Who's to Blame for the Mess in Iraq?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Agent_286, May 27, 2015.

  1. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You only need to ask!

    Better?
     
  2. Tomray

    Tomray New Member

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    It was ignored because it was totally irrelevant to the discussion! The fact is that terrorist attacks were reduced dramatically after the surge ordered by GW Bush, and dropped from 950 deaths in April of 2008 to an average of 250 a month in the first quarter of 2009. That is a SIGNIFICANT drop that occurred just as Bush left office, isn't it?
     
  3. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Read the data I posted and stop guessing.
     
  4. Tomray

    Tomray New Member

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    OF COURSE we were eliminating them! They were the primary supporters of Saddam who were causing the majority of the attacks on both our military and the Iraqi civilians! And they stood to lose the most when we installed a democracy! Where do you think the Iraqi resistance and the terrorist attacks were coming from?
     
  5. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it is.

    Of course, the whole discussion would be unnecessary if Bush had never started the war in the first place.

    The "Surge" had one real purpose. To try and put a lid on the civil war that Bush unleashed in 2003, and had been unable to control because he ignored his generals and the experts and sent too few troops into Iraq in his ill advised and unnecessary war. (we sent 4 times as many troops to the ME in 1990). Bush could have cared less what happened in Iraq the day after he left office. He just wanted to keep the lid barely on long enough to off load it on the next guy. Thereupon, the GOP would do what it always does. Blame the next guy for having to clean up (or not being able) the mess they left behind.

    There was ZERO American public support for the continuation of a long term large scale military occupation of Iraq, particularly as it was very evident that Iraq's would still be shooting at American soldiers in perpetuity.

    While every far right wing nut, the Zionists and the neo cons are yelling about Obama, NOT ONE of them has suggested sending 180,000 US troops back into Iraq.

    In fact, they're not suggesting anything at all. They're just yelling.
     
  6. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    Democracy is not something that is "installed".

    Puppet governments are installed.

    We sent Sadaam's army home WITH their guns, installed a Shia puppet government, and watched them persecute Sunnis.

    This is what we get for it.
     
  7. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    While every far right wing nut, the Zionists and the neo cons are yelling about Obama, NOT ONE of them has suggested sending 180,000 US troops back into Iraq.

    In fact, they're not suggesting anything at all. They're just yelling.


    Noisy biddies, aren't they?

    How many US soldiers do you suppose it would take to conquer, occupy and control Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen?
     
  8. Tomray

    Tomray New Member

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    The significant difference in post-war Japan was that the nation agreed to unconditional surrender, and yet we STILL maintain US 31,000 troops there now, some 70 years later! But tens of thousands more were deemed necessary to oversee the transition of government, and a huge naval force remained at their coast! Additionally, the hearts and minds of the civilian population were won after they realized our atomic weapons capability, something that no other nation has ever experienced! We fought THAT war with the determination we should have fought THIS one and EVERY war we commit to! But even had we left 10,000 troops in Iraq as Obama's military advisors recommended, it would have been sufficient to keep ISIS from having ANY thoughts of invading the country! THAT is the failure of OBAMA, and NO ONE ELSE!
     
  9. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    What is he supposed to be doing? That's the question the right scrupulously avoids.

    The same people running away from that question now, ran away when I asked how much extra taxes they were willing to pay to support the war they were cheering for.

    - - - Updated - - -

    I would think a million at least.

    The Pentagon's standard war plan for Iraq called for an army of occupation of around half a million men.

    Rumsfeld was convinced it could be done on the cheap.
     
  10. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    The idea that we could have kept the lid on Iraq with 10,000 or 15,000 troops is pure fantasy.

    We couldn't keep the lid on in Iraq with ten times that many troops in 2006. Why right wingers keep pushing this ridiculous notion is beyond me. The history of Bush's mismanaged disaster itself effectively and completely refutes that idiotic notion.

    If you want to know how that would have turned out, consider the last time the US was stupid enough to leave a token force in a hostile environment.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
     
  11. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Baghdad was about 5 million people... same size as Berlin at the end of WW2... Let's see now... Between the allies and the Soviets we had about a half million occupation troops in Berlin................
     
  12. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Bush! Bush! Bush! I thought that Bush was doggy-do but even I comprehend that the Left's all but sainted Political Messiah has been exclusively in charge of U.S. foreign policy matters since the beginning of 2009 and has -- keeping to a metaphoric theme -- dickin' the dog ever since; screwing up major league big time in other words. The Left collectively has sooooooooooooooo much emotion and so much Hope for Change invested in their Anointed One that even though logically they absolutely have to know that Barack is an utter pinhead where foreign policy is concerned they absolutely CANNOT allow themselves to recognize and acknowledge reality . . . but rest assured that historians will place Barack Obama near the bottom of the presidential barrel right beside G.W. Bush himself.

