Are you really ready for another war in Iraq?

[WilliamPitt]

If ISIS blows the dam they captured, the balloon goes up.

https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-extremely-concerned-jihadi-takeover-iraqs-dangerous-dam/story?id=24900290

Are you really ready for this? Is the US military? How many more deployments do you think our troops can take? How much spending can our economy take?

I am not at all indifferent to the complexity of this situation, or to what is happening up on that mountain, and I am fully aware of the psychotic ruthlessness of ISIS.

...but "Saddam Hussein is the next Hitler" was followed by "WMD" was followed by "Bringing democracy," and each artifice was bullshit, and only served to drive us deeper into the sand. ISIS is bad, and so was Hussein, and there is always going to be a bad guy to go chasing after.

But we have been at war in Iraq for more than twenty years now, in one form or another. Matters have gotten worse, here and there, with each passing year.

Are you really ready to do it again?

Sincere question. I am deeply interested in your thoughts.

[In_The_Wind]

1. No!

[pinto]

2. ISIS wants to fashion, build and control a state, an Islamic caliphate. They probably need the dam.

It's a vital resource - both as a power and revenue source. I assume they may hold it as a "hostage" as well with threats of withholding water to the valley. Yet blow it up?

I may be totally underestimating their ruthlessness and zealotry.

[TwilightGardener]

5. They don't have to blow it up--just failure to maintain it will cause it to fail.

[AngryAmish]

6. They are nutters

Capable of anything. I say leave them to their 10th century, but rename a ballistic missle sub Hulagu.

[Maedhros]

9. Indeed.

[gratuitous]

3. No

But I am reliably assured that this time around it's going to be different. We aren't going to get sucked in. Our tattered national credibility will be fully restored. A few random airstrikes will once again accomplish everything we need to do. Elected officials from both sides of the aisle will come together in the national interest, the media will speak with one voice, and nobody will be agitating for expansion. The military industrial complex will not demand any stepping up of hostilities, even though it could mean renewal of that sweet pipeline of treasury dollars back into their corporate coffers.

We're humanitarians! And the only alternative to blowing up a bunch of stuff is to let those poor devils on the side of the mountain starve to death or get massacred. No, I said it's the only alternative. There is nothing else that can be done, or that would accomplish the same purpose.

[MisterP]

16. I literally cannot tell if this is sarcasm anymore

[gratuitous]

27. You and me both

There are any number of DUers as well as bloggers around the internet who are seriously peddling this codswallop. I hasten to add that these people are posters whose opinions I ordinarily respect, and it's extremely discouraging to see them abandon reason.

[freedom fighter jh]

71. Very well done nt

[grahamhgreen]

124. You already are sucked in. It's a fools errand, 1400 years of war will not end with a couple bombs.

[TwilightGardener]

4. We'll do what we have to do. I don't think anyone's hyping threats or pushing

phony intelligence here.

[TheKentuckian]

31. They don't have to be at this point nor do the best intentions much help us

Like Donnie, we are out of our fucking element here. Our every move in the region (yes, including under Obama) has made matters worse.
We are facing nothing but the most probable outcome our actions to date, the best options long since past.
Now we need to get the fuck out, shut down the CIA machinations that maybe most dangerously inflame already bad situations, stop funding and arming sibling and affiliate groups in the wider region, and pray real fucking hard for an enlightenment before it boils over into a world war situation in a decade or two when the real shit hits the fan.

Don't want to go that route then there are possibilities that involve actions that will make the entire political spectrum ill starting with killing that pales in comparison to what is happening now, moving on to ruthless but fair and open occupation, dictation of form and design of government, a mountain of money and expertise with significant socialism and secularism baked into the design to get and maintain buy in from the population.

[CJCRANE]

37. I disagree with your last paragraph.

Iraq, Libya and Syria had socialist and secular governments already before our intervention.

We're not in the business of setting up effective governments any more.

We can't even rebuild our own infrastructure.

[TheKentuckian]

63. I'm not saying we would or even necessarily could. I'm saying this is about the only thing that can

be done from an outside actor.

I completely agree with you and which is why why I said the entire idea would be abhorrent in some part to the entire political spectrum here, neocons would have a wet dream until they woke up in their definition of hell over there which would also spread from there down into Africa and all around. They won't risk that for a moment, better that the world burn first in their eyes.

[RufusTFirefly]

66. This post would instantly earn a +1 for the Donnie reference alone

I'll give it an additional +100 for the actual substance.

[BrotherIvan]

97. +1

[phantom power]

60. what do we "have" to do?

Anything we do over there, good, bad or sideways, is a choice.

[arcane1]

7. To be honest, I don't trust Obama's rationales any more than Bush's when it comes to war

There is always bullshit buried under the Heroic Cause.

[smiley]

130. exactly what I've been thinking

I wonder if we would be using this same excuse if this was a large population of non-Christians stuck on a mountain about to be slaughtered?

