George Bush predicted exactly what would happen if we pulled troops from Iraq like Obama wanted.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
So let me get this straight. Bush doesn't so much poke a hornet's nest with a stick, but rather bludgeons it with a baseball bat by sending our troops into Iraq. Shortly, after getting there we are told that the mission is accomplished then proceed to sit in the country for another 6 years while terrorists surge into the country and just kill our soldiers and civilians like sitting ducks. Then when Americans are finally sick of this charade and demand pullout, Bush makes a declaration that pulling out now will cause the area to descend into chaos (literally stating the obvious). Then when that happens, the Republicans say "I told you so!"

I wonder what other painfully obvious pearls of wisdom Bush has for us as well. Next he'll be telling us that blowing up dams causes flooding and destabilizes whole ecosystems while uprooting tons of people. You know if the Republicans (or any other politician left or right for that matter) wants us to be there so badly, they can get off their old wrinkled asses, pick up a gun, and go themselves.

To be fair this is a chart of casualties in Iraq:


Not that I want to support any of these knuckleheads and their terrible decisions concerning Iraq. But fair is fair it isn't like they were sitting ducks numbers went down seriously down.Source

a reply to: DeadSeraph

I could not have put it better myself.

a reply to: MarlinGrace

Numbers started dropping in 2008 when we started withdrawing troops. Imagine that.

And yes we were sitting ducks. I have personal experience with the ROE over there. I knew someone in my battery (company for non-artillery minded folks) who ALMOST got article 15'd for throwing a guy at a checkpoint to the ground who had walked up on the checkpoint with a concealed handgun all because that guy happened to be the nephew of some Iraqi who was working with the unit for other reasons. Luckily the BC took one look at the disciplinary paperwork he was supposed to sign and tore it up, but only because he really liked the guy in my story.

Of course you can always chalk that up to the idiocy of my unit (they also once wanted us to call up for directions from the TOC while a speeding vehicle was hurtling towards the checkpoint). But the actual ROE was so strict at times, it felt like they might as well have given us water pistols for all that we could do with our guns. Couldn't shoot them unless your target was easily identifiable with a gun already pointing at you AND firing, not in a crowd of people, not in a mosque. It was beyond frustrating.

originally posted by: DenyFlatulence
a reply to: DeadSeraph

True dat.
Republicans. The ultimate spin-masters..

Haha, That there's funny. I don't car who ya are......

Hillary never spins anything...
Obama never spins anything...

none of the Democrats do, only republicans.

Ignorant people who can't see there is NO difference between the two sides when it comes to lying to get what they want is the problem. You're the problem.

The government isn't the problem. A snake does what is natural to it's species. It's ignorant people who refuse to see the truth and continue to let them manipulate and control you as slaves.

What I do not understand is why his father knew better that to invade Iraq because he knew as did everybody else at CENTCOM and the Pentagon that it would lead to a complere and total mess. Yes of course a country that had deep divisions and was only held togeter by brutal oppression is going fall apart after occupation forces leave. So unless you want to leave forced in Iraq forever than we never should have invaded the damn place. I never understood how Bush Jr could be such a complete idiot when his father was such a smart guy on these issues.

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
Or maybe he could have chosen not to invade Iraq in the first place and lie to congress, the UN, and the American people to do so? Why is it the republicans can say "HA! TOLD YOU SO!" when it's their war that caused this cluster# in the first place?

Name a time when any democrat has been able to say "Ha, I told you so."

Troll.

We would have had to leave at some point anyway. We could have stayed in Iraq for 100 years and any kind of withdraw of our forces would have ended in this.

Bush should have never sent our people into Iraq in the first place. Why on Earth didn't we just carry out a CIA-sponsored coup/overthrow like we do everywhere else?

My theory: to leave weapons and cash behind for a force (ISIS?) to get their hands on.

We *knew* this would happen if we sent ground troops in and occupied the place. And we knew if it fell apart rebellious factions would get their hands on gear and cash we left behind.

After the 9/11 link was bogus, and then the WMD claim -- I remember being told we were going to "instill democracy in Iraq!" There's a huge problem with that -- the people in Iraq didn't any concept of what it means to live in a free and open democracy. It's much easier for them to revert to their old ways once our stabilizing forces were gone.

This doesn't take a Mensa member to understand and see.

This was all anticipated and planned.

Oh good lord.

