No mention of Iraq?

[CosmicCowboy]

Place is falling to shit almost overnight. Military abandoning their weapons ahead of the insurgents. It's about to be a bloodbath.

[ElNono]

Was only a matter of when...

[boutons_deux]

Obama: Iraq Is Going To Need Help From Us
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-iraq-will-need-us-help?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

Thanks, Repugs (for lying America into Iraq and de-stabilizing the M/E)

[Wild Cobra]

Well, let's hope get get their shit together as a nation.

[ElNono]

Two years ago:


And the bottom line is that nobody likes us there. Iraq is halfway back into the shithole it was, and it'll only get worse.

[Wild Cobra]

Obama: Iraq Is Going To Need Help From Us
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-iraq-will-need-us-help?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

Thanks, Repugs (for lying America into Iraq and de-stabilizing the M/E)

I'm OK with us helping Iraq as needed, but I'm afraid Obama will help the wrong side besides being incompetent as CiC.

[boutons_deux]

I'm OK with us helping Iraq as needed, but I'm afraid Obama will help the wrong side besides being incompetent as CiC.

idiot, stupid idiot.

The military/CIA will decide the strategy and details. It's theirs to fuck up, fuck it up they will, because Iraq is unfuckable.

[ChumpDumper]

I'm OK with us helping Iraq as needed, but I'm afraid Obama will help the wrong side besides being incompetent as CiC.
http://funnystack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Funny-George-Bush-7.jpg

[boutons_deux]

Well, let's hope get get their shit together as a nation.

hope, and prayers, they work GREAT! :lol

[angrydude]

My only concern is that I know if Iraq falls to these Jihadis, the US will just go back in there with grounds troops eventually (even though they shouldn't).

[boutons_deux]

My only concern is that I know if Iraq falls to these Jihadis, the US will just go back in there with grounds troops eventually (even though they shouldn't).

First, the US will kill a lot of them with drones, combattants and non-combattants, as always.

[angrydude]

BTW, isn't this the same group the US is giving weapons to in Syria? ISIS?

Why, yes it is.

Good job Obama.

[TDMVPDPOY]

helping the clowns that one day will be fighting against you, wasting 16t on these clowns, when ur people are living like shit....

[angrydude]

Oh my bad....apparently they hijacked the "good" syrian rebels we were giving stuff to.

lol

keeps getting better and better.

Sorry, its hard to keep track when the US is trying to micro-manage every god damn thing in the middle east.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Obama: Iraq Is Going To Need Help From Us


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-iraq-will-need-us-help?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

Thanks, Repugs (for lying America into Iraq and de-stabilizing the M/E)
Would you support the US going back into Iraq under this administration?

[boutons_deux]

Would you support the US going back into Iraq under this administration?

not at all.

but defend SA, Kuwait, and other friendly gulf states from attacks

[Wild Cobra]

Fixed:


hope, and change, they work GREAT! :lol

[Wild Cobra]

BTW, isn't this the same group the US is giving weapons to in Syria? ISIS?

Why, yes it is.

Good job Obama.
Why do you think I'm afraid he's on the wrong side...

[Wild Cobra]

Oh my bad....apparently they hijacked the "good" syrian rebels we were giving stuff to.

lol

keeps getting better and better.

Sorry, its hard to keep track when the US is trying to micro-manage every god damn thing in the middle east.

Is there really such a thing as a good Middle-eastern rebel?

[ElNono]

:lol you bet your ass we're going back in there... spend a couple years, a few trillions, walk away, rinse, repeat...

[CosmicCowboy]

It's getting all messed up over there. Iran is helping the Iraq govt. against the insurgents

[CosmicCowboy]

Would you support the US going back into Iraq under this administration?

Not just no but hell no.

[ChumpDumper]

It's getting all messed up over there. Iran is helping the Iraq govt. against the insurgentsIs that surprising?

[Infinite_limit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMgEc9Qds8M

[CosmicCowboy]

Is that surprising?

I dunno. Assuming Obama folds and gives air support the thought of the USA giving air support to an Iranian Regiment operating openly in Iraq is kind of mind bending.

[Winehole23]

http://m.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole-425-million-and-became-the-worlds-richest-terrorist-group/?wpisrc=nl_headlines

[CosmicCowboy]

BEIRUT, Lebanon—Iran deployed Revolutionary Guard forces to fight in Iraq, helping government troops there wrest back control of most of the city of Tikrit from militants, Iranian security sources said.

Two battalions of the Quds Forces, the overseas branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps that has long operated in Iraq, came to the aid of the besieged, Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, they said.

Combined Iraqi-Iranian forces retook control of 85% of Tikrit, the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein, according to Iraqi and Iranian security sources.

They were helping guard the capital Baghdad and the two Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, which have been threatened by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot. The Sunni militant group's lightning offensive has thrown Iraq into its worse turmoil since the sectarian fighting that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Shiite Iran has also positioned troops along its border with Iraq and promised to bomb rebel forces if they come within 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of Iran's border, according to an Iranian army general.

In addition, Iran was considering the transfer to Iraq of Iranian troops fighting for the regime in Syria if the initial deployments fail to turn the tide of battle in favor of Mr. Maliki's government.

The Iraqi government has signaled to the U.S. it would allow airstrikes against insurgents and asked Washington to speed the delivery of promised weapons.

That raises the prospect of both the U.S. and Iran lending support to Mr. Maliki against ISIS insurgents, who are seeking to create a caliphate encompassing Iraqi and Syrian territory.

Gen. Qasem Sulaimani, the commander of the Quds Forces and one of the region's most powerful military figures, traveled to Baghdad this week to help manage the swelling crisis, said a member of the Revolutionary Guards, or IRGC.

Qassimm al-Araji, an Iraqi Shiite lawmaker who heads the Badr Brigade bloc in parliament, posted a picture with Mr. Sulaimani holding hands in a room in Baghdad on his social-networking site with the caption, "Haj Qasem is here," Iranian news sites affiliated with the IRGC reported on Wednesday. "Haj Qasem" is Mr. Sulaimani's nom de guerre.

At stake for Iran in the current tumult in Iraq isn't only the survival of an Shiite political ally in Baghdad, but the safety of Karbala and Najaf, which along with Mecca and Medina are considered sacred to Shiites world-wide.

An ISIS spokesman, Abu Mohamad al-Adnani, urged the group's Sunni fighters to march toward the "filth-ridden" Karbala and "the city of polytheism" Najaf, where they would "settle their differences" with Mr. Maliki.

That coarsely worded threat further vindicates Iran's view that the fight unfolding in Iraq is an existential sectarian battle between the two rival sects of Islam-Sunni and Shiite—and by default a proxy battle between their patrons Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"Until now we haven't received any requests for help from Iraq. Iraq's army is certainly capable in handling this," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afgham said Wednesday.

Despite those assuring comments, measures by the Iranian government in the past day indicated that an air of crisis had enveloped Tehran. Iran's army and border guards have been placed under full alert along the country's long border with Iraq, Iranian media reported.

Iran's President Hasan Rouhani cut short a religious celebration on Thursday and said he had to attend an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council about events in Iraq.

"We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, will not tolerate this violence and terrorism….We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world," he said in a speech.

Iran's chief of police, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, said the National Security Council would consider intervening in Iraq to "protect Shiite shrines and cities."

ISIS's rapid territorial gains in the past few days appeared to have caught Iranian officials by surprise and opened a debate within the regime over whether Iran should publicly enter the battle, citing the country's strategic interest and ideological responsibility. Iranian officials also privately expressed concern about whether Mr. Maliki was capable of handling the turmoil.

"The more insecure and isolated Maliki becomes, the more he will need Iran. The growth of ISIS presents a serious threat to Iran. So it would not be surprising to see the Guards become more involved in Iraq," said Alireza Nader, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corp.

Quds Forces have been active in Iraq since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and have helped create, train and fund Shiite militias that fought U.S. military forces. Their reach and influence extends from Iraq to Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The two IRGC battalions moved to Iraq on Wednesday were shifted from the Iranian border provinces of Urumieh and Lorestan. Their task is to help secure the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf and tighten security around Baghdad, according to IRGC members in Iran.

Revolutionary Guards units that serve in Iran's border provinces are the most experienced fighters in guerrilla warfare because of separatist ethnic uprisings in those regions. IRGC commanders dispatched to Syria also often hail from those provinces.

[Wild Cobra]

That's a twist I wouldn't expect.

[ChumpDumper]

I dunno. Assuming Obama folds and gives air support the thought of the USA giving air support to an Iranian Regiment operating openly in Iraq is kind of mind bending.Gee, Iran might not be the Great Satan it was sold to be.

[angrydude]

This reminds me of US politics whenever a 3rd party starts making waves.

[Wild Cobra]

Gee, Iran might not be the Great Satan it was sold to be.
It is always possible with having a new president and Ali Hosseini Khamenei getting old. He will be 75 in July. Gaddafi mellowed in age, maybe the Ayatollah has as well.

[ChumpDumper]

Maybe they weren't as bad as advertised in the first place.

[Wild Cobra]

Maybe they weren't as bad as advertised in the first place.
No, they were very bad. I will never agree with your assertion. Only that things always change, and maybe they did change for the better.

[ChumpDumper]

No, they were very bad.As bad as what?

The worst?

What makes them so bad in your opinoin?

[ElNono]

better load up on gas now, tbh...

[Wild Cobra]

As bad as what?

The worst?

What makes them so bad in your opinoin?

As you know, I'm not going to play your game. No matter what I say, you will find a reason to troll, as you are a master-baiter.

[ChumpDumper]

As you know, I'm not going to play your game. No matter what I say, you will find a reason to troll, as you are a master-baiter.Just curious.

What makes them so bad in your opinion?

[Wild Cobra]

better load up on gas now, tbh...

Not necessarily. One thing Iran is very good at, is getting rid of dissidence. Look at their capital punishment rate per capita.

[angrydude]

https://socioecohistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/iran-vs-usa_wars.jpg

[angrydude]

Not necessarily. One thing Iran is very good at, is getting rid of dissidence. Look at their capital punishment rate per capita.

Bad argument. Look at the US imprisonment rate per capita.
US: 707 per 100,000
Iran: 284 per 100,000

Its peaches v pears.

[boutons_deux]

Not necessarily. One thing Iran is very good at, is getting rid of dissidence. Look at their capital punishment rate per capita.

Imperial USA is VERY GOOD at crushing dissidence at home and abroad.

[Wild Cobra]

Bad argument. Look at the US imprisonment rate per capita.
US: 707 per 100,000
Iran: 284 per 100,000

Its peaches v pears.

LOL...

Iran executes the serious crimes them rather than wasting good money jailing them. They have the 2nd highest executions in the world behind China, but being so much smaller in population, their execution rate is the highest in the world.

I'll bet it's a good deterrent keeping many people from committing crimes.

[Wild Cobra]

Imperial USA is VERY GOOD at crushing dissidence at home and abroad.
Some presidents add to it with their terrorist style attacks of cruise missiles and drones.

[ChumpDumper]

Some presidents add to it with their terrorist style attacks of cruise missiles and drones.Or all out invasions.

[baseline bum]

Nice work, Bush. Taking out the motherfucker who kept those Muslim cocksuckers in check. Yet another shit sandwich he feeds us.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs will blame Obama for 100% of Repug fuckup of Iraq

[ElNono]

better load up on gas now, tbh...


Not necessarily. One thing Iran is very good at, is getting rid of dissidence. Look at their capital punishment rate per capita.

uh?

[boutons_deux]

Jon Stewart: Turmoil-ridden Iraq is finally ready to greet us as liberators


Stewart was also upset to find out that ISIS forces had forced the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to not just retreat, but leave behind their uniforms and weapons in the process. Correspondent Jason Jones also said the situation in the country was deteriorating.

“There has been some talk — some lower-level parliamentary talk — of running faster,” Jones explained. “With less clothes.”

Things were getting so bad, Jones said, that people were considering applying the saying, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a truly horrible guy with a gun.” Shortly afterwards, he popped his Hawaiian shirt open to reveal a military-style top, adding a fake mustache and black beret to transform himself into a Saddam Hussein look-alike.

“You’re talking about returning an oppressive, strong-armed dictator to power,” Stewart said.

“Exactly,” Jones confirmed. “Or as they call it here, Iraq Classic.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/13/jon-stewart-turmoil-ridden-iraq-is-finally-ready-to-greet-us-as-liberators/

"Heckuva job, dubya!"

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/58016/thumbs/s-BUSH-large.jpg

1000s American military and 100ks Iraqis dead, US$3T wasted (pocketed by the MIC), and US/UK oilcos don't get that oil.

[boutons_deux]

As Iraq Implodes, Neocons Still Have No Plan Except ‘Blame Obama’

Divided between neoconservative ultra-hawks and libertarian isolationists, today’s Republican Party is hardly a steady influence on American foreign policy. But there is one thing that can be reliably expected from every right-wing faction in Washington: Whenever disaster threatens, they eagerly cast blame on Barack Obama – and utter any falsehood that may be used to castigate him.

As the failed state of Iraq strains under attack from a jihadist force – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – all the usual suspects are popping up on the Senate floor to denounce the president. Ignoring more than a decade of miserable history in which most of them played ignominious parts, these politicians now claim that if only the president had listened to them, the current disaster would have been averted somehow.

“Lindsey Graham and John McCain were right,” said the Arizona senator (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/john-mccain-iraq-criticize-barack-obama-107780.html#ixzz34TkATFRJ), praising himself and his South Carolina sidekick. “Our failure to leave forces on Iraq is why Sen. Graham and I predicted this would happen.”

Nobody with a functioning memory can take such arguments seriously.

By the time our troops left Iraq at the end of 2011, the war had inflicted such immense damage on our military and our communities that Americans were in no mood for further misadventures. Not since Vietnam had a ruinous policy come so close to breaking America’s armed forces. The fiscal damage was equally serious – trillions of dollars in current and future costs, mostly borrowed from China.

The American people wanted out.

Even had we wanted to stay, however, the Iraqis no longer desired our presence (http://world.time.com/2011/10/21/iraq-not-obama-called-time-on-the-u-s-troop-presence/)– as they had made absolutely clear in their electoral choices and their subsequent negotiations with both the Bush and Obama administrations over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq.

It was Bush who signed the Status of Forces Agreement in December 2008 that set a deadline of January 1, 2012 for the departure of all U.S. forces – unless the Iraqis negotiated and ratified a new deal to maintain our troops there.

