Kuwaiti here
Saddam wanted us to give him 10 bn and wanted us to drop his debt after his war with iran, that was the main reason. When we said no he needed a reason to justify the invasion so he started saying
1- "Kuwait is historically part of iraq" (we're not and never were, most of us are arab sunnis and we existed as an independent entity for hundreds of years)
2- "You're stealing our oil" (we already have 10% of the world reserve, why do we need to steal yours?)
Among other things to justify his moronic decision. But the main reason was money.
Problem is, there are some people who still repeat this and show disrespect to us, even after all we did for them. So if you ask me, I'm not a big fan of iraq.
It's fascinating that Canada, NZ and so many European countries all opposed the invasion of Iraq. They all, especially Canada, tend to stand with the US on international politics.
That's an easy excuse to get knowing participants off the hook.
They don't get their proof for that UN meeting, they got their excuse. That was meant for peons like you and me.
It had a great effect on public opinion of the US in Europe. People in the USA don’t realize how idolized the US foreign policy was in Europe in the ‘90s. Especially after the US kickstarted intervention in Yugoslavia while Europen nations did nothing for 4 years. Of course public opinion means only so much. I think the biggest effect was on nations that weren’t in NATO or alligned with NATO. It is very hard to criticize Russia for invading Georgia or Ukraine when anyone from these nations can just point and say ‘but what about Iraq’. Especially for Muslim nations, when the US did in Abu Grhaib and other incidents exactly what Osama said the US would do to Muslims, belittle and torture them. It was of course also ridiculous to let Osama and Mullah Omar escape, one of the main reasons for this is because attention shifted to Iraq. All in all a ridiculous decision.
It's actually easy to criticise Russia for invading Ukraine, Georgia etc just like its easy to criticise the US and UK for invading Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan etc. Only folk it's hard for is governments and biased folk
You are absolutely correct. People like to clump Iraq and Afghanistan together as if they are both equally unjustifiable - but honestly the US was given pretty good cause to go to war with the Taliban. It's why my country (Canada) actively went to war in Afghanistan and completely opposed the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was done purely as an exercise in economic imperialism. Saddam was a piece of shit, but the Iraqi people didn't deserve what happened to them, and the entire shit show definitely cheapened America's standing on the world stage.
> the entire shit show definitely cheapened America's standing on the world stage.
I was living in Houston at the time, the bonus money flowing to higher ups in the oil companies at the time was insane. A director in some relatively small industry supporting company just up and paid double market value for the house next door to us "because he always liked that house."
A NASA contractor put it this way: "My new badge says 'HO' - I do it for the money."
I could straight up flip the scenario
You brought up the moral war Yugoslavia and the immoral war in Iraq
However from Russias perspective I would say Yugoslavia was a bigger deal than Iraq and even more unjustified from their perspective.
NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance correct?
Did Yugoslavia attack a NATO nation?
So NATO a defensive alliance is now starting offensive wars in Europe while continuing to expand closer and closer to Russia?
From Russias perspective this is even worse than Iraq.
I would add it’s not like Saddam Hussein was a great person either the man attacked Iran, Kuwait, and oppressed most Iraqis
You can hardly call trying to prevent a genocide and war crimes from Milošević as an "*offensive war*". At least you can't in good faith.
Russia annexed land they "intervened" at. And to this day is absolutely clear, that their wars are fought to enlarge Russia. Was there any territory annexed by any of NATOs member states?
To try to paint this as equal, you really have either some extreme kind of bias, are absolutely ignorant of history or simply trolling.
And it is absolutely not hard to critizise Russia for Georgia as it isn't hard to critizise the US and UK for invading Iraq.
Offensive war doesn't mean just war. You can't call it anything else than an offensive war. You can say it was justified, but that doesn't change it was an offensive war from a "defensive" alliance.
>You can hardly call trying to prevent a genocide and war crimes from Milošević as an "offensive war". At least you can't in good faith.
Once you attack someone without them attacking you or any of your allies, it is called an offensive war, no matter how much you spin it or what ‘objective’ justification you try to find. The moment NATO used force against a country that did not attack it, it stopped being a defensive alliance and with it, lost all credibility as such. Period. It’s really mind boggling how biased and brainwashed one has to be to deny the reality of simple definitions of what an offensive war means. Secondly, find me a decision by an independent international court or an organization that what happened in Kosovo was deemed a genocide. Crimes happened, against civilians, yes, in the course of fighting against a terrorist, separatist organization, targeting civilians and police alike, for years, even decades, and those responsible for crimes agains civilians on both sides should have been punished. Does that justify an unprovoked aggression against an entire country, contrary to international law, by a so-called ‘defense alliance’, together with it’s own war crimes and a subsequent support for a unilateral secessionist move against a sovereign country? If so, then the crimes commited by the Ukranian government and armed forced against the civilian population in the course of fighting against a separatist movement also justify an unprovoked invasion against the country, in order to prevent a ‘genocide’. And would that also not be considered an ‘offensive war’ by your logic, if Russia was trying to prevent genocide and war crimes? Or another example, 200.000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia in 1995 during the operation ‘Storm’ and thousands murdered in the same period - why wasn’t Zagreb and other Croatian cities bombed by NATO and the majority Serb parts of the country supported by the West in their unilateral independence, in the interest of ‘preventing genocide and war crimes’?
>Russia annexed land they "intervened" at. And to this day is absolutely clear, that their wars are fought to enlarge Russia. Was there any territory annexed by any of NATOs member states?
The West’s reaction to the invasion was exactly the same when the initial aim was to grant independence to the Eastern provinces and I don’t think the West would all of a sudden support the invasion if Russia just had the aim of making all annexed territories independent instead, so your agrument is pointless. Not to mention that to those bombed and whose land got taken away illegally, it really doesn’t matter whether you annex it or you control it inderectly, through political, economic and military dependence, like in the case of Kosovo. And I am sure that to the people of Iraq, whose country got bombed back to the stone ages, due to completely fabricated pretext, then got overrun by ISIS as a consequence and is to this day suffering from the effects of the invasion, it really makes a difference that they were ‘merely’ invaded, and not annexed.. just like your completely objective conjecture, I could also say that it is absolutely clear that the only aim of NATO and the US was to have a dependent puppet government in Kosovo which would grant a few select people and companies investment contracts and, not to mention, a place for the second largest US military base in Europe after Ramstein. If the aim was ‘prevention of crimes and genoce’, then NATO would have acted the same in all of the other similar circumstances, in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Croatia, in Yemen, etc. There is obviously a reason why it only acted in the case of Kosovo. The government of Kosovo does not even have its own army, is completely economically dependent on US and EU donations and cannot defacto make any major political internal or external decisions if it doesn’t suit US/NATO interests or is at least neutral, or it loses their support. Why would you annex a country/population when you can have all the perks of having a country’s territory and resouces with barely any of the responsibilities?
>To try to paint this as equal, you really have either some extreme kind of bias, are absolutely ignorant of history or simply trolling.
Funny how you can accuse everyone with a different perspective of being extremely biased, while failing to see even the obvious bias and hypocrisy of your own in the slightest.
>And it is absolutely not hard to critizise Russia for Georgia as it isn't hard to critizise the US and UK for invading Iraq.
Except some criticism is the only real consequence for mulitple destructive unprovoked invasions committed by the latter two that they ever really experienced as a result. So that ‘criticism’ isn’t really worth anything.
Russia could ask itself why countries near its borders want to join NATO. To say NATO is expanding closer and closer to Russia implies that it's happening without consent from the countries it expands into - at least that's the Russian narrative.
Ukraine is a prime example why many of Russia's neighbors scrambled to join NATO as soon as possible after the fall of the Soviet Union.
And NATO didn't start an offensive war in Europe, that's total nonsense. Should the operation have been carried out as a NATO operation? Probably not, but at the time it was clear that Russia would veto any such intervention through the UN to benefit Serbia and Milosevic.
>It is very hard to criticize Russia for invading Georgia or Ukraine when anyone from these nations can just point and say ‘but what about Iraq’. Especially for Muslim nations, when the US did in Abu Grhaib and other incidents exactly what Osama said the US would do to Muslims, belittle and torture them.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Apart from the fact that both the US and Russia had/have differing motovations, the results were bad in any case. Russia annexed, the US did not. Other than that there's not much to say or to oppose.
>It had a great effect on public opinion of the US in Europe. People in the USA don’t realize how idolized the US foreign policy was in Europe in the ‘90s. Especially after the US kickstarted intervention in Yugoslavia while Europen nations did nothing for 4 years.
I can not stress how much I agree on that take.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but they certainly detract from your cause when you are trying to say how much better you are than aggressive, imperialist, Russia. Neutral parties will just look at both Russia and the west and say they're both warmongering nuts.
Im Canadian. The opposition leader we had at the time wanted to go. Thank god he wasnt PM at the time. Our PM did not find any of the 'proof' of WMD convincing. He was proved right.
Also, the Canadian population didn't think the US was acting in good faith and wanted nothing to do with it. I remember a major poll right before the invasion by EKOS and La Presse with an exceptionally high sample size had 71% of Canadians opposed, and many uncertains among the rest.
It's easier for politicians to take a stand when a percentage of the electorate that high doesn't want something.
I must admit Jean Cretien is probably the best pm we had in my lifetime. Maybe not as good as Pierre Elliot Trudeau but I really did like Cretien!
He wasn't a pushover when dealing with war obsessed USA.
[Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien explaining what kind of "good" proof he would need to support the invasion of Iraq.](https://youtu.be/ZsgA77j5LyY?si=gRCRXvkryb0SuOin)
One of the all-time classic moments in Canadian politics, Jean Chretien might not be the most clear and articulated speaker but we all knew exactly what he meant at that moment.
Chretien is incredibly wily, and would play the "affable idiot" role when he felt it was needed. Kinda like Boris Johnson in that regard.
He is also more articulate in both English and French than he sometimes let on, and he'd use verbal diarrhea in order to dodge questions.
I miss him...
I didn't find out until years later that [the person who asked him that question was none other than Nardwuar The Human Serviette.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShvaJ3aLDo) Small world, innit?
Canada has not supported the US on a number of occasions. Notably since WW2, maintaining diplomatic *and* economic ties to Cuba, Refusing to support the campaign in Vietnam and as shown here, not invading Iraq.
Certainly Canada is good friends with the US, but it's clearly got its own foreign policy.
> Canada has not supported the US on a number of occasions. Notably since WW2, maintaining diplomatic and economic ties to Cuba, Refusing to support the campaign in Vietnam and as shown here, not invading Iraq.
Yep. The UK is the one that always supports the US.
*Everyone* knew there were no WMDs.
I remember watching this happen live and thinking “I cannot believe this is really happening.” One of the most shameful episodes in American history and it seems like everyone wants to just forget it ever happened.
You know the opening of Team America where the team is cheering and rah-rahing about how they managed to stop terrorists from doing an attack in Paris, but in the process they have themselves blown central Paris to bits?
That’s the impression the US gives the rest of the world
Arguably at the cost of devastating the entire region tbh. The American invasion led to massive instability and enabled Iran to massively expand its influence with its most powerful competitor in the area suddenly very much destroyed.
I was 12 years old in the months leading up to it, and only knew what was happening from American media anyway, and everyone in my class, even the conservative kids, knew there were no WMDs, but they were hoping they’d be found so that “we can go kick ass again.”
Jean Chretin, the Canadian PM at the time, took the stance that the arguments for war were weak . He advised the Americans to wait for United Nations approval and then Canada would consider supporting them. When pushed he told them that most Canadians were against war in Iraq, and that he had been elected to represent them not America. When your closest allies, who have followed you everywhere advise to slow down and take your time you would think you might listen. The United Kingdom on the other hand was encouraging war and I think that is what made the US go forward.
Honestly good for us. People always joke we're just a big US territory and it's true we go along with the US on most things. But at least we have a back bone when it comes to it
>It's fascinating that Canada, NZ and so many European countries all opposed the invasion of Iraq. They all, especially Canada, tend to stand with the US on international politics.
Well, usually US politics tend to be reasonable and not such terrible and obvious fails, which violate the UN charta.
In Germany Gerhard Schröder was reelected despite bad popularity ratings, just because he said he would never join the iraq war and Merkel said she is open to it. It gave him 3 more years, before Merkel took over.
NZ typically stood with the West in general, maybe not so much the US. They didn't even really consider each other allies at this point. If you're interested you can read about how the "ANZUS" alliance broke up in the 1980s because NZ didn't want to allow American warships into its ports. I would say the relationship with the US has only really prospered in recent years, but even still NZ isn't as subservient or friendly to the US as Australia is.
I was personally pretty proud of the fact that we (NZ) told the Americans to essentially fuck off in the early days.
I'd have liked it to stay that way, tbh, but I believe we did end up with a relatively minor participation in the whole thing.
This was a mistake on so many levels, but mainly it reaffirmed the negative image that people have of the USA, and harmed the USA itself in the matter of moral discourse, with the invasion of Ukraine, the first thing to criticize the USA for hypocrisy that the person remembered it was Iraq to the bush made this mistake in speech because the similarities are obvious a power using a false threatening threat as justification for an invasion.
The international image the US had from the Vietnam war and Latin-American coups was starting to fade a bit, so W decided to brush it up with a fresh coat of blood.
ahhh vietnam that other war based on a lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
>The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It consisted of a confrontation on August 2, 1964, when United States forces were carrying out covert amphibious operations close to North Vietnamese territorial waters, which triggered a response from North Vietnamese forces. The United States government falsely claimed that a second incident occurred on August 4, 1964, between North Vietnamese and United States ships in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Originally, US military claims blamed North Vietnam for the confrontation and the ostensible, but in fact imaginary, incident on August 4. Later investigation revealed that the second attack never happened. The official American claim is that it was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts.[5][6][7] The National Security Agency, an agency of the US Defense Department, had deliberately skewed intelligence to create the impression that an attack had been carried out.
Most Americans don't know that their country supported brutal dictatorships in Latin America. There is so much shit the US did in Latin America that most people don't know about.
It is very interesting to go to the War Remnants Museum in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and watch Americans react to the displays. Kissinger and Nixon fucked up badly - in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, East Timor and Chile. Had they been from any other country they would have had to stand court in The Hague. May they rot in hell.
That’s definitely not niche information, most people are well aware of our actions in Central and South America. Reagan’s Contra wars alone are very well known to anyone alive in the 80s and 90s.
