Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jolimont · 03-27-2003, 07:38 AM

It is clear to me that American/British forces have NOT been received as liberators in Iraq. Bush will take this invasion as far as needed and America will get its way eventually, but it will cost dearly in lives and money. What if American forces had gone in there with the full support of the UN? Is that any better? Even more radical, what if the UN had been able to bring in mostly soldiers from Egypt or Turkey or Syria or other Muslim countries? Would those soldiers have been received as liberators? What if America had kept a low profile on the ground while calling the shots at the UN? I think the Iraqi people would not have resisted a UN invasion of their country nearly as much as they are resisting a US/UK invasion, especially if soldiers from neighboring countries were involved. I doubt the Iraqis really love Saddam as much as they dislike being invaded by Americans. I think the UN could have done the job better, cheaper and with less loss of life, but I could be wrong. What do you think?

Amen-Moses · 03-27-2003, 08:03 AM

I was thinking about this a lot a few months ago and came to the conclusion that if Saudi/Jordanian/Syrian/Egyptian troops had been used on the ground with total air cover provided by coalition air forces flying from Kuwait, Saudi and Turkey with Kurdish troops used to hold the northern border with maybe some of the Afghanistan Northern Alliance troops supplementing them then it could have worked. By "it" I mean the whole hearts and minds approach.

The main difference would have been that the Iraqi army divisions would have been far more likely to join these forces in a "rise up against Saddam" type war because they would trust them more and they would fear colonisation from them less.

The most important thing would have been to keep Kuwaiti and Qatar out of it (and especially Iran!), we could also have used special divisions made up of Pakistani and Indian Muslim forces.

We could also have used Sudanese troops or even Yemeni's especially in roles such as drivers and aid delivery personnel as they would not be seen as threatening and would at least be able to communicate properly with the people in the towns and villages.

All air strikes should have been limited to taking out Iraqi armoured divisions and military airfields and no attacks against the cities should have been made.

If it had been done cleverly with a gradual build up concentrating on a proper large scale hunt for banned weapons allied with a rebuilding programme and a cessation of sanctions with the moneys being handled by the UN (thus diminishing entirely Saddam's control over the country) and priorities being assigned by the Arab coalition then it may just have been successful but I doubt very much if this could all have been achieved.

The monesy so far pledged to the coalition of the bribed could instead have gone to many of the countries I mentioned and would have a far more beneficial outcome for them than giving it to Israel!

Amen-Moses

sir drinks-a-lot · 03-27-2003, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jolimont
It is clear to me that American/British forces have NOT been received as liberators in Iraq. Bush will take this invasion as far as needed and America will get its way eventually, but it will cost dearly in lives and money. What if American forces had gone in there with the full support of the UN? Is that any better? Even more radical, what if the UN had been able to bring in mostly soldiers from Egypt or Turkey or Syria or other Muslim countries? Would those soldiers have been received as liberators? What if America had kept a low profile on the ground while calling the shots at the UN? I think the Iraqi people would not have resisted a UN invasion of their country nearly as much as they are resisting a US/UK invasion, especially if soldiers from neighboring countries were involved. I doubt the Iraqis really love Saddam as much as they dislike being invaded by Americans. I think the UN could have done the job better, cheaper and with less loss of life, but I could be wrong. What do you think?

Irrelevant question. The UN never would have done the job.

Jolimont · 03-27-2003, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sir drinks-a-lot
Irrelevant question. The UN never would have done the job.

I disagree. The UN talked about nothing but Iraq this last year. The Security Council asked for more time for inspections, 30, maybe 60 more days, but it was very much on the agenda. I'll grant you that the UN would have done nothing had Bush not made such a fuss about it and he was right to do so. Once it was on the agenda there were lots of options: Bush could have cooled it a bit and played it so that the UN would have taken care of it, but he was impatient, he couldn't wait 30 more days. So his victory was to bring it up in the UN agenda and his failure was to not let the UN do the job afterwards. That's how I read the news anyway.

Jesse · 03-27-2003, 11:17 AM

It's a bit premature to judge the feelings of the Iraqi people towards their "liberators", because Saddam's regime is still in power in most of Iraq, and secret policemen are apparently still quite common. I saw a reporter say the other day that he talked to a man who wanted to thank him for the water the U.S. forces were handing out, but refused to talk on camera because "there are detectives everywhere." If this sort of feeling is playing a significant role in Iraqi's current reaction to coalition forces, then presumably they would act in a similar way to a U.N. coalition.

Jesse · 03-27-2003, 12:27 PM

To add to my previous comment, here's another piece of evidence that fear of retribution still plays a major role in the reaction of Iraqi civilians, even in a supposedly "liberated" city like Umm Qasr:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../International

Quote:

Umm Qasr border region � Five days after the Pentagon boasted that it had captured Umm Qasr, the people of this port city are still clinging to their portraits of Saddam Hussein.