No such deal was ever made, however, because the Iraqis wanted our troops out – even the tiny force of roughly 3,000 advisors that Obama hoped to provide. He was left with no choice because the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki refused to grant legal immunity from prosecution to any U.S. troops.

Imagine what McCain and Graham would have said had Obama decided to leave American officers and troops vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment by local Iraqi warlords – especially when such an incident inevitably occurred.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/iraq-implodes-neocons-still-plan-except-blame-obama/

[Wild Cobra]

It was Bush who signed the Status of Forces Agreement in December 2008 that set a deadline of January 1, 2012 for the departure of all U.S. forces – unless the Iraqis negotiated and ratified a new deal to maintain our troops there.

You are such a tool.

When Obama was taking credit for the troops leaving Iraq, you and other libtards agreed. He was the hero for getting our troops out, where we conservatives were the only ones mentioning the SOFA that president Bush signed.

You guys gave Obama full credit for getting us out, therefore, you and Obama own the mess it's in today.

You can't just change this on a whim, and change your argument when you dislike the results.

You repeatedly argued Obama got us out. Therefor you should be blaming him.

[boutons_deux]

"When Obama was taking credit for the troops leaving Iraq"

you're such a rectal tool

... Repugs said/LIED that Barry implementing Repugs withdrawal plan was "cut and run".

I don't remember Barry doing any bravado chest thumping about withdrawing. Pretty much just matter of fact business.

I never ARGUED Obama got US out.

I say/always said he did EXACTLY what dubya/Repugs plans said USA should do.

[ChumpDumper]

We should be out.

Never should have been there in the first place.

[CosmicCowboy]

We should be out.

Never should have been there in the first place.

X2

[boutons_deux]

X2


... but but but

your buddies and TX made so much money on BigOil's War Windfall profits.

[CosmicCowboy]

... but but but

your buddies and TX made so much money on BigOil's War Windfall profits.

You sure are a stupid motherfucker.

[Fabbs]

better load up on gas now, tbh...
:lol that is right. the Satanic oil companies will spin this into an increase per usual.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Fucking savages
http://m.worldstarhiphop.com/apple/video.php?v=wshhRcV9nx0gXB0091IC

[CosmicCowboy]

damn

[baseline bum]

Fucking savages
http://m.worldstarhiphop.com/apple/video.php?v=wshhRcV9nx0gXB0091IC

Looks like targeted hits


https://ia601509.us.archive.org/18/items/al_saleel_4/SaleelSawarim.mp4

[boutons_deux]

http://www.alternet.org/video/watch-jon-stewart-digs-iraq-mess-what-mission-was-accomplished?akid=11914.187590.oYzO9O&rd=1&src=newsletter1002689&t=9

[Wild Cobra]

Looks like targeted hits


https://ia601509.us.archive.org/18/items/al_saleel_4/SaleelSawarim.mp4

What did they do, bring over American gangs who want to practice their drive bys?

[CosmicCowboy]

Damn. Those IED's are brutal.

[Aztecfan03]

Gee, Iran might not be the Great Satan it was sold to be.
Iran is predominately Shia and that is what Iraq's gov't is. It's like Catholics/protestants in 1600s germany or 1900s ireland

[pgardn]

Iran is predominately Shia and that is what Iraq's gov't is.

Which was the crux of the problem in the first place, Shiite v. Sunni, Saddam squashed that problem. We thought we would just prance in there and they would be full of love for each other, allegedly...

[TDMVPDPOY]

these fckn clowns shouldve learn their lesson from ww1 octomon empire, if the white westerners want to stop they will stop it...

[Aztecfan03]

,

[Aztecfan03]

Which was the crux of the problem in the first place, Shiite v. Sunni, Saddam squashed that problem. We thought we would just prance in there and they would be full of love for each other, allegedly...

Saddam just killed whoever he wanted but mainly the kurds

[Winehole23]

It is not clear at the time of writing whether ISIS will launch a military attack on Baghdad, or even if it could take the heavily armed city in a pitched battle (http://iswiraq.blogspot.be/).


But it may not need to. Iraq is ancient Mesopotamia, the once-fertile floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates that cradled the first human civilisation. The rivers remain crucial to the farming on which most Iraqis depend, according to a report (http://www.icarda.cgiar.org/iraq-salinity-project) by the International Centre for Agricultural Research on the Dry Areas, which was once based in Aleppo, Syria, but has now decamped to Amman in Jordan to avoid fighting.

ISIS now controls several major dams on the rivers, for instance at Haditha and Samarra. It also holds one 30 kilometres north of Mosul (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/AR2007102902193.html) that was built on fragile rock and poses a risk of collapse. It holds at least 8 billion cubic metres of water. In 2003, there were fears Iraqi troops might destroy the dam to wipe out invading forces. US military engineers calculated that the resulting wave would obliterate Mosul and even hit Baghdad.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25722-extremists-in-iraq-now-control-the-countrys-rivers.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news#.U5xklCifC7S

[Winehole23]

Iraq civil war as Saudi proxy against Iran?


Be careful what you wish for" could have been, and perhaps should have been, Washington's advice to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have been supporting Sunni jihadists against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus. The warning is even more appropriate today as the bloodthirsty fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) sweep through northwest Iraq, prompting hundreds of thousands of their Sunni coreligionists to flee and creating panic in Iraq's Shiite heartland around Baghdad, whose population senses, correctly, that it will be shown no mercy if the ISIS motorcades are not stopped.

Such a setback for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been the dream of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for years. He has regarded Maliki as little more than an Iranian stooge, refusing to send an ambassador to Baghdad and instead encouraging his fellow rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman -- to take a similar standoff-ish approach. Although vulnerable to al Qaeda-types at home, these countries (particularly Kuwait and Qatar) have often turned a blind eye to their citizens funding radical groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most active Islamist groups opposed to Assad in Syria.


Currently on vacation in Morocco, King Abdullah has so far been silent on these developments. At 90-plus years old, he has shown no wish to join the Twitter generation, but the developments on the ground could well prompt him to cut short his stay and return home. He has no doubt realized that -- with his policy of delivering a strategic setback to Iran by orchestrating the overthrow of Assad in Damascus showing little sign of any imminent success -- events in Iraq offer a new opportunity.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/06/12/iraq_mosul_isis_sunni_shiite_divide_iran_saudi_ara bia_syria

[mercos]

Iraq should have been broken up into 3 different states after Saddam was toppled. This infighting was inevitable, and it will not end anytime soon. The schism in Islam has existed since Muhammad's death, its not going to magically solve itself now.

[CosmicCowboy]

Iraq should have been broken up into 3 different states after Saddam was toppled. This infighting was inevitable, and it will not end anytime soon. The schism in Islam has existed since Muhammad's death, its not going to magically solve itself now.

X2

Only problem was the oil isn't divided equally. One of the states would be rolling in cash and the other two states would be dirt poor.

[Winehole23]

Senator John McCain, whom the President telephoned on Friday, has called on Obama to fire his entire national-security team, claiming, “Could all of this have been avoided? The answer is absolutely yes.” McCain is right; it could have been avoided. If, in the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush had treated the arguments of Feith, McCain, and other advocates of the Iraq War with the disdain they deserved, we (and the Iraqis) wouldn’t be where we are today.


If, in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion, Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Baghdad, and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, had not decided to disband Saddam’s army, the one institution that somewhat unified the country, the Iraqi state would be stronger. If, in addition, Bremer and Rumsfeld had ordered enough U.S. troops onto the streets to preserve order, then Iraq might (and it’s only a might) have held together peacefully instead of degenerating into sectarianism, anarchy, and violence.
If Prime Minister Maliki, whom the United States eventually settled on as its favored Iraqi leader, had made a serious effort to reach out to the Sunnis and the Kurds, rather than acting like a sectarian ward heeler, the departure of U.S. forces might not have created the political stalemate and institutional power vacuum that the jihadis, first in Anbar Province and now in Nineveh and Saladin, have exploited.


None of these things happened, but the greatest mistake was the initial one. In invading Iraq and toppling Saddam, the Bush Administration opened Pandora’s Box. Given what has happened since 2003, it is almost comical to read the prewar prognostications of the neocons and paleocons for what would happen after Saddam was gone. There was talk of turning Iraq into a democratic model for other Middle Eastern countries—making it another Turkey, or even a Jordan, with a Hashemite restoration. Today it is faced with the prospect of a bloody dismemberment into three sectarian mini-states: the Sunnis in the west and northwest; the Kurds in the northeast; and the Shiites in the center and the oil-rich south. (It’s unclear where Baghdad, a city divided along religious lines, fits into this picture.)


The irony is painfully acute. Eleven years ago, in response to a terrorist attack by a group of anti-American religious fanatics, the United States invaded an Arab country with hardly any jihadis, or very few of them, to overthrow a secular dictator. Today, with much blood and money having been spent, northern and western Iraq is full of jihadis, and the U.S. government is figuring out how to prevent them from overrunning the rest of the country.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/06/the-iraq-mess-place-the-blame-where-it-is-deserved.html

[mercos]

X2

Only problem was the oil isn't divided equally. One of the states would be rolling in cash and the other two states would be dirt poor.

Yep. The three sides still likely would have fought each other, but at least if they were divided it would have been nation against nation, and there would be less threat of a total failed state like there is now. Best case scenario would be something similar to the India-Pakistan situation.

[boutons_deux]

how to shut up the right-wingers about Iraq:

What SPECIFICALLY would you do to stop the Iraq civil war AND how many $10Bs are you willing to waste trying?

[m>s]

^your boy barry is currently plotting how he can get involved without too much public backlash

[Winehole23]

the backlash was well earned. GWB and Paul Bremer fucked it up royally. The decision to invade was colossally fucked up too.

[Wild Cobra]

Part 1:


Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.

Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.

The inspectors undertook this mission first 7.5 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

The United States has patiently worked to preserve UNSCOM as Iraq has sought to avoid its obligation to cooperate with the inspectors. On occasion, we've had to threaten military force, and Saddam has backed down.

Faced with Saddam's latest act of defiance in late October, we built intensive diplomatic pressure on Iraq backed by overwhelming military force in the region. The UN Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance.

Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the UN.

When Saddam still failed to comply, we prepared to act militarily. It was only then at the last possible moment that Iraq backed down. It pledged to the UN that it had made, and I quote, a clear and unconditional decision to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors.

I decided then to call off the attack with our airplanes already in the air because Saddam had given in to our demands. I concluded then that the right thing to do was to use restraint and give Saddam one last chance to prove his willingness to cooperate.

I made it very clear at that time what unconditional cooperation meant, based on existing UN resolutions and Iraq's own commitments. And along with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully, we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning.

Now over the past three weeks, the UN weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq's cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM's chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to UN Secretary-General Annan.

The conclusions are stark, sobering and profoundly disturbing.

In four out of the five categories set forth, Iraq has failed to cooperate. Indeed, it actually has placed new restrictions on the inspectors. Here are some of the particulars.

Iraq repeatedly blocked UNSCOM from inspecting suspect sites. For example, it shut off access to the headquarters of its ruling party and said it will deny access to the party's other offices, even though UN resolutions make no exception for them and UNSCOM has inspected them in the past.

Iraq repeatedly restricted UNSCOM's ability to obtain necessary evidence. For example, Iraq obstructed UNSCOM's effort to photograph bombs related to its chemical weapons program.

It tried to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site and photocopying documents and prevented Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions.

Prior to the inspection of another site, Iraq actually emptied out the building, removing not just documents but even the furniture and the equipment.

Iraq has failed to turn over virtually all the documents requested by the inspectors. Indeed, we know that Iraq ordered the destruction of weapons-related documents in anticipation of an UNSCOM inspection.

So Iraq has abused its final chance.

As the UNSCOM reports concludes, and again I quote, "Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in the fields of disarmament.

"In light of this experience, and in the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must regrettably be recorded again that the commission is not able to conduct the work mandated to it by the Security Council with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons program."

In short, the inspectors are saying that even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham.

Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance.

And so we had to act and act now.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

[Wild Cobra]

Part 2:


Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can crippled the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspection system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program; we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team -- including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of state and the national security adviser -- I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq.

They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.

At the same time, we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisers, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare.

If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.

Also, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend. For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East.

That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq's a month's head start to prepare for potential action against it.

Finally, our allies, including Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, concurred that now is the time to strike. I hope Saddam will come into cooperation with the inspection system now and comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. But we have to be prepared that he will not, and we must deal with the very real danger he poses.

So we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction and work toward the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people.

First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq or moving against his own Kurdish citizens.

The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

Second, so long as Iraq remains out of compliance, we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce economic sanctions. Sanctions have cost Saddam more than $120 billion -- resources that would have been used to rebuild his military. The sanctions system allows Iraq to sell oil for food, for medicine, for other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people.

We have no quarrel with them. But without the sanctions, we would see the oil-for-food program become oil-for-tanks, resulting in a greater threat to Iraq's neighbors and less food for its people.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.

The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort. We will strengthen our engagement with the full range of Iraqi opposition forces and work with them effectively and prudently.

The decision to use force is never cost-free. Whenever American forces are placed in harm's way, we risk the loss of life. And while our strikes are focused on Iraq's military capabilities, there will be unintended Iraqi casualties.

Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion.

We must be prepared for these realities. At the same time, Saddam should have absolutely no doubt if he lashes out at his neighbors, we will respond forcefully.

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Let me close by addressing one other issue. Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down.

But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in the new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past, but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.

Tonight, the United States is doing just that. May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission and their families. And may God bless America.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

[Nbadan]

Iraq crisis: Tony Blair rejects 'bizarre' claims 2003 invasion caused current situation
Source: ABC.AU


Former British prime minister Tony Blair has hit out at critics linking the 2003 invasion of Iraq with the current violence in the country, blaming instead the West's failure to act in Syria.

Mr Blair, who led Britain into the US-led war to remove Saddam Hussein and is now a diplomatic envoy in the Middle East, also criticised the sectarianism of the government in Baghdad.

In a long article published on his website, he said arguments that there would be no crisis in the region if the Iraqi dictator had remained in power were "bizarre".

"It is a bizarre reading of the cauldron that is the Middle East today, to claim that but for the removal of Saddam, we would not have a crisis," he wrote.


Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-15/blair-denies-iraq-violence-result-of-2003-invasion/5524750

The US former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the United States should not intervene in Iraq as PM Nouri al-Maliki's administration was unable to function for all Iraqis despite US support, Anadolu agency reported.

Referring to the Iraqi government, Clinton said on Friday: "You'd be fighting for a dysfunctional, unrepresentative, authoritarian government."

