And again, when we left the Iraqi military was 2 million strong. Getting your ass kicked by 20,000 terrorists is on them, not us. The PLO, Al-Qaeda, Isis, there is always going to be some fucked up group of idiots doing bad shit in the middle east. It's time for the middle east to take care of their own problems.
So we have to put our citizens at risk to do what their citizens won't? Fuck that. I'd rather bomb the shit out of Isis.
It is on us. We disbanded their actual army and it's our training that failed. Along with the failed judgment od the CIC. You would waste the blood of our slain soldiers and all the money we spent, and all the Iraqi lives, for nothing. No, worse than nothing - ISIS waltzed right in. How incredibly naive.
When will it end? How long do we stay there? If you say Isis didn't show up until after we left that means we won the war. Are we going to stay there forever because someone else might show up? Nothing good will come from us staying in the middle east. It's a very strong possibility that Saudi Arabia will erupt in civil war in the next couple of years.. Do we really want to be fighting for the oppressive royal family? Do we want to pick a side in that cluster fuck? We went into Iraq again for regime change. We were successful. Time to leave.
Once the decision to nation build was made, there is no timeline to leave. I urged that we should leave after Saddam was gone. Before we disbanded the army. Not my call. It was already ended by the time of our surrender. 10s of deaths. There was NO harm in staying and only a massive spike in violence and rise of ISIS by leaving. We spent 4000+ lives and $trillion+ of taxpayer money. We REALLY should have geen sure that leaving would not waste all that. As it did. No, we don't go fight anywhere else. It's not Saudi blood that would be on our hands. Saddam's killing was Iraqi blood on our hands, since we stepped in and helped him win his war with Iran, and left him in power after the first gulf war. Nothing like that with Saudi Arabia, Libya, or any of the other targets of our bombs.
We screwed up big time going to Iraq to begin with. But who the hell knew Saddam didn't have the capacity to do bad stuff. Where we really screwed up was sticking around to make a Democracy in Irag! Not a function The US ever should take on. Probably would have worked a whole lot better if we had just broken Iraq into Suni-Irag, Shia_Iraq, and Kurdish-Irag, installed a fool to rule each, and left. Let them create all the democracy and adjust the boarders all they want. Might work in Syria too.
Isis didn't rise until we destabilized Syria. And I completely agree about staying out of Saudi Arabia but you and I both know that will never happen. Too much royal family money being put in the hands of our politicians. How many of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia?
It would have worked better if we told them they couldn't be a democracy. Then they would have fought for it. By forcing it on them they don't appreciate it.
That's pure Sun Tzu. @MarAzul zul has studied him. Supposedly it's required reading by our military commanders. I suggest you read it, Denny. The section on Occupying Forces will explain very clearly why we need to get the hell out of there.
Perhaps, but that would take longer than I would like. I can see a role here for Hillary as a special envoy though.
Something that rarely gets mentioned. In Gulf War I, Saddam's army shot at us with AK47s, their planes were MIGs, and those missiles launched against Israel were SCUDs. Not Russia so much, but China. In the overthrow of Saddam, Iraq fired upon us with Silkworm missiles, again Chinese. There were numerous reasons to finally take Saddam out. From crimes against humanity to WMDs to trade deals he cut with Russia (oil) and China (arms and who knows what else). There was some sentiment at the UN to end sanctions against Iraq - that could only be done with Saddam ousted. The sanctions alone caused countless deaths of children for lack of care and medical services and medicine. The US traded oil for food (and medicine, etc.) only for it to turn into a major scandal at the UN and Saddam denying the food to his people.
He was a Strong man. He was a bad man. The place suck now that he is gone. We left it with no replacement, but we did it way too late.
We have history to guide us. The north occupied the south during reconstruction and the former slaves (and republicans) fared quite well. It was when the occupation ended that Jim Crow began and worse. Again, we STILL have bases all over, where there are flourishing western democracies and were once war zones, even enemies. But Obama expected this occupation to be different? I thought the guy is supposed to be book smart. Even W was studying history books, as some kind of blueprint for Iraq. I remember he had The Conquerors with him at one of the State of the Union adresses. That book detailed the occupation and nation building strategies used by FDR and Truman for Germany and Japan. De-Nazification. De-Baathification. Get it? That also in common with our own 14th amendment: Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. It's not I that needs to read anything.
Not really arguing with you Denny. George should never have spent the lives and treasure to nation build in Iraq, but it was dam foolish once it was done to squander it. Leaving with a fool in charge is what we should have done about 5 years earlier. Obama should have insisted they actually begin to govern before we left when it was won. I can make no comparison to the success we had in converting WWII enemies. They were truly, thoroughly defeated and pliable. But that was at a horrendous cost of lives and treasure. I hope we can never compare with that success again.
