- Joined
- May 7, 2010
- Messages
- 24,412
- Reaction score
- 10,441
- Location
- Upstate SC
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
Yea, and it's that response that ends up with the death of Americans. Maybe no response at all is preferable in this case.
...
2. That region in particular is actually more likely to respond to violence. It's a language they understand, unlike western empathy.
That didn't answer my question.
If someone declares by physical violence upon you as a person, are you going to defend yourself, or run away from a fight?
Looks to me like Iraqis ran from a fight, and they had the most modern equipment to use against an insurgency.
After mission accomplished, weren't American and coalition forces training Iraqis to defend their homeland?
Nope. Your whole argument falls apart on your phony demographics. The Iraqi 2nd Division that was the first to fall was predominantly Kurdish troops fight for a predominantly Kurdish population. The primary reason for the fall of Northern Iraq was a lack of ammunition and weapons and a crumbling supply chain (the stuff the US would have been handling). Most of the northern provinces were defended by soldiers with dwindling supplies.
Again it was for sectarian reasons that the Kurds lacked ammunition and weapons. Maliki refused to supply the Kurds even though we were supplying the weapons and urged him to share. There was never any hope for a stable Iraq as long as Maliki was in charge. He took his orders from Iran and they HATE the Kurds. If we had any sense we would have denied the Shia there choice of leaders and foregone those much hailed "free" elections. but that would have denied Bush his "victory" so for purely political reasons we backed Maliki and sealed Iraq's fate.
That's an odd claim since it is well known that Iran is arming the Kurds and I've seen reports that they are fighting along side them.
You are the odd one. Iran is definitely not arming the Kurds. Iran has a large Kurdish population and they fear a separatist movement.
Why Iran Fears Iraq
Iraq Crisis: Effort to Aid Kurdish Forces Puts Iran, U.S. on Same Side - WSJIraq Crisis: Effort to Aid Kurdish Forces Puts Iran, U.S. on Same Side
MAKHMOUR, Iraq—The struggles of the embattled Kurdish Peshmerga to repel Islamist insurgents have put the U.S. and Iran on the same side, with both rushing to reinforce a revered fighting force to defeat a common enemy.
UPDATE 3-Iran provided weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12 | ReutersUPDATE 3-Iran provided weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12
Aug 26 (Reuters) - Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said on Tuesday at a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.
The direct arming of Kurdish forces is a contentious issue because some Iraqi politicians suspect Kurdish leaders have aspirations to break away from the central government completely. The move could also be seen by some as a prelude to Iran's taking a more direct role in a broader Iraqi conflict.
"We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition," Barzani said.
Again it was for sectarian reasons that the Kurds lacked ammunition and weapons.
Maliki refused to supply the Kurds even though we were supplying the weapons and urged him to share.
There was never any hope for a stable Iraq as long as Maliki was in charge. He took his orders from Iran and they HATE the Kurds.
If we had any sense we would have denied the Shia there choice of leaders and foregone those much hailed "free" elections. but that would have denied Bush his "victory" so for purely political reasons we backed Maliki and sealed Iraq's fate.
Meanwhile, Iran’s rush to aid the Sunnis among Iraqi Kurds expresses Iran’s tripartite strategy towards Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Tehran wants to dominate the area to protect its influence in Baghdad. It also aims to control eastern Syria and to influence Kurdish relations with Turkey. Arabs don’t have plans to dominate or to gain influence in either Iraq or in Syria and they also avoid raising Turkey’s suspicions. Iran, however, is less concerned about respecting the rules of the regional security balance. Iran desires to take over Iraq at any price by presenting itself as the protector of Sunni Kurds and Shiite Arabs.
Yes there has been a bit of a turnaround lately but I would not misinterpret Iran's motives.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/09/01/Iran-and-its-sudden-defense-of-the-Kurds.html
Where's the proof you keep demanding from me??
TRANSLATION: I was wrong, but really don't want to admit it.
Again, false. You are either knowingly lying or using terrible sources. Your argument doesn't even make sense given the reality of the lead up to the ISIS invasion. For the better part of a year Maliki was pleading with the Obama administration to provide logistics and air support to his northern defense forces.
But it should be noted that you have now quietly abandoned your idiotic claim that Iraqi forces broke in Northern Iraq due to being all Shia and not wanting to defend Sunnis. :roll:
Now you want to claim the they were undefended because mummblemummblemummbleSectarianDifferences. Bull crap.
False again. Maliki realized in the lead up to the war that the US was not going to help him so he was left with the position of having insufficient forces to defend the Iraqi borders so what he did was what any sane person would do, he pulled forces back to consolidate the defense of the most populated areas of Iraq. Had he sent more forces to the North and lost then Baghdad would be flying an ISIS flag.
Had he sent a large contingent to defend Mosul he would have left central Iraq wide open.
