Many people knew that Hussein was sitting on a powder keg... and we took him out so we could on it. This was going to happen, no matter if we left in 2005, 2012, 2020 or 2099. As soon as the Iron Fist is clamped down on the situation, there would not be open warfare. We took over the Iron Fist from Hussein and not that is it in the hands of a weak leadership... the whole fucking thing blows up. We knew that going in... we knew this was a bad idea. ... Now... you want to focus on today... okay. What do you want us to do? Remember, we are sided with the group in Syria... that is taking up the insurgency in Iraq. Do we fight with them in Syria and against them in Iraq? If so, how do we do that and is it a good idea in the first place? Also, the Shi'ite run Iraqi government will probably get aid from Iran. If we help Iraq, we will be allied with Iran!!! Secondly... how much taxpayer money have we poured into Iraqi Security Forces? What did we get? Answer: A shitload of cash, that's how much. And what we got was the SAME people who dropped their weapons and waved the white flag to U.S. troops in 2003 in minute the first shot was fired. Why did we think... anything would be different? ... Finally... you asked Gimme, "Do you support taking no action, or do you support taking action?". I won't answer for Gimme, but here is my answer.... We've helped Iraq already. I believe it is about time they decided what to do in and with their country. Sending military hardware to the al-Maliki government may possibly make it's way into the hands of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgents. My opinion is.. that is not good. ... So, really... looking over all of the scenarios prior to our invasion/occupation/regime change in 2003... one of the better solutions may have been to leave Saddam Hussein in power under the containment program set into place by the 1991 Gulf War and let the powder keg eventually blow up in his face, not ours.
The first part - I agree with everything up to 'we knew this was a bad idea'...unless you're talking 'us' as the people who criticized the war. The invasion was by no means a bad idea for those it benefited economically and politically - the people pushing for invasion had no consideration for those affected, so they didn't consider it a bad idea (and likely still don't), since, as I mentioned earlier, the sectarian violence was either a desired outcome, or a measured consequence. .......
It's kinda semantics, but I don't think the invasion helped Iraq in any way, shape, or form. So saying 'weve helped Iraq already' is pretty inaccurate imo...removing Saddam was not help. The standard of living in that country was set back decades by the invasion. At least the majority of people there had a chance at a normal life before they were 'liberated'. As for the sectarian violence, and who we should ally ourselves with...since we have been funding and using Al-Qaeda and their affiliates for years, all over the middle east and north africa...why wouldn't we be on board with this 'invasion'? My understanding is that we are not funding these people in Syria and fighting them in Iraq....these ARE, in large part, the fighters we were funding in Syria...they pulled out, and we're using them to re-invade Iraq. I don't really see ISIS making this move without full knowledge and support of the West. They're surrounded by hostile Shia (edit: and secular in Syria) armies, if they didn't have Western backing, I think Iran, Iraq, and Syria could wipe them out pretty easily. My guess is that the Iraqi government was becoming too closely aligned with Iran, and the West has re-focused on Iraq after weakening, but being ultimately repelled by Assad. What a crazy fucking game we're playing over there. If any of us lived in any of those countries....how could we not hate Western powers?
America's Covert Re-Invasion of Iraq June 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Heavily armed, well funded, and organized as a professional, standing army, the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept southward into Iraq from Turkey and northeastern Syria, taking the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and now threaten the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad itself. The United States was sure to prop up two unfounded narratives - the first being that US intelligence agencies, despite assets in Iraq and above it in the form of surveillance drones, failed to give warning of the invasion, and that ISIS is some sort of self-sustaining terror organization carving out a "state" by "robbing banks" and collecting "donations" on Twitter.
The Wall Street Journal in its report, "Iraqi Drama Catches U.S. Off Guard," stated: The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged. In another WSJ post, "U.S. Secretly Flying Drones Over Iraq," it claimed: A senior U.S. official said the intelligence collected under the small [secret US drone] program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good." The rapid territorial gains by the Islamist forces loyal to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, caught the U.S. by surprise, the officials said.
Image: ISIS has convoys of brand new matching Toyota's the same vehicles seen among admittedly NATO-armed terrorists operating everywhere from Libya to Syria, and now Iraq. It is a synthetic, state- sponsored regional mercenary expeditionary force.
Despite drone flights collecting intelligence, and a 3-year ongoing CIA program (here, here, and here) all along the Turkish-Syrian border to "monitor" and "arm" "moderate" militants fighting the Syrian government, the US claims it was caught "by surprise." If drones and CIA operatives operating in ISIS territory weren't enough to detect the impending invasion, perhaps the CIA should have just picked up a newspaper.
Indeed, the Lebanon Daily Start in March 2014 reported that ISIS openly withdrew its forces from Latakia and Idlib provinces in western Syria, and redeployed them in Syria's east - along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The article titled, "Al-Qaeda splinter group in Syria leaves two provinces: activists," stated explicitly that: On Friday, ISIS – which alienated many rebels by seizing territory and killing rival commanders – finished withdrawing from the Idlib and Latakia provinces and moved its forces toward the eastern Raqqa province and the eastern outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, activists said. The question remains, if a Lebanese newspaper knew ISIS was on the move eastward, why didn't the CIA? The obvious answer is the CIA did know, and is simply feigning ignorance at the expense of their reputation to bait its enemies into suspecting the agency of incompetency rather than complicity in the horrific terroristic swath ISIS is now carving through northern Iraq.
Described extensively in the full New Eastern Outlook Journal (NEO) report, "NATO’s Terror Hordes in Iraq a Pretext for Syria Invasion," the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, have funded and armed terrorists operating in Syria for the past 3 years to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars - coincidentally the same amount that ISIS would require to gain primacy among militant groups fighting in Syria and to mobilize forces capable of crossing into Iraq and overwhelming Baghdad's national defenses.
