Iraq pleads for US troops
The Washington Times reports that the Iraq government has asked the US to return ground forces to that country with the forces of ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State bearing down on Baghdad;
Iraqi officials are worried the Pentagon will not be keen to send U.S. soldiers back to an area once dubbed “the graveyard of the Americans” in Anbar Province. In 2004, U.S. troops fought the Battle of Fallujah in Anabar province, the bloodiest battle involving American troops since the Vietnam War.
[…]
Regardless, government officials believe that if the province were to fall to the radical Islamic Fighters, then it would be a strategic launching point for a full-force attack on Baghdad.
Yeah, no shit.
At the Military Times, they report that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif says that he knows military commanders who have asked the President for boots on the ground;
“If we don’t put boots on the ground, we can’t form the coalition, we can’t retake ground that needs to be taken and held.
“I know that they’ve asked for more than they’ve been given,” McKeon said Wednesday evening on CNN.
His blunt comments came a few hours after the president huddled with top military commanders at the Pentagon.
McKeon offered Obama some advice as he mulls what he heard during his first Pentagon visit since 2011: “It is time that he’d follow their advice.
He’d be better off talking to Valerie Jarret. There won’t be any combat troops on the ground in Iraq until after the mid-term election. Trust me. My guess is the rest of the 1st Division and a brigade from the 82d will be headed there by Christmas.
Category: Politics
If this wasn’t so sad, it’d be funnier than attending John Giduck’s tactical training.
Send John Giduck there, he could train them in the art of shovel warfare… if he refuses to go, then make him publicaly admit his phony claims were just that, phony, and that he lied about the vast majority of his experiences. Can’t win either way.
Do the same thing with Dennis Howard Chevalier, send him to Iraq. He could give them M9 training and gain some experience that he could brag about. ISIS better have a lot of cheese if they believe that they’ll capture him.
In fact, give all these phonies, with phony tactical experiences claims, an opportunity to go to Iraq to fight ISIS.
And where are those on the left telling everyone that Iraq would stand on its own when US troops pulled out??
“After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011,” he said. “So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.” -Obama, 2011
yet Now??
Asked if he had any “regrets” about not leaving a residual force in Iraq, Obama advised reporters to “Keep in mind, that wasn’t a decision made by me. That was a decision made by the Iraqi government.”
– Obama,2014
Couldn’t tell the truth if his ( or American service members ) life depended upon it.
Roger your last.
“And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs.”
That was Kerry on a talking head show in 2005. It would seem that Iraq would very much like those horrible American terrorists back, Johnny, you POS. Oh. And can we dig up the other Johnny–ABSCAM Murtha– and make him watch this horror show in Iraq?
All this wringing of hands is just that. War is defined as imposing one nation’s will upon another nation. My nation lacks the collective will to defeat Jihadism. Without doubt, we possess the capability. Until our nation collectively understands the prescient fact that these criminal jihadists will eventually attack our nation again, why the fuck bother? Can’t commit to total war, America? Don’t send troops in harms way to “do something”. Half-assing military intervention because it’s a ‘politically viable’ alternative to decisive action is probably a waste of our blood and treasure.
“Rome did not fall until her freed men gave up the will to fight!”
I don’t remember who came up with that, but the meaning is as applicable today as it was throughout history.
Damn skippy!
After the elections huh? Well in that case, what are the ROE’s? and what are the objectives before we go in, don’t send them if you aren’t going to let them go after ISIS and completely destroy them, no mercy, no feeling guilty when it happens!
what a joke and an insult
I’m no strategic planner, but it seems to me that the common sense thing to do is send in one bombing run after another.
By bombing run, I mean the big B-52s loaded to the gills with large, heavy payloads at high altitudes. Dump the boms in the proverbial carpet bombing pattern, return to base for more and continue until there is rubble and dirt and not much else. Not even goats.
Since we already supposedly know the areas controlled by the ISers, those should be the first targets, followed by general bombing.