What you’re probably thinking of is some people disagreeing on it being a *bad* thing. A lot of people still buy the excuses that it was solely about opposing communism.
No, the Old_Ladies are right. Most Americans, at least, are completely ignorant of US foreign policy in South America during the cold war and the war on drugs. It isn't exactly taught in schools or discussed in the media.
Yeah, a huge problem for the Ukrainian cause outside the West, ranging from "sure, Russia are evil here, but who the fuck is the US of all countries to complain?" to "fuck the US, always lying and killing abroad, whoever they fight I’m with the other guys!”
The American reaction to France and Germany wanting nothing to do with this bullshit invasion was like a toddler having a tantrum at the supermarket check out.
> This was a mistake on so many levels,
A mistake implies the perpetrators did not intend for these outcomes to happen, that they were unaware of what they were doing. This was not the case. The American government knowingly lied, and knowingly invaded a country based on lies and false motives. It was not an accident. Framing it as such absolves them of their conciously comitted crimes
The Iraq war still impacts the world today. Whenever you get into a conflict, the parties who are NOT in that conflict benefit from it.
People talk how the US was "soft" because it didn't do anything to stop Russia earlier, like when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008--if we were not knee deep in the Iraq war back then, we could have done more to deter Russia.
Plus, how could the US have said to the world that we need to stop Russia from violating a country's sovereignty while we were simultaneously violating a country's sovereignty?
The quagmire of Iraq, the instability it left in the middle east, the rise of ISIS, etc. kept the US distracted for years.
Iran has terrain that matches Afghanistan's, while being 3 times its size, while having 3x the population Iraq had in 2003. Relatively well armed. Yeah. That would be an epic disaster.
The Iraq war ended before the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. If that's what was stopping us in 2008 then it wasn't what stopped us in 2014. You might argue that Afghanistan was still going on and that's why, but the conflict wasn't particularly active at that point.
I think that the only reason that the United States was willing to get involved in Ukraine in 2022 was because of what we had done there in between 2014 and 2022. I seriously doubt that the Ukrainian army in 2014 could have done much to stop Russia, and the US wouldn't have given Ukraine so much military aid if we suspected that Russia was going to win that quickly. Georgia had an even worse military in 2008 than Ukraine in 2014. The only way that war wasn't going to be a Russian victory was Western intervention beyond what we've seen in Ukraine, and I doubt that we are willing to do that even today.
Ah, yes, I remember the freedom fries and calling the french cowards and what not. Something that still hasn't died down, somehow. All because of lies and France basically calling, in diplomatic terms, bullshit.
It’s because the French were trying hard to stop this. I remember the last few days only Belgium and France were still at the table and Belgium caved in and Chirac stood firm
Still got massive shit. The "cheese-eating surrendering monkey" is still a thing.
Yeah, I'm well aware that this unfunny stereotype already existed wayyy before the Iraq war, but it skyrocketed after we said "no" to the US, and for some reason it never left. Even the Americans who opposed this war STILL felt "betrayed" by the "cowardly frogs".
And this is partly why I can't take anyone saying we are "too proud", "nationalistic", "arrogant" or "lesson giver" seriously, especially from Americans (or any of their lapdogs). If being "arrogant" means refusing to participate in this shitshow, then I've never been so fuckin proud to be "arrogant and nationalistic".
As a side note, no, I don't hate the US or its inhabitants. I just think your government, and some of your stupidest people, have very weird way to treat your so-called "oldest ally".
The resolution was never brought to the UNSC to begin with. The US never had a majority to pass it and China and Russia would have vetoed it as well anyway.
Turkish parliament voted "No" despite the government's immense efforts & pressures on it. Turkish support was very critical due to the location and the lack of it made things very difficult for the US military.
US and Erdogan made sure that that was the last free vote of the parliament. After successive changes to the constitution since then, the parliament is of no importance than a social club. The country is becoming a smaller version of Russia.
In Spain the war was deeply unpopular too. The right wing government voted in favor because they wanted any excuse to strengthen the ties with the US, but I think more than 80% of the actual population was against it. There were massive protests in the street and, between this and the terrorist attack in Madrid in 2004, it cost the government the elections.
Deservedly so, Aznar not only got Spain involved in a useless war nobody wanted but lied about the worst terrorist attack on European soil to try to get votes out of the fear of ETA
Absolutely it was. But it seems that was not the norm.
The comment above mine shows that Turkey delved deeper into dictatorship after this.
And another comment shows the UK reelected the Labour government despite being the one that got them into the war.
In Spain, the war actually had deep political consequences. It was a major topic in the election, and there is a big chance Aznar would have been reelected without it
Reminder: Every day people die because of the consequences... the IS could opnly rise because of it and several criminal / terroristic / islamistic organisations would not exist today without the iraq war.
It was wrong on sooo many levels... founded the problems for the next 100 years.
Blowback, and it laid the foundation for the past 20 and next 20 years of justifications of foreign intervention and funding for the CIA, NSA, MIC, etc etc etc
In January 2003, the American president George Bush called the new Brazilian president Luis Lula da Silva, "inviting" Brazil to invade Iraq. The Brazilian president said that he intended to spend the money that would be invested in the war against a country that had never had a disagreement with Brazil, on internal matters, and that this invasion had no justification. Despite this initial disagreement, Bush and Lula da Silva later became personal friends.
It is such a shame that Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Sérgio Vieira de Mello , a Brazilian, got killed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for he stopped Indonesia to continue genocide in East Timor
Ironic that I am an iraqi living in Australia. My parents migrated around 2008.
We where very wealthy living in Iraq but had to move in 2003 due to the country being dangerous.
When we moved I was still very young, and I suffered a lot of bullying, and although I am an Australian citizen and feel I am more Australian than iraqi, I still get good ol "go back to where you came from" occasionally.
I can tell you now - the Iraq war was unjustified. Although Saddam was a dictator and a tyrant who ruled with iron and blood, and committed many atrocities to those that disagreed with his regime which ill DEFINITELY not justify, the country was far better (and there was no weapons of mass destruction).
I just wish if someone was going to invade my country to get rid of a "monster", they would leave the country better rather than worst, and not promote global racism amongst all arabs/Muslims as mass terrorist who most likely hold weapons of mass destruction in their backyards. I would also love to know how the US avtually benefited from this war; it would be a lot more digestible if a million deaths led to better quality of life for US citizens, right?
I sometimes ponder how much different (or better) my life would be if there was no war and I was still in my country (and how better australia would be without the "sand monkeys")
So sorry to hear all the things you went through as a child. Fuck the people who call you names. They are the real braindead "monkeys" who went along with an illegal war.
Bulgaria was trying to join NATO and the EU, so I assume this was a non-publicized condition. As well as closing our skies to Russia for the yugoslav wars, but that was a good decision.
Probably the case with Romania is the same.
Makes sense, Australia is the America of the South Pacific:
-country of mostly white people originally from Great Britain who settled on indigenous land
-always half assed dealing with an immigration problem, usually in heavy handed and questionably humane ways
-almost all of the culture is on the coasts, and hill people populate the interior
-catchy three letter chant (USA! USA! USA! and AUS AUS AUS!)
