As I have mentioned previously, while Iran looks at various retaliatory options in response to America's assassination of General Soleimani, you will also see a concerted push to see the US removed from the region. Besides this vote in the Iraqi parliament, Hezbollah's chief Nassrollah has vowed that his group will from now on use its forces to help evict Americans out of the region as well. https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/iraqi-parliament-votes-to-end-us-troop-presence-1.960145
Also, regarding Hezbollah's response: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/05/world/middleeast/05reuters-iraq-security-lebanon-hezbollah-nasrallah.html?searchResultPosition=7 Hezbollah: U.S. Forces in Middle East to Pay Price for Soleimani Killing
OK... let's send the Iraqi 'parliament' a bill for getting rid of Saddam Hussein and the 'Republican Guards', along with the endless hundreds of billions we blew on "nation-building" in their Islamo-pesthole. Then, let's pack up our crap, and finally and forevermore get the hell OUT! Iraq could pay us back before long, and rather easily, using revenues from their oil sales! Idiot "W" Bush didn't get us out... Idiot "Messiah" Obama didn't do it, either (although he campaigned endlessly that he would and had EIGHT LONG YEARS to get it done)... and Trump now has a golden invitation to do it -- courtesy of the Iraqi 'parliament'.... Afterthought: if the Taliban rag-heads who actually rule Afghanistan could muster a quorum, we could suggest that they adopt some kind of resolution forcing us to get the hell out of their pesthole, too! Oh, happy day...! But, I fear that Hell will be frozen to a depth of three feet before we actually DO get out of either one of them....
Can the US load the drays and get out in 2 weeks? I hope so, and that it can be done without having to use B-52's to cover the troop movements. Get it done, and then vacate Europe.
Oh, supposedly, there was this 'coalition-of-the-willing' early in 2003, or some bullshit like that, along with the scripted pissing-and-moaning by 'human rights groups' and testimonies at the UN... you know... the usual kind of crap that precedes our getting involved in one endless war after another. Truth? Saddam Hussein was a secular leader who was very, VERY good at keeping all those crazed, Islamo-Nazi factions completely under control in Iraq. He was a brutal, murderous dictator, but while he ruled Iraq, nobody went around decapitating 'infidels' and imposing Sharia Law on anyone else. Bill Clinton was brilliant in his handling of the aftermath of Desert Storm -- because he kept Saddam bottled-up in Iraq where he could do no harm outside Iraq's borders, and, the various idiotic, insane Islamo-priesthoods were kept tightly under Saddam's thumb.... . "Miss me yet...?"
Oh, there were plenty of "pro-Democracy" groups making the rounds in Washington D. C. for at least two years prior to Bush's invasion in 2003. And, as I said, there was all that 'testimony' at the UN about how horrible Saddam was, and his 'yellow cake', the 'nukes', etc., etc. But, your point has some validity, although when we went barging into Baghdad we were met with crowds wildly cheering our arrival. So, hey, let's just write-off the hundreds of billions we blew on this fly-blown piece of Islamo-garbage, along with all the dead U. S. military personnel, and get totally the hell out of there. Obviously, we learned absolutely NOTHING from our 'adventure' in Vietnam, but maybe in the disastrous aftermath of our 'adventure' in Iraq we may finally have come to understand that there are some piles of SH*T that it is better never to dive into in the first place. Paramount lesson of the 20th-century: To win a war, you need AIR POWER! Everything else is just "mop-up".... . "But the old-fashioned ways to fight wars are so much more fun!"
A crowd of thousands who gathered to mourn the slain general. It's bigger than Trump's inauguration crowd. But that's not saying much. What a moron Trump is. His stupidity and impulsivity has finally had a real impact. His pracing around with that disgusting little North Korean dictator and exchanging lickle love letters with him was embarrassing, and his praising Putin while throwing the US intelligence agencies and the FBI under the bus was appalling, and it was unconstitutional and abhorrent when he pressured Ukraine's anti-corruption president to do something corrupt to benefit himself in the coming election, but nothing he had done up to this point had the kind of impact that this is having. This right here is his greatest achievement.
