Posted on 03/24/2017 10:12:49 AM PDT by Lorianne
As the fight against the Islamic State group has progressed, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that he believed it was in the country’s best interest to keep American forces in Iraq for well after the defeat of ISIS, Military Times reported.
Mattis, joined by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman and Gen. Joseph Dunford, was outlining his request for an additional $30 billion in funding for the military in the 2017 fiscal year budget. Mattis, a former Marine, detailed a three-phase, three-year plan to prepare and refurbish the military with new equipment and more training.
“Phase one is this year’s defense appropriation, including the $30 billion request for additional appropriations for FY 2017 to get our aircraft back in the air, our ships back to sea, and our troops back in the field with refurbished or new equipment and proper training. This is a necessary investment to ensure our military is ready to fight today,” Mattis said in a prepared statement.
Recently, Iraqi forces had pushed ISIS back in its last remaining stronghold, Mosul, with U.S. troops not at the forefront but aiding in training and strategy. Still, the U.S. had kept a significant force in Iraq with roughly 6,000 ground troops around Iraq and Syria and 2,500 more stationed to the south in Kuwait if needed, according to Military Times.
Basically, yes.
The article calls Gen Mattis a former Marine. There is no such thing as a former Marine. Bullshiite!! Once a Marine, always a Marine. What has been earned can never be taken away.
We invade, we conquer, we drawdown, we divide the country, we surge, we leave, we return quietly, we consider leaving, we consider staying
Yes, I trust our government and its brain trust to know the right thing to do.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Does anyone else have issues when posting from their phone?
My posts seem to get scrambled every damn time I post from my phone.
Where was this hand wringing for troops stationed in nice destinations like Germany, Japan and Korea? We’re not talking a huge force here, perhaps 10,000 or so. Or would you rather have a constant flow of refugees with some jihadis mixed in flowing out of there? This place has been a problem since the end of the Ottoman Empire if you want to get right down to it. The Sykes Picot agreement wasn’t the solution and nothing else tried since has been either. Babysitters seems to be the best solution. Think of the U.S. military forces as the responsible 15 year old you have come over to babysit your kids so you can have a date night with your wife on Friday night.
The area of Muslim countries is vast. We can’t possibly babysit them all. And if we quell disturbance in one area it just pops up somewhere else.
On top of that, our occupation creates terrorism threats against us there and at home.
A better plan would be containment. They stay there and we stay here.
Why?
If they want to kill each other why should we intervene?
Oh, I wholly agree with you. And I bitterly resent the abuse of our military being put into these positions for year after year. I’ve lost confidence that -any- virtuous senior officer could have climbed the ranks during the past four globalist pimping administrations.
Why do we care whether Sunnis or Shias have the upper hand in any particular city or region?
Really, why? They have been fighting over territory there for over 1000 years, back and forth, back and forth.
Why are we aligning with either Sunnis or Shias? This is a centuries long Islamic religious civil war.
“By having troops stationed in Iraq, Kuwait, Qattar and Bahrain, we show the region’s bosses we aren’t going anywhere and we are committed to stabilization. We keep the Iranian Shiite influence out of Iraq by forcing them to cast their lot with us.”
You are aware that the Iraqi government is dominated by the Shiites?
Correct. And if the Shia manages to get the upper hand — and over-plays it (victors always overplay) — the US will then swing it’s support to the losing side. And we keep bitching about always being on the losing side!
I agree with Mattis. The fact is that where we have maintained troops, there has been peace. Europe knew no peace throughout history until after WWII. The US made the peace by winning the war and maintained the peace for the many years since. In Japan US troops maintained peace in a warlike nation ever since the war, and still - ditto Korea.
It works.
The American GI is the greatest peace maker and peace keeper the world has ever know. So if peace is to be had - call for the American GI.
Why is it our business to maintain peace between Muslims?
They hate us and don’t want us occupying their territory and it makes them turn their violence towards us instead of, historically, each other.
Also we don’t have the population to occupy the whole world to keep peace. Why don’t we send troops to Timor or Tibet or other places where their is conflict?
It is a matter of where they are to be contained. Bush correctly said he would choose to make the battlefield in the Mideast, otherwise they would make the battlefield in the streets of the USA - as the enemy is now trying to do in Europe. Islam is out to conquer the world and we are the prime target. Keeping the battle “over there” is protecting the people “over here.” American LE at all levels has done a fantastic job so far but they are stretched thin and get little support from the politicians or populace. They have done much more in keeping the enemy in check that you and I know. But the threat is growing. If we can keep the enemy in their own homeland we can get the advance party over here under control. That’s my opinion.
We are not the primary target.
Muslims have been fighting Muslims for over 1,000 years, Shia vs Sunni plus many other sub-sects and tribes fighting each other.
We are getting in the middle of their religious civil wars.
I’m surprised at some of the comments. Whether we like it or not, Obama pulling all our troops out led to the rise of Isis. Muslims killing each other and us too. Hey, if the European allies sent a few brigades to the aRhineland instead of listening to Neville Chamberlains pewce in our time philosphy maybe yrs of war would have been avoided.
Maybe now it’s cool for conservatives to blame Bush, maybe the dems and Pat Buchanan were right about not invading Iraq. Like Colin Powell said, you break it, you fix it
We stayed in Europe for 50 yrs protecting those ungrateful whimps from the Soviets and each other.
If Iraq can stabilize and our troops arent under constant attack isn’t it worth keeping them there?
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