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What US Veterans Say About The Iraq Fiasco: "When I Left In 2009, I Said In 5 Years There'll Be A Civil War"
With Iraq having succumbed to sectarian violence worse than anything observed in recent history, which accordint to many was merely exacerbated by US neocon ambitions to feed the ravenous military industrial complex, one can easily discard the opinion of all those on both sides of the argument - first those who said a US intervention was critical, as well as those who demanded a pull out. In fact, the only person who has preserved any credibility, and has not been "surprised" by the recent developments - is the man who said to never get involved in the first place - Ron Paul.
But what about those who were tasked with implementing US foreign policy, flawed as it may have been: America's veteran troops.
The WSJ has compiled several opinions of precisely those men and women who served in Iraq during the invasion and occupation. At least for some of them what is happening now is hardly surprising. "When I left in April 2009, I said, 'In five years there'll be a civil war,'" said Keith Widaman, a former Marine staff sergeant who helped train Iraqi law enforcement during his deployment. "The Sunnis were stockpiling weapons and they weren't using them against us. They were just holding on to them."
More:
Mr. Widaman, who currently lives in Washington, was stationed near the Syrian border, in Al Qaim, and said that area was mostly calm. But even there he noticed that the central government didn't have the support of the local populace. In Mosul the situation was even worse.
"There was just so much resistance, they never got it under control," he said.

Former Marine Staff Sgt. Keith Widaman in Washington on Friday. Lance Rosenfield/Prime for The Wall Street Journal
Others are just disappointed by the local army's response:
Matthew Sinsigalli's infantry battalion with the Army's 101st Airborne Division was part of the invasion in March 2003. He then spent most of his yearlong tour in Mosul, where his unit's duties included training Iraqi military and police.
"For them to just drop and flee, that's disheartening to see after all the effort put into it when we were over there," he said. "To see that fall, a place where we lost friends, that's really a blow," said Mr. Sinsigalli, who left the Army in 2004.
Yet others believe that America's mistake was simply refusing to make Iraq yet another colony of the US global empire:
Several of the veterans said the U.S. had a responsibility to stay involved. Chris Schuster, 34, a Navy veteran who served two tours in Iraq in 2003 to 2005, said he had mixed feelings watching reports this week about the developments in Iraq. "Once you're involved, you have a responsibility," he said. He is now a student at Clemson University in South Carolina.
At least one person realizes that the entire US approach of solving global conflict through the imposition of Pax Americana, and even more military involvement, especially where US interests are at stake, needs a major rethink:
William "BJ" Ganem, who lost part of his left leg and suffered traumatic brain injury in Iraq in 2004 after an improvised explosive device hit his vehicle while on patrol, said he hopes the U.S. thinks hard about its approach, and takes a "holistic" view.
"I'm not sure we're understanding the problem happening in the Middle East," said Mr. Ganem, who lives in Reedsburg, Wis. "We need to spend time, step back and think about what the best approach is, what the root of the problem is."
However with so much corporate money at stake, the last thing the US mega-corps, for whom even the slightest delay in promoting re-escalation and not letting yet "another crisis go to waste" means lost revenue, can afford to do is wait.
Finally, while it is handy to poll the invaders, be it those sitting behind desks or wielding an M-16, all of whom hide behind the idealistic banner of "democratic liberation", perhaps the real answer should come from the Iraqis themselves what they want: was it their vision of a better world one which involved US armed presence in their (and neighboring) country, and one which has pushed sectarian violence and brutality to unseen levels.
And not just Iraq but Libya, Egypt, Ukraine, to name just a few from the past few years alone.
Sadly we will never get the real answer.
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Game over, man!
I said the same thing in 2003 (only without a time-frame).
I did NOT think that way in 2003, and I was very wrong.
No cheat codes for this game. The only way to win is by not playing.
The untermenschen in control don't want peace because they expect to benefit from the outcome of their actions.
The play-pieces they are maneuvering must not embrace something like the Christmas truce of WWI.
< America doesn't give a shit what happens to Iraq.
< America dossn't give a shiite what happens to Iraq.
It is a mistake to think that whats happening now with ISIS/ISIL is by mistake. Its all long since been planned to happen this way.
The US and TPTB, reducing the world's useless eaters one nation at a time. Was there any doubts?
"Peace" is too austere.
No-one has ever won a war. Ever. A nation may declare a victory but the seeds of resentment will germinate in the future and start it all over.
