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Origen52
Guest
Does anyone remember Gen. Wesley Clark? He wrote this article in 2005.
washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0505.clark.html
washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0505.clark.html
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I’m not impressed. But for a British general in Kosovo who stopped Clark from starting it, we would have been in a shooting war with the Russians there. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562161/Gen-Sir-Mike-Jackson-My-clash-with-Nato-chief.html
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gilliam
Guest
Here is today’s summary from the Guardian:
Summary
We’re wrapping our coverage for the day – the latest summary is current:
• Isis advanced toward Baghdad, seizing Saadiyah and fighting skirmishes near Samarra, Jalawla and Baquba. Sunni insurgents traded fire with both Shia militia and the Iraqi army, while Kirkuk remains under Kurdish control.
• The US is considering an air assault on Isis targets in Iraq and Syria. Barack Obama said he will consider “a range of options” to “break the momentum” of the several-thousand-strong insurgents.
• Obama has deferred a military decision for “several days”, saying the US requires a political plan from Iraqi leaders, an indirect call for prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to work with Sunni, Kurdish and other groups.
• Shia militias rallied to the call of Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric,Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called Iraqis to take up arms against “terrorists”.
• An influential Iranian general met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad,while convoys of Shia militia traveled north to defend the Shia shrines whose destruction sparked the 2006 civil war.
• The UN says it has verified reports of summary executions by Isis militants in Mosul. Human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said his office had reports the killings included the execution of 17 civilians.
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This may be the end of Maliki’s government. Which I don’t think any major player would mind ending.
Summary
We’re wrapping our coverage for the day – the latest summary is current:
• Isis advanced toward Baghdad, seizing Saadiyah and fighting skirmishes near Samarra, Jalawla and Baquba. Sunni insurgents traded fire with both Shia militia and the Iraqi army, while Kirkuk remains under Kurdish control.
• The US is considering an air assault on Isis targets in Iraq and Syria. Barack Obama said he will consider “a range of options” to “break the momentum” of the several-thousand-strong insurgents.
• Obama has deferred a military decision for “several days”, saying the US requires a political plan from Iraqi leaders, an indirect call for prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to work with Sunni, Kurdish and other groups.
• Shia militias rallied to the call of Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric,Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called Iraqis to take up arms against “terrorists”.
• An influential Iranian general met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad,while convoys of Shia militia traveled north to defend the Shia shrines whose destruction sparked the 2006 civil war.
• The UN says it has verified reports of summary executions by Isis militants in Mosul. Human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said his office had reports the killings included the execution of 17 civilians.
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This may be the end of Maliki’s government. Which I don’t think any major player would mind ending.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Generally, the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been a terrible waste of human life and taxpayer money. Something evil is driving these wars.
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Brendan_64
Guest
Saddam Hussein was not a threat to our security, he did not possess WMDs. and Iraq was not a hot-bed of anti-western terrorism. Indeed, just a few years before the 1st Gulf war he was considered to be our ally. Then all of a sudden he went from ally to villain overnight
As for Iran, in terms of the region Iran is actually a stable force, as was (is) Assad’s Syria.
No I don’t. The actions of the USA in the region are not motivated by a sense of doing what is right and moral.
The arms trade. This generates profits and it needs substantial wars to grow its market. International arms business is the only export business underwritten by Western governments (using taxpayers money).
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
I pray for them.
Jim
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
Interesting article.
Jim
God have mercy on us
Jim
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Tomdstone
Guest
And where are all of these weapons going? Last I heard they were in the hands of ISIS:
According to Jen Pasaki:
“I think you all are aware of the shipments that we have provided that include the delivery of 300 Hellfire missiles, millions of rounds of small arms fire, thousands of rounds of tank ammunition, helicopter-fired rockets, machine guns, grenades, flares, sniper rifles, M-16s and M-4 rifles to the Iraqi security forces. We also delivered additional Bell IA-407 helicopters late last year.”
But according to the NY Times: “The insurgent fighters who routed the Iraqi army out of Mosul on Tuesday did not just capture much of Iraq’s second-largest city. They also gained a windfall of arms, munitions and equipment abandoned by the soldiers as they fled — arms that were supplied by the United States and intended to give the troops an edge over the insurgents.”
nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/mosul-iraq-militants-seize-us-weapons.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0
So in the end, the US taxpayer is funding both sides in the Iraq civil war? What a waste.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Saddam started two wars, one of them nearly a “world war”. (Remember how many nations were involved in the first phase? Even Japan contributed resources to that one. So did Syria. So did Egypt.) Saddam was not regarded by the world as a harmless guy.
And he did have WMD. The Brits destroyed what everybody thinks was the last chemical weapons (known, at least) the summer before last, at the request of the Iraqi government. Nobody knows for sure where Assad got his, but contemporaries reported shipments of WMD to Syria during the war. I realize it’s presently Dem talking points to say “no WMD”, but Saddam had them, and was clearly determined to make more. Remember “Dr. Germ”?
Sometimes good countries ally themselves with villains as expedients. Stalin was far worse than Saddam Hussein, in scale if not in intent, yet he was our ally in WWII.
Saddam did, indeed, have terrorist training camps, with people from all over the world training in it. Remember the “kidnapping practice” 747 he had out in the desert for them to practice with? That’s common knowledge. He also paid the parents of suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians. Not a terrorist? Would you put him back in power if you could? The answer almost leaps to the tongue, so strong is the hatred of American and especially Bush among some. Many would willingly see him kill another million people, some with poison gas, just because America stopped his evil reign.
