Pages
“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” Dempsey told a Senate hearing in Washington. Asked whether the United States should honor that request, he said: “It is in our national security interest to counter ISIL wherever we find them.”
More: Iraq Calls on U.S. to Launch Air Strikes Against Militants
As always comments welcome to go with your vote.
11 comments
1 |
Decatur Deb Jun 19, 2014 11:27:52am |
The pilots of manned aircraft based/serviced there would not have the protections of a SOFA.
6 |
CuriousLurker Jun 19, 2014 1:49:52pm |
“No, but we will provide satellite/drone/non military help”
| 7 |
CuriousLurker Jun 19, 2014 2:21:34pm |
re: #6 CuriousLurker
Whoever ends up in charge of Iraq when the dust eventually settles is going forfeit any legitimacy and end up being considered the puppet of whichever outside power gets the most deeply involved.
It was outside (colonial) powers being involved in drawing borders that helped cause the mess we have today because they did what was administratively convenient for them, not what might work best for the long-term stability of a region with diverse ethnic & religious groups.
Jeffrey Goldberg annoyed the crap out of me today with this, regarding an article he’d written back in 2007:
The New Map of the Middle East
Why should we fight the inevitable break-up of Iraq?In the article, I was very critical of the imperial hubris that motivated the Sykes-Picot division of the Middle East by the British and French. But I’ve warmed to the argument that the Sykes-Picot arrangement was, in one sense, inadvertently progressive. The makers of the modern Middle East roped together peoples of different ethnicities and faiths (or streams of the same faith) in what were meant to be modern, multicultural, and multi-confessional states. It is an understatement to say that the Middle East isn’t the sort of place where this kind of experiment has been shown to work. […]
WTF? They just decided this for the people? Did some outsiders do likewise for the West, or did it take centuries of bloody wars & turmoil before things changed and people learned to live with each other??
And this last paragraph:
More on all this later, but I’ll leave you with one quote from the story that struck me on re-reading, in part because it may represent what President Obama secretly feels about the Middle East. At one point, I asked David Fromkin, the author of A Peace to End all Peace, the definitive account of the making of the modern Middle East, whether he would speculate about the region’s future. This is what he said in 2007: “The Middle East has no future.”
Again, WTF? You’re talking about millions & millions of people. Are they less human, more lacking in potential than people in the West? Mr. Goldberg should probably hope & pray Fromkin was wrong as the Middle East having no future wouldn’t bode well for Israel, which sits right in the middle of it and whose well being I assume he cares about deeply.
*steps down from soapbox, flips desk, slams door on way out*
8 |
Rightwingconspirator Jun 19, 2014 2:29:27pm |
re: #7 CuriousLurker
Whoever ends up in charge of Iraq when the dust eventually settles is going forfeit any legitimacy and end up being considered the puppet of whichever outside power gets the most deeply involved.
It was outside (colonial) powers being involved in drawing borders that helped cause the mess we have today because they did what was administratively convenient for them, not what might work best for the long-term stability of a region with diverse ethnic & religious groups.
This, oh so this. If the middle eastern populations want to shed post WW1 imposed borders and re configure as per what works for them it’s more than fine with me.
9 |
Dark_Falcon Jun 20, 2014 3:57:51am |
re: #1 Decatur Deb
The pilots of manned aircraft based/serviced there would not have the protections of a SOFA.
True, but that’s a risk we may end up having to run. Unless we can strong-arm one of the Gulf state into allowing strikes from their territory, the only other options are long range bomber strikes from Diego Garcia or strikes off of aircraft carriers.
10 |
Single-handed sailor Jun 20, 2014 10:46:44am |
re: #3 jc717
e) Only if Iraq funds the operation.
Cash/oil, up front, and it’ll take them years to prove the government is inclusive of Sunni.
Once Praised, the Settlement to Help Sickened BP Oil Spill Workers Leaves Most With Nearly Nothing When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired ...
Cheechako
Alone in a Bathroom: The Fear and Uncertainty of a Post-Roe Medication Abortion Angel tucked two white pills into each side of her mouth, bracing herself as they began to dissolve. Her deepest fears and anxieties took over. Angel had wanted to talk to a doctor before she took the pills to ... Cheechako
They Were Desperate to Get Pregnant. Then IVF Gave Them Extra Embryos. One morning last spring, Ashley Harrolle put her 1-year-old daughter down for a nap and went to the kitchen. She pulled up her fertility clinic’s contact information. It was time to make the call. In a freezer several hundred ... Cheechako
Joe Bacon ✅
March FavoritesYou've seen these all already but looking back, just because. These are my favorite shots of this last month. That 1937 Zeiss Sonnar is such a gloriously wonderful bit of glass. Thanks for looking.
William Lewis
Russia’s New Combat Robots Blown Up by Drones Near Avdiivka When we landed on the moon, I thought about how science fiction had become real. Now, the robot wars have begun. It's more poignant somehow on the ground than in the missile wars we have in the air as ...
Rightwingconspirator
Why Did More Than 1,000 People Die After Police Subdued Them With Force That Isn’t Meant to Kill? An investigation led by The Associated Press has found that, over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other force not intended to be lethal. More: Why ... CheechakoKGxvi
Abortions Outside Medical System Increased Sharply After Roe Fell, Study Finds The number of women using abortion pills to end their pregnancies on their own without the direct involvement of a U.S.-based medical provider rose sharply in the months after the Supreme Court eliminated a constitutional right to abortion, according ... Cheechako
The Pandemic Cost 7 Million Lives, but Talks to Prevent a Repeat Stall In late 2021, as the world reeled from the arrival of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus, representatives of almost 200 countries met - some online, some in-person in Geneva - hoping to forestall a future worldwide ... Cheechako
Texas County at Center of Border Fight Is Overwhelmed by Migrant Deaths EAGLE PASS, Tex. - The undertaker lighted a cigarette and held it between his latex-gloved fingers as he stood over the bloated body bag lying in the bed of his battered pickup truck. The woman had been fished out ... Cheechako
