Is the US safer after invading Iraq

Zombrex

One of the main reasons for the war in Iraq was to increase the security of the US and other western countries. So far the war has cost the US tax payer $144 billion. The (left-wing) Center For American Progress compiled an interesting report detailing how the money could have been spend actually improving the security of the USA -

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=171438

Interesting read, especially the parts about underfuned security departments -

$7.5 billion to safeguard our ports. The Coast Guard estimates that $7.5 billion is needed over 10 years to implement the requirements of the 2002 Maritime Transportation Security Act, which aims to protect America's ports and waterways from a terrorist attack. Since 9/11, the federal government has allocated less than $500 million to counter this threat.

So has the war increased American security, or could the money have been (much) better spend ... you can all guess my views.

andyhunt

You can still bring a lighter onto a plane in the US but not matches, go figure.

bonkey

Wicknight wrote:

So has the war increased American security,

Yes, but I don't think its made the US more secure (being pedantic slightly).

What is also evident is how underfunded so much of the Home Security stuff is, which calls into serious doubt how effective (or even serious) many of the measures taken actually are.

Sure, it takes time to implement something like this, but when Bush can look for (and receive) literally as much as he needs to fight in a foreign country, there is just no excuse for the underfunding of domestic security to protect against the same threat....unless you believe that making the soldiers in Iraq the target of choice (bringing the terrorist threat there more than the US mainland) is a better way to spend the money in making hte US secure.

jc

Is the US safer after invading Iraq

Safer to live in or safer from Terrorists?

Thing is, the US is probably as safe from Terrorist attacks as it always was. they've always had checks on who came into the country, and such. Sure their checks have become more stringent, however, there's only so much that you can do to prevent known terrorists from entering the country.

Defending against people that have no record and have never appeared on any reports, are invisible. Its random chance to pick those up.

Once inside the US, there's ample places to receive both weaponary, and even training.

The US has focused on the external threat. The threat of AQ, and similiar groups that the US administration has given such great advertising to. Sure, the US is a wee bit safer from those organisations, but to balance that out, they've made those groups more powerful than ever.

Internally, the US isn't any more safer. Guns (High + Low Calibre), grenade launchers, explosives are still available for purchase both under and over the counter. Background checks on those wishing to buy weapons legally seem to be rarely made.

The US citizen might feel safer. But they're feeling safer from a foe that the Bush Administration has made into the Boogie Man. They're afraid of a spectre. The US is still as vulnerable as any other nation out there to a terrorist attack, and moreso because of their policy towards guns.

Hairy Homer

You know, some of the Nutty Neocons actually turn this argument on its head to justify the 'liberation' of Iraq. I remember reading, though I can't find it on the IT archive search, Mark Steyn claiming that Basra and Baghdad are now so safe, give or take the odd RPG round or helicopter missile strike, that it's more dangerous to walk around a large American city.

That's probably true. It's always been part of Norn Iron lore that Belfast had a lower murder rate at the height of the troubles than the likes of Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

In fact it would be great to get some statistics and compare the danger levelsof cities around the world. Anybody know where they may be found?

hemlock666

I honestly thinkg that the concept of bombing third world countries in order to make the world a safer place would be laughable if it wasn't so sick. Saddam needed to be removed, but not by destroying Iraqi innocents in their tens of thousands. In 9/11 3,000 people died. How many have been killed in the US retribution against Afghanistan and Iraq? Madness when you consider that the 9/11 hajackers were nearly all Saudis. But then there were no WMD in Iraq, no Bin Laden in Afghanistan and quite likely no brains in Washington. Just greedy little businessmen masquerading as world leaders.

Zulu

Well they've made sh1tloads more enemys for themselves.

Nuttzz

Zulu wrote:

Well they've made sh1tloads more enemys for themselves.

In fairness they havent really, their support for Irsraeli actions (no matter what they did) saw to that.

Clinton was the first to strike Afganistan back in 98, he also hit Sudan
( http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/ )

The 9/11 attack made it easier for Bush to push his agenda, TBH you are kidding yourselves if you thought that GWB was not going to finish the job his daddy should have finished in 91, I think we would be looking at a much different situation if "Stormin Norman" was allowed to continue to Baghdad, I remeber the rebels in the south screaming for help to defeat Sadam, the best they did was enforce no fly zone *sigh*

Zulu

Nuttzz wrote:

In fairness they havent really, their support for Irsraeli actions (no matter what they did) saw to that.

