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Military What was done is being undone...Iraq

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by mancha, Jun 12, 2014.

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alfredeneuman Founding Member

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MLUTiger said: ↑

The Kurds are more concerned with the Turks than the Muslims to the South.
I'm sorry, why is Iraq's culture shift a cause worthy of American lives? I think enough American lives have been sacrificed. Time for some Iraqi lives to be sacrificed for Iraqi freedoms.
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You're right. Never said it was worthy. There is nothing in the world to fight for.

alfredeneuman, Jun 14, 2014

#31
MLUTiger Secular Humanist

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alfredeneuman said: ↑

You're right. Never said it was worthy. There is nothing in the world to fight for.
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Exaggerating my position in an effort to make it easier to attack is the option for mental midgets. Try harder or fall on your sword.

MLUTiger, Jun 15, 2014

#32
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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HalloweenRun said: ↑

For you folks that are old enuf to remember Viet Nam. No surprise here. We wanted freedom and democracy more than the natives. Same outcome. And the same result is gonna occur in Afghanistan. Identical. When will we learn? We die for democracy and freedom, those assholes run away from it.

I am all for taking the oil in IRAQ and turning it into the 51st state. No problem with that at all, but to "nation build" or whatever the term du jour is, is worthless. I support greatly the folks that served there, I deeply grieve the folks that were wounded and killed there, but at no point, not one, did I not KNOW the outcome. Years in advance. Rep or Dem it did not and never will matter.

I have said this forever, in the future, if we are going in, it must be to take ground, riches, and resources and expand the US of A. We will be friendlies, they will be hostiles.

No ambiguity. Kill the hostiles, take their riches, put up McDonalds. It is so simple.
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The British tried this in the 19th century. It didn't work. But it did bring cricket to India.

red55, Jun 15, 2014

#33

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HalloweenRun Founding Member

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red55 said: ↑

The British tried this in the 19th century. It didn't work. But it did bring cricket to India.
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Played a little cricket when I was stationed in England. The best deal was the girls that cricket players attracted. Fine. Cricket was once called "organized loafing." Perhaps why it is so special.

HalloweenRun, Jun 15, 2014

#34
Bengal B Founding Member

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HalloweenRun said: ↑

Played a little cricket when I was stationed in England. The best deal was the girls that cricket players attracted. Fine. Cricket was once called "organized loafing." Perhaps why it is so special.
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I've never seen any cricket groupies but I'll take the girls that NASCAR drivers attract any day

Bengal B, Jun 15, 2014

#35

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MLUTiger Secular Humanist

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mancha said: ↑

12 years, billions of dollars spent, many lost lives and Iraq is falling to radical Shia Islamists and ethnic militias. Iran is mobilizing the Republican Guard to help the Shiites. The country is on the verge of breaking apart.
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Just a quick point: The Shi'ites are running the country and for the most part are not radicalized. The Sunnis are the ones causing problems right now which is why the Iranians are going to be helpful to Maliki. They would prefer a Shi'ite-run government.

mancha said: ↑

Do we have a responsibility since we created this mess? The democratic govt in Iraq could collapse and this will be another foreign policy failure.

The USA had the responsibility of stabilizing the country after we removed Saddam. Are we tied to the fate of Iraq now? The other option is that a Syria-Iraq extremist state is formed.
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I'd like to point out that we didn't create this current problem. When Petraus led "the surge" a big part of that was getting the Sunnis involved in the government. When US forces left, Maliki began to renege on the agreements that were made and this evolved in to full blown persecution of the Sunnis. Maliki has created this situation despite being given direction on how to avoid it and a clean slate in 2003. As far as I'm concerned, this is no longer an American mess. This isn't Bush's fault; This isn't Obama's fault. This is Maliki's fault.

The number one priority for Iraqi citizens was the removal of US Troops. There was no way that Maliki could have (or would have) signed an agreement that left US Troops in Iraq. It was simply not even on the table. We spent billions in rebuilding his country, training his troops, etc. and he pissed it all away. He used Iraqi forces as his own police force to persecute Sunnis, their forces were never professionalized so they have no moral and very little respect in the community. None of them have any pride in themselves or their fellow soldiers. They're more concerned with religious affiliation than national affiliation.