Saddam hated the Kurds to, was Iraq unstable under Saddam?
Complete non-sense. You are failing to tie the ISIS invasion success to political infighting in Baghdad. It simply isn't the case. The fall of Mosul was due to critically insufficient military resources managed badly after the US left them in a lurch.
Read more: Congress weighs arming Iraqi Kurds - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle EastForeign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., introduced temporary legislation to arm the peshmerga forces in their fight against the Islamic State (IS). Doing so would mark a reversal of current US policy, which has sought to reinforce the central government in a bid to stop the country from splintering along ethnic and sectarian lines.
"We thought a long time ago that our appeals to Baghdad to do the right thing would be heard and [former Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki's government turned a deaf ear month after month. We've reached the point where we have allies to our cause of defeating [IS] fighting in the field, without adequate equipment, and we are determined to see that they obtain it," Royce told Al-Monitor. "We want the weapons in the hands of the peshmerga that are on the front line, now."
Some victory that was. Oust one sectarian dictator and enemy of Iran and install another sectarian dictator who was a puppet of Iran. What could possibly go wrong?
Well Caine, when you're right, you're right. Interesting choice for a picture too. If you really think about it, Reagan's funding of the mujahadeen in the 80s was based on a flawed sense of how America could export freedom. If we only gave religious extremists money, maybe then they'd turn their sights off the medium sized Satan (America) and turn it towards the big Satan (USSR). What Reagan didn't count on was what would happen when those religious extremists went home. Lack of foresight seems to be a condition of warhawks in the post-Reagan era and now we're left to deal with their mess.
Really? How do you figure? In all those cases the government is either so corrupt and ineffectual that terrorism thrives there or the government's support the terrorist organizations. So how would you deal with them without engaging in some sort of regime change? For example, lets say we start napalming Boku Haram's jungle hideouts, do you honestly think that Goodluck Jonathan will all of a sudden give up his corrupt ways that allowed a group like Boku Haram to thrive there in the first place?
Of course it is our choice.
If we packed up our **** and left......the middle east and quit meddling..... we keep our counter terrorist operations and intelligence gathering, and there isn't a damned thing they can do to us.
If you think our military flexing some muscle and them spilling our blood in their backyard is preventing a terrorist attack, your deluded.
That is one view. Another view was that the Soviet Union wanted Persian Gulf warm water ports. A long time ago in a life lived when I was much younger I was involved in some sessions on how to respond to a southward Soviet move. It was not about exporting freedom. It was about tying down the Soviet Union.
If we were to do as you say we would only make it easier and more likely for them to attack us here.
If we were to do as you say we would only make it easier and more likely for them to attack us here.
BHO and Biden called it a victory. You're saying they were wrong?
Your view is not in contradiction to mine. As a matter of fact, it's complimentary. Whatever reason Reagan used to rapidly increase funding of religious extremists like Osama Bin Laden it shows an enormous lack of foresight. The Reagan administration simply did not foresee any problems with giving money to Islamic fundamentalists. We are now left to deal with the fruits of that particular harvest.
Yea, and it's that response that ends up with the death of Americans. Maybe no response at all is preferable in this case.
You have now changed your question and it still devalues the scale of the crisis faced in Iraq by orders of magnitude. The forces of Northern Iraq (Primarily the 2nd Division in Mosul) fought for three days against the ISIS attackers with few weapons and ammunition. Many of the 2nd Division did die defending Mosul, but they lost. They were poorly trained, and they needed support and continued training to be a self sufficient force. When Obama pulled the US troops out of Iraq the Iraqi military had not yet conducted a single counter insurgency operation without US logistics and support. They weren't ready.
Everyone in the world knew they weren't ready, including ISIS who waltzed in as soon as the US troops were gone. It was a mystery only to Obama, I suppose... but then that is expected given that they don't give updates of combat readiness of Iraq Military divisions on Sports Center.
The northern armies were poorly equipped and poorly funded. When the US pulled out of Iraq the military went in to a panic and tried to consolidate what they had, moving most forces resources to a ring around Baghdad. Poor logistics (again, something the US was handling) left them badly overestimating the readiness of their Northern defenses. There is no doubt that grave mistakes were made by the Iraqi military in the months leading up to the ISIS invasion, but to write it off as simple cowardice is just a lie you tell yourself so you can ignore what is happening in Iraq.
Yep. How long do you think it takes to build a first world military in a third world country? The edge for ISIS is in their barbarity. Ruthless, insane blood letting is as effective a military tool now as it has ever been.
I see, you only blame running away Iraqis on being poorly supplied and trained, and blame Obama for the mess now, when in fact, America should never have gone there in the first place.
And you never answered any of my questions.
I'll rephrase it for you.
If you're being attacked, do you turn tail and run, or do you fight back?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?