Iraq is Burning

[Azalin]

Yes, if you can't afford it, you die. So you are against poor people getting health care. De facto denying people of a basic necessiy. Let's invade Iraq! Or! Obama didn't spend enough on Syria?

 

 

 

are you Alan Grayson, or do you just have the same writers?

[Koko78]

And the one hundred advisors has morphed to three hundred, just in the "option considering" stage. Probably end up w/ several thousand "advisors," most of whom will never be officially on the books, armed to the teeth, leading Iraqi fighters on "training missions."

 

But, hey, no boots on the ground; and if push comes to shove, POTUS will lose the emails enabling our re-involvement.

 

...and will find out about the emails he received on CNN.

[DC Tom]

Oh, this is a wonderfully argued piece of garbage:

 

"He offered to leave about 3,000 to 5,000 troops, a ridiculous number. U.S. commanders said they needed nearly 20,000. (We have 28,500 in South Korea and 38,000 in Japan to this day.) Such a minuscule contingent would spend all its time just protecting itself. Iraqis know a nonserious offer when they see one. Why bear the domestic political liability of a continued U.S. presence for a mere token?

 

Moreover, as historian Max Boot has pointed out, Obama insisted on parliamentary ratification, which the Iraqis explained was not just impossible but unnecessary. So Obama ordered a full withdrawal. And with it disappeared U.S. influence in curbing sectarianism, mediating among factions, and providing both intelligence and tactical advice to Iraqi forces now operating on their own."

 

And why couldn't it get parliamentary approval?? Probably because the only thing the Iraqis could all agree on is that they wanted us out! And how many troops are we losing in South Korea and Japan? But I'm am glad the neocon **** head trash is finally admitting who got our troops out of Iraq. Tom use to argue with me it was Bush...

 

You mean when I kept pointing out to you that the troops were withdrawn under the 2007 agreement that Bush negotiated and signed?

[Tiberius]

 

 

You mean when I kept pointing out to you that the troops were withdrawn under the 2007 agreement that Bush negotiated and signed?

Yes, and I pointed out back that McCain was criticizing Obama vociferously for following through on it.

 

 

 

Woo!! I missed this. Have not seen the video yet...

 

 

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/04/08/rand-paul-cheney-pushed-iraq-war-for-halliburton.html

 

I really wonder how this issue will play out in the GOP primary

[DC Tom]

Yes, and I pointed out back that McCain was criticizing Obama vociferously for following through on it.

 

So? Didn't we all know McCain was nuts?

[Tux of Borg]

It is being reported that ISIS now has taken Al Muthanna chem complex.

[Tiberius]

It is being reported that ISIS now has taken Al Muthanna chem complex.

Now they an sell Al Metha? Islamic meth... Ha

[Deranged Rhino]

Now they an sell Al Metha? Islamic meth... Ha

:lol:

[DC Tom]

It is being reported that ISIS now has taken Al Muthanna chem complex.

 

But there are no chemical weapons facilities in Iraq. Remember?

[/dev/null]

It is being reported that ISIS now has taken Al Muthanna chem complex.

Now they an sell Al Metha? Islamic meth... Ha

 

[Keukasmallies]

No boots on the ground; that's what POTUS told us. However, there will be a yet-to-be-determined number of military personnel tagged as advisors, additionally, there will be special forces personnel to provide protection and training. Every iteration of the options being considered appears to add to the number of military personnel being considered for duty in Iraq.

 

What is the magic number wherein no boots on the ground becomes broad-based military involvement? (That's a rhetorical question since one learns not to give credence to POTUS' answers to such questions.)

[DC Tom]

What is the magic number wherein no boots on the ground becomes broad-based military involvement?

 

One MEU.

[truth on hold]

Is this feasible or did Obama lay out an impossible condition?

 

"President Barack Obama said Friday the Iraqi government and military must include Sunni and Kurdish citizens if the U.S. is to provide support to the embattled regime."

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/barack-obama-iraq-military-108148.html#ixzz35F5DDQtt

[DC Tom]

Is this feasible or did Obama lay out an impossible condition?

 

"President Barack Obama said Friday the Iraqi government and military must include Sunni and Kurdish citizens if the U.S. is to provide support to the embattled regime."

 

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz35F5DDQtt

 

Impossible condition, only because his credibility with respect to international politics in general and Iraq in particular is completely shot, which gives the Iraqi government absolutely no motivation to implement said condition.

 

Otherwise...Lebanon manages, with a parliamentary government specifically designed to avoid sectarianism. The Iraqis COULD manage it...if it were in there interests. Which it's not. No thanks to our cluster!@#$ of a foreign policy.