Tell that to the Romans after they finished with Carthage.
The Romans had no more troubles from them .... ever.
We have not had too much trouble out of England for a while, and Ho Chi Minh is pretty sure his war with the French, and then the Americans, went his way.
By their standards, you are a useless eater, as am I. They'll save the toughest resistance for last, and brainwash our own countrymen to do the dirty work for them.
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president." - ?????
We'll be saved if the next president is Jeb, the Smart Bush™ .
Because Florida is awesome, and you like sunshine!
No, the Smart Bush was/is Marvin! You don't know him? My point exactly. Had to be smart to plan all this...
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/911security.html
http://www.911hardfacts.com/report_09.htm
I'm voting for McCain and Lindsey Graham......they're swell.......
Harry Reid because .. it's all just whores, gambling and insanity
No, it's HRH Hillary! to the rescue (sarc). The coronation will begin shortly. The only time I've seen less wrinkles was on a baby's ass.
Am looking for the /sarc_off on that one.
Research indicates that 83.5% of my posts are sarcastic.
But 110% awesome!
pods
my european friends doubted me on bush2 - obama 1 i couldn't have imagined, obama 2 - saw clearly. and going back 6 years - my european friends still don't believe me. mega life support for bush 1 - he has to be around to see it. 92+ no matter. 'royalty'. 3 bush-whackers in the same family as presidents - they have to make it happen. somehow - they believe this stuff like pharoahs.
bush is in. it's a lock.
The danger lies in the ignorance of the citizens...
The truly frieghtning thing is, is that every morning I walk out the door, I know that every other person I meet supports Obama. That fact scares the hell out of me a lot more than Obama himself.
The Stepford Jives, Pee Wee Herman and Joe the Gub Employee are your neighbors?
According to the inter-webs, it was translated into English from an article in the Prague newspaper Prager Zeitung. The quote came from the Former Premier of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus.
In other words...
A society always gets the leaders it deserves.
H.L. Mencken: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
Also from H.L:
'Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.'
Also:
'I hate sports the way somebody who loves sports hates common snese'
Why did I post that one? Thnk who loves hoops, NCAA brackets and platys a lot of golf - and is probably still in Palm Springs. Get it? Get it?
Have you noticed that none of the World Cup games have been a draw?
Well according to Flackmeister, you've just quoted a German so you must be a Nazi Communist sympathizer.
What would Nixon do?
Keep Charles de Gaulle at bay by taking us off the gold standard again in order to fund more Military Industrial Complex projects and maintain LBJ's Great Society - because once you give it to them, you can never take it away and get reelected.
Guns & Butter, bitchez!
Or was that supposed to be Guns OR Butter? Um, um, somebody call Krugman for me.
"What would Nixon do?"
I'll take Operation Linebacker, and 155,237 tons of unguided air delivered bombs for 100, Alex.
Stay dead. If he knows what is good for him.
Michelle Obama?
Actually the long term covert and now overt assymetrical (political, social, chemical, electronic, spiritual, educational) assault on the American people, their Constitution, their way of life is what has brought the American citizenry to this sad and sorry state of affairs.
Yes O is just a frontman puppet of his master's but don't be too quick to blame the currently sedated, misinformed, abused and assaulted masses because they/we have all been the long term victims of their relentless and ruthless conditioning program.
Just as I don't think you can blame a child born unto 2 drug addicted, sado-masochistic paedophiles who then get's ritually abused for the 1st 15 years of his life for not having the knowledge wisdom and strength to overcome his torturers; so it is with most of the US and world's citizenry of today.
I didn't think that way then either. Or course I was still a teenager then. I confess leading up to the 2008 elections I loved everything ron Paul said until he got to foreign policy. On those things I thought he was crazy and unrealistic. By the end of the year I had done some reading and was on board. We all wake up in our own way and in our own time. I feel like a fool for it taking me several years to realize what was going on after I started paying attention, but it's better late than never
My favorite saying - We are too soon old, and too late smart.
The truth of that wisdom will become more apparent with every passing year ;)
carl - which is why i don't like people denigrating our soldiers that served there and later saw something. life is about learning, learning to survive, learning. sure - lots of these guys bought the flag and old glory and 'democracy'. but - they went, they did what they thought was right, and some of the saw, thought and then realized.
just because they volunteered 'mistakenly' in the first place doesn't mean they are hopeless to learn in the future. they did. give them credit.