Image: The most prominent routes into Syria for foreign fighters is depicted, with the inset graph describing the most widely used routes by foreign fighters on their way to Iraq, as determined by West Point's 2007 Combating Terrorism Center report "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" (page 20). These same networks were then used to invade and attempt to overthrow the Syrian government itself in 2011, with the addition of a more prominent role for Turkey, and today in 2014, to re-invade Iraq once again.
The NEO report includes links to the US Army’s West Point Countering Terrorism Center reports, “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” and “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq,” which detail extensively the terror network used to flood Iraq with foreign terrorists, weapons, and cash to fuel an artificial "sectarian war" during the US occupation, and then turned over to flood Syria with terrorists in the West's bid to overthrow the government in Damascus.
What's ISIS Doing in Iraq? The NEO report would also post Seymour Hersh's 2007 article, "The Redirection," documenting over the course of 9 pages US, Saudi, and Israeli intentions to create and deploy sectarian extremists region-wide to confront Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hersh would note that these "sectarian extremists" were either tied to Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda itself. The ISIS army moving toward Baghdad is the final manifestation of this conspiracy, a standing army operating with impunity, threatening to topple the Syrian government, purge pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, and even threatening Iran itself by building a bridge from Al Qaeda's NATO safe havens in Turkey, across northern Iraq, and up to Iran's borders directly. Labeled "terrorists" by the West, grants the West plausible deniability in its creation, deployment, and across the broad spectrum of atrocities it is now carrying out. Image: ISIS's alleged territory spans across both Iraqi and Syrian territory. If it is able to establish a NATO-backed buffer zone, it will be able to launch attacks with impunity into Syria, Iraq, and Iran - in a region-wide sectarian war the West has been engineering for years.
It is a defacto re-invasion of Iraq by Western interests - but this time without Western forces directly participating - rather a proxy force the West is desperately attempting to disavow any knowledge of or any connection to. However, no other explanation can account for the size and prowess of ISIS beyond state sponsorship. And since ISIS is the clear benefactor of state sponsorship, the question is, which states are sponsoring it? With Iraq, Syria, and Iran along with Lebanese-based Hezbollah locked in armed struggle with ISIS and other Al Qaeda franchises across the region, the only blocs left are NATO and the GCC (Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular).
With the West declaring ISIS fully villainous in an attempt to intervene more directly in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, creating a long desired "buffer zone" within which to harbor, arm, and fund an even larger terrorist expeditionary force, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others are offered an opportunity to preempt Western involvement and to crush the ISIS - cornering and eliminating NATO-GCC's expeditionary force while scoring geopolitical points of vanquishing Washington's latest "villain." Joint Iraq-Iranian operations in the north and south of ISIS's locations, and just along Turkey's borders could envelop and trap ISIS to then be whittled down and destroyed - just as Syria has been doing to NATO's proxy terrorist forces within its own borders.
Many people knew that Hussein was sitting on a powder keg... and we took him out so we could on it. This was going to happen, no matter if we left in 2005, 2012, 2020 or 2099. As soon as the Iron Fist is clamped down on the situation, there would not be open warfare. We took over the Iron Fist from Hussein and not that is it in the hands of a weak leadership... the whole fucking thing blows up. We knew that going in... we knew this was a bad idea. ... Now... you want to focus on today... okay. What do you want us to do? Remember, we are sided with the group in Syria... that is taking up the insurgency in Iraq. Do we fight with them in Syria and against them in Iraq? If so, how do we do that and is it a good idea in the first place? Also, the Shi'ite run Iraqi government will probably get aid from Iran. If we help Iraq, we will be allied with Iran!!! Secondly... how much taxpayer money have we poured into Iraqi Security Forces? What did we get? Answer: A shitload of cash, that's how much. And what we got was the SAME people who dropped their weapons and waved the white flag to U.S. troops in 2003 in minute the first shot was fired. Why did we think... anything would be different? ... Finally... you asked Gimme, "Do you support taking no action, or do you support taking action?". I won't answer for Gimme, but here is my answer.... We've helped Iraq already. I believe it is about time they decided what to do in and with their country. Sending military hardware to the al-Maliki government may possibly make it's way into the hands of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgents. My opinion is.. that is not good. ... So, really... looking over all of the scenarios prior to our invasion/occupation/regime change in 2003... one of the better solutions may have been to leave Saddam Hussein in power under the containment program set into place by the 1991 Gulf War and let the powder keg eventually blow up in his face, not ours.
The first part - I agree with everything up to 'we knew this was a bad idea'...unless you're talking 'us' as the people who criticized the war. The invasion was by no means a bad idea for those it benefited economically and politically - the people pushing for invasion had no consideration for those affected, so they didn't consider it a bad idea (and likely still don't), since, as I mentioned earlier, the sectarian violence was either a desired outcome, or a measured consequence. ....... It's kinda semantics, but I don't think the invasion helped Iraq in any way, shape, or form. So saying 'weve helped Iraq already' is pretty inaccurate imo...removing Saddam was not help. The standard of living in that country was set back decades by the invasion. At least the majority of people there had a chance at a normal life before they were 'liberated'. As for the sectarian violence, and who we should ally ourselves with...since we have been funding and using Al-Qaeda and their affiliates for years, all over the middle east and north africa...why wouldn't we be on board with this 'invasion'? My understanding is that we are not funding these people in Syria and fighting them in Iraq....these ARE, in large part, the fighters we were funding in Syria...they pulled out, and we're using them to re-invade Iraq. I don't really see ISIS making this move without full knowledge and support of the West. They're surrounded by hostile Shia armies, if they didn't have Western backing, I think Iran, Iraq, and Syria could wipe them out pretty easily. My guess is that the Iraqi government was becoming too closely aligned with Iran, and the West has re-focused on Iraq after weakening, but being ultimately repelled by Assad. What a crazy fucking game we're playing over there. If any of us lived in any of those countries....how could we not hate Western powers?
