6 ms·

Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country

69 points by enitihas 9y ago

ikeboy 9y ago
>I left Iraq a few months after the 1991 Gulf War and went to graduate school in the United States, where I’ve been ever since. Love the ambiguity here.
- z_open 9y ago
  There's no ambiguity though.
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    On my first read I interpreted it as they'd been stuck in grad school for almost 3 decades, which seemed almost believable. It's one of those context dependant sentences - if it had said since 2016, then that interpretation would be most likely correct.
gravis7777 9y ago
Wonder if this guy will also apologize for the horrible things Iraq did to both Iran in the early 80s and Kuwait in the 90s.
- e40 9y ago
  Whataboutism.
- macintux 9y ago
  Who needs to apologize more for that: the man who opposed Saddam or the U.S. government that encouraged his atrocities against Iran?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- MrLeap 9y ago
  I didn't read any apology in this essay. Going to jump out on a limb and assume you're an American like me, if I'm wrong change the metaphors. What if another country killed a million of our countrymen. 20 years from now, would you have to apologize for the actions of the CIA, or the worst actions of all our leaders in the prior 40 years? Would you have to apologize for that before, during or after any reminiscences about the destruction of your country?
- jmkb 9y ago
  It's a little odd to hold a civilian citizen of a despotic regime accountable for his government's actions.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    And similarly it's a little odd to hold an entire country of 350 million people responsible for the self serving decisions made by a small cabal of powerful oil people(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.) Similarly was the entire country of Iraq responsible for horrific transgressions against the Kurds, Iran and Kuwait or just a small cabal of corrupt people with real power?
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Maybe not for the decision, but for much of the consequences. Especially if you consider that the invasion was authorized by congress, with some of the yes votes still serving.
      - bogomipz 9y ago
        So continuing with your simplistic analysis - if someone was from a democratic leaning state and none of their elected officials voted for the resolution does that mean those people are free from blame? What if someone's elected official voted in favor of the resolution to invade Iraq but that individual was themself against it. So that individual is held to blame? The US may have a system of democratically electing representatives but many(most?) of those elected representatives look out for themselves first, their party second and the will of the people that put them in office a distant third.
        maxerickson 9y ago
        The US may have a system of democratically electing representatives but many(most?) of those elected representatives look out for themselves first, their party second and the will of the people that put them in office a distant third. Good thing you didn't start off with a snide remark about the simplicity of my analysis. Anyway, I would separate "blame" and "responsibility". There's a difference between the blame for the war and whatever responsibility the United States has to Iraq going forward. The blame lies in the past. The responsibility to improve upon our mistakes is pretty obvious if we want to pretend we have some sort of national morality.
DoTheNeedful 9y ago
> thanks to the horrors of Trumpism Wait. What? Is this necessary because it's required of every article in the NYT or because it means something?
greatamerican 9y ago
So is the United States this man's country, or is Iraq this man's country?
- aaomidi 9y ago
  Why not both?
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  That war destroyed both countries. The credibility and finances, and the lives of thousands of soldiers in one, and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands and the societal fabric of another. Please take your tu quoque/no true scotsman fallacy somewhere else.
- dnc 9y ago
  Neither most likely. I think that this man is an apatrid and that he doesn't have a real home judging by a similar string of events in my life. My country was economically devastated due to unfavorable Geo-political circumstances and I eventually had to choose to move, rather than to prolong meaningless suffering. I was lucky to have a choice. Although, I'd say it was not as dramatic as in the case of Iraq. Anyhow, I feel as if I don't belong anywhere.
aaomidi 9y ago
Content such as this really doesn't belong on this forum. It redditifes this forum for conversation. I've also noticed people jump to attacking each other quite a lot more in the comments of pieces like this.
- jfaucett 9y ago
  agreed. Still, I think of myself as an optimist and would like to think we HNers could civilly discuss any topic that popped up on HN :)
jdlyga 9y ago
American here. Never supported sending troops over there. Not a lot of people did. But Bush did it anyway. Didn't vote for him. Sad to see what it did to people.
- RickJWag 9y ago
  Thankfully, we avoided war-supporting Hillary Clinton.
jfaucett 9y ago
This is the opinion page of NYT. I wonder how far this perspective wanders from reality. If there's anything I've learned from studying the Arab-Israeli conflict its that most individual perspectives provide a universally bad account for causes, effects, and relations in a given situation, while simultaneously offering a rich amount of insight into human bias, error, emotion, and self deception. That is, however, not to say that that is what this account is. On that note, does anyone have a suggestion for the most non-biased sources i.e. books for understanding the conflict? I realize it's probably going to be very hard right now since distance in terms of time usually leads to more accurate and less biased analyses of a historical event.
merraksh 9y ago
'Some credible estimates put the number [of people who died since 2003] at more than one million.' 'The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. [...] The pundits and “experts” who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.'
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
webXL 9y ago
Man, that's depressing. While I never argued for invasion, I deeply regret supporting those who waged the war thinking that lack of support would lead to a quagmire and a situation that was worse than before, and that was pretty awful. The more I read about the war, I came to the conclusion it had absolutely no chance of being anything else. It's got to be one of the worst cases of collective sunk cost fallacy. Empires are evil. America is one of the least evil, but that doesn't justify its empire. It might have been necessary to defeat Nazism, and to hold back the spread of communism, but we are squandering our future's prosperity to accomplish what exactly? I could understand if it was a question for survival, but American citizens enjoy so much security it's ridiculous, even 15 years ago. Even with all the mass shootings. Boycott news media. Boycott national politics. The world will be better off.
- redblacktree 9y ago
  We were defending the petrodollar in Iraq. i.e. attempting to maintain American hegemony. Viewing all recent conflicts through that lens really helps to understand. "Yellow cake" and the like is just how it was sold.
mankash666 9y ago
Why oh why is this flagged? Does HN lack the stomach for civil debate about a contentious issue? For those trigger happy flaggers - the responsibility ordained on you shouldn't be abused. Reddit will devolve into partisan piffle, HN IS the only space that's remotely capable of civility. So, don't flag - encourage diversity of thought!!
fsck_muzzies 9y ago
Your country was already shit to begin with.