They asked here: July 1997, South Movement, "the path of Jihad and proper action": "Those who desire to face up to the Zionists conspiracies, intransigence, and aggressiveness must proceed towards the advance centers of capabilities in the greater Arab homeland and to the centers of the knowledge, honesty and sincerity with whole heartiness if the aim was to implement a serious plan to save others from their dilemma or to rely on those capable centers; well-known for their positions regarding the enemy, to gain precise concessions from it with justified maneuvers even if such centers including Baghdad not in agreement with those concerned, over the objectives and aims of the required maneuvers." (On the 29th anniversary of Iraq's national day (the 17th of July 1968 revolution). President Saddam Hussein made an important comprehensive and nation wide address) http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/countries/Iraq/speech.htm
This sounds like an ideal opportunity for Sunnistan and Kurdistan to declare their independence from Iraq and appeal for US support. Iraq RIP.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/me...es-for-plan-to-end-us-troop-presence-1.960145 Really? Who knew?
There was no benefit for us being there, we should pull out and park ourselves in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait and just contain the chaos in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
So if there is some pro democracy group in some nation - this gives us the right to invade Yes/No ? I am not asking you this question per say - as we already know the answer - we invade for any made up reason and the citizens have been well trained to gobble up what ever is fed to them. but - when we show up for official meetings - the UN and so on - we push a rules based approach. Its kind of a "Do as we say - not as we Do" thing - something we have gotten away with for decades - cause we were the only game in town. We used to just whisper our desires and nations would submit. Now even coercion and force does not work The problem is that the world has changed - we are no longer the only game in town - and not even the biggest among nations in terms of purchasing power .. lost that in the first half of the last decade- 2013 if memory serves - China. EU is equal to us .. combine India with a few others and that is equal. another problem - and a classic historical cycle - is that projecting power becomes more expensive with time - as technology spreads. This cycle bankrupted most of the past major economic empires - since Rome - the latest being Dutch- Spanish -British. Technological superiority leads to military superiority which is followed by economic hegemony (first part of cycle) The Brits had the gattling gun - with one gunship could take an entire African nation - fighting back with sticks and stones - a very high return on investment. Technology spreads - competition springs up - return on investment becomes negative - cost of power projection increases (second part of cycle) At some point the African nation gets the gattling gun - a gun which turned our to be an even better defensive that offensive weapon (think of storming a hill with machine gun turrets during WW2) . Now - one gunship will not do - you must send an entire Armada and there will be many casualties - and this is expensive. Think of the Romans trying to keep the Barbarians in Check in some distant province "England" or wherever. The cost of these adventures rise with time - as the Barbarians learned new technology and better tactics - the ROI became negative. What is our return on investment in Iraq/Afghanistan ? What did we get for our 6 Trillion dollar investment ?
So if there is some pro democracy group in some nation - this gives us the right to invade Yes/No ? I am not asking you this question per say - as we already know the answer - we invade for any made up reason and the citizens have been well trained to gobble up what ever is fed to them. but - when we show up for official meetings - the UN and so on - we push a rules based approach. Its kind of a "Do as we say - not as we Do" thing - something we have gotten away with for decades - cause we were the only game in town. We used to just whisper our desires and nations would submit. Now even coercion and force does not work The problem is that the world has changed - we are no longer the only game in town - and not even the biggest among nations in terms of purchasing power .. lost that in the first half of the last decade- 2013 if memory serves - China. EU is equal to us .. combine India with a few others and that is equal. another problem - and a classic historical cycle - is that projecting power becomes more expensive with time - as technology spreads. This cycle bankrupted most of the past major economic empires - since Rome - the latest being Dutch- Spanish -British. Technological superiority leads to military superiority which is followed by economic hegemony (first part of cycle) The Brits had the gattling gun - with one gunship could take an entire African nation - fighting back with sticks and stones - a very high return on investment. Technology spreads - competition springs up - return on investment becomes negative - cost of power projection increases (second part of cycle) At some point the African nation gets the gattling gun - a gun which turned our to be an even better defensive that offensive weapon (think of storming a hill with machine gun turrets during WW2) . Now - one gunship will not do - you must send an entire Armada and there will be many casualties - and this is expensive. Think of the Romans trying to keep the Barbarians in Check in some distant province "England" or wherever. The cost of these adventures rise with time - as the Barbarians learned new technology and better tactics - the ROI became negative. What is our return on investment in Iraq/Afghanistan ? What did we get for our 6 Trillion dollar investment ?
