The Common Ills: Talking Iraq (or Peter tries to)

Thursday, April 07, 2016

Talking Iraq (or Peter tries to)

Peter Van Buren.

Ay-yi-yi.

REUTERS posts his column about 'World War Three.'

Maybe they wouldn't if he were more honest?

He writes:

The recent death of a Marine in Iraq exposed the fact the United States set up a firebase there, which in turn exposed the fact the Pentagon misrepresented the number of American personnel in Iraq by as many as 2,000. It appears a second firebase exists, set up on the grounds of one of America’s largest installations in the last Iraq war. Special operations forces range across the landscape. The Pentagon is planning for even more troops. There can be no more wordplay: America now has boots on the ground in Iraq.

Wow.

He lays blame for lying in three places -- the amorphous and catch all "United States" once and the Pentagon gets name checked twice.

Didn't realize the US Constitution set the country up to be run by the Pentagon.

Kind of thought there was a US President in there somewhere.

The rest of the column is more of the same and Barack Obama gets name checked only once and then just to refer to "President Barack Obama's successor."

And you better believe that if that ends up being Hillary Clinton, Peter Van Buren will call her out.

It's just Barack Obama that he's too much of a coward to call out.

"There can be no more wordplay: America now has boots on the ground in Iraq."

Who's over the Pentagon?

The Secretary of Defense.

That's currenty Ash Carter.

I'm sorry, I've attended too many Congressional hearings Carter's testified at to believe that sentence can accurately apply to Carter.

He's not used "wordplay."

He's admitted, to Senator John McCain, among others, in open hearings, that the US military was engaged in combat. He did that when all that was known was the dropping of bombs which he agreed was combat.

When questioned about "trainers," he's also told Congress that, yes, those are boots on the ground.

So I have no idea why cowardly Peter Van Buren wants to pretend like Ash Carter's played word games when the one deceiving the American public has been Barack Obama.

He also, in his thick headed way, explains something when he writes:

A senior Islamic State commander explained that the prison at Camp Bucca, operated by the United States, was directly responsible for the rise of the violent, theocratic state inside the divided, but then still largely secular Iraq. “It made it all; it built our ideology,” he said. “We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else.” So, first came al Qaeda in Iraq, followed by its successor, Islamic State.

The Islamic State.

They keep talking about the birth in Camp Bucca -- as if that matters.

It doesn't.

It wouldn't have been 'born' somewhere. Anywhere in the region, actually.

But it's Nouri al-Maliki's second term that gives birth to the rise of the Islamic State.

And the cowards and fools can't handle calling that out either.

Because they don't value the people.

They only value their individuals.

It's a belief in the power of one, the whole well trained myth of individualism sold throughout the west which fails to factor in conditions and the public.

He's not the first to make the argument and he won't be the last. But from his thick head, it suddenly made sense where the failure to connect from his type was coming from.

The Islamic State would have come about in the region regardless and could have easily come up in Syria.

The thing that matters is what allowed it to rise.

You can't destroy it without destroying the reason it rose in the first place.

Peter Van Buren plays with his trading cards very well. Doesn't mean he understands a lot more than that.

The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated: