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The insurgency wasn't mostly foreign, but there was a foreign faction to it.
You're suggesting the insurgency is largely foreign in nature? If so provide some source for this. Because I've done some very brief research that debunks this idea thoroughly.
Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?
Good god. Are we all still being too simple? Still too stupid to understand how absolutely contradictory and pathetic we are?
- The same leftist pieces of garbage in the world that has a love affair for pointing out America's Cold War sins with dictators immediately jumped to criticize America for refusing to continue a Cold War mission in regards to Saddam Hussein.
- The same pieces of garbage in America who seek to drag America through the mud over Hussein absolutely deny that for twelve years we placed troops in and out of Iraq to deal with humanitarian issues, denied him his right to fly his own military jets over his own soil, denied him trade, and looked away as long as his UN starvation tactics didn't interfere with oil flow. "Soveriegnty" mattered only in 2003.
- The same war protestors who painted their little signs and looked for dates at college universities boasted their heartfelt feelings of "No-War-For-Oil." But somehow containing (and maintaining his family inheriting regime) the dictator, that we should have killed long ago, as he starved out his people and toyed with the U.S. military while making the UN look like the fool it is...for oil....was something to pretend wasn't happening. After all, why go to war for oil when we can simply pretend that we aren't dragging our values through the mud for it?
- The same fools who read Osama Bin Laden's letter to the American people and found understanding or disgust glossed completely over the part where he used the "starving children of Iraq" and the "escallation of troops in holy lands" as a justification. These same people denied the fact that this escallation occurred because of Hussein's continual games with our military. That Iraqi children were starving under UN mandates and scandels with American muscle enforcing it. They instead preached about how our historical sins with the Middle East has created our enemies (Osama said so) with a disregard for what had happened since 1991. I guess the mission was to go on forever until he died of natural causes...or his son died...or his other son died....or his entire regime of nasties died of SARS. In the mean time, the UN mission, which was abandoned by just about all of the other nations who rogered up to the burden in 1991, could go ahead and serve as justifications for any other terrorist lunatic that wanted to punish America for the way the wind blows.
No matter where American troops go, there will always be a support given to what we are fighting. Or is the Black Hawk Down incident of Somalia supposed to take humanitarian missions off the table too? You want to fix this problem and set America up with a long view of security? It starts with the region, not an idiot in a cave who is merely a symptom of the cancerous Middle East. But I don't know. Maybe we can put this in terms of law enforcement. If the police go into a neighborhood to address gang land thugs (Afghanistan) or another neighborhood where drug dealers aren't really hurting anybody (Iraq), perhaps they should first consider pretending that all is well just in case they create more criminals by disrupting the careful balance people have become accustomed to. And the neighborhood itself? Surely correcting it will make it better for the citizens and thusly less likely to breed further criminals in mass, but maybe we should just accept the breeding and keep hitting symptoms instead for the illusion of progress.
This ridiculous idea that America creates enemies by crossing the ocean to adress people that hate us already is pointless. These ****ers are already our enemies. They merely lack the very small instigation to start killing. They already slaughter each other and look away as long as the tribe dying is the other one. Why would thery hesitate to kill a few Americans who represent that European "western" imperialism that is blamed for everything? At no time in our history has our enemies, once the war was taken to their territory, mounted counterattacks upon our soil. Since we are dealing with terrorists, we have to accept that even if America rejects 99 attempts, there will be the one that sneaks in. This is the price of not taking this crap anymore. Or was the American military, who was taking this crap since Beirut, supposed to go ahead and embrace our enemy as something untouchable until enough American civilians were killed? Maybe something like 9/11 will wake the morons up. Or maybe not.
Please explain. Who is complaining about a refusal to continue a Cold War mission? Can you give some examples because I'm not following your argument.
So it was the leftists who did this?
There are plenty of dictators starving their people out all over the place.
Lol...what games Gunny? Regardless of the "games" he played, can you please explain to us what actual threat Iraq was?
Our response to 9/11 exactly what OBL had been seeking for years. A heavy handed, ill conceived war of aggression that was so misguided that it set the world back on it's heels.
Let me ask you this Gunny...how is that we are to follow our own strategies for foreign internal defense and counter insurgency when our first act as occupiers is to dismantle the very governmental structure we are supposed to support?
I've never seen you or anyone else on this forum articulate an actual necessity for the invasion of Iraq.
Yes, yes, all us liberals hate America and spit on the flag. We have heard this all before, it's weak, it's cheap, and it's bull****. Good god what an asshole. Grow up for gods sake and learn to debate politics without the overwrought rhetoric.
You're suggesting the insurgency is largely foreign in nature? If so provide some source for this. Because I've done some very brief research that debunks this idea thoroughly.
Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?
In iraq, most of the insurgents were import models, especially later in the game.
