COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Republican Blaming of Obama for Iraq

Transcript: Obama's Speech Against The Iraq War




Sen. Barack Obama's speech against Iraq war
The following is a transcript of the remarks then-Sen. Barack Obama delivered in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002. In his speech, Obama said that what he was opposed to was "a dumb war ... a rash war." He said the war was a "cynical attempt" to shove "ideological agendas down our throats" and would distract from domestic problems such as poverty and health care.
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.
After Sept. 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. 
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with bin Laden and al-Qaida, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure that the U.N. inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

48 comments:

  1. Are Republican critics?

    * liars

    * suffering from memory lapses

    * perplexed with comprehension difficulties caused by the English language

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  2. Islamic State militants are cementing their hold on Ramadi - the Iraqi city they captured on Sunday, reports say.
    Militants were going door-to-door looking for government sympathisers and throwing bodies in the nearby Euphrates river, residents were quoted as saying.

    Thousands of Iranian-backed militiamen are gathering east of Ramadi ahead of a bid to retake the city. IS militants are reportedly heading towards them.

    The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis as thousands flee.

    It says some 25,000 people have left the city, only 105km (65 miles) west of Baghdad, in recent days, adding to a flood of people already displaced from the area. Many were sleeping in the open.

    The UN says it is trying to meet the needs of those displaced, but funds are low and its stocks have almost gone.

    The loss of Ramadi, the capital of the western Anbar province, is a blow for both the Iraqi government and US strategy in the area, say the BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut.

    Retaking it is a massive challenge to the Iraqi government, which has had to appeal to the Shia militias despite the risks of a sectarian backlash from sending them deep into the Sunni heartland, our correspondent says.

    Police and military made a chaotic retreat from the city, which has been contested for months, after days of intense fighting.

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    1. Those that have left the city, they are walking and driving towards Baghdad, not towards the Daesh.
      Voting with their feet, for the Shia dominated government.

      The battle for Ramadi will continue, the city will be razed, the Islamic State forces there, will be degraded then destroyed.
      The battle taking place just where the Prime Minister of Iraq said it would, after the government took Tikrit, in Anbar.

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    2. That the government forces do not always emerge victorious in every phase of every battle, merely mirroring the US experience, in Anbar.

      Recall the "First Battle of Fallujah, where the US Marines were unable to take the city. Even the US troop had to fall back, regroup and try, try again. The forces opposing the government of Iraq were defeated on a tactical level then, they will be defeated tactically now.

      Strategic victory over the reactionary forces in Iraq, that is something else, entirely. As long as the Wahhabi rule in Saudi Arabia, the war in the Middle East will continue.

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  3. Truth tellers always disturb:

    ON MAY 17th, as Israel commemorated its victory in the six-day war of 1967, an end to its conflict with the Palestinians had seldom seemed so far away. The coalition guidelines of Binyamin Netanyahu's fourth administration, sworn in three days earlier, do not include a commitment to a two-state solution, and no strong protest is heard from the opposition. But part of Israeli society, at least, is open to hearing about the human toll of the conflict.

    Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation founded by former soldiers, recently published one of its periodic reports, this one based on the testimony of over 60 soldiers and officers who took part in the fighting last summer in Gaza. The eyewitness anonymous statements of soldiers who were either on the ground or in command-and-control centres provide snapshots of the reality of war in an urban environment. The accounts describe permissive rules of engagement. Many of the stories revolve around whether a target was indeed civilian before a decision was taken to open fire. One tank commander who fought in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza said his unit's assumption was that "anyone in an IDF [Israel Defence Forces] sector, that the IDF have captured, isn't a civilian." More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the 50-day long campaign, the majority of them civilians.

    Many Israelis have criticised Breaking the Silence in the past for besmirching the image of their soldiers and disregarding the army's attempts to minimise civilian casualties. This time, however, "the mainstream media in Israel was very open to publishing excerpts from the report in a non-critical way, and the interviews with us weren't even hostile," says Yehuda Shaul, the organisation's founder. The report was subject to military censorship before publication.

    The same week the report came out, “Censored Voices”, a documentary about the soldiers who fought in the six-day war, was shown in Israel, to powerful effect. The film consists of recordings made in the weeks after the war in 1967 by a small team of educators including Amos Oz, a writer. The interviewees, kibbutz members in their twenties, had just returned from fighting; many felt estranged from the atmosphere of jubilation that followed the victory, which saw Israel delivered from an existential threat and suddenly triple in size with the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights.

