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I was flabbergasted to read this morning that we are “
hahahahahahaha
I don’t care what they call themselves. I always loved how Bush 41 always put the emphasis on the first syllable of SADam instead of trying to pronounce it like he had gone native. Besides, if the state dept spokes babe says ISIL you can bet it’s wrong.
The hard part in her case is trying to figure out if it’s a real State Department thing or if it’s some clip from SNL.
For whatever reason every time I hear an administration schmuck say ISIL it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. No doubt you are correct but when they say it I am convinced it is a little demonstration of how freaking clever they think they are.
It’s ISIL in the Intelligence Community and I am in the IC.
Ugh, my opinions are constantly foiled by people with facts!
Don’t they actually call themselves just IS now?
I am assuming that Kuwait and Iraq, and maybe Saudi Arabia, would be fully cooperative in the logistics of putting troops in place. Including tanks and artillery. And use of Iraqi airfields.
Unfortunately, our so-called “ally,” Turkey, would not be cooperative.
And when I say a week, I mean a week of combat. I’m not counting the time to move into place.
This is not a new strategy. it is an old strategy. It is the one that Americans fought and died to achieve, and which was sabotaged and abandoned by Obama.
For nakedly partisan spite, he trashed Iraq, Americans who fought in Iraq, people who supported fighting in Iraq, military and policy folks who advised fighting in Iraq, George Bush for deciding to fight in Iraq, and America herself as an international bully for fighting in Iraq.
Now look who wants to fight in Iraq.
—
The question to any thinking person is why on Earth should we fight in Iraq? Iraq already got the best shot at this that any “country” will ever get. Do you think that America will find more resolve next time? Do you think that any successes there will not simply be amputated by the next America-hating communist elected to the US Presidency? Once you die for something, you stay dead, but the next administration throws it away anyway.
I am telling you that something fundamental has changed. Iraq is not where the next war worth fighting will be.
This is awesome.
Only scanned the first 20 comments so I may have missed it, but what precisely should the Republican candidates be screaming? That they’ll ramp back up and get us into Iraq 3? So when a democrat wins on an anti-war platform in 2020 we can throw away all the gains bought with blood and treasure again?
Obama had one job to do, tell Maliki what the status of forces agreement was going to be. He decided he’d rather have “I got us out of Iraq” as an electoral talking point. And the majority of American voters bought it.
What ally is going to believe we’re serious “this time?”
Who wants their son or daughter sent to Iraq (or Afghanistan, or any other of the Dreckistani countries in Southwest Asia) under the current commander in chief? I don’t want my son or son-in-law sent (both Army). I’m deeply apprehensive for the ones there now or being sent.
With Lyndon Baines Obama picking targets from the Oval Office (or from the links between holes more like) air sorties aren’t getting the job done. Drone strikes, while satisfying, aren’t doing it either.
The American people are simply unwilling to face the bloody arithmetic until there’s a catastrophe. By then it may well be too late, but it’s a less worse option than half-a$$ing it like we’ve done several times before, then having the catastrophe anyway after we’ve spent ourselves even further down in feckless and futile games for political advantage.
[Add-on comment, several hours after initial comment: ]
A thought that’s been rattling around my mind for a couple of months is that we may be beginning to see a mutiny forming among the people this country has traditionally relied upon to do its fighting and dying. Not an armed insurrection, just like the French Mutiny during WWI “Hell no, ask someone else.” Like when Yossarian was confronted in Catch 22 with “What if everyone felt that way?” they’re saying “then we’d be stupid to feel any differently.”
Nick Stuart #YGDR
“Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later, on even more adverse terms than at present.”
— Winston Churchill, 1938
Well, see, what we’re going to have to do is start winning elections, and building a majority, and not scaring the moderates, just accept the fact that we lost some elections, see, and now all the excitable conservatives, the bomb-cons, just need to be thrown out of the party see, because they don’t know how to behave, and they call the President names, and they just don’t know how things are done in Washington, and they’re never going to get change done that way.
The GOP demonized anybody who criticized Obama’s *clearly* anti-American bent. Now there’s nobody left to fight the obvious fight.
This SOB hates America and is doing something about it.
