Has Perpetual War Arrived? U.S. Troops Returning To Iraq and Afghanistan

[From article] Departing U.S. commander Gen. John Campbell says there will need to be U.S. boots on the ground “for years to come.” Making good on President Obama’s commitment to remove all U.S. forces by next January, said Campbell, “would put the whole mission at risk.”
“Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support. … 2016 could be no better and possibly worse than 2015.”
Translation: A U.S. withdrawal would risk a Taliban takeover with Kabul becoming the new Saigon and our Afghan friends massacred.
Fifteen years in, and we are stuck.

 

Nor is America about to end the next longest war in its history: Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter plans to send units of the 101st Airborne back to Iraq to join the 4,000 Americans now fighting there,
[. . .]Vladimir Putin’s plunge into the Syrian civil war with air power appears to have turned the tide in favor of Bashar Assad.
The “moderate” rebels are being driven out of Aleppo and tens of thousands of refugees are streaming toward the Turkish border.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to be enraged with the U.S. for collaborating with Syrian Kurds against ISIS and with Obama’s failure to follow through on his dictate — “Assad must go!”
There is thus no end in sight to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, nor to the U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, where ISIS and al-Qaida have re-arisen in the chaos.
Indeed, the West is mulling over military intervention in Libya to crush ISIS there and halt the refugee flood into Europe.
[. . .]



“Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security” said Dunford, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia … if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”
[. . .]
How do these tribal and territorial conflicts in the far east of Europe so threaten us that U.S. generals are declaring that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security”?
Asked to name other threats to the United States, Gen. Dunford listed them in this order: China, North Korea, ISIS.
[. . .]

 

how does China threaten the United States?
[. . .]Last fall, though, Sen. Ted Cruz reassured us that “the single biggest national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran.”
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,” wrote James Madison, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
Perhaps Madison was wrong.
Otherwise, with no end to war on America’s horizon, the prospect of this free republic enduring is, well, doubtful.

http://buchanan.org/blog/how-republics-perish-124781

How Republics Perish
Friday - February 12, 2016 at 5:20 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

Presidential Legacy At Risk

[From article]
He boasts a rather impressive legacy, in the negative column. How many presidents, after all, have managed to increase federal spending by one-fifth and the national debt by two-thirds? What president can compete with him on having expanded presidential power via executive action, often without legal authority? Next to him, Nixon and LBJ look like schoolgirls. And who even comes close to his electoral record? Under Mr. Obama, Democrats have lost 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, both houses of Congress, 12 governorships, 30 state legislative chambers, and more than 900 state legislative seats. Let no one say this man was inconsequential.
[. . .]
Our 44th president is as a political albatross and increasingly reminds one of the hapless Jimmy Carter in his final, miserable days. Indeed, the parallels with 1980 are eerie: Russia on the march, Iranian mullahs chanting “Death to America,” the economy stuck in the doldrums -- and so on.
[. . .]
The list is seemingly endless
[. . .]
A Third Iraq War is no longer out of the question, and would be an ironic legacy for the 2009 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Prognosis: war.
A nuclear Iran. [. . .] Prognosis (for Israel): poor.
[. . .]
Although Democrats are celebrating the fall of headline unemployment below 5 percent, the real unemployment rate is closer to 10 percent.
[. . .]
Even if the Fed holds off for now, the deficit, which is currently $439 billion, is expected to rise to $540 billion by 2020.

 

[. . .]
If the costly new [EPA] rules aren’t stopped, U.S. coal-fired power plants, and affordable energy prices, can be expected to undergo manmade extinction.
[. . .]
This month UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest insurer, announced it has lost so much money on Obamacare, it will pull out of the program altogether unless it receives a multi-billion-dollar bailout. And then there’s the Cadillac Tax, a grand time bomb ticking away in the background and scheduled to go off in 2018.
[. . .]



Over the past decade, the food stamps program has nearly doubled in size from 26 million to 46 million recipients (one in seven Americans) and more than doubled in cost from $29 billion to $64 billion a year.
[. . .]