    What this Leftist mania for excusing Obama means is that Barack was not president enough to handle Bush's legacy. Well in that case Barack should have done the honorable thing and stepped aside for the 2012 election, throwing it open for Hillary or Kerry or Biden.
     
  13. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Why do you call Obama "the anointed one"? Did you expect some magic quick fixes?

    This mess has been a long time in the making..

    http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-jewish-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-beyond.html
     
  14. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    He has actually done fairly well with Bush's legacy.

    He is far more popular around the world than Bush ever will be. Many outside the US still think of Bush and Cheney as little more than war criminals.

    The economic disaster that Bush left us with is slowly (too slowly) receeding.

    No American president would be capable of holding Iraq together once we had broken it, particularly considering the disasterous decision that followed the invasion.

    If you want to know when ISIS was really born, you only have to look at the day in which Paul Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi army.

    That's who is running ISIS today.

    As I noted, right wingers are long on ranting on this topic, and totally absent on solutions.

    You are no exception.
     
  15. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Sigh! Egypt/River/De-Nile.
     
  16. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Yes, Obama is much better liked and respected than Bush and his pack of neocons.
     
  17. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    \

    I guess when you can't deny the facts, a cliche will do!
     
  18. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Sometimes it is simpler than going back and again beating a :deadhorse: Who knew that the very people who sneered at fanatically loyal dead-ender type Bush supporters in 2007 and 2008 would themselves turn out to be the exact same sort of fanatically loyal dead-ender type Obama supporters in 2015 and (can there really be any doubt about it?) 2016? Now that is a delicious example of irony.
     
  19. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Do you understand who and why and when it was decided to break up the ME? Some fools think that they cannot prosper unless their neighbors are impoverished, thirsty and hungry.

    http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-jewish-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-beyond.html
     
  20. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    Well, as I said, folks like you are long on whining, and absent on solutions.

    I suspect we both know the real reason.

    There are only two realistic solutions.

    One. Let nature take its course (which most of the world thought was a good idea before Bush started the war).

    Two. Send half a million US troops into Iraq and colonize the place (which is what a permanent US military occupation is).

    There is no support for the latter, and the right know it. All they do is point fingers.

    I fail to see what point you're trying to make with this:

    There is no irony here. We are the people who understood history ,and were well enough informed about international politics to see that Bush's scheme to start a war in Iraq was a fool's errant that had a 99% chance of turning out very badly. Most of us understimated the Bush team's incompetence, if not its arrogance.

    A lot of us predicted the outcome we're seeing now. We also predicted that the US would not be in any position in terms of political will, or economic power to sustain the level of commitment.

    Yes. we are the exact same people. We saw the folly and predicted the outcome. Folks like your namesake on another forum were Bush dead enders right up to the present day.
     
  21. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    This is better yet.

    Timeline:
    2004 - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi establishes al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

    2006 - Under al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq tries to ignite a sectarian war against the majority Shia community.

    June 7, 2006 - Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, takes his place as leader of AQI.

    October 2006 - AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri announces the creation of Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), and establishes Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its leader.
    http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/

    They have flourished and grew since 2009 but started in the aftermath of Iraq being a open free for all.
     
  22. PatriotNews

    PatriotNews Well-Known Member

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    What incompetence? Bush handed Iraq over to President Barack Osama and he fumbled the ball. Obama bragged about his successful ending of the war. The current state of the Middle East is and was on his watch.
     
  23. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Margot I know that the movers and shakers always have motivations and goals somewhat different from the announced ones and that there are always more than one group of movers and shakers in play and that the different groups are seldom in agreement; and I know that ANYONE pointing out this principle at the time that a huge deal is being finagled is ALWAYS called a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

    Usually it's only decades after the events in question that the real truths (plural) begin to surface. Then as now nobody is going to know -- really know -- who all the main players were and what all of them were really shooting for or WHY until quite some time has passed; but always party and organization loyalists ALWAYS believe every *******ned word that tumble from the lips of their sainted leadership . . . just as today all those fanatical Obama supporters KNOW that Obama is not only telling the truth but has the best interests of this nation and the Western World at heart. They KNOW THIS and yet, of course, they are wrong.
     
  24. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Party loyalists and worshipers of Barack Obama are actually intellectually incapable of grasping what you wrote because in their heart of hearts they still think of him as their long hoped for Policital Messiah. They have very simply become just that irrational.
     
  25. PatriotNews

    PatriotNews Well-Known Member

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    It is not that hard to imagine that given Obama's disdain for his own country that the complete breakdown of the Middle East and the slaughter and mayhem attributed to America's foreign policy actions isn't by design.
     

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