If there is anything left and it’s wearing black or flying the black flag, shoot it. Shoot to kill.
That is all.
(Yes, I am fed up with this SH & IT.)
Why use up plane loads of conventional explosives when we could use a tactical nuke or three? Start with a few 5-10 kiloton hits, and if that doesn’t shut them up, turn their hideouts into a glowing sheet of glass!!
Area, square mileage, is too wide open for nukes. With conventional bombs, as others have pointed out who were in Vietnam during Rolling Thunder, carpet bombing was not just devastating, you also felt the shock wave from a great distance and the after-effects – large craters, for exanple – are still there.
Ex-PH2…Thank you and thank you again! Yes, carpet bomb with the newest, deadliest ordnance we have until it’s rubble and then bomb the rubble until it bounces several times over. THEN…make it known that NOW the ground forces will be coming and anything left alive WILL be hunted down and killed until they are all gone, gone, gone! Do not toy with these sadistic murderers anymore. All out war campaign or nothing. If it is nothing, then evacuate our embassy and all personnel now and tell them if they export their terrorism beyond Iraq, the bombing will come, mercilessly. I only offer the last scenario because I know the weak kneed, hand wringing, cowardly administration dealing with this.
Maybe drop one big nuke and tell them if they don’t knock that sh#!##$$t off, there’s plenty more where that came from… because you know it’s true. 🙂
You don’t really believe we got rid of all our nukes, do you? Neither did Vlad Putin.
I see your point about carpet bombing, I’m also for unleashing a volley of “Daisy Cutters” as well as a few MOABs!
Nuke the fuckers, then hose the glass with VX, then carpet-bomb it, then napalm the craters.
That just might do it.
The Glorious Leader lines to talk about a “nuclear-free world” all the time (he must be smoking the GOOD shit if he actually thinks the Russians, Chinese, et al would ever go along with that). This plan would get rid of a few warheads…
You left out the Brits, the French, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Norks (don’t giggle, they have them); and most likely the Iranians are close to building a test bomb. And yeah, the Russians still have them, despite the dismantling of most USSR-era stuff.
Nuclear-free world? Only when we revert to the stones and spears warfare armaments.
Proud I and Sparks: Short answer is because the Chump in Chief is lacking in intestinal fortitude, or for the benefit of any Marines reading the blog, he has no balls.
Jonn, is this the same Iraq that released a few terrorists that killed GI’s over the objection of our government?
“…for the benefit of any Marines reading the blog, he has no balls.”
That’s fucked up.
I chuckled.
Well, we do require special translations from time to time…
He has no respect for the rule of law and precedent.
There. Took care of the lawyers.
“There won’t be any combat troops on the ground in Iraq until after the mid-term election. Trust me. My guess is the rest of the 1st Division and a brigade from the 82d will be headed there by Christmas.” Why you may ask? Because for Obama, politics are far more important than American lives lost. Knowing that ISIS has pretty good intel on our President and his lack of plans and that those he does come up with, he will gladly share with them from the teleprompter. By mid-term elections ISIS could be outside of Baghdad. Or even in the throws of combat taking Baghdad. They know full well Obama will sit on his hands for a couple more months before he comes up with another great “coalition” speech. You know, the ones when he says how we are STILL forming one and we have the support of several Arab nations already in the bombing of goat herds and the occasional truck. Meanwhile it seems the roads filled with convoys of tanks, APCs and artillery are invisible to the satellites and the pilots have probably been told, “hey, if you guys see big convoys, it could be refugees so lay off them.” Pilots ask, “Sir, the convoy I observed and flew over was ALL tanks, APCs, ground troops and artillery. What do we do for those Sir. I mean they are prime warfare opportunities, out in the open.” Strike Commander, “Well, from much higher up, the word is those APCs COULD have refugees in them or carrying relief aid, so mums the word on them and top brass says to lay off. Got that Captain! ALL OF YOU, listen up, all of you GOT THAT TOO??!!” A chorus of, “Sir, Yes Sir”. Then as they leave the pre-flight briefing heading to the suit up lockers the talk is, “So what the hell are we doing here? Everyone of us has watched those convoys and always the same answer on call in for strike, No Joy! Are we actually going to bomb something that makes a difference or just continue to… Read more »
I didn’t know you were training for the Boston Marathon.
