The Iraq War is Ending

[RhombusHatesYou]

If iraq now devolves into a worse hellhole it will be the fault of all those anti war people.

Yeah, It will totally not be the fault of the pro-war people who wanted to invade Iraq to look for magical WMD and destoryed the functioning though opressive local regime.

They should take the idiots who came up with the 'deBaathification' program and put a bullet in the back of each one's head. Yeah, sure, sacking anyone who'd been a member of the Baathist Party from any government job probably looked good on paper except that you had to sign up to the party to have any government job... so overnight all the police and all the people who kept Iraq's infrastructure (such as, oh, it's basic fucking utilities) operational were shitcanned... gee, can't think how THAT could lead to an epic ratfuck.

 

[McMullen]

Like it matters.

*SNIP*

Yeah. Long the the USA! Land of the not at all free, Home of the not that brave!

Wow, I thought the crypto-Templars of Assassin's Creed were fictional, but we appear to have one among us right here on the Escapist.

Was I just called a crazy conspiracy theorist? Your comment totally confused me. Then again, I could never be bothered to finish Ass Creed Brotherhood so perhaps I am just behind on the plot. So my opinions might not be welcome, at all, but they are still logical.

Perhaps it is my general anger at the USA and its policies... But whatever.

Please explain?

You were saying that you believe those with power should control everyone else, even those outside their jurisdiction. I think that's a cynical and somewhat tyrannical viewpoint.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

If iraq now devolves into a worse hellhole it will be the fault of all those anti war people.

Yeah, it would be clearly the anti-war people's fault if Iraq devolved into a horrible place after the US army barged in and trashed their shit for a decade.

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

[...] Iran & Iraq spent most of the 80's at war with each other. Both sides had managed to piss the west off by then, so both sides were largely armed by the Soviets. I think the French were still selling stuff to Iraq but by and large nobody wanted to do business with Iran after they deposed the Shah and put the Imams in charge, and doing business with Iraq went out the window when Sadaam gassed his own people.
[...]

No, sorry, my sources say otherwise. We did support the Irak and the Iran back in the 80s by selling weapons, equipment and intelligence to them. (Maybe even Anthrax but that's another story)
I do agree we (as the western first world countries) officially weren't involved in the Irak-Iran war in the 80s.
But I have to disagree that we didn't sell weapons to them back then!
We sold both parties "toys" to kill each other. I don't think this counts politically as "being part of the war" yet sending weapons and ammunition doesn't really much help in reducing the bloodshet there.
I'm sorry I don't want to start a discussion here but when I read facts I think are interpreted the wrong way I point out my findings. You can check if the sources are trustworthy or not but here is what I meant:

Spoiler: Beware! Long Quote ahead

Irak supported by the U.S. in the 80s.

[T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat... The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.

Ironically the U.S. also sponsered the IRAN the other party, which is either extrodinary stupid or quite brilliant (let's just pretend we don't want to think about morality and human rights at all)
I found this sources here showing that:

The Iran-Contra affair [...], also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.

Check wikipedia and other lexicons for more interesting facts of the involvement back in the 80s.

I'm not citing any more sources but as you can guess the rest of us (Europeans and other first world countries) sold our military gear to those two war parties, too. I just pick the American example because they have most of the soldiers in that hell hole and suffered most of the casulties right now.

Now here comes the scary part:
It is not unlikely that the brave american soldiers who died in Iraq this war were killed by (old but still usable) weapons from the 80s. Weapons that have been provided by their very own country they died for.

 

[Furioso]

Obama has said that American troops will be out by the end of the year. Contractors will stay, but all US military forces will have gone. Thoughts?

Personally, I'm just glad our boys can come back home after this 10 year ordeal.

10 years only? I thought the Iraq-war started in the 80ties, ah well probably we just "officially" sent weapons and less cannon fodder back then.

I'm happy for those American soldiers too. In fact I'm happy for America, most countries will respect her a little more because Obama is finally pulling the army out of that mess.

No that was a different conflict, this one started after 9/11

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

No that was a different conflict, this one started after 9/11

I know. You're right! Officially it's called a "different conflict". Call me names, but I'm not so sure about that. It's the same country (and has been the same moustache man dictator) after all. I go even further and am not calling it "conflict" it's a war, with all inhuman brutality we hopefully never going to experience first hand. A war with a rather long ceasefire period (a decade or two) in between but a war nevertheless.

 

[Johann610]

Can I poke a shade off-topic and say that we need to get them to Afghanistan? When are we gonna be done in THAT sandhole?
[edit: Rock-hole]

 

[ReservoirAngel]

The US shoulda been outta there years ago. Frankly, I just want this war over with so we can get to a good exciting war, like WWIII, or a renewed conflict with the Canadians.

You've had your wars! Step back while Britain acts like aggressive cunts to innocent countries. It's been so long since we have.

 

[FEichinger]

Unless I am mistaken ... wasn't it even the Bush Administration deciding on this to happen by the end of the following term?

Not that Bush wasn't responsible for *that other war*, and thereby shouldn't be considered in the first place ... But still, Obama is being praised for stuff he just finishes xD Whilst that of course is more than Bush ever achieved ... Gawd, American Presidents ...

 

[ReservoirAngel]

You've had your wars! Step back while Britain acts like aggressive cunts to innocent countries. It's been so long since we have.

By all means! I'd love to allow you Brits take over as the pig headed idiots of the world!

Well we have had practise. You don't invade, bully and control half the world without picking up a few tricks along the way.

 

[RuralGamer]

Ah yes "Iraq", home of the now dead terrorist Saddam Hussein and allegedly in possession of civilization destroying nuclear warheads.

We have dismissed those claims.

The thing I'm afraid of is that tomorrow we'll (that is America and Britain; the Middle East griefing duo) will be going into Iran or somewhere else to stop someone using "vertified" weapons of mass destruction or somewhere to "remove an oppressive government" and then spend ten years propping up the new ineffectual one.
(Actually I'd like to see what that pottymouth is going to say in ME3 when the Reapers are burning his house down; Turian Council-member = massive jerk)

PS: OP, you have an awesome name and an even more awesome avatar!

 

[Ickorus]

The war isn't anywhere near over, I just hope that the Iraqi people will be able to fend off the remaining terrorists in the country by themselves otherwise in 10 years time they will be just as oppressed as they were before.

 

[SodaDew]

Thank god that's over, Now if we can fix our economy then we can get 100% out of the middle east -_- I'm still not going to vote for Obama tho.

 

[A Shadows Age]

USA should learn from the romans how to start a "just war". They were more successfull bullshitting themselves (and friends and allies of course)...

Yes, but you see the thing is that we don't have that many lions and or crucifixes... oh well.

 

[Sandernista]

Or we could just sit on our defunct nuclear arsenal and keep paying lots of young men to stand around with guns and look scary. Cause that makes SENSE.

you DO relise most of the nukes are in inactive reserve, approximately 50%(active within 2 weeks)
30% are in the "hedge stockpile"(meaning deployments within 12 hours)
the rest are armed and ready.

But it doesn't matter at all, does it. Even if Iraq turns into a post-apocalyptic hellhole once the Americans are out of there noone will give a flying fuck cause the western media will "Forget" about the whole situation.

don't they always?

Or, you know, we can just sit back and stop reporting on it. Like we did throughout the 20th century. Or perhaps we can continue betraying what allies we have in the area (I am talking to YOU Britain and France)

thank bush of that,and when Obama tries and fix the screw-ups he causes he gets pissed on for "trying to turn the us into Canada"

Yeah. Long the the USA! Land of the not at all free, Home of the not that brave!

that's why I'm Canadian.looks like manifest destiny will happen,just not the way the u.s. expected.

I call the worlds collective nuclear arsenals defunct because, bar the Israelis (The actions of that particular nation will never shock me. Not Anti-Semitic, Anti-Zionist though.) noone will ever use them. No point in blowing up your major markets and tanking your own economies now is there. I was not commenting on the fact that most of our nukes will not be ready to fire at a moments notice. The fact that anyone is sitting on such colossally stupid money sinks amazes me (Bar the Israelis. Them crazy)

Are you forgetting the second most populous country, who has an extremely bad relationship with its closest nuclear neighbor?

I wouldn't be surprised by a indo-paki nuclear exchange.

 

[Agayek]

Obama has said that American troops will be out by the end of the year. Contractors will stay, but all US military forces will have gone. Thoughts?

Personally, I'm just glad our boys can come back home after this 10 year ordeal.

Haven't they said this like half a dozen times now? I'll believe it when it actually happens.

 

[Rex Fallout]

Obama has said that American troops will be out by the end of the year. Contractors will stay, but all US military forces will have gone. Thoughts?

Obama has a lot of things that aren't so, like closing Gitmo. I don't put too much faith in what a politician until he actually does it.

Politicians lie. All. The Time. To be honest I'm not sure if we should be pulling out quite yet. We jumped into this conflict, which may or may not have really been needed, that is an entire other debate on it's own, but we have to be extremely careful leaving. Is Iraq prepared for us to be gone? Does it have adequate security to defend itself from enemies? Is it's democracy in place yet? Have the people accepted the democracy? Will they accept it? So many questions that need answered.