[PowerToThePeople]

8. Do we have a choice?

There is nothing in the last 15 years that has happened the way I thought it should.

This place fucking sucks.

[kentuck]

10. I don't know but ISIS is "worse than al Qaeda"...

Before it is all over, Hitler will have been a saint...

[bigtree]

51. interesting

. . .the administration has already conflated them with al-Qaeda;

. . .from last night's WH briefing:

The Yazidi population has been targeted by ISIL. This is not something new. ISIL originally was the group led by Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization we know very well. It’s important to keep in mind that ISIL is not a new phenomenon. It is al Qaeda in Iraq, and a part of the ideology which was spawned by Zarqawi all the way back in 2003. And to date, the largest terrorist attack ever in Iraq took place up in the Sinjar region in August of 2007, killing about 700 Yazidi civilians in a series of devastating car bombs then conducted by al Qaeda in Iraq.

It is their mission -- ISIL, and then al Qaeda in Iraq, same organization -- it is their mission to ethnically cleanse areas of anyone that it disagrees with, and that could mean Christians, it could mean Yazidis or anyone else. It is important also to keep in mind that it is targeting Sunnis in Sunni areas -- anyone that it disagrees with. And it is so ruthless -- quite literally putting people’s heads on spikes as a sign of anyone -- the fate of anyone that would resist them . . .

. . . isn't the fight against al-Qaeda the original justification for keeping troops bogged down there? There is a legitimate question of whether the president will allow this latest 'humanitarian' rationale, he's properly defined as protecting the Kurdish citizens, to devolve into that original fight; a wider battle against these insurgent forces justified under the same 'humanitarian terms.

[pscot]

11. I'm always up for another war

as long as we can rationalize it as being just, or in the national interest, or sort of a good idea. Or at least good for our GDP. Besides, it's human nature. War is what separates us from the lower animals; organized slaughter.

[JackRiddler]

12. U.S. at war with Iraq for twenty-four years, to be precise.

Since August 1990!

And the U.S. government is entirely responsible for the situation that has now arisen, in a multitude of ways:

by destroying the Iraqi nation in an unprovoked and imperialist war of aggression at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives,

by letting U.S. foreign policy be run by military contractors and bloodthirsty geopoliticians claiming "realpolitik,"

by promoting the bloody civil wars and ethnic cleansing,

by not cleaning house of the war criminals but "looking forward,"

by the long alliance with the Gulf states, a coterie of repressive monarchical dictatorships that created and armed the "Islamic State" and crushed the "Arab Spring,"

by arming and at times backing all of the various sides, such that claims of CIA origins for IS and al-Qaeda itself are all too credible,

by always in a crunch preferring "our bastards" no matter how extremist to independent secular movements.

In the absence of a full acknowledgement of that history, and of measures to assure it does not continue (by uprooting the U.S.-based parts of the machinery that drove the history), it's an absurdity to think a new military intervention, without historical consciousness and with transparently bullshit motives ("protecting American personnel," please) is going to yield a chaos superior to any of the other interventions.

As a first step, when an administration announces an end to the alliances and arms deals with the Gulf states backing IS and an intent to see peace in the region on the basis of current borders, it might be taken seriously. That even this is "utopian" is another indicator of our predicament. Instead "we" are off to bomb our new enemy, while continuing to supply arms and support for the states that arm and finance it.

Who has the courage to lead and take on the risks of self-examination? Ain't evident in the present or in any prospective administration. All of them live politically from historical denial and self-praising bullshit, ever since Reagan proved this is a formula for success in American politics.

[leftstreet]

22. +1

Indeed

[Scuba]

127. + another

[flamingdem]

13. Are you really that unable to analyze this situation?

It seems like your questions are indeed indifferent to the complexity of the situation.

"American troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq" - President Obama

[former9thward]

14. They are already back there.

150 so far. They are are just renamed "advisers" so he can say they are not fighting themselves.

[flamingdem]

19. Different

from combat troops

[former9thward]

39. Not at all.

They have weapons. There is no difference.

[Lurks Often]

45. The advisors are almost certainly

Green Beret or some other Special Ops unit with the role to train the Kurds and probably assist them with ISIS by providing secure communications, advice and now controlling the airstrikes.

That means that they are combat troops, no matter what clever name the White House & Pentagon use for them.

[ballyhoo]

76. Exactly

[MohRokTah]

26. +1,000,000,000,000 eom

[WilliamPitt]

28. "I will not send American boys 16,000 miles away

to fight a war Vietnamese boys should be fighting for themselves." - LBJ

How'd that work out?

[flamingdem]

30. My analysis is that the President means what he says

We will soon see which of us is correct in their thinking on this.

[WilliamPitt]

34. I'm sure Johnson meant what he said, too.

My point is not to disparage President Obama, but to underscore that events have a way of overtaking people when the bombs start flying. Presidents most of all.

