NEWS: Obscure Balkan Country Does Something Kind of Cool

I'd like to learn more about this if you have links, but keep in mind the distinction I drew between protection and regime change because I think it's an important one.

Most of the stuff I learned about the attacks against the Kurds, I read in books before I went over seas, however I've included a couple of links that may further explain what I am talking about:

Halabja Poision Gas Attacks

Kurdish Bombings

Albeit the second link is old, but if you are really trying to find more info on the web, those attacks are what I'm referung to.

But know I will commit a literary no-no and answer your question with another question. If you would prefer security over regime replacement, how would we accomplish that in Iraq? Economic and political sanctions didn't work. That's why they ran over the border and mushroom-stamped Kuwait the first time. I like the idea of using diplomacy over brute force, but give me a plan that would have worked in the case of Iraq. And by worked I also mean something that would have taken equally if not less time than the current war we are in. I honestly am all ears, because I feel that if I ever were to get an intellegent answer to this question, it would be from these fellow board posters.

(Zarth, I appologize for turning your post on it's ear. Yay, Croatia)

Those were incidents from 1988 and 1991. While the Ba'thist regime was guilty of genocide in the past, our involved did not seem to halt any ongoing genocide. Bald eagle's post suggested that he thought we should be involved in stopping genocide currently.

Note: I am not trying to belittle Saddam Hussein's atrocities against the Kurds. I am simply pointing out that your reply seemed to miss what he was getting at.

Not by the time the United States invaded. For all the flaws in Clinton-era policy towards Iraq, they are an example of containment working to reduce the destructive reach of Saddam's government.

Given the option and considering how thinly stretched our military is, I'd sooner see us to try and stop active and ongoing genocides, not avenge previous atrocities or use possible future genocides to justify regime change.

That was the UN.

To my knowledge, nobody was touching that war in its first years. The "international community" was too focused on Iraq and too frightened of intervening in a real genocide (see also: Rwanda).

Not that I've ever heard of. Sounds like Serbian propaganda to me.

That's not that much, and, more to the point, it's purely humanitarian assistance. Other countries donate that kind of stuff, too. It's not like "regime change," it's not even like we helped them out to the extent that we helped the Afghans drive out the Soviets, or the Contras drive out the Sandinistas.

We didn't invade Yugoslavia until very late in the wars, after hundreds of thousands of people had already died. There's no way you can make the case for the Balkans being a good example of international interventionism, at least not before Kosovo, or (at the earliest) at the very tag end of the Bosnian War.

Neither UN nor American weapons inspectors found WMDs. The best they could do was find "WMD-related activities," meaning that Saddam Hussein wanted such weapons. There was no evidence that he was anything like on the road to actually obtaining them.

No convincing evidence has ever been found that presented post-Desert Storm Iraq as an imminent or effective threat even against its neighbors, however, let alone the United States or the West.

Yes. After Desert Storm the Baathists annihilated the Marsh Arabs and cracked down on the Shiites. Dubya's Daddy did nothing then - when it would have actually mattered.

What? Economic and political sanctions of Iraq didn't begin until after they invaded Kuwait and were defeated.

Well, you're being polite, so I should probably return the favor a little better than perhaps I have been.

Your question is largely impossible to answer because "success" is not defined. Iraq was not a credible threat, so in that sense, our pre-Bush policy of containment already was working.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I supported a policy of intervention in both Yugoslavia and Rwanda (and Somalia, which didn't work out so well). I just don't see it as being justified in Iraq.

It's nice to see Croats and Serbs burying their hatchets - and not in each other's skulls. Thanks for finding this, Zarth.
You're right about Croatia and Slovenia being Western oriented - so is Montenegro, which caused some stress when that small nation remained in federation with Serbia.

I must admit that I wasn't even really aware of the things going on in the Balkans until hub was deployed there, but since then I've really read up on the history of the area. It is good to see even the smallest of hope for the people there.

I've been actually working, so I came in late here. I was going to reiterate that the genocide in Iraq occurred too long ago to provide justification for the invasion. But I see that others have more than adequately covered the point.

I need to say that I appreciate SylentNemo's service to our country, as I do all service personnel. I mean that sincerely.

And I understand that we are making some improvements there. But with the number of Iraqi civilian casualties, much less our own, I question whether there's a net benefit to anyone.

Only time will tell if we actually get a working democracy established there. Of particular concern is this provision in the Constitution: "Article 2: First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:"
text

With regard to security, with the help of the UN we had Saddam pretty well bottled up after Gulf War I. It was after we ignored the UN and went in ourselves that the craziness began.

(Sorry, Zarth. Yay, Croatia!)

