There was a reason Poppy Bush didn’t take Baghdad and topple Saddam when he could have. Junior thought he knew better. Hah, Poppy is a wimp, I’ll show him. No, Poppy was a realist, and knew the evil dictator in Baghdad was better than the alternatives, at least from our self interested perspective. He just needed his wings clipped when he tried to take Kuwait (which he probably wouldn’t have tried if we had sent clear signals that would be a no-no).
Not that all the evil dictators we supported were a good idea in hindsight, like Pahlavi, Batista, etc. From: Chuck McCown Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 1:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AFMUG] OT more political opinion OK, so pride between CIA bureaucrats got us into Iraq the second time, we still almost prevailed. If you remember the “mission accomplished” event, at that time Jay Garner was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Garner was a get’er done type of guy but he liked polo shirts instead of suits. He told the White House that we could control the whole Iraqi regular army by giving them all a washing machine and a small paycheck every month. He had most of the family/clan leaders pacified and was expecting to truly win the hearts and minds of the civilians. So, what happened.... Because Jay was not wearing suits he was not presenting the best image of the USA and he got summarily replaced by Paul Bremmer. Paul must be smarter than Jay because he replaced Jay, right? So he gutted the plans to pacify the regulars and they (Iraqi Army Regulars) then made alliances with the various clans and it all went to hell. Again pride. We got a second chance and Pride killed it again. From: Chuck McCown Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 11:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG][WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français Interesting book about an Iraqi informant that just wanted a Mercedes from the CIA. His code name was curveball and that is also the name of the book. The CIA had the internal folks fighting with the external folks about whether we could trust this source. The source was being interview by Germans. We chose to believe his story about the WMD labs etc instead of vetting it thoroughly. Turn out he was full of BS and we lost a bunch of kids in Iraq as a result. Internal pissing contests between CIA bureaucrats is what ultimately caused that fiasco. Pride. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant) Surprised there is not a movie yet. From: Mathew Howard Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 9:37 AM To: af Subject: Re: [AFMUG][WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français I'm not sure anyone thinks that going into Iraq in the first place was a good decision, at this point... I've always thought Kurdistan should at least be independent, but Turkey won't let that happen... On Nov 15, 2015 10:30 AM, "Jaime Solorza" <[email protected]> wrote: Stay out of politics is what I meant On Nov 15, 2015 9:28 AM, "Jaime Solorza" <[email protected]> wrote: Whoa. I want to stay out but Bush got us into Iraq when Afghanistan was were we needed to be all along. Even his dad has stated that and facts have shown this was a mistake plus helped leave vacuum filled by Isil ....I take this very personally as my son served in Iraq and tells me it was wrong. Now he is in and out of hospital and rehab clinics dealing with PTSD and other symptoms. Obama inherited this mess. No easy solution when dealing with fanatics...any kind....look at KKK and other hate groups here in USA. Its a tough reality. God bless us all. On Nov 15, 2015 9:18 AM, "Mathew Howard" <[email protected]> wrote: I have to agree... even if we had stayed in Iraq, there wouldn't be a stable democracy, it just isn't going to work in that part of the world. Six brutal dictators probably would be just about the only way to stabilize the mess. Either that, or we go back and occupy it... forever, which I don't think many people would want to do. On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 8:04 AM, Lewis Bergman <[email protected]> wrote: I am no Obama or Hillary fan but I don't think staying would have been all that different in the end. Everyone has failed at peace in the middle East. Everyone will fail. I honestly don't understand why everyone keeps trying. In my opinion the best thing is what you mentioned. We should get with Russia, since they have the inside line on dictators, and find about six really brutal people to take over the middle East. Judging from our Iran experiment we could get maybe forty years of peace. On Sun, Nov 15, 2015, 7:53 AM Rory Conaway <[email protected]> wrote: We had our chance to stop it in Iraq, we cut and run. And you are right, we didn’t do the right bombing in Vietnam to stop that war. And what Ford did at the end is the lesson Obama should have learned which could have prevented much of what happened in the Middle East including ISIS. Apparently they didn’t teach history to at Harvard. Imagine the influence a multi-cultural and stable Iraqi government would have had on the region. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lewis Bergman Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 6:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] [WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français Collateral damage is highly underrated. Vietnam had no wholesale bombing like WWII. that is one reason Vietnam, and the rest of these conflicts, last so long. The horror of war has to be brought to everyone, including those making the decisions, to bring it to an end. But having said that, this Muslim extremists movement has been been going on for about 700 years so it may be to much to expect to be out of war again. There may be a lull, but I think the entire world has been drawn into the middle East quagmire. The primary cause damn sure isn't a two degrees warming tend in a couple decades. On Sun, Nov 15, 2015, 7:05 AM Rory Conaway <[email protected]> wrote: The problem is that they are basically imbedded with civilians. How do you kill them without taking out everyone else. That is the problem we have had all along. Door-to-door warfare is all that you can do but it’s also the most dangerous for our soldiers and nobody is going to allow wholesale bombing like Nixon did in Vietnam. We also burned a lot of good will in all the countries we need to do this with when we got the local civilians to act as translators and informants and abandoned them after the war, the highest profile of them the doctor in Pakistan. Even he is still in jail years later but the reality is, nobody trusts us any more in those regions. We are not a reliable ally. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jaime Solorza Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 11:06 AM To: Animal Farm <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] [WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français as much as i hate war and killing....I agree we need to make a parking lot out of them... Jaime Solorza Wireless Systems Architect 915-861-1390 On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 10:42 AM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: The more of this that happens, the more the rest of the world will unite to rub them out. I am a hopeless optimist. From: Jaime Solorza Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 7:52 AM To: Animal Farm Subject: Re: [AFMUG][WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français Yes. I am praying for them and the world. What a tragedy.. It is beyond barbaric..its evil for the sake of evil. Jaime Solorza On Nov 13, 2015 10:15 PM, "Faisal Imtiaz" <[email protected]> wrote: Oui , et pas seulement cela , nos cœurs et nos prières pour tous ceux qui sont touchés par cette Sensless actes brabaric . Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet & Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, FL 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Patrick Leary" <[email protected]> To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>, "Telrad List" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 7:46:29 PM Subject: [WISPA] S'il vous plaît priez pour nos amis français Tonght, chaque personne libre est un Parisien. Patrick Leary Telrad ************************************************************************************ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals & computer viruses. ************************************************************************************ _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