... I believe the whole Iraqi mess was a clusterfuck from the beginning. We would not even be part of the discussion, if we hadn't gone there in the first place. My point is that once we got there... we had to figure out how to get out. We completely dismantled their military structure and had to restore it. Iraq needed some sort of security force and we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars training and arming them to fend for themselves. We should have gotten a clue when Iraqi forces abandoned their uniforms when they were tasked to support U.S. military operations in Fallujah. They are acting in the same manner now, as they had back then. If the Iraqi people believe in the nation of Iraq... THEY are the ones that need to fight for Iraq, not Americans. ... I'm saying that any American that believes we need to re-introduce a U.S. military solution into a sectarian war that was inevitable can pick up a weapon and go over there and fight. i am sick of these couch potato assholes wanting to send someone else's kid to fight a war based on politics and fueled by religion and the economics of oil. Basically, FUCK YOU, SENATOR McCAIN!!
Post edited by Cosmo on
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
We went into Iraq in 03 for no real reason and no real plan. Everyone knew what would happen when we did leave. All I have go say on the matter is we need to leave it the fuck alone. It has nothing to do with us.
Totally agree, particularly your last sentence. Did you see him on the senate floor with his blood red tie on during his diatribe? What a jerk. I lost all respect for him in 2000 when he allowed turd blossom to smear him the way he did in South Carolina. I wish he'd retire.
If this article is true, shit must be royaly fucked up to a degree I can't even fathom over there ... cats and dogs, living together ...
Exclusive: Alarmed by Iraq, Iran open to shared role with U.S. - Iran official
ANKARA (Reuters) - Shi'te Muslim Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic's leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.
Officials say Iran will send its neighbor advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help its ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki check what Tehran sees as a profound threat to regional stability, officials and analysts say.
Islamist militants have captured swathes of territory including the country's second biggest city Mosul.
Tehran is open to the possibility of working with the United States to support Baghdad, the senior official said.
"We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the Middle East," the official said, referring to events in Iraq.
"We are very influential in Iraq, Syria and many other countries."
For many years, Iran has been aggrieved by what it sees as U.S. efforts to marginalize it. Tehran wants to be recognized as a significant player in regional security.
The point I'm trying to make is that the current chaos is not a bad thing for the US. No western nation wants any oil rich eastern nation to be stable enough to gain power and form trading blacks to rival the current power structures. The lack of exit strategy WAS the exit strategy. Leaving Iraq in shambles was part of the plan. Hot air about 'fixing' it is just that...
i am surprised nobody has posted anything about this. the country is in serious trouble right now. so many of the cities that the "coalition" fought so hard to secure have been taken back by extremist groups and militants.
i thought for sure people would be on here bashing obama about it, but i am really surprised nobody here is saying anything about it.
we said it back in 2003. invading is a terrible idea. and as soon as we leave, everything those brave men and women fought so hard for will be lost.
so yeah, we really screwed the pooch on this one. thank you neocons and all of your amazing wisdom. history will judge you even more harshly than i do.
We only bash Republican Presidents on issues of the military.
i have bashed obama's military use plenty the last few years.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
at least with saddam, sometimes you are better off with the devil that you know versus the devil that you don't.
i just hope we learn a lesson from this, but knowing our government, we won't.
I think that is such a backseat driver looking in the rear view mirror mentality. You are okay with a dictator that carried out multiple mass murders, but it's okay because we can deal with him as opposed to dealing with what might happen? The facts are we (United States) removed him of power. We left two years ago. We've allowed this to happen. The easy thing is let's look in hindsight and blame The previous administration. Hindsight is always 20/20, the question now is will we just sit back and let Iraq fall into whatever disparity it may, or are we going to do something about it? This is now on the current administrations hands. Let's get past the blame game and start dealing with what's going on. I am also curious Gimme, do you support taking no action, or do you support taking action?
backseat driver looking in the rearview mirror??? excuse me, but you can not hope to solve the current issue if you fail to recognize how we got to where we are. george w bush diverted our entire mission from dethroning the taliban and finding bin laden to attack a sovreign nation who had done us no wrong, was not involved with al qaeda or bin laden (in fact saddam hated bin laden), and was not a threat to us or anybody in his region. we went in and deposed saddam with no plan to win the peace. skip ahead, obama kept his promise to get us out of there. he wanted to stay longer but al maliki would not allow it. it was politically unpopular there for him to allow us to stay. we were basically told to get the hell out. since we left, the government is a mess, people hate the current government there. they would rather have the militants. to answer your question, which i already answered in the post you quoted, but yes, you are better off dealing with the devil that you know rather than dealing with the devil(s) that you don't. we knew saddam's record. we knew he was a strongman, and the only man who could be the linchpin to keep the peace between iraq, iran, syria, and the rest of the region. you depose saddam, the sunnis have no voice, so they are going to rebel. this is essentially what is happening now. the blame lies squarely at the feet of bush, rice, cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, ashcroft, powell, and the rest of the neocons. they need to be tried now. they need to be investigated by the obama administration. the game was over long ago. they are wholly responsible for getting us in to this. they had a plan to win this war but they had no plan to win the PEACE, which is the most important part of a war, winning the peace, which we failed to do. we gave them democracy, and the did not know how to handle it. worse yet, the majority of them do not even want it. what works in western nations governmentwise can not be generalized to countries in other regions. it doesn't work that way.
i blame the previous administration because it is their fucking fault that we went into iraq in the first place. obama does not bear near the responsibility for this. he did not even support the invasion in the first place. he tried to get us out of there sooner but he couldn't.
i support taking no action at all. this is what needs to happen. the government and their military is too weak. these people have been fighting for thousands of years. we have wasted too much money and too many lives trying to support a regime that we can call "our guys", or favorable to us interests. what we need to do is get entirely off of fossil fuels. if we do not have to deal in oil, we do not have to deal with anybody in that region. let them fight it out and whoever wins wins, while we live off of fossil fuels. it would be better for the environment as well. but since our politicians have their heads so far up their ass, they would never see the benefit of getting off of oil and on to renewables. all this is is "waterworld" but instead of the resources they looked for in that movie, it is about oil in this reality.
also, mccain said we should be in iraq for 100 years. he has been wrong on iraq since 2002, are we really, really, going to listen to what this dinosaur has to say about iraq in 2014???