In 2003 I warned W not to do it (go to war). And if he did, to do it another way... a way that would not cost us the lives or money, but still had Iraqis depose Saddam.
But clearly that did not satisfy the Banksters, the MIC, nor the hawks in the Knesset. All of whom had different ideas and plans for Iraq and the region.
Vietnam started the destruction of America, the Afghanistan/Iraq wars will complete it. The former Non-Aligned countries and the EU have lost ALL respect in the vision and virtue of America's gangsta leadership, no matter what their blackmailed leaders pretend.
If MENA burns, the rest of Eurasia will go on, as will the rest of the world. We just gotta keep the psychos contained in their region, instead of letting them in under bullshit "humanitarian" pretenses. How about we start worrying about the "humanitarian" issues at home, and let MENA sort itself out? PRIME DIRECTIVE, baby, Prime Directive.
I said we would be there for 20 years and all my coworkers laughed and said it would be over in a few weeks.
Boy you guys are on a roll peddling the mainstream press. Starting to get vomit inducing. IS there a need for state department money or NGO money to supplement ad revenue here?
This isn't a civil war. ISIS and their ilk are victims of foreign ideology ( Saudi Arabian Wahhabism ), funded by Saudis, armed by the West and trained by the west.
Enough with this horse shit. This is no more a civil war than is Syria.
You wonder why the majority of western jihadis come to ISIS? Because in every european country the Saudi controlled mosques recruit them. Enough of forwarding this phony narrative.
That was on target, Dirty.
All easiy paid for with the increase in oil rices....win win for them
You hear Obama, Kerry and the Ukrainians screaming at the Russians to stop sending tanks, weapons, and nuclear bombs (soon) to the terrorists holed up in their part of the country yet...
NOT A WORD to the Saudis about the disgusting behavior of their Fine Young ISIS Cannibals.
Figure it out.
Would appear the CIA has declared war on the State Department.
Hmmm.
Smurrrrrrrrrrrrrrsh.
The so called "military industrial complex" is just a money laundering outfit. Where is the "military" part of that thing here?
We could have punched out a million Abrams Tanks for this budget.
500 Marines and a ship?
For "a trillion dollars"?
Sorry but that math don't add up.
I imagine we'll discover shortly who's the number cruncher here and who's not. It's not gonna be the Air Force.
Hobby Lobby looks good here though.
The ONLY option is boots on the ground.
This is gonna be Invasion Iraq #3.
"One of the surprises of Fallujah was how quickly they rebuilt."
"The ONLY option is boots on the ground.
This is gonna be Invasion Iraq #3."
Disagree. They want it broken into indefensible little bits.
You get more respect... a better discount on oil... and more weapon sales that way.
AFAIK - Langely and Foggy Botton (State) are the same gang. The guys sold out at Benghazi were State and CIA.
NSA is supposed to be the military and DIA but they ALL have sold American citizens out.
it's almost as if the Saudi and American government have some sort of quid pro quo going and in the process, lie, cheat, kill and screw over their own citizens along with the rest of the world....
This isn't a civil war. ISIS and their ilk are victims of foreign ideology ( Saudi Arabian Wahhabism ), funded by Saudis, armed by the West and trained by the west.
I'm no expert on this, but pretty sure civil war has been going since at least 2008. Kurds have their own thing in the north & seem to be doing well. Saudis and iran have their interests too.. then there's the oil companies.
Perhaps the best word to discribe the situation is a 'qaugmire.'
It's many things, saying it's not a civil war is factually incorrect though but also only a part of it.
Yes, the complete picture is more nuanced than what Canadian Dirtwhatever describes it. Sure the media is painting it as "a civil war: Sunni v. Shiite". It's a civil war with extras; co-stars, sponsors, benefactors, etc. And SA being the big sugar daddy. Debating what to call it at this point is moot; one thing you can call it for sure: on. Like a donkey-kong.
It'll work for SA and Israel until it doesn't. SA gets to destabilize regional competition and send off potential trouble-makers to the meat grinder (Europe does too). Israel gets to watch from the sidelines, and maybe fund some of the mess. The US politicians are busy pandering to SA and Israel to sell good and services to get market share.
Russia/Syria/Iran get to try to put the genie back in the bottle.
What am I missing?
No, no, no.
This has been going on for 3,000 years.
The current history is that Churchill - more or less - made a strong move into "Persia" to get the oil when the naval ships started morphing from coal to oil. That paid off. As the Brits started losing their empire post WWI and most definitely after WWII, they had to let go of some of their holdings. Iraq was basically drawn up on a cocktail napkin over breakfast, and proclaimed to be a sovereign nation in good health. That way the Brits could claim that they had discharged their "White man's burden." (On the morning of his inauguration in '68, Nixon was told to declare victory in Viet Nam and leave - you get the picture.)
I was stoooooopid. I believed W when he said that the Iraq tab would be $30 billion and that we would be welcomed with open arms. You know - everybody thinks like US citizens. They want peace and democracy - just needed the opportunity presented by offing Saddam. Not. When Sadddam and his Sunni cronies have killed your son, wife, brother - it is hard to forget. A democracy in Iraq dominated by the far more populous Sunnis - with their Sunni slain family members? Kurds gassed by the Saddam/Sunni coalition giverning the Sunni minority? Sure. RIght. Only hope there was an immediate partition into three states.
That is what will probbly fall out. Best we can do is keep the genocide to a minimum by.......selliong arms to both sides.....dropping the occasional bomb on whoever is foolish enough to concentrate their forces in the open in broad daylight.............mind our own business.
I think what Dirty is saying is: This is regional hate (Sunni vs Shiate due to arbitrary lines) ... this is regional hate with steerage (armed and aimed)
Democracy in the M.E.? What a joke. Anyone who knew much ao anything about the M.E. knows the old saying about democratic elections that preceeded our invasion of Iraq. It was true then, and it's true now:
One election, one time.....one and done. Whoever wins does everything possible to grab and hold power. Where in the M.E. has there a successful democracy imposed from outside?
so true. nobody is in complete control here. Certain idiots may think they are but those idiots have earned their title time and again. And iraq is not alone. As the petrodollar dies, so does all sorts of strange bedfellows, weird vaccuums turn up, old grudges, new injuries, and lots of weakened puppets. The whole region is in for a ride... a ride that for the US will get bumpier and deadly.
2008? them folks been fighten for 1000s of years
Read "Salam Pax" if you want know what the Iraqi's think.
It should be mandatory reading in US schools.
Hey, on the plus side defense stocks have got to soar right?
Yep..../sarc
Maybe there is a War on Mars.
"We're fighting it but barely winning...
Whats not being said is the fact that the army that is fighting are pure Shia not Sunni who wouldn't fight against their own people. This is going to be a civil war and those "few" terrorists that they think isn't alot will have alot more via their Sunni brothern. We opened up a can of worms and this is going to be ugly.
Any discerning mind knew there would be civil war sooner or later.
Step 1: Remove oppressive dictator
Step 2: Let TPTB setup a pretend government
Step 3: Profit from civil war
Civil war (or, more accurately, just shooting anyone who isn't a part of your tribe or pisses you off or both) is pretty much what the middle east does. It's their bag. Fight over the same sand pile again and agin, generation after generation. Perfect place for the US to wage an endless series of economy-stimulating wars.
And, I'll point out, that this is another article where the author seems to think that somehow the US was trying to "fix" things. Or wage the "right kind" of war. Or a "well executed" war. I grow tired of authors ascribing goals to this sort of business that were never on the agenda.
Which is why to have scored a "win" in Iraq, we would have had to occupy it for at least a full generation while going in with the intent of changing the culture itself.
On ebay now....Iraqi rifles, cheap! Only dropped and never fired!
Time to make an apology, and GTFO.
This "we have to stay there till it is fixed" idea is predicated that we actually CAN help over there.
If the problem IS your involvement then more involvement isn't going to stop the problem.
pods
It pains me to see service-members make those type of statements. Meanwhile, the ones who figure it out find that suicide is the only path to a coherent existence.
Me too. I know plenty of former army and marine types. Most of them make statements like "we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" There is no convincing them otherwise.
There is absolutely no plan to "fix it." Whenever people say we have to stay until it's fixed, all I hear is the standard government line for every problem — "We have to do something!!!" They just want to fling shit at the wall and hope something sticks.
The unpopular truth: For many people, it's more about saving face at this point than anything else.
This isnt news. This is simply the US MO. We have been doing this for 70 years. This is what happens when our elected officials are stripped of their authority and War is never declared.
President MIC
Oh, really? Let me ask you veterans of Iraq a little question:
Matthew Sinsigalli
Chris Schuster
Keith Widaman
William "BJ" Ganem
Did ya'all vote Republican before you were deployed? Did you vote for Bush? Are you still voting Republican?
Enough said. Shut the fuck up. You are the reason we went to Iraq.
Vote third party, guys, or you have NO credibility at this point.
There is no 3rd party. Why the fuk did RP run as a repug? No viable 3rd party..........
I'm a Marine Corps Infantry vet. I've been a registered Independent since 18. I've voted for both sides of the isle to no effect. I've come to the conclusion the the federal government does not represent me, nor you, nor any citizen. The federal government looks after it's own best interests, which are corporate best interests when it suits them, or voting block interests when it suits them. For over 20 years, I've voted against incumbents from Dog Catcher on up to President.
For you to say that it is simply because of a vet's vote that they personally went to some godforsaken shithole is a strawman at best. You know better. I know for certain that my Gunny didn't premise his assignments based on voting history.
"Sovietski." Look it up.
I can't find a viable definition of the term after a quick search. Does this mean "Soviet-like"? And if so, were you implying that the term applies to me or the poster preceding me?
The Free Shit Army has several divisions:
I'd say 90% of people "earning" an income in the USofA fall somwhere in the infantry structure of the greater Free Shit Army
Before; a viable country. After; shambles. We win!
British General Mike Rose predicted it in 2006. He as good as said it was a defeat in 2006, and said an admission of defeat was required. Then in 2007, he said Iraq was an "hopeless" case.
But then again, admissions of defeat can't be expected from the former alliance for good known as NATO.
Blueprint for America?
Arm terrorists overseas, call them rebels.
Attempt to disarm Americans, call those who resist, terrorists.
Tasmania doesn't work so well here, however, does it NWO?
Sounds like a twist on Bay of Pigs.
And as you say, never works well...anywhere.
@alexacojones, does your formula carry over to all "terrorists" or just those terrorists that are "more equal" (h/t to Orwell)?
Since I am now a "terrorist" (an American with lots of guns in the bottom of a lake), does that mean MIC/CIA/.gov is going to arm me with M-16s, Tanks, and Blackhawks too? Yahoo, Christmas in June!
Not slamming you but just taking this absurd situation into the realm of the really absurd. Man what a shit show this is, and what a farce we have become. Evil is the only word that I can think of.
I feel sorry for the military personnel who belatedly "wake up," for instance, like Smedley Butler did, especially since things now are trillions of times worse than in his day and age.
I feel more sorry for the future of the human species as a whole, since apparently nothing can stop the runaway madness of apes with atomic bombs.
"I feel sorry for the military personnel who belatedly "wake up," for instance, like Smedley Butler did"
I do not.
They only seem to "wake up" after years of supporting the destructive criminal status quo, and almost always right about the time they either start recieving their VA pharma oxycontin/perocet/xanax/viagra deliveries and retirement checks in the mail.
Government is "men" (I call them that for lack of a better term) sitting in buildings with words on paper. And they are protected by guns. Lots and lots of fucking guns. Also atomic bombs.
Fuck em all.
Saddam was a stabilizing force in the zoo.
The Kuwaitis weren't worth saving in gulf war 1. A rapprochement would have been better ( if possible) than gulf war 2. The whole thing just made Iran stronger.
And the stupidest thing was overthrowing Qaddafy (after we flipped him)with al Queda types who are the supplied in Syria and Iraq.
Makes perfect sense if you work for Central Bankers.
Looking at photographs - Iraq has been rubbleized
h/t Dvorak News Blog
Thank you for your courage
I bet U.S. cities would go down just as easy.
'Muricans are so glued to their TVs and smartphones, they wouldn't even know anything was happening.
Bet you are wrong. A few thousand rag tag fanatics would get picked off by armed Americans befroe they got to the city limits. We may have an abundance of dumb, lazy, fat pfucks here, but they are generally well armed and violent.
dig up cheney
hell know what to do
He'd just try and shoot them during hunting season.
With a gun, not romantically, though maybe romantically too in private...given how cosy he is with the Arabs and all.
Oh, and Pat Tillman knew.
Get over it, CIA has other priorities.
The Iraqis have been bombing and shooting each other year after year ever since the invasion, so this is not a recent development or surprising in any way. It calmed down a little bit after the "insurrection" but it never stopped. Thousands dead annually. Their goals and methods have been reported in the press for years now. Instability in Syria provided them with weapons and combat experience and now they're putting them to good use. Even Assad can't root them out even when he has home advantage and isn't afraid of leveling entire neighborhoods in a desperate attempt to destroy them.