Ex-PH2…Yea Ex, you see my plan is to start BIG, that way when one of my replacements knees blows out of socket at the quarter mile mark or before, I can say, “Yea, there I was in the Boston Marathon and wouldn’t you know it, my knee gives out”. Everyone will assume I’ve been running for years and it’s awful this happened to me then. Wow, do I know how to suck for sympathy or what? 😀
Maybe you could leech even more if you talked about how you’re a “100% disabled LRP trail assassin”, too. 😉
Screw Baghdad. All that blood and treasure expended, and Baghdad threw it all away. Baghdad can go straight to the Hot Place.
And the same goes for Turkey.
Arm the Peshmerga to the teeth. Long live Kurdistan!
Every pissant regime in the region is trying to get nukes except the Kurds. That’s not really fair now, is it? In the interest of leveling the playing field, give the Kurds an annual allowance of tactical nukes to utilize as they see fit.
Don’t forget to stamp “Best if used by” dates on the warheads we give them.
Works for me!
I have a few questions for any of you who served in Iraq. What would happen if the Baghdad airport fell to ISIS? It has been reported that ISIS fighters are about 8 miles from the airport and now have MANPADS. Should Baghdad be in danger of falling, how would we even mount a rescue of our troops there? Would we be able to invade from Saudi Arabia with less manpower than we used during our last invasion? While not as large as Saddam’s forces ISIS seams better lead and more likely to resist us than the last time. If Baghdad falls is it over for Iraq like it was for Saigon? I am getting a strong feeling of deja vous here.
We would still be able to get in there. This is why the 82nd exists. They fly in, drop and secure the airport, allow follow on forces and heavy equipment to flow in. A mission like that is right up the 82nds alley.
Perhaps a better idea would be to dress several thousand West African Ebola corpses in black dresses and salt the battlefield with them. When we have an Ebola immunization drug we can go back and pump out all of their oil. Once it is gone there will no reason for the world to deal with them again.
I think we’ll still be able to get our people out. If the airport falls, there are still airfields in the area that can be traveled to via overland. And, of course, the airport can be seized by the 82nd/any battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment. As for whether the fall of Baghdad will be game over for non-ISIS Iraq; probably not. It would be a huge blow, but it wouldn’t be analogous to Saigon. Remember that after Saigon fell, the NVA controlled about three quarters of South Vietnamese territory and all of its major cities and ports. Also, virtually all of its military forces had been defeated except for a demoralized and long unpaid redoubt force in the Mekong Delta with no means of resupply. Finally, the population throughout the south regarded themselves as being one nation with the north, a sentiment that is not felt between the Iraqi Sunnis and the Shiites. As a result, there wasn’t nearly as much antipathy towards the idea of North Vietnamese occupation as the Shiites undoubtedly feel towards the prospect of ISIS occupation. The South Vietnamese military government was also almost universally despised as a corrupt, incompetent force within the country it governed. The South had no meaningful allies toward the end (what with the 1974 Congress blocking any aid to the theater), and every nation surrounding them (China, Laos, and Cambodia, which had by this time mostly fallen to the Khmer Rouge) was hostile. Iraq is a completely different game. They have the powerful and completely Shiite power of Iran on their border who will absolutely intervene if Baghdad or the Shiite holy city of Karbala should fall, as well as at least tacit support from the West. If Baghdad falls, there will also still be hundreds of miles of Shiite heartland in southeast Iraq between ISIS and its goal of conquering Iraq. Shiite Iraq will still have ports on the Persian Gulf, and it will have access to trade through Iran. It will also control extensive oil resources, so it’ll still have a steady revenue stream in between that/foreign aid;… Read more »
They’re within 8 miles of BIAP? Goddamit, the hot tub we had in our work area (I was a plumber) is in danger of being taken by ISIS?! Aw, hell no!
