How a Leader Responds to Americans Threatened

[Zorro!]

Iraqi soldiers, police drop weapons, flee posts in Mosul - CNN

Are you a complete moron? Your link is about Iraqi soldiers fleeing from ISIS. It has nothing to do with the US.

Sure it does: Iraqi soldiers ALWAYS flee. They won't fight this war! They surrender to CNN crews: the whole world knows that.

Get out, leave them to their fate, bomb to glass any ISIS or IRAN military bases. It's the only way, IMO.

We aren't going to do anything to Iran. Russia and China isn't going to allow any disruptions to their oil deals.

I'm sure their other terrorist leaders are comforted by that.

WHAT’S GOTTEN INTO THE WATER AT THE WAPO? Washington Post Calls Brutal Iran Terrorist Thug a ‘Revered Military Leader.’

 

[pknopp]

We call them "advisors". They are troops.

I used to be an "Advisor".
Advisors can be killed pretty easy when they're outnumbered.
Obama pulled out our combat troops.....at least that's what he took credit for.

He honored the agreement between Bush and Iraq. It's odd how people want to forget this. You can argue he shouldn't have but that is what he did.

Bush agreed to keep 30,000 in Iraq.
My understanding is that Obama pulled them out and left a few advisers behind to fend for themselves.

Bush's agreement was for us to leave.

In 2008 the American and Iraqi governments signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It included a specific date, 30 June 2009, by which American forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities, and a complete withdrawal date from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq - Wikipedia

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

 

[Zorro!]

Iraqis are not interested in dying for our cause. They never have been.

Iraqi soldiers, police drop weapons, flee posts in Mosul - CNN

Are you a complete moron? Your link is about Iraqi soldiers fleeing from ISIS. It has nothing to do with the US.

He’s a moron

19 years.......billions of lost dollars. Dead Americans. What have we gained by all of this?

How many blacks were shot this week in towns run by democrats

No idea. Do you feel a need to bring your racist views into every thread?

It's "racist" to count how many blacks die in Democrat cities? Was it also racist to track Black deaths on Democrat Plantations?

THIS IS CNN: No Surprise Here: Some CNNers Are Not Taking Soleimani’s Death Well.

Much like their friends at The Washington Post, one might as well have kidnapped their pets or stole their lunches. And not surprisingly, CNN global affairs analyst and cartoonishly bad Post columnist Max Boot was the hardest hit.

 

[mudwhistle]

I used to be an "Advisor".
Advisors can be killed pretty easy when they're outnumbered.
Obama pulled out our combat troops.....at least that's what he took credit for.

He honored the agreement between Bush and Iraq. It's odd how people want to forget this. You can argue he shouldn't have but that is what he did.

Bush agreed to keep 30,000 in Iraq.
My understanding is that Obama pulled them out and left a few advisers behind to fend for themselves.

Bush's agreement was for us to leave.

In 2008 the American and Iraqi governments signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It included a specific date, 30 June 2009, by which American forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities, and a complete withdrawal date from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq - Wikipedia

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us.
It's also difficult that after seeing the left's attempts to throw Trump out of office...that anything we read can be trusted 100%.
I remember when Obama tried to take full credit for getting us completely out of Iraq.......only to see him blame Trump for the creation of ISIS.

Anyone who would give billions of dollars and arms to terrorists is obviously not trustworthy. Obama has his fingers into every facet of the internet.

Knowing this (any rational person would admit to it).....can anything be trusted? After all....he was raised by communists.

 

[pknopp]

He honored the agreement between Bush and Iraq. It's odd how people want to forget this. You can argue he shouldn't have but that is what he did.

Bush agreed to keep 30,000 in Iraq.
My understanding is that Obama pulled them out and left a few advisers behind to fend for themselves.

Bush's agreement was for us to leave.

In 2008 the American and Iraqi governments signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It included a specific date, 30 June 2009, by which American forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities, and a complete withdrawal date from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq - Wikipedia

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us..........

Well I tried but this is generally what I get.

You are discussing this with me, not with the "left".

I never supported impeachment so that and the rest of your rant is irrelevant . Wiki is a better source that what you think you read somewhere.

 

[mudwhistle]

Bush agreed to keep 30,000 in Iraq.
My understanding is that Obama pulled them out and left a few advisers behind to fend for themselves.

Bush's agreement was for us to leave.

In 2008 the American and Iraqi governments signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It included a specific date, 30 June 2009, by which American forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities, and a complete withdrawal date from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq - Wikipedia

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us..........

Well I tried but this is generally what I get.

You are discussing this with me, not with the "left".

