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Is the Middle East better off since the day before Operation Iraqi Freedom began?

Is the Middle East better off since the day before Operation Iraqi Freedom began?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 7.0%

  • No

    Votes: 32 74.4%

  • Unsure

    Votes: 6 14.0%

  • Mmmmmm...pizza.

    Votes: 2 4.7%
  • Total voters
    43
TheDemSocialist said:
Absolutely not.
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Global Terrorism Database
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Lol !

Violence explodes after the Arab Spring ....

Should be the Title of your chart
 
Sabanist said:
Is it better off after the obama administration removed every soldier from the country? Even though the us has left brigades in every place we have ever been permanently. Germany, japan, korea, kosovo, kuwait. But not iraq. Gotta surrender there
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Nope !

Iraqis, even Women were allowed to vote in open elections with the fear of persecution when Bush left office.
 
Question is poorly worded.


For example, Georgia is worse off since before Operation Iraqi Freedom.



I think what you should have asked is, is the ME worse of fbecause of Iraqi Freedom.
 
Fenton said:
Lol !

Violence explodes after the Arab Spring ....

Should be the Title of your chart
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:doh You are missing a big part of the chart...
Violence exploded in 2003, levled out but continued, and then exploded again.
 
Since the question is worded in that particular manner, one is left to wonder why Hillary supported it.
 
I honestly don't think it will be fair to judge the success or failure of our most recent interventions in the middle east for at least another generation or so. I think the results will only truly be measured when people who have grown up in the post-9/11 world are in power and making decisions both in the middle east as well as the U.S.
 
bg85 said:
I honestly don't think it will be fair to judge the success or failure of our most recent interventions in the middle east for at least another generation or so. I think the results will only truly be measured when people who have grown up in the post-9/11 world are in power and making decisions both in the middle east as well as the U.S.
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Nah..

Looking at the short term I see this:

Iraq was a threat to everyone when Bush went in, in what I contend was a mistake. It was not a threat to anyone when Obama pulled out the troops.

Now it is a threat to everyone on the planet, as ISIS reaches out with stronghold in Hillary's new regime Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, and is knocking on the door of the Vatican and the American people are now being treated to a steady diet of beheading, child murder and decapitation which wasn't there before.

So since the invasion approved by Hillary and a majority of democrats, things are much worse, especially after Obama, where they are 1,000 times worse
 
DA60 said:
So...open conflicts are always better - even though they almost always result in FAR more casualties?

Okaaaaaay...I certainly hope you never attain military/political power.
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In order fight an enemy, it is always better to be able to identify and see them than to have them secreted away doing bad things.

As to casualties, are you adding up all the casualties from all the terrorist plots? And casualties are only bad if they are non-enemies. Enemy casualties are a good thing. Yes, open war or even a terrorist/insurgent war has casualties. But the longterm goals or a war, such as ending all this bloodshed, is what should be focused upon.
 
Amadeus said:
It was a good plan. Attack a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, completely dismantle the existing regime/military, stir up a centuries old religious conflict and gift-wrap the region to Iran.

It had to be done.
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I guess comprehension is not your strong suit.

Which part of all terrorist and nations supporting terrorism was so hard for you to understand? Where is the wording the lead you to believe that the global war on terror was actually war on Al Queda alone?
 
DA60 said:
Is the Middle East better off since the day before Operation Iraqi Freedom began?
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Yes and no. Yes because women are starting to be recognized. For the first time in many years girls are allowed to go to schools and complete higher grades. People are starting to be given rights and some of the archaic laws restricting them are being dropped. The War rid the nation of many different weapons that we're military grade and reduced terror. No because the Iraqi troops we're improperly trained and we're not ready, when we left the nation we made a vacuum, and of course ISIS filled that vacuum.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Well the whole ****ing region wasnt destabilized.... We could play the would coulda shoulda game all we want. But one thing is for sure: Al-Qaeda/Radical Jihadis did not have the power to destabilize the whole ****ing region before 2003...
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True enough. But something else was different in 2003 as well. Mubarak was firmly in control of events in Egypt and had influence in neighbouring countries, the same with Gaddafi and Assad. The destabilisation of the Middle East has been a very good bi-partisan effort. And forget not Wesley Clarks comments about the Pentagons plans to conduct regime change in 7 ME countries. This is way bigger than just George Bush.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Nah..

Looking at the short term I see this:

Iraq was a threat to everyone when Bush went in, in what I contend was a mistake. It was not a threat to anyone when Obama pulled out the troops.

Now it is a threat to everyone on the planet, as ISIS reaches out with stronghold in Hillary's new regime Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, and is knocking on the door of the Vatican and the American people are now being treated to a steady diet of beheading, child murder and decapitation which wasn't there before.

So since the invasion approved by Hillary and a majority of democrats, things are much worse, especially after Obama, where they are 1,000 times worse
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they may seem worse now, but my point is that I'm not sure that that's a fair assessment of operation Iraqi freedom. nor do I think the time is right to declare that Obama has made things better or worse. the ultimate end (very long-term) goal in the middle east is (or should be) a region that looks like something closer to what we know as democracy in the western world. before the region can get there, however, there will be a TON of pain and suffering that occurs as a result of the change - both from general instability that happens during the long transition as well as from pushback by groups who would want to ensure the middle east (or rather certain countries/regions within the middle east) never becomes a more democratic region.
 
stonewall50 said:
Who has/had more impact on a global scale? Isis or saddam?
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Can you define "impact" and presumably what you think Saddam's was? We do know that Americans were misled to believe three key things. 1. That Saddam Hussein had WMD's that were a threat to the US, with the ability to produce a mushroom cloud over US cities. 2. That Saddam Hussein was affiliated with al Qaeda, and 3. That Saddam Hussein was working with OBL. All three things were false, but all three had to be presented to secure American public support for a Bush policy that predates his presidency. Downing Street confirmed that Bush was "fixing the intelligence to fit his policy". We know that two weeks into Bush's presidency, his first foreign policy meeting was about regime change in Iraq. And we know that the very influential to the Bush administration, PNAC, produced a policy paper for America in the 21st century that mused how another Pearl Harbor would afford the political capital to push through all the policies that neo-cons in visioned.
 