As you can see, I could give two fucks about the Iraqi government that brought this shit on themselves and the Iraqi army that was too cowardly to stand and fight when they had the bad guys outnumbered 10-1. If the decision is made to go after ISIS, I am hoping against hope that our troops will not be shackled by stupid ROEs. However, I think we all know what will happen if this administration sends combat troops to Iraq.
Of course the Glorious Leader will send more troops after the election. He’ll just order them to leave their weapons, ammo, and flak jackets here. Since, you know, they’re not going over there in a “combat” role.
I wouldn’t go back. Kinda hard to tell troops to “keep pushing forward, don’t give up” when all their sarifice is going to be thrown away by a feckless selfish american electorate.
Can’t say I blame Iraqis who also don’t want to trust America. We threw alot of their “better” countrymen under the bus so Obama could get a 3 point bump in opinion polls.
Doesn’t help when these very Iraqis America has been ‘training’ for the past decade immediately cut and run when faced with the possibility of fighting ISIS. In doing so, leaving US weapons and equipment ISIS has gladly taken advantage of.
Question for ISIS and radical Muslims out there.
Apparently you guys have two roads to Allah heaven.
Road 1. Be a terrorist, strap on a bomb and kill as many innocent people as possible to get to heaven and have your 72 virgins.
Road 2. Be a virgin, strap on a bomb and kill as many innocent people as possible to get to heaven and give eternal pleasure to some guy who took Road 1.
How about a Road 3.
Road 3. Read you Koran, worship Allah, say your prayers five times a day, love your neighbor as yourself, live in peace with neighbors who are not Muslim and then go to heaven. Maybe without the virgins but heaven is probably better than your idea of hell. But I think the only road for to hell option is converting and becoming…an Infidel.
Think about it you Muslims out there, since I know some of you are tasked with reading blogs to stay current on all things American and infidel and such.
However, in the end, in just my one humble opinion here, until you “peace loving Muslims”, where ever the hell YOU are, stand up and shout and condemn terrorism and all your “brothers” committing it, as loudly as the rest of Islam is shouting for “death to America and death to Israel”, then you’re all better off…dead in my mind. Sorry folks I know that sounds harsh but I am rather fed up with looking at down the loaded end of a weapon and being told, “Hey, not to worry, the safety is still on”. By our administration and our very own, worldwide Muslim apologist, Obama.
My sentiments exactly, Sparks! Another issue I think of is their call for their goat-molesting fleabag brethren to assault ME Vets and their families which I have two thoughts about. One, I AM NOT restricted by ROE’s here in the USA like I was in the ME, and if they decide to mess with me or my family, may GOD have mercy on them if he sees fit, BECAUSE I WON’T!!
A Proud Infidel®™…R.O.G.E.R. T.H.A.T!!!!!
