This is a country that will never be a democracy and will never end hostilities within its borders. It's made up of three basic factions: two crazy nutjob religious groups that can't stand each other (Sunnis and Shiites) and terrorist extremists.
Yet it was relatively stable under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein until Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of these far rightwing military geniuses decided to use 9/11 as an excuse to lie us into attacking, occupying and destabilizing it.
Remember all the blatant lies about "weapons of mass destruction," "ties to 9/11" and "smoking guns"? Those words were drummed into the heads of Congress and the American people to gin up approval for the Unnecessary War Against the Wrong Country, also known as the War to Make Dick Cheney's Halliburton a Fortune.
Yes, we temporarily took over some of the cities in Iraq. But we were not about to stay there forever. Whether we left in 2011, 2012, or waited until 2018, whenever we left, the extremists, terrorists and religious nutjobs were going to create chaos once again.
And of course, now the rightwing blowhards are putting this on President Obama's doorstep. See how it is with Republicans? Lie us into an unnecessary war, destabilize the country, make a mess, walk away and blame it on the next guy.
What's he supposed to do? Put troops on the ground and start all over again? Nuke them? Use air strikes? Diplomacy? Sanctions? No matter what these rightwing chickenhawks demand, if the President does it, they'll immediately run to the cameras and deny it was their idea in the first place. (See the recent post about John McCain. He's a classic case of this mental disorder.)
And what's with the Iraqi army? Are these the dumbest, most cowardly people on Earth?
In the US military, "basic training" can run anywhere from 8-12 weeks. That's it. Unless you need specialized training, you're good to go.
Why were we told, year after year, that we needed to keep US troops in Iraq to continue training Iraqi soldiers? How many years does it take to get these people trained? Iraq must be the only country on Earth where you can spend years and years in training, and then retire having accomplished absolutely nothing.
This week many of the Iraqi troops dumped their uniforms, abandoned all the expensive equipment we handed them, and ran from a much smaller contingent of extremists who are now taking over one city after another. So why did we spend so many years training them and giving them billions of dollars in equipment? Are we supposed to stay there and babysit them forever?
And what's with these rightwing politicians who are always looking to cut unemployment benefits, welfare, school funding, kids' meals, food for the elderly and Social Security (which completely funds itself) to save a million here and a million there -- yet they're suddenly not worried about the deficit when they start salivating about spending hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars in Iraq again?
We have to take food from Americans living in poverty, and we can't afford to rebuild crumbling schools, highways and bridges, but there's always a few hundred billion for Iraq?
And what's with Iraq's "democratically elected" puppet leader Maliki we've been propping up? This is the guy who kept insisting the US troops should leave and "stop occupying" his country. Couldn't wait to push us out the door. Now he's in a panic because these insurgents are overrunning his useless army. And of course now he wants help from the very people he kicked out.
I say don't spend another dime on this shithole. And don't risk another American life.
Unfortunately, President Obama has to be more diplomatic than I do. And he knows there are American interests at stake, including
I say let it fall apart. It's going to anyway, sooner or later, now or in 20 years. And get ready for the same thing to happen in Afghanistan, another hotbed of crazies.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
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