Iraq and it's Al-Queda problem

venson · January 9, 2014

The best way for the US to help out right now is by hitting the insurgents from the air and letting the Iraqi army do the job on the ground. They really need to act in some capacity and try to undo the mess the left after the withdrawal.

bush_cheney2004 · January 9, 2014

The best way for the US to help out right now is by hitting the insurgents from the air and letting the Iraqi army do the job on the ground. They really need to act in some capacity and try to undo the mess the left after the withdrawal.

No, the Iraqis told the Americans to leave as no residual forces agreement could be reached.. Did Canada stay in Libya to clean up the mess made by NATO ? Nope.

Army Guy · January 10, 2014

No. The quaint coalition of mouth-breathing morons of course didn't give a rat's ass about the Iraqis...and it shows.

What's interesting is that a great part of the objection to the war, from the start, was of the probabilities of terrible, unintended consequences...like, oh, for example, sectarian bloodshed....which occurred; the rise of terrorist violence.....well, lookee there; and the eventual threat of extremist Islamists taking advantage of the chaos to insert themselves into (at least) regional powers...

....and of course, as we all remember well, the little geniuses who supported and defended the war derided all these warnings as wildly implausible......

Well, I take no pleasure form the incompetence of the war's architects, nor from the monumental servility of the their defenders. It's been one sad tragedy after another. Good job.

I disagree, why would the coalition stayed 8 years if not for the Iraqis people and to try and build something better....I mean they had the option, get rid of Sadam, dismantle his regime, then leave the country in ruins, saving trillions...

There is always the possiablities of things going terriable wrong, look at post germany, it was not a picnik there either, and yet over time things changed....sectarian blood shed, who knew it would turn out the way it did....and yet is this the fault of the invasions, this problem dated back years, and was held together with hockey tape and a dictator that put to death anyone who opposed him....now thats what i call a much better option....

Terrorist violence , it is like the plague ,in the middle east, it's every where....like the saying go's craet the conditions and they will come....even if you take all the precautions...I guess it is easy to piont fingers and say" your Screwed" you created all this.....then in the other hand say Sadam was a bad man, someone should do something before he does something stupid...Has it been a tradegy yes it has, the only ones that can fix it is the people themselfs....

bleeding heart · January 10, 2014

I'm talking about taking responsibility for the predictable consequences of one's actions.

Of course Saddam being in power was a terrible option. But that doesn't mean that the coalition has no responsibility for what it has unleashed, what it perpetrated and has precipitated. Look what the war has wrought. And the leader of Iraq is well on his way to the traditional performance: sectarian militias, the torture regime back up and running...The war has left hundreds of thousands dead, an enormour refugee crisis, and an increase in violent religious extremism.

If all of this was not considered, not predictable...that would be one thing. But it was predictable...in fact, widely predicted.

Rue · January 10, 2014

I'm talking about taking responsibility for the predictable consequences of one's actions.

Yes provided you can use a double standard and only apply the above standard to the US but never terrorists in Iraq.

bleeding heart · January 10, 2014

I'm arguing the precise opposite, Rue, against those who opine that the sole responsibility for the violence rests upon Iraqis and foreign terrorists. A common view among apologists for Western violence and Western behavior.

Of course terrorists are guilty for their behavior; no one is arguing otherwise.

The arguments--as we've seen on this thread, and a thousand times elsewhere--move almost uniformly in the opposite direction to that which you're stating.

The interesting (if also predictable) thing about this phenomenon is that the responsibility of the invaders is perfectly well understood...so long as the United States of Nobility isn't the subject.

At that point, people become strangely sensitive to the idea of holding the most powerful nation in the world responsible for the predicted consequences of it's ill-advised behavior. Such weakness is not my problem, though I'm willing to debate it.