What do you exactly define as weapon of mass destruction? Nukes? You are correct, to my knowledge, we didn't find any. Atleast I didn't. But what has killed many more people worldwide on a yearly basis than all the nukes in the history of the world combined? Before you jump my case, no, I am not suggesting that Ma and Pa Americana should own whatever weapons they want on their ranch in Montana and we should disarm the entire country of Iraq of the weapons it used to instill it's version of peace. What I am saying is that there was no peace over there pre-2003. The Rebulican Gaurd ran that place like Auschwitz. You disagreed with someone, you got shot in the face. You expressed an opinion, shot in the face. You shook the hand of any Baathist member with the right hand, you guessed it, shot in the face. And this is from early August 1990, when we impossed sanctions on Iraq, up to the day we invaded.

Now please hear me out. I am not suggesting that the way we went about things could not have been better. Did the Federal government, (to include the legisatative branch which fully supported the action as well), use a doctrine of terror to scare the public into what they felt needed to be done? That is for each individual to decide. Personnaly, I think the discemination of information was found lacking, and the American people were ill-informed most if not all of the time. I do not think that anyone used the old "bait and switch" on the people. But that brings me to my last point for now.

What is the statute of limitations on genocide? I understand that the mass killings of Kurds and Sunni muslims began in 1988 and was halted somewhere around the early to mid 90's. (No one can know for sure, but reports came out of Turkey of these types of killings all they way up until 1998, thought these sources lack credit.) But if the idea here is that because Saddam was rulling with an iron fist and to our knowledge only WANTED nukes instead of HAD nukes and this was ok by us, then I am sorry that I was not born earlier and could have done something about it before 2003. I did what I thought was right as soon as I could. To say that they did not posess a capability to attack the US, would be like saying the same about Afganistan. Was it a legitimate threat enough to go over there and bomb them back to the stone age? But the intervension was never made, thus something had to be done. I don't know where all these reports come from, of the Iraqis' disdain for Americans. All of the indigenous people that I ever talked to were very happy that we came to assist them.

And if you want to talk about the state of peril that Iraq plunged into when we set boot to sand, let's not forget that the state they were in after all of the sanctions was not much different. We didn't just go around and blow up random houses. We only ever attacked legitimate military or para-military targets. The most damage I ever did to a civilian was I blow some windows out of a neighboring house while I was control-det'ing a weapon cache.

Is there a way we can start this in a new thread, so that the positive or negative feedback can continue on Zarth's article, while we warmongers and hippies argue on the side? I think it's really important to recognize how significant of a step this is for Croatia, and I would rather not detract from the original point any further...

Human beings aren´t weapons of mass destruction. Though maybe they should be defined as such.

Based on this, we should invade ourselves for what we did to the Native Americans and how badly we continue to screw them over.

Finally,

During which, we were the WMD sugar daddy for the country. We had no problem with giving them support and arming them when we knew, or with an educated guess could sumise, that Saddam, a repressive dictator, would use them on his own people.

I just found where some of the sources I cited said 100,000 causualties due to use of NBC weapons by Iraq. In a report by the CIA (DCI) these attacks were confirmed, however it is noted that of the 100,000 afflicted by the weapons, only about 20-30,000 of them were the Iraqi Kurds. The remaining 70-80,000 were mostly used against the Iranian "human wave attacks". I stand corrected there, however, NBC weapon use OF ANY KIND scares the shit out of me.

In response to Nessuno's comments;

1) I agree that perhaps mayhaps we should start classifying humans as WMDs, however I was speaking more toward the us of the AK-47, AP mines, and improvised weapons (of which I have been the target and victim of).

2) As for the comment about the treatment of Native Americans, I fully support anything that can attone for the sins of our fore-fathers. I believe that what happened to them was an atrocity. That's one of the reasons I recently moved to Hawaii. Not to be another haole surfer sucking up the native Hawaiian's land, but to learn more about their culture and proud history, so that these may be things that I can help pass on to furture generations.

3) The only thing we ever gave Iraq that can be construed as assistance in developing a WMD arsenal was computers. We gave them computers that were to be used for intelligence purposes, of which some were used in development of NBC weapons, specifically biological and chemical. We also gave them samples of anthrax, West Nile, and botulism, (sold by the CDC of all people) but we were under the impression that these were going to be used for vaccine research, from what I gather. If there were alterior motives, no one can say.

If you would like to read further about what was supported from OTHER countries, including other UN countries, please read on further here.

WMDs, in the context of the justification for invading Iraq, would be the NBC trio. I don't think it would be practical to invade countries because they have AK-47s and mines, y'know?

As for a statute of limitations on genocide, well...there isn't one, that I know of. But I think it stops making sense to intervene when the government in question ceases genocidal policies and any governmental officials that were responsible for said policies have been removed from power. Even so, I'm not convinced that it makes sense to intervene militarily for anything short of currently active (or imminent) genocide. We may be the 1000-lb gorilla in the room, but we have limits.

