The amount of spite and hatred in the comments here are a little bit surprising... But here's a question: Do you believe this man wants the wrong things? Do you believe his desire for freedom, and his willingness to sacrifice everything for it is all foolishness and lies? I am hoping not. I already know how much you hate the USA and other western governments, but I'm just wondering whether you despise the principles that they are meant to represent, especially to the article's author.
HN is a vacuum with respect to understanding war. Most people here are privileged enough to have fled from war outright or to have not been participating in it. That's not to say their perspectives are without value but I'd take them with a grain of salt and a side of empathy.
Could it be some of the deaths were caused by the instability that toppling the existing Saddam Hussein government caused and not only by direct US military involvement? Some consequences that come to mind are warlords battling for control of provinces, unleashed tribal factions now free to kill each other, collateral damage from US military attacks destroying critical civilian infrastructure like sewage treatment and medical capacity, starvation, etc.
And for what? Today, Iraq is struggling to rebuild itself. Iran and ISIS remain a serious threat. The Americans hoped to build a Jeffersonian republic in the heart of the Middle East, and failed. The whole thing seems like a horrible, tragic mistake.
I disagree.
This is a bold statement for someone who left Iraq fourteen years ago and never went back. Probably the current regime is better than Saddam. Is it so much better it was worth two trillion dollars and half a million lives? Is it so much better the rise of and fight against ISIS was worth it? I would like to hear the perspective of someone who lives there.
> This is a bold statement for someone who left Iraq fourteen years ago and never went back. Probably the current regime is better than Saddam. Is it so much better it was worth two trillion dollars and half a million lives? Is it so much better the rise and fight against ISIS was worth it? I would like to hear the perspective of someone who lives there.
You don't need to be "someone living there" to answer this question. Just imagine half a million people in your state got killed by some foreign invader, and try to answer for yourself would it be wort it.
The world is not clear-cut black and white. Few are completely bad or completely good. Maybe no-one is. Sanguinely, the world is realpolitik and the good must do some bad to increase good. Also the bad do some good in order that they may continue to do bad. On balance was it good? It's an open question.
Should the world have let Saddam initiate an Iraq-Iran War II? Was he bluffing? We don't know -he's dead. Maybe countries, like siblings, need to duke it out sometimes.
Many years ago there were people calling for Bush (and maybe Obama) to be arrested by the ICC. Bush and Obama are rehabilitated and now there is a more immediate foe who is now to be arrested and rendered to the ICC. Still, we could benefit from examining and have a congressional inquiry into the matter with consequences so that future presidents think twice before committing to war so easily. Then again, the Congress has abrogated its responsibility to declare war, and allows presidents lots of latitude to engage the military in "not war near wars" which are wars in all but name. If they really meant it, they would take that responsibility back.
It's more about degrees of good vs degrees of bad. There is no clear-cut good guy and we have to live with that. There are people who are bothered by the duality.
The going criticism of Sadaam was that he had killed 10,000 people during his reign (as a CIA backed dictator I may add). Even the most US fanboy supported reports admit the US committed more deaths in the first week of the war; many times that 10k over the course of the war.
Which regime would rather live under if you were a normal Iraqui?
When I was working in Afghanistan I met a decent number of interpreters and Afghani leaders that were former forced fighters. I even guarded one while he was being interviewed and jailed, he was the first of a few that I'd end up meeting. The story that sticks with me is the last one and I think will sit with me for the rest of my life.
I was back at my units "home" base where they spent most of a year. Recently US and, I believe, Georgian EOD troops were engaged in heavy fire outside of town and an IED exploded as they tried to defuse it. You hear a lot of these stories day to day so like the author I was pretty desensitized to hearing about people dying trying to do their jobs. Not a day later I was reassigned to the small jail that we had and I met a man who didn't speak English, had a gut but wasn't overweight, and who lacked any education beyond religion and farming. I kept him fed, kept him safe, made sure he had rec time, time in the bathroom etc... I could do basic communication with him through a combination of hand signals. Mostly though I had no way of having any real conversation with him.
