10th Anniversary of Iraq War.

On the 10th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, the conflict's complicated legacy continues to unfold.


ANZEIGE



One day ahead of the anniversary, President Barack Obama paid tribute on Tuesday to the nearly 4,500 United States soldiers who died in the conflict, in addition to the more than 30,000 who were wounded before troops left the country in 2011.

The scale of these personal sacrifices, however, pales in comparison to the price paid by the Iraqi population, of whom more than 100,000 are estimated to have been killed. While Obama opposed the war and campaigned for office with pledges to pull US troops out of Iraq, the situation in the country they left behind remains fragile at best.

A recent spike in ongoing political unrest and sectarian violence in the country was highlighted once again late on Tuesday when terrorist group al-Qaida claimed responsibility for a series of suicide attacks that left some 65 people dead. "We will have our revenge," read an al-Qaida statement on a jihadist website.

Ignoring fierce opposition to the invasion from many countries abroad -- including Germany and France -- the United States, under then-President George W. Bush, began bombing the Iraqi capital Baghdad on March 20, 2003, calling the operation "shock and awe." The aim of the war was to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and take out his "weapons of mass destruction." Though Hussein was eventually found, tried and executed, no WMDs were ever found.

The war went on to cost the US government hundreds of billions of dollars, and, according to German editorialists, a great deal of credibility. On the anniversary of the invasion, they take a look this week at the state of America and the Middle East one decade after the war.

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Ten years ago when the US armed forces attacked Iraq with a few allies who served as alibis, then reached Baghdad after a few days and drove out Saddam Hussein, the US experienced a collective feeling of satisfaction. Iraq was revenge for New York. One can put it that bluntly today because naturally there was a need for retaliation, for a demonstration of strength. The public justifications for the war were periphery by comparison: chemical weapons, a nuclear program and Saddam as the long-time bogeyman. No, America wanted to re-establish its authority."

"Today, American policy has largely recovered from its perspective of hyper-hegemony. But at what price? No one would claim any longer that order and stability, much less democracy, can be achieved by force of arms. And the country wouldn't even inwardly admit to the immense debts it has piled up in the shadow of its wars. No one wants to gauge the loss of credibility that America and the West have suffered in the rest of the world, either. However, those in Germany who would triumphantly wag their fingers should think twice. Elegant statecraft was nowhere to be found in the divisive opposition to George W. Bush."

"In history there is not always a clear sequence of causalities. … But the Iraq war generated a powerful break -- both for the people in the region and America. It marked the start of a phase of deep societal shift in the Arab world, and the beginning of a new world order for the US. Proof of this comes with President Barack Obama's visit to Israel this week -- the first of his presidency, and one that is largely powerless. The Statue of Liberty still stands in the New York harbor, announcing America's mission to the world. It's a mission that has become unimaginably large in the Middle East -- so big that even the US must humbly acknowledge its limits."

Left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The Iraq war serves mainly as yet another lesson that domestic and regional balance of power can't be changed by even the most oppressive foreign military power. It's a lesson that is constantly forgotten."

"The balance of power in the Arab world won't be sustainably altered through foreign intervention, but from the inside -- and even that is a difficult undertaking, as we've seen in the last two turbulent years of upheaval. The Iraq war probably delayed change in the Arab world by several years because the Arab dictators were able to discredit their indigenous democracy movements with a simple: 'Do you want to become like Iraq?'. Because Iraq represents much of what the Arabs do not want: a society destroyed and polarized by foreign intervention with a traumatized population. It was in spite of the Iraq war, not because of it, that a decade later the Arab world indeed began to change. It's chaotic, turbulent, and there's an unknown outcome. But this time it's autonomous."




Conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"It was a war that the United States basically chose for itself, and then decided upon quickly based on its military superiority. But they failed to achieve peace, if it's to be defined in broader terms than just Saddam Hussein's fall. They had no plan for it. Its motives, circumstances and results have made the Iraq war a strategic failure in the eyes of many. … The Iraqis have to bear the consequences, but so do the Americans. George W. Bush's government was so convinced of its 'mission' that it managed to create a huge rift in the Western community. The approach led to an intra-Western confrontation about its conformity to international law, which damaged the reputation of the US. The skepticism of interventions that President Obama faces is in part due to the country's moral discreditation, in addition to the country's economic depletion."

"In any case, an episode that began on a late summer day in September 2001 has come to an end. Without the 'attack on America,' the Bush administration would not have gone after the al-Qaida leaders and their Taliban helpers in Afghanistan, and the US would not have marched into Iraq after Saddam Hussein (whose overthrow had been the official goal of American policy since the late 1990s). Thousands of American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis died. Hundreds of billions of dollars were devoured by both wars. From now on, because the achievements have been so limited compared to the costs, the US will practice greater restraint. Its role in the Libya uprising and the Syria conflict have shown that already. America is unlikely to engage in war again 'only' for the sake of democracy in the troubled Arab world. This kind of idealism -- or neoconservative furor -- won't be mustered again anytime soon. The question is whether global power is now swinging from one extreme to another."

-- Kristen Allen

http://www.spiegel.de/international...10-year-anniversary-of-iraq-war-a-889962.html

 

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In the Middle East there's been very little "peace" that I can remember. There's always been fighting between many countries there and will be going on forever I'm afraid. So trying to end what was a battle that has lasted centuries was futile to begin with for there isn't anyone there that can keep the peace between most of those Middle Eastern countries who are always fighting each other or themselves. Sad that an effort to stop the hate hasn't worked but at least America tried, right or wrong America did what it thought best for those citizens who suffered so long under the Saddam Hussein regime who murdered tens of thousands of his own citizens and started wars with other countries he tried to take over.

