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New US Airstrikes In Iraq Intended to Protect Important Dam
U.S. military involvement in Iraq is heating up again; the sudden rise of the organization known as the Islamic State has put a kink in the gradual, ongoing winding down of U.S. military presence in that country, and today that kink has gotten a little sharper. From The New York Times: The United States launched a fresh series of airstrikes against Sunni fighters in Iraq late Saturday in what Defense Department officials described as a mission to stop militants from seizing an important dam on the Euphrates River and prevent the possibility of floodwaters being unleashed toward the capital, Baghdad. The attacks were aimed at militant fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as they were moving toward the Haditha Dam, officials said. The operation represented another expansion of the limited goals that President Obama set out when he announced last month that he had authorized airstrikes in Iraq.
The hotbed for terrorists and assorted criminals is probably your country. Plenty of Europeans, Canadians, and Australians are fighting with ISIS or al Qaida. With luck they'll be home soon to share what they learned. . . maybe in your home town.
Director's "We were always at war with the Middle East" cut now available on all good election platforms!
Celebrating diversity!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Quick, someone distribute a shitload of tanks to the untrained police and open up some offshore concentration camps!
This struggle will be going on for decades (if we're lucky, longer if not), until the extremists get tired of it and want to live in peace. Until then any talk of "ending the war" is as silly as claiming you can tear down a dam because the river stopped flowing. It stopped flowing because of the dam. Tearing down the dam while the water is still there will have the obvious consequence.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
all the money and weapon ISIS has all came from American govt.
its US tactic to create instability in Middle-East to gain control over oil there.
Whew! For a minute I was worried that nobody would make a facile nonsense comment to distract from the real issues. Thankfully you came through.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You're right. Like the Democrats they tend to lean more towards using bombs.
Strange, when we gave them all those weapons in Syria they were "freedom fighters"!
If Saddam was still in power, he would be major american ally in "fighting terrorists". Orwell would laugh his ass out if he lived to this day.
839*929
Maybe because news in those countries regarding the Palestian-Israeli war is not one sided ? Even as a non muslim I sometimes have questions how that state operates. Like this week annexing >400km of land for settlers as a form of punishment or a documentary that I saw about a 6 years old boy that needed to go to a military court because a settler saying he threw a rock to him. The story about a brave Israeli that escort palestian children on certain routes so they don't get attacked by settlers.
And the reality is that there are hundred of those kind of stories and it is just completely nuts and a good breeding ground for terrorists... .
I have the feeling that 80% of the hatred for the "west' is targeted to the US and the UK. For the US that has a lot to do with the fact that is some kind of lapdog for Israel. The Uk's problem is that it is the lapdop of the US.
You can believe all the fluffy stories that is because of the "hatred for freedom" or that we in Europe are all anti-semitic, but the reality is that for 9/10 homegrown terrorist the US position is the enemy because it is mainly driven because of a wealthy influential lobby from the us.
Strange, when the Obama administration gave them all those weapons in Syria they were "freedom fighters"!
I fixed that for you.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Sure, it was much better when Reagan armed Saddam to the teeth!
If you can't see past the partisan bullshit to keep the ignorant masses occupied, ask an adult to explain things to you. The people murdered by US weapons in the wrong hands don't give a fuck about which label was on the door.
It looks like you need an adult to explain things to you.
Who armed Saddam? - Some reality checks
Saddam's weapons came overwhelmingly from the Soviet Union & other Soviet Bloc countries (69% during this period), followed by France (13%) and China (12%) and a string of smaller suppliers. (For example, according to a 1984 SIPRI report, "During 1982-83, Iraq accounted for 40% of total French arms exports.") The figure for the US is 1%.
(The link above is a good bit of background that covers much more than that short extract.)
There are still a lot of Soviet Bloc weapons being used in Iraq. The Interior ministry stuck with AKs, and the armed forces were only partly rearmed with American and Western weapons.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Hello, when you refer to Americans please don't conflate a meddling, incompetent President with Americans in general. Most Americans did not actually vote for that guy, he's lost most credibility in the US and among allies and other countries around the world. Thanks.
400 HECTARES.
That's 4 square km, not ">400km"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I think this is a simple case of "you break it, you buy it".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You look stupid making a straw man argument. Likewise, why anyone would want to appear to defend a failing President must not be rational anyways...