For example, the Soviets did quite a bit to unleash a paroxysm of horrors in Afghanistan. That tribal violence and terrorist atrocity are the fault of the native and foreign killer sis not in question; but also, no one disputes that the Soviet actions helped exacerbate this, and helped make things terrible, and that the Soviets share direct culpability.

A similar view holds in the case of Iraq. That's elementary logic, and in fact the principle was cited at the Nuremberg trials, that the aggressive, invading force shares responsibility for all the horrors their invasion has unleashed.

Edited January 10, 2014 by bleeding heart

bush_cheney2004 · January 10, 2014

...A similar view holds in the case of Iraq. That's elementary logic, and in fact the principle was cited at the Nuremberg trials, that the aggressive, invading force shares responsibility for all the horrors their invasion has unleashed.

Yes....all quite logical...but seemingly applied arbitrarily in the case of Iraq. GW1 in 1991 arguably destroyed more of Iraq's infrastructure and governance (by design), yet there is no hue and cry compared to 2003's coalition invasion.

bleeding heart · January 10, 2014

No doubt we could extrapolate the crimes and the number of interested parties involved. It doesn't change the obvious facts I've pointed out.

bush_cheney2004 · January 10, 2014

No doubt we could extrapolate the crimes and the number of interested parties involved. It doesn't change the obvious facts I've pointed out.

The obvious facts are conveniently ignored depending on circumstance, and that includes the righteous UN or ICC. There are winners...and losers...and those who keep score.

GostHacked · January 12, 2014

So will the USA allow Iraq to become another haven of Al-Queda?

All this was predicted years ago.

Rue · January 12, 2014

Afghanistan everyone agrees is a fiasco. At one point the Russians wanted to put a pipeline through it. Then there we supposedly and still is huge deposits of lithium. Other than that it is a rock-a large rock and some desert and some poppies. No one not even the famed Ghurkas could win a war there. The government Canada helped defend is a disgrace. Our soldiers sacrificed, come back to high rates of suicide and they have a right to ask what were we doing? We supposedly were trying to assure a new era of democracy, equality of women... mmm.

What we have is a nation of corrupt drug lords, open rape of young boys by older men, what we consider pedophile marriages arranged between old men and young girls, and drug lords propped by Pro Western intelligence services as a trade off to contain Al Quaeda.

The Yanks went in as pay back for 9-11. Now? What are the Yanks dying for at this point? I really do not know anymore.

I head the criticism on the US in Iraq. I know it. I was critical of Haliburton's direct conflict of interest connection to Bush and its using the war to invade the country with a private army, blow up the nation, and then get trillion dollars in contracts to rebuild the country with zero Iraqi participation-but I am not critical of the US Armed Forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. They do the best they can. The problem is with the politicians who send them there.

The US Armed forces warned it should not be used as a permanent ground force. Bush-Chaney turned them into a cheap security service putting them in the direct line of danger while all these hotshot cowboy mercanaries making a fortune drove around accountable to know what laughing at them,

I do not criticize the US Armed Forces. I support their getting rid of Hussein and I support them period. They made mistakes yes. But for anyone to blame the US Armed Forces I say, you mistake them for certain politicians. These guys should not be blamed for political b.s.

I believe they may have been misused in Iraq hey maybe Afghanistan but they are good soldiers trying their best. I have a problem maybe with the politicians not them. They are brave people. They have more integrity in a nose hair then I ever will.

I am not glorifying them. I am just saying hey have stink sheeyit jobs and I am bloody grateful for what they do. They are the only thing between us and terror.

eyeball · January 12, 2014

I do not criticize the US Armed Forces. I support their getting rid of Hussein and I support them period. They made mistakes yes. But for anyone to blame the US Armed Forces I say, you mistake them for certain politicians. These guys should not be blamed for political b.s.

Why not? They were quite happy to provide back-drops to the politicians when they were spewing their BS during press releases and photo-ops.

Soldiers are every bit as complicit as voters who elected these liars and war criminals to office.

dre · January 12, 2014

I am not glorifying them. I am just saying hey have stink sheeyit jobs and I am bloody grateful for what they do. They are the only thing between us and terror.

Actually even according to their own intelligence agencies the stuff those people have been doing over there has INCREASED the threat of terrorism.

GostHacked · January 16, 2014

Actually even according to their own intelligence agencies the stuff those people have been doing over there has INCREASED the threat of terrorism.

Almost on a weekly basis, scores of people die in Iraq from terror bombings.

Rue · January 16, 2014

Almost on a weekly basis, scores of people die in Iraq from terror bombings.

yes exactly. so blaming that on the US does what? When do the people of these countries stop blaming their terrorism on Israel and the US and take responsibility for it.?When do Iraqis and other Arab people stand up and say no to terrorism in the name of Allah? What will it take?

Surely the sunni and shiite mullahs fueling this war must be held accountable? how long does Islam continue to be misappropriated to justify terrorism in IRAQ, SYRIA, ETC.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Rue

bleeding heart · January 16, 2014

Oh, the defense of things like the Iraq War lost all credibility ten years ago. The defense now sounds like nothing more than crude apologetics for power.

With good reason.

bleeding heart · January 16, 2014

A key point is this: no one seems to be really arguing the case that Islamist terrorists aren't committing...well, terrorism.

It's those who feel the perverse need to defend any and all depredations by the Western states--and them alone--who are intent on narrowing the focus of discussion, so that the West makes "mistakes"....but is never TRULY at fault.

Heck, who has the patience for this sort of self-indulgent blindness?

bud · January 17, 2014

A key point is this: no one seems to be really arguing the case that Islamist terrorists aren't committing...well, terrorism.

It's those who feel the perverse need to defend any and all depredations by the Western states--and them alone--who are intent on narrowing the focus of discussion, so that the West makes "mistakes"....but is never TRULY at fault.

Heck, who has the patience for this sort of self-indulgent blindness?

attention: bushcheney, rue, shady, army guy, dogonporch

DogOnPorch · January 17, 2014

attention: bushcheney, rue, shady, army guy, dogonporch

So why do you and CJPME continue to support a movement rooted in antisemitism and the Third Reich?

That is to say...the movement itself is flawed...to use a nice term...not just the actions of said members.

Edited January 17, 2014 by DogOnPorch

bud · January 17, 2014

So why do you and CJPME continue to support a movement rooted in antisemitism and the Third Reich?

so why do you (and some organization) continue to support pedophilia and blowing up the moon?

DogOnPorch · January 17, 2014

bud: so why do you (and some organization) continue to support pedophilia and blowing up the moon?

Rather than hurling false accusations of pedophilia at MLW members, can you tell me why the Palestinian Cause, a movement based on anti-Semitism, Nazism, warmongering and terrorism, deserves a country of its own?

Edited January 17, 2014 by DogOnPorch

bleeding heart · January 17, 2014

Don't you think that question would be better posed to Netanyahu, who claims to have changed his mind and now publically endorses the idea?

bud · January 17, 2014

Rather than hurling false accusations of pedophilia at MLW members, can you tell me why the Palestinian Cause, a movement based on anti-Semitism, Nazism, warmongering and terrorism, deserves a country of its own?

supporting the formation of a palestinian state does not equal to supporting anti-semitism and the third reich. you are ridiculous.

DogOnPorch · January 17, 2014

supporting the formation of a palestinian state does not equal to supporting anti-semitism and the third reich. you are ridiculous.

Yes it does. That is how the Cause came about. Not so much as a movement for yet another Islamic dictatorship, but rather a movement AGAINST Jews getting their own state. No matter how much fellows like yourself would like to divorce your movement from antisemitism and the Nazis, that's where it was born and raised.

The Mufti al-Husseini inspects members of his 13th 'Handshar' Waffen SS Mountain Division...the largest SS unit of WW2...all Muslim with German officers.