Who Created ISIS?

[Augustus]

Peace to all
Proof that Al-Qaeda and ISIS was made in the US of A.

http://www.infowars.com/trump-is-right-heres-proof-hillary-obama-founded-isis/

The US funded mujahadeen in Afghanistan, as did half of the Muslim world. This is no secret and is not 'creating al-Qaeda'.

If you read the original document referred to in infowars, it shows that AQI was not seen as part of the 'opposition', which is what the US professed to support. Opposition refers to the Syrian opposition (FSA), not the foreign jihadis.

Can look for yourself:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-con...12-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

 

[1robin]

The sedge and bee were the signs of upper and lower Egypt, I don't remember which means what though for some reason. So Cleopatra of the sedge and bee is similar to Cleopatra of the two lands, or of all Egypt.

That makes perfect sense, thanks.

 

[1robin]

Realistically, he didn't have much of a choice. The election there backfired on us, thus allowing a Shi'i government to take charge that would not allow us to try our own soldiers and civilian personnel in our own courts if something went wrong. It was time to get out of Dodge unless we wanted a lot more Americans coming home in body bags.

I disagree. Obama was not forced to do anything. We lost several times the number we lost in the entire war on terror in one day in the civil war and we lost more on a single one of the 4 or 5 landing beaches on D-day alone. We have the military strength to impose our will on any nation we wished, perhaps even all of them at once if we have the stomach to pay the price, not that we should or will but that we could. The difference between the days when we were willing to pay a heavy price to defeat what we thought was evil is then we had the moral courage to do such things before the secular revolution of the 50s. In todays climate where we give all sides participation trophy's and call anyone we disagree with Islam phobic or racist and sometimes both and more. We no longer are committed to pay the price when confronting evil. War is Hell, but people today think is should be clinical, without error, or significant price. What is going to happen when the last nation willing and capable to confront evil decides that it can't be bothered to do so? The death of freedom is always one generation away.

 

[Augustus]

I disagree. Obama was not forced to do anything.

You think the American people would stand for their soldiers being paraded in chains on TV by the very government they are spending billions to help?

Any President, from any party, would have done the same.

The people who howl loudest about how he shouldn't have left Iraq would be the same people howling the loudest if US troops were languishing in Iraqi jails or being hanged on the gallows.

 

[metis]

You think the American people would stand for their soldiers being paraded in chains on TV by the very government they are spending billions to help?

Any President, from any party, would have done the same.

The people who howl loudest about how he shouldn't have left Iraq would be the same people howling the loudest if US troops were languishing in Iraqi jails or being hung from the gallows.

Well said, and I obviously agree.

 

[1robin]

You think the American people would stand for their soldiers being paraded in chains on TV by the very government they are spending billions to help?

They might have, we may never know if your hypothetical is true or not because Obama cut and run before we had a chance to see, but regardless Obama was not forced to do anything even if people did not like that a certain thing happened. We have never been a direct democracy, we are a representative republic.

Any President, from any party, would have done the same.

That is patently false, whatever event real or imaginable you mentioned above what you describe actually happened in thousands of cases in WW2. Did Truman or Roosevelt tuck tail and run? Nope, Truman dropped the most destructive weapon ever used in the history of warfare on the Japanese and they ground Hitler's Germany to dust. Did Lincoln fold in the wake of draft riots, tens of thousands of northern soldiers being beaten and starved to death in prison camps, and virtually every one in the government at one time or another saying he should give it up? Nope, he stuck it out to the bitter end and is praised as perhaps the greatest president we ever had. I can keep showing you your points are meaningless and that you (as those who usually defend failed liberal policies) do not know anything about history, but it won't help.

The people who howl loudest about how he shouldn't have left Iraq would be the same people howling the loudest if US troops were languishing in Iraqi jails or being hung from the gallows.

