Iraq is imploding. Should we lend air support or wash our hands?

[Samson]

We lack a leader. We have no one to direct any intervention. There is no choice but to let them fight it out unless someone else, some other country, steps up.

Indeed;

The fact that the Obama administration has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point it is at now is indictment enough: Obama is in fact an empty suit, with no leadership qualifications and elected with no more credentials than his race and media presence.

 

[JakeStarkey]

So my being against Iraq under W and under Obama makes me a hypocrite how exactly, little boy?

Because I knew you are yelling at BHO politically far more than at Bush at the time.

Yup, you are what you call yourself.

I see, you pulled it out of your ass, I just wanted to hear you admit that. Thanks.

It's the truth. You criticize BHO far more than Bush on this issue. The truth is difficult for you to live with, but as long as the good guys are here, you will.

 

[kaz]

Because I knew you are yelling at BHO politically far more than at Bush at the time.

Yup, you are what you call yourself.

I see, you pulled it out of your ass, I just wanted to hear you admit that. Thanks.

It's the truth. You criticize BHO far more than Bush on this issue. The truth is difficult for you to live with, but as long as the good guys are here, you will.

Um...Jakey, who is President? W has not been President for 5 1/2 years now. That you are still as obsessed with criticizing him as the guy who is currently President and has been for quite some time demonstrates there's something with you, not me.

 

[tinydancer]

Ok to the "let the muslims fight it out crew". This isn't two warring religious factions.

This is a situation whereby normal every day Joe and Jill Mohammed six packs are under attack by a psycho crazy homicidal terrorist army.

These poor Iraqis don't stand a chance against ISIS. Geeze louise guys get a grip.

Only one choice. Intervene now and keep ISIS from plundering Baghadad/Iraq and grabbing not only
her wealth and her oil fields but all the weapons we've given them.

If we allow ISIS and Levant to march forward we will doom ourselves people.

 

[The T]

Ok to the "let the muslims fight it out crew". This isn't two warring religious factions.

This is a situation whereby normal every day Joe and Jill Mohammed six packs are under attack by a psycho crazy homicidal terrorist army.

These poor Iraqis don't stand a chance against ISIS. Geeze louise guys get a grip.

Only one choice. Intervene now and keep ISIS from plundering Baghadad/Iraq and grabbing not only
her wealth and her oil fields but all the weapons we've given them.

If we allow ISIS and Levant to march forward we will doom ourselves people.

And give them a huge base of operations to go after ISRAEL...and don't think for one minute that it isn't in their plans...and WE are in their crosshairs as well.

 

[tinydancer]

Because I knew you are yelling at BHO politically far more than at Bush at the time.

Yup, you are what you call yourself.

I see, you pulled it out of your ass, I just wanted to hear you admit that. Thanks.

It's the truth. You criticize BHO far more than Bush on this issue. The truth is difficult for you to live with, but as long as the good guys are here, you will.

Jake your man in the White House let Baghdadi go in 2009 and have not made a move on his army that now numbers more than 12,000.

The whole AQ is dead, decimated and on the run is a huge freaking lie from the WH aka Home of the Whopper.

Obama owns this current mess in Iraq.

Oh and if you libs can't get your head out of your ass and just keep continually blaming Bush for all the problems on the planet let me tell you about the asshole liberal organization who brought us the problem called Iraq to begin with.

The League of Nations. Shut up about Bush. Go dig those old bastards up and smack them around.

 

[edthecynic]

I see, you pulled it out of your ass, I just wanted to hear you admit that. Thanks.

It's the truth. You criticize BHO far more than Bush on this issue. The truth is difficult for you to live with, but as long as the good guys are here, you will.

Jake your man in the White House let Baghdadi go in 2009

Home of the Whopper.

Now that IS a whopper.

Bush claimed he killed Baghdadi in 2005. Was that a whopper?

Bush will always own Iraq!

 

[Synthaholic]

From the guy who said this to someone who is against our involvement in the middle east and, unlike you, that position doesn't change based on which party is behind the steering wheel...

You talk like an extreme Rightwinger, then when called on it claim you are a libertarian, which is the same thing.

You may have been against the Iraq War but you are right with the wingnuts on just about everything else.

More evidence that Libertarians are just embarrassed Republicans.

There's an old joke. I speak every language except one, Greek. Go ahead and name any other one. Um..Latin? That's Greek to me!

Liberals are such simpletons you can only memorize one set of talking points and you're not bright enough to adapt them. So any politics that is not liberal is Republican to you!

