Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Iraq disintegration
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
June 12, 2014 at 6:08 pm #611656
wakefloodParticipantSo, as many could/did predict, Iraq is in the process of disintegration into (likely) 3 warring territories that will destabilize its neighbors to some significant degree.
We broke it…we bought it to the tune of 3-4 TRILLION dollars and thousands of dead and now we…what?
If only somebody had stopped the madness that we knew would ensue. Thanks Cheney/Rumsfeld.
Now watch the pundits blame Obama for this clusterf*ck of a situation.
And for those who think walking away is the answer, how do you deal with the fact that the Frankenstein you created, ISIS is more sophisticated, better trained and armed than Al-Qaeda? You don’t think they want to mess with us?
How about all those folks who built the drumbeat to the Iraq war just suit up and go over there and sort it out, eh? Rummy, Dickie, Judith, etc., etc. Fools, all.
June 12, 2014 at 7:39 pm #809492
Alki WarriorParticipantObama is gonna take care of it don’t worry..
June 12, 2014 at 8:02 pm #809493
wakefloodParticipantPhew, for a second there, I thought you were gonna’ suggest a well-reasoned solution, AW…
I stand corrected.
June 12, 2014 at 8:58 pm #809494
JanSParticipantand they have come begging for our help…I have heard rumors that we will only help financially. I think they wanted drones, etc…I say, well, maybe not a good idea to help so much..fool me once….yeah, what did Bush say?
June 12, 2014 at 9:38 pm #809495
SmittyParticipant“Now watch the pundits blame Obama for this clusterf*ck of a situation.”
That actually should, but won’t happen. The media love him too much.
Bush/Cheney for all their faults and poor decisions were very clear that we should have a presence in Iraq for a LONG while. I believe one of them was mocked for actually saying “forever”.
But NO, let’s get out now and let the place collapse – and have all those deaths(US and otherwise) be for nothing. Leave the mess to the next poor sap to take the Oval Office.
To be clear – this is not a thread over whether going into Iraq was right or wrong – I think we all know the answer to that – this is about doing what is right to keep the peace and do what we can to fix the damage we helped create.
June 12, 2014 at 10:17 pm #809496
clark5080ParticipantApparently the O admin has known about this buildup and have been dragging their feet in doing something about it.
June 12, 2014 at 10:41 pm #809497
hammerheadParticipantNeedless to say this is extremely distressing.
More than anything it is a HUGE slap in the faces of the men and women and their families who lost their lives and loved ones.
June 12, 2014 at 10:52 pm #809498
wakefloodParticipantThere are no good options, and most importantly, there HAVEN’T been since the day we invaded.
All that is left to us is to spend uncounted millions or billions more indefinitely, and/or kill more soldiers and extremists and innocents until someday when we tire of it again.
We’ll be spending money to kill extremists at a distance or close up, effectively creating more of them everyday we continue, just as we have for the last 12yrs.+. OR….
…we’ll be spending the money to attempt to prevent them attacking us or our allies where we live. Which, as history shows, (supposedly) requires the facade of BOTH an invasive security state, AND a permanent war footing (read infinite budget) by the military.
There’s your choices folks.
Any of that sound like the country you envisioned living in a dozen years ago?
June 12, 2014 at 10:59 pm #809499
wakefloodParticipantHammerhead, who exactly is slapping these people in the face?
You speak as if there’s some obvious solution to make this go away and we’re just too stupid to do it. Pray tell, exactly how do we not insult them?
June 12, 2014 at 11:32 pm #809500
wakefloodParticipantWe don’t have to look far to see how this plays out. We have examples within memory and in 20th century history.
The British in Afghanistan
The French in Vietnam
America in Vietnam
The Russians in Afghanistan
You walk away and spend billions to hopefully contain the fire from a distance. What results? We have little control over that but then again, to assume THAT WE EVER DID is demonstrably foolish.
Maybe someday we’ll get a better handle on how to not radicalize people who think us oppressive. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include invasions.