I am "stating" that the initial insurgency was largely made up of international players and Al-Queda managed to organize them with local fighters. Fallujah I and II? Al-Queda heavy. As the international players slowed because they recognized that they were merely going to the slaughter, Iraqi players began to emerge and take charge.
But even our local enemies were merely Sunni tribesman that couldn't fathom that the Shia had power now. These are enemies that already existed. In fact, many were wearing Iraqi uniforms prior to our invasion. All they needed was an American to stand before them.
Source please???
You're one to be talking. I see you're still avoiding the completely trashing of your argument I conducted earlier. Instead of blabbing general insults like some kind of keyboard robot, why don't you simply engage your brain in some intelligent debate.
I've left you with several reasonable and relevant counters to your argument. How about you try and actually address those with actual reasonable and relevant responses of substance.
Not "Libbos are dumb...yuck yuck yuck."
I didn't mention "liberals" at all. And I referred to "leftist" in regards to "the world" in only one part.
Why are you people so defensive?
Good god. Are we all still being too simple? Still too stupid to understand how absolutely contradictory and pathetic we are?
- The same leftist pieces of garbage in the world that has a love affair for pointing out America's Cold War sins with dictators immediately jumped to criticize America for refusing to continue a Cold War mission in regards to Saddam Hussein.
- The same pieces of garbage in America who seek to drag America through the mud over Hussein absolutely deny that for twelve years we placed troops in and out of Iraq to deal with humanitarian issues, denied him his right to fly his own military jets over his own soil, denied him trade, and looked away as long as his UN starvation tactics didn't interfere with oil flow. "Soveriegnty" mattered only in 2003.
- The same war protestors who painted their little signs and looked for dates at college universities boasted their heartfelt feelings of "No-War-For-Oil." But somehow containing (and maintaining his family inheriting regime) the dictator, that we should have killed long ago, as he starved out his people and toyed with the U.S. military while making the UN look like the fool it is...for oil....was something to pretend wasn't happening. After all, why go to war for oil when we can simply pretend that we aren't dragging our values through the mud for it?
- The same fools who read Osama Bin Laden's letter to the American people and found understanding or disgust glossed completely over the part where he used the "starving children of Iraq" and the "escallation of troops in holy lands" as a justification. These same people denied the fact that this escallation occurred because of Hussein's continual games with our military. That Iraqi children were starving under UN mandates and scandels with American muscle enforcing it. They instead preached about how our historical sins with the Middle East has created our enemies (Osama said so) with a disregard for what had happened since 1991. I guess the mission was to go on forever until he died of natural causes...or his son died...or his other son died....or his entire regime of nasties died of SARS. In the mean time, the UN mission, which was abandoned by just about all of the other nations who rogered up to the burden in 1991, could go ahead and serve as justifications for any other terrorist lunatic that wanted to punish America for the way the wind blows.
No matter where American troops go, there will always be a support given to what we are fighting. Or is the Black Hawk Down incident of Somalia supposed to take humanitarian missions off the table too? You want to fix this problem and set America up with a long view of security? It starts with the region, not an idiot in a cave who is merely a symptom of the cancerous Middle East. But I don't know. Maybe we can put this in terms of law enforcement. If the police go into a neighborhood to address gang land thugs (Afghanistan) or another neighborhood where drug dealers aren't really hurting anybody (Iraq), perhaps they should first consider pretending that all is well just in case they create more criminals by disrupting the careful balance people have become accustomed to. And the neighborhood itself? Surely correcting it will make it better for the citizens and thusly less likely to breed further criminals in mass, but maybe we should just accept the breeding and keep hitting symptoms instead for the illusion of progress.
This ridiculous idea that America creates enemies by crossing the ocean to adress people that hate us already is pointless. These ****ers are already our enemies. They merely lack the very small instigation to start killing. They already slaughter each other and look away as long as the tribe dying is the other one. Why would thery hesitate to kill a few Americans who represent that European "western" imperialism that is blamed for everything? At no time in our history has our enemies, once the war was taken to their territory, mounted counterattacks upon our soil. Since we are dealing with terrorists, we have to accept that even if America rejects 99 attempts, there will be the one that sneaks in. This is the price of not taking this crap anymore. Or was the American military, who was taking this crap since Beirut, supposed to go ahead and embrace our enemy as something untouchable until enough American civilians were killed? Maybe something like 9/11 will wake the morons up. Or maybe not.
Yes we are, along with the UK. We did in fact provide critical assistance to him in establishing his rule and maintaining it the manner in which he did. This is no secret.America is "guilty" for the Shah.
Of course we are, because we do. And when we do we give them a pass on their conduct.It is "guilty" for supporting the House of Saud.
