Iraq?
 

I just read an article in The Daily Sun titled "It just feels like a waste: vets watch as insurgents undo sacrifices in Iraq". It speaks of the sacrifices of the war that killed 4500 Americans and " feels like a waste". The US spent billions of dollars training the Iraq troops who now just throw down their weapons and quit. Their government got rich off American dollars. Their president did not want the US there any longer.

Compare that to Vietnam where the US was for 12 years in their civil war and the US lost over 58,000 soldiers. Very similar.

Both wars were ones the US should not have been involved with and were built on lies by the President when the US got involved.

Will these serve as lessons learned?

Well said.

as someone who worked with veterans and saw first hand the suffering that resulted from this war already, it saddens me deeply. anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the history of the shia/sunni conflict could have predicted this.

I suppose someone/anyone could say there are no wars that one should not be involved in and be accurate.

politics aside.....now the enemy/terrorists can safely march/drive down the streets of Iraq in their newly aquired American supplied equipment and weapons that the multi billion dollar US trained and US equipped Iraq army abandoned and ran for the hills.

50 to 60,000 trained Iraqis running from less than 10,000!!!!

The message here is loud and clear. Same message for Afghanistan. Or anywhere else in the middle east.

Why do we think we can change what has been going on for centuries. Words may work here but not in these countries.

One note of consolation is now the insurgents can be the ones driving around in poorly armored Humvees. It's like an Iraqi version of cash for clunkers.

Are you ready for $5.00 gasoline? This Iraq situation could bring it on!

I had a friend at the University of Denver Graduate School of Librarianship and Information Management in 1983-1984 who was a Librarian at the University of Mosul in Iraq. I wonder what he is doing now. Here he is at Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs back in late 1983 or so. Garden of the Gods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ps517040a4.jpg

He had told me his brother was a General or something like that in Saddam Hussein's army. And, my friend often wanted to get in the fight. Unfortunately he may get this wish if he has not already.

It is ironic that the war he spoke to me so much-- the Iran-Iraq War-- may now heat up again once the US loses its influence in the region. The Second Iran-Iraq War and the American Switch | Blog | BillMoyers.com

This has always been a religious conflict with the control of oil fields being one of its results.

Maybe not every country was meant to be a democracy.

Z

Not in 2014 anyway. I do not believe Iraq nor Iran have ever been democracies in the US and UK understanding of the word. The Middle Eastern huge influence of religion is an incredibly hard hurdle to get over or a support depending on how you see things. I had tried to be a pen pal of my Iraqi friend after he moved back to Mosul and I ended up the Summer of 1984 in Scottsdale, AZ but his hatred of the West intensified in his letters until we both had to stop writing one another. Kind of quite a different worldview when almost every decision you make revolves around your God.

Iraq - Iran.... Arabia - Persia. We're talking eternal enemies, like lions and hyenas. The Iran-Iraq war lasted eight years and ended in a stalemate with a million lives lost. Not much foreign inflence in that dispute.

While the OP is extremely political, I assume it is ok for this discussion. He has critiqued Bush and Kennedy, so allow me to remind everyone...no matter the mistake in going to Iraq, our current administration was told years ago that what IS happening WOULD happen if he insisted on pulling out as he did. That includes all his military advisors. People say he could not get an agreement for allowing troops to stay for stabilization, as we have done so many times with great success. That is not true.

I am not debating our beginnings in Iraq, but we have to understand how "small" the world is (we certainly tout that fact when it fits), ignoring everyone and simply giving great speeches will not do this country any good long term.

I hate war....it is horrible, but if our attitude is to allow anything as long as they are not in our country, then...they will shortly in our country.

Folks say it is religious.....I think not. These groups bound and determined use religion as their shield.

Not OK.

Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan are prime examples of what happens when politicians called the shots rather than generals. Suffice is to say that if America stayed committed to the goals to establish a democracy something that takes time as it did with the founding of our Republic and following WWII then it might have had an appreciable chance of success. But then, we Americans seem to have short attention spans.

The events occurring now in the middle east will not set well with future warriors. make no mistake this is a dangerous world and while now of us like war, war is an inevitable human condition

We get very little of our oil from the Middle East. 12.9% Where Does America Get Oil? You May Be Surprised : NPR

We should leave these countries alone to wage their wars and concentrate on developing alternatives to oil. (And not ethanol--or at least not ethanol made from corn. Make it from grass, like the Brazilians do.)