June 12, 2014 at 11:44 pm #809501
dobroParticipant“Bush/Cheney for all their faults and poor decisions were very clear that we should have a presence in Iraq for a LONG while.”
This is a crazy idea that is a result of their faults and poor decisions. We should never have been in Iraq in the first place.
“I believe one of them was mocked for actually saying “forever”.”
Mocking is the bare minimum the idiot that suggested that should endure.
“But NO, let’s get out now and let the place collapse – and have all those deaths(US and otherwise) be for nothing.”
Some people, incredibly, think this is a logical statement. FYI, all of those deaths are worth nothing RIGHT NOW! Thousands of our young people and, as you rightly mention, many others, died for war profiteers, political power egos, oil companies,and one particular pr*cks Daddy issues.But, somehow, to some people, it makes sense to send more people to die because…uh…uh…well, just because. Criminy.
“…Leave the mess to the next poor sap to take the Oval Office.”
Oh, you mean like GWB did?
June 13, 2014 at 12:14 am #809502
dobroParticipantIn 2002 Brent Scowcroft warned that “to attack Iraq while the Middle East is in the terror that it is right now and America appears not to be dealing with something which to every Muslim is a real problem [the Israel/Palestine conflict] but instead go over here I think could turn the whole region into a cauldron…”
Which is exactly what has happened. The Middle East is a cauldron. The idea of sending more American young people there to die is insane and should not get any traction.
June 13, 2014 at 12:28 am #809503
wakefloodParticipantBut Dobro, how else could we kick ass and take names???
Hubris, stupidity and a big credit card is a potent formula…for disaster.
June 13, 2014 at 6:44 am #809504
dobroParticipantPlease pardon the cut and paste, but the folly of those who think we need to be in Iraq is well-stated here by blogger David Atkins…
“Iraq is descending into the chaos that so many of us who opposed the war predicted. The human toll must be horrible, likely beyond the imagining of most living Americans.
[This article] says the US should go back in and my mind boggles. When will we ever learn? The author’ makes two blatantly ludicrous assumptions:
The first is that the US government could re-intervene with good intentions. Not only is that utterly naive, it’s impossible. For one thing, good intentions aren’t enough. As Bush convincingly demonstrated, you also have to know what you’re doing. Even now, even without right wing ideologues running foreign policy, this country hardly knows enough about Iraq to be effective. Nor does the US have a stable enough political culture to follow through.
Also, who says the US has good intentions? After all, a genuinely serious American solution to Iraq begins by bringing to justice those responsible for the invasion. That would demonstrate actual good intentions by the present American government to the citizens of Iraq. Dream on.
Assumption two is that the US has some kind of fairy dust that can help stave off catastrophe if we can just get a chance to sprinkle it around. There is no such thing. The American military would only make things far worse.
And since we don’t know what we’re doing, since the criminals will get off, and since we have no magic powders, the US must stay out. That doesn’t preclude cooperation with an international coalition; it simply means that further unilateral military involvement is an absolutely terrible idea.
Iraq today is a tragedy, plain and simple. We will only add to the horror Bush perpetrated by unilaterally returning.”
June 13, 2014 at 1:57 pm #809505
SmittyParticipantI’m not sure returning is the right answer either. I wish I had the answer. It seems at the very least some air support is in order – but I know how that could be a slippery slope.
My issue is pulling out in the first place and not leaving a force behind to make certain the Iraq government was stable and strong enough to defend itself. Erasing “red lines” and making horrible hostage “trades” certainly bolstered ISIS as well.
Obama was dealt a horrible hand – no doubt. But I contend that while he certainly didn’t “create” this situation, he could have done more to keep it at bay.
June 13, 2014 at 3:48 pm #809506
JoBParticipantSmitty..
have you considered what size force we would have had to leave behind to “stabilize” the puppet government we supported?
June 13, 2014 at 3:57 pm #809507
dobroParticipant“But I contend that while he certainly didn’t “create” this situation, he could have done more to keep it at bay.”
