Once again the Obama Administration has been caught with its pants down. The al-Qaida linked group, ISI has taken most of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and is threatening Baghdad. The Iraqi military appears to be folding like a cheap card table. Looks like a real Syria/Libya style CF brewing over there. We left a ton of equipment over there that could fall into al-Qaida's hands. The Link
I remember like it was yesterday when Obama decided to invade Iraq. You guys really have no shame. None.
Maliki apparently asked BO for help but BO sand NO from link Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked last month for the U.S. to consider carrying out air strikes against Iraq's growing insurgency but the White House turned him down, The New York Times reports. Read more:The Link
No doubt, the world is more dangerous since Obama took office. His retreat will create a much more dangerous situation in Iraq, Syria and Iran. Throw in his willingness to re-staff terrorists, and you have the most inept foreign policy in history.
How about air support? I notice BO is not calling the " loosely organized group" by the name it uses which is ISIS( Islamic states of Iraq and Syria) BO can't acknowledge that the fighters coming from Syria are the rebels he is supporting in Syria. Thank goodness BO will use a " holistic' approach to helping the Iraqis.
Our foreign policy has gone from poor to insane. The jihadists now rolling roughshod over Iraq are largely supplied from a flow of arms and manpower into neighboring Syria. This support comes from Saudi Arabia, Qater (both "allies") and of course the US. In our obsession to remove Assad, we provide "rebels" with the means to establish a foothold in the region including Iraq. Now, thanks to US intervention, Al Qaeda flourishes in Libya, Syria, and Iraq. The "War on Terror will surely last decades. We have, through stupidity, made that a sure thing.
I prefer the fight to be there instead of waiting on it to come here. To that end, continue air strikes and military operations to fight terrorism.
The problem with air strikes is that the targets frequently embed with innocent civilians. Our "surgical strikes" often result in collateral damage resulting in dead children and people attending weddings. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are homeless thanks to our bombing. As a result, for every bad guy we kill, we've probably created ten more.
As far as fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here; excuse me, but that is absurd. Until Al Qeada establishes a navy and an Air Force, the only way they can fight here is if we continue lax immigration policy.
mus yes and your point is? do you think NO 'terrorists" have snuck in especially with the latest BO debacle which is taking border agents away from their jobs to baby sit the thousands of kid magically able to transverse Mexico
Mus doesn't want to concede that we are already fighting them in NY City, Boston, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, Pennsylvania, and so on. Very convenient of Mus/dems/libs.
dillo I agree that Mus post seemed like something a lib would write but Mus is 180 from a lib more libertarian I think
I'm rather neutral regarding Obama compared to most folks here, but I think all the hate is causing some to miss the underlying point. Maliki's refusal to form a more inclusive government set the wheels in motion for this. Until that changes strategic air strikes might delay the inevitable, but nothing short of scorched earth is going to stop it.
No, I'm definitely not a liberal, and in terms of foreign policy I'm more of the mind to not intervene when not threatened and without an exit plan. As far as the reference to the isolated attacks such as the one at Fort Hood where the Muslim psychologist shot so many people, do you remember his reasoning? His motive was the bombings we were doing overseas. As far as the Muslim brothers that planted explosives in Boston, that comes down to a failure of our vaunted security apparatus. Even with all the tools we have, they slipped through. He'll, the Russians told us to watch the guy. Finally, the disintegration of this country's government is far more likely to result from economic problems, societal erosion, are military aggression by our own government with a nuclear power than from a terrorist attack.
Al Qaida does not need a navy or Air Force. All they need is for their enemy to have poor leadership who is afraid to remain at war as long as it takes to defend the country. They have that in Obama. Surely you are not that naive.
Using surgical air strikes to fight the enemy in Iraq may be impractical. There are videos (link here) showing thousands of prisoners captured by the jihadis. As far as I know, they have no infrastructure to bomb, and they can use the prisoners as human shields. The northern part of Iraq is probably more anti-Shiite than anti-Al Qeda which doesn't help matters much. At this point, the best strategy is probably to protect as many oil related facilities as possible and let the Iraqis and jihadis decide everything else.
The ironies just don't stop. * The Iraq government has enlisted the Iranian National Guard to fend off the Jihadis. * Obama appears to be willing to give air support (whatever good it will be) to fight off the jihadis. * The Jihadis receive much of their support via Syrian Rebels which are funded by the US, Saudi Arabia, And Qatar. What happens next? I'm guessing the US will begin giving financial aid to the corrupt Iraqi government to help out, and much of it will be skimmed off because that's how these things work.
Any time now our invasion of Iraq is going to largely start paying for itself. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz told us so.
say this at one of The Guardian reports(blogs)... "....Wednesday’s takeover of Mosul and surrounding regions, where a reported 30,000 Iraqi troops fled from just 800 insurgents." The US spent something like $25 billion building up the Iraqi Army. These insurgents in Mosul robbed banks to the tune of just under $500 million. How's that for a rush. That's about 30 times more than Hogan's Hero's came away with!!!
