Iraq, Is It Time To Break the War Machne Mentality and Move to a New Reality?...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Below is another sobering and accurate assessment of the present situation and how we helped Iraq get to this point.

At noon today, President Obama issued his first statement on the deteriorating situation on Iraq. “This is not solely or even primarily a military challenge,” he said. “The United States will do our part, but understand that ultimately it’s up to the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems.”

Obama left the door open to unspecified “actions,” but repeated that the Iraqis themselves had to seize the opportunity that the years of American effort gave them.

This will no doubt be greeted by the President’s opponents with something akin to apoplexy. They will be arguing that in fact the problem does have a military solution, that the U.S. can solve it, and that whatever is happening, everything would be better if we applied more force.

We have now reached the rather ironic situation in Iraq where we find ourselves allied with Iran in an effort to save the corrupt and thuggish government of Nouri al-Maliki, while the army we spent eight years training falls apart. I’m not going to pretend to have unique insight into Iraqi politics (I’d suggest reading Marc Lynch, for starters, as a way of getting up to speed on what has led to this point).

It has been said, accurately I might add, that the mark of insanity is to continue to do the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

It is time to ignore the advice of those in American politics and government that led us to this point. Time to smash the old paradigm to pieces.

MORE BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum

Comments

  1. Dave MillerSat Jun 14, 03:33:00 PM EDT

    Les, I think the problem is incredibly multifaceted. For me, I do not believe we should commit troops in a major way unless we have a formal declaration of war and the country supports the action. That support should, and would be demonstrated by acceptance of tax increase to actually pay for the war effort.

    If America supports a war, then America should pay for it, over and above our regular taxes and expenses.

    Then, we should be in it to win it. Period. No police actions, no nation building. Our goal should be 100% unconditional surrender, just like WWII.

    Of course this would require a level of political will that normally is unattainable in the US. We could have had that after 9/11, but Congress and the Bush Admin fumbled that one, and then decided to tack on another unpaid for incursion.

    Just my measley 2 cents, or centavos amigo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Les CarpenterSat Jun 14, 04:38:00 PM EDT

    Dave, your 2 centavos are, as they say, SPOT ON!

    Why this is so difficult for some to grasp I must say escapes me.

    I hate waste and duplicity, subsidies, etc. but if the nation goes to war, and as you said with the support of the people, then we are responsible to ourselves and FUTURE generations to pay for it. Thus we should increase revenue (taxes) immediately.

    The nutters will never get it though. They like credit cards and let the next group take care of it.

    Gutless.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Will "take no prisoners" HartSun Jun 15, 12:33:00 AM EDT

    We should do what we should have done long ago and carve that God forsaken hell-hole into three parts (yep, the Joe Biden plan) and then scram. Enough is enough already.

    ReplyDelete
  4. dmarksSun Jun 15, 06:00:00 AM EDT

    I actually agree with all of this except for the destructive suggestion to raise taxes. There is no reason for the government to figuratively "go to war" against the American people and make them suffer by stealing more money from us. There's hundreds of billions of dollars of waste in the budget. Cut that instead.



    ReplyDelete
  5. Jerry CritterSun Jun 15, 11:01:00 AM EDT

    Show me the 100's of billions. Let"s see what items you would cut and how much each one will save.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dmarksSun Jun 15, 07:16:00 PM EDT

      Jerry, you do realize that there is a massive debt problem now, and that we need to cut a large percent of the budget, regardless of new war efforts, don't you?

      (My cuts would range from the smaller: the billions wasted on official government media such as NPR, PBS, etc... to saving several billion on SCHIP for rich children, to much larger savings in cutting "entitement" welfare to people of means, fair pay and pensions, and yes, a big cut to defense.)

      Delete
    2. Les CarpenterTue Jun 17, 10:45:00 AM EDT

      Indeed, there is a massive debt problem. to the tune of 17 trillion dollars. But hey, we've grown so addicted to national credit card spending nobody really cares anymore. Reagan and GWB were the biggest credit card advocates. What was the national debt under Ford and Carter? Hint: less than 1 trillion. Yeppers, and Clinton was by comparison in the small spender category.

      Delete
  6. UnknownMon Jun 16, 03:32:00 AM EDT

    Great info. Thank You very much!
    Live news Here : Breaking News India

    ReplyDelete

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