Or it would have just delayed the inevitable. Occupiers of foreign lands rarely outlast their enemies.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>President Obama is spending the afternoon at Farm Neck Golf Club. His golf partners include Ahmad Rashad and Ray Allen.</p>— Vineyard Gazette (@vineyardgazette) <a href="https://twitter.com/vineyardgazette/status/498178090569572352" data-datetime="2014-08-00T18:44:47+00:00">August 0, 2014</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
See summary of the past 30 years of US diplomacy in 2 min 43 secs... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/e2cjVhUrmII" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Can you explain how being deployed in Iraq and living in Korea are even close to the same? I am seriously confused on your logic here....
Seriously, can this offseason get any worse? First every major star gives us the finger, then Parsons bails on us, , THEN we find out Howard and Harden aren't eating with the guys (ba$tards!), and THEN we find out that Kostas Papanikolaou is the big splash?!? WTF? It's time to bomb some people.
Could ISIS retaliate against the West? The U.S. air strikes carried out Friday against ISIS are likely to have one unintended consequence: immediately increase the terrorist threat in Europe and the United States, Western counter-terrorism officials tell CNN. Within hours of U.S. military jets and drones conducting a strike on ISIS artillery that had been used against Kurdish forces defending Irbil, ISIS supporters called for retaliatory attacks against the United States. "It is a clear message that the war is against Islam and the mujahideen. The mujahideen must strive and seek to execute proactive operations in their own home, America, to discipline America and its criminal soldiers," Abu al-Ayna al-Khorasani, an administrator of Shumukh al-Islam, the top-tier forum for ISIS propaganda, wrote on his account Friday, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence group. Other ISIS supporters railed against the United States using the Twitter handle #AmessagefromISIStoUS, posting images of the wreckage of the twin towers. "Don't forget 11 Sept .. Maybe US citizens want more like that," one extremist tweeted. In June after ISIS captured Mosul, its supporters had warned against strikes in a Twitter campaign #CalamityWillBefallUS. Here are three ways ISIS and its supporters could retaliate for U.S. military action against its fighters... Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/meast/syria-iraq-terror-havens/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 It's coming. Whether we hit them now or later, it's coming. What worries me is we are half-a$$ing it now. What we are doing is necessary, but not sufficient. And WHEN we get hit back, the question needs to be asked: why, after committing an act of war against ISIS (which is what airstrikes are), did we not go all in and destroy them before they had an opportunity to hit us back? Major mentioned it earlier, and he is 100% correct. Limited military action will not work against people like these. If you're going to hit them, hit them with everything you've got. And in this particular situation, it is not sufficient to simply focus on the humanitarian situation around Sinjar and the defensive situation around Irbil. We effectively declared war against ISIS on Thursday. They were already at war with us, but we acknowledged it. We might as well start acting like it. The sooner POTUS realizes that this is the true situation, the sooner we can stop pussyfooting around and get on with it. Because it's coming either way.
Yes well conservatives were gleeful about giving Obama a defeat by stopping him from getting authorization to conduct military operations in Syria against ISIS. So I guess it's more important to stop Obama from looking good than to stop ISIS. Maybe you need to convince your fellow party members before complaining about the POTUS.
The non-authorization was dumb, but we weren't going after ISIS in Syria. We were hoping to support the "good rebels" which are actually fighting alongside ISIS (the "bad rebels") against the Syrian government. It's an unfortunate (but necessary) partnership that made our potential arming of Syrian rebels a bit more complicated. ISIS' enemies include the Syrian government, Iraq, and Iran. It's a very bizarre situation where enemies become friends.
The idea was for a permanent base in Iraq just like the permanent bases in Germany, Japan, and Korea, had we not abandoned them like we did, having your permanent station in Iraq wouldn't be all that different than if you were stuck in Korea in a few years.
Except that we're in all those other places with the support of their governments and they aren't in middle of warzones. But yeah, besides that, it would be just the same.
It wasn't a warzone anymore till we left and we didn't really ask permission from the governments when we set those bases up, we told them we were going to do it and then did it. Had we established a permanent force there, Iraq would be stable today. Sure there would be the occasional skirmish or whatever, but there would be no ISIS BS, all of that sprung up because we left before the new Iraqi government was strong enough to make it on their own. Now that government did play a part in us leaving, but listening to them is like listening to the wants of a 4 year old.
ISIS makes Al Qaeda look like amateurs, and that is not easy to do. We need to act swiftly and go for the throat. MARSOC would end this crap in under a month.
Now for step 2. "Secretly" arm the Kurds with weapons supplied by the CIA. Should have been done a lot sooner.
Now Obama is calling Iraq a "long term project" should have gone with Romney's approach...we wouldn't be in this situation now
Anybody that thinks the US could effect the cultural civil war in the Middle East is delusional. Sunni and Shia have been at each other's throats long before we overthrew Saddam, the Christian West has never been a true ally, of common purpose, only an infidel force to be manipulated for strategic advantage. You only need to look back at Vietnam to see that. It was a much smaller geographic area, with a much smaller population, we had a massively greater number of troop and were willing to inflict a lot more collateral damage, but it still had little effect on the cultural conflict between millions of people. In the Middle East there is no history of democracy; all they have ever known is divine autocracy, someone 'given' the unassailable right to rule by God. There is no intellectual movement of enlightenment where respected scholars call for egalitarianism, no tolerance for the differences between people. If you can step away from any humanitarian caring and just consider the geo-politics it's not really a bad thing to just let the civil wars rage, over there, containing and isolating the insanity. I think young people will always strive for meaning and importance with there young lives. They will have passion and rebellion, feeling the need to act for whatever they see as justice, opportunity and self-justification. If millions of young people live within a culture that convinces them their commitment to Allah and the establishment of a new Caliphate is how they as individuals can change the World then that's what they are going to do; especially without the distractions of sex, drugs and rock'n' roll. Young people want to be a part of something, they want to feel involved and committed for a purpose in life. We are in for 100 years of turmoil here before it settles out. The US can't pick and choose between the rabid dogs in this dogpile, we can only choose to protect the people on the fringes and try to not let it spill over to our truer allies (Kurds?). Frankly the world is better off letting this energy burn off across the the deserts and homelands than as terrorist insurgencies within Western countries because without any other avenue for empowerment for these millions of young men that's what we would get. I say, free plane tickets for all Western jihadis.
