Wow, nothing has changed around this forum since I quit bothering. This outght to be renamed the insult and lunacy forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cptjohnstone
give me a link for that stupid statement, stupid
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OK, which "stupid statement"? The one where congress is in recess? Anybody should know that. The other that Republicans are saying they want more military action? Yes, saying they want more "boots on the ground" was probably hyperbole for now, but the neocons would be delighted (are always delighted) for us to initiate more military action including "boots on the ground".
Asking for a link for an easily verifiable fact is just plan lazy, but this one time only I'll give you a couple:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/08/08/republicans-want-more-us-military-action-in-iraq.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=repu...m=122&ie=UTF-8
https://www.google.com/search?q=repu...ound+iraq+2014
OTOH, most Libertarian Republicans are against doing much if anything. The Republican party is very split on this issue as it is on any issue of our day except for "if Obama did it or said it, it is wrong".
Quote:
Originally Posted by cptjohnstone
if you could read or hear you would know they more than 4 air strikes a day
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There were either 8 or 12 sorties which is roughly 4 a day, give or take. This is nitpicking.
Bottom line, we have thousands of Americans in Erbil and a consulate, plus the Peshmurga have no heavy weapons or air-force and the Iraqi's won't give them heavy weapons and their air-force is ineffective so to keep ISIL out of Erbil this is about the only thing we can do.
The good thing is that this is mostly desert and airstrikes can be VERY effective against a force moving in the open. We specialize in this and have for decades and you would know it if you remember the carnage in the first Gulf War when Saddam's army was retreating.
Finally, Obama was right that there is "no military solution" to Iraq (short of another full scale invasion and posting 300,000 troops there for another decade and that might not even do it). There are short term tactical things we can do with the military (which is what is happening right now) but to stop ISIL will take Shiites and the moderate Sunni's who don't like ISIL (or ISIS) to come together, get their acts together, and ask for help. To make that happen Maliki must go and the Shiites must give Sunnis a stake in the country so that they prefer Iraq to ISIL. Otherwise it will continue to be a catastrophe (and no one but ISIL or Al Queda really wants that not even Iran).
Four things I know for sure:
- This has been a mess since the fall of the Ottoman Empire
- Invading in 2003 made it worse, not putting in enough force to stabilize the country was an equally huge mistake and Maliki has made it much worse as well.
- We bear some responsibility since we broke it so we must stay engaged.
- We don't want more boots on the ground and even if we did there is a high likelihood of failure no matter what we do. Iraqis, Arabs and Persians must be the main part of any fix.
Oh, and while there were definitely Christians being persecuted in Syria and Iraq (Egypt and Libya too for that matter) it was not systematic destruction of whole populations (which didn't make it any better, but it didn't really rise to the level of genocide) and the local governments had not just asked us for help (as Iraq did just before Obama made a move to help the Yazidis).
Also, with the Yazidis, this is about the only place in the world where they exist so the entire group would be wiped out. There has never been a threat in modern times where all Christians would be wiped out. Finally, there was a clear course of action in northern Iraq because the Yazidis were on a mountain separate from ISIL so we could drop them supplies and "encourage" ISIL not to pursue them. All these things matter.
Do I wish we could have done more to help the Christian minorities all over the Middle East? Yes. Was there a clear course of action? No. About the only thing we could really do was offer then asylum and I'm sure we did to those who could find a way to get to the USA (but then again, they are brown people like the toddlers from Central America, who BTW are Christians too, so maybe we don't want them in the USA - oh, but they don't speak Spanish so perhaps they are OK? I can never figure the right out on these issues).
He said whaaaaaa.......
