48 replies to this topic

[Rogal Dorn]

http://www.theguardi...s-iraq-george-w

 

tl;dr
 

Ivy Ziedrich, a 19-year-old University of Nevada student, A college student who confronted Jeb Bush about the Iraq war has spoken out about the incident, which made headlines around the world, saying of the former Florida governor’s position: “It was like somebody crashing their car and blaming the passenger.”

She questioned him amid a flock of reporters about his assertion that the jihadi group developed because Barack Obama had overseen the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

“You stated that Isis was created because we don’t have enough presence and we’ve been pulling out of the Middle East,” Ziedrich said, shifting blame instead on to the consequences of George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “The threat of Isis was created by the Iraqi coalition authority, which ousted the entire government of Iraq.

[Thrash]

I saw like 3 seconds of this and wanted to punch the girl in the face because of her attitude and didn't even know what they were talking about.

[Manoka]

I think ISIS created ISIS. I agree that pulling out early left a vacuum and made it earlier to fill, but at the end of the day, it's the criminals responsible for the crime, not some politician you don't like. 

[HailSatan]

That student looked like she took a huge gulp of the liberal cool-aid prior to asking that question.  ISIS or ISIL since Obummer wont call it ISIS, seems they are insurgents with a name.  Of course they are just the JV team and nothing to worry about right? 

[Justavictim82]

To say that Bush is not at the very least culpable for ISIS is idiocy. ISIS never exists if Hussein is still in power.

[killer04]

Well..... ISIS' roots can be traced back prior to the US invasion of Iraq as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, then when al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda the group was then know as Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now after some more changes and what not, it eventually turned into ISIS. I would say that the current ISIS got it's start in the power gap of Syria, then moved into Iraq.

Edited by killer04, 16 May 2015 - 01:08 PM.

[Haflinger]

Personally, I think probably equal blame for IS can be apportioned to Bush II and al-Sisi.

[Justavictim82]

Personally, I think probably equal blame for IS can be apportioned to Bush II and al-Sisi.

You forgot Assad

[HailSatan]

If we would have left some troops in Iraq , none of this shit would be going on, yes i know  non signing of the SOFA agreement, but could have tried a bit harder to get it.  But when Obummer use to praise how he got the troops out of Iraq, yeah good job. 

 

In the whole realm of things, we should have left Saddam in power, those people there need a iron fist to rule them. granted he was doing some fucked up things. maybe just take out his son's  to show him we were not messing around.

 

 All he had to do is to let inspectors in and see he doesn't have a full up nuke.  Granted he had all the parts but no one likes to talk about that or all the chemical weapons he had, but that's not WMD right ? 

[Justavictim82]

If we would have left some troops in Iraq , none of this shit would be going on, yes i know non signing of the SOFA agreement, but could have tried a bit harder to get it. But when Obummer use to praise how he got the troops out of Iraq, yeah good job.

In the whole realm of things, we should have left Saddam in power, those people there need a iron fist to rule them. granted he was doing some fucked up things. maybe just take out his son's to show him we were not messing around.

All he had to do is to let inspectors in and see he doesn't have a full up nuke. Granted he had all the parts but no one likes to talk about that or all the chemical weapons he had, but that's not WMD right ?

Leave troops on the ground and have our budget swell without paying for it? I am good. We did the right thing by pulling out. Give Obama credit there. Let the Muslims have their civil war that they have been trying to foght for the last half century but keep being held at check by the West. Keep pumping billions of wasted tax dollars into a country that cannot appropriate them into positive gains Or even worse fall into the enemy's lap. Congress wanted the hell out of dodge 4 years ago and we are out. You cannot play both sides. While we are at it, stop apologizing for the Suads and Egypt with their shit attitudes towards us at times with the billions in aid lining their pockets. I am done listening to all the horseshit partisan politicking about what we should have done instead of leave these people to blow each other up. I guarantee you that if Obama or the next president were to pull all the money out of the middle east tomorrow, they would just fight amongst themselves.

