Trouble in Iraq escalating (again)

[MS256]

Reports are that the military is surrendering to Al Queda en masse with the militants acquiring weapons and the money from the city banks as they go.

By all accounts it's a mess and getting more serious every day.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-qaeda-backed-sunni-militants-storm-into-iraq-cities/

[billchao]

I had a debate years ago with a friend of mine about pulling our troops and I said this exact thing was going to happen. My position was that, because we invaded, we needed to stay to maintain a presence. When Saddam Hussein was in power, he kept other warlords at bay. When the US military was there, their presence kept the warlords at bay. Unfortunately, now there is a power vacuum, and the worst of the warlords swept in.

[newtogolf]

I'm not an expert in this area but based on what I'd read this outcome was predicted.  Reports from our military advisors and experts at the scene indicated the Iraqi soldiers lacked the heart and courage to defend the country against the Al Qaeda.

[shortstop20]

This is why we never should have invaded in the first place.

The USA(or any other country) won't sacrifice the blood and treasure to stay there for 30 years until Iraq became stable.

The entire thing was a pie in the sky dream and it's a shame we lost thousands of lives and a Trillion dollars on it.

As was mentioned there is now a power vacuum and a monster worse than Saddam may have been created.

[billchao]

This is why we never should have invaded in the first place.  The USA(or any other country) won't sacrifice the blood and treasure to stay there for 30 years until Iraq became stable. The entire thing was a pie in the sky dream and it's a shame we lost thousands of lives and a Trillion dollars on it.  As was mentioned there is now a power vacuum and a monster worse than Saddam may have been created.

Yea, that about sums up my position on the whole thing. We should have never gone, but since we did, we needed to stay. Now we're gone, and not only can the new regime be worse, but more importantly, we did a huge disservice to the Iraqi people.

[newtogolf]

Yea, that about sums up my position on the whole thing.

We should have never gone, but since we did, we needed to stay. Now we're gone, and not only can the new regime be worse, but more importantly, we did a huge disservice to the Iraqi people.

More importantly we did a huge disservice to all of the soldiers who served there, especially those who were injured or never made it home.  I'll leave the politics out of this other than to say that both parties should be ashamed of themselves for the reckless and self serving manner in which the entire situation was handled.

[boogielicious]

More importantly we did a huge disservice to all of the soldiers who served there, especially those who were injured or never made it home.  I'll leave the politics out of this other than to say that both parties should be ashamed of themselves for the reckless and self serving manner in which the entire situation was handled.

Agree.  We keep letting our politicians get us into these situations over and over again.  Many of these countries have ethnic groups that never wanted to be together in the first place.  Iraq is a good example with Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

As Americans, we can bicker and moan about each other (a lot), but in the end we are still a Republic.  We are united and we don't experience this level of sectarian violence that other nations have.  We learned a lot from our own Civil War and frankly should not let our internal politics ever get us back to that.

[shfboyroddy]

To understand more of whats going on there I will give you an Generalized overview. Iraq was formerly a SUNNI state under SADAM with the Shia as the minority. However after the "change" The Iraqis elected a SHIA president. Just like in America, when the president and the house is controled by democrats or republicans, the majority vote of the government goes the way of the majority party. Given an unstable, poorly organized, somewhat criminally minded party that will not allow Sunnis to take any government seats and will not assist them either.........now there is the rich and the dirt poor sorta set up, but with nothing to loose why not have Many Robin hoods. Not to even mention an overal difference in the two primary religions too, both sunni and shia. Also add in the factory of the neighborly brother IRAN (shia majority) and the whole Sunni population is out funded, outmanned, and severly mistreated..........absolutly bound to have a civil war..... The only thing that I get upset about is not that we went over there to relieve SADDAM of his seat, but that this is an internal conflict that has been going on for centuries. Our involvment and mainly providing TONS!!! of money to a goverment that wont properly utilize it and the conflict will continue regardless is what sucks. What people have to remember is Every human being should hopefully have an opportunity to live a good life. There are good people bad people in every country and every situation, unfortunatly there is no perfect formula for helping the good people or punishing the bad

[RandallT]

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl;=en&oe;=UTF8&msa;=0&msid;=206503076099972915830.0004fb81021906110e889&t;=m&source;=embed≪=34.939985,41.616211&spn;=6.302619,12.304687&z;=6&dg;=feature

The map above shows it all. It's a very cool effort by the guys at "The Long War" journal: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/10/iraqi_forces_kurds_c.php

If you ever want the latest on the long war with radical Islamists who are fighting for the world caliphate, I think they do a good job scouring the news for information on various battles, political and military. They started after 9/11, I believe, and they always shunned the term, "War on Terror."  They foresaw a long ideological battle ahead, and they were exactly right.

[phan52]

To understand more of whats going on there I will give you an Generalized overview.

Iraq was formerly a SUNNI state under SADAM with the Shia as the minority. However after the "change" The Iraqis elected a SHIA president. Just like in America, when the president and the house is controled by democrats or republicans, the majority vote of the government goes the way of the majority party. Given an unstable, poorly organized, somewhat criminally minded party that will not allow Sunnis to take any government seats and will not assist them either.........now there is the rich and the dirt poor sorta set up, but with nothing to loose why not have Many Robin hoods. Not to even mention an overal difference in the two primary religions too, both sunni and shia. Also add in the factory of the neighborly brother IRAN (shia majority) and the whole Sunni population is out funded, outmanned, and severly mistreated..........absolutly bound to have a civil war.....

The only thing that I get upset about is not that we went over there to relieve SADDAM of his seat, but that this is an internal conflict that has been going on for centuries. Our involvment and mainly providing TONS!!! of money to a goverment that wont properly utilize it and the conflict will continue regardless is what sucks.

What people have to remember is Every human being should hopefully have an opportunity to live a good life. There are good people bad people in every country and every situation, unfortunatly there is no perfect formula for helping the good people or punishing the bad

The bolded is not true. The Shia have always been in the majority (comprising about 65% of the population). But the Saddam regime was basically a secular regime, relying on Sunnis in government and the military. Saddam kept his thumb on the Shia, which is what caused all the tension and the fighting against Iran, a country that is about 90% Shia. Once Saddam was overthrown and we booted the Sunnis out of government and disbanded the military, all hell broke loose. The sad thing is that the people in our government who were mainly responsible for starting the war in Iraq (read: the Executive) were clueless about the historic divide that existed in that country. We abandoned the Sunnis (who are now the core of ISIS) and emboldened Iran and the Shia.

Never should have been there and, no matter how many troops anybody wants to send there now, it will always deteriorate to a deplorable state unless we plan to stay indefinitely. I am not in for that.

[Mr. Desmond]

What a FUBAR ...

I had a brief discussion with someone who was in Iraq - his opinion on that army falling apart is that when an American is advising them, they have confidence. Our military are warriors. With the Americans gone ... no confidence.

Who knows what answers are over there ... if they would have split Iraq into 3 entities, that might have worked for a time ... Shia, Sunni, Kurds separated as part of a confederation. But when you have the majority Shia dominating the government and from all reports, engaging in discriminatory, repressive and abusive behavior against the minority, that minority tends to get pissed off. Eventually, it will act against the majority when given the opportunity... even joining in with a group (ISIS) with which it does not agree in order to punish its abusers.

fubar....