Sunni Violence Against Americans Is Not New (2006 video)
September 15, 2014

 
Share

This past week was packed wall-to-wall with Neocons and former “Bushies” alike criticizing President Obama for the rise of ISIS/ISIL. Senator McCain is still  blaming President Obama for “pulling all of our troops out of Iraq in 2011” without leaving any residual forces behind… a claim that frustrates me to no end. The fact no one in the media ever challenges McCain on this point is bad enough, but even The White House doesn’t push back to correct the record. I’ve already pointed out in a prior column how it was President Bush, in one of his final acts as president, whom failed to convince the Iraqi’s to agree not to prosecute American soldiers for war crimes if we left troops there beyond their agreed-upon departure date set by President Bush. So when the time came in 2011 to pull our troops out, out they ALL came (thank goodness.) Senator McCain says that the Iraqi’s wanted some American troops to remain. Perhaps, but they also refused not to prosecute those who did. Senator McCain says that we didn’t have to negotiate the SoFA with the Maliki government. Wouldn’t THAT have gone over like a lead balloon! And I’ve yet to figure out how we stop the Maliki government from prosecuting any American troops that we might have left behind? Just because you circumvent the Maliki government (so much for Iraqi sovereignty), doesn’t mean you can stop them from arresting & prosecuting American troops, Senator. Please explain how you would have pulled that one off? I’d love to know… as I’m sure the White House would be as well. (I believe The Daily Show mentioned in an episode last week that “if we had left some five-to-ten thousand troops behind, does that mean alQaeda in Iraq would not have evolved into ISIS? We couldn’t control the violence with 150 THOUSAND troops” and these guys think a tiny residual force would have stopped the Sunni insurgency from forming?)

Saddam was Sunni. ISIS is Sunni. And this little “news-nugget” almost eight years to the day, is a stark reminder of from whence ISIS came:
 

70% of Iraqi Sunni’s support the insurgency
Sept 20, 2006 (1:52)
[flv:http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/abc-70pct_sunni%27s_spt_insurgency-%28060920%29.flv http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/abc-70pct_sunni%27s_spt_insurgency-%28060920%29.jpg 480 360]

This was less than 6 weeks before the election, the results of which were BOTH houses of Congress flipping control from Republican to Democrat, and President Bush then firing Donald Rumsfeld… whom he had been insisting for months was “not going to be fired” because he had so much confidence in his ability as Secretary of Defense. Instead, just ONE DAY after the election, Rummy was gone.

2007 was the bloodiest year of the Iraq war averaging almost 100 American troop deaths per month before Gates came up with the brilliant idea of sending in more troops to quell the violence (violence that was a result of not sending in enough troops in the first place). This was Bush’s trademark “Surge”TM that supposedly “turned the tide in Iraq”. And though the new strategy reversed the trend of worsening violence against American troops, it did not end. An average of about two-dozen U.S. troops were still being killed each month in Iraq Bush’s final year in office, falling into the single digits under President Obama before our withdrawal by the end of 2011. Senator McCain had the stunning gall last week to claim “We had it won, thanks to the surge” (ibid: “McCain”) and then simultaneously argue that we needed to keep troops there to prevent the rise of ISIS.

Uh, excuse me? Either the war was won or the resistance was growing. Which is it? It can’t be both (well, in “MissionAccomplished-Land”, where a war can simultaneously be “won” and “not over”, I suppose it can.)

Sunni militants… the product of Bush’s invasion of Iraq… became “alQaeda in Iraq”, which begot “ISIS”, which begot “ISIL” (or just the “I.S.” according to them.) They were never gone, the war in Iraq was never “won”, and the idea that “if only” we had just left a few thousand troops behind, Iraq would be at peace today and all of this might have might have been avoided, is ludicrous.
 

Writers Wanted Got something to say? Mugsy’s Rap Sheet is always looking for article submissions to focus on the stories we may miss each week. To volunteer your own Op/Ed for inclusion here, send us an email with an example of your writing skills & choice of topic, and maybe we’ll put you online!

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS


 

Share

September 15, 2014 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: fake scandals, Middle East, myth busting, National Security, Politics, Terrorism, War

Leave a Reply