US service member injured in rocket attack in Iraq

Failed does not cover it - Failed at what ? What was the objective "Remove Saddam" .. OK .. we did that what .. in a month ? Why remove Saddam in the first place. Although hindsight is 20/20 - what was the point to begin with .. Did we think replacing a Sunni Gov't with Shia was going to create happiness and bliss ?

How was this related to the "War on Terror" - which has been a joke from start to finish from the get go. 20 years we bin there .. doing what exactly .. name one accomplishment of merit - a solving a problem that we had not created to begin with.

Domestic politics have nothing to do with it ... other than the fact that the public does not care - and is kept that way - and kept in the dark on purpose - and very successfully so by the State Sponsored and Media propaganda machine.

What would have changed for the better had public sentiment been different - other than we would have gotten out way sooner if the Public had anything to do with the issue - had they any knowledge of what is going on beyond state sponsored propaganda kool- aid .. and the Public does not even pay much attention to that.. just kind of oozes into the brain over time.

The whole purpose of the machine is to not allow domestic sentiment to meddle in the affairs of the Military Industrial Complex - a purpose that evolves naturally in a "Pay to Play" system such as ours.

but - at the end of the day - we are still there - going around hitting the nests of hornets with baseball bat expecting not to get stung ..Spending 10 Trillion dollars in this effort - and finding out that Hornets don't produce honey and only multiply like fruit flies when you hit their nests.

Dumb - and Dumber - on steroids.

 

Oh, the infamous 9/11 conspiracy that despite having involved what must have been thousands of people, remains intact; not one of them has ever come forward. Yeah I'm not buying that; all you have to do is read OBL's words from the decade prior to know the reason for 9/11. Oh, unless you are saying the conspiracy goes even further, and that the US government paid OBL to start giving those interviews and publishing those manifestos starting in 1991, for the purposes of using it as a false motive for the attack? Wow, what a rabbit hole.

 

The whole purpose of the "machine" is to protect us, as post WWII strategists and policymakers suddenly realized how quickly that world politics and foreign deployment of military forces can evolve in such a way as to leave us in very vulnerable positions very rapidly

 

shh.... that's a secret.

 

It was indeed not an accident, but it was a poor decision.

The Taliban, Al Qaida and Iraq were just tossed in on one big pile, and connections were invented while there factual were none. It lead to attacking Al Qaida for a couple of weeks over 911, to decades of pointless of war against The Taliban with no real progress to speak off. That was simply put a poor decision by the US, and they got the blood on their hands of almost 40.000s of innocent Muslims. Nobody cares in the US or find the deaths of not even 3000 Americans justified to kill around over there with impunity.

Add to that, Iraq. Had nothing to do with it. They had no WMD's. The poor decision of pushing the country in deliberately total chaos led up to around 3000 innocent casualties a month, indeed a 911 equivalent. Again nobody in the US cares. Millions of people ran for their lives. It pushed Syria into chaos. Turkey received millions of refugees, with zero help from their fellow NATO member who caused this. Even Germany took in a million refugees with zero help from their fellow NATO member who caused this. Lebanon went bankrupt over the millions of refugees it was made to absorb.

All in all,... an horrific poor decision, and not one person in charge has been held accountable.

 

That is a sad and tired necessary illusion. Protect us from what ? and this has nothing to do with WW2 - there is no world war happening - there is big power massing at our shores or the shores of our allies.

The purpose of the machine is to spend money - and lots of it.. To maintain the Status Quo .. by peddling fear of Ghosts.

Tell me -- Protect us from what .. and then state what you think it should cost to buy this protection - as that is where the rub lies.

 

To protect us from Chinese/Russian/Iranian control of oil for one.

 

Absurd and ridiculous .. specially given China is a serious "Have Not" when it comes to oil - and that North America is near self sufficient - the problem these days being more one of demand rather than supply.

BUT - let us suppose your preposterously false claim is True .. give you the benefit of the doubt.

You missed Part 2 - which is the most important part did you miss it ? How much should we pay to stop Russia/China from "Controlling the Oil" - and how has been our success thus over the last 20 years ?