[truth on hold]

Impossible condition, only because his credibility with respect to international politics in general and Iraq in particular is completely shot, which gives the Iraqi government absolutely no motivation to implement said condition.

 

Otherwise...Lebanon manages, with a parliamentary government specifically designed to avoid sectarianism. The Iraqis COULD manage it...if it were in there interests. Which it's not. No thanks to our cluster!@#$ of a foreign policy.

Largest group in Lebanon is Christian, so it's not directly comparable. And they still have their share of violence and instability.

 

Apart from the normal Obama-bashing, when you have ISIS being welcomed in the streets like this, is an inclusive government and (especially) military even possible?

 

[DC Tom]

Largest group in Lebanon is Christian, so it's not directly comparable. And they still have their share of violence and instability.

 

Apart from the normal Obama-bashing, when you have ISIS being welcomed in the streets like this, is an inclusive government and (especially) military even possible?

 

http://youtu.be/gkEea_Eg66Y

 

Largest group in Lebanon is Muslim - 54%, excluding Druze. Christians are only 40%. Unless you want to break it down further by sects...in which case, Sunni and Shi'ia (27% each) are each larger than the largest Christian sect (Maronite, 22%).

 

And all those groups fought each other for 15 years, and managed to form a functional and inclusive government...which I thought was the point you were making in your post, because, y'know, that's what you posted ("...the Iraqi government and military must include Sunni and Kurdish citizens...")

 

So once again, you're simultaneously ignorant, wrong, and flamingly stupid.

[truth on hold]

Largest group in Lebanon is Muslim - 54%, excluding Druze. Christians are only 40%. Unless you want to break it down further by sects...in which case, Sunni and Shi'ia (27% each) are each larger than the largest Christian sect (Maronite, 22%).

 

And all those groups fought each other for 15 years, and managed to form a functional and inclusive government...which I thought was the point you were making in your post, because, y'know, that's what you posted ("...the Iraqi government and military must include Sunni and Kurdish citizens...")

 

So once again, you're simultaneously ignorant, wrong, and flamingly stupid.

Yes I'm breaking down by Muslim sect since those, you know, are the groups fighting each other.

[B-Man]

The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace................. Who messed it up?

 

 

The Man Who Broke The Middle East

 

by Elliot Abrams, POLITICO

 

Original Article

 

 

FTA:

The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home. Today, terrorism has metastasized in Syria and Iraq, Jordan is at risk, the humanitarian toll is staggering, terrorist groups are growing fast and relations with U.S. allies are strained.

 

How did it happen? Begin with hubris: The new president told the world, in his Cairo speech in June 2009, that he had special expertise in understanding the entire world of Islam—knowledge “rooted in my own experience” because “I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” But President Obama wasn’t speaking that day in an imaginary location called “the world of Islam;” he was in Cairo, in the Arab Middle East, in a place where nothing counted more than power. “As a boy,” Obama told his listeners, “I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk.” Nice touch, but Arab rulers were more interested in knowing whether as a man he heard the approaching sound of gunfire, saw the growing threat of al Qaeda from the Maghreb to the Arabian Peninsula, and understood the ambitions of the ayatollahs as Iran moved closer and closer to a bomb.

 

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-man-who-broke-the-middle-east-108140.html#ixzz35TNAuyFX

[Tiberius]

The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace................. Who messed it up

 

Wow! This is stupid on steroids. So Obama inherited the Middle East? That's great. And so the Religion of peace was at peace. And without the guiding hand of that Idiot in Chief Bush bringing peace all over the region it just fell apart. Only B-Man could be stupid enough to post such an outlandish and daft propaganda piece

 

I thought it was Bush that released the people of Iraq and the middle east to the freedom of breaking away from tyranny?

[Rob's House]

You know, if you think about it, the liberals really dropped the ball on Iraq from the beginning.

 

It's no secret that I lean conservative (primarily on fiscal issues, but still) but I do think having opposing parties is important to temper the whims of the other - even if they are my whims that are being tempered (Not that I was ever gung ho on Iraq, but even if I were).

 

Bush had a hard-on for Iraq, and his party and supporters were either right there with him or at least willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

The Democrats, however, claim the invasion was a mistake, but the cowardly !@#$s voted to authorize the goddamn thing from the outset. They should have dug in like the Republicans did with Obamacare and said "if you get this done we're going to go kicking and screaming."

 

Instead, they waited until we were entrenched and couldn't pull out to launch their pathetically contrived attempt at a Viet Nam style war protest.

 

Bottom line is, the Republicans were wrong to invade Iraq, but the Democrats (if they truly believed it was a mistake) Sat on their hands while the country went to war (a war they supposedly opposed ardently) for fear of political implications. Their only defense is they're a bunch of self-interested cowards and hypocrites.