Montecresto said:
Can you define "impact" and presumably what you think Saddam's was? We do know that Americans were misled to believe three key things. 1. That Saddam Hussein had WMD's that were a threat to the US, with the ability to produce a mushroom cloud over US cities. 2. That Saddam Hussein was affiliated with al Qaeda, and 3. That Saddam Hussein was working with OBL. All three things were false, but all three had to be presented to secure American public support for a Bush policy that predates his presidency. Downing Street confirmed that Bush was "fixing the intelligence to fit his policy". We know that two weeks into Bush's presidency, his first foreign policy meeting was about regime change in Iraq. And we know that the very influential to the Bush administration, PNAC, produced a policy paper for America in the 21st century that mused how another Pearl Harbor would afford the political capital to push through all the policies that neo-cons in visioned.
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The question isn't was "Iraq" a bad idea. It wasn't "is it justified." The question was "is the me better off?"

We know this:

Saddam DID have WMDs at one point. Chemical weapons are WMDs. Do you think that is a dangerous thing for someone like saddam to have had? Remember that he used them. He launched scud missiles at Israel. He invaded Kuwait. He started a war with Iran. As far as "potential impact" goes...saddam had a lot. I realize didn't state that before. I should have added "potential." 14% of European oil for a start. Israel too.

Isis isn't really gaining much support. They are dying. Wouldn't you agree? They certainly aren't the 3rd largest army in the world. Iraq was.
 
what does the rest of the middle east have to do with the Iraq war?
 
Higgins86 said:
what does the rest of the middle east have to do with the Iraq war?
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lots. Iraq is in the middle east and the rest of the middle east was greatly affected by the removal of saddam.
 
beefheart said:
No, and we sure could have used that 3 trillion dollars. Hell, for that much money we could have 1000 people living on the moon.
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or we could have spent it on any of a number of domestic programs, such as health care like Europe does. or we could have spent it on research so that we can replace oil and tell Saudi Arabia to police its own region.

western-style democracy cannot be imposed, especially in the Middle East.
 
bg85 said:
lots. Iraq is in the middle east and the rest of the middle east was greatly affected by the removal of saddam.
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How exactly? The Arab spring was a reaction from the people of the middle east against their outdated, oppressive regimes. The removal of Saddam had little if nothing to do with events that happened next. If anything it was the West's inaction in Syria that led us to where we are now not the action taken previously in Iraq. It's also worth pointing out that Saddam himself was a distributive influence in the ME for two decades before the 2nd Iaq war.
 
Higgins86 said:
How exactly? The Arab spring was a reaction from the people of the middle east against their outdated, oppressive regimes. The removal of Saddam had little if nothing to do with events that happened next. If anything it was the West's inaction in Syria that led us to where we are now not the action taken previously in Iraq. It's also worth pointing out that Saddam himself was a distributive influence in the ME for two decades before the 2nd Iaq war.
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the removal of saddam and the dismantling of his huge army caused a power vacuum in one of the region's most powerful countries. that has effects not just on Iraq but on the rest of the region as well (and really the entire world if you want to go that far). the fact that the government is shia-led as opposed to sunni (which I believe is what saddam was) also has an effect on the surrounding region because it increases and strengthens iran's sphere of influence, among other things.

I'm not some middle east expert obviously (not sure if I mixed up sunni and shia because I'm pretty ignorant in that matter) I just know that any time you remove a powerful dictator from a region, it's going to have effects that stretch across that country's borders. I'm pretty sure entire books have been written about the effects of our invasion on the middle east as a whole but I bet you could google those if you are really truly interested in it.
 
They are never going to be better off, regardless of anything that we, or other nations-with-good-but-misguided-intentions, do, until they stop fighting amongst themselves, and figure out how to get along with each other. As far as I am concerned, we should never have gone there at all.
 
DA60 said:
Is the Middle East better off since the day before Operation Iraqi Freedom began?
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It seems your question is misinterpreted, the question is "Is the Middle East better off" from March 2003.

You using Iraq's day of operation Iraq Freedom is just a reference in time.
 
bg85 said:
the removal of saddam and the dismantling of his huge army caused a power vacuum in one of the region's most powerful countries. that has effects not just on Iraq but on the rest of the region as well (and really the entire world if you want to go that far). the fact that the government is shia-led as opposed to sunni (which I believe is what saddam was) also has an effect on the surrounding region because it increases and strengthens iran's sphere of influence, among other things.

I'm not some middle east expert obviously (not sure if I mixed up sunni and shia because I'm pretty ignorant in that matter) I just know that any time you remove a powerful dictator from a region, it's going to have effects that stretch across that country's borders. I'm pretty sure entire books have been written about the effects of our invasion on the middle east as a whole but I bet you could google those if you are really truly interested in it.
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Dictators come and go in the middle east as demonstrated in the past few years. Name me a country where this "power vacuum" emboldened people to seize power in their own country? Also worth pointing out we (the west) have been propping up/ toppling governments in the middle east since the fall of the Ottoman empire.
 
why do people call that war Iraqi freedom???? I thought it was cheney oil
 
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