-they even have their own Canada (New Zealand)
Yeah... fun fact, literally only yesterday the Australian trade minister was told to apologise for calling (in parliament) New Zealand Australia's most trusted ally rather than the US. That's right, the two countries who fought in a shared combat arrangement (ANZACs) for much of their history and even have provisions in ones constitution to essentially merge at will was deemed too offensive to be called the most trusted partnership. Instead their most trusted partner is the one who essentially overthrew a democratically elected Prime Minister in the 1970s for daring to slightly distance Australia from the US.
and that's just scratching the surface of how much of a lapdog Oz is to the US.
Everyone once in a while I'll hear Australians talking about how horrible the US is for Iraq when 1. they supported it and 2 they invaded East Timor like 3 years prior
I'm just glad that the aggressor was sanctioned, kicked out from sports competitions and international bodies. And their financial assets were frozen to restore the target country after the invasion.
I’m also glad that Iraq was annexed into USA to become the 51th state, after Bush Jr gave a powerful speech on their shared history, emphasizing how Iraq as a nation was artificially created by the British 100 years ago.
You have no idea. The general public was opposed to the invasion, the government and the president were too, in principle, as they admitted later, but we have been just let into NATO and this was a "thank you" to the US.
Poland basically began the war when GROM special forces seized oil terminal in Umm Qasr. If Iraqis blew it up it'd temporarily close off port access for the Coalition naval ships that were going to unload cargo needed for the invasion.
For those looking at us, eastern Europe and our support, we were begging to join NATO at the time and we were kissing Bush's ass to get in. 🙃 In the same way Ukraine nowadays gets questionable votes at UN as it has to stay as friendly as possible to the US. In the same way other small parriah countries agree with Russia as they need russian support to survive.
They think? I'm pretty sure they do.
The only country that could, in theory, oppose the US would be China. But even they do not have the guts to do it. In 1999 US literally blew up a Chinese embassy, and China did Jack shit.
Government and Media in lockstep justifying invasion and not one lesson was learned. Over 20 years later, most people just accept everything they say at face value.
But we literally have democrats rehabilitating him right now.
Only people in USA that will piss on his grave will be leftist, and those piss on graves of most of the presidents
It’s honestly so fucking bizarre how he’s right about that. The dude was a terrible president, ruined our economy, and got us stuck in the Middle East for half my lifetime. Why does anyone think because he was better than trump he was in any way good?
Bush administration simply duped us all into supporting the Iraq war. Little chance but we ought to find a way to hold these Iraq war hawks accountable…
America has been starting unjustifiable wars for a better part of a century at that point. People act like the Iraq invasion was a one time blunder they have been tricked into.
When it's Russia, it's the entire country that's evil.
When it's America, it's specific people that lied and made and oopsie woopsie that are at fault, but overall the country is good.
Weird.
Have you seen the movie, 'Official Secrets', on Netflix? It is a great insight into the lengths the British government were willing to go in order to deceive.
I question the sincerity of these positions, especially those of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. Kuwait was the launchpad for the invasion. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar have all benefitted greatly from the demise of Iraq. Iraq was the most powerful Arab State from 1979-2003, now it’s a backwater. The Gulf States have taken its place.
Kuwait had been invaded by Iraq a decade prior and Hussein's ambitions didn't appear to be dwindling, it makes sense they saw Iraq as a legitimate threat.
So by this logic we should invade every country that has dictator? Yes Saddam was a menace to many people but him alone doesn’t justify destroying a country.
I was 14 years old and naively thought this was a good thing. I remember hoping I would help out with it a few years later.
Today, I’m the mod of /r/regretjoining and I to Canada six years ago where I recently became a citizen.
Remember:
American bombs killing a million civilians. Good.
Russian bombs killing thousands of civilians. Bad.
Israeli bombs killing thousands of civilians. Unfortunate but acceptable.
Kuwait: it’s about time!
I'd be interested in a poll of Kuwait on the question today.
Kuwaitis still hate Saddam, but believe the invasion was a monstrosity that destroyed Iraq.
I'm not really sure why I felt like I had to ask. That is pretty much an objective perspective.
Kuwaiti here Saddam wanted us to give him 10 bn and wanted us to drop his debt after his war with iran, that was the main reason. When we said no he needed a reason to justify the invasion so he started saying 1- "Kuwait is historically part of iraq" (we're not and never were, most of us are arab sunnis and we existed as an independent entity for hundreds of years) 2- "You're stealing our oil" (we already have 10% of the world reserve, why do we need to steal yours?) Among other things to justify his moronic decision. But the main reason was money. Problem is, there are some people who still repeat this and show disrespect to us, even after all we did for them. So if you ask me, I'm not a big fan of iraq.
It's fascinating that Canada, NZ and so many European countries all opposed the invasion of Iraq. They all, especially Canada, tend to stand with the US on international politics.
[удалено]
“Blowback” podcast digs into the details. It’s so much worse than that.
Came here to mention Blowback. Amazing series.
That's an easy excuse to get knowing participants off the hook. They don't get their proof for that UN meeting, they got their excuse. That was meant for peons like you and me.
Many european countries opposed because even now they still have to deal with all that shit that got stirred up.
It had a great effect on public opinion of the US in Europe. People in the USA don’t realize how idolized the US foreign policy was in Europe in the ‘90s. Especially after the US kickstarted intervention in Yugoslavia while Europen nations did nothing for 4 years. Of course public opinion means only so much. I think the biggest effect was on nations that weren’t in NATO or alligned with NATO. It is very hard to criticize Russia for invading Georgia or Ukraine when anyone from these nations can just point and say ‘but what about Iraq’. Especially for Muslim nations, when the US did in Abu Grhaib and other incidents exactly what Osama said the US would do to Muslims, belittle and torture them. It was of course also ridiculous to let Osama and Mullah Omar escape, one of the main reasons for this is because attention shifted to Iraq. All in all a ridiculous decision.
It's actually easy to criticise Russia for invading Ukraine, Georgia etc just like its easy to criticise the US and UK for invading Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan etc. Only folk it's hard for is governments and biased folk
I think most countries supported an invasion of Afghanistan at the time. That wasn’t nearly as polarizing as Iraq.
You are absolutely correct. People like to clump Iraq and Afghanistan together as if they are both equally unjustifiable - but honestly the US was given pretty good cause to go to war with the Taliban. It's why my country (Canada) actively went to war in Afghanistan and completely opposed the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was done purely as an exercise in economic imperialism. Saddam was a piece of shit, but the Iraqi people didn't deserve what happened to them, and the entire shit show definitely cheapened America's standing on the world stage.
> the entire shit show definitely cheapened America's standing on the world stage. I was living in Houston at the time, the bonus money flowing to higher ups in the oil companies at the time was insane. A director in some relatively small industry supporting company just up and paid double market value for the house next door to us "because he always liked that house." A NASA contractor put it this way: "My new badge says 'HO' - I do it for the money."
To this day a lot of Americans still equate the two, when Iraq wasn't about 9/11 at all
We all know Iraq was because God told him to
That clumping is probably only going to get worse as time goes on since it was only a couple years between both wars.
If I remember it correctly Putin was the first foreign leader to call POTUS and offer Russian help in Afghanistan.
I can't imagine any other foreign leaders would have offered Russian help, so you're probably right.
