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US gives Iraq $2.7B credit to buy military equipment

yeah, this is a poor idea. a good chunk of the equipment given to countries over there ends up in the hands of the bad guys.
 
jet57 said:
On the back handed side I agree with you. On the political front, Iraq is making moves in defeating ISIL, so why not. The "screwing up of the Middle East" however has been an ongoing dual tango since the close of WWI.
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Agreed. Doesn't it stand that a different approach might be called for? One that doesn't make an enemy of an entire region?
 
Howler63 said:
Agreed. Doesn't it stand that a different approach might be called for? One that doesn't make an enemy of an entire region?
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Yep. I'm still for a combined 1,000,000 man army sweep of the entire area and bases set up in Iraq and Afghanistan that are large enough to keep attacks away and keep fresh troops in the area all the time until we can bring this thing to heel, and then some. We've held hostage by all of the BS long enough in my view.
 
jet57 said:
Yep. I'm still for a combined 1,000,000 man army sweep of the entire area and bases set up in Iraq and Afghanistan that are large enough to keep attacks away and keep fresh troops in the area all the time until we can bring this thing to heel, and then some. We've held hostage by all of the BS long enough in my view.
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And who pays for that? How many will we lose? And what is to be gained?

I say we leave it to rot in it's own violence. Bring our boys home, implement a far more controlled border/immigration policy, and take care of our OWN.
 
Howler63 said:
If we were selling them, no strings attached and cash on demand, I wouldn't have a problem. But the idea that it's on CREDIT....meaning our goverment covers it until they can slough it off on taxpayers, pisses me off.
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You don't think the Iraqi's are good for it? Bush spent $750 million on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad alone and we are not getting a dime of that back. At least this is a loan and the Iraqi's have the oil to pay for it too.
 
iguanaman said:
You don't think the Iraqi's are good for it? Bush spent $750 million on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad alone and we are not getting a dime of that back. At least this is a loan and the Iraqi's have the oil to pay for it too.
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Nope. I do not. They haven't paid for the embassy, what makes you think they'll pay for guns?
 
Howler63 said:
And who pays for that? How many will we lose? And what is to be gained?

I say we leave it to rot in it's own violence. Bring our boys home, implement a far more controlled border/immigration policy, and take care of our OWN.
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We all created it, we all pay for it, and we all take the hits for the losses. But we gotta do something to cure the distemper.
 
DA60 said:
Yeah...that American isolationism worked out SOOOO badly for the U.S. of A. in the 1930's.

All the major powers beat each other to a bloody pulp in early WW2. America came in at the right time, creamed everyone and came out of it as the undisputed world power of the planet. And because everyone else had to rebuild from beating each other up, America had the economic world almost completely to herself...with near total mastery of all she surveyed. And has been THE world power ever since.

Isolationism...when done properly...is BY FAR the best way to go.

No doubt you disagree.

No doubt you are wrong on this...no offense.


Good day.
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Exactly. ISIS exists because we went into Iraq.
 
iguanaman said:
You don't think the Iraqi's are good for it? Bush spent $750 million on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad alone and we are not getting a dime of that back. At least this is a loan and the Iraqi's have the oil to pay for it too.
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And Obama is spending $1 billion on a new US Embassy in London. Non sequitur much?
 
Howler63 said:
Are we not yet done screwing the ME up.
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What's this "we" ****? "We" tried to give "them" their country back, but "they" would rather flee to Europe and **** that up, too.
 
ISIS exists because the cowardly poltroon Obama left Iraq.

The blood of countless thousands is on his hands.

Cowardice in the face of the enemy is treason.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Yeah, it did work out poorly. England came within a few more ships being sunk of being starving into submission by Germany's U-Boat crews. The Soviets wouldn't have had lend lease to help hold off Barbarossa and would have folded like a house of cards in those dark first two and a half years.

The US wasn't ready for war when it came and we paid for it.
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American isolationism has NOTHING to do with Britain or the USSR. It has everything to do with America.

And isolationism has absolutely nothing to do with military expenditure. You can spend massive amounts on your military and still have an isolationist foreign policy.
I agree that America waited a little too long to start re-arming her army and Army Air Force. But the naval expansion (the gigantic Two-Ocean Navy Act) was well under way by Pearl Harbor and started to really come on stream two years later. Even Germany was not expecting war until 1944 - look at their naval Z Plan - and they started the bloody thing (in Europe).

By staying out of it early, being TOTALLY ill prepared for war in 1939, she probably would have taken heavy losses and casualties (like she did in the Pacific during the first six months after Pearl Harbor) and accomplished nothing. There is no point in throwing men away in a lost cause when you don't have to...and that would probably had of been the case if America had entered the war in 1939.

In this context, what happened to GB and the USSR is totally irrelevant...it's their problem. And at that time, it was a European and Chinese/Japanese war...nothing to do with America directly.

America started the war roughly equal to GB as a world power. With Germany and the Soviet Union close behind. And Japan just behind them. She ended the war by MILES the greatest power on the planet. Her gold reserves skyrocketed as other countries paid for arms from America. Her industry profited. Her casualties were FAR lower then all of the above. And she single-handedly (practically) destroyed/conquered Japan and had a huge part in doing the same to Nazi Germany.

America was isolationist before WW2...and she came out of WW2 FAR richer and more powerful then anyone else...and continued to be for a generation while the others rebuilt.

IMO, America handled WW2 (strategically) almost perfectly. Same for WW1, btw.
 
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DA60 said:
American isolationism has NOTHING to do with Britain or the USSR. It has everything to do with America.

And isolationism has absolutely nothing to do with military expenditure. You can spend massive amounts on your military and still have an isolationist foreign policy.
I agree that America waited a little too long to start re-arming her army and Army Air Force. But the naval expansion (the gigantic Two-Ocean Navy Act) was well under way by Pearl Harbor and started to really come on stream two years later. Even Germany was not expecting war until 1944 - look at their naval Z Plan - and they started the bloody thing (in Europe).

By staying out of it early, America was TOTALLY ill prepared for war in 1939 (which again is to do with military spending...not isolationism). She probably would have taken heavy losses and casualties (like she did in the Pacific during the first six months after Pearl Harbor - and that was in 1942) and accomplished nothing.

In this context, what happened to GB and the USSR is totally irrelevant...it's their problem.

America started the war roughly equal to GB as a world power. With Germany and the Soviet Union close behind. And Japan just behind them. She ended the war by MILES the greatest power on the planet. Her gold reserves skyrocketed as other countries paid for arms from America. Her industry profited. Her casualties were FAR lower then all of the above. And she single-handedly (practically) destroyed/conquered Japan and had a huge part in doing the same to Nazi Germany.

America was isolationist before WW2...and she came out of WW2 FAR richer and more powerful then anyone else...and continued to be for a generation while the others rebuilt.

IMO, America handled WW2 (strategically) almost perfectly.
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Yeah, it does help when your out of bomber range of the fighting. I'm not even going to go into the Amerika bombers; that was a flat out absurdity.

My point is it was sheer dumb luck that we didn't end up in a Cold War with Germany instead of the USSR, only with us being basically locked out of Europe.

Your point about us not being ready in 1939 is valid; but if the America First Party had its way we never would have jumped in at all, and the results of that would have been horrible for the rest of world.
 
Quazimodo said:
A Coward, a Pacifist, a Communist, and an Appeaser walk into a bar.

The bartender looks up and says, "Hey, what can I get for you, Mr. President?
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For a second I thought you were talking about PeteEU, DA60, TheDemSocialist, and DaveFagan. ;)
 
Tigerace117 said:
Yeah, it does help when your out of bomber range of the fighting. I'm not even going to go into the Amerika bombers; that was a flat out absurdity.

My point is it was sheer dumb luck that we didn't end up in a Cold War with Germany instead of the USSR, only with us being basically locked out of Europe.

Your point about us not being ready in 1939 is valid; but if the America First Party had its way we never would have jumped in at all, and the results of that would have been horrible for the rest of world.
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Isolationism has a skill to it. You cannot bury your head in the sand ALL THE TIME. And, IMO, America played it near-perfectly in both world wars.
She stayed out of it and let everyone else beat each other senseless...and then came in at the right time, cleaned up, had relatively few casualties and profited hugely from the war.

Could they have done that without the Atlantic/Pacific Oceans as buffer zones? Possibly not. But that does not matter. They did have them and they used them to their advantage.

Imo, there is no realistic way you can argue that America did not profit MASSIVELY from WW2 - especially compared to the other world powers...both in terms of economics and world power status.
 
Quazimodo said:
ISIS exists because the cowardly poltroon Obama left Iraq.

The blood of countless thousands is on his hands.

Cowardice in the face of the enemy is treason.
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Bush signed the agreement that specified we withdraw all troops by 2011 and the Iraqi's held us to it. Bush was the coward for signing that agreement. Obama had no choice because of it.
 
Ahlevah,

Will the pansies ever stop blaming EVERYTHING on Bush?
 
Putin gave a good talk to the press recently about how U.S. foreign policy has become really unprofessional. He's a hypocrite in some ways like any leader but he's spot on about the current situation.

 
The flower of our youth have the courage to fight for what they believe.

"Every liberal is a fascist at heart." -Anon
 
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