You may have noticed…
…that for the last couple of days I haven’t put up any of those lighter posts I often write. I have been so tremendously upset by what has been happening during the trifecta of doom—the Bergdahl exchange, the border children, and now the horror in Iraq—that I just haven’t felt like it.
Those posts will come back soon. Just not today.
Well, as my dear 99 year old mother used to say to me, “You can’t carry the whole world on your shoulders.”
Or as Michael Totten notes today:
“But we are not going to save Iraq and we are not going to save Syria. It’s over. That’s what the Middle East wanted, and it’s what the Middle East is going to get.
Arab governments complain when we intervene and they complain when we don’t intervene. Basically, they complain no matter what. So asking what they want is pointless. “
neo, I am in sympathy. The news has been horrible, and it just keeps getting horribler and horribler.
The cumulative effect is more than enough to induce depression.
This is a good time to express appreciation for all you do, friend neo, as well as for the rich community we have of neo commenter-denizens, whose posts help deepen my grasp of what the h#ll’s been happening to our country and world.
I’m with you, Neo. It is overwhelming to consider the short-term & long-term consequences of these three items.
Further thoughts on the fall of Iraq
Read Richard Fernandez on the debacle that is the Obama administration
Iraq War veterans watch the news in anguish
The bitter end: Vietnam
Let’s revisit our withdrawl from Iraq
Grip. Get one.
vanderleun:
It’s not about what they want, or whether they complain no matter what we do. It’s about our own interests and our future interests, and the trust the world puts in us when we give our word. We had interests in retaining bases in the area. We have interests in people believing we mean what we say, and that we finish the job. We lose here. And there was no need for it. Obama gave it away.
vanderleun:
“Grip, get one”?
I think I have an excellent grip on the matter.
Is Obama giggling?
Gene Simmons provides some levity along with the horror.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YK7UGytvs8
Yes but not on your own mood and mind. Please understand that the Obama atrocities will continue until you cheer up.
Neo, I write this with sincere and total empathy, I feel the same way. The US, a country that has kept her people and other people free, does not deserve what Obama is doing to this once very fine nation.
How long is this criminal in the oval office going to get away with this.
Lighter posts would be wasted on us right now, There is nothing to smile about.
It’ll continue after you cheer up too.
People should take this time to etch into their heart, the face of the true enemy.
America wanted this and Iraq wanted this and Obama wanted this and now everybody has got what they wanted.
====
“Obama won the 2008 election in no small part because he promised to get the US out of Iraq. John McCain lost in no small part because he famously argued we should stay “100 years” if that’s what it took. The American people made their choice. To now say that having won on getting out of Iraq Obama should have instead turned around and adopted McCain’s losing policy idea is absurd.
This does not absolve Obama from his negligent inaction in the face of the immanent threat presented by the still growing ISIS invasion. That’s entirely on Obama and his band of national security incompetents. But the great “loss of Iraq”? That’s on the Iraqis. They were given a chance to build a decent country after Saddam’s removal and they squandered it.
Posted by: DrewM. at 11:29 AM”
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=349810
vanderleun:
You’re assuming that Americans voted for Obama in 2012 because they liked the fact that there was no residual force left in Iraq, and so what’s happening is what they wanted.
That was so far down on the list of reasons people voted for Obama in 2012 it hardly figured into it at all. You can’t conclude anything about what Americans wanted to happen in Iraq from the fact that Obama was re-elected in 2012. And in 2008, when he was first elected, and Iraq was FAR more of an issue in the election (although still not the main one), Obama explicitly said he would leave a residual force there. He lied.
As I wrote in my post below today, here.
If you read that post of Drew’s which you are quoting, Drew explicitly makes the point that the choice between withdrawal and “100 years” (McCain’s hyperbole) is not the only issue being discussed today. Drew says Obama should still have intervened now that things have worsened.
Of course, that’s somewhat illogical of Drew. Because that’s the reason the small residual force was going to remain there in the first place. To help prevent this sort of thing from happening, and to make it easier to go back in if necessary.
It’s one thing to say the Iraqis made their bed, let them lie in it. It’s another to ignore US interests in the area, which lay with repelling this sort of victory of terrorists like ISIS.
Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”
Rudyard Kipling.THE NAULAHKA
As is often said, regardless of logic or illogic, what this natterer or that natterer said, once the country voted the way it did we deserved to get it good and hard,
And in time we will.