Nice feel good piece, but not worth a damn.
It's a decades long tradition of the US government to just fund mass murderers but keep up appearances by letting them bus/use someone else's weapons to keep up appearances, kinda like it's so much better that those tons of war crimes in the last couple of years were committed by mercenaries paid with money that can be traced back to the US rather than official US soldiers.
You twist the truth again. Saddam armed himself, largely, playing the big powers against each other as he saw fit. He got the bulk of Soviet aid in the early 70s, before turning openly anti-communist by the end of the decade. And when the US began using him to fight Iran, he got quite a bit of help from Saint Ronnie himself. http://www.iranchamber.com/his...
Here's a bit of news for you: there are Muslims of every race. If your explanation of things centers around "brown people" in some fashion you completely misunderstand the issues.
And yes, ISIS does exist. It is an offshoot of al Qaida.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If I wanted to read about this shit, I would not come here.
Hello, when you refer to Americans please don't conflate a meddling, incompetent President with Americans in general. Most Americans did not actually vote for that guy, he's lost most credibility in the US and among allies and other countries around the world. Thanks.
Why are you bringing GW Bush into the conversation?
... keep up appearances by letting them bus/use someone else's weapons to keep up appearances,...
That's hilarious, and nonsense.
Maybe you could explain how the US got all of those Soviet, Warsaw Pact, and Chinese weapons during the height of the Cold War - enough to equip the armed forces of an entire nation? That is utter rubbish. You're grasping at straws.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Sending IS back to hell with airpower is easy when they are out in the open. But once Islamic State fighters retreat to towns like Fallujah it will be very difficult to twist them out of their holes. It will require house to house fighting and the towns will be more or less destroyed in the process with great cost to any civilians in the area. If the Shiite dominated Iraq Army does it there will be all kinds of payback. But I doubt they will step up. It will be up to mostly the US with help from the UK and some token help from a few other countries. Colin Powell was right. We broke it, we bought it.
The US didn't use Saddam to fight Iran. Saddam chose to invade Iran and various nations helped prop up Iraq to prevent Iran from rolling over them and taking control of Iraq and possibly the rest of the Middle East.
The Baathists were socialists, and were mainly armed by the bloc of nations controlled by the United Soviet Socialist Republics.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
...change the motto of Slashdot? It is so annoying to read "news for nerds" all the time while I am browsing through my beloved war/politics related articles.. /sarcasm
Obama administration arms rebels in Syria. Then he bombs Iraq for so-called humanitarian reasons. The rebels in Syria armed by Obama go to Iraq to join ISIS. So our military is/will be fighting ISIS fighters that have been armed with US weapons, all thanks to their Commander-In-Chief.
There is a winner in this war: the Military-Industrial Complex. We can also thank President Obama for making this happen, after all, the MIC needs to make some money, and Obama is the Lord of War.
We were always at war with the Middle East.
That's where the argument takes you.
I didn't. Obviously I meant Obama, I described him in the present tense, he's the current President. No need to troll.
All the Rand Paul lovers and Snowden supporters should join ISIS and help them to free their information for all the world to see.
Not quite. It started as a group local to Iraq and led by al-Zarqawi that allied with al-Qaeda in 2004 and was then generally known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. Last year, it announced the merger of itself and the Syrian group al-Nusra; the leader of al-Nusra publicly denied this and asked al-Zawahiri to intercede. He did so and also directed that ISIS tone things down because it was making al-Qaeda and its affiliates look bad, and the head of ISIS told al-Zawahiri to get bent. Since then, al-Qaeda has disavowed the group.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Then who was it waving black flags with white arabic on it, throwing eggs at the police?
Technically, no American president has been voted for by "most Americans" since large swaths of the people have been excluded from voting for various reasons (age, gender, race, or ethnicity, depending on the time period). But your attempts to reference the current president fall short since he got the overall majority of the vote in both elections (52% in 2008 and 51% in 2012).
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
They annexed slightly under 100 acred or 4 sq km. Nothing remotely like 400. Seems your not one-sided news is not so good after all.