69 points by enitihas 9y ago

>I left Iraq a few months after the 1991 Gulf War and went to graduate school in the United States, where I’ve been ever since. Love the ambiguity here.

z_open 9y ago
There's no ambiguity though.
- ikeboy 9y ago
  On my first read I interpreted it as they'd been stuck in grad school for almost 3 decades, which seemed almost believable. It's one of those context dependant sentences - if it had said since 2016, then that interpretation would be most likely correct.

gravis7777 9y ago

Wonder if this guy will also apologize for the horrible things Iraq did to both Iran in the early 80s and Kuwait in the 90s.

e40 9y ago
Whataboutism.
macintux 9y ago
Who needs to apologize more for that: the man who opposed Saddam or the U.S. government that encouraged his atrocities against Iran?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
MrLeap 9y ago
I didn't read any apology in this essay. Going to jump out on a limb and assume you're an American like me, if I'm wrong change the metaphors. What if another country killed a million of our countrymen. 20 years from now, would you have to apologize for the actions of the CIA, or the worst actions of all our leaders in the prior 40 years? Would you have to apologize for that before, during or after any reminiscences about the destruction of your country?
jmkb 9y ago
It's a little odd to hold a civilian citizen of a despotic regime accountable for his government's actions.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  And similarly it's a little odd to hold an entire country of 350 million people responsible for the self serving decisions made by a small cabal of powerful oil people(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.) Similarly was the entire country of Iraq responsible for horrific transgressions against the Kurds, Iran and Kuwait or just a small cabal of corrupt people with real power?
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Maybe not for the decision, but for much of the consequences. Especially if you consider that the invasion was authorized by congress, with some of the yes votes still serving.
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      So continuing with your simplistic analysis - if someone was from a democratic leaning state and none of their elected officials voted for the resolution does that mean those people are free from blame? What if someone's elected official voted in favor of the resolution to invade Iraq but that individual was themself against it. So that individual is held to blame? The US may have a system of democratically electing representatives but many(most?) of those elected representatives look out for themselves first, their party second and the will of the people that put them in office a distant third.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        The US may have a system of democratically electing representatives but many(most?) of those elected representatives look out for themselves first, their party second and the will of the people that put them in office a distant third. Good thing you didn't start off with a snide remark about the simplicity of my analysis. Anyway, I would separate "blame" and "responsibility". There's a difference between the blame for the war and whatever responsibility the United States has to Iraq going forward. The blame lies in the past. The responsibility to improve upon our mistakes is pretty obvious if we want to pretend we have some sort of national morality.