[tridim]

41. Are you even aware that Obama is not Johnson?

What the hell is wrong with you?

[WilliamPitt]

48. He's not?

A Democratic president who inherited an unpopular, divisive, expensive war? A president whose inheritance of that war deranged his plans and agenda?

Um.

U History Bro?

[Rex]

83. Just one of your Hater fan club! Seems to be a group of them on DU...what did you do?

What's wrong with you!?

[tridim]

40. The pessimists are always wrong about the President. nt

[bigtree]

61. in most cases

. . . those are welcome developments.

Pessimism in our militaristic government (which spends 60-70 percent of our resources maintaining that militarism) is healthy and vital.

[JaydenD]

82. So now Obama is Bush AND the worst part of LBJ?

Maybe you can slip in a Dick Cheney quote in there too.

[WilliamPitt]

94. Because that's what I said.

Go back to bed.

[grasswire]

107. hehe nt

[sheshe2]

113. Why do you always tell people that disagree with you to go back to bed?

You have done it to me. You most definitely are not the father figure here. Sorry Will, I have no intention of bowing to your perceived authority.

[WilliamPitt]

114. Because they need the sleep.

Clearly.

[sheshe2]

118. Wow, so authoritarian of you.

Glad you have your Psychologist's degree to diagnose from your keyboard. I am in awe of your profound capabilities.

Bravo! Silly me, I thought you were a writer.

[Jackpine Radical]

103. How dare anyone criticize the mere sending of advisers into Iraq?

That really ought to solve the problem.

In May 1961, Kennedy sent 400 American Green Beret “special advisors” to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers in “counter-insurgency” to fight Viet Cong guerrillas.

[rhett o rick]

115. Funny how you are so positive that your vision is the only one and those that

don't agree are "unable to analyze the situation." And then you quote the President as if it was in stone. When someone points out that we have troops there, you hedge your certainty and claim, "we don't call them "troops", therefore, they aren't troops." After all the president didn't say, "Americans equipped as troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq." You probably could add that technically, dropping bombs isn't "fighting" per se.

The OP is concerned that we are continuing to kill people in Iraq. And you are doing your best to equivocate and cover for the president. How noble.

[morningfog]

116. They just did.

Americans flew combat missions over Iraq.

[Bonhomme Richard]

15. As much as I hate to say it........

we, as a nation, created this mess and i don't know if it can be fixed but it is ours, and every other nation that had troops in Iraq, responsibility now.
Besides that....fuck bush, fuck cheney, fuck rumsfeld, fuck wolfowitz, and every other cowardly fucker that created this mess and will walk away unscathed.

[obxhead]

79. No it's not.

To say so is to say that every country we've ever had troop actions in is our problem.

France isn't responsible for the success of our country for the help we received than we are to Iraq. ISIS is just another page in a very long book of conflict. Iraq is the responsibility of Iraqis.

[Coventina]

17. No, but I think there's a certain amount of "you broke it - you bought it" in play here.

Saddam kept a brutal peace.

We unleashed chaos.

We left chaos in our wake.

What do we do?

Hell if I know.

I don't see any easy answers.

No, I don't want "another" war in Iraq.

But I think the reality is that the war we started is still playing out.

Should we play a role?

I honestly don't know, but I do feel we are largely to blame.

[TheKentuckian]

56. Of course we are to blame but that has nothing to do with ability or even intention to correct it

even when espoused.

All we have done in the region has been foolish and put fuel on the fire, including Obama.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

125. Eternally "Fixing" countries for fun and profit!

We just may have to stay there protecting Iraq till the end of time. Good thing the military industrial complex gets loads of cash while we do it!

[Douglas Carpenter]

18. "Give war a chance."

I don't know how this is going to work out and it does bother me. But I just don't see a way out of it right now. I hope there is.

[betterdemsonly]

20. Obama was warned that the Syrian rebels were islamic fundies

that would ethnically cleans Christians and he chose to fund them anyway. This wouldn't be happening if he would cut funding to the rebels. This is blowback.

[CJCRANE]

38. And he wanted to send

another $500 million to them recently.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

21. I am not sure if america's current desire for war, should trump the AMerican behavior that lead

to such immense civil unrest in a country.

yes, i don't want another war but i don't want civilians to die by the hundreds because a government I was part of destabilized their country so much, that there is no one to thwart a threat like ISIS.

so no, i don't want another war, but i think its very callous of us as a nation to not take responsibility for what we did to iraq.

[RobertEarl]

23. E M P I R E

We have a responsibility as the world's greatest Empire to ... well... be imperial and make everybody's business our business.

In other words, it's just business all this war busy-ness.

[elias49]

25. No!! The US has been kind of mowing the lawn there for a while

going back will not help IMO.
Not to mention all the "grass clippings" that we can't take care of in our VA.
Fuck these wars of choice.

[msanthrope]

29. Oh fer chrissakes.....I suppose this is better than screaming for the duct tape and plastic

sheeting over Ebola I've seen on this site, but not by much.

Gird your loins, Will. We elected this President NOT because he could prevent all military conflict, but because we trusted him that when the ruthless psychos of the world brought the crazy, he'd have a way to handle it.

So let him handle it. We have airstrikes right now, and the Navy knows what the fuck they are doing. We might have limited incursions to retake certain assets and secure certain persons. No callups or deployments. Just people who really, really want to get some...because this is what they do.

Here's a thought....why not write a column praising President Obama for his restraint and willingness to prevent genocide?

[flamingdem]

72. +1

.. waiting for that column

[msanthrope]

105. Don't hold your breath. nt

[Blue_Roses]

88. well said

Thank-you!

[msanthrope]

106. Quite welcome! nt

[sheshe2]

120. Hmmm, yes that would be an awesome column.

Sadly another poster said to me that they post the anti Obama crap for the recs. No it was not Will. However that poster explained to me that when you post the pros you don't get the rec's only the negative posts get you to the top of the page. They said they did it for the recs. I will try to find it for you if you wish and PM you, msanthrope.

[msanthrope]

144. Please....and here's the interesting thing about recs...it really does tell you

who the socks are.

[LiberalLoner]

32. No. A million times no.

[WilliamPitt]

36. *sigh*

LBJ was in charge, too.

Go team.





ALL I AM TRYING TO SAY is that events have a way of overtaking people when the bombs start flying, despite the best of intentions. Presidents most of all. Even Democrats.

[Scuba]

128. +1,000

[tridim]

46. And once again, LBJ is NOT BHO.

Not even close, Will.

[WilliamPitt]

49. Post #48, please.

[WilliamPitt]

95. No response?

You must be reviewing your civics textbook.

Or something.

[cui bono]

93. Banksy updated that pic for the corporate age...

[Cleita]

35. No.

Turkey has an interest in that region. Let them go to war. I have no problem funneling the military funding we give to Israel to them instead to fight ISIS. But we personally should stay out of it other than extending humanitarian aid.

[atreides1]

90. The Kurds are what the Turks are interested in.

And as long as ISIL is concentrating on the Kurds, the Turks won't go to war against ISIL.


If ISIL launched attacks into Turkey, NATO would be obligated to come to the defense of our Turkish allies, remember Article 5 of the NATO charter was invoked after the attack on 9/11.


And since the United States is a member of NATO, we would have to come to the aid of our Turkish allies!

[Cleita]

101. Yes and they could unite all the Kurdish lands from Iraq,

Iran and themselves into a province, which is what they want because of the oil. It would be an imperfect solution but one I think the Kurds could live with until sometime in the future when all the Islamic fundamentalism dies down and then maybe they can think of a future as an independent Kurdistan. Just my humble opinion.

[Laelth]

126. The Turks have no interest in an independent Kurdish state.

Secretly, I suspect the Turks are happy that IS is crushing the Kurds. Nobody, except the Kurds, themselves, seems interested in an independent Kurdistan. Thus, it's likely that both Turkey and Iran will quietly watch as IS does their dirty work for them.

Nobody but us is willing to help the Kurds at this point.

-Laelth

[Cleita]

141. I know that and if my post is not clear to you, let me reiterate.

They would be interested in a province or state that is Kurdish and gives them more land by annexing the Kurdish regions of Iran and Iraq. They want to keep the oil. I said the Kurds might be willing to this imperfect solution if they have some autonomy in Turkey like they now do in Iraq. Turkey is not an Islamic state and better than either Iran or Iraq anyway if they have to have an overlord. Independence can be put on the back burner for the future. Right now, it's important to turn back ISIS. However, the whole thing is moot anyway since it seems we are involving our military instead.

[Laelth]

142. Interesting.

I did not grasp your point from the previous post. I think I have it, now, and I must admit that I had not even considered your suggestion as a remote possibility. That said, it's quite interesting.

Any evidence that anyone in Turkey is seriously considering this move?



-Laelth

[Cleita]

143. Probably not. It's just one of my ruminations. eom

[KamaAina]

42. Really NOT!

[bigtree]

43. my thoughts, fwtw

Just a Smidgen More U.S. Military Force in Iraq

[Marrah_G]

47. It scares the hell out of me.

[JEB]

50. Its the long awaited jobs program.

Gonna have to make a lot more bombs.

[TBF]

129. ^ One way or another we will always be in an area in which

we have corporate resources to protect. That is the way this empire works.

How much we can/should intervene in the world is complicated by the fact that not only do we want to protect our "interests" (above - resources), but we also have the secondary interest of defense contractors who are making billions of $$$ off war. It is in their interest to provoke conflict rather than peace.

