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Tribal leader: Iraqi troops in Anbar province could 'collapse within hours'

Montecresto said:
And I think Saudi Arabia as well. But without US approval, there is no regime change in the Middle East. Were you denying the US's long standing desire for regime change in Syria?
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Obama was staying as far away from that nest of destruction as possible - reason he kept on moving his Red Lines.
 
JANFU said:
Indeed we are, and I support a limited mission. I would rather provide more support to the Kurds and let them run for their independence.
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I also support a Kurdish state, Iran and Turkey not so much.
If you want a Kurdish state the best way is to eradicate ISIS and maintain a western presence.
 
Montecresto said:
I think that you minimise the help that the US has provided the Syrian opposition. And don't forget, president Assad is fighting his own war on terror, he's not fighting a conventional army out on the battlefield. He has every difficulty that the US has with civilian "collateral damage". The opposition can sucker punch him all they want, whereas he's quite aware that Western media will be reporting every civilian that falls prey to his errant bombs. As for regime change, that ambition and looking for a good reason to press it) predates even George Bush.

Repeated NIE's document that US intervention is having the opposite (spoken) desired effect. And has actually increased terrorists and terrorism in the region, and unlike the average partisan, I'm not hesitant to point out that both parties are contributing factors. And you're right, before Hillary Clinton was against president Assad, she was for him.
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If our support is so effective in syria (to the unicorn moderates) why isn't isis expelled?
 
US Conservative said:
Moving those red lines after his bluff was called is one reason we are in this mess. He's lost all credibility.
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Keeping the US out was his mission- They are all trying to use the US and others for their own purposes.
 
US Conservative said:
I also support a Kurdish state, Iran and Turkey not so much.
If you want a Kurdish state the best way is to eradicate ISIS and maintain a western presence.
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Turkeys gets along with the Peshmerga- cheap oil- with Kirkuk, approx 25 % of total oil reserves.
Turkey does not get along well with the PKK- who does not get along with the Peshmerga - sound like a familiar Arabic proverb?

The US did not have to go into all of Iraq. They could have taken the oil fields, air - no fly zone over Iraq and waited for them to turn over who they wanted.
Set the Kurds up in their own state. recognize them and others would as well.
The let the Sunni- Shia form their own states.
Iraq is a failed state, an artificial state since after WW1.
With long term US Base leases.
Right on top of the Stans, with oil/gas lines-fields, and Iran close.
Putin would have had a heart attack.
 
JANFU said:
Keeping the US out was his mission- They are all trying to use the US and others for their own purposes.
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If he thought getting called out after drawing a line was going to do that he failed. And in doing so he also lost all credibility. How much better was that?
 
Montecresto said:
I think that you minimise the help that the US has provided the Syrian opposition. And don't forget, president Assad is fighting his own war on terror, he's not fighting a conventional army out on the battlefield.
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He's not fighting a guerrilla-style insurgency. The opposition, just like any other conventional force, attempts to capture and hold territory. If Assad manages to crush the rebels they might resort to guerrilla tactics, but the rebel forces are as conventional as Hezbollah.
He has every difficulty that the US has with civilian "collateral damage". The opposition can sucker punch him all they want, whereas he's quite aware that Western media will be reporting every civilian that falls prey to his errant bombs.
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Barrel bombs are improvised area-of-effect weapons. They're used primarily in urban areas such as Aleppo and Damascus, and are indiscriminately dropped on rebel-held territory (since regime troops are not there, the Syrian Arab Air Force has no way of knowing if opposition fighters are actually being targeted). Most residents of Aleppo have fled the city mainly because of regime strategic bombing of the city. Such disregard for civilian welfare is very much a war crime; the US has not utilized tactics of that caliber since Vietnam. That's not even including the shabiha's massacres; the Syrian army's use of live fire, tanks, and snipers against peaceful demonstrators; chemical weapons; or the arbitrary arrests and torture of political activists and children.
 
US Conservative said:
If our support is so effective in syria (to the unicorn moderates) why isn't isis expelled?
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I suspect that it's largely because many of the locals support ISIS. I think it's that way in Iraq also. None of those people are "good", the're all bad guys, and so are the women and children.