[Haflinger]

Personally, I think probably equal blame for IS can be apportioned to Bush II and al-Sisi.

You forgot Assad

Assad didn't stage a military coup to oust a democratically-elected Muslim government and then start systematically executing his political enemies. That would be al-Sisi.

I don't agree with the Muslim Brotherhood's policies, but I would much rather deal with them in a democratic environment. When you outlaw political parties and conduct purges, you drive movements underground and they turn to insane organizations like IS instead.

 

If we would have left some troops in Iraq , none of this shit would be going on, yes i know  non signing of the SOFA agreement, but could have tried a bit harder to get it.

If you hadn't invaded Iraq in the first place, al-Qaeda would have been destroyed. The first al-Qaeda was destroyed by the invasion of Afghanistan.

 

Obama was left with a terrible choice to make: keep a large force in Iraq, maintain order there for an extra eight years at a significant cost in the US in terms of both money and lives, while just delaying the inevitable collapse when the US was finally forced to leave, or pull out right away, and put Iraq into turmoil. Honestly, I don't think there was a good choice to make. He tried to waffle it in hopes that Iraq could be rebuilt enough before he left, but of course that would take much more time than his administration had.

 

This is the problem with empire-building, you see; it takes time. The British were in India for eighty-nine years, and still they left it in disarray (arguably that was their intent of course). One of the good things about the American public is that it doesn't have an appetite for that kind of political domination, which may be a hangover from the British trying it on their ancestors back in the eighteenth century. But the thing is, the American public still accepts this kind of cowboy adventuring approach to politics, which really has a terrible track record: Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq.

[Manoka]

To say that Bush is not at the very least culpable for ISIS is idiocy. ISIS never exists if Hussein is still in power.

Al Qaeda was already operating in Iraq long before our involvement, and in any case, if Hussein was still in power, far more people would have been dead. 

[Manoka]

Honestly, the whole, let a bunch of innocent people die and a genocidal dictator take over just seems stupid to me. First of all, ignoring the problem "harder" is almost never the solution to the problem. Tell the starving kids in Africa that "ignoring harder" is the solution, or pretty much anyone suffering. If it worked, most the problems in the world wouldn't exist.

 

The second issue is, you're incredibly naive and short sighted if you think this will never found a way to blow back on America or the rest of the world. It's not as if militants who have an undying hatred of western culture and attacked us more or less unprovoked were going to stop their genocidal campaigns, lay down their arms, and stop invading their neighbors if we had only ignored them. We would have eventually been dragged into the conflict considering that no-one is happy JUST with Choslovakia and Belgium, and Poland etc., only it we would have been hit a lot worse than a few trains or buildings being blown up; we waited for another pearl harbor, and it happened, where we finally got attacked directly, and people still think we shouldn't have gotten involved. Ignoring WMD's, Iraq had the 5th largest military in the time with mostly modern Russian equipment (for the time), behind only the U.S., North Korea, China, and Russia. Bigger than the UK, France, Germany, Pakistan, and so on. Iran also had a huge military, with, largely Russian military equipment. Had they fought another war, had they just been allowed to invade Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the war would have been so devastating it would have consumed the middle east, and then moved on to Europe which, is right next to the middle east, and then the world. They wouldn't have just stopped killing the Kurds in their own country, they would have moved on and on and on trying to take over their neighbors. Iraq would have never been happy with just Kuwait, just as Hitler would have never been happy just with Belgium. 

 

 

Then, let's throw in WMD's. Iraq had them, as well as 500 tons of Uranium. Iran would have had nuclear weapons, if we hadn't of bombed their reactors, like we did with Iraq. Pakistan definitely has them, and Israel probably has them. Iran has a military of about 2.4 million people; that's about 30% of Israel's population. Because not every man, woman and child can pick up a gun and fight in Israel, there likely would at least be a 100% annihilation rate of Israeli citizens. The Basij has over 11 million people, which is some 30% MORE than Israeli's entire population, or 70% more when combined with their standing military. Threatened with total annihilation, you can bet Israel would have resorted to their most powerful weapons, and once the nukes start to fly, it's pretty bye bye for the rest of the world. 

