Military What was done is being undone...Iraq

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

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  1. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    What second source? O'Reilly got it from the discredited MRC. In fact every story you can Google up on the topic cites the same MRC source, which offers no actual evidence.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/01/the-koch-brothers-are-using-fox-news-employees/199914

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...er-limbaugh-scarborough-wemple-rove-fox-news/
     
    red55, Jul 1, 2014
    #161
  2. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...se-ignored-all-those-warnings-about-isis.html
    Interesting and this from former members of the Obama administration. IMO further example of the president's lack of understanding and capability to manage the most important country in the world. A failure that is causing chaos world wide. BTW @red55 this isn't a call to arms just an observation that the president had options 2+ years ago that would possibly have stopped this. Also no matter how much you shout letting chaos rule is NOT good for anyone and that includes the US.
     
    Winston1, Jul 6, 2014
    #162
  3. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    What failure? He declined to re-engage in the Iraqi Civil War on behalf of Malaki, who is totally undeserving of our help. I think Obama understands the situation quite well. We cannot "win" another country's civil war. We couldn't in Vietnam, we couldn't in Lebanon, we couldn't in Iraq with a huge army in place. Why in the world do you think that now we need to try this failed tactic again?

    What is it you advocate if not returning to war in Iraq? You criticize Obama for not doing so! Typically, whatever Obama does is bad, you say, but why can't you say what we should be doing if not exactly what we ARE doing? I've asked V-ball and I ask you. Give me a justifiable reason to get involved in an Iraqi Civil War! Especially one in which both sides hate us and the side requesting our help asked us to leave previously and has proven not worthy of our help. They cannot run the country. How does letting them fight it out themselves hurt us? Explain that one.
     
    red55, Jul 6, 2014
    #163
  4. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    Red you must either jump to conclusions or be willfully blind or maybe you didn't bother to read the article. It is full of examples of what he failed to do and what he refused to do. There were steps (if you would bother to read the article) his people suggested two years ago. HIS IG for Iraq was quoted in the article. There are NO quotes from R or opposing politicians as the whole piece is based on comments from those inside of his administration.

    Red as the article pointed out there is little we can do today...BUT lookee lookee President Obama is sending troops in flying drones in. Doing things HIS people suggested two + years ago. One other salient point that was made is that his dithering about Syria made this whole thing worse. Again citing people from within OBAMA's own administration.

    Red maybe you should get the Obama pixie dust out of your eyes and stop assuming every criticism of him is based on politics or race. Wake up and smell the roses sport...His own people say mistakes were made, he ignored warnings and failed to act when he could have made a difference.
     
    Winston1, Jul 6, 2014
    #164
  5. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Look, I read the goddamn article! Got that?

    So what? I have made my views on whether we should go back to war very clear. I don't give a rats ass what the author you cite thinks. I think he is wrong and misleading about his sources who say that they made warning about ISIS, not that they recommended going to war with them, they didn't. They are a couple of local diplomats in Iraq, NOT Obama's top advisors in the Pentagon and the State Department. What did those guys advise, eh? They are advising us to stay out of it.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...q-will-be-different-this-time-top-brass-says/

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ir...raq-having-trouble-advancing-pentagon-n147606

    http://time.com/2909885/iraq-isis-pentagon-baghdad/

    You article makes it absolutely clear that the failure was Malaki's. Then it wrongly goes on to suggest that Obama should have backed up Maliki even though he refused Obama's suggestions that he make more Sunnis part of the government. Malaki screwed this up, then called on Obama to come back and fix it after tossing us out with great cheers just a few years ago. Less than 20% of Iraqis want us back the article points out. Why do you want to go to war for Maliki and his corrupt henchmen for people who hate us? Obama is absolutely correct in resisting this. We can't solve their problems and we damn sure ain't going to make them our problems.

    The article clearly states that these same people believe "there were no good options for who the United States should support. This stuff is far more complicated than 'white hat / black hat' and Maliki good, that guy bad, or Maliki bad, that guy good. They're all shades of gray, at best."

    So once again you criticize Obama for not returning to war in Iraq, suggesting that he should have. Is that your position or ain't it? If we don't belong in this Iraqi Civil War, then Obama has made the right decision. Stop evading my question and simply answer it . . . do you want us to resume our role in the Iraqi Civil War? Yes or No. Then explain why, I gotta hear this one.

    In fact, the article says nothing whatsoever about Syria. Did you bother to read the article? Why would you make up that "salient point"?

    I've never said anything about race, you made that up, too. And all of these arguments are about politics, don't be naive. I have backed up my assertions with my reasons based on facts and evidence. You just keep claiming that I have "pixie dust in my eyes" or I have been "drinking the Obama Kool-aid". Do you imagine that is convincing anybody?

    That is not what the article says, chief. The author takes a lot of liberties in "explaining" what his sources say. For instance the author says that "McGurk’s warnings went largely unheeded." Did they? If you read McGurks actual congressional testimony (linked in the article) McGurks warnings did not include the need to take any military action and suggest that Iraqi forces were adequate to the job when provided with intelligence. We have been providing them with intelligence, so that "warning" did not go unheeded, did it?

