US may arm Kurds
Finally some common sense in our involvement in our third incursion into Iraq. It looks like the Obama Administration may be helping to arm the Kurds so they can turn back the Islamic State’s forces in their region, according to the Associated Press;
U.S. officials insisted they could only sell arms to the government in Baghdad, even after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki broke a written promise to deliver some to the Kurds. Their peaceful, semiautonomous northern region had been the lone success story to come out of the 2003 U.S. invasion.
The U.S. has resisted arming the Kurds because Washington’s aim is to keep Iraq united. A strong Kurdish army could hasten independence for the Kurds.
Yeah, but they had no problem arming the Islamic State when they were Syrian rebels. They could have broken their little boycott of the Kurds when ISIS/ISIL took Fallujah and signaled their intentions and capabilities but then someone might have thought they knew what they were doing in that case. Or they could have armed the Kurds a few weeks ago instead of dithering away precious time on the golf course. Let’s hope that the Departments of Defense and State can arm the Kurds while the president and his family are at Martha’s Vineyard without his guidance.
While the US government struggles with a viable political strategy, so does America. In another Associated Press article reporters catch quotes from Americans and no one really knows what to do at this point, which only highlights the need to finish what we start.
This is our third incursion into Iraq, through the terms of four presidents who’ve had to deal with the complexities of Iraqi politics, and, with hindsight being 20/20 vision, it’s clear that it all could have been avoided in 1991 if the politicians had stopped listening to what the American public (and the American press) thought and just dealt with Iraq to a successful conclusion. American public opinion doesn’t win wars.
Category: Terror War
‘May arm the Kurds’.
Well, it’s a step in the right direction, but is it too little and too late?
Someone please ‘splain to me, when you have a chance, what the hell is wrong with those people in WDC. Thanks.
Simple, they are a bunch of communist sympathizers who hate this country and support anyone who hates us as well.
They’re professional narcissistic politics whose only care is personal gain.
Just don’t hand them through Maliki’s hands again. What a bunch if dumb asses to think Maliki would send them to the Kurds. Send them directly there this time and screw Maliki and the Iraqi Boy Scouts, I mean Army.
I hear that!!
Maliki has broken more than one written promise and a lot of verbal ones over the years. The Kurds are more disciplined and able to grasp concepts that have not sunk in elsewhere yet. Arm them now, clandestinely or openly, and give them a fighting chance. It’s the smart and right thing to do — which means it is not likely to be done by DC.
I agree.
+1
Don’t forget the main thing about this whole thing, it is only going to happen IF it makes oblowme look good…
This entire country has to accept the fact that we are only on this Earth to make him look good.
He doesn’t care about the Kurds and only tossed a couple ff 500 lb bombs because he had to make sure that we all understood how great of a leader he is…
I totally agree with you. I am a kurd and know the situation very well. I can not understand why the US is so much against us. Mr Obama supported the central Iraqi government against us in the last 4 years. Even, now when our country is attacked by American weapons in the hand of ISIS (originally given to the Iraqi government), the US is preventing us from selling our oil a tanker containing kurdish oil has been siezed in Texas, this is under the pretext that the oil was drilled without the approval of the central government of the corrupt Iraqi minster. This is despite the fact that the Kurdish share of the Iraqi budget has been stopped for the last 7 months.
As a Kurd, I wonder why Amercia is so much against us?
Saman, it isn’t America. It is the dipstick I keep referring to as bodaprez. He’s an idiot, a social moron and only interested in doing what makes him look good. Period.
Maliki and Masoum are butting heads with each other. Maliki is refusing to step down. They will have to solve that problem, and meantime, Baghdad is being threatened. We’ll see how this part plays out.
Saman. Yeah, well, as an American, I wonder why the American government is against me. As for that tanker, take your beef up with Iran. Me, I don’t see any good guys in the ME mess, only those who appear to be less bad than others.