You need to learn how to put out a lawn chair, sit back, crack a cold one, and enjoy the decline.
God knows I’m trying to learn how to do that.
“Who told thee that?” cried neoneo; then pausing, “Aye, artfuldgr; aye, my hearties all round; it was OBAMA! that dismasted me; OBAMA! that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,” She shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; “Aye, aye! it was that accursed OBAMA! that razeed me; made a poor pegging blogger of me for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations she shouted out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase OBAMA! round Iraq, and round Obamacare, and round the Chidren’s Crusade Border Maelstrom, and round election’s flames before I give OBAMA! up. And this is what ye have shipped for, commentors mine! to chase OBAMA! on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till OBAMA! spouts black blood and rolls out of the White House. What say ye, commentors mine!, will ye comment and save on it, now? I think ye do look Internet brave.”
Let’s remember how long this has been coming. An illustration helps. In Jack Cashill’s AT piece today, he writes of the Zacco and Vanzetti trial:
“Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth,” Sinclair wrote at the time to his own attorney. “He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them.” Even in 1927, chroniclers understood the peril of flouting progressive orthodoxy. “My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe,” Sinclair confided to a friend in 1927, “I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book.” Cravenly, he finished the book as originally projected. The myth of the accused’s innocence and America’s guilt lives on to this day.
So “this” has been going on for a century! What I have found worse than the present reckoning has been being the prophet of doom while no one else seemed to care (present company excepted, of course.)
But I am not a prophet of full doom. I hope that the cancer will be destroyed and the healthy body return. I am somewhat confidant that those who are self-reliant and have faith will survive supremely better than the zombies of the Left. I can’t say I welcome “this,” but I don’t fear it.
Look at all those Democrats on Facebook right now.
They’re all guilty. They all have blood on their hands.
Their sin will never be washed away and never forgiven, except in death.
vanderleun:
waitforit:
That Sinclair quote is awful. But not surprising.
I assume you’ve read Witness, too. Chambers was not very hopeful, but he felt compelled to tell his story.
I’m feeling the pain here too, Neo. This is just dreadful – all of it coming at once. On the up-side, this may be the week where the wheels come off the O-Administration once and for all.
But we gambled so much that Iraq could be fairly stable, recognizably democratic – we bet lives and credibility on it, even knowing it was a gamble. And Obama and the Iraqis between them, threw it all away, out of pettiness, spite and partisan advantage.
i dont think the left knows what phobia means.
an irrational fear…
its not irrational to fear what the left pushes.
and, if you had the history of finland and the baltics, how would you feel having to live next to a neighbor that not only invaded and murdered millions, but is still there, with the same leadership, pining for those days, and wanting them to remain undefended (just in case) so as to make some kind of “statement” to the world, that dont give a damn…
The quadrifecta of doom, I tremble to say. All those veterans who were killed by VA bureaucrats whose salaries weren’t enough — no, they wanted bonuses!
ultimately, one can not save a suicide..
at best you put off the end
at worst, you join them
This is an obtuse reference to the book “suicide of the west” – James Burnham
James Burnham
was an American philosopher and political theorist. A radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement, in later years Burnham left Marxism and turned to the political Right, serving as a public intellectual of the American conservative movement, and producing the work for which he is best known, The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941.
another changer for neo.. i can list so many she has not even found
and i know the better most interesting ones.
they are not known because interesting is attractive, and that would get people to come and read, unlike the more boring ones which seen as representative, make others ignore the genre (if one can call it that)
from ohilip dru administrator
to Managerial state
therapeutic managerial state
welfare-warfare state
polite totalitarianism
facism with a happy face came next..
Francis, following James Burnham, said that under this historical process, “law is replaced by administrative decree, federalism is replaced by executive autocracy, and a limited government replaced by an unlimited state.”
It acts in the name of abstract goals, such as equality or positive rights, and uses its claim of moral superiority, power of taxation and wealth redistribution to keep itself in power.
given my self education, i am probably one of the most edumacated people on the planet… if you could wander the garden of my mind and know all the facts i know down those corridors, you would no longer see a haze… but the fog clears.
i could sit here and keep mentioning people and names and things that have greatly influenced your life, and you may barely recollect them, or even know they exist.
read about Yvan Craipeau… he introduced Bureaucratic collectivism to the trotskyites.
there was a time a peron like me would be a famous bon vivant and desired to be at parties and such for the amout of stuff i span, is quite entertaining …. or used to be before the politics of envy
Virgil (artfldgr) still waits to show you the hell you have yet to see…
Artfldgr:
No, you cannot save a suicide.
