Mosul falls to ISIS

[Cedar Park Dad]

Are these mercenaries? If so I could care less.

If not, ok. Not sure what to do about it though.
I'd bet air strikes (drone strikes if you prefer) will start hitting within 24 hours.

[mamabearCali]

What was it the great progressive FDR said "When your neighbors house is on fire you don't quibble over the cost of a garden hose."


Even assuming we had nothing to do with it (which is not true). A friend is being over run with people some native, most not, who are chopping the heads off of thousands of citizens in an effort to overthrow a lawfully elected governement and we choose to sit on our hands and say "not our table." Nice friend we are.

This could have been prevented if he had followed his generals advice and left 10K men to stabilize the country, but nope, he had to have his political cat to stroke. How many people will die so that he can say "he brought the troops home." It might have been stopped if he had offered assistance when it was requested two weeks ago. Now...well....thousands of Iraqi and American lives gone for what....so that another more brutal dicatorship this time with religious trappings can come to power. Oh and so that Obama can say "I brought the troops home." Great........

[gringo pistolero]

Are these mercenaries? If so I could care less.

How much less?

[Cedar Park Dad]

Are these mercenaries? If so I could care less.

How much less?

As in nothing at all. If you're paid to wield the sword sometimes you get the sword's wages. I don't see the pearly gates welcoming them any time soon.

[mamabearCali]

Just because they are contractors does not mean they are paid mercenaries. I have a cousin that was considered "an american contractor" he built houses and planned sanitation for communities. He was an engineer, not a soldier.

[Cedar Park Dad]

Just because they are contractors does not mean they are paid mercenaries. I have a cousin that was considered "an american contractor" he built houses and planned sanitation for communities. He was an engineer, not a soldier.

Hence my question and statement.

[philip964]

From the article it sounded like they were people who were getting the airbase ready to receive the F16 we were giving them.

They are probably just regular blue and white collar guys and gals, whose company said go or you don't have a job.

They I am sure have families here who will miss them if they are beheaded.

Apparently the ISIS has gotten lots of advanced weapons as they have run over these bases.

But I guess no F 16's yet.

[RoyGBiv]

What was it the great progressive FDR said "When your neighbors house is on fire you don't quibble over the cost of a garden hose."


Even assuming we had nothing to do with it (which is not true). A friend is being over run with people some native, most not, who are chopping the heads off of thousands of citizens in an effort to overthrow a lawfully elected governement and we choose to sit on our hands and say "not our table." Nice friend we are.

An honorable sentiment, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Malikis government, however, is not known for being kind to the local minorities. Not sharing power is just the tip of that iceberg. All of this was avoidable with a status of forces agreement, but now that we are where we are, choosing to bomb Sunnis to protect Shiia sectarians is not so cut/dry.

Clearly BHO is to blame for the terrible policy that brought us here.

[bigbang]

They are probably just regular blue and white collar guys and gals, whose company said go or you don't have a job.

Source? Last time I looked there was a very large premium paid for contract jobs in the sandbox. Something like 2-5 times what similar skills earn Stateside.

[mamabearCali]

What was it the great progressive FDR said "When your neighbors house is on fire you don't quibble over the cost of a garden hose."


Even assuming we had nothing to do with it (which is not true). A friend is being over run with people some native, most not, who are chopping the heads off of thousands of citizens in an effort to overthrow a lawfully elected governement and we choose to sit on our hands and say "not our table." Nice friend we are.

An honorable sentiment, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Malikis government, however, is not known for being kind to the local minorities. Not sharing power is just the tip of that iceberg. All of this was avoidable with a status of forces agreement, but now that we are where we are, choosing to bomb Sunnis to protect Shiia sectarians is not so cut/dry.

Clearly BHO is to blame for the terrible policy that brought us here.

There are a good many reasons we are at the pass we are at. 75% have nothing to do with the current president. Some of which go back decades at minimum. However, I do insist that he take responsibility for his 25% and not pretend like it is all someone else's fault.

If my kids are outside and all four of them destroy the bird feeder they must all own their piece of the mess and fix what they can. I expect no less of my president than I do of my 2.5 year old.

[baldeagle]

http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-s-c ... s-in-iraq/

200 US civilian contractors trapped at A surrounded Iraq air base. Working for department of defense.

Taking small arms fire and RPG's from ISIS. So far holding. So far US military not helping to evacuate.

If true, I have to ask.....is the Head Clown deliberately wanting to look weak, foolish, and gutless? How does the clown posse think it's going to play politically if ISIS captures a bunch of Americans working for the military, parades them around on television, then lops off their heads?

If I was a contractor over there, they would only be cutting off my head after I was dead. There is no way I'd allow myself to be captured alive. Anybody who does is an idiot.