 

We are self sufficient. Is Ukraine? Is Moldova? Is Belarus? Nepal? Myanmar? Sri lanka? India? Dontchathink that if Iran/China/Russia has the ability to strangle countries from energy, that that might have a serious impact on negotiating any issue with said countries, from climate change to trade to human rights?

 

You are all over the map ... just blurting out stuff that has no relation to the conversation .. What does Moldova have to do with ME Policy .. What does climate change have to do with us waging war on Iraq ?

You have wandered way off the page.

 

It has everything to do with everything.

Fact: One country can position itself in such a way as to dominate the energy acquisition of another.

Fact: When the above dynamic occurs, it will have a major impact on the dominated country's foreign policy, and that country is likely to side with the country which secures its energy needs, on almost any issue.

Opinion: Our foreign policy should consider the above reality as a major factor in decision-making.

 

Trump tried to draw down US military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places.....like Germany for instance. He was solidly opposed in this pursuit by the Democrats and the military elites.

 

No troops came home, they were just moved around to give the impression to those in the US that he was reducing troop numbers

 

Since we should never have gone there in the first place, I'll let the OP figure out how I would vote.

 

OBL explained for over 10 years, through interviews and manifestos, why he built the organization that attacked us on 9/11.

If a government conspiracy, it would have had to involved thousands, none of which have ever come forward to expose any part of the conspiracy, which is highly unlikely.

If you spent any significant time with a hardcore, Saudi Muslim at the time (as I did for 6 months, side by side), you would not at all be surprised that some flew those planes on 9/11.

The Taliban, Iraq, and AQ existed before 9/11. Of course, in order to spin your narrative, you need vacuum ---> 9/11 like the big bang.

You say pointless, but I am an American who expects my government to hold those to account who attacked my nation. And if another government tells my government, "No, you may not hold this man to account; we kind of like him," as the Taliban did, I expect my government to hold them to account.

Any blood left for the terrorists' hands, or is it all ours?

As I just succinctly put, I do

Except the guys who did it say Iraq had everything to do with it.

Maybe, I'm still not totally convinced.

Again, any blood left for the terrorists, or Iran, or Syria?

Assad pushed Syria into chaos when he turned his Iraqi border into a terrorist highway in order to funnel fighters in to fight the US, all based on religious bigotry and motives (yah know, the kind of thing you probably bemoan when it manifests itself in the US in inconsequential ways).

Yes, when will we hold the media, the power hungry politicians they support, the Iranian theocracy, and Assad to account?

 

and what on earth did this have to do with the war in Iraq - and was it worth the 10 Trillion - and did we succeed in our objective .. of securing energy for Moldova.

This is ridiculous - and further no nation is in a position to dominate the US with Respect to Oil .. and certainly not China.
The idea that we went into Iraq to secure "Moldova's" energy future - if True - would prove how dumb and dumber our foreign policy is - spending 10 Trillion on such a thing.

Do you know how much money that is mate .. 10 Trillion .. any clue how much that might be - and what that could have done for this nation had we spent it on infrastructure, technology .. ramping up our economy to compete in the 3rd millennium .. which is where the real war is being played.

As we were wasting our treasure in Iraq - other nations were laughing as they armed themselves for the real war .. the Economic war ..

And guess what - after 20 years - and 10 Trillion - we did not advance one iota towards securing Moldova's energy future .. something Europe and Russia will do just fine.

Your perspective of the geopolitical chessboard is way out of date ... There was a time when your argument was sound ..back when we were the sole world economic empire.. but this is no longer the case .. we are no longer the only game in town ..

The cost of projecting power to maintain economic hegemony increases with time - this is the lesson of history - the downfall of near every other economic empire over the past 2000 years ..in one form or another.

We are now at a time when that cost is exceedingly high .. and the return next to nothing or even negative - such as the case of Iraq/Afghanistan.

Military is no longer the strongest piece on the Chessboard .. so no WW2 analogies - as they are completely invalid..