B. Hussein 0bama & Company say they MAY arm the Kurds, but when have THEY ever kept their word?
Wait until the Aug. 25 – Aug 29 period. Let’s see if he breaks his word about ‘no boots on the ground’.
I don’t know if the ISers are more vicious than the Khmer Rouge and Vietcong, but according to this report, they have been burying women and children alive.
http://news.msn.com/world/islamic-state-killed-500-yazidis-buried-some-victims-alive-iraq
I think even Stalin had people shot before they were thrown into holes in the ground. The only other ‘people’ I can think of who were this vicious were the Nazis and the witch-hunters and Inquisition during the Middle Ages.
Sorry, guys, but I won’t stop harping on this subject until I get rid of my anger. There is no excuse for this bloodlust.
Harp away…. this is genocide, and the Golfer in Chief is off trying to improve his handicap.
The Kurds are the only ones out there that give a damn about their own soil and their people. They don’t cut and run like those other cowards. Arm them, support them.
Tman…We agree. The Kurds are the only folks in that region with any courage and sense of wanting a free homeland and being willing to fight and die for it. I say let’s help them with all we have and support them in every way. The Iraqis care more about being Muslim than being free. They are basically cowards who will toss their weapons and shed their uniforms and head back to the family goat herd at the first sign of a fight. That is if they aren’t turning their weapons on Americans. I am fed up with trying to “save” the Iraqis from their own ignorance. I am fed up with American lives being spent to help folks that don’t really want help. They want an American Army there to keep the peace for them while they continue to kill each other off because one prays differently from another. Help the Kurds and screw the Iraqis, forever.
Most of the people in that part of this world will change sides at the snap of one’s fingers, even in the middle of a firefight, look at recollections from the battlefields of A-stan after the Soviets left as one example. The Kurds are an obvious exemption to this, and thus my further contempt and disdain for B. Hussein 0bama & Company for their dillydallying on supporting them!
Amen Sparks. The Kurds are worth fighting for and helping. They are the only sane group in that hell hole.
Tell Maliki that every Apache, every tank, every rifle, every toilet paper roll in his inventory that’s made in the USA goes to the Kurds immediately, otherwise we’ll help ISIS crucify his ass.
I think after all the Kurds have suffered through they deserve they own damn weapons and shot at an independent state. God knows it would most likely be another successful state in the region that everyone hates on like Israel.
I’m sure you all know this already, but for those living in a media desert, the person I did NOT vote for is having a golf vacay at Martha’s Vineyard for two weeks.
http://news.msn.com/us/no-optical-illusion-obama-balances-world-crises-with-golf-time-off
But not to worry – he has all sorts of comm equpiment, etc., with him in case he has to be updated or make a phone call. Meantime, he’s out having dinner with friends and family at expensive restaurants and we’re trying to figure out how to pay the bills and put food on the table.
Wait til this gets really nasty. The whining and ‘do I have to?’ and ‘why me?’ will start.
Barack Hussein Obama doesn’t care about brown people!
Where are the outraged celebs at?
Whiny thin skinned Emperor can’t resist bashing Bush yet again…
Obama: “Bogus And Wrong” To Blame Me For Leaving Iraq
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/08/09/obama_bogus_and_wrong_to_blame_me_for_leaving_iraq.html
Remember his whiny little tantrum a few weeks ago, when he went to the southwest to view the illegal immigrant ‘problem’? ‘They blame me!’ he complained.
Mr. Whinypants is going to be a lot more childish before this is over. You know how little kids say ‘Do I HAVE to?’
It just gets better every time.
The Kurds are rescuing the Yazidi refugees
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/kurdish-rebels-yazidi-iraq-isis
Tman…and the hits just keep on spinnin’.
Sorry…I mistyped. My response above was intended for Devtun’s post and article not your Tman. Apologies all around.
I’m surprised the Kurds even bother with the United States any longer after decades of being left to slaughter after we promise them support. I don’t think this time it’s going to be any different. The President decided to go take a vacation right before 10’s of thousands were to be slaughtered due to his lack of care previously that could have prevented the situation in the first place.
