Thoughts on the rise of ISIS/ISIL and the chaos in the middle east.

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:28:27 -0400

Been thinking about this for a few months now and was curious on what others thought...

There are two very good documentaries that describe the Bush admins thoughts about going into Iraq (from the mouths of the people who planned it). One is free online, and one is free on Netflix:

Bush's War
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/

The Unknown Known
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2390962/

The left's position that this war is/was about oil I believe is wrong. The Bush admin viewed Iraq as a "lynch pin" within the middle east, and if you look at the maps of the Sunni/Shia populations, their assessment is correct. The Sunni population extends from mid-Iraq into the south, and the Shia population is from mid-Iraq up into Syria. Saddam was the only thing keeping these factions from fighting. The myopathy of the Bush admin is that they thought that by removing Saddam, the ensuing chaos would usher in a wave of democracy across the region. Unfortunately, they were half right. The removal of Saddam ushered in chaos across the region and led to revolts in Egypt, Libya, and Syria (as well as Iran during the “green summer”), but instead of the people rising up for democracy, we saw the rise of Islamic extremism and a maintenance of overall chaos. To blame Obama for this is wrong. This is the Bush admin only thinking 1 step ahead vs 10 years ahead when they toppled Saddam.

Bush's War | FRONTLINE | PBS

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, this definitive two-part series draws on FRONTLINE's more than 40 reports on Iraq and the war on terror, as well as fresh reporting and interviews, to examine the lasting legacy of the Bush administration.

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 30 at 2014 11:49 AM

CW5 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:49:44 -0400

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member, you make some good points. I would ask, though, if (/when) we might stop blaming President Bush for the woes of the world. Will he have to take the blame from the Left through eight more years of President (Hillary) Clinton's presidency? Through 2024? And I say that only halfway tongue-in-cheek.

I would say that plenty of mistakes were made by the Bush administration, and plenty have been made by the Obama administration.

It does get old - for me, at least - to hear that "It's all Bush's fault." (See the thread about President Obama saluting with a coffee cup in his right hand. Naturally, someone posted that President Bush saluted carrying a dog, so, either President Obama's faux pas wasn't as bad as President Bush's or it was President Bush's fault that President Obama saluted that way.) Brutal!

Response by SPC David S. made Sep 30 at 2014 2:08 PM

SPC David S. — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:08:43 -0400

MAJ Ian Dews, I would like to add that this region has long been a hot mess well before either Bush or Obama were even born. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of WWI the British had taken control of area of modern day Iraq known as the Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration or Mandatory Iraq. During this occupation a Syrian president that was ousted by the French was more or less giving duel control which led to the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920 where Sunnis and Shias united in a failed 3 month attempt. Ever since then the idea of there ever being a democratic Iraqi nation has slowly faded into the history books.

As to who started what the first strikes on modern day Iraq came about via President Clinton against military facilities and alleged WMD sites into 2002. Additionally much of the unrest and resentment of western ideology came about during the British rule concerning the concessionary rights of oil in the region starting with the Sykes-Picot Agreement way back in 1916 as well as disputes over the Mandate of Kuwait.

The result of this is a beleaguered population that has succumb to the vicissitudes of this hostile environment with very little fight left in them. Thus opportunistic extremist factions has come forth and leveraged this to their advantage. The other problem is the approach of overlaying western civil constructs that greatly contradict the indigenous civil constructs. As you can call a watermelon an apple all you want, you'll never get them to grow on trees.

Response by SFC(P) Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2014 1:39 PM

SFC(P) Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 13:39:37 -0400

I was watching the news the other day and I saw something that seemed very interesting to me. It was said that In November of 2008, then President Bush signed an agreement that would take our troops out of Iraq, by 31 December 2011. With being said, it is partly the Bush Administration's fault at the end of the day. However, you can not leave the blame solely to him, this threat was seen prior to them taking cities in Iraq. We should have moved in sooner and stopped it, when there was all of the bloodshed in Iraq after we pulled out, we should have done something to stop it then.