Iraq is falling

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
paperburn1
Posts: 2484
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:53 am
Location: Third rock from the sun.

Iraq is falling

Post by paperburn1 »

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06 ... -air-base/

This is what happens when you try and run a kinder gentler war . they com back and bite you in your backside.
This has been going on for a week now and we are just starting to respond. The surprise is not that Iraq is once again coming apart at the seams, but that it took so long. Holding territory requires boots on the ground and we just do not have enough in theater to do any good.
my only question is how will Washington explain this away.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

JLawson
Posts: 424
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 6:31 pm
Location: Georgia
Contact:

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by JLawson »

paperburn1 wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06 ... -air-base/

This is what happens when you try and run a kinder gentler war . they com back and bite you in your backside.
This has been going on for a week now and we are just starting to respond. The surprise is not that Iraq is once again coming apart at the seams, but that it took so long. Holding territory requires boots on the ground and we just do not have enough in theater to do any good.
my only question is how will Washington explain this away.
"It's a pity, but there wasn't anything that could be done. And at this point, what does it matter anyway? Besides - Bush should never have gotten us in there."

Which perfectly explains how you could have a relatively stable and recovering Iraq 5 years ago - and have it collapse today. If we'd had a modest force there - it would have been seen as something dangerous to attack. But Obama needed a 'win' with some good sound bites - so he announced a scheduled withdrawal, ignoring that you NEVER tell a still-active enemy what you're planning on doing. Sure, Bush announced a withdrawal in '08 for the '11 timeframe - but that would have been open to negotiation, while Obama just said "See ya!"

Good sound bites are much more important than a functioning country, don't you think?

So he announces a withdrawal, cuts back troops so he can push Afghanistan, cuts funding to support the Iraqi forces - and isn't it just simply unfortunate that this unfortunate occurrence unfortunately occurs? Why, who could have even thought such a thing would ever happen?

Sadly, it's happened before. We settled for 'peace with honor' in '74, withdrew troops while promising to support South Vietnam. And we did - until it became too expensive in '75 and our Democrats decided to cut and run.

Supporting Iraq out of a basket-case of a country into a wheelchair and onto crutches was expensive, but they were standing up. Then we repoed the crutches for political reasons. Iraq was tottering - now it'll fall.

And I don't think Obama will make anything more than a token move to help. After all - it's not HIS fault, right? He's probably just now read about it in the papers.

But it'll sure make any country think twice or three times before becoming an ally and asking us for help. We'll support you, until the political winds change - at which point you're on your own and good luck to ya.
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.

choff
Posts: 2447
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:02 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by choff »

A lot of those terrorists on the march in Iraq were trained in Saudi Arabia to attack Syria by guess who. Apparently they captured some Apache and Kiowa helicopters.
CHoff

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Skipjack »

Should have never gone there to begin with. Saddam was an asshole and he did kill a lot of his people, but at least his country was comparably safe and stable. Removing him clearly made things worse. Everyone but the US and GB saw this coming. This is why no one supported that war. I predicted that this would happen back then and now we have the mess. These people are not culturally ready for democracy. The argument to leave US troops there is not valid. We could not have left them there forever. It was too costly in both money and lives of US troops. How many more Americans were supposed to die for this?

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Diogenes »

paperburn1 wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06 ... -air-base/

This is what happens when you try and run a kinder gentler war . they com back and bite you in your backside.
This has been going on for a week now and we are just starting to respond. The surprise is not that Iraq is once again coming apart at the seams, but that it took so long. Holding territory requires boots on the ground and we just do not have enough in theater to do any good.
my only question is how will Washington explain this away.


Just the latest success story from the stupidest President in history. Back in 2008 I couldn't believe anyone was taking this half-wit seriously. I saw disasters like this as a given when you put a complete fool in charge.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

choff
Posts: 2447
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:02 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by choff »

Well, there is a line of thought that the whole reason for invading Iraq in the first place was to keep the price of oil artificially high. The U.N. embargo was going to be lifted so the U.S. invaded to keep the place in chaos. If that's true, then the current success of the terrorists would be consistent with the high oil price policy, expect only token efforts to limit the terrorist gains.
CHoff

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Skipjack »

Diogenes wrote: Just the latest success story from the stupidest President in history. Back in 2008 I couldn't believe anyone was taking this half-wit seriously. I saw disasters like this as a given when you put a complete fool in charge.
Uhm, no this is completely on GW Bush and the members of congress that voted for the Iraq war. Obama finally got the US out of this mess that has done nothing but cost the US tax payer trillions and only benefit Blackwater and Halliburton.

