<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Update: Al Qaeda is seizing Iraq and GM is recalling more cars than they make MT <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama">@BarackObama</a> (9/6/12) “Bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive.”</p>— Donny Ferguson (@DonnyFerguson) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonnyFerguson/statuses/478633987116515329">June 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
If wishes were horses, dreamers would ride. Unfortunately, in the real world, we just don't have the ability to govern based on ifs. In addition, the suggestion of keeping 150k troops in Iraq in the long term is absolutely laughable. This war was sold as being likely to take "six days, six weeks, or, I doubt, six months. Again, it was the previous administration that effed this up, it is to Obama's credit that he realized this and chose not to throw good money after bad in a situation where we literally could not win. After Bush's f***up, we had zero chance of "winning," no matter how liberally you define that term. It is truly sad that you think that keeping 150,000 US troops in Iraq in perpetuity would be remotely realistic, but your opinion does clearly show how out of touch you are with reality.
That's the whole point, we'd be letting them determine their own destiny, we'd be giving them the security and stability they need in order to do so.
I meant to say 20k troops from Japan, not the UK, but you could probably take 2k or so from the UK while we're at it.
We tried that, effed it up, and now it is time to step back and let them determine their own destiny. The entire time we had troops on the ground, we were influencing the outcome and not in a positive way. Your delusions notwithstanding, not a single person that I am aware of advocated for a permanent presence in Iraq, particularly not one of the size you're talking about. I suppose if people who shared your opinion were willing to increase taxes to pay for such an excursion, I might be willing to think it could be a good idea, but the same people bashing Obama over this are absolutely intransigent on taxes. You have detached from reality, please come back, we miss you.
This is a fantastic idea ~ strategically it is airtight, politically it is a sure-fire winner. I'm convinced.
How long do you think it would take to muster 100,000 troops from bases around the world, transport them and their equipment, provide logistic support, enough combat training and take action against ISIS? Just keep posting you juvenile dreams of American exceptionalism till no one has the desire to respond and .... you win!
Again ADD foreign policy at work. Heh, "we tried that"? Did you think everything was going to sort itself out in the 3 or so years of relative peace and security they've had? That's pretty detached from reality. It really is, glad you are coming around. As to politically.....well people are really stupid these days so there's no way of knowing how they'd react to finally pulling troops out of WW2 and putting them into the front of this century.
U.S. defending the indefensible in Iraq By Fareed Zakaria If the Bush administration deserves a fair share of blame for “losing Iraq,” what about the Obama administration and its decision to withdraw all American forces from the country by the end of 2011? I would have preferred to see a small American force left in Iraq to try to prevent the country's collapse. But let's remember why this force is not in Iraq. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki refused to provide the guarantees that every other country in the world that hosts U.S. forces provides. Some commentators have blamed the Obama administration for negotiating badly or half-heartedly and perhaps this is true. But here's what a senior Iraqi politician told me in the days the American deal was being discussed. “It will not happen,” he said, “Maliki cannot allow American troops to stay on. Iran has made very clear to Maliki that its number one demand is that there be no American troops remaining in Iraq. And Maliki owes them.” This Iraqi politician reminded me that Maliki had spent more than two decades in exile, most of it in Tehran and Damascus and his party had been funded by Iran for most of its existence… …Washington is debating whether air strikes would work or training forces would be more effective, but its real problem is much larger and is a decade in the making. In Iraq, it is defending the indefensible.
Just spent a few minutes looking at old Iraq threads. Quite depressing. In 2004, I wrote: What we're seeing today is just another bill come due. There will be more.
On the positive side, I guess, Iran is going to be bled by Iraq and Syria. The Saudi's can afford more and more support for the Sunni's as this crisis inflates the price and importance of their oil.
Damn Bobby has taken his talent to the D&D after running the Texans forum into the ground. Maybe we can get Remii in here as well to really spice things up.
I see you've moved on from whining there to whining here, just curious are you ever planning on contributing anything on topic on either forum or is this pretty much all you do?
We helped and then destroyed one axis of evil in Iraq. Now we are about to cooperate with another axis of evil in Iran. What does that make us? :grin:
I know, and it's depressing. I could pull up several posts saying much the same thing, some from before the invasion and occupation of the country. Some of the posts I've seen recently here make me feel like we've entered The Twilight Zone. Posts divorced from reality. Incredible. Putting aside the lunacy I'm seeing around here, it's a grave situation. We don't need a state in the region run by extremist religious fanatics that's worse than Iran, and we might be headed that way. Time to put our massive air power in play and if some special forces are needed on the ground covertly, in limited numbers, in order to target who we want blown up, maybe we should consider doing that. Should things continue to go to hell, we'll just have to deal with the consequences and make the best of it. We aren't putting 100,000+ troops back on the ground in Iraq. Not in my humble opinion.
Well I know we aren't going to do that, we've committed to running away and abandoning them, but creating a permanent base of around 100k troops would be the right thing to do if we actually cared about the Iraqi people. We clearly don't. Again, all it would take is diverting troops from other permanent bases set up after previous wars and maybe 20k or so from US permanent bases. That's nothing.