SSDI enrollment has exploded over the past twenty years from 2.8 percent of the working-age population to 5.1 percent; lax rules have morphed the program into a form of unemployment insurance. For Democrats, the only entitlement “reforms” they’ll discuss are proposals to make the programs bigger
[. . .]
in the wake of the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore -- racially charged tragedies that Mr. Obama has tried to exploit for partisan gain. [. . .] Prognosis: mayhem.
[. . .]
Freedom of speech, religious liberty, the rights of conscience, and even intelligible grammar and clear thought, must all be sacrificed to the gods of sexual liberation. Prognosis: sustained unpleasantness, with a chance of civil unrest.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/obamas_real_legacy_ten_ticking_time_bombs.html

December 3, 2015
Obama's Real Legacy: Ten Ticking Time Bombs
By Dean F. Clancy

Jeb Bush and The War in Iraq

How high was it, Jeb?

[From article]
Contrary to the fairy tale the left has told itself since Obama truculently gave away America’s victory in Iraq, our argument wasn’t that we had to invade Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. And the left’s argument certainly was not: “He doesn’t have any WMDs!”
Our argument was: There were lots of reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and none to keep him.
Indeed, after Bush’s State of the Union address laying out the case for war with Iraq, The New York Times complained that he had given too many reasons: “Even the rationale for war seems to change from day to day. Mr. Bush ticked off a litany of accusations against Iraq in his State of the Union address …” (New York Times, Feb. 2, 2003)
[. . .]
the CIA didn’t see the 1993 World Trade Center bombing coming, didn’t see 9/11 coming, didn’t see the Fort Hood massacre coming and didn’t see the Times Square bombing coming. No one tell liberals, but our CIA knows NOTHING — although they’re pretty sure something bad happened at Pearl Harbor a while back.
[. . .]
But then an innocent 26-year-old girl, Neda, was gunned down in Tehran by the Iranian military. President Obama responded forcefully by going out for an ice cream cone. And thus ended the democratic movement in the Muslim world.
[. . .]
Liberals didn’t mind Saddam’s sheltering terrorists, using poison gas, invading his neighbors or attempting to assassinate a former U.S. president. But Saddam had disrespected the U.N.!
[. . .]
This is why all six of Jeb Bush’s answers to Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly — as well as Marco Rubio’s premeditated answer a week later — were ridiculous. It’s annoying enough having liberals invent these historical fantasies. Do our fearsome Republicans have to keep retelling them, too? If they don’t follow the news, can’t they read?

http://humanevents.com/2015/05/20/knowing-what-we-know-now-would-you-say-jeb-bush-is-retarded/?utm_source=coulterdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Knowing What We Know Now, Would You Say Jeb Bush Is Retarded?

Ann Coulter

Wednesday May 20, 2015 1:47 PM

PBS Feature on CIA Torture

What is humorous is two politicians suggesting that the CIA report is false and misleading. Isn't that what politicians do all the time? But also what film is accurate as history? And more, what history is accurate? Politicians write propaganda books as well and promote propaganda films. 



[From article]
Years later, the film is still controversial — especially given the 6,000-page senate report detailing the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” during the War on Terror that took place during the Bush administration from 2001 to 2006. That report, which revealed many disturbing facts about the extensive use of torture on CIA detainees, also indicates that none of the information received through torture led the CIA to the capture of Osama bin Laden.
Last night, six months after the Senate committee released a truncated, 525-page excerpt of the complete report (much of which remains classified), PBS’Frontline devoted an hour to how the CIA managed to legally clear the EIT program, how many of its architects still defend the torture practices, and how the organization influenced the depiction of its practices in Zero Dark Thirty.
[. . .]



Zero Dark Thirty, on the other hand, was billed as non-fiction — an act of cinematic journalism. It’s a film that the Frontline report argues is representative of the CIA’s version of events, especially considering that the source material was a collection of CIA-provided documents. Senator Feinstein admits in the Frontline report that she walked out of the film after twenty minutes, calling it “so false.” Former senator Udall openly calls it propaganda, especially since he and other senators had access to CIA documents that provided alternate realities.
[. . .]



