 2004 (that's over 132 tons before the shrink wrap) only to have more than half of it disappear. It took something like 7 years to figure out that the money (supposedly) ended up in the right place. I don't think it really disappeared and I'm pretty sure certain people always knew where it was. It was just better at the time to say "we lost it" rather than "we are funding one side of a civil war"
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Jul 23, 2014 01:57
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tsa posted:I don't think it really disappeared and I'm pretty sure certain people always knew where it was. It was just better at the time to say "we lost it" rather than "we are funding one side of a civil war" "we are giving it to people who skim large percentages for themselves" "we are spending it on useless infrastructure that in no way helps the people" yeah. "we lost it" does sound better.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:15
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What the garbage? How can someone possibly think this? This is the most fractally wrong opinion I have ever heard in my life.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:25
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Lustful Man Hugs posted:What the garbage? How can someone possibly think this? This is the most fractally wrong opinion I have ever heard in my life. The first thing I thought of was the editorial by the guy in charge of the response to Hurricane Katrina's editorial claiming that the Obama administration reacted way too quickly to Sandy. The Bush administration has a lot of those types.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:29
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I don't follow U.S. politics all that much ( ) so forgive me if this sounds a bit dumb, but all this talk about early Iraq makes me curious how much, if any, of the Bush regulars transferred over to the Obama government.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:56
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MechanicalTomPetty posted:I don't follow U.S. politics all that much ( Obama kept a lot of Bush appointments especially in finance and defense, some of them left during the re-election but that's normal for a two term presidency.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:03
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tsa posted:I don't think it really disappeared and I'm pretty sure certain people always knew where it was. It was just better at the time to say "we lost it" rather than "we are funding one side of a civil war" To some extent that is probably the case but I think you are seriously overestimating the pleated pants wearing boy scouts who got sent over there to hand it out. If someone said "yes I love America" or "I need this to rebuild this country" or "Saddam was very bad" then they must be trustworthy and if they are trustworthy sure let them do whatever, we got to support the Good People here so freedom grows. Or, hey, if the actual literal mercenary says he hasn't been stealing it, that must be true, because they are on our side and our side is Good People.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:07
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On a related note, I'm going to guess that the Afghan War was just as botched as the Iraq one?
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Jul 23, 2014 03:12
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karl fungus posted:On a related note, I'm going to guess that the Afghan War was just as botched as the Iraq one? Not in the beginning. The thing to remember is a lot of the command structure of the U.S. Military actually would know better than to act like the IDF does in Gaza, several commanders got props for making soldiers walk cop beats through towns and cities that they have control over in an effort to actually do something positive. Patraeus was one of these people I think. The problem was this wasn't standardized and there were commanders who would just bomb a civilian village because some people shot at his men nearby. Afghanistan went to poo poo when we had to divide resources and manpower because the civilian leadership decided we could totally do a WW2 v2.0 without the American people getting drafted or making any kind of economic sacrifices. We had to pull a lot of professional full-time military out of Afghanistan to do the Iraq invasion. Watch 'Generation Kill'.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:19
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SedanChair posted:Poop just doesn't get flushed in our system, does it? Accountability is un-American.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:33
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FADEtoBLACK posted:Not in the beginning. The thing to remember is a lot of the command structure of the U.S. Military actually would know better than to act like the IDF does in Gaza, several commanders got props for making soldiers walk cop beats through towns and cities that they have control over in an effort to actually do something positive. Patraeus was one of these people I think. The problem was this wasn't standardized and there were commanders who would just bomb a civilian village because some people shot at his men nearby. One of the big problems we had(and have) in Afghanistan is that the central government we supported had much of its legitimacy derived from the ethnic minorities that comprised the Northern Alliance and these people are not popular in the whole of the country. This creates a lot of ill-will and makes the Taliban more popular when they coalesce and return. We should have made a deal when the Taliban were licking their wounds, but there's never a desire to just finish wars with political settlements, everyone in counter-insurgency wants to go for broke and win big. Since we missed our chance, it's tough to get a good deal now that we're pretty much set to leave and the Afghan government is not very strong.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:34
