Iraq asks US to launch air strikes
Source: BBC
Iraq has formally called on the United States to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities.
"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey.
The announcement came after insurgents launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery north of Baghdad.
PM Nouri Maliki earlier urged Iraqis to unite against the militants.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27905849
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onehandle
(51,122 posts)To go back and convince half a percent of the 90,000+ Florida Nader voters to vote for Gore.
And save the world.
DhhD
(4,695 posts)money was available for Bush's War in Iraq.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/etc/script.html
This is a very informative video from Frontline. I have seen it on PBS.
Renew Deal
(81,896 posts)Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)and I don't think Nader voters should be made to feel bad for voting their conscience - the Democratic Party united with the Republicans to authorize the use of the military after 9/11 and didn't stand up for their principles until they saw that their decision to support the Bush regime was political poison.
I do think, however, that 9/11 would've never happened if Gore became president, and it was 9/11 which has put us in the horrible condition, internally and externally, we find ourselves in now.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)Al-Maliki lost his country because he refused to govern. He chose to exclude Kurds and Sunnis from government. He lost it. I'm sorry if tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will die but he has their blood on his hands.
I don't want another penny of our money or risking the lives of any of our military or civilians to save this hell hole.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)that it costs 1 million dollars per bomb
OnlinePoker
(5,729 posts)Some are fairly cheap (in the low thousands) whereas precision munitions would be a lot more expensive. Here is a wiki on the various munitions used by the AF. If you click on the actual type it will take you to another page which may or may not give price per item.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_of_the_United_States_Air_Force
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)since they started flooding into the area to fight against Assad's government in Syria. These radical Islamic zealots have always been the preferred proxy fighters for US intervention (at least since the Soviets were in Afghanistan), so naturally we looked the other way as they wreaked havoc upon Syria.
Unfortunately for Obama, these religious freaks have goals of their own, and now the US faces the prospect of supporting ISIS in Syria and bombing them to pieces if they cross the border into Iraq.
We've tied ourselves in knots once again and if the consequences of our leaders' stupidity weren't so dire, I'd be laughing my ass off.
The only folks who enjoy this constant warring are the military hardware makers who profit from it...
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It's provided breathing room to ISIS and the rest of the jihadi types. How short-sighted.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)If they want to kill one another until there are none left, let them at it. I am tired of it and really don't care about them. They have a religion that is used to defend killing and more killing. I'm not saying Islam actually allows it but millions of Muslims let their religion be hijacked to justify killings. If they sit silent then I have no empathy if they are killed as a result. Choices have consequences.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)If we had intervened, it would have been on behalf of the rebels (including ISIS), not Assad.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The CIA has been working with the Saudis and Qataris and Turks on arms shipments for several years.
We're providing training and limited supplies to the "good" rebels.
Our policy is to overthrow Assad. Our intervention has contributed to the weakening of the Syrian state, which has in turn provided breathing room for the jihadis. It's a cynical policy, especially given that Assad isn't going anywhere, and now it's coming back to bite us and ally in Iraq in the ass.
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)US is now in now. And who is to blame? Better not say...
karynnj
(59,508 posts)At worst, you could say that the civil war there has given them the space, as both the moderate rebels and Assad have fought both them and each other. What is troubling is that there are accounts that the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia have supported them.
Obama has been extremely cautious, for the most part giving the Syrians moderates only non lethal aide. He has at various times said he would allow some lethal arms, but has always been attacked from the right for actually doing very little or none of that. There has always been a concern (HIGHLY JUSTIFIED) that anything they get could end up with ISIS.
In fact, former SoS Clinton has made the point that she disagreed with Obama here. She advocated far more aggressive help than Obama was willing to prove. Her current position is that MORE support for the moderates would have led to a compromise government years ago and not created a space for ISIS to grow. (As always, being on the side not implemented has the advantage that you could assume it would have led to a better outcome.) It is not clear if her position was closer to Obama's or McCain's.
