Posted on 06/13/2014 12:45:01 PM PDT by robowombat
Obama’s Iraq Mosul has fallen, and al Qaeda is on the march towards Baghdad Author: Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies June 13, 2014
Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, has long been hard for the central government to control because of its combustible mix of Arabs and Kurds. The first time I visited Mosul was in August 2003 when a tenuous calm was maintained by the 101st Airborne Division. Its commander, a then-obscure two-star general named David Petraeus, had on his own initiative opened the Syrian border to trade, struck deals with Syria and Turkey to provide badly needed electricity, restored telephone service, and held elections to elect local leaders. Along the way he also managed to kill Saddam Hussein's poisonous offspring Uday and Qusay.
This kept militants at bay, but they returned with a vengeance after the 101st pulled out in 2004, to be replaced by a smaller American unit whose officers were less attuned to the demands of civic action. Mosul became a hotbed of Saddamist and Islamist militants, as I saw for myself in February 2008 when, during another visit, the U.S. Army convoy in which I was riding was hit by a "complex ambush": The Humvee in front of mine hit a bomb concealed in a big puddle, and insurgents opened machine gun fire from the left. Luckily no one in our unit was hurt, but a bystander had his arm sliced off by a flying piece of the Humvee's engine.
Mosul was the last major city to be pacified by the successful "surge." It took until at least 2010 before it was secure. But now that achievement has been undone. Black-clad fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as Al Qaeda in Iraq has rebranded itself, stormed into Mosul last week and seized control. Dispirited Iraqi soldiers ran away rather than fight. Many were so eager to escape that their discarded uniforms littered the streets. ISIS freed more than 2,000 of its fighters from prisons and seized copious stocks of money, ammunition, and weapons—many of the latter provided by the United States to Iraqi forces.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/obama-s-iraq_794950.html
Certainly, the track record of Islamist militants suggests that whenever they control a piece of terrain—whether Afghanistan before 2001 or Mali in 2013—they immediately set up training camps for foreign jihadists, some of whom then filter back to their home countries to commit atrocities.
Is Congress as impotent as they appear? Do we really let our entire foreign policy rest solely with one man?
Here’s MY plan from before 2009 and PROBABLY the one the few remaining sane American citizens – assuming there ARE ANY – should have implemented decades ago!
NOT ONE MORE DIME AND NOT ONE MORE DROP OF AMERICAN BLOOD!!
NOTICE TO ALL CITIZENS OF IRAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkyEtw8lBtI
Behold Obama’s Vietnam/Saigon.
What we seem to have is a political class that is destitute of the basic requirement for the leadership of a global power, a realistic understanding of the dynamics of power and a total lack of seriousness about even there direct class interests. The frivolity, shallowness, fatuousness and weakness of the leadership class is really frightening. The Islmacist eruption and the foolishness of the Arab Spring, the simultaneous reemergence of Russia as an adversarial power and China as as emerging full fledged peer competitor, the growing immigration stampede crisis on the southern border all are happening at once. The leadership of our country is on the one hand sleepily complaisant about foreign challenges and at the same time engaged in being willing to risk the basic security of the nation's frontiers to try and score some petty partisan advantage. This sort of disconnected complaisantly arrogant and self indulgent behavior betokens a real existential crisis for this country.
All well and good. However, there are thousands of US citizens either employed by the US Government or employed by government contractors or US supported NGO’s that are in Iraq. If the momentum of the implosion of the Malaki regime keeps accelerating the US is faced with either allowing other than a few diplomats thousands of Americans to risk mass murder and worse than just death OR launch a large extraction operation that would be as big as a regular high intensity ‘dynamic entry’ operation.
I thought Barry told us all we had to do was be “nice” and the rest of the world would love and respect us ... were they not listening?
Simple solution: PULL THEM OUT — NOW!!!
Send in as much drone and manned air cover to “sanitize” the area around the rescue sites to get them out safely.
When America perceives him to be a black Marxist Muslim gay illegal alien, yes. Problem is, he's really an agent of the Middle East. Surprise!!
Yes but even at that the US assets in the Gulf would have to be beefed up quickly and significantly and a clear statement from the POTUS to the effect that for ‘the time being’ we are reducing our physical footprint. Even given that very unlikely set of circumstances this would be a no=sh-t big deal. I have been on the log side of smaller such NEO operations and they require a lot of equipment men and willingness to drop everything and do what ever has to be done. I don't see the military or political leadership stepping up to that sort of very high visibility challenge as well as the Mahdi and his cronies having to swallow the humiliation of conducting a mass evacuation after he made a big deal before the last election of declaring victory in Iraq. Instead I really do fear a general collapse with the US doing a stumbling screwed up evacuation when the hour of decision has already gone by. If you have people in Iraq pray for them. Prayer looks to be more efficacious than this hollow fraud and his regime of empty suits and morally compromised slime.
After Obama’s speech, I feel confident that he has a good grasp......on his driver.
What kind of an asshole goes golfing at this time?
If there are any adults left in the Democrat Party, will you please go and yank this clueless twit off the golf course and send him back to the Situation Room so it at least LOOKS like he cares about his job. Thank you.
Based on the story, he's fundraising for Dems in Cali. So he'll be on the links with wealthy regime supporters tapping the cash.
Bring back the Draft, institute a War Tax, and let’s get it done. Anybody who doesn’t want those two things doesn’t really want the U.S. to go back.
Bring back the Draft, institute a War Tax, and let’s get it done. Anybody who doesn’t want those two things doesn’t really want the U.S. to go back.
This USAF vet from the Vietnam era would go for that ONLY IF EVERYONE able to serve is in the pool. No klintoon style dodging. No exemptions for kids of Wall Street bankers and corporate CEOs. EVERYBODY has the same shot at being shot at!!
Amen. A lot of the Hawks will suddenly change their
tune.
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