Iraq lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul: PM

Fenton said:

Oh that's right.

I remember back in the 90s when ISIS was marching town to town unchallenged killing all those who got in their way.

Oh wait, that didn't happen until Obama based a critical Foreign Policy decision on a stupid Political narrative.

Obama himself acknowledged a peaceful stable Iraq and when Bush jr left it Iraq citizens were voting in open elections.

Even Iraqi Women were allowed to vote without the fear of persecution.

Your Bush obsession is clouding your judgement ....again.

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It's unfortunate that it takes so long for some people to learn that taking war to the Middle East just breeds more hatred for us, HATRED. we haven't just killed enemy combatants, we have killed a few hundred thousand civilians in the region, destroyed god only knows how much infrastructure. The intelligence services produced a report in 2006 that concluded that the second Iraq war had breed even more hatred, caused an increase in violence and terrorism globally and made America less safe. These people hate us, and the violence and terrorism continues to grow, and freaks on the right fringe want to take more of it to them, because no lesson is ever learned. Those that are trying to find a different approach are labeled weak and appeasers! This living by the sword is going to be America's Achilles heel, wait and see.

matchlight said:

I note your slur against this country, and it doesn't surprise me. It is drivel. No great power in history has ever had less ambition for empire than the United States. For four years after WWII, only this country had the atom bomb. By 1949, we had about 200 of them, before anyone else had even one. With an advantage that enormous, the U.S. could have dictated terms to every nation on earth, and built an empire like the world had never seen.

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It didn't sound like a slur against this country to me. It sounds like a slur against the insanity of committing the same failed policies repeatedly, despite the fact that we see them making matters worse and worse.

Ikari said:

Words are wind, measurement is fact. Obviously that was wrong because none of that held.

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It's true that Obama is a damned habitual liar. But it is not at all obvious that he misstated the situation in Iraq in his December, 2011 speech. In fact Iraq had been reasonably stable for at least three years before that. The "surge" of 2007, in cooperation with the "Awakening" alliance, had driven out the jihadists and quieted the most restive part of Iraq, al Anbar. But Obama's rear guard would like to peddle the baloney that Iraq really never had been stabilized. Why? Because if that were true, it would exonerate him--Iraq's decline into chaos during the past three years would not have been the result of Barack Obama's incompetent foreign policy.

What evidence? Korea

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You asserted in #97 that "occupying forces are always at a disadvantage, it's a race against the clock." I cited the U.S. military force that has remained in South Korea since the end of the war there in 1953 as an example that flatly refutes your assertion. So now you just repeat it, with no explanation. That is not an argument.

Instead of just saying "Korea," why don't you explain how the U.S. force in South Korea has ever been at a disadvantage during the six decades they have been there? Just who ever put them at a disadvantage, and how? And how has anything about the U.S. force in South Korea ever been a race against the clock? Pretty damned strange to have a race against the clock that has lasted sixty-two years.

matchlight said:

It's true that Obama is a damned habitual liar.

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He's a politician, that's pretty much a given.

matchlight said:

But it is not at all obvious that he misstated the situation in Iraq in his December, 2011 speech. In fact Iraq had been reasonably stable for at least three years before that. The "surge" of 2007, in cooperation with the "Awakening" alliance, had driven out the jihadists and quieted the most restive part of Iraq, al Anbar. But Obama's rear guard would like to peddle the baloney that Iraq really never had been stabilized. Why? Because if that were true, it would exonerate him--Iraq's decline into chaos during the past three years would not have been the result of Barack Obama's incompetent foreign policy.

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It is completely obvious, because had there been a stable and self-reliant Iraqi government in place, it'd still be there functioning properly. But it's not, so it wasn't. It fell apart when we left because it wasn't stable.

matchlight said:

You asserted in #97 that "occupying forces are always at a disadvantage, it's a race against the clock." I cited the U.S. military force that has remained in South Korea since the end of the war there in 1953 as an example that flatly refutes your assertion. So now you just repeat it, with no explanation. That is not an argument.

Instead of just saying "Korea," why don't you explain how the U.S. force in South Korea has ever been at a disadvantage during the six decades they have been there? Just who ever put them at a disadvantage, and how? And how has anything about the U.S. force in South Korea ever been a race against the clock? Pretty damned strange to have a race against the clock that has lasted sixty-two years.

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Occupying forces are at the disadvantage. Our military bases across the globe are not really an example of infinite occupation since many of those are not designed to occupy the likes of what we have done in Iraq. In fact, that war we fought ourselves into a stalemate and then divided up the country. We're not fighting agianst the South Koreans, they have a government and run themselves. It's not occupation. We had tried to occupy Korea, it didn't work. Now there is North and South Korea.

So you've proven nothing, except perhaps a misunderstanding of occupation and war.