Gen. Allen: Obama Should Strike Iraq Insurgents With 'A Hard Blow'

cpwill · Jun 16, 2014

Ockham said:
I think I'm okay with that.

I literally do not understand that point of view.

You may be right - I would detest having to change my view and supporting involvement in that **** hole again - even if I knew in the long run it was the right thing to do.

Well, there you are then. In the meantime, sticking your head in the sand and counting on Hope is not a strategy.

No, thank God.

Hard to deny them humanity when you have some.

notquiteright · Jun 16, 2014

cpwill said:
None. Mind you, they set up to do it; got ready for the Big One, and what not. Later it turned out that even Saddam had thought he had more chemical than he actually did. Some Chemical did turn up, but as I recall it was pre-Gulf-War stuff, not anything recently produced. it was a bit more than development money (providing them and their people with security played a huge and necessary role, costing far more in resources), but basically, yeah; ISIL (then AQI / AQ in the Land of the Two Rivers) killed and abused enough locals that eventually we were able to split them off from the tribes, and fold those tribes into counter-terror ops. The response by AQI was pretty brutal - the Iraqis were fighting a different kind of war than we were. It's a whole new ball park when someone legitimately goes after your kids v just trying to kill you. and then they took part, and still bitched, but were part of the governing process, with buy-in. Then after we left, Maliki turned on them. We weren't there to stop him, and after a while it got to the point where they were willing to bury the hatchet with ISIL. The Kurds aren't interested in being part of any kind of a dominant government - they are a classic example of why the true great American political innovation that we should be exporting to the world is not necessarily "democracy", but a more liberal federalism. Not true, actually. There was a lot of nationalism in Iraq. People tend to forget that the shia-sunni split had to be forced and created by AMZ; it wasn't really there all that naturally. Distrust, yes. Dislike, yeah. But lots of Iraqi families have Shia and Sunni branches, they lived together just fine in mixed neighborhoods all over Baghdad and elsewhere, Iraq's Shia fought loyally and hard during the Iraq-Iran war.....I was there when the Iraqi soccer team beat Saudi Arabia. You would have thought they had just passed a new law requiring Every Single Iraqi Citizen Alive to buy and then wave an Iraqi flag while dancing in the streets. That's the real tragedy of this situation. There was a very real and pretty solid path forward for an integrated Iraq.

So Iraq had missiles with a range of over 150 km 'set up', but no chem warheads- how many? You claim you found more than the UN team did. Who said Saddam thought he had 'more chemical weapons than he thought he did'?

Oh yes development money- paying the Sunnis tribal leaders to make work for the gunmen who had been shooting and looting because after the fall, BushII's team thought it best to send the troops home WITH their weapons, but kick everyone to the curb who had been a Baathist, even if only to have a job. BushII congratulates Sheikh Sattar and that guy ends up dead. As far as folding Sunni militia into the Iraqi forces went from the start Maliki did little more than lip service to integrating Sunni forces and that was while USofA combat forces were in Iraq.

Fact is Maliki never did anything more than lip service to bringing the Sunnis in- either in the military or government- and the BushII team accepted that as a 'victory' for democracy when the Sunnis came to parliament, and a 'work in progress' when they left in disgust .

Shi'ites were always in charge of their turf and as much as the Sunnis could- they to drove Kurds and Shi'ites out of their turf. (and that was obvious to all)

But that is ZERO proof the Iraqi Sunnis hate someone coming in to drive the Shi'ites from power- they were quite happy to at least give aid and comfort to al-Queera as long as the terrorists were killing Shi'ites.

Nationalism as soccer- I'd buy into that except it was Shi'ite against Sunni and since the dominant force in Iraq now is Shi'ite I don't think those flag wavers were doing so to embrace their Sunni neighbors... :roll:

As much as some would love a federation of shi'ite, sunni, and kurd.... I seriously doubt the centuries of hate are going to be papered over or soccer diplomacy will prevail. Someone will sit in the Prime Minister's chair- the other two groups will ignore that person.

cpwill · Jun 16, 2014

notquiteright said:
So Iraq had missiles with a range of over 150 km 'set up', but no chem warheads- how many?

That and apparently they thought they were going to shoot some out of artillery tubes. They set up to do it, got everything ready, but then the warheads never came :lol:

You claim you found more than the UN team did. Who said Saddam thought he had 'more chemical weapons than he thought he did'?

Either you are deliberately confusing my point about missiles, or you may want to re-read those comments. Saddam had less than he thought he did, which is not to say that he did not have any. Some of that stuff got left behind, and some of it probably went up into Syria.

Oh yes development money- paying the Sunnis tribal leaders to make work for the gunmen who had been shooting and looting because after the fall,

Partly. But if building schools and streets and lights and electricity grids and whatnot gets' a gunman off the street, that's a pretty good trade.

BushII's team thought it best to send the troops home WITH their weapons, but kick everyone to the curb who had been a Baathist, even if only to have a job. BushII congratulates Sheikh Sattar and that guy ends up dead. As far as folding Sunni militia into the Iraqi forces went from the start Maliki did little more than lip service to integrating Sunni forces and that was while USofA combat forces were in Iraq.

:shrug: you'll get no argument from me that sending the Iraqi Army home with their weapons was stupid - but that wasn't Bush's call, it was Bremers. Bush wasn't even informed until afterwards, and the military (who also wasn't informed) was somewhat apoplectic. And Satar did great things, but is part of what I was talking about when I pointed out that the Sunni tribal leadership and AQI were pretty deadly enemies.

Fact is Maliki never did anything more than lip service to bringing the Sunnis in- either in the military or government- and the BushII team accepted that as a 'victory' for democracy when the Sunnis came to parliament, and a 'work in progress' when they left in disgust .

Maliki was problematic but controllable while we were there. When we left, obviously, we lacked any kind of pull.

But that is ZERO proof the Iraqi Sunnis hate someone coming in to drive the Shi'ites from power- they were quite happy to at least give aid and comfort to al-Queera as long as the terrorists were killing Shi'ites.

That is false, you are confusing a multivariate situation for a binary one. The Iraqi Sunni tribal leadership doesn't like and doesn't think much of AQI/ISIL - and many of them probably still hate each other. However, they made the call to either enable or help ISIL because Maliki screwed them that badly - think of it like us being willing to ally with Stalin to take out Hitler; you don't always get to choose your co-combatants.

Nationalism as soccer- I'd buy into that except it was Shi'ite against Sunni and since the dominant force in Iraq now is Shi'ite I don't think those flag wavers were doing so to embrace their Sunni neighbors...

I was in the heart of the Sunni Triangle when it happened. They went nuts. They were the ones waving the flags. Iraqi nationalism was real, and the sectarian divide as it stands today was not a natural preexisting condition, but one that had to be forcefully created. That was AMZ's gift to the Global Jihad.

As much as some would love a federation of shi'ite, sunni, and kurd.... I seriously doubt the centuries of hate are going to be papered over or soccer diplomacy will prevail.

If they had pre-existed to the extent you are describing, you might have been right. However, your assumption is incorrect.