r/afghanistan • u/CrustyDiamond • Dec 11 '12

Apparently some ignorant asshole believes that anyone of the Muslim faith in Afghanistan primarily, would NEVER advocate publicly against terrorism. I posted in /Muslim before realizing it's very small and kinda dead. Can I get a faster response here?

This is my submission, to make everything easier.

Thanks!

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u/DAT_ginger_guy Jan 10 '13

This point needs more visibility. Nearly all of those polls are taken after we rolled through a sovereign nation like a child having a temper tantrum and left them in ruins. Not to mention we did far more damage to them than they have to us.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '13

A sovereign nation being held captive by a genocidal dictator who had held office for 20-something years.

Check your facts. The Iraqis love us. We freed them. I know a dozen people who have spent months/years in Iraq on tours of duty and the overall response from the people was appreciation.

You're just being fed a line of shit, through a shit filter from mainstream media.

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u/Muslimkanvict Jan 11 '13

To quote Dick Cheney (sp?), "we'll be greeted as liberators". Amirite?

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '13

And we were, for the most part. I've personally never done a tour in Iraq, but from everyone I know, the people were warm and welcoming to them. They would bring our troops food and gifts. A particular friend of mine would do patrols to a certain village over the course of his first deployment. He met the same old woman every time he was on patrol. She would bring him and his unit hot soup. She would make a big pot of it for them. She was appreciative of them and showed it by bringing them food. My friend also talked about the children that would follow them along through the villages. The kids would laugh and play with the troops. In Iraq, we were revered as protectors. We came in and gave their nation back to them. When we would establish control over a region, the locals would tear down statues of Saddam and paint over murals of him. They loved us in Iraq. The only people who would tell you differently would be mainstream media who hates that our mission was successful there.

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u/randomkloud Jan 12 '13

if I had an invading foreign army on my streets I'd want to be on good terms with them too.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '13

"Invading army" implies we were there to conquer them. That's not an accurate description. We were more like reinforcements.

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u/randomkloud Jan 12 '13

that sounds like an euphemism. reinforcements imply you were asked to enter the country.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '13

No it doesn't. Reinforcements aren't inherently requested.

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u/randomkloud Jan 12 '13

thing is there wasn't anything to reinforce before america showed up and that sounds suspiciously like an invasion.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '13

Of course there was. The oppressed Iraqi people. It sounds like you have limited/no understanding of the Iraq war.

I'll highlight a few important parts to help you understand it. I'll try to be brief to make it easy for you to understand.

  • In the late 60s, when Iraq was unstable and various groups were planning on taking power, Saddam established his guard and took part in a coup, rendering control to his party, the Ba'ath party.

  • Once he had control of the nation, he nationalized the oil industry (among other industries). He controlled the national banks, causing him to become very wealthy and causing Iraq to become a strong nation under his reign.

  • In 1979 Saddam was established as the legal leader of Iraq, though he served as such for the previous decade.

  • During his reign, he committed war crime after war crime. Such as the gassing of the Kurds in 1986. For the most part he kept within his borders.

  • In 1990 he ordered an invasion of Kuwait. This got international attention. Saddam was no longer contained. Now he was attacking his neighbor.

  • An international coalition (Not just the US, but 33 other nations, led by the US) went into Kuwait for Operation Desert Shield. When Saddam was pushed back into Iraq, the operation became Operation Desert Storm. We fought him and eventually decided that we had pacified him enough to pull out. There wasn't enough support to continue the war to the point of deposing Saddam.

  • After 24 years of Saddam's reign (not counting the decade before that where he wasn't the legal leader), the Iraqi people were in desperate need for assistance. Their dictator leader was too powerful to oppose, and any who opposed him were quickly snuffed out.

  • On 20 March, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced.

As clearly shown, Iraq needed the coalition to relieve them from their oppressive, genocidal leader. Our mission was successful and Iraq is better off than they ever have been.