I never supported impeachment so that and the rest of your rant is irrelevant . Wiki is a better source that what you think you read somewhere.

Point being.....nobody in charge of any form of communications in American can be trusted to be honest with us.
Including the mods on this forum.
Obama took credit for getting us out of Iraq.
Bush wanted to reduce the troops but not leave entirely.
The only reason they want to blame Bush for pulling us out is because it created ISIS....which Obama helped create in the first place.

 

[toomuchtime_]

Absolutely they are better off. Iraq is now a functioning democracy, the Kurds are no longer being gassed and killed or locked up in concentration camps as they were under Saddam and the Shi'ites are not being publicly executed for protesting government actions and Shi'ite villages are not having their water supply destroy. The Sunni were better off under Saddam but the rest of the country were not.

We have killed more Iraqi's than Saddam ever did. Iraq was a fairly modern country. Now it's third world. Saddam was bad. We have been no better.

If you were a Sunni, about 30% of the population, life was better under Saddam, but if you were in the the other 70% if Iraqis life was much worse. If not for Obama's premature withdrawal, there would have been no ISIS to contend with and Iraq would be in much better shape today than it is. With Saddam gone and with democratic institutions in place,there is hope for tomorrow, but if Saddam and his sons had remained in power there would be no hope for tomorrow.

I am glad you think the American lives and money was well spent and are happy with new middle east 19 year quagmire. I do not! I lost friends over there. We did not owe the Iraqis, rescuing them from their dictator, and we are the worst nation builders on earth, (it ain't taught in the books. Believe me, I read them.) and look at the entire middle east now. We should have never gone in there. It was sold to the American public on patriotism and false need. It was not worth it. The entire middle east is worse off for it. The idiots we have in charge now will never be able to fix it. We're there because even that dumb ass Rummy said "if we break it, we bought it". So, we did. We never, ever had a plan for what to do with it. God, I wish we could unload it!

Was it a mistake to go in? I'm not sure. At the time it did not seem like a sustainable situation to me, and I tend to think we would have to eventually go in and reform the country. Saddam was already bribing people working in Kofi Anan's office with oil contracts, quite illegal but ignored by the UN, and Syria was put in charge of enforcing Iraq sanctions at the same time it was illegally helping Saddam sell illegal oil. And Saddam's brutality to the Kurds and Shi'ites seemed to continue to grow.

The war, as predicted, was over quickly, and while the nation building did seem to take forever, we went in in March 2003 and by 2007, there was relative peace, Iraqis held their first honest elections -remember all the smiling faces and purple thumbs - US forces were no longer fighting and were merely supply logistical services and training for Iraqi forces. So in four years with no blueprint to work from the US had transformed Iraq from the horror show it had been under Saddam to a functioning, relatively peaceful country now focusing on developing its resources to raise its standard of living. Quit an impressive accomplishment, something no one had thought possible. Should the US have gone in? I'm not sure, but having gone it and after making some initial errors, in four years we completely transformed the country from a brutal dictatorship into a functioning democracy which even had its own bill of rights.

Even Obama said so, when he was telling the American people why he wanted to withdraw. He told the American people that Iraq had made such spectacular progress that it no longer needed American help and so he was withdrawing our troops. He was right about the progress the Iraqis had made, but of course he was lying about Iraq no longer needing us. The Pentagon had been telling him all year that disaster would follow a withdrawal - and it did, ISIS was created in the vacuum the US had left and it proceeded to capture half of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and making millions of them homeless refugees - but Obama believed he might lose the 2012 election if he did not keep his 2008 promise to withdraw, so he decided the devastation he was creating was a small price to pay for his electoral success, so we withdrew. Had we stayed - not fighting but with the thirty thousand soldiers the Pentagon had asked for to function in support and training positions, much as we have been doing in Korea for the last 70 years -the progress that had been made through Obama's first term would have continued, Iran would have been contained, the civil war in Syria would have been much smaller, Iran's support to Hezbollah would have been more limited so Lebanon might have been able to reestablish itself as a sovereign nation and generally the ME would have been a more peaceful place. In addition, of course, the EU would not have been flooded by ME refugees leading to Brexit, but that's another issue.

Should we have gone in? Maybe things in the ME would have resolved themselves in another way if we hadn't, although I doubt it, but having gone in we should have seen the whole project through and not have pulled out against all advice simply because an anxious ambitious politician was worried about his next election.

He was honoring the agreements of his predecessor. Obama failed at being a president but it's interesting how you (and most people) want to ignore this. Obama was simply honoring the promises made by Bush.

Leave then, leave 2 years from then, leave whenever the result is the same. We can not come out ahead there. We made a mess more of a mess and now have no idea what to do and unfortunately we will not allow that lesson from trying again.