At this point, if you listen to the actual words of Obama (or others in his administration), they are absolutely against re-entering a combat role in Iraq. Obama initially did not rule out other help, but if you listen to his complete comments (or Biden's or Kerry's), they focused on the fact that a large part of the problem is that Iraq marginalized everyone not Shiite. Obviously, in the middle of a civil war, it is hard for a political/diplomatic change (one people like Biden and Kerry called for since at least 2004) to actually be done or be effective. In retrospect, I wish that Biden had been successful in getting Iraq to deal with its sectarian issues before we left in 2011 - though I assume it was not for lack of trying.
As to Syria, it is not clear how responsible US (or SA or gulf state) encouragement to rebel against Assad was in fostering their rebellion. It is clear that SA and the Gulf States provided most of the weapons - likely with our knowledge and unfortunately possibly with our blessing. Our policy since 2013 appears to be to try to get a political/diplomatic solution that is likely impossible given that Assad has no reason to concede anything and the longer it has continued, the more space for the ISIL, who no one supports to gain.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)along with the democratic aspirations of Syrians who initially protested Assad in favor of international jihad with the support of the US, Britain, France, etc. The "moderate" opposition that John Kerry and others in the Obama administration were so fond of speaking about haven't been major players for a while and since we haven't openly renounced over support for the jihadist elements in Syria, I think it is safe to assume that whatever assistance we're giving is going to al-Nusra and ISIS.
Saudi Arabia is and has been the biggest instigator of extremist violence in Syria and Iraq, and they stepped up their monetary support for the Sunni zealots after Obama failed to order missile strikes against Assad's forces. Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposite sides of the Sunni/Shiite sectarianism and the US seems frankly confused about whom to support at this point.
While Saudi Arabia is the main bankroller of Sunni extremism in the Middle East, any honest person would not try to excuse Obama's role in the gains ISIS has made in Iraq (and against the al-Maliki government). I was condemning the US role in Syria from the very beginning, especially after seeing videos of the al-Nusra Front and ISIS types executing rows of men and posting the footage to YouTube.
Instead of cheerleading bad foreign policy because Obama ordered it, we should have been raising a ruckus to express our disagreement at his actions. Obama can never rationalize droning Sunni extremists in Pakistan and Yemen while supporting them in Syria.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Recall that Maliki and his cabinet wanted to sign the Hydrocarbon Law that gave 88% of their oil income to big companies, but they couldn't get it through their parliament.
Likewise, The top of their government often said US troops were needed for security and stability even though opinion polls of Iraqis showed they overwhelmingly wanted US troops out (though it that case, the government eventually followed the will of the people and refused to allow coalition troops to stay).
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)I wonder what Maliki's under-the-table kickback was going to be?
yurbud
(39,405 posts)and it would still be a steal for the oil companies.
At one point, oil companies offered millions to each member of parliament to pass the bill.
They didn't do it because they knew if they did, they would be killed by their own people in short order (and rightly so).
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)We will be attacking urban areas with dense civilian populations, and, very likely, we will kill at least as many civilians as we kill ISIL fighters. Once again we will become the radicals' best recruiting agents. For every person we foolishly kill, ISIL will get ten, a hundred, or a thousand angry new members.
Surely our President has learned this? If not, when are we ever going to learn?
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)the bombs that the US sends them to fight the Syrian Army to the Iraqi branch, which may ultimately be used to kill Americans? The US needs to stay out of Iraq except to get our personnel out. Then let the Iraqis conduct their own civil war without outside interference.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)All we can hope to accomplish in Iraq is yet more death, destruction and waste. Air strikes are worse than pointless. Our rule in Iraq is over.
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)the path of new horror and a changing of Party leadership and control.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)ISIL moving seized U.S. military vehicles to Syria: report
Sunni militants in Iraq are shipping a significant number of U.S.-origin tanks and Humvees, seized in recent U.S. military operations in Iraq, to al Qaeda rebels in Syria, according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon.
According to U.S. intelligence agencies, photos of the equipment transfers were posted online by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an offshoot from al Qaeda that seeks to establish a caliphate in Sunni majority regions of Iraq.