"There's no reason on earth that I know of that we would ever sacrifice a single American life for that."

[boutons_deux]

Fuck Blair, he lied as much as dubya and dickhead to get UK BigOil back into UK former colony.

[Winehole23]

WC unmasks himself as GWB's sock puppet

[pgardn]

Saddam just killed whoever he wanted but mainly the kurds

He prevented sectarian violence through domination.
The reason he went after the Kurds, and kept it up, is he never solved that problem.
The Kurds were never fully under the boot.
Which is why The Kurdish part of Iraq is relatively safe and autonomous for now.

[Wild Cobra]

WC unmasks himself as GWB's sock puppet

By presenting the truth?

I wonder what that makes you for wanting to hide the truth, and calling people names who bring up the truth...

[boutons_deux]

Fox News: Iraq violence proves Bush was right about ‘pretty much everything’


A Monday segment on Fox News asserted that President George W. Bush — who invaded Iraq under false pretenses, and then signed the agreement to withdraw all U.S. troops by 2012 — had been right all along because ISIS, an al Qaeda splinter group, was threatening to take over the country.

“Some say the Islamic militant group that is violently overtaking large parts of Syria and now Iraq could have been stopped if the situation there had not been neglected,” Fox News host Martha MacCallum reported during her Monday broadcast. “In fact, in 2007, President George W. Bush pretty much laid this out as it is happening.”

As London School of Economics and Political Science professor Fawaz Gerges recently pointed out (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/world/meast/iraq-predictions-revisited/), “hundreds, if not thousands, of skilled officers of Saddam Hussein’s … joined ISIS” after the Bush administration decided to break up Iraq’s military.

And at no time during the segment did MacCallum or Card mention that it was President Bush who signed the status of forces agreement in 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=0) that said all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by 2012.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/16/fox-news-iraq-violence-proves-bush-was-right-about-pretty-much-everything/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[RandomGuy]

Damn. Those IED's are brutal.

The mass executions... even more so.

What a fucking sectarian swamp.

No way should we be going back in there with troops, though. If they can't work it out, let 'em kill each other until it is sorted out.

p.s. start developing alternative energy.

[RandomGuy]

Iraq should have been broken up into 3 different states after Saddam was toppled. This infighting was inevitable, and it will not end anytime soon. The schism in Islam has existed since Muhammad's death, its not going to magically solve itself now.

Eyup.

That is how the country would have shaken out if the British and other colonial powers hadn't fucked it up with their stupid border drawing.

[RandomGuy]

Part 1:


http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

:lmao

Didn't look at the URL did you?

1998-12-16

Clinton wasn't talking about the invasion of Iraq, he was talking about his own decision to hit him with airstrikes.

Sorry Clinton didn't invade Iraq.

#stillblamingclinton LOL

[Wild Cobra]

:lmao

Didn't look at the URL did you?

1998-12-16

Clinton wasn't talking about the invasion of Iraq, he was talking about his own decision to hit him with airstrikes.

Sorry Clinton didn't invade Iraq.

#stillblamingclinton LOL
So, you don't think the collateral damage from those airstrikes didn't add fuel to terrorism?

OK...

[RandomGuy]

So, you don't think the collateral damage from those airstrikes didn't add fuel to terrorism?

OK...

No, I don't.

Until shown some evidence that actually happened.

Do you have evidence that the airstrikes carried out by Clinton in the 1990's in Iraq contributed to international terrorism?

[Wild Cobra]

No, I don't.

Until shown some evidence that actually happened.

Do you have evidence that the airstrikes carried out by Clinton in the 1990's in Iraq contributed to international terrorism?

Wow.

They really don't teach common sense these days.

Why did 9/11 happen? Do you think they attacked for no reason?

Did you know that Osama Bin Laden issued two Fatwas in the 90's describing his intended war against the USA for Clinton's attacks?

[ChumpDumper]

Wow.

They really don't teach common sense these days.

Why did 9/11 happen? Do you think they attacked for no reason?

Did you know that Osama Bin Laden issued two Fatwas in the 90's describing his intended war against the USA for Clinton's attacks?Which do you think created more terra-ists -- Desert Fox or the disbanding of the whole Iraqi military?

[Wild Cobra]

Which do you think created more terra-ists -- Desert Fox or the disbanding of the whole Iraqi military?

The Iraqi Army wasn't exactly disbanded. However, even the Bush administration agrees they made a mistake not to include senior officers.

[ChumpDumper]

The Iraqi Army wasn't exactly disbanded. However, even the Bush administration agrees they made a mistake not to include senior officers.It was disbanded.

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20030823_CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Ann ex_A.pdf

And you didn't answer my question.

Disbanding the Iraqi military put 250,000 armed men out of a job. I think this created more terrorists than Desert Fox.

If you think Desert Fox created more, explain why and find some numbers to back it up.

[Wild Cobra]

Look at the definitions of both dissolved and disbanded. Most of the military was reincorporated into other units.

I think the flagrant bombing by Clinton, and the excess of collateral damage he cause, helped create the tourists.

[boutons_deux]

Look at the definitions of both dissolved and disbanded. Most of the military was reincorporated into other units.

I think the flagrant bombing by Clinton, and the excess of collateral damage he cause, helped create the tourists.

If Clinton had killed OBL, maybe no 9/11.

If dubya/dickhead had taken Clinton's people's warnings about OBL as seriously as Clinton did and later heeded FBI's August 2001 warnings about "planes into buildings", then maybe no 9/11.

[Wild Cobra]

and later heeded FBI's August 2001 warnings about "planes into buildings", then maybe no 9/11.
What would you do to stop it?

[boutons_deux]

Why Take the Neocons Seriously?

Exclusive: The Sunni extremist offensive into central Iraq appears to have stalled, but the political battle rages in Washington where neocons see an opening to pressure President Obama into recommitting the U.S. military in support of neocon goals in the Middle East, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

As President Barack Obama ponders whether the United States should respond militarily to advances into Iraq by Sunni extremists, the more pertinent question may be why does the mainstream U.S. news media give so much attention and credence to the neocons who laid the foundations for this disaster a decade ago.

It seems that the go-to guys for commentary continue to be the likes of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two of the horsemen of this apocalypse, while many of the same editorial writers at the Washington Post and elsewhere who paved the way to this Iraqi hell still chastise Obama for pulling out the U.S. troops in 2011 and demand that he reinsert the U.S. military now.

Overall, Official Washington’s commentary on the advance by several thousand fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has bordered on the hysterical, with the panic being used to push Obama to commit U.S. air assets to Iraq and to expand U.S. intervention into Syria.
That’s the case although the ISIS offensive could be explained as more the result of the group facing pressure inside Syria from President Bashar al-Assad’s rejuvenated military and from al-Qaeda-backed militants of the rival Nusra Front than some “breakout” of the ISIS goal of carving a fundamentalist caliphate out of Syria and Iraq.

ISIS may simply have concluded that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s poorly led army was an easier target. Still, ISIS appears to have been surprised by how quickly several divisions of the Iraqi army fled the northern city of Mosul and other positions on the road to Baghdad.

Nevertheless, the result is that we are back to the neocon agenda of “regime change” across the Middle East, ousting governments that Israel finds objectionable, a strategy that evolved in the 1990s and led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/20/the-mysterious-why-of-the-iraq-war/). If the Iraq War had not gone so badly, it was expected to set the stage for additional interventions in Syria and Iran.

To burnish their tarnished reputations, the neocons now promote a narrative that treats the Iraq invasion as a stunning success though they acknowledge that the ensuing occupation was poorly managed. But this narrative insists that those mistakes were rectified by President George W. Bush heeding neocon advice to “surge” U.S. troops in 2007, achieving “victory at last” by 2008.

According to the neocons, President Obama then squandered this “victory” by not extending the U.S. military occupation of Iraq indefinitely – and they assert that he also failed by not intervening more directly in Syria to overthrow President Assad.

A common refrain – even among liberal war hawks, like the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-the-blame-for-iraq-is-shared.html)and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – is that Obama should have done much more to arm and train “moderate” rebels in Syria, although it’s never entirely clear who these “moderates” are and whether they have any significant base of support inside Syria.

But the useful myth is that somehow these muscled-up Syrian “moderates” would have prevailed in a two-front war against Assad’s army and the Islamic militants who have
been strongly supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni oil sheikdoms.

The more likely outcome would have been that the “moderate” fighters would have only contributed to the violent chaos that has engulfed Syria and thus made an outright victory by the Sunni extremists more likely, not less.

A Sunni extremist victory in Syria also could have been aided by the U.S. hawks’ desire last summer to have Obama launch a massive bombing campaign against Assad’s forces after a disputed Sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013.

Though pro-war advocates, including Secretary of State John Kerry, rushed to pin the blame on Assad – despite his denials and indications that the rebels may have released the Sarin as a “false-flag” provocation (http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/06/was-turkey-behind-syrian-sarin-attack/) – Obama veered away from the Syrian bombing at the last minute. Then, with help from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad was convinced to surrender all his chemical weapons.

But that deal only fed the neocon narrative that Obama was weak and indecisive, while the liberal hawks kept embracing the dreamy alternative of the “moderate” rebels somehow winning their two-front war. Having never been fully tested and thus never fully disproved, this hypothetical outcome has remained an easy way to bash Obama.

Extrapolating from the “moderate rebel” myth, the U.S. hardliners argue that Obama is now responsible for the recent successes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in its drive into central Iraq because – if it weren’t for Obama’s unwillingness to plunge into the Syrian civil war – Syria would not have become a staging base for ISIS, the argument goes.

The ISIS Offensive

But there is another way to view the ISIS offensive into Iraq – that it is more a sign of weakness in Syria than strength in Iraq. Inside Syria, these and other rebels have been on the defensive against the Syrian army. ISIS also appears to have lost some financial support from Saudi Arabia as the monarchy has retrenched from its regional proxy wars against Shiite-ruled Iran and Iranian allies, such as Assad.

It appears the waning enthusiasm of the Saudi government for the Syrian adventure has left some of the Sunni militants there in disarray, although the rebels may continue to get significant support from some Saudi princes and other Persian Gulf oil sheiks.

Still, official Saudi adventurism appears to have reached its peak in 2013 under the guidance of then-intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the longtime ambassador to the United States who has been a savvy and ruthless player on the global stage.

Bandar, who worked so closely with President George W. Bush and the Bush Family that he was called “Bandar Bush,” had a geopolitical vision that was complementary to the neocon strategy in Washington. It included an odd-couple alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel in pursuit of their common goals of undermining Shiite-ruled Iran and removing the elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Israeli-Saudi Alliance Slips into View (http://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/12/israeli-saudi-alliance-slips-into-view/).”]

However, Bandar may have overplayed his hand. In a face-to-face meeting with Russia’s Putin last July, Bandar is reported to have implied that Russia’s continued support of Assad might lead Saudi-backed extremists to target the Sochi Winter Olympics with terrorist attacks. That warning prompted a return threat from Putin to hold Saudi Arabia accountable if the Olympics were attacked. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Russian-Saudi Showdown at Sochi (http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/31/the-russian-saudi-showdown-at-sochi/).”]

Then, Saudi hopes that Obama would plunge into the Syrian civil war after the Aug. 21 Sarin attack were dashed as Putin helped steer Obama away from that abyss. Putin next assisted in negotiating an interim deal with Iran for restraining its nuclear program, undermining the prospects of a U.S. attack on Iran and solidifying Putin as the new bete noire of the neocons.

With those gambits for reengaging the U.S. military in the Middle East thwarted – and the Saudi hand more exposed than the Saudi monarchy likes – Bandar was sidelined in late 2013 and formally removed from his post on April 15, 2014.

However, I’m told that Bandar’s departure does not mean Saudi money has stopped flowing to the roving bands of Sunni extremists fighting in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere; the financial burden has simply shifted from the Saudi government to individual Saudi princes who have long financed militants with the quiet blessing of the monarchy.

The erstwhile Israel-Saudi alliance also appears to have tumbled along with Bandar’s fall. The cosmopolitan Bandar with his long experience in Washington did not share the hatred of Israeli Jews that is common among the Saudi hierarchy. Thus, Bandar was able to see the value of teaming up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in areas of mutual interest, particularly antipathy toward Iran.

Yet, while that informal Saudi-Israeli collaboration may be in eclipse, the shared interests remain, underscoring why American neocons are so eager to blame Obama for this past week’s offensive by ISIS fighters as they captured Mosul and struck southward toward Baghdad. The offensive revives hope for resuming the neocon strategy of “regime change” in Syria and Iran.

Though now stalled, the ISIS offensive has become the latest rationale for arguing that Obama must recommit the U.S. military behind the neocon agenda.

But the bigger question is why any American still takes the neocons seriously.

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/06/15/why-take-the-neocons-seriously/

[Wild Cobra]

I see you found more spoon feed propaganda to eat...

[boutons_deux]

I see you found more spoon feed propaganda to eat...

excellent retort, as always.

can you identify any specific propaganda points?

[Wild Cobra]

excellent retort, as always.

can you identify any specific propaganda points?

Only that I went through a list of their material and reports. It's almost all leftist points against those on the right. They are clearly a biased site. How have they established their credibility?

[in2deep]

Iran is the good guys here. They are fighting the radicals that mass murder and eat the organs of enemy soldiers.

And US will probably stay neutral while secretly helping the radicals. :lol hope and change :lol

[boutons_deux]

Only that I went through a list of their material and reports. It's almost all leftist points against those on the right. They are clearly a biased site. How have they established their credibility?

So you don't have any specific propaganda points by ex-CIA Robert Parry make in THAT SPECIFIC ARTICLE?

[ChumpDumper]

Look at the definitions of both dissolved and disbanded. Most of the military was reincorporated into other units.

I think the flagrant bombing by Clinton, and the excess of collateral damage he cause, helped create the tourists.

250k armed men were out of a job.

Are you disputing this?

You are incredibly disingenuous.

And the worst kind of partisan hack.

[Wild Cobra]

250k armed men were out of a job.

Are you disputing this?

You are incredibly disingenuous.

And the worst kind of partisan hack.
Yes, I am disputing that. Those conscripted were allowed to go home, and those wanting to stay in the military were integrated into their new military. The only exception were the higher ranking officers, which it was feared would remain loyal to Saddam.

Where are you rewriting this history from?

[ChumpDumper]

Yes, I am disputing that. Those conscripted were allowed to go home, and those wanting to stay in the military were integrated into their new military. The only exception were the higher ranking officers, which it was feared would remain loyal to Saddam.