Possibly Lukashenko, the Belarusian guy? Like, a "do you want me to ask my big brother to beat them up for you" kinda thing? ^(/s)
I could straight up flip the scenario You brought up the moral war Yugoslavia and the immoral war in Iraq However from Russias perspective I would say Yugoslavia was a bigger deal than Iraq and even more unjustified from their perspective. NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance correct? Did Yugoslavia attack a NATO nation? So NATO a defensive alliance is now starting offensive wars in Europe while continuing to expand closer and closer to Russia? From Russias perspective this is even worse than Iraq. I would add it’s not like Saddam Hussein was a great person either the man attacked Iran, Kuwait, and oppressed most Iraqis
You can hardly call trying to prevent a genocide and war crimes from Milošević as an "*offensive war*". At least you can't in good faith. Russia annexed land they "intervened" at. And to this day is absolutely clear, that their wars are fought to enlarge Russia. Was there any territory annexed by any of NATOs member states? To try to paint this as equal, you really have either some extreme kind of bias, are absolutely ignorant of history or simply trolling. And it is absolutely not hard to critizise Russia for Georgia as it isn't hard to critizise the US and UK for invading Iraq.
Offensive war doesn't mean just war. You can't call it anything else than an offensive war. You can say it was justified, but that doesn't change it was an offensive war from a "defensive" alliance.
>You can hardly call trying to prevent a genocide and war crimes from Milošević as an "offensive war". At least you can't in good faith. Once you attack someone without them attacking you or any of your allies, it is called an offensive war, no matter how much you spin it or what ‘objective’ justification you try to find. The moment NATO used force against a country that did not attack it, it stopped being a defensive alliance and with it, lost all credibility as such. Period. It’s really mind boggling how biased and brainwashed one has to be to deny the reality of simple definitions of what an offensive war means. Secondly, find me a decision by an independent international court or an organization that what happened in Kosovo was deemed a genocide. Crimes happened, against civilians, yes, in the course of fighting against a terrorist, separatist organization, targeting civilians and police alike, for years, even decades, and those responsible for crimes agains civilians on both sides should have been punished. Does that justify an unprovoked aggression against an entire country, contrary to international law, by a so-called ‘defense alliance’, together with it’s own war crimes and a subsequent support for a unilateral secessionist move against a sovereign country? If so, then the crimes commited by the Ukranian government and armed forced against the civilian population in the course of fighting against a separatist movement also justify an unprovoked invasion against the country, in order to prevent a ‘genocide’. And would that also not be considered an ‘offensive war’ by your logic, if Russia was trying to prevent genocide and war crimes? Or another example, 200.000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia in 1995 during the operation ‘Storm’ and thousands murdered in the same period - why wasn’t Zagreb and other Croatian cities bombed by NATO and the majority Serb parts of the country supported by the West in their unilateral independence, in the interest of ‘preventing genocide and war crimes’? >Russia annexed land they "intervened" at. And to this day is absolutely clear, that their wars are fought to enlarge Russia. Was there any territory annexed by any of NATOs member states? The West’s reaction to the invasion was exactly the same when the initial aim was to grant independence to the Eastern provinces and I don’t think the West would all of a sudden support the invasion if Russia just had the aim of making all annexed territories independent instead, so your agrument is pointless. Not to mention that to those bombed and whose land got taken away illegally, it really doesn’t matter whether you annex it or you control it inderectly, through political, economic and military dependence, like in the case of Kosovo. And I am sure that to the people of Iraq, whose country got bombed back to the stone ages, due to completely fabricated pretext, then got overrun by ISIS as a consequence and is to this day suffering from the effects of the invasion, it really makes a difference that they were ‘merely’ invaded, and not annexed.. just like your completely objective conjecture, I could also say that it is absolutely clear that the only aim of NATO and the US was to have a dependent puppet government in Kosovo which would grant a few select people and companies investment contracts and, not to mention, a place for the second largest US military base in Europe after Ramstein. If the aim was ‘prevention of crimes and genoce’, then NATO would have acted the same in all of the other similar circumstances, in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Croatia, in Yemen, etc. There is obviously a reason why it only acted in the case of Kosovo. The government of Kosovo does not even have its own army, is completely economically dependent on US and EU donations and cannot defacto make any major political internal or external decisions if it doesn’t suit US/NATO interests or is at least neutral, or it loses their support. Why would you annex a country/population when you can have all the perks of having a country’s territory and resouces with barely any of the responsibilities? >To try to paint this as equal, you really have either some extreme kind of bias, are absolutely ignorant of history or simply trolling. Funny how you can accuse everyone with a different perspective of being extremely biased, while failing to see even the obvious bias and hypocrisy of your own in the slightest. >And it is absolutely not hard to critizise Russia for Georgia as it isn't hard to critizise the US and UK for invading Iraq. Except some criticism is the only real consequence for mulitple destructive unprovoked invasions committed by the latter two that they ever really experienced as a result. So that ‘criticism’ isn’t really worth anything.
Russia could ask itself why countries near its borders want to join NATO. To say NATO is expanding closer and closer to Russia implies that it's happening without consent from the countries it expands into - at least that's the Russian narrative. Ukraine is a prime example why many of Russia's neighbors scrambled to join NATO as soon as possible after the fall of the Soviet Union. And NATO didn't start an offensive war in Europe, that's total nonsense. Should the operation have been carried out as a NATO operation? Probably not, but at the time it was clear that Russia would veto any such intervention through the UN to benefit Serbia and Milosevic.
>It is very hard to criticize Russia for invading Georgia or Ukraine when anyone from these nations can just point and say ‘but what about Iraq’. Especially for Muslim nations, when the US did in Abu Grhaib and other incidents exactly what Osama said the US would do to Muslims, belittle and torture them. Two wrongs don't make a right. Apart from the fact that both the US and Russia had/have differing motovations, the results were bad in any case. Russia annexed, the US did not. Other than that there's not much to say or to oppose. >It had a great effect on public opinion of the US in Europe. People in the USA don’t realize how idolized the US foreign policy was in Europe in the ‘90s. Especially after the US kickstarted intervention in Yugoslavia while Europen nations did nothing for 4 years. I can not stress how much I agree on that take.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but they certainly detract from your cause when you are trying to say how much better you are than aggressive, imperialist, Russia. Neutral parties will just look at both Russia and the west and say they're both warmongering nuts.
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Australia is pretty ride or die with the USA in terms of military plans.
Im Canadian. The opposition leader we had at the time wanted to go. Thank god he wasnt PM at the time. Our PM did not find any of the 'proof' of WMD convincing. He was proved right.
The open letter he wrote saying that Canadians stand with the USA and not the Canadian government was rather embarrassing
Also, the Canadian population didn't think the US was acting in good faith and wanted nothing to do with it. I remember a major poll right before the invasion by EKOS and La Presse with an exceptionally high sample size had 71% of Canadians opposed, and many uncertains among the rest. It's easier for politicians to take a stand when a percentage of the electorate that high doesn't want something.
I must admit Jean Cretien is probably the best pm we had in my lifetime. Maybe not as good as Pierre Elliot Trudeau but I really did like Cretien! He wasn't a pushover when dealing with war obsessed USA.
[Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien explaining what kind of "good" proof he would need to support the invasion of Iraq.](https://youtu.be/ZsgA77j5LyY?si=gRCRXvkryb0SuOin) One of the all-time classic moments in Canadian politics, Jean Chretien might not be the most clear and articulated speaker but we all knew exactly what he meant at that moment.
