(06-03-2015 03:26 PM)vandiver49 Wrote: (06-03-2015 03:22 PM)Redwingtom Wrote: (06-03-2015 03:19 PM)vandiver49 Wrote: (06-03-2015 10:18 AM)Redwingtom Wrote: Sad that it takes a comedian to have to point this out to the idiot populi.
Learning Curves are for *******
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ George Santayana, 1905
The current administration was elected expressly to get America out of Iraq. Our absence of course would leave a power vacuum that someone had to fill. We hoped it would be the Iraqi militia that was left but they obviously failed in that charge.
But lets not act like the plan proposed hadn't succeeded elsewhere in the world.
Yep...it worked in Afghanistan.
Oh...wait...that created the Taliban.
Oops.
I was thinking Germany, Japan and Korea
Because we left forces there for stability and they remain there, ALL volunteers BTW, to this day, 60-70 yrs later. I think that may have been your point on "the plan" you reference above, but by including the part with the Iraqi militia it's a little murky in your exact meaning,
That said- 2011 and prior Iraq was relatively stable, and the behinder in chief cut and ran. Of course bad characters are going to seek opportunity and with the historical record of the Iraqi armies, it was pretty clear they would, and did, pose next to no opposition.
Had we left a relatively minor residual force of say 20k troops (ALL volunteers, BTW) in a remote area with xxx miles of clear buffer, and "do not enter or you-dead" instruction, we could have kept the peace.
Respond to risks, read ISIS, but not policing local areas or do any other patrols, the Iraqi Army
probably could have handled that.
But no, the community organizer in chief had other plans, never mind what our military leaders, and former POTUS, had spelled out very specifically what could and did happen. Almost to a T.
And no, before any of you apologists bring it up, the SOFA is a non-starter. If zerO had wanted one he could have simply demanded one. If Malaki wasn't going to play ball, kick his asss out and go on to the next one until you find the right guy. Simple enough.