No matter how many times you repeat that lie, it remains a lie. The agreement had allowed US forces to remain if the Iraqi PM requested them to, and Maliki asked Obama to leave them, but Obama chose to ignore the agreement and demanded that the Iranian parliament ask for US troops to remain. He withdrew our

Absolutely they are better off. Iraq is now a functioning democracy, the Kurds are no longer being gassed and killed or locked up in concentration camps as they were under Saddam and the Shi'ites are not being publicly executed for protesting government actions and Shi'ite villages are not having their water supply destroy. The Sunni were better off under Saddam but the rest of the country were not.

We have killed more Iraqi's than Saddam ever did. Iraq was a fairly modern country. Now it's third world. Saddam was bad. We have been no better.

If you were a Sunni, about 30% of the population, life was better under Saddam, but if you were in the the other 70% if Iraqis life was much worse. If not for Obama's premature withdrawal, there would have been no ISIS to contend with and Iraq would be in much better shape today than it is. With Saddam gone and with democratic institutions in place,there is hope for tomorrow, but if Saddam and his sons had remained in power there would be no hope for tomorrow.

I am glad you think the American lives and money was well spent and are happy with new middle east 19 year quagmire. I do not! I lost friends over there. We did not owe the Iraqis, rescuing them from their dictator, and we are the worst nation builders on earth, (it ain't taught in the books. Believe me, I read them.) and look at the entire middle east now. We should have never gone in there. It was sold to the American public on patriotism and false need. It was not worth it. The entire middle east is worse off for it. The idiots we have in charge now will never be able to fix it. We're there because even that dumb ass Rummy said "if we break it, we bought it". So, we did. We never, ever had a plan for what to do with it. God, I wish we could unload it!

Was it a mistake to go in? I'm not sure. At the time it did not seem like a sustainable situation to me, and I tend to think we would have to eventually go in and reform the country. Saddam was already bribing people working in Kofi Anan's office with oil contracts, quite illegal but ignored by the UN, and Syria was put in charge of enforcing Iraq sanctions at the same time it was illegally helping Saddam sell illegal oil. And Saddam's brutality to the Kurds and Shi'ites seemed to continue to grow.

The war, as predicted, was over quickly, and while the nation building did seem to take forever, we went in in March 2003 and by 2007, there was relative peace, Iraqis held their first honest elections -remember all the smiling faces and purple thumbs - US forces were no longer fighting and were merely supply logistical services and training for Iraqi forces. So in four years with no blueprint to work from the US had transformed Iraq from the horror show it had been under Saddam to a functioning, relatively peaceful country now focusing on developing its resources to raise its standard of living. Quit an impressive accomplishment, something no one had thought possible. Should the US have gone in? I'm not sure, but having gone it and after making some initial errors, in four years we completely transformed the country from a brutal dictatorship into a functioning democracy which even had its own bill of rights.

Even Obama said so, when he was telling the American people why he wanted to withdraw. He told the American people that Iraq had made such spectacular progress that it no longer needed American help and so he was withdrawing our troops. He was right about the progress the Iraqis had made, but of course he was lying about Iraq no longer needing us. The Pentagon had been telling him all year that disaster would follow a withdrawal - and it did, ISIS was created in the vacuum the US had left and it proceeded to capture half of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and making millions of them homeless refugees - but Obama believed he might lose the 2012 election if he did not keep his 2008 promise to withdraw, so he decided the devastation he was creating was a small price to pay for his electoral success, so we withdrew. Had we stayed - not fighting but with the thirty thousand soldiers the Pentagon had asked for to function in support and training positions, much as we have been doing in Korea for the last 70 years -the progress that had been made through Obama's first term would have continued, Iran would have been contained, the civil war in Syria would have been much smaller, Iran's support to Hezbollah would have been more limited so Lebanon might have been able to reestablish itself as a sovereign nation and generally the ME would have been a more peaceful place. In addition, of course, the EU would not have been flooded by ME refugees leading to Brexit, but that's another issue.

Should we have gone in? Maybe things in the ME would have resolved themselves in another way if we hadn't, although I doubt it, but having gone in we should have seen the whole project through and not have pulled out against all advice simply because an anxious ambitious politician was worried about his next election.