This will be everyone’s problem if the civilized world does not come together very soon and figure out how to battle on all fronts this scourge called ISIS. I am surrounded by 3 major military bases – I was in Barnes & Noble in Destin one day and looked up to see 3 soldiers browsing the magazine rack – I looked for a moment and tears welled up – I wanted to walk up and thank them for their service, but got choked up – besides they were laughing about the latest silliness of American magazine headlines and I didn’t want to intrude. What made me tear up was their apple-cheeked, fresh-scrubbed so so young appearance – like right out of high school! Someone’s brother, son, nephew, daughter, grandchild. Yet they are willing to go to the front lines for our and other nations’ freedom.
Every time we are behind the eight ball, with no strategy or plan, and all hell breaks loose, like what we are seeing in the Middle East, after all we sacrificed before ISIS, the chances of them coming back to their families alive or in one piece, and having a future goes way down, and that breaks my heart.
Yeah. Claire wins Ricochet today.
BDB, I agree with just about everything you’ve written on this except for one point: I don’t think we’re going to get much say in where the next war worth fighting will be fought. Our current Administration has ceded the initiative and it will be hell getting it back. That usually means riding to the sound of the guns rather than picking our ground.
BDB,
I don’t disagree with Claire but I would put it a little different. After all Elagabalus was just a naive boy. The White House contains someone who’s arrogant stupidity is far more dangerous. He is not naive he is perverse.
I think Nero would be a better analogy.
Regards,
Jim
I blame it on the influence of Ronulans in the GOP. Why anyone pays any attention to those nuts is beyond me.
Cool! Ricochetti may not know how to misspell President Obama’s name, but that doesn’t mean they are incapable of calling each other names!
Ron Paul was the dog’s ass of the Tea Party, and the GOP showed it to friends over dinner to marvel at the ugly dog.
As to
#1 Even worse, expect those being “trained” to simply turn their weapons on the trainers ala “green vs blue” violence in Afghanistan. Rather being hostages those 400 will be at major risk of being casualties.
#2 In order to maximize close air support you need FAC’s (forward air controllers) US personnel on the ground to coordinate those strikes. Otherwise you really have problems with targeting. In addition sand and clouds don’t interfere with our GPS bombs, but DO interfere with our laser guided weaponry. Air power alone is vital but not sufficient.
#3 Don’t forget ISIS is already busy in Yemen and inside Saudi Arabia, with several mosque suicide bombings and a shooting on it’s credits. Stay tuned.
#4 Not at all surprised at the lunacy, when this
Was the sum total of our “response” to the Boko Haram kidnapping .
This is a good point. The last time we abandoned Iraq, we had not yet also abandoned Afghanistan. The next time we abandon Iraq will be in the context of a proven method of getting rid of the Americans.
Just a quick comment on this. First, my best regards, my thanks, and my respect to your son and son-and-law. Second, this is always a powerful argument to which few can reply: Who the hell can say to a parent’s face, “I’d like you to sacrifice your child for a long shot gamble at controlling East Krapdreckistan?”
My only answer to this is the following: I don’t have a hope, clearly, of taking on ISIS singlehandedly and nearly unarmed. I’m not a professional soldier. I’m 47 years old and female, which obviously makes the odds of my contributing usefully in combat rather slim — although I’m in excellent health and good physical condition, so it’s possible that in the right role I wouldn’t be a burden.
If I believed we were in any way serious about destroying this menace — and if given any chance — I would volunteer to serve. Immediately. In any capacity.
I don’t have children to send to war. I understand the difference. But I would send myself. And without a moment’s hesitation. And I would regret that I had but one life to offer.
There are many conflicts on this planet that inspire in me no such sentiment. This one is very different. They are a different level of evil. And I know in my heart that if we don’t stop them now, we will pay — in this life and the next.
Yes. They may be worth more as hostages, but that’s the only thing that would keep them alive.
Agreed completely.
Indeed.
There is much to like in this comment. Where we differ is that I assess we have already ceded that initiative, and will now fight it on our shores *no matter what*. It’s a matter of time and preparation. No longer do we face a choice between fighting over there now or over here later. The last 14 years matter. We are now in worse shape than we were on September 10, 2001.
There was something we were fighting for in Iraq, and it wasn’t Iraq. It was our choices now, and going forward, and those are pretty much hemmed up. “Fighting” in Iraq now is just going through the motions for the benefit of the press. So long as they have a fig leaf, they will weave the Emperor’s new clothes.
We must face up to the fact that we are colonized by an enemy, and things will not get better until the progressive destroyers are cleaned out. No amount of fighting over there will fix the problem over here, and until that happens, no amount of fighting over there will fix the problems over there either. So the next fight is at home.