The fear is everywhere. Even the best-educated people in town, the doctors in the local hospital, are refusing to remove the portraits from their offices. They are terrified that Mr. Hussein's forces could somehow survive and return to power, wreaking a brutal revenge on the people.

"They could appear out of the cracks in the pavement," one frightened Iraqi explained to British soldiers in the town.

Major Martin Grixoni, a top commander of the British Royal Marines in Umm Qasr, got a glimpse of the terror in the town yesterday when he visited the local hospital. One of the chief doctors at the hospital told him that he was unwilling to get rid of the picture in his office.

"He was genuinely afraid that the regime will come back," Major Grixoni said in an interview at the Iraq-Kuwait border crossing.

"There are still lots of pictures of Saddam all over the place. They won't take them down until they are genuinely convinced that the regime is dead. They've been under this regime for a long time. In the last gulf war [1991], they were advised to rise up; they did, and they were killed."

The article also mentions that middle-level Baath party loyalists are still active in the town even though the high-ranking officials have fled, not to mention Iraqi soldiers in civilian uniforms.

Jesse · 03-28-2003, 12:29 AM

From CNN, another reason to think that the lack of a warm welcome of Coalition forces may have a lot to do with fear of reprisals:

Quote:

General: Iraqis hang woman for waving to coalition troops

The Marine general said that what has surprised him most about the first week of fighting is the extent of war crimes carried out by the Iraqi regime. In addition to the execution of POWs, he said, Iraqis have used civilians as human shields, stored weapons in schools, set up command posts in hospitals and pretended to surrender only to open fire.

In one case, an Iraqi woman was hanged after she waved to coalition forces, Pace said.

"I've never seen anything like this," he said. "To do it so blatantly so early, not only is it a surprise, but to me it's disgusting."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/27/spr...ted/index.html

FreeThinker · 03-28-2003, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jesse
It's a bit premature to judge the feelings of the Iraqi people towards their "liberators", because Saddam's regime is still in power in most of Iraq, and secret policemen are apparently still quite common. I saw a reporter say the other day that he talked to a man who wanted to thank him for the water the U.S. forces were handing out, but refused to talk on camera because "there are detectives everywhere." If this sort of feeling is playing a significant role in Iraqi's current reaction to coalition forces, then presumably they would act in a similar way to a U.N. coalition.

While Sadam is hated by Iraqis, Americans are hated even more. Recently I heard on NPR that Iraqis who took refuges in neighboring countries are returning back to fight Americans. This might seem totally illogical. Why they would do that? Why would victims of torture chambers and exiles fight against their liberators? That's very strange and troubling, howether the reason of this is:

R*E*L*I*G*I*O*N !

We are perceived as crusaders!

We are perceived as Zionists!

We and our government are perceived as Christian fanatics !

Regardless of being religious fanatics we are perceived as morally decadent !

In short we are perceived as Satan!

Imagine you are an uneducated peasant in Iraq, whom you would rather support:

1) Dictator (Sadam)
2) Satan (US) and "little Satan" (Israel)*

*I am not Arab but on NPR and other sources I heard multiple times that Arab classify us as "Satan" and Israel as "little Satan"

Most Iraqis will choose first choice. Minority who would choose second choice are either:

A) Less religious
B) Suffered from Sadam to a extent that they would rather make deal with "Satan" only to get rid of him

It is not about choosing good from bad, it is for Iraqi a choice between bad and worst, and US is perceived by most as far worse. Many Iraqi people would rather tolerate even most exruciating physical pain in Sadam torture chambers, which is temporal. However most Iraqi fear that if they will accept US, the Satan, they will condemn themself to the eternal pain from Alah. Doesn't this relgious logic make sense now ?

Of course Iraqi would want to get rid of Sadam, as even Osama told them that, but only not with help of US, the Satan.

Source: http://discover.npr.org/features/fe...ml?wfId=1203801 and others

Vorkosigan · 03-28-2003, 02:54 AM

Iraqis hang a woman for waving? Shades of incubators at the Kuwait hospital. it wouldn't surprise me that things are still unsettled and fear of Hussein still rules. The south still remembers the US betrayals.

Vorkosigan

Jesse · 03-28-2003, 04:01 PM

Here's another story that supports the view that lack of support for coalition forces has a lot to do with fear that we'll abandon them like we did in the last war, or that secret police will continue to punish people who don't show loyalty to Saddam's government, and that as these fears disappear support for the coalition may increase:

Loyalty to Hussein appears to wane

Quote:

AZ-ZUBAYR, Iraq -- In the first days after coalition forces rolled through this dusty mud-walled town just south of Basra, Saddam Hussein had plenty of friends. Young men waved posters with his face for the cameras. Small boys yelled "Saddam! Saddam!" The few that criticized the regime did so in nervous whispers.