    The interviews originally appeared in a book which became an overnight best-seller in Israel in 1967 (it was published in English in 1971 as "The Seventh Day"). Although many Israelis welcomed the chance for a more nuanced take on the war, others derisively called the accounts "shooting and crying". However, 70% percent of the interviews were censored at the time by the army, anxious that the soldiers' stories of murdering prisoners, shooting civilians and deporting Palestinian villagers should not cast a shadow over the glorious victory. The documentary’s director, Mor Loushy, found the original recordings, and in the film he plays them back to the soldiers, now in their seventies.

    As one elderly soldier says on camera, "We are not murderers, but in war anyone who has the chance to go into battle becomes a murderer." Another solder reflects on the war's result, Israel's occupation of the Palestinians, observing that "as long as we are holding another nation under occupation, we are not a free nation." Such candour is difficult to witness, but important to hear. As one soldier says, "We may not be doing a great service to what they call 'the national morale', but we'll do a small service to the truth."

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    1. What your government does abroad today, it does at home tomorrow.

      May 4, 2015 - Israeli riot police have fired stun grenades and water cannon on thousands of ethnic Ethiopian Jewish citizens ...

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    2. The police used enough force to anger the demonstrators but not to deter them. By the steps of the Bank of Israel they used tear gas grenades and water cannon. In reply, demonstrators hurled rocks.

      "If we hadn't fired tear gas, they would have captured the Prime Minister's office and ministers would have been attacked by thousands of wild youths," said Arye Amit, commander of the Jerusalem police, although much of the violence appeared to be provoked by his own men.


      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/black-israelis-riot-over-insult-to-their-blood-1326412.html

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  4. Surprise! It turns out that there’s something to be said for having the brother of a failed president make his own run for the White House. Thanks to Jeb Bush, we may finally have the frank discussion of the Iraq invasion we should have had a decade ago.
    ....

    The fraudulence of the case for war was actually obvious even at the time: the ever-shifting arguments for an unchanging goal were a dead giveaway. So were the word games — the talk about W.M.D that conflated chemical weapons (which many people did think Saddam had) with nukes, the constant insinuations that Iraq was somehow behind 9/11.

    And at this point we have plenty of evidence to confirm everything the war’s opponents were saying. We now know, for example, that on 9/11 itself — literally before the dust had settled — Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, was already plotting war against a regime that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. “Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] ...sweep it all up things related and not”; so read notes taken by Mr. Rumsfeld’s aide.

    This was, in short, a war the White House wanted, and all of the supposed mistakes that, as Jeb puts it, “were made” by someone unnamed actually flowed from this underlying desire.

    Did the intelligence agencies wrongly conclude that Iraq had chemical weapons and a nuclear program? That’s because they were under intense pressure to justify the war.

    Did prewar assessments vastly understate the difficulty and cost of occupation? That’s because the war party didn’t want to hear anything that might raise doubts about the rush to invade. Indeed, the Army’s chief of staff was effectively fired for questioning claims that the occupation phase would be cheap and easy.

    Why did they want a war? That’s a harder question to answer.
    Some of the warmongers believed that deploying shock and awe in Iraq would enhance American power and influence around the world. Some saw Iraq as a sort of pilot project, preparation for a series of regime changes. And it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that there was a strong element of wagging the dog, of using military triumph to strengthen the Republican brand at home.

    Whatever the precise motives, the result was a very dark chapter in American history. Once again: We were lied into war.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/opinion/paul-krugman-errors-and-lies.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1

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    1. By late November, Rumsfeld was meeting with Gen. Tommy Franks, Centcom commander, to plot the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government, according to the now declassified talking points agenda from the sessions (shown on television for the first time in the documentary).
      The talking points suggest that Rumsfeld and his team were grappling with a tricky issue:
      “How [to] start?” the war. In other words, what would the pretext be?
      Various scenarios were outlined:
      “US discovers Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack or to anthrax attacks?”

      reads one of them.
      “Dispute over WMD inspections?”
      reads another.
      “Start now thinking about inspection demands.”

      http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/building-momentum-regime-change-rumsfe

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  5. Why are we still bombing Ramadi? When will we just let these people be? They have been in the Ramadi region for a very, very, very, very, and very long time. It is their home. Let them be. Stop blowing shit up and wasting our money.