 

Iraq WAS threatening war on Israel, and Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and pretty much everyone else before we invaded. 

 

 

WWIII was at out doorstep with what was developing over there. Had it been allowed to continue on it's path, Armageddon would have been a surefire hting. Now, our worst threat is a few thousand idiots in sandals robbing oil wells that they can barely sell the oil out of, a few banks, with Ak-47's? Even if we're going to pretend Bush made them somehow, which is very stupid, I'd take that over the Saddam regime which killed hundreds of thousands of people in mass genocide, the mass graves of which are still being found, and the development of nuclear weapons which would have existed and, AT LEAST, the resulting conventional wars, had we not have intervened so many times. 

 

I don't like having to spend money on the war, but it's not as if these problems will simply go away just because we ignore them. We are a part of the world, and thus effected by it. What happens in it, effects us. And thus, eventually, this problem would have come back to bite us in the ass much worse if it was just left to fester. If anything, we should have gotten involved sooner, before it turned into this shitstorm. 

[Redezra]

They are called the Islamic State. That is what they call themselves. ISIS/ISIL are depricated monikers, and "daesh" is just plain silly.

Christ why can't we just call a spade a spade, huh? It's starting to reaaaally annoy me.

[Justavictim82]

To say that Bush is not at the very least culpable for ISIS is idiocy. ISIS never exists if Hussein is still in power.

Al Qaeda was already operating in Iraq long before our involvement, and in any case, if Hussein was still in power, far more people would have been dead. 

 

How? Like gassing the Kurds by the hundreds of thousands? We really seemed to give a shit about that prior to allegedly liberating the Iraqi people. Al Queda was not in Iraq prior to the 2003. Most of Al Queda are Sunni. Most of Iraq is Shi'a. They get along as well as we get along with them. Stop round pegging that argument because it is blatantly false. Would people be dead if Saddam was still in power? Yes. Are people dying because he isn't in power any more? Yes. People were going to die there anyway but we invaded anyway so instead we get the next (and larger) generation of extremists hating us because we just cannot stop fucking with their every day lives

[slimshadyinc]

Well I like to think of it this way. We have been in Iraq for a very long time. So much so that when a young child can grow up to be a full adult, and the US had been occupying their country the entire time. I think I would hate america too. Because its the young guys doing all the fighting today, teenagers, twenty year olds. Not to mention the older people filling them with anti american sentiment. Honestly I can't see how anyone in Iraq could support us staying there.

[Manoka]

 

To say that Bush is not at the very least culpable for ISIS is idiocy. ISIS never exists if Hussein is still in power.

Al Qaeda was already operating in Iraq long before our involvement, and in any case, if Hussein was still in power, far more people would have been dead. 

 

How? Like gassing the Kurds by the hundreds of thousands? We really seemed to give a shit about that prior to allegedly liberating the Iraqi people. Al Queda was not in Iraq prior to the 2003. Most of Al Queda are Sunni. Most of Iraq is Shi'a. They get along as well as we get along with them. Stop round pegging that argument because it is blatantly false. Would people be dead if Saddam was still in power? Yes. Are people dying because he isn't in power any more? Yes. People were going to die there anyway but we invaded anyway so instead we get the next (and larger) generation of extremists hating us because we just cannot stop fucking with their every day lives

We invaded because of the horrible things he was doing, to prevent him from doing more horrible things. He killed hundreds of thousands, Al Qaeda has killed thousands. As in, order of magnitudes less. It's about having a sense of scale.