I didn't give it five years.
"I'm not sure we're understanding the problem happening in the Middle East," said Mr. Ganem, who lives in Reedsburg, Wis. "We need to spend time, step back and think about what the best approach is, what the root of the problem is."
Just so long as noone blames the MICC/neocons/Israel/multinational oil companies etc etc that is.
Exactly. And:
"For them to just drop and flee, that's disheartening to see after all the effort put into it when we were over there," he said. "To see that fall, a place where we lost friends, that's really a blow," said Mr. Sinsigalli…
The neocons’ and the State Department’s idea was to train the Iraqi Army so well that it could protect their puppet democracy. It’s difficult for Iraqi soldiers to defend something they don’t believe in, something that’s going to help you, and not them. I.E., what democracy? The last thing these people want is America.
IOW, we asked these people to fight for the oil companies, and Halliburton and GE and they just said “No.” It’s just not something they want to give their lives for.
Kurds could run the whole show just fine.
Every move America makes in the Middle East is to further the advance of Greater Israel. In the hot bed of factions, Britain, France and the US threw in a powder keg in the 1920s, Israel to fan the coals of the factions into flames, while the US and others continue to send in more and more superpower armaments.
Between Iraq and A Hard Place | LewRockwell.com
Butler Shaffer
Our consumer-friendly news outlets are informing us that the United States may be turning to – are you ready for this? – Iran for help in cleaning up America’s mess in Iraq! They haven’t told us, yet, whether this help will come before or after the psychopath John McCain gets his wish to nuke Iran! Nor have I heard any more chirping from Democrats – such as Jimmy Carter – about how criticism of Obama’s policies are just a cover for racism. I have also not heard – and don’t expect to from members of the toady media – how this Middle East atrocity is a bipartisan undertaking; the playing out of the Establishment’s agenda via its Bushobama operatives. Perhaps Dave Brat’s upset victory over Genghis Khan wannabe, Eric Cantor, was a tipoff that ordinary Americans are beginning to tire of the DC [Deranged Craziness] mindset that has destroyed a once free and productive country.
10:45 am on June 16, 2014
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/between-iraq-and-a-hard-place/
I'm sorry but if you truly went into Iraq believing you were building a nation or finding wmds or doing the good people of the middle East a solid or whatever.. Then that was pretty dumb.
I guess that if you went and weren't a complete and utter idiot you found out pretty soon. It must be an extra kick in the balls to see this come up as the result afterwards. I can respect that.. and you can't blame these guys for the failings of an entire system..but who can we blame, what will it do and will there be anything left to buy with our reparations money?
whats remarkeable about soldiers , esepcially the NCO class, is how little they are able to think for themselves. but , i think it's in part 1) a self selecting group of people from the general sheepulation that wants to follow orders and sees the black and white view of life that signs up for 2) a deeply indoctrinating process where once you are unleased into a warzone it takes substanial amount of time to see how things are NOT black and white. once a solider learns the basic truth, war being nothing but the military side of a massive socio-economic racket, it is as if they are having a revelation. because to them , the truth is not only a realization but a form of emotional shock, a psychological trauma like that of neo waking up after emerging from the matrix and vomitting when confronting his new reality. however, this 'realization' is not going to really change your average soldiers life for the better, nor make his life easier as a civilian trying to 'change the world' for the better. so in many ways its a hindrance. it is only amusing to parade around 'the soldier' as the proof of the 'real truth' , when in fact most of those 'solidiers' that were the kind to go into the military naively, and then upon discovering 'the truth' feel the need to speak out about it---are those soldiers are least embedded within the hierarchy to have anything meaningful to say about the 'truth'. those who are high up the hierarchy know better than to speak about the 'truth' publicly because they know the need to know about it is just a joke upon the general public. the public isn't going to do anything about the 'truth' until the 'truth' results in their starvation or death. so there's no need to get them up into a frenzy about the machiavellian reality of civilization wide competition we term 'the great game' when studying the past of this competition. in the present , the game is a matter of life and death. eat your heart out world cup.
everytime i see a succesful american coup, i scream 'goallllllll!!!!!!'
War is a lot of fun when you are 19 years old.
No, it's not. The IDEA of war and glory, maybe, but once you get into it, it is no fun at all......but it is stimulating.