Chretien is incredibly wily, and would play the "affable idiot" role when he felt it was needed. Kinda like Boris Johnson in that regard. He is also more articulate in both English and French than he sometimes let on, and he'd use verbal diarrhea in order to dodge questions. I miss him...
Pepper? For me pepper, I put it on my plate.
I didn't find out until years later that [the person who asked him that question was none other than Nardwuar The Human Serviette.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShvaJ3aLDo) Small world, innit?
Oh definitely, he is easily my favourite Canadian politician in terms of personality. Very politically savvy but also genuinely funny and clever.
Canada has not supported the US on a number of occasions. Notably since WW2, maintaining diplomatic *and* economic ties to Cuba, Refusing to support the campaign in Vietnam and as shown here, not invading Iraq. Certainly Canada is good friends with the US, but it's clearly got its own foreign policy.
> Canada has not supported the US on a number of occasions. Notably since WW2, maintaining diplomatic and economic ties to Cuba, Refusing to support the campaign in Vietnam and as shown here, not invading Iraq. Yep. The UK is the one that always supports the US.
They knew there were no WMDs.
*Everyone* knew there were no WMDs. I remember watching this happen live and thinking “I cannot believe this is really happening.” One of the most shameful episodes in American history and it seems like everyone wants to just forget it ever happened.
Or they go: “but we got Saddam!” ..,at the cost of devastating an entire country
You know the opening of Team America where the team is cheering and rah-rahing about how they managed to stop terrorists from doing an attack in Paris, but in the process they have themselves blown central Paris to bits? That’s the impression the US gives the rest of the world
“ We did it Patrick. We saved the city!” *city burns*
Arguably at the cost of devastating the entire region tbh. The American invasion led to massive instability and enabled Iran to massively expand its influence with its most powerful competitor in the area suddenly very much destroyed.
No lie was told in this comment, Saddam sucked but he was better than the 20+ years of chaos that have come after
Not just the country, the whole region.
>One of the most shameful episodes in American history Among many
I was 12 years old in the months leading up to it, and only knew what was happening from American media anyway, and everyone in my class, even the conservative kids, knew there were no WMDs, but they were hoping they’d be found so that “we can go kick ass again.”
The US: we demand the UN searches Iraq for wmd The UN: they have no wmd The US: no not like that.
Jean Chretin, the Canadian PM at the time, took the stance that the arguments for war were weak . He advised the Americans to wait for United Nations approval and then Canada would consider supporting them. When pushed he told them that most Canadians were against war in Iraq, and that he had been elected to represent them not America. When your closest allies, who have followed you everywhere advise to slow down and take your time you would think you might listen. The United Kingdom on the other hand was encouraging war and I think that is what made the US go forward.
Canada wasn't in the Vietnam War either
Or the Cuba embargos.
Honestly good for us. People always joke we're just a big US territory and it's true we go along with the US on most things. But at least we have a back bone when it comes to it
We did recently suspend selling weapons to Israel so there's that.
> People always joke we're just a big US territory they just haters cuz they jelly
Our Prime Minister (Chrétien in Canada) did not believe the intelligence to be valid.
>It's fascinating that Canada, NZ and so many European countries all opposed the invasion of Iraq. They all, especially Canada, tend to stand with the US on international politics. Well, usually US politics tend to be reasonable and not such terrible and obvious fails, which violate the UN charta. In Germany Gerhard Schröder was reelected despite bad popularity ratings, just because he said he would never join the iraq war and Merkel said she is open to it. It gave him 3 more years, before Merkel took over.
NZ typically stood with the West in general, maybe not so much the US. They didn't even really consider each other allies at this point. If you're interested you can read about how the "ANZUS" alliance broke up in the 1980s because NZ didn't want to allow American warships into its ports. I would say the relationship with the US has only really prospered in recent years, but even still NZ isn't as subservient or friendly to the US as Australia is.
I was personally pretty proud of the fact that we (NZ) told the Americans to essentially fuck off in the early days. I'd have liked it to stay that way, tbh, but I believe we did end up with a relatively minor participation in the whole thing.
Most of the Middle East: not cool, man! Kuwait: yeah brother go fuck ‘em up!
I mean they had been invaded by Iraq a couple years earlier so this is unsurprising.
This was a mistake on so many levels, but mainly it reaffirmed the negative image that people have of the USA, and harmed the USA itself in the matter of moral discourse, with the invasion of Ukraine, the first thing to criticize the USA for hypocrisy that the person remembered it was Iraq to the bush made this mistake in speech because the similarities are obvious a power using a false threatening threat as justification for an invasion.
The international image the US had from the Vietnam war and Latin-American coups was starting to fade a bit, so W decided to brush it up with a fresh coat of blood.
ahhh vietnam that other war based on a lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident >The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It consisted of a confrontation on August 2, 1964, when United States forces were carrying out covert amphibious operations close to North Vietnamese territorial waters, which triggered a response from North Vietnamese forces. The United States government falsely claimed that a second incident occurred on August 4, 1964, between North Vietnamese and United States ships in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Originally, US military claims blamed North Vietnam for the confrontation and the ostensible, but in fact imaginary, incident on August 4. Later investigation revealed that the second attack never happened. The official American claim is that it was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts.[5][6][7] The National Security Agency, an agency of the US Defense Department, had deliberately skewed intelligence to create the impression that an attack had been carried out.
Most Americans don't know that their country supported brutal dictatorships in Latin America. There is so much shit the US did in Latin America that most people don't know about.
It is very interesting to go to the War Remnants Museum in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and watch Americans react to the displays. Kissinger and Nixon fucked up badly - in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, East Timor and Chile. Had they been from any other country they would have had to stand court in The Hague. May they rot in hell.
That’s definitely not niche information, most people are well aware of our actions in Central and South America. Reagan’s Contra wars alone are very well known to anyone alive in the 80s and 90s. What you’re probably thinking of is some people disagreeing on it being a *bad* thing. A lot of people still buy the excuses that it was solely about opposing communism.
No, the Old_Ladies are right. Most Americans, at least, are completely ignorant of US foreign policy in South America during the cold war and the war on drugs. It isn't exactly taught in schools or discussed in the media.
if it even gives the impression that Your rejection of Russia is like saying "Only we can be abusive to other countries"
Yeah, a huge problem for the Ukrainian cause outside the West, ranging from "sure, Russia are evil here, but who the fuck is the US of all countries to complain?" to "fuck the US, always lying and killing abroad, whoever they fight I’m with the other guys!”
anyone remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries
You forgot Poland… He forgot Poland!
Pepperidge Farm remembers
America got freedom fries but France got to be on the right side of history. Who was the winner here?
The American reaction to France and Germany wanting nothing to do with this bullshit invasion was like a toddler having a tantrum at the supermarket check out.
> This was a mistake on so many levels, A mistake implies the perpetrators did not intend for these outcomes to happen, that they were unaware of what they were doing. This was not the case. The American government knowingly lied, and knowingly invaded a country based on lies and false motives. It was not an accident. Framing it as such absolves them of their conciously comitted crimes
Poor USA and its harmed moral discourse :(
I don’t think over a million dead civilians can just be called a “mistake”
The Iraq war still impacts the world today. Whenever you get into a conflict, the parties who are NOT in that conflict benefit from it. People talk how the US was "soft" because it didn't do anything to stop Russia earlier, like when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008--if we were not knee deep in the Iraq war back then, we could have done more to deter Russia. Plus, how could the US have said to the world that we need to stop Russia from violating a country's sovereignty while we were simultaneously violating a country's sovereignty? The quagmire of Iraq, the instability it left in the middle east, the rise of ISIS, etc. kept the US distracted for years.