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
mattsl1983 you ask many snarky questions on this board and i am seeing that you avoid answering the snarky questions that are asked of you so why dont you tell us, without hindsight or blaming EITHER administration what solution you would offer? How many lives is it worth to you to be the Middle East Police...if its just a humanitarian urge, without media/political influence, dont you think we could save more lives for less money if we went to the Sudan with our aid?
Yes I make snarky comments here, and I also address questions asked of me. At this point, I think we owe it to Iraq to help them. We created this mess. Is it okay for you to just walk away? It is the humanitarian thing to do. I could care less about the politics. We are here. What's going to define us is do we do right or do we just walk away from this? Also why does everyone assume that any idea that opposes yours is media driven, but none of yours are? I read multiple news sources daily. I form my own opinion. I don't dismiss this source or that source and only take information from a soured I agree with.
so staying and losing young american lives, while killing unfortunate iraqi bystanders is whats "right"? Many people disagree with you on that one. If sunnis and shiites want to flood their streets with blood i can sleep easier than if it is my tax dollars and young DUPED americans participating in the blood letting. Let's not forget that roadside IED's arent infused with uranium like our munitions, and therefore wont contribute to the cancer and birth defect rates that have passes those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thanks to our "helping hands". Humanitarian aid to extract children from dangerous areas. Humanitarian aid to repair the contamination we are responsible for. Otherwise, lets not be the world police and hurt those we are trying to help.
Cosmos, yes we took action already. But we pulled out before we should have. And this idea that so many though it was wrong to do in the first place is inncorect. If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I don't think we should wipe our hands clean. I'm not saying we need to go all out boots on the ground. But we have to do something and offer support. This is kind of our creation.
There is also a much larger global scale this falls on. Credibility, global presence, ect ect. Are we now as "leaders of the free world" going to say yea, sorry about that. Good luck? Pacifism ultimately losses to aggression. Whether we like it our not, this is the world we live in.
And to the idea of "and lose more american lives", are we to sit back and just watch many Iraqs lives get lost and ruined do to our previous actions? I thought most of you people here valued life, what's the right thing, to help those in need, stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves ect ect. But naw, when it comes down to it, we value american lives more than any other lives. What's an american life worth vs an Iraqi life? Is it a 1 = 7?
And to the idea of "and lose more american lives", are we to sit back and just watch many Iraqs lives get lost and ruined do to our previous actions? I thought most of you people here valued life, what's the right thing, to help those in need, stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves ect ect. But naw, when it comes down to it, we value american lives more than any other lives. What's an american life worth vs an Iraqi life? Is it a 1 = 7?
Had this conversation with a friend who was in the military. there wasn't a number high enough. He said my life is worth thousands more than innocent civilians from another country.
I have, and if you haven't then you might not understand the "how" and "why" things go on there. It's completely different in the way they think and do things. That's the best description I can offer in short.
Iraq falling was inevitable and will only open up more rifts. It's going to get worse, a lot worse…
Cosmos, yes we took action already. But we pulled out before we should have. And this idea that so many though it was wrong to do in the first place is inncorect. If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I don't think we should wipe our hands clean. I'm not saying we need to go all out boots on the ground. But we have to do something and offer support. This is kind of our creation.
There is also a much larger global scale this falls on. Credibility, global presence, ect ect. Are we now as "leaders of the free world" going to say yea, sorry about that. Good luck? Pacifism ultimately losses to aggression. Whether we like it our not, this is the world we live in.
That 70% approval came after being directly lied go by Bush and Cheney with their weapons of mass destruction theory. They had no exit strategy. We didn't walk away to soon. We didn't walk away soon enough. We have no business being over. We don't owe Iraq a damn thing.
Cosmos, yes we took action already. But we pulled out before we should have. And this idea that so many though it was wrong to do in the first place is inncorect. If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I don't think we should wipe our hands clean. I'm not saying we need to go all out boots on the ground. But we have to do something and offer support. This is kind of our creation.
There is also a much larger global scale this falls on. Credibility, global presence, ect ect. Are we now as "leaders of the free world" going to say yea, sorry about that. Good luck? Pacifism ultimately losses to aggression. Whether we like it our not, this is the world we live in.
That 70% approval came after being directly lied go by Bush and Cheney with their weapons of mass destruction theory. They had no exit strategy. We didn't walk away to soon. We didn't walk away soon enough. We have no business being over. We don't owe Iraq a damn thing.
exactly. we were directly lied to.
but aside from that, i was on here back then, i was out there in the streets protesting. i was told on this very message board to get the fuck out of the country. i was called a pussy because i opposed the war. i remember what happened to pearl jam in denver and what happened to the dixie chicks for speaking out. i know this message board was monitored after denver. i know of at least one guy who was deported in part because of what he said on this message board.
i remember. i am not going to forget.
i was right then, and i am right now.
hans blix could not find any weapons. yet bushco swore they were there. colin powell fell on his sword and lied to the un.
i remember what americans said about france for not helping. remember "freedom fries??"
we gave it our best shot in iraq. we are done there. we failed there. we won the war but lost the peace. there is nothing we can do now to help fix anything. this is all our fault. cowboy diplomacy. america, fuck yeah!!!
how about we let the un deal with it?
how about we let israel deal with it? they have the best military in the region. they are a regional power, let them have a crack at it,and let us, for once, stop fucking meddling with other countries..