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Panzeh posted:One of the big problems we had(and have) in Afghanistan is that the central government we supported had much of its legitimacy derived from the ethnic minorities that comprised the Northern Alliance and these people are not popular in the whole of the country. This creates a lot of ill-will and makes the Taliban more popular when they coalesce and return. We should have made a deal when the Taliban were licking their wounds, but there's never a desire to just finish wars with political settlements, everyone in counter-insurgency wants to go for broke and win big. Since we missed our chance, it's tough to get a good deal now that we're pretty much set to leave and the Afghan government is not very strong. I'm pretty sure we missed every chance we had in every country we have invaded since Korea. We keep trying to think of warfare as a WW2/Cold War era game of attrition. If we had invaded Afghanistan and threw all our money into infrastructure and jobs and pretty much made the ethnic/tribal differences moot we could have had a lasting effect. But the entire reason we went in the first place was to gently caress someone up. Once we got there and understood the entire country didnt want to fight we started switching up the propaganda to country builders instead of terrorist fighters.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:41
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Full Battle Rattle posted:I don't know if it's still on Netflix (or if you can find it...somewhere else) but the PBS frontline "Bush's War" would be a real eye opener for you. At every decision point in Iraq, choose the worst thing you can think of. The real thing that happened will most likely be worse, or at the bare minimum, dumber. You can find it free on their website! Bush's War http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/view/ It is very good and should be watched.
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Jul 23, 2014 04:36
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ISIS has tapped into a new industry to complement selling oil to the regime. Tourism! Keep your hands inside the bus at all times, and all women please be seated in the back.quote:Beirut (AFP) - Known for kidnapping, public stonings, lashings and executions, the Islamic State (IS) is now expanding into tourism, taking jihadists on honeymoon and civilians to visit other parts of its "caliphate". http://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-organise-tours-syria-iraq-caliphate-031608920.html
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Jul 23, 2014 07:32
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Count Roland posted:You can find it free on their website! It could actually have been even worse, had he also invaded Iran which some of his "wise men" were beggin him to do.
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Jul 23, 2014 09:13
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karl fungus posted:On a related note, I'm going to guess that the Afghan War was just as botched as the Iraq one? From what I can remember the US used more money in Kosovo for rebuilding than they did in Afghanistan. Makes me wonder what would have happened in Afghanistan if all the men and resources wasted in Iraq had been used there instead.
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Jul 23, 2014 10:15
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You would have the challenge of reconciling the Pashtun plurarility, of which the Taleban were basically the popular militia (which used Al-Quaida as some Kind of Arab foreign Legion), with the ethnic and religious Groups in the Northern alliance. Given the bloodfeuds already preexisting, and given that the North Alliance would likely rather use international Support they had right now to change who is the plurality in AFG, this would be a highly difficult and complex diplomatic issue. One that the increasingly moralistic US was completely unprepared for ideologically and strategically. Some heavily federalized neutral (Pakistan wont settle for less than neutrality, given their not exactly unfounded fears of Indo-Afghan encirclement) Approach with a very remote central goverment and guarantees to the regions may have worked, it was not even tried in earnest though. The US also wanted a huge victory by "civilizing" the Aghans, without actually bothering to implement the neccesary steps to do that, and without knowing what/who the Afghans actually were. In a lot of ways, US Position in AFG was a lot better/easier then the earlier Soviet Position, it still suffered a defeat though.
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Jul 23, 2014 10:58
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One shouldn't discount the lessons learned from the Soviet occupation, though. For instance, the russians spent 500% of what the coalition did on rebuilding vital infrastructure as well as schools, police stations etc., and they still lost. Even before the multipolar structure of world powers Afghanistan was known as the graveyard of empires, these days it's just hopeless to go up against U.S./Saudi-funded insurgents.