Less than a week later, after a coalition raid netted the top Baath Party official in town for questioning and tanks took out some of the young men firing rocket-propelled grenades from the roadside, Hussein's public popularity is nose-diving.

"All Iraqis want to be rid of this regime. We just can't say that," said Jasser, a stout and serious older man in a blue robe who showed up at a coalition medical center Thursday looking for antacid tablets for his wife.

"Resistance is dangerous," he said. "When troops first came in they didn't demolish the party apparatus here, and that created problems. But now we feel more secure."

The process of winning Az-Zubayr is proving a lesson for coalition troops as they move toward bigger objectives such as Basra and eventually Baghdad. Surgical strikes, aimed at political leaders as well as military targets, are being combined with humanitarian aid to ease the two biggest worries for local Iraqis: that coalition forces are simply an occupying force and that they aren't serious about removing Hussein's regime.

...

Residents said that the humanitarian assistance was much appreciated but that decisive military action--like that in Az-Zubayr--was even more urgently needed.

U.S. forces "should bomb [the ruling party] wherever they are. Baghdad is the most important. When it's done everything will change," said Jasser, who agreed to an interview only out of the sight of others.

He asked the question everyone in southern Iraq asks: "Will the Iraqi regime remain or not?"

"If this coalition does not remove the regime, half of us will die," he said. "We will be killed just for talking to you. Saddam's eyes are all over here."

He pointed toward an area he said remained a Baath Party stronghold in town.

"The Iraqi regime kills civilians for going against it. If they even think you're against the regime they kill you," he said.

03-27-2003, 07:38 AM	#1
Jolimont Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USA expat, now living in France Posts: 1,153	Would the Iraqis welcome UN forces as liberators? It is clear to me that American/British forces have NOT been received as liberators in Iraq. Bush will take this invasion as far as needed and America will get its way eventually, but it will cost dearly in lives and money. What if American forces had gone in there with the full support of the UN? Is that any better? Even more radical, what if the UN had been able to bring in mostly soldiers from Egypt or Turkey or Syria or other Muslim countries? Would those soldiers have been received as liberators? What if America had kept a low profile on the ground while calling the shots at the UN? I think the Iraqi people would not have resisted a UN invasion of their country nearly as much as they are resisting a US/UK invasion, especially if soldiers from neighboring countries were involved. I doubt the Iraqis really love Saddam as much as they dislike being invaded by Americans. I think the UN could have done the job better, cheaper and with less loss of life, but I could be wrong. What do you think?

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03-27-2003, 08:03 AM	#2
Amen-Moses Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Portsmouth, England Posts: 4,652	I was thinking about this a lot a few months ago and came to the conclusion that if Saudi/Jordanian/Syrian/Egyptian troops had been used on the ground with total air cover provided by coalition air forces flying from Kuwait, Saudi and Turkey with Kurdish troops used to hold the northern border with maybe some of the Afghanistan Northern Alliance troops supplementing them then it could have worked. By "it" I mean the whole hearts and minds approach. The main difference would have been that the Iraqi army divisions would have been far more likely to join these forces in a "rise up against Saddam" type war because they would trust them more and they would fear colonisation from them less. The most important thing would have been to keep Kuwaiti and Qatar out of it (and especially Iran!), we could also have used special divisions made up of Pakistani and Indian Muslim forces. We could also have used Sudanese troops or even Yemeni's especially in roles such as drivers and aid delivery personnel as they would not be seen as threatening and would at least be able to communicate properly with the people in the towns and villages. All air strikes should have been limited to taking out Iraqi armoured divisions and military airfields and no attacks against the cities should have been made. If it had been done cleverly with a gradual build up concentrating on a proper large scale hunt for banned weapons allied with a rebuilding programme and a cessation of sanctions with the moneys being handled by the UN (thus diminishing entirely Saddam's control over the country) and priorities being assigned by the Arab coalition then it may just have been successful but I doubt very much if this could all have been achieved. The monesy so far pledged to the coalition of the bribed could instead have gone to many of the countries I mentioned and would have a far more beneficial outcome for them than giving it to Israel! Amen-Moses

03-27-2003, 11:17 AM	#5
Jesse Moderator - Science Discussions Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Providence, RI, USA Posts: 9,908	It's a bit premature to judge the feelings of the Iraqi people towards their "liberators", because Saddam's regime is still in power in most of Iraq, and secret policemen are apparently still quite common. I saw a reporter say the other day that he talked to a man who wanted to thank him for the water the U.S. forces were handing out, but refused to talk on camera because "there are detectives everywhere." If this sort of feeling is playing a significant role in Iraqi's current reaction to coalition forces, then presumably they would act in a similar way to a U.N. coalition.

03-28-2003, 02:54 AM	#9
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Iraqis hang a woman for waving? Shades of incubators at the Kuwait hospital. it wouldn't surprise me that things are still unsettled and fear of Hussein still rules. The south still remembers the US betrayals. Vorkosigan

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