Fact: The fact are just the facts that when the
demarodent thinks of a plan it is meant to screw us citizens around in some
form or another! You can count on it!

And whats wrong with the question? The White House was trying to keep troops there for this reason. We are being kicked out. Love blind biased media like this article its a real question that we should be worried about that why the White House was trying to have troops stay longer.

Maybe the chickenhawks over at Fox should go over to Iraq and find out if there are any wmd’s Sadaam had for themselves.

Totally ignored is the fact that the Iraqi government wanted to be able to prosecute American soldiers for whatever suited them and the White House demanded a total immunity for our troops. When the Iraqis refused, we made it clear we were leaving. Sounds to me like he did his job protecting our troops from becoming victims of pointless prosecutions.

If Iraq destabilizes then lives may be wasted. Whatever the outcome the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, thanks to GW Bush!

- Bush set the deadline date.

- Obama chose to adhere to the Bush withdrawal date.

- The American public and the military both wanted the war to be over.

- We will now have more money to address problems at home.

- Possibly (total conjecture on my part): Obama gives Maliki an issue (prosecutions) to “win” on to better cement Maliki’s image of being in control.

- And as was stated earlier by KeevaS: Totally ignored is the fact that the Iraqi government wanted to be able
to prosecute American soldiers for whatever suited them and the White House demanded a total immunity for our troops. When the Iraqis refused, we made it clear we were leaving. Sounds to me like he did his job protecting our troops from becoming victims of pointless prosecutions.

A liberal talking point exploded :

“Little-known fact: Obama’s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/little-known-fact-obama039s-failed-stimulus-program-cost-more-iraq-war

What is America going to do when they finally leave Afghanistan? Have a nervous breakdown because they won’t be engaged in anymore wars? What a freakin’ country!

Dems love 10-year-old-child-logic: “He touched it first!  Who cares if I dropped it!  It is his fault!”

Not sure which is more simple:  silly child-logic or thinking that running against Bush will help them in the coming elections.

You can’t mean that.  Obviously there are outcomes worse than Saddam.  That’s not to suggest that he wasn’t horrible, but clearly there could be worse.  Do you feel the same about Qaddafi?

little known because it is not true!!!

Brad, first of all, hearing great things about Moneyball.  Congrats. Second, what the heck does that last sentence mean?

I Hate Fox.

Come on. Isn’t it time to at least leave Iraq as planned? We will still have troops around the area, however. Don’t just damn Obama just for the sake of ideology. Please.

Here is a well known fact… You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Anyway, are you in favor of bringing the Iraq troops home?

What makes you so stupid? Were dropped on your head as a child?

FACT: You are a paranoid idiot..DOUBLE FACT: You are almost always wrong..TRIPLE FACT: Anyone who is 100% partisan-is myopic at best

Actually, I believe he said as much on the matter. [from his press conference, Obama:]  “In closing, bringing the troops home is yet another form whereby I screw the citizens of our nation.  I’m not sure how exactly, but you can count on it that it will.  It’s just a fact– according to a definition of ‘fact’ I share with a frequent commenter on Mediaite whereby ‘fact’ means ‘baseless, unsupported assertion.’”

Fox News has been the scurge of American society for 15 years now.

These dummies should have asked these questions 8yrs ago. Dumb shits, they were the loud mouths of the Bush administration, communication wing. Disgrace to journalism as a whole and one of the reasons I despise Murdoch. 

The citizens got screwed when your hero ‘w’ decided to go to war. Shame! 

An honest sentiment wasted on that poster and the opinions for hire at Fox and Friends.

Wasn’t this withdrawal date something arranged by Bush?
Do we get to keep our military in any country we choose , or do we have to consider their wishes as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ09U_a80MM

John Bolton admits on Fox, War for Oil.  Something crazy progressives were saying 10 years ago.

Love how Fox News is filled with people who didn’t serve, Ailes, Hannity, O’Reilly, but they all want to go to war everywhere…except in Libya for some reason.

There is a cost associated with the choices Bush made and long term consequences for all of us.