HumInt came to visit and interview him. They had gathered his side of the story and were going back out to gather information based on what he told them. He was captured after detonating the IED that had killed the EOD troops just days before by connecting a battery to a buried cable. It became clear to me early on that this man did not have the know-how to create a projectile cone, the REX for the explosive material, or the electrical knowledge to determine the battery and wire gauge necessary to carry out this attack. I read through his jacket and understood he had lived mostly a farming life, he was devout in his religion (as most were in that area), and he had a family. The Taliban had approached him to carry out this attack, his gut was a combination of disease and malnutrition most likely which is why they targeted him. They offered him the chance to do this act in exchange for his family being taken care of.
A day or so later HumInt came back. They asked me a lot about how he was acting and I told them mostly normal, he'd been sleeping most of the day, he prayed as usual, and had asked for some religious items. They informed me that they had gone to his house with representatives from one of the units on our base and had found that his family had been killed. They had been debating on whether to tell him because he was surely going to the jail in Kabul where he would likely be hanged. They told him during the interview and I remember from that time until he left he was just mute. This will be how I forever remember the Taliban and sister groups like Al Queda.
> And yet.
> It is hard to express what it means, if you have lived under an authoritarian regime, to experience freedom. Those who have grown up with the privilege of liberty are lucky not to understand it—and the heavy price you are willing to pay for it if you have lived without it.
This sentence punches far above it's weight class.
Why do you assume the taliban killed his family? if they go around killing family of people that do bombings for them they aren't going to find many people willing in the future. I know nothing of afghanistan but where I'm from (latin america) the US has a long history of training paramilitaries and death squads. My guess just based on that story would be US or Georgian connected paramilitary group killing his family as retribution for killing one of their own, and as a message to scare future people from working with the taliban.
> They had been debating on whether to tell him because he was surely going to the jail in Kabul where he would likely be hanged
What a sad ending.
> This will be how I forever remember the Taliban and sister groups like Al Queda.
Something that amazed me was to see how fast the ANA capitulated.
Billions of dollars were spent on education and training for the Afghan army so that they could stand against the Taliban. I was expecting the population to be very happy to get rid of them for good, seeing how they were treated under their regime. And yet it only took them a few weeks to completely undo decades of work. This reeked of double allegiance. In some regions, the village elders accompanied by ANA soldiers were welcoming the Taliban and cheering for their return. No fights. Worse, ANA soldiers were seen giving military supplies to the Taliban.
Apparently, families frequently sent their sons to fight on both sides of the conflict.
The shortest answer to whataboutism on this topic is that the invasion of Iraq was also criminal (second time, not the first time). It was based on lies, achieved very little, displaced and killed millions. Please do not do the disgusting Russian thing of pretending that "we're only defending ourselves" or are otherwise justified in these actions.
Not being able to face historical facts and be honest is a major, major problem for the future. Again, to pick on Russia look at how many of them genuinely do not understand why almost all of Eastern Europe would gladly go back in time and suffocate baby Stalin with their bare hands, without thinking. Homo Sovieticus can only see the exaggerated glory of the Soviet Union without seeing the millions farmers starved to death in the Holodomor, or the hundreds of thousands tortured in KGB offices for absolutely no reason.
Indeed, and unlike the Russian excuse of the fake bio weapon labs, the US had the totally valid excuse of weapons of mass destruction that were 100% real and not invented by the Bush administration.
Good thing the entire world opposed the war when the USA decided to go against the UN vote. Because letting those of hundreds of thousands of innocents die just because the USA are the strongest bully of the planet would be weighting heavily on our conscience otherwise.
It's not the same, but there are similarities. It's not like the US hasn't knowingly killed civilians before.
And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.
There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally, but now they are an enemy and aligned with China.