Where are you rewriting this history from?
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/17/documents-indicate-policy-plan-that-fueled-iraqi-insurgency-was-compartmentalized-in-rumsfelds-pentagon/2/

You are wrong.

[Wild Cobra]

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/17/documents-indicate-policy-plan-that-fueled-iraqi-insurgency-was-compartmentalized-in-rumsfelds-pentagon/2/

You are wrong.
Are you saying the new Iraqi military came from all raw recruits?

[ChumpDumper]

Are you saying the new Iraqi military came from all raw recruits?
I am saying that a great number of insurgents came from fired military.

Not from desert fox.

[Wild Cobra]

I am saying that a great number of insurgents came from fired military.

Not from desert fox.
One or the other?

Why not both?

How many of those in the military do you think saw first hand evidence of Clinton's cruise missile attacks?

[ChumpDumper]

One or the other?

Why not both?

How many of those in the military do you think saw first hand evidence of Clinton's cruise missile attacks?like I said. The worst kind of partisan hack.

[boutons_deux]

US disbanded Saddam's Bathist/Sunni military to setup a new Army of Shiites.

REPORT: ISIS Revives Saddam’s Baath Party to Win Sunni Support

With Iraq’s political system in tatters, is Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party making a comeback, or is it just a tool in the designs of the now dreaded Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ? This news item from the [I]Sotal Iraq reports (http://www.worldmeets.us/sotaliraq000041.shtml) that the last remaining member of Saddam’s regime yet to be apprehended, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has been seen in Mosul amid posters of Saddam, and is claiming the Iraqi presidency for himself and his party. Other sources tell thenewspaper that this is all part of a scheme on the part of ISIS to win over popular Sunni support in what used to be a major Baath stronghold.

The Sotal Iraq news item begins (http://www.worldmeets.us/sotaliraq000041.shtml) this way:


After an 11 year absence imposed as a result of the American occupation, which banned the party under a new constitution, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, which ruled over Iraq from 1968 to 2003, is making a comeback in Mosul.

On Tuesday June 10, what many in Mosul are calling “Liberation Day,” pictures of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appeared in some areas, accompanied by rumors that former Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri had appeared at the Ninawa Provincial Headquarters near Mosul. Rumor had it that afterwards, he headed to the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus on the other side of the city. Yet unlike other recent events, not a single photo appeared on social or mass media platforms to confirm the news.

That evening, masked gunman armed with Kalashnikovs asked people to attend a speech in the city square to be given by Al Duri on the occasion of the so-called victory of the people’s revolution. Hundreds gathered, many with cameras and mobile phones at the ready, to capture a scene they haven’t seen for over a decade. After an hour’s wait, an unknown man with a long beard appeared on stage and to everyone’s astonishment, began a religious sermon. He then departed, leaving behind a disappointed audience who never even heard a mention of Al Duri’s name.

Walid Mohammad Salam, a former Baathist, confirms that the raising of posters of Saddam as well as leaks about the presence of Al Duri in Mosul and his leadership of operations against Iraqi security forces are all attempts to revive memories of the party among its supporters in Mosul, a major base for the party for over four decades.With Iraq’s political system in tatters, is Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party making a comeback, or is it just a tool in the designs of the now dreaded Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ? This news item from the [I]Sotal Iraq reports (http://www.worldmeets.us/sotaliraq000041.shtml) that the last remaining member of Saddam’s regime yet to be apprehended, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has been seen in Mosul amid posters of Saddam, and is claiming the Iraqi presidency for himself and his party. Other sources tell thenewspaper that this is all part of a scheme on the part of ISIS to win over popular Sunni support in what used to be a major Baath stronghold.


http://themoderatevoice.com/195919/report-isis-revives-saddams-baath-party-to-win-sunni-support-sotal-iraq-iraq/

[boutons_deux]

Estimates of Isis numbers range from 7,000 to 10,000. Its rank and file members are drawn from fighters who were previously with al-Qaida, some former Ba’athists and soldiers of the Saddam-era army. What is far harder to quantify – and a highly significant question – is how much support the group has from Iraq’s wider Sunni community, the people who lost their power and influence when Saddam was overthrown.

“Isis now presents itself as an ideologically superior alternative to al-Qaida within the jihadi community,” says Charles Lister, of the Brookings Doha Center (http://www.brookings.edu/about/centers/doha). “As such, it has increasingly become a transnational movement with immediate objectives far beyond Iraq and Syria.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/17/the-terrifying-rise-of-isis-2-billion-in-loot-online-killings-and-an-army-on-the-run/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[pgardn]

I see you found more spoon feed propaganda to eat...

Bottom line:

1. Saddam has WMDs, he is a threat
2. Shit, no WMDs, we really just want to free Iraq from Saddam
3. Oh they love us
4. Time
5. How do we leave?, we opened up a huge can of worms...
6. Syria
7. We will sit this one out
8. Shit! This sectarian stuff is extensive.

We never understood the true nature of the people and the conflict we entered. Lesson learned: once established institutions are completely removed and not quickly re-established, chaos ensues. If deep historical hatred already exists, good luck.

[johnsmith]

hope, and prayers, they work GREAT! :lol

Do you of all people really think you should criticize someone for just talking on the Internet and not actually doing something?

[boutons_deux]

DICK CHENEY: “MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH THE IRAQI OIL WELLS”


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/489851141-580.jpg

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney broke his silence about the crisis in Iraq on Tuesday, telling reporters, “My thoughts and prayers are with the Iraqi oil wells.”

Speaking from his Wyoming ranch, Cheney said that he had planned to remain quiet about the current state of affairs in Iraq, but “thinking about those oil wells has kept me up at night.”

“If Dick Cheney won’t speak for the Iraqi oil wells, who will?” he said.

Cheney indicated that, as of now, there was no fighting near Iraq’s oil wells, but warned, “If the violence spreads, those wells could be in jeopardy. And it’s up to the international community to insure that that worst-case scenario doesn’t happen.”

The former Vice-President said that he expected to “catch hell” for inserting himself into the debate about Iraq, but was resolute in his decision to do so. “If I prevent one drop of precious oil from being spilled, it will have been worth it,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/dick-cheney-my-thoughts-and-prayers-are-with-the-iraqi-oil-wells.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(84)

[johnsmith]

I absolutely love it when wild cobra and Boutons argue....it's entertainment at its finest to watch these two retards go at it.

[boutons_deux]

I absolutely love it when wild cobra and Boutons argue....it's entertainment at its finest to watch these two retards go at it.

I don't argue with WC, I bitch slap him

WC doesn't argue with The Great Boutons, he nips uselessly at my ankles.

[tlongII]

DICK CHENEY: “MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH THE IRAQI OIL WELLS”


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/489851141-580.jpg

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney broke his silence about the crisis in Iraq on Tuesday, telling reporters, “My thoughts and prayers are with the Iraqi oil wells.”

Speaking from his Wyoming ranch, Cheney said that he had planned to remain quiet about the current state of affairs in Iraq, but “thinking about those oil wells has kept me up at night.”

“If Dick Cheney won’t speak for the Iraqi oil wells, who will?” he said.

Cheney indicated that, as of now, there was no fighting near Iraq’s oil wells, but warned, “If the violence spreads, those wells could be in jeopardy. And it’s up to the international community to insure that that worst-case scenario doesn’t happen.”

The former Vice-President said that he expected to “catch hell” for inserting himself into the debate about Iraq, but was resolute in his decision to do so. “If I prevent one drop of precious oil from being spilled, it will have been worth it,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/dick-cheney-my-thoughts-and-prayers-are-with-the-iraqi-oil-wells.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(84)

I assume you realize that's a satire piece, correct?

[boutons_deux]

I assume you realize that's a satire piece, correct?

really?? no shit!?!?!? I'm flabbergasted.

[tlongII]

really?? no shit!?!?!? I'm flabbergasted.

So you admit you post bullshit? Thanks.

[TheSanityAnnex]

So you admit you post bullshit? Thanks.

Incoming Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert article.

[Nbadan]

Iraq War Boosters Get Second Chance In Media Spotlight
Source: HuffPo


NEW YORK -- In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Paul Bremer criticized the Obama administration’s policy in the Middle East and argued that the United States needs to make “a clear commitment to help restabilize Iraq.”

Notably, Bremer’s op-ed -- “Only America Can Prevent a Disaster in Iraq” -- neglected to mention his own role in helping to destabilize Iraq following the Bush administration’s disastrous 2003 invasion. As U.S. presidential envoy to the nation, Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army at the beginning of the occupation, a critical blunder that was followed by years of sectarian violence.

The Iraq war, which Bush officials and media advocates sold as easy and inexpensive, grew into the biggest U.S. foreign policy debacle in a generation, resulting in the deaths of over 4,500 U.S. soldiers and 100,000 Iraqis. It also cast a shadow over the U.S. media, which largely promoted the administration's bogus case for war.

Now Bremer and others who were largely discredited when it comes to Iraq are back in the spotlight, and they're being treated as credible experts on the growing chaos in the country. Iraq is once again in the news because the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extremist group, has taken several major cities and set its sights on Baghdad.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/16/iraq-war-media_n_5500372.html


De Ba'athification... conceived by Feith, Wolfowitz, and Chalabi and implemented by Bremer it is a word Bremer avoids like the plaque. It got the people who ran Iraq's institutions and infrastructure, military and civil officials, Sunnis, permanently out of participation in Iraq's future. It lead to Sunni marginalizing and opened the door to Iran coming in. How much you want to bet that a lot of these disgruntled ex Ba'ath party officials are now backing Isis' move?

[Nbadan]

I spit my tea out of my nose laughing so much at McCain on this one...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9TFPuTirc#t=47

[boutons_deux]

Jon Stewart went after the warmongers who were dead wrong about Iraq in the first place and now have the gall to go on TV and blame the entire mess on Barack Obama. People who really should have crawled under a rock in shame and stayed there, Paul Wolfowitz, Lindsey Graham, and most notably, the wrongest of them all, John McCain, are making the rounds so much, "you'd have thought they won 'Dancing With the Stars,' " Stewart quips.

How wrong was McCain? Stewart has a clip of him saying, "there is no history of violent clashes between Sunnis and Shia" in the region, and so, McCain imagines that after the U.S. heroically restores democracy, the Iraqis will be able to live peacefully ever after. And if not, there is always the McCain solution for everything: more military intervention.

There is, of course, also the utter hypocrisy of blaming Obama for the mess Bush created, including blaming the "Kenyan, Muslim, terrorist, vegan" president for the troop withdrawal that was, in fact, mandated under the "Status of Forces" agreement that Bush signed after "planting those wonderful seeds of peace and democracy to blossom and grow like a flower" in Iraq.

Why is McCain still talking? Stewart wonders. We all do. Stewart's answer: "The John McCain military plan is the same as the John McCain media strategy—be everywhere, forever."

http://www.alternet.org/video/watch-jon-stewart-drops-truth-bomb-john-mccain-and-other-warmongers?akid=11926.187590.ih5Kln&rd=1&src=newsletter1003813&t=3

[TheSanityAnnex]

Jon Stewart went after the warmongers who were dead wrong about Iraq in the first place and now have the gall to go on TV and blame the entire mess on Barack Obama. People who really should have crawled under a rock in shame and stayed there, Paul Wolfowitz, Lindsey Graham, and most notably, the wrongest of them all, John McCain, are making the rounds so much, "you'd have thought they won 'Dancing With the Stars,' " Stewart quips.

How wrong was McCain? Stewart has a clip of him saying, "there is no history of violent clashes between Sunnis and Shia" in the region, and so, McCain imagines that after the U.S. heroically restores democracy, the Iraqis will be able to live peacefully ever after. And if not, there is always the McCain solution for everything: more military intervention.

There is, of course, also the utter hypocrisy of blaming Obama for the mess Bush created, including blaming the "Kenyan, Muslim, terrorist, vegan" president for the troop withdrawal that was, in fact, mandated under the "Status of Forces" agreement that Bush signed after "planting those wonderful seeds of peace and democracy to blossom and grow like a flower" in Iraq.

Why is McCain still talking? Stewart wonders. We all do. Stewart's answer: "The John McCain military plan is the same as the John McCain media strategy—be everywhere, forever."

http://www.alternet.org/video/watch-jon-stewart-drops-truth-bomb-john-mccain-and-other-warmongers?akid=11926.187590.ih5Kln&rd=1&src=newsletter1003813&t=3

Phew!!! Wasn't sure you'd make your Jon Stewart quote quota for the day.

[boutons_deux]

Phew!!! Wasn't sure you'd make your Jon Stewart quote quota for the day.

if you'd watch Colbert and Stewart, you might get your shit straight for once.

[TheSanityAnnex]

if you'd watch Colbert and Stewart, you might get your shit straight for once.

Might I suggest some reading material for you?

http://www.americanexperiment.org/events/left-turn-how-liberal-media-bias-distorts-the-american-mind

"It has long been an article of anecdotal faith on the right that most of the media lean left. Thanks to the methodologically rigorous research of political scientist Tim Groseclose, it's now also a matter of empirically and quantitatively documented fact. In his new book Left Turn, Professor Groseclose argues that the notorious mainstream media do indeed have a liberal bias overall. He also acknowledges that some outlets such as the Washington Times and Fox News Special Report do indeed have a conservative one. Yet critically, he shows how the conservative proclivities of the latter are less pervasive and severe than the liberal proclivities of the former and how the skewed mix truly does distort how Americans think about key issues - and consequently vote.
Dr. Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He also has taught at Caltech, Stanford, and Harvard."


I'll even buy it for you. PM me your address.
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/B00BDHWGMO

[boutons_deux]

Might I suggest some reading material for you?

http://www.americanexperiment.org/events/left-turn-how-liberal-media-bias-distorts-the-american-mind

"It has long been an article of anecdotal faith on the right that most of the media lean left. Thanks to the methodologically rigorous research of political scientist Tim Groseclose, it's now also a matter of empirically and quantitatively documented fact. In his new book Left Turn, Professor Groseclose argues that the notorious mainstream media do indeed have a liberal bias overall. He also acknowledges that some outlets such as the Washington Times and Fox News Special Report do indeed have a conservative one. Yet critically, he shows how the conservative proclivities of the latter are less pervasive and severe than the liberal proclivities of the former and how the skewed mix truly does distort how Americans think about key issues - and consequently vote.
Dr. Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He also has taught at Caltech, Stanford, and Harvard."


I'll even buy it for you. PM me your address.
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/B00BDHWGMO

Colbert and Stewart are COMEDY shows, not news shows.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Colbert and Stewart are COMEDY shows, not news shows.