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  6. As Donald Rumsfeld said ....


    I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.

    Interview with Steve Croft, Infinity CBS Radio Connect, November 14, 2002 [4]

    And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
    TownHall Meeting At Aviano Air Base in Italy, February 7, 2003

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  7. "

    Stop bombing, quirk, let them sort it out.







    QuirkMon May 18, 11:19:00 PM EDT

    .

    Easy to say, Ash.

    However, IMO, once Obama committed us to this war, once he involved our coalition of 60 allies (even if only on paper), once he established the objective to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS, the US can't just turn around and tell Canada or Australia or whomever to take their six planes and go home, 'we were just kidding', especially after Iraq has just suffered a major defeat. The ramifications would go beyond Iraq, beyond ISIS, and affect how we are viewed in the Far East, in Eastern Europe, and the rest of the world by friends, enemies, and frenemies alike.

    That being said, the way we are conducting this war at the moment you could very well be right.

    When GWB came into office he managed to take the only hyper-power in the world and transform it into merely a 'first among many'. Now Obama appears ready to put the paper into paper tiger.

    Once Obama committed us, I assumed the US would come out of this worse off than when we entered it; however, I also thought that if we could manage a few victories and get the Iraqis up to speed there would be an opportunity to slip out without too much damage. However, the fact is right now we aren't really fighting a war, we are merely providing flight training for our pilots.

    The fact is we were always destined to come out of this little adventure looking worse than when we went in even if eventually we declare victory and leave. However, we have seeded management of the war to Baghdad who has sub-contracted it to Iran. That means that even if we declare victory it is not us that wins but Iran.

    Unless the US gets serious, they might as well take your advice and leave."



    Quirk, if I remember correctly your criticism of this latest phase of military activity in Iraq was "drip drip drip" - that the US would inclemently drawn into the war and be forced to inject troops ect.

    Now you seem to be using the notion that we must 'save face' and 'do what's necessary' to win the war; I presume by interjecting ground troops into the equation.

    Not all problems are military problems and using the military to try to solve the problems of the Middle East is the wrong response to the problems (in my opinion of course). The US should stop fling bombs to and fro, it should not equip the players in the region with more arms. It should assist in managing the growing humanitarian problems and try to get the various parties to stop fighting and help them build stable governing institutions. Bombing and injecting a whole whack of troops into the situation did not aid it last time nor will it this time.

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    1. It should assist in managing the growing humanitarian problems and try to get the various parties to stop fighting and help them build stable governing institutions.

      But that, Ash, is not going to happen.
      The idea that the US would not only accept al-Qeqda operatives governing in Syria and Iraq, but should support them, not going to gain any traction. There is not a single politician in DC that holds that position in public.

      The 'Strategic Bombing' in Syria against the Islamic State has not worked, it will not work.
      Close Air Support has worked in Syria, it will continue to work if the US chose to support the government of Syria in its fight against the Islamic State.

      Same goes for Iraq.


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    2. The US can aid those fleeing the fighting without offending those politicians delicate sensibilities. It does not require an endorsement of IS or any other player in the game.

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    3. If people occupy places of power that we don't like we don't have to deal with them, much... much like Iran.

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    4. That would preclude helping them build stable governing institutions.

      The US is committed to the fight, the level of that commitment is the focus of the debate.
      The US will not withdraw, it just is not in the cards.

      There is some support for invading Iraq, again.
      The primary objective is to stop that from happening.

      Supporting the government that the US installed in Baghdad, the one chosen by the "Purple Fingers of Freedom", is the only viable option, realistically speaking. Their success is US foreign policy success, their failure would be a US policy failure.

      The government in Baghdad has not lost yet, it will not lose if the US provides them material support.
      Baghdad's success is a loss for Saudi Arabia. Which is why the US has not fully supported the government in Baghdad.
      Why the F-16s have not been delivered, why the air support being provided has been so limited.