Our politicians either are too stupid, too corrupt, or both.
What are you trying to say here? Russia is intentionally kidnapping children and murdering innocent non-combatants in a campaign of terror to break the spirit of Ukraine. They're launching cruise missiles into apartments and hospitals. They told their own soldiers that the Ukrainian people wanted Russian occupation so badly that their army sent riot police instead of regular army when they made their first push toward Kyiv. The US made a lot of mistakes but the soldiers on the ground did the best they could to not harm people. In the invasion of Ukraine murder of noncombatants is so routine that it's a matter of course to mention it.
It's disingenuous to claim that the US and Russia are exactly the same and that they both fought for the same things in both wars. The war in Ukraine is a land grab for Putin to expand his power.
I smell sarcasm, but still, you're not that wrong. The motivation absolutely matters - US Imperialism is much softer, even in it's war crimes, than Russian Imperialism that comes with genocide bundled. In the former case where it hurts is that they try to paint a rosy picture (freedom and democracy etc.) while committing war crimes / invading left and right for business interests, and that hypocrisy is very annoying. At the same time when the Russians invade, they're brutal, war crimes are part of their process. I'd take the former over the latter any day, even ideally neither should be a thing in the 2020s.
We continue the good work by supplying weapons at taxpayer's cost to extend the war against the evil Russians and the definitelly not corrupt Ukranian government, instead of, idk, crazy idea, try to push for peace.
[+] [-] consumer451|3 years ago|reply
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/s...
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerblang|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kodah|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhereIsTheTruth|3 years ago|reply
He most likely used data from a survey in 2007 [1], hence i'll question the integrity of the article
Already mentions millions in 2008 [2]
> More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003
And 2.4 millions in 2016 [3]
> But our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion.
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20090422225308/https://surveys.a...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3...
[3] - https://www.salon.com/2018/03/19/the-staggering-death-toll-i...
[+] [-] cudgy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] causi|3 years ago|reply
I disagree.
This is a bold statement for someone who left Iraq fourteen years ago and never went back. Probably the current regime is better than Saddam. Is it so much better it was worth two trillion dollars and half a million lives? Is it so much better the rise of and fight against ISIS was worth it? I would like to hear the perspective of someone who lives there.
[+] [-] miroljub|3 years ago|reply
You don't need to be "someone living there" to answer this question. Just imagine half a million people in your state got killed by some foreign invader, and try to answer for yourself would it be wort it.
[+] [-] mc32|3 years ago|reply
Should the world have let Saddam initiate an Iraq-Iran War II? Was he bluffing? We don't know -he's dead. Maybe countries, like siblings, need to duke it out sometimes.
Many years ago there were people calling for Bush (and maybe Obama) to be arrested by the ICC. Bush and Obama are rehabilitated and now there is a more immediate foe who is now to be arrested and rendered to the ICC. Still, we could benefit from examining and have a congressional inquiry into the matter with consequences so that future presidents think twice before committing to war so easily. Then again, the Congress has abrogated its responsibility to declare war, and allows presidents lots of latitude to engage the military in "not war near wars" which are wars in all but name. If they really meant it, they would take that responsibility back.
It's more about degrees of good vs degrees of bad. There is no clear-cut good guy and we have to live with that. There are people who are bothered by the duality.
[+] [-] cudgy|3 years ago|reply
Which regime would rather live under if you were a normal Iraqui?
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
If he hadn't put that ridiculous "I disagree" after the obviously true explanation of the failure, this article would not have been published.
[+] [-] hotz|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kodah|3 years ago|reply
I was back at my units "home" base where they spent most of a year. Recently US and, I believe, Georgian EOD troops were engaged in heavy fire outside of town and an IED exploded as they tried to defuse it. You hear a lot of these stories day to day so like the author I was pretty desensitized to hearing about people dying trying to do their jobs. Not a day later I was reassigned to the small jail that we had and I met a man who didn't speak English, had a gut but wasn't overweight, and who lacked any education beyond religion and farming. I kept him fed, kept him safe, made sure he had rec time, time in the bathroom etc... I could do basic communication with him through a combination of hand signals. Mostly though I had no way of having any real conversation with him.
