Guess How Many Troops Obama Just Authorized 2B Deployed to Iraq?? Sound Familiar, LOL?

[JakeStarkey]

TooTall go back and study the material, please. It was Maliki, but if you want to blame the Parliament fine. No amount of negotiation was able to relieve the situation. The blame clearly was that of the Iraqis. Obama can be blamed for much but not this. Yes, you are politicizing this at the expense of our troops's safety.

 

[TooTall]

Because it is temporary? And why folks don't trust you, TooTall, is that you are politicizing harms' way for our troops?

What is temporary? I didn't want US combat troops sent back to Iraq without an agreement from the Iraqi government exempting them from prosecution in the Iraqi 'make believe' courts. I didn't want them to STAY there without the same guarantee that we have in South Korea, Japan and most other countries where US troops are stationed.

 

[Antares]

TooTall go back and study the material, please. It was Maliki, but if you want to blame the Parliament fine. No amount of negotiation was able to relieve the situation. The blame clearly was that of the Iraqis. Obama can be blamed for much but not this. Yes, you are politicizing this at the expense of our troops's safety.

So you would have been ok with the last Sofa negotiated, the one Obama used to get us out of there?

 

[Siete]

combat troops are out, non combat troops are back ... big difference

So in your "learned" opinion we have Non-Combat Troops training Iraqi Combat Troops.

did I stutter?

then there's this

Iraq 8217 s Government Not Obama Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence TIME.com

That doesn't answer the question, are you maintaining that we are "training" Iraqi Combat Troops with "Non Combat" troops?

our troops are prepared to defend themselves at ANY cost... they aren't actively seeking combat, knocking on doors or on street patrol ...

non combat soldiers train troops for combat every day in this country last time I checked ... who better to train Iraqi soldiers IYO ... Mickey Mouse?

cya ... go argue with a door, but be at your best, prior.

 

[Antares]

combat troops are out, non combat troops are back ... big difference

So in your "learned" opinion we have Non-Combat Troops training Iraqi Combat Troops.

did I stutter?

then there's this

Iraq 8217 s Government Not Obama Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence TIME.com

That doesn't answer the question, are you maintaining that we are "training" Iraqi Combat Troops with "Non Combat" troops?

our troops are prepared to defend themselves at ANY cost... they aren't actively seeking combat, knocking on doors or on street patrol ...

non combat soldiers train troops for combat every day in this country last time I checked ... who better to train Iraqi soldiers IYO ... Mickey Mouse?

cya ... go argue with a door, but be at your best, prior.

(smile) All troops are Combat Troops, part of their Mission is "Force Protection".....

 

[Antares]

Let's not move the Goalposts.

Obama said "NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND"

 

[NotfooledbyW]

CF 10149563

Bush left it so his successor could negotiate...

No. To leave it open to future negotiations Bush needed to avoid locking in a fixed date for complete withdrawal as we all know Bush did.

Bush used the stature of his office to signal to the Iraqis that they would not need US troops within three years time. That made it next to impossible to convince the Iraqis that foreign troops were still needed after 2011 and specifically foreign troops that were not to be held subject to Iraqi law.

The point that Bush wanted to leave negotiations open for Obama is so absurd it is ridiculous that you people are willing to put it in writing.

 

[TooTall]

TooTall go back and study the material, please. It was Maliki, but if you want to blame the Parliament fine. No amount of negotiation was able to relieve the situation. The blame clearly was that of the Iraqis. Obama can be blamed for much but not this. Yes, you are politicizing this at the expense of our troops's safety.

I have and here is one article for you to read. The SOFA Bush negotiated was approved by the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi Government, not just Malki, would have had to approve an extension of the SOFA, and they refused to do so.