This would have happened either way once there was no strong leader, loved or hated, there to keep things at some level of relative sanity.

Bush wasn't right about diddly squat. Everyone and their brother knew what would "happen." Thing is we didn't need to be there to freaking start with and didn't have to lose so many lives (on all side but particularly Iraqi) and spend trillions trying to put a finger in the dike of the inevitable.

It's a good bet fewer lives will be lost in this war than ours invasion.

And I see the opportunistic oil industry bottom-feeding killers are already taking this excuse to raise prices here. Someone assassinate them already.

I am BEYOND annoyed.

so this is the fault of with withdrawl and not invasion?
Meh!


the us has armed these invaders and they come from and through the Saudis...talk about and excuse for continued occupation round the world..i under stand the leader is a princton educated saudi who is related to the royal family and is a brother to Saudi ambassadors and princes etc.

why didn't mister "good at killing without oversite or trial " just take em all out ( all 2000 thousand of them ...geez!) on the road to tikrit ....?
...them and their repainted UN toyotas

I don't think much Obama did, short of training Iraqi's to the standards and methods of an American in the same role, would have made any difference in the end.

I truly believe by what has been written and talking to men who were there, we had a sweet spot to make this thing work. It was a precious SMALL window though. Maybe 60-90 days from crossing the berms. Maybe even less. I mean, we have a habit of overstaying deployments to the point of host nations wishing they'd never heard of us ..but in this case, they *DID* greet the U.S as Liberators. Anyone disputing this is disputing the collective life experience of the men there, the Iraqis who were doing it and the endless yards of film and digital recording now immortalizing it. It COULD have worked..but not for long and we never tried.

I think two incidents in a book from one of the units in the lead elements during the opening days described it best, whether they meant to or not. One was orders issued to them upon crossing onto an airport complex area that had Iraqis. Some perhaps hostile...nothing confirmed by their own words..and nothing incoming for so much as rocks, let alone live fire. Still...'If it interferes, kill it' was essentially how I recall reading the 'plain text' we'd take from what they were told.

The other was the same unit, different day but responding to a badly torn up Iraqi child. Toddler age. At that time, it was better than even odds OUR SIDE had torn her up. Accidentally or otherwise, and the unit badly wanted a dust off or ANYTHING to move this kid to medical help. Things like that would have made life long friendships and to-the-death loyalty in many we could have chosen to do it with ....and simply denied the requests. Iraqis weren't what our medical wonder suites were for, I suppose..even when NOT seeing much use by those they were, as this had also mentioned early on.

I think we could have made Iraq a showcase...by *NOT* making a thing of it, while simply helping them make it as they saw fit. Instead, we played George Washington in someone ELSE's colony, and go figure...it didn't work and they hate us. We would have hated us too. In fact ...WE DID when some outside interference had come at points early in our nation.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000
the vid of saddams statue being pulled down was a paid for fraud, just like the claim of wmds and the Kuwaiti incubater babies etc
I doubt there are many Iraqis that applaud the invasion
( unless they were bribed by the skids of lost money that the US seems to have lost there)

the Iraqis are so worse off then before the US ever lied to justify wrecking their country and stealing all their wealth.
( just the troop killing DU alone and all the recent deformed babies are a testament to that

maybe the trained Iraqis are letting this incarnation of EL CIA duh advance because they figure they are a better bet then the IsraeliUS led coalition and installed puppet government that destroyed what they had in the first place.

Am I more delusional than usual, or wasn't Bush the guy who signed the paperwork that promised all troops out of Iraq by... 2012 was it?

How does the current POTUS get blamed for this one? Oh yeah, I forgot, there are folks far more delusional than I...

It was never going to work, there were never any windows, history is not going to be rewritten, and the retarded idiots at Fox News and in the neo-cons really need to give it a rest, stop drooling, and STFU already.

How about those idiots tell us why the price of oil is going up for this? Coming out of OUR pockets and going into whose. First off, wasn't the Iraqi oil was going to pay off our war bill? The war the same people...oh hell with it. I give UP.

If this wasn't so horrific it would be funny.

originally posted by: Baddogma
Am I more delusional than usual, or wasn't Bush the guy who signed the paperwork that promised all troops out of Iraq by... 2012 was it?

How does the current POTUS get blamed for this one? Oh yeah, I forgot, there are folks far more delusional than I...

He did.

a reply to: mwood

Um..
I agree with what you said about the "two parties."
I was just stating that I think the Republicans are better at spinning the truth than the Democrats. I was complimenting them. Yeah, that's the ticket.
They both spin the truth. Let's face it, It's all they do.

a reply to: Danbones

Dan, you can suggest I am misinformed if you'd like but I form my opinion on how American forces were initially treated strictly from talking to men I know to have been in all that directly when it started as well the dry non-fiction records of what happened.

Of course the media play was play, and 1991 was another one of the most media orchestrated wars in the history of the practice. Neither changes facts of what was right and wrong about both. Some records would attempt to suggest there simply was no good, at any point, period.

That's ignorant propaganda. Pure and simple. I'm not suggesting it's what appears here, but it's sure around the net and plenty of it. The degree the bad outweighed the good is a very fair debate for the nation (and at this point, post-daily combat, a real necessary one to start into, IMO) but there was enough good mixed in to make it a truly mixed bag.

...how it's ending isn't good for anyone but maybe ISIS, though.

a reply to: CALGARIAN

pretty sure only gullible fools would believe that crap.

America did not defeat the Iraqi insurgency.The Iraqi insurgency along with Al Sadr and his followers agreed to end violence but continue building and training. It was obvious and inevitable that the Americans would leave. It was a waiting game.

Imagine the shock when the ISIS (what a mythical name) come to Baghdad's Gates and find a large % of the Baghdad people fighting WITH THEM against the American puppets.

Iraq should never had occurred it is one of the greatest illegal acts since Vietnam. There was never any WMD's and Saddam was no more a threat than many other nations. Saddam's only fault was he was oil rich and weak.

The fact ISIS came out of Syria says to me that America SUPPORTS terrorism when its on the Syrian side of the border attacking Assad, but is against terrorism when those same armed men walk across Iraqi's border and threatens American oil interests in Iraq.

If your in Baghdad and your wearing an American puppet Iraqi army uniform I would disappear, quick.
If your a government official in the puppet American government Id shoot myself because if ISIS Get their hands on you, you will suffer.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Oh good lord.

This would have happened either way once there was no strong leader, loved or hated, there to keep things at some level of relative sanity.

Bush wasn't right about diddly squat. Everyone and their brother knew what would "happen." Thing is we didn't need to be there to freaking start with and didn't have to lose so many lives (on all side but particularly Iraqi) and spend trillions trying to put a finger in the dike of the inevitable.

It's a good bet fewer lives will be lost in this war than ours invasion.

And I see the opportunistic oil industry bottom-feeding killers are already taking this excuse to raise prices here. Someone assassinate them already.

I am BEYOND annoyed.

seems like obama, biden and hillary didn't know that.

he went over his commanders heads against their advice of not pulling out everyone.

we have bases in germany, japan, s.korea, etc, for years.

with a 30-50k man presence, this would not happen.

obama has been in charge as long as bush.
bush did the hard part and took the heat.

obama made this fuster cluck just like lybia.

originally posted by: DenyFlatulence
a reply to: DeadSeraph

True dat.
Republicans. The ultimate spin-masters..

I beg to differ, when the current administration hires protesters to go to Florida and protest the Trayvon Martin Case, that is a spin that creates a wind. Or when the current administration walks guns across the border then calls for more gun laws that spin can actually create enough energy to light a city.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: MarlinGrace

Numbers started dropping in 2008 when we started withdrawing troops. Imagine that.

And yes we were sitting ducks. I have personal experience with the ROE over there. I knew someone in my battery (company for non-artillery minded folks) who ALMOST got article 15'd for throwing a guy at a checkpoint to the ground who had walked up on the checkpoint with a concealed handgun all because that guy happened to be the nephew of some Iraqi who was working with the unit for other reasons. Luckily the BC took one look at the disciplinary paperwork he was supposed to sign and tore it up, but only because he really liked the guy in my story.

Of course you can always chalk that up to the idiocy of my unit (they also once wanted us to call up for directions from the TOC while a speeding vehicle was hurtling towards the checkpoint). But the actual ROE was so strict at times, it felt like they might as well have given us water pistols for all that we could do with our guns. Couldn't shoot them unless your target was easily identifiable with a gun already pointing at you AND firing, not in a crowd of people, not in a mosque. It was beyond frustrating.

Certainly can't argue with a guy who was there. Thanks for your service.