We are now witnessing the inevitable consequences of going into a war in a nation that posed no threats to the US, was politically stable, sectarian, where Shiites, Sunni and Christians lived side by side in relative harmony and al Qaeda was viewed as an enemy by all sides. We installed a puppet regime that was wholly Shiite with some token Sunni leaders, a regime that crackdown on the Sunni population and ironically a regime that is firmly allied with Iran and now we have the decrepit old warmonger John McCain demanding that Obama fix the mess his political preferences caused by doing Iraq war 2.0, with the same gang of henchmen that lied us into a war that has totally destabilized Iraq and the surrounding nations.
McCain insisted that we supply weapons and money to the Sunni opposition in Syria, the same people who allied themselves with al Qaeda and have joined forces with the Sunni awakening in Iraq but not so clever John, now wants to go to war against those people he so recently was man crushing on as true patriots. It’s impossible to fathom how somebody can be wrong all the time and can even flip sides and do a complete 180 by wanting to now defend a puppet regime that is an ally to Iran and yet there it was yesterday, when McCain went to the floor of the senate to berate the POTUS for not being a duplicitous chameleon bent on war like good old, bloviating and useless John is.
OK John, how do you square the circle of creating the destruction of a once secular nation into a bloodbath that is drawing in extremists from around the world? How do you square the circle that the insurgents are funded by US dollars that you insisted on being provide to them and how do you square the circle of al Qaeda now having control of 1/3 of Iraq, a country that had no al Qaeda presence before the Bush multi trillion dollar war for oil and no bid contracts for war chasing corporate profiteers?
According to John, you side with the pro Iranian despot who Bush installed as president of Iraq and squander untold $ billions if not trillions fighting against the very same people you wept and bemoaned needed our military aid and support when they were across the border in Syria. You want the Bush team of warmongers returned to power to lead a war against the people you so admired early this year and late last year.
All I can say is thank the mercies of fate that you never became president and got to live out your desires for never ending wars as you’d have us fighting against both sides of every conflict depending on which way the wind was blowing.
We should have left Iraq alone in 2003 as ironically it was America’s major bulwark against Iran and its presence kept a state of balance in the region. The complete unraveling of the entire region can be traced back to the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Syrian crisis, the division of Iraq into pro Iran and collectively anti the US, the Sunni awakening and the rise of al Qaeda where it never existed before are all being laid at your neo con doorstep, so what’s an old whining warmonger to do? Blame Obama because you belong to the party of chaos and no personal responsibility other than feeding the notion of war for profit at the cost of lives and the bankrupting of America.
It’s time for you to retire seeing you are so unhinged that you thought Sarah Palin would have made a great VP in 2008 and railed against the Biden plan on Iran that was to create a loosely federated nation of 3 constituent parts that would have seen this current carnage never arise.
Anyone familiar with the region and current affairs or history could have seen these religous wars coming on. Tito held Yugoslavia together and look what happened when he died. Look at the European Religious Wars of the 1600s as well. This was a key factor is the Founders’ separating State from Church while giving individual people the freedom to believe (or not to believe).
This may not be politically expedient nor correct, but I cannot help but believe that there was a powerful tow of pro-Israeli protectionism behind our attacking Iraq not so much that Iraq was anti-Israel but for an American presence to be established on the borders of Iran for Israeli protection. My reasoning is found in the allegiances of the most prominent of NeoCons — Wolfowitz, Perle, Adelman.
Hi Cacey! Welcome to the planet. I agree in part about the motivation by some in the Bush/Ceney administration to protect Israel, but I really think the biggest motivation was to make Iraq a staging ground for American imperialism in the region, in order to get better control of the world’s oil supplies. I think protecting Israel would have a been just one of the “benefits,” that would have been consequential.
So much knowledge available and so few using it. Along with ‘Krystal’ of the ‘right’ McCain has a long history of being ‘wrong’, but hey, he never let’s that fact shut him down. I have noticed in the last few days the abundance of ‘talking heads’ from Bushie’s crowd, laying all the blame on the Prez., ya gotta love their ability to turn corners though, even at high speeds they can change direction on a dime. What is truly amazing is the fact that 30% of Americans believe them, no matter which side of the argument they are on today. That takes back to the lack of knowledge about the world that prevails in our country, even with only a hi-school education, with reading a couple books back in the 70’s I knew the difference between Sunni and Shia and the existing hatred of both, but our fine leaders and talking heads seem surprised about all this, even today!! We need to stay out, period, there is no solution that requires more American deaths.
