Yes, the perception of the rest of the world is that the US doesn't use enough military force in the middle east/abroad It's a real pet peeve - it's right up there next to the desire for more NSA eavesdropping and admiration of the War on Drugs.
David, I know Australia's media is totally dominated by Murdoch but don't give in to the vilification of the President. There are a thousand people who's total job is providing the Executive Branch with information, options and impact assessments. No need to repost a basso out of context pic. Nobody is laying down on the job, there are just no good choices to be made here for the US. Every 'good' action has a 'bad' counterpart of alienating the other side: Bombing/ Collateral damage, Sunni/Shia, Chickenhawk/peacenik, Kurds/Turkey, Reason/GOP. And there is probably a lot more happening that we won't know about logistically. Do you think Russian planes just showed up without the President's approval? (Because Russians are going to fly them) But the Press Seceretary isn't going to come out and address that. You don't go from the 2009 pic to the 2012 pic from playing golf.
Not sure if this yet deserves it's own thread but it does reinforce a point I made earlier that while Erdogan is an Islamist and no democrat it is a real stretch to say that he is supporting ISIS to create a medieval Sunni Caliphate. As noted in the article his government has worked with the moderate Kurdish minority in Northern Iraq and are no prepared to support an independent Kurdistan. Also this is further indication that the idea of a single Iraq is unsustainable and that some sort of partition may be inevitable. http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/29062014 Spokesman Indicates Turkey Ready to Accept Kurdish State in Iraq COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The spokesman for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper that Ankara is ready to accept an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, as Iraqi forces fought to turn the tide against jihadi-led insurgents threatening to divide the country. “Unfortunately, the situation in Iraq is not good and it looks like it is going to be divided,” Huseyin Celik told the daily. He said that, in the past, an independent Kurdish state in Iraq would be a “reason for war” for Turkey. “But no one has the right to say this now.” Turkey, whose own large Kurdish minority has chafed under repression and restrictions for decades, has excellent relations with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north. Ankara is Erbil’s largest trade partner and is keen on Kurdish oil and gas supplies to fuel its growing economy. During the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Turkey deployed large numbers of soldiers on its southern border, fearing that Iraq’s Kurds would proclaim independence. But things have changed. Last November, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the word “Kurdistan” when he received Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani in Diyarbakir, marking a turning point for Ankara. Following an interview with Rudaw earlier this month, in which Celik said that Iraqi Kurds had the right to decide their own future and name their entity as they wished, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed Ankara’s stance. "I think it's great that Turkey put their imprimatur over this," Reid was quoted by the Huffington Post as saying. "It's good they did that, gave it their blessing, but the ultimate division of their country, if in fact there is one, has to come from Iraqis." But while speeding ahead on ties with Erbil, Ankara has been slow to move on a peace process began last year with its own outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its fight for greater Kurdish rights. Speaking Kurdish and any expression of Kurdish culture was completely banned in Turkey until 1991, and the Turks feared that an independent Kurdish state could instigate its own 15 million Kurds. According to Soren Schmidt, lecturer at the Aalborg University in Denmark and an expert on Iraqi Kurds, Ankara and Tehran would both be ready to accept an independent “Kurdistan” in Iraq, as long as they can get guarantees that an Iraqi Kurdish state does not claim to include Kurdish areas of Iran and Turkey. Today, Kurdistan “is de facto an independent state,” he noted. “But I also think that the Kurdish leaders are wise enough not to overplay their cards and declare Kurdistan a formally independent state without taking at least Turkey, Iran and the United States for advice,” he said. Huseyin Seyhanligolu, lecturer at the Dicle University in Diyarbakir, believes Ankara has understood that Turkey’s Kurds are not after independence, but equal rights. "Studies show that Turkey's Kurds want more linguistic and cultural autonomy within the Turkish State. They do not want to secede from Turkey," he said. But Amberin Zaman, a writer who has covered Turkey for The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, notes that with Turkish presidential elections due in August, Erdogan will be unlikely to push nationalist voters away by officially supporting an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. ”It’s even less likely after the Kurds’ seizure of Kirkuk, which ethnic Turkish Turkmen claim as theirs,” she said, referring to Peshmerga forces the Kurdistan Region has deployed in the oil-rich city that is at the center of a territorial dispute between Erbil and the Shiite-Arab government in Baghdad.
If you have aboiut 20-30 minutes free and are willing to read an honest summation of why Iraq was lost biven by someone who was involved in the process from start to finish and who knew the principals involved, click this link: Why we stuck with Maliki — and lost Iraq http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-stuck-with-maliki--and-lost-iraq/2014/07/03/0dd6a8a4-f7ec-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html I left Iraq in 2008, when things were on a good track. This tells how it went off the rails, and why. Be warned, there is both Bush-bashing, as well as Obama-bashing, so if you are a libtard or an ideologue who doesn't like reading things that paint "your guys" in a negative light, this might give you a stomach ache... Otherwise, it is definitely worth the click.