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Jul 23, 2014 13:53
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On a not related to war note, the most recent episode of HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" had a segment, the first segment of the show, that dealt with Qatar buying/bribing FIFA for the 2022 World Cup. It really wasn't even a question of if it had happened so much as hell yeah it happened and nobody is gonna do anything about it. The show explored the horrible living conditions of the immigrant labor and speculated that at least 4,000 will die building those shiny new stadiums. Also, Qatar just outright bought the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team as well as numerous other international olympic athletes, gave them new names, passports and guaranteed pensions for life, as long as they won in international competition. If they lost, the gravy train was over. edit: i'm pretty sure that link is behind a pay wall, HBO Go, but maybe not radical meme fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 15:09
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[Img] https://m.facebook.com/brazerplzz/photos/pb.516095768485958.-2207520000.1406128158./644475082314692[/img] "Our brothers worshippers of the crucifix, do not fear, for this is a drawing of a happy smiley face sponsored by: ISIS Emotions.
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Jul 23, 2014 16:14
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Even ISIS uses those stupid reddit troll faces.
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Jul 23, 2014 16:39
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Tias posted:One shouldn't discount the lessons learned from the Soviet occupation, though. For instance, the russians spent 500% of what the coalition did on rebuilding vital infrastructure as well as schools, police stations etc., and they still lost. From the Soviet pov: Lessons learned: What Kind of worked: -Insert your People directly into villages. Have them act as de facto "Ambassadors of the Soviet Union" to that village. Local Village Elder love having ambassadors from a world power in their village for Status reasons. Have this People be well trained in both the local language and in medicine, because if you save an Afghan child, you will have a positive blooddebt with that Family/village. Depending on the actual customs, this entitles you, or someone you Name, to at least the attempt of having your life saved by them at least once. -Problem 1: That Job is highly risky, and requires you to simultaneously be good at being a doctor, understand the local culture, speak the local language, and still be hard assed enough to garner respect form the locals. Simply not enough People willing and able to do that, especially since People with These Quality profiles may have "better things to do". -Problem 2: You ideological vasalls in the capital tend to jealously guard their own "Access to the actual Soviet ambassadors" are will be incredibly displeased by any attempts to circumvent them. What Kind of worked: -Make local infrastructure improvements that aid the Population directly. Problem: -You supported Village X? Their traditional foes in village Y will see this as a terrible slight against them and Support the Opposition! What Kind of worked: -Offer intensive educational opportunities for the coming elite in your own Country, according to your own standarts Problem: Was seen as direct hostage taking by the locals (same with "Girl Schools" right now), the Soviet educated People were often no longer quite as good in understanding Afghans, some became more Soviet than actual ethnic Russians. What Kind of worked: -Militarily defeat the Opposition, and try to actually hold some "peacetalks" with them Problem: -There is noone left to talk to because the Opposition is pretty drat disunified, in Addition, the Iran backed Opposition didnt want to give in before the Pakistan backed parts did, who didnt want to be seen as weaker than the Chinese or US backed Opposition actors. Normally, one could now go on on how foreign Intervention makes civil wars worse, and this is what happened here, but of course, the Soviets were an intervening faction themselfs. Big underlying Problem for the Soviets: The gameplan should have been to use existing tribal structures to gain a mutual understanding. Nearly noone is less disposed towards understanding, respecting and utilizing tribal structures than a somewhat messianic world power intend on creating a future human. That underlying Problem isnt too different from that of the USA.
