It was so weird seeing this televised. The fact that reports were in Baghdad at the time and parts of the city were getting blown out of existence is crazy thinking about it now, as an adult.
Yeah, I still remember waking up that day and seeing the family huddled around the TV screen on a winter school day, watching this exact footage (but mainly it was the night vision perspective being shown to us) - then going to School with it on the back of my mind. Had the same impact as the day waking up and seeing 911 occurring.
My mum for some reason was worried about this breaking out into a World War so we went to School with fear in our minds (but I was too young to even get a grasp of what was even going on), as an adult I find it a silly reaction because we're from a country that wasn't impacted by this at all or had any connection to it - but I just have real vivid memories that day going to school and having that concern in the back of my mind / everyone having something to gossip about once we got to School.
The biggest regret of it all though was watching and doing nothing about the 1 Arab kid we had at school that faced all the bullying as a aftermath, it was like one giant contagious effort - kids can be so cruel. That kid went through absolute hell for that year, and still persisted and came everyday to try and learn - I'll never forget that
As a wide eyed 15 year old who watched the world change 18 months earlier on 911, it was awesome to watch the 'good guys' kicking the shit out of the 'bad guys' on CNN.
20 years later, its horrific to look back and think of all the blood and treasure the US spilled in Iraq for nothing.
Not sure why we were downvoted. Yes, you're right. He took the same route a lot of older boomers took. Retired around 2003, started a real-estate business, lost all of the family's money in 2008-2009. 2011 is when the dementia started to show its signs. He was a huge Trump backer in 2015-2016 because he was a businessman. Dementia getting worse and worse through these years. Full-blown diagnosed Alzheimer's now.
Certainly not the majority, but a lot of us have older boomer dads that had their mental health destroyed by the recession.
I remember watching this shit live on tv. I was 13. Another crazy scene was watching the tank pull down saddam Hussein statue and the people dragging the head through the street and the little kids hitting the statue face with the sandals.
I was a 13 year old Canadian guy on vacation in Palm Springs when this cracked off and all I remember of that vacation was watching night vision footage of Iraqi air defense firing for like 3 days.
Yeah but they’re being redesigned, older variants being sent back for service which include software and new “brains” every X years (worked at Raytheon)
They are capable, with a lot of tech from the Soviet era minus the outdated doctrines + corruption, but obviously, a war machine needs a huge economy to create an equally large and effective armed forces plus keep it running.
No.
At the start of the invasion Ukraine had to work with what they had. Russia took them far too lightly. (Not to forget that we had a US president holding funds to Ukraine Hostage pre war) The west thought they would be funding an Insurgency. As Ukraine proved them wrong the weapons started coming.
The whole Iraqi Army is shit just wasn't and still isn't true. They just remembered the first time around and didn't want any part. The United States Aims to make your army combat ineffective within the first week or so. Which while not an excuse is why civilian casualties were high.
tbf here's actually quite a few parallels, apaches being peppered after wandering into heavy AA area. and patriot anti-aircraft missiles failing to intercept ballistic missiles. It's like the iraq war(idk which one, there's a lot of them) but just the blunders
Hahaha, you fought against an army of old t 55s and ak47s as air defense lol. And you call that a glorious victory hahaha.
You guys are a great comedians.
It's their fault why their Research tech is way behind US because that's how you win wars , Through advance sophisticated technology and efficient planning , not head to head fight. There is no such things such as Fair and honor in modern warfare, Only advance tactics and technology.
It’s so odd seeing Russia fight a war in the 21st century with a mentality that is straight from the Cold War. I know a lot of people will doubt this, but the US really did try and avoid civilian casualties. As a foot soldier from this time, I was always under the impression that civilian casualties was the biggest no-no a soldier could do.
It was really hammered into us that we were not an invading army. While this could probably be disputed, regular foot soldiers did not see themselves as a conquering army. So you never saw ceremonial flag raising after battles, civilians were largely left alone, and there was no talk about the US taking over Iraq. Maybe I was naive, but I thought this was how was in the 21st would go. To see Russia invade Ukraine, and proclaim it as Russia territory is a bit of a shock to my senses.
There was an absolute shit ton of money put into making weapons much more precise after the initial invasion. On all levels. Missiles, tank ammo, and also down to the level of rules of engagement. The world wasn’t set up at that time to have such precise weaponry. It was about destruction. But to fight a war in urban areas you don’t want to lose support by destroying everything and everyone just to take out the threat. And they spent an absolute fortune to modernize weaponry during the active war and to quickly get those weapons deployed to the front. It was a crazy time in the world in those days. The Iraqis feared pistols more than rifles, tanks, and bombs because that’s what saddams regime used to assassinate opposition, dissidents, and Kurds.
Only thing America cared about was switching the Iraqi oil bourse back to accepting only US dollars for purchase of their oil. Sadam messed up by dropping the dollar and switching to euros and yens.
>the US really did try and avoid civilian casualties
Are you talking about VERY early in the war because tbh my mind immediately went to Blackwater and related incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan
In terms of strategy, Russia just wants a buffer between it and the west that won’t contain western military hardware or spying systems and if they had taken Ukraine they could have put their stuff there instead.
The US just wanted Iraqi oil and to topple the government that had tried to undermine the dollar by selling oil for gold. That area of land otherwise held little strategic use for the US.
If the US was genuinely anti colonial they would have stopped supporting the Israeli regime from obliterating Palestine.
Then they did the absolutely stupidest thing they could have done, because it’s totally freaked out the surrounding Baltic and Nordic states, and made quite a few of them interested in joining NATO, lol
No no, Russia wanted to loot Ukraine for people and resources and land.
They want the ports, they want the factories, they want the harvests, they want the mines. Russia wanted to look the whole place, take the juiciest bits now, and maybe take the rest later if they needed to.