That's the reason I don't believe the US should be in any rush to end this war. It may end, or it may continue to last thousands of years, either way, as long as they are busy fighting each other, I don't expect that they have too much time to plan attacks on the US.

All we need to do is to keep ISIS in check, keep them from spreading.
 
JANFU said:
Turkeys gets along with the Peshmerga- cheap oil- with Kirkuk, approx 25 % of total oil reserves.
Turkey does not get along well with the PKK- who does not get along with the Peshmerga - sound like a familiar Arabic proverb?

The US did not have to go into all of Iraq. They could have taken the oil fields, air - no fly zone over Iraq and waited for them to turn over who they wanted.
Set the Kurds up in their own state. recognize them and others would as well.
The let the Sunni- Shia form their own states.
Iraq is a failed state, an artificial state since after WW1.
With long term US Base leases.
Right on top of the Stans, with oil/gas lines-fields, and Iran close.
Putin would have had a heart attack.
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We did go into Iraq, thats water over the dam. Now what?
 
US Conservative said:
We did go into Iraq, thats water over the dam. Now what?
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Exactly what is being done now- US about to sign a 15 year deal for bases in Erbil- in Kurdistan- see the writing on the wall?
http://www.iraqinews.com/features/u...in-iraq-amid-talk-of-major-offensive-on-isis/
“The base is close to Erbil, the capital of the regional government…The warplanes will do surveillance, but the warplanes which will bomb ISIL targets will not take off from here,”Helgurt Hikmet, spokesperson for the Ministry of Peshmerga (Kurdish self-defense forces) said, as cited by Anadolu Agency.

Turkey’s Hurriyet also reported that the US is preparing documents to get land leasehold for the next 15 years to station US military personnel and warplanes. A number of the US Air Force’s Black Hawk helicopters have already been deployed to Erbil earlier this month, to ensure quick rescue operations to save downed pilots bombing ISIS positions in Northern Iraq. Such operations became a priority after ISIS fighters burnt alive a downed Jordanian pil
 
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JANFU said:
Obama was staying as far away from that nest of destruction as possible - reason he kept on moving his Red Lines.
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Obama dispatched Mrs. Clinton to the UN three times to secure a resolution for the use of force, all three times Russia and China said no. He also asked congress for authorisation, but after the British parliament pulled their support for military intervention, they had little interest. Do not say that Obama didn't want to intervene in Syria, and covertly he was intervening all along.
 
Montecresto said:
Obama dispatched Mrs. Clinton to the UN three times to secure a resolution for the use of force, all three times Russia and China said no. He also asked congress for authorisation, but after the British parliament pulled their support for military intervention, they had little interest. Do not say that Obama didn't want to intervene in Syria, and covertly he was intervening all along.
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I do not recall that?
 
imagep said:
I suspect that it's largely because many of the locals support ISIS. I think it's that way in Iraq also. None of those people are "good", the're all bad guys, and so are the women and children.

That's the reason I don't believe the US should be in any rush to end this war. It may end, or it may continue to last thousands of years, either way, as long as they are busy fighting each other, I don't expect that they have too much time to plan attacks on the US.

All we need to do is to keep ISIS in check, keep them from spreading.
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They support what they think is the best option. We need to make our allies in the region the best option. Im sure killing ISIS will help with that.
 
MadLib said:
He's not fighting a guerrilla-style insurgency. The opposition, just like any other conventional force, attempts to capture and hold territory. If Assad manages to crush the rebels they might resort to guerrilla tactics, but the rebel forces are as conventional as Hezbollah.


Barrel bombs are improvised area-of-effect weapons. They're used primarily in urban areas such as Aleppo and Damascus, and are indiscriminately dropped on rebel-held territory (since regime troops are not there, the Syrian Arab Air Force has no way of knowing if opposition fighters are actually being targeted). Most residents of Aleppo have fled the city mainly because of regime strategic bombing of the city. Such disregard for civilian welfare is very much a war crime; the US has not utilized tactics of that caliber since Vietnam. That's not even including the shabiha's massacres; the Syrian army's use of live fire, tanks, and snipers against peaceful demonstrators; chemical weapons; or the arbitrary arrests and torture of political activists and children.
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Pentagon: Isis Using Local Population in Syria as Human Shields
By Gianluca Mezzofiore
September 23, 2014 17:32 BST39 25

When the Israelis kill civilians because of this, you and many others here excuse it for a host of reasons.
 
