Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home

[beforewisdom]

Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100819/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_americans_head_home

 

KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait – A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history.

 

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism but lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

[Vegan Joe]

50,000 troops plus my son remain, hasn't been any military action in month,

It's just BS press.

The credit goes to Bush and Petraeus, for going thru with the unpopular serge, and there planned reduction.

Where are the naysayers now?

[beforewisdom]

I disagree with you on several points.

 

The military presence left there are not there specifically for offensive maneuvers. I do agree with you that this does not mean much as Iraq will not be stable without the presence of the US Military. It was a mistake to get involved in Iraq, especially since Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction or anything to do with 9/11. President Bush got the US involved there and stuck there unless abandoning Iraq to a likely civil war becomes an option.

 

You can't give President Bush credit for planned reductions either. I remember watching his state of the union address shortly after the invasion started, promising to be out of there quickly. He left his 8 year long presidency with the United States still mired down in Iraq.

 

When President Bush left office the cost of the Iraq war was about 200 - 300 billion dollars. A sum that brought no benefits to the tax payers and a sum that would have paid for the first of the financial sector's bailouts, which he pioneered.

 

No offense meant.

[Vegan Joe]

I disagree with you on several points.

 

The military presence left there are not there specifically for offensive maneuvers. I do agree with you that this does not mean much as Iraq will not be stable without the presence of the US Military. It was a mistake to get involved in Iraq, especially since Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction or anything to do with 9/11. President Bush got the US involved there and stuck there unless abandoning Iraq to a likely civil war becomes an option.

 

You can't give President Bush credit for planned reductions either. I remember watching his state of the union address shortly after the invasion started, promising to be out of there quickly. He left his 8 year long presidency with the United States still mired down in Iraq.

Your memory is short and selective. After 9/11 everyone was for the fall of Saddam. People like you can take no responsibility, only lay blame using your selective memory.

Please don't reply I can hear all the blaming and lying I want just by tuning in the current administration.

PS Who does Obama appoint? Bush's General!

[vivalasvegans]

joe, a lot of those "naysayers" are soldiers who have been there... or are still there. your son serving in iraq right now doesn't give you any extra insight into framing and defining the outcome of this whole affair. i know plenty of u.s. soldiers who are royally pissed over the whole thing, including the handling of it by bush and petraeus.

[Vegan Joe]

joe, a lot of those "naysayers" are soldiers who have been there... or are still there. your son serving in iraq right now doesn't give you any extra insight into framing and defining the outcome of this whole affair. i know plenty of u.s. soldiers who are royally pissed over the whole thing, including the handling of it by bush and petraeus.

I wasn't claiming any special insight because of my son. The point I'm trying to make is that the head line of the news says "Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home". Well we all know how dumb Americans are as a whole, so many will believe it all over and that Pres. kept his promise, when in fact there are over 50,000 troop still deployed in Iraq, and nothing has changed for months over there. So it a no headline as far as I'm concerned and people need to understand that.

[Fallen_Horse]

Your memory is short and selective. After 9/11 everyone was for the fall of Saddam. People like you can take no responsibility, only lay blame using your selective memory.

Please don't reply I can hear all the blaming and lying I want just by tuning in the current administration.

PS Who does Obama appoint? Bush's General!

I don't think it's selective memory, I think it's the people we knew. For example, among everyone I discussed the invasion with (as it was happening, or a few weeks after), I would say perhaps 40% of people were for it, and 60% against. And this was in week one. So it really depends on the views of the people you surround yourself with. The vast majority were for the invasion of Afghanistan, but Iraq was a much weaker sell for the people I spoke with...

[Duncan_Idaho]

Uhum, and Blackwater and USAID and other 'independent contractors' and CIA structures will remain, bribing Iraqi politicians and doing black ops to ensure that corporations like Halliburton get what they went to Iraq for.

Vegan Joe, thanks for the info about the 50k people left there. I hope your son returns alive and well very soon.

[Vegan Joe]

Thank you Duncan!

Over 99% of the responses I get from people who know of my son are always heart warming.

[vege]

Frankly, I don't se any reason for US troops to be anywhere but in USA. I personally know how it looks like when US army is taking "peace-making" actions. And the reason for war is always profit.

[Vegan Joe]

Frankly, I don't see any reason for US troops to be anywhere but in USA.

Hitler probably had a similar opinion in his time.

[Northstar]

Godwins law strikes again.

[vege]

Frankly, I don't see any reason for US troops to be anywhere but in USA.

Hitler probably had a similar opinion in his time.

[hsorlando]

This news topic actually made me happy!

[VeganEssentials]

Sorry to hear your son's still over there, Joe - hopefully he'll get his chance to leave sooner than later if the whitewashing over the "We're finally out!" actually comes to be reality instead of a cheap PR move for the White House.

 

I'd be much happier about it if I knew we actually WERE going to be out entirely, but alas, I don't see that coming too soon, and countless people will be stuck there preventing another impending civil war between rival factions if left to their own devices. And, I'm sure we'll inevitably end up sending those that leave Iraq on over to Afghanistan, simply putting the chess pieces in a different territory. Oh well, that's just the way it goes, I guess. Screwed either way, no good news that we can actually believe to be an honest step in a better direction.