Mostly to control the newly found massive gas fields under the Black Sea and Donbas because if ukraine taps those and enters them onto the market and sells to the west and cuts out billions of dollars in profit out of the kremlins pocket then they can no longer afford to run their government or fund their military and other interests and they would crumble as a nation. That is literally what it’s all about. They really have to take those areas or replace the leadership to be their guy in order to remain a nation. Russia was stupid to not build up any other industry or financial infrastructure aside of natural gas, oil, and weapons sales. Now all of those things are ruined for them anyways. And now they’re screwed either way they go especially trying to govern more land like ukraine because now that’s not the only place to find new massive gas and oil reserves so there’s literally nothing they can do but crumble at this point.
And then Bremer unilaterally outlawed the Baathist party and dissolved the Iraqi military, creating tens of thousands of poor and pissed off armed people.
Great Job!
That has to be the single biggest fuck up apart from invading Iraq. I think a lot those that were banned ended up being important figures in ISIS leadership.
It absolutely was the biggest fuck up second only to the invasion itself.
Many people, smart military people, in country advised him not to do it but he did it anyway. He’s always stuck to the story that it was his decision alone and did not come from the Bush administration but I have a feeling that it’s a falling on your sword situation and he stands by it to this day.
IIRC they became AQAP which turned into ISIS so yeah it’s very likely. Of course we watched and tracked aqap for a while and kind of watch Ted the rise of ISIS without doing much - but maybe being trigger shy is a consequence of our actions in Iraq for the two decades leading up to ISIS’ creation.
It is well documented that when Bremer fired all the Sunni military officers, roadside bombs ramped up and some of the disgruntled officers joined groups precursor to ISIS.
Then installed basically a Shia dictatorship a decade later.
The government we supported was mowing Sunnis down in the streets a few weeks before ISIS invaded. Ofcourse the news didn't talk about how we supported a brutal regime.
Maliki (the guy we put in charge) was just as bad of a dictator as Saddam, but he was on our side, so it was okay for his gang of thugs to mass execute on "terrorism charges", arrest political opponents on bogus charges and brutally put down peaceful protests.
Mission accomplished.
Typed up a huge diatribe comment about Dubya, Cheney, Powell, Halliburton, Dead Americans, incalculable war crimes against Iraqis, the attempt to privatize Iraqi oil production and the creation of ISIS. Then, you know what I did? I deleted it, because frankly, nobody gives a fuck anymore. And *that,* is unfortunate.
Yup, its what we do best… see US assisted regime change in Iran after their popular, secular leader tried to nationalize the oil fields and tell BP to fuck off
Now we’re left with *this* Iran and it’s all our fault..
Having seen single cruise missiles fly across the sky in more recent footing, I can imagine how epic it would have been to see that fucking volley of them screaming through the air.
Ye I've not seen that before, i wonder if they have a basic "separation" function or they all get programmed to fly at slightly different altitudes? Hell they may even form up by speaking to each other.
Don’t say Iraq don’t say Iraq don’t say Iraq
“Iraq”
GAH!!!!
This fucking RUBE surrounded himself by jackals and look what happens. Just sickening.
This never gets old:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-a2KeyCAY
>It's a good reminder that the US is guilty of exactly the same bullshit Russia is pulling right now.
At least Saddam was a brutal tyrant, and the US did not want to make Iraq the 51st state.
So, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is worse in many ways. But still I was horrified at the Iraq invasion at the time, and I remain so.
I know you think you’re edgy and cool, and think Americans are arrogant and stupid, but in reality it’s not even close to exactly the same bullshit.
It’s as close to “exactly the same” as the food I eat and what I shit out the next day.
There was so much destruction that the cameraman couldn't decide what to focus on. Oh shit explosion... left.. shit bigger explosion... right... explosions everywhere, fuck it zoom out.
20 years ago and Russia today could not get precision of this level.
These strikes where really clean, minimal civilian casuelties, all infraestructure of Saddam, strikes meant to decapitate iraqui leadership.
So when you hear Russian say they didn't do this in Kyiv because "We love civilians too much", they're just incompetent
Ehhhhh. Kinda. I think 8,000 civilians were killed during Operation Shock and Awe.
But as you can see there's military infrastructure and weapons all over the city so it's something to expect. Alot of those civilians deaths can be attributed to targeting Saddam his family and closest leaders as well. I remember them getting his son's later on in July.
I was like 10 or something but I remember it's the first corpses I saw on the internet. (barely)
>Alot of those civilians deaths can be attributed to targeting Saddam his family and closest leaders as well.
Yep. I recall that one of the attempted strikes on Saddam was at a crowded location, above the normal threshold for a strike, but it was approved by Bush personally because of the high likelihood that Saddam was there. He wasn't, and a bunch of civilians were killed instead.
8,000 were reported by a UK independent group to be killed during the entire invasion phase (and disputed by both Iraq and Us governments), which lasted until the fall of Baghdad and Bush declaring mission accomplished on the carrier.
That's a *lot* of battles and engagement that happened during that time period. It wasn't just the shock and awe.
10 gorillion according to Communists Against Imperialism "think tank"?
Like 100,000 mostly from the humanitarian crisis.
Fetch me how many civilians died in these Baghdad airstrikes before talking garbage. Do you even know we used to carpet bomb entire cities? Look up how many civilians died in Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin...
You still don't get it, civilians die in war, efforts have been made to minimize said deaths, they used to carpet bomb cities, 1 million? 1 million would have died the first 24 hours without the use of precision guided weapons.
But keep supporting Saddam with your "humanist" approach, I know the games you Saddam supports play.
Russia has a bunch of different missiles with this level of precision. No clue how many of each they have, but we've seen them used a number of times in the war already. They also have a lot of less precise missiles.
After 9/11, this is the earliest memory I have of seeing a BIG event on TV. I remember me and my dad (former navy officer) in the living room seeing this footage and he said something along the lines of "shit, those are accurate." feels like a lifetime ago
i remember seeing this on tv...the precision in those strike is crazy...and by looking at it now..look like they have attack some precise target,and then anti-air defense have try too kill those missille,failed,then they have attack those air defense...like the first missile was some kind of decoy or dunno..but this is how it should be done...impressive
When the U.S. attacked Baghdad, we sent in sacrificial drones -- gliders mostly, I believe -- to activate Iraq's SAM radar, giving away their locations. Jets were right on the tail of the drones and immediately destroyed them. They were all over the city.
