Hillary and Obama Led Us To Defeat In Iraq

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Last night VP Nominee Kaine made this assertion:

KAINE: Do you know that we had 175,000 troops deployed in the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan? … And instead of 175,000 American troops deployed overseas, we now have 15,000….These are very, very good things.

In Tim Kaine’s world a accomplishment of a American leader is the number of American fighting men and women in harms way?

I supposed that could be true if our enemy had been defeated.

As it stands today they are anything but.

Islamic jihadists control more territory than they did when Obama and Hillary took over. They have continuously attacked us and our interests on our shores and overseas. Not to mention that their attacks have become more effective then when Hillary took over as Secretary of State.

How is this a accomplishment?

It isn’t.

Under Obama’s and Hillary’s leadership we retreated and we are now in much more danger worldwide.

Of course Obama and Hillary continue to push the false narrative that they pulled our troops out because the SOFA Bush had signed required them too.

Complete and utter bull.

Wordsmith:

If the current situation in Iraq can be perceived as avoidable due to the blundering adventurism of Bush 43, then more specifically, the more recent decision on the part of President Obama not to flex our previous influence over Maliki and push harder for a new SoFA is a more direct contribution to the rise of ISIS in Iraq. How can anyone absolve Obama 44 while still blaming Bush 43? Syria’s civil war began during President Obama’s tenure. Al Qaeda in Iraq was defeated by 2009 when President Bush left office. Its remnants gathered new life in the Syrian Civil War. Too little too late, some rebel groups had no choice but to ally themselves with jihadis and Islamists- “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. ISIS began its excursions and takeover of Iraqi cities in 2014. At the time, President Obama dismissed them as a JV squad. He did not perceive them to be an existential threat to Iraq or the U.S.

Had we successfully kept combat troops in Iraq after 2011, ISIS would never have been able to successfully gain so much traction. Even conceding that there was no way to renegotiate SoFA, there was still a failure of leadership in the President not doing more to help Iraq with early intervention. After all, Bush broke it and he owns it. Apparently it isn’t “we broke it we own it.” Unfortunately, Bush is no longer the decider. President Obama essentially told Iraq, you’re on your own.

Wrodsmith links to this interview of the adviser to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Middle East expert, Emma Sky:

In my mind, the biggest mistake made by the Obama administration was actually in 2010, not upholding the election results. It’s a very, very close election. Very close election. To everybody’s surprise, it was actually won by the party called Iraqia [ph] headed by Ayad Allawi, and this party was campaigning on a nonsectarian — no to sectarian platform. People want to get rid of religious parties, people want to put sectarians behind to build an Iraq for all Iraqis. This party won two more votes than Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki couldn’t believe the results. All his advisors have told him that, “You’re going to win. You’re going to win big.” When the results came in, he was just in shock. He blamed the international community for tampering with the results, he demanded a recount, he started to use debuffication to try and disqualify the Iraqian [ph] leaders, and this went on and on and on for months, and there was a big dispute within the US system which I described in the book, between those who wanted to uphold the election results and give the winning block, Iraqia, the right to have first go at trying to form the government, and those who said look, “Maliki, he’s our guy. I belong to that former group that thought give the winning block the right to have first go in trying to form the government. I didn’t think Ayad Allawi was going to be able to do it himself as Prime Minister, but I thought that negotiation was really important.

Gideon Rose: We give it to Maliki, walked away, and he then destroyed Iraq?

Emma Sky: Well, this is kind of what happens. This is when the Iranian steps in. The Iranians — they’re influence had really gone down during the surge. America was seen as the big player. The Iranians saw this opportunity and they tried to get all the Shia together to support Maliki, but the Shia were coming together, but they would not going to have Maliki as prime minister. In the end, the Iranians went to Lebanese Hezbollah and got Lebanese Hezbollah to pressure the Sadrist to support Maliki. Maliki had really gone off to the Sadrists during the surge, and the Sadrists were like, “Over our dead body,” but with Iranian pressure …

Gideon Rose: Quite literally often.

