Pres. Obama's plan does not totally suck.

[This Vale Of Tears]

I'm always honest when I agree, even with somebody who I find little agreement with.

President Obama said that this fight needs to be won by Iraq and Iraqi forces and I agree with this wholeheartedly. It seems that Iraq is not fighting because they expect us to do it for them, and this is certainly nothing new.....we faced the same problem in Vietnam.

It goes back to something I've argued repeatedly, that freedom is something we can want for ourselves, but we can't want it for others, for they must want freedom so badly they're willing to fight for it themselves. The French, another superpower, assisted us in our Revolutionary War, but they didn't fight it for us. Liberty endures in our hearts for many generations precisely because we remember those who fought for it and laid down their lives for it. It cannot be treasured what isn't contended mightily for, and a dear price must be paid, not by somebody else, but by the very ones who want to be free.

Does Iraq want to be a free nation? We'll never know if we keep interfering with the process of them finding out. I like Obama's plan, train and assist, but let them do their own fighting.

 

[River Jordan]

It seems that Iraq is not fighting because they expect us to do it for them,

It's much more complex than that. You need to understand and appreciate the history of Sunni-Shiite rule and oppression in Iraq to understand why the Iraqi army ran back to Baghdad when ISIS came across the Syria border.

 

[Enquirer]

... train and assist, but let them do their own fighting.

Totally agree, the US has sent enough of her sons to die for others.

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

It's much more complex than that. You need to understand and appreciate the history of Sunni-Shiite rule and oppression in Iraq to understand why the Iraqi army ran back to Baghdad when ISIS came across the Syria border.

A distinction without a difference. There's nothing complex about the fact that Iraqi forces are not putting forth a spirited resistance.

 

[River Jordan]

Sheesh. Why is it conservatives always seem to want simplistic black/white answers to everything? I don't even think you want to understand the background history there. Much easier to just label them lazy or cowards and be done with it, eh?

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

Sheesh. Why is it conservatives always seem to want simplistic black/white answers to everything? I don't even think you want to understand the background history there. Much easier to just label them lazy or cowards and be done with it, eh?

Sheesh. Why is it that liberals share the same favorite color as the devil.....grey? I'm saying it doesn't matter and that's a fact. If they don't want to fight for freedom, then we shouldn't fight for them, as President Obama also said.

Oh, here's another question...why do liberals complain even when we're agreeing with their president?

 

[HammerStone]

It's much more complex than that. You need to understand and appreciate the history of Sunni-Shiite rule and oppression in Iraq to understand why the Iraqi army ran back to Baghdad when ISIS came across the Syria border.

You mean the Muslims might not be as apt as Christians to shoot their own outside of ISIS/ISIL? That was perhaps distasteful, but James White made a remark in one of his podcasts that we do not understand the dynamics at play wherein people of Islam don't say things against others of the same faith. I think Christians aren't so good at this, as we'll argue over anything like toilet paper or denominations.

Unfortunately, we are now at the point where we want to aid the people we were planning to attack in Syria 6-8 months ago and attack the ones we were handing weapons to at the time. I'm not really sure there is any true plan, as a plan would imply objectives and milestones. We want the Iraqis (and, by extension, Kurds, Syrians, Turks, etc.) to fight this evil, but we are at a point where they are not.

10+ years ago we set out to wipe out Al Qaeda and now we're just dealing with another hydra head. I don't think there is a solution to this one, outside of the return of our Lord to set it right himself.

 

[River Jordan]

Ok, rather than curse your darkness, I'll try and light a candle...

I assume everyone knows the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Even though Iraq is majority Shiite, under Saddam Hussein (a Sunni), the Sunnis ruled and did so by brutalizing and oppressing Shiites. So despite what the Bush administration said prior to invading, Iraqi Muslims did have a history of sectarian discord. We invade, overthrow Saddam's Sunni government, and replace it with a Shiite dominated government, while at the same time marginalizing the Sunnis (the de-ba'athification order). Now the Shiites start to get their revenge on the Sunnis. They essentially do many of the same things Saddam's government did to them.

