Blame: To assign responsibility for something bad.
As I understand it, badness has happened. That lead to the creation of the thread.
Apportioning shares of responsibility seems reasonable.
I think you’re overthinking your objection.
Don’t be silly. The fact that what we did to Iraq would get lots of people killed and result in disaster was extremely obvious from the beginning, which is why it took an idiot like Bush to do it. I just noted the obvious, as did essentially everyone else in the world who wasn’t willfully ignoring reality. And the fact that slaughter and destruction and torture all hurt the people subjected to them is even more obvious.
Also, you confuse omniscience and omnipotence.
My point was that you weren’t making an argument, you were just spouting a bunch of dogma.
But yes, war does cause death. That’s clearly why no one should ever participate in a war, revolution, assassination or commit any harmful act, regardless of whether others are holding to that same rules or not.
And hey, maybe you really are a complete pacifist but I’m not. If I have to snipe a guy who has two children at gun point, I’m going to snipe him. If you think that’s bad and evil, then we’re going to have to agree to disagree, as there’s no coming to terms with our relative positions. Is it?
True. I meant the right one, wrote the wrong one.
I have no dispute with your statement’s use of the word ‘influence’. I don’t agree however that Obama had the power and reasons to ‘control’ or try to control the history of Iraq after 2009. He does not have the power to control and stop all or many of the potential ‘bad outcomes’ eminating from the godawful cataclysmic US attempt to ‘control’ Iraq’s history going forward with the assault and unprepared occupation of Iraq in March 2003. For one thing we ran out of endless blood and treasure to guarantee some kind of good outcome that would satisfy the proponents of that invasion.
Who assigned or assigns ‘responsibility’ or any portion thereof to Obama(a) for the Jihadist assault on cities in Iraq? Or (b) the Iraqi forces cutting and running?
Thus thread was created asking what the West should do? I say Obama got it right in his news conference. Read the undistorted version when you get a chance. Ultimately this problem must be ultimately resolved by Iraqis. They are a soveriegn nation. Air Strikes should only be used if it is determined to be in our national security interests and Iraqis demonstrate an effort to do what needs to be done on the ground and in the political arena.
Responsibility for the current bad happening goes to the Administrations that toppled the government of Iraq by bombing and ground invasion. That responsibility did not dissolve in January 2009 because that term in office ended.
So if you can demonstrate that the current administration engaged in actions that prompted the invasion of Iraq by terrorists from Syria this past week - you should go ahead and do so.
Had Bush not launched the invasion in 2003 and allowed the inspections to continue and the truth of no hidden WMD to be found then Bush would not be responsible for the disaster in Iraq. Do you see how that works? Actions have consequences. Twenty twenty hindsight and speculation about what may have prevented something bad from happening is not a legitimate it reasonable way to assign blame.
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
If the Sadr ‘madman’ militia engages the Sunni terrorists invading Iraq, your two suggested outcomes are, “it will either be a totalitarian fundamentalist Sunni government in charge or an equally totalitarian fundamentalist Shia” government in charge."
You really don’t know much about Iraq do you? Have you heard of the Anbar Uprising?
[/QUOTE]
You mean like my Afghanistan example I used earlier? Like that? No, I never thought of that. You are truly brilliant. 
You mean like my suggestion in other threads about partitioning? Like that? Yeah, I’m off because I never, ever would have thought of that. And my, won’t it be SO much more preferable to have internecine warfare between tribal and sectarian groups in Iraq than what they have had already! What a brilliant suggestion you had to get more militia groups armed to the teeth and out there killing! Probably make the Troubles in Ireland seem like a picnic, no doubt.
No, sadly the worst thing that could happen would be your (gleeful IMHO) suggestion on what the Iraqis should do…and, gods help them, that’s probably what will actually happen. Guess we can sit back and watch the moderates like Sadr handle things, right? Yeah, that’s going to work out well for the Iraqis, I’m sure.
At any rate, the thread is about what the west should do, and your suggestion is they should stay out of it and watch it devolve into another Syria. That’s a fair (if unimaginative) argument, so, again, why don’t you just stick to that?
Well, ah, could you be a bit more specific? Because, honestly, I think it’s more evidence of what I’ve been trying to tell you than making your case for you…or whatever you think this example does for whatever the hell your point is. For anyone not up on NFBW’s reference, here is the Wiki on basically the history of the fighting in this province.
The carrier Obama has ordered to the Gulf? USS George H. W. Bush.
That’s either completely fitting or not at all fitting. I can’t decide.
Maybe some guys wearing ISIS costumes will jump out of the bushes and yell “booga!” and everyone will abandon ship. Then the ship will sink.
I call it irony. 
How will XT react to all this Shiite militia latest news?
Iraq Insurgent Offensive Slows Outside Of Baghdad
Reuters 06/14/14 06:47 PM ET
Some excerpts:
AQI is the forerunner of Jihadists stirred up interest in Iraq this past week;
“The tribes formed the Anbar Awakening and helped turn the tide against the insurgents.”
The insurgents in that case were al Qaeda in Iraq.
Like I said we have a orecedent for what may happen to the
second coming of ACI.
:rolleyes: And you are just trying to justify an extremely stupid and evil war.
What are you trying to argue? What “rules”? We simply engaged in an act of outright imperialist aggression, a war of conquest with some really transparent lies as a handwaved justification. Then we tortured and raped and randomly killed people all over the place while we are there. Not many “rules” there.
I’m not a pacifist at all, and your analogy is ridiculous. We were the ones threatening and killing people; we were the aggressors.
Yea. Maybe if I’d blown the lock off the door, left free guns lying about and showed him to the nursery I’d feel like that also. And I haven’t seen the USA military ‘snipe’ anything. They’ll as usual, do the equivalent of ‘sniping’ with a shotgun. Sorry kids, collateral damage and all that.
Turkey is open to an independent Kurdistan.
That’s some sloppy reporting. If you go to the original article, it says:
In case Iraq gets partitioned…
Its early to make the call - but Kurds have to weigh the benefits of a very weak federalism and staying part of Iraq vs total independence. The latter having perhaps greater consequences than the former.
First order of business is gaining international support to destroy ISIS.
Destroy, how? Given they are entrenched in numbers in Syria and fighting the Assad regime which is still nominally our enemy? With what troops?
We have no effective allies in Syria. The extreme islamists of various ilks are the most effective and powerful of the resistance.
The Kurds and or the militias? Kurds won’t be interested and while the militias might do a great job of reigniting a civil war I doubt they are up to invading Syria. Especially as ISIS were well-armed to being with and have just been resupplied by the Iraqi Army.
The Iraqi Army? Enough said.
Iran?
Air-power won’t do it alone without moving into the whole ‘we had to destroy the city to save it’ territory in Iraq and Syria.
I’m all for smashing ISIS. I’m just not seeing a credible option.
The terrorists do not control the sky and never will. Here’s a start. Intelligence gathering.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0EU1JT20140619?irpc=932
First step could be to establish a corridor for ISF to move north toward Mosul and to western border.
Slowing ISIS freedom of movement is first step. After a few Hellfires light up those pickup trucks the non-suicidal terrorists begin to lose faith in their new masked prophet.
Hold on with the last right words. Something like 20,000 Shiite fighters have been in Iraq fighting the likes of ISIS, but have returned to defend Baghdad.
If these are Badr militia they would coordinate
With the UD. If they follow Sadr, probably not.