Obama declares victory in Iraq

[Dowly]

Kind of...

CAMP SPRINGS, MD—Addressing troops at Andrews Air Force Base Tuesday, President Barack Obama claimed victory in Iraq, saying that formal combat operations in the region would end Aug. 31, and that the United States had emerged from the seven-year war triumphant, kind of.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/oba...-how-yo,17916/

[Skybird]

More than just one grain of truth in it.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

More than just one grain of truth in it.

[Moeceefus]

Mission Accomplished! Now where have I seen that before?

[Skybird]

An anything but unsignificant presence of american troops is to be maintained anyway, even beyond the end of 2011. It is a force reduction but not a withdrawel. and as the Onion ironically indicated, the original mission objectives declared before the war have not been acchieved in substance.

But these days you already are satisfied and celebrate "victory" when a temporary superficial shine allows you to get out while keeping at least good part of your face saved - making use of the opportunity, so to speak.

[SteamWake]

Troops present beyon 2011... pffft evidently you havent payed attention to the US's past history with such actions. We will be there for decades.

But hey since victory has been proclaimed its time for (another) vacation

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Troops present beyon 2011... pffft evidently you havent payed attention to the US's past history with such actions. We will be there for decades.

Which probably was one of the three main reasons for attacking in 2003 (the other two were to gain access to and influence the Iraqi oil industry, the other was the currency threat). Geostrategy and Economy, that was what the war was about.

[Dowly]

Wait... but the news told me it was WMD's and Hussein's connections with Al-Qaida!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Wait... but the news told me it was WMD's and Hussein's connections with Al-Qaida!

That was just the summer holiday song being played to make the crowds dancing in the streets.
Nobody wants to go to war for geostrategic calculations and economic interests of lobbygroups. If you go to war, you want to wear the white shining armour, not Lord Vaders dark cape, and you want to be sure that you fight for freedom, peace and justice - never anything less than these. I call them the holy trinity of war.

[SteamWake]

Yes of course humanitarisim was the last thing on Bush's mind.

http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_mass_graves.pdf

[Platapus]

We should have been honest and just called the whole thing "Operation Iraqi Liberation".

[Sailor Steve]

As for Obama's declaring victory, this is the part where I lay the worst epithet on him that I can think of:

He's a politician.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Yes of course humanitarisim was the last thing on Bush's mind.

Yes, of course. major wars are too expensive to be launched for that. Also, there were and are far more dramatic massacres going on - and nobody gave/gives a damnn for them. compared to these, Hussein's terror regime was relatively minor in scale and horror. not to mention that the US often cooperated, supported and kept in power governments in africa, Asia and South and middle America that were committing such massacres, and torturing. The reason why america did like that? The same reasons: Geostrategy, and economic interests, from influencing trade traffic patterns to mining precious rare ores needed in the space industry and computer hightech. Today, access to biologic gene samples with the option to patent and monopolise them, is becoming an major motive, too, namely in the tropical jungle of south america. Or better: it already is a major motive since years - and probably the major drive behind the years long US activities on the South american continent. Drug wars in Columbia - have little to do with it and again serve as a distraction.

And btw, Steam Wake: since years the level of torturing and assassination committed in the name of the current Iraqi government is said to be at least as high as it has been at the best times of Hussein. Many say it even is worse. So, obviously not much has changed. You still have torture of the kind before. you still have death squads and arbitrary arrests at night. You still have people disappearing - like before. what you also have now, since 2003, if several terror groups operating in Iraq, bombs in the street killing scores, religious fanatics waiting for their time, political and ethnical/religious groups cleaning old bills - and no Saddam Hussein to keep all that in check like he did.

Now go back to 2003 and 2004 in the forum. You will find several threads where me and some others predicted right this and no other scenario. The result was a board in flames (at least at times). i alos predicted that sooner or later the US would have enough of it, sneak out through a backwindow of opportunity when it opens, and leave it all behind as it is - but running a garrison somewhere nevertheless for years to come that serves as bodyguard for Us companies that were brought into Iraq after Saddam's fall. We have that, plus mercenaries.

[Skybird]

and i just have read about a rumour that strated circulating. It seems that our good old friend, radical cleric Muktada Al-Sadr, is back (as if he ever was gone). Rumour says Allawi negotiates about forming a power coalition with Al-Sadr.

I cannot help it, but haven't I predicted this as well - that Al-Sadr will be the political power of the future? After Fallujah and the violence of the first years, his militia realised that it can cause chaos but cannot really defeat the Americans in field battle. This and the pressure of other Iraqi clerics has led Al-Sadr to temporarily evade the public scene, stay put and wait for his time. Time that he used for conducting theological studies and raise his repouation and athorutiy as a scholar, which will help him in politics, no doubt - the other clerics now find it more difficult to oppose his claim for leadership and radical chnage of society. His militia in principle is still there, most of it's arms never got collected, and it must be assumed that it has rearmed in the past years when it was relatively calm around Al-Sadr.

And to bring this man into power, and the thinoling he represents, American soldiers risked and lost their, lives for. If it would not be so bitterly real, I would laugh myself to death over this.

Aziz, the last foreign minster of Saddam, said that there will be a time when we would miss Saddam. How right he was! Of all possibilities that became reality since 2003, and of all possibilities that now appear at the horizon, Saddam has been the smallest of all evils, with his teeth already being pulled out in 91. And with his undoubted brutality - he kept many of the greater evils in check.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Aziz, the last foreign minster of Saddam....