Actually, ISIS was never really Al Queda. It was once a franchise of Al Queda. Now it mostly has its own agenda and Al Queda fears it. ISIS in Iraq is better thought of as a Sunni insurgency seeking to carve out a Sunni state to restore the preveliged status enjoyed by Sunnis of the takriti clan under sadam. ISIS's military success owe much to the dispossessed but trained former soldiers and officers of Sadam's old Sunni Takrit clan dominated Iraqi national army.

They didn't take Takrit first in Iraq, Saddam's home town and seat of the Takriti clan, for no reason.

Satire which is too close to reality for comfort.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/bo...20%2883%29

Quote:WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Citing the deteriorating situation in the war-torn nation, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) on Saturday called for Congress to convene an emergency blame game on Iraq.

“This is a dire crisis,” McCain said. “It’s time to roll up our sleeves and do some serious finger-pointing.”

Probably time to remind the neo-cons and their republitard cohorts that we have tried this before.

Vietnamization

It worked out about as well as Iraqization...and in about the same time frame.


Fall of Saigon

We have trouble with learning curves.

(June 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm)Chuck Wrote: Actually, ISIS was never really Al Queda. It was once a franchise of Al Queda. Now it mostly has its own agenda and Al Queda fears it. ISIS in Iraq is better thought of as a Sunni insurgency seeking to carve out a Sunni state to restore the preveliged status enjoyed by Sunnis of the takriti clan under sadam. ISIS's military success owe much to the dispossessed but trained former soldiers and officers of Sadam's old Sunni Takrit clan dominated Iraqi national army.

They didn't take Takrit first in Iraq, Saddam's home town and seat of the Takriti clan, for no reason.

I think his point, that American intervention is for us lose-lose, still stands.

(June 14, 2014 at 12:19 am)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote:

(June 13, 2014 at 7:56 am)A Theist Wrote: I bet a lot of them don't. Saddam's regime brutalized, raped, tortured, and murdered thousands of Kurds, Shiites, political opponents, and everyone he was suspicious of. Saddam was a tyrant. I bet a lot of Iraqis would rather give their freedoms and their democratic government a chance to succeed....this was all predictable when Barack pulled out all American troops and left nothing by way of support. Barack's inexperience in foreign policy and his naive world view will create another terrorist state in Iraq and the Taliban will return to Afghanistan. The best thing Barack can do is resign from the presidency. He's the worse damn president since Jimmy Carter.

We would have to stay there forever. The place was doomed to fall apart as soon as we left, be it now or in twenty years. It was the inevitable result of the supreme Republican clusterfuck and what is happening right now is 100% Bush's responsibility. It wouldn't be happening now if he hadn't started the war in the first place.

Did you go over there and shed blood for the cause, or do you think that's just something other people are supposed to do for you?

We've had continual hostilities with Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bush did not start these hostilities. Sadaam Hussien did. Now you can blame Bush for escalating them...but our hostilities with Iraq started in 1990.

No. His daddy did.

(June 16, 2014 at 9:40 pm)Heywood Wrote: We've had continual hostilities with Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bush did not start these hostilities. Sadaam Hussien did. Now you can blame Bush for escalating them...but our hostilities with Iraq started in 1990.

Well, I blame Bush for making one of the stupidest foreign-policy decisions in American history, and I don't give a shit who started the fighting.

The fact is, the Iraq invasion weakened our forces in Afghanistan at a critical moment, meaning that that front would have six more years of meat-grinder going for it. Bush's decision weakened both forces; by invading a country 3 times the size of California with little more than 100,000 troops, he guaranteed that they would not win a lasting peace, while at the same time weakening the forces in Afghanistan just as they were about to get everything settled there.

The Japanese have a proverb: he who chases two hares catches neither. That sort of wisdom ain't, ahem, rocket surgery.

(June 16, 2014 at 10:11 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(June 16, 2014 at 9:40 pm)Heywood Wrote: We've had continual hostilities with Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bush did not start these hostilities. Sadaam Hussien did. Now you can blame Bush for escalating them...but our hostilities with Iraq started in 1990.

Well, I blame Bush for making one of the stupidest foreign-policy decisions in American history, and I don't give a shit who started the fighting.

The fact is, the Iraq invasion weakened our forces in Afghanistan at a critical moment, meaning that that front would have six more years of meat-grinder going for it. Bush's decision weakened both forces; by invading a country 3 times the size of California with little more than 100,000 troops, he guaranteed that they would not win a lasting peace, while at the same time weakening the forces in Afghanistan just as they were about to get everything settled there.

The Japanese have a proverb: he who chases two hares catches neither. That sort of wisdom ain't, ahem, rocket surgery.

I think our error in Iraq was not the invasion part. The invasion was the easy part. Where we screwed up is in disbanding the Iraqi army and marginalizing the Sunni's.

You cannot plop a concept like "democracy" down to a bunch of primitives who think "majority rules" means "we get to kill the minorities." It was sheer arrogance to think that we could waltz in there and remake their entire society in our own image.

Meanwhile......

Quote:The Sunni extremist militants threatening Iraq seized another northern city on Monday in a battle with the Iraqi Army after having ambushed a convoy of untrained Shiite volunteers in the first lethal encounter between Sunni and Shiite combatants since the government began mobilizing thousands of Shiites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/world/...=5043&_r=0

All of which brings to mind this observation by Socrates.

Quote:A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house

--Socrates

(June 16, 2014 at 10:23 pm)Minimalist Wrote: You cannot plop a concept like "democracy" down to a bunch of primitives who think "majority rules" means "we get to kill the minorities." It was sheer arrogance to think that we could waltz in there and remake their entire society in our own image.

Meanwhile......

Implementing democracy is not remaking a society in our image. Japan, Germany, South Korea and many other countries each with their own distinct societies have thriving democracies....largely due to our efforts.

You're claim that the Iraqi's are primitives only shows you are a hateful racist pig.