Originally Posted by
Timbo
What happened to all those Iraqi troops we've been training and arming for the past 12+ years, who were supposed to defend their country from these guys?
Now you see why Sadam ruled like he did. I'm not saying he was a nice guy, but now you know why he killed -anyone- who even thought about an uprising.
Tell me again why we went in there in the first place? Not a single 9-11 hijacker was from Iraq, most of them were from Saudi Arabia, and Bin Laden was a Saudi. Even Shrub's Dad, GHW Bush (the 90yr. old paratrooper), knew enough to leave Sadam in power after Gulf War 1...or else this exact scenario would play out.
But nothing is going to change over there until their own people rise up and change it. Remember, America went through a both revolutionary war in 1776, and a civil war in 1865, just trying to become "The United States of America". Turns out, freedom isn't free. Do the Iraqi's want to pay that price?
We've tried to fix Iraq, and we wasted a lot of good people's lives, not to mention $780 Billion in tax dollars, trying to drive out the bad guys, arm and train their soldiers to defend themselves, and rebuild the country. Then they run and hide when the bad guys show up? YGTBSM.
I appreciate that this thread exists and hasn't been taken down. So I'm not trying to ramp this up to a political discussion.
At what point did so many people get the idea that a coalition of international forces invaded Iraq because Iraq was part of the 9-11 plot? Who's propagating that narrative? As I recall the stated reason was the use of WMD on the Iraqi people; the repeated non-compliance with UN security council resolutions; the potential for the U.S. and other nations to suffer another terrorist attack (potentially with WMD); for harboring Al qaeda members with in their borders (not necessarily those who planned 9-11, and not supporting them, but allowing them to reside inside their borders).
I wish we'd never gone into to Iraq either, but I find it annoying that some who supported invading Iraq initially acted as if they were always against it and did their best to give people the impression they never voted to give authorization for a military invasion when things got ugly. In an effort to not get further into political areas, I won't comment on the current C&C's handling of matters since taking office, namely the lack of effort to get a SOFA signed which did not help matters and has led to the debacle we see today.
As to the how and why the Iraqi army is a shell,
Fox News Special Report had General Keane on last night and he provided a good explanation for why their army is so ineffective.
As for who cares? I care. I think it's very sad what hundreds of thousands of innocent people are going through as they become refugees fleeing Iraq's second most populated city out of fear for their lives.