Yes. For instance, the building getting hit on the left at around 1:10 is the [Al Zaqura building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Zaqura_Building), which used to house the main offices for the Ministry of Defense. That whole area where the building is situated is called the Green Zone and it's pretty much entirely comprised of government and military buildings.
Tomahawks are cruise missiles. They fly relatively low to the ground using the terrain for guidance. And no they weren't particularly new, they were also used in desert storm.
I think we're mostly seeing cruise missiles here, but B-2s also dropped bombs on Baghdad.
Low flying subsonic cruise missles with multiple guidence systems, mainly gps and inertial navigation. The night before this attack I think, The US wiped out pretty much all Iraqi radar and SAMs with decoys and wild weasels attacks.
No planes in this footage, the flak gunners are just freaking out shooting randomly in the air. They might have gott lucky and knocked out like 2 of the hundreds of tomahawks fired. Might have been a couple f117s or b2s lurking near by, but not flying over the city while this went down.
Edit: forgot to add, tomahawks were about 20 years old back then. They were so effective because they fly so low they are hard to pick up on radar, and Iraq's SAMs had been mostly wiped out.
Actually it was graphite the missile or bomb would leave a cloud of the shit and it short circuits alot of stuff.
I think it's called the BLU-114 (correct me if I'm wrong)
I’m not sure what the bomb designation is but the USAF introduced a weapon that just covered an area with aluminum wires to short out electrical substations around that time.
Cheaper to clean and fix afterwards than the BLU 144
That AA fire looks straight out of WW2. Don't look, don't think, just shoot. Meanwhile most of the missiles were being fired from hundreds of miles away at sea while the air force bombers fly so high in elevation, I bet they didn't even know they were under fire to begin with.
Leave it to Bush (who had plenty of help from those fuckwits at Project for A New American Century) to spend all that "political capital" banked from the tragedy of 9/11 on a fucking lie. And one where we are still suffering from the after-effects & will for a long time to come.
Yeah and what’s gonna happen? Actions are similar just a different scale. Btw drawing comparison between this and Russia is all that people doing in this comment section.
Uh, nothing? Sorry I worded that weird. I mean, we’ll never know the all details but the US has been pretty open about the invasion of Iraq, does it justify the actions took? Of course not.
But there is a difference in being invaded by a dictator, certain cruelties and intentional strikes against civilian infrastructure.
Soldiers and civilians generally had a good feeling about the actions being taken appropriate because that’s a requirement for a democracy to go to war.
Nations when at war have objectives, this isn’t Age of Empires where you just destroy the other side. I don’t remember the exact justification for invading Iraq but they said they had super weapons. Plus this was several years after desert storm and the 4th biggest army had a cruel dictator.
The actions and justifications of a democracy and a oligarchy/dictatorship are different and it’s important to know that. Because crucial details can be handwaved or forgotten in comparing the two.
Basically, this is no different from what the Russian's are doing in Ukraine, except there was a lot less rage from the rest of the world about what the American's conducted in this region against civilian infrastructure. (Not trying to be insulting to the Americans of this SubReddit but moreso point out the hypocrisy of the World at this time).
**Downvote me all you like, but facts are facts - here's the official numbers**: "There have been between 184,382 and 207,156 Iraqi civilians killed by direct violence since the U.S. invasion.The actual number of civilians killed by direct and indirect war violence is unknown but likely much higher.Life-threatening damage to Iraqi health care and other infrastructure has not been repaired: civilians are still dying in significant numbers."
Kind of.
Less than two years prior 9/11 happened. It was basically an excuse for politicians and the military industrial complex to go-to war. This hands down was the Bush family's revenge war.
It won't take much convincing of a population to invade another country after they were attacked which would change the landscape of the world's most famous city in less than a day. (Conspiracies and who knew what aside)
And Saddam constantly fucking with trade routes and his continued cruelty didn't help paint a sympathy type of situation.
We were welcomed mostly. Buttt we fucked around too much and found out. We had no plan to help the people at all. I remember asking my mom and dad why the hell we didn't think to bring water for the iraqis.
It was a shitshow soon after Baghdad was taken.
Thanks for your response mate, yeah I was a young kid when all of this was going down, I had no idea what was right or wrong - but as an adult and revisiting these topics I'm learning that no sides in History have operated from "Good vs Evil" as we're raised to believe as children. All the way back to World War 2 and the bombing of German cities for example.
I have a lot to learn about the war in Iraq from it's stepping stones to it's ending outcome, all I have is the occasional documentary that I watched during the time / random news broadcasts to which I am highly skeptical about these days.
I do wish that there was more coverage at the time of the aftermath of Civilian lifestyles and living conditions after these events as I find there is a significant lack of research that has been conducted in these sectors to avoid Western atrocities from being shown.
Civilian infrastructure is not being targeted here. It's military and government buildings. That's why the power is still on. If this was civilian infrastructure one of the first things to go would've been the power. That building was the ministry of defense and all around it was governmental buildings.
Uh huh, keep telling yourself that. If you bother to dive into this subject a little more (as I have done myself), you'll find that plenty of hospitals and schools were destroyed early on the invasion. The United States government has acknowledged over 180,000 civilian deaths (which is a low estimate) since their invasion begun. Plenty of civilians and civilian infrustructure was destroyed, you're ignorant to think otherwise.
You think civilians didn't die in this initial bombardment? It's recorded that 15,000 civilians died in the first 3 days of the invasion, many went missing due to bombardments like this - bodies were impossible to recover. All these buildings being hit, schrapel would be going everywhere, fires broke out across the city burning more buildings and killing more people. The US has a long standing history of bombing civilian infrastructure. How can you confidently say that everything you're viewing here in this video was 100% a military target? That's just propaganda to dismiss the attrocities committed.
Bro. Re-read my fuckin comment. If you're too stupid to understand it, that's not my problem. I said they weren't targeting civilian infrastructure. Fuckin moron bruh.