My point exactly. Why would I watch a comedy show to get my shit straight?

My offer still stands on the book, it is an excellent read.

[boutons_deux]

My point exactly. Why would I watch a comedy show to get my shit straight?

My offer still stands on the book, it is an excellent read.

Why would I read a book when I can watch comedy shows?

[RandomGuy]

Wow.

They really don't teach common sense these days.

Why did 9/11 happen? Do you think they attacked for no reason?

Did you know that Osama Bin Laden issued two Fatwas in the 90's describing his intended war against the USA for Clinton's attacks?

Now I know you are just trolling. Sorry for taking you seriously for a second there.

You got me.

[RandomGuy]

Might I suggest some reading material for you?

http://www.americanexperiment.org/events/left-turn-how-liberal-media-bias-distorts-the-american-mind

"It has long been an article of anecdotal faith on the right that most of the media lean left. Thanks to the methodologically rigorous research of political scientist Tim Groseclose, it's now also a matter of empirically and quantitatively documented fact. In his new book Left Turn, Professor Groseclose argues that the notorious mainstream media do indeed have a liberal bias overall. He also acknowledges that some outlets such as the Washington Times and Fox News Special Report do indeed have a conservative one. Yet critically, he shows how the conservative proclivities of the latter are less pervasive and severe than the liberal proclivities of the former and how the skewed mix truly does distort how Americans think about key issues - and consequently vote.
Dr. Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He also has taught at Caltech, Stanford, and Harvard."


I'll even buy it for you. PM me your address.
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/B00BDHWGMO

LOL "methodologically rigorous"

.... because the person responsible for writing the book jacket blurb says so... and is totally unbiased...

Read the guy's study, and was less than impressed.
Study:
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/pdfs/MediaBias.pdf

Some more in-depth critiques, because I don't feel like re-typing the wheel, so to speak:

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html
http://prospect.org/article/tomorrows-bogus-liberal-bias-claim-today


Yet in addition to ignoring the dozens of studies on media bias in the apparent belief that they were the first ones to ever attempt to address the topic quantitatively, Groseclose and his co-author used the most bizarre methodology I've ever encountered to come up with their assertion of liberal bias. See if you can follow: They took members of Congress' ideology scores from Americans for Democratic Action; searched the Congressional Record to see which think tanks each member cited in floor speeches; assigned ideological scores to each think tank based on who cited them on the floor; then counted how often the think tanks were quoted in news sources. If a news outlet quoted think tanks cited more often by liberal members, the outlet had "liberal bias." That's it.


Honestly, it seems more like another conservative circle-jerk that says far less about the media, than some people's low standards of evidence.

[TheSanityAnnex]

LOL "methodologically rigorous"

.... because the person responsible for writing the book jacket blurb says so... and is totally unbiased...

Read the guy's study, and was less than impressed.
Study:
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/pdfs/MediaBias.pdf

Some more in-depth critiques, because I don't feel like re-typing the wheel, so to speak:

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html
http://prospect.org/article/tomorrows-bogus-liberal-bias-claim-today




Honestly, it seems more like another conservative circle-jerk that says far less about the media, than some people's low standards of evidence.

You could just read it for yourself and form your opinion, it is not a conservative circle-jerk in the least bit. If bouton's accepts my offer he can mail it to you after he's finished reading it.

[Wild Cobra]

DICK CHENEY: “MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH THE IRAQI OIL WELLS”


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/489851141-580.jpg

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney broke his silence about the crisis in Iraq on Tuesday, telling reporters, “My thoughts and prayers are with the Iraqi oil wells.”

Speaking from his Wyoming ranch, Cheney said that he had planned to remain quiet about the current state of affairs in Iraq, but “thinking about those oil wells has kept me up at night.”

“If Dick Cheney won’t speak for the Iraqi oil wells, who will?” he said.

Cheney indicated that, as of now, there was no fighting near Iraq’s oil wells, but warned, “If the violence spreads, those wells could be in jeopardy. And it’s up to the international community to insure that that worst-case scenario doesn’t happen.”

The former Vice-President said that he expected to “catch hell” for inserting himself into the debate about Iraq, but was resolute in his decision to do so. “If I prevent one drop of precious oil from being spilled, it will have been worth it,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/dick-cheney-my-thoughts-and-prayers-are-with-the-iraqi-oil-wells.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(84)
I hope you aren't thinking the Humor of Borowitz is fact.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't argue with WC, I bitch slap him

WC doesn't argue with The Great Boutons, he nips uselessly at my ankles.

What an active imagination.

have you seen a shrink yet?

[Wild Cobra]

I assume you realize that's a satire piece, correct?

I think he believes it as fact, since it suits his agenda.

[Th'Pusher]

http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/B00BDHWGMO

The most helpful critical customer review:

I have read the book. Such a work is going to be polarizing. Those on the right will put it on a pedastal. The left will cringe like vampires in an Italian restaurant. The right will say the numbers are fine to support their charge of media bias. The left will attack it from every angle they possibly can in a desperate attempt to deny any media bias.


The book's narrative style is relatively engaging. It is peppered with quotes and anecdotes, and has a sort of tongue-in-cheek rolling style that makes it a decent read for what is ostensibly a rather dry topic (math). People on the right who read it will be nodding and chuckling as they go. Those on the left may not agree with his positions, but may at least be entertained by his style.


The problem I had as I was reading was in the way the entire argument was framed. Quite often in the book you the author will step in and say, "It is useful to illustrate the point with a thought experiment..." Or at other times, "If we assume that..." Too many of the points he brings up are supported by what can only be called inferences and assumptions rather than hard statistics. I am a statistician, and I spend the entire book waiting and waiting for hard numbers that never materialized. I'm certain the author has his p-values and correlation coefficients somewhere - but they aren't in this book.


So the book - IMO - fails at 'proving' the case for media bias because it ultimately does not use hard statistics. It uses 'soft' statistics which are based on inferences. Now, those inferences may indeed be based on numerics (PQs and SQs) but when the numbers that CREATE the numbers are inferred then it cannot really be said to be conclusive evidence. Evidence of a sort? Sure. But proof? Not so much.


Do I think that the media is actually biased? Oh - of that I have no doubts at all. Is the media biased to the left? Again - I think that any rational person who conducts even a casual observation of the media marketplace can only come to the conclusion that the news media is rife with left-wing political slant. The chapters that were most interesting (and conclusive) to me were the ones that discussed "Words that aren't cheap" (showing that journalists overwhelmingly donate to leftist politics) and the discussion of 1st and 2nd order bias in the newsroom (what environment does it create to have a 85+% liberally slanted newsroom population?).


As to whether the biased news media effects the voting habits of the population at large? I think he raises some interesting points, and to a certain extent (using OTHER research than his own) he makes at least a preliminary case that the media does in fact influence voting habits. But I do not think his SQs definitively measure actual media slant. Nor do I think that his measures of voter/media/politician central tendency is necessarily accurate.


The "PQ" of congress is a measure of voting record. It INFERS conservativeness or liberalness. I think the PQ is a good finger-in-the-wind (so to speak) but it is not what a statistican would call "Interval" or "Ratio" data which can be used to generate a meaningful mean or median. Likewise, the "SQ" slant quotient are like the PQ numbers - which is to say they are ordinal measurements at best and suitable for simple analysis but not hard stats.


What do I mean by that? In a social survey, a person may be asked a question such as "How much do you like Fruity Pebbles cereal?" and be presented with choices such as "Like strongly, Like somewhat, Neither like nor dislike, dislike somewhat, dislike strongly". To me, the PQ voting records of Congress seem more to suit this style. Voting for a bill doesn't automatically make you a liberal, conservative, Democrat, or Republican. It is a specific act (Yes/No) but its implication is general. Just like you can't statistically 'prove' how much someone likes Fruity Pebbles from a Lichert scale, you can't 'prove' how liberal or conservative someone is from the PQ. It is an indicator, not a scientific measurement.


The same applies to the SQ numbers. They seem far too rooted in generic attitudinal measures to suitably fill a statistical role that is based on central tendencies. Even as he was making his case in his final chapters, the language the author used was filled with conditionals that (to me) were tacit admissions that the results were not so much 'statistical proof' as they were 'estimators'. Particularly when he was stating "Hey - I think the SQ is over .5 and under .8, but what the heck let's just call it .7!" That isn't hard statistics. That isn't conclusive proof. That is a finger in the wind.


Is he right? I think in a broad sense he probably is correct. I think the media is liberally slanted, and that it does pull voter opinion along with it to a degree. Is it as much as he states? I have no idea, but this book does not satisfy my that he has definitively answered 'how much'. He's probably in the ballpark, but that's all he is. He hit it in the ballpark (a general area) but we can't say he put his arrow in the gold (a specific target).

[TeyshaBlue]

Why would I read a book when I can watch comedy shows?

Explains alot, tbh.

[TeyshaBlue]

The most helpful critical customer review:
.

Beefy. +10

[Winehole23]

Th. Harrington hypothesizes that instability is a strategic feature, not a bug. Ye olde divide and conquer:


During the last week we have seen Sunni militias take control of ever-greater swathes of eastern Syria and western Iraq. In the mainstream media, the analysis of this emerging reality has been predictably idiotic, basically centering on whether:



a) Obama is to blame for this for having removed US troops in compliance with the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiated and signed by Bush.
b) Obama is “man enough” to putatively resolve the problem by going back into the country and killing more people and destroying whatever remains of the country’s infrastructure.


This cynically manufactured discussion has generated a number of intelligent rejoinders on the margins of the mainstream media system. These essays, written by people such as Juan Cole, Robert Parry, Robert Fisk and Gary Leupp, do a fine job of explaining the US decisions that led to the present crisis, while simultaneously reminding us how everything occurring today was readily foreseeable as far back as 2002.


What none of them do, however, is consider whether the chaos now enveloping the region might, in fact, be the desired aim of policy planners in Washington and Tel Aviv.


Rather, each of these analysts presumes that the events unfolding in Syria and Iraq are undesired outcomes engendered by short-sighted decision-making at the highest levels of the US government over the last 12 years.


Looking at the Bush and Obama foreign policy teams—no doubt the most shallow and intellectually lazy members of that guild to occupy White House in the years since World War II—it is easy to see how they might arrive at this conclusion.


But perhaps an even more compelling reason for adopting this analytical posture is that it allows these men of clear progressive tendencies to maintain one of the more hallowed, if oft-unstated, beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon world view.


What is that?


It is the idea that our engagements with the world outside our borders—unlike those of, say, the Russians and the Chinese—are motivated by a strongly felt, albeit often corrupted, desire to better the lives of those whose countries we invade.
While this belief seems logical, if not downright self-evident within our own cultural system, it is frankly laughable to many, if not most, of the billions who have grown up outside of our moralizing echo chamber.


What do they know that most of us do not know, or perhaps more accurately, do not care to admit?


First, that we are an empire, and that all empires are, without exception, brutally and programmatically self-seeking.


Second, that one of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet.


Third, that the most efficient way of sparking such open-ended internecine conflict is to brutally smash the target country’s social matrix and physical infrastructure.


Fourth, that ongoing unrest has the additional perk of justifying the maintenance and expansion of the military machine that feeds the financial and political fortunes of the metropolitan elite.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/17/is-open-ended-chaos-the-desired-us-israeli-aim-in-the-middle-east/

[RandomGuy]

You could just read it for yourself and form your opinion, it is not a conservative circle-jerk in the least bit. If bouton's accepts my offer he can mail it to you after he's finished reading it.

I read the study that the guy seems to have based the book on.

I guess I could read the book, but am not sure it would provide any further insight.

[RandomGuy]

The most helpful critical customer review:

I have read the book. Such a work is going to be polarizing. Those on the right will put it on a pedastal. The left will cringe like vampires in an Italian restaurant. The right will say the numbers are fine to support their charge of media bias. The left will attack it from every angle they possibly can in a desperate attempt to deny any media bias.


The book's narrative style is relatively engaging. It is peppered with quotes and anecdotes, and has a sort of tongue-in-cheek rolling style that makes it a decent read for what is ostensibly a rather dry topic (math). People on the right who read it will be nodding and chuckling as they go. Those on the left may not agree with his positions, but may at least be entertained by his style.


The problem I had as I was reading was in the way the entire argument was framed. Quite often in the book you the author will step in and say, "It is useful to illustrate the point with a thought experiment..." Or at other times, "If we assume that..." Too many of the points he brings up are supported by what can only be called inferences and assumptions rather than hard statistics. I am a statistician, and I spend the entire book waiting and waiting for hard numbers that never materialized. I'm certain the author has his p-values and correlation coefficients somewhere - but they aren't in this book.


So the book - IMO - fails at 'proving' the case for media bias because it ultimately does not use hard statistics. It uses 'soft' statistics which are based on inferences. Now, those inferences may indeed be based on numerics (PQs and SQs) but when the numbers that CREATE the numbers are inferred then it cannot really be said to be conclusive evidence. Evidence of a sort? Sure. But proof? Not so much.


Do I think that the media is actually biased? Oh - of that I have no doubts at all. Is the media biased to the left? Again - I think that any rational person who conducts even a casual observation of the media marketplace can only come to the conclusion that the news media is rife with left-wing political slant. The chapters that were most interesting (and conclusive) to me were the ones that discussed "Words that aren't cheap" (showing that journalists overwhelmingly donate to leftist politics) and the discussion of 1st and 2nd order bias in the newsroom (what environment does it create to have a 85+% liberally slanted newsroom population?).


As to whether the biased news media effects the voting habits of the population at large? I think he raises some interesting points, and to a certain extent (using OTHER research than his own) he makes at least a preliminary case that the media does in fact influence voting habits. But I do not think his SQs definitively measure actual media slant. Nor do I think that his measures of voter/media/politician central tendency is necessarily accurate.


The "PQ" of congress is a measure of voting record. It INFERS conservativeness or liberalness. I think the PQ is a good finger-in-the-wind (so to speak) but it is not what a statistican would call "Interval" or "Ratio" data which can be used to generate a meaningful mean or median. Likewise, the "SQ" slant quotient are like the PQ numbers - which is to say they are ordinal measurements at best and suitable for simple analysis but not hard stats.