Emma Sky: Quite literally — with Iranian pressure, with Lebanese Hezbollah helping out, they pressure the Sadrists and they said, “Look, support Maliki as prime minister, we will ensure no US troops will remain in Iraq after 2011.” That is what happened. The Iranians brokered the deal, and the price was always going to be no US troops. Maliki, second term, determined to go after all his rivals. First of all, he goes off to the Iraqia leaders, accuses them of terrorism. Then he started to round up masses of Sunni’s, put them in jail. All of these people being held not knowing why they were being held. Sunni starts to feel more alienated, more grievances, which ends up in this mass protests across Iraq, demanding an end to this discrimination. Unfortunately again, Maliki doesn’t respond to those through negotiations. He sends in the security forces and a few of the demonstrators are killed. 50 killed in Hawijah, and it just boils and boils and boils.

Gideon Rose: We’re not there to keep things in order, we’re not pushing Maliki to be nicer, and at that point, then ISIS emerges and takes over the — eventually, the Sunni areas who go with them because they’re disgusted with the Maliki government.

Emma Sky: Exactly.

Ultimately it is a fact that when Hillary took over the helm at State the situation was looking quite good in Iraq. Her decisions contributed to the complete dismantling of the situation in Iraq and led to the rise of ISIS.

How in the world Kaine thinks this is a accomplishment is beyond me.

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Hillary and Obama have to avoid any discussion of the results of their records and when discussion is unavoidable, they lie. Kaine, the idiot, talks about what a great thing it is to have only 15,000 US troops deployed while Obama and Kerry are whining about how Putin and Russia are walking all over them regarding peace in Syria (now would be a great time to remember who welcomed Russia into Syria to control their chemical weapons and slither out from under Obama’s “red line” joke). Little do fools like they know that to control an aggressor like Putin requires leverage and military strength is leverage.

Obama believed that his amazing charisma (which apparently only impresses him) would substitute for the threat that US military force would punish those that violate world peace. Hillary apparently believes she can use the power of he obnoxious voice to keep peace around the world (unless Blumenthal convinces her there is money to be made in a war), or some other means besides military strength, but she convinced the pliable Kaine to make supremely stupid statements such as this.

Besides dissolving national security and creating a fertile growth culture for ISIS, what further harm could Hillary do as President? Well, the sky is literally the limit.

Obama received a undeserved and unearned Nobel Peace Prize Hillary and Benjazi and expanding the war and the Useless Nations dose nothing but forcing americans to pay reparations for slavery which has been dead in america for 150 years and was supported by the demacrats who also founded the KKK

At a White House news conference on July 12, 2007, Bush declared: “I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we’re ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

So why did the Bush administration lock in a specific timetable for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq that could not be revised without the consent of the Iraqi government, only a month before Obama took office?

That’s precisely what they did. If you doubt it, read the S.O.F.A. The right is trying to lay blame on Obama for the worst republican geopolitical screw up in the history of the nation.

Now we’ve got Pence making noises about taking on Russia and launching a bombing campaign Bashar al-Assad—a totally different policy than Trump, who sounds like a non-interventionist. As if Trump’s own flip-flops and 180-degree position reversals weren’t enough. It’s like the republican ticket has become totally schizophrenic.

When we WIN a war, we use the defeated nation as a forward base of operations, leaving tens of thousands of troops inside their borders.
So, Obama’s actions in withdrawing almost all our troops from that area indicates we LOST that war.
Germany houses over 37,000 US troops to this day, over 70 years since we defeated them.
Japan also lost to the USA over 70 years ago.
We still station nearly 50,000 American troops there.

The goal of the Obama Iraq policy was always to remove the troops with no concern for the consequences which was proliferation of radical Islam.

The Obama/Clinton goal in Libya was defeating Kaddafi with no consequences which was loss of the ambassador and 3 other Americans as well as increasing the spread of radical Islam.

The Obama/Clinton goal in Egypt was to remove the president of Egypt with no concern for the consequences such as the massacre of thousands of Christians.

The goal of the Obama/Clinton in Syria was to remove Assad without concern for the consequences which was the expansion of radical Islam.

The Obama/Clinton goal of the “affordable Care Act” was to provide 20 Million people with health care with no concern for the consequences which results in the potential danger of destroying the health care system for most US citizens.

The Obama/Clinton goal for instituting supplying guns to the Mexican drug cartels through operation “fast and furious” without considering the consequences killed hundreds of innocent people and law enforcement people.

Name one action by Obama/Clinton that was accomplished with out incurring major negative consequences. I didn’t have time to go into the server in the basement, the Iranian nuclear disaster, the Clinton Foundation, the up coming Cuban disaster, or a host of other disastrous actions with negative consequences.

@Greg:

There you go again, typing for the democrats a falsehood designed to assuage the real responsibility of the failed president, obama and mrs clinton.

The narrative that democrats want us to believe is to claim that President Obama had no choice about whether to keep troops in Iraq or not, and continue the mantra of blaming Bush.

Maliki was willing to accept a deal with U.S. forces if it was worth it to him — the problem was that the Obama administration wanted a small force so that it could say it had ended the war. Having a very small American force wasn’t worth the domestic political price Maliki would have to pay for supporting their presence.

It is a fools errand to believe that the Bush administration signed the status-of-forces agreement that included U.S. troops’ leaving at the end of 2011, is utterly meaningless: The agreement was supposed to be renegotiated eventually, to provide a long-term presence with U.S. troops in a different role. That’s why the Obama administration, however half-heartedly and with little regard for the fate of Iraq, did try to renegotiate it. And it’s why the Maliki government was open to these negotiations — the situation on the ground was very different in 2011 than it had been when Bush signed the agreement in 2008.

It is clear obama wanted nothing to do with continuing the success of Iraq preferring to further the chaos he has instilled in the Middle east. The middle east is a foreign policy disaster and it is an albatross around the neck of both obama and mrs clinton.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380508/

@Greg:

Word has written all about the SOFA at length.

Then again, how is it we have 6,000 troops in Iraq without a SOFA now and a President bombing ISIL without an AUMF?

Heavens!

Biden said Iraq would be one of Obama’s greatest achievements. Dems just measure success by what most sane people would call failure.

@DrJohn: Obama held all of the cards and could not win SOFA. That says a lot about the ignorant week-kneed man you support. It was a political move just like Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen.

@Mully: Liberals simply have the advantage of being able to call a disastrous failure a resounding success and get everyone in the media nodding in the same direction. It’s why Obama is desperate to make Hillary his successor to get all the pertinent history rewritten to bury his failure (though she is as likely as Trump to throw him under the bus).

Obama cannot possibly divest himself of the growth of ISIS and the foreign policy disaster he created. In fact, he just stated in an interview that he became more confident and reliant on his own judgement instead of his advisors. How’d THAT work out?

@Randy:

The weak kneed man I support? ‘Scuse me?

Anyone here personally willing to go back to Iraq as a volunteer to help do what they think needs to be done? Or are they just wanting some other person to risk their ass in a country that Bush destabilized?
Bush himself signed the SOFA which called for first moving all our combat troops OUT of the cities and into camps, followed by their withdrawal from the country entirely.
Don’t pretend that is not a fact. As for Clinton being soft on Putin, at least she doesn’t publicly play kissy face with him. How many of our allies are rooting for a Trump win?
In any case Trump looks highly unlikely to win with only one month left.

@DrJohn: Sorry, I was supposed to be responding to Greg.

@Greg: Who cares what a paid troll says. You’re biased, and your comments are irrational.

@Nathan Blue: And that’s putting it mildly.

@Nanny G, #4″

When we WIN a war, we use the defeated nation as a forward base of operations, leaving tens of thousands of troops inside their borders.

Are we talking about the Roman Empire or the United States? Somewhere along the line we have become confused about our national identity and intentions. “Take the oil” is a statement having far greater significance than most people seem to have noticed.

@Randy, #13:

Obama held all of the cards and could not win SOFA.

We would only have held all the cards if we had decided not to honor the terms of the SOFA agreement. Its terms ruled out a unilateral decision on our part. That empowered the Iraqi government to insist on an entirely unacceptable condition—agreeing to put our people under the jurisdiction of Iraqi civil courts. That was Nouri al-Maliki, playing both ends against the middle. He was only going through the motions of negotiations.

Had we failed to honor the terms of the SOFA, any agreements we made on the international stage in the future would be seen as meaningless. Our word would no longer have been something that could be relied upon. So, that wasn’t really an option, either.

@Randy, #13:

My response to #9 is awaiting moderation, though I thought it was a fairly moderate reply to begin with.

First Pence was talking about taking on Russia and launching a bombing campaign against Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Now there’s this:

Mike Pence Disavows Donald Trump’s Earlier Proposal Banning Muslims

I’m getting a little confused about which guy on the republican ticket it is that’s actually running for president.

Good for peace release some doves while Obama and Hillary released turkeys

@Greg: Greggie, don’t forget Obola doesn’t honor anything. Remember his line in the sand in Syria?? What happened there Greggie??

@Common Sense, #21:

Are you unaware that we’ve been at war with ISIS for over two years now, and that the war is being waged in both Iraq and Syria? I believe the republican-majority House was notified. A formal Request for Authorization to Use Military Force from the President has been sitting in somebody’s bottom desk drawer there since February, 2015.

@Greg: And Obola is President who ignores the Constitution when it comes to illegals immigration so why would he blame Republicans for anything Greggie?? Now Obolacare is falling apart just as it was predicted!! You gonna blame Republicans for that to Greggie?? Obola has been President for over 7 years so the rise of radical islamic terrorism is on his watch period!!

@john: I think the ignorant liberals that supported Obama and still support his failure to this day should go back, since they (YOU) think it is such a resounding success.

Time after time, when Obama has TOTALLY F@$#ED up the situation, liberals ask, “Well, what would YOU do? How would YOU fix it?” Well, the key would be, don’t be so f*#£ing arrogant and pompous and listen to your advisors; don’t f*+k the situation up on the first place.

@Greg:

Are you unaware that we’ve been at war with ISIS for over two years now, and that the war is being waged in both Iraq and Syria?

And why ARE we at war with ISIS in Iraq and Syria (and Libya, and here)? OH! That’s right… arrogant Obama stupidly ignored all the educated advice and recommendation (because his own judgement is superior) and pulled all troops out of Iraq, leaving the entire region to ISIS to control. Then, he and Hillary decided it would be a great idea to ARM ISIS.

Yeah…. that’s why.

Even the Washington Post published a piece acknowledging that the Bush State department expected the incoming Obama regime to renegotiate a SOFA. Maliki was willing to grant it as a preseidential order/agreement, but Obama insisted on the Iraqi parliment signing off on such an agreement, which was not going to happen given the makeup of the Iraqi parliment at the time. Obama was unwilling to accept a SOFA without parlimentary approval, because he wanted to pull US troops out for blatantly political reasons. (Contrast that with Obama’s unconstitutional climate change treaty stupidity in refusing to have the treaty undergo ratification by the Senate).

The rise of ISIS is absolutely the responsibility of Obama’s pro-muslim, anti-US political decision to prematurely remove US troops from Iraq.

@Greg: Greg, you are smarter than to use that same old lie on us! Maybe I am wrong. You are not smarter at all.

Leaving Iraq was always predicated on conditions on the ground. Though Obama was informed what those conditions were, what the risks to withdrawing were and was WELL AWARE of the “power vacuum” that would be left, he knew better.

But Obama’s superior instincts took over and he ignored all intelligent advice and just did it anyway.

And then there was ISIS.

@DrJohn:

Word has written all about the SOFA at length.

Thanks for remembering, John and Curt!

@Greg:

So why did the Bush administration lock in a specific timetable for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq that could not be revised without the consent of the Iraqi government, only a month before Obama took office?

I think he did what he felt he needed to do at the time (with the assumption that his successor would renegotiate the terms at a later date).

Bush’s desire was to keep a presence in Iraq for mutual security and because he knew it would take long-term commitment to get it right. What was senator/president Obama’s desire? To wash our hands of Iraq and bring our troops home. Bush basically signed on to the Obama model because the politics of the time demanded it; but, again, he did so in the confidence and trust that the next American leader would not abandon our hard-earned gains and leave Iraq, prematurely vulnerable.

That’s precisely what they did. If you doubt it, read the S.O.F.A. The right is trying to lay blame on Obama for the worst republican geopolitical screw up in the history of the nation.

Let’s go with your narrative that Obama was locked into abiding by SoFA, signed by Bush, with no way of renegotiating it. So then if he were obligated to follow the Agreement, what then of this:

Article 27
Deterrence of Security Threats

In order to strengthen security and stability in Iraq and to contribute to the
maintenance of international peace and stability, the Parties shall work
actively to strengthen the political and military capabilities of the Republic
of Iraq to deter threats against its sovereignty, political independence,
territorial integrity, and its constitutional federal democratic system
. To that
end, the Parties agree as follows:

1. In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat.

2. The Parties agree to continue close cooperation in strengthening and maintaining military and security institutions and democratic political institutions in Iraq, including, as may be mutually agreed, cooperation in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces, in order to combat domestic and international terrorism and outlaw groups, upon request by the Government of Iraq.

I point to this because, let me remind:

In 2013, Iraq began showing concerns of a rising Sunni militancy (in the absence of the U.S. flexing its influence over moderating a sectarian Maliki- plus in 2010 not supporting Iraq election results that saw Maliki lose- Sunnis were once again being alienated) and asked the White House for airstrikes and military aid (Oct 2013). Obama refused. In 2014, Iraq asked again (by this time, Obama already dismissed ISIS as a JV team in January) and was once again denied. Then by mid-June, the al Muthanna chemical weapons factory was seized by ISIS; and cities began to fall. Finally, president Obama sends some troops back into Iraq in advisory/training roles along with some airstrikes.

I don’t mind people making a case for how Bush played a hand in shaping the course of history; but Bush has been out of power for these last 8 years. Obama is not some helpless bystander, victimized by decisions made the previous 8 years. He’s the leader of the free world. Where was his leadership on Iraq? He essentially acquiesced to the anti-war movement and non-interventionists; and his leadership vacuum allowed for American influence to be replaced by Iranian influence in Iraq. And his weak leadership on Syria and dealing with the Arab Spring bred fertile ground for the regrowth and rebranding of AQI/ISIS.

@john:

Anyone here personally willing to go back to Iraq as a volunteer to help do what they think needs to be done? Or are they just wanting some other person to risk their ass in a country that Bush destabilized?

John, with all due respect, your chickenhawk line of debate is idiocy masquerading as substance. It’s an intellectually lazy line designed for nothing more than to shutdown debate so you don’t actually have to engage the merits of any arguments.

You believe in staying out of Iraq? Why aren’t you out there in your Code Pink skirt, frollicking your protest sign before Senate committee hearings? Support firefighters fighting fires? Why aren’t you picking up a hose and doing it yourself? Go cook your own burger! Why are you allowing others to cook it for you? Believe in climate change? Why aren’t you out there chaining yourself to a lear jet and putting your life on the line to save the planet and your children’s future? You believe in liberal causes? Why aren’t you running for office? Why aren’t you risking your neck? If you truly believe in law enforcement and stopping criminals, why aren’t you out there making citizens arrests yourself and joining a police department? Why allow others to do the dirty work of fighting crime and keeping you safe, for you?

Smh…

@Wordsmith: Spot on with the left wing trolls as usual. You must get sick of disproving their debunked idiotic left wing talking points. They are best ignored.

wordsworth are YOU ready to put your butt on the line and go back yourself to Iraq? perhaps as a volunteer with the Kurds? Or are you part of the ” I want someone else (Obama) to order other people (the US military) to go and do something I wouldn’t myself do
Is anyone ?
Americans had an election they elected the man who promised to get us out of there (as the Bush signed SOFA promised we would) Obama one by 100 electoral votes a landslide.

@john: News flash moron, America is still there!!

@john: See #24. Are YOU ready to go, since your lord and master created this huge disaster? You seem frightened to answer.

Podesta Emails: Clinton Campaign Acknowledges Benghazi Attack ‘Preventable’, She Was ‘In Charge’, GOP Criticism ‘Legitimate’

And now we know the rest of the story. Benghazi was preventable and mrs clinton lied repeatedly….

http://www.weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Screen-Shot-2016-10-11-at-1.54.30-PM.png