So I'll bite, moron. Give me an issue I'm not libertarian on. I'm slapping you across the face with my glove and calling you a dickless little shemale. So back up your idiotic claim.

Why? So you can disagree with me, then try to send me on a wild goose chase looking through your old posts?

You're asking the wrong question. Ask how you are any different from the extreme Right Republicans. The Iraq War. That's one, if you were being honest. What else?

 

[BlackSand]

We promised the Iraqi government we would maintain and supply some air support after the troops left as part of our agreement in the exit strategy.
Iraq isn't asking for anything we didn't promise ... And if breaking our promise is the New Deal under the current administration ... Then they should bear the brunt of criticism.

.

 

[paulitician]

Wash our hands.



It is truly amazing.

AL Qaeda is the US' friend in Syria and the administration militarily and financially assists it because they are fighting to defeat Bashar al-Assad .

But once they cross the border into Iraq they become "terrorists".

You don't know you ass frokm a hole in the ground.

.

Yes, a huge blunder committed by Obama. He shouldn't have funded & armed the Al Qaeda-linked Rebels in Syria. These groups are now wreaking havoc in both countries. He was so ill-advised on that. Putin warned him. Assad was the safer play. These groups are led by brutal Terrorist animals. Hey, it's a real mess. Nothing more can be said.

Its called blowback. You would thing that some assshole in the Pentagon specializes in preventing them since they have happened so many times.

You would think. But then again, maybe the Military Industrial Complex enjoys chaos. More War is good for their business, no?

 

[The T]

We promised the Iraqi government we would maintain and supply some air support after the troops left as part of our agreement in the exit strategy.
Iraq isn't asking for anything we didn't promise ... And if breaking our promise is the New Deal under the current administration ... Then they should bear the brunt of criticism.

.

Very true. There was a 'Status Of Forces' agreement in place before Obama. Obama yanked it for political expediency. The price for it is now being paid in blood.

 

[Synthaholic]

This may be a dumb question, but I'm trying to find a silver lining in this whole horrific mess.

This is about a lot more than just Iraq. Much of the Middle East is in play and we could literally be seeing the beginning of a re-drawing of the map over there. So:

Let's say this ISIS army (and that's pretty much what it is) succeeds in capturing some territory, be it Iraq or part of Syria or the Kurdish territory or some combination therein, whatever.

I can't imagine such a territory wouldn't attract more Jihadists from the region. Wouldn't that finally give us a key advantage that we've been lacking, an identifiable geographic location of much of the enemy?

.

Perhaps Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordon, Kuwait, and Turkey could actually use some of the billions and billions in weapons and aircraft they have purchased from us over the past 30 years?

Why does it need to be us? If the whole of the Middle East is teetering* isn't it even more imperative for these relatively stable countries to act in their own best interest?

The excuse that if those countries got involved it could inflame the entire ME is tired and lame. It's like saying that if the entire USA tried to crack down on gun violence in Chicago, it would just result in gang violence breaking out across America. Most ME citizens do not want conflict, and do not want religious extremism. Especially in Turkey, Jordon, and Egypt.




* or whatever today's scare word is.

 

[paulitician]

And Obama doesn't have clean hands on this either. He committed an awful blunder funding & arming known Al Qaeda-linked Rebel groups in Syria. These groups are now wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq. He does deserve some blame for this chaos. He was warned by many not to arm these groups. This is the Blow Back on that. So yes Iraq is Bush's calamity, but Obama has played a role in this current chaos.

 

[protectionist]

The terrorists are now marching on Bagdad. The Iraq government is asking for help, should we oblige?
Seems strange to me that we would spend all the money & lives just to let it fall in a matter of weeks/months.

Remember these words from two members of the current administration that helped encourage these terrorists and in doing so did
what this Harvard study showed:

Senator Kerry (now Secretary of State) (D) "American soldiers going into the homes of Iraqis in the
dead of night, terrorizing kids and children."
Senator Obama (Now President) said "troops are air-raiding villages and killing civilians,"

This Harvard study found here THE "EMBOLDENMENT EFFECT"

asked: "Are insurgents in Iraq emboldened by voices in the news media expressing dissent or calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq?

The short answer is YES!!! according to Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy
research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government.

STUDY ABSTRACT
Are insurgents affected by information on US casualty sensitivity? Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an “emboldenment” effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. (wouldn't you conclude the next president accusing the US military of methodically and systematically air raiding villages killing civilians.. dissent???) We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent.

So you tell me who helped this situation???

The people who helped this situation are the people who didn't make foolish statements like you're making now. The CURRENT SITUATION is one in which ISIS stands to acquire control over Iraq. This would give them control over Iraq's oil (largest reserves in the world). This would give them the wealth to quite quickly acquire nuclear weapons.

