Trump: Obama ‘Was More Angry at Me Than He Was at the Shooter’

I would say something is a "fantastic accomplishment" if it worked. Iraq did NOT work.

A SOFA is a joint agreement. It isn't something that the US imposes on some other sovereign nation.

Maliki did not want US combat troops in Iraq. Why would he? How would US combat troops have helped Maliki? Do you think US troops would have helped Maliki drive Sunnis out of the cities where they were living? Do you think US combat troops would have attacked Sunnis in the cities where they were the majority? Do you think US combat troops in Iraq would have made it easier in ANY WAY for Maliki to carry out his agenda of driving Sunnis from government and from civil service jobs?

Yes. The Obama administration did address the issue of troops in Iraq with Maliki when Obama became president. Maliki made it crystal clear that he did not want US combat troops in Iraq. Plus, the US knew that Maliki could not have gained the agreement of others in his government - which was required for such an agreement by Iraqi law.

What you are suggesting is NOT a SOFA. You are suggesting that Obama should have reconquered Iraq.


I'm also more than a little shocked that you think the Bush SOFA was so bad that it was imperative to trash it before the ink was even dry. You must think Bush was MONUMENTALLY out of touch with what was going on in Iraq. You must agree that Bush ignored Palin, too! Do you really see THAT as an issue???

 

This is total partisan political BS, recognizing NOTHING about what was going on in Iraq.

The US was not going to reconquer Iraq. And, Malki did not want US combat troops in Iraq. And, even if he did we knew he would never get the required agreement from others in his government.

Bush signed the SOFA that specified the plan for US combat troop departure - schedules, costs, responsibilities, etc.

So, why you seem to think the Bush SOFA meant nothing is really no more than blatant and ignorant partisanship.

 

We had a "progressive" imbecile on this board post the same bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

I would have loved to see both their heads explode when they found out that the shooter was a gay Muslim Democrat.

 

Trump may say that but I still believe in his capability to lead US if he win the election.

 

I'm touched by your concern for Assad, a lethal dictator who has remained in power only by slaughtering civilians.

Suggesting that the revolutionaries are all ISIS/terrorist is just plain false. Ask McCain.

Russia is more of an influence than Iran, but our progress with Iran is promising in that we have not been able to carry out successful negotiations with that nation for a long, long time.

Bush checked us out of Iraq after having put Maliki in charge. Maliki was our point man in Iraq for disenfranchising Sunnis - running the Iraq side of the catastrophic "deBaathification" plan.

Suggesting Bush had meaningful talks with ANYONE in Iraq is a joke when placed beside the failure to recognize that Maliki was a monumentally sectarian aggressor who had no intent to allow Sunni participation in Iraq - either in government or in the majorly important employment sector of civil service.

Maliki's very first moves were to drive Sunnis from government (including through assassination), driving them from their jobs, and turning his Shiite militias loose to kill civilians who were living in cities that Maliki considered to be Shiite cities.

The Bush moves created the opening for ISIS, giving Sunnis a more important and at least equally lethal opponent (Maliki).

So, what's your solution for Iraq? Are you actually going to suggest we reconquer Iraq?

And, your just dead wrong if you think Assad can EVER be accepted by the people of Syria as their leader when his means of maintaining power is by barrel bombing the cities of the majority Sunni population.

 

In fact it did work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKSb2ukQxvY What criteria are you using?

That's quite correct. They are negotiated regularly. That's what happens with all SOFAs. But Obama had no intention of negotiating a SOFA. he later blamed it on Maliki but he never campaigned on negotiating a SOFA. Instead he said repeatedly that he would bring the troops home. You must remember that if you follow politics at all.

Understand <alikis osition. It s a new government and democracy with a lot of anti Western feelings with many islamists in the mix. Maliki had to say a lot of things in order to satisfy different factions. Obama would have understood that, and so should everyone. Some things are said for public consumption but certainly Maliki knew, as well as the military, that the ISlamists would take over once the forces were removed.

Iraq in 2011 was already 'conquered'. Saddam was gone, the people had voted (despite the threats) and a democracy was established. That is a victory.