What do I mean by that? In a social survey, a person may be asked a question such as "How much do you like Fruity Pebbles cereal?" and be presented with choices such as "Like strongly, Like somewhat, Neither like nor dislike, dislike somewhat, dislike strongly". To me, the PQ voting records of Congress seem more to suit this style. Voting for a bill doesn't automatically make you a liberal, conservative, Democrat, or Republican. It is a specific act (Yes/No) but its implication is general. Just like you can't statistically 'prove' how much someone likes Fruity Pebbles from a Lichert scale, you can't 'prove' how liberal or conservative someone is from the PQ. It is an indicator, not a scientific measurement.


The same applies to the SQ numbers. They seem far too rooted in generic attitudinal measures to suitably fill a statistical role that is based on central tendencies. Even as he was making his case in his final chapters, the language the author used was filled with conditionals that (to me) were tacit admissions that the results were not so much 'statistical proof' as they were 'estimators'. Particularly when he was stating "Hey - I think the SQ is over .5 and under .8, but what the heck let's just call it .7!" That isn't hard statistics. That isn't conclusive proof. That is a finger in the wind.


Is he right? I think in a broad sense he probably is correct. I think the media is liberally slanted, and that it does pull voter opinion along with it to a degree. Is it as much as he states? I have no idea, but this book does not satisfy my that he has definitively answered 'how much'. He's probably in the ballpark, but that's all he is. He hit it in the ballpark (a general area) but we can't say he put his arrow in the gold (a specific target).

Thanks. I think that was rather informative.

[Winehole23]

US and Iranian officials held talks over the advance of Islamist insurgents in Iraq on Monday, the first time the two nations have collaborated over a common security interest in more than a decade.


The discussions in Vienna took place on the sidelines of separate negotiations about Iran’s nuclear programme, as Barack Obama told Congress that the he was deploying up to 275 military personnel to Iraq.



The developments came amid conflicting signals in Washington over the extent of any coordination with Tehran over the crisis in Iraq.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/us-iran-talks-iraq-john-kerry

[TheSanityAnnex]

I read the study that the guy seems to have based the book on.

I guess I could read the book, but am not sure it would provide any further insight.

As a level headed critical thinker it was not meant for you, more for boutons.

[RandomGuy]

You could just read it for yourself and form your opinion, it is not a conservative circle-jerk in the least bit. If bouton's accepts my offer he can mail it to you after he's finished reading it.

Here is the thing though:


I will be happy to acknowledge some bias. I agree with generally with the reviewer of the book, so let's shortcut the discussion a bit:

Are all opinions equally valid?

[TheSanityAnnex]

Here is the thing though:


I will be happy to acknowledge some bias. I agree with generally with the reviewer of the book, so let's shortcut the discussion a bit:

Are all opinions equally valid?

I don't want to derail the thread further so I'll answer briefly. Yes, all opinions are equally valid, they are after all only opinions and not facts. A large majority of people take opinions as facts, that is the problem.


Back to the topic...it appears the ISIS have acquired MANPADS, that should cause some problems.

[RandomGuy]

I don't want to derail the thread further so I'll answer briefly. Yes, all opinions are equally valid, they are after all only opinions and not facts. A large majority of people take opinions as facts, that is the problem.


Back to the topic...it appears the ISIS have acquired MANPADS, that should cause some problems.

I am of the opinion that rain is caused by purple unicorns jumping up and down on their magic sky waterbeds.

Is that opinion equally valid as the opinion that rain is caused by accretion of water molecules in the upper atmosphere?



My point is not all opinions are created equal.

Bias is not always a bad thing. We should be biased against bad ideas.

[TeyshaBlue]

Rain forming by accretion is fact, not opinion.

[RandomGuy]

Rain forming by accretion is fact, not opinion.

That is certainly your opinion. :D

We determine that it is a fact, by using evidence and reason, and agreeing that it is indeed true. We form an opinion that the most likely explanation is accretion, and not purple unicorns, since that is what he evidence supports.

Again, not all opinions are created equal.

If one is of the opinion that there is some controversy concerning the fact of evolution, that opinion is not as valid as those who say that, indeed, evolution is the best explanation for the evidence we have.

Should we then be concerned about media bias against the viewpoint that we did not magically poof into existence a few thousand years ago?

If such "conservative" ideas really are that bad, should we really be concerned about bias against them?

[TheSanityAnnex]

I am of the opinion that rain is caused by purple unicorns jumping up and down on their magic sky waterbeds.

Is that opinion equally valid as the opinion that rain is caused by accretion of water molecules in the upper atmosphere?



My point is not all opinions are created equal.

Bias is not always a bad thing. We should be biased against bad ideas.I am of the opinion that you are free to have any opinion on what causes rain.

Again, the book recommendation was made in jest for boutons, no need to derail further, but it is a good read. I'm all for discussing media bias, just not in this thread.

[boutons_deux]

where was the liberal media bias, eg at WaPo and NYT, when dubya and dickhead were lying USA into Iraq?

which media, of any consequence, major TV, major newspapers, actually influence elections or policy in the liberal/progressive direction?

If elections aren't affected (eg, conservatives/centrists switching to voting Dem), then any imagined, or real, media bias is moot.

btw, media supporting policies against AGW is not "bias", it's science.

[angrydude]

where was the liberal media bias, eg at WaPo and NYT, when dubya and dickhead were lying USA into Iraq?

which media, of any consequence, major TV, major newspapers, actually influence elections or policy in the liberal/progressive direction?

If elections aren't affected (eg, conservatives/centrists switching to voting Dem), then any imagined, or real, media bias is moot.

btw, media supporting policies against AGW is not "bias", it's science.

The media is aimed at the masses. It influences mass public opinion. Public opinion matters to politicians.

[boutons_deux]

The media is aimed at the masses. It influences mass public opinion. Public opinion matters to politicians.

please show were the alleged liberal media bias changed the outcome of elections. Repugs/Dems nearly always vote their party. Independents also mostly vote left or right repeatedly.

election results affect policies, media bias doesn't vote in legislatures.

[TheSanityAnnex]

please show were the alleged liberal media bias changed the outcome of elections. Repugs/Dems nearly always vote their party. Independents also mostly vote left or right repeatedly.

election results affect policies, media bias doesn't vote in legislatures.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12169

[boutons_deux]

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12169

Fox isn't news media. It's the political/public relations arm of the Repugs, tea baggers, VRWC. It has a tiny audience, which is famously declining, of old, white, Euro-Americans. iow, Fox is preaching to the choir, not changing/reversing voters.

got any others?

[TheSanityAnnex]

Fox isn't news media. It's the political/public relations arm of the Repugs, tea baggers, VRWC. It has a tiny audience, which is famously declining, of old, white, Euro-Americans. iow, Fox is preaching to the choir, not changing/reversing voters.

got any others?

It is media. And even with a tiny audience it was shown to have an affect on voters. Now multiply that affect by the left leaning media as a whole and you've proven my point.

[boutons_deux]

It is media. And even with a tiny audience it was shown to have an affect on voters. Now multiply that affect by the left leaning media as a whole and you've proven my point.

There's nothing on the left like Fox and the entire VRWC/"movement conservatism" hate/propaganda media. Fox CHANGING voters from Dem to Repug? really? :lol

All Fox might do would be to rouse their non-voting rabble enough to get them to vote Repug/tea bagger. But so fucking what in red states, red districts? iow, NO EFFECTIVE CHANGE

[boutons_deux]

Glenn Beck Admits "Liberals, You Were Right" On Iraq - Updated w/Pat Robertson TOO (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307783/-Glenn-Beck-Admits-Liberals-You-Were-Right-On-Iraq)

http://images.dailykos.com/images/89829/small/glenn-beck-crying.jpg?1403063374


(HuffPo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/glenn-beck-iraq-war_n_5505424.html))"From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t.... Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have."Beck made this surprising declaration on his radio show on Tuesday while discussing the widening rift between Republicans and Democrats. He urged both parties to come together to oppose another war in Iraq.

"Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more," he said. "This must end now. Now can't we come together on that?"


I really, really hate to give Beck credit but credit I doth give. Tony Blair can SYFPH, Bill Kristol can SYFPH, Paul Wolfowitz can SYFPH! We shouldn't be there and I am very glad our Democratic President of the USA has stated that we won't be sending US men and women into this Heart Of Darkness.I am hopeful that the White House's current stance, that the USA will not use ground forces in Iraq regardless and air support unless the current regime restructures into an inclusive Shia/Sunni/Kurd structure. Preferably with al-Maliki resigning. I do not expect any buy-in from Republicans but this is an indication libertarians and tea partiers may not be seduced by neocon dreams.

I can hope.

BTW, this is not snark. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video but the Huff Post link has it.

Some Special Sauce bumped from the comments:


"Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday blasted former President George W. Bush for selling Americans a "bill of goods" before the Iraq invasion, which led to the violence that is currently sweeping across the country.During his Monday broadcast, a viewer asked Robertson if there was a solution to the ongoing violence caused by an al Qaeda splinter group, ISIS, threatening to take over Iraq.

"Right now, what we did -- and it was a great mistake to go in there," Robertson explained, pointing out that Saddam Hussein's "bomb maker" had said that the then-dictator "doesn't know how to make an atomic bomb."

"And so to sell the American people on weapons of mass destruction, he had WMD and was getting [concentrated uranium] yellowcake out of Africa and all of that, it was a lot of nonsense," the TV preacher said. "We were sold a bill of goods, we should never have gone into that country!"

(http://crooksandliars.com/2014/06/pat-robertson-rips-bush-causing-latest)http://crooksandliars.com/...
by RASalvatore


AND NOW SOME MORE (http://m.deseretnews.com/article/765646110/Glenn-Beck-I-think-I-played-a-role-unfortunately-in-helping-tear-the-country-apart.html?pg=all?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F search%3Fq%3Dglenn%2Bbeck.dividing%2Bpeople%26a%3D results%26MID%3D2500) - Beck continues to ride this Epiphany Train into the FOX studios:

During a Tuesday interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Kelly's former colleague Glenn Beck looked back at his time on the channel, saying he wished he would've spent more time uniting rather than dividing.

"I remember it as an awful lot of fun," Beck said about being on Fox News, "and that I made an awful lot of mistakes, and I wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language. Because I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart. And it's not who we are.

"I didn't realize how really fragile the people were," Beck continued. "I thought we were kind of a little more in it together. And now I look back and I realize if we could have talked about the uniting principles a little bit more, instead of just the problems, I think I would look back on it a little more fondly."
© groverby grover

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307783/-Glenn-Beck-Admits-Liberals-You-Were-Right-On-Iraq?detail=email

:lol

Liberals were right to stay out, Barak HUSSEIN Obama voted against, Germany said stay out, and the Cheese-Eating-Surrender-Monkeys said stay out, but all USA got was Freedom Fries! :lol

Thanks, Repugs (and you asshole Repug voters)

Tell me again all the wonderful things "modern" Repugs have done for USA! :lol

[cantthinkofanything]

lol at this gif

http://holypants.com/images/57.jpg

[Wild Cobra]

Glenn Beck Admits "Liberals, You Were Right" On Iraq - Updated w/Pat Robertson TOO (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307783/-Glenn-Beck-Admits-Liberals-You-Were-Right-On-Iraq)[/URL]

Leave it to BeShit to post an article without searching for the credibility of it. Sure, Beck said these words. However, there was some creative editing going on. Those Beck quotes were taken from five different paragraphs of his monolog. It gives a skewed perspective of what he was saying to leave so much context out. Snippets put together from five paragraphs of twenty. Shouldn't the contents of his words be understood, especially the context of what is in between?

Paragraph 9:
[QUOTE]Maybe we could come together now on this nightmare in Iraq. From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn’t much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.

Paragraph 11:

Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.

Paragraph 15:

But, anyway, all of that is gone. And yet, this is something I think that we can come together with, on the right and the left. And it’s this – I have more of a chance of hacking off my loyal listeners and audience by saying this, but so be it: Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more.

Paragraph 16:


The people of Iraq have got to work this out themselves. Our days of being the world’s policemen, our days of interventionists is over. If we are directly attacked, so be it. But this must end now.

Paragraph 17:

Can’t we come together on that? Are we not all a people that can come together on that? We don’t want our sacrifice to be a waste. Let me ask you this question: What good will one more life do? To waste one more life, what good will it do, to waste another dollar, let alone another trillion? And conservatives, is there one that believes this President will prosecute a new war in Iraq properly? When the biggest hawk of them all, the Darth Vader of the entire galactic empire, Dick Cheney and George Bush didn’t prosecute it right? No. In the end, the result will be the same. Another group of radicals will pop up again. It is like a never-ending game of whack a mole over there. The only way to prevent Baghdad from being overrun eventually is stay there and continue to fight this militarily in perpetuity. Are you willing to do that?

I'm not going to bother looking for Robertson's, but the source probably did the same thing. However, wouldn't it be prudent to read the whole, in context? Here it is:

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/06/17/enough-is-enough-bring-them-home-period/

Why doesn't Obama and liberals learn from the recent past?

Why is he stirring up even more in the Middle East with his incompetent meddling?


Don’t even start with me on your oil an gas. Guess we should have thought about that earlier. Maybe if we use our own oil and gas, we wouldn’t have to worry about this. Liberals, you were against it in the first place. How could you be in favor of more intervention now? How could you possibly be for that after everything you have said about how it’s going to fall apart in the end was right? Everything I said that we could hold it together was wrong.

[Th'Pusher]

^does any of that additional context really change what Beck said? And, why do you feel the need to research and defend Glenn Beck? The guys a fucking rabble rousing moron.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah, WC -- what does that change?

[Wild Cobra]

Yeah, WC -- what does that change?
Apparently, nothing for idiots like you, who cannot see what his real message was.

[Wild Cobra]

^does any of that additional context really change what Beck said? And, why do you feel the need to research and defend Glenn Beck? The guys a fucking rabble rousing moron.
I simply had to see you Spoutin's source was twisting it.

[ChumpDumper]

Apparently, nothing for idiots like you, who cannot see what his real message was.What is the real message compared to the abridged message?

Enlighten us.

[Wild Cobra]

What is the real message compared to the abridged message?

Enlighten us.
No matter what I say, you will argue. Bye Chumty-dumbty.

[ChumpDumper]

No matter what I say, you will argue. Bye Chumty-dumbty.Nice cop out.

That's what's keeping you from spreading your knowledge about here?

Dissent?

That's weak and sad.

[Wild Cobra]

Nice cop out.

That's what's keeping you from spreading your knowledge about here?

Dissent?

That's weak and sad.

See...

No matter what I say.

I don't know what message you see when you read the entire piece by Beck, but it certainly is more than what the liberal media is reporting. His message is "I was wrong, you liberals were right, so why are you liberals doing what you said was wrong in the past."

