Some People Don’t Learn

June 13, 2014 Longrider General News, General Rants, Political 9

Another war in Iraq?

We had to topple Saddam – now let’s go back to Iraq to rescue democracy
The fall of Mosul has left our leaders silent, while others mutter about Bush and Blair. But at Iraq’s hour of greatest need we cannot stand by

And that is only the headline – yet here is so much that is so wrong. We did not have to topple Saddam. He was no threat to us and the internal affairs of Iraq were – and still are – none of our concern. We do not need to rescue democracy. It does not need rescuing. What this disastrous intervention demonstrated was that you cannot impose it upon a society not ready for it. And, frankly, only a staggering hubris believes that it is our place to impose our systom of governance on another country.

And, having failed to learn any of these lessons John McTernan thinks another intervention is a good idea. The man is a fucking idiot. A hubristic pompous warmongering idiot who would send others to fight an unnecessary, messy civil war and die in order to impose his idea of good governance on another country. I suggest McTerney picks up a rifle and catches a flight to Baghdad? He isn’t? Oh, right, well, fuck off, then.

After all, as Margaret Thatcher said at the time of the Falklands, why else do we have armed forces?

To defend ourselves from an aggressor, not to ponce about the world stage acting like unelected policemen. It’s none of our business. It never was.

9 Comments

  2. “…only a staggering hubris believes that it is our place to impose our system of governance on another country…”

    I wouldn’t wish our system on anyone else.

    Mind you, if someone were to impose true democracy on the UK…

  3. 1) At the time the USA and Europe were heavily reliant on Middle East oil and gas.

    2) Trouble in the ME, never far away, raises the prices of oil and gas, transportation and electricity thus production, thus food, thus goods and services, thus adversely affects economic activity and prosperity. See 1970s.

    3) Saddam’s stated aim was to lead a pan-Arabic uprising to establish Pan-Arabia. He would spark this uprising and get Arabs to follow him by destroying Israel.

    4) Saddam had warred with Iran which he saw as his natural enemy and unfinished business; had conquered Kuwait on his way to conquering Saudi Arabia.

    5) Had shown how ruthless he was using chemical weapons against his own, the Iranians and Israelis during Gulf War I.

    6) Had been trying to develop nuclear… bombed by Israel, had tried to build long range guns aimed at Tel Aviv.

    7) A consistent liar, psychopath with sons to carry on his good works, who had run rings around weapons inspectors and milked the UN oil for food programme to his regimes advantage.

    But ‘he was no threat to us’… really?

    You don’t think our oil and gas prices doubling, trebling due to his shenanigans in the ME would affect us? I see.

    • Did Saddam have weapons that could directly hit us? Nope. Irrespective of the brinkmanship the regime played with the weapons inspectors, there were no WMD. Was he planning on invading us? Nope. Therefore he was not a threat. The likelihood of oil increasing in price is not the same thing as a military threat. Not even remotely. There is no justification for invading a foreign country because our oil prices will go up. We were wrong to invade. We have no business invading other peoples countries no matter how much we dislike the regime. If Saddam had invaded one of our allies, then, and only then, would war have been justified as it was when he invaded Kuwait.

  4. @ John B, seeing that now the US is a net exporter of energy, or soon will be, that we seem to have shale reserves in Europe that will satisfy our needs for years to come if we dont let the greens in the way, I’m not sure what the problem was with the oil in Iraq.

    The 100s of £billions spent on this stupid war could have been better used at home, and as loathsome as Saddam was, he was not any worse than the fanatics and corrupt politicians who run the country now.

    Their problem. Notwithstanding the fact that it is easily arguable that “we” are responsible for 100s of thousand of deaths.

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