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
but aside from that, i was on here back then, i was out there in the streets protesting. i was told on this very message board to get the fuck out of the country. i was called a pussy because i opposed the war. i remember what happened to pearl jam in denver and what happened to the dixie chicks for speaking out. i know this message board was monitored after denver. i know of at least one guy who was deported in part because of what he said on this message board.
i remember. i am not going to forget.
i was right then, and i am right now.
hans blix could not find any weapons. yet bushco swore they were there. colin powell fell on his sword and lied to the un.
i remember what americans said about france for not helping. remember "freedom fries??"
we gave it our best shot in iraq. we are done there. we failed there. we won the war but lost the peace. there is nothing we can do now to help fix anything. this is all our fault. cowboy diplomacy. america, fuck yeah!!!
how about we let the un deal with it?
how about we let israel deal with it? they have the best military in the region. they are a regional power, let them have a crack at it,and let us, for once, stop fucking meddling with other countries..
Too late. The U.S did meddle with it, and now it's the U.S's responsibility to fix the mess they created.
As for Israel, do you really think any Arab country would allow those racist lunatics in? It would be like throwing fuel onto the fire.
i do agree that we meddled and we broke it, and in the strongest possible terms, we fucked it up.
but that was 11 years ago.
we have spent a trillion dollars on the war, the aftermath, and the training of the iraqi army. what is the iraqi army doing? they are tucking tail and running. it is their country. it is their responsibility to defend it from the militants.
there is nothing that the americans can do to fix it. they can do airstrikes, but we see how well those work...we can use drones, but those are inaccurate. we can use diplomacy, but congress will not allow us to do anything peacefully because that would require us to cede some influence in the region. we can commit more boots on the ground, but who are we going to fight? we put more boots on the ground, the neighboring countries will get involved and militants will go there because it is an opportunity to kill some infidels.
as of israel, they have been hiding behind america for too long. they have been expanding settlements because america will bail them out at the un and fight on their behalf. i am tired of spilling blood and pissing away dollars by the billion in the middle east. let saudi arabia step up. let some country in the region step up.
you know what is gonna happen, russia is going to get involved and that is going to suck the us back in, and this is your third great war.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
solve your problems......did barry-o say that ??????? hahhahhahhahhahha
... Sir... I need to ask... what is funny about that? I mean, what is so funny about telling Iraq that they need to quit dropping their weapons and waiving the white flag as soon as someone points a gun at them? How much money did we spent trainning thier forces? How many Servicemen and women lost thie lives or have been serverly injured in standing them up to fight for themselves? Please, tell me why shouldn't they use the weapons and trainning we gave them... to stand up and fight for themselves? I am seriously looking forward to see how you answer this.
well ISIS goal is to create a muslim state, this whole topic is what I have been in disagreement with, the muslims want a muslim world and are willing to kill anybody who even disagrees with them and you think I should be concerned with them ? I'm not sure what your getting at, my whole gripe with this is if the U.S helps either side as they did some years ago it will just keep happening and those dirt bags come to our country and start bullshit here as well so I say that we( the U.S) should back away and when they mess with us we shouls wipe their ass's right out.....we should have done that right after 9/11 or in my opinion or at the very least excuted those even remotely involved already but to be honest with you I think obama is kissing muslim ass somewhere in this whole mess...to the point of offering a reach around (that is an angry statement) and I'm a little tired of the "it's only the radical muslims" defence every time this issue is brought up, this whole crock of shit pisses me off.
I haven't read that many post in this thread ... so maybe it's been mentioned already. Is it quite possible that some in the west are quite happy with that region of the world destabilized? Sure is a good excuse to push oil prices up.
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
I can't believe that people are saying that USA should just back away. the only way America should stay away is if the Iraq government says to stay away. America went into that country and destroyed it and now Obama says figure it out yourself? No you broke it you ( by you I mean the country not Obama) fix it as long as the government of Iraq wants you to fix it.
I can't believe that people are saying that USA should just back away. the only way America should stay away is if the Iraq government says to stay away. America went into that country and destroyed it and now Obama says figure it out yourself? No you broke it you ( by you I mean the country not Obama) fix it as long as the government of Iraq wants you to fix it.
How do you propose they fix it?
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
I can't believe that people are saying that USA should just back away. the only way America should stay away is if the Iraq government says to stay away. America went into that country and destroyed it and now Obama says figure it out yourself? No you broke it you ( by you I mean the country not Obama) fix it as long as the government of Iraq wants you to fix it.
How do you propose they fix it?
I have no idea but happily I don't have to know. again, America should only go in if the Iraq government wants them do. if Iraq tells America stay out of our problems then america stays out. but if Iraq wants them there then america does whatever Iraq wants them to do.
We need to wash our hands of it. We have spent too many dollars and lives and have proven to be incapable of bringing any sort of stability. We went there under false pretenses, stayed there too long, were asked to leave, and are now being begged to return. Time to stop chasing this one and admit defeat. We screwed up, we failed in our mission, we don't need to keep failing just to make ourselves feel like we're doing something. Anyone who thinks we should head back there is welcomed to head to your local recruiter and get signed up. But I won't have my kid fighting a bullshit action like this. Too many others have died in vain over Iraq and the middle east in general.
"I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
And to the idea of "and lose more american lives", are we to sit back and just watch many Iraqs lives get lost and ruined do to our previous actions? I thought most of you people here valued life, what's the right thing, to help those in need, stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves ect ect. But naw, when it comes down to it, we value american lives more than any other lives. What's an american life worth vs an Iraqi life? Is it a 1 = 7?
Had this conversation with a friend who was in the military. there wasn't a number high enough. He said my life is worth thousands more than innocent civilians from another country.
that was a mindfuck to me
I don't fully understand the "value of life" argument. What is the value? Is it a constant or like currencies are there different values assigned to different categories? I know I don't hold all life in the same regard. I would die to protect my kids and family. I would put myself in harms way for friends. I care a little less about people in my area I don't know. Even less about those outside of my community, and unfortunately even less about people a world away. I find it a little strange that someone would value the life of an Iraqi the same as their own mother. If you do, I'd love to hear about it, because that notion is completely foreign to me. They clearly have different value to me. I'm not trying to say there is no value, but if I'm weighing the life of my kid against the life of an Iraqi, my kid wins every time. And that ultimately is how we should decide whether to return. Is returning to Iraq worth the life of your kid, or your sibling?