[ChumpDumper]

See...

No matter what I say.

I don't know what message you see when you read the entire piece by Beck, but it certainly is more than what the liberal media is reporting. His message is "I was wrong, you liberals were right, so why are you liberals doing what you said was wrong in the past."So there is nothing inaccurate about what Beck said about Iraq in 2003.

OK.

I'm glad we agree.

[boutons_deux]

Fox’s Megyn Kelly tells Dick Cheney, history ‘has proven you got it wrong’

With his daughter Liz sitting dutifully beside him, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke with Fox News personality Megyn Kelly who confronted him over his complaints about the current administration’s efforts in Iraq, pointing out, “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.”

Referencing an editorial written by Cheney and his daughter that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Kelly began by quoting a blog post by Paul Waldman (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/18/maybe-listening-to-dick-cheney-on-iraq-isnt-a-good-idea/), appearing in the Washington Post where Waldman wrote: “There is not a single person in America — not Bill Kristol, not Paul Wolfowitz, not Don Rumsfeld, no pundit, not even President Bush himself — who has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.” Pointing out that Waldman suggests that Cheney is responsible for the mess in Iraq, Kelly invited the former VP to defend himself.

Quoting from the Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, Kelly read, “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” before adding, “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.”

Kelly proceeded to list off a collection of quotes from Cheney claiming Saddam Hussein had WMD’s, stating that America would be greeted as liberators, saying the Iraq insurgency was in the last throes, before asking, “Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?’

“No, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan — I mean Megyn, ” Cheney responded. “You have to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about the extent of Saddam’s involvement in weapons of mass destruction.” :lol

History later showed that Dick Cheney’s people (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/04/30/12390/tenet-chalabi/) worked in concert with Iraq dissident Ahmed Chalabi to place false information about WMD’s with the New York Times’ Judith Miller (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/29/iraq.usa1)whose stories were cited by Cheney as outside evidence of WMD development.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/19/watch-foxs-megyn-kelly-tells-dick-cheney-history-has-proven-you-got-it-wrong/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[RandomGuy]

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12169

I would call that the "outrage effect".

One of the sleazier and more dishonest things that FOX news does.

[RandomGuy]

lol at this gif

http://holypants.com/images/57.jpg

hehehehehehehehe... that is actually kinda funny.

[pgardn]

Fox’s Megyn Kelly tells Dick Cheney, history ‘has proven you got it wrong’

With his daughter Liz sitting dutifully beside him, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke with Fox News personality Megyn Kelly who confronted him over his complaints about the current administration’s efforts in Iraq, pointing out, “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.”

Referencing an editorial written by Cheney and his daughter that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Kelly began by quoting a blog post by Paul Waldman (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/18/maybe-listening-to-dick-cheney-on-iraq-isnt-a-good-idea/), appearing in the Washington Post where Waldman wrote: “There is not a single person in America — not Bill Kristol, not Paul Wolfowitz, not Don Rumsfeld, no pundit, not even President Bush himself — who has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.” Pointing out that Waldman suggests that Cheney is responsible for the mess in Iraq, Kelly invited the former VP to defend himself.

Quoting from the Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, Kelly read, “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” before adding, “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.”

Kelly proceeded to list off a collection of quotes from Cheney claiming Saddam Hussein had WMD’s, stating that America would be greeted as liberators, saying the Iraq insurgency was in the last throes, before asking, “Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?’

“No, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan — I mean Megyn, ” Cheney responded. “You have to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about the extent of Saddam’s involvement in weapons of mass destruction.” :lol

History later showed that Dick Cheney’s people (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/04/30/12390/tenet-chalabi/) worked in concert with Iraq dissident Ahmed Chalabi to place false information about WMD’s with the New York Times’ Judith Miller (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/29/iraq.usa1)whose stories were cited by Cheney as outside evidence of WMD development.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/19/watch-foxs-megyn-kelly-tells-dick-cheney-history-has-proven-you-got-it-wrong/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29




Listen to the whole interview.

Kelly let him off the hook big time. The initial recommendations about the size of the force needed to stabilize Iraq was rejected by Cheney as too many troops. So Cheney goes into how Obama rejected the size of the force to be left when he himself vastly underestimated the amount of troops needed in the first place.

Why was there even a need for a surge Mr. Cheney?

Totally left him off the hook because she can't think on her feet because she does not know the event well enough. There was so much more. This was a chance for the GOP to stick it to the T party interview imo.

Awful stuff.

[TDMVPDPOY]

so ur govt approves the funding of isis against syria assad regime, but against them in iraq...

lol i remember obama said he doesnt deal with terrorists...

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10910868/Iraq-crisis-Obama-may-launch-air-strikes-without-Congress-amid-calls-for-Maliki-to-go-live.html


17.09 Chemical weapons produced at the Al Muthanna facility, which Isis today seized, are believed to have included mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX.
Here is the CIA's file on the complex (https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5_annxB.html).
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01817/quotes_1817837a.gifStockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers.
Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed.
These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers.
Numerous bunkers, including eleven cruciform shaped bunkers were exploited. Some of the bunkers were empty. Some of the bunkers contained large quantitiesof unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment (presumed disabled under UNSCOM supervision), and other hazardous industrial chemicals.
17.05 The Chemical Weapons Convention, which Iraq joined in 2009, requires it to dispose of the material at Al Muthanna, even though it was declared unusable and "does not pose a significant security risk"
However, the UK goverment has acknowledgeded (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-experts-to-help-iraqis-destroy-legacy-chemical-weapons) that the nature of the material contained in the two bunkers would make the destruction process difficult and technically challenging.
Under an agreement signed in Baghdad in July 2012, experts from the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) were due to provide training to Iraqi personnel in order to help them to dispose of the chemical munitions and agents.


16.52 The remaining chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein's regime are stored in two sealed bunkers, both located at the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex, a large site in the western desert some 80km north west of Baghdad.
This was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons were produced, stored and deployed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraq used these weapons during the Iran - Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
16.32 Isis jihadists have seized a chemical weapons facility built by Saddam Hussein which contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department officials have told the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/articles/sunni-extremists-in-iraq-occupy-saddams-chemical-weapons-facility-1403190600):
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01817/quotes_1817837a.gifU.S. officials don't believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.
Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.
"We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."

[ChumpDumper]

Good. Dudes are more likely to gas themselves than anyone else.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Good. Dudes are more likely to gas themselves than anyone else.

Hoping there's a live leak video.

[CosmicCowboy]

Oh great. Now we have to go into Iraq because they have WMD's? Where have I heard this before?

[boutons_deux]

Repug war criminals running around free

The Collapsing Obama Doctrine

By Dickhead

As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama's past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. "If a J.V. team puts on Lakers' uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (January 2014). "[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated" (August 2013). "So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding" (September 2011).

( all true, AT THE TIME, which isn't now )

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. :lol

Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march.

The fall of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul and Tel Afar, and the establishment of terrorist safe havens across a large swath of the Arab world, present a strategic threat to the security of the United States. Mr. Obama's actions—before and after ISIS's recent advances in Iraq—have the effect of increasing that threat.

On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain :lol in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, "Can you please explain what your president is doing?" "Why is he walking away?" "Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?" "Why is he abandoning your friends?" "Why is he doing deals with your enemies?"

In one Arab capital, a senior official ( was in your truth-telling buddy Chalabi? :lol ) pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, "They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don't the Americans care?"

Our president doesn't seem to. Iraq is at risk of falling to a radical Islamic terror group and Mr. Obama is talking climate change. Terrorists take control of more territory and resources than ever before in history, and he goes golfing. He seems blithely unaware, or indifferent to the fact, that a resurgent al Qaeda presents a clear and present danger to the United States of America.

When Mr. Obama and his team came into office in 2009, al Qaeda in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic efforts of U.S. armed forces during the surge. Mr. Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

( Obama implemented the dubya/dickhead WITHDRWAL agreement )

The tragedy unfolding in Iraq today is only part of the story. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent across the globe. According to a recent Rand study, between 2010 and 2013, there was a 58% increase in the number of Salafi-jihadist terror groups around the world. During that same period, the number of terrorists doubled.

In the face of this threat, Mr. Obama is busy ushering America's adversaries into positions of power in the Middle East. First it was the Russians in Syria. Now, in a move that defies credulity, he toys with the idea of ushering Iran into Iraq. Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terror.

This president is willfully blind to the impact of his policies. Despite the threat to America unfolding across the Middle East, aided by his abandonment of Iraq, he has announced he intends to follow the same policy in Afghanistan.

Despite clear evidence of the dire need for American leadership around the world, the desperation of our allies and the glee of our enemies, President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch. Indeed, the speed of the terrorists' takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch.

The president explained his view in his Sept. 23, 2009, speech before the United Nations General Assembly. "Any world order," he said, "that elevates one nation above others cannot long survive." Tragically, he is quickly proving the opposite—through one dangerous policy after another—that without American pre-eminence, there can be no world order.

It is time the president and his allies faced some hard truths: America remains at war, and withdrawing troops from the field of battle while our enemies stay in the fight does not "end" wars. Weakness and retreat are provocative. U.S. withdrawal from the world is disastrous and puts our own security at risk.

Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent and they present a security threat not seen since the Cold War. Defeating them will require a strategy—not a fantasy. It will require sustained difficult military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts—not empty misleading rhetoric. It will require rebuilding America's military capacity—reversing the Obama policies that have weakened our armed forces and reduced our ability to influence events around the world.

American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation—all hallmarks to date of the Obama doctrine. Our security, and the security of our friends around the world, can only be guaranteed with a fundamental reversal of the policies of the past six years. MORE WAR! :lol

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan said, "If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom." President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522

Hey, black hearted murdering lying bastard, YOU BROKE IRAQ, YOU OWN IT

[boutons_deux]

KARL: I wonder if you've had the chance to see this op-ed piece that former vice president Dick Cheney has written in the Wall Street Journal that has a rather critical tone to it toward the White House. He says, "rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," talking about the situation in Iraq and in the Middle East generally.

CARNEY: Which president was he talking about?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307924/-Carney-destroys-Cheney-and-Bushies-Which-president-was-he-talking-about?detail=email1#

[Wild Cobra]

Oh great. Now we have to go into Iraq because they have WMD's? Where have I heard this before?
No, someone has to be making this up. We were all told there were no chemical weapons.

[boutons_deux]

IN RARE CONSENSUS, SUNNIS AND SHIITES TELL CHENEY TO SHUT UP


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/141822345-580.jpg

In a development that offers a faint glimmer of hope for Iraq, both Sunnis and Shiites are finding common ground in the view that former Vice-President Dick Cheney seriously needs to shut up.

In the days following the publication, this week, of a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about Iraq that Cheney wrote with his daughter Liz, hatred of the former Vice-President has, to the surprise of many, become the first thing that Sunnis and Shiites have agreed upon in centuries.

Iraqi observers in recent days have reported seeing both Sunnis and Shiites reading the Cheneys’ op-ed then tearing it to shreds in a rage.

“Cheney is an ass!” a Sunni merchant reportedly exclaimed in a Baghdad market on Thursday, to the resounding cheers of several Shiites nearby.

“Historically, it’s been challenging to find anything that Sunnis and Shiites agree on,” said Sabah al-Alousi, a history professor at the University of Baghdad. “That’s why their apparent consensus that Dick Cheney needs to shut the hell up is so significant.”

Visiting Baghdad on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the joint Sunni-Shiite calls for Dick Cheney to shut his pie hole were a cause for optimism.

“If Dick Cheney winds up being the one thing that brings Sunnis and Shiites together, the United States owes him a debt of thanks,” he said, adding that the two sects’ view of the former Vice-President was also shared by the Kurds.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/in-rare-consensus-sunnis-shiites-tell-cheney-to-shut-up.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(86)

[pgardn]

The Kurds might end up thanking Cheney.

This might end up giving them a country recognized by the UN in the Middle East.

[pgardn]

With the latest round of sectarian violence we now have the most displaced people since WW II

Mouse claims we can trace this to the Big Tent Industrial complex.

[boutons_deux]

With the latest round of sectarian violence we now have the most displaced people since WW II

Mouse claims we can trace this to the Big Tent Industrial complex.

religious extremism and hate, Christian and Muslim and Jewish, is the cause of the M/E toxic swamp

[boutons_deux]

Reporter Who Was Wrong About Iraq: Stop Criticizing Those Who Were Wrong About Iraq

Fox News contributor Judith Miller, whose reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass turned out to be stunningly wrong, said Friday that the media has been too hard on other individuals whose pre-war pronouncements also turned out to be stunningly wrong.

During an appearance on Fox, Miller complained that the media "loves to beat up on who was responsible for the Iraq War and who is to blame for the current controversy, the current crisis." :lol

That, she added, "is not helpful."

"What the media should be doing is encouraging everyone who has a view of what to do now in Iraq to come forward and discuss it rationally," Miller said. "But they're doing the opposite. They're trying to shut down people like Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, all of the 'neoconservatives' who brought us this war. It's not helpful."

In its mea culpa (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html) after the fact, the New York Times said much of Miller's reporting for the newspaper on Iraq's weapons in 2001, 2002 and 2003 was based on erroneous information from Ahmad Chalabi, the discredited Iraqi politician deployed by the Bush administration to bolster its case for war. The Times ultimately acknowledged in 2004 that Miller's reporting was "was not as rigorous as it should have been." :lol

"Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive :lol in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged :lol — or failed to emerge," :lol the newspaper said.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/judith-miller-stop-criticizing-iraq-war-wrong?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

:lol

[johnsmith]

No, someone has to be making this up. We were all told there were no chemical weapons.

WC, I know that when you gear up to post a hilarious one liner and then put it all in blue that you think you're being hilarious, but honestly, it's probably better if you just don't. It's the equivalent of making a joke and then saying "not"!! It wasn't funny in 1994 when people started doing it and it's still not funny....you in fact, are not funny.

[Wild Cobra]

IN RARE CONSENSUS, SUNNIS AND SHIITES TELL CHENEY TO SHUT UP


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/141822345-580.jpg

In a development that offers a faint glimmer of hope for Iraq, both Sunnis and Shiites are finding common ground in the view that former Vice-President Dick Cheney seriously needs to shut up.


LOL...

Another seriously stupid post and link.

That's like the Crips and the Bloods agreeing the police need to stop arresting them.

[Wild Cobra]

Are you trying to win the award for being the most wrong on this site? Because you are leading, and that is saying something with dumb motherfuckers like m s on here.

Sorry you don't understand. That's your problem, not mine.



