Of course. People pay more attention to problems than to solutions.
Now, if our military advisors get killed, the counter-offensive fails, or the Shiite militias turn on Sunni civilians, expect to see plenty of interest.
I think the public will then press.
I also thought the Bush and Cheney were two peas in a pod (had virtually identical beliefs).
How about you?
What if this attack unites Sunni and Shia and a more inclusive government in Baghdad emerges from all this and the government succeeds in driving out the foreign invaders and preventing Iraq from becoming part of their caliphate dream, do your predictions of Iraq collapsing into chaos go back into some secret hidden vault waiting for Heraldo to come open it up someday to see what’s inside?
The public’s primary interest more so in bad News than in good news could be seen as a ‘problem’ couldn’t it? So why aren’t they paying attention to that problem?
If it’s a problem, it’s one with a biological basis. So what can we do? It’s part of being human.
What if monkeys fly out of al Maliki’s ass? Would Geraldo report that??
You tell me. You are the one who boasted of your ability to predict things three years out and are taking credit for predicting a civil war in Iraq even before a major civil war has actually broken out. If a civil war is averted by Iraq’s sectarian leaders to defeat a common terrorist threat to their existence, are you going to admit your prediction was wrong?
Or will you just say it could happen by the year 3014 for sure when Uranus is aligned with Mars under a blue moon.
Do you have a prediction for us that the battle for the Baijii Refinery will be won by the terrorists or the Iraqi Army,
My view is that the invading terrorists had an element of surprising going for them in the initial invasion, but they have no surprised left and appears their advances have been halted.
Fear of civil war will gradually subside as the terrorists for the second time will be driven out of Sunni populated regions of Iraq.
This is not civil war yet - and my frame if reference is the civil war that was ignited in 2006 when the Golden Mosque in Samara was bombed by Sunni insurgents.
It appears Maliki and Kurd and Sunni leaders are trying to avoid a repeat of the violence that occurred under US occupation;
See excerpts from a report about the Mosque bombing:
You accidentally forget to quote the next paragraph. Here, let me help you:
This is the 2nd Iraq Civil War, regardless of any arbitrary comparison you might might. You’ve got a rebel force in control of at least 1/5 of the country, and you’ve got the Kurds seizing territory and forming their own army as the Iraqi national army fled in disgrace. It’s an extension of the Civil War in Syria that has been going on for at least 3 years.
There is potential for a bloody civil war to erupt to the level of sectarian violence that occurred in 2006, but it has not reached that level at the moment. Whike we wait, what is the date of the start of Iraq Civil War II? Is Mosul the Capitol city of the rebellion? Did the people Mosul launch a rebellion or were they invaded by an outside force?
A lot of people fled to the Shiite led government for protection. Instead of the percentage of area/land controlled by the terrorist invaders from Syria, the better measure would be percent of population that is ‘willingly’ under this sadistic and murderous ISIS control by threat of force and how many will join the ranks of its fighters.
I don’t see ISIS controlling or having sympathy from enough of the population to label this anything close to the civil war and sectarian conflict that took place in the presence of tens of thousands of US troops on the ground in 2006.
Iraq was considered stable in 2012 and it is also true that 2011 was between Civil War I and Civil War II. None of your arguments defend your subjective premise that Obama either lied or was ignorant of reality to portray Iraq as stable when speaking to the troops at Ft Bragg.
What could be your point with that?
Do you have anything in mind for the US government to do something militarily to intervene in anyway to paraphrase it: (…“to bridge differences … over rights … to independently export oil and over territorial claims.”) between Sunnis and Kurds and Shiite?
We would not bomb Kurds or Simnis if they sought autonomy from Iraq. The question is wouid we recognized doing what Biden thought should be considered done a long time ago. Partition.
The current issue being examined here is an organized militaristic terrorist attack on sovereign Iraq and what should be done about it.
Trumping up charges of lying or cluelessness by the President is not where one should take the discussion.
Noting that your snipped quote was meaningless.
I’ve already posted in this thread what I thought the US should do.
I don’t know what a “militaristic terrorist attack” is, but if you’re implying this is simple terrorism, you’re wrong. This is an organized military assault against the sovereign territory of Iraq, with some terrorism thrown in for good measure. And, as noted above, I’ve already posted what I thought the US should do.
And where, exactly, have I done that in this thread?
How much of the population and infrastructure do they really control? The terrorists are outnumbered a thousand to one just to the Peshmerga.
And how don’t you know that the Kurds formed an army of its own ages ago and had long long long been active and operational.
You have concerns about Kurds seizing territory. We had darn near the same thing happen in 2004:
Kurds “forming their own army” … Where did that one come from?
Oh, the Kurds are going to be OK. I’ve already said that in at least one of these Iraq threads (can’t remember which ones). In fact, the news stories are now noting that:
Are you still trumpeting this “terrorists” line? Sounds like something Bush would say. This is a Sunni insurgency allied with ISIS against the Shiite dominated Iraqi government. If you search these thread, you’ll find I linked to a NYT article about this several days ago. It would do you good to read it.
And the Kurds are (mostly) loving it. They don’t want to be part of Iraq anyway.
@NFBW: Not disagreeing with you but I think despite their help in stabilizing the country during the American occupation, the existence of the Peshmerga was always going to be a major issue as far as a unified Iraq goes. And they have seized a lot of new territory. Not just Kirkuk, but pushing the border all over the place. Some estimates are they’ve increased Kurdistan’s area by 25% (eta: ok, maybe I misremembered, 40%?).
I am wondering how much their refugee influx is going to be handled longer term. That’s a lot of non-Kurds they are suddenly housing.
Perhaps Forbes can help you grasp the geopolitical dynamics that revolve around the Kurds and Peshmerga’s role in the current crisis and challenges to the Maliki government.
Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff I’m based in Houston, Texas. Energy capital of the world. 6/12/2014 @ 5:51PM
How Iraq’s Kurds May Be The Unlikely Losers In The ISIS Chaos
More from Forbes:
This analysis tell me that the some in energy sector are not seeing necessarily a major civil war breaking out in Iraq as you do.
As noted in that article, the Kurds may use that as justification to sell even more oil on the market independent of the central government.
No doubt these borders of controlled areas are going to shift as this civil war plays out. ISIS and their Sunni allies swept easily across the non-Shiite Arab areas, but I can’t see them taking over significant areas in the south with majority Shiite population. De facto partition seems like the most likely outcome.
Assad has been pretty masterful at stopping the insurgents in Syria from gaining ground, and I imagine that if he finally wins against them, they’ll flood into Iraq making things even more difficult for the Shiite dominated government there.
Dude, you are fucking hilarious. Once again you went fishing for cites to support your argument, and just grabbed the first one you could latch onto without actually understanding it. If you read this exact same guy just a few days ago, you’d know he has repudiated that article.:
Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power
.
I was talking about how much of the population and infrastructure the terrorists really control? The terrorists are outnumbered a thousand to one just against the Peshmerga. When Iraqi Security Forces are added in - things don’t look good for ISIS for holding territory seized for a long period of time.
Your opinion that Kurdish actions thus far are part of your conclusion that Iraq Civil War II had begun is quite baseless. They are fighting to defend Iraq from a terrorist threat and would not be doing so if it were not for the threat to all of Iraq’s existence.
That first article was clearly informed by sources dreaming of their perfect outcome. “haha, maybe the Maliki government tricked the Kurds into taking a massive prize to stretch their forces!”. Never mind that the Kurds have been handily repelling ISIS attacks already. It also mentions that the Kurds might have to lower security on the Turkish border, like that’s a real concern.