Should U.S. Help Iraq Thwart ISIL?

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Let me give you some facts that have long been discounted but are no less true for the alleged "disproof" of them as reported by the media, who mostly picked up the cause of the bloggers who wrote vehemently and irrationally against the invasion from the beginning:

• We were attacked on 9/11.
• Terrorists affiliated with those who attacked us were based in Afghanistan, and training in Iraq.
• Saddam had used chemical weapons on his own people.
• Saddam had definitely attempted to acquire fissionable material, in Nigeria, from Russia and from other sources.
• Saddam had WMDs, and was attempting to develop bigger, badder WMDs.

The Taliban and Saddam both had to go. President Bush made certain they did, and had a plan in place to assure that those two countries would prosper as democracies, and was well on the way to fulfilling the commitments we made to both nations to that effect. Yes, thus far the two wars have cost $1.7 trillion, and that's a lot of money, yet to call it waste up through the 2008 elections would be only partially true.

Then along comes Obama -- and undoes everything with a single stroke of a pen, using the flimsy excuse that al-Maliki would not sign a "hold harmless" agreement that would have allowed our troops to stay. That was a bold-faced lie. Al-Maliki would have signed the agreement after the parliamentary elections, which were just six weeks after the announcement from the White House that we were withdrawing all troops at the end of 2012.

The disaster you see unfolding in Iraq is the direct result of everything Obama has done to sabotage what we accomplished in Iraq during the Bush administration.

His actions to end wars for the sole purpose of fulfilling a campaign promise has dishonored the soldiers and pilots who sacrificed their lives, the permanently disabled veterans who fought there, and every man and woman who has served honorably in either conflict.

The blame for what is to come, the now total waste of everything we spent in lives, munitions and money is solely his.

 

[pinoybaptist]

I guess I'm liberal #3 then.

4 here or whatever...

 

[righteousdude2]

YOu know what they say ...

I never thought I would see my brother RD2 post as a liberal.

Well, that is what I was called yesterday when I posted this same basic idea in a thread.

I agree with virtually every word of this post.

So I guess we are both liberals now.

..... About strange bedfellows?

Actually, I am against any assistance because it is evident that we'd be only putting a small spot bandage on a larger problem. Unless we are willing to declare an al out war on ALL of Radical Islam, and not worry about the costs, then we should stop being first aid assistants!

 

[righteousdude2]

Exactly ....

We rebuilt their country, trained and armed their military, showed them how to have free elections, and are sharing intelligence with them. At some point they have got to be on their own. I say we don't help them anymore.

That said, we should have stayed longer. Look at all the post-war societies where the US maintained a long presence, Germany and Japan for instance. Kuwait. Fully functional independent democracies. We stayed there to see it through. Not so much in Iraq.

That is what I said .... unless we are in it for the long haul, don't entertain any intervention thoughts. Once we got Iraq on the road to democracy, we pulled the magic carpet out from under them, and they were not ready to be on their own.

If we go back in, in any way of form, they will be right back at this spot the next time a terror group gets enough power to attack them, and scare off their military.

Kind of reminds me of the US push to Bagdad, all the Republican Guards and regular army, threw down their guns and gave up!

They needed at least ten to twenty years of training in combat to become confident, and Obama pulled us out!

Our new motto needs to be, "Not one more war!" Simply, because the government and the people of this nation do not have the stamina or fortitude to go all the way.

We should focus our full military strength and effort on the southern borders. That is our major threat to independence and financial solvency.

 

[pinoybaptist]

I became "liberal" on this for the following reasons:

a. if we are going into war, if we are going to send in our men and women, we should STAY FOR THE LONG HAUL. Not pull out because these damned politicians thinks it is politically expedient for brave men and women to forget they saw their friends and brothers die, they lost limbs, and that coming home was not coming home because home doesn't care for them, and their families suffer because of the fact that as somebody said, "they're here, but they left their souls over there".

b. these Iraqis don't know freedom if it were staring them in the face or crawling up their butts. If they valued freedom, and the democracy we 'taught' them, they would've fought to the death like Americans did in Fallujah and elsewhere in their country. No, they tuck their tails and run. COWARDS !!!

c. this current development is not about somebody wanting to grab somebody's country. It's about one faction of Islam wanting to get revenge on the other. and since, as TNID states, we don't really care about their oil anyway, why the dickens are we going to be involved, boots-on-the-ground-wise and drone-wise ?