Michael Isikoff, co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, criticizes Bigelow’s film in the Frontline report, saying, “Movies like Zero Dark Thirty have a huge impact. More people see them and more people get their impressions about what happened from a movie like that than they do from countless news stories or TV spots.” And that’s entirely true, and the crux of the debate surrounding the film. Its filmmakers may argue that Zero Dark Thirty is a piece of journalism, but that’s dubious considering their limited sources (and the basic fact that people do not go to a multiplex for solid journalism). It’s a piece of art, and art is subjective; Zero Dark Thirty, then, is as morally ambiguous as the torture it displays on screen.
[. . .]
The subject of this debate is not whether torture is bad, but rather if the torture committed by CIA operatives was worth the immorality that comes along with it. History proves it wasn’t justified, and Zero Dark Thirty gives the impression that it was. If Zero Dark Thirty, then, offers the CIA’s version of the facts to a large audience, the accounts of recent history are uncomfortably misleading — which only proves worrisome for future generations who deserve an unmuddled understanding of the truth.

http://decider.com/2015/05/20/frontlines-episode-on-torture-makes-a-case-that-zero-dark-thirty-was-government-propaganda/?_ga=1.1142456.866968644.1432153635

‘FRONTLINE’S’ EPISODE ON TORTURE MAKES A CASE THAT ‘ZERO DARK THIRTY’ WAS GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
By Tyler Coates
May 20, 2015 11:45 AM

Chemical Weapons Appear Ten Years After They Did Not Exist

[From article]
Duelfer and the Iraq Study Group should not to be taken sans sodium; it also said there were no WMD's present, something we now know was monumentally incorrect.
It should be pointed out that many of the current ISIS leaders are former Baathists, buttressing the notion that they were a part of the original insurgency.
[. . .]
Those weapons weren't hidden from the Iraqis. They were hidden from US.
So why didn't the insurgents use them? Because they were fighting a political war as much as a military one, and the use of those weapons would demolish the carefully crafted fiction that "Bush lied and people died". The principal strategy of the Iraqi insurgency was to outlast America, to sour Americans on the war so we would leave. A gas attack would shock many people and support for the war would rise. Not so with traditional methods of attack, which simply disgusted the citizenry with the loss of life. Many Americans were unwilling to support a war predicated on a lie, but would get behind the Bush Administration if it were shown he had been telling the truth - and that we were now facing those very weapons on the field of battle.
[. . .]
Bush took a beating in the court of public opinion on this issue, both at home and overseas. It would be a monumental strategic blunder to prove he was right.
[. . .]
A guerilla war can only drag on as long as the enemy believes he can win. We gave them that hope by our political infighting at home. At the core dispute of that infighting was the claim that there were no WMD's.
[. . .]
This strategy was absolutely catastrophic; we have ISIS because of it, we have had the disaster that is the Obama Administration and all it has wrought, trillions in spending, socialized medicine, abuse of dissenters by government, open borders, etc. because of the upwelling in disgust for the GOP brand because of it.

http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/karl_roves_strategic_concealment_initiative.html

October 23, 2014
Karl Rove's Strategic Concealment Initiative
By Timothy Birdnow

Iraq Chemical Weapons

[From article]
ISIS had used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in Kobani, raising the question of where ISIS would have acquired such weapons. The second, in the New York Times, detailed how U.S. forces in Iraq uncovered thousands of shells filled with chemical munitions from various areas of the country following the invasion, and how they were stored and guarded until 2011.
[. . .]
reporting would have indicted a number of Western countries for their role in providing Saddam with chemical capabilities in the first place. “Germans built the facilities…aviation bombs from a Spanish manufacturer, American-designed artillery shells from European companies, and Egyptian and Italian ground-to-ground rockets — to be filled in Iraq,” according to the NYT. This is not news. The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq by Kenneth Timmerman was published in 1991 with the details in spades.
[. . .]
Which is more likely? That ISIS is handling pre-1991-era leaky canisters of CW damaged and improperly stored in Iraq, or that it has taken much more modern stockpiles – perhaps new weapons produced in unshuttered facilities in Syria – for use in its destructive sweep through both countries? The first would indict the Bush administration, the second the Obama administration.
The Pentagon, by the way, denies that ISIS has seized any chemical weapons in either country. “We have no indications right now that they have possession of those kinds of munitions,” according to spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

http://americanthinker.com/2014/10/chemical_weapons_revelations_in_the_middle_east.html