"In one of his final acts in office, President Bush in December of 2008 had signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi government that set the clock ticking on ending the war he’d launched in March of 2003. The SOFA provided a legal basis for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq after the United Nations Security Council mandate for the occupation mission expired at the end of 2008. But it required that all U.S. forces be gone from Iraq by January 1, 2012, unless the Iraqi government was willing to negotiate a new agreement that would extend their mandate. And as Middle East historian Juan Cole has noted, “Bush had to sign what the [Iraqi] parliament gave him or face the prospect that U.S. troops would have to leave by 31 December, 2008, something that would have been interpreted as a defeat… Bush and his generals clearly expected, however, that over time Washington would be able to wriggle out of the treaty and would find a way to keep a division or so in Iraq past that deadline.”

But ending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq was an overwhelmingly popular demand among Iraqis, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appears to have been unwilling to take the political risk of extending it. While he was inclined to see a small number of American soldiers stay behind to continue mentoring Iraqi forces, the likes of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on whose support Maliki’s ruling coalition depends, were having none of it. Even the Obama Administration’s plan to keep some 3,000 trainers behind failed because the Iraqis (read Iraq Parliament) were unwilling to grant them the legal immunity from local prosecution that is common to SOF agreements in most countries where U.S. forces are based.

 

[JakeStarkey]

This was Bush's fault from invasion to final negotiations, and that is how the history books will write it, while noting the continuing far right antiAmericanism in avoiding neo-con responsibility for failure.

Posting neo-con apologist's articles only digs the hole deeper for the neo-cons, TooTall.

 

[Antares]

This was Bush's fault from invasion to final negotiations, and that is how the history books will write it, while noting the continuing far right antiAmericanism in avoiding neo-con responsibility for failure.

That's ok, Bammy will go down as the worst President in modern history.

Jake honest question?

If Bammy had renewed the Bush Sofa would that have been ok?

 

[TooTall]

This was Bush's fault from invasion to final negotiations, and that is how the history books will write it, while noting the continuing far right antiAmericanism in avoiding neo-con responsibility for failure.

Posting neo-con apologist's articles only digs the hole deeper for the neo-cons, TooTall.

Bush crossed the T's and dotted the I's with the US Congress and UN approval. History will blame Obama for making it about politics.

 

[Steinlight]

We should have never gone into Iraq in the first place and created a power vacuum. There were more efficient ways to deal with Saddam threatening to start trading oil in Euros. One thing Bush Cheney and their group of jewish neo-cons didn't understand was asymmetric warfare, they believed in this nonsense of nation building and Democracy, a foolish liberal notion. They could have assassinated Saddam and put in a compliant member of the Iraqi military and Baathist party to maintain the balance of power in the region against Iran while maintaining a secular dictatorship that stands strong against radical sunni elements like ISIS from arising. They could have used OPEC to pressure Saddam or increased already existing sanctions, the war in Iraq was a mistake that is costing us till this day, as is our continued nation building mission in Afghanistan. Reagan was 100% right in propping up Saddam and that policy should have never changed. At the very least Bush I's policy of containment of Saddam was more ideal than our current situation. Bush I and Powell were smart enough to recognize the folly of nation building there.

However, this chaos in Iraq and Syria is entirely on Obama and the other Western powers, Obama made a bad situation worse. Obama campaigned on an unconditional withdrawal from Iraq, so complaining about a lack of a status of forces agreement is dishonest, because Obama never pursued a policy of keeping a contingent force in Iraq. This reckless withdrawal combined with supporting Islamist rebels in Syria(once again, in the name of "Democracy" and "Westernization") led to the power vacuum which ISIS is now. Ideally we should have been supporting Assad and Saddam as secular strongmen in the region. However, if we are so intent on Democracy, we need to recognize that a friendly middle eastern democracy isn't sustainable without a US presence in the region for the foreseeable future. The propping up of islamic radicals in Syria and our withdrawal from Iraq has undermine our geopolitical position and energy/economic security. At this point, our only solution is to bring troops back into Iraq and maintain a permanent base there like we do in Germany or Japan, and in my view withdraw support from the rebels in Syria, coming to some agreement with Assad who was receptive in the past to western cooperation before Obama bungled our foreign policy there. As of now, Assad is firmly in the court of Russia and Iraq is increasingly so, part of oil rich Iraq is at risk of falling into the Iranian sphere, and we have ISIS running rampant over the region due to Obama's failed foreign policy.