I am going to offer a reading rec as I think it can help anyone deal with what we are seeing in the US now (whether we follow Lenin/Marx or not is a long subject for another thread - but just this resource alone can be very helpful):

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenine, Imperialisme stade supreme du capitalisme.jpg
Author Vladimir Lenin
Original title Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма
Country Russian Republic
Language Russian
Genre Social criticism
Published 1917
Publisher Zhizn' i znanie

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperial colonialism, as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin’s modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867)

[MineralMan]

52. I'm not sure, but I doubt that they have the capability

of breaching that dam. Not a simple job, blowing up a major hydroelectric dam, I'd think. Now, they could probably destroy its electrical generation capability, but the amount of explosives and technical knowledge needed to actually cause a dam failure seems far-fetched for that group.

That seems to me to be a very unlikely outcome.

[Dems to Win]

53. HELL NO!!

20+ years of US war on Iraq has created an unbearable situation, but further US war on Iraq will not fix any problems created by the US wars.

It's tragic, but the Iraqi people are going to have to rebuild their country themselves. Sadly it is inevitable that it will be bloody chaos. Heartbreaking.

[KoKo]

54. Depends on how much he can do with air strikes..

or the drones as to whether we send "boots on the ground" which neither our military nor Obama would seem to want to do.

A consequence of Obama not striking Syria and targeting Assad could be that it allowed the ISIL to move into Iraq where, in fact, it could be easier for us to rout them out and deplete their forces. Because of our "You Break it You Bought It" history in Iraq we have some wiggle room (justification?) for targeted air strikes on ISIL which gives time for the Kurdish forces to re-arm and join with what's left of the struggling Iraqi Army to be able to hold the area. That might be what the thinking is. But, it depends on how many ISIL forces are there or can come across the border to know if that could work and how long it would take. If we could reduce ISIL forces it would help both Syria (if we want Assad to stay in power) and maybe cool down the situation there for some diplomacy to take place.

We still have the PNAC Playbook going...though. So, who knows where this can go. And, if it can be contained.

The hypocrisy is that the MSM keeps crying "preventing Genocide!" about Iraq when, in fact, the Gazan Palestinian people are imprisoned in their tiny strip of land and who is coming to their aid? The Christians imprisoned on the Sinjar Mountain and the Gazans who are being devastated with their schools, power plant and hospitals bombed and their homes, families and businesses destroyed with little hope for the future and no way to evacuate from the drones and bombs have much in common--although the terrain is different and a bit of the circumstances...

One has to go into contortions to call one situation "Genocide" and the other NOT...if one believes in innocent people being protected from circumstances beyond their control being targeted for destruction by eliminating their freedom to come and go, travel unmolested by security checkpoints and papers and their basic human rights to medical care, schools, water, food and to financially support their families and safeguard the lives of their children.

What a mess everything is.......All of our meddling in countries we are bringing "Freedom and Democracy" to to ends up with us funding the worst kind of people and "Blow Back" on us for our hubris that believe that we can remake the world into our own image when in fact, behind the curtain, its mostly for profit of the Global Multinational Companies, Weapons Manufacturers and Financial Entities.

[bigtree]

68. with Syria

. . .there's evidence that our opposition to the Syrian government prevented them from striking out at ISIS/ISIL within Iraq, across their border. ISIS is an enemy to the Syrian government forces.

Recent reports have Syria actually striking insurgent positions and fighters with their air force with some success. Of course, that action isn't without consequences for innocent Iraqis caught in the way, and i understand that's been the case, a consequence, as well.

[KoKo]

87. Thanks for that info...interesting...

If that's the case, maybe Obama was convinced by some strategic thinkers in our military that going after Assad was not good strategy (because of the ambitions of ISIL) and that's why Obama turned back at the last moment. Plus, the pressure, or support (?), from Russia over getting the WMD out of Syria as a compromise to bombing. He finally listened to a different viewpoint from the Neocons when it was too late for Assad to be able to do anything about ISIL. The funding for those militant groups was a mixed bag, though, wasn't it. Wasn't it both Saudi Arabia and USA supplying the militants weapons and funding?

Hopefully these strategic strikes will work out and if there is some help from Syria (and maybe Turkey) that doesn't involve more collateral damage to Iraqi's. It's about all we can do at this point short of getting embroiled in another prolonged action which I don't think anyone except the "usual crowd" wants.

[renegade000]

55. i think Obama is trying to walk the tightrope

and I tend to agree with that strategy. I absolutely do not want to return to ground operations in Iraq, nor do I think that would be constructive at this point, as the regional powers need to figure out how the balance of power is going to work without US soldiers in the equation. On the other hand, completely extracting ourselves from the situation (that we ultimately caused) and leaving the Kurds and Shia to completely fend for themselves with some newfound notion of total indifference and neutrality is not exactly going to win us friends either. I would basically support helping the Kurds and Shia hold the line against ISIS through humanitarian aid, intelligence sharing, and at most limited air-strikes, with the hope that more moderate Sunni factions will eventually turn on ISIS.