There are dozens of rebel factions in Syria. The weapons were sent largely to those a part of or allied with the Free Syrian Army, a group with secular aims. It's not surprising that they ended up in other hands, given the chaos.
But the US isn't the most prolific supplier of weapons. That goes to a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia. They're sending weapons to try to overthrow al-Assad to weaken the regional influence of Iran.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Oh, I see, it's just "a kink in the gradual, ongoing winding down of U.S. military presence". This is the sort of tendentious characterization I'd expect from a white house spokesperson striving mightily to minimize the significance of recent events. According to Wikipedia, the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq was completed in 2011. I can find plenty of voices calling the withdrawal "precipitous", so I'd like to see a citation for it being gradual and ongoing, if you please.
Drown a few hundred thousand. What's the worst that happens? The liberals blame the Jews?
You ought to know personal ideology almost always trumps cold hard facts ; ).
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Anything above zero is bad enough. Would it be fine if the other side did this? Would it be fine if someone did this to your country?
Maybe he can't, but I can.
USA has received a shitload of Soviet designed weapons - and I don't mean just small arms, I mean tanks, helicopters, airplanes - starting 1989. From Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You can believe all the fluffy stories that is because of the "hatred for freedom" or that we in Europe are all anti-semitic
But... but... we want to drink the Kool-Aid; it tastes so much better...
Look at the military hardware the Saddam era Iraqi army used: It wasn't American make, it was Russian/Soviet. Now look at Egypt, a country the US does arm, they are using US equipment.
Unsurprisingly, when countries arm other countries, they do it using their stuff. It is not only convenient, but it is one of those nice political things where you can help your own industries because you are buying from them.
What do you mean, lapdog? The US supports democracies that value liberty and freedom as best we can. Not perfectly of course, but we try. Threatened with destruction constantly, (hell, it's in the Palestinian's charter) we do sell them weapons at close to cost. That's a lot of our 'aid' to them; the discount. They got money, and they pay (not as much as the Saudis..). We have yet to fight directly alongside of Israel, although I assume we would if it really came to that.
Bitter over the UN mandate and British administration at the end of the wars? Then maybe the Ottoman Empire shouldn't have been on the wrong side of it. But the British weren't that bad in any case. Have you seen the 1947 partition map? The Arabs could have lived with that. If they had, then it wouldn't have mattered much anyway, Because Jews would have been free to live on the Arab land, and Arabs would have been free to live on Jewish controlled land.
Oh wait, that last part is still true; plenty of Arabs live and work in present day Israel, with more rights and freedoms than anywhere else in the Middle East.
One last thing; I don't know what European country you are in, but what if one of your neighboring countries, say, Poland maybe; started lobbing rockets over the border, blowing up neighborhoods and houses or whatever. How many warheads would it take for your country to put s stop to that with a quickness?
I'm thinking, about one.
"Hopefully"? It is happening, Snowden did ISIS a big favor.
If that's the case, the Brit's really need to own up and clean out their mess.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
... keep up appearances by letting them bus/use someone else's weapons to keep up appearances,...
That's hilarious, and nonsense.
Maybe you could explain how the US got all of those Soviet, Warsaw Pact, and Chinese weapons during the height of the Cold War - enough to equip the armed forces of an entire nation? That is utter rubbish. You're grasping at straws.