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Diogenes »

Skipjack wrote:Should have never gone there to begin with. Saddam was an asshole and he did kill a lot of his people, but at least his country was comparably safe and stable. Removing him clearly made things worse. Everyone but the US and GB saw this coming. This is why no one supported that war. I predicted that this would happen back then and now we have the mess. These people are not culturally ready for democracy. The argument to leave US troops there is not valid. We could not have left them there forever. It was too costly in both money and lives of US troops. How many more Americans were supposed to die for this?


Once more, Skipjack brings the stupid. He comes from a continent that is currently flailing it's way back to the dark ages by tolerance of insane and stupid ideas. Now he's left it, but not without bringing that dysfunctional mindset along with him so he can help screw up this one.



Yes, we should have gone into Iraq. The evidence available at the time left no other reasonable course of action. What we should NOT have done is try to social engineer their existing demographics.


Iraq was fairly peaceful after the war, up until the time Paul Bremer announced that they were disbanding the existing Iraqi Army (Basically firing everyone in it) and further announcing that No member of the Bathe party would be permitted to work in the new government.


What we did with those announcements is basically put a gun to our head and pull the trigger. You have to be some sort of insane half-wit to think that it is a good idea to tell virtually the entire Sunni portion of the Nation that they will never have a chance at a decent life until they have destroyed or driven you out of their country.


The bombs started going off almost immediately after that announcement. They wouldn't put up a hard fight for Saddam, but they D@mn sure were going to put up a fight against their own oppression.


We should have deposed Saddam, Put the Iraq army to work rebuilding the country, Set up a temporary government following the same methods and tactics used in Germany after World War II and then got the H3ll out.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Skipjack »

Diogenes wrote:
Once more, Skipjack brings the stupid.
Ad hominem
Diogenes wrote: He comes from a continent that is currently flailing it's way back to the dark ages by tolerance of insane and stupid ideas.
Unsubstantiated. For the record, I am on the opposition side in my country. Not in line with general European politics.
Diogenes wrote: Yes, we should have gone into Iraq.
Obviously not, looking at the American lives lost and the lack of result after years of war and trillions OF TAXPAYER MONEY wasted.
Diogenes wrote: The evidence available at the time left no other reasonable course of action.
There was no evidence! Everyone knew it too. That is why the US was pretty much on its own with this war. You should have listened to your allies in Europe. Even England was not 100% sold on this.
Diogenes wrote: Iraq was fairly peaceful after the war
You are so funny.

No, this was a bad idea to begin with. Blaming Obama for the mess is ridiculous. He got the US troops out of it and is saving the US taxpayer billions in wasteful government spending.

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Diogenes »

In the two and a half years since the Americans’ departure, Maliki has centralized power within his own circle, cut the Sunnis out of political power, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression. Maliki’s march to authoritarian rule has fueled the reëmergence of the Sunni insurgency directly. With nowhere else to go, Iraq’s Sunnis are turning, once again, to the extremists to protect them.


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/n ... egacy.html


Yeah, who could have seen this coming?
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Diogenes »

Skipjack wrote:
Diogenes wrote: Yes, we should have gone into Iraq.
Obviously not, looking at the American lives lost and the lack of result after years of war and trillions OF TAXPAYER MONEY wasted.


We didn't botch the war, we botched the peace. Had we handled Iraq the same way we handled the De-Nazification of Germany, we would not have had the massive ClusterF*ck which followed after the war was won.

With our stupid social engineering, we triggered a second war.

Skipjack wrote:
Diogenes wrote: The evidence available at the time left no other reasonable course of action.
There was no evidence! Everyone knew it too. That is why the US was pretty much on its own with this war. You should have listened to your allies in Europe. Even England was not 100% sold on this.