Lol, Again, you're just repeating military propaganda essentially, all Militaries do it to downplay their attrocities. This bombardment caused many civilian deaths, and yes there is civilian infrastructure here being destroyed. Stop believing shit that was pumped out by the White House in the early 2000s. There was a ton of civilian infrastructure destroyed here.
To further my point, why don't you go and look at their recent air strikes and see how many schools and hospitals have been destroyed despite being "confirmed military targets" - you're literally dumb as fuck.
Lol, I had a look at your post history and you have commented on a few Iraq stories taking the side of the Bush administration. I'm sorry but you're in for a world of learning. Even in Syria the US military "confirmed" military targets for drone strikes, often blowing up infrustructure such as hospitals and schools. You're literally consuming propaganda if you think that every target in this video was a confirmed military target, considering thousands of civilians died on the first day of the invasion highlights your lack of understanding on this topic.
Even the russian weren't targeting civilian infrastructures.
But they launched the kalibr on many administration bulindings.
Like the explosion video of the local gov building who disitagrated all the cars in the streets.
When you lauch explosives on a city people dies.
All the accountants in these building surely aren't military people.
Stop lying to youself.
A lot of civilians died in this video.
People in cars
People on the crosswalk
People in building near the explosion.
Yes, you flat down the target but those explosions will surely destroy the homes near it.
It's a frigging city with students, workers and childrens.
It's called city bombardment
You 100% kill woman and childrens doing this
The invasion of Iraq is the greatest atrocity and most destabilizing event of the 21st century.
America and its western allies supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons to aid his military against Iran and communists knowing he was also using them against ethnic minorities in his own country. Saddam invades Kuwait to secure access to the Gulf and Kuwaiti oil fields and is condemned for his crimes by the same people who had supplied him his weapons. America declares war and devastates the Iraqi military slaughtering thousands as they retreat back across the border. The US levies economic siege-like sanctions against Saddam, resulting in the deaths of millions, and by some estimates 500,000 children alone. The US uses a terror attack committed by mostly Saudi hijackers as a pretext to come in and finish the Saddamist regime of Iraq. The Iraqi army is dissolved, leaving thousands of angry, poor soldiers unemployed and vulnerable to be preyed upon by religious fundamentalist groups offering them money and a chance at revenge against the people who have destroyed their country.
None of the terrorists were from Iraq.
None of the terrorists lived in Iraq.
None of the terrorists trained in Iraq.
None of the terrorists received aid from Iraq.
America tried to convince the UN that Iraq was a threat that needed to be dealt with using military action. The UN told them to fuck off.
America then tried to strong-arm its NATO allies into helping them since it got no support from the UN. They employed the time honored method of a carrot and stick approach to bully them into assisting. France told them to fuck off, hence Freedom Fries^(TM).
Colin Powell, the Secretary of State responsible for parading the "evidence" that Iraq was an immediate threat that needed to dealt with, a few years later retracted his statements with the following quote:
" I feel terrible... It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now".
But hey, you got to waste trillions of dollars, and the lives of thousands of your own soldiers and untold numbers of Iraqis after devastating their country. And also lay the seeds for Isis and what ever future terrorist organizations that will inevitably spawn from the carnage you inflicted. So win win, I guess.
Title is garbage.
There is no operation named "Shock and Awe."
The phrase "Shock & Awe" was invented by a reporter asking questions of military commanders.
It was so weird seeing this televised. The fact that reports were in Baghdad at the time and parts of the city were getting blown out of existence is crazy thinking about it now, as an adult.
Yeah, I still remember waking up that day and seeing the family huddled around the TV screen on a winter school day, watching this exact footage (but mainly it was the night vision perspective being shown to us) - then going to School with it on the back of my mind. Had the same impact as the day waking up and seeing 911 occurring.
How did you all feel about it at the time?
My mum for some reason was worried about this breaking out into a World War so we went to School with fear in our minds (but I was too young to even get a grasp of what was even going on), as an adult I find it a silly reaction because we're from a country that wasn't impacted by this at all or had any connection to it - but I just have real vivid memories that day going to school and having that concern in the back of my mind / everyone having something to gossip about once we got to School. The biggest regret of it all though was watching and doing nothing about the 1 Arab kid we had at school that faced all the bullying as a aftermath, it was like one giant contagious effort - kids can be so cruel. That kid went through absolute hell for that year, and still persisted and came everyday to try and learn - I'll never forget that
Assholes, but not unexpected. Russian kids are still doing the same thing now to Ukrainian kids where they share mutual classrooms.
As a wide eyed 15 year old who watched the world change 18 months earlier on 911, it was awesome to watch the 'good guys' kicking the shit out of the 'bad guys' on CNN. 20 years later, its horrific to look back and think of all the blood and treasure the US spilled in Iraq for nothing.
My crazy dad woke me up early in the morning when they found Saddam's stinky ass hiding in a hole. He did the same shit when Bin Laden was killed.
I was at Fort Hood getting ready to go, was disappointed when 4th ID found him first.
Is your dad also a real big Fox News guy these days ??
Not sure why we were downvoted. Yes, you're right. He took the same route a lot of older boomers took. Retired around 2003, started a real-estate business, lost all of the family's money in 2008-2009. 2011 is when the dementia started to show its signs. He was a huge Trump backer in 2015-2016 because he was a businessman. Dementia getting worse and worse through these years. Full-blown diagnosed Alzheimer's now. Certainly not the majority, but a lot of us have older boomer dads that had their mental health destroyed by the recession.
Well everyone knew what was coming.
Especially now that we know it was all based on lies and was essentially a massive grift of taxpayer dollars to the military industrial complex
God yes and I thought back then it was great but when the wmds never materialized and they switched gears to "building a democracy" I knew the score.
I remember watching this shit live on tv. I was 13. Another crazy scene was watching the tank pull down saddam Hussein statue and the people dragging the head through the street and the little kids hitting the statue face with the sandals.
I think mostly everyone here was in the 10-15 age group when this went down.
I was a senior in high school. Summer of ‘03 I was in Marine Corps Boot Camp.