A body maybe be better off without a tumor, but hacking it out with a machete isn’t excused as “good intentions” 

Yes Saddam was a brutal dictator. The question then is, what’s the best way to deal with him , while keeping in mind that Iraq is a sovereign nation. Now contrast the example of Libya to the choices made about Iraq.

and really, what are the lives of thousands of soldiers , tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and tens of thousands of people maimed on both sides, compared to the dollar sign, when counting costs.

glad to see you have your priorities straight.

Oh they’ll have jobs when they come home, liberate wall street from them pesky little hippie occupiers

I’m not sure Obama chose to adhere to it. It’s possible  that Iraq wouldn’t agree to let us continue a strong military presence there. {which is okay by me}

FACT: Never should have gone in the first place.
 4000 Americian service man and woman dead. Thousands upon thosands of more with disabilities.ie:missing limbs from ieds.
This war just about bankrupted our country. And for what?
Where is all that oil that was going come from this victory to pay for this conflict when the Iraq war was “sold” to us by the Bush adminastration Neo-cons?

RICH MANS WAR

Jimmy joined the army ‘cause he had no place to go. There ain’t nobody hirin’
‘round here since all the jobs went down to Mexico. Reckoned that
he’d learn himself a trade maybe see the world. Move to the city someday and
marry a black haired girl. Somebody somewhere had another plan. Now he’s
got a rifle in his hand. Rollin’ into Baghdad wonderin’ how he got this far.
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war. Bobby had an
eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm .Red white and blue to the bone when he
landed in Kandahar .Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl .A
stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world .Been a year now and
he’s still there .Chasin’ ghosts in the thin dry air. Meanwhile back at
home the finance company took his car .Just another poor boy off to fight a
rich man’s war .When will we ever learn. When will we ever see. We
stand up and take our turn. And keep tellin’ ourselves we’re free. Ali
was the second son of a second son.. Grew up in Gaza throwing bottles and
rocks when the tanks would come. Ain’t nothin’ else to do around here just a
game children play. Somethin’ ‘bout livin’ in fear all your life makes you
hard that way. He answered when he got the call. Wrapped himself in
death and praised Allah. A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door.
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war.
-STEVE EARLE

Yes a tv station is the problem with the American society. Do you people really live in this bubble that makes Fox News bigger then it is just to whine about them.

Faux “News” is brainwashing idiots and is reinforcing stupidity among our Ameriican rednecks.

I don’t think any life lost in any war should be described as a “wasted life”.Regardless of why a war exists,all of our wars have an underlying element of protecting and preserving what our country is all about and our way of life.

If you accept that this particular war was started because of a genuine belief that there were WMDs in the hands of a psycho dictator and posed a real threat to Americans and American interests and allies,and that this war neutralized what threats did actually exist there,then no life lost was “wasted”.

The war in Iraq was probably inevitable.It was handled completely wrong but almost certainly would have taken place in some form at some point.So lives would have been lost there eventually.

And if nothing else,most lives lost in war are lost in the defense of fellow soldiers.That is never a “waste”.

We all wish we lived in a society that had no wars but we don’t.We wish that war was a last resort and always came to be for reasons that somehow make sense but that isn’t always the case.Deaths in a war should not be judged on the merits or lack thereof of the war itself.

The answer to the title question is no.

The same Failed Stimulus that was 1/3 Tax Cuts?? so Tax Cuts cost us alot of money.. who would have thought

I feel my life is wasted everytime I hear someone from F& F speak.

Bush 1 thought he had set things up so it would turn out just like Libya did. Eventually, rebels that were protected in the north (Kurds) and the south (Marsh Arabs and others) by our military imposing no-fly (and no tank) zones would rise up against Saddam and we would go in in support of those rebels.
It turns out that Saddam was too tough to let that happen. No rebellion started, and we were still doing (expensive) no-fly zones a decade later. That was a “silent stalemate” because we Americans forgot about it.
I am not justifying Bush 2′s decision. I just thought people ought to remember the whole story.

Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA). We have them with every country where we have troops stationed regularly. They protect soldiers (generic term here) from being picked up for no reason by police.
If a (generic) soldier gets arrested for a crime in Japan, he will still be tried by Japanese courts, AFTER the US JAG reviews the case and verifies that there is sufficient evidence against the soldier.
If convicted, the soldier will be incarcerated in a Japanese jail.
It works the same way in Germany and all other places.

Naw. I only want to screw Teapublicans around.
I like the real Americans.

