#Iraq is reconsidering its relationship with the U.S.?— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 4, 2020
A relationship in which we give them $2 billion a year & they privately beg us to stay & help them fight #ISIS & counter-balance #Iran. But they get to publicly condemn us for protecting our troops?https://t.co/Qu8zhKhGS8
Let's review, shall we? We invaded their country on false pretenses, killed maybe a half-million of their citizens, made several million homeless, wrecked much of their infrastructure, loosed the demons of sectarian warfare, effectively facilitated the existence of ISIS and AQiI, shot motorists for no goddamned good reason, installed a corrupt government that couldn't even put together an effective army (lots of corruption and ghost soldiers on the payrolls) and which has edged into the Iranian orbit, bulldozed a good part of their capital city for an occupation HQ, and for all that, they are insufficiently grateful, according to little Marco?
OK, sure, Saddam is gone. Fat lot of good that has done us.
But hey, don't worry, Mike Pence, the second-dumbest of Trump's lieutenants, is peddling a bullshit conspiracy theory that Iran was behind the 9-11 attacks. Hey, Mikey, you dipwad, remember when you clowns were saying that it was Iraq? Now it's Iran?
Fucking imbeciles. The 9-11 conspiracy theories do have a purpose; for they are handy for signaling which politicians have an IQ in the mid-two-digit range.
I have to say, when 9-11 happened, and 17 of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, then the United States invaded first Afghanistan, and then Iraq, I was not puzzled, but rather, angry. Because I knew the reasons for us doing so.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Afghanistan is a country that is rich in minerals, among which is lithium, a primary component in modern batteries. And Iraq is of course rich in oil, which at the time, was needed for us here in the U.S.
Now, of course, with the United States being the largest producer of oil, Iraq has become less important to us, and gee whiz, let's move troops out of that country.
Even if it was a good idea to go into Iraq, you can't do so without a strategy for after you win the war. By just telling the army goodbye, your services are no longer needed, they created their own quagmire.
And Iraq is a nightmare, due to it's having the Kurds in the north, and the Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite in the rest of the country. By us trying to force them to blend into a government, which has not worked for centuries, we screwed up big time. Instead, we should have had a plan worked out to allow for the country to decide for themselves how they wanted to divide up their land, either keep a single country or divide it into two or even three nations, or states, similar to what we have here, or to what the UK has. But by trying to force a democratic type of government on them, it was doomed to fail, as we have learned.
We cannot be nation builders any longer. We will not be able to step away from our role as the policeman of the world, for a long time, with the treaties and the NATO obligations we have. But that doesn't mean that we need to tell other nations how to run their country. It always ends up badly for us.
Fair enough on the analysis, but the magically “let them decide” option was a non-starter because each group crosses borders. The Kurds in Iraq getting a State would try to get portions of Syria, Iran and Turkey to complete the state...and the Sunni and Shia likeliest would look to combine in various unacceptable ways in the neighborhood, without getting into the whole “Holy Site” mess. Hell, even the Shia and Sunnis have issues within their camps because of more factions than Christianity, with traditions of enmity and warfare. Let’s go ahead and divide Texas along the lines of Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and Evangelical, ignoring the dozen plus other flavors and the impurity of the mixture in various places, plus the internal drama in each house. The partition of India comes to mine, and not pleasantly.
ReplyDeleteGood analogy, centerpuke. But you forgot about the charismatic prosperity gospel Pentecostals No deal unless they're included. You're spot on with your analysis. While I don't agree with Gen spurs latest reelection op, neither do I agree with some portraying this guy as some sort of middle eastern Omar Bradley. I realize we don't have anyone running the state department, but shouldn't Rose McGowan and John Cusack gone through at least some vetting process? Anyways it'll be interesting to watch the photo ops of all the Jacob Wohl's (just to give them a name)raising their right hands "I do solemnly swear to uphold and defend......."
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