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    5. Dateline - January 13, 2015

      Since President Obama ordered U.S. forces to begin operations against the "Islamic State"/ISIS on August 7, the coalition has flown over 5,000 strike sorties employing some 4,000 weapons, as well as 1,700 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sorties, over 22,000 air refueling sorties, and over 1,300 airlift sorties delivering some 6,000 tons of humanitarian and military aid.

      These numbers are small compared to past air campaigns and could convey an impression of tactical ineffectiveness; for instance, coalition aircraft flew an average of 800-1,000 strike sorties daily during Operation Desert Storm.


      http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/operation-inherent-resolve-an-interim-assessment

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    6. Building stable institutions is, granted, an objective most likely met further down the road. More immediate concerns are trying to achieve a decline in the fighting and aid those who are fleeing the fight.

      ahhhh, the old 'save face' argument. The US policy is, was, and will continue to fail until another approach is used. Occupying the place again won't be good for the US or those in the middle east.

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    7. 1,000 strike missions per month in the current campaign, as compared to that many per day during Desert Storm.

      30 per day compared to 800 to 1,000.

      That is illustrative of the level of US involvement, or lack of it.

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    8. We agree on the importance of keeping US troops out of the fight, how to do that is where we differ.

      The US will not abandon the battle, all that is being debated ...
      How to best pursue the degradation and destruction of the organization that the President has determined to have attacked the US on 11SEP2001...

      The smaller the US footprint, the better.
      Aircraft do not leave footprints.

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    9. Like a true military man you are still fighting the last war instead of the current one.

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    10. The current war, Ash, the current war.
      It started when the US invaded Iraq, the US withdrawal did not end it.

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    11. 14 years on and it is as still undefined and amorphous as ever. It is time for a change in tactics and strategy because what's been happening hasn't been working. Objective failed.

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    12. To think that the US withdrawal ended the war the US started in Iraq, pure hubris.
      To think that the US responsibility for the war ended with its withdrawal, morally corrupt.

      Humanitarian aid, building stable governing institution cannot really succeed until the war ends.

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    13. The tactical objectives can be achieved, militarily.

      The strategic objectives, probably not.

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    14. The idea that the US can 'build nations', is just fanciful.
      Driven by delusions, fueled by hubris.

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    15. “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation building.”

      10/11/2000, George W. Bush

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    16. Mr GW Bush should have listened to what Mr GW Bush said.

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    17. What use is achieving tactical objectives if they don't serve the strategic objective?

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    18. What is the strategic objective?
      That is another discussion, entirely.

      It would seem that the strategic objective for the US is to appear to support the Iraqi government, without annoying the Saudi Arabians ...
      In Syria, the strategic objective for the US is even more obscure.

      But, that is just an observation from afar.

      The use of achieving the limited tactical objectives, it buys US time to act politically, diplomatically to achieve whatever it is the US is trying to achieve strategically.

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    19. Rufus would probably tell us the strategic objective is to keep the world economy lubricated with Middle Eastern oil.
      Which the US has certainly succeeded at, so far.

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    20. Jack HawkinsTue May 19, 01:22:00 PM EDT

      The tactical objectives can be achieved, militarily.

      The strategic objectives, probably not.

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    21. The politics of the region, Ash, are beyond a US military solution.
      In that case I was projecting what I assumed was your strategic objective ... Peace in the Middle East.
      Which may have been a false assumption on my part.

      Having the government in Baghdad regain sovereignty over Iraq is tactically possible using local Iraqi forces and US air support..

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    22. But would not change the strategic situation very much.

      If oil was all the strategic objective was about, Iran would be integrated into the global market.
      And it is not.

      So the strategic objective for the US would seem to be more nuanced, and will not be achieved solely with military might.

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    23. Mr Obama and his diplomatic outreach to the Iranians, that would be indicative that he understands that the US objectives will not be garnered by bombing, alone.

      It also is indicative that he could agree that the strategic objective is lubricating the world at the lowest price point possible.

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    24. Our strategic interests in the region are not clearly defined and amorphous with a primary reason being guys like you who cite the 2001AUMF as being the defining document for those strategic objectives.

      I agree that the politics of the region are beyond a US military solution yet we still exercise the military option pursuing political goals in the region. We shouldn't. Negotiating with the Iranians is a good thing.

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    25. I continue to reference the 2001 AUMF because it is the Law of the Land and the legal justification for the US campaign.