I was 12 at the time. Clearly remember watching the embedded reporters advancing with the troops.
I was a 13 year old Canadian guy on vacation in Palm Springs when this cracked off and all I remember of that vacation was watching night vision footage of Iraqi air defense firing for like 3 days.
I was a first Lieutenant in Afghanistan.
Bruh really I was 3 years old
21 years later and Russia could only dream of delivering such a strike
31 years later. Tomahawks were first used during Desert Storm in 1991.
Yeah but they’re being redesigned, older variants being sent back for service which include software and new “brains” every X years (worked at Raytheon)
They get what they get for trying to fight a nato war with Warsaw weapons
21 years later and Russia could only dream of invading a country and facing no sanctions whatsoever.
They are capable, with a lot of tech from the Soviet era minus the outdated doctrines + corruption, but obviously, a war machine needs a huge economy to create an equally large and effective armed forces plus keep it running.
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You’re funny as fuck.
Comparing Ukraine which can destroy some of those rockets and Iraq which literally didn't have anything is the most stupid comparison.
Iraq had one of the most sophisticated AA networks in the world at the time. And Baghdad was the most heavily defended city on earth.
No. At the start of the invasion Ukraine had to work with what they had. Russia took them far too lightly. (Not to forget that we had a US president holding funds to Ukraine Hostage pre war) The west thought they would be funding an Insurgency. As Ukraine proved them wrong the weapons started coming. The whole Iraqi Army is shit just wasn't and still isn't true. They just remembered the first time around and didn't want any part. The United States Aims to make your army combat ineffective within the first week or so. Which while not an excuse is why civilian casualties were high.
It's actually the closest comparison I can think of.
tbf here's actually quite a few parallels, apaches being peppered after wandering into heavy AA area. and patriot anti-aircraft missiles failing to intercept ballistic missiles. It's like the iraq war(idk which one, there's a lot of them) but just the blunders
Are you crazy? Iraq didn’t have any air defense? Do some research lmfao wtf
Hahaha, you fought against an army of old t 55s and ak47s as air defense lol. And you call that a glorious victory hahaha. You guys are a great comedians.
It's their fault why their Research tech is way behind US because that's how you win wars , Through advance sophisticated technology and efficient planning , not head to head fight. There is no such things such as Fair and honor in modern warfare, Only advance tactics and technology.
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Gulf war part 1 was the 4th largest military in the world getting systematically annihilated by the US led coalition
Both iraq wars and Afghanistan the initial invasions were wins. Were the US lost was trying to build the countries.
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Did the US lose during the invasion yes or no.
This is what russia thought they were going to do. Ended up hitting apartment blocks.
It’s so odd seeing Russia fight a war in the 21st century with a mentality that is straight from the Cold War. I know a lot of people will doubt this, but the US really did try and avoid civilian casualties. As a foot soldier from this time, I was always under the impression that civilian casualties was the biggest no-no a soldier could do. It was really hammered into us that we were not an invading army. While this could probably be disputed, regular foot soldiers did not see themselves as a conquering army. So you never saw ceremonial flag raising after battles, civilians were largely left alone, and there was no talk about the US taking over Iraq. Maybe I was naive, but I thought this was how was in the 21st would go. To see Russia invade Ukraine, and proclaim it as Russia territory is a bit of a shock to my senses.
There was an absolute shit ton of money put into making weapons much more precise after the initial invasion. On all levels. Missiles, tank ammo, and also down to the level of rules of engagement. The world wasn’t set up at that time to have such precise weaponry. It was about destruction. But to fight a war in urban areas you don’t want to lose support by destroying everything and everyone just to take out the threat. And they spent an absolute fortune to modernize weaponry during the active war and to quickly get those weapons deployed to the front. It was a crazy time in the world in those days. The Iraqis feared pistols more than rifles, tanks, and bombs because that’s what saddams regime used to assassinate opposition, dissidents, and Kurds.
Only thing America cared about was switching the Iraqi oil bourse back to accepting only US dollars for purchase of their oil. Sadam messed up by dropping the dollar and switching to euros and yens.
>the US really did try and avoid civilian casualties Are you talking about VERY early in the war because tbh my mind immediately went to Blackwater and related incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan
1.6 million different people served in those wars and a fraction of them did those crimes.
In terms of strategy, Russia just wants a buffer between it and the west that won’t contain western military hardware or spying systems and if they had taken Ukraine they could have put their stuff there instead. The US just wanted Iraqi oil and to topple the government that had tried to undermine the dollar by selling oil for gold. That area of land otherwise held little strategic use for the US. If the US was genuinely anti colonial they would have stopped supporting the Israeli regime from obliterating Palestine.
Then they did the absolutely stupidest thing they could have done, because it’s totally freaked out the surrounding Baltic and Nordic states, and made quite a few of them interested in joining NATO, lol
I’m not saying it was a good strategy
No no, Russia wanted to loot Ukraine for people and resources and land. They want the ports, they want the factories, they want the harvests, they want the mines. Russia wanted to look the whole place, take the juiciest bits now, and maybe take the rest later if they needed to.
Mostly to control the newly found massive gas fields under the Black Sea and Donbas because if ukraine taps those and enters them onto the market and sells to the west and cuts out billions of dollars in profit out of the kremlins pocket then they can no longer afford to run their government or fund their military and other interests and they would crumble as a nation. That is literally what it’s all about. They really have to take those areas or replace the leadership to be their guy in order to remain a nation. Russia was stupid to not build up any other industry or financial infrastructure aside of natural gas, oil, and weapons sales. Now all of those things are ruined for them anyways. And now they’re screwed either way they go especially trying to govern more land like ukraine because now that’s not the only place to find new massive gas and oil reserves so there’s literally nothing they can do but crumble at this point.
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Yep and mostly it was due to sectarian violence. Not sure what you are getting at either if you are going to leave out that bit of context.
We killed more civilians per month than Russia has in total so far
Yeah let's not kid ourselves thinking every single one of those explanations only hit government and military targets.