I say as punishment, George Bush, Chaney, Rumsfield, Karl Rove are dropped in the middle of Iraq for the mess they created.
Mcain and Hillary are at the top of the short list that must go as well.
ok junk away those who care to...
WHEN WILL BRAINWASHED PROPAGANDIZED MOSTLY YOUNG AND POOR FOLK OF ALL RACES REALIZE THAT YOU R NOTHING MORE THAN MARKS FOR THE RULING ELITE WHEN YOU JOIN THEIR ARMED SERVICES....
when will you ever learn....THEY DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU OR THIS FUCKING COUNTRY...
Tear down the walls
To Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and gang I say: "YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT"
unfortunately they left the store and are unaccounted for...
so now Obama will have to deal with it. I dont think he will do anything spectacular but it will tarnish heavily on his status as outgoing prez for the remainder of his term.
Whoa wait, ObaMao just got surprised by all this and just got it 'dumped in his lap'? I thought the storyline was he is the Messiah with all the solutions to all this and the world would come together as 1 if he only got in there?
Abyss,
apparently for you
Libya, Syria, fearmongering and economic war against Iran, Gitmo, drones, renditions, support for a certain apartheid country, support for the Saudis and the repression in Bahrain, AFRICOM, etc.
... none of that has anything to do with causing turmoil in the Mideast,
and certainly nothing of the kind was done during Obama's reign,
... so he's off the hook.
lol
Yes, tarnished. That's the word I was looking for. This asshole had created more confusion, chaos and destruction than even I imagined upon his first election. He has been funding, training and encouraging the very "rebels" that are currently invading and murdering in Iraq today. Tarnished? yes, that is about the color of dried blood.
One can't help but wonder what wonderful treaty he ultimately negotiates with the new Muslim caliphate.
Obama has had to live with Bush's Iraq shit, but then he turned around and occupied and fucked Afghanistan, so there is no feeling sorry for him either. Fuck all of them.
Legacies, such legacies.
Yup,
Pat Tillman started writting letters home to mommy, letting her know the government was funding the "terrorists" and growing the opium... And we all know what happened after that... " War is the biggest racket"
In zone intelligence has long said that the military visitors have no idea where they are, or the social-political rules that apply. The US made one big error, going there in the first place and thinking they were doing something helpful. It might as well have been the Moon. Probably will be like the moon in just a year or so. Three campaigns as a COL in intelligence and I did'nt learn a thing.
The biggest mistake we can make is to assume we know ANYTHING. The older I get the more I think wisdom is not so much accumulated knowledge as much as the understanding of how little any of us really know.
Too soon old, too late smart.
Time ro start rounding-up the neo-cons - starting with Wolfowitz
"rounding-up"...those words are always so heartwarming to tyrants everywhere. But I'm sure you meant it in the nicest way possible.
Apologies if my phraseology offends your tender sensibilities.
After all, extinguishing the lives of a million+ Iraqis - on a false pretext - is not that big a deal... is it?
you have to understand: "rounding up" people is only offensive if it's talking about rounding up americans. If we're rounding up brown people, well then it's just defending democracy.
Brown people...now that's funny.
Who is it running our government now? Its always got to be about race, don't it? It can't be just a bunch of miserable people of all colors enjoying a good bit of murder, now can it? It seems to me that most people spend most of their time killing people who look just like themselves. Nobody has killed more Muslims than Muslims, same for supposed Christians, and my god, look at black people of all nations!
Of course it is probably all due to some evil white man or even worse, Jew, whispering evil shit in their ear, just making them do bad things while enjoying it.
Lets go round some assholes up and show them what justice looks like. What do ya think? Just a little more killing can't hurt, can it?
Shit, we aint' rounding up anybody. HRC is going to be the next president...to thunderous applause. Wolfie and his posse were salesmen. Anyone who bought their story isn't fit to lead.
00O just dispatched an additional 100 Marines to the embassy.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/marines-protect-embassy-tensions-ris...
Since ancient times it was just common knowledge to avoid at all costs foreign entanglements, in particular in the Mid East.
Right, but that was prior to derivatives, HFT and Obamacare.
Now that risk can be magically conjured or dissipated things are 100% synthetically in control indefinitely.
Look around, Dog, the rags-ethos is coming to the riches. I know, the answer is to suspend the rules for the rich, widen their lead and try to brainwash the rags think they will get something... anything.