Were you born 20 years or less ago or something, this kind of stuff is not new, it is not unique, and it has occurred in massive quantities in our own past and in the past for every nation engaged in a significant war. What is new is the whining and crying the moment anything gets hard, and our having so petty and weak a leader the he cannot stay the course in the face of adversity. Why don't you go back and ask general Washington and his frozen men at Valley Forge who were facing the greatest military power in history at the time if a few people being jailed or killed was too high a price to pay?

 

[1robin]

Well said, and I obviously agree.

He was absolutely wrong on every account. See post #26

 

[Augustus]

They might have, we may never know if your hypothetical is true or not because Obama cut and run before we had a chance to see, but regardless Obama was not forced to do anything even if people did not like that a certain thing happened. We have never been a direct democracy, we are a representative republic.

I'll reply properly tomorrow, but what do you think would have happened in Iraq if you had stayed for another 5 years?

What positives and what negatives?

 

[metis]

He was absolutely wrong on every account. See post #26

You obviously have never been to nor did much studying in or about the Middle East. Unfortunately, all too many of our political leaders never did as well, thus falling into traps that could have been avoided had they done their homework.

I was involved with the Council On North African and Near Eastern Studies for 15 years, and anyone who thinks for one minute we will prevail there in the long run probably also believes that Grimm's Fairy Tales is non-fiction.

They live there, we don't, and sooner or later we'll leave as more and more of our men and women come home in body-bags or seriously maimed. It is not the same situation as it was in Europe back after WWII.

It simply is unethical to continue to let our people and their people to suffer and die, and I gotta feeling Jesus would be taking the same position. That is of course only if one reads and agrees with what he said.

 

[1robin]

I'll reply properly tomorrow, but what do you think would have happened in Iraq if you had stayed for another 5 years?

Ok, I will respond to your in-depth post tomorrow, for today let me state that I rarely entertain hypotheticals as the world as it is vexing enough. Regardless, I imagine that as usual these days half of us would be whining and depending on who the leader in question was we would either cut and run or grit our teeth and get the job done. If your dealing with hypotheticals then let's hypothetically assume I was the president. Do you have any interest in what might have happened if we did things as I wish?

What positives and what negatives?

You asking really complicated questions. It depends on what goals you have as to whether a thing is positive or negative. I will give you just one that hardly anyone bothered mentioning but it is a very very big issue. When we went into Iraq the second time (BTW I was in the military for both wars so I had a bit on an inside take on the events) no one thought that the insurgency at the close of what was about as costless and easy a victory as the most optimistic could even dream of, would be as massive and sustained as it was. It was purported to be this horrific thing that was getting out of hand and going to overwhelm us. However the fact of the matter is it was one of the best gifts we could have wished for. The worst part of fighting terrorists is that they hide and blend in, but in Iraq they were actually hunting us by the thousands. All we had to do was dig in and use our technology to get kill ratios of dozens or hundreds to 1. This was reported to be a nightmare but if we actually were at war with terrorism you could not have wished for better. So it depends on the goal which makes a negative or a positive. Ok, one last example. In about 1937 Churchill (who actually knew about history) wanted to assassinate Hitler but the liberals in Britain like Chamberlain wanted to appease him and so 50 million people had to die before it was over, instead of just 1.

So it is enough if we can but learn from history we should feel satisfied, entertaining hypotheticals is of not much use but we can do both or either. Your choice.

 

[metis]

Hitler was not the only NAZI.

 

[1robin]

You obviously have never been to nor did much studying in or about the Middle East. Unfortunately, all too many of our political leaders never did as well, thus falling into traps that could have been avoided had they done their homework.

I was there in both wars in Iraq and I an currently working with a group out of Saudi Arabia called EAC. So you are not off to a good start but lets see if it gets any better.

I was involved with the Council On North African and Near Eastern Studies for 15 years, and anyone who thinks for one minute we will prevail there in the long run probably also believes that Grimm's Fairy Tales is non-fiction.

What are you talking about, we could melt the entire middle east in less than an hour if we so willed, nor do any of the terms you listed previously qualify you to make the claims you just did? I, however am a life long military historian, am a 17 year veteran, have worked for the DOD for longer than I want to remember, and was in two battle groups in the middle east.