 

I also never said that they got along, I said they were in Iraq before then. The organization that was in Iraq, which later turned into "Al Qaeda in Iraq", and now "ISIS" or IS, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, [1], was in Iraq as early as 2001, and Osama Bin Laden has meetings with Iraqi representatives as early as 1995, But Al Qaeda and them unsuccessfully developed an "operational" relationship, as in, the meeting lead to nowhere. Saddam was a proponent of state sponsored terrorism, but they never hit it off with Al Qaeda, as one could imagine, being shiite, compared to Sunni. Al Qaeda was in Iraq as early as that, but they weren't doing much. ISIS as we know it, was in Iraq since 2001. 

 

Just FYI, one of the key reasons ISIS was kicked out of Al Qaeda was for their extreme views on Shiites, which Al Qaeda didn't share. Which is that all shiites deserve to die.

[Manoka]

Well I like to think of it this way. We have been in Iraq for a very long time. So much so that when a young child can grow up to be a full adult, and the US had been occupying their country the entire time. I think I would hate america too. Because its the young guys doing all the fighting today, teenagers, twenty year olds. Not to mention the older people filling them with anti american sentiment. Honestly I can't see how anyone in Iraq could support us staying there.

You would hate America just because they were there for a long time? xP

 

And even if that's the case, the terrorists kill far more innocent people than they do Americans, usually deliberately targeting mosques, hospitals, schools, and other public places, so even if they did hate America for the length of time we've spent over there, they sure don't seem to be motivated by that alone.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

On the naming issue: They call themselves "the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant," which is abbreviated to ISIL or ISIS in most Western media. I think the media avoid the term "Islamic State" because using it is seen as legitimizing them (note than when they do use it they usually say "the so-called Islamic State"). Also "ISIS" is a catchy word that already exists in the Western lexicon, albeit for entirely different reasons.

[Justavictim82]

 

 

To say that Bush is not at the very least culpable for ISIS is idiocy. ISIS never exists if Hussein is still in power.

Al Qaeda was already operating in Iraq long before our involvement, and in any case, if Hussein was still in power, far more people would have been dead. 

 

How? Like gassing the Kurds by the hundreds of thousands? We really seemed to give a shit about that prior to allegedly liberating the Iraqi people. Al Queda was not in Iraq prior to the 2003. Most of Al Queda are Sunni. Most of Iraq is Shi'a. They get along as well as we get along with them. Stop round pegging that argument because it is blatantly false. Would people be dead if Saddam was still in power? Yes. Are people dying because he isn't in power any more? Yes. People were going to die there anyway but we invaded anyway so instead we get the next (and larger) generation of extremists hating us because we just cannot stop fucking with their every day lives

We invaded because of the horrible things he was doing, to prevent him from doing more horrible things. He killed hundreds of thousands, Al Qaeda has killed thousands. As in, order of magnitudes less. It's about having a sense of scale.

 

I also never said that they got along, I said they were in Iraq before then. The organization that was in Iraq, which later turned into "Al Qaeda in Iraq", and now "ISIS" or IS, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, [1], was in Iraq as early as 2001, and Osama Bin Laden has meetings with Iraqi representatives as early as 1995, But Al Qaeda and them unsuccessfully developed an "operational" relationship, as in, the meeting lead to nowhere. Saddam was a proponent of state sponsored terrorism, but they never hit it off with Al Qaeda, as one could imagine, being shiite, compared to Sunni. Al Qaeda was in Iraq as early as that, but they weren't doing much. ISIS as we know it, was in Iraq since 2001. 

 

Just FYI, one of the key reasons ISIS was kicked out of Al Qaeda was for their extreme views on Shiites, which Al Qaeda didn't share. Which is that all shiites deserve to die.

 

Al Queda was not in Iraq in force in 2003 nor would they ever been had we not invaded. Let us not mince words here because Saddam was a scumbag but removing him from power under the false assumption that he had biological weapons (false until working proof of weapons is shown to the world) and the fact that he broke the cease fire agreement from the Gulf War. Stop thinking for one second that we as a country gave a shit about him killing Non-Ba'ath party members, Sunnis and Kurds because we didn't. Kuwait, the Sauds and Iran may have but we didn't care so long as he upheld his end the cease fire.