shocked that anbar is back in al quaida's hands

Wobbie

not really. did anyone really think we could force democracy to work? sunni and shia have only been fighting forever :eye roll:

gimmesometruth27

so you are saying that this was not true afterall???

Wobbie

the only mission accomplished around here is killing this forum with the new format :fp:

gimmesometruth27

imalive said:

the only mission accomplished around here is killing this forum with the new format :fp:

absolutely. this place is a ghost town.

we should start a thread and call it "how to lose an entire internet community in 10 minutes".. :(

Wobbie

and now the veterans who "took" fallujah are pissed.....they should be pissed but not surprised.

gimmesometruth27

imalive said:

and now the veterans who "took" fallujah are pissed.....they should be pissed but not surprised.

i completely agree. all of those men who died taking that city have died in vain. and it is fucking bullshit. they died for no reason. this is a slap in the face for the guys who fought to win this territory.

Wobbie

gimmesometruth27 said:

imalive said:

and now the veterans who "took" fallujah are pissed.....they should be pissed but not surprised.

i completely agree. all of those men who died taking that city have died in vain. and it is fucking bullshit. they died for no reason. this is a slap in the face for the guys who fought to win this territory.

it was much the same in vietnam.....get guys killed to capture a hill one day and then lose it the next. You know what they say about failing to learn from history.....

gimmesometruth27

imalive said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

imalive said:

and now the veterans who "took" fallujah are pissed.....they should be pissed but not surprised.

i completely agree. all of those men who died taking that city have died in vain. and it is fucking bullshit. they died for no reason. this is a slap in the face for the guys who fought to win this territory.

it was much the same in vietnam.....get guys killed to capture a hill one day and then lose it the next. You know what they say about failing to learn from history.....

exactly, and we repeat history way too often. sometimes it feels like groundhog day.

Bentleyspop

No one should be surprised by this.

I was a defense contractor (yeah yeah I know) at the start and I said back then, 11 years ago, that this would happen. I hoped I would be wrong but apparently I was not.

Idris

al-qaeda was not in Iraq before the US invasion, the presence of US troops and military contractors (or as i call them, death contractors) is what brought al-qaeda into Iraq.

None of this was about 'freedom' 'democracy' 'justice' or whatever else people want to say it was about. I mean how can it be about those things? What does the greatest exporter of death (the usa) really know about justice? Freedom? Democracy?

Have we not looked at our two party duopoly? Run by the oligarchs, supported by our generally apathetic citizenry?

I'm sure many veterans believed ( at the time) they were fighting the good fight, in reality they were destroying lives of innocent people and creating an even worse condition than Saddam Hussein's authoritarianism did.

Now if the goal of the US was to spread 'hypocrisy', then yes. Mission Accomplished, if the goal was to bring even more chaos to an already troubled region then yes, mission accomplished.

Have we forgotten about the chemical weapons we used in Iraq? Burning the skins of innocent children, cancer rates spiked, destruction that will continue for decades, destroying the lives of children yet to be born, birth defects of all sorts.

Even if peace came to Iraq tomorrow, the lives of millions of people are already ruined from the uses of these chemicals. Specifically over this same area we are talking about now.

JWPearl

Why? ...

Chuckhaint

Hi guys. I'm not trying to stir up the pot, just want to give a different perspective from someone who actually had boots on the ground (airborne Infantry, spec ops) in Ramadi in 2004. This is from my brother, a silver star recipient from Ramadi in 2004. Myself also a vet. never agreed with Iraq and my brother would probably say the same, but in response to people saying soldiers died in vain (of which we knew a few) here is what he wrote:



So I'm going to step up on my soap box for a minute and address the Ramadi/Fallujah situation. I keep hearing how veterans of these two conflicts are pissed off/upset/saying our friends and brothers died for no reason, we shouldn't have been there etc.. etc... All because Al Qaeda took back parts of each city... First off since when did we care about rebuilding that shithole when we were over there? When we all signed up for the military we knew that we could be sent anywhere, anytime and for whatever reason the government wanted to... When we were in Ramadi we had two missions, kill as many "enemy" as possible and come home with the same amount of people that we went there with... I hardly recall any conversations when we talked about how great Ramadi is going to be one day and that Mark, Mike, Will and Josh died for the people of Iraq... All we know is that after Mark, Mike and Will died we changed our approach, didn't make the same mistakes that got them killed and lost only one more person from A Co. (which was a freak lucky shot) in Tameem and 5k for the rest of the deployment... I truly believe that Mark, Mike and Will died so that more of us were able to come home and bitch about what's going on there now... How many more people would we have lost had we not changed our approach after their deaths? We don't know... we never know about the unknown... How many more terrorist attacks would have happened on American soil had we not fought them over there? Do I think there is a direct correlation between us fighting over there and decreased or lack of attacks on our soil, I don't know but there again is an unknown that we will never be able to quantify... To say our brothers died for no cause and it was a waste is a slap in the face to all of us friends and family members of those killed... These men died for us who were there with them fighting side by side with them, not the Iraqi's or even the American's back home because all the political B.S. behind the war didn't matter when the bullets were flying did it? I'll admit I was slightly depressed when I heard this news but stepping back and putting what we did into perspective has erased any doubt of what we did there and why our brothers died... We're all entitled to our opinions and feelings and I hope I haven't pissed any of my brothers off who were there... it's just how I view the world based on my past experiences... 9/19/05 to me will always be the day that my brothers gave their lives so that I didn't have to... We owe our lives to them and a debt of gratitude to honor their sacrifice every day that we live because we don't know what could've happened to us if it wasn't for their sacrifice

Cosmo

I think the thing we all need to understand is that war is horrible and should only be the last option on the table. We should never consider our military as a tool to carry out our wants. As civilians, it is too easy to send someone else's kids to satisfy our blood lust against people we deem beings of as lesser value than ourselves. It is easy to sit in the comfort of our living rooms and agree with politicians and pundits who beat the drums of war so we can cheer and pretend we have a dog in the fight.
The only ones who feel the pain of war are the soldiers and their families. The rest of us felt nothing. We didn't have to make any sacrifices. We weren't limited by rationing of resources... hell, we didn't even spend a dime of our own money (we sent that bill to our grand children)... and we surely didn't feel the pain of losing a loved one to fulfill a political action item. We got to buy our Chinese made magnets to stick on our tailgates and cheer our politicians as they spoke of 'freedom' and 'liberty' in their empty promises and false beliefs that war is glory.
We should have taken a lesson from history... military occupations never last. At some point, the armies always leaves and the people of the homeland always remain. We were in Fallujah... so were the people who were always in Fallujah. We are no longer there... they are. That's just the way it is and always has been and always will be. Al qaeda took back Anbar, NOT because of our military personel... they took back Anbar because of the Iraqi military
...
So, when you see and hear millionaires on your television talking about sending someone else's kid to places like Syria or Libya... tell them to go fuck themselves.