They only hate you for your freedom, not mine.
nam 2.0; now lets start making cool propaganda movies about how it was all a cluster fuck and we really won, and it wasn't our fault; and whatever...
In the Middle East everyone is our enemy. Even people who willingly take our guns and ammo and promise to fight with us.
Friends and allies aren't those who accept bribes, but those who share convictions. Who might that be in the Middle East?
Do the Saudi's or the Israelis follow constitutional principles or worship our Bill Of Rights? Do they treat their minorities with respect? Do they allow their locals the freedom of transportation? Freedom of religion maybe?
What makes any of them our friends? Agreement around the fact that oil and gold are valuable commodities? Well, as much as I hate bringing Hitler into this, him and the Jews both agreed the gold was valuable. I'd hardly call'em buddies.
Islamic nations are getting increasingly nervous over our public beatings of former allies. Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam. Same hand, metaphorically speaking, tied the noose around his neck. Berlusconi posed with Gheddafi, then called in support for air strikes.
Pakistan and Syria experienced a series of policy flip-flops as well.
Try finding any allies with that track record. We've destroyed whatever little credibility we've had and now it's blowback time, full scale.
The next event I'm anticipating is the full evacuation of our mega embassy in Iraq. That mission is itching to get accomplished.
Agree on the evacuation, because if ISIS gets anywhere near the embassy, even the elites won't have the political capital to say "do nothing," because it would be Benghazi but with a lot more Americans getting killed and quite possibly beheadded on film or partially eaten.
But I haven't seen or heard of "the video" yet. Hasn't all of this come about due to some disrespectful video somewhere?
"it would be Benghazi but with a lot more Americans getting killed and quite possibly beheadded on film or partially eaten."
GOOD!
"For them to just drop and flee, that's disheartening to see after all the effort put into it when we were over there," he said. "To see that fall, a place where we lost friends, that's really a blow," said Mr. Sinsigalli, who left the Army in 2004.
Did you leave before or after this one got underway?!!!
Hey Matt
The Iraqi people want to thank you personally for all your effort... They cordially invite you to go fuck yourself!
So sick and tired of the traumatic brain injured (code speak) for fucked up murderer with free will to do otherwise in the U.S. military that raped, tortured and killed more than a million of them who now step back in judgment saying that they served their Country honorably after what you did and kept doing with impunity when you knew it was a crime against humanity and based on the worst of all lies...
Hope you and the rest of us pay dearly for what we did and are still doing to them in this and the next life -if we are unfortunate enough to have a next one that is!
A million is not even a plausible number. Grape or Cherry?
the fact of the matter is there is no real way of knowing since the US does not count the civilians it has killed. That said, I would find it far easier to believe a number in the 1 million range than the reported official "estimates" which are in the neighborhood of 125k, which strike me as complete bullshit.
Madeleine Albright never disputed the figure of 500,000 dead Iraqis due to the Clinton-era sanction policies. That can be added to all the other death estimates.
actually, that was "dead Iraqi children"....to be precise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo&feature=kp
CBS: "...that's more than the number of children that died in Hiroshima. Was it worth it?"
M.A. : "...yes, we think it's worth it"
American exceptionalism...killing half a million children to provide cheaper gas for american drivers. The children are dead...we're still waiting for the cheaper gas.
OK, how many were murdered, raped and collaterally damaged?
Is that lesser number, say tens of thousands, more OK to you?
Straw man. I never claimed there was any good #, only that a million is absurd. Nice try.
These complainers all enlisted. Unfortunately, that makes them the biggest suckers of all.
What the hell did they think they were getting into, equities?
They weren't training warriors, the first lesson when training Iraqis was not to hold hands with other "soldiers."
Every one of these complainers will vote to send their kids off to the grinder, too.
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" --John Lydon
Gee, come in and draw lines on a map through generational tribal lands and call it a country (last century). What could possible go wrong?
Mcmolotov: There is absolutely no plan to "fix it."
Truer words were never written here. For the Globalist...it is fixed. It's fucked up and that's exactly how they want it. Now they can play it.
Mr Tony Blair gave a long-ish TV interview yesterday on Sky News.
He came out fighting and flatly denied that the US/UK 2003 invasion created the unrest in Iraq today because it would have happened anyway. To hammer home his point, he now believes we should send in the troops again to quell the unrest, because - according to him - the insurgents there will drag us in anyway whether we like it or not.
London Mayor Boris Johnson described Blair's comments as "unhinged".