Al-Qaida, that is. In Afghanistan. So much for 'Enduring Freedom', ain't it. The Taliban making inroads once more, AQ playing their global dog on a leash... yep, one more war that went reeeeeally well. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/08/13-al-qaida-leader-resurfaces-riedel Mind you, back in 2001 I had been in favor of invading Afghanistan. I still think it was necessary. But the handling shows it was a snap decision. No planning, no thinking about the aftermath. Active refusal to learn from history because mission from God or whatthefuckever. The perfect blueprint for the equally incompetent invasion of Iraq (which I still think was the dumbest decision of any US administration ever). Those two wars will have their places in the history books. The chapter will be called: 'Bushism. The Gift That Keeps On Giving.' The only good about this? Neither the Taliban nor AQ like the IS. One can only hope they'll clash on a really large scale. Preliminary battles in Libya are promising. As in, matter hitting antimatter, *poooof*
As soon as I found out we (the US led coalition) couldn't go into Pakistan after them when they jumped across the border, I knew it was epic FUBAR and a waste of time and lives. We have a lot of fucked up people limping/rolling/being led by service dogs around these days, and a HUGE percentage are hooked on painkilling drugs from injuries of every variety. And that's not even considering the mental problems! You think those VietNam vets are a messed up group? Just wait a few years and watch the sandbox survivors really show you something.
Obama created ISIS with his woefully ill-advised withdrawl from Iraq and now he's letting Al-Qaida re-spawn in Afghanistan. Wonderful. We'll be back there in force in 10 years.
yea, i meant to add something like 'nope, obama did not do it' IS' roots go back to the late 90s. zarqawi gained power in the aftermath of bush's invasion in iraq and went from there. /little cliffy's notes
ISIS was the inevitable result of invading Iraq. It's a joke that you try to lay that blame on Obama. The moment we invaded, the region destabilized. And it was that way before we withdrew. The only way Obama could have stopped ISIS would have been a massive escalation of our operations in the ME, and no doubt the same people who decry pulling out would likewise critique him for that. Stop with the bullshit and look at the route cause, then explain how a force of 5,000 to 10,000 US soldiers in Iraq would bring stability back to the entire region.
And according to the Chelsea Manning stuff, the rape rooms never went away in Iraq, so we flushed 3 trillion down the toilet for absolutely nothing. Everyone who voted for Bush will come up with reasons that they're good people, and deserve to keep living, instead of sucking bullets out of guns, because that's what human neural defense mechanisms do, and I'm going to have to keep listening to fairy tales about morality from these meat robots. Keep on trucking humanity, right over a cliff. Whoopee.
That cynical enough for ya? What I come out and say is the tip of the iceberg of what's in my head. A mindmeld would fucking kill ya.
This is one of the more notable recent lies of the right wing echo chamber (another one is claiming ISIS found Iraq's nonexistent WMDs) making the rounds right now. FACT: George Bush signed the SOFA which legally required America forces to leave because Iraqis didn't want Americans to stay there. Malaki didn't want Americans there because it offended his Iranian backers, his shiaite followers, and most Iraqis saw us as colonists/foreign imperialists just like the British in the 1920's. He wanted to consolidate his personal rule and punish his enemies meaning the sunnis. That made civil war inevitable. The US couldn't stay if the Iraqi government, who we made a big deal about being sovereign, demanded we leave. Facts never get in the way of a wing nut delusion though.
There was no ISIS back in 2009; they weren't even the JV then. Now, it's a force that we've had to send troops BACK to Iraq to contain. And it's spreading. It was inevitable that Obama's premature pull-out was going to create just the kind of power vacuum that people like ISIS would exploit. Iraqi forces were not withdrawing from their own cities before we left. I'd say it's gotten WAY more unstable since 2009. There needed to be MORE U.S. soldiers in Iraq, not less. But you lot were determined to get out at any cost. Well, you're seeing that cost now.