      That there is no political movement to repeal that AUMF and Mr Boehner has said the House will not authorize the AUMF that the Administration requested vis a vie the Islamic State.

      While just today I heard ...

      Lindsey Graham call for 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq

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    26. 'drip drip drip' as Quirk is wont to say.

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    27. So, in the real world, there are just two options ...

      Continue to supply the Iraqi government with limited air support
      Invade Iraq, again.

      I do not see political support for any other course of action, either in the US government or major media.

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    28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    29. There are more options and I have proposed a third which should be discussed by the POLS and adopted. The mere fact that they haven't addressed this option in any serious manner is indicative of the serious problems plaguing American politics and governance. The time is ripe for a third party candidate to rise and lead.

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  9. .

    Quirk, if I remember correctly your criticism of this latest phase of military activity in Iraq was "drip drip drip"

    That was before Obama declared war on ISIS in Iraq and vowed to destroy them, it was before he formed his grand coalition. That ship has sailed. We are currently in a declared war in Iraq. The question is how do we get out of it with the least amount of damage.

    Now you seem to be using the notion that we must 'save face' and 'do what's necessary' to win the war; I presume by interjecting ground troops into the equation.

    In actuality, we will never 'win' this war in any objective sense, not when all issues not just the military aspects are considered. What I have argued is that we have to proceed to the point, as quickly possible, where we can 'declare' we have won this war without the world snickering. If that requires adding additional troops to identify areas of opportunity and coordinate air strikes, so be it. It's unfortunate but it may have to be done. Right now, all the US is doing is acting as a mercenary force for Baghdad, responding when they snap their fingers and providing bombing practice for our forces.

    Not all problems are military problems and using the military to try to solve the problems of the Middle East is the wrong response to the problems (in my opinion of course). The US should stop fling bombs to and fro, it should not equip the players in the region with more arms. It should assist in managing the growing humanitarian problems and try to get the various parties to stop fighting and help them build stable governing institutions. Bombing and injecting a whole whack of troops into the situation did not aid it last time nor will it this time.

    Great advice. I agree with it wholeheartedly. It would have been great had the US followed it about 10 months ago. Unfortunately, it offers nothing prescriptive for the current situation in Iraq/Syria. I repeat Hemingway's dictum

    Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

    Not sure Hem was including the geopolitics in his 'worse things' but those would be what would most impact the US were they just to walk away as you seem to suggest.

    Perhaps you are right, but I don't see it. In my opinion, your proposed moves are naive. First, the hit to US credibility among our friends and enemies could lead to miscalculations far worse than the mess we are in today. Second, your suggestion is impractical simply because there is no politician in either party that would agree to what you suggest.

    .

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  11. .

    To think that the US withdrawal ended the war the US started in Iraq, pure hubris.
    To think that the US responsibility for the war ended with its withdrawal, morally corrupt.


    Hubris is thinking that when we leave this time things will be any better off than when we left last time.

    .

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  12. Good God, Almighty; A guy takes a short road trip, and you all let the world go to hell in a handbasket.

    Who's responsible for this Ramadi lash-up? There's going to be hell to pay when I get this all sorted out. :)

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  13. One man was injured when a vehicle rolled over his foot. That caused a dispute that continued inside the restaurant, where fighting and then shooting began, before the melee spilled back outside, Swanton said.

    Authorities offered few details. It was not clear which gang was responsible for running over the biker's foot, or which gang the aggrieved biker belonged to.

    CNN: Police killed 4 of the 9 people in Waco biker gang shootout

    CNN: Police killed 4 of the 9 people in the Waco, Texas, biker gang shootout on May 17, 2015.

    When the shootout was over, nine people were dead and 18 wounded.

    About 50 weapons were confiscated, mostly knives and firearms, and Swanton said more than 100 weapons may be found once authorities are done analyzing the crime scene at the Twin Peaks restaurant, which is part of a national chain that features waitresses in revealing uniforms.

    Preliminary autopsy results showed all nine of the dead were killed by gunshots. Many were hit in the head, neck, chest or torso. Most of the men were in their 40s, but they ranged in age from 27 to 65, according to reports released by a McLennan County justice of the peace.

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    1. Preliminary autopsy results showed all nine of the dead were killed by gunshots. Many were hit in the head, neck, chest or torso.


      w\\e shall see

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