"I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
We need to wash our hands of it. We have spent too many dollars and lives and have proven to be incapable of bringing any sort of stability. We went there under false pretenses, stayed there too long, were asked to leave, and are now being begged to return. Time to stop chasing this one and admit defeat. We screwed up, we failed in our mission, we don't need to keep failing just to make ourselves feel like we're doing something. Anyone who thinks we should head back there is welcomed to head to your local recruiter and get signed up. But I won't have my kid fighting a bullshit action like this. Too many others have died in vain over Iraq and the middle east in general.
so you really believe that america should do nothing even since they cause alot of this shit? I am not trying to insult people but is that not being selfish? I am not a fan of this war and many other but i do believe that if you broke it you fix it.
Cosmos, yes we took action already. But we pulled out before we should have. And this idea that so many though it was wrong to do in the first place is inncorect. If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I don't think we should wipe our hands clean. I'm not saying we need to go all out boots on the ground. But we have to do something and offer support. This is kind of our creation.
There is also a much larger global scale this falls on. Credibility, global presence, ect ect. Are we now as "leaders of the free world" going to say yea, sorry about that. Good luck? Pacifism ultimately losses to aggression. Whether we like it our not, this is the world we live in.
... The thing is... WHEN would be the right time to withdraw? This shit was going to happen as soon as we cut loose our Iron Grip on Iraq. It would have happened in 2006 or 2012 or today ot tomorrow ot 20 years from now. Senator McCain says we should be in Iraq for 100 years. Guess what happens when we leave in the 101st year? This same fucking shit. Also, i'll have to look it up... but, I recall the al-Maliki government asking us to leave because our presense was creating tensions. That we were creating tensions because we needed to keep these deep rooted resentments under our thumb. As for me... I do not want 100 years of U.S. military occupation with our military personel getting picked of 2 or 3 per month for 100 years because I know that as soon as we leave, this shit will happen. The only other options are a never-ending occupation or ordering our military to murder all of all of them. .... And you know what? We DO owe Iraq and the entire Middle East region an apology for fucking up the place. We fucked up... because we are arrogant fuck ups that believe the oil beneath their homes belongs to us. The reason why those terrorists came over here on September 11, 2001 was because were were constantly fucking around with their shit in their homeland since the 1950s. We act like we are innocent in this shit when we know we are complicent by constantly fucking around with their domestic affairs. If we are leaders... how about we fucking lead instead of coerce? ... P.S. Regarding this: "If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. " Americans continually put 'American Idol' and 'Dancing With The Stars' as the highest rated television shows. We need to factor that into our opinions of going to war based upon political half-truths, innuendos and outright lies and the glorification of war we were bombarded with by our broadcast media. Remember all of the hype and graphics were saw on T.V. leading up the the war? It was sold to us like it was the Super Bowl.
Post edited by Cosmo on
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
Comments
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It's kinda semantics, but I don't think the invasion helped Iraq in any way, shape, or form. So saying 'weve helped Iraq already' is pretty inaccurate imo...removing Saddam was not help. The standard of living in that country was set back decades by the invasion. At least the majority of people there had a chance at a normal life before they were 'liberated'.
As for the sectarian violence, and who we should ally ourselves with...since we have been funding and using Al-Qaeda and their affiliates for years, all over the middle east and north africa...why wouldn't we be on board with this 'invasion'? My understanding is that we are not funding these people in Syria and fighting them in Iraq....these ARE, in large part, the fighters we were funding in Syria...they pulled out, and we're using them to re-invade Iraq. I don't really see ISIS making this move without full knowledge and support of the West. They're surrounded by hostile Shia (edit: and secular in Syria) armies, if they didn't have Western backing, I think Iran, Iraq, and Syria could wipe them out pretty easily. My guess is that the Iraqi government was becoming too closely aligned with Iran, and the West has re-focused on Iraq after weakening, but being ultimately repelled by Assad.
What a crazy fucking game we're playing over there. If any of us lived in any of those countries....how could we not hate Western powers?
June 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Heavily armed, well funded, and organized as a professional, standing army, the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept southward into Iraq from Turkey and northeastern Syria, taking the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and now threaten the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad itself. The United States was sure to prop up two unfounded narratives - the first being that US intelligence agencies, despite assets in Iraq and above it in the form of surveillance drones, failed to give warning of the invasion, and that ISIS is some sort of self-sustaining terror organization carving out a "state" by "robbing banks" and collecting "donations" on Twitter.
The Wall Street Journal in its report, "Iraqi Drama Catches U.S. Off Guard," stated:
The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.
In another WSJ post, "U.S. Secretly Flying Drones Over Iraq," it claimed:
A senior U.S. official said the intelligence collected under the small [secret US drone] program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good." The rapid territorial gains by the Islamist forces loyal to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, caught the U.S. by surprise, the officials said.
Image: ISIS has convoys of brand new matching Toyota's the same
vehicles seen among admittedly NATO-armed terrorists operating
everywhere from Libya to Syria, and now Iraq. It is a synthetic, state-
sponsored regional mercenary expeditionary force.
Despite drone flights collecting intelligence, and a 3-year ongoing CIA program (here, here, and here) all along the Turkish-Syrian border to "monitor" and "arm" "moderate" militants fighting the Syrian government, the US claims it was caught "by surprise." If drones and CIA operatives operating in ISIS territory weren't enough to detect the impending invasion, perhaps the CIA should have just picked up a newspaper.
Indeed, the Lebanon Daily Start in March 2014 reported that ISIS openly withdrew its forces from Latakia and Idlib provinces in western Syria, and redeployed them in Syria's east - along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The article titled, "Al-Qaeda splinter group in Syria leaves two provinces: activists," stated explicitly that:
On Friday, ISIS – which alienated many rebels by seizing territory and killing rival commanders – finished withdrawing from the Idlib and Latakia provinces and moved its forces toward the eastern Raqqa province and the eastern outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, activists said.