I wouldn't quite say the USA financed those Soviet, Chinese and European arms although to some extent they may have but keep in mind that back then nothing happened in the Middle East without American approval. This part of the world was and to some extent still is regarded as much America's back yard as Arizona and Texas are. Iraq's Saddam era arsenal was of course paid for by the Iraqis themselves with their oil money, that goes mostly for the Soviet stuff. Then during the Iran-Iraq war the Iraqi-Soviet relationship which was always a bit shaky cooled down once more and the Soviet arms supplies dried up for a while so 'interested parties' such as the USA and Saudi Arabia began to worry about Iranian tanks rolling into Baghdad due to the poor performance of the Iraqi army. For that reason several large shipments of jet fighters and tanks from China were financed through the Saudis with American consent and were reportedly bankrolled by the Saudis. Eventually the Iranians reconstructed their army and air force and figured out how to use their American supplied tanks and their F-5E and F-14 fleet effectively and gained the ability to manufacture their own spares. This American equipment turned out to be superior to the Soviet and Chinese supplied equipment which represented the most severely downgraded export grade stuff the Soviets had to offer. The Iranians were also way better trained than most of the Iraqis so inevitably the Iraqi forces got their collective ass kicked despite the still weakened state of the Iranian army. This caused 'interested parties' including the US and Saudi Arabia to broker arms deals where the weapons were sourced from France because for some reason they did not want to be seen to be directly involved (LOL). The US also had a hand in US and European trained Egyptian personnel being sent to fight on the Iraqi side in specialist roles like flying aircraft on ECM and SEAD missions. Of course when US troops then discovered French made weapons in Iraq at a later date this was seen as just another sign of French treachery since that was in vogue at the time due to the French having, along with the Germans, seen through the poor quality of the intelligence presented Bush White House to support a second invasion of Iraq and refused to join the 'Coalition of the Willing' or whatever it was called and realised before it even went ahead that an invasion of Iraq would be an expensive quagmire... more freedom fries and patriot toast? ..anybody? They are both liberally seasoned with Iraqi made weapons grade Uranium.
Maybe he can't, but I can.
USA has received a shitload of Soviet designed weapons - and I don't mean just small arms, I mean tanks, helicopters, airplanes - starting 1989. From Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary.
The USA has been buying Soviet made equipment on the black market since the 1980s at least and in large quantities. So if anybody ever wondered where the Soviet weapons came from that the CIA gave to the Afghans to shoot at the Soviets with now you know...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Every revolution results in the most brutal, morally crude, religiously exploitive group coming to power. This is a simple function of a free for all fragfest. If we are so revolted by some head chopping, what about French revolution and its guillotine? If US and other countries didn't launch military intervention after similarly brutal bolshevik revolution in Russia, we could have avoided much of cold war, including current Ukrainian episode. Any country would want to establish a friendly buffer zone after being repeatedly attacked from the same direction many times.
We have nothing to offer to people of Iraq. The government we installed last time supported Shias killing Sunnis. Now it's the other way around. To change that, minds of millions of people need to be changed. It's not a matter of installing one government or bombing one rebel faction. When there is a visionary with big following, we could try to support him, like German's who helped install Lenin into power in exchange for a big piece of territory. All the good it ultimately done them.
Lol. Fucks like you blame everybody else.
Did America create these groups? Nope. The underpinnings for these were created in the 30-60, mostly by Europe's constant colonialism attitude, and now they fund them by paying ransoms as well as buying their oil and natural gas.
You would be surprised at the amount of armored fighting vehicles siiting in local police motor pools around the US. The biggest threat I'd expect from ISIS trained operatives is escalating an unrelated incident, imagine what a few trained instigaters could have done at Ferguson, Mo.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Not just the UK. Germany, Italy, France, China etc are all guilty of creating this mess.
No no no, you got it all wrong, pal. They actually annexed 400km in a straight line. They put all the people they had making a chain!
These wars were bullshit from the beginning. Governments are good at one thing and that is genocide and this is not an opinion but a fact dictated by history. U.S created and labeled these so called freedom fighters Mujahidin, Al-Qaeda, and now ISIS all trained in the U.S. U.S has a long history of funding radicals and dictators all over the world including South America, toppling democratic elected governments. I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S government trained and funded the Nazi's or even the Bolsheviks. Humans are one of the most disgusting animals on this planet.
Islamic history that they don't teach at Harvard: When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost British Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria. In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain. During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam: "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
Implies it wasn't a mess before we got there.
GW Bush restored the Sunni/Sheia war, putting it back the way western europe found it. No need to thank him. Oil should be sucked mostly dry soon, so restoring the irrelevance too.
Now we're just enforcing a stalemate. Bet we wouldn't be doing a thing to ISIS if they weren't winning. See also Iran/Iraq war.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The US supports democracies that value liberty and freedom as best we can.
I respectfully disagree. The US naturally supports its own interests wherever it can. United States support of authoritarian regimes. No matter how bad Sharia law might be the Islamic State guys are tired of foreign interference. They've had enough of everything that's happened after Sykes-Picot and they want the right to self determination. It's no wonder they have so much internal support.