There is nothing more dangerous to America than a nuclear arsenal in the hands of a lunatic, Muslim, jihadist group like ISIS. That is what this is about, in a nutshell. Talking about anything else is just a distraction.

To answer the question in the title of the OP, YES, OF COURSE we should lend air support, and that is why we have an aircraft carrier, a destroyer, and a cruiser, each armed with bombs, rockets, and/or missles on the way to the region. Regretfully, the Obama administration has been dismally inept on this, with all their perspective focused on withdrawing from Iraq, when we badly needed to quickly re-enter Iraq (at least with airstrikes), and never should have removed the residual military force in the first place.

 

[Synthaholic]

We lack a leader. We have no one to direct any intervention. There is no choice but to let them fight it out unless someone else, some other country, steps up.

Indeed;

The fact that the Obama administration has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point it is at now is indictment enough: Obama is in fact an empty suit, with no leadership qualifications and elected with no more credentials than his race and media presence.

 

[Synthaholic]

I see, you pulled it out of your ass, I just wanted to hear you admit that. Thanks.

It's the truth. You criticize BHO far more than Bush on this issue. The truth is difficult for you to live with, but as long as the good guys are here, you will.

Jake your man in the White House let Baghdadi go in 2009 and have not made a move on his army that now numbers more than 12,000.

The whole AQ is dead, decimated and on the run is a huge freaking lie from the WH aka Home of the Whopper.

Obama owns this current mess in Iraq.

Oh and if you libs can't get your head out of your ass and just keep continually blaming Bush for all the problems on the planet let me tell you about the asshole liberal organization who brought us the problem called Iraq to begin with.

The League of Nations. Shut up about Bush. Go dig those old bastards up and smack them around.

You keep repeating this bullshit even though edthecynic and others have debunked it.

You're stuck on your fake talking point.

 

[Synthaholic]

We promised the Iraqi government we would maintain and supply some air support after the troops left as part of our agreement in the exit strategy.
Iraq isn't asking for anything we didn't promise ... And if breaking our promise is the New Deal under the current administration ... Then they should bear the brunt of criticism.

.

And what did the Iraqi government promise to us?

 

[Synthaholic]

We promised the Iraqi government we would maintain and supply some air support after the troops left as part of our agreement in the exit strategy.
Iraq isn't asking for anything we didn't promise ... And if breaking our promise is the New Deal under the current administration ... Then they should bear the brunt of criticism.

.

Very true. There was a 'Status Of Forces' agreement in place before Obama. Obama yanked it for political expediency. The price for it is now being paid in blood.

Bullshit. You're a liar.

 

[kaz]

You talk like an extreme Rightwinger, then when called on it claim you are a libertarian, which is the same thing.

You may have been against the Iraq War but you are right with the wingnuts on just about everything else.

More evidence that Libertarians are just embarrassed Republicans.

There's an old joke. I speak every language except one, Greek. Go ahead and name any other one. Um..Latin? That's Greek to me!

Liberals are such simpletons you can only memorize one set of talking points and you're not bright enough to adapt them. So any politics that is not liberal is Republican to you!

So I'll bite, moron. Give me an issue I'm not libertarian on. I'm slapping you across the face with my glove and calling you a dickless little shemale. So back up your idiotic claim.

Why? So you can disagree with me, then try to send me on a wild goose chase looking through your old posts?

You're asking the wrong question. Ask how you are any different from the extreme Right Republicans. The Iraq War. That's one, if you were being honest. What else?

I've told you that at least 50 times, I can't help that you're a moron with no memory other than the ability to repeat liberal talking points.

OK, here we go again. I'm pro-choice, anti-death penalty, I think all drugs should be legal as well as prostitution and gambling. I believe there is nothing wrong with gays in any way. I oppose the US military being in any country permanently overseas and I think it should be used only for the defense of the United States. I'm also not a Republican because I'm a fiscal conservative.

I also argue with Republicans all the time. You're just so flamingly butt stupid that if I disagree with you on one issue, your mind just repeats Republican, Republican, Republican.

Now, you name an issue that I'm not libertarian.

 

[paulitician]

In fairness to Obama, this isn't his mess. However, his funding & arming extremist Terror-linked Rebels in Syria has led to this current mess. They're on a rampage in both Syria and Iraq. So that is his big blunder. He has contributed to making things worse over there. But it wouldn't be fair blaming the entire Iraq mess on him. He had nothing to do with the decision to invade.