[malaise]

57. One word

NO!

[MineralMan]

58. You should write a nice long column on that, Mr. Pitt.

I'll ignore that, just as I am ignoring this.

Maybe, though, you can call President Obama some ugly name in it or something.

The President announced his intentions last night for this. I believe him.

[Union Scribe]

59. Uh, ignoring something works better

when you don't open the thread and then post in it. Do you also call people to tell them you're not talking to them?

[MineralMan]

62. Thank you for your unsolicited advice.

I'll take it under consideration, to be sure.........

OK, I'm done with the consideration. I've chosen to ignore your advice. I may even comment further, if I think of something new to say.

[Union Scribe]

64. Of that there was never any doubt.

I may even comment further, if I think of something new to say.

[SammyWinstonJack]

96. ...

[Autumn]

121. ..

Funniest thing I have ever seen.

[JoePhilly]

133. There won't be a war ... and the same folks who are predicting it ...

... will claim that they prevented it, when it doesn't happen.

[MineralMan]

134. Yup. They're just stirring a stinky pot.

[Bobbie Jo]

65. This isn't "another war"

This is the aftermath/result of the same war we had no business starting in the first place.

Who could have predicted......?

[cheapdate]

67. No, I'm not prepared for a US ground invasion in Iraq.

But I'm also not prepared to watch 40,000 people die on a mountain in north-western Iraq either.

[BumRushDaShow]

69. We can pull our imaginary troops out of Libya and Syria

where DU furiously insisted they were supposed to be (because "that's what Bush would do&quot and then easily move them to Iraq because of the same DU reasoning.

[tritsofme]

70. Yes Pitt, I have impeccable sources that tell me the ground invasion begins in 24 business hours.

What a joke.

[ballyhoo]

73. Absolutely not. I have said for

years that Iraq would be the US's Parthia, and another Iraq War, which I thought for sure would happen, would guarantee two things: 1. a loss in the next two elections. 2. the approximate end of the US because of money and the big banks.

[dem1926]

74. it's up to each of us to boycott war profiteers, call talk shows, network, pray, organize

it's up to each of us to boycott war profiteers, call talk shows, network, pray, organize for peace

[Duval]

75. NO! n/t

[Chico Man]

77. It appears to me that the entire world is at war..

There are conflicts everywhere!

Iraq is just a battlefield. It's not the Iraq war, it's a global conflict.

[rickyhall]

78. No

Dear Dick Cheney: Go fuck yourself you asshole!

[obxhead]

80. FFS

If this were President McCain or President Romney there would not be a single "yes" reply to this thread.

I'm really getting tired of the party before policy attitude.

[HockeyMom]

81. Absolutely not

We have to pay for decades for what George Bush BROKE as Colin Powell himself said.

[Rex]

84. It never really stopped, just took a short break while U.S. forces were at an all-time low.

Hell we've been at war with Iraq since Desert Storm!

[SammyWinstonJack]

85. NO!

[BuelahWitch]

86. No n/t

[sadoldgirl]

89. No, another war

will be as impossible to win as the last one. My question to the President: Sir, when you had control over the Maliki government, why did you allow him to divide the country further? No money, no weapons until the country is more united.

I think this was a huge mistake, sorry.

[War Horse]

91. This thread is so damned depressing

B/C I get all the points of views here.

The alternative to bombing ISIS/ISIL or whatever they're called these days is doing nothing, and let people starve to death on a mountaintop. And let the Kurds fend for themselves.

[bigtree]

111. what is not being spoken here is that US military action in Iraq is counterproductive

Last edited Fri Aug 8, 2014, 09:47 PM - Edit history (1)

. . .Bush's own intelligence agencies concluded that our presence and activity had the effect of fostering, creating, more terrorists than he was putting down, and we know how many Iraqis were killed as a direct result of, or as a consequence of his invasion and occupation.

What makes this President think his military action will have a different effect?

There are several other nations already participating in air defense in Iraq which are not only suited to the task but actually have a direct stake in the outcome of such action.

Who Else, Besides Americans, Are Flying Fighter Jets in Iraq?

____ The Iraqi Air Force is poorly equipped, consisting of several Cessna planes carrying American-supplied Hellfire missiles, some American- and Russian-supplied helicopters, and Russian-made Su-25 aircraft.

Garrett Khoury, the director of research at The Eastern Project, explained that the Iraqi Air Force "recently acquired around a dozen SU-25 ground attack aircraft from Russia (with more possibly coming from Belarus) ...which give them the ability to conduct serious ground-support operations.

" are Russian jets bearing Iraqi insignia, but possibly piloted by Russians," Khoury continued. "Iraq did use the SU-25 during the Saddam Hussein era, and there are probably former Iraqi pilots who flew them, but it has been at best 12 years since any Iraqi pilot got any significant flying time with the plane."

