If you like Tehran 1979, you're going to love the sequel; Baghdad 2014

[JD Barleycorn]

Obama's inability to make an obvious decision could put the US back almost 35 years. There are currently 5,000 Americans in and around Baghdad. Embassy staff, goverment workers, contractors, educators, and relief workers are in danger of becoming hostages to the ISIS. If you thought the price tag for one deserter was high wait until you get this sticker shock. The embassy, a former Saddam palace, is pretty good sized with room for helicopters to land and take off. For all of you budding screen writers think last days of Saigon with a little Blackhawk Down thrown in. Actually defending the position does not seem to be on the list of options that Obama was promised last week. Of course, General Sherman said that the best defense is a good offense. We could put some gun ships in the air (everything from A-10s to CH-130s) or we could a couple thousand heavily armed Marines in the compound and surrounding vicinity. I am sure that a MARG is somewhere in the area or should be unless some idiot cancelled it. MARG=Marine Amphibious Ready Group.

Some of you don't take this whole thing seriously so go ahead and wade in with what you want to see in the 2016 movie coming to a theater near you. Who will play the part of our feckless commander in chief, his beard Michelle, or the ambassador to Baghdad?

[i'va biggen]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Obama's inability to make an obvious decision could put the US back almost 35 years. There are currently 5,000 Americans in and around Baghdad. Embassy staff, goverment workers, contractors, educators, and relief workers are in danger of becoming hostages to the ISIS. If you thought the price tag for one deserter was high wait until you get this sticker shock. The embassy, a former Saddam palace, is pretty good sized with room for helicopters to land and take off. For all of you budding screen writers think last days of Saigon with a little Blackhawk Down thrown in. Actually defending the position does not seem to be on the list of options that Obama was promised last week. Of course, General Sherman said that the best defense is a good offense. We could put some gun ships in the air (everything from A-10s to CH-130s) or we could a couple thousand heavily armed Marines in the compound and surrounding vicinity. I am sure that a MARG is somewhere in the area or should be unless some idiot cancelled it. MARG=Marine Amphibious Ready Group.

Some of you don't take this whole thing seriously so go ahead and wade in with what you want to see in the 2016 movie coming to a theater near you. Who will play the part of our feckless commander in chief, his beard Michelle, or the ambassador to Baghdad?

What do you think the ships are for Admiral?

[JD Barleycorn]

Look at a map nimrod.

[i'va biggen]

That is what I thought ..

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Look at a map nimrod.

Lets see, the carrier has planes, right?

Just checking, numbnuts.

[wellendowed1911]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Obama's inability to make an obvious decision could put the US back almost 35 years. There are currently 5,000 Americans in and around Baghdad. Embassy staff, goverment workers, contractors, educators, and relief workers are in danger of becoming hostages to the ISIS. If you thought the price tag for one deserter was high wait until you get this sticker shock. The embassy, a former Saddam palace, is pretty good sized with room for helicopters to land and take off. For all of you budding screen writers think last days of Saigon with a little Blackhawk Down thrown in. Actually defending the position does not seem to be on the list of options that Obama was promised last week. Of course, General Sherman said that the best defense is a good offense. We could put some gun ships in the air (everything from A-10s to CH-130s) or we could a couple thousand heavily armed Marines in the compound and surrounding vicinity. I am sure that a MARG is somewhere in the area or should be unless some idiot cancelled it. MARG=Marine Amphibious Ready Group.

Some of you don't take this whole thing seriously so go ahead and wade in with what you want to see in the 2016 movie coming to a theater near you. Who will play the part of our feckless commander in chief, his beard Michelle, or the ambassador to Baghdad?

i don't think the ISIS is as dumb as you JD- taking American hostages would mean massive U.S strike which would slow their progress.

[WTF]

http://news.msn.com/world/more-us-tr...ces-considered

The U.S. is urgently deploying several hundred armed troops in and around Iraq and considering sending an additional contingent of special forces soldiers as Baghdad struggles to repel a rampant insurgency, even as the White House insists anew that America will not be dragged into another war.

[Submodo]

"Embassy staff, goverment workers, contractors, educators, and relief workers"

Not a damn one of them has any need to be over there. Get out your wallets, here we go...

[CuteOldGuy]

Originally Posted by wellendowed1911

i don't think the ISIS is as dumb as you JD- taking American hostages would mean massive U.S strike which would slow their progress.