DoTheNeedful 9y ago

> thanks to the horrors of Trumpism Wait. What? Is this necessary because it's required of every article in the NYT or because it means something?

greatamerican 9y ago

So is the United States this man's country, or is Iraq this man's country?

aaomidi 9y ago
Why not both?
24gttghh 9y ago
That war destroyed both countries. The credibility and finances, and the lives of thousands of soldiers in one, and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands and the societal fabric of another. Please take your tu quoque/no true scotsman fallacy somewhere else.
dnc 9y ago
Neither most likely. I think that this man is an apatrid and that he doesn't have a real home judging by a similar string of events in my life. My country was economically devastated due to unfavorable Geo-political circumstances and I eventually had to choose to move, rather than to prolong meaningless suffering. I was lucky to have a choice. Although, I'd say it was not as dramatic as in the case of Iraq. Anyhow, I feel as if I don't belong anywhere.

aaomidi 9y ago

Content such as this really doesn't belong on this forum. It redditifes this forum for conversation. I've also noticed people jump to attacking each other quite a lot more in the comments of pieces like this.

jfaucett 9y ago
agreed. Still, I think of myself as an optimist and would like to think we HNers could civilly discuss any topic that popped up on HN :)

jdlyga 9y ago

American here. Never supported sending troops over there. Not a lot of people did. But Bush did it anyway. Didn't vote for him. Sad to see what it did to people.

RickJWag 9y ago
Thankfully, we avoided war-supporting Hillary Clinton.

jfaucett 9y ago

This is the opinion page of NYT. I wonder how far this perspective wanders from reality. If there's anything I've learned from studying the Arab-Israeli conflict its that most individual perspectives provide a universally bad account for causes, effects, and relations in a given situation, while simultaneously offering a rich amount of insight into human bias, error, emotion, and self deception. That is, however, not to say that that is what this account is. On that note, does anyone have a suggestion for the most non-biased sources i.e. books for understanding the conflict? I realize it's probably going to be very hard right now since distance in terms of time usually leads to more accurate and less biased analyses of a historical event.

merraksh 9y ago

'Some credible estimates put the number [of people who died since 2003] at more than one million.' 'The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. [...] The pundits and “experts” who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.'

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

webXL 9y ago

Man, that's depressing. While I never argued for invasion, I deeply regret supporting those who waged the war thinking that lack of support would lead to a quagmire and a situation that was worse than before, and that was pretty awful. The more I read about the war, I came to the conclusion it had absolutely no chance of being anything else. It's got to be one of the worst cases of collective sunk cost fallacy. Empires are evil. America is one of the least evil, but that doesn't justify its empire. It might have been necessary to defeat Nazism, and to hold back the spread of communism, but we are squandering our future's prosperity to accomplish what exactly? I could understand if it was a question for survival, but American citizens enjoy so much security it's ridiculous, even 15 years ago. Even with all the mass shootings. Boycott news media. Boycott national politics. The world will be better off.

redblacktree 9y ago
We were defending the petrodollar in Iraq. i.e. attempting to maintain American hegemony. Viewing all recent conflicts through that lens really helps to understand. "Yellow cake" and the like is just how it was sold.

mankash666 9y ago

Why oh why is this flagged? Does HN lack the stomach for civil debate about a contentious issue? For those trigger happy flaggers - the responsibility ordained on you shouldn't be abused. Reddit will devolve into partisan piffle, HN IS the only space that's remotely capable of civility. So, don't flag - encourage diversity of thought!!

fsck_muzzies 9y ago

Your country was already shit to begin with.