Former Military Chief: Iraq War Was A 'Failure' That Helped Create ISIS

[musiclady]

Trump is allowing and encouraging conspiracy theories with his statements that Bush knew there were no WMDs. Trump is allowing and encouraging the extreme left with his Bush was responsible for not keeping us safe from the 9/11 attack and his boasting that it would not have happened if he were President.

Yes, aligncare he can thrive, but not as a conservative nor as a Republican, rather as a narcissist with no core values willing to say anything that might further his own ambitions.

You sum it up perfectly here, cuky.

Trump is a soft truther, siding with the extreme left in his view of George W. Bush.

He is thriving, but as the liberal he is, and that is because people who adore him are abandoning their own values to embrace his lack of values.

[Bigun]

You sum it up perfectly here, cuky.

Trump is a soft truther, siding with the extreme left in his view of George W. Bush.

He is thriving, but as the liberal he is, and that is because people who adore him are abandoning their own values to embrace his lack of values.

Donald Trump is the proverbial bull in the china shop and COMPLETELY unsuited for the office of President of the United States!

[musiclady]

Donald Trump is the proverbial bull in the china shop and COMPLETELY unsuited for the office of President of the United States!

Exactly.  And a third of Republican primary voters are dooming us to be our nominee, even though the vast majority understand that he is in NO way suited to be President.

I've said it many times, but NO good decision is made in anger.  There is no rational basis for wanting him to be President.  Only emotional.

[HAPPY2BME]

Coulter on 9/11 Attacks: ‘You Can Kind of Say There Is Some Partial Blame’ for Bush

..

[musiclady]

Coulter on 9/11 Attacks: ‘You Can Kind of Say There Is Some Partial Blame’ for Bush

..

I'm glad you're now resorting to the desperate-for-attention, off-the-deep-end Coulter to bolster support for your guy, Hap.

Is this a game of "how low can you go" to make your point?

[Luis Gonzalez]

I'm glad you're now resorting to the desperate-for-attention, off-the-deep-end Coulter to bolster support for your guy, Hap.

Is this a game of "how low can you go" to make your point?

I guess all the people getting hit in these videos are "partly to blame" since they could have been elsewhere instead of where they were.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjP39MS_GYk

[HAPPY2BME]

The More Donald Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer

“At the end of the day, a lot of good Marines and sailors and airmen died over something that wasn’t there,” said Mr. Jebens, who served three combat tours in Iraq. “So you’ve got to ask tough critical questions. In the military we called it a debrief or a hot wash."

[Luis Gonzalez]

The More Donald Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer

Oh, but there were WMDs in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

[Bigun]

“At the end of the day, a lot of good Marines and sailors and airmen died over something that wasn’t there,”

A total bald faced LIE! There was plenty of it there and everyone that matters knows it!

[aligncare]

Oh, but there were WMDs in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Let's say there were WMDs. What would have been the practical implications? Saddam Hussein attacks the American homeland with those WMDs?

Wasn't that the reason Pres. Bush used to justify invading Iraq? That Saddam Hussein would possibly attack America using WMDs? That rationale seems ludicrous today in light of what we know about the threat of Islam.

The threat to America has never been from secular Middle Eastern dictators. And I think the intelligence community has known this all along.

[truth_seeker]

Let's say there were WMDs. What would have been the practical implications? Saddam Hussein attacks the American homeland with those WMDs?

Wasn't that the reason Pres. Bush used to justify invading Iraq? That Saddam Hussein would possibly attack America using WMDs? That rationale seems ludicrous today in light of what we know about the threat of Islam.

The threat to America has never been from secular Middle Eastern dictators. And I think the intelligence community has known this all along.

Or that he would attack his neighbors. Recall he had invaded Kuwait just a few years before. He had supposedly gassed Shiites and Kurds, too.

I think Trump is way off base suggesting Bush knew there were no WMDs, but lied about it.

However in retrospect, many believe going into Iraq was a fool's errand, nation building in the Mideast was/is a fool's errand, etc.

[aligncare]

Or that he would attack his neighbors. Recall he had invaded Kuwait just a few years before. He had supposedly gassed Shiites and Kurds, too.

I think Trump is way off base suggesting Bush knew there were no WMDs, but lied about it.

However in retrospect, many believe going into Iraq was a fool's errand, nation building in the Mideast was/is a fool's errand, etc.

Okay. Let's say Saddam Hussein would have attacked his neighbors. Why should we have cared to become embroiled in the Middle East yet again? Moderate regimes are flush with oil money. Why not let them work it out? Why did/do my children have to die?

