This article should bring you up to speed on the latest developments, if you aren't familiar with the new-ish situation in Iraq.

Some of the old-guild people may (but probably won't) remember me making a big deal about our failure to obtain a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq following our withdrawal. It would seem those chickens are coming home to roost; we couldn't get the legal protections we wanted for American troops operating inside Iraq, and now we're unable (or justifiably unwilling) to send those troops where they're probably needed. American diplomacy shortcomings are starting to have some kinetic consequences..... I'm a little bit angry with our state department right now. Their entire job is to ensure that this situation never develops; instead, they've been wholly focused on the business of producing presidential candidates. Fucking shameful.

Damn right that's shameful. God, like seriously?

Actually, I have to go easy on the Obama administration on this. 800 terrorists roll into a town, 25,000 Iraqi soldiers run away. If they aren't willing shed their own blood to defend themselves I'll be damned if we shed ours.

And, this Maliki clown invited Iran to help.

Let's hope we learned from our mistakes in Vietnam...

So Boerd said
Actually, I have to go easy on the Obama administration on this. 800 terrorists roll into a town, 25,000 Iraqi soldiers run away. If they aren't willing shed their own blood to defend themselves I'll be damned if we shed ours.And, this Maliki clown invited Iran to help.

It could have been two thousand terrorists. Ten thousand. A hundred thousand. Could've been one. Wouldn't make a difference. We have failed to obtain the necessary legal standing to operate in theater. Our hands are fully and completely tied until they deign to fix the situation, which, I imagine now that people are dying, someone will take notice (or lose their promotion).

My point is, if they won't even try to handle their own problems, we shouldn't either. 25,000 soldiers should have been able to handle 800 terrorists.

ARVN redux. I'm not sure Maliki is worth helping, though at this point the odds are looking better for Kurdistan's establishment.

addendum: Letting ISIS and the Mahdi army blow each other away is something I like to think of as "improving humanity." But I know and understand the arguments for intervention...personally, I prefer the sort of intervention that helps our real allies in the region -- the Kurds.

So Boerd said
My point is, if they won't even try to handle their own problems, we shouldn't either. 25,000 soldiers should have been able to handle 800 terrorists.

it's somewhat more complicated than a numerical comparison. A massacre serves the purpose of ISIS.

Eithet way, I refuse to help a pro-Iran shill. He's picked his friends. See ya, Maliki!

HeySeuss said at this point the odds are looking better for Kurdistan's establishment.

What, in Iraq exclusively? A majority of the world's Kurds live in a NATO country. Kurdistan, a full Kurdistan, including all areas inhabited by Kurds, is never going to be a thing.

The Nexerus said
What, in Iraq exclusively? A majority of the world's Kurds live in a NATO country. Kurdistan, a full Kurdistan, including all areas inhabited by Kurds, is never going to be a thing.

In Iraq, yes. I'm not talking about the Turkish land, though even the establishment of it in Iraqi land exclusively will make the Turks unhappy...then again, Erdogan's happiness isn't high on my list, so I'm cool with him sweating.

We should have learned from the lessons of European colonialism in Africa. Even setting up new governments before withdrawing doesn't really do much, warlords and dictators have a tendency to return. You can't really expect American colonialism to go much differently.

When i first saw this I thought it would be over in days at most. Iraq is supposed to have a well equipped and well trained military now, reading reports the Iraqi military is in shambles and had no urban combat capability in their own cities and are up against veterans from Syria. The government has no idea what it is doing but the Kurds seem like they will take care of it now which will humiliate Iraq.

So Boerd said
My point is, if they won't even try to handle their own problems, we shouldn't either. 25,000 soldiers should have been able to handle 800 terrorists.

Me and pretty much all of my guys are not surprised at all. Despite the money and the training we poured on them, they lack the true desire to fight for their nation. ISIS is fucking motivated, they have a cause, they will beat out the army any day. It's just my opinion though, but I have seen these guys run away from pretty much anything, and that was with a full battalion of Americans by their side.

So let me get this straight. America attempts to force democracy on a country that, while being ruled by Saddam (who I might add they put into power in the first place), had no real rebellions aiming to form one. Then put in their own puppet ruler for that democracy. Then trained an army of locals who never really gave a shit about said government to defend said government in the name of America Iraq... Aaaand... Now we're supposed to be surprised that a terrorist organization like Isis, which is extremely fanatically charged to accomplish their goals, is more than capable of absolutely wrecking the army that has utterly no motivation to defend their government whatsoever beyond that they were told to do it?

Really?... Really?... Oh that's just sad. Can we just like... Leave the area alone now? Or glass it? I'd like to see solutions in there that aren't half-assed. That would be nice.

As for the Kurds, as much as I'd like to see them have a country again... So long as Turkey is an integral part of NATO's eastern front... That will never happen.

The Kurds are motivated enough, if only by the prospect of breaking off from Baghdad and taking the oil with them. The peshmerga are willing to fight and the Kurds have been holding up in their part of Iraq all along.

I agree, actually. We should have knocked down Saddam and left. We'd be 4000 lives and a few hundred billion dollars richer.

HeySeuss said
The Kurds are motivated enough, if only by the prospect of breaking off from Baghdad and taking the oil with them. The peshmerga are willing to fight and the Kurds have been holding up in their part of Iraq all along.

Taking their portion of the oil with them. Most of Iraq's oil reserves are outside of Kurdistan.

Incidentally though, the Kurds definitely have a good future ahead of them, at least in Iraq.

Cpt Toellner said
I have seen these guys run away from pretty much anything, and that was with a full battalion of Americans by their side.

So basically they got all that training and absolutely nothing changed, they were pussies before, they are pussies now, and will always be pussies.

Nuke the shit hole of a country and be done with it, cheaper & faster.

I don't want to come back to the "It's just Islam" argument, but I swear, if Islam were a bit more liberal/progressive in their views, none of this shit would be happening. If I had to guess, I would say about 85% of the problems in the Middle East comes from the socio-religious schisms between the different branches, denominations, and levels of moderation in the whole of the Muslim/Islamic faiths, and if they didn't believe that they fundamentally had to kill people to get their way, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

I don't have a problem with Islamic people in and of themselves, but when about 70 to 90 percent of the Middle Eastern population is comprised of Islamic extremists (which they don't see for themselves), it's hard not to point fingers. I remember seeing this video of a sort of Islamic gathering where a speaker basically answered the question of extremism, and he asked the crowd how many people believed that certain people deserve death and practically everyone in the fucking room raised their hand. Here's the video if you don't believe me, skip to about 2:20 and watch it from there.

Let me make my perspective clear. I do not hate Islamic people. I hate Islam itself, not the people who practice it, because of exactly this. It is a hateful and dogmatic religion that has absolutely no place in modern society unless some MAJOR reform takes place within it. I honestly believe that until that happens, the Middle East is going to remain a bloody warzone.

Might have gone a bit off-topic there. Sorry about that.