The question remains, if a Lebanese newspaper knew ISIS was on the move eastward, why didn't the CIA? The obvious answer is the CIA did know, and is simply feigning ignorance at the expense of their reputation to bait its enemies into suspecting the agency of incompetency rather than complicity in the horrific terroristic swath ISIS is now carving through northern Iraq.
Described extensively in the full New Eastern Outlook Journal (NEO) report, "NATO’s Terror Hordes in Iraq a Pretext for Syria Invasion," the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, have funded and armed terrorists operating in Syria for the past 3 years to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars - coincidentally the same amount that ISIS would require to gain primacy among militant groups fighting in Syria and to mobilize forces capable of crossing into Iraq and overwhelming Baghdad's national defenses.
Image: The most prominent routes into Syria for foreign fighters is depicted, with the inset graph describing the most widely used routes by foreign fighters on their way to Iraq, as determined by West Point's 2007 Combating Terrorism Center report "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" (page 20). These same networks were then used to invade and attempt to overthrow the Syrian government itself in 2011, with the addition of a more prominent role for Turkey, and today in 2014, to re-invade Iraq once again.
The NEO report includes links to the US Army’s West Point Countering Terrorism Center reports, “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” and “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq,” which detail extensively the terror network used to flood Iraq with foreign terrorists, weapons, and cash to fuel an artificial "sectarian war" during the US occupation, and then turned over to flood Syria with terrorists in the West's bid to overthrow the government in Damascus.
What's ISIS Doing in Iraq?
The NEO report would also post Seymour Hersh's 2007 article, "The Redirection," documenting over the course of 9 pages US, Saudi, and Israeli intentions to create and deploy sectarian extremists region-wide to confront Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hersh would note that these "sectarian extremists" were either tied to Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda itself. The ISIS army moving toward Baghdad is the final manifestation of this conspiracy, a standing army operating with impunity, threatening to topple the Syrian government, purge pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, and even threatening Iran itself by building a bridge from Al Qaeda's NATO safe havens in Turkey, across northern Iraq, and up to Iran's borders directly. Labeled "terrorists" by the West, grants the West plausible deniability in its creation, deployment, and across the broad spectrum of atrocities it is now carrying out.
Image: ISIS's alleged territory spans across both Iraqi and Syrian
territory. If it is able to establish a NATO-backed buffer zone, it will be
able to launch attacks with impunity into Syria, Iraq, and Iran - in a
region-wide sectarian war the West has been engineering for years.
It is a defacto re-invasion of Iraq by Western interests - but this time without Western forces directly participating - rather a proxy force the West is desperately attempting to disavow any knowledge of or any connection to. However, no other explanation can account for the size and prowess of ISIS beyond state sponsorship. And since ISIS is the clear benefactor of state sponsorship, the question is, which states are sponsoring it? With Iraq, Syria, and Iran along with Lebanese-based Hezbollah locked in armed struggle with ISIS and other Al Qaeda franchises across the region, the only blocs left are NATO and the GCC (Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular).
With the West declaring ISIS fully villainous in an attempt to intervene more directly in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, creating a long desired "buffer zone" within which to harbor, arm, and fund an even larger terrorist expeditionary force, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others are offered an opportunity to preempt Western involvement and to crush the ISIS - cornering and eliminating NATO-GCC's expeditionary force while scoring geopolitical points of vanquishing Washington's latest "villain." Joint Iraq-Iranian operations in the north and south of ISIS's locations, and just along Turkey's borders could envelop and trap ISIS to then be whittled down and destroyed - just as Syria has been doing to NATO's proxy terrorist forces within its own borders.
I believe the whole Iraqi mess was a clusterfuck from the beginning. We would not even be part of the discussion, if we hadn't gone there in the first place.
My point is that once we got there... we had to figure out how to get out. We completely dismantled their military structure and had to restore it. Iraq needed some sort of security force and we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars training and arming them to fend for themselves.
We should have gotten a clue when Iraqi forces abandoned their uniforms when they were tasked to support U.S. military operations in Fallujah. They are acting in the same manner now, as they had back then. If the Iraqi people believe in the nation of Iraq... THEY are the ones that need to fight for Iraq, not Americans.
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I'm saying that any American that believes we need to re-introduce a U.S. military solution into a sectarian war that was inevitable can pick up a weapon and go over there and fight. i am sick of these couch potato assholes wanting to send someone else's kid to fight a war based on politics and fueled by religion and the economics of oil. Basically, FUCK YOU, SENATOR McCAIN!!
Hail, Hail!!!
Peace.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Exclusive: Alarmed by Iraq, Iran open to shared role with U.S. - Iran official
ANKARA (Reuters) - Shi'te Muslim Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic's leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.
Officials say Iran will send its neighbor advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help its ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki check what Tehran sees as a profound threat to regional stability, officials and analysts say.
Islamist militants have captured swathes of territory including the country's second biggest city Mosul.
Tehran is open to the possibility of working with the United States to support Baghdad, the senior official said.
"We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the Middle East," the official said, referring to events in Iraq.
"We are very influential in Iraq, Syria and many other countries."
For many years, Iran has been aggrieved by what it sees as U.S. efforts to marginalize it. Tehran wants to be recognized as a significant player in regional security.
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news.yahoo.com/exclusive-alarmed-iraq-iran-open-shared-role-u-090305368.html
That said, we did create this mess, but eventually Iraq has to get off the (breast). Knuckle up.
This is what happens when you leverage your bets and get involved in Syria and Libya, and all of these other BS mideast wars.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
i blame the previous administration because it is their fucking fault that we went into iraq in the first place. obama does not bear near the responsibility for this. he did not even support the invasion in the first place. he tried to get us out of there sooner but he couldn't.
i support taking no action at all. this is what needs to happen. the government and their military is too weak. these people have been fighting for thousands of years. we have wasted too much money and too many lives trying to support a regime that we can call "our guys", or favorable to us interests. what we need to do is get entirely off of fossil fuels. if we do not have to deal in oil, we do not have to deal with anybody in that region. let them fight it out and whoever wins wins, while we live off of fossil fuels. it would be better for the environment as well. but since our politicians have their heads so far up their ass, they would never see the benefit of getting off of oil and on to renewables. all this is is "waterworld" but instead of the resources they looked for in that movie, it is about oil in this reality.
also, mccain said we should be in iraq for 100 years. he has been wrong on iraq since 2002, are we really, really, going to listen to what this dinosaur has to say about iraq in 2014???
