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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoe Wilson is on Chris Hayes
Someone should tell Jeb that it was his brother who decided that the US would leave Iraq in 2011.
Wilson is tearing them a new one
jwirr
(39,215 posts)No matter who our candidate is I will vote for them. This man is even dumber than his brother.
malaise
(268,966 posts)given the plans of these lunatic ReTHUG candidates.
Seriously all the money in the world couldn't buy intelligence for these Bush men.
I'm impressed with Murphy's analysis of the mess in Iraq and Syria thanks to Bushco.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)moondust
(19,976 posts)I've been waiting for somebody to mention the fact that the "surge" was largely about paying Sunnis not to fight:
http://www.creators.com/opinion/paul-craig-roberts/paying-insurgents-not-to-fight.html
(I can't independently verify the above.)
Murphy rightly noted that it would have cost billions to keep paying them off indefinitely which taxpayers wouldn't have accepted. Plus thousands and thousands of U.S. troops would have to be there maybe forever to maintain any stability at all.
malaise
(268,966 posts)I was impressed
Your 'above' is correct and has been verified.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)... Even dumber than Dubya? I mean, that's a HIGH bar to get over.
PCIntern
(25,541 posts)which I chronicled here
an amazing evening at Philadelphia's (now closed) Le Bec Fin.
In a lifetime, I can only think of two or three people of his caliber whom I have met personally.
malaise
(268,966 posts)I think I read that.
PCIntern
(25,541 posts)lots of water under the bridge since then.
malaise
(268,966 posts)PCIntern
(25,541 posts)seen almost everything I think.
Nothing new under the sun...
malaise
(268,966 posts)Sometimes I don't recognize this place, but every now and then I remember why I joined
napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)05/14/2015
Ryan Grim
Jeb Bush and other Republicans have accused Obama of enabling the insurgency by withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011. The administration says it could not have maintained the troops there without an agreement to protect them that Baghdad was not at the time willing to sign.
But Bush's preferred reading of history overlooks the fact that the risk of an Islamic State-level militant expansion was clear back in 2003, after George W. Bush had ordered a U.S. invasion of Iraq on the basis of sketchy evidence. Saddam Hussein had at that point effectively controlled Iraq for more than 30 years. First tasting great power as the country's intelligence and internal security chief, Hussein invested heavily in making Iraq a police state, with loyal, well-trained agents of his Baath Party government as numerous in the country as conspiracy theories about their activities. He also focused on making his army a formidable force, appointing Sunni Arabs -- members of his own sect of Islam and a minority in Iraq -- to leadership positions. Hussein's rule forced those soldiers and officials to become even closer to the despot, because they, like many other people in the centralized quasi-socialist state that was Iraq, were reliant on government salaries, subsidies and favor.
Then an American came to Baghdad and told all those well-trained, well-armed men that their services would no longer be required. Or allowed.
-snip-
Although Iraq's dominant Baath Party was secular, the two systems ultimately shared a conviction that control over the masses should lie in the hands of a small elite that should not be answerable to anyone -- because it ruled in the name of a grand plan, legitimized by either God or the glory of Arab history. The secret of IS' success lies in the combination of opposites, the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of the other.
read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/jeb-bush-isis_n_7284558.html