We already helped the wrong side.
How so? When we invaded Iraq, it wasn't to help "a side." It was because Saddam did not comply with the UN resolutions he agreed to that stopped us from taking him out during the first golf war. He violated his parole, and we took hem out for it.



We lied to the people to invade a country without an exit strategy because the pieces of shit that bought the presidency for cheney and bush wanted their no bid contracts.
There was not intentional deceit in what was said, at least by the republicans. The Clinton administration, and Tenet who was appointed by Clinton were the ones telling us how dangerous Saddam was. It was Clinton that was attacking Iraq and other counties hard during his administration with cruise missiles, causing Osama bin Laden to issue his Fatwas.

What is your favorite liberal propaganda source anyway?

[boutons_deux]

"There was not intentional deceit in what was said, at least by the republicans" :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

"because Saddam did not comply with the UN resolutions":lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

[Wild Cobra]

You really need to expose yourself to information other fox, the rest of murdock's media, and the "right" wingnut blogosphere. Because the omission of so many points make you a parody like beck.

You should read w's chief of staff's book. Wait, no that is just some fucking liberal. Or, you could any number of Colin Powell interviews, Wait, no nevermind that fucking socialist commie.

How about the simple fact that cheney stated the Iraqi people would be throwing roses at our feet? How about trying to link Iraq with 9 11 which was a lie

Jesus Christ, it embarrasses the species when someone is as fucking stupid as you are.

Your assumption that I listen to Fox News or Beck shows it is you who are uninformed and stupid. I see you are a clear indoctrinated lemming of the left.

Do you have an opinion on the Iraqi Liberation Act?

[Wild Cobra]

Pawneriffic...

You should read or watch the 2003 State of the Union address. Please point out what President Bush lied about. Here is the transcript:

President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address | Jan. 28, 2003 (washingtonpost.com) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext_012803.html)

Here is the full 2003 State of the Union video:

State Union Address | Video | C-SPAN.org (http://www.c-span.org/video/?174799-1/state-union-address)

He starts talking about Iraq right after Korea. 52:46 is a good place to start.

You stupid liberal lemmings believe the only issues at stake are the weak ones that the liberal pundits tear down. There are so many more not spoken of because you liberal masters have no good retort to the. It is the likes of your sorry ass that believe those of MSNBC, the Madcow, Common Dreams, and other anti-right propaganda.

[boutons_deux]

of course, dubya wouldn't say he, dickhead, and the neocon/BigOil gang would announce in the SOTU address that Iraq was their invasion target for oil. :lol

When dickhead had his secret "national energy policy" meeting, only BigOil was invited. We learned later his policy was "invade Iraq for oil", with the map of oil fields discussed in that meeting.

dubya's first cabinet meeting, he mentioned something like "What about Iraq?" which flabbergasted one of his dept heads who thought that was totally inappropriate.

etc, etc, etc. no liberal fantasies, it's ALL well documented, as if facts would have any meaning on WC.

[Wild Cobra]

When dickhead had his secret "national energy policy" meeting, only BigOil was invited. We learned later his policy was "invade Iraq for oil", with the map of oil fields discussed in that meeting.


Who else, in a meeting about energy, should have been invited?

[boutons_deux]

Who else, in a meeting about energy, should have been invited?

BigCoal, mining + coal fired plant operators? hydroelectric operators? EPA? nuclear operators? electric grid operators?

[Wild Cobra]

BigCoal, mining + coal fired plant operators? hydroelectric operators? EPA? nuclear operators? electric grid operators?
How much of that do we get from the Middle East?

[boutons_deux]

How much of that do we get from the Middle East?

a bona fide (not a dickhead) national energy policy cover all forms of energy, not just imported oil

[Wild Cobra]

a bona fide (not a dickhead) national energy policy cover all forms of energy, not just imported oil
It depends on what the topic was now, doesn't it.

Refresh my memory. What is the date or time frame of the meeting in question. All I remember is liberal rags lying about the truth, as normal.

[boutons_deux]

It depends on what the topic was now, doesn't it.

Refresh my memory. What is the date or time frame of the meeting in question. All I remember is liberal rags lying about the truth, as normal.

"Do Your Own Research" -- WC

[Wild Cobra]

"Do Your Own Research" -- WC

I have you moron.

The only thing I remember about the outcome proves that the administration was interested in not harming the oil infrastructure, so some oil companies with contracts in Iraq were invited. They wanted the new Iraq to be ready to make money for themselves.

Now if you have evidence to the contrary, please produce it, else shut the fuck up with your stupid conspiracies.

[TDMVPDPOY]

is isis has any credibility they go into israel,

did u heard the latest news rocket fired from syria into israel killing 1 person so they go and shoot 9rockets back...lmao israel...

[Wild Cobra]

I actually just took a few minutes to see if you were this stupid about everything, or just you delusion that because they have an r in front of their name they are "honest."

I was actually angry at God for creating one of His children that is this fucking stupid. But then I see you get shit on in every thread you try to post in so I know that you are proof that He has a sense of humor.
I see you added to the population of first grade bullies in these forums. You can't make any intelligent arguments, so the only ones you have are to put others down.

You are pathetic.

[Wild Cobra]

You calling someone else pathetic is pretty bad.

As far as intelligent arguments go, I don't think that means what you think it means. Blind obedience, and the ability to regurgitate and parrot, a network of talking points that have already been proven to be false doesn't really qualify as making an argument. It qualifies as being a blind and stupid sheep.
I actually do research information. You obviously parrot the leftist pundits.

Why do you like to fluff?

[Wild Cobra]

Thank you for proving that you really have no idea what it means to get one of dem fansy idears.

You are now even copying my language because you know it at least sounds intelli...fuck smart.

And research actually means investigating (sorry you will have to look this one up forrest) BOTH sides of any issue. Using only one side, the emails that do your thinking you receive everyday, are NOT RESEARCHING.

Jesus, I am sure that others have tried to explain this to you. Quit being a mongoloid sheep getting fucked by erik ericson, get out of your deep homosexual panic, and really just end your life.

The world will appreciate it as the ONE decent act you ever did.
You know about animal sex, don't you:

definition: Bonnerfied Udder:

a ancient term used to describe a man attaching false breasts on his chest and mating a fertile cat while holding a spear in one hand and catnip smeared across the winkie

[boutons_deux]

Bush Creates Painting of What He Imagines Iraq Is Like Today


http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs12/012822-bush-painting-580.jpg

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-P.jpgresident George W. Bush unveiled his latest offering as an artist today—a painting of what he imagines Iraq looks like now.

Talking to reporters at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the President said he did not read the news before composing his latest work. “I was never big on that,” he said.

Pronouncing himself pleased with his painting of Iraq, Mr. Bush said he was getting to work on a new painting entitled, “The World’s Really Nice Climate.”

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24379-bush-creates-painting-of-what-he-imagines-iraq-is-like-today

[Wild Cobra]

Bush Creates Painting of What He Imagines Iraq Is Like Today


http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs12/012822-bush-painting-580.jpg

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-P.jpgresident George W. Bush unveiled his latest offering as an artist today—a painting of what he imagines Iraq looks like now.

Talking to reporters at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the President said he did not read the news before composing his latest work. “I was never big on that,” he said.

Pronouncing himself pleased with his painting of Iraq, Mr. Bush said he was getting to work on a new painting entitled, “The World’s Really Nice Climate.”

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24379-bush-creates-painting-of-what-he-imagines-iraq-is-like-today




Original source....

Wait for it...

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Andrew Borowitz.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/bush-creates-painting-of-what-he-imagines-iraq-is-like-today.html

You libtards are duped again...

[pgardn]

religious extremism and hate, Christian and Muslim and Jewish, is the cause of the M/E toxic swamp

You forgot that the US cares because of oil.

Boots... I'm having to help you with your own arguments, step it up man. There has to be some big company element in every problem. That's your line.

[boutons_deux]

You forgot that the US cares because of oil.

Boots... I'm having to help you with your own arguments, step it up man. There has to be some big company element in every problem. That's your line.

Your so-called self-congratulating help is useless. Come back when you can play with us Big Boys.

After the Repugs/BigOil BROKE IRAQ FOR OIL (lots of Iraq-for-oil neocons are Jewish and were Remove-Saddam-for-Israel's-sake), the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Sunni/Shiite/Kurdish hate, violence reached new levels, and still rising.

Thanks, Repugs!

[pgardn]

Your so-called self-congratulating help is useless. Come back when you can play with us Big Boys.

After the Repugs/BigOil BROKE IRAQ FOR OIL (lots of Iraq-for-oil neocons are Jewish and were Remove-Saddam-for-Israel's-sake), the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Sunni/Shiite/Kurdish hate, violence reached new levels, and still rising.

Thanks, Repugs!

Oh so Israel, for the huge Jewish Oil magnates, would be aided by the removal of a mostly non-sectarian Hussien who kept all the hate in line? And realizing Israel would be attacked out of desperation by Saddam because that's all he could do... Really?

Thats brilliant Boots, just brilliant. How does Israel feel about the removal of Assad?

Israel benefits from strong Arab rulers that keep hatred directed towards them. See Egypt now you damn fruit bat...

[boutons_deux]

Straight from ...... TB's hated .................. FEEDBURNER!!!!!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/24/stewart-mocks-americas-tragedy-herpe-dick-cheney-and-his-sith-apprentice-daughter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[Winehole23]

:lol you bet your ass we're going back in there... spend a couple years, a few trillions, walk away, rinse, repeat...

President Barack Obama authorized the Pentagon to double the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, bringing the number to 3,100, as the White House continues to take steps that it had wished to avoid in its escalating fight against the Islamic State.


The Pentagon announced Friday that it had received authorization from Obama to send an additional 1,500 U.S. personnel to Iraq over the coming months. Up until now the cap had been set at 1,600 U.S. troops, with roughly 1,400 already deployed, advising and assisting Iraqi security forces in their fight to halt the advances of the Islamic State, which controls a large portion of the country and has been expanding its control over the strategically vital Anbar province. The U.S. troops are also helping the Iraqis plan a major counteroffensive to reclaim lost territory that is planned for sometime next year.


The new troops will be placed under the same noncombat restriction as those already deployed, but they will be moved closer to the front lines. It will be several weeks before the first of the new troops arrive, a military official told reporters at the Pentagon. http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/11/07/us_troops_in_iraq_will_double

[boutons_deux]

The next 1500 will not go unless Obama gets an approval vote from the Repug Congress. And Repugs have scheduled the usual 6 or 7 working days in session in Nov and Dec. :lol

[boutons_deux]

The Truth About the Wars

AS a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, I lost 80 soldiers. Despite their sacrifices, and those of thousands more, all we have to show for it are two failed wars. This fact eats at me every day, and Veterans Day (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/v/veterans_day/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) is tougher than most.

As veterans, we tell ourselves it was all worth it. The grim butchery of war hovers out of sight and out of mind, an unwelcome guest at the dignified ceremonies. Instead, we talk of devotion to duty and noble sacrifice. We salute the soldiers at Omaha Beach, the sailors at Leyte Gulf, the airmen in the skies over Berlin and the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and we’re not wrong to do so. The military thrives on tales of valor. In our volunteer armed forces, such stirring examples keep bringing young men and women through the recruiters’ door. As we used to say in the First Cavalry Division, they want to “live the legend.” In the military, we love our legends.

Here’s a legend that’s going around these days. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator. We botched the follow-through, and a vicious insurgency erupted. Four years later, we surged in fresh troops, adopted improved counterinsurgency tactics and won the war. And then dithering American politicians squandered the gains. It’s a compelling story. But it’s just that — a story.

The surge in Iraq did not “win” anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad and hobbled by our fellow Americans’ unwillingness to commit to a fight lasting decades, the surge just forestalled today’s stalemate. Like a handful of aspirin gobbled by a fevered patient, the surge cooled the symptoms. But the underlying disease didn’t go away. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents we battled for more than eight years simply re-emerged this year as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

The surge legend is soothing, especially for military commanders like me. We can convince ourselves that we did our part, and a few more diplomats or civilian leaders should have done theirs. Similar myths no doubt comforted Americans who fought under the command of Robert E. Lee in the Civil War or William C. Westmoreland in Vietnam. But as a three-star general who spent four years trying to win this thing — and failing — I now know better.

We did not understand the enemy, a guerrilla network embedded in a quarrelsome, suspicious civilian population. We didn’t understand our own forces, which are built for rapid, decisive conventional operations, not lingering, ill-defined counterinsurgencies. We’re made for Desert Storm, not Vietnam. As a general, I got it wrong. Like my peers, I argued to stay the course, to persist and persist, to “clear/hold/build” even as the “hold” stage stretched for months, and then years, with decades beckoning. We backed ourselves season by season into a long-term counterinsurgency in Iraq, then compounded it by doing likewise in Afghanistan. The American people had never signed up for that.

What went wrong in Iraq and in Afghanistan isn’t the stuff of legend. It won’t bring people into the recruiting office, or make for good speeches on Veterans Day. Reserve those honors for the brave men and women who bear the burdens of combat.

That said, those who served deserve an accounting from the generals. What happened? How? And, especially, why? It has to be a public assessment, nonpartisan and not left to the military. (We tend to grade ourselves on the curve.) Something along the lines of the 9/11 Commission is in order. We owe that to our veterans and our fellow citizens.

Such an accounting couldn’t be more timely. Today we are hearing some, including those in uniform, argue for a robust ground offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq. Air attacks aren’t enough, we’re told. Our Kurdish and Iraqi Army allies are weak and incompetent. Only another surge can win the fight against this dire threat. Really? If insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I think we’re there.

As a veteran, and a general who learned hard lessons in two lost campaigns, I’d like to suggest an alternative. Maybe an incomplete and imperfect effort to contain the Islamic State is as good as it gets. Perhaps the best we can or should do is to keep it busy, “degrade” its forces, harry them or kill them, and seek the long game at the lowest possible cost. It’s not a solution that is likely to spawn a legend. But in the real world, it just may well give us something better than another defeat.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/opinion/the-truth-about-the-wars-in-iraq-and-afghanistan.html

[boutons_deux]

http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/views-article/young_0.jpg?itok=X9a3pSXF


The Last Letter


A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

Tomas Young, a wounded Iraq War veteran and outspoken critic of war, passed away at the age of 34 on Monday evening, just before Veterans Day, which is also known internationally as Armistice Day. Common Dreams is republishing a letter he penned to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney last year.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.


Copyright 2013 Tomas Young

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/11/last-letter