Point out where I said there was. Your talking points make no sense in this conversation. Yes, and even more unstable than it was before we got there. You are crazy if you think a long term and massive occupation was possible, yet that's the only way we could have fixed the dammage we did beginning in 2003. Yes, your vision requires a massive infusion of soldiers. That's the only way for US power to bring stability to the place after we first kicked out the foundation. We weren't going to do that, stop blaming Obama for not doing something that no other President would have done either. We can contain the damage (hopefully) and work to address other issues (ie Iran), but ISIS or some other group like that was predestined by decisions made in 2002-03.
Bullshit. I fought them. We kicked them out of their first capital, Baqubah back in '07. Operation Arrowhead Ripper. In late 2006 Al Qaeda in Iraq forces began a quiet troop build up in Baqubah, naming it the capital of their "Islamic State of Iraq". As a result of the Baghdad Security Plan, in early 2007 Al Qaeda in Iraq forces withdrew from Baghdad in large numbers and began furthering operations in Diyala province. The insurgents fortified the province with observation posts, fighting positions, mines, and booby-trapped houses, as well as establishing supply bases and training camps. The large majority of these forces were positioned in the city of Baqubah, which was of great importance to Al Quieda forces, having been declared the Capital of the Islamic State of Iraq. Military Intelligence templated the Al Quieda forces within the city at 2500 fighters, and an additional 500 support forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baqubah After we kicked them out of Baqubah, and turned the Sunni tribes against them they fled to Syria and added the S (Syria) to their name. Thus ISIS.
But if they fled in 2007, they didn't reappear as a force in Syria until about 2011 as a front group. The surge had worked and cleared them out of Iraq, leading to a period of stability. And the group wasn't formed in response to Bush's invasion, it was formed in Jordan in 1999, four years prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, and it operated out of Afghanistan.
Got it. As long as American combat forces were there, ISIS was under control. Probably shouldn't have left, then.
How you so glibly ignore that staying was a non-starter for anybody? Bush knew it, which is why he negotiated the withdrawal time table. Obama knew it, which is why he followed the time table. You could also argue that flying carpets and genies would keep ISIS under control. It's the same level of fantasyland thinking.
ISIS shouldn't be "under control," ISIS should be utterly destroyed. But I'm under no illusions that doing so will bring about stability, it just needs to be done. It's more than a little unrealistic to expect the United States to maintain a large force in Iraq practically indefinitely. I don't see any equation where time + American troops = permanent stability.
The only fantasy is thinking that staying was impossible. Everything in politics can be re-negotitated. And, in fact, the Obama Administration was trying to get a new agreement for American troops to stay and completely mishandled it.
We maintain 50,000 troops in Japan and 40,000 in Germany, but smaller numbers in Iraq is impossible? Doesn't have to be permanent. But you can't have long term stability until you have short term stability.
Palidan's entire position is let us destabilize an entire country then pretend the destabilization is not our fault. He is a fool. To his, lack of credit, he is a fool repeating nonsense he heard in the partisan media. That doesn't reflect very well on himself.
Jesus Keerist. WTF do we need 50,000 troops in Japan for? That's like guarding Toys R Us with the National Guard. What, we have to make sure that super duper important shipment of Dragonball Z Blu-Rays doesn't get hijacked by Korean pirates?
No, ISIS was officially formed in 2013 or so. ISI was formed in 2006, but was virtually non-existent by 2010, having lost 80 percent of its leadership and having been rejected on the ground by Iraqis. If the Syrian rebellion hadn't started in 2011, it probably would have withered and died. But it started operating a front organization there, and that allowed it to grow into a JV team that took over Western Iraq because no US forces were present. Things went just like Bush said they would if all US forces were pulled out. That's why his agreement was to leave about 20,000 there.
Two things enabled them to grow and expand. The lack of a US presence to make sure Al Maliki dealt fairly with the Sunnis, which would have prevented Sunni resentment from hitting the boiling point and creating a breeding ground for ISIS support and recruiting, and making sure there was a very strong force of moderates leading the fight against Assad. Once al-Nusra worked its way (almost by default) into the lead in the Syrian rebellion, it picked up the money, weapons, and soldiers from other groups until it was strong enough to expand its territory. After that jihadists from around the region swore allegiance to it.