The two worst hires Bush 2 ever made: Don Rumsfeld and John Bolton. Both egotistical madmen.

Take a look at fox news ratings and then look at the number of people who voted in the last presidential election and see how dumb it looks blaming a tv network for the problems of this country.

I think that sounds like a reasonably fair description of all parties and their interests. 

IF anything, it’s the jackasses at Fox News that fed off of the WMD bullshit then helped push us into war, then if anyone disagreed on the Democrat side they were “unAmerican”, it was almost like McCarthyism, and so Democrats joined Republicans in lock-step to pass legislation because the Republican administration in charge was literally making up intelligence about Iraq. Colin Powell presented fake images to the United Nations to corral the other nations into joining the fight against terrorists in Iraq, meanwhile, all the attackers on 9/11 were of Saudi descent. We had no business in Iraq, if anyone “wasted lives” it was Republicans for pushing the war for no other reason than revenge and bloodlust… and they all let themselves be tricked by the Fox News bullshit machine into thinking Iraq had something to do with Osama  Bin Laden… dude was in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not in Iraq. 

The Bush administration staged a fake Iraqi uprising, a fake toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, there were only about 40 people actually there but there just happened to be tons of news crews.

The Bush administration and Fox News helped start this war that has killed almost 100,000 iraqi’s… “wasted” countless American/foreign lives, and has done absolutely nothing for our country…

But now that Obama is in office and he wants to end it.. we’re “wasting lives”… WOULDNT WE BE WASTING LIVES STILL FIGHTING IT YOU DUMBASSES? Waste more lives for what? There’s no goal.

Screw these assholes.

Just Fox and Friends.
Only them.

Fact:  Yes.

Following your logic- because Bush served and all the CNN people MSNBC, Mahr, Stewart, Moore etc did not- they had no business trashing his Iraq and Afghan.

Also, Bush served and Obama did not- so Iraq > Libya due to Obama the Chicken hawk.

Obama the Chickenhawk is sending troops out to die too!  I cant wait until Obama’s kids are old enough to serve so we can trash them as well!

Actually it’s far too late to ask if American lives will be wasted because they already have been wasted. Nearly 4500 dead and more than 35,000 wounded some permanently.  Not to mention the hundred’s of thousands of men and women with post traumatic stress disorder who will suffer for years to come.  Many will end up in prison as they did after the Vietnam war when 1 in 5 prisoners in America’s prisons were veterans with mental issues.  Millions of Iraqis were displaced and an unknown number killed in the violence during and after the war. And all of this because Bush and his neo-com nin-com-poops thought they could change the world and spread democracy. Sadly, we lost some of our own democratic principles in this war that history will ultimately  see as one giant mistake.

you can always count on fox & friends to lower their already pathetically low standards

Has anyone stopped to think that we lost lives in a COUNTRY that did not want us there in th first place. They still don’t. Why should the President try to convince them to keep troops where they are not wanted and will not be given immunity.The FF and republican hawks are losing it big time.

Too funny, the libshit nation in a lather over fnc! Geeeez ladies, obsess much?

And that is exactly what the Iraqi government refused. So, we’re leaving.

Yes, Saddam is gone and that’s terrific. We all applaud that result and give Bush his due. 

But the question is not whether the world is better off without Saddam, but whether it was worth the cost to remove him. A trillion dollars (give or take), thousands of American lives (and tens of thousands of Iraqis), damage to our reputation (because of failed intel and torture) and taking our eyes off the battle against real threats like Al Qaeda. 

I supported the war at the beginning — to the horror of most of my friends and co-workers — but a year later concluded it was a mistake. Removing Saddam was simply not worth the price we paid in treasure, life, crediibility and security. 

That and it is the right thing to do.
Just thought I would explain SOFA to those who think it doesn’t matter.

Actually, Bush hid from Vietnam in the Texas National Guard, while Gore went.  So the logic stands.

lives were wasted by going into iraq–and more wasted by staying…
FACT

stimulus—
you mean the one that was mostly tax cuts?
or the one that created and saved over 3 million jobs?
or the one that save our auto industry?

how many lives were lost in the stimulus? oh ya–lives were saved~

but saving millions of jobs or keeping millions of young people on health insurance is much less noble than killing millions of innocent people so a few war profiteers can increase their profit huh?
whatever~

What is certain is after all the years and all the deaths the US will be leaving with their tale between their legs (as seen by Iraq and Iran) and won’t even have access to the bases we built.  

Well, WASTED is a very harsh term. These men and women are sent to fight OUR battles, period. IF we send them to fight, THE FIGHT.. and regardless of the outcome, there is no WASTE of life. A withdrawal from Iraq will simply mean we (the people) will not be partly responsible for sending young people to potentially stand in harms way. To say “wasted” is childish. To say “wasted” is defeatist. Plus, like I’ve started to say within any posts on the internet; IF you can find a “SIDE” on which to stand with regard to the USA being in IRAQ, please spend the next week alone with a mirror as there are no SIDES in war other than OUR side and the ENEMY’s side..and hopefully, you’ve been supporting our side.
“side note” -for the ignorant, you can support the troops and not support the war. My mom hates football but supported me when I played. See how easy it is?

I guess I earned my screen name today. I’m making paranoid Fox viewers foam at the mouth.
It’s kinda fun.

Guess they can always hope…

Dear Fox News Anchors, Writers, and Correspondents,

It is wrong for you to suggest that thousands of American troops died for no reason, because you built your careers on their deaths.  You got exactly what you wanted.  You are the reason they died. To deny that reason is to deny your own existence. Learn to embrace your Republican heritage, because it’s never going away.

Yes, people, you read it right – a statement beginning ‘FACT’ then went onto include the term ‘demarodent’ (pretty sharp, ‘rat’/'rodent’) as well as the phrase “The fact are just the facts…”. Another completely unintelligible bout of bollocks from just4thefax! What a legend!

Let these Fox boobs come talk to me.

As the mother of an Iraq war vet who’s suffering PTSD, I’ll show them how ‘wasted’ this was.

Fox ALMOST got it right for once. But it’s not the withdrawal from Iraq that means American lives were wasted. It was the INVASION of Iraq that meant American lives were going to be wasted. That was evident, just as Howard Dean and others predicted in 2002 before the invasion ever began. It was no surprise to anyone with half a brain, which is why the invasion was planned, financed, advocated and carried out by people having no such generous amount of functioning grey matter.

Faux “news” couldn’t get a story right even if they had Sarah Palin write the word right on her right hand.

Faux “news” couldn’t get a story right even if they had Sarah Palin write the word right on her right hand.

He volunteered to go to Vietnam, he did not hide.  When CBS conducted their investigation into RatherGate, on page 130 of their report they write that Mary Mapes had prior information from several people in the TexANG that Lieutenant Bush did in fact volunteer for Vietnam. 

http://digitaljournal.com/article/278284

They needed more experienced pilots and Bush did not have enough flight hours to qualify.  Also, the planes they were using in Vietnam were not the same as what President Bush was trained on.  During the heat of the RatherGate nonsense I had read the type of plane he flew was being eliminated and that Bush would have to be retrained for the other and he did not have enough time left to both retrain and serve in theater.

He inquired about volunteering, he didn’t volunteer.  He hid in the National Guard sir, if he wanted to go he easily could have.

There was no louder drumbeat to war than from Fox news.  Bill O’Reilly famously would not even allow dissent.

Leave him alone he reads and quotes the Washington Examiner…What else would you expect…
Maybe he gets his architectural drawings from Archies comics..

“Will Withdrawal From Iraq Mean ‘American Lives Will Be Wasted?”

Too late; already answered.

Actually: painfully stupid question; name an outcome under which American lives would NOT have been wasted in Iraq. After all: no existential threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests, no harboring of terrorists involved in neinulleavin, no nukes, no WMDs, etc.

The best comparable to Iraq 2003 was Libya at some stage before 2011 – a military dictatorship headed towards overthrow of the dictatorship leading to protracted civil war. The most that can be said about Bush invasion of Iraq is that may prove to have avoided Iraq turning into Syria, where the dictatorship was passed on down the family line (though it’s not clear that Saddam Hussein’s sons had the dictatorial focus of the younger Assad).