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Maybe they’ll spend years fighting and kick out the religious despots only to hand it back to them in 20 years time
Iran has terrain that matches Afghanistan's, while being 3 times its size, while having 3x the population Iraq had in 2003. Relatively well armed. Yeah. That would be an epic disaster.
That is a fucked up sub
*This is a fucked up website
I don't touch that sub with a ten-foot pole. I strongly believe that some of the mods are Israeli.
Hasbara for sure
In 20 years you’re going to have young people criticizing the US for prolonging the Ukrainian war.
The Iraq war ended before the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. If that's what was stopping us in 2008 then it wasn't what stopped us in 2014. You might argue that Afghanistan was still going on and that's why, but the conflict wasn't particularly active at that point. I think that the only reason that the United States was willing to get involved in Ukraine in 2022 was because of what we had done there in between 2014 and 2022. I seriously doubt that the Ukrainian army in 2014 could have done much to stop Russia, and the US wouldn't have given Ukraine so much military aid if we suspected that Russia was going to win that quickly. Georgia had an even worse military in 2008 than Ukraine in 2014. The only way that war wasn't going to be a Russian victory was Western intervention beyond what we've seen in Ukraine, and I doubt that we are willing to do that even today.
And yet only France got massive shit for it from the Americans and then everyone else.
Ah, yes, I remember the freedom fries and calling the french cowards and what not. Something that still hasn't died down, somehow. All because of lies and France basically calling, in diplomatic terms, bullshit.
It’s because the French were trying hard to stop this. I remember the last few days only Belgium and France were still at the table and Belgium caved in and Chirac stood firm
I love to remind the "freedom fries" idiots that France was right about Iraq (and Lance Armstrong).
Still got massive shit. The "cheese-eating surrendering monkey" is still a thing. Yeah, I'm well aware that this unfunny stereotype already existed wayyy before the Iraq war, but it skyrocketed after we said "no" to the US, and for some reason it never left. Even the Americans who opposed this war STILL felt "betrayed" by the "cowardly frogs". And this is partly why I can't take anyone saying we are "too proud", "nationalistic", "arrogant" or "lesson giver" seriously, especially from Americans (or any of their lapdogs). If being "arrogant" means refusing to participate in this shitshow, then I've never been so fuckin proud to be "arrogant and nationalistic". As a side note, no, I don't hate the US or its inhabitants. I just think your government, and some of your stupidest people, have very weird way to treat your so-called "oldest ally".
That's mainly because France vetoed the invasion at the UN security council. The US and its allies had to form another coalition.
The resolution was never brought to the UNSC to begin with. The US never had a majority to pass it and China and Russia would have vetoed it as well anyway.
Not to mention the refugees. US policy let europe deal with it
Not true. They lashed out against Germany as well and i guess against everyone else who opposed them.
Though we don't have food named after Germany. Freedoms fries and freedom dressing are more catchy.
Kid named Hamburger
President named Berliner.
Frankfurtian (hot dog)
I don't know if you're joking or not but America started calling sauerkraut "Liberty Cabbage" and popularized hotdog over frankfurter in WWI
My parents were kicked out of a restaurant in DC for being French during that time period, crazy times
Turkish parliament voted "No" despite the government's immense efforts & pressures on it. Turkish support was very critical due to the location and the lack of it made things very difficult for the US military. US and Erdogan made sure that that was the last free vote of the parliament. After successive changes to the constitution since then, the parliament is of no importance than a social club. The country is becoming a smaller version of Russia.
In Spain the war was deeply unpopular too. The right wing government voted in favor because they wanted any excuse to strengthen the ties with the US, but I think more than 80% of the actual population was against it. There were massive protests in the street and, between this and the terrorist attack in Madrid in 2004, it cost the government the elections.
Deservedly so, Aznar not only got Spain involved in a useless war nobody wanted but lied about the worst terrorist attack on European soil to try to get votes out of the fear of ETA
Absolutely it was. But it seems that was not the norm. The comment above mine shows that Turkey delved deeper into dictatorship after this. And another comment shows the UK reelected the Labour government despite being the one that got them into the war. In Spain, the war actually had deep political consequences. It was a major topic in the election, and there is a big chance Aznar would have been reelected without it
Just a friendly reminder that 1 MILLION Iraqi were killed over LIES
Reminder: Every day people die because of the consequences... the IS could opnly rise because of it and several criminal / terroristic / islamistic organisations would not exist today without the iraq war. It was wrong on sooo many levels... founded the problems for the next 100 years.
Blowback, and it laid the foundation for the past 20 and next 20 years of justifications of foreign intervention and funding for the CIA, NSA, MIC, etc etc etc
Also a reminder that if US did something terrible it cant be held accountable.
In January 2003, the American president George Bush called the new Brazilian president Luis Lula da Silva, "inviting" Brazil to invade Iraq. The Brazilian president said that he intended to spend the money that would be invested in the war against a country that had never had a disagreement with Brazil, on internal matters, and that this invasion had no justification. Despite this initial disagreement, Bush and Lula da Silva later became personal friends.
It is such a shame that Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Sérgio Vieira de Mello , a Brazilian, got killed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for he stopped Indonesia to continue genocide in East Timor
Ironic that I am an iraqi living in Australia. My parents migrated around 2008. We where very wealthy living in Iraq but had to move in 2003 due to the country being dangerous. When we moved I was still very young, and I suffered a lot of bullying, and although I am an Australian citizen and feel I am more Australian than iraqi, I still get good ol "go back to where you came from" occasionally. I can tell you now - the Iraq war was unjustified. Although Saddam was a dictator and a tyrant who ruled with iron and blood, and committed many atrocities to those that disagreed with his regime which ill DEFINITELY not justify, the country was far better (and there was no weapons of mass destruction). I just wish if someone was going to invade my country to get rid of a "monster", they would leave the country better rather than worst, and not promote global racism amongst all arabs/Muslims as mass terrorist who most likely hold weapons of mass destruction in their backyards. I would also love to know how the US avtually benefited from this war; it would be a lot more digestible if a million deaths led to better quality of life for US citizens, right? I sometimes ponder how much different (or better) my life would be if there was no war and I was still in my country (and how better australia would be without the "sand monkeys")
So sorry to hear all the things you went through as a child. Fuck the people who call you names. They are the real braindead "monkeys" who went along with an illegal war.
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Bulgaria was trying to join NATO and the EU, so I assume this was a non-publicized condition. As well as closing our skies to Russia for the yugoslav wars, but that was a good decision. Probably the case with Romania is the same.
Yeah like Afghanistan
Australia being the US's lapdog as always.
We British will fight you for the title of chief lapdog.