So who bombed ISIS on Thursday night?

The most probable answer is Iraqi Su-25s, manned by Russian or Iranians—or maybe Iraqis . . .

. . . Turkish F-16s were reportedly patrolling the skies over the area near Sinjar in northern Iraq, where about 50,000 Yezidis are starving after fleeing ISIS militants.

"Iran has used its own Air Force to attack ISIS since the beginning of the group's offensive, but mostly to keep them away from the Iranian border," Khoury said. "Syria has likewise conducted air strikes on ISIS targets on the Iraqi side of their shared border . . ."


read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/08/08/who_else_besides_americans_are_flying_fighter_jets_in_iraq.html

Why the hell does the US insist we're the only ones, or that we have to make such overt, direct military strikes while others in that region are either discouraged or dissuaded by U.S. policy (Syria, Iran, Russia) from doing the job; especially knowing the counterproductive and inflammatory role our country has already experienced there?

[cwydro]

92. Hell no.

[woo me with science]

98. Absolutely not. And thank you for this post.

[tech3149]

99. Not only no but eff no!

2003 and the song and dance that put us there in the first place was what made me militant about politics. I was always apolitical and uninvolved before that. Iraq was the breaking point. I knew then that I could not rely on the better informed and more influential to assure that the best interest of the world and our country was served.
Since that point and aided by the fact that I don't have a life, I have become an information maven. I read everything I can find on every situation that will have an effect on not just my life but the world in general. I have learned in those years that my understanding of the world was accurate but severely naive.
I may have a decade or two on you but one of your presentations back in like 2005 or 6 was truly inspiring and has helped me continue my trek toward being more informed and critical in my thinking.

[bvar22]

100. Merry Minuet

They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida,
and Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch,
and I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day,
someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa.
There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

--Kingston Trio (1958?)

[Tace]

102. No, Will

I don't support this. --Tace

[JCMach1]

104. We have always been at war with Iraq

[KoKo]

108. Indeed...Orwill Revisited....Estasia...We will ALWAYS BE AT WAR!

's

[Hekate]

109. Do you think the POTUS' strategy is to pull together all the threatened nations to do their own...

...fighting? ISIS is a genuine threat to the region, no lies needed. You're aware of that. You're probably also aware that certain fanatical elements in the region would like nothing better than to have our soldiers there again so they can fight the Great Satan up close and personal.

The American people are sick of having our soldiers there after having been lied into a war by BUSH.

What to do, if you are an intelligent POTUS and not a delusional PNAC devotee?

Maybe get the Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis (as if), Iranians, Israelis, Egyptians et al. to all pull together for a change?

Why does everyone here always assume it's going to be us Americans?

[Uncle Joe]

110. That's the danger of "the boy who cried wolf" eventually there was a wolf and nobody believed him.

I believe ISIS is in fact a wolf.


Thanks for the thread, WilliamPitt.

[GeorgeGist]

112. Another SuperCop™ sequel?

No thanks.

[Autumn]

117. No. Enough is enough. Our involvement never ends well for them or for our troops who die

and are wounded. The thing is their religion, or religions permeate every aspect of their lives and their government. We can't change that.

[Vattel]

119. War is almost never the answer, but I am yet to be convinced that it is not the answer here.

I don't think Obama has any intention to go back to fighting a counterinsurgency war in Iraq. He hopes to accomplish a lot with no more than a little force. Will he succeed? I don't know, but I have seen little evidence offered that he will fail.

[TheKentuckian]

131. What is success and what evidence supports getting there?

[Vattel]

132. Success is preventing the slaughter of 40,000 Iraqis.

I don't know enough about the situation to know whether this can be achieved at an acceptable cost, or achieved at all. But I would like to see more evidence one way or the other.

[TheKentuckian]

136. How many innocent Iraqis are you willing to kill to do it and how many times is this or a similar

rationale are going to be used?

How does it make sense to prevent the slaughter of 40,000 innocent Iraqis but allow far more to be murdered in the wider conflict?

You are already at step one of accepting joining a civil war and perhaps a regional conflict because the same logic applies every step of the way.

[Vattel]

138. I highly doubt that the same logic will apply every step of the way.

It is one thing to prevent an imminent slaughter of 40,000 persons, another to protect the Kurds, and a wholly different thing to defend Baghdad. The last of these would be morally insane.

As for how many innocent bystanders is it acceptable to kill as collateral damage to save 40,000 lives, I would be comfortable with 0-10 and I would not complain about 40. A ratio of 1,000 innocent lives saved to one innocent life taken is good enough I think, but I realize that reasonable people can disagree about that sort of thing.

[TheKentuckian]

140. Everybody has heard the old joke

A man walks into a bar and sees a beautiful woman and goes up to her and immediately offers her a hundred dollars for six and she slaps him and screams "what is wrong with you, I'm not a whore". He responds with "what if I offered you a million dollars?" and the woman laughed and said "I'd think about it". Well, the the guy cracked a wry grin and said ????