Now if you mean our current establishment lacks the will to succeed then hypothetically you may be proven right. But since I already pointed out the difference between what could be done and what our current week leaders will actually do then your not countering anything I have not already said.

Can we impose our wills in the entire middle east? Without any doubt what so ever. Will we do so? That depends on how morally weak our civilian leadership is.

They live there, we don't, and sooner or later we'll leave as more and more of our men and women come home in body-bags or seriously maimed. It is not the same situation as it was in Europe back after WWII.

No, in Europe it proved to be a much harder fight (though with hindsight it was always inevitable), our war against the Iraqi military was a piece of cake. I always knew we would win, but even I was completely surprised how ineffectual the 4th largest military in the world was. One example, we destroyed thousands of Russian tanks without losing a single tank from enemy fire. Ok, another. The F-15s that I currently work on destroyed so many of the best fighters the soviets produced at the time without losing a single plane that they would no longer take off after about a week. Germany made IRAQ look like a speed bump to our military who was only ever stopped by the inability of our fuel trucks to keep up with the tanks.

It simply is unethical to continue to let our people and their people to suffer and die, and I gotta feeling Jesus would be taking the same position. That is of course only if one reads and agrees with what he said.

What is infinitely more unethical is to allow evil flourish until it can overcome the good, so that your delicate sensibilities are not offended. The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or not enough).

I would love to type up a dissertation on military history but you use any post over a few lines as a reason to hit the bricks so I am not going to invest much this time around.

 

[Augustus]

They might have, we may never know if your hypothetical is true or not because Obama cut and run before we had a chance to see, but regardless Obama was not forced to do anything even if people did not like that a certain thing happened. We have never been a direct democracy, we are a representative republic.

Not renewing the agreement was pretty much Iraq's way of saying we don't want you here any more, so you would have been staying against the will of the government. This is not a great long term strategy.

But let's say Obama decided to 'tough it out'. What next?

When Obama did normal stuff, many on the right saw him as a subversive traitor trying to sabotage the US. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out how they would respond to Obama allowing a Muslim country to arrest and kill US soldiers with impunity.

It would most likely make any person who supported it unelectable, so would face widespread opposition in both houses. I'm not sure what actions they could take to force Obama's hand, but they would certainly try.

That is patently false, whatever event real or imaginable you mentioned above what you describe actually happened in thousands of cases in WW2. Did Truman or Roosevelt tuck tail and run? Nope, Truman dropped the most destructive weapon ever used in the history of warfare on the Japanese and they ground Hitler's Germany to dust. Did Lincoln fold in the wake of draft riots, tens of thousands of northern soldiers being beaten and starved to death in prison camps, and virtually every one in the government at one time or another saying he should give it up? Nope, he stuck it out to the bitter end and is praised as perhaps the greatest president we ever had. I can keep showing you your points are meaningless and that you (as those who usually defend failed liberal policies) do not know anything about history, but it won't help.

First of all, it wasn't a 'liberal policy', Bush decided to "cut and run" when he signed off on a withdrawal by 2011. Also neo-conservative/liberal interventionist nation building spans both left and right, as does opposition to it.

If you want to look at history then it's just as easy to find examples of people who 'stuck it out' with disasterous consequences. The Persian desire to conquer Greece end up with the Greeks conquering Persia. Napoleon toughing it out in Russia didn't end to well for him either.

Also, this was no WW2, it was an unpopular war with an unrealistic objective of nation building.

Unless the objective was an unending game of whack a mole against insurgents with no end game in the face of increasing hostility and resentment, what do you think could have been achieved?

The Iraqi Army was not going to be ready any time. As you saw when they fled from a handful of jihadis, they were simply a cash cow for politicians and officers who were kept deliberately weak. A powerful military would be a threat to the politicians.

Were you born 20 years or less ago or something, this kind of stuff is not new, it is not unique, and it has occurred in massive quantities in our own past and in the past for every nation engaged in a significant war. What is new is the whining and crying the moment anything gets hard, and our having so petty and weak a leader the he cannot stay the course in the face of adversity. Why don't you go back and ask general Washington and his frozen men at Valley Forge who were facing the greatest military power in history at the time if a few people being jailed or killed was too high a price to pay?

The political reality of the 21st century is very different. No politician could survive such a humiliation. It wouldn't be seen as 'toughing it out', but the most abject surrender and weakness of any president in history.

You would literally be paying billions of $$$ to a government that was humiliating you in public in conjunction with Iran.

Obama would be the most hated President in history and a one term lame duck rejected by even his own party.

When we went into Iraq the second time (BTW I was in the military for both wars so I had a bit on an inside take on the events) no one thought that the insurgency at the close of what was about as costless and easy a victory as the most optimistic could even dream of, would be as massive and sustained as it was. It was purported to be this horrific thing that was getting out of hand and going to overwhelm us. However the fact of the matter is it was one of the best gifts we could have wished for. The worst part of fighting terrorists is that they hide and blend in, but in Iraq they were actually hunting us by the thousands. All we had to do was dig in and use our technology to get kill ratios of dozens or hundreds to 1. This was reported to be a nightmare but if we actually were at war with terrorism you could not have wished for better. So it depends on the goal which makes a negative or a positive.

I have some questions that I'd be interested in your perspective on. As someone who served in the military, how would you feel if service men and women, doing a tough and dangerous job, also had to do this under the knowledge that at any time they wanted the Iraqi police could arrest them on a whim? How do you think morale would be? How would you feel if the police marched into your base and took your friends away to probably be tortured and possibly executed? How would you feel the 2nd, 3rd and 4th times after seeing people like yourself paraded on TV and publicly humiliated? Do you think heavily armed people would just stand by and do nothing? Would you honestly still be praising Obama for showing toughness and moral fortitude?

The Iraqi government is significantly influenced by Iran. Don't you think that Iran would have taken the first opportunity to pick itself up a load of bargaining chips in the form of US military personnel?

Not just the front line soldiers either, the entire command structure would be subject to arbitrary detention, easily justified by any civilian casualties. I'm not sure how the military could function under such conditions.

The other alternative would be to reject Iraqi sovereignty and stay there by force, but I don't really see how this would be helpful if the goal was creating long term stability.

 

[metis]

I was there in both wars in Iraq and I an currently working with a group out of Saudi Arabia called EAC. So you are not off to a good start but lets see if it gets any better.

What are you talking about, we could melt the entire middle east in less than an hour if we so willed, nor do any of the terms you listed previously qualify you to make the claims you just did? I, however am a life long military historian, am a 17 year veteran, have worked for the DOD for longer than I want to remember, and was in two battle groups in the middle east.

Now if you mean our current establishment lacks the will to succeed then hypothetically you may be proven right. But since I already pointed out the difference between what could be done and what our current week leaders will actually do then your not countering anything I have not already said.

Can we impose our wills in the entire middle east? Without any doubt what so ever. Will we do so? That depends on how morally weak our civilian leadership is.

No, in Europe it proved to be a much harder fight (though with hindsight it was always inevitable), our war against the Iraqi military was a piece of cake. I always knew we would win, but even I was completely surprised how ineffectual the 4th largest military in the world was. One example, we destroyed thousands of Russian tanks without losing a single tank from enemy fire. Ok, another. The F-15s that I currently work on destroyed so many of the best fighters the soviets produced at the time without losing a single plane that they would no longer take off after about a week. Germany made IRAQ look like a speed bump to our military who was only ever stopped by the inability of our fuel trucks to keep up with the tanks.

What is infinitely more unethical is to allow evil flourish until it can overcome the good, so that your delicate sensibilities are not offended. The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or not enough).

I would love to type up a dissertation on military history but you use any post over a few lines as a reason to hit the bricks so I am not going to invest much this time around.

You are obviously looking at the M.E. through a military lens whereas I largely look at it from an anthropological (cultural) lens. Yes, I have no doubt we could blow up and/or occupy probably the entire M.E., but at what price?

The reality is that we attacked, invaded, did regime change that brought the more pro-Iranian Shi'i to power, while at the same time killing or displacing roughly 1/3 of the country's population, and this was against a country that didn't attack us. We were lied to by the previous administration, as Powell and many others came to realize, and yet your solution is to continue of with this while more and more Americans come home in body bags and more Iraqis are killed?

So, my point was not to question whether we could bomb the area into dust, or that we could take over the area by killing anyone who gets in our way and by sending hundreds of thousands more Americans into harm's way for maybe decades, but whether it would be ethical and also that strategically necessary in the long run?

And the lesson so many in the military forget was made abundantly clear several decades ago with the Vietnam conflict whereas 50,000 Americans lost their lives, and for what? I originally was for our involvement there, but very early on I realized that the only way we could save Vietnam was to destroy it, which would have been an odd and very inhumane way to "save" it.

There is a very serious ethical problem with what you have proposed, and I frankly cannot even begin to understand how a believer in Jesus could take such a bomb-the-hell-and-take-them-over attitude. I have a very difficult time picturing Jesus with a fully-automatic assault-weapon gunning down Iraqis and displacing and ruining the lives of millions of innocent people. And since I can't picture him doing that, so then I also question why his disciples would take a different position. Defense is one thing, but playing offense against a country that didn't attack us is another.

BTW, if my memory is correct, you said you voted for Trump, which I have to admit brings up some other questions that relate to this. But I'll save that for maybe another day.

 

[metis]

Not renewing the agreement was pretty much Iraq's way of saying we don't want you here any more, so you would have been staying against the will of the government. This is not a great long term strategy.

But let's say Obama decided to 'tough it out'. What next?

When Obama did normal stuff, many on the right saw him as a subversive traitor trying to sabotage the US. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out how they would respond to Obama allowing a Muslim country to arrest and kill US soldiers with impunity.

It would most likely make any person who supported it unelectable, so would face widespread opposition in both houses. I'm not sure what actions they could take to force Obama's hand, but they would certainly try.



First of all, it wasn't a 'liberal policy', Bush decided to "cut and run" when he signed off on a withdrawal by 2011. Also neo-conservative/liberal interventionist nation building spans both left and right, as does opposition to it.

If you want to look at history then it's just as easy to find examples of people who 'stuck it out' with disasterous consequences. The Persian desire to conquer Greece end up with the Greeks conquering Persia. Napoleon toughing it out in Russia didn't end to well for him either.

Also, this was no WW2, it was an unpopular war with an unrealistic objective of nation building.

Unless the objective was an unending game of whack a mole against insurgents with no end game in the face of increasing hostility and resentment, what do you think could have been achieved?

The Iraqi Army was not going to be ready any time. As you saw when they fled from a handful of jihadis, they were simply a cash cow for politicians and officers who were kept deliberately weak. A powerful military would be a threat to the politicians.



The political reality of the 21st century is very different. No politician could survive such a humiliation. It wouldn't be seen as 'toughing it out', but the most abject surrender and weakness of any president in history.

You would literally be paying billions of $$$ to a government that was humiliating you in public in conjunction with Iran.

Obama would be the most hated President in history and a one term lame duck rejected by even his own party.



I have some questions that I'd be interested in your perspective on. As someone who served in the military, how would you feel if service men and women, doing a tough and dangerous job, also had to do this under the knowledge that at any time they wanted the Iraqi police could arrest them on a whim? How do you think morale would be? How would you feel if the police marched into your base and took your friends away to probably be tortured and possibly executed? How would you feel the 2nd, 3rd and 4th times after seeing people like yourself paraded on TV and publicly humiliated? Do you think heavily armed people would just stand by and do nothing? Would you honestly still be praising Obama for showing toughness and moral fortitude?

The Iraqi government is significantly influenced by Iran. Don't you think that Iran would have taken the first opportunity to pick itself up a load of bargaining chips in the form of US military personnel?

Not just the front line soldiers either, the entire command structure would be subject to arbitrary detention, easily justified by any civilian casualties. I'm not sure how the military could function under such conditions.

The other alternative would be to reject Iraqi sovereignty and stay there by force, but I don't really see how this would be helpful if the goal was creating long term stability.

Let me just say that I very much appreciate you covering some different angles on this than I did, and I think you're entirely spot on.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Peace to all
Augustus some questions to find out how US of A got their hands soaked in this bloody mess.
When Soviets invaded Afghanistan what was the Soviets objective in their invasion?
At the same token why did the US fund the mujahadeen.What was the US objective?
When the US invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban what was its objective?
Keep in mind that the 9/11 was an inside job.An excuse to invade.
Now look at Syria.
Why is the US involved in this bloody mess?
What is its objective?
Why did the Soviets get involved?
What are the Soviets objective?
Keep in mind my friend that in both wars the 2 super powers are involved.
They are there for personal gain hence they have objectives.
Peace

 

[Augustus]

When Soviets invaded Afghanistan what was the Soviets objective in their invasion?

Geo-political self-interest

At the same token why did the US fund the mujahadeen.What was the US objective?

See above.

They funded anyone anti-communist in any country.

When the US invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban what was its objective?

Revenge

Keep in mind that the 9/11 was an inside job.An excuse to invade.

Don't be silly

Now look at Syria.
Why is the US involved in this bloody mess?
What is its objective?
Why did the Soviets get involved?
What are the Soviets objective?
Keep in mind my friend that in both wars the 2 super powers are involved.
They are there for personal gain hence they have objectives.

Russia because Syria is it's only significant asset in the region.

America because they wanted to get rid of Assad as they thought it was necessary for the long term benefit of the region (and because they don't learn from their previous mistakes).

Why do you think they wanted to create ISIS seeing as they had spent years trying to defeat Zarqawi and his successors in Iraq? What do you think they gain from it?

 

[Notanumber]

I remember being surprised when George Bush senior successfully chased Saddam out of Kuwait but decided not to invade Iraq.

I was a lot younger then, but by the time of the second Iraq war, I had matured enough to realise that this was now a bad idea.

Saddam was a strong leader and feared by his people, but he was our puppet and allowed us to search for weapons of mass destruction (none found).

Islamic countries need strong leaders to keep control of their populations desire for conflict.

I said at the time that Saddam was the man for the job. He also kept Iran in check.

So I would say that the removal of Saddam is what created ISIS and it has been maintained by Saudi Arabia and its supporters ever since.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Peace to all
You see my friends if you read too much into Western media then you miss the plot.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance,it is the illusion of knowledge.
Figure it out friends.
The Soviets invade a land lock country with no resources.
The Americans fund the mujahadeen spending billions and they have poverty in their own back yard.
My friends there is a bigger hidden picture that you cannot see.
The soviets,Iran,Syria,Israel,Saudi,the Gulf States,the US of A all have the blood of innocent women and children in their hands.
They all have objectives and you got to look beyond your media to find out what this bloody mess is all about.
Will give an explanation when time permits.
Peace

 

[Augustus]

You see my friends if you read too much into Western media then you miss the plot.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance,it is the illusion of knowledge.
Figure it out friends.
The Soviets invade a land lock country with no resources.
The Americans fund the mujahadeen spending billions and they have poverty in their own back yard.
My friends there is a bigger hidden picture that you cannot see.

Of course there was a bigger picture, it was called the Cold War.

Similar stuff was happening from Angola to Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Vietnam

They all have objectives and you got to look beyond your media to find out what this bloody mess is all about.
Will give an explanation when time permits.

Why do you assume everyone else but you blindly follows whatever 'western media' tells them?

Just write a sentence or 2 about your wonderful insight that we are all too biased and gullible to understand. Shouldn't take too long.

Oil pipelines? Jews? Freemasons? Giant lizards?