 

I hope you are right, because I'm honing my narrative if we find ourselves in a position in which you obviously aren't, so as to never allow this think to dictate our strategy again.

Btw, it would probably be over by now if we weren't a house divided against itself from minute one due to politicians who saw a power opportunity through opposition, and the fake media who assisted them.

 

Hard to decipher your position from your narrative - but here is my argument.

For all of history - if your economy was in the dumps - you could always just attack your neighbor - and take his stuff.

This is no longer possible if your neighbor has nukes - nary a few decades ago - it was if your neighbor was "Russia" -and China to a lesser degree .. nuclear Superpower - and the rest of the Security council - which is why it was formed.

Now with the increase in the spread of missile technology (as technology spreads - the cost of projecting power increases - Rule) every nuclear power increasing has the capability to wipe us off the map. and certainly even if they did not have ballistic capability to reach the US - we still cannot attack the nation - conventionally -- as they would just nuke our forces....

Regardless - of these smaller players increasing capabilities - It is unthinkable with the larger players - whose capability to wipe us off the map has only increased. ... despite having far fewer nukes.

but -essentially - Russia/US have been able to wipe each other out for 60 years now. The only question was how many times ...."We can annihilate you 10 times ... Ha .. well we can do you 11) ..and so on... It became so pointless that both sides reduced - willingly.

Now .. how we connect this to attacking Iran and Energy Security .. OK - it is not as if there was no energy component .. sure economic hegemony in the region would be nice... and in fact the war in Syria was on the basis of an energy corridor that Assad did not allow - in favor of the Russia/Iran Consortia of sorts. This is also the only reason I can come up with why we are still in Afghanistan .. corridor to the "New Silk Road" .. energy hungry China /India market.

So - the point in Afghanistan is not to beat the Taliban so much as it is to keep the region destabilized to prevent Russia from building the energy corridor into this new silk road.

So lets say this is the case - who is it benefitting ? Not US citizens - that is for sure .. Sure they are footing the bill .. but the international financiers that own the Energy Oligopolies are the one's benefitting .. and if you think you got sufficient payback for the 10 Trillion we spent - I have this Great Big Bridge for sale down yonder ...

So if the above is the case - this is demonic - which is why it is the case - but this does not help your case - because you bought into the Necessary Illusion that they are doing this for us ... rather than our military being pimped out as errand boys for the international financiers that run this nation.

Yeah .. the ones that bailed Trump out of his bankrupcies ... those guys .. the real voice in Trumps ear that he listens to .. as opposed to Heir Putin .. but we can save that massive lie for another time. Hard core State Sponsored propaganda all over that one.

 

A poor decision made deliberately, part of the plan. The military industrial complex profited greatly from that decision, for years to come.

 

Once again the Iranians are pushing to see if Biden will push back. Hopefully he'll be wise enough to keep the US's vital strategic interests in the ME and not listen to any morons who never the learned the lesson of 9/11 or 7/12/41

 

OBL did. But not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. That's where the poor decision comes in.

You can say the same about them white fascists who attacked the Capitol right after they heard a speech about to fight like hell or else have no country anymore.....
Yet that's not good enough to link the now ex president with what his people did in the Capitol.
And still no link with the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. That's where the poor decision comes in.

So what that they existed before 9/11. Israel existed before 9/11 as well, yet there is no link between that country and 9/11 as far as I know.

Seriously. Wake up. The Taliban had no problem to hand over OBL to an independent court.
The US refused it, and I have not heard of any plans that they were eager to have him appear in a court at all.
They just executed him without one.

It's all on the hands of the Americans for raging a pointless war for no reason and with no point to it.
Well there was of course a reason. Afghanistan is rather rich in natural resources.
The US army held a massive survey for it. Typical neo-colonial way of doing things...

As a whole... it's just not. People went all Je suis Charley when some muslims killed the reporters of that newspapers.
Random Muslims were demanded that they condemned the obvious. People held marches across the west.