"I knew you were a whore, we just have to negotiate the price".

You just negotiated your price there. My point is not to beat you up for this but to attempt to relate that the logic remains the same. It is the price or value in the exchange that changes not the logic, the reasoning is locked in.

How would defending the innocent lives of all of those hundreds of thousands or more in Bagdad, already put through so much suffering in no small part directly resulting from our actions be "morally insane" but defending the 40,000 isn't nor is defending the Kurds?

We'll get you some dead children, mutilated women, and maybe some heads on pikes and the same morality that guided before will be right there with you again and on its own it is a beautiful feature in a human but it is easily manipulated and grips tighter and tighter once one starts down a path.

[Vattel]

150. In answer to your question,

the difference would be in the profit (benefits minus "price" or cost): defending Baghdad would be not be likely to produce more good than harm let alone a 1,000 to one ration of lives saved to lives taken.

[davidpdx]

122. Short answer, no because I honestly don't think Obama will put us back in Iraq

in the way were were before. Specifically, I don't think he'll put troops on the ground. He is smart enough to know if he does that, then he's screwed his entire legacy away on the war in Iraq.

In terms of the dam (since you mentioned it), I saw an interview with someone who was ex-CIA and she said that she doesn't think the sect that is in control of that area wants to blow it because they are looking to govern the area part of which requires generating electricity for residents. Blowing the dam would be contrary to that because it would wipe out the entire area.

The Iraqi forces are going to have to grow some backbone and do the fighting that is necessary to counter what ISIS is doing.

I do begin to wonder more and more if just dividing the country up would make more sense given the problems between the different groups governing Iraq.

[Liberty Belle]

123. I have many Iraqi friends, livnig in an area with 40,000 Iraqi Chaldeans as well as Kurds.

Their family and friends face massacre and starvation. So I do support the humanitarian aid drops and the air strikes. I would not support ground troops. But if we can save thousands, maybe tens of thousands of lives, I believe it is the right thing to do. And in this case, we are not bombing innocent civilians, at least thus far -- the targets are ISIS terrorists' artillery and perhaps coming up, the ISIS invaders who are slaughtering innocent people who refuse to convert.

I am a pacific generally, but also believe we need to stand up against genocide wherever it occurs, if we can do so without ground troops or a large loss of life of our own soldiers. Especially after we bombed Iraq into oblivion before with NO justification, contributing to the destabilization. (And if anyone doubts there was no justification for the invasion before, I once interviewed Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector, who said there were no weapons of mass destruction and his superiors falsified his reports to make it appear that there were.)

This time I am confident that we are not being fed misinformation on the slaughter of civilians under ISIS. I've talked with enough Iraqi Americans first-hand, some of whom had photos of the carnage, calls from relatives to relate, etc. that sadly there is no doubt that these people face extermination if nothing is done. ISIS is even taking food and water at the border from those attempting to flee, forcing them to walk across the desert, and many are dying along the way -- if they're not beheaded first for refusing to convert.

[flvegan]

135. Ready for it? Sheeeee-it, I support it!

Goshdarn right, that Obama guy has a "D" after his name so I'll support any farking thing he does and I'll do it with bells on (it's easier than thinking, you see *nudge* *wink*).

He's not Bush and Romney would have X, Y and Z by now. Besides, being against what Pres. D wants to do might hurt us in the next election. Think of how much worse it will be if we have Corporate President R in there instead of Corporate President D. So there's that.

And oh yeah, 9/11.

[Warren Stupidity]

137. We have no plan. We are adrift with a huge military and no idea what we should do.

We've abandoned or sabotaged international institutions that could undertake peacekeeping missions. We've substituted "American Hegemony", but the guiding hands of that effort, the neoconservative New American Century war criminals, didn't really have a plan other than King of the Hill. We are on top with no idea how or why to rule.

What's the plan? Where are we going? How many more decades can we pour our nation's treasure into our bloated military without causing a catastrophic collapse of our economy? Who are we going to bomb tomorrow?

WHAT IS THE FUCKING PLAN?

[moondust]

139. "Let them die!"

Oh wait...that's a Republican cheer. Oops.

[Zorra]

145. A) No. (B) More war is falling into the trap of eternal war laid by the PNAC/1%. nt

[99Forever]

146. No, no, no, and no.

Not ever again. No. No. No.

[woo me with science]

147. kick

[Initech]

148. The beatings will continue until the military industrial complex can pocket another couple trillion.

Untaxed and unaccounted for, of course.

[roamer65]

149. It's a regional ME war now.

...and the singer has only "cleared her throat".

This very possibly could be the beginning of WW3.

[SummerSnow]

151. Are the Arab League involved?

I am never ready for war. Everything is scary.