 

[TooTall]

We should have never gone into Iraq in the first place and created a power vacuum. There were more efficient ways to deal with Saddam threatening to start trading oil in Euros. One thing Bush Cheney and their group of jewish neo-cons didn't understand was asymmetric warfare, they believed in this nonsense of nation building and Democracy, a foolish liberal notion. They could have assassinated Saddam and put in a compliant member of the Iraqi military and Baathist party to maintain the balance of power in the region against Iran while maintaining a secular dictatorship that stands strong against radical sunni elements like ISIS from arising. They could have used OPEC to pressure Saddam or increased already existing sanctions, the war in Iraq was a mistake that is costing us till this day, as is our continued nation building mission in Afghanistan. Reagan was 100% right in propping up Saddam and that policy should have never changed. At the very least Bush I's policy of containment of Saddam was more ideal than our current situation. Bush I and Powell were smart enough to recognize the folly of nation building there.

This comes under the heading of coulda, woulda, shoulda, or batting 100% with hindsight. I must admit that everything you wrote was well thought out, made a lot of sense and I thank you. I just question if it would have been effective at the time.

 

[Steinlight]

We should have never gone into Iraq in the first place and created a power vacuum. There were more efficient ways to deal with Saddam threatening to start trading oil in Euros. One thing Bush Cheney and their group of jewish neo-cons didn't understand was asymmetric warfare, they believed in this nonsense of nation building and Democracy, a foolish liberal notion. They could have assassinated Saddam and put in a compliant member of the Iraqi military and Baathist party to maintain the balance of power in the region against Iran while maintaining a secular dictatorship that stands strong against radical sunni elements like ISIS from arising. They could have used OPEC to pressure Saddam or increased already existing sanctions, the war in Iraq was a mistake that is costing us till this day, as is our continued nation building mission in Afghanistan. Reagan was 100% right in propping up Saddam and that policy should have never changed. At the very least Bush I's policy of containment of Saddam was more ideal than our current situation. Bush I and Powell were smart enough to recognize the folly of nation building there.

This comes under the heading of coulda, woulda, shoulda, or batting 100% with hindsight. I must admit that everything you wrote was well thought out, made a lot of sense and I thank you. I just question if it would have been effective at the time.

You are right, that paragraph is talking in hypothetical terms and is analysis in hindsight.

That is why I said, despite disagreeing with intervention in the first place, simply doing nothing in Iraq at this point, not putting troops there on a permanent basis, and continuing to support these Islamist elements in Syria is reckless and irresponsible policy. It is putting emotion and ideology above practical geopolitical and security implications.

 

[Antares]

Jake what a pussy you are.

 

[EconChick]

The surge worked so that is why we are back in Iraq?

These troops are to train and advise Iraqi units for combat, not to seek and engage the enemy.

Geeeeezze you idiot, we're back because of your hero. It was relatively stable when I left.

As for troops in combat, were you ever in Anbar? I was. There used to be nothing safe about Anbar until the Marines cleaned it up under Bush. Now it's back to being a disaster.

Troops going to Anbar now are in for a bad time, idiot.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You were in Kuwait, you said, right?

Or is that the other EconChick?

 

[Antares]

You were in Kuwait, you said, right?

Or is that the other EconChick?

You would have been ok with the same sofa Bush negotiated, right?

 

[EconChick]

The surge worked so that is why we are back in Iraq?

These troops are to train and advise Iraqi units for combat, not to seek and engage the enemy.

These US COMBAT troops are to train and advise Iraqi units for combat. While conducting the training these US COMBAT troops will be armed and dangerous. There, I corrected that for you. Only combat troops are qualified to train and advise the Iraqi troops in combat tactics.

This idiot's never been on the front lines. And just about every where's the front lines in Iraq.

 

[EconChick]

You were in Kuwait, you said, right?

Or is that the other EconChick?

I've been in more than half of all countries in the Mid East. What's your point???