No arguements, all I was trying to say is that they posessed the mean to literally obliterate a mass amount of people. And on many occasions, have done so. Even after we invaded. (chills)

I'm not saying that the genocidal tendancies of early Saddam regime was a legit reason to go in. We went for countless other reasons, most of which I'm still trying to understand. However, we have done a lot of good while there. Instead of one peoples killing a bunch of other certain peoples, now we have sectarian violence, so everyone kills everyone. Sucks, I know, but atleast the death rate is dropping dramatically. (Or so I have seen it reported. I cannot honestly cite specific numbers, so if I am wrong please let me know. I just go off what my brothers tell me that are still there.)

Only the most partisan critics of the war would insist that no good has been done by American troops in Iraq. Rather, what is a legitimate argument is that the justifications for going in were weak and inflated when not outright wrong (and possibly deceptive), and that the ultimate results, on balance, have been probably a good deal worse than if we hadn't gone in at all.

Understand, I'm not opposed to military action in principle. Nor do I believe that our commitment, now that we are engaged, is something that can be lightly discarded - although I opposed the invasion from the beginning. But I'm neither going to say that I believe the war has or will work out well.

*Sigh*

Sometimes it's lonely being a conservative....

Only thing I can say is

We will never know. If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that desicions were made, and a series of events has transpired already that cannot be changed.

Therefore, I humbly ask you, Zarth, and eveyone else, to help me find a solution.

I know there has been bitter argument about WMDs. We went, we did not find any (to my knowledge, based on the commonly accepted definition as it applies). What do we do now? Do we appologize and return the Baathists to power? There has been argument over going in without an exit stategy. We are there now. What would be the best way to exit the situation now? There has been accusations by some that we went for oil and money. Has either turned up? And if it does, what do we do with either? I think these are the real issues that should be addressed, instead of constantly redressing the facts or opinions of what has already. Arguements?

What do we do? Well, I'm not going to pretend I'm well versed enough in all aspects of the situation in Iraq to plan an exit strategy - that's something that the president's advisors and the Chiefs of Staff ought to be doing (maybe they even are and Bush hasn't listened to them. That's certainly characteristic of how he operates.). But I'm convinced we need one, and it needs to have a reasonably short* timeline. I don't want to still be in Iraq at the end of the next presidential term in early 2013.

And to accomplish that, we're probably going to need a Democrat in office, or at least a Republican who's willing to contemplate such a strategy. So I'm going to vote Democratic, and I hope Republican members of the site (and country) will pick a candidate that's not an utter asshole or loon. (Good luck with that.)

*Short in geopolitical terms, anyhow.

You've correctly identified the reasons why I oppose a sudden withdrawal, PsylentNemo (and I'll use this as yet another opportunity to say "Fuck Ron Paul"). I'm not sure that there is a "solution" in the sense of a genuinely desirable outcome to this mess - I think the best we can hope for is to manage the disaster so that a sectarian genocide doesn't happen and our military isn't betrayed and demoralized.

That being said, probably our best chance was to be found in those components of the ISG report that Bush rejected, namely, the seeking of a regional political settlement. However much we may rightly hate their governments, as long as Iran and Syria are uninvolved in shaping a regional peace, there will be no regional peace.

(playing Devil's advocate here)

I'm not so sure that I would place my trust in Iran, who I think really kinda still wishes they had nixed Iraq the first time, and Syria. Hell, Syria is still sitting on the border, taunting us to cross that line. Syrians want peace about as much as the American people want Bush to serve a third term.

How do we stabilize Iraq from the inside, so that it may carry out these negotiations on its own? If we fucked up Iraq so bad, how do we fix Iraq?

On the lighter side, Ron Paul's got the right idea. While others are busy campaigning andsilly things like that, he's decided to go to the land of moral uprightness and outstanding character. You guessed it, Nevada.

Iran and Syria aren't much less trustworthy than the United States, really - after all, we're the ones that invaded.

They all have to live together in the same region. Iraq cannot be strengthened in isolation from and confrontation with its neighbors. Any attempt to do so will only be seen - rightfully - as an attempt to establish an American client state in the Middle East from which we can project military power. That's not going to stabilize the country, either internally or externally.

The United States has a compelling moral interest in preventing a genocide, and a compelling national interest in maintaining the morale of our military. Pursuing any other considerations at this point with regard to Iraq only detract from the possibility that our imperial adventure will even prove successful with regard to those.

croatia is such a beautiful country and it's good to see that the wounds are being healed. The generation of children who were raised in the middle of the ethnic cleansing are my age now, and it felt strange to party with them when I was there a few years back. Although they seemed just like me, they had such an intense trauma chrystallized in their memories. It will take a new generation to be born to forget the past, but perhaps this empowerment of an ethnic minority will foster a new age of understanding..

but what's with this so-called right-leaning government...

As I think I mentioned, the HDZ is Franjo Tudjman's old party, and they describe themselves nowadays as "Thatcherite."

something that grabbed at my curiosity from the start, but Thatcherite as in the Iron Lady? or some other Thatcher?

There's only one Thatcher in Thatcherite.

thatcher was so great for England...

bang up job with the coal miners strike.

Feel good story of the day.