Here's what Obama had to say about troops and Iraq. Maliki was not mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgyu11TZEFc

Here's more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwQqNdkyZZo

This makes no sense. All SOFAs expire and are again negotiated with minor or large details. There are SOFAs in place wherever US Troops are stationed.

 

The bottom line is that a SOFA is an AGREEMENT between two countries. In the case of Iraq, it required ratification by the Iraqi parliament.

Iraq (both Maliki and his parliament) wanted US troops OUT of Iraq. They had just negotiated a SOFA with Bush, and were well known to want US troops out.

Yet, you come along and suggest that the US could have negotiated a different SOFA a mere 2 months after Bush having already negotiated what was an extensive and detailed plan for the removal of all US combat troops???

And, you suggest that knowing full well (further informed by hindsight) that Maliki's intent was to step up his sectarian aggression against Sunnis both in the Iraqi government and those simply living as citizens of Iraq?

With that intent, how the heck would having US combat troops in Iraq have helped Maliki? Remember the "awakening"??? We KNEW that to get rid of AQI/ISIL we would need to work WITH Sunnis - exactly what Maliki was interested in NOT doing. Maliki knew that we wanted Sunnis in the Iraqi government - another point that Maliki did NOT want. Maliki was interested in better relations with Iran - something made substantially more difficult if Iraq is occupied by US combat troops.

Yet YOU come along and suggest we could have somehow overridden the Bush agreement and forced Iraq to accept further occupation forces?

This has nothing to do with Obama's intent. Bush faced the same issues, and resolved them by signing our troops out of Iraq.

 

I have no concern or sympathy for that piece of (*)(*)(*)(*), and I'm puzzled at how you would arrive at such a conclusion based merely on the fact that Assad is going to continue to fight for his and his regime's survival and my impression that it has become increasingly likely that he will survive this conflict as his father survived the uprising in 1982. I have no illusions about the brutality and excesses that he will resort to maintain his illegitimate grip on power. He'll kill every single Sunni in Syria if he has to.

I never suggested that, either. We were talking about the Islamic State, not the revolutionaries who are opposed to both them and Assad.

I disagree with you on both counts. Unlike the Russians, Iran is not about to let its lackey in Damascus fall, and I see nothing promising in Iran's increasing belligerence towards our country.

Bush "checked us out of Iraq" after it became clear that the Surge had been successful, and then Obama literally checked us out in 2011 declaring that "&#8216;We&#8217;re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq".

Paul Bremer was our point man on the de-Ba'athification of Iraq. Nouri al-Maliki was our point man in stabilizing the country. I do agree that al-Maliki contributed to the disenfranchisement and alienation of the Iraqi Sunnis, which made them more amenable to the Salafist jihadists who seized military control of their communities in 2014.

The success of the Surge would have never been possible without the talks that got all of the sectarian parties on board. To suggest they were a joke flies in the face of that fact.

Did the Bush Administration misjudge al-Maliki or did he mislead them? I don't know how anyone could say no, but it's easy for armchair quarterbacks such as ourselves to comment on that with the benefit of the hindsight that Bush & Co. didn't have.

Indeed, the Iraqi interim government did some of the things you mentioned, but if I recall correctly it was Muqtadr al-Sadr's militia (the Mahdi Army) that was primarily responsible for the sectarian cleansing in Iraq, which is why our troops would up fighting them in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Bush was long gone by the time ISIS got its opening in the Syrian civil war that expanded into to their blitz through central and northern Iraq in 2014.

We're already sending combat troops back into Iraq, but I don't think we need to send 100,000 troops back into that country. If we want to be rid of IS as quickly as possible I think it's obvious we're going to have to be more aggressive diplomatically and militarily.

What do you think we should do?

Assad and his supporters will do whatever they have to do to maintain the survival of his regime. The people who refuse to accept him will be killed, just as the Lebanese who refused to accept him were killed (ex., Rafic Hariri). You know as well as I do that Assad, Tehran and Hezbollah have no regard for the lives of the Sunni majority in Syria. As far as many of Assad's supporters are concerned, the Sunnis are infidels who deserve to die.