There was intercepted radio traffic discussing the deployment of nuclear weapons. Even the Iraqi Commanders thought they had nuke bombs. Saddam was doing everything he could to convince the Iranians that he had nuclear weapons, but he firmly believed our intelligence gathering apparatus was so good, that we wouldn't be fooled.


Given that most of them are graduates from Ivy League colleges, he very greatly overestimated their competence.

And listening to Europe is generally a dumb idea.


Skipjack wrote:
Diogenes wrote: Iraq was fairly peaceful after the war
You are so funny.

And you think it's a joke because you weren't paying attention to what happened. Iraq WAS relatively peaceful after the war. The Shitstorm didn't start until we told the Sunnis that they needed to wipe us out. Prior to that, there wasn't a massive insurgency bent on killing us, but we decided to go and create one.


*I* was paying attention at this time, and the very day I heard the Bremer announcement I predicted that Iraq would erupt into massive violence in the Sunni areas of the country. I think it was like three days later that the massive explosions began. Utterly predictable. In fact, I did. I told anyone who would listen until they were tired of hearing it.


Diogenes wrote: No, this was a bad idea to begin with. Blaming Obama for the mess is ridiculous. He got the US troops out of it and is saving the US taxpayer billions in wasteful government spending.

Obama threw away all the blood and sacrifice given in the attempt to create a functional democracy in the heart of the middle east. He did it because he wanted political optics to make it appear as if the super narcissist meant what he said.


And I very much doubt you give a flying f*ck about US Government spending, but if you do, you ought to come out squarely against the fool who is currently spending the nation into bankruptcy, and who's long term legacy of disaster will dwarf anything which has ever happened before.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by MSimon »

Skipjack wrote:Should have never gone there to begin with. Saddam was an asshole and he did kill a lot of his people, but at least his country was comparably safe and stable. Removing him clearly made things worse. Everyone but the US and GB saw this coming. This is why no one supported that war. I predicted that this would happen back then and now we have the mess. These people are not culturally ready for democracy. The argument to leave US troops there is not valid. We could not have left them there forever. It was too costly in both money and lives of US troops. How many more Americans were supposed to die for this?
Question: How long did it take to turn South Korea into a democracy? For decades it looked like an impossible task.

Same for Taiwan.

Changing a culture takes time.

Not to worry. Iran will get the bomb and hold on to Iraq. Or we will have to go back and do it again.

As to Saddam being no problem? Kuwait.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by Skipjack »

Diogenes wrote: There was intercepted radio traffic discussing the deployment of nuclear weapons. Even the Iraqi Commanders thought they had nuke bombs. Saddam was doing everything he could to convince the Iranians that he had nuclear weapons, but he firmly believed our intelligence gathering apparatus was so good, that we wouldn't be fooled.
This is such a pile of bullshit! Noone in Europe believed that. Noone! If your intelligence is so incompetent, fine, but there is no excuse for not listening to the rest of the world. Besides, you could have waited for the final assessment of the UN weapons inspectors. But you did not want to, because they would have said "nothing there" and that would have ruined the only reason to go there.
It was a stupid setup for obvious financial gains. Me and the rest of the world never fell for it.
*I* was paying attention at this time, and the very day I heard the Bremer announcement I predicted that Iraq would erupt into massive violence in the Sunni areas of the country. I think it was like three days later that the massive explosions began. Utterly predictable. In fact, I did. I told anyone who would listen until they were tired of hearing it.
While I agree that the policies employed by the US during the occupation of Iraq, were counterproductive, I can not see a direct correlation between the numbers of insurgent deaths and Bremers office, which ended in 2004. In fact it seems more like the normal path of an organization of militants in a country that is lacking a strong leadership.
Diogenes wrote:
Skipjack wrote:
Obama threw away all the blood and sacrifice given in the attempt to create a functional democracy in the heart of the middle east. He did it because he wanted political optics to make it appear as if the super narcissist meant what he said.