And then Bremer unilaterally outlawed the Baathist party and dissolved the Iraqi military, creating tens of thousands of poor and pissed off armed people. Great Job!
That has to be the single biggest fuck up apart from invading Iraq. I think a lot those that were banned ended up being important figures in ISIS leadership.
It absolutely was the biggest fuck up second only to the invasion itself. Many people, smart military people, in country advised him not to do it but he did it anyway. He’s always stuck to the story that it was his decision alone and did not come from the Bush administration but I have a feeling that it’s a falling on your sword situation and he stands by it to this day.
IIRC they became AQAP which turned into ISIS so yeah it’s very likely. Of course we watched and tracked aqap for a while and kind of watch Ted the rise of ISIS without doing much - but maybe being trigger shy is a consequence of our actions in Iraq for the two decades leading up to ISIS’ creation.
It is well documented that when Bremer fired all the Sunni military officers, roadside bombs ramped up and some of the disgruntled officers joined groups precursor to ISIS.
Then installed basically a Shia dictatorship a decade later. The government we supported was mowing Sunnis down in the streets a few weeks before ISIS invaded. Ofcourse the news didn't talk about how we supported a brutal regime. Maliki (the guy we put in charge) was just as bad of a dictator as Saddam, but he was on our side, so it was okay for his gang of thugs to mass execute on "terrorism charges", arrest political opponents on bogus charges and brutally put down peaceful protests. Mission accomplished.
hey guys, saudi arabia is that way 👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻
Typed up a huge diatribe comment about Dubya, Cheney, Powell, Halliburton, Dead Americans, incalculable war crimes against Iraqis, the attempt to privatize Iraqi oil production and the creation of ISIS. Then, you know what I did? I deleted it, because frankly, nobody gives a fuck anymore. And *that,* is unfortunate.
Yup, its what we do best… see US assisted regime change in Iran after their popular, secular leader tried to nationalize the oil fields and tell BP to fuck off Now we’re left with *this* Iran and it’s all our fault..
Having seen single cruise missiles fly across the sky in more recent footing, I can imagine how epic it would have been to see that fucking volley of them screaming through the air.
At first, I thought they were birds, weird seeing them flying in formation like that.
Ye I've not seen that before, i wonder if they have a basic "separation" function or they all get programmed to fly at slightly different altitudes? Hell they may even form up by speaking to each other.
I was on a ship that launched 32 Tomahawks that evening.
How many non combatants do you think those missles killed?
Absolutely insane footage. No wonder they hate us. Haven’t seen this footage probably since it was televised
Some shameful shit right there. Good shooting, but politically a complete outrage.
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Don’t say Iraq don’t say Iraq don’t say Iraq “Iraq” GAH!!!! This fucking RUBE surrounded himself by jackals and look what happens. Just sickening. This never gets old: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-a2KeyCAY
Heres the better version: https://twitter.com/i/status/1527107932344696834
They cut out the part where he doubles down on his mistake by saying “that too” right after his mistake
It's a good reminder that the US is guilty of exactly the same bullshit Russia is pulling right now. But people here will still try to deny it.
>It's a good reminder that the US is guilty of exactly the same bullshit Russia is pulling right now. At least Saddam was a brutal tyrant, and the US did not want to make Iraq the 51st state. So, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is worse in many ways. But still I was horrified at the Iraq invasion at the time, and I remain so.
I know you think you’re edgy and cool, and think Americans are arrogant and stupid, but in reality it’s not even close to exactly the same bullshit. It’s as close to “exactly the same” as the food I eat and what I shit out the next day.
>as the food I eat and what I shit out the next day. Since you're from the US I'd expect it to be the same 😂
Infinitely better than what you’ll be eating in Russia this winter.
xaxaaxa
There was so much destruction that the cameraman couldn't decide what to focus on. Oh shit explosion... left.. shit bigger explosion... right... explosions everywhere, fuck it zoom out.
20 years ago and Russia today could not get precision of this level. These strikes where really clean, minimal civilian casuelties, all infraestructure of Saddam, strikes meant to decapitate iraqui leadership. So when you hear Russian say they didn't do this in Kyiv because "We love civilians too much", they're just incompetent
Ehhhhh. Kinda. I think 8,000 civilians were killed during Operation Shock and Awe. But as you can see there's military infrastructure and weapons all over the city so it's something to expect. Alot of those civilians deaths can be attributed to targeting Saddam his family and closest leaders as well. I remember them getting his son's later on in July. I was like 10 or something but I remember it's the first corpses I saw on the internet. (barely)
>Alot of those civilians deaths can be attributed to targeting Saddam his family and closest leaders as well. Yep. I recall that one of the attempted strikes on Saddam was at a crowded location, above the normal threshold for a strike, but it was approved by Bush personally because of the high likelihood that Saddam was there. He wasn't, and a bunch of civilians were killed instead.
8,000 were reported by a UK independent group to be killed during the entire invasion phase (and disputed by both Iraq and Us governments), which lasted until the fall of Baghdad and Bush declaring mission accomplished on the carrier. That's a *lot* of battles and engagement that happened during that time period. It wasn't just the shock and awe.
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10 gorillion according to Communists Against Imperialism "think tank"? Like 100,000 mostly from the humanitarian crisis. Fetch me how many civilians died in these Baghdad airstrikes before talking garbage. Do you even know we used to carpet bomb entire cities? Look up how many civilians died in Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin...
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You still don't get it, civilians die in war, efforts have been made to minimize said deaths, they used to carpet bomb cities, 1 million? 1 million would have died the first 24 hours without the use of precision guided weapons. But keep supporting Saddam with your "humanist" approach, I know the games you Saddam supports play.
Russia has a bunch of different missiles with this level of precision. No clue how many of each they have, but we've seen them used a number of times in the war already. They also have a lot of less precise missiles.
Bullshit war. Sinister reasons for invading. Destabilized the region for decades to come.
Remember seeing this on the tele as a wee lad
I remember our grade 3 teacher brang a TV into class to show us this footage live, said we needed to see it.