US air support will change nothing. Let them fight it out and then we can play nice with whomever comes out on top. Even the Kurds are staying out of this.

MLUTiger, Jun 15, 2014

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shane0911 Helping lost idiots find their village

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MLUTiger said: ↑

Even the Kurds are staying out of this.
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told ya

shane0911, Jun 15, 2014

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MLUTiger Secular Humanist

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Well, we might both be getting ahead of ourselves. The Kurds are making a land grab.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middl...-take-kirkuk-now-what-201461653255207327.html

I do like how they have taken Iraq's oil-richest city for "security purposes". They learn quick...

MLUTiger, Jun 16, 2014

#38

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LSUMASTERMIND Founding Member

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uscvball said: ↑

Maybe not but then let's pull ALL of our personnel out of Baghdad before it falls. It may have been a "neocon" mistake but Obama was singing his own praises at one point.....
"Iraq was largely at peace when Mr. Obama came to office in 2009. Reporters who had known Baghdad during the worst days of the insurgency in 2006 marveled at how peaceful the city had become thanks to the U.S. military surge and counterinsurgency. In 2012 Anthony Blinken, then Mr. Biden's top security adviser, boasted that, "What's beyond debate" is that "Iraq today is less violent, more democratic, and more prosperous. And the United States is more deeply engaged there than at any time in recent history."

Mr. Obama employed the same breezy confidence in a speech last year at the National Defense University, saying that "the core of al Qaeda" was on a "path to defeat," and that the "future of terrorism" came from "less capable" terrorist groups that mainly threatened "diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad." Mr. Obama concluded his remarks by calling on Congress to repeal its 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against al Qaeda.

If the war on terror was over, ISIS didn't get the message. The group, known as Tawhid al-Jihad when it was led a decade ago by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was all but defeated by 2009 but revived as U.S. troops withdrew and especially after the uprising in Syria spiraled into chaos. It now controls territory from the outskirts of Aleppo in northwestern Syria to Fallujah in central Iraq.

The possibility that a long civil war in Syria would become an incubator for terrorism and destabilize the region was predictable, and we predicted it. "Now the jihadists have descended by the thousands on Syria," we noted last May. "They are also moving men and weapons to and from Iraq, which is increasingly sinking back into Sunni-Shiite civil war. . . . If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki feels threatened by al Qaeda and a Sunni rebellion, he will increasingly look to Iran to help him stay in power."

We don't quote ourselves to boast of prescience but to wonder why the Administration did nothing to avert the clearly looming disaster. Contrary to what Mr. Blinken claimed in 2012, the "diplomatic surge" the Administration promised for Iraq never arrived, nor did U.S. weapons. "The Americans have really deeply disappointed us by not supplying the Iraqi army with the weapons and support it needs to fight terrorism," the Journal quoted one Iraqi general based in Kirkuk.

That might strike some readers as rich coming from the commander of a collapsing army, but it's a reminder of the price Iraqis and Americans are now paying for Mr. Obama's failure to successfully negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with Baghdad that would have maintained a meaningful U.S. military presence. A squadron of Apache attack helicopters, Predator drones and A-10 attack planes based in Iraq might be able to turn back ISIS's march on Baghdad."

I agree with you that western style democracy will never work over there. But we have gone there and screwed around for some purpose that benefits the US. Likely money and/or oil. Bashar is the modern day version of the Shah. We propped him up despite the atrocities he committed because he was our "ally" allowing us access, air space, and freedom to operate. Now Syria is in turmoil and we are letting him swing in the wind.
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you are predictable and your responses are pathetic on this matter. I'll concede a many of Obamas mistakes, but this isnt one of them.

LSUMASTERMIND, Jun 16, 2014

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Rex_B Geaux Time

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Waste of Lives and Money. What a shame.

Rex_B, Jun 16, 2014

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