Who's to Blame for the Mess in Iraq?

You mean take back Iraq's "sovereignty"?

 

Would love to see a link to that statement. Morell has already gone on record claiming Bush never asked the CIA to make up any intel regarding Iraq. Obama deserted Iraq politically when he had the SFA he could have used to ensure the new Iraq government stayed the course of inclusion for all Iraqis. He failed to do that much in honor of the American soldiers who died fighting in Iraq.

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The SFA had nothing to do with taking back sovereignty. I take it you aren't familiar with this agreement?

 

That was likely the genesis, but I think that after 20 years of war and sanctions the Iraqi people were initially hopeful that America's regime change would work.

 

Did Morell go on record claiming Cheney never did camp out at the CIA building? Reagan once told Poindexter "do what you have to do, just don't tell me about it." Do you think that lesson was lost on Bush?

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know Biden supported the war. I supported the Easter Bunny until I read a real book.

 

Where was support for the US supposed to come from? Maliki and the Shia? The world? The American public?

 

You do realize ISIS used to be Al Queda in Iraq don't you?

 

This is a totally unsupportable bit of nonsense.

As you point out, we do support the government of Iraq. Our "boots on the ground" in Iraq are limited by the Bush agreement - they are not allowed to carry out military operations of their own. Plus, the numbers allowed are too low for that, says the Pentagon.

More importantly, they are there in support of the anti-Sunni government of Iraq. Thus, they are more proof to the Sunnis that we are not interested in their situation. And, the Pentagon states that without Sunni help, success against ISIL is unlikely. We need to show commitment to Sunnis if we're going to gain their support. More troops and aid for the government is contrary to that goal.

Arms and training to the South Vietnamese was entirely irrelevant. There was one Vietnam. The imposed fiction was never going to stand.

Enemy in Vietnam? Ten years after we left I could book a vacation there. And, I can do so today! Our whole concept of Vietnam was screwed up beyond all imagination. It was a cold war fiasco which was NEVER going to benefit the US or Vietnam.

 

I'm new here, so I don't know if you're a serious poster or a troll. In any event, I'll continue this discussion a while longer. I won't defend Carter, Clinton, Obama
or any other President when it comes to the Middle East. Our foreign policy has been a bi-partisan fiasco for decades. The general officers in the Pentagon and the GS-15/SES bureaucrats in the State Department can't seem to come to grips with the simple fact that the Saudis provide the financial and philosophical foundation for radical Islam. There are other players, to be sure, but if you want to shut down the circus you go after the ringmaster and don't pay attention to the sideshow.

 

I have to agree that the whole concept of Vietnam was FUBAR. Who refused to give the Indo-Chinese their independence? France! Backed up by Truman.... who allowed the French and captured Japanese troops to remain in power until the French could take over, denying Ho Chi Minh the independence he sought for Indochina (Vietnam). That is beside the point. It was JFK and LBJ that lied America into the war. First by increasing advisers, then killing their president, finally by manufacturing the lie about the attack at the Gulf of Tonkin. The war was won and the peace secured by 1974 until Democrats decided to defund the agreement with South Vietnam Everything is prologue thereafter. The same is true for Iraq that Democrats were originally for but decided to changed their political reasoning. Bush was correct then and Obama was wrong to abandon Iraq.

[video=youtube;RRdoiTH_iZg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRdoiTH_iZg[/video]​

 

And you know this because you spent so much time in Saudi Arabia.

 

On that I can't agree more. You've hit the nail squarely on the head. Saudi Madrassas teaching Wahhabism is the root of problem throughout the Middle East and it's been going on for decades.

 

I've been to Turkey (compliments of the U.S. Army) and Beirut (R&R). I've been following what goes on in that part of the world for a while. You don't have to visit Saudi Arabia (or even subscribe to Foreign Affairs magazine) to understand the big picture.