 

Maybe Carlos Slim, now the biggest shareholder in the NY Times, wrote the editorial himself. It doesn't really matter, perhaps, because its followers will believe whatever the editorials say, and Slim probably knows that.

 

Tell that to the 49 people executed by a muslim for being gay.

 

Yes, that's what the "A" stands for. We can move past that.

You keep saying that, and 'the ink wasn't even dry'. It was actually signed three years earlier. Let's stay with the facts.

Obama moved the troops out in 2011. The SOFA was signed in 2008. And when Obama pulled the troops out he said, " &#8216;We&#8217;re Leaving Behind a Sovereign, Stable and Self-Reliant Iraq". Did you believe him then? Do you believe it now? Nowhere did he say he was pulling the troops because Maliki told him to leave. That came later, when the world could see the consequences of that fatal decision.

Forget Maliki. He was only a bit player in all of this. Do you ever hear of now? It was a much bigger game being played. The military certainly knew that and millions of others did also, including Mitt Romney.

You're misreading the entire thing. You keep believing Maliki was a big deal. He never was.

A SOFA could have been negotiated and the troops remain on a contingency basis until it was. This is not unusual. But the SOFA didn't matter to BHO. Obama wanted to pull the troops and campaigned on that promise. Then he took credit for it as well. Only when everyone saw what a mess it was did he blame it on Maliki, SOFA, and George Bush.

Bush negotiated and signed a SOFA and they all, every one of them, expire on an agreed upon date. That's normal procedure in all these cases.

 

He may have just been casing the place. That scum was really just another Islamic terrorist, brainwashed to the bone.

 

Tell me what you wanted Obama to do. Do NOT tell me you wanted him to negotiate a different SOFA, because we already know for sure that Iraq was not interested in US combat troops in Iraq. So, a SOFA was out of the question.

Maliki was our Iraqi point man in deBaathification. Brenner was US, obviously. We liked Maliki, because of our experience of Maliki's cooperation in removing Sunnis from their jobs and from government.

By making Sunnis "more amenable" to AQI/ISIL I assume you are referring to the difficulties Sunnis faced in attempting to fight both Maliki and the terrorists. Plus, ISIL actually provided a future in government, while Maliki offered disenfranchisement.

You will notice that I have not been critical of Bush in this thread. Specifically, whether or not the Bush SOFA was a monumental blunder and/or whether the US assessment of Iraq was totally wrong at times during both administrations isn't something I've addressed.

Al-Sadr has always been under the relative control of Maliki. Maliki supported the acts of these militias in lethal attacks on Sunnis and in driving Sunnis from the cities that the Shiite government considered "theirs". Saddam had caused mixing of the population. Maliki and al-Sadr dramatically changed that. Maliki would not want our troops fighting al-Sadr, which is one reason Iraq did not want US combat troops in Iraq. Remember that al-Abadi also used the Shiite militias in the civil war against Sunnis.

We have about 3,000 troops in Iraq on an advise and assist mission. These are not counted as combat troops (although I'm sure they are fully trained). To carry out combat missions, our military says there would need to be at least 20,000 US combat troops present and they would need to be legally covered so as not to be subject to local law. We do not have that - it would require a SOFA, and Iraq is not interested in that. The US hasn't been interested in that, either.

 

The Bush SOFA in question (the one removing US troops from Iraq) was signed November 17, 2008 - two months before the Obama inauguration. The SOFA included a detailed plan that called for a departure that would have all US troops out by 2011. The departure operations were to start immediately.

Iraq IS stable. It's government is absolutely horrible and it has major internal problems, but it isn't going anywhere.

Your comments about Maliki being a bit player are preposterous. He was the prime minister of Iraq at the time of the Bush SOFA and forward. Any SOFA required his agreement as well as the agreement of the Iraqi parliament. this isn't some sort of new or strange idea. Bush made Iraq sovereign, and "sovereign" does have a definition.

It was well known that Maliki did not want US combat troops in Iraq. His parliament was even more strongly opposed. Getting agreement from them for US combat troops was not going to happen. Get real. Look what Maliki and his government wanted to do. The US would NOT have supported that, and the Iraq government knew that.

