Posted on 08/09/2013 3:59:45 AM PDT by Pan_Yan
Security inside Iraq is unraveling at an alarming pace, and al Qaeda terrorists there aren’t just pulling the thread; they’re setting it on fire.
More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings last month, making July the deadliest month since violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims peaked from 2006 to 2008, the United Nations says.
On Thursday, gunmen stormed a policeman’s home in Tikrit and killed him, his wife and their three children. When neighbors later approached the house, a nearby car bomb exploded and killed eight people — a noted al Qaeda tactic, though the terrorist group has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
...
The deteriorating security in Iraq comes as no surprise to Middle East observers and analysts. Retired ArmyGen. David H. Petraeus, when he commanded U.S. operations in Iraq, predicted such a decline when he testified before Congress in September 2007, saying that a “premature drawdown of our forces would likely have devastating consequences.”
...
U.S. forces withdrew quickly from Iraq in December 2011 after Washington and Baghdad failed to reach an agreement on the legal status of American troops in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This is Obama’s version of “peace with honor”
Looking at the mess your predecessor created through the rearview mirror of the last troop out
But hey, at least the US embassy is still able to host LGBT celebration days
Gee, who saw that coming?
What a misleading title; WE drove Iraq into chaos, before we got our asses kicked and retreated under cover of darkness. We’re doing the same in Afghanistan (though they were fairly chaotic before); that is ending the same way.
It's amazing how many conservatives are so delusional that they forget why so many of these sh!t-holes in the Middle East were ruled by dictators in the first place.
I think that is simplistic
If Iraq was under control before we invaded, it was because they had a dynastic dictatorship willing to shred men women and children to maintain internal control through terror, and looking to boost itself to becoming a world player in sponsoring international terrorism
They didn’t defeat us, we defeated ourselves by a steady drumbeat from our own democrat party willing to do anything - ANYTHING - to prevent Bush from achieving any type of success, progress, or victory
Frankly Iraqis themselves, handed liberation from Saddam’s brutal clan and billions in US blood and treasure to rebuild a new society, proved unworthy and unready
If Iraqis don’t want to be ruled by al Qaeda, Iraqis are going to have to unite to defeat them.
“I think that is simplistic”
I think it is obvious; let’s agree to disagree.
islamic nation building has NEVER worked... we should have bought hussein and pointed him at iran and we should have killed all of the taliban as they caravaned to Tora Bora... mined the mountain passes and killed the hajis by air until they were a threat no more... and then come home.
muslims have to have a strong man as a leader... they eat one another and everyone else when left adrift. They were born to be ruled not governed. They are animals.
LLS
Is this the political spin the "neo-conservative" wing of the American right is putting on the debacle in Iraq? LOL.
Go back and look at the warnings Dick Cheney made about invading and occupying Iraq when he was the U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1990. Then ask yourself what changed over the next 12 years that made him so confident that a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq would be an easy task.
The U.S. botched the entire operation -- plain and simple. In fact, when objective history books are written about radical Islam and this military/foreign policy disaster 100 years from now, they'll probably point out that the U.S. was on the wrong side going all the way back to Operation Desert Shield.
I see it as proof that the Iraqui’s were not attacking our soldiers because they were Americans.
They were attacking them for keeping peace amongst Muslim killers. These people hate each other much worse than they hate Americans and now have gone back to their favorite sport. As long as it’s Muslim against Muslim I say let them have their fun. What could be better for peace in the world than Muslims destroying each other. Too bad no one will destroy the winners.
It is called leading with his behind. . . . .
Not at all. Our policy (and most of the world's, which is why Japan and Germany funded Desert Storm to the tune of billions) is to prevent the OPEC countries from becoming a single nation state via armed conquest. And that means maintaining Kuwait's independence against all comers, whether that means Iraq, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Gee, who saw that coming?
Don’t get me wrong. I think we should have left after Saddam was captured. But Bush had to secure his legacy.
Concur with everything you said. Same pattern in Egypt. Trying to foster Democracy there is a waste of time.
Even the Turks and Iranians aren’t as bad as these clowns.
Exactly right.
A soldier I know turned out to be uncannily accurate in his prediction of what would happen in Iraq, and he nailed it almost a decade ago. I was - mistakenly - more optimistic than him about the outcome, but the democrats' reaction to Howard Dean's "screw the troops" (my paraphrase) outburst in the 2004 election should have been the drop of water which allowed me to deduce the existence of the ocean (hat tip to Sherlock).
It sucks being wrong. OTOH, along with being sadder, I'm at least a little wiser. For example, I no longer carry around any illusions about the giant chunks of crap that have been floating on the top of the septic tank that is the GOP.
Mr. niteowl77
I see this sort of sh!t as a complete vindication of everyone here on FreeRepublic who rightly criticized the Bush administration for that stupid invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It’s amazing how many conservatives are so delusional that they forget why so many of these sh!t-holes in the Middle East were ruled by dictators in the first place.
I’m not a fan of Bush either but if I was it would be easy enough to say, “See, he was right. We needed to be in there to keep things at least somewhat stable.”
And the argument that Iraq is a “s-hole” and thus we should not be involved might be used to re-write the history of the Cold War altogether — and concede to a Soviet victory because many of the bloc nations were s-holes too.
It’s the most dysfunctional nations that offer the biggest upside to a coherent, engaged, activist foreign policy. We don’t have this of course but if we did...
I imagine the founders of this country would wonder why they even bothered overthrowing British rule, if they could have looked 200 years into the future and seen the United States of America pissing away thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to protect one royal family in Saudi Arabia and restore another one in Kuwait.
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