Iraq has been in an artificially (that is, outside) repressed civil war for the last 8 years. Repressed civil wars should not be seen by the U.S. as unusual, as the U.S. has been in two of them, the first between the expansionary period from when the country was founded tolerating slavery until hostilities broke out which we refer to as the Civil War period, the second from when the country reacted badly to the redistribution of claims to political rights to include black Americans starting with WWII. Indeed, one could characterize the entire history of the U.S. as a mostly repressed civil war over claims to equality rights, most obviously those of blacks, but also women, the working poor, and to some extent Latinos. 

I agree with Fox within the issue they are talking about. Problem is, we should have never been there in the first place which pretty much makes the issue their debating, null & void.

I bet you watch daily, don’t you?!

Only if you thought you were invading the county to quell that “smoking gun.” You know those WMDs that were going to be used against us………………………….Thanks guys for finding none and then killing all those people for nothing so that George could stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier and state: “mission accomplished”

They are questions “Congress” should have asked!! They didn’t ask because they thought Americans wanted immediate revenge and they sure as hell weren’t going after any country supplying us with oil. Problem is, Americans wanted revenge on the those that actually organized the attack, not some country using bogus information to attack. As usual, the bubble called Washington is so out of touch with America proper, they have no idea what we want.  

Saddam had WMD’s but they were given to him by Reagan & Rumsfeld back in 1980 when he was fighting against Iran. He used them all up on the Shia’s and the Kurd’s after that. You may ask why he used them against those two groups, but if you followed the fighting in Iraq over the past 9 years the people who fought the most against us at first were the Shia’s….I truly wonder if we don’t see a “new” country in the next decade by the initials USAII also known as the United Shia Alliance of Iran & Iraq.
Bush Sr was told by the Saudi’s to keep Saddam in power to keep a “Strongman” between the Gulf states and Iran. He at least listened. Bush Jr, the idiot sent in troops so now we have problems in Bahrain, Yemen, *(the country where last month the “President of 32 years: said he was stepping down” hasn’t yet.

Yes it’s easy to support the troops. Say: “Sorry guys, we tossed you into a meat grinder for no sensible reason whatsoever. Your sacrifice, though noble, was pointless, stupid, and largely driven by incompetence. And of course we stayed home while you went to fight and die in the most useless war since Vietnam.”

Because the truth is what’s needed here. Bush, et al, are war criminals not only because of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths they precipitated, but also because of the tens of thousands of ruined lives of American service men and women.

While that’s not exactly a “feelgood” version of supporting the troops, we’re talking adults here, and for adults the truth is more useful than mealymouthed lies.

Lies are what got us into the mess in the first place.

Now support must shift to helping the survivors put their lives back together and to put our military back together.

Oh and paying for all of the above. Thanks, Georgie. Heckuva job!

Sending them where?
Afghanistan: Not started by Obama.
Libya: No troops on the ground and no deaths.
Iraq: Troops coming out.
Africa: Special Forces who were there before Obama took office and are still there as trainers. No deaths.
Syria: Who wants us to send troops to Syria? Somebody at Fox News, I think.
Iraq: Who has been calling Obama and libs hypocrits for not wanting to send troops to Iraq? Fox News and other CHICKENHAWKS.

You are incorrect. Please read the definition of a “Chickenhawk” in the description. Obama does not meet the criteria. sorry.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTAqUwYHnec

They were wasted in all/any event.  Thank both BushDrunks for that.  The 2 “Tough Guys.”  Bring it on!!

Guess what, you arse kissing, buyble thumping, wrapped in the flag, gun totting TEABAGGED gNOpigs.

Iraq and the Middle East are going nowhere. So, you POS have the right and the opportunity to go BY YOURSELVES and try to spray your idiocy OVER THERE.

Lift your skirts, grab your peanuts, AND TAKE YOUR PINKY ARSES OVER THERE.

DO IT, NOW!

The real waste is the air the Yolks and Kiran Lawler and all the FOX-hole breathe. Additional waste is the gullible watching the toxic talking heads on air!

No, invading Iraq for no good reason wasted American lives. Let’s get the facts straight.

” Obama’s failed stimulus program …….Failed? How are you so sure. Without the stimulus it may have been worst.We may have had another Great Deppressionthanks to Bush.

Thanks for posting that.