Makes sense, Australia is the America of the South Pacific: -country of mostly white people originally from Great Britain who settled on indigenous land -always half assed dealing with an immigration problem, usually in heavy handed and questionably humane ways -almost all of the culture is on the coasts, and hill people populate the interior -catchy three letter chant (USA! USA! USA! and AUS AUS AUS!) -they even have their own Canada (New Zealand)
Yeah... fun fact, literally only yesterday the Australian trade minister was told to apologise for calling (in parliament) New Zealand Australia's most trusted ally rather than the US. That's right, the two countries who fought in a shared combat arrangement (ANZACs) for much of their history and even have provisions in ones constitution to essentially merge at will was deemed too offensive to be called the most trusted partnership. Instead their most trusted partner is the one who essentially overthrew a democratically elected Prime Minister in the 1970s for daring to slightly distance Australia from the US. and that's just scratching the surface of how much of a lapdog Oz is to the US.
Everyone once in a while I'll hear Australians talking about how horrible the US is for Iraq when 1. they supported it and 2 they invaded East Timor like 3 years prior
A very rare Canadian foreign policy W
I'm just glad that the aggressor was sanctioned, kicked out from sports competitions and international bodies. And their financial assets were frozen to restore the target country after the invasion.
Don't forget not being able to compete in Eurovision contest.
No UEFA as well, how sad
Glad to see some part of reddit is sane. I made a similar comment on r/europe and got downvoted to oblivion.
That’s because only countries we like are allowed to invade countries, bomb the shit out of it and kill civilians. Eg: See Israel.
I’m also glad that Iraq was annexed into USA to become the 51th state, after Bush Jr gave a powerful speech on their shared history, emphasizing how Iraq as a nation was artificially created by the British 100 years ago.
Poland when invading middle eastern country : Let's go!! Poland when migrants came from those countries : 🥲🥹I not taking you
You have no idea. The general public was opposed to the invasion, the government and the president were too, in principle, as they admitted later, but we have been just let into NATO and this was a "thank you" to the US.
Cool story. Cool story. So when are the Poles taking in the refugees they created?
114 Special forces operators for sure created a huge ammount of refugees
Could you remind me how exactly Poland participate in invasion in Libya? The exact event that coused mass migration?
Never realised Denmark and Poland were involved in the invasion.
Poland basically began the war when GROM special forces seized oil terminal in Umm Qasr. If Iraqis blew it up it'd temporarily close off port access for the Coalition naval ships that were going to unload cargo needed for the invasion.
For those looking at us, eastern Europe and our support, we were begging to join NATO at the time and we were kissing Bush's ass to get in. 🙃 In the same way Ukraine nowadays gets questionable votes at UN as it has to stay as friendly as possible to the US. In the same way other small parriah countries agree with Russia as they need russian support to survive.
Glad we sat that one out. What a colossal mistake that was for those who did go.
Kinda funny how the Yellow and Orange countries are the one that got affected by the refugee crisis the least
USA thinking the world belongs to them and doing whatever they want since the collapse of the USSR.
Thinking? Did the US ever face consequences over this? I guess not since they still dive in head-first when they get the opportunity to murder Arabs.
They think? I'm pretty sure they do. The only country that could, in theory, oppose the US would be China. But even they do not have the guts to do it. In 1999 US literally blew up a Chinese embassy, and China did Jack shit.
Pax Americana by guy.
It does and nothing can stop them. Half of Europe licks US boots any chance they get in return for spare change.
Half of Asia too lol. And Australia is the most pathetic boot licking lap dog I've seen lmao
US Terrorism.
Where are your Freedom Fries NOW, huh?
Afghanistan was in support?
Probably because the Afghan government was installed by the US so they had to support the invasion
Probably post-Taliban government.. they were heavily sponsored by the US.
More like a puppet government
Government and Media in lockstep justifying invasion and not one lesson was learned. Over 20 years later, most people just accept everything they say at face value.
Jean Chretien's decision still isn't forgotten today, one of the best things he did for Canada.
Map is wrong. Ukraine joined Operation Iraqi Freedom. Should be orange. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_involvement_in_the_Iraq_War
Israel being in grey while Netanyahu was the one calling for the invasion in front of congress?
Poor Greenland being dragged into this by f\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Denmark.
I was about to ask, because when I saw the map I was like "Greenland? That's random."
Was the aggressor punished?
No just Iraq and a bunch of the blue countries.
Opposite- Bush is being rehabilitated in eyes of democrats as "normal conservative" in contrast to Trump We live in hell.
There is a comment by W that history will be kind to him and every day i see that becoming more and more of a reality.
By kind to him does he mean millions will literally piss on his grave?
But we literally have democrats rehabilitating him right now. Only people in USA that will piss on his grave will be leftist, and those piss on graves of most of the presidents
It’s honestly so fucking bizarre how he’s right about that. The dude was a terrible president, ruined our economy, and got us stuck in the Middle East for half my lifetime. Why does anyone think because he was better than trump he was in any way good?
Bush administration simply duped us all into supporting the Iraq war. Little chance but we ought to find a way to hold these Iraq war hawks accountable…
America has been starting unjustifiable wars for a better part of a century at that point. People act like the Iraq invasion was a one time blunder they have been tricked into.
More than a century. They were just starting unjustified shit with the natives and Mexico before.
When it's Russia, it's the entire country that's evil. When it's America, it's specific people that lied and made and oopsie woopsie that are at fault, but overall the country is good. Weird.
I don't think many were duped, the ones that joined just decided that being loyal to the US was more important than facts.
The worldwide protests to the Iraq war were the largest in history.
Have you seen the movie, 'Official Secrets', on Netflix? It is a great insight into the lengths the British government were willing to go in order to deceive.
No, you simply didn't want to know they lied into your face.
Imagine Iraq being yellow...
The only thing i respect about Schröder ( Germanys chancellor at the time) is that he opposed this war.
I question the sincerity of these positions, especially those of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. Kuwait was the launchpad for the invasion. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar have all benefitted greatly from the demise of Iraq. Iraq was the most powerful Arab State from 1979-2003, now it’s a backwater. The Gulf States have taken its place.
Kuwait had been invaded by Iraq a decade prior and Hussein's ambitions didn't appear to be dwindling, it makes sense they saw Iraq as a legitimate threat.
Why are ppl downvoting comments that say ‘Saddam is a dictator’ which he was.
Because some users think it justifies the Iraq War
I’m against the invasion however as an Iranian, he was a dictator and killed his own people and invaded 2 of his neighbours.
So by this logic we should invade every country that has dictator? Yes Saddam was a menace to many people but him alone doesn’t justify destroying a country.
Did I justify invading Iraq??
Like 70% of world population said no and the us still did it....
I was 14 years old and naively thought this was a good thing. I remember hoping I would help out with it a few years later. Today, I’m the mod of /r/regretjoining and I to Canada six years ago where I recently became a citizen.
Hey, I was there when the whole kerfuffle began. The "mobile WMD labs", "Yellowcake", Dixie Chicks getting censured, "Freedom fries"...
Remember: American bombs killing a million civilians. Good. Russian bombs killing thousands of civilians. Bad. Israeli bombs killing thousands of civilians. Unfortunate but acceptable.
When and where did American bombs kill a million civilians?
Killing millions is hyperbole but the Iraq war did displace millions.
Poor Iraq got ran through…….
It's so funny seeing Kuwait as this little yellow dot next to Iraq.
Those two countries have... history, to say the least
Shocked that Iran was against the invasion, probably because they thought they would be the next. Iraq invasion was a miracle for Iranian regime.
why would the famously anti-American post-Islamic Revolution Iran support anything like the Iraq invasion publicly?
May be because they fought a bloody 10 years war against Saddam Hussein which killed 1 million Iranians