[mamabearCali]

No joke bald eagle. I would make darn sure I did not fall into their hands. These people are evil personified.

[baldeagle]

there were no WMD's in Iraq.

Sadly, that is untrue. The left and the media have convinced a great many people that it is, so it doesn't seem to matter any more what the truth is. It's also true that Al Qaeda fighters were being trained in Iraq, but that has disappeared down the black hole as well. It says something about the power of the media that a lie becomes truth and truth becomes a lie.

Any idea where the chemical weapons came from that were used in Syria not too long ago? Syria didn't manufacture them.

I knew someone was going to respond as you did. Well, in the first place, calling the chemical weapons used in Syria WMDs is just a scare term. Weapons of mass destruction used to be nukes, now just about anything is called a WMD --it's like calling a semi-automatic rifle an "assault rifle" and with the same purpose....to exaggerate the danger of something. When Colin Powell was lying at the UN the talk was of yellow cake....uranium.....and the specter of Saddam having nuclear weapons. Now, Colin Powell claims that he was deceived and didn't know he was lying, which I find hard to buy, but he still lied in any case. The poison gas tale is a default excuse because Saddam didn't have nukes. How much public support would there have been to invade Iraq because they had poison gas? Well, they had used it before on their own people and the Iranians, and we not only did nothing --because it wasn't a threat to the US-- we continued to supply Saddam with intelligence and material support in his war with Iran.

Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons have been classified as WMD for as far back as I can remember. According to the History News Network the term was coined in a 1937 article that described the blanket or carpet bombing of a town in Spain. In any case, it's been known as NBC for as long as I can remember, especially in the military.

So, how come poison gas wasn't a WMD requiring invasion back then? How come if the poison gas you say went from Iraq to Syria --and this claim isn't recent btw, it was being made back in 2003-- was so much of a threat we needed to invade Iraq, we didn't invade Syria to get the stuff we supposedly invaded Iraq to get? When the gas crossed the border did it morph from a WMD to just plain old poison gas? We expended a lot of lives and treasure going into Iraq and then decided it was ok for Syria to have the same thing that required us to spend all blood and treasure in Iraq?

As for why we did or did not do something previously, I don't know how you would expect me to be able to answer that. I can't explain much of what our leaders have done since 1960. Consistency has not exactly been their long suit.

And you can't simply blame the media for lying, because yes, they lie all the time, but when they were lying before the Iraq invasion the lies they were telling were for the purpose of creating public support for the invasion. The media has supported every war we've ever fought....even Vietnam, initially...until the tide of public opinion turned against it....partly because of the ruling class getting deferments while the sons of blue collar families got drafted.

500 tons of yellowcake uranium was removed from Iraq by the US. Yellowcake has only two purposes - the precursor to nuclear weapons or the precursor to uranium fuel for reactors. I'm pretty sure Iraq didn't have any nuclear reactors except for the test reactor at Al Tuwaitha.

I don't think there's much point in arguing this stuff. Those who believe they didn't have any WMD or WMD programs will continue to believe that despite manifest evidence to the contrary.

[baldeagle]

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian here. I agree with Obama that ultimately it's up to the Iraqis to defend themselves. They received years and years of our sacrifices, money and technical assistance. Now it's time for them to stand up for themselves. There are signs that they may well do that. They have apparently halted the ISIS advance in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and Shiite clerics have issued calls for people to rise up to defend Baghdad and beat ISIS back. Shiite Iraqis are flooding the recruitment centers eager to get into the fight. This action by ISIS may be just what the country needed to unite behind a common cause - or it may be an excuse to slaughter the remaining Sunnis in Iraq. (The Shiites certainly have plenty of reason to hate the Iraqi Sunnis, who enjoyed favoritism under Saddam while the Shiites were persecuted.) The ISIS don't seem to realize that Iran, which is Shiite, won't take kindly to them being right next door and may well jump in to the fight to assist their Iraqi brothers. If that happens, they might drive all the way into Syria and wipe them out. According to a press release from both governments, they have recaptured about 85% of Tikrit in joint Irani-Iraqi operations.

The Kurds have taken control of Kirkuk, and I seriously doubt the ISIS animals will challenge them. The Pershmerga will not turn and run like the Iraqi forces did. So the ISIS may have stepped in to what turns out to be a deadly trap, after what they've done (beheading thousands), they probably won't be shown much mercy. In the end, Iraq will probably end up partitioned, with the Kurds controlling the north, which they have always longed to do, the Sunnis controlling parts of the west and the Shiites controlling central and southern Iraq.

[mamabearCali]

I hope you are right Bald Eagle. I truly do.