And the news this morning, if you have not already seen it, is that the US is finally arming the Kurds directly.
http://news.msn.com/world/apnewsbreak-us-sending-arms-to-kurds-in-iraq
Apparently, someone opted for a dose of common sense, with plans for the Pentagon to send more directly to the Kurds.
Let’s hope and pray that this works.
I still think that air strikes on the generating plant at Mosul Dam, and on the transformer stations to ISer-held villages is a smart thing to do.
Ex-PH2 Thanks for the article. From said article, “U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, speaking to reporters here, said the airstrikes “have been very effective from all the reports that we’ve received on the ground.”
Really!!! Really!!! We hit a small convoy, a mortar emplacement and a piece of artillery. Wow. Now that’s showing them who’s boss. Hagel couldn’t find his butt with both hands and a mirror. This is usual “poll improvement” propaganda for Obama.
Sparks, I found out a long time ago that if you want to kill off cockroaches quickly, you need a non-toxic spray like Fantastick or 409 that has a wide dispersal.
The ISers are like cockroaches – very widespread, hiding in the woodwork, generating more members as they go, and they have already acquired a wide swath of villages in Iraq, never mind the rest of it.
I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but it’s somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000, so how will hitting a convoy and taking out 7 of those slimeballs have any real effect? Whatever our disgust is, they have to be destroyed but like the cockroach population in an infested building, you have to destroy THE NEST, or you’ve wasted your time and efforts.
Ooops! I know: awfully aggressive on my part this AM, but I deal with realities, not feel-good fantasies.
Ex-PH2…I disagree. You are NOT being awfully aggressive. If anything, you are not aggressive enough in my mind. I totally agree, since they hide in plain site among civilians who support them, then those civilians become combatants in my book and deserve the same treatment. Such as in Syria and Gaza. In Iraq, they are only becoming stronger each day. If we are going to bomb them, the bomb them back to the stone age. Leave nothing of them to fight with, men or equipment. Make the Iraqi flight on the highway from Kuwait back into Iraq look tame in comparison. As long as they see us as our president is, weak and cowardly, they will continue. His plan to hold them at bay but not destroy them, leaves Iraq waiting to fall. Next, Israel and then…American soil again. These people are animals, rabid animals of every variety. They need to be put down just like a rabid animal. No mercy and no stopping until they are gone. Period. I am not for killing innocent people at all, unlike these rabid animals we are trying to “reason with”. But like WWII, it took bombing European cities and Japanese cities to bring their will to fight to its knees. Enough of that and the civilians will either take up arms against these animals among them or we will still destroy the insurgents and the fallout will land as it will. They in Iraq have a choice here and always have. They, the “supposed peace loving, innocents” have always had the choice to take control of their nation and future. However if the best trained and equipped among them, the Iraqi Army are cowards who toss their weapons instead of fighting for freedom, then there is no changing of their “hearts and minds”. The hearts and minds are what we change after the insurgents are dead and gone and the country is perhaps left in waste because of the lack of will and courage of its citizens. After we destroy the insurgents, whatever that takes or looks like, then approach the “peace… Read more »
And guess what? Maliki not only refuses to step down from his post, he is now deploying special forces around Baghdad to keep it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/10/us-iraq-security-iduskbn0g808j20140810
What? You didn’t think Saddam Hussein could rise from his grave?
I fear that this – all of it – will not end well. Australia is going to start delivering supplies to the refugees.
Yep, that’s all they need now. A civil war among factions of the Iraqi Army. It’s bound to happen. So much for leaving them with a “democratic” form of government.
Remember bodaprez’s flat statement last week? ‘No (US) boots on the ground in Iraq?’
Okay. Well, sKerry Lurch just confirmed it on the noonday news: ‘No reintroduction of US troops in Iraq.’
Bodaprez said it, Lurch confirmed it.
Any bets on how long it takes them to retract those statements?