    While Iraqi security forces will never match what U.S. forces achieved at the height of the war, they have proven capable of conducting effective operations when provided sound intelligence. In recent months, Iraqi civilian and military leaders have increasingly looked to us for advice and information sharing. This is partly to ensure – with pressure from us – that operations are targeted and precise, to avoid detaining innocent civilians. We have made clear to Iraqi commanders that some of their tactics over the past six months have been self-defeating, and it is time to draw on the lessons that we learned together five years ago. -- Brett McGurk
    ​
     
    red55, Jul 6, 2014
    #165
  6. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    Red you ignore the comment of Obama's Ambassador to Iraq “I and a zillion other people said in 2014 that we needed to do more than the very slow and inadequate reaction,” added James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. “
    Or This quote from the article:

    Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have issued reported analysis for nearly a year warning that Iraq’s military would not be able to stand up against a sustained campaign from ISIS.
    “Since last year, U.S. intelligence analysts routinely highlighted the growing problems and deficiencies within the Iraqi Security Forces,” one senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast. This official said beginning in 2013, analysts routinely warned about morale problems inside the Iraqi military, what he     called “leadership shortfalls” and a “steady degradation in capabilities that was making it difficult for Iraqi Security Forces to combat ISIS.”
    He ignored his top military and civilian leaders on the ground in Iraq

    Stuart Bowen, who was the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq, said he had serious doubts about the fitness of Iraq’s military when the last U.S. soldiers left in 2011.
    "My questions about the Iraqi military in 2011 arose from concerns expressed to me by General Lloyd Austin who was then the commander of all U.S. forces in country,” he told The Daily Beast. “That year, he had to put out a number of fires in Iraq, the most serious of which arose in Kirkuk during the spring. That contentious engagement revealed the substantial tensions that existed between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army, tensions that could have led to combat had the U.S. not intervened.” Bowen said that both Austin and Jeffrey “indicated to me that there would be - because there needed to be - a continuing U.S. military presence after 2011.”

    As far as Maliki's intransigence there is less there than meets the eye. He was ready to agree to a SOFA similar to what exists in other areas:
    Maliki, according to Jeffrey, in 2011 at times floated in private the idea that the SOFA could be extended through an executive agreement. McGurk, according to U.S. officials who worked on Iraq at the time, was the one senior official who favored at the time for pursuing such an arrangement. The U.S. has similar kinds of SOFAs with other countries in the Middle East and these agreements remain secret and shielded from the public. But in the end, McGurk was over ruled and the troops left. (Eventually, U.S. troops would return to Iraq under just that kind of arrangement.)

    Again you try to change the debate to what can be done now but the article focus on what was not done in the last 3 years that MAY have prevented this.
     
    Winston1, Jul 6, 2014
    #166
  7. shane0911

    shane0911 Helping lost idiots find their village

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    So are you in favor of us going back across the pond or aren't cha?

    I mean if you are rattling on about a SOFA then I'd have to think you are.
     
    shane0911, Jul 7, 2014
    #167
  8. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    Not really I'm am not sure what should be done but the current state of affairs is untenable. I think the ME is a cauldron that threatens the whole world. There needs to be concerted action to change the direction if at all possible. I also believe that it is up to the US to provide leadership moral and physical. The lack of leadership in fact the refusal to lead is deadly and the impact will be felt for generations.
     
    Winston1, Jul 7, 2014
    #168
  9. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    To say this is not our fight is short sighted and self defeating in the extreme. While neither side is very much worth supporting and seems nearly equally flawed the fighting and spread of the violence and instability threatens all. Those who imagine it will be limited and self limiting have their heads in the sand.
    The US has thrived and profited greatly by the world girdling economy that has developed since WW2. Like the British Empire of the 18th century and Rome the cost of policing the world was more than offset by the wealth accrued by being the center of the world economy. The loss of focus set off by 9/11 and the poorly thought out and executed adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have harmed the US immeasurably. (Yes @red55 Bush deserves the blame for those). Likewise the reaction of Obama, withdrawing the US from a leadership role has been the wrong solution.
    We need to find a better way. The salient fact is that the world calls out for US leadership and cannot withstand the vacuum of our absence.
     
    Winston1, Jul 7, 2014
    #169
  10. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Dude, it is 2014 today! Are you lobbying for a rash and imprudent reaction instead? That is what got us into the Iraqi quagmire to begin with. Now we are out. Do you want us to go back to war in Iraq or not?

    This is an assumption you are making. Just because we had indications that the Iraqi Army was not up to par does not mean Obama must decide to go to war again for them. Every move we make in the middle east has consequences, some of which are worse than the original problem. Obama is wisely refraining from some knee-jerk response that gets us into another quagmire. Just because the Iraqi Army is weak doesn't mean that it is doomed either. ISIS also has some great weaknesses, more of them in fact. What ISIS has is a leader, something Maliki has failed miserably at. I ask for the fourth time, are you proposing that Obama go to war in Iraq or not? Or are you baiting him to go to war so that you can criticize him for it afterwards, just as the GOP did in Libya and tried to do in Syria.

    The Iraqis asked us to leave! We were prepared to leave a force in Iraq, but they wanted us out. Are you suggesting that we should have stayed to protect these people who hate us and ordered us out?

    I see, you are criticizing Obama for not creating a secret agreement to engage in the Iraqi Civil War. An Executive agreement, no less. Exactly what the GOP criticized him for in Libya and are making a huge phony issue of in this election year - executive orders. I can see why more prudent minds ignored McGurk.

    Are you suggesting that Obama should have gone to war in Iraq three years ago? Just when they had ordered us out? I don't think you know what you want.
     
    red55, Jul 7, 2014
    #170
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