Obama wanted to keep more troops there but was constrained by the status-of-forces agreement that GWBs admin negotiated. If you’ll recall, the Iraqi gov’t did not want and would not allow us to leave forces there.How could we pretend we were leaving a “democracy” there without honoring some of that gov’t’s wishes?
Obama takes credit for ending the Iraq war but the endgame of that war was negotiated by GWB and firmly in place when Obama took the reins and the Iraqis would not budge.
June 13, 2014 at 4:30 pm #809508
dobroParticipant“Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”
— George H. W. Bush, in his 1998 memoir A World Transformed
June 13, 2014 at 4:49 pm #809509
dobroParticipant“My issue is pulling out in the first place and not leaving a force behind to make certain the Iraq government was stable and strong enough to defend itself.”
The reason Obama didn’t leave troops is because the Maliki gov’t insisted that if Americans soldiers were left in Iraq they’d have to be subject to Iraqi laws and justice system. You can imagine how that went over.
The gov’t was stable when we left. The Maliki admin, rather than being inclusive and sharing oil money with all parties (Sunni, Shia, etc) immediately made a power grab and shut out their religious enemies. GWB and his evil cronies opened a Pandoras box that Obama has been trying to balance his whole term in office with no help from the Repub warpigs that started it all. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 9/11,and the Patriot Act are all the legacy of the worst POTUS in American history, GWB.
June 13, 2014 at 4:58 pm #809510
wakefloodParticipantOne of the things that drives me crazy is that media outlets – and not just Faux News – still give voice to these fools who created the mess.
Some of them should be in jail for treason, instead they get speaker’s fees and draw salaries from various and sundry right wing entities as if their opinions are something more than what they really are – attempts to whitewash their incompetence and rehabilitate their public images.
Nice how that works, eh?
June 13, 2014 at 5:13 pm #809511
wakefloodParticipantAs Dobro reasonably points out, Maliki was damaged goods from the get-go but since we had to pick someone to prop up, he was the most connected and seemingly, most friendly.
What he is, is exactly what people knew him to be long before the invasion – a greedy opportunist.
But hey, Iraq’s not really a country anyway. It’s an artificial grouping of disparate religious groups with an arbitrary border. (Which frankly describes many countries, including the U.S.) Maybe it’s time to negotiate the breakup of separate states. I’m not even sure which group has a functional claim on their Mesopotamian roots. (It ain’t the Kurds but they want to be part of Turkey anyway.)
The question in this scenario is who aligns with Syria and who aligns with Iran and does that just mean Iran rolls on Assad the week after the truce?
All of which is to say, nice job GWB. Mission Accomplished.
June 13, 2014 at 6:37 pm #809512
Alki WarriorParticipantThe Iraqi army we supposedly trained to fight was tearing off their uniforms, throwing their guns away and running as fast as they could when they saw the ISIS approaching. Bunch of pansies…lol
June 13, 2014 at 7:09 pm #809513
F16CrewChiefMemberIntelligence is a form of progression.
Humanity has hit a road block. Either we advance or we simply kill each other and the resources used to do it?
-More guns to stop guns.
-Restart wars.
-Drill baby, DRILL!
-Welcome to Walgreens, can I fill all those prescriptions for you?
-It’s snowing, see global warming is a liberal lie!
-Bullet proof shields for our kids instead of text books.
-Glucose, fructose, corn syrup….YUMMM!!!!
-Oh yeah, more guns to protect us from all those other guns.
-I get my news from a social media meme.
-I educate myself from social media meme’s.
Humanity is getting dumber and dumber. Mother Nature doesn’t have to get rid of us, we’re too stupid to survive anymore.
June 13, 2014 at 7:22 pm #809514
wakefloodParticipantI hear you F-16, I just wish we didn’t have to burn down the innocent flora and fauna on the way.
Any of the higher mammals left will slow clap/finslap the last one of us fools to go.
June 13, 2014 at 7:39 pm #809515
Alki WarriorParticipantDon’t worry F16, Jesus will save us from our own stupidity.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.