But sometimes you can save the suicidal. And sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between the inevitably suicide-bent and those who can be saved.
Delaying the act of suicide can buy you time to see which you’re dealing with. And particularly if the delay doesn’t cost too much—which a small residual force in Iraq would not have cost, especially compared to the enormous cost already expended—even a delay can be worthwhile.
It was pretty much universally agreed by all (including the Obama of 2008) but the antiwar left that leaving a small residual force in Iraq would have been a good idea.
Of the trifecta listed what I fear the most is the collapse of the southern border. It is designed to create a permanent liberal majority which will destroy America as we know it. When people migrate they take their culture with them. Why are their former home countries dysfunctional hell holes? It’s the culture and behaviors which are brought to our shores. Mr. Obama wishes to transform America.
Neo: I appreciate the seriousness of your blog. The occasional light items can be a nice change of pace, but I truly respect the time, research, and seriousness you devote to your blog.
(Unlike a certain woman law-prof blogger that completely ignores many serious issues caused by that guy she voted for in 08.)
Maybe all is not lost yet:
Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, read to his followers at Friday prayers in Kerbala urged them to take up arms against the Sunni insurgents. “People who are capable of carrying arms and fighting the terrorists in defence of their country … should volunteer to join the security forces to achieve this sacred goal,” the statement said.
and
Convoys of fighters were seen early on Friday being escorted north by Iraqi police trucks from Baghdad to Samarra, the central city where insurgents — led by the Sunni militant group the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (Isis) — were in control after a lightning strike south.
More here.
Neo…Most of us are simply very grateful for your efforts on behalf of this fine site. Keep on, Keepin’on, Mam!!
THANK YOU for all you do here.
Yes, I’m also pretty despondent over the recent developments. While none of it is really surprising to me–I’ve always believed that Obama is an enemy of the United States and intends to destroy the country as we have known it–the ongoing death spiral is still upsetting to witness. What makes it much worse is that it isn’t only Obama who is the problem. Much of our ruling class is complicit. They aren’t lifting a finger to stop him, and many of them seem to want to permanently change the cultural and racial makeup of America. As a white middle class man, my own government hates me and wants to enslave me or worse.
On a personal note, my 14-year-old cat Kira was diagnosed with a heart ailment last week. So far it’s minor, but we’ll have to keep an eye on it. As if I needed one more thing to worry about.
Ymarsakar Says:
June 13th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
I’m not on Facebook, but I hate each and every person who voted for Obama. I hate them. I want to see them suffer for their crimes against my country.
rickl:
Yes, Obama is a big problem, but a small part of the even bigger problem, which is that so many Americans either feel powerless, don’t notice, don’t care, or think he’s great.
The neoneocon dying declaration, 2079: “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering O-BAMA!; to the last I grapple with O=BAMA!; from hell’s heart I stab at O-BAMA!; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at O-BAMA!. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing O-BAMA!, though tied to O-BAMA!, thou damned O-BAMA! Thus, I give up the spear!”
I want to, so badly, but I’m not gonna do it. It’s right there, rhymes with spear!
Via Hot Air, this is worth a read: Hold Your Horses, Iraq Is Not About to Fall … Yet
“Achieve your mission with all your might.
Despair not until your last breath.
Make your death count!” – Motto of ****’s ********
In comparison, the motto of the US Special Forces is “To Liberate the Oppressed”.
But Eric Holder’s is: “Justice is not blind… for I am her E. Y. E. S.”
Hussein: “Stand down, let them die”
Valerie: “Barack is the smartest man in the room.”
The other Valerie: “I never recommended my husband for the Niger mission”
Detect a slight de coherence here? That’s America for you.
In commemoration of this moment, which has long been coming, a dirge is appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u2jQdAXrSY
“To be honest I do not think whether they live or die is the matter at hand. Life is not always better than death. It is not that simple. Living and being made to live are very different things. What matters is what the person chooses of their own free will: whether or not it can be achieved nor how difficult it is.
I want you to consider this: imagine if what matters most to you was taken away against your will. If that is indeed worth less than your life”-Mitsurugi, Meiya
True freedom is the ability to choose, but many people live as slaves in the human slave economy, propped up by the Islamic Jihad and the profiting Leftist alliance. So long as those two axis of evil exist, human freedom for Americans and Iraqis will be forever a dream.
The cost of atonement, redemption, and the transformation of the world is in Blood and can only ever be in Blood. Blood, the life stream itself of humanity.
Death to all tyrants, without regard for borders.
Neo,
Sorry for your (and others’) despair. We should think about Steven Covey’s circles of influence and realize that, like it or not, these events do not reside in our circle of influence (more’s the pity).
I think that perhaps Gandalf’s admonition is appropriate here:
We must all keep fighting the good fight, each in our own way and remember that courage is not action out of fearlessness but action in spite of fear.
The American people hold the life blood of DC in their collective hands. All results of American foreign policy and power arrogance, will be brought down on the American people themselves. The leadership will be safe in their bunkers, planes, and vacation homes.
There is no Valley of Exile (Galt’s Gulch) that people can go to, to escape the wave of death. Not even other countries will be immune in the coming decades, although leaving the US is one solution several families have chosen.
America merely lacks the will. Once there is a will, there is a way. But merely torment and suffering, will not produce a will. Suffer, in suffering, understand what humans should have known all along. Know that enlightenment cannot come from external sources, only internally. Know that until Americans suffer enough to throw off the mind control and slave shackles of the Left, nothing will ever begin.
A guy gets pulled over; “Hey,” he tells them, “you’re making a big mistake. I’m a taxpayer and a citizen.” “Big deal to both,” the brown shirts reply.
I’ve been a bit shocked at how quickly so many things seemed to have come together in a bad way – VA scandal, the immigration thing, Iraq, the IRS scandal has resurfaced with the “lost” e mails (yeah, sure), Bergdahl. It almost seems as though Obama is deliberately trying to sabotage the country.
Neo: These recent serious posts of yours have actually been a source of encouragement for me and – – I’d venture to guess – – others among your regular readers as well. I’ve been encouraged to find that you and many here share some of my own concerns and perceptions, not only about these dire, ongoing events, but also about the larger historical forces that have been at work during our lifetimes.
Plus, I’ve learned a lot here about many things and I’ve really enjoyed that. Reading this blog (and several others that apparently most of us also read) helps innoculate me to the constant gaslighting by the MSM and the government. Thanks.
On a positive note; our vegetable beds are lush with lettuce, spinach, and arugula along with asparagus and broccoli. These are constantly on the menu. The tomatoes and potatoes are blooming. Summer squash are also blooming and winter squash are looking good. Green beans are climbing up their fence and the sweet corn is more than knee high. The leeks are beautiful as are the onions. Life is good in flyover country as rains have replenished the ground water. Rabbits are fat and easily harvested with a pellet gun.
Tomorrow morning I will go to the county range with 2 Iraq vets and a former Seal. We’ll be competing on swinging targets with 22LR rifles. I predict I will win, but if I lose, I will buy lunch for a fine bunch of young men. We will not go quietly into the dark night of progressive dystopia. We know the terrain (yes we have terrain in Iowa) and we have range finders. Better wear some iron in your hair DHS.
Oh, and I forgot to say that I can put 3 ut of 10 rounds at 400 yards (open sights) and 9 out of 10 (scoped) at 400 yards inside a 2 inch circle. In other words, I can put 192 grains on your nose.
http://tinyurl.com/pudgaf5
Just a short factual correction. The withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and the timetable was negotiated by the Bush administration and signed in 2008. The Iraqi parliament refused to consider retention of any residual forces during the Obama administration. The Iraqis wanted us out.
Look, the fact of the matter is that Bush wanted out and Obama wasn’t looking for a reason to stay.
Rich:
We are talking not about the general withdrawal but about the residual forces. And if you read a rather long piece I wrote about the negotiations between the Maliki government and the Obama administration on that, you’ll see that the Iraqis did NOT want us entirely out, Obama did.
Please see this. And be sure to read the link there to the Max Boot article.
A must-read at National Review — Obama’s Criminal Negligence in Iraq: The president didn’t end the Iraq war. He restarted it.
parker, you do have a point.
I can’t even put into words how upset and angry I am about all of this. I literally can’t even find the words to express it.
Don’t worry about the lighter posts, neoneo. Reading your posts helps remind me I’m not alone.
Did you see the video of the hog that jumped off the truck?
From one fucking patriot to another, you have to love balls:
http://www.patriot.la/articles/weird-news-104673/watch-pig-refuses-to-become-bacon-12459971/
Entire complete lie from the Riches.