A great summary:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/opinion/bergen-iraq-isis-bush/index.html?hpt=hp_t4
Miles “Debunks Everything JumpingJackFlash Has Posted” Long
“I had hoped to bury war with her, but only she was taken.”
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
“The seeds they had sown with such great attention and fervor, never knowing the flower, devoured all in their compass.”
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
“Their burnt flesh and their legs and their limbs, so many, too many, we must at least gather the children. We must at least gather the children, we must, at least, gather the children.”
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
My suggestion would be to allow all those who think it would be a good idea to intervene, again, to be sent to the front lines. Halliburton and whatever oil company we gave their oil fields to can finance it. It is time we recouped the profit these companies made on the original boondoggle. Not one additional penny should come from either the military budget or from the national budget.
Excellent summation, Outlandish, and nice to see you and other friends on this site. I wrote something similar somewhere, though not as thorough, only adding that I thought it was about time the oil companies, who have been reaping the profits of our military’s sacrifice and efforts, profits that were supposed to pay for the misbegotten travesty, ponied up now to secure their particular interests, as well as contributing to the humanitarian situation, there, and here at home, the results of their throwing a pittance of their prior profits to finance politicians like McCain.
I have to say that one of my favorite neocon hits now being replayed as the same idiots blame Obama for not buying into their original delusions and keeping them afloat was a quote from wrong-way Kristol in the lead up the invasion pooh poohing the concerns of those he called “pop psychologists” for bringing up the “contrived” idea that invading Iraq might stir up over a thousand years of sectarian conflict between religious factions. Right, Bill, the Sunni Shia divide was just a figment of the imaginations of those overly analytical cowards needing any excuse not to jump on the kamikazee bandwagon.
Terrific article, outlandish!
I thought you might enjoy this map that Mother Jones printed, entitled “Battlefield Earth.” It shows all of McCain’s potential target-nations over the last few years:
[img]http://www.motherjones.com/files/mccain_rage_map_UPD-01_1.png[/img]
The article it came from is pretty darn witty too, rating possible confrontation scenarios on a 1-5 scale of red “Angry McCain” faces:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/john-mccain-world-attack-map-syria
Thanks for the map and link kesmarn and you’ve got to realize that nearly all of McCains preferred war zones have good guys and bad guys on both sides so he’d fight to eliminate one side then fight to eliminate the side that won.[img]undefined[/img]
Yet another ‘look at me!’ moment. McCain is a bully and a coward from the bottom of his Navy cadet class and the very worst fighter pilot the Navy ever put in a plane. He was never shot down. He crashed five planes, one in a war zone causing his own injuries and was rescued by North Vietnamese. They held him until the US fled Nam in defeat. People very conveniently forget that the reason McCain was captured in Vietnam is because he DISOBEYED ORDERS — and not for the first time. If his daddy and grand-daddy hadn’t been admirals in the Navy, little Johnny-boy wouldn’t have made it past Annapolis. Most of his actions today are not lucid and only made to bring attention to his irrelevant self.
I believe that if him and Palin had won the election we would still be in Iraq and Afghanistan but would have already started wars in Iran, Syria, Libya against all those muslim groups but I still can’t forget or dismiss he also wanted war with Russia about Georgia and the Ukraine. In short, McCain is insane. Merika has not actually won a war since 1945. I believe this country would indeed erupt in civil war if the draft were ever reinstituted for these follies. The true enemy of this country is the Republican Party and their horribly stupid teabaggers that believe in them and their phony sectarian christian cults for jebus. At least we know who they are…
Harleigh, you speak the truth.
Welcome, outlandish! And for starting with your usual excellent job of posting – thanks.
Well done.
Churchill once said that “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” The Middle East with its stew of ethnic, tribal, ideological and sectarian rivalry, antagonism and outright hostility has only been governed with positive effect by secular governments. As galling as it is to admit this, Saddam Hussein, as you point out, kept the forces in check with a political structure anchored in the Baath Party and provided a check on emerging Iranian power.
The limited response to the invasion of Kuwait was a finely tuned action the more we look back on it.
The farce that was the case for the W led invasion in 2003 and the disaster that the invasion represent in tactics and strategy are now being revisited.
Perhaps Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and members of Congress like McCain will, at long last, be subject to the public scrutiny they deserve.
Outlandish, welcome to the Planet.
i’m very glad obama is president; he won’t get us into a war so far from our own country it’s night there when it’s day here. the main reason the right has for getting back into this is so the many dead “will not be in vain”–about the dumbest reason to fight i can think of.
“A peoples revolution cannot be won by a foreign army.”
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Outlandish, Mr. McCain simply believes that if we had “warred better” powdered wigs, constitutions and free markets would have sprouted all over Iraq.