 

tell them what? that religious nuts with assault weapons are dangerous... think they found that out sadly

.

 

Tell them its the guns fault and not the rabid muslim pointing it at them and pulling the trigger. See if they agree.

 

I agree, it's the religious nut with the anti-gay views that is the problem, though he would of killed less people had he not been able to buy an assault weapon days earlier...

I am all for banning the sale of Machine guns and assault weapons..... I do though support everyone's right to own a gun

if machine guns were legal, I bet many more would be dead today....
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Yes, that's what I've been saying but you said things like the ink wasn't yet dry. It was three years and Obama had plenty of time to negotiate another agreement, just like Bush did. But we know by his words and deeds that he didn't want a SOFA. Have you not heard him speak on the subject? I sent you links where he makes those promises.

Iraq is "stable"?? This is getting too ridiculous now.

Yes, I know what 'sovereign' means. Do you understand what 'genocide' means? That's what's happening in your 'stable' Iraq today. I doubt even BHO himself would claim that Iraq is still stable as it was in 2011.

It was well know that Saddam didn't want troops in Iraq. So what? Millions of lives are at stake and you're saying a small time Iraqi politician should be making the decisions for the American government and the future of the Middle East? Al-Maliki can actually tell the US President what to do with American troops and will control American foreign policy despite all the American and Coalition deaths in Iraq? The sacrifices people made to initiate freedom and democracy and you're saying, on Maliki's orders, Barrack Obama was forced to throw it all away? If that's the case how did this punk ever become US President?

 

trump is right, we need to defeat bad guys, not pacify and coddle them.

 

of course then comes the question..... how much power do you want to give the government to monitor us

it sucks, it's a fine balance between freedom and security.....

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trump will use the government to profile and monitor muslims, gays, mentally ill, blacks, mexicans, any non christians since they are most likely to be bad.

the majority will still enjoy freedom and security.

 

It's not clear to some people just who the bad guys are. Obama is reluctant to name them and The Onion is now having real competition from people who appear to be serious. http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/june/aclu-lawyers-blame-christians-for-orlando-shooting

 

So your way of fighting terrorism is to help give them exactly what they want. How is it possible those of you on the left don't grasp that when you do what you are doing which is gun grab, its going to GUARANTEE another mass shooting. I told you guy this at the last shooting. Its not the gun, its the rabid muslims pulling the trigger. If only you guys grabbed terrorists as good as you grab our freedom.
DEFINE ASSAULT WEAPON

 

??? Maliki did not want a SOFA that allowed US combat troops in Iraq.

Yet, you keep saying the opposite. Why?

The 2011 date was the final deadline for combat troop removal, but that was NOT the only deadline. There were many intermediate deadlines as well. The plan had removal operations beginning at once in 2008.

The government of Iraq is in no danger of falling. Al-Abadi is prime minister. There isn't any question about Iraq being overthrown.

You point to the humanitarian disaster in Iraq and you could also point to the fact that the civil war is enabling ISIS to remain established there. But, that doesn't mean we get to send combat troops into Iraq without a SOFA that includes that.

The fact that it was a MONUMENTAL blunder to conquer Iraq adds absolutely NOTHING to an legal justification for us using force against the sovereign nation of Iraq.

Are you actually going to propose that the USA should have invaded Iraq against its sovereignty?

 

Again, our mission remains one of advise and assist. We have no right to move in with what the US military considers to be required for US combat operations.

Beyond that, we learned with AQI that we could make no significant progress in reducing AQI withing the help of the Sunnis. And, to get their help we needed to be doing something quite different than bolstering the Iraqi government's program of sectarian disenfranchisement against Sunnis - obviously.

Today, we have NOTHING to offer Sunnis other than diplomacy with the Iraqi government urging them to be something other than a lethally sectarian branch of Iran.

Al-Abadi is certainly not as bad as Maliki, but he has NOT done what would be required for Sunnis to find him acceptable. For example, there is no room in the Iraqi government today for Sunni representation.