And this is why I don't usually bother trying to have rational discussions with libtards. It's also why I call you libtards. Because instead of clickingon a link and reading, you make a response like this. Thanks for your contribution. (BTW, parties are irrelevant to me, it's ideologies that matter, so a "GOPtard" isn't going to roil me much... just a FYI)
This actually happened about a week or so ago, but MSM is finally catching up: Iraq says 'terrorists' seize chemical weapons site Iraq said the Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where 2,500 chemical rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents. http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-says-terrorists-seize-chemical-weapons-214329015.html I find this development mildly entertaining because, as we all know, there were no WMD in Iraq, right? It was all a big lie, they were never there... Of course, anyone who has read the Duelfer report and other documents relating to this knows that is BS - there were WMD there, and Hussein maintained the capability to restart production as soon as sanctions were lifted... But I just find it giggly that of all places, this is where ISIS sends their guys. Don't you? Doesn't it give you a warm fuzzy knowing that the most evil and violent people on the planet just seized WMD site? Sure, the sarin's probably pretty degraded, but oh, the laughs their scientists (they do have their own, BTW) will have poring over those rockets and other munitions... Fantastic.
Reading is fundamental. The article specifically says where rockets and chemical weapons "were" stored, past tense. In other words, you're outraged that the militants seized an empty warehouse. That is, unless some pundit has convinced you that during the entire course of the US occupation, we never cleared out rockets and sarin gas. What a maroon.
There were no new WMD that we accused Saddam of making. JayZus. Also, those rockets were blown up. It's just a toxic environmental mess of a site right now. I guess they could use that crap to salt the very earth they're trying to "liberate".
Why yes, reading is fundamental. Iraq: 'Terrorists' seize ex-chemical weapons site The Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where remnants of 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with the deadly nerve b]agent sarin are stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq said in a letter circulated Tuesday at the United Nations. Tell me, since I am such a maroon, is the word are a "present indicative plural and 2nd person singular of be" as Dictionary.com defines it? Or is it past tense? Gee, I forget... Di(kwad. Yes, Saddam stopped production at some point before we invaded and apparently destroyed much of his remaining stocks (but not all). And he forgot to tell anyone about it, which probably could have spared a lot of people a lot of trouble had he done so. But there was quite a bit more there than most of the public is aware of. Click, read, and learn - I dare you: WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction. An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents. Full Story: http://www.wired.com/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/ People are concerned about this site falling into their hands for a reason. While they are not going to find stockpiles of fully intact weapons, the site is almost certainly going to be a treasure trove of materials and research for their specialists. The jihadists attempted to use WMD remnants (particularly CW) against us many, many times while we were there, they will exploit this site to their fullest. Really, I dare you to read that story. You might learn something.
Oops, forgot the link for the libtards to ignore: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-terrorists-seize-ex-chemical-weapons-000835604.html
It's a poorly written sentence but it is the remnants of the rocket's that are being stored not sarin, the rockets that were once filled with sarin, decades ago , but now are not filled with sarin . The Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where remnants of 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with the deadly nerve agent sarin are stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq said in a letter circulated Tuesday at the United Nations. editing really suffers in the instant information age
I actually went back and looked at the post that started this to make sure, then used CTRL-C and CTRL-V with the following result [emphasis added]... F*** off, b!tch. The quote you posted clearly tells the story in past tense. I don't know where your confusion is, but you have a great deal of confusion somewhere. Since you seem to have forgotten or never learned your recent history, the UN weapons inspectors were working, had access, and were removed when George W. Bush decided that the Iraq war needed to start. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-fast-facts/ I'm not the one who needs more education. I read that story quite some time ago (Wired subscriber since the first print issue), it isn't my fault you don't seem to understand what it says. I believe this is the result of your ODS.
Thank you for providing an accurate fact filled post. It's not always easy to do amongst the insults constantly being hurled.
Which is why I mentioned the insults as well. I thanked him for the fact filled part. Of course those insults were in response to Treeman's insults. For whatever reason the way that Treeman communicates on this board is in large part through insult. He may not mean those insults. I don't know. But responding to insults with insults isn't ideal but not at the same level as the initial insult. What's odd is that both posters are actually providing evidence for their position. It could be a well reasoned debate, but sadly it gets mired down in the insults.
I'll be happy to show the exact same respect to treeman that he affords to me. Same thing applies to you. Once you earn my respect, I will be thrilled to give it. Sadly, I doubt that will ever happen.
OK now you can **** a brick for realz Iraq Rebels Have Seized 88 Pounds of Uranium http://gizmodo.com/iraq-rebels-have-seized-88-pounds-of-uranium-1602873216 by the way, this article says "are" also. It emerged recently that rebels are in control of a disused chemical weapons factory—the Muthanna complex, north-west of the capital Baghdad—in which rockets filled with sarin and other deadly nerve agents are housed. Reports claim that these munition stocks are degraded, but such compounds can still be used to create dirty weapons. But I think it is the same confusion as above