As part of that process, you have Iraq starting to segregate along sectarian lines. The north and northwest of the country, all the way to the Syria border, is primarily Sunni. But, the police and military are all Shiites who are extremely brutal to the Sunnis who live there. This goes on for a while, then ISIS--a Sunni group--starts to come in from Syria and into towns and cities in N. Iraq. Well, now the Shiite military and police have a real problem. They know that if they stay and fight, they'll be fighting not only ISIS, but the Sunni locals who they've been oppressing (and many of whom are ex-military and/or police). They realize the likely outcome is them being killed, captured or both (and horribly tortured), so rather than face that, they throw down their weapons and run back to Baghdad, where they are safe among their fellow Shiites.

And now that's what we have. ISIS (Sunni) is in control of Sunni areas of Iraq because the locals (Sunni) wanted the Shiites out. Of course eventually they'll want ISIS out too, but we don't know how long that'll take, or if by the time they get to that point they'll be able to kick ISIS out.

Do you understand? This isn't "they're cowards who refuse to fight for freedom". The worst thing we can do is repeat the mistakes of the Bush administration and ignore all the sectarian history in Iraq.

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

RJ, this may come as a shock to you, but you aren't bringing anything new to the table except the word "coward" which nobody stated or implied. Completely missing from your analysis, however, is the distinction between a legitimate, democratically elected government and a rogue lawless force that systematically slaughters Christians and saws off the heads of reporters and sends the video for everyone to see. If religious differences were difficult to resolve in a stable Iraq, they would be impossible to resolve in an all out war. When lawless insurrection brings violence into any country, the only response is to suppress it, but we're not the ones to do it. The Iraqi government is just as confused by the mixed signals our child-president was sending as everyone else was and did not want to commit forces until they could quantify the support they would receive from us. Obama finally put his Big Boy pants on and made it clear that our role would be support only, so there be no further misunderstanding. Now it's up to Iraq to do it's part, for we've now made it clear we're not going to do it for them.

You mean the Muslims might not be as apt as Christians to shoot their own outside of ISIS/ISIL? That was perhaps distasteful, but James White made a remark in one of his podcasts that we do not understand the dynamics at play wherein people of Islam don't say things against others of the same faith. I think Christians aren't so good at this, as we'll argue over anything like toilet paper or denominations.

Unfortunately, we are now at the point where we want to aid the people we were planning to attack in Syria 6-8 months ago and attack the ones we were handing weapons to at the time. I'm not really sure there is any true plan, as a plan would imply objectives and milestones. We want the Iraqis (and, by extension, Kurds, Syrians, Turks, etc.) to fight this evil, but we are at a point where they are not.

10+ years ago we set out to wipe out Al Qaeda and now we're just dealing with another hydra head. I don't think there is a solution to this one, outside of the return of our Lord to set it right himself.

The last president who laid out a specific mission and carried it out to the letter was George Bush Sr. That means that America has languished for over 2 decades without a competent war time president. I can just imagine the conversation around the Thanksgiving dinner table at the Bush residence. I don't expect anything near the competence that Bush the elder demonstrated, but at least sending the message that we're not going to fight the war for them is a step in the right direction. It's why I said his plan doesn't totally suck.

 

[River Jordan]

RJ, this may come as a shock to you, but you aren't bringing anything new to the table except the word "coward" which nobody stated or implied.

So why do you think the Iraqi army retreated when ISIS invaded?

Completely missing from your analysis, however, is the distinction between a legitimate, democratically elected government and a rogue lawless force that systematically slaughters Christians and saws off the heads of reporters and sends the video for everyone to see.

????????? As I pointed out, the current Shiite dominated Iraqi government isn't exactly benevolent. They've been systematically persecuting, killing, and marginalizing the Iraqi Sunnis since they took over.

If religious differences were difficult to resolve in a stable Iraq, they would be impossible to resolve in an all out war.

As you learned, it's not just religious differences that are fueling this, it's also the history of persecution between groups.

When lawless insurrection brings violence into any country, the only response is to suppress it, but we're not the ones to do it. The Iraqi government is just as confused by the mixed signals our child-president was sending as everyone else was and did not want to commit forces until they could quantify the support they would receive from us.

LOL! You seriously think the reason the Iraqi army retreated from N. Iraq was because of mixed signals from Obama? :lol:

Obama finally put his Big Boy pants on and made it clear that our role would be support only, so there be no further misunderstanding. Now it's up to Iraq to do it's part, for we've now made it clear we're not going to do it for them.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. They were all like, "We would defend our country from these invaders, but we can't do that until Obama makes things clear"....