I understand. The last few weeks have been horrifying. We’ve all been assuming that once Obama was no longer President, we could heal the damage. But these events are making me think it may already be too late. The Constitution may be gone and never coming back.
By Barry’s statements, it’s extremely apparent that he’s never going to sanction a counter-campaign against ISIL/ ISIS.
1) It STILL has not penetrated the consciousness of the elites that the Iraqi Army is fatally weakened by DIVERSITY. The reason that the units evaporated was because they were composed of multi-sectarian troops and the battle to come turned entirely upon religious faction.
WAKE UP!
2) Maliki came down with Theiu’s optimism. This occurs whenever a Third World big man deludes himself into thinking that he’s so important that America is going to forever bail him out of his follies.
Naturally enough, the big man soon begins to think and act like he’s a real potentate. He gets to spend LARGE while not taxing his own polity to speak of.
(c.f. Karzai) (Kabul collects essentially no taxes at all, it’s totally on the dole. Islamabad is close behind, it’s almost totally on the dole. This failure to collect taxes dominates most of Araby — spanning three thousand miles of dependants.)
3) Barry — at this point — realizes that he’d have to entirely refight Bush’s war — starting from behind the eight-ball.
Barry thought that all of these events would arrive during 2017 at the earliest. (Sinking the logically GOP successor administration.)
%%%
The single most likely sequence from here on is that Iran gains the upper hand across the top of the Fertile Crescent. Tehran goes atomic in a major, major way. (The first atomic revelation will be of a massive atomic stockpile.)
Figure on a l o n g brutal slugfest between the factions devolving into atomics ASAP.
Figure on a horrific blood price as this war eclipses all the wars of the 20th Century — because of proximity and atomics.
I can’t see how any member of the Ummah stays out of the conflict.
As this ramps up, the pressures upon the atomic majors will drive them to recreate maximal atomic arsenals — all over again.
Give that boy a Peace Prize!
Yes, things are bleak, but have any of us seriously considered spell casting?
I believe the comic relief has arrived! For me, anyway.
Like vanderleun says, we are well on our way to going down the tubes. What our Democrat controlled government will do cannot be trusted by our allies, only our enemies. With them in control, and like satan himself, the USA deserts its followers in the end.
But like someone famous wrote (who I cannot recall) once you “domesticate a wild animal” you become responsible for it forever more.
I completely understand, I don’t even know what to say anymore (although I find plenty). Pundits have been asking whether we have hit a tipping point. Yes we have and did, and leadership does nothing but talk. My heart breaks.
The leadership also goes on vacations to Europe and spends time golfing. Don’t forget that. That’s not talking. That’s Doing.
Keep your chin up Neo! Your wonderful blog and contributors speak to the truth and it will win out. I believe we are at the tipping point in our country and the leadership void will soon be filled with courageous Patriots to re-establish the principles of our Founders. Like the Founders, there are many of us who would risk personal fortune and indeed our lives to return the USA to its role of leader of the FREE world. Our day draws near…
Given that Neo’s foundational premise for her blog is her change story based on the Left’s depravity around the Vietnam War, her reaction to the effect of the Left’s depravity in current events is more than understandable. It’s characteristic.
vanderleun quoting Drew: “They were given a chance to build a decent country after Saddam’s removal and they squandered it.”
I don’t agree with this at all. Remember, the COIN “Surge” only works with the Anbar Awakening.
First of all, 8 years would be an insufficient post-war nation-building project for Western Europe, let alone the Middle East. 10 years is about what it takes for step 1 of a nation-building project under placid conditions. Second, Iraq’s civil society was corrupted internally before we invaded, contrary to the Left’s revisionist history of a functional civil society under Saddam – in part due to damage from our ‘containment’. Third, Iraq suffered from a vicious post-war invasion by AQI that combined explosively with the Iran-sponsored Sadrists.
Given all of its challenges, Iraq had made tremendous strides in a short time at the point we cut off our security guarantee prematurely in a region whose dangerous volatility was spiking where Iraq was an immensely valuable target.
It’s not like we’re new at this. If we had left our European and Asia post-WW2 charges to the tender mercies of our regional competitors, they would have “squandered” the chance we gave them, too.
