Iraq: What to do?

[bono_212]

Buk... An alter?! Nooooooooooooooo

[deep]

Originally Posted by Diemen

You know, "Buk", I'm surprised you haven't mentioned your favorite resolution yet.

You must be pretty addicted to keep coming back to a place that keeps kicking you out.

was this necessary??

a little back and forth in here is not to be tolerated?


can we be allowed to discuss opinions and present arguments on their own merits ?

[corianderstem]

I'm going to stop saying "welcome" to new people, because it almost always turns out to be an alter who'd been banned before.

[JOFO]

So sad that the Iraq war accomplished nothing positive, only negative. So many lives lost, so much that will continue to haunt generations to come.

The argument that the U.S. got rid of Saddam Hussein, the evil dictator, is no longer viable. As atrocious as he was, he kept the country from slipping into the hands of terror groups, ala Afghanistan. And THAT, is exactly what the U.S. (and all western countries) should fear happening to Iraq, which is why the U.S. will never be able to wash it's hands at the situation, never be able to sleep easy that Iraq is a free "democracy", never be able to close the Pandora's Box that Bush/Cheney opened.

So sad for the Iraqi people, that they will never know a peaceful day in their lives.

What to do? I've no idea. I think Obama has acted as about as smartly as one could given the situation. Was he right to pull U.S. troops out in 2011? Yes.
Will U.S. troops eventually be sent in again (in terms of more than 50,000)? I would say yes, probably within the next 10 years, especially if there is a republican elected president.

A terrible world for our children to inherit.

But then, I guess it always has been.

Around and around we go. Where we stop, nobody knows.

[Irvine511]

At least it's not Gallipoli! Or Stalingrad! Or Hiroshima!


Sent from

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by Buk

I was just responding to all the anger posted and allegations that Cheney was worse than Bin Ladin and should be in prison.

I think the only real difference between Cheney and Bin Laden was geographical and logistic. Cheney certainly has a much higher body count. He would have fit in nicely in Stalin's little club.

In the first scenario, Saddam would have slaughtered the protestors. He murdered 300,000 Shia Arabs in the two months have the 1991 Gulf War when they violently revolted against the regime. He makes Assad in Syria look like a schoolgirl.

I think it likely would have played out similar to Libya - keep in mind Iraq has a lot of oil, whereas Syria has none. I think the no-fly zones would have probably been re-established and the Shia would have carved out their own autonomous area in the south of Iraq similar to the way the Kurds have, and Saddam would have been reduced to at most an area in the Sunni centre of the country. I doubt he would have been overthrown outright but I don't think he would have gotten away with wholesale slaughter during the Arab Spring.

In the second scenario, the Iraqi military would have effectively responded and put down the insurgent groups as they came into the open to try and take cities and towns. Backed up by US airpower and US special forces, ISIS would not have stood a chance, and likely would not have made it across the border in such numbers.

The Iraqi military wouldn't have been equipped to fight ISIS, supporting arms or no. They are notorious for desertion at the slightest sign of resistance, along with the Afghani army, although a lot of the "paycheck soldiers" are gone from the Afghan Army at this point from what I've heard. The only way that the advance would have been stopped would be with an effective US-led counter-offensive. As it stands I still think the only way this is going to happen, and I fully expect there to be 3 new nation states (Kurd/Shia/Sunni) once this is over, a situation I seriously doubt will last too long as the Iraqis won't want another Afghanistan on their western border, and I'm sure the Saudis won't appreciate a dedicated Shia state to the north either.

If you thought the Middle East was hell now, just wait till you see what's coming, folks.

Originally Posted by deep

was this necessary??

a little back and forth in here is not to be tolerated?


can we be allowed to discuss opinions and present arguments on their own merits ?

Indeed, Buk is entitled to share their opinion whether I think it's silly or not, and I don't think that he or she did so in a way that merited a wrist slap by the moderators. Unless there is something else going on that we don't know about.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by JOFO

The argument that the U.S. got rid of Saddam Hussein, the evil dictator, is no longer viable. As atrocious as he was, he kept the country from slipping into the hands of terror groups, ala Afghanistan. And THAT, is exactly what the U.S. (and all western countries) should fear happening to Iraq, which is why the U.S. will never be able to wash it's hands at the situation, never be able to sleep easy that Iraq is a free "democracy", never be able to close the Pandora's Box that Bush/Cheney opened.

So sad for the Iraqi people, that they will never know a peaceful day in their lives.