US Conservative said:
Obama is a weak leader all over the place with his policies. Who would want to support that? Who would write that a blank check?
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Other than warmongers, such as yourself, who would write any president a blank check to use our military force?
 
US Conservative said:
Im no warmonger, but I know where we need to fight. And I'd never write such a check.
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Yes, lots of people seem to think they know where we need to fight. I like the people that know where we need to make peace.
 
US Conservative said:
Lolz. Why hasn't anyone thought of that? Just make peace and peace is sure to follow!
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We have knuckle dragging morons all about us, and those that can't piece together a sentence. Hopefully, we will have more literate leaders at some point, hmm?
 
US Conservative said:
We need to go there and kill them. Why? Because **** evil.

Its a pitty the left doesn't have the balls to do what it takes, they never do.
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You know, I've never got what people such as yourself on the right says that the left "doesn't have the balls to do what it takes." The fact of the matter is that Obama has bombed more countries than Bush (Lizza says Obama has bombed more nations than Bush) and the number of drone strikes have skyrocketed under administration. The following graph ONLY takes into account his first term, and even still, Obama during his first term committed six times as many drone strikes than Bush in Pakistan:

obama-vs-bush-strikes-in-pakistan.jpg


Just what do you think that he doesn't have the "balls" to do at this point if he's willing to go that far?

Montecresto said:
Lol, I know, I thought that was funny, if irrelevant to our discussion, but couldn't resist it. As to your question, I don't know. But I do know this, I'm sick and tired of failed US policy that then requires us have to respond to our own bad policy, and especially with our military. We keep creating crisis' that require a military response. Can we try something new, please?
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In all seriousness, what other options are there? Obama at least attempted a new strategy in Yemen with what he called "strategic patience" and look where that ended up. At this point, the only think we haven't tried is to withdraw from the area and pray they leave us alone... Oh wait, we tried that too? Say what you will about whether or not we should of invaded Iraq in the first place. But at least when we left that country in 2010 I suppose, the violence had returned to pre-war levels and there was a functioning unity government. Those two things I'll count as success every day of the week.

In truth, the worse thing we can do is to either ignore the problem or try and downplay it as Obama has been doing this week. We know where both those roads lead.

US Conservative said:
Im no warmonger, but I know where we need to fight. And I'd never write such a check.
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I'm curious, do you lump organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas with the likes of ISIS? It's true that all three will target civilian populations indiscriminately, but what about their motives? Do you see a difference? Or would they just be another place where "we need to fight"?
 
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Hamster Buddha said:
You know, I've never got what people such as yourself on the right says that the left "doesn't have the balls to do what it takes." The fact of the matter is that Obama has bombed more countries than Bush (Lizza says Obama has bombed more nations than Bush) and the number of drone strikes have skyrocketed under administration. The following graph ONLY takes into account his first term, and even still, Obama during his first term committed six times as many drone strikes than Bush in Pakistan:

obama-vs-bush-strikes-in-pakistan.jpg


Just what do you think that he doesn't have the "balls" to do at this point if he's willing to go that far?



In all seriousness, what other options are there? Obama at least attempted a new strategy in Yemen with what he called "strategic patience" and look where that ended up. At this point, the only think we haven't tried is to withdraw from the area and pray they leave us alone... Oh wait, we tried that too? Say what you will about whether or not we should of invaded Iraq in the first place. But at least when we left that country in 2010 I suppose, the violence had returned to pre-war levels and there was a functioning unity government. Those two things I'll count as success every day of the week.

In truth, the worse thing we can do is to either ignore the problem or try and downplay it as Obama has been doing this week. We know where both those roads lead.



I'm curious, do you lump organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas with the likes of ISIS? It's true that all three will target civilian populations indiscriminately, but what about their motives? Do you see a difference? Or would they just be another place where "we need to fight"?
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No, sorry, but we haven't been out of the Middle East for several generations!
 
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