>>Mod Warning<< Thoughts on the War in Iraq

Close.

Iraq refused to allow US forces in Iraq to carry out independent military operations. They also set troop levels. This was not just Maliki. His government was strongly in favor of seriously limiting US presence, especially toward being a training and support operation for Iraqi government forces.

After all, Maliki's objectives were not the same as US objectives in Iraq.

The Bush SOFA ended the possibility of 30-40K US troops being in Iraq. Iraq did NOT want them and refused to authorize independent US military operations.

 

The problem with this direction has very little to do with cost.

It's far more a matter of whether we can establish something that is of value.

We knocked off Afg, Libya, Iraq, and others easily. In others, we created a controlled presence, such as in Vietnam where we had years to establish something of value.

In others, such as in Egypt we propped up governments where we had no complaint, but failed to recognize that those governments were total failures.

What has that gained us?

One has to come to the conclusion that we have essentially zero ability to "nation build". And, without that our military conquests are a problem, not a solution.

 

Asking the same questions ten thousand times would not excuse the fact that if it wasn't for the stupid Bush, ISIS would not have came about in Iraq. We have zero right to be there. And I don't care that Iraq choose to side with Iran. We were dealing with Iran at one point too.

 

When those statements cannot be contended.

 

This is a total misunderstanding of who Baathists even WERE.

Baathists held pretty much every job of any import in the country, as these jobs tended to be more like civil service jobs. It included the military, political operations and all infrastructure, for example.

We got there PLENTY fast to end the employment of Baath party members of all stripe.

The result was a huge number of Sunnis with the knowledge of how to run the entire nation, including the military, but unemployed.

Then, we hired Maliki to help us go after these people, which Maliki and his militias did with gusto, slaughtering civilians, driving them out of the cities where they lived.

Basically we did a very thorough job of bringing civil war to Iraq.

Doing so FASTER can not be proposed as a solution to that. We did it plenty fast.

 

That’s not true.

 

Are you kidding? Do I need to link this and embarrass you? Holy cow!

 

You know nothing about WWll ??

 

Irrelevant to what Obama inherited.

 

My characterization is absolutely accurate. There was no civil war in Iraq in 2011.

 

You can't propose that and still suggest Maliki was the man for the job.

Maliki was rabidly anti Sunni to the point of having no problem slaughtering civilians with his militias. We liked him, because he worked so well with us when we were also at war against the Sunni population.

Our pre-war analysis was that the Iraqi Shiite population was strongly in favor of Iran. That is where Maliki came from.

He was interested in a Shiite sectarian government with little to no Sunni participation/interference. Suggesting that was going to be a government with little Iranian influence is just plain preposterous.


Yes, our training and support operations and our infusion of dollars were an attempt to keep Maliki interested in the USA. But, those aren't lasting factors unless significant numbers of minds are changed. We tried to include Sunnis in their military, etc., but nothing we did was going to change their minds about Iran.

 

So Bush was stupid AND corrupt?

 

I sure do. Are you kidding with this stuff?

 

Irrelevant to Obama’s actions.

 

I am going with Bush was stupid and corrupt

 

It's reasonable to compare pre-conquest Iraq with Iraq as Obama inherited it.

THAT is the nature of what was accomplished during the Bush years.

 

Apparently you don’t. Why was the US in Korea ??

 

That is absolute BS.

The civil war started immediately with our deBaathification program and our enlistment of Maliki as our Iraqi side point man in eliminating Sunnis from all employment and moving them out of the cities Shiites wanted to be Shiite-only.

 

The USA fought in Korean War for South Korea because North Korea was a communist country and the USA didnt like communist countries, so they didn't want South Korea to be one of them. so, simply put, it was to prevent South Korea from becoming a communist country.

Stupidest reason ever to fight a war

 

Obama claimed that the safe, secure, and stable constitutional republic in Iraq was one of his greatest accomplishments. Then he gave it away. Why ??

 

We never should have been there in the first place. Why was Bush stupid and corrupt?

 

That’s ridiculous. Maliki purged the Sunnis after Obama pulled out.

 

Bush won establishing a constitutional republic in Iraq. Obama gave it away.

 

Obama didn't own Iraq.

Suggesting he "gave it away" is ridiculous.

 

Bush destroyed a country, killed hundreds of thousands of people and created Isis. What a disaster!