[sinkspur]

Okay. Let's say Saddam Hussein would have attacked his neighbors. Why should we have cared to become embroiled in the Middle East yet again? Moderate regimes are flush with oil money. Why not let them work it out? Why did/do my children have to die?

Nobody forces your children to join the military, last time I looked.

[HAPPY2BME]

The threat to America has never been from secular Middle Eastern dictators. And I think the intelligence community has known this all along.

===================================

This has been openly confirmed since the POTUS broadcast it on national television in 1961.  It is raging right now as you read this.

Nothing is new.  War is a racket, and in an election year, the single greatest neocon motivator.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

How Does America Make Money Off War? Financial Interests, Military-Industrial Complex (2000)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwida6EtZs

[Bigun]

Okay. Let's say Saddam Hussein would have attacked his neighbors. Why should we have cared to become embroiled in the Middle East yet again? Moderate regimes are flush with oil money. Why not let them work it out? Why did/do my children have to die?

Critics of the Iraq War commonly claim that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had no ties to al Qaeda or to any other Islamic terrorist organizations. Since fears of such links were part of the rationale for war, the implication of this claim is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was unjustified.

But evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq was a haven for Islamic terrorists, including al Qaeda members and their affiliates. The evidence for Saddam's cooperation with, and support for, global terrorists is abundant. For example:

Journalist Stephen Hayes reported in July 2003 that the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper, published by Saddam's eldest son, Uday, had printed what it called a "List of Honor" in its November 14, 2002 edition. This list gave the names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis, including this entry: "Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan." According to Hayes, that name matched that of Iraq's then-ambassador to Islamabad.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan, fled to Iraq after being injured as the Taliban fell. He received medical care and convalesced for two months in Baghdad. He then opened a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq and arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan.

Ramzi Yousef, the Kuwaiti-born ringleader of the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot, first arrived in the United States (on September 1, 1992) on an Iraqi passport.

Author Richard Miniter reported on September 25, 2003, that U.S. forces had discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, showing that Iraq had given both a house and a monthly salary to al Qaeda member Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was indicted for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that exploded beneath the World Trade Center in 1993.

Along Iraq's border with Syria, U.S. troops captured Farouk Hijazi, Saddam's former ambassador to Turkey and suspected liaison to al Qaeda. Under interrogation, Hijazi admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994.

While sifting through the bombed ruins of the Iraqi intelligence agency in April 2003, three investigators – the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter, the London Daily Telegraph's Inigo Gilmore, and their translator -- discovered a memo dated "February 19, 1998" and marked "Top Secret and Urgent." It said the agency would pay "all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

On January 5, 2000, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir — an Iraqi airport greeter reportedly dispatched from Baghdad's embassy in Malaysia — welcomed Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi to Kuala Lampur and escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared. He was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001, six days after al Midhar and al Hamzi had slammed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 216 people. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered papers tying him to the 1993 World Trade Center plot and to "Operation Bojinka," al Qaeda's 1995 plan to simultaneously blow up 12 jets over the Pacific Ocean.

The Czech Republic stands by its claim, rejected by some opponents of the war in Iraq, that in April 2001, 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim an-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat / intelligence agent. An-Ani was expelled two weeks after the suspected meeting with Atta, for his apparently hostile surveillance of Radio Free Europe's Prague headquarters -- from which American broadcasts to Iraq emanate.

Saddam paid bonuses of up to $25,000 apiece to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. On March 13, 2002, Reuters reported that Mahmoud Besharat, who was entrusted with dispensing these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said: "You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue."

According to the State Department's May 21, 2002 "Patterns of Global Terrorism," the Abu Nidal Organization, the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the Kurdistan Worker's party, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, and the Palestinian Liberation Front all operated offices or bases in Saddam's Iraq. The dictator's hospitality toward these mass murderers placed him in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited him from giving safe harbor to or otherwise supporting terrorists.

Coalition forces found, alive and well in Iraq, a number of key terrorists who enjoyed Saddam's hospitality. Among them was Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound American Jew whom Abbas's men threw to his death in the Mediterranean Sea. Another terrorist who took refuge in Baathist Iraq was Khala Khadr al-Salahat, accused of designing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 (killing 270 people). Yet another was the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, who resided in Iraq from 1999 to 2002. According to the Beirut office of the Abu Nidal Organization, Nidal had entered Iraq with the full knowledge and assent of the Iraqi authorities.

Coalition troops destroyed at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq, including a base near Baghdad called Salman Pak. This camp featured a passenger-jet fuselage where, according to numerous Iraqi defectors, foreign terrorists were taught how to hijack airliners with utensils.