 

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Congratulations, let's celebrate the Freedom and Peace of Iraq Republic people of USA =)

 

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Let us remember the tens of thousands of innocent civilians Saddam murdered and those who fought and gave their lives to get rid of him.

 

I wonder who killed more civilians Bush or Sadam Husein

 

Saddam started the murders to keep himself in power, which he only held because of his murdering ways . A war started when Bush wanted it to begin but Bush wanted to rid the citizens of Iraq of a dictator who was murdering thousands of his own citizens long before the war ever started.

 

And how many civilians died during Iraq freedom and Weapons of Mass Destruction hunt?

 

All Dictatorships are bad.

It does seem to hold true that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Saddam was a war mongering assassin (He assassinated his way into power), and the world is better without him. When he first took power he invited many smart men of the country and those capable of leading it to a conference hall, and then had them all executed simply for being intelligent enough to cause him problems. His atrocities did not start or end there.

His death camps, mass raping. He would sometimes lower prisoners into vats of acid. This man was cold blooded.

It may hold true that we did not have valid reasons for entering Iraq, but look at how closely they resemble Iran and the problems Israel (and the world) are now facing. Let us not forget that Saddam had been fighting US troops a decade before when they attacked Kuwait.

The Elder Bush regretted not going into Iraq after Saddam, and his son likely wanted to finish what his father had wished he had done.

Human (especially women's rights) have grown exponentially in the country.

Are these death tolls including both wars against Iraq?

Why does the Title of this thread not reflect the first war against Iraq and say 20 years?

The more Americans that die equals less civilians that die as close combat is more controlled than bombings.

I think that the world is a much better place because of that war and the removal of Saddam Hussein as Dictator.

Side Note: If you are a maniac dictator.... Why not build yourself a secret underground bunker/panick room that you could live out your days in relative comfort should you peeve off the UN and be forced to flee. Saddam's hole, and Libyas leader could have benefited from this advice.

 

While we are celebrating the removal of Saddam Hussein and his progeny, and of course welcoming the fundie Islamic sectarian government (including international Parties well known for their terrorist and jihadist history, the Shia allied with Iran, the Sunni with Saudi Arabia) that replaced him, we might take a moment for remembrance

Saddam owed his ascendency to support from the US, who welcomed a strong anti-communist and Westernized dictator in the Middle East. Saddam was fighting an Islamic insurgency and overt civil war that he did not start, when he committed the worst of his atrocities. His ratio of "innocent" to "enemy combatant" slaughtered was not much different from any of the other conflicts in the area - the Israelis against the Palestinians, the US and Russians against the Taliban and related Afghan forces, etc. (The country that seems to be a little better than Saddam in that respect would be Iran, not everybody else). The ethnic cleansing and sectarian murder campaigns that have dominated Iraq for years now erupted under US management - those dead people are credited to the US account. His rule has become famous for murder and torture and sensational acts of abuse, some of them even verifiable events, but the fame is the most unusual aspect of them - strongmen in several countries of the general region, including those still in good standing with the US, could match him deed for deed (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazahkstan, to cherrypick).

So on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, let's take stock of the situation without the fog of the war promotion.

Bush made the right call, for reasons made public then and proven since, and has few regrets now. His decision seems to have been based partly on the expectation that after manipulating Saddam into war and stomping him his regime would fall, but even so it looks very good in hindsight.

How that odd inversion of fact came to be accepted without question in US public discourse is a bit of a mystery. Saddam's Iraq was among the most Westernized countries in the region, with all that implies for women's rights. Iraq's women have suffered a considerable decline in civil rights and liberties under Islamic governance, and usually that aspect of Islamic governance gets its share of publicity in the US.

 

Fewer than Saddam murdered.

 

The problem is the fact that there are countries. When you have a state that encompasses many disparate cultures, those cultures will have to fight or they will be dominated by a majority, or a powerful minority. Historically, those cultures would have interacted in limited, culturally sanctioned ways. Iraq is an artificial entity, and a strong dictator is probably the only thing that can work.

 

And yet the Iraqi people are arguably worse off now

 

Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il are both dead. Same outcome. But in one case we killed over 100,000 people, most of them innocent civilians. In the other case we killed no one.

There's a lesson there.

 

But in Kim's case, he left the same regime to his son, so nothing changed. Most of the deaths in Iraq were sectarian in nature, meaning not innocent, although the innocent people killed were surely tragic.

 

That's false by almost an order of magnitude.

That would mean most of the people Saddam killed were not innocent either - he was fighting an Islamic insurgency, Iranian and US sponsored Islamic guerrilla factions, all kinds of people "sectarian in nature".

 

yeah but that does not suit the Americans...because than Saddam would have been fighting the "insurgency" or "terrorists"...which is who American troops are killing in Iraq, obviously. RIGHT? I want to see them weasel out of this one, just like they weaseled out the cause of war, the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ.

 

War is a very lucrative business.

 

nice excuse.

 

It's not an excuse, it's the truth. Plus all the passiv agressive people get a legal outlet for their lust to kill. The excuses are religion, humanity and peace.

 

Indeed war is a very profitable business model for the person selling and manufacturing the weapons.