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
I don't think we should wipe our hands clean. I'm not saying we need to go all out boots on the ground. But we have to do something and offer support. This is kind of our creation.
There is also a much larger global scale this falls on. Credibility, global presence, ect ect. Are we now as "leaders of the free world" going to say yea, sorry about that. Good luck? Pacifism ultimately losses to aggression. Whether we like it our not, this is the world we live in.
that was a mindfuck to me
I have, and if you haven't then you might not understand the "how" and "why" things go on there. It's completely different in the way they think and do things. That's the best description I can offer in short.
Iraq falling was inevitable and will only open up more rifts. It's going to get worse, a lot worse…
but aside from that, i was on here back then, i was out there in the streets protesting. i was told on this very message board to get the fuck out of the country. i was called a pussy because i opposed the war. i remember what happened to pearl jam in denver and what happened to the dixie chicks for speaking out. i know this message board was monitored after denver. i know of at least one guy who was deported in part because of what he said on this message board.
i remember. i am not going to forget.
i was right then, and i am right now.
hans blix could not find any weapons. yet bushco swore they were there. colin powell fell on his sword and lied to the un.
i remember what americans said about france for not helping. remember "freedom fries??"
we gave it our best shot in iraq. we are done there. we failed there. we won the war but lost the peace. there is nothing we can do now to help fix anything. this is all our fault. cowboy diplomacy. america, fuck yeah!!!
how about we let the un deal with it?
how about we let israel deal with it? they have the best military in the region. they are a regional power, let them have a crack at it,and let us, for once, stop fucking meddling with other countries..
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Too late. The U.S did meddle with it, and now it's the U.S's responsibility to fix the mess they created.
As for Israel, do you really think any Arab country would allow those racist lunatics in? It would be like throwing fuel onto the fire.
i do agree that we meddled and we broke it, and in the strongest possible terms, we fucked it up.
but that was 11 years ago.
we have spent a trillion dollars on the war, the aftermath, and the training of the iraqi army. what is the iraqi army doing? they are tucking tail and running. it is their country. it is their responsibility to defend it from the militants.
there is nothing that the americans can do to fix it. they can do airstrikes, but we see how well those work...we can use drones, but those are inaccurate. we can use diplomacy, but congress will not allow us to do anything peacefully because that would require us to cede some influence in the region. we can commit more boots on the ground, but who are we going to fight? we put more boots on the ground, the neighboring countries will get involved and militants will go there because it is an opportunity to kill some infidels.
as of israel, they have been hiding behind america for too long. they have been expanding settlements because america will bail them out at the un and fight on their behalf. i am tired of spilling blood and pissing away dollars by the billion in the middle east. let saudi arabia step up. let some country in the region step up.
you know what is gonna happen, russia is going to get involved and that is going to suck the us back in, and this is your third great war.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
well ISIS goal is to create a muslim state, this whole topic is what I have been in disagreement with, the muslims want a muslim world and are willing to kill anybody who even disagrees with them and you think I should be concerned with them ? I'm not sure what your getting at, my whole gripe with this is if the U.S helps either side as they did some years ago it will just keep happening and those dirt bags come to our country and start bullshit here as well so I say that we( the U.S) should back away and when they mess with us we shouls wipe their ass's right out.....we should have done that right after 9/11 or in my opinion or at the very least excuted those even remotely involved already but to be honest with you I think obama is kissing muslim ass somewhere in this whole mess...to the point of offering a reach around (that is an angry statement) and I'm a little tired of the "it's only the radical muslims" defence every time this issue is brought up, this whole crock of shit pisses me off.
Godfather.
so like i said we should back away competely and when they mess with us ...whipe their ass's out, and for cry yie stop letting them into our country.
Godfather.
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
The thing is... WHEN would be the right time to withdraw?
This shit was going to happen as soon as we cut loose our Iron Grip on Iraq. It would have happened in 2006 or 2012 or today ot tomorrow ot 20 years from now. Senator McCain says we should be in Iraq for 100 years. Guess what happens when we leave in the 101st year? This same fucking shit.
Also, i'll have to look it up... but, I recall the al-Maliki government asking us to leave because our presense was creating tensions. That we were creating tensions because we needed to keep these deep rooted resentments under our thumb.
As for me... I do not want 100 years of U.S. military occupation with our military personel getting picked of 2 or 3 per month for 100 years because I know that as soon as we leave, this shit will happen. The only other options are a never-ending occupation or ordering our military to murder all of all of them.
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And you know what? We DO owe Iraq and the entire Middle East region an apology for fucking up the place. We fucked up... because we are arrogant fuck ups that believe the oil beneath their homes belongs to us. The reason why those terrorists came over here on September 11, 2001 was because were were constantly fucking around with their shit in their homeland since the 1950s. We act like we are innocent in this shit when we know we are complicent by constantly fucking around with their domestic affairs.
If we are leaders... how about we fucking lead instead of coerce?
...
P.S. Regarding this:
"If you look at public support to going to war in Iraq, almost every source (I use almost because I'm sure there might be one out there that is different but I haven't seen it yet) shows a + 70% approval from the public in 2003. "
Americans continually put 'American Idol' and 'Dancing With The Stars' as the highest rated television shows. We need to factor that into our opinions of going to war based upon political half-truths, innuendos and outright lies and the glorification of war we were bombarded with by our broadcast media. Remember all of the hype and graphics were saw on T.V. leading up the the war? It was sold to us like it was the Super Bowl.
Hail, Hail!!!