The Philippine government expelled Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq's Manila embassy, on February 13, 2003. Cell-phone records indicate that the diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and just after this al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group had conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Those phone records bolster Sali's claim that the Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists Baghdad's help with joint missions.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=24

[Bigun]

U.S. troops found nearly 5,000 abandoned chemical weapons in Iraq from 2004 to 2011: report

http://news.yahoo.com/chemical-weapons-found-in-iraq-nyt-report-135347507.html

[Right_in_Virginia]

The threat to America has never been from secular Middle Eastern dictators. And I think the intelligence community has known this all along.

Excellent, excellent point!

[musiclady]

U.S. troops found nearly 5,000 abandoned chemical weapons in Iraq from 2004 to 2011: report

http://news.yahoo.com/chemical-weapons-found-in-iraq-nyt-report-135347507.html

I truly wish that the Bush administration had trumpeted all the WMD actually found in Iraq.

There weren't the "stockpiles" expected, but there were all kinds of weapons there nonetheless.

[17 Oaks]

Gen Flynn is just another Obama pawn.  TRUST me folks, not every soldier in uniform is a conservative and when it comes to GO's (General Officers) there is no shortage of far left.  I spent the last half of my military career on prime staff at the 4 star level and dealt with GO's every day.  Obama purged the officer ranks of those who were combat soldiers and who had conservative leanings and you do not get promoted to GO because you aren't a politician.


Were there WMD's?  YES!  Maybe not as much as we expected to find, but our Intel sources said most were shipped out to Syria before we arrived.  Remember we told Hussein we were coming, but built our force, arrived, set up camp then attacked.  More than enough time for Hussein to do anything he wanted.


The US has never lost a declared war and we rarely lose a battle.  But since Korea (which by the way we are still at war with!!!!, we only have a Truce) the Oval office has got more and more involved with.  To the point that Obama was directed how the battle was being fought down to the man.  Obama has zero experience in anything and when it comes to the military he is a negative.


As for any threat from the ME, STRONGLY suggest you study US history and note our fighting with them going back to the early 1800's.  When I was in the Infantry Officers Advanced Course in 77 we were discussing the potential for war in the ME at that time!  So from a military view we have seen this coming for a LONG time and in fact saw the ME as a growing concern beginning after the collapse of the USSR.  Ike would not have seen this in the 50's as our full effort was to combat Communism.

[HAPPY2BME]

When I was in the Infantry Officers Advanced Course in 77 we were discussing the potential for war in the ME at that time!  So from a military view we have seen this coming for a LONG time and in fact saw the ME as a growing concern beginning after the collapse of the USSR.  Ike would not have seen this in the 50's as our full effort was to combat Communism.

==========================

Thank you for your distinguished service, sir.

[Bigun]

Gen Flynn is just another Obama pawn.  TRUST me folks, not every soldier in uniform is a conservative and when it comes to GO's (General Officers) there is no shortage of far left.  I spent the last half of my military career on prime staff at the 4 star level and dealt with GO's every day.  Obama purged the officer ranks of those who were combat soldiers and who had conservative leanings and you do not get promoted to GO because you aren't a politician.


Were there WMD's?  YES!  Maybe not as much as we expected to find, but our Intel sources said most were shipped out to Syria before we arrived.  Remember we told Hussein we were coming, but built our force, arrived, set up camp then attacked.  More than enough time for Hussein to do anything he wanted.


The US has never lost a declared war and we rarely lose a battle.  But since Korea (which by the way we are still at war with!!!!, we only have a Truce) the Oval office has got more and more involved with.  To the point that Obama was directed how the battle was being fought down to the man.  Obama has zero experience in anything and when it comes to the military he is a negative.


As for any threat from the ME, STRONGLY suggest you study US history and note our fighting with them going back to the early 1800's.  When I was in the Infantry Officers Advanced Course in 77 we were discussing the potential for war in the ME at that time!  So from a military view we have seen this coming for a LONG time and in fact saw the ME as a growing concern beginning after the collapse of the USSR.  Ike would not have seen this in the 50's as our full effort was to combat Communism.

And Jimmuh Caaaata giving Iran back to the Mullahs made the situation vastly worse!

[17 Oaks]

==========================

Thank you for your distinguished service, sir.

Thank you very much, its appreciated...

[aligncare]

Thank you very much, its appreciated...

We love our veterans here – heck, I'm one of 'em.

[17 Oaks]

We love our veterans here – heck, I'm one of 'em.

That is great and thank you for your service.


Not all forums embrace veterans equally, from outright hostile to glad you are here....

[musiclady]

That is great and thank you for your service.


Not all forums embrace veterans equally, from outright hostile to glad you are here....

MORE than GLAD you are here!!