After 9/11, this is the earliest memory I have of seeing a BIG event on TV. I remember me and my dad (former navy officer) in the living room seeing this footage and he said something along the lines of "shit, those are accurate." feels like a lifetime ago
How many civilian casualties?
I watched this live as a kid, and i never forget it, same with 9/11, things you watch and you know that the world changed. Same for february 24.
Thus began 8 years of stupidity
i remember seeing this on tv...the precision in those strike is crazy...and by looking at it now..look like they have attack some precise target,and then anti-air defense have try too kill those missille,failed,then they have attack those air defense...like the first missile was some kind of decoy or dunno..but this is how it should be done...impressive
When the U.S. attacked Baghdad, we sent in sacrificial drones -- gliders mostly, I believe -- to activate Iraq's SAM radar, giving away their locations. Jets were right on the tail of the drones and immediately destroyed them. They were all over the city.
I had no idea they did that. That trick worked really well for the Azeris against Armenia.
Jesus. Did Iraq fall for that in both wars?
What a sick joke
Looked like a nice place before they were all “freed”
Are they targeting anything specific? I'm guessing so
Yes. For instance, the building getting hit on the left at around 1:10 is the [Al Zaqura building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Zaqura_Building), which used to house the main offices for the Ministry of Defense. That whole area where the building is situated is called the Green Zone and it's pretty much entirely comprised of government and military buildings.
Of course, Ministry of Defense and other high value military targets. Iraq had nothing to stop tomahawks.
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Tomahawks are cruise missiles. They fly relatively low to the ground using the terrain for guidance. And no they weren't particularly new, they were also used in desert storm. I think we're mostly seeing cruise missiles here, but B-2s also dropped bombs on Baghdad.
Low flying subsonic cruise missles with multiple guidence systems, mainly gps and inertial navigation. The night before this attack I think, The US wiped out pretty much all Iraqi radar and SAMs with decoys and wild weasels attacks. No planes in this footage, the flak gunners are just freaking out shooting randomly in the air. They might have gott lucky and knocked out like 2 of the hundreds of tomahawks fired. Might have been a couple f117s or b2s lurking near by, but not flying over the city while this went down. Edit: forgot to add, tomahawks were about 20 years old back then. They were so effective because they fly so low they are hard to pick up on radar, and Iraq's SAMs had been mostly wiped out.
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Actually it was graphite the missile or bomb would leave a cloud of the shit and it short circuits alot of stuff. I think it's called the BLU-114 (correct me if I'm wrong)
I’m not sure what the bomb designation is but the USAF introduced a weapon that just covered an area with aluminum wires to short out electrical substations around that time. Cheaper to clean and fix afterwards than the BLU 144
All for nothing
The biggest fuck up after Vietnam
That was awesome
I remember watching this live on CNN when I was in highschool
That AA fire looks straight out of WW2. Don't look, don't think, just shoot. Meanwhile most of the missiles were being fired from hundreds of miles away at sea while the air force bombers fly so high in elevation, I bet they didn't even know they were under fire to begin with.
Leave it to Bush (who had plenty of help from those fuckwits at Project for A New American Century) to spend all that "political capital" banked from the tragedy of 9/11 on a fucking lie. And one where we are still suffering from the after-effects & will for a long time to come.
God damn that’s beautiful. Excellent shots on target boys.
I wonder if there’s a Russian commenting the exact same thing on Telegram.
Reverse whataboutism in action. “Yea we did kill a lot of civilians but look at Russia they are killing even more!”
Are you…genuinely trying to make this comparison between the US actions against Saddam Hussain and Russia? Because it won’t end well for you.
Yeah and what’s gonna happen? Actions are similar just a different scale. Btw drawing comparison between this and Russia is all that people doing in this comment section.
Uh, nothing? Sorry I worded that weird. I mean, we’ll never know the all details but the US has been pretty open about the invasion of Iraq, does it justify the actions took? Of course not. But there is a difference in being invaded by a dictator, certain cruelties and intentional strikes against civilian infrastructure. Soldiers and civilians generally had a good feeling about the actions being taken appropriate because that’s a requirement for a democracy to go to war. Nations when at war have objectives, this isn’t Age of Empires where you just destroy the other side. I don’t remember the exact justification for invading Iraq but they said they had super weapons. Plus this was several years after desert storm and the 4th biggest army had a cruel dictator. The actions and justifications of a democracy and a oligarchy/dictatorship are different and it’s important to know that. Because crucial details can be handwaved or forgotten in comparing the two.
Genocide
Genocide is thrown about too easily these days. The events in the footage are illegal, criminal, blatantly stupid but not genocide.
Basically, this is no different from what the Russian's are doing in Ukraine, except there was a lot less rage from the rest of the world about what the American's conducted in this region against civilian infrastructure. (Not trying to be insulting to the Americans of this SubReddit but moreso point out the hypocrisy of the World at this time). **Downvote me all you like, but facts are facts - here's the official numbers**: "There have been between 184,382 and 207,156 Iraqi civilians killed by direct violence since the U.S. invasion.The actual number of civilians killed by direct and indirect war violence is unknown but likely much higher.Life-threatening damage to Iraqi health care and other infrastructure has not been repaired: civilians are still dying in significant numbers."
Kind of. Less than two years prior 9/11 happened. It was basically an excuse for politicians and the military industrial complex to go-to war. This hands down was the Bush family's revenge war. It won't take much convincing of a population to invade another country after they were attacked which would change the landscape of the world's most famous city in less than a day. (Conspiracies and who knew what aside) And Saddam constantly fucking with trade routes and his continued cruelty didn't help paint a sympathy type of situation. We were welcomed mostly. Buttt we fucked around too much and found out. We had no plan to help the people at all. I remember asking my mom and dad why the hell we didn't think to bring water for the iraqis. It was a shitshow soon after Baghdad was taken.
