Last Combat Brigade Leaves Iraq

[longfisher]

I awoke to the reported fantasy of Obama withdrawing the "last combat brigade from Iraq" this morning. The scene was replete with footage of a long line of combat vehicles streaming across the Kuwaiti border into Kuwait which was strikingly similar to the footage of the last Russian brigade leaving Afghanistan.

Of course, the difference between the two situations is that the Russians did actually withdraw. The U.S. isn't.

Indeed, the U.S. is increasing the mercenary forces in Iraq but now under the State Department's control instead of the DOD and there are still 50,000 - 60,000 armed troops in Iraq that have merely been relabled as "transitional". The transitional troops can be expected to continue to fight and die just as in the past.

This is especially so as the Sunni insurgents will likely be emboldened. They can be expected to take advantage of the supposed draw-down to attack the Shia and the Shia religionists, particularly in the south, can be expected to attack the Sunnis so as to cement their control of the government. Also, the Kurds will likely take this opportunity to try to forcibly separate themselves and their territory from Iraq, something they've succeeded in doing informally only because they enjoyed the protection of the U.S. for all these years.

Iraq is going to have it's civil war regardless of the incredible expenditures of men and materials the U.S. has already wasted. It was always destined so.

After a while the U.S. forces will be drawn back into the fighting and the troops from Kuwait will likely be simply brought back into theater to do that fighting. Please note they didn't withdraw back to the U.S., but rather, only to Kuwait. So, their return is only a matter of turning the vehicles around and heading in the other direction.

This "withdrawal" is being reported by the press as the second victory in Iraq, the first being Mission Accomplished. Hey, have more absurd words ever been said by an American president?

If that's true, what did we win as a result of our victory? Nothing. We lost. Shia power both in Iraq and in Iran has increased dramatically. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states are made to feel less and less secure with their co-religionists now emboldened. And, Israel, the pet of most Christianity is further imperiled. Many naieve mostly Christian young men and women who volunteered for the service are dead or mortally wounded (4,400 and 30,000 - 60,000 respectively) and for nothing.

The "withdrawal" announcement is but a sick political ploy by the Obama administration as the country heads into an election season. His base has been deserting him for months now because rather than bring the change he promised he defaulted on virtually all of the expectations his campaign rhetoric suggested were reasonable to assume. It was all smoke and mirrors (Guantanamo is still open, the rule of law lays in tatters as Bush, et. al. have not been prosecuted, Bush's excesses have become Obama's, the wars continue with cumulative costs in teh trillions, there's an assault on the social safety nets, the states are with few exceptions facing bankruptcy, and the economy lost 500,000 jobs last month).

Obama's just another lying president who treats the citizenry as fools. I hope a strong democratic challenger beats him in the presidential primaries because I'd sure hate to see the destruction that another Republican president would leave behind. But it's probably too great a hope.

Why are elections always so much about picking the lesser of two evils?

LongFisher

[Big Fish Billy]

I imagine they are only heading for Kuwait while the cameras are rolling, once they're turned off, I'm sure the convoy is heading for Afghanistan. Along with all the stupidity, the thing that really gets me is, since the terrorists of whatever name are thought to be so cunning, why don't they pull ALL their forces out of battle for a year of training, let the US declare victory "since there hasn't been any fighting for a year," let the US pull out of everywhere, and then swoop in and do whatever they want.....

[Capt. kapoc]

I really don't like responding to these but i feel that i am going to have to. I am here ....in Iraq so here comes some first hand in the know kinda stuff. The convoy you seen leave is headed to kuwait because it has to be shipped home after an ag inspection and total cleaning which so happens to be done right there in kuwait. Yes there are troops still here from all forces doing various jobs some of which are transition teams others are instructors, and some just support. Would I love to be at home reading this from my living room hell yes but it is a job that we all signed on the dotted line to do. I might not have voted for the man but i still have to follow his orders and directives none the less.

I am glad you have an opinion of what in your eyes is going on here and what you believe will happen here, but in the end that is what all these troops are doing protecting your right and privledge to have and voice that opinion. If we were to just pull chocks and "declare it a victory" then we would be failing as a greater nation I'm sure you cannot see the difference here other than what you see on the news but for the troops on the ground we have seen an immence change from our first pushes here to this our last deployment.

[longfisher]

I am glad you have an opinion of what in your eyes is going on here and what you believe will happen here, but in the end that is what all these troops are doing protecting your right and privledge to have and voice that opinion.

Captain:

Please accept that you and all the others who went into Iraq have been under fire unnecessarily all these years because the war was a Repubican president's lie. There were absolutely no WMD's there when the talk of the invasion began in 2001 (and some say much earlier). Bush and Cheney and others simply trumped it up.

So, going into Iraq militarily did not protect my freedoms one iota. Indeed, by strengthening our enemies and virtually breaking our armed forces doing so has had exactly the opposite effect, it endangered/endangers us and depleted our resources and wealth...not to mention making the U.S. look for all the world as draconian as the old Soviet Union.

I don't want to break too heavy on you Capt. (more on why below) because you're probably a decent person who was merely caught up in the propoganda and was haplessly captive to your good intentions. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

Besides, you're not the criminal in all this. Bush is. And, his often spewed crap about they hate us for our freedoms was just a convenient myth the conservatives propogate/propogated so you guys and your parents and your families and those of the dead won't descend on them and kill them all for their connivances, such connivances as cost so many American service people's lives.

I was hapless once too...during the Vietnam years. But then I got back I read the Pentagon Papers.

My eyes flew wide open. And, I felt betrayed...by the glorious country and all those who preached endlessly to me about my duty to defend freedoms that I, like you, thought I was sent to defend. It was then that I realized what a dope I'd been all my life trusting them.

I swore then and there that I'd never sit idly by again and watch some President take us to war for nothing. I swore I'd oppose that with everything I had. And, I've done exactly that, from the beginning to the very end...which won't be realized for decades, I think.

The war in Iraq is already known amoung historians and strategists as the single most injurious U.S. strategic blunder since the end of WWII. I don't believe history, yet cast, will rehabilitate it.

And, I'm very sorry you were taken advantage of, even if you may have wanted it that way.

LongFisher

[marine4003]

Captain:

Please accept that you and all the others who went into Iraq have been under fire unnecessarily all these years because the war was a Repubican president's lie. There were absolutely no WMD's there when the talk of the invasion began in 2001 (and some say much earlier). Bush and Cheney and others simply trumped it up.

So, going into Iraq militarily did not protect my freedoms one iota. Indeed, by strengthening our enemies and virtually breaking our armed forces doing so has had exactly the opposite effect, it endangered/endangers us and depleted our resources and wealth...not to mention making the U.S. look for all the world as draconian as the old Soviet Union.

I don't want to break too heavy on you Capt. (more on why below) because you're probably a decent person who was merely caught up in the propoganda and was haplessly captive to your good intentions. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

Besides, you're not the criminal in all this. Bush is. And, his often spewed crap about they hate us for our freedoms was just a convenient myth the conservatives propogate/propogated so you guys and your parents and your families and those of the dead won't descend on them and kill them all for their connivances, such connivances as cost so many American service people's lives.

I was hapless once too...during the Vietnam years. But then I got back I read the Pentagon Papers.

My eyes flew wide open. And, I felt betrayed...by the glorious country and all those who preached endlessly to me about my duty to defend freedoms that I, like you, thought I was sent to defend. It was then that I realized what a dope I'd been all my life trusting them.

I swore then and there that I'd never sit idly by again and watch some President take us to war for nothing. I swore I'd oppose that with everything I had. And, I've done exactly that, from the beginning to the very end...which won't be realized for decades, I think.

The war in Iraq is already known amoung historians and strategists as the single most injurious U.S. strategic blunder since the end of WWII. I don't believe history, yet cast, will rehabilitate it.

And, I'm very sorry you were taken advantage of, even if you may have wanted it that way.

turdfondeler

I gotta say..you are one seriously fukked up individual.

[seapower]

I hope now you see that you're really an idiot. Nevermind your sacrifice, it doesn't matter. You and the rest of us VET's were just too stupid not to follow order's or sign the dotted line in the first place. Yes, regardless of what you see while you are actually over there, you're an intellectual midget. "Tokyo Rose" is telling you straight, we all know he's right. Do the only sensible thing, just give them your 2 week's notice, quit and come home on the next bus. Frank

[Reefraft]

How much do they pay you per word.....or is this a practice in futility........

[Capt. kapoc]

Thanks frank first time i smiled all day

[longfisher]

As time goes on you, like most of us, will reflect on your life and your deeds.

If you leave the military, you may even find it within yourself to reflect critically on your service and whether you and others like you were led honorably or dishonorably. You may also reflect on whether what you did at the time, however misled you were, were the right things to do. You may even, like me, regret that you weren't stronger in resisting what you even then knew might be wrong.

Perhaps, you'll also busy yourself by reading outside your comfort zone like I did. Perhaps, in a quiet moment or two you'll develope doubts about whether those who lied to you so as to enjoy the protection of your service actually deserved your service. From there its' a short step to wondering whether those cowardly liars who rested secure in the States with their own children going to college and carrying on their normal lives but who put you AND THOSE AROUND YOU WHO DIED IN YOUR ARMS in harms way for their own selfish purposes.

Then maybe you'll see the light as so many of us vets have. Then maybe, like me, you'll object to your having been used as a pawn. Maybe you'll harbor quiet resentment and simply clam up. Maybe you'll work to prevent the same squalid treatment of others in the future, perhaps your own children, as I have.

That's the journey I'm on Capt. It's my goal. It's my signature. Those who follow me in my family may serve in uniform if that's what they want to do. But they won't do so without the knowledge of the perversion that military service to an empire is all about and how little their lives and their disabilities if they live actually matter to most people back in the states.

Or maybe you'll succumb to selfish pride, or ego or some form of congnitive dissonance and refuse to engage in reflection at all. After all, there's lots of dopes out there that sat safe and sound at home like many on this board as you and others did the fighting and dying who'll flatter you with platitudes like, "Thank you for your service." and "You kept us safe." and "You're a hero."

Those things will ring very hollow once you actually compare what you, your superiors, your civilian leaders and the country as a whole actually did and why they did it vs. what they say they did and why they actually did it.

I certainly hope that journey comes true for you too, Capt. It's been liberating for me. It's probably going to save my kids and their kids from a lot of heartache, disability and maybe even death.

If you stay in the military it's highly doubtful you'll ever be far enough away from the propoganda to have those undisturbed years to actually reflect. Then you and your progeny will continue to repeat the mistakes you made of drinking the cool-aid.

Pity that.

LongFisher

[seapower]

This is my last post on this subject. What makes you so much more special than anyone else? Not a jab, just curious. Anyone that's served and done "hard time" feel's pretty much the same. It comes with age, the fact that we look back and wonder if we made the right call. It's just part of living. You have to at some point, just learn to live with yourself. You have to be able to ask yourself, what choice's did I have? Most do the best they can with the situation at hand. So the question is where do I go from here? If you find the peace you want from reading book's and dredging up stuff you had no control over, then keep re-hashing it. There's no need in trying to insult Kapoc or other's for doing what they feel and know is right according to them. You have discredited yourself so much here, that your word's mean nothing. As I have said before, have a good life. Frank