tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post3602959650393630172..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: Counterinsurgency and stabs in the backDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-28245897256294178262015-06-23T08:54:05.487-04:002015-06-23T08:54:05.487-04:00Lost, for the most part in the discussion of what ...Lost, for the most part in the discussion of what was or was not done to avoid the disaster that the unnecessary and futile war in Iraq created, is the failure of the US to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. To have left US forces in Iraq absent such agreement would have subjected individual servicemen and units to arbitrary and capricious findings of Iraqi Sharia courts, an unacceptable risk to the US government. One might argue that the US administration did not do enough to negotiate (read force) an agreement on the Iraqi government, but even watered down proposals met with enough resistance by the Iraqi religious leaders and citizens that they failed. There is no clear indication that any amount of pressure by the US to implement a Status of Forces Agreement would have met with approval by Iraq in what Iraqis saw as a violation of their national sovereignty. The choices boiled down to stay and lose US sovereignty of US military forces, or leave Iraq. The choice made, to protect US forces, was clear because it was equally clear that Iraq did not want what it saw as an occupying force in its country. This, in essence, was the "good" cause, if not the "real" one as to why the decision was made to withdraw US forces in total from Iraq. It is unclear under what rules the newly reintroduced US forces into Iraq must operate, but surely the operational edict that US forces will not engage in direct combat, thus exposing them to Iraqi court findings for their actions, hinges upon the lack of a negotiated and approved Status of Forces Agreement. This weighs heavily against embedding US military members with Iraqi units in direct combat operations. Then, of course, there is the idea that Iraq was never a nation, so defined as "groupings of humans who shared a common history, language, set of values and religion — in short, a common culture into which they were born." This was the "real" reason to withdraw US forces from a protracted and eventually unwinable war, and exposes the folly of Gulf War II.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11629116622092214120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-35273677362668588722015-06-20T22:58:26.255-04:002015-06-20T22:58:26.255-04:00Maybe people like West should form volunteer briga...Maybe people like West should form volunteer brigades in support of the Iraqi gov., and try to correct the uncorrectable mistake of the horrible president they so blindly supported. It would be an ignoble right-wing echo of the Lincoln Brigade of the Spanish civil war. They could get their billionaire pals like the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson to fund it. And people like Jeb Bush, McCain and Lindsey Graham can send their own relatives off to die in a futile war with no definable goal.Gloucon Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05218027862578514587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-23464564286017241552015-06-20T09:36:30.468-04:002015-06-20T09:36:30.468-04:00Your column is a regular part of my education. Th...Your column is a regular part of my education. Thank you for another clear, lucid post. I am almost 69 and for the first time feel like I am learning the reality of history.Assurance-First-Assurancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03957716561174470697noreply@blogger.com