BREAKING: Iraq parliament votes to expel US military

Associated Press ^ | 01/05/2019

[Drew68]

BEIRUT (AP) — The latest on U.S.-Iran tensions (all times local):

4:45 p.m.

Iraq’s parliament has voted to expel the U.S. military from the country.

Lawmakers voted Sunday in favor of a resolution that calls for ending foreign military presence in the country. The resolution’s main aim is to get the U.S. to withdraw some 5,000 U.S. troops present in different parts of Iraq.

The vote comes two days after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani inside Iraq, dramatically increasing regional tensions.

The Iraqi resolution specifically calls for ending an agreement in which Washington sent troops to Iraq more than four years ago to help in the fight against the Islamic State group.

The resolution was backed by most Shiite members of parliament, who hold a majority of seats.

Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.

[Mat_Helm]

Time for the Untied States to recognize the new independent state of Iraqi Kurdistan (Erbil, Dahuk, Halabja and Sulaymaniyah). Move all U.S. armed forces to Erbil and the northern oil fields. This will defend the sunni Iraqi’s and totally piss off Iran and solidify our support of the Kurds in Syria. A new dawn in the Middle East and another Arab country supportive of U.S. interests.

[bkopto]

You sound kind of racist to me

Muslim/Islam isn't a race. And I'm glad that a dope like you isn't even a dog catcher.

[MayflowerMadam]

Our guys and gals are coming home? More winning!

It’ll make it easier to “bomb the sh!t” out of that place with minimal harm to Americans.

[GingisK]

I think we should pull our guys out and let those folks handle their own problems. Our boys are worth too much to expend on them.

[laplata]

Yes, “Scorched earth” is right.

[Zhang Fei]

[I think we should pull our guys out and let those folks handle their own problems. Our boys are worth too much to expend on them.]

---

I think our cities are worth enough to expend just about any number of GI’s. If the range of enemy action extended to the range of cannon shot (~12 miles), during the age of sail, I’d say stay out of it. But in an age of nukes and ICBM’s on which nukes can be mounted, it’s probably a good idea to keep these people on a short leash. Because 50m dead in American cities > a few dozen dead GI’s per year.

The point of having a military is to shield civilians from damage, not to cower behind borders or excuses. The time when cannon shot was the extent of enemy capabilities is long gone. Despite living hand to mouth and dealing with heavy economic sanctions, Iran has developed its missile capabilities such that they can hit targets thousands of miles away. It also has a nuclear program under way. The reason we need to prevent it from unifying the Muslim world into a single empire is because that would give the regime the financial resources to finally complete its missile and nuclear program. We don’t need a super-sized Persia with a nuclear triad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad

[halfright]

Hasta La Vista, Baby.....President Trump, You, Sir, are a magnificent Bastard. You don’t do warfare in Manhattan and be bothered by idiots. Well played Mr President

[metmom]

Well, they have the right.

Good luck with that guys. You can handle the muzzie overlords all by yourself.

And we can still operate without your bases, and I’ll bet we have Israel to help.

[metmom]

Trump is a genius. He wanted out and now he can pull out our military and all of our tax support.

And he can't be criticized for abandoning them, although he will certainly get the blame for the assassination of Soleimani, who only got what was coming to him.

[samtheman]

How long will it take to get everybody out and destroy the embassy?
—
Two shakes of a goat’s tail. (As long as you get the muslim away from the goat first.)

[metmom]

The problem is there are a lot of good, decent Iranians who identify as IRANIAN, and not muslim, who have been here for years.

I think that any MUSLIMS here on visa or green cards need to go for sure.

ESPECIALLY all who are non-citizens.

[Dave W]

Racist loony. I don’t mind thoughtful posts that I disagree with but a post that is so unrealistic that it will never happen, or is just a racist wish list, I have no need to humor. Racist.

[Taipei]

18% of US oil transits through the Straight of Hormuz. Pulling all assets out of the Middle East would see a colossal spike in US oil prices.

[Jim Noble]

”I’ll bet we have Israel to help.”

Long shot.

[GingisK]

We could just pound their missile facilities to a pulp from afar.

[Zhang Fei]

[We could just pound their missile facilities to a pulp from afar.]

---

With what intel? They don’t put up a big sign that says “missiles are located at this arrow” at each missile site. They’re not only dispersed, but dummies are created and emplaced. We definitely blasted a lot of dummy tanks and other heavy equipment in Serbia during the Bosnian crisis.

We make use of allied Arab intel as well as Special Forces operators in pinpointing enemy targets. How do you get either when the entire region is Iranian territory? How do you get landing rights to do repeated sorties, or do they all have to fly off aircraft carriers or Diego Garcia? And what about the missiles you miss? One miss = hundreds of thousands of American dead. All to prevent a few dozen GI’s from getting killed a year? Does the military exist to prevent harm to civilians, or are civilians just a milk cow for the military to have fun playing with new and interesting toys?

We could save the lives of a huge number of cops and firefighters if they were allowed to ignore incident reports, too. But that would kind of defeat the point of having salaried (vs unpaid volunteer) police and fire departments.

[Zhang Fei]

Off-topic, but an interesting take on the topic of war:

---

[For the classical age Greeks, in Homer’s Iliad, what is often missed is that for them the Trojans would have been the side of civilization, not the Greeks. They are the polis they’d recognize in their own time. Inside the city, the social ties of husbands and wives, parents and children, they fully function. There is mercy to the weak, understanding to the governed, a desire for normality to return, an understanding that war shouldn’t be the main purpose of human life. As Fagles commented, those were sentiments that had no place in the armed camp off shore.

But the Trojans had the defects of their virtues: they were not as at home in the ugly business of war as the Acheans. The main champion of the Trojans is a guy who might have been a great warrior, but was truly meant for peacetime: as a husband, as a father, as an heir to the throne. It was him saying goodbye to his wife and infant remains one of the classic scenes of Western literature, not him slaying somebody. But he was doomed to die in battle to the man who has no family, no ties, whose main purpose in life is simply to kill people, and has just let several of his comrades die over a petty quarrel over a slave girl: the man who was utterly, totally made for war, who finds his purpose in there.

This all made one of the biggest points (another one was the sheer futility of it all in the beginning of Book 12) of the Iliad much clearer: no matter how great your civilization is, it will be doomed to destruction if met by an outside force of superior might. Armed force can only be warded off by a superior armed force. So, if people over 2500 years ago clearly understood this, why do we not today? Why do we have people who do think that war can be anything other than the unambiguous, amoral-for better or worse-expression of the extremes in human nature? ]

[Drew68]

That’s in the Green Zone isn’t it?

Looking at Google maps, it appears that the Green Zone includes the sprawling U.S. Embassy complex as well as other U.S. governmental organizations and embassies of other Western nations.

I've never been there but I suspect the entire area is fenced in and fortified and makes up the "greater" U.S. embassy in Baghdad, a city within a city, with our consulate as the capital and coalition forces led by the United States providing the bulk of security operations.

After taking in the extent of our footprint here, I'm convinced now more than ever that we are in Iraq for the long haul. We are not going anywhere. Neoconservatism foreign policy is reality. Everything else is fantasy.

[wastedyears]

Because the Kurds and Sunni Muslim people who live in Iraq will be murdered by the Shiites which is what Iran wants.

The only good saracen is a dead one.