Hello, when you refer to Americans please don't conflate a meddling, incompetent President with Americans in general. Most Americans did not actually vote for that guy, he's lost most credibility in the US and among allies and other countries around the world. Thanks.
Technically, no American president has been voted for by "most Americans" since large swaths of the people have been excluded from voting for various reasons (age, gender, race, or ethnicity, depending on the time period). But your attempts to reference the current president fall short since he got the overall majority of the vote in both elections (52% in 2008 and 51% in 2012).
2012 General Election Turnout Rates, Voting-Age Population, 240,926,957, The final popular vote totals were 65,899,660 for Obama-Biden;
65,899,660 / 240,926,957 = 27.3%, pretty blantant that most Americans didn't vote for Obama. In fact with Obama's margin of only 4,967,508,that's close to expected voter fraud rates, it's hard to say how many votes he actually won by.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Well we are in the process of shifting an area much larger of that to Canada. You don't know about it because it is such a not big deal. People make obvious border adjustments in a spirit of goodwill all the time.
Most Americans did not actually vote for that guy...
Enough voted for him to win, twice, I shall remind you. All the politicians are perfect reflections of the people who constantly reelect them. Like it or not this is the face they present to the world. No "conflation" required.
And you people keep on talking about this "credibility" thing. Maybe you all should just look at the numbers. Amercian weapons sales dominate the world markets more than they ever have. So please, when you want to talk about success and prestige, know where to look.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Whoops! That went to the wrong guy! I meant to post to the GP So sorry...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Iraq and Iran had been fighting over the delta for decades. Goes back to the Shaw's days at least.
Once Iran lost it's status as American Ally it lost that protection too. Sheit/Sunni is a very old war that has never stopped.
You realize there is a difference between 'Socialist' (dumb philosophy) and 'Communist' (mostly Russian funded, at least during the cold war era and distant from China)? Yes, it is now _proven_ that the American Communist Party was founded by a soviet agent and recieved regular funding. Thanks KGB archives. Never would have learned it from this side.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No need to troll? LMAO!
1000 acres, not 100. AKA 400 hectares. Clearly it's easy to get units confused, as you did it yourself. You seem to be using this to ignore the point of his post.
You are right, that was a typo in my post (not confusion) but a bad typo when correct someone else's numbers. Anyway 400km and 4km are drastically different things. The average farm (median not mean!) is over 1100 acres. We are talking one farm's worth here.
The point of his post was that the USA has bad information about Israel / Palestine and that's nonsense. Having seen the European media (especially the Catholic countries to which the USA media is often unfavorably compared) it seems to be less informational, equally biased and frankly more emotion driven just in the other direction.
LOL. Whatever, lying douchebag, the facts around that war are well documented. You can deny them, but they won't disappear because of that.
That's right, the facts won't disappear, and I've just presented them.
You possess the aggressive ignorance of Dubya and O'Really. Go learn about the sad fate of the Iraqi communists and come back to us with your fantasies about the "socialism" of Saddam's regime.
Why don't you look into the fate of the parties that competed with the Bolsheviks in Russia, and the Nationalist Socialists in Germany and see if you can extrapolate.
Maybe the "United Soviet Socialist Republics" exist in whatever online game you've cut your strategic teeth, but in the real world there was no such entity.
Close enough to say yes: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
USA has received a shitload of Soviet designed weapons - and I don't mean just small arms, I mean tanks, helicopters, airplanes - starting 1989. From Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary.
And in the 1960s, 1970s and early to mid 1980s, when Saddam and Iraq were arming, the US didn't have those weapons. So, guess where they came from? That's right, the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and China.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
That might work for relatively limited numbers of small arms to equip guerillas, but not for modern tanks and aircraft, artillery, surface to surface missiles like the SCUD, and antiaircraft missiles and radar used to equip the Iraqi armed forces.
Saddam was mainly armed by the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and China.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You realize there is a difference between 'Socialist' (dumb philosophy) and 'Communist' (mostly Russian funded, at least during the cold war era and distant from China)?
I do, but you and your PNAC friend from above don't. Iraq has never been socialist as in Soviet bloc socialist. Iraqi 'Socialist ideology' was a piece of homegrown bullshit, built on a hodgepodge of Egyptian, Syrian and European ideas about government and nationalism. Unlike the Iraqi Communists, who were close to the Soviet communist organization and suffered badly for it at the hands of Saddam.
Calling Saddam's regime 'socialst' and implying it was a close ally to the European Communist regimes, as the guy above, is just plain ignorance.
Be that as it may, it is a fact that the US provided a lot of military assistance to Iraq, and was much more involved in having them attack Iran than USSR, despite the crap that's coming out of the orifices of the poster above.
Iran lost it's status as American Ally it lost that protection too
You must shirley be joking, Iran was never under any protection from the US. It was occupied during WWII by the SU and the UK, and then a puppet was installed until the slow democratization of Iran resulted in some economic decisions that the British and the Americans didn't like. Then they swiftly staged a coup, blew it badly and brought about the regime we enjoy today.
Brinkmanship indeed. Just like the one we saw recently in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Seems plausable, the other thing is the Soviets and other Warsaw Pact countries had armed so many that Soviet designed weapons are pretty ubiquitious in the World. I know people who worked at TACOM who worked full-time installing M60A3 turrets on T72 prime movers for Allies.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Why don't you look into the fate of the parties that competed with the Bolsheviks in Russia
I'd rather look into the fate of the the Socialist and Communist parties in the land of the free. They were treated in a very similar manner by the Hoover thugs. However, that still doesn't make Saddam Hussein a part of the Soviet bloc, no matter how you dislike this stubborn fact.
When Iraq attacked Iran, Saddam had good relations with the West, because the West was in a disposition to beat the shit out of Iran. Iraq used the said good relations to get loans and import weapons. Lots of weapons, for a lot of shooting, at Iran, at the Kurds, et cetera. These are the facts.
And you're still Dubbya ignorant of them, and amusing like him. Thankfully, not so dangerous.
And I really like idiots, so I'm feeding you.
Close enough to say yes:
You don't even know the names of the countries you write about, this is how ignorant you are. Just like Dubya, who kept eye-racking Iraq until he got out of office. Did he ever learn how to pronounce it correctly?
Lots of organizations, even at the level of nation states, have similar flags. To put your question in perspective: "Then who was painting their aircraft red white and blue logos?" Well, it was the French, or the Netherlands, or the RAF roundel. They were either fighting with the Romanians, or the Republic of Chad, Moldova, or Andorra.
That ones were spent in the Iran-Iraq war.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That even worked for enough titanium to built all the SR-71 airplanes. Bought with the help of several shell companies straight from USSR.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Technically, no American president has been voted for by "most Americans" since large swaths of the people have been excluded from voting for various reasons (age, gender, race, or ethnicity, depending on the time period).
Methinks you forgot apathy/cynicism/disillusionment. There are more people now that don't vote not because they can't vote but because they can't be bothered.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I expect that you understand that there is a difference between raw commodities like 10 tons of titanium and manufactured finished goods such as an aircraft. The US used the raw materials to build its own aircraft, not manufacture copies of Soviet aircraft generally equivalent to its own high performance aircraft to provide Iraq.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
However, that still doesn't make Saddam Hussein a part of the Soviet bloc, no matter how you dislike this stubborn fact.
I never claimed that Saddam's Iraq was part of the Soviet bloc, only that they bought their weapons there. It is sort of like you don't have to be an employee of Tesco to buy goods there.
When Iraq attacked Iran, Saddam had good relations with the West, because the West was in a disposition to beat the shit out of Iran. Iraq used the said good relations to get loans and import weapons. Lots of weapons, for a lot of shooting, at Iran, at the Kurds, et cetera. These are the facts.
So then, we agree that Saddam attacked Iran for his own reasons? Good, since those are the facts.
You don't even know the names of the countries you write about, this is how ignorant you are. Just like Dubya, who kept eye-racking Iraq until he got out of office. Did he ever learn how to pronounce it correctly?