It’s been proven on our watch that a nascent, vulnerable nation that starts dysfunctional can work out its internal issues (Korea), but it’s also been proven on our watch that security is absolutely necessary to do so (Vietnam).
blert,
How diverse was the military under Saddam? If it was diverse under Saddam, then it was following precedent rather than a novel American creation. (Which isn’t to suggest that an Iraqi military unable to defeat an Iranian military being purged was great shakes under Saddam, not to mention Iraq’s other military defeats. His consistently failing military is a reason Saddam believed he needed WMD in the 1st place.)
Eric:
You are absolutely correct about my reaction to this. It has harmonic vibrations with some of the reasons for my original change experience.
Also, I have been dreading the left doing this ever since the war in Iraq began. I knew this was the plan. We managed to stave it off—barely—all this time. The election of Obama made it clear the abandonment would happen. I had still retained a very small hope that somehow Iraq was strong enough to withstand the effects of that, although I really didn’t see how it could be.
It’s like watching a Greek tragedy play out—again.
Horrible.
Eric…
Saddam constructed his military the way America fielded segregated Black military formations in WWII: White officers, Black non-coms.
In the case of Saddam, the officers were Sunnis — and the general officers were pretty much exclusively ‘Tikritis’ — and the top tier were cousins.
Such a segregated military has been the cultural norm for tens of thousands of years… right on back to tribalism.
In the case of the Americanized Iraqi Army, we insisted on slotting Shi’ites (of far less experience) to the highest ranks.
The result was that fission occurred at the command rank levels. Unlike line troops, these gentlemen but rarely interact on a daily basis — except by telephone.
When jihad erupts, the cleavage faults along regimental and battalion levels.
This situation occurred in Antebellum America: Winter 1861 — immediately after it was apparent that Lincoln was elected.
Sherman left his post (at LSU — he basically founded it — though it was not so named at the time) to head north. Many another officer left their posts, both Unionist and Southerners.
Something like this is actively under way in Iraq at this time. Sistani triggered it by (Shi’ite) declaration.
One should expect to see the next phase of their civil war being fought by segregated formations. The old ‘regular army’ of the central government will be entirely replaced by such units. Whether this change is codified by name changes or not.
This reformation will take the bulk of the Summer-Autumn season.
Then a grinder — anabasis — will occur as the Shia move to entirely displace the Sunnis from the general Baghdad area — probably moving to regain the entire Tigris corridor. ( Figure on a multi-year campaign.)
One should expect the Persians to have a decisive impact on all military action going forward.
BTW, ISIL sure looks like an al Quds tool. The action – counter-action – success gambit is classically Persian. (Soviet, too.)
Thanks, blert.
The Persians stopped being Persians when Islam killed off Zoroastrianism.
ISIL was invited to Mosul by Sunnis because Shia death squads were roaming around. That’s one interpretation or rumour.
The Shia death squads were sent because the siege of Fallujah failed, and the Sunni vs Shia divide widened due to that, and no US forces to mediate.
Eric…
You’d want atomics too if your main source of line manpower was composed of the hated enemy: Shi’ites and Kurds.
And he was up against a nation that had (largely) religious unity. (Iran) that had a centuries long tradition of kicking Arab tush.
And he discovered that virtually ALL of his Soviet military gear was third rate. (The Soviets NEVER permitted their true war-fighting gear to be exported, just “monkey models.”)
Certainly his generals informed him that French aircraft were second rate.
He’d never be able to buy the first rate stuff: American.
[(Famously (4) F-4 Phantom IIs flown by Persian pilots destroyed entire squadrons early in the war. They caught the Iraqi Air Force on the tarmac — Israeli style — and shot them up. Saddam had them lined up like they were Egyptian Migs.]
Atomics and biologicals even nerve agents seemed to solve the matter.
%%%
ISIL has solved Tehran’s military impasse: how to get serious strength past the Shatt al Arab. Now they’ll get it by invitation.
Perfect. Rump Iraq + Iran = the anti-NATO.
Is it any wonder Barry wants to get the heck out of Afghanistan?
Instead of American power doing an Anabasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, through Iran, and back. Now the enemy is doing an Anabasis from Mosul to Basra.
How American forces will get out of land locked Afghanistan… that’s still undecided.
Y…
IIRC the most of the ISAF has already bailed out.
No-one’s waiting until the snows of October.
Those who’d better hurry up: NGOs and infidel contractors.
IIRC, the last of the British Army has just left.
There should be no non-American ISAF forces past August — just 75 days away.
By that time the ISAF will have devolved back to Bagram (mostly) and Kabul. Most of Afghanistan is already infidel-free.