Iran is a terrorist, jihadi state. It’s just less overt in talking about it than the Al Quaeda types are. Assad is a mass murderer, has WMD, uses them, and is an ally of Iran. Supporting Iran may be the next vogue among those who hate America, and those who do may not realize they’re handcuffing their souls to evil.
The role of the U.S. is over in the Middle East, except in the “oil state” peripheries and Israel until we abandon them or are told to go away. The “oil states” already fund the AQ types, since they are the only Sunni bulwark against Iran. We gave the core of the Middle East to the Sunni terrorists and the Iranian terrorists to fight over. So, those who think the U.S. is the source of all evil in the world, don’t really need to worry about it in the M.E. anymore.
So nothing is left other than to watch and see how bad those people can really be, all on their own. I really don’t think the “hate America” crowd gives other peoples enough credit. They are entirely capable of doing evil for their own reasons and with their own methods. History is replete with their doing so. They didn’t need us for that. Remember that Iran and Iraq had a war all their own, in which millions died, over a waterway?
Those among them who are not terrorist/murder/imperialist minded did need us to avoid the warfare and slaughter that’s coming. But we ran in order to fulfill a presidential campaign promise, so that’s that. Nothing left over there but the Caliphate vs Persian Empire wars to fill the next few pages of history.
And one should not suppose that the American people, or even the hated “neocons” (whoever they are) wanted to aid Al Quada in Libya or Syria. That was all the doing of Barack Obama and his coterie. Sometimes it gets hard to be a leftist, and the AQ/Iran wars are surely going to be among those times.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Absolutely. Talk to a “boat person” as I have done, and you’ll know what the evil was in Vietnam. Talk to a survivor of Saddam’s gas attacks against the Kurds and you’ll know what evil was. Talk to some (now adult) Iranian kid who saw his friends, some no older than 12 or 14, sent out by rich Mullahs, electrocuted and gassed by Saddam in the Iran/Iraq war, and you’ll know about evil. Talk to whatever women aren’t afraid to talk to you in Afghanistan, and you’ll know about evil. Talk to the “dancing boys” who are kidnapped and sodomized by the Taliban, and you’ll smell something of what evil is.
A waste? Yes, definitely, because we abandoned the first two and are going to abandon the third. Well, to those who managed to come to the U.S., it wasn’t a waste, I guess.
This denial of evil and vilification of the only good in the world just amazes me. It reminds me of a guy who gets shoved around in a bar and then goes home and beats his wife and kids because of it. I am also put to mind of something Solzhenitsyn said about those who refuse to believe that real evil is evil. “…and they won’t believe it until they hear shouted at them, themselves ‘hands behind your back!’”
But those in the west probably won’t hear it for a long time, because there are those who protect them against their own foolishness.
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EmperorNapoleon
Guest
That myth was put to rest long ago.
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GaryTaylor
Guest
Right they have a few weapons now, but Isis is misleading since its prompted up by the Sunni who are at odds with the prejudice Shiite regime. In other words 2500 troops of Isis didn’t do all this. And its also why the Sunni who served with the regime gave up, they don’t want to fight the Sunni terrorist group because at the end of the day they don’t believe in the regime.
Oddly the US becomes aligned with Iran, Syria-Assad and the Iraq regime as a result.
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7_Sorrows
Guest
That is terrible. I wonder what God is thinking when He looks down and sees what is in the hearts of these men and the pleasure they are getting from killing.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
So, Obama has gone from being the handmaiden of the Muslim Brotherhood (which spawned AQ and its like) and the Islamists in Libya, to being the servitor of Iran in Iraq.
Who would have ever thought the leadership in this country could reach such a dismal low?
Obama wants Maliki to “work with” people who would behead him and his wife and children if they could? Even Obama doesn’t buy that one. No, Maliki’s only recourse is to become an Iranian puppet like Assad.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Not a myth. news.yahoo.com/uk-experts-help-iraq-destroy-chemical-residues-144204378.html
BAGHDAD (AP) — Britain will help the Iraqi government dispose of what’s left of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, still stored in two bunkers in north of Baghdad, the British embassy in Baghdad announced Monday.
The British Defense Ministry will start training Iraqi technical and medical workers this year, an embassy statement said. The teams will work to safely destroy remnants of munitions and chemical warfare agents left over from Saddam’s regime. He was overthrown in 2003 following an American-led invasion.
Saddam stored the chemical weapons near population centers so that he could access them quickly, despite the danger to his civilian population.
Read more: dailycaller.com/2012/07/31/uk-experts-to-help-destroy-iraqs-wmds-that-dont-exist/#ixzz34ZCZE24s
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7_Sorrows
Guest
Whether you are a sailor, soldier, marine, airman, you are still serving your country and you did an important job.
Sorry about your cousin. That is a disturbing statistic the suicide rate among the military. God bless you!
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EmperorNapoleon
Guest
Decades old residue isn’t a weapon of mass destruction. The ISG concluded there were no weapons of mass destruction and Bush himself publicly admitted the error. Time to move on.
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GaryTaylor
Guest
I know sister. they are barbaric, but then another report surfaced of the actual number being 17, these guys are no doubt using propaganda through the media to promote fear. The psychological warefare and media is a large part of their agenda. Nevertheless when they use amputation of thieves, Crucify criminals and don’t allow women outdoors they are barbaric.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Well, they were wrong. But if you can produce the spoil dates for the weapons the Iraqis found and the Brits destroyed, we can take a look at them.
Now that the Brits destroyed the weapons (not some slick on the floor) that had the Iraqis scared, yes, we can move on. Well, some of them are probably still in Syria because Assad lied about having them. And, of course, nobody ever really searched the endless desert for any of them because when Saddam wanted to hide something well, he killed the people who did the hiding.
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