 

[[email protected]]

I'm always honest when I agree, even with somebody who I find little agreement with.

President Obama said that this fight needs to be won by Iraq and Iraqi forces and I agree with this wholeheartedly. It seems that Iraq is not fighting because they expect us to do it for them, and this is certainly nothing new.....we faced the same problem in Vietnam.

It goes back to something I've argued repeatedly, that freedom is something we can want for ourselves, but we can't want it for others, for they must want freedom so badly they're willing to fight for it themselves. The French, another superpower, assisted us in our Revolutionary War, but they didn't fight it for us. Liberty endures in our hearts for many generations precisely because we remember those who fought for it and laid down their lives for it. It cannot be treasured what isn't contended mightily for, and a dear price must be paid, not by somebody else, but by the very ones who want to be free.

Does Iraq want to be a free nation? We'll never know if we keep interfering with the process of them finding out. I like Obama's plan, train and assist, but let them do their own fighting.

The entire debacle in the Levant is a goal set by the GCC thirty years ago. The current warfare was agreed to and designed by John Kerry during his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah in the fall of 2013. The backstory for today began a year ago when the Russians foiled an attempt by Britain, France & the US to invade Syria.

At the time, the "justification" was a gas attack allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian Army against its own people. There was a lot of accusatory language in the western press attempting to foment bloodlust on the part of the population. Following the attack, the United Nations sent an investigative team into the area to determine the truth. The results of their work was not widely distributed in the west. UN findings were that the delivery system originated with al Qaeda positions, anti-Syrian positions NOT from the Syrian army. In other words, the intelligence community of the west was responsible for the poison gas, not the Syrians. Google the whole thing if you doubt it.

Following manipulations by the Russians, western military assets were removed and at the end of summer King Abdullah was about to have a kitten. News stories at the time stated that the Saudis were very close to severing diplomatic relations. Following a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, the King became quiet. What did they talk about in back rooms? They discussed the creation of ANOTHER terrorist organization on the order of al Qaeda in the Levant - and so ISIS/ISIL was born.

The offices of the Syrian National Coalition in Istanbul were setup years ago by Sunni interests to gather resources and to distribute them as needed to theaters of war throughout the Levant. It is most definitely NOT a charitable organization. Support for al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL comes from there. If a true solution to the issue is necessary, the closing of that organization is paramount. But it won't happen because the US supports it.

France provides weapons to SNC, which in turn distributes them to al Qaeda & ISIS/ISIL. Two weeks ago a lucrative arms agreement was signed with the French.
The GCC(*) provides most of the financing to SNC and on to the battlefield.
Turkey provides the manpower/soldiers for the conflict.

In the end, the entire enterprise is funded, supplied, populated, trained and ordered by "allies" of America. POTUS Obama is merely performing a smoke and mirror act to persuade Americans that ours is NOT an aggressive position. The US is most definitely NOT in this for the principle of 'freedom' or humanitarianism. Our hands are stained with the blood of innocents and God will judge us for it.

Judgment may come in the form of the Medvedev Doctrine of 2008. (ref: The Cicero Foundation, Maastrict, The Netherlands) The doctrine justifies the development and deployment of tactical atomic weapons within the territory of Russian client states (like Syria) to 'deescalate' American aggression. If the US invades Syria with 'boots on the ground' we may be walking into an atomic disaster of historic proportions. A week ago, Mr. Putin threatened the use of these weapons specifically against the west. The context was Ukraine, but since Russia can "seize Kiev within two weeks" if it wants to, the threat is veiled and understood to be a different theater of war - the Levant for example.

The problem is that fools rule in Washington DC. Nobody there is truly interested in the welfare of the American people - or anybody else for that matter.

IF GOD DOES NOT JUDGE AMERICA, HE WILL HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO SODOM AND GOMORRAH.


and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...
(*) GCC is the Gulf Cooperative Council composed of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

What should be inferred by the title of this thread is that I believe that Obama's plan mostly sucks. Thanks for spelling out why it sucks. It's not only far from perfect, it's clearly the brain child of an incompetent fool. And if we get completely sucked in and mission creeped into fighting Iraq's battle for them, then Obama's plan will TOTALLY suck.

 

[tooldtocare]

ISIS members have duel American/Israel passports and others have duel British/Israel passports.

Now who are they really-?.