Its made from sugarcane.
Wikipedia

Brazil’s 37-year-old ethanol fuel program is based on the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world,[12] uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to produce heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production

Yes. And they also make ethanol out of sawgrass. We have lobbyists and politics to blame for our lousy methods of making ethanol and the resulting increase in food prices and move to genetically modified corn. But don't get me started.

One little note of history. We had planned a residual presence but the Iraqi government said no. That was three years ago. And before all of this who kept three warring factions in tow? A ruthless dictator. My guess is that Iraq will end up as three provinces once again. Think Yugoslavia.

If oil was the only issue................but if anyone believes that 9/11 was a solitary event never to occur again then i pray they are right, but..............

There are many, many, many who doubt the story about Iraq stopping our continued presence....MANY

Your comment is what makes me sad when all of this becomes so political

This IS NOT about oil, not about religion.

9/11, if we continue with our heads in the sand, will become simply phase one. We need to really listen, and stop thinking our pretty words really mean anything in the world.

It's time to act.
 

:censored: stated years ago that there should be no superpower nation in the world, and he has worked diligently to reduce the USA from its superpower status.

The result is the surge of terrorist activity because they do not fear retaliation from us. Red lines drawn in the sand mean nothing.

The problem, at this point, of simply withdrawing from our entanglements in the middle East is that absent our influence some of the involved nations will return to being open training grounds for terrorists who are determined to attack our nation and our people overseas.

After the Battle of Fredrecksburg in the Civil War, General Stonewall Jackson viewed the devastation inflicted on the civilians of that city by Northern forces and uttered these words regarding the enemy, "Kill them. Kill them all."

That is the solution to the terrorist problem.

Unleash the military.

It's hard to overstate the absurdity of those who got it so spectacularly wrong the first time in Iraq, demanding immediate action.

What’s Happening Had To Happen
 

"The war in Iraq was lost as it started. There was no way for America to win it , whether the troops stayed forever or not. The forces bubbling inside Iraq might have been contained a bit, or a bit longer, but that’s about all that could have been expected. Much of the general chaos throughout the Middle East now is related to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and how that upset multiple balances of power and uneasy relationships. The Iraq War will be seen as one of the most significant foreign policy failures of recent American history. That too is inevitable."
Peter Van Buren is a 24-year veteran of the State Department and spent a year in Iraq.

As a student of history and politics, I would be interested if you could supply a link to your cut and paste

I certainly know who Peter Van Buren is...rather infamous but wanting to read up on this particular item

Thanks !!!

PS....For those who do not know of Mr Van Buren, he was fired by the Obama State Department for leaking documents, etc. Very critical of this administration for killing by drones. etc. He spent one year in Iraq...I think in 2010 !!!

Why was it again, that we imvaded Iraq?

We all have our opinions and political or religious or ethnic or racial preference or bias and that is fine.

However those who attempt to weave something/anything to support their position by using loose ends from non contiguous stories, facts or assumptions is just plain a distortion.

Just for one moment...here comes my turn......the methodology of always announcing to the enemy one's plans can only become useful to their cause. They have much longer time lines than we do as well as patience to wait us out.
The announced pull out of Iraq of when and how much and how many has now manifest itself in the terrorists KNOWING exactly when to execute their plan. They also know they are safe from any major intervention from the USA.

Now we are announcing what and when and how many in Afghanistan. They have a time line made for them (the terrorists) and all they have to do is wait again. And we will see a repeat of Iraq today in Afghanistan.

We are the intruders in an area of the world that has been at each other's throats for centuries. And we will eventually learn they do not want democracy.

The continual whining by some about when the USA went where or not to find a blame is sort of polar distortion to the max.

We just need to shift our priorities to the needs of we the people of this country and all others secondary. Especially those who have proven time and again to be our enemy. An enemy that publicly states their purpose is to bring down our country any way they can and kill as many of us as possible in the process.

It is really just that simple one the political and special interest BS is filtered out!

Whew....now I feel better!

I agree with Billethkid above. The people of Iraq are not and never have been interested in democracy. What they want is a Muslim theocracy. The only question is whether it will be of the Sunni or Shiite variety.
The situation is similar in Afghanistan.