Addendum. Okay, I can hear how my post above sounded harsh and came down badly on Muslims as a whole. Especially in America. Here’s my issue though. The supposed “silent majority of peace loving Muslims” especially in America are and have been just that…deathly silent! They go to their 501(c)3, tax exempt Mosques (No infidels allowed and if they are, they are seated in an anteroom out of earshot of the Imam’s words and all prayers. That’s the truth folks, of experiences in Mosques where I live.) There they proclaim “death to Israel and even death to America”, as we know it, on a weekly basis and then collect donations to help other “peace loving Muslims” around the world. Shown, more than once, that many times these funds are funneled through enough hands and banks that it does not show up in the end result, hands of ISIS or like minded groups around the globe. They then have their prayers which are for the day America is ruled by Sharia Law and then leads the rest of the known universe into Sharia Law. (After all, we have to consider those Infidel Martians and Venusians who need converting as well, or else it’s all out interplanetary Jihad!) I ended that with a note of sarcasm which may have taken away from the valid, in my mind anyway, question of where these “peace loving Muslims” in America truly stand. Is it with us or against us. In words, actions and deeds AND the glaring lack of those, I believe they have already made quite well known where they stand. It is not for the American Constitution which guarantees their free speech and assembly. It is, again, my one opinion here folks, “silently”, against our foundational beliefs in our free Republic, our Constitution and religious freedom for all. I guess I will end by saying, I wish the Muslims in America would say something aloud and public. Either stand up, as a collective faith, nationwide and loudly denounce terrorism by any other Muslims and then keep resounding that herald, until it is well… Read more »
I think it’s very clear that Islamists reject the part about “love your neighbor as yourself,” even if it is acknowledged by actual Muslim scholars to be fundamental to Islam. http://www.acommonword.com
This is not just a sin, it is plainly what we call blasphemy.
This is a 2013 sermon by Dr. Adnan Irahim with english subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D-2oQONdAU
This is what the Saudi King had to say about Hamas
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/02/Saudi-King-Publicly-Blames-Hamas-for-Gaza-War
If you are a Muslim that thinks Hamas and ISIS are the “in the path of Allah, then you deserve not only death, but also damnation, under both the teachings of the Catholic Church, but also Islam.
Sometimes I contemplate “what-if” historical scenarios, one is “What if mohammed never founded islam?”, then I remember the Bible chapter of Gideon after he destroyed a temple to baal. The followers of that cult first came demanding for Gideon to be put to death, the rest is written in the Good Book. I sometimes wonder if islam had never been founded,then these days we’d be fighting against baal cultists instead?
The Powers-That-Be continue to insist that “we are not at war with Islam.” Unfortunately, they didn’t check with the radical Muslims, who are most definitely at war with us.
In the end, I believe that we in the West will triumph, if our “leaders” can ever pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and actually DO something. When the West triumphs over radical Islam, those few radicals who survive need look no farther than the nearest mirror when trying to find who to blame for their condition.
After all, THEY started it. Given proper leadership, WE can – and will – finish it.
Let us not forget the Million Muslim March, conducted by the decent Muslims who detest what these terrorists are doing in the name of Islam and who identify themselves as Americans first, last, and always. Yep, just as soon as it happens, I won’t forget it.
2/17 Air Cav…I started reading your post and was getting kind of upset that my two posts above had been quite of line.
Then…I read your last sentence. I thought at first glance, “where was I when this Million Muslim March happened!?”. But yea, I’m with you. When it does happen I’ll have to be there in person to believe it. I wouldn’t even take Fox News’ word for it.
I would not send any troops back. I served on a MITT team in 07-08 in the Fob Caldwell area. The soldiers were at best lazy and only interested in what they could get for free or steal. And when they were faced with a real threat like ISIS they folded like a ladder. Just go in a bomb all the tanks, artillery and armored vehicles you can find. If the Iraqi people will not fight, well ok you get what you deserve. I agree with some of you about the nuke option. By the way what is the flight time for a ICBM from North Dakota to Baghdad???
Well….lets see…Minuteman III.
Boost phase: 3-5 minutes
Mid course phase: about 25 minutes
Re-entry phase: about 2 minutes
So, about 30 minutes give or take a few…enough time to shower, toss in a load of laundry, and toss some popcorn in the microwave in time to catch the main even on the evening news.
Or, for those that are all about instant gratification…a Trident II launched from a Sub in or around the Gulf region will reduce wait time to about 12 minutes.
WOPR: Would you like to play a game? ISIL: Yes,Thermonuclear War. WOPR:How about a nice game of chess? ISIL:No!! We want Thermonuclear War!!. WOPR: OK,you asked for it,you got it!!
Watch that first move. It’s a doozy!