Do we support Israel at all costs? Yes we do. That would in fact make us guilty.It is "guilty" for supporting Israel at all costs.
Beyond dispute, we absolutely are.It is "guilty" for those few dictators in South America.
Who looks away? When you say "we" you really need to be more specific. The ambiguous nature of your comment leaves far more questions than answers. It's far too broad. Once I know who exactly it is you're talking about I'll be more equipped to actually debate you on this point. As far as the term guilty goes, I don't know what to tell you. We did all those things, regardless of the reason. But I will tell you this, an examination of a decent cross section of history will show you that our reasons were less than benevolent. Nasty medicine, I know.But when it came to pushing Saddam Hussein back into Iraq and preserving him (containing him) for oil stability....we look away?
Absolutely.The entire mission of the Cold War was about beating the Soviets at their own game and denying them the resources needed to make militaries powerful.
No, this is where we will disagree. It was not about "regional stability no matter the cost." It was about a western friendly economic and political sphere of influence no matter the cost. Had communism provided regional stability we wouldn't have been in there supporting that cause.After this it was all about regional stability no matter the cost. This is where the dictators came in. And why was Saddam HUssein preserved after the Gulf War for twelve years?
What difference does this even make? We never felt compelled to act against them for any of those reasons. You're talking about making excuses now, nothing more.And how many of those are doing so while we maintain his existence under UN demands? How many of those dictators have history with us making them "our" dictator? How many of those can affect an entire world's oil supply by misbehaving?
I don't even know what you mean by this Gunny.How many of them were made a personal mission for America?
You mean there are many reasons people will use to go to war, but not all of them are justified.There are many reasons to go to war.
Patently false. Nothing I've ever posted suggests this.You have just convinced yourself that it takes a 9/11 or a Pearl Harbor to conduct one.
Nonsense. I have never, ever, not one time denied our history in world affairs. In fact, I'd venture a guess that I'm probably one of the biggest proponents of critical examination of our nations foreign policies. I'd venture a guess I've probably typed more lines of text detailing the need to embrace our past history in this regard, take responsibility for it, and change things for the future.By reducing the situation to the simple, "there are lots of dictators," you are doing exactly what my post called out. You are denying our personal history in this just to deny responsibility.
It wasn't "necessary" this time.But like it or not, we did it. And like it or not, we will do it again when necessary.
And here is the disconnect. Who cares about the threat? Reasonable, rational, responsible people "care about the threat." When you "care about the threat" you don't throw thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of other nations lives on a burn pile.Who cares about a threat?
Again with the "mission" reference. This sounds like a bunch of myopic pro-militarist rhetoric to me. There is no sound logic behind using this as an excuse to invade a country that was no threat to anyone but itself. Our mission? Come on man, this isn't right wing talk radio hour.He was our mission.
Let's be clear about something. Either you're being very disingenuous here or you really don't understand the differences between the situations. How can you sit here and try to compare World War 2 to OIF in terms of necessity and threat? This isn't amusing, in fact it's quite disappointing.Was Germany a threat after we reached the German border? Yet we went on. Was Japan a threat after we attackd into the Pacific? Yet we moved on.
Neither did the Korean War. What's your point? We accomplished our mission with Desert Storm, which was to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait.The Gulf War never ended.
While I appreciate your references to Clinton's use of force in Iraq I want you to be aware this in no way validates the invasion and occupation of Iraq. What it means is that Clinton used air power to compel Saddam's compliance. Just because a president chooses air strikes as punishment doesn't mean that the threat is sufficient to warrant full scale invasion and occupation. It simply means that specific action was taken in order to bring about compliance. Had invasion been necessary then invasion would have been the solution of choice. The games Saddam played weren't countered with air power, and that was enough.Are you aware that Clinton attacked Iraq no less than 4 separate times in his presedency and it all revolved around his game playing? That everytime Hussein mobilized his troops to the Kuwaiti border, we did the same and sent more and more troops into the region because of it? The Gulf War was simply paused with the expectations that he fullfill his part of the bargain. He refused enough times and we looked away enough times. In 2003, we finished the job. But like I stated, had we simply finished the job in 1991, there would not have been a 9/11. No "starving children of Iraq" to point out and no "escallation of troops" to bring attention to.
I assumed you understood what I was after when I said OBL got the response he wanted. He wasn't trying to provoke us to attack Greece after all. He wanted us to go to war with the world perception being that we were attacking Islam. I understand this.Now, I make it a point to make these issues a matter of personal and professional study of mine. I happen to know that Osama Bin Laden's "want" was to provoke America into a war against "Muslims," which he was already waging against our military since 1993.
Agreed.I also know that him being disgusted over who Saddam Hussein was had nothing to do with his 9/11, yet he used it to justify dead Americans. What he had hoped for was an American response into Afghanistan and hoped that the entire Middle East would rise up to fight.