I seem to remember something about preventing a place for terrorists to train and regroup - and now they have a place to train and regroup in Iraq. Yep, sure was a good idea pulling our troops out of there. If we don't take the fight to them they will surely bring it to our homeland. Remember 9/11...

Prime Minister Maliki would not provide immunity to our military. They were there for ten years. How long should they stay - 20 years, 30 years, 40 years?

The American people spoke loud and clear about what they wanted to happen to the Iraq was, twice. The choice could not have been clearer.

The Iraq war already cost the US over two trillion dollars, which will probably be much higher by the time all the wounded are treated. Forty five hundred US military died and over 100,000 Iraqis died.

"When the Iraqis step up, we will step down". How many times did we hear that mantra?

Some might want to review how Reagan ended the Cold War. Never never did he capitulate on arms reduction SDI, etc An enemy, an opponent always looks for the weak spot.

It is an utopian belief that we can have peace without sacriface and risk and that attitide causes me concern and saddness

t

To try and avoid all the spin going on.....

"The leaders of all the major Iraqi parties had privately told American commanders that they wanted several thousand military personnel to remain, to train Iraqi forces and to help track down insurgents. The commanders told me that Maliki, too, said that he wanted to keep troops in Iraq. But he argued that the long-standing agreement that gave American soldiers immunity from Iraqi courts was increasingly unpopular; parliament would forbid the troops to stay unless they were subject to local law.

President Obama, too, was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said."

Obama

We left despite being advised not to do it in this manner...which is how we got here. A bi partisan group of senators told the president that we could get an agreement and he said no. His own military advisors advised not to do it, but he did.

Trying to make this partisan is hopeless. Let's solve this....do not ignore as we have Syria and others and listen to advice on afghanastan.

Everyone uses Iraq to do nothing but make some political points..waste of time.

We need to protect US....this is not, nor ever has been about oil, not about religious sects or whatever people say. These are people who have vowed for many years.....MANY..to,kill us...before Bush..before Clinton..

Look..we ignored Syria...still killing children there...we are allowing Iran and Russia to exert influence.

Talk all you want about Mid East..religious sects, etc....fact is....we have to be involved...it is in our best interest. Just as we have to be involved in many places.

It is a tough world....not one that is softened by pretty speeches...in addition to all the crumbling countries in the world, we have about 35,000 illegal immigrants coming into Texas every day, mostly Central American criminals. It is time to enforce the law, and start protecting our country. No more speeches....Iraq requires our action NOW....I hate war..I hate bloodshed....I also hate hearing about children in Syria being gunned down while WE watch and talk...I hate hearing about the brutality in Iraq. We are being threatened from within and without.

Either we step to,the plate or we just wait until all,of this comes home....that will really screw up tee times.

Good post to help those who are party polarized understand that some of the reality of what is really going on....not just the talking points Brian what's his name on NBC parrots every day.

Thanx for the additional insight....and opinion.

A nation of mixed opinions.
 

Many of my generation are trapped in a difficult dichotomy of opinion regarding our obligation regarding human rights in other countries.

The inaction of other nations during the German purge of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mental defective and other minority groups prior to and during WWII, left compassionate people everywhere with a sense of guilt for the inaction. The result is an internal urge to intervene in other countries where human rights are abused by the ruling class.

In addition, in the late 1970's :censored: made intervention in the affairs of foreign governments to establish human rights an official foreign policy of our government.

But, in practice we have found that "nation building," attempting to instill democratic forms of government in other countries, has often failed, particularly in those accustomed to a tribal form of authoritarian government.

A more recent concept is that "we cannot be the World Police," and that we should not intervene in the internal conflicts and Civil Wars of other countries. There are voices today saying that we should simply let the Shia and Sunni factions of Islam fight it out. A prospective female candidate for :censored: has said that the five terrorist leaders recently released from Guantanamo are the problems of Afghanistan and Iraq, not ours.

So...........where do your sentiments lie?

.

Or we could simply take the gazillions of barrels of oil that sit right underneath our own country. Or better yet, begin converting over to natural gas, which we have an unlimited supply of and burns cleaner and more efficiently.

Why is this thread which is obviously extremely political being allowed to continue?

Wondered that myself.

This thread was primarily about a current events topic but the discussion, though very spirited, is starting to edge too much into the political arena and is now bringing out the questioners about why it was left open.

As it seems to be heading downhill, it will be closed.