No it won't. It will mean ISIS will have bargaining chips to use to get terrorist prisoners returned. Don't you pay attention?

[RedLeg505]

Originally Posted by wellendowed1911

taking American hostages would mean massive U.S strike which would slow their progress.

Massive?? Ordered by whom?? Obama who won't order anything more massive than the launching of maybe 2 drone missiles per day?? Unless you mean the "massive" trading of more GITMO detainees so he can finally order the place closed??

[Old-T]

JD,

You are so myopic it is painful.

For someone who seems enamored with history, you are no Santayana. This situation—or something much like it—was very predictable from the first day of Dessert Storm II.

GB2 let a bunch of academician theorists push him into something that was un-“winnable” from day one. He and C. Rice and others lived in a dream world that had nothing at all to do with the reality of the middle east. And once in there, we had no idea how to actually make progress, we kept putting up one press façade after another.

And after years of that, Obama comes in and—equally stupidly—tells everyone how there is a magical solution, a great secret plan to get out safely, effectively, and with honor. And those of us who saw VM up close and personal cringed. We had heard those kind of stupid “get me elected” words before from Richard Milhouse.

I am not happy to see this, but I am not going to allow Wacko posts like this to only blame one party for this. We have lost thousands of people for essentially nothing. We have spent—no, wasted—multiple billions, much of it STILL with the pathetic attempt at justification from people who would pinch pennies from actual Americans. BOTH administrations screwed up, and they still want to poke fingers at the other side and take no blame themselves.

Sad and pathetic.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Old-T

I am not happy to see this, but I am not going to allow Wacko posts like this to only blame one party for this. We have lost thousands of people for essentially nothing. We have spent—no, wasted—multiple billions, much of it STILL with the pathetic attempt at justification from people who would pinch pennies from actual Americans. BOTH administrations screwed up, and they still want to poke fingers at the other side and take no blame themselves.

Sad and pathetic.

[JD Barleycorn]

Originally Posted by wellendowed1911

i don't think the ISIS is as dumb as you JD- taking American hostages would mean massive U.S strike which would slow their progress.

Are they really that dumb? Look who the president is? We knew where Bergdahl was for some time. Why didn't we rescue him? We knew where Bin Laden was for months before he was taken out. Politics over tactics? Who would this massive airstike be against? People who can blend in with the population?

[JD Barleycorn]

Originally Posted by Old-T

JD,

You are so myopic it is painful.

For someone who seems enamored with history, you are no Santayana. This situation—or something much like it—was very predictable from the first day of Dessert Storm II.

GB2 let a bunch of academician theorists push him into something that was un-“winnable” from day one. He and C. Rice and others lived in a dream world that had nothing at all to do with the reality of the middle east. And once in there, we had no idea how to actually make progress, we kept putting up one press façade after another.

And after years of that, Obama comes in and—equally stupidly—tells everyone how there is a magical solution, a great secret plan to get out safely, effectively, and with honor. And those of us who saw VM up close and personal cringed. We had heard those kind of stupid “get me elected” words before from Richard Milhouse.

I am not happy to see this, but I am not going to allow Wacko posts like this to only blame one party for this. We have lost thousands of people for essentially nothing. We have spent—no, wasted—multiple billions, much of it STILL with the pathetic attempt at justification from people who would pinch pennies from actual Americans. BOTH administrations screwed up, and they still want to poke fingers at the other side and take no blame themselves.

Sad and pathetic.

You can try to go back to the original sin but this particular problem started not with the invasion and liberation, but the failure to keep American (and our allies) troops in Iraq to deter something like this from happening. You can go read Paul Bremer. He repeats today what I said a couple of days ago.

[Old-T]

Tell me, how many more decades would it take? He can say all he wants, but that would have been just putting the pressure cooker lid on a little tighter. Eventually we leave and it goes boom.

We have pretended we understand their cultural issues. We don't.

We pretend that all we have to do is show them our superior form of government and they will want it. Most do not.

We pretend that our economic system, our religious approach, and our world view is blatantly superior for everyone. That is their choice to make, not ours.

Iraq has been burning since we arrived. The fireman is inept but the arsonist is primarily to blame.

Again I ask: how many more decades? And yes, Afghanistan will likely be more of the same until THEY decide what works for them.