Interesting, What time frame are you talking about. From what I read there was talk of ousting Saddam at the end of Desert Storm. The problem was the power vacuum they perceived would be created and I suppose the worry of radical Islam in Iran gaining control. I thought there were rebels then that were eager to get Saddam out and expected Washington’s support, but Bush decided to withhold support and not to stop Saddam from brutally crushing the rebellion.

Years later the plan was to install a puppet government friendly to US interests but we got screwed and lied to by our supposed friendly leader we had ready to install into power. And here we are.

Back in the late 60s early 70s I remember the same sad argument being made about Vietnam. If we withdraw doesn’t that mean all those lives were wasted?
It’s hard to accept that your own government lied and it cost thousands of lives.  We should have taken to the streets to stop the invasion but we didn’t.

Sometimes someone has said something that you yourself can not say better.
Thank You and thank you Steve Earle.

There is a lot of truth to the way you heard it, but that “truth” is not accurate.

Back in 2000, conspiracy theorists thought that Saddam was our number one puppet in the Mid-East. That was a false assumption, but it was impossible to convince them that: A. Saddam’s ego would never allow that, and B. Saddam had access to all the wealth a man could want. How could we possibly out-bid that? I hope you see the similarity to Gaddafi in this.

I’m pretty sure I mentioned before that I participated in the Gulf War an an Intelligence analyst, and I say that because it shows why I am a little more aware of the politics during and after that war than most people. This “claim to glory” is not intended to brag. It is intended to show why I even paid attention to the after-effects, but it also establishes my credentials (if you choose to believe me) in discussing why we didn’t “finish Saddam off” when we had the chance.

The first thing to realize is that Saddam thought we would not react with muscle when he invaded Kuwait. He thought we were psychologically beaten by Vietnam and Americans would panic at the sight of our soldiers dying again. He saw us as cowards, but he also saw us as punks who could not fight in the heat of desert (or Vietnam jungle) warfare. We could only win in a temperate environment, like Europe. (Ethnocentric thinking.)

The second thing to realize is that the rest of the Arab nations joined us in ganging up against Saddam. We had the full support of the same Arab countries who wanted us to take on Gaddafi for them, but not kill him.

General Arab psychology: They all want to be united in one great Arab World, just like Glenn Beck says, BUT each country or tribe wants THEIR man to be the leader, not some other guy. (Kind of like here in the US, yes?) Among Arabs the saying is: Me and my brother against my cousins, but me, my brother, and my cousins against the rest of the world.

This leads to a rule. Only an Arab (leader) can kill another Arab (leader) and be praised for it. (That applied to Libya, too, on the ground .) This was the rule that applied when the Arab states who joined us in the Gulf War Coalition said they wanted us to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, but not to kill him and leave a power vacuum inside Iraq . That is the key point! It cannot be emphasized enough that this power vacuum looked to the Average American like a possible invitation for Iran to rush into Iraq, but the reality is what we see today. The power vacuum inside Iraq is what kills Iraqis today.

The short version of the whole story is we get support from “moderate” Arabs (who happen to be Muslims) when we slap a guy like Saddam (was) on the wrist and send him back home, but if we go so far as to kill the guy ourselves, it is a great embarrassment to other Arabs and it sets a bad example that could topple their regimes. This is why it was critical that we do things in Libya exactly as we did them. Libyans get the credit for taking out the crazy Libyan leader.

The Ass And The Hole Written by: Mac McAnally Performed by: Jimmy BuffettOriginally from the Album: Word of Mouth (1999) Mac McAnally Performed by: Jimmy BuffettOriginally from the Album: Word of Mouth (1999)Lyrics:This modern age we live in It’s hard to figure out If anybody out there talking Has a clue what they’re talking about. Hah There’s twisted trends
Psychic friends
And tabloid UFOs
And the wisest man
and the best-laid plan
Might still say “I don’t know.” What do you think?
I say well…. They must not be that different
The ass and the hole in the ground
They often are mistaken
for each other I have found.
If life rewards the ones who try
until they’ve got it down
The difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. If politics and A Rod everybody hears enough
No amount of talking can change a mind that’s been made up
We got the great decider
Who can’t decide just what to say
Whatever side you’re on
one thing’s for certain either way It must not be that different
the ass and the hole in the ground
they often are mistken
for each other I have found
if life rewards the ones who try
until they’ve got it down
The difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. The morning news and the evening new ??
seems so easy to tell
When the Lord looks down on the things we do
WE mgiht get angry and they might say well It must not be that different. Guitar solo Life rewards the ones who try until they’ve got it down The diference between their ass and the hole The difference between their ass and the hole The difference between their ass and the hole in the ground

