[Sixstrings]

What do you guys think about this?

Bush got tore up for years about it, from the Left, from all you guys -- how is this any different?

Hm? Can you tell me that? How is it any different?

I'm not up on all the news about it, such as, I don't think he's going to the UN security council and there's no UN resolution? So the coalition he is building is a "coalition of the willing," same as Bush, no?

And look at who we are fighting. It's ISIS, but, did you guys know that like 1/3 of their deputies (heard that on CNN) are Baathists? It's the same guys Bush built a coalition of the willing to fight, the Baathists. Yes they didn't attack us back then, but now they are, but whatever still it's the Baathists.

Anyhow, I do support it. Those beheadings were horrible and we have to do something.

Legally, the last congressional war authorization for Iraq still applies anyway. We really just left not all that long ago.

Polls indicate the US public has turned hawkish about it -- 70% are for an air war, 34% are for ground troops.

Obama gives a speech on it tonight. Back to Iraq we go, thoughts?

[Shaved Monkey]

create a problem
fix a problem
create another problem
fix another problem
create another problem
.....rinse and repeat

great for the war industry,and a good bonding diversion from reality.

[Sixstrings]

create a problem
fix a problem
create another problem
fix another problem
create another problem
.....rinse and repeat

great for the war industry,and a good bonding diversion from reality.

Ya, I get ya.

It's definitely yet another lesson in blowback. Old Seagypsy was right way back in the Syria chem weapon thing and SG was talking about how horrible these ISIS are. I wonder if weapons we got to "moderate" rebels aided ISIS in any way.

What a complex mess. We fought Assad a bit by proxy, so that must have helped ISIS, now ISIS is our enemy. And we may be working with Iran and even some really hardcore US enemies -- forget his name, there is one guy that was part of al queada or something but he's got blood American blood on his hands and now we're somehow going to be working with him (sorry I'm so foggy on that, was just something I saw on CNN).

A part of our new strategy will be to aid the moderate rebels more, in Syria.

According to CNN, there are thousands of US marines with ships, ready to go. And thousands of US paratroopers.

So anyway, it's blowback:

1. After our Iraqi invasion and occupation, we disbanded all the Baathists and banned them from the new Iraqi army and power structure. Guess we should not have done that. The million man army we US taxpayers built up just wound up running anyway.

2. The Baathists are with ISIS now. Same darn people we were fighting before, though they are more deadly now with this batshit crazy Saladin caliphate leadership.

3. Is ISIS our own blowback? Did US actions, in Iraq, in Syria, inadvertently *create* them? The same thing happened with AQ, that came from jihadis we armed and funded and used to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

So who should we even have been siding with in Syria, Assad? Yes he's a dictator and bad, but, the ISSI are frickin' WORSE. So wtf. What side are we on here. It's a mess.

And -- it was clearly a mistake to LEAVE Iraq entirely, Obama was wrong on that and Democrats were wrong too. It would have been easier to have a residual force that could have stomped this out early, now we need a massive operation to go back in again and it's a war again.

In conclusion:

If someone wants a war with the USA, a sure way to get it is to attack the American people. We don't like it. Folks will flip from dove to hawk on a dime. Right now, Obama's approval rating is actually abysmal, on foreign policy. He's too dovish, Americans are hawkish again.

Rationally, those beheadings were 2 people. It's not a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. But still, we don't like it, we will not take it, you can't go on TV doing this to Americans and expect nothing to happen.

Also, it isn't BS about ISIS, they really are a more serious threat than AQ:

1) They have a country, tax revenue, oil wells, they're making a caliphate
2) They're the best funded terrorist group in history (Europeans paying them hostage ransom doesn't help matters)
3) A lot of them are European, or even American, jihadis. The one that was on tv, he's British. All of these guys will come home eventually, and they've got passports. They're said they're going to attack the US, and the UK, and the idiots have threatened Putin too. So they must be seriously nuts.
4) Every independent objective journalist / analyst I've read, has said ISIS are flat out psychopaths worse than AQ. They are really are bad news, and do have to go, but what I'm asking in this thread is -- shouldn't we have stayed in Iraq in the first place, some residual force.

And have you anti-war folks learned that the world doesn't work that way, it's not peace and rainbows. You guys made such a huge thing about "Bush's war in Iraq," now it's "Obama's war in Iraq" with another coalition of the willing -- will you be so anti-war now? Just pointing out some hypocrisy here. It is a fact that if we listened to Dick Cheney, if we had left enough residual force behind, if Obama hadn't pulled all out, then we wouldn't have this worse enemy in Iraq right now.

And lastly, we do also need to reflect on blowback and how this ISIS got so strong to begin with. So I see all sides to it, I know we created AQ to fight the Soviets, now it's looks like ISIS is another one like that and more blowback coming back to bite us. OTOH they are really bad news and we do have to stomp them out.

[Sixstrings]

Analyst on MSNBC, saying Obama needs to level with the American people and let them know we are going to war in Iraq.

They've got a updated map, looks like ISIS has most of the country already, pretty much all of it north of Baghdad.

Obama's just screwed it all up, that's my objective analysis on it. So many lives lost, so much money spent, we won the damn war and then Obama pulled every last troop out when he could have left just enough to stamp this ISIS out early.

Really seems to me that Dick Cheney turned out right.

Anywhow -- when are we going to help Ukraine? Something's got to happen on that, too. Either Putin needs cut it out and realize ISIS threatens him too -- and then we can cut a deal to ally with Russia and help him and Assad in Syria, in exchange for Putin getting out of Ukraine and leaving Ukraine to the west and stopping the cold war crap.

If Putin keeps up the cold war, that complicates things. Do we still proxy fight him in Syria. Are we going to bomb ISIS rebels in Syria, that fight Assad (and proxy Russsia), while also arming moderate Syrian rebels so they can fight ISIS and Assad and proxy Russia.

ISIS is a terrorist attack threat to Europe and the US, whereas a rising Russian empire hostile to the US is a long term geopolitical problem, armed to the teeth with nuke bombers on all our borders and ICBMS in the Siberian woods.

EDIT: couple positive things about Obama. It's his fault we're where we are at now with Iraq, but to be fair, he's done a good job getting a coalition together. A lot of that was the Brits though. But anyhow that is good, and they got the Arab League in it and muslim nations in the coalition. That part was important, shia governments need to be standing up to the ISIS pscyhos too, if they don't this dude might make a pan-arab caliphate and then -- Glenn Beck's predictions all turn out right!

[westexas]

What events in recent years demonstrate is that Bush 41 was right about not going into Iraq in 1991.

[Plantagenet]

I don't like it that Obama's new Iraq War is starting off with a big lie.

Obama and the MSM keep claiming that we don't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq, but thats clearly a lie. The troop build-up under obama has already reached a couple of thousand US "boots on the ground"----and those are the ones we are told about.

AND US troops are already involved in the fighting. US special forces are already on the ground fighting side by side with the Kurds against the Caliphate in northern Iraq.

American-forces-ground-Kurds-say-US-commandos-fighting-ISIS-northern-Iraq-Obama-said-no-combat-troops-fight


US special forces are already engaged in ground combat in Iraq---why not just admit it?

[Sixstrings]

Per cnn: apparently obama will say there will be no US troops on the ground, air war only and then coalition troops on the ground.

He will downplay it as not a war, but a sustained anti-terror operation.

We all know that's a bunch of BS. MSNBC was reporting about all the marines and paratroopers ready to go.

It'll be a war, US troops will be going, the bottom line on this stuff is just that we need SMART leadership. Like how Putin is smart. Know what force level to use, when to use it, tactical operations get in get out and be smart about it all and play chess.

What we don't want is to just go all in again and have the whole US army sitting in Iraq getting IED'd for another ten or twenty years.

There does need to be a middle ground -- truly effective SMART use of force. Bring the hammer in when it's needed, then get it out, then do it again as needed. Rapid actions forces, etc., we just gotta get smarter about it all. Just my opinion.

[Sixstrings]

I don't like it that Obama's new Iraq War is starting off with a big lie.

Democrats don't start wars or have wars, only Dick Cheney does that. Democrats have "sustained anti-terror operations."

What we need though is limited action on these things but it actually WORK and not just be a bunch of BS. Russia knows how to do it. The Israelis know how to do it. We need to figure this shit out. It really can't be a big massive war all the time, we got to get the job done with less and also be ready to come in again FAST and handle shit without all the handwringing "are we going to war" stuff.

We need to get smart. Like the Russians. Like the Israelis. We need rapid action forces, and it not be a bunch of bullshit -- NATO needs them, and US military needs to reorient to that and we need a commander in chief that can lead a military and handle it, effectively, with strategy and smarts and be a good strategic commander and match up to the world's chess players.

US special forces are already engaged in ground combat in Iraq---why not just admit it?

Well it's not like Russia, our gov does not officially deny it. Obama just spins about it.

[Plantagenet]

Just watched obama claiming that the Islamic State isn't truly islamic. I kept waiting for Obama to isssue a fatwa against IS for being non-Islamic.

Then Obama said he was going to arm the Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State (suggesting he doesn't know that the Islamic State ARE the Syrian rebels).

Finally, Obama was strangely silent about who actually is in the coalition he supposedly has put together. Is it a secret coalition? Do the diplomats wear bags over their heads so no one knows who they are? Come on, Obama---who is in the coalition?


Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to war we go!

[Tanada]

Who is willing to follow President Obama's lead? To have a coalition of the willing someone has to be willing, I would like to know who that consists of.

[Lore]

Oh, everyone is willing. They're all right behind us. A long way behind. After all we were dumb enough in the first place to entangle ourselves in the Middle East. They all figure we can spend our treasure of blood and money to do it again. Why should they, when we're more than gun happy to pretend we can continue to police the planet.

[GHung]

Yeah, WT, 43 screwed a pooch that his Daddy knew better than to screw; couldn't be unscrewed by Obama or anyone else.... and when Iraq's 'democratically elected' (Shia) powers-that-be refused to give the US a status of forces agreement, the Commander in Chief's hands were tied unless he wanted a bunch of US soldiers in Iraqi jails and courts. Funny how people ignore this stuff. A freakin' mess. Easier to blame the current Scapegoat-in-Chief.

This was so fookin' predictable, like most of our predicaments.

[Keith_McClary]

US special forces are already engaged in ground combat in Iraq---why not just admit it?

Are they "wearing distinctive uniform or other distinctive signs visible at a distance" ? Not doing that was the Bush definition of "unlawful combatant".

[Plantagenet]

US special forces are already engaged in ground combat in Iraq---why not just admit it?

Are they "wearing distinctive uniform or other distinctive signs visible at a distance" ? Not doing that was the Bush definition of "unlawful combatant".

You'll have to ask Obama. He's in charge now.

The secret deployment of US Special Forces sent to fight with the Kurds are there on Obama's orders. Bush has nothing to do with it.

[Keith_McClary]

You'll have to ask Obama. He's in charge now.

Isn't it (theoretically, constitutionally) your quaint old "Congress"?

[Sixstrings]

The secret deployment of US Special Forces sent to fight with the Kurds are there on Obama's orders. Bush has nothing to do with it.

Well good. I like those kurds. I don't think I've ever heard anything bad about kurds, someone tell me if there is something.

I just remember how saddam gassed them. And they've been fighting ISIS and so far they're the only ones that can stand up to ISIS.

Far as I know, kurds have always been pro-American. They don't crucify anyone or chop hands off and all that.

So I approve of this, we should have special forces helping these kurds out. And yes, I'm aware that Turkey doesn't like it.

[ROCKMAN]

Six - I'm with you. I've never met a Kurd but I do feel that kinship as a TBC. The boys at the Alamo knew they couldn't win the battle. They knew they were just going to be a rear guard sacrificed to allow Sam and the other Texicans to regroup and prepare for Mr. Anna. But when it came down to the last charge on the 13th day they weren't fighting for freedom or Texas...just to live one more day. And that's what the Kurds have been doing: fighting to live one more day. Would have been a great help for Col. Travis if Sam had a few Predators he could have sent their way.

TBC = Texan By Choice. Yes...native borns still regard us as such. Even me after 35 years here. LOL.

[westexas]

Ghung,

A lot of people forget about a WSJ OpEd by Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's national security advisor, prior to Bush 43's invasion of Iraq, opposing an attack on Iraq. Here was the August 15, 2002 headline for the OpEd: "Don't Attack Saddam."

And like Scowcroft (a proxy for Bush 41?), Obama was opposed to Bush 43's invasion of Iraq.

[Lore]

Bush has nothing to do with it.

The Bush administration is totally to blame. We wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if it wasn't for them destabilizing the balance of power in the Middle East. All we're doing now is playing bop-a-mole with no hope of winning. We're running pillar to post trying to put out the fires flamed by the incompetence of our past.

[Plantagenet]

There's nothing wrong with helping the Kurds. We should have been doing it all along.