poirot, you seem to be talking about two wars ..

"this is America's war", you mean Afghanistan? Because we're not in Iraq nor are the Americans. Why is it America's war, have we ever suffered from terrorism, remember the Hilton bombings?

then ..

"It took 'em a while to render Iraq virtually defenceless", so you've switched now to Iraq?

"I don't believe there was any significant terror threat emanating from Iraq prior to the invasion", everyone thought Iraq was dangerous, they used chemical warfare on the Kurds, they invaded Iran and Kuwait previously (they should have just asked you we find out now) they tried for years to snooker the weapons inspectors. It's still believed by some they moved their WMDs to Syria, but I digress. Eventually they found no WMDs, but the suspicion remained there were WMDs because Saddam worked so hard to convince everyone there were WMDs. The world believed it, the ALP supported the Lib/Nat coalition in invading Iraq, under UN resolution. I don't believe the Al Quaida angle, but who nows what the yanks knew and when, they can be very secretive people.

"3. There must be a way to portray it as the ultimate evil and an
imminent threat to our survival." Iraq did everything it could to support this view, now it turns out that was really stupid.

Easy in hindsight to pour scorn on these things, but we expect leaders to make decisions and they are the represented leaders, we don't try to have a committee to second guess everything that is done in our name, otherwise we would not have leaders at all. That's the downside of a democracy, you don't always get what you want.

Iraq was not defenceless, it's just that America is so incredibly powerful, the Iraq were too frightened to use their planes, they buried them, their tanks were all destroyed in a previous war and their army were poorly trained to take on the US forces.

You would have to be insane to take on the USA.

rpg,

I was, in fact, referring to the Iraq war.
Are you seriously telling me that the Americans are no longer in Iraq? Combat operations have ceased, but 50,000 U.S. troops will remain on the ground. (Don't know if this number includes "contractors")

"Easy in hindsight to pour scorn on these things."- some of us were pouring scorn on these things when they were taking place.

"It's not that Iraq was defenceless..."- you then go on to point out that they had buried their planes, all their tanks had been destroyed and their army was poorly trained...don't know about you, rpg, but I'd call that defenceless...that is unless you subscribe to the Black Knight's code of battle ethics.

I'd just like to point out that Jihadist terror attacks increased around the world sevenfold in the three years following the 2003 invasion...so much for sailing into war under the banner of "Winning the war on Terrorism".

Dear rpg,

Gulf War 1 should not have happened. Bush 1 instructed April Glaspie, the US envoy, to tell Saddam Hussein that his conflict with Kuwait was not a concern of the US. This encouraged Hussein to attack and occupy Kuwait.

King Hussein of Jordan offered to mediate and get the Iraqis to evacuate Kuwait peacefully. Bush 1 refused saying that he would not allow Saddam Hussein to 'save face'. If one wishes to avoid conflict you allow the enemy to save face.

When the US Senate refused to sanction US troops going into Iraq there was testimony from a nurse supposedly who was working at a Kuwaiti hospital who testified that she saw Kuwaiti babies dumped on the floor when Iraqi troops took their incubators. It turned out later that the 'nurse' was a daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and had been coached in her story. She was never in Kuwait. Hill and Knowlton, a Washington, D. C., firm coached her. Her testimony was effective in getting five senators to change their vote. That was enough to sanction the invasion.

A clever journo in Sydney named Max Watts caught the lie. He asked a doctor friend in Sydney how many incubators they had in Sydney. According to that the number of incubators reportedly taken in Kuwait were enough for a much larger city.

Bush 1 wanted war. He encouraged Hussein to invade Kuwait. He refused attempts at negotiation, and he arranged false testimony to get the US Senate to sanction the US invasion.

Bush 1, like his son was later to be, was a war criminal.

"George Bush's War" by Jean Edward Smith published by Henry Holt & Co in 1992 gives the details.

Bush 1 wanted war, set up the war and arranged lying testimony to the US Senate to get his war.

When are we going to learn that the large corporate elites make huge profits from war? WW1 was orchestrated as the war to end all wars.The International Banksters finanaced both sides like they did Hitler during WW2.Prescott Bush,George Dubwua's grandfather was a senior executive in the Union Bank which laundered money for Hitler.

Vietnam was a lie,Iraq was a lie,Afghanistan and Pakistan are also.
Iran is another matter.Iran has serious conventional weapons,with China and Russia as allies.Iran can with it's strategic position and weapons can seriously cut off oil to the West.So if you want to experience real poverty and the possiblity of a nuke war,just encourage the US and Israeli neo-cons to attack Iran.

I think you will get your wish to hit Iran. Pairot does not beleive terrorism is an infection. Why would terrorists somehow miss AU. Age or sex is no barrier to them, they even blow their own kind up. So we lose a few soldiers: they no what they are there for, its there choice.
Our casualties are minor compared to some. There are some among us think that we should hide in a rabbit borough, and let someone else look after world affares. We may need the great America one day.

579,

There is, in my opinion, much difference between a legitemate threat and an invasion that is contrived to gain unfettered access to resources. The "great America" is not immune from acts of cunning and calculation carried out in the interests of its elite.
At the end of the initial invasion phase of the war when it was revealed that no WMD's existed and that the U.N. weapons inspectors had been correct in their conclusions, the Coalition fell back on altruistic virtue in defending the invasion - saying that they had freed Iraq from tyranny. The fact that the U.S. had been happily supplying this tyrant with weapons for years, of course, was overlooked - all the better to belt the daylights out of Iran, don't you know.
Iraq was one of the more advance countries in its region with advanced educational and medical infrastructure...to see it reduced to the pathetic mess it now is just boggles the mind.