And yet you understood the entire time what President Bush was referring to, and what I was referring to, and decided to avoid discussing the substance of the argument and quibbled about minor things. You aren't proving yourself to not be an idiot there.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You've missed my point. Even if 50%+1 of the voting-age population (we'll leave out those not eligible to vote due to lack of citizenship, felony conviction, dishonorable discharge, etc.) voted for him, it still wouldn't be a majority of all Americans. There were about 313 million people in the US in 2012; half of that would be more people than voted, and would require 77% of the voting-age population. No president is known to have gotten that vote level, let alone overall preference. Washington might have, but no popular vote totals are available before 1824, and women were blocked from voting, as were most blacks, so rendering a majority support virtually impossible anyway even if every person legally allowed to vote did so.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
al-Zarqaw got his money from CIA
you should be hang for treason against humanity, "cold nothing" lying scumbag ...
"the sudden rise of the organization known as the Islamic State has put a kink in the gradual, ongoing winding down of U.S. military presence"
Put a kink in it? IT WAS CAUSED BY IT!!
221,925,820 was the Voting-Eligible Population, so that would increase the percentage to 29.7%, so way less than a third of eligable voters voted for Obama; 131,799,320 voted for either Obama or Romney so only 59.4% voted period.
On Nov 6, 2012 US population was 314,760,969, 131,799,320 / 314,760,969 = 41.87%, so if all of the people who voted, had voted for Obama it still wouldn't be a majority of all Americans.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
All He Does Is Divine. Let us give praise and say Amen.
So... You're saying that Obama needs to work on his support amongst infants, felons, and foreigners?
And they didn't have any left, yup. And never bought any more to replace them. That's why Saddam didn't have any military to invade Kuwait with.
Is that area settled?
That was my original point. I'm not sure if you're trying to make an additional point or trying to contradict me by agreeing with me.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
An excellent point in the main, but AGE? Are you serious?
One of these things is not at all like all the others.
How long was the Shaw in charge of Iran? Who's ally was he? You don't know what you are talking about.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
President Obama is replacing Kathryn Ruemmler as White House Counsel, saying he needs a wartime consigliere. Ms Ruemmler will be replaced by Jeh Johnson, former head of homeland security. The White House also announced the untimely death of Ms Ruemmler, believed to have been killed in a domestic drone strike that went awry. The President vowed to have the Justice Department, under Attorney General Holder, investigate the errant strike, get to the bottom of it, and bring those responsible to justice. The investigation is expected to conclude sometime in 2022.
The idea that IS would flood Baghdad makes no sense to me: if they want to rule the territory, such a bold move against the non fighting population is counter productive: it seems impossible to be considered as a legitimate power after that.
unfortunately, ISIS' latest internal demographic study concluded that women are still under-represented
Too bad the European pussies won't take care of any of the atrocities occurring right in their back yards, making America be the World Police by default. Europe had better be concerned about the spread of the plague of Islamism, since it's coming right into their countries.
Ah, the ignorant idiot is back with a vengeance.
I never claimed that Saddam's Iraq was part of the Soviet bloc, only that they bought their weapons there.
No, you claimed (1) that they were 'armed' by the United Soviet Republics, and (2) on ideological grounds (as in Baathists are socialists). Nice to see you're shifting to 'oh, it was pure business' line after I pointed out how ignorant you are.
Besides, you have still not addressed the bulk of my point, namely that:Saint Ronnie financed them during the war and specifically to fight the war to the tune of a cool few hundred millions. Which kind of dispenses with your "The God-Blessed Umerrikah didn't arm them" lie.
we agree that Saddam attacked Iran for his own reasons?
Sure. With a little help from his Western friends. The kind of help that used to be called "warmongering" in the golden days of yore.
the substance of the argument and quibbled about minor things
You seem to be about as stupid as you're arrogant. The "substance" of your argument was "US wasn't arming Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war", which I refuted with a partial list of military aid long ago upthred. Of course, being a lying bastard of the PNAC ideology and the Lenin methods, you simply ignored it.
You're the same kind of 'patriot' as the Rashists who today support Putin and cheer the victims of the MH17, ready to lie for your cause. If you were old enough in 1988, you'd have cheered the shooting down of that other airliner by the other Bush.
No, you claimed (1) that they were 'armed' by the United Soviet Republics, ....
No, I stated that they were primarily armed by the Soviet bloc, and that is correct.
(2) on ideological grounds (as in Baathists are socialists). Nice to see you're shifting to 'oh, it was pure business' line after I pointed out how ignorant you are.