October 17, 2014
Chemical Weapons Revelations in the Middle East
By Shoshana Bryen

More Killed In Chicago Than in Iraq

[From article]
In fact, giving rise to the harsh nickname, in April, only 13 Americans had died in Iraq up until that month, but by that same time 76 had been murdered in Chicago.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/07/08/Real-Clear-Politics-Co-Editor-Rahm-s-Chicago-a-War-Zone

REAL CLEAR POLITICS CO-FOUNDER: RAHM EMANUEL'S CHICAGO A 'WAR ZONE'
by WARNER TODD HUSTON

8 Jul 2014

Iraq Terrorists Destroy Tomb of Prophet Jonah

[From article]
One of the devastated tombstones belonged to the Prophet Jonah (Younis in Arabic) and was revered by Muslims and Christians alike, according to Iraqi authorities.
The prophet, who is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Jonah, is best known for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685923/Shocking-moment-ISIS-militants-sledgehammers-Mosul-tomb-Prophet-Jonah-50-blindfolded-bodies-massacred-south-Baghdad.html

Shocking moment ISIS militants take sledgehammers to Mosul tomb of Prophet Jonah as more than 50 blindfolded bodies are found massacred south of Baghdad
ISIS militants filmed taking sledgehammers to tombstones in Mosul, Iraq
Donning balaclavas and black clothing, they swung weapons into tombs
One grave belonged to Prophet Jonah, revered by Muslims and Christians
Rebels believe special veneration of tombs is against teachings of Islam
Comes as more than 50 bodies have been found in city south of Baghdad
Most of the bodies were blindfolded with gunshot wounds, said authorities
Investigation is underway to establish the circumstances of the killings
By SOPHIE JANE EVANS and ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 07:00 EST, 9 July 2014 | UPDATED: 14:26 EST, 9 July 2014

Extremist Sunni ISIS Not Strong Enough To Control Iraq

[From article]
In locations wherein they’ve been able to raise their flags, it was primarily because of lack of interest and resistance on the part of the local population, which at times even assisted the organization because of the deep resentment against the administration of Nouri al-Maliki, who is perceived as a corrupt tyrant that blatantly discriminates against the Sunni citizens.
[. . .]
It is clear that a force such as this isn’t enough to conquer and administer Baghdad, which the Maliki administration, not to mention its residents, has a fundamental interest in protecting. Furthermore, in actuality, ISIS does not have the ability to fully control the other regions in Iraq, to say nothing of imposing upon the residents the traditional Islamic regime to which they aspire.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/ISIS-Beyond-the-regional-instability-360874

ISIS: Beyond the regional instability
By YORAM SCHWEITZER
06/28/2014 22:58
Since the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria organization, the media has been disseminating an apocalyptic portrayal of the situation.

Lack of Historical Perspective Led to Misguided Middle East Policies

[From article]
Those who are ready to blame President George W. Bush for everything bad that has happened since he left office should at least acknowledge that he was a patriotic American president who did what he did for the good of the country — an assumption that we can no longer safely make about the current occupant of the White House.
[. . .]
We haven't yet announced when we are going to pull our troops out of Germany or Japan, and World War II was over more than 60 years ago. Turning those militaristic countries around was one of the great achievements in human history. Their neighboring countries have been able to enjoy a peace and security that they had not known for generations.
[. . .]
To hold elections for the sake of holding elections is to abdicate responsibility for the sake of appearances.
[. . .]
Today, with terrorists threatening to at least fragment Iraq, if not take it over, it is a sobering thought that Barack Obama and his key advisers have a track record of having been wrong about Iraq and other foreign policy issues for years, going back before they took office — and no track record of learning from their mistakes.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell061814.php3#.U65-SN0--yM