But when the Americans kill Muslim reporters from Reuters in Iraq, and cover it up... they want to string up the guy from wikileaks who exposed that.
The US also has the habit of bombing Al Jazeera. They did so in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
No white people were demanded that they condemned the obvious. Nobody was held responsible. No marches.
In general: the west doesn't care if the same things happen to others by their hands. They really are not.

Except for right wingers eager for war cooking up a conspiracy....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, whose 2006 report of Phase II of its investigation into prewar intelligence reports concluded that there was no evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.[4] Critics of the Bush Administration have said Bush was intentionally building a case for war with Iraq without regard to factual evidence. On April 29, 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on 60 Minutes, "We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period."

They had jack. All there is, is the disbelieve that the GOP flat out lied that Iraq had them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
On October 6, 2004, the head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), Charles Duelfer, announced to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that the group found no evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had produced and stockpiled any weapons of mass destruction since 1991, when UN sanctions were imposed.

Of course. A country that is the occupying power is responsible for the security of it's civilian population of that area.
And so what's this? Your holding countries responsible for whatever, but it can't be the other way around?
Good job.

Really. The US deliberately pushed Iraq into anarchy. And ISIS spawned right there under their watch when they were responsible for what went on in Iraq.
ISIS just branched out to Syria and created the chaos over there, and that mounted into a civil war where everybody was fighting everybody.
It would never have happened if the US did not attack Iraq.

You're just all about to hold other people and countries accountable for their wrongs.... but not your own.
Seems obvious you first need to clean your own ship before moving on.

 

What are the lessons of 9/11 you are referring to... and what did Iraq have to do with 911 ?

How did spending 10 Trillion dollars on regime change wars in Iraq/Afghanistan - help secure our strategic interests and deal with the terrorist threat.

.

 

AQ WAS tied to Saddam THROUGH US. The reason AQ attacked us was because of what we had been doing to Saddam since 1991. To say the 2 situations were unconnected is ignoring history.

The US was justified in the invasion of Afghanistan because OBL used that government to attack us, and subsequently, refused to give him up.

The US was justified in removing Saddam since 1990. We had no obligation to continue to pour resources in Saudi and Turkey in order to police him indefinitely, especially once it was determined that the presence of those forces were creating more enemies.

Assad tried to use religious extremists to undermine the US mission in Iraq, and after a decade of doing this, and following our withdrawal, many didn't have much left to do but turn on him.

The fact remains that Iran and Syria have consistently chose to undermine any US strategy in the ME, by using terrorists. For purely religious motives. OBL attacked us, and we went after him. Iran SHOULD have had nothing to do with it. THEY chose to fight us on the streets of Baghdad, and if not for this, we would have left Iraq in 2 years. The blood is on their hands. Just like the Palestinian blood is, another conflict in which they have inserted themselves for purely religious motives.

 

but Trump said we already "got out"

 

There was no operational relationship between both parties, according to the US. While the motive was according to OBL: It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam. It is the hatred of crusaders. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people.

And so of course there is "some" connection between the 2. But that also goes for the US who has ties of supporting Saddam Hussein, and separately as well with supporting OBL in the past when he was fighting the Russians. It still has nothing to do with 9/11.

Absolutely not. You got no prove that the Taliban government was even aware of OBL plans.
While I told you before, the Taliban had zero problems handing OBL over to an international court.

The US lacks the legal jurisdiction to judge what leader needs to go.

Total nonsense. Religious terrorists like ISIS started in Iraq when the US was responsible for it as occupying power, and later ISIS also started to attack Assad.
You really need to read up on ISIS and where it started.

The US undermines those countries internally for the sake of religious and economic motives. And so they are in their full right of self protection to undermine that strategy.

Which is fine under the right of self protection.

Iraq is a sovereign nation, and chosen to work closely with Iran in all kinds of fields including fighting against terrorism. Iran even got some of their missiles in Iraq. It's Iraq's right to do their business like that. The US and you are in no position to demand this can not be. It's not as if the US has not deployed missiles in other countries. The US is free to leave the country. It's non of their concern.