Al Qaeda takes control in Iraqi city

[Basil]

Basil, you do know they were all shot dead starting with the Officer.

No, I didn't. I thought he'd get it for refusing to swear allegiance to an Islamic Republic but was unaware they'd topped the lot.
Personally, I think I'd have said "Yeah, whatever; good idea, this Islamic Republic."

Puts a couple of recent minor Brit incidents into perspective.

[eastern wiseguy]

Boudreaux Bob

Obama/Biden/Clinton FAILED to negotiate a SOFA that would have kept US Forces in Iraq

Do you mean RE-NEGOTIATE?

Okay, well it’s true that in December of 2011 we did pull all of our troops out of Iraq. But we didn’t do it because of President Obama’s policies – we did it because of a Status of Forces Agreement (sometimes called SOFA) that was signed while George W. Bush was still president. This agreement, again signed by George W. Bush, set deadlines for the end of U.S. combat operations as June 30, 2009 and for all U.S. forces to be pulled out of Iraq by December 30, 2011. So when they say “Obama pulled U.S. forces out of Iraq in 2011 leaving the country to fall into the hands of terrorists,” the reality is he was following an agreement that George W. Bush had already signed well before he became president. - See more at: There's One Fact Republicans Blaming Obama for Iraq Don't Want Americans to Know About

[Boudreaux Bob]

Parse words how you want. Obama/Biden/Clinton FAILED. We see the cost of that on TV each day now.

You will this done again when we leave Afghanistan as well.

Hide and Watch!

[eastern wiseguy]

Bob

It is nothing short of ABSURD to try to follow your line of argument.

What would you have the president do? Retain forces in Iraq/Afghanistan for an undefined amount of time?

How would that play out in the US?

Moreover was there ever the slightest doubt that this was what would happen when the US left? As they say in my home town of Belfast "sure the bloody dogs in the street could have told you that"

[skydiver69]

I can't believe that we look as if we are encouraging Iran to get involved in Iraq, although I'm sure that they would get involved without our assistance, however we are giving them legitimacy by doing so. Hague has used the situation to justify the speeding up of the reopening of our embassy in Tehran with suggestions that it could be used for behind the scenes talks between America and Iran.

When Iran assists Syria we condemn it so what is the difference with their potential involvement in Iraq There is also a good chance that it will make the situation worse given the ISIS hatred of Shiites in general and Iranian Shiites in particular and therefore might accelerate the path to all out civil war and the break up of the country into three parts.

[satpak77]

Parse words how you want. Obama/Biden/Clinton FAILED. We see the cost of that on TV each day now.

You will this done again when we leave Afghanistan as well.

Hide and Watch!

Is this just a "Democrat" problem ? All the idiot politicians failed. Both parties. You might talk to Colin Powell on why he resigned.

If you think any political party is exempt from deception, trickery, and outright fooling the people, well, you are fooled.

By the way, Afghan was much more needed/justified than any combat action in Iraq. Leave Saddam in place, he could have kept a lid on the trashcan. Afghan, different situation (terrorism, etc).

[Heathrow Harry]

trouble is too many Americans views are so polarised that they can only blame the opposition

they can see no harm in their own side and its all the other guys fault

Quite a few US posters on here really can't accept that Bush has a great deal of responsibility for what went wrong and that Obama was elected to AVOID more "interventions"

[West Coast]

Quite a few US posters on here really can't accept that Bush has a great deal of responsibility for what went wrong and that Obama was elected to AVOID more "interventions"

And quite a few euros want to revisit 2003 when the pressing question is what the US response should be to the situation at hand.

History will judge the past, if you choose to offer opinion then it should be of impending action.

[Boudreaux Bob]

Seems the Democrats and former Cabinet Staff are beginning to see the need to step away from Obama as their very own personal reputations are at grave risk.

Douglas E. Schoen: The Democrats Every Republican Should Quote - WSJ

[Ronald Reagan]

Maybe the west can supply Iran and Assad's Syria with all kinds of sophisticated weapons to fight the terrorists with! Then we in the west won't need to do anything else.
I always knew our foolish leaders in the west were supporting the wrong side in the Syrian civil war. How long have I been saying it for on here?!
Just imagine if Assad had fallen due to the west, then these terrorists would control even more of Syria than they currently do and likely be even stronger!
We now have Iran and Assad as the vanguard of the war on terror fighting terrorists which the west have hugely helped through our foolish actions. The whole thing is like some badly written novel that no one would believe as it simply cannot be true except it is!

[NutLoose]

I must admit, watching the news of these ISIS chaps popping off the opposition that had surrendered, it isn't exactly smart, the rest are not going to surrender now they know it means an instant death sentence. Talk about making a rod for your own back.

[West Coast]

I must admit, watching the news of these ISIS chaps popping off the opposition that had surrendered, it isn't exactly smart

Agreed. There was a point in the war when the Sunni's in Iraq rose up against AQ due to the wholesale killing of Muslims not deemed fanatical enough.