Numerous Humvees were shown being transported from the Nineveh province, in northwestern Iraq, to ISIL-controlled areas of Syria, including the Al Shadadi area and the town of Tall Hamis, the Free Beacon reported.
....
Exact figures on the seized military equipment were not clear. “ISIL raided all the arms depots and vehicles belonging to Iraq’s Second Division, based in Mosul, which included a motorized brigade and several infantry brigades,” the Free Beacon reported.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/17/isil-moving-seized-us-military-vehicles-syria-repo/
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)than I thought. In retrospect, Jake, do you still think the US should have totally left Iraq when it did? I still do--too many needless deaths. But maybe I'm wrong. I was part of the crowd that said we should not go into Iraq from the very beginning. It has changed so many things. Just like Parthia for the Romans, it has taken much of our wealth and young people, who are now thinking it was for nothing.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Iraqi deserters say the army's epic collapse isn't their fault
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iraq/140616/iraqi-deserters-ISIL-ISIS-mosul
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Think about the lives, fortune and prestige we would have saved for our country, for our children and for our grandchildren. Our Iraq involvement was a gigantic waste, the only point of which was to further enrich weapons-makers and energy corporation billionaires.
The only way to end that kind of a national mistake is to do so as quickly as possible.
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)marched on the street in Westwood, CA, sent out thousands of letters,flyers,etc. I knew what was going to happen.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Allow me to add: "Good for you!"
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Or some such nonsense.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)The problem is it's never worked in practice. We're much better at fighting real defensive wars, not these neo-imperial adventures.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Though, I'm not sure administration after administration has ever learned the lesson.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)> The problem is it's never worked in practice.
> We're much better at fighting real defensive wars, not these neo-imperial adventures.
"Fortunately", all of the neo-imperial adventures so far have ended up as real defensive
wars (even though they weren't planned that way) so you always end up playing to your
strengths ... eventually ...
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Err, sorry. Was that the wrong time again? 
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Rhinodawg
(2,219 posts)
mopinko
(70,323 posts)the northern alliance was just a bunch of old warlords who took bribes, and got to rain down jdams on their old adversaries. i have no doubt that is pretty much what we did in iraq.
time to take the cia bomb targeting phones away from these clowns and go home.
let them throw their own damn bombs at each other. let the men wipe themselves out, maybe the women will have more sense.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)Just for a minute.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)we send missiles into defensive positions set up in cities - like next to schools and such.
My, what a big one you have.
And for what? To support the people who couldn't hold it together? What's the objective? You are asking for a Maginot Line, but you can't keep the cockroaches at bay forever - one day they will find one of your weaknesses, and kill you.
There is no win here, other than offering humanitarian aid unless we want to go in and put an umbrella of defense over that whole region. And the day we withdraw it the whole thing will start again.
Little Star
(17,055 posts)Religious wars there will never stop. We need to stay out of it.
Renewable energy now!!!
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Each and every one of them will become our enemy instantly.
Furthermore, if we bomb on Maliki's request, then we will have aligned ourselves with a person who has been very bad to Iraqis who are not members of his Shia sect of Islam.
Even if Maliki now does now make overtures toward Sunnis, Kurds and others, he likely will persecute them again once we leave.
We just can't be snookered into getting involved here once again. There is no chance of a good outcome for us.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Are there any good answers?
Who is benefitting from all of this? I'll answer my own question. I think the two beneficiaries of the Levantine war are Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel is having their enemies bled white - Hezbollah and Syria. Saudi Arabia is getting an oil price boost, gets to export young men who otherwise would be causing trouble at home and a weakened northern neighbor who is Shia. (BTW, the pro-jihadi faction was purged a few months ago when Sauds noticed that ISIS was winning.)
Liberal Librarian @Lib_Librarian
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Not enough security at embassies: OMG, Obama's leaving them defenseless!
Troops sent to Iraq emb: We're recoccupying Iraq!
#ChuckTodd
12:59 PM - 19 Jun 2014
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