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Jul 23, 2014 16:44
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Kurtofan posted:Even ISIS uses those stupid reddit troll faces. That's the logo of "Brathar, Please" (currently called Brathar Da'ashook), an infinitely more entertaining Syrian Facebook page that chronicles Syrians trolling their oppressors, among other things.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:00
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Muffiner posted:That's the logo of "Brathar, Please" (currently called Brathar Da'ashook), an infinitely more entertaining Syrian Facebook page that chronicles Syrians trolling their oppressors, among other things. Oops sorry.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:17
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Volkerball posted:ISIS has tapped into a new industry to complement selling oil to the regime. Tourism! Keep your hands inside the bus at all times, and all women please be seated in the back. That doesn't sound so bad and would make for a fun Instagram with lots of selfies anyone of which could be used as a proof of life.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:37
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Tias posted:One shouldn't discount the lessons learned from the Soviet occupation, though. For instance, the russians spent 500% of what the coalition did on rebuilding vital infrastructure as well as schools, police stations etc., and they still lost. One shouldn't even discount the lessons of the first British invasion of Afghanistan, though that was a remarkable gently caress-up of epic proportions, first of all because it was totally unnecessary(the regime that was deposed were actually quite friendly towards Britain) and it was an invasion that was deemed necessary largely because of an imagined threat (that the Russians were looking towards expanding their influence into Afghanistan and threaten British control over India and that the Afghan regime favored Russia). It was founded upon remarkably bad intelligence (though British policymakers had access to better intelligence, which was ignored) and on top of this foundered because of remarkably incompetent leadership in the upper echelons who managed to bicker amongst each other, completely ignore the advice and suggestions of their puppet king, disbanding traditional forces to set up a new army, and insulting various important tribes by denying them subsidies (for instance those that controlled the mountain passes), as well as insulting many Afghans by ignoring or overturning their customs and messing with their women. Because Afghanistan was not really centralized and wealthy enough to pay for the occupation and the creation of European-style national army out of nothing the whole endeavour manage to pretty drain the entire treasury of the East India Company, threatening it with bankruptcy. For those interested in the first Anglo-Afghan war and Afghanistan in general I would highly recommend Return of a King by William Dalrymple which came out a few years ago and contains much original research, the author actually travelled into Afghanistan and even through the Taliban controlled parts to locate Afghan sources on the war that have been either ignored by or unkown to Western historians.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:35
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/23/iraq-still-using-barrel-bombs-on-civilian-areas-human-rights-group-says/ Iraqi air strikes are causing large numbers of civilian casualties and Iraq is using barrel bombs just like Syria is. Pictures circulating on Twitter of a massacre of 17 Christian girls at a party in Mosul, showing a bunch of pictures of women/girls shot to death. Another twitter user is claiming it was a brothel in Baghdad. http://iswiraq.blogspot.com/2014/07/warning-intelligence-update-baghdad.html Speaking of Baghdad, Institute for the Study of War claims that current patterns indicate that an ISIS push for Baghdad is imminent. They say that several coordinated carbomb attacks are probing and testing the defenses of Baghdad and seeing how the Iraqi forces inside Baghdad will react and move to security threats. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2014/07/22/ISIS-crushes-and-coerces-on-march-towards-Baghdad.html#.U84ts_mLA0k.twitter This article goes into detail about the typical mixture of soft and hard power that ISIS is using to take over villages and towns. They'll grab a bunch of hostages, tell the locals that they know what happens if they don't comply, and one of the conditions of their entry into the town is that weapons and vehicles will remain undamaged for them to capture. Towns that mobilize and defend themselves are leveled with artillery and mortars in order to be made examples of. On the other hand, people that fought for the Iraqi regime in militias or security forces can repent and go to the house of certain local sheikhs and obtain documents certifying that they have repented and this document will allegedly protect them from reprisals. Sergg fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 20:04
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Randarkman posted:For those interested in the first Anglo-Afghan war and Afghanistan in general I would highly recommend Return of a King by William Dalrymple which came out a few years ago and contains much original research, the author actually travelled into Afghanistan and even through the Taliban controlled parts to locate Afghan sources on the war that have been either ignored by or unkown to Western historians. Thanks for the recommendation, this looks like an awesome book.
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Jul 23, 2014 22:38
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Sergg posted:
WIthout seeing the pictures, I'm guessing it was the brothel. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/15/religious-militants-blamed-as-31-killed-in-massacre-at-notorious-baghdad-brothel/
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Jul 23, 2014 22:59
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A part of me suspects they'll push for a spectacular battle inside Baghdad before Eid. Edit: they've also been attacking the Divison 17 base outside of Raqqah this morning. It's one of the biggest SAA bases, and loyalists earlier were reporting air evacuations. We will see what happens. MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 03:10
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