When it was first launched last summer, the US war against ISIS was supposed to be a quick push meant to shift the momentum back in favor of the Iraqi government. The first year of war has seen ISIS take even more territory, and Iraq less able to resist than ever. Officials are increasingly admitting its a long war.
State Department spokesman retired Admiral John Kirby conceded the victory is “not going to happen overnight,” predicting that in Iraq along the war was going to take another 3-5 years. That wasn’t even necessary a full war timetable, but just the amount needed to “overcome the ISIS onslaught.”
Another administration spokesman on the war, retired General John Allen, last week predicted that the overall war, covering both Iraq and Syria, would last “a generation or more,” an admission that this war is far more open-ended than anyone figured.
The 3-5 year timetable should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. Any timetable that crosses one or more elections is roughly the same in official terms, simply meaning the war isn’t going to end until someone else is in power, and whether or not to end it is ultimately up to them.
Look people: there never was a strategy by USG at any time to bring about democracy to Iraq or elsewhere, capitalism, as the name pronounced is about capital there is no Democracy nor the hidden one exist in capitalism. Capitalism agendas either based on militarism, monarchism or dictatorship, the system is domed to cooperate with one or the other. Bush, Rumsfeld wolfvowitze and rest of the gang of new fascism and their plan was not about Iraq alone, they thought by invading Afghanistan and later Iraq and later Iran they are going to have their kingdoms shared with Saudis and Israeli, two of the most dictatorial and alike militarism regimes in Middle East. The result of their stupidity and their cooperation with Saudis-Wahhabism is what has become of Middle East. Don't get me wrong, Obama policies is not much different then Bush or Rumsfeld or wolfvowitze and other far right democrats or republicans when it comes to Middle East, he simply follows the rules and regulations, the method used by capitalism, if he didn't, he wouldn't cooperate with Saudis and CCG or Israel, he would simply close AIPAC and wouldn't hire those at state department that started the ukrain war, Libyan war, he simply wouldn't give in for Israel and Saudis lobbied politics.
"…admission that this war is far more open-ended than anyone figured."
No, no, no… anyone with any sense understood from the beginning that this entire adventure was never intended to have an end. They only always allude to an end but if you notice, they never tell us what that end actually looks like…ergo, no friggin' end. And anyone who actually believes they have an end game plan, is smokin' from that damn pipe, again.
I think success is just around the corner
Like Westy said, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
what you are talking about isn't capitalism or at least the laissez faire kind. Mercantilism might be the definition you are reaching for.
exactly! same with afghanistan. They went into both these regions never intending to leave. the only reason we left Iraq was because the Maliki government was not going to tolerate war crimes and refused to exempt Us service personal from local Iraqi prosecution. That was mpletely unacceptable to the empire. We pulled out and you see what then happened to Maliki. Now ISIS which is really a covert black op of the USA, Saudi, Israeli and turkish intel to target Syria and Iran and check the shite infuence in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhereis the fabricated reason for going back in. ISIS was funded, armed and protected by alliance above. at the end of the day the song remains the same. Either we control the oil under the ground over there or someone else will. recent declassified documents produces by Judicial Watch suggest that to be exactly the case strongly.
If you want to understand Afghanistan, read Brezinski's book The Grand Chessboard. Afghanistan is a geo strategic pivot and it vital for control of eurasia. it's all in the book of this brilliant but sick and twisted evil little man who welds such great influence amoung all the neocon war mongering scum.
Which brings us to 9/11 the biggest lie of your lifetime and the trigger to enact what they laid out in the PNAC documents which among other things state that it is vital to establish bases in the middle east especially iraq and the confict with (Saddam) "provided the immediate justicication". This was never about Saddam. He was just in the way.
The Iraqi people have already suffered through 12 years of this nