For those who believe the US invasion was a good thing. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/assault-mosul-militants-overrun-key-iraqi-city-n127176 Assault on Mosul: Militants Overrun Key Iraqi City BAGHDAD - Islamic militants overran parts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, on Tuesday, driving security forces from their posts and seizing the provincial government headquarters, security bases and other key buildings. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency. The battle for Mosul was a serious blow to Baghdad's attempts to tame a widening insurgency by a breakaway al-Qaida group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Earlier this year, the group took over another Iraqi city, Fallujah, in the west of the country, and government forces have been unable to take it back after months of fighting. In a nationally televised press conference, al-Maliki asked parliament to convene an urgent session to declare a state of emergency. "Iraqi is undergoing a difficult stage," he said, acknowledging that militants had taken control of "vital areas in Mosul," and saying the public and government must unite "to confront this vicious attack, which will spare no Iraqi." Under the constitution, parliament can declare a 30-day state of emergency on a two-thirds vote by its members, granting the prime minister the necessary powers to run the country. The insurgents took control of Mosul's government complex for northern Ninevah province — a key symbol of state authority — late Monday after days of fighting in the city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. On Tuesday, Mosul residents said the militants appeared to be in control of several parts of the city, raising the black banners that are the emblem of the Islamic State. The residents spoke to The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety.
Had we stayed this would not have happened. preventing this scenario was, in fact, the whole point of staying. When we left AQI was all but defeated, it was just a matter of keeping pressure up and mopping up. It is no coincidence that when we left the civil war took off on the other side of the border in Syria. AQI was allowed to live, they found a home in Syria, and the problem has metastasized since then. It did not have to be this way. All we needed to do was keep 10k-20k troops in country for a few more years and this all could have been prevented. But no, elections are more important, and the insane Democratic left-wing base must be placated. Never mind that this result was completely predictable (and was predicted), this is a monumental foreign policy blunder on Obama's part. Bush handed him a war that was all but won. We were losing more people to traffic accidents than to combat by the time Obama took over. He had a chance to shepherd the region's first true Arab democracy. But instead he threw it away. For what? Another 4 years, of course. I will never forgive the Democratic party for this. Not only because my service was wasted, the service of millions of other vets was wasted so one man could keep a campaign promise. But Obama does not hold complete responsibility for this catastrophe. Those who voted for him, those whose shortsightedness encouraged him to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - YOU PEOPLE - are responsible for this as well. A LOT of people are going to die because of this. Because of YOU.
And those of you who want to hold Bush responsible for this - your blame is misplaced. He is, in fact, the one who tried to prevent it. Obama is the one who couldn't be bothered to lift a finger to prevent this from happening. Iraq was in the bag when he got it, and he walked away from it.
Bush handed him a war that we were in. The fact that you or Obama don't think we should have been there is irrelevant - we were there, and the situation was what it was. You deal with what is, not with what you want to be. It's called living in the real world. Obama is directly responsible for this catastrophe.
The Iraqis are, BTW, asking us for assistance. We can't get there in time, even if we wanted to. Al Qaeda just seized an oil-rich city with a functional air base and heavy weapons depots. They may decide to move on Baghdad soon. Obama will go down in history as the President who lost the Middle East. The ineptitude on display here is mindboggling.
Bush is the one who started that war, his ineptitude got us into that conflict when there was no good reason to be there. Let the Iraqis fight it out (like they have been doing for thousands of years), it isn't our place to be their police force.
You do realize Bush was the one who set the timetable for withdrawal? All American military forces were mandated to withdraw from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011 under the terms of a bilateral agreement signed in 2008 by President Bush. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from_Iraq
That happened during treeman's 10 year long deployment in Iraqghanistanorthkorea during which time he was unable to post on the BBS. He missed it.
I suppose the bright side to this is that when ISIL / Al Qaeda take Iraq we can safely pull out of Afghanistan. There will be no point in being there anymore, as the jihadists will already have their caliphate again, and will have no need of that backwater anymore.
No, he set no such timetable. He negotiated a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with an expiration date - all such agreements have expiration dates. It was designed to buy us time to settle the situation in hopes that Obama would be wise enough to realize the strategic importance of following through. When it came time to renegotiate the SOFA, Obama gave no direction to our negotiators and as a result they were unable to put a new SOFA in place. With no SOFA in place our troops would have been subject to Iraqi courts, and we had no choice but to depart. Obama forced us to retreat by doing this - possibly the first time in US history that an American army was forced to retreat from a battlefield that was won. This even shocked the Iraqis, who, while playing the political angle that they wanted us gone in public very much wanted us to stay, because they knew they were not ready. Again, when you go back to that period you will see that the combat phase of the war was effectively over. We were losing more people to illness than combat. We were losing more people to traffic accidents than to combat. Towards the end those deployed in Iraq were statistically more likely to survive the year than a soldier residing CONUS. All that remained was mopping up and maintaining security - activities that would have only required a small footprint. The Pentagon wanted roughly 10K troops to remain to assist the Iraqis, but as I said - there was a campaign to win. National security has always taken a back seat to political considerations for this President. As it did in Iraq in 2012. As usual your facts are completely off. And on purpose, of course.
As usual Beetle Bailey can't keep his story straight. The playbook on wingnut criticism of the Iraq withdrawal isn't that he should have made us stay longer, it's that he actually wanted to stay longer and then arrogantly took credit for GWB's brilliant withdrawal timeline. Get it together, son.
No amount of occupation troops would keep the peace between the Shia and the Sunni. This is an intra-religious civil war, burning before we got there, and burning down over the next decade across the Islamic world. Did you want 100,000 young Americans in the middle of it, because I don't.
This particular fight is not a shia-sunni issue, this is the rabid sunni faction exercising their desire to reestablish the caliphate. That has always been their goal, and the heart of the caliphate has always been Baghdad. And it wouldn't have required 100K troops to prevent it from happening. It would have required about 10K for another 6-7 years according to Pentagon estimates. Instead, it is all falling apart, and it will eventually require far more than 100K troops to pacify.
