Were the Sanctions against Iraq working?

YES!!! How could anybody vote yes? I'd love to hear some rationale from posters as to how they think the sanctions were working.

They work well enough to make the biggest financial scandel in history

They work well enough to make the biggest financial scandel in history
YUP!

YES!!! How could anybody vote yes? I'd love to hear some rationale from posters as to how they think the sanctions were working.


How's about no WMD's for starters, the main reason given for the war? I'd say that's a pretty good arguement for them having worked. Or am I missing something? Would vast stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq mean the sanctions worked?

Strange logic here..

I would vote yes but for a different reason. I'd say that it worked to keep Saddam in power. It meant that his people had to rely on him to eek out a minimal existence.

But, of course, that was the idea since though Bush Sr had the opportunity to support a popular movement to overthrow him, Bush declined. In fact, he effectively gave Saddam permission to slaughter the rebels.

Without the embargo, people could have had the wealth and influence to overthrow Saddam. But then that wouldn't have suited the USA's strategic plans. They didn't want a proud and independent regime change. They wanted a steadily weakening Iraq, kept under the thumb of the dictator, until the USA was able to pick Iraq off (they imagined) quite easily. Then thery could install a servile and dependent regime of the USA's own instigation.

Guess which one I voted for.
And Anarky, here's a link for you.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1851.htm

This quote should especially interest you:
Former President George Bush predicted in 1996 that if the United States were to engage in another war with Iraq, one aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the “entire Arab world would turn against us” and the U.S. would alienate its allies in the international community.
“To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero," Bush said in an interview with the BBC marking the five-year anniversary of the Gulf War.
Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said at an energy conference six years ago that hundreds of thousands of United States soldiers and Iraqi civilians would die if a war in Iraq were ever fought on the streets of Baghdad.
“To have brought the (Gulf) war into the populous Iraqi capital of Baghdad where Hussein is based would have involved a different type of military operation than in the desert, and would have put large numbers of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of thousands of our troops at risk of being killed,” he said.

YES!!! How could anybody vote yes? I'd love to hear some rationale from posters as to how they think the sanctions were working.

There is no rationale from most of these people. Hang around long enough and you'll see that rationality or truth isn't something most of them are concerned with.
They ignore every credible report to advance their agenda.

You'll notice that most of them reside on the far left of the spectrum, the America hating end.

There is no rationale from most of these people. Hang around long enough and you'll see that rationality or truth isn't something most of them are concerned with.
They ignore every credible report to advance their agenda.

You'll notice that most of them reside on the far left of the spectrum, the America hating end.

alrighty, but do you have a counterARGUMENT to offer?

There is no rationale from most of these people.

Oh you mean we actually work with facts and not wild conspiracy theories like the "Saddam shipped em all to Syria" nonsense?

This debate is like trying to persuade the flat Earth society, logic and facts don't matter. The key to the sanctions working was that Iraq would not have the capability to re-start it's NBC weapons programs after they were destroyed in the 1991 Gulf war. Seeing as how it's almost been 2 whole years since we invaded Iraq and not a single thing has been found in regards to "WMD's", it proves to people with reason and logic that as far as WMD's go, the sanctions worked. By making this foolish claim that "sanctions didn't work", and providing nothing but a sound byte to back up this statement the neo-cons are trying to do nothing less than justify their disastrous war which has bloodied their hands.


Hang around long enough and you'll see that rationality or truth isn't something most of them are concerned with.


Please spare us the lies and the condescension ok? By you claiming that those that aren't blinded by war propaganda and nationalism are irrational and have no grasp of the truth just makes Orwell look like more of prophet.



They ignore every credible report to advance their agenda.


Oh like all those that say we were right about all our pre-war predictions and you were wrong? I've never seen a group of people so stubborn that even when they are proven wrong will insist they are right and the other side wrong like the neo-conservatives. And remember, we have nothing to gain here by telling the truth, we're not making millions like Bush and Cheney's cronies through their war profiteering, now that is an agenda!

Here, I've yet to see one pro-war person address this>>> http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

But two years earlier, Powell said just the opposite. The occasion was a press conference on 24 February 2001 during Powell's visit to Cairo, Egypt. Answering a question about the US-led sanctions against Iraq, the Secretary of State said:

We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...


Powell seems to disagree with the neo-cons there in regards to the sanctions..



You'll notice that most of them reside on the far left of the spectrum, the America hating end.


Ah like Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, David Hackworth, etc..

And as usual, when the flag waving sunshine patriots have no arguement to support their garbage, they just trot out the "they hate America" reactionary idiocy.. :nonono:

Why I even waste my time with delusional neo-cons anymore I don't know.. :not: