Posted on 05/19/2019 11:24:12 AM PDT by PghBaldy
If you are referencing the Kuwait invasion by Iraq, I think it was ultimately proven that this was a made up atrocity to get us to fight there. Gulf War 1 was still a necessary fight, I’m not so sure about the second one while we were busy in Afghanistan. My Special Forces son has fought both in GW1, and Afghanistan.
The North Vietnamese were “nothing” compared to us too - or so certain people thought.
Asymmetric warfare: The Iranian mullahs believe Trump does not have the internal political capital to fight & win a bloody war, even if 99% of the blood that flows is theirs. A look at many threads here on FR, as strong a Trump bastion as can be found, would tend to confirm that. And who here has their kind of religious “conviction” (to use a “kind” word to describe it)?
The other “why” is that the mullah’s internal situation as it is now is also becoming untenable. A US attack that disables most of their military might also unify the populace: Is it a risk & trade up worth making?
You gotta try to think like them, not like a Westerner.
The Iraqi invasion was not made up(!), tho’ most of the alleged at the time atrocities against Kuwaitis seem to have been.
That war was about oil, and Bush 1’s reluctance or inability to discuss the situation honestly with “the people”, so his admin brought up other “issues” instead, to buttress the argument.
Gulf War II was not quite so much about oil (although that was still a large factor), but again it was not discussed honestly in some very significant respects.
At some point soon they need to either:
--1) Tell the American people what all the fuss was about if there are other legitimate threats still out there, or
--2) Admit they over-reacted or used dodgy intelligence to bring us to the brink of war in the Middle East...once again.
Interesting choice of an adjective.
“After being there 16 years we’re still locked in our compounds unable to go out. This wasn’t handled well.”
Not true at all. There’s the Babylonian restaurant right across the street from the Embassy. Great roast chicken. They put the roasters out on the sidewalk during the day. Just can’t walk there.
As for rockets, well, in 2004 Camp Victory would get up to 30 a day. Blind squirrel fire control but they did get lucky once and a while. Making a news article about a single rocket (probably fired from Sadr city westard) doesn’t smell right. What week isn’t there a rocket fired from Sadr city to the west landing in the IZ? And it’s the “IZ” not the “Green Zone”. The “Green Zone” is Western journalists replaying the term for Beirut where the West eventually lost and had to withdraw. Realize the MSM is always aligned against Western civilization, always.
Why can’t they walk there?
You’re not allowed on/off the compound on foot. Have to be in a vehicle.
About 5 months before the March 2003 Iraq war, I asked my son who was there throughout GW 1 how many troops we should have if we did invade. He said about 450,000. Instead we went in with under 300,000, and Gen Shinsecki (sp?) was fired for insisting we needed that many. If Bush/Cheney were going to send us in, they had to do it underprepared or else wait until after the summer heat which would have put the war too close to the next election for comfort. After a year there Bremmer (sp?) said we should have had 1/2 million. Bush 2’s stated reason was, “He (Saddam) tried to kill my Daddy.” Cheney wanted to set up Halliburton to make big money. Remember the lousy food scandal. At the time I remember reading an article that Halliburton had cut their lobbying money by 2/3ds after he became vice president. Why spend advertising money when the VP is in your pocket? I think at the time Cheney had $23million in Halliburton stock.
The key background question is why is our Green Zone (super fortified Embassy) there in the first place. Read my Comment #49 for some background on this. Since my son has been in Special Forces all this time and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have keep close track of these issues. Looks to me that we have been put in this vulnerable position by the Military Industrial Complex as personified by former VP Cheney.
” Cheney wanted to set up Halliburton to make big money. Remember the lousy food scandal.”
The food concession would be a drop in the bucket for Halliburton. And American GIs have bitched about the food since George Washington was leading them.
That’s my point. Can’t leave the compound and go out for a a drink with friends after 16 years.
After 16 years in Germany we were raising a whole generation of German-American kids.
Civilization vs. 6th Century koranimals.
You are right, the food was only a small part of the $39 billion that Halliburton made as the go-to source for Iraq 2 work. See below for a lot of interesting details as well as how Cheney profited.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-did-Dick-Cheney-make-from-the-wars-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan
I didn’t all agree with Dubya invading Iraq, but that Halliburton theory that you are fascinated with is the usual Marxist claptrap that gets trotted out to “explain” every war that America has ever been in. Smedley Butler couldn’t have said it better.
Well, YOU can fly over and go out on the town if you want but just figure there’s a whole bunch of Ba’athists and opposing Shia militants who are still settling things. Whereas after WWII Germany was mostly depopulated of military-aged males. The Germans were burned out.
WWII Germany and present day Iraq have about the same population. We’d have needed to kill +5 million Iraqi males to bring Iraq to the level of demographic defeat Germany was in 1945.
Did you read the link I provided?
Yep. Every word. Same kind of garbage that was routinely cranked out about Vietnam.
I owe you a huge apology while me and you have certainly been at loggerheads over the years over war between the states, I finally concede to you about the Paleo’s.
They have zero problems with the Islamic fascist, the Neo-Soviet Russians, the Red Chinese, and their proxies going for Empire while enslaving the world while doing it but the very minute our country stands up too this Axis of Evil out comes the Paleo’s with the knives in blaming our country and the Jewish Nation of Israel.
I believe that with or without John Bolton, the Iranian Nazis would still want to destroy us as would Russia China, North Korea Al Qaeda, ISIS etc etc. We could pullout out of every country known imaginable and it still wouldn’t satisfy the lustful desires of these scum.
Rather than make goofy conspiracy theories about the military industrial complex how about we tie these scum too Democrat commies? Who are The real internal enemies of our country along with the Rockefeller Rinos.
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