Obama Made ‘Greatest Military Blunder World Will Ever Know’ in Iraq
- Thread starter Dawg to the Bone
- Start date
There is a really really good book called Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq written by Michael R. Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times, and Bernar Trainor retired USMC Lt. General. It is the most comprehensive and in depth account of the lead up to Iraq II, it's occupation and how the Iraqi insurgency grew.
If anyone think Obama is the reason Iraqi is the way it is now, after reading this book your mind will be changed. I'm not a Monday morning QB and believe the saying, hind sight is 20/20. But the Bush administrations planning and execution of this war is hands down the biggest blunder in American military history and is easily one of the biggest military blunders in American military history.
If anyone think Obama is the reason Iraqi is the way it is now, after reading this book your mind will be changed. I'm not a Monday morning QB and believe the saying, hind sight is 20/20. But the Bush administrations planning and execution of this war is hands down the biggest blunder in American military history and is easily one of the biggest military blunders in American military history.
So you are telling me that pulling all the troops out of a relatively stable Iraq under Obama's watch was Bush's fault and that the subsequent takeover of large parts of Iraq by ISIS due to Obama's inaction was Bush's fault? I also take some issue with the statement that "the Bush administrations' planning and execution of this war is hands down the biggest blunder in American military history and is easily one of the biggest military blunders in American military history." Given that during the war execution was great, there were relatively few US casualties and it appeared that most objectives and missions were successful. You may have overstated that one a bit. I would place Hitler's invasion of Russia (creating an eastern front) and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (bringing America into WWII) a little ahead of this one to name two just off the top of my head. Gallipoli as well.
Sounds like a good book. My only concern is that there is rarely anything written by a NYT's employee that doesn't address their political ideology.
You do know that Bob Woodward also said this:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...bob-woodward-bush-didnt-lie-to-start-iraq-war
He said in American military history, you just named operations in by foreign countries.
As for bush not lying, I actually believe he thought what he was saying was true, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Karl rove, Paul wolfowitz on the other hand, I believe purposefully fed the president these false narratives.
All I have to say is read the book. Everything in there is backed up with facts. And I agree with Klesko, I think Bush was lead down this road of doom by his National Security Council and advisors. Did you know that after 9/11 Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to attack Iraq and not Afghanistan so that they could accomplish their Neo-Con dream of establishing a western style democracy in the middle east that is controlled by the U.S. That was the true reason for going into Iraq.
I'm sorry but the Iraqi's don't have the same values and sense of country that we American's (as a whole) do. We'd given those SOBs the best training and equipment in the world for 10 years, you think 2 more would have stopped ISIS running rough shot over them. You can't train courage and national pride which the Iraqi military had neither. Our military being their is what brought those several years of relative peace. Should we have just made plans to stay there forever and make that place the 51st state?
Lost in all of this is that Obama and Hillary created ISIS. The goal being to secretly arm moderate Syrian rebels to topple Assad, much like we did in Afghanistan against the Soviets and alQaeda sprouting from that. History repeating itself. We trained these clowns and gave them weapons without vetting them thoroughly first. Trying to secretly further an agenda and we shoot ourselves in the foot. No way out of this one now unless we go balls to the walls and turn ISIS controlled areas into sheets of glass. Not sure we can depend on Jordan and Egypt to clean up our mess.
Sounds plausible. I think you are probably right about their culture and values. It's one of those lead a horse to water things. And no I don't think we should stay there forever, but I do think like Colin Powell said, "You broke it, you own it." Meaning that we have an obligation to try and make the peace work as long as reasonably possible. We broke up the tyrannical structure they had, we need to try and make a new structure work within limits. Allowing ISIS to take over is unacceptable in my book.