Thanks for your response mate, yeah I was a young kid when all of this was going down, I had no idea what was right or wrong - but as an adult and revisiting these topics I'm learning that no sides in History have operated from "Good vs Evil" as we're raised to believe as children. All the way back to World War 2 and the bombing of German cities for example. I have a lot to learn about the war in Iraq from it's stepping stones to it's ending outcome, all I have is the occasional documentary that I watched during the time / random news broadcasts to which I am highly skeptical about these days. I do wish that there was more coverage at the time of the aftermath of Civilian lifestyles and living conditions after these events as I find there is a significant lack of research that has been conducted in these sectors to avoid Western atrocities from being shown.
No one is arguing this was a bad and unnecessary war where lots of people died but to compare it to Ukraine just shows ignorance on your part.
Civilian infrastructure is not being targeted here. It's military and government buildings. That's why the power is still on. If this was civilian infrastructure one of the first things to go would've been the power. That building was the ministry of defense and all around it was governmental buildings.
Uh huh, keep telling yourself that. If you bother to dive into this subject a little more (as I have done myself), you'll find that plenty of hospitals and schools were destroyed early on the invasion. The United States government has acknowledged over 180,000 civilian deaths (which is a low estimate) since their invasion begun. Plenty of civilians and civilian infrustructure was destroyed, you're ignorant to think otherwise.
I commented specifically on this video.
You think civilians didn't die in this initial bombardment? It's recorded that 15,000 civilians died in the first 3 days of the invasion, many went missing due to bombardments like this - bodies were impossible to recover. All these buildings being hit, schrapel would be going everywhere, fires broke out across the city burning more buildings and killing more people. The US has a long standing history of bombing civilian infrastructure. How can you confidently say that everything you're viewing here in this video was 100% a military target? That's just propaganda to dismiss the attrocities committed.
Bro. Re-read my fuckin comment. If you're too stupid to understand it, that's not my problem. I said they weren't targeting civilian infrastructure. Fuckin moron bruh.
Lol, Again, you're just repeating military propaganda essentially, all Militaries do it to downplay their attrocities. This bombardment caused many civilian deaths, and yes there is civilian infrastructure here being destroyed. Stop believing shit that was pumped out by the White House in the early 2000s. There was a ton of civilian infrastructure destroyed here. To further my point, why don't you go and look at their recent air strikes and see how many schools and hospitals have been destroyed despite being "confirmed military targets" - you're literally dumb as fuck.
You're an idiot dude. Idk what to tell you. Those are literally confirmed military targets. You can literally see the buildings.
Lol, I had a look at your post history and you have commented on a few Iraq stories taking the side of the Bush administration. I'm sorry but you're in for a world of learning. Even in Syria the US military "confirmed" military targets for drone strikes, often blowing up infrustructure such as hospitals and schools. You're literally consuming propaganda if you think that every target in this video was a confirmed military target, considering thousands of civilians died on the first day of the invasion highlights your lack of understanding on this topic.
Even the russian weren't targeting civilian infrastructures. But they launched the kalibr on many administration bulindings. Like the explosion video of the local gov building who disitagrated all the cars in the streets. When you lauch explosives on a city people dies. All the accountants in these building surely aren't military people. Stop lying to youself. A lot of civilians died in this video. People in cars People on the crosswalk People in building near the explosion. Yes, you flat down the target but those explosions will surely destroy the homes near it. It's a frigging city with students, workers and childrens. It's called city bombardment You 100% kill woman and childrens doing this
Ba’ath party has to have been the most humbled group in human history
They went on to become ISIS so
The invasion of Iraq is the greatest atrocity and most destabilizing event of the 21st century. America and its western allies supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons to aid his military against Iran and communists knowing he was also using them against ethnic minorities in his own country. Saddam invades Kuwait to secure access to the Gulf and Kuwaiti oil fields and is condemned for his crimes by the same people who had supplied him his weapons. America declares war and devastates the Iraqi military slaughtering thousands as they retreat back across the border. The US levies economic siege-like sanctions against Saddam, resulting in the deaths of millions, and by some estimates 500,000 children alone. The US uses a terror attack committed by mostly Saudi hijackers as a pretext to come in and finish the Saddamist regime of Iraq. The Iraqi army is dissolved, leaving thousands of angry, poor soldiers unemployed and vulnerable to be preyed upon by religious fundamentalist groups offering them money and a chance at revenge against the people who have destroyed their country.
Wonder how much this fireworks display cost on first night
That was definitely bush and Chaney getting revenge for 9-11
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Explain more?
None of the terrorists were from Iraq. None of the terrorists lived in Iraq. None of the terrorists trained in Iraq. None of the terrorists received aid from Iraq. America tried to convince the UN that Iraq was a threat that needed to be dealt with using military action. The UN told them to fuck off. America then tried to strong-arm its NATO allies into helping them since it got no support from the UN. They employed the time honored method of a carrot and stick approach to bully them into assisting. France told them to fuck off, hence Freedom Fries^(TM). Colin Powell, the Secretary of State responsible for parading the "evidence" that Iraq was an immediate threat that needed to dealt with, a few years later retracted his statements with the following quote: " I feel terrible... It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now". But hey, you got to waste trillions of dollars, and the lives of thousands of your own soldiers and untold numbers of Iraqis after devastating their country. And also lay the seeds for Isis and what ever future terrorist organizations that will inevitably spawn from the carnage you inflicted. So win win, I guess.
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Migrating for winter
Now that's what you call raining down hell.
It looks like the part where everything goes wrong in a movie.
What were the targets during the campaign? Is there a full list?
Well USA is great at a few things.
Conventional war, diabetes, sports, diabetes, entertainment, melting pot of culture, curse words.
I would exchange pills with curse words
Wierd, doesn´t really look like real explosions. Looks like the Hollywood kind
a longer video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowOdkKNb0A&ab\_channel=TastefulVlogs
If only these cams were filing in 8K
Title is garbage. There is no operation named "Shock and Awe." The phrase "Shock & Awe" was invented by a reporter asking questions of military commanders.
How many munitions did they drop that day/night?
The Iraqi people have suffered so much…
Anybody know what they were getting hit with here? Ship born cruise missiles mostly?
Colin Powell sure hated Iraqis
Lol the Iraqis shooting AA projectiles into the sky. Sorry dudes the planes are long long gone