I've often wondered if an honest poll could be taken of all Iraqis, would they say they were better off under Saddam? Of course that opinion would be divided among religious/ethnic groups but I wonder if the majority would indeed say that they were better off.

The saddest thing is how the Iraqi people have been used as pawns in all of this. Nobody considered what they truly wanted ("greeted as liberators" was a complete assumption) before the war began, Maliki doesn't care about anything other than having a death grip on power, and ISIS certainly couldn't give less of a shit about what the people want. Such a waste of an entire generation.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

At least it's not Gallipoli! Or Stalingrad! Or Hiroshima!


Sent from

This is just like the first day of the Battle of the Somme, for realz.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by deep

was this necessary??

a little back and forth in here is not to be tolerated?


can we be allowed to discuss opinions and present arguments on their own merits ?

Not when the person has been banned from the forum and keeps trying to sneak back in, no.

[JOFO]

Also, anyone in the U.S., or any western countries for that matter, but especially the U.S., and especially those in the NYC area, will also never truly know any days of "peace" as long as there are such possible breeding grounds for jihadists like Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or other nations. Not if you truly understand that this jihad against Americans is not over.
If I were such an extremist, I know for sure I would have a bullseye on the "Freedom Tower", now called One World Trade Center.
I mean, what better way to get back at the U.S. than taking that down?
A shameful world we have created for our children to inherit. Fear, hatred, revenge, evilness. Shameful that people of all nations do not care about the world we hand over to our children; more concerned with revenge, avenging, and continued divide among all.
Disgusting.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by JOFO

If I were such an extremist, I know for sure I would have a bullseye on the "Freedom Tower", now called One World Trade Center.
I mean, what better way to get back at the U.S. than taking that down?

That's certainly much easier said than done. It seems a large chunk of the American public thinks that it's just a matter of getting some wackos to buy a few plane tickets and point it in the right direction. It takes a TON of money and planning and a huge network to pull off a job like 9/11 and not get caught, now that the intelligence agencies are focused so much more on terrorism I doubt that anything like "planes flying into buildings" will happen again soon.

On the other hand, the ports are unreasonably porous, and it doesn't take much to stick a dirty bomb in a shipping container. Enough uranium probably wouldn't be too hard to get from a shady Russian general if you offered enough cash. You wouldn't even have to get it off the boat and through customs, just set it off once the boat docks and with the right wind in the right place it could make 9/11 look like a church picnic.

[Vincent Vega]

On a related note, this year's theme for the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (tomorrow) is "Fighting Impunity".

That islamists could come back into Iraq is mostly Maliki's fault, who estranged especially the Sunni and Kurdish factions with his sectarian politics. In 2007 it were the residents of Anbar themselves, the Sunni Awakening Movement, who kicked al-Qaeda out and forced them to go into hiding. Those tribes are still opposed to the radicals, but are not willing to fight them with the lack of support they received from Maliki.

[DaveC]

On a side note, is it ISIS or ISIL? I remember first hearing about this group when they were fighting in Syria and they were called "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", now that's changed I guess?


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

[deep]

ISIL

Levant is way cooler than Syria

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by deep

ISIL

Levant is way cooler than Syria

I agree, I like ISIL better anyways, cause you better believe that if they got control of Iraq and Syria, Lebanon would be next. I can only imagine what the Israelis would do if something like ISIS/ISIL set up shop right on their border, although I guess Hezbollah is very similar.

[Vincent Vega]

It doesn't matter much. ISIL stands for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Levant is the Italian term for the region of the eastern Mediterranean, which originally comprised everything starting from eastern Greece.
ISIS in fact stands for Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, but is frequently being used as meaning ...and Syria (more precise would be a term like "Great-Syria"). al-Sham is Arabic and originally referred to the eastern parts of the Byzantine, which roughly is the area of today's Syria, and which were later conquered by the Muslims. But the exact borders are blurred and would have to be carved out, which currently also happens in a way. So in the end it doesn't really matter how you abbreviate it.
Iraqi and Kurdish people like to use the term Da'ash, which is the acronym of the Arabic name: al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. But there have been reports that leaflets were distributed threatening people to get killed should they say Da'ash, and that allegedly even happened.

[DaveC]

U.S. has armed drones over Baghdad, official says - CNN.com

[BoMac]

Who is Buk an alter for? I must know!


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[Diemen]

Originally Posted by BoMac

Who is Buk an alter for? I must know!

Get used to disappointment.

Though there's a whale of a hint in my reply to him.

[bono_212]

It bugs me that we used to be informed of these things and now we're not. Why did that change? Transparency was nice.