Is that what you think? Then you managed to get it wrong, including getting your own claim wrong.
You see this? -
However, that still doesn't make Saddam Hussein a part of the Soviet bloc, no matter how you dislike this stubborn fact.
Saddam was never under Soviet control, was never part of the Soviet bloc. It was a Soviet client state, and the Soviets did arm them.
Besides, you have still not addressed the bulk of my point, namely that:Saint Ronnie financed them during the war and specifically to fight the war to the tune of a cool few hundred millions. Which kind of dispenses with your "The God-Blessed Umerrikah didn't arm them" lie.
And we return to your being unable to keep my factual statement straight - the Iraqis were mainly armed by the bloc of nations controlled by the Soviets. That doesn't rule out American involvement. (You do understand that, right?) You seem to be getting wrapped around the axel about the approximately 1% of armaments or support Iraq received from the US. Big deal.
Sure. With a little help from his Western friends.
Saddam made his own decision to attack Iran. Western aid came long after the fact. You are trying to twist the history.
You seem to be about as stupid as you're arrogant.
Well if that's true, then it is a vice we both share.
The "substance" of your argument was "US wasn't arming Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war",
The substance of my argument was that Iraq was primarily armed by the Soviet bloc, a fact you keep getting wrong.
. Of course, being a lying bastard of the PNAC ideology and the Lenin methods, you simply ignored it.
You seem to be projecting.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The "other side" is indeed doing it.
Citation: An Illegal Arab Settlement in the West Bank?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/20...
FALSE. The jihad has been going on for 1400 years and is just gaining up a head of steam again due to petrodollars and the obvious pathetic 'leadership' of the West. The reason the jihadis attack on 9/11 each year is to reverse the defeat at the Gate of Vienna on 9/11 *****1583****.
Bleating about Sykes-Picot is a distraction so you never understand the fourteen century war that is commanded in Qur'an Sura 9:29, 9:5 and hundreds of other verses. Unfortunately, many smart Slashdotters fall for this ruse.
In order to understand jihad you must listen to what they say for the benefit of other jihadis - not the projections that Westerners place as the motivations of the jihadis:
For an example of how the jihadis see history, please see the following: "Why We Are Afraid - A 1400 Year Secret : Dr Bill Warner" [45 mins]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The Palestinian Territories are much smaller, so if you adjust the size accordingly, it would be the same as if Canada took ~155,000 acres. Also this land already had people living in it and relying on it for water and access, both things which can soon be forgotten. And - sorry - where does good will come into stealing land from someone? A token of good-will is accepted beforehand between both parties, even if begrudgingly - this is clearly not the case here.
Yes, but not heavily. OTOH we have moved heavily settled territories back and forth before, just not recently. One of the reasons we developed the 60m rule with Canada was so that didn't happen. For example there are rivers that shift that are part of the border. Many tends of thousands of acres change hands as the rivers shift.
The claim was the border shift in and of itself was something beyond the pale.
I hate terms like "stealing land". Things that other countries do are considered to be criminal when Israel does them, and frankly it is rhetoric like that IMHO disqualifies the anti-Israel movement from being sensible. Governments don't steal land internal to their territory, they reallocate resources. I live in New Jersey, the government of the countries and the state all the time takes private lands over by matter of law, pays the owners and then uses them for something other than residential. People from all over the world don't object to this. Heck I voted for 2 people in my township that want to eminent domain my house to knock it down attach it to another development (or in racist UN speak attack my indigenous home to a settlement). Were the Palestinians willing to cooperate with the governments and file for compensation it would simply be eminent domain. Or maybe it would just be happening between the developers and the population and not involve the government at all.
Israel has de-jure annexed Area-C. It is time the world just acknowledges that the Israeli government is the government over that territory.
Once you've got the prize, they can't take it away, can they?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The minimum voting age used to be 21, discriminating against people under 21. It's now 18. Personally, after thinking about it for a while, I don't see why we need a minimum voting age. Why deny a 12-year-old the vote? What harm would it do to let him or her vote?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The original point was about all Americans. Since those under 18 (and previously 21, as david_thornley pointed out) couldn't vote, it took a significant chunk of the populace out, more so in past eras where the life expectancy was shorter.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.