I think your hate is starting to show through. Your rant is so pathetic that it is barely worth a reply. But let's look at some facts anyway.
1. The US could have moved in on Baghdad with contemptuous ease. We both know it.
The US could have moved on Baghdad "with contemptuous ease" only if it had destroyed any threat to it's flanks and to it's logistic lines. In other words, by neutralizing the Iraqi Army that it bypassed.
Also, in modern warfare, unless the enemy completely surrenders, ala Taliban, capturing a city is never "contemptuously easy" except in the minds of civilian arm chair generals. Urban warfare against a determined enemy is an extremely nasty and bloody business as recent examples in Grozny and Mogadishu and earlier examples of Stalingrad, Leningrad and Berlin have shown.
2. There is a difference between a prisoner of war camp and a concentration camps. We both know it.
True. But it is clear to me that Anamensis is saying that the critics, such as yourself, Architect, would have described P.O.W. camps in the worst terms possible for the propaganda benefit.
An example is the Iraqi embargo. Before the Gulf War, critics of US policy were advocating an embargo as a "non-violent" option to bring down Saddam. Now, individuals such as yourself describe it as baby killing. You even did so in this thread without bothering to bring up the fact that Saddam is allowed to sell as much oil as required to feed his people and how he has recently spent huge amounts of money to build a gigantic mosque as a megalomanic monument to himself.
3. Even if they were the same, how does this justify the Nintendo murder of conscript troops? If we weren't going to continue on to Baghdad, what even was the point?
The point, Architect, was to destroy Iraq's capability to wage succesful war on it's neighbors. This is not accomplished by capturing the enemy's capital as Napoleon discovered long ago when he captured Moscow and shortly thereafter lost his Grand Armee. You destroy an enemy's war making capabilities by destroying his Army.
The Eastern Theatre of the American Civil War was won when General U.S. Grant stopped using the Army of the Potomac as a vehicle to capture Richmond and, instead, used the Army of the Potomac to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia as a fighting force.
Wars are not won by running your flag up the flagpole of the enemy's Capitol building although Hollywood movies may give that impression. Wars are won and peace is secured by destroying the war-making capabilities of your enemy's Armed Forces.
During the Iran-Iraq War the Iraqi Army, that you so easily dismiss as a "conscript army", managed to kill 300,000 Iranian and wound another 500,000. Before the Gulf War, the Iraqi Army was the forth largest in the world. “Experts” were predicting the Americans would die by the tens of thousands in World War One style bolldbaths just as the Iranians had three years earlier.
Would it have made you feel better, Architect, if the U.S. had suffered, say, 30,000 casualties so that the U.S. wouldn’t look like a bully waging "Nintendo War" against the bunch of schoolgirls that you now portray the Iraqi Army to have been during the Gulf War?
4. Taking Baghdad would undoubtedly have caused some refugees to flee. The difference between Palestinians and these hypothetical Iraqis is this, Einstein. The Palestinians were never allowed to go home. The racist Zionists couldn't let that happen, could they?
The Germans who were expelled from East Prussia in 1945 were never allowed to return. Yet, they moved on, settled in new areas, established new lives and, today, are doing rather well for themselves.
Palestinians, however, are still living in "refugee camps" and the old timers are still described as "refugess" even though they left Palestine over half a century ago in 1948. Is it not to the Arab world's benefit to treat these people as perpetual "refugess" living in "refugee camps" on Arab soil rather that integrating them into the society of the rest of the country? Why, except for the obvious propaganda value, were these "refugee camps" not closed out by 1958 and it's occupants integated into the rest of Arab society?
5. Hussein was not popular in Iraq in 1991. He just led the people into two disasterous wars. No one was going to back him up.
Hussein was not too popular in Iraq a few years before during the bloodbath of the Iran-Iraq War. Hitler was not too popular in Vichy France in 1944 when Allied Armies had to fight their way across France. Disgruntled "people" do not overthrow dictators with an Army that are capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties on an enemy. Only the Army itself can do that.
In neither the Iran-Iraq War nor the Gulf War, did the Iraqi Army turn on Saddam Hussein even though the latter was the perfect time to do so if it so desired.
Some others claim that the objective was to dethrone Saddam Hussein. If so, the turkey shoot might have been understandable. But why didn't we move on to Baghdad if this was the purpose?
Still others claim that the objective was to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it's quite clear that this objective has been achieved long ago. In fact, Hussein cooperated and all weapons of mass destruction were eliminated in 1991.
I say that the US has no objective whatsoever - other than demonizing Hussein. Consequently ordinary Iraqis suffer without the slightest degradation of Hussein's position in Iraq. It is obviously true that Hussein could care for ordinary Iraqis despite the American embargo. This inculpates Hussein. It doesn't excuse the US government.
Thank you, you dealt with Architect much better than I could. And in answer to the above, I think we both know deep down that Architect hates America and Americans completely.