While I agree with your post - you can't deny the GWB's preemptive wars have pushed more modirate muslims (as well as others) to an anti-american stance. That was my point. (Sorry if a little unclear)

In fairness they havent really, their support for Irsraeli actions (no matter what they did) saw to that

In fairness? Hardly. The US has been supporting Israel since the 50's without generating the type of hatred that the last two invasions have created. Its when the US take an active role, that terrorist groups gain major support.

There's a major difference between supporting a nation with military aid, as opposed to actually invading two nations.

sovtek

Nuttzz wrote:

I think we would be looking at a much different situation if "Stormin Norman" was allowed to continue to Baghdad, I remeber the rebels in the south screaming for help to defeat Sadam, the best they did was enforce no fly zone *sigh*

Of course ol' Stormin and the jets patrolling the "no fly zone" just watched as the Shia were wiped out.

Nuttzz

sovtek wrote:

Of course ol' Stormin and the jets patrolling the "no fly zone" just watched as the Shia were wiped out.

Exactly, and now look at how the shia are treating them

Klaz, I suppose you dont remember the US in the Leb...

Sand

Its quite possible the west is safer - Al Queda and co seem to be going all out in Iraq to try and drive the US out and destory any attempt to build a secular state there so operations in the west take a backseat.

While I agree with your post - you can't deny the GWB's preemptive wars have pushed more modirate muslims (as well as others) to an anti-american stance. That was my point. (Sorry if a little unclear)

The moderate muslim ( arab you mean ? ) establishment has always been anti-american. Only the real whackos from an Arab point of view have been pro-US. As such, theres not much lost there.

In fairness? Hardly. The US has been supporting Israel since the 50's without generating the type of hatred that the last two invasions have created. Its when the US take an active role, that terrorist groups gain major support.

The same hatred was there - if anything it would have been even more raw and bitter 50 years ago when the Israelis were conquering former Palestinian lands. The only real thing to have changed is Arab nationalists/fundamentalists resorting to terrorism rather than military operations.

Of course ol' Stormin and the jets patrolling the "no fly zone" just watched as the Shia were wiped out.

Yup - the perils of listening to the U.N.

The bitterness the Shias must feel from the Western "treachery" would have gone a long way to negating the goodwill for deposing Saddam.

Tommy Vercetti

Sand wrote:

Its quite possible the west is safer - Al Queda and co seem to be going all out in Iraq to try and drive the US out and destory any attempt to build a secular state there so operations in the west take a backseat.

It's also quite possible that all these reports of AQ in Iraq are horsecrap to lend credibility to GWBs propaganda - the evidence is a little thin to say the least.

SkepticOne

I'd be very surprised if Iraq didn't have its share of jihadist Mujahideen types even if they aren't fully paid up card carrying AQ members. They have been travelled to Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and other places where there are Muslim populations in a state of war or disorder.

I think Dadakopf suggested on a different thread that AQ probably aren't a unified organisation any more and I would tend to agree with this. This makes large scale operations involving many people planned over a number of years very hard. After the invasion of Afghanistan, they have not yet found a place they can operate and coordinate actions such as 911. Instead there are hundreds of small cells around the world with relatively little communication between them. This has led to an increase in small local incidents rather than big international ones.

Overall there might be more deaths from terrorism in the world, but most of it seems to be happening either in Muslim countries or in a chaotic situation such as Iraq (also a Muslim country).

This is good from a purely political point of view for Bush (imo). He can say to the electorate, "Look there has not been another 911 on US soil" while at the same time pointing to terrorism going on in other parts of the world.

However, none of this is a direct result of invading Iraq. Iraq had very little links to international terrorism before the war. There had been stories of Saddam paying $25k to families of suicide bombers in Pallestine, but this has little to do with threats to the US.

If the US is safer from large scale 911 type attacks it is due to three things: 1) the fragmentation of the organisation believed to be behind the 911 attack. 2) a stepping up of security measures within the US.
3) increased monitoring of foreign suspected terrorist activity as well as pressure on foreign governments.

There may well also be a "fly paper" effect with radicals travelling to places like Iraq too who would otherwise form groups to attack the US, but it would be hard to pin this down. How many are there and how many would otherwise form groups attacking the US? There is likely to be some overlap.

hemlock666

I we are to believe the crap ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch feed us then every Iraqi with a gun is a militant Al Queda member. Heres a newsflash, when you bomb a decades old dictatorship out of existance you end up with civil war. These so called terrorist/insurgents are just normal people who are fighting against what they rightly percieve as a puppet government put in place by a force of occupation. As for the elections? Who do you vote for when all the candidates have to be vetted and approved by Washington?