 

And the best way to remedy that would have been to maintain a free and democratic nation right in the center with Iraq! A thriving and wealthy nation with a free middle class would have greatly influenced Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Qatar, and Yemen as their own youthful populations would have actually seen for the first time the great benefits of the freedom from theocratic rule, and they WOULD have demanded the same kind of freedom for themselves within a generation! Unfortunately, liberals can't see two feet in front of their faces and were bound and determined to kill off any chance of giving Republicans and GW Bush a successful legacy like that, and therefore Obama had to make sure it failed! Politics trumps all to a liberal!

 

I spent two decades in KSA and I have been to Beirut too many times to count.. Used to stay at the Phoenicia or the King George.

You are dead wrong about the Saudis.. Read SUSRIS.

 

The Saudis have a highly sophisticated and, needless to say, well-funded PR operation in this country. I would view anything emanating from SUSRIS with a fair amount of skepticism. Unfortunately I can't remember where I stayed in Beirut. It was during the late 1960s, when the city was the Paris of the Middle East.

 

Are you claiming by using the code word 'neocons' that Bush and Jewish Democrats turned Republican are responsible?

 

Yes.. Beirut was the Paris of the Med...... KSA is nothing like Turkey or Syria or Iraq, Iran and Kuwait or Libya... but the Saudi track record over the past 70 years speaks for itself.. They have been our oldest and most reliable ally thru one US administration after another.

 

Wow, I agree with what you have written. Progressives on these boards will attempt to crucify and the quarter you to the four points of the compass for posting that message.

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Oh, I remember it well, I was in a tent alongside the Beirut airport 1958.

 

Ever been to Beirut at all? If so , why didn't you stay someplace nice?

 

I agree with all this up until the claim that the war was won. At that point, I do not even slightly agree. We had no agreement with Vietnam in that the government of South Vietnam didn't speak for the people and (more importantly) there was one Vietnam, not two.

Bush was not just wrong about conquering Iraq, but made repeated mistakes after that - deBaathification, replacing important government sector leadership with unqualified persons, selecting Iraq's leader of deBaathification, an ardent sectarian, to lead Iraq, the continuation of the civil war against Sunnis, etc.

Bush signed us out of Iraq. At that point, supporting Sunni interests was not something we could legitimately attempt to do from a military stand point.

If you want to claim Obama abandoned Iraq, you better state what you think we SHOULD have done (and should now be doing), once we had no right to carry out military operations in that independent country that we created.

 

First, let's recognize that your statement here is not a legitimate justification for war.

Beyond that, the first action of Bush in Iraq was to remove the leadership from all sectors of their government, replacing them with untrained secularists - our deBaathification program. Suggesting that had something to do with creating a successful nation is obviously absurd.

Next, Bush selected Maliki - whose qualification was that he had run deBaathification from the Iraqi side. As a devout Shiite sectarian, his first actions were to being driving Sunnis from representation and executing lethal attacks on Sunni civilians, driving them from their homes in cities Maliki saw as belonging to Shiites. The civil war that ensued continued through Maliki's tenure and beyond.

Suggesting the above was consistent with successful government in Iraq or that it had ANYTHING to do with "liberals" in the US is absolute garbage. These acts were totally under the control of the Pentagon an the administration.

When Obama became president, Bush had signed the agreement removing US operational troops from Iraq. Maliki was fully in charge. His anti-Sunni direction was being carried out by his military, his politicians and his Shiite militias.

THAT is the Bush legacy.

Today, the Pentagon continues to state that we will not succeed against ISIL until Sunnis have something to fight for, that Sunnis must be on our side vs. ISIL. Yet, the GOP suggests we give the Shiite government and their partner Iraq more military support in assaulting Sunni cities!

Until you start listening to the Pentagon and stop listening to your GOP overlords, you are not going to make sense.

 

Exactly what options under the SFA has Obama been ignoring with regards to Iraq's security?

 

The United States government never gave a damn about the people of Iraq or of Vietnam or its own soldiers for that matter... As Henry Kissinger said, "military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy" .http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...W-zoFQ&usg=AFQjCNH3qlHa4c4Ur8l8LgA2-mTWJXL-Zg

Do you think a government that feels that way about its own citizens gives a damn about the people of another country?

 

Who's to Blame for the Mess in Iraq?

Iraqis, of course.