HumInt came to visit and interview him. They had gathered his side of the story and were going back out to gather information based on what he told them. He was captured after detonating the IED that had killed the EOD troops just days before by connecting a battery to a buried cable. It became clear to me early on that this man did not have the know-how to create a projectile cone, the REX for the explosive material, or the electrical knowledge to determine the battery and wire gauge necessary to carry out this attack. I read through his jacket and understood he had lived mostly a farming life, he was devout in his religion (as most were in that area), and he had a family. The Taliban had approached him to carry out this attack, his gut was a combination of disease and malnutrition most likely which is why they targeted him. They offered him the chance to do this act in exchange for his family being taken care of.
A day or so later HumInt came back. They asked me a lot about how he was acting and I told them mostly normal, he'd been sleeping most of the day, he prayed as usual, and had asked for some religious items. They informed me that they had gone to his house with representatives from one of the units on our base and had found that his family had been killed. They had been debating on whether to tell him because he was surely going to the jail in Kabul where he would likely be hanged. They told him during the interview and I remember from that time until he left he was just mute. This will be how I forever remember the Taliban and sister groups like Al Queda.
> And yet.
> It is hard to express what it means, if you have lived under an authoritarian regime, to experience freedom. Those who have grown up with the privilege of liberty are lucky not to understand it—and the heavy price you are willing to pay for it if you have lived without it.
This sentence punches far above it's weight class.
[+] [-] bo-tato|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 908B64B197|3 years ago|reply
What a sad ending.
> This will be how I forever remember the Taliban and sister groups like Al Queda.
Something that amazed me was to see how fast the ANA capitulated.
Billions of dollars were spent on education and training for the Afghan army so that they could stand against the Taliban. I was expecting the population to be very happy to get rid of them for good, seeing how they were treated under their regime. And yet it only took them a few weeks to completely undo decades of work. This reeked of double allegiance. In some regions, the village elders accompanied by ANA soldiers were welcoming the Taliban and cheering for their return. No fights. Worse, ANA soldiers were seen giving military supplies to the Taliban.
Apparently, families frequently sent their sons to fight on both sides of the conflict.
[+] [-] levinb|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] H8crilA|3 years ago|reply
Not being able to face historical facts and be honest is a major, major problem for the future. Again, to pick on Russia look at how many of them genuinely do not understand why almost all of Eastern Europe would gladly go back in time and suffocate baby Stalin with their bare hands, without thinking. Homo Sovieticus can only see the exaggerated glory of the Soviet Union without seeing the millions farmers starved to death in the Holodomor, or the hundreds of thousands tortured in KGB offices for absolutely no reason.
[+] [-] throwayyy479087|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackeraccount|3 years ago|reply
I appreciate blowback arguments but drawing a line from A to B to C is easier once you get to C - when you're at at A it's pretty impossible.
[+] [-] ManiAbod|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] newaccount2023|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] miroljub|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] boeingUH60|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BiteCode_dev|3 years ago|reply
Good thing the entire world opposed the war when the USA decided to go against the UN vote. Because letting those of hundreds of thousands of innocents die just because the USA are the strongest bully of the planet would be weighting heavily on our conscience otherwise.
Everyone would remember.
[+] [-] rdevsrex|3 years ago|reply
And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.
There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally, but now they are an enemy and aligned with China.
Our politicians either are too stupid, too corrupt, or both.
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwway120385|3 years ago|reply
It's disingenuous to claim that the US and Russia are exactly the same and that they both fought for the same things in both wars. The war in Ukraine is a land grab for Putin to expand his power.
[+] [-] mc32|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sofixa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrad0s|3 years ago|reply