Agreed, but let's be honest. Iraq was a gift that GWB gave OBL complete with a pretty bow.When Iraq occurred, he sought to run America out and establish another base of operations in the heartland of Islam.
What? He absolutely did get what he wanted with regard to the U.S. response. In fact he got more than he could have imagined. That the rest of Islam didn't rise up to his call is a testament to his delusion. And is a good counter to the whole "the middle east is cancerous" argument. The mere fact that this uprising didn't occur proves that the vast majority of Muslims don't want conflict with the west or with the infidels.....This did not happen. The people of the Middle East largely proved that he was just one of about tens of thousands who made the entire Middle East pay for a stupid act of terrorism. Instead of "rallying the troops," his minions have been slaughtered in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the Phillipines and in Africa and instead of two Muslim nations that center on Sharia he made possible two western style democracies, one right smack in the center of Islam heaven.
Osama Bin Laden got what he wanted? Hardly.
You're heading down the path of setting up a false dichotomy here Gunny.We went to war against the government. The large majority of the population had spent the last three decades being abused by the standing Sunni military.
There is a difference in removing the hierarchy and many high level bureaucrats completely dismantling the ability to govern a nation. Which is what we did in Iraq.Are you actually still attached to the aqrgument that would see us maintain the Nazi government after taking down Berlin?
That wasn't even remotely the case, I never suggested that. You are extrapolating in order to make your argument.Or expect the Jews of Germany to accept that their abusers still remain in power?
Well except for the little fact that we didn't the resources on the ground to sufficiently guard the massive weapons cache's we found. Martial law would have been impossible. You know this. And it would have backfired miserably because the only way we could have enforced it was to gun down people in droves.Our first act of occupation should have been martial law. But that wouldn't look good would it?
Melodramatic rhetoric. You don't need to go here. Nobody ever said it was "humane." The civil war was a result of our dismantling of the control devices that had previously been in place. We created a power vacuum and then uncorked a bottle of decades long tribal and sectarian strife. Again, testament to the fact that we had no intelligent plan for occupation going in.Somehow it was far more humane to watch them organize at night and slaughter each other in what the media mistakenly dubbed a "civil war."
My criticisms are towards both equally. In fact I've written literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of lines of text on these criticisms on this forum....By the way, your ciritcisms of the war should be more towards how screwed up they conducted it, not that they did it.
This all started with the Bush administration ignoring Colin Powell and putting that moron Tommy Franks in charge. Follow that with Paul Bremer and there you go.None of this should have cost this much and none of this should have been so bloody. But this is what happens when civilians seek to preach to the military about how they are supposed to accomplish a mission.
And that's where I'll stop reading and responding. Because your assessment of me is so patently false it's insulting. Nothing I've ever posted could validate your opinion of me. In fact, the assertion that I am determined to "look away" is ****ing comical.Well, you never will because you are determined to look away form what we were doing for the twelve years prior that instigated 9/11. For you and plenty of others, it is far simpler to pretend that our beef is with a lone bearded man that may or may not be still alive (he's dead by the way) in a cave sdomewhere in Afghanistan.
I am one to be talking. You're the one who childishly cries for docs on information that is basic common knowledge.
I meant earlier in the game. :S I retyped the first part and didn't edit the last part.
Initially it was internal, Iraqi fighters, and then a large amount of what was classified as "foreign fighters" came in and, from my understanding these "foreign fighters" then started to bolster the resistance in the Al Anbar province, behind the Sunnis, and then Iranians started to show, though they weren't really considered "foreign fighters", then as things dragged on we began to eradicate the "Foreign Fighter" flow, and that's when we saw natural born Iraqis start to increase in the ranks of insurgents.
Now this is paraphrasing a conversation I had with Lt. Col. Brown, Ret. USMC.
Credentials: 23 years in the USMC, Multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and now works D.O.D.
They do that when rounds are danger close.
In all seriousness, you should write columns for a major paper.
Why, very little of what he said is contextually correct. It's a little more than myopic opinion.
As opposed to you giving me a shot of your backside as you scamper off into the land of dodgy one liners?
You never support anything you post. You only attack others for what they post, then never accept their sources, claiming they're not credible enough for you. There's no amount of documentation in the world that will make you happy. You're purdy much a waste of everyone's time.
I love you soldier, just admit you were wrong on the 50 grand, and move on.
As for the other debates you may have had, you could be right, I don't know, I'm new here.
This doesn't actually substantiate that the majority of insurgents were foreign fighters at any time during the insurgency.
This mom needs to STFU.
Ummm, why?
Rode into battle on a short yellow bus did we?When I was in Special Force, my ass was often hanging in the wind, bro. But, that's when the real fun starts.
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