Thanks for the info. I never thought Saddam was our puppet. I just thought we were willing to work with any brutal dictator ,even prop them up , if we felt it served our own interests. I was woefully ignorant of our history in the ME until Bush started talking about another war and I decided I needed to educate myself.
From a purely military POV, it was fine for us to play both sides against each other in the long Iran Iraq war although our relations in the world are not just based on military strategy.
I believe Saddam thought we either wouldn’t care or wouldn’t want to get involved in his invasion of Kuwait. I believe he even mentioned the possibility to our Ambassador at the time and was told, “We have no opinion”
We were asked for help by the Saudi’s who were either afraid Saddam might attack them, or that his control of two much oil would be bad for business.

I completely understand what you presented as “general Arab psychology”  I have a general sense that cultures are ultimately not that different in the big picture. How would we react if France, after helping us oust the British, decided they needed to stay and tell us how to run our new country. Clearly the general population of any group or nation wants to feel that they have control of their own destiny and direction as a group or nation and would naturally feel resentment toward “foreign” occupiers. It’s better for everyone if the citizens themselves feel they had some help, but THEY did it.  For all the “help” we gave and liberating we did, it was obvious we wanted something in return and had our own interests in mind.

I can’t quite reconcile what you said about not ousting Saddam after Desert Storm. We didn’t have to kill him to do what we did in Libya. Cripple his ability to defend himself against those who wanted to overthrow him. We could have , at the time, insisted he step down and turn over leadership to other Iraqi’s rather than take him out ourselves. I still tend to think we were worried that weakening Iraq’s armed forces to that degree might invite Iran to take over. There was a call for an uprising but we allowed Saddam to use armed helicopters to put it down the Shi’ite uprising in the south when we could have stopped him. The same for the Kurds in the north. The Iraqi people wanted to be free of Saddam, and we stood by and did nothing while he brutally put down rebellion.

Yes we hoped for an internal overthrow , but my question is, why did it fail?  Why did we not stop Saddam’s military from crushing the rebellion when it seems we easily could have?

Replying here because no buttons left above.
The mission was to liberate Kuwait from Saddam’s invading force and do no more.
That was what was agreed upon by all members of the Coalition, and there would not be a coalition if we had not agreed to that because to change that to our own invasion of Iraq would turn us from being good-guy liberators to being empire building invaders and occupiers. (That is why I was opposed to Bush 2′s belated decision to do what his father had not done.)

Here is something that was not publicly emphasized, but is critical to understanding what happened after the cease-fire that left Saddam in power (as the other Arab states wanted it). It was not publicly “advertized” because it was the biggest blunder of the war and it happened at the very end. It did not cost lives, but it changed all plans for what would happen after the war. All of them!

We wanted to destroy all of Saddam’s tanks and troop carriers and we had them trapped by our envelopment of them. You probably remember the “highway of death” where we destroyed so many of those vehicles when they tried to run north to get back to Baghdad and beyond. If we had destroyed all of those vehicles, which belonged to Saddam’s best troops, the Republican Guards, he would have been much easier for rebelling Iraqis to defeat. We had already destroyed his entire Air Force and Navy.

Back to the highway of death. There was one critical intersection to be closed off at the end of the war, and our side wasn’t going to stop the fighting until that was secured. Once it was secured, we could take our time destroying any vehicles left in the area to the south because they would be empty of men and our “war prizes” to do with as we wished. So, Bush 1 asked General Schwarzkopf “Is the intersection secured?” Schwarzkopf asked General Franks “Is the intersection secured?” Franks said “Yes. The intersection is secured.” That got passed up to Bush 1 (and General Powell) and we called cease-fire. 

The blunder is that Franks had control over the intersection by being able to fire on it with his helicopters, but he had not secured it with troops on the ground. When the cease-fire was declared, the helicopters landed because they could not fire on the vehicles, and those vehicles ran north unopposed. That is what saved enough of Saddam’s best tanks and other assets in the Republican Guard to leave him much stronger than we had planned on. If General Franks had said, “Give me ten more hours,” things would have turned out very differently. (Probably because we can’t prove what didn’t happen would have happened if it had not been for that gigantic blunder by the commander of the VII Corps.) 