[The Sultan]

Para

Churchill did not agree with your position. Told the Brits to fight, they had 70000 first line troops against a far inferior Japanese ground force. In the standard ratio of 5 attackers required to overcome a competent defense the Brits should have at least held out for more than a week!

The Sultan

[rh200]

What would you have the president do? Retain forces in Iraq/Afghanistan for an undefined amount of time?

Umm yea, basically you fix it until it can go by itself. That is you try something, look at a trend, if its not working try something else. Basically the system was working until we stirred up Syria.

Cultures have been taking over, or modifying others for thousands of years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. There's no rocket science in it. Just how far you are prepared to go.

Some here where happy to leave Saddam in power to carry out the odd genocidal act if anyone rose up, because it gave them deny-ability and an illusion of some western resemblance in Baghdad. This was irrespective of 80% of the population being suppressed. Well actually 60% the Kurds managed to have their whole Clayton's state thing going.

How would that play out in the US?

Cr@p!

We in the west have become weak, brainwashed by hollywood and other leftists. The thought of a quick fix resembles our lives of not wanting to become inconvenienced, and everything revolves around me.

[parabellum]

Sultan - All very well if you have ammunition, water and food. Without ammunition it really doesn't matter if you have odds of 10 to 1, you are going to lose! The surrender was ordered to save lives, both military and civilian. My late father in law was there at the time and I can vouch for the lack if vital supplies and none coming in.

[eastern wiseguy]

Umm yea, basically you fix it until it can go by itself. That is you try something, look at a trend, if its not working try something else. Basically the system was working until we stirred up Syria.

A few points.

The general US population is sick sore and tired of wars ( in the Iraqi case a SPURIOUS and UNNECCESSARY excursion) They are tired of the body count....they are tired of funding war.

Fix it until it can go by itself. If you believe that that is likely to produce ANY sort of lasting consensus given the nature of the beast...call me...i have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

Syria was working well ....as was Iraq ...because the local hardman had kept a lid on the sectarian hatred and brooked no nonsense ...until.....

If the local population wanted rid of him.....that should be up to them.

Al Malaki is an idiot. He has squandered the chance (albeit a very slim one) by alienating the Sunnis of making the place work.....

[rh200]

The general US population is sick sore and tired of wars ( in the Iraqi case a SPURIOUS and UNNECCESSARY excursion) They are tired of the body count....they are tired of funding war.

Then you shouldn't start them. Become isolationist and see where it gets you in 50 years. The fact is there will always be a power vacuum on all levels that some one will fill, its nature. You may not like who fills it.

Fix it until it can go by itself. If you believe that that is likely to produce ANY sort of lasting consensus given the nature of the beast...call me...i have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

You chose to go in there, whether you liked it or not, once that was done, it would be the right thing to make sure it worked. But the left didn't like that, it had to fail otherwise Bush might be right.

Syria was working well ....as was Iraq ...because the local hardman had kept a lid on the sectarian hatred and brooked no nonsense ...until.....

I wouldn't say Syria was working well, something you would put up with maybe, in two or three decades it may have been alright. definitely it didn't need to be stuffed with, especially whilst trying to keep a lid on the Sunnis in Iraqi.

If the local population wanted rid of him.....that should be up to them.

That would be fine, but in the real world their is no real local, every one is influenced and assisted by the outside. Bit hard to get rid of him if the oppressor is supplied with various outside weapons including gas.

Al Malaki is an idiot. He has squandered the chance (albeit a very slim one) by alienating the Sunnis of making the place work.....

You seem to have no understanding of basic social dynamics and orders of magnitude of the problems. The Shia make up the vast majority of the population. They have just as many extremists as a percentage of their respective groups. Hence its a balancing act of satisfying groups. Some one was always going to miss out and be pissed off.

[West Coast]

Some one was always going to miss out and be pissed off.

In general terms, a rather loose definition of a democracy I'd say. As I said, in general terms.

I don't think his understanding is off. Al Malaki could have tried to play it right down the middle, he choose not to.

[rh200]

I don't think his understanding is off. Al Malaki could have tried to play it right down the middle, he choose not to.

I have no actually idea behind his reasoning, but I wouldn't be surprised it was more to do with keeping their extremists under wraps.

You can only make various tactical decisions with the information you have at the time. Trying to make forward judgments on whether neighboring countries are going to be destabilized or not can be hard. Convolve that with various other democratic bureaucratic nonsense and its a bit of a lotto draw.

Or he could just be an @rsehole

[Basil]

Watch it, all you kaffirs!

British ISIS fighter urges Muslims to avenge murder of Saudi woman in Colchester | Mail Online

Now, following the brutal murder of a Saudi woman of Ms Almanea in Colchester yesterday - which police believed may have been inspired to her conservative Muslim clothing - Abu Rashash Britani called for revenge attacks.

'These kuffar getting out of hand, dare they touch a #Muslimah. I call upon any brother to take up a knife and kill as they did #colchester,' he posted on Twitter.