And I very much doubt you give a flying f*ck about US Government spending, but if you do, you ought to come out squarely against the fool who is currently spending the nation into bankruptcy, and who's long term legacy of disaster will dwarf anything which has ever happened before.
Well it was this war that almost lead the nation into bankruptcy, lets not forget that! It was this war that has cost thousands of American lives for NOTHING and the they continued to die there until Obama pulled out the troops. What would you have done? Continue to burn money and US troops for a few more decades, ignoring the will of the majority of Americans who wanted the war to end already, who where sick of their kids getting killed in a war that was absolutely pointless?
And I do give a frick about US Government spending. I do like the idea of MY tax money to be spent on things that make sense. The Iraq war made no sense whatsoever.
MSimon wrote:
Changing a culture takes time.
It is NOT the job of the US to change cultures, especially if it costs thousands of American lives and trillions in tax payer money.
MSimon wrote: Not to worry. Iran will get the bomb and hold on to Iraq.
Well, Saddam was the only thing keeping Iran in check. That was the other thing that I saw coming. With Saddam gone, Iran had freedom and energy to build their power.
MSimon wrote: As to Saddam being no problem? Kuwait.
Kuwait had been resolved a long time ago. We did not have to remove him from power to do that. Besides, the decision to leave him in power was made back then for a reason. But we were all too forgetful.

hanelyp
Posts: 2261
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:50 pm

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by hanelyp »

Diogenes wrote:[Iraq was fairly peaceful after the war, up until the time Paul Bremer announced that they were disbanding the existing Iraqi Army (Basically firing everyone in it) and further announcing that No member of the Bathe party would be permitted to work in the new government.
Imprison/punish the serious villains, but otherwise let former government officials keep their position so long as they play by our rules. I'm sure a lot of Bathe party members and Iraqi army personnel were there because it was politically advantageous, not out of any special loyalty to top leadership.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Iraq is falling

Post by williatw »

Alarmed by unrest in Iraq, Iran open to shared role with US, Iran official says


Kurdish security forces deploy outside of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, June 12, 2014. The al-Qaida-inspired group that captured two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq this week vowed on Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government's ability to slow the assault following the insurgents' lightning gains. Kurdish security forces took over an air base and other posts abandoned by the Iraqi military in ethnically mixed Kirkuk, a senior official with the Kurdish forces said, but he denied they they had taken over the northern flashpoint city. (AP Photo/Emad Matti)
By Parisa Hafezi
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.


COMMON CAUSE

Relations between Iran and Washington have improved modestly since the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani, who promised "constructive engagement" with the world.

And while Tehran and the United States pursue talks to resolve the Islamic state's decade-old nuclear standoff with the West, they also acknowledge some common threats, including the rise of al Qaeda-style militancy across the Middle East.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama said the United States was not ruling out air strikes to help Baghdad fight the insurgents, in what would be the first U.S. armed intervention in Iraq since the end of the U.S.-led war.

Rouhani on Thursday strongly condemned what he called violent acts by insurgent groups in the Middle East.

"Today, in our region, unfortunately, we are witnessing violence, killing, terror and displacement," Rouhani said.

"Iran will not tolerate the terror and violence ... we will fight against terrorism, factionalism and violence."

Asked on Thursday about Iranian comments, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "Clearly, we've encouraged them in many cases to play a constructive role. But I don't have any other readouts or views from our end to portray here today."

Fearing Iraq's war could spill into Iran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged the international community to back Maliki's administration "in its fight against terrorism".

Brigadier-General Mohammad Hejazi said Iran was ready to supply Iraq with "military equipment or consultations," the Tasnim news agency reported. "I do not think the deployment of Iranian troops would be necessary," he was quoted as adding.

The senior Iranian official said Iran was extremely worried about the advance of ISIL, also a major force in the war against Iran's close ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, carving out a swathe of Syria territory along the Iraqi border.

"The danger of extremist Sunni terrorist in Iraq and the region is increasing ... There have been several high-ranking security meetings since yesterday in Tehran," the official said.

"We are on alert and we also follow the developments in Iraq very closely."




http://www.aol.com/article/2014/06/13/a ... d%3D488368

Post Reply