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Iraq: Boy, That Escalated Quickly (Why Is Obama Going to War in Iraq?)
New York Magazine ^ | 8/22 | Jonathan Chait

Posted on 08/22/2014 2:46:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway

click here to read article


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To: Zhang Fei

Interesting perspective.


21 posted on 08/22/2014 5:04:20 PM PDT by karnage
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To: nickcarraway

The leader of ISIS high tailed it out of Iraq

www.worldtribune.com/2014/08/21/isil-commander-flees-syria-u-s-steps-air-strikes-iraq/

ISIL’s Al Baghdadi flees Iraq for Syria as U.S. steps up air strikes

Special to WorldTribune.com

LONDON — The commander of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant was said to have fled Iraq amid U.S. air strikes on Kurdistan.

Officials said ISIL commander Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi left his headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul around Aug. 10. They said Al Baghdadi, a nomme de guerre, fled from Iraq to neighboring Syria as Iraq and the United States intensified air strikes on ISIL positions.
Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi

“According to our intelligence sources, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi traveled to Syria as part of a convoy of 30 Hummer vehicles after fearing being targeted by U.S. airstrikes,” a senior Kurdish official, Said Zinni, said.

Zinni, spokesman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said Al Baghdadi left Mosul around Aug. 10. He said several of Al Baghdadi’s top commanders have been killed in the Kurdish offensive.

In a statement to the London-based newspaper A-Sharq Al Awsat, Zinni did not identify the dead ISIL chiefs. He said Kurdish forces, called Peshmerga, were succeeding in halting ISIL’s advance through Kurdistan as well as in the Diyala province to the south.

Officials said ISIL was moving its fighters out of northern Iraq to Syria amid an air campaign by NATO. They said at least four NATO states were supplying the Kurds with a range of weapons and ground platforms.

“Whoever has authorization from ISIL is transferred to areas near Mosul,” a Kurdish source said. “Others are sent to the fighting in Syria after three days of military training at the Kindi training camp.”

The latest Western state to send arms to the Kurds was identified as France. Officials said the French military delivered heavy weapons expected to be used by Kurdish forces.

“We are still waiting for more weapons from our allies,” Kurdish Security Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Halgurd Hikmat said.


22 posted on 08/22/2014 5:05:07 PM PDT by huldah1776
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To: nickcarraway

Maybe the Nobel Peace Committee should hold an emergency executive meeting to do some “reconsidering”?


23 posted on 08/22/2014 6:35:38 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Zhang Fei

Bull! He did it to win an election, period! He ignored his military generals and intelligence. And He telegraphed it all for the enemy! It’s absolutely disgusting what that jerk did after all our troops’ blood sweat and tears ....and victory .....spent there! Iraq became a crucial ally in a horrible part of the world. Whether we like it or not, we needed to keep a strong presence there to keep the terrorist element from taking hold and to watch Iran and Syria. It takes more than a few years or a decade for a war torn nation to get back on their feet completely. We still have troops in Europe and Japan! You cannot simply go into a shell...there is no freaking isolation. We weren’t there for Iraq, we were there for the United States. We were there for many strategic reasons...and for a foreign policy that used to be there for OUR protection - not the Obama policy of protecting Islamists. That said, Bush really mishandled the whole thing from the get-go. His second term was embarrassing.


24 posted on 08/22/2014 7:39:04 PM PDT by Phillyred
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To: Phillyred

The Bush administration at its worst was many time better than the current regime at its best. I think that mistakes were made in Iraq but things were mostly not as bad as they were made out to be. The media constantly finding fault with every little thing that happened under Bush drove a lot of the negative public perception of the war in Iraq. I think that if a democrat president had been in charge during that time the Iraq mission would have been proclaimed a resounding success and our troops would probably still be there. The press did more to hurt the mission there than any jihadi ever did.


25 posted on 08/22/2014 8:10:26 PM PDT by jospehm20
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To: nickcarraway
ISIS represents depravity on a scale that defies description

O realli?

For Christ's sake! Doesn't anybody study history???

Stop calling ISIS a "terrorist group"! They're an enemy army! You have to destroy them or they will prevail.

And by "destroy them", I mean this:


26 posted on 08/22/2014 8:26:42 PM PDT by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: nickcarraway

They are nit small, nit just guerrillas. They are 59,000 string with more Sunnis joining. They have set up their own state with sophisticated welfare, administration and revenue generation. They are a real state


27 posted on 08/23/2014 1:56:11 AM PDT by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

If it’s so great, then why don’t you move there.?


28 posted on 08/23/2014 2:40:33 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

What BS! The calculus that got Obama out of Iraq is Obama wanting to be out of Iraq at all costs. Period. Whatever Obama used as a pretext is irrelevant. Now he’s realizing that Presidents, no matter what they feel about it, are forced sometimes to act contrary to all they originally wanted due to actual events. Of course, he had no sympathy toward events that foisted a certain set of choices on George W.! And the minute he got elected he got working undoing all the good that George Bush did in Iraq at a tremendous cost.


29 posted on 08/23/2014 12:15:32 PM PDT by winner3000
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To: nickcarraway

Obama is not going to war. If he does the moonbats will burn down the White House. The Navy has planes on call if the drones get into something to big to handle.

All he can do is order very selective and limited engagement to define the Kurdish and Shia borders. That is all he is going to do. He will use some moonbat acceptable drones and NSA signals interception.

He has lost the effectiveness of special forces because his dithering led them to nothing. They are now subject to false intel and a trap.


30 posted on 08/23/2014 12:26:58 PM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12 ..... Obama is public enemy #1)
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