Since I was in the XVIII Abn Corps, well, you can imagine how I felt about that. Anyone from VII Corps probably remembers it differently, in a way that doesn’t look so bad for Gen. Franks. It did not destroy his career.

Again, interesting information. I can understand why  we would adhere to our previous understanding and agreements with the other Arab nations and our coalition forces.  Still, didn’t we left the no fly zone for Saddam’s armed helicopters which helped him suppress the Shi’ite opposition?
I understand what you’re saying, but it seems we , and the other coalition forces, along with the Arab nations that supported us driving him out of Kuwait, allowed the rebellion to be crushed when it could have been stopped.
I do see the line between driving him out of Kuwait and attacking his forces to prevent them from stopping the rebellion. I do wonder why those involved thought it was better to leave him in power then.

I realized the Iraq war was built on lies while doing my research. Saddam was no threat to us. For all his bluster , Desert Storm had shown him he didn’t have a chance in hell. It wasn’t about liberating the Iraqi people or fighting terrorism.  Not strongly opposing decisions like that will cost us.

The helicopter thing is not accurate. Most, if not all of that action started and ended before the Gulf War.

Certainly the no-fly zones prevented any helicopter actions in those regions after the war. There were, of course, other potential rebels in areas that were not no-fly zones and they could be attacked by helicopters, but the majority of Saddam’s opponents were within the no-fly zone and the majority of his helicopters were destroyed during the war. (He did buy new ones, of course.)

The most important thing to understand is that you don’t stop insurgencies with tanks and helicopters. (Vietnam proved that for civilians I hope.) Those are only good for conventional wars. You fight rebels in other ways, and one of the most significant things Saddam did to the southern rebels was he drained the swamps that were not only ideal hiding places for the Marsh Arab rebels, they were the source of livelihood for them and their families. It had the effect of starving them into submission, and even though they were within the no-fly zone we could not strafe every truck that had troops or swamp draining pumps.

I have heard the stories of desperate rebels dying because of a broken promise from us, but they simply are not true. The no-fly zones were put in place to protect them as best we could without violating the Coalition Pact.

As for the Kurds in the north, they have the worst luck of any ethnic group. 1/3rd of their homeland is in Iraq, 1/3rd is in Iran, and 1/3rd is in Turkey. They had been fighting as rebels in all three countries for many hears, and all three countries fought back against them. The country that opposed our supporting Kurds most was Turkey. (Other than Saddam’s Iraq, of course.) On top of that, there was a power struggle between Communist Kurds and not-Communist Kurds. (Can’t really say Capitalist. That is not the point here.

Imagine what Bachmann and the rest of the gang on the right wing would say if we were supporting Communist Kurds today! So you see, it is kind of hard to support rebels when the rebels are too busy fighting among themselves to unite against Saddam.

Thanks for taking the time to share that. It’s always good to learn some more and dispel rumors and assumptions.

You are welcome. It is a complicated story that really mattered to me, but the absolutists of right and left wing politics never delve into the complexities of these things. Most folks just want to make a quick judgmental decision and move on to the next argument.

By taking the time to do the research I became aware of how complex it can be and how little the average person really knows or understands from bullet points.  I learned not to accept things on face value, and to make a judgement with the understanding that I still can learn more and refine it. In these threads it’s a rare treat to encounter someone who has the knowledge and is willing to share it, as I’m sure you know.
Snark a plenty, and a shortage on real conversations.

The reason I “hang out” here is that occasionally there is a real conversation like the one we had. It doesn’t happen often here, but it doesn’t happen at all on places like Yahoo News. This Discuss is a better system for that, and even it runs out of Reply buttons.

Obama ≠ (not equal to) Chicken hawk. Did not start any wars. Did not send troops to Africa that weren’t going there anyway on a training mission. Bush 2 flew Delta Dart jet fighters in the Texas Air National Guard. Those planes were both obsolete and not appropriate for use outside the US. They could shoot down Russian bombers, but nothing else. He was in no danger of going to Nam, and he didn’t finish his obligation for reasons not yet fully explained.