Obama: ‘What should I have done, secretly sold them 1500 missiles?’

[freshwest]

Full statement here:

http://www.freewoodpost.com/2014/06/05/obama-what-should-i-have-done-secretly-sold-them-1500-missiles/

[freshwest]

1. President Obama Makes a Statement on Iraq

Okay, this is the real deal. Just wish he'd say what's in the OP...

[Cha]

7. "Some truths about Iraq" Something you'll be interested in reading, fresh..

snip//

Today President Barack Obama issued a statement on the situation in Iraq.

He reiterated that the ISIS/ISIL advance was a threat to US interests. He was receiving regular briefings from his national security team, and was in contact with the Iraqi leadership.

But if the people who got Iraq into the state it is today expected words of comfort, they were in for a rude surprise.

Pres. Obama tore into the Iraqi leadership, castigating it for not working anywhere near hard enough to knit the country’s various ethnicities and religious confessions together into a viable state. He bemoaned that all the money which the US taxpayer has poured into building the Iraqi Army seems to have gone to waste, as a numerically inferior force of terrorists has overrun Iraqi Army posts, brigades just melting away without firing a shot.

This is the state in which Iraq finds itself. A Shi’a elite has replaced a Sunni Arab elite, and has operated along the same lines as the former elite under Saddam Hussein. Sunni Arabs are shut out of any real power. Frustration builds. A civil war which had been somewhat tamped down by the time US troops left has flared up to full force again. There are other Sunni groups fighting the central government besides ISIS. And Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki keeps trying to centralize power and entrench his new elite.

Of course, the mistake was invading Iraq in the first place. Jihadi groups did not exist in the Levant before George W. Bush’s geopolitical disaster. This was a disaster aided and abetted by a feckless media, too shellshocked by 9/11 and Bush’s popularity to ask any real questions. The country and the “coalition of the willing” rushed to war against a country whose major sin was that it stuck in the craw of the PNAC crowd.

Invading was the first mistake. The second, more onerous error was to have no plan for the postwar settlement. It was envisaged that troops would be pulled out after six months, with an Iraqi government airlifted in, already prepared and equipped to take over from its exile in London and Paris. The problem was that these exiles had no power base in the country. They didn’t suffer the decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein. And the Shi’a who were under Saddam’s boot weren’t going to merely roll over and accept an imposed leadership. So, without a government to take over smoothly, the US suddenly found itself as an occupying power, with no plan in place. The postwar settlement went from a comedy of errors to an increasing tragedy, as sectarian war erupted, with US soldiers stuck in the middle, sometimes fighting Shi’a, sometimes Sunnis, at a cost of 4,000 US dead, thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead."

The rest of Liberal Liberian's piece..
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/06/13/some-truths-about-iraq/

[sheshe2]

2. Yep, such a selective memory!

In his statement, President Obama was referring to the behind the scenes arms deal that happened in the mid-1980?s under Reagan to get back three American hostages, to only be replaced with three more hostages. The under cover deal was to later be known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

It is of concern to both the president and we here at Free Wood Post that conservatives seem to be suffering from Amnesia. Thank goodness Obamacare covers that.

[freshwest]

5. Yes, it's an epidemic among Republicans. Obama addressed it here:

George Monbiot did, too:

Romnesia

September 24, 2012

A potent myth is being used to justify economic capture by a parasitic class.

Read it all, it's very good.

http://www.monbiot.com/2012/09/24/romnesia/

One of my favorite writers who did an excellent take down of the Libertarian movement in the USA and how to explain what we are FOR in a clear way.

I'll post some gratuitiously disparaging memes after this in a little while. Get some rest, Sheshe!

[sheshe2]

14. Thanks for the video.

Romnesia

Romney personifies economic parasitism. The financial sector has become a job-destroying, home-breaking, life-crushing machine, which impoverishes other people to enrich itself. The tighter its grip on politics, the more its representatives must tell the opposite story: of life-affirming enterprise, innovation and investment, of brave entrepreneurs making their fortunes out of nothing but grit and wit.

There is an obvious flip-side to this story. “Anyone can make it – I did without help” translates as “I refuse to pay taxes to help other people, as they can help themselves”. Whether or not they inherited an iron ore mine from daddy.

In the article in which she urged the poor to emulate her, Gina Rinehart also proposed that the minimum wage should be reduced. Who needs fair pay if anyone can become a millionaire?
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/09/24/romnesia/

Romney and Gina are the parasites.

Great read freshwest!

Thanks

[billhicks76]

10. If Clinton...

Had allowed prosecutions for IranContra to go forward we never would've had a Gov Bush x2 or President Bush in 2000 or 911 or the Iraq War. When we let them get away with mass cocaine dealing, assassinations and other felonies we essentially told the conservatives they weren't guilty and empowered them.

[jeff47]

13. Sorry, no. GW Bush issued pardons on Xmas day before he left office. (nt)

[billhicks76]

15. So What

There were other investigations going on including of those pardons. And Clinton definitely had quid pro quo with Bush Sr who later once the 2000 election handed power to his son referred publicly to Bill as his 5th son. There were also investigations going on including cocaine dealing and Iraq loans...Clinton squelched them all. He was Bush Sr's lackey...unless one believes in fairy tales.

[jeff47]

16. Pardons mean you can't prosecute.

He was Bush Sr's lackey...unless one believes in fairy tales.

Would you like a mirror?

Perhaps you could regale us with tales of relocation camps and black helicopters.

[billhicks76]

17. Yeah

Maybe you should read Gary Webbs book, Robert Parrys columns or even watch CNN broadcasts. They were facilitating importing hundreds of tons of cocaine while promoting the first private prisons in the early 90s to enrich their buddies. Bush Sr spearheaded it and even Bill and Sam Nunn on "our" side pushed it. Black helicopters? Really? Sarcastic...downplaying Bush Sr and his whole vile families crimes going back a hundred years? If you didn't notice Clinton's complicity perhaps you should take a closer look. Just watch CNN's 41 on 41 coming up if you want to watch history be rewritten like they did in 1984. There will be plenty of submission and butt-kissing I'm sure. It's amazing how they want us to buy into the shallow pomp and circumstance as if that's what lends us faith in this broken system.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Kick

Rec!

[Cha]

4. Thank you for your post, freshwest! From your link..

"In his statement, President Obama was referring to the behind the scenes arms deal that happened in the mid-1980?s under Reagan to get back three American hostages, to only be replaced with three more hostages. The under cover deal was to later be known as the Iran-Contra Affair"

"It is of concern to both the president and we here at Free Wood Post that conservatives seem to be suffering from Amnesia. Thank goodness Obamacare covers that."

[freshwest]

6. Yes, now they can get care for their political affliction. Paging ObamaCare!

[kysrsoze]

8. That was truly awesome. It was a complete rip on the Republican Party.

I have my differences with a lot of what he does, but he does things very right sometimes. But THEY... are both wrong and hostile every time. Every time. 100% of the time, every time. It still stuns me that so much of the population still cannot see that.

[Hekate]

9. KnR

[citizen blues]

11. Very Impressed with Obama's statement here!

We need to see more of statements like these.

[sheshe2]

12. Morning Kick!