Jewish World Review

June 16, 2014 / 18 Sivan, 5774
A Bitter After-taste
By Thomas Sowell

Obama's Weakness Encourages Foreign Power Abuses

[From article]
In 2012, in the wake of a well-planned military assault on sovereign US territory in Benghazi and the first murder of a US ambassador in a third of a century, the Obama Administration chose to pretend that it was something to do with an obscure YouTube video. The President of Libya blamed the attack on Ansar al-Sharia and linked them to al-Qaeda's Maghreb affiliate, but Obama, Mrs Clinton, Susan Rice and their court eunuchs in the media covered their ears and said, "Can't hear you." So the men who sacked the diplomatic mission and killed its staff are all still walking around, but back in California the maker of the unseen video was tossed in jail where he languishes to this day. Again, if you were in Teheran, Moscow, Kabul, Damascus, this seemingly perverse misdirection told you something more about how committed America was to that passivity: The superpower's preferred foreign-policy posture, even after a direct, bloody assault on its own territory, was to call "Check, please!" and head for the exit.
[. . .]
Obama has stayed consistently "unbelievably small" from Cairo to Benghazi to Damascus to Mosul, even as the dominoes are getting bigger. America is leaving from behind - going, going, gone.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0614/steyn062314.php3#.U650xd0--yM

Jewish World Review

June 23, 2014 / 25 Sivan, 5774
Leaving From Behind
By Mark Steyn

Obama Needs Congress To Approve Another War in Iraq

[From article]
we may be witnessing the end of Sykes-Picot.
That was the secret 1916 treaty by which the British and French carved up the Ottoman Empire, with the Brits taking Transjordan and Iraq, and the French Syria and Lebanon.
Sykes-Picot stuck in the craw of Osama bin Laden. Now his most fanatical followers have given him a posthumous triumph.
[. . .]
Who wants U.S. troops back in Iraq? The American people do not. Congress does not. Tehran does not. The Shia extremists do not. The Sunnis do not. And ISIS does not.
We would be fighting in a war with enemies in all directions.

http://buchanan.org/blog/make-congress-vote-war-6515

Make Congress Vote on War
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday - June 24, 2014

Iraqi Judge Who Sentenced Saddam Hussein Reportedly Killed

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/report-judge-who-sentenced-saddam-hussein-to-death-captured-executed-by-isis/

REPORT: Judge Who Sentenced Saddam Hussein to Death – Captured & Executed by ISIS
Posted by Jim Hoft

Sunday, June 22, 2014, 10:50 AM

Judge Rauf Rashid, the man who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death, has reportedly been captured and killed by ISIS terrorists.
Zero Hedge reported–

Thoughtful Strategy For Iraq

[From article]
No doubt, the Islamophilic administration will want to step in, and save Islam from itself once again. Let me advocate a course of action that will make sense to all sides in America; the left and right; from militarists to pacifists: Let the Muslims kill each other.
After the administration blundered on Benghazi, on the Arab Spring, and Syria, Heaven itself has afforded it one last chance to set itself right. It is almost impossible for the administration to screw it up. All it has to do is nothing.
[. . .]
Let them ask for Russian help, or Chinese assistance. I am sure the Russians and Chinese will be more than happy to make their nations targets for Islamic revenge. Nothing makes Muslim group A angrier than knowing that you have helped Muslim group B. And if the Russians or Chinese do intervene, good for them. Maybe international terrorism will re-direct their wrath eastward. Tell them it will be like the Chechnyans on steroids.
[. . .]
we should encourage all Euro-Muslim males to join the fight, and when they are gone, revoke their right of return to the West. Tell them, Allah Wants You; and send them off with halal meat and enough weapons to keep the Mideast in turmoil for another hundred years.
[. . .]
When the Mideast is a flaming wreck, the administration should encourage Putin or China to intervene. Nothing sinks empires faster than trying to tame the Muslims. We will get out, and avoid our own collapse.
[. . .]
Let the Shia and Sunni kill each other. In the words of the late Mayor Ed Koch, “root for whoever is losing.”

http://americanthinker.com/2014/06/let_them_kill_each_other.html

June 16, 2014
Let Them Kill Each Other
By Mike Konrad

Obama May Not Want War But He Is Getting It

[From article]
Today, Libya is an anarchy of hundreds of rival militias.
[. . .]
But the prolonged attempt to assassinate Gadhafi from the air made no provision for a replacement regime.
[. . .]
Americans prefer not to think about, and rarely allow elections to turn on, foreign policy. Events, however, are not cooperating. Leon Trotsky probably did not really say this, but someone should: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2014/06/george_will_us_foreign_policy_in_disarray

George Will: U.S. foreign policy in disarray
Prez keeps sounding retreat call
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
By: George F. Will
Boston Herald

U.S. Evacuates $750 million Iraqi Baghdad Embassy

[From article]

The embassy is within Baghdad's Green Zone and has up to 5,500 personnel, making it the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world.
[. . .]
The $750 million embassy is the largest in the world, and boasts amenities for staff that include a six-lane swimming pool, regulation-size basketball court and what Business Insider described recently as a "palatial dining room."
It is completely self-contained with its own power supply, well water and sewage treatment. It is only 3/10ths of an acres smaller than Vatican City and is surrounded by blast walls to protect those inside from attack.

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/embassy-security-boost-baghdad/2014/06/15/id/577156/?promo_code=13E39-1&utm_source=13E39Boston_Herald&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

US Evacuates $750 Million Baghdad Embassy
Sunday, 15 Jun 2014 08:51 PM
By Newsmax Wires

U.S. Contractors in Iraq Evacuated

[From article]
The U.S. contractors were at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.
The surrounded Americans said they were under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.
The contractors had been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeeded in breaking through the perimeter. The sources confirmed the contractors were still under siege, despite an Associated Press report Thursday, citing U.S. officials, that three planeloads of Americans were being evacuated from Balad.
WND learned from sources that the jihadists closed down escape routes, and the U.S. Air Force was in a stand-down position. U.S. forces were not assisting even with air cover so a private extradition flight could land for a rescue, the sources said.
[. . .]
The attacking ISIS forces approached the base in trucks Wednesday and called through loudspeakers for all private security forces and Iraqi special military to leave immediately or die.
The U.S. private contractors in touch with WND reported that after hearing the broadcast, the private security forces and the Iraqi military defending the base dropped their weapons and ran.
The American contractors collected the weapons left behind and were able to hold off further immediate advances.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-s-contractors-surrounded-by-jihadists-in-iraq/

IRAQI AIR FORCE EVACUATING BESIEGED AMERICAN CONTRACTORS
No help from U.S. military as escape routes cut off
June 13, 2014
Jerome R. Corsi

George Bush Anticipated Results of Obama's Policies

[From article]
In 2007, President George W. Bush warned that if America withdrew prematurely from Iraq, American troops would eventually have to return:
To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready … would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous. [EMPHASIS ADDED].

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/06/bush-warned-this-would-happen-in-iraq/

Bush warned this would happen in Iraq
Marc Thiessen

June 12, 2014, 4:09 pm

Shiites and Sunnis Open New War in Iraq

[From article]
It is therefore relying on Iran-backed militias to engage in an ideologically-driven fight to the death of the type the army just ran away from in Mosul.
Iraqi government forces have fought alongside those Shia militias in Samara to defend the shrine and are fortifying Baghdad, Balad and other places.
[. . .]
As many as 500 British citizens have travelled to Syria to join rebel forces fighting President Assad, Security Services fear. Many are feared to have joined Jihadi groups.
The prospect of radicalised and battle-hardened Britons returning from the Syrian front to commit terrorist attacks on British soil are the country’s single biggest security threat, MI6 believes.
[. . .]
ISIS has up to 12,000 fighters. The Peshmerga has up to 190,000. the Iraqi government commands 193,000 troops
[. . .]
Iraq's parliament has failed to reach a quorum, officials told AFP, preventing it from voting on a request to announce a state of emergency to deal with the major jihadist offensive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892299/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-militants-push-towards-Baghdad-live.html

Iraq crisis: al-Qaeda militants push towards Baghdad - live
US and UK speak of deep concern as al-Qaeda take swathes of northern Iraq, sparking exodus of Civilians - follow latest developments
By Barney Henderson, Andrew Marszal and Steve Wilson
5:30PM BST 12 Jun 2014

Marine Humor

A Marine squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist who was badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in a similar but less serious state. The Marine was conscious and alert and, as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had happened.

The Marine reported, "I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road. I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable, lowlife scum bag, who got what he deserved

He yelled back that Barack Obama is a lying, good-for-nothing, left wing Commie who isn't even an American. So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and acts like a frigid, mean-spirited lesbian! He retaliated by yelling, Oh yeah? Well, so does Nancy Pelosi!
And, there we were, in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a truck hit us."