Thinking we could just go into a country and "fix" a government, much less replace it is the ultimate conceit of an imperialist mentality. Governments are not plug-and-play friendly. It is not just defeating the military and taking over. There are too many moving parts (called people) with history, beliefs, religion, and culture, as a whole interacting in the world and directly with the governments of the countries around them. It is not a static environment within the country. Other actors, other countries ally and enemy alike have their own plans and desires, all moving and communicating at the speed of modern communications. Once you identify the enemy, they get a vote. Hell, they get a vote even if you fail to identify. George Bush Jr. was a fool. He is far better off sitting at his easel painting, and should have taken it 19 years ago before he he allowed right wing actors in this country to influence him to start down this disastrous path. Now the middle east in total is more screwed up than ever before in the history of man.

I agree with you that it is a tough job, but by 2007, we had succeeded in turning Iraq into a democracy that was able to fight its own battles with US support. Iraq failed only after Obama became president and decided he needed to keep his 2008 promise to leave Iraq in order to win the 2012 election. Maliki, the PM, had asked him to stay, but Obama ignored the Status of Forces agreement signed by Bush and refused unless the Iranian controlled parliament asked him.

 

[pknopp]

Bush's agreement was for us to leave.

In 2008 the American and Iraqi governments signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It included a specific date, 30 June 2009, by which American forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities, and a complete withdrawal date from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq - Wikipedia

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us..........

Well I tried but this is generally what I get.

You are discussing this with me, not with the "left".

I never supported impeachment so that and the rest of your rant is irrelevant . Wiki is a better source that what you think you read somewhere.

Point being.....nobody in charge of any form of communications in American can be trusted to be honest with us.
Including the mods on this forum.
Obama took credit for getting us out of Iraq.
Bush wanted to reduce the troops but not leave entirely.
The only reason they want to blame Bush for pulling us out is because it created ISIS....which Obama helped create in the first place.

Bush did the agreement for us to leave. Obama failed in not doing so.

 

[toomuchtime_]

We aren't going to stop Iran from getting nukes. If needed China and Russia will supply them.

lol You have a very rich fantasy life. No one, not Russia or China or even the useless Europeans wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor does Saudi Arabia or Egypt of any of the Sunni countries and Israel is prepared to go to any lengths necessary to prevent it. If the US finds it necessary to use military force to stop Iran from acquiring nukes, neither Russia or China will have any interest in going to war with the US to prevent it. Iran will never have nuclear weapons, the only question is, how badly damaged will Iran have to be before it accepts that fact.

You are a lot more optimistic than I am! I figure Iran will be threatening Chicago within a couple years. Excellent point, that Israel is really our best hope. I disagree, as I said earlier, that China or Russia would stop them getting nukes. Iran STARTING the war that they then continue might suit them very well. They are Axis allies now: doing military exercises together. That's huge.

Are we remembering that every prez has a war? It's not special, it's the almost inevitable norm. I think Trump has been very restrained, waiting for his second term. But if he doesn't start one, God forbid, like George W. Bush The Idiot did, our enemies will.[/QUOTE]
The quote is not from my post but from the post I was responding to.

 

[mudwhistle]

And you believe everything that Wiki posts. You do know that anyone can edit that material, right?
My understanding was we were supposed to leave behind 30,000.
The problem is Obama refused to sign a forces protection agreement with the Iraqis....so we had to pull out.
Which means our forces would not be protected from legal action by Iraqis who held a grudge against them.

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us..........

Well I tried but this is generally what I get.

You are discussing this with me, not with the "left".

I never supported impeachment so that and the rest of your rant is irrelevant . Wiki is a better source that what you think you read somewhere.

Point being.....nobody in charge of any form of communications in American can be trusted to be honest with us.
Including the mods on this forum.
Obama took credit for getting us out of Iraq.
Bush wanted to reduce the troops but not leave entirely.
The only reason they want to blame Bush for pulling us out is because it created ISIS....which Obama helped create in the first place.

Bush did the agreement for us to leave. Obama failed in not doing so.

You've got it exactly ass-backwards.

 

[pknopp]

Do I trust wiki over your message board "understanding"? Absolutely. I provided verification for my position. You?

Then you're very gullible.
After watching that impeachment....it's difficult that any fair-minded and rational person thinks that the left is being honest with us..........

Well I tried but this is generally what I get.

You are discussing this with me, not with the "left".

I never supported impeachment so that and the rest of your rant is irrelevant . Wiki is a better source that what you think you read somewhere.

Point being.....nobody in charge of any form of communications in American can be trusted to be honest with us.
Including the mods on this forum.
Obama took credit for getting us out of Iraq.
Bush wanted to reduce the troops but not leave entirely.
The only reason they want to blame Bush for pulling us out is because it created ISIS....which Obama helped create in the first place.

Bush did the agreement for us to leave. Obama failed in not doing so.

You've got it exactly ass-backwards.

If you want Iraq to be the 51st State argue that.