Do you think Iraq was more of haven for terrorists before we invaded or after?

Question

Sadaam is a cruel man, no doubt...but w/ the lack of a stable government, it appears to be out of control. Have we created the safe haven for terrorists?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_qaida_tape

Answer 1

It's much worse after. Saddam is evil. Everyone was afraid. When we invaded and captured Saddam, Iraq was a leaderless country. A very easy target and a logical choice for terrorists to occupy. Three years later there is still major upheaval throughout.
Really, how can a country that has lived under dictatorship, know exactly what all a democracy truly means? Most of us who are used to a democratic republic don't completely understand. We need to begin our exit strategy soon.
There are basically three groups of different people living in Iraq. None of them can agree with the other two, nor do any of them trust one another to be fair and impartial to the rest. Without impartiality, and fairness a democracy is doomed to fail.

Answer 2

Saddam Hussein was a dictator who ruled with an iron fist and used political terror to control his subjects, especially the ShiMF (He was and is a Sunni.) . It is well known that he and bin Laden did not like each other (for one thing, they come from different sects of Muslim), and Saddam would not tolerate terrorists operating within Iraq. However, Iraqis learned what the people of the former Yugoslavia under Tito learned - once you take out the strongman, a power vacuum comes into existence and various political forces come to fill it. In Yugoslavia's case, after Tito died, the country broke apart into regions and various ethnicities. In Iraq's case, it is breaking apart into various religious sects - Kurds to the north, Shiites to the south and east and Sunnis to the rest. But no one sect has complete power or dominance so into this vacuum comes the terrorists. It has also been well documented that bin Laden and other parts of al Qaeda have been looking for a base in the Middle East since being kicked out of Saudi Arabia over a decade ago. (That's when they went to Afghanistan.) Iraq under the American occupying force became the perfect place to establish such a base.. So, the long answer is that by the U.S. not having sufficient forces to hold the peace after we broke the government, we made a safe haven for terrorists.

As an afterthought: I found Nancy's comment that the Iraqis don't know how to have a stable civilized country rather arrogant. Originally part of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom occupied it, not allowing it to find its own way. That's the problem with much of the Middle East - the Imperial West has drawn and re-drawn their boundaries, not allowing them to make their own political decisions. They really only came into their own when oil was discovered.

Answer 3

Some say the American empire is buried in Baghdad; that this time marks the end of globalisation by war.

That would be nice, but the cat has nine lives. I remember pointing out to the first Bush, that Alexander the Great died in Babylon, so he ought to be careful where he goes. Perhaps now, however, marks a decisive turning point in history.

Recently The Lancet put the number of "excess" deaths following the 2003 US-led war on Iraq at 650,000. Added to the massive civilian toll of the preceding 13 years of sanctions, does such a figure not reflect the intent necessary to be deemed genocide?

I think sanctions were genocidal. Clearly. They took a million and a half lives or more. The Food and Agricultural Organisation reported in October of 1996, just six years into sanctions, that 570,000 children under the age of five had died as a direct result of the sanctions. Given that this was foreseeable a commitment is suggested to destroying in whole or part Iraqis as a national, racial or religious group. Now we're three and half years into "Shock and Awe" and it would be hard to argue there are not half a million dead already, and the rate is accelerating.

And now, though the invasion was a war of aggression, US presence is justified in the name of stemming civil war.

P.S.
Bush loves to say liberty, but he's the principal enemy of liberty in the world right now: undercutting the writ of habeas corpus, the right not be arbitrarily detained without charges or people knowing where you are, or what's happening to you, the right to not to be tortured, demeaning the Geneva Conventions as not relevant to current societies. The deceptions are very difficult for societies to deal with, even if they want to. It's very hard on the streets here to know what to think about what's going on in Iraq. How do you find out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHzKPno0e0&search=freedom%20fascism%20russo%20bush%20terror%20federal%20reserve%20capitalism%20tax%20irs%20usa

Answer 4

I was stationed in Iraq from Sept 2005 to May 2006. There are definitely more terrors there NOW than before. Saddam himself didn't like Asama Bin Laden. Alot of the terrorist come into the country to fight Americans. But then again alot of the "terrorist" arnt really "terrorist" Iraq is a poor *** country, alot of times foreign fighters will pay locals to shoot at us, or lay a bomb..so they are just doing it for the money. and even then they don't always activate the bombs or even try to shoot at us..but that's in few circumstance. i was stationed in Husayba which was on the Syrian border.. I was there during Operation Iron Fist and after the Operation violence in that particular city went down ALOT

Answer 5

A haven? I'd say it's more of a dumping ground for them. They are killing some of our men to be sure, but - by the numbers - does that constitute a haven?

None of our men should be risked in this way, as we have technology to blow the crap out of herds of these hoodlums from the sky. Our leadership has inverted priorities that place everyone above our soldier in a screwed up value hierarchy.

Answer 6

With all of the conflicting reports and opinions about terrorist activivities before we invaded, it's hard to know just how much of a haven it was.

But you can be assured that it is no haven for the terrorists now - not with over 130,000 allied troops gunning for them.

Answer 7

These people are out of control because they don't even know how to live in a stable civilized society, since they never had one. Saddam was such a dictator, everyone was afraid to say or do anything. Now it's like a "free for all." Yes, it probably seems worse since Saddam has been out of power. Our job is trying to get it under control, but how to do that when these people never had a normal society is a good question.

Answer 8

shall we save maximum terrorists from entering into Iraq from Syria if we took this heavily and stopped them. that is a no-brainer extremely. similar ingredient befell in Viet Nam at this level. we may have bombed the bridges and stopped the enemy from entering into the south. yet there are too many who're afraid to win in this us of a and they finally end up finally, with their friends contained in the institution media and in sensible Hollywood, slowly wearing down those who're real looking. I knew this may take position even as it began. that is becomming an previous tale. we are at warfare and those with their heads contained in the sand and their butts contained in the air are once again triumphing a warfare of propaganda contained in the u . s .. solid success. perhaps we could continually all purely be valuable to the terrorists and then they'd all be sweet and gentle. Yea! it really is it. Make love and by no potential warfare. imagine peace. Then international terrorism might want to disappear. What attitude. The u.s. haters recognize there's no position in the international more effective. i might want to pay their air fare to an more advantageous us of a yet they hang to u.s. like fleas on a canines. they purely favor to blame yet they by no potential have any options. i replaced into one among them and that i'm embarresed to confess it. yet I had only sufficient of an open recommendations to seek out each and each and every area. ninety 9% of on the prompt'sliberals are scared to attempt this. Liberalism replaced into open. not anymore.

Answer 9

it's very difficult to tell, since terrorists aren't exactly a source of study and there are no real stats on them... and you can ask 10 people and they define a terrorist 10 different ways...

it's very hard to get an idea, when the majority of the info is 5th hand information...

Answer 10

it is a fact there were terrorist camps in the Kurdish portion of the country before they were in Afghanistan. and yes zarqawi was in iraq hiding out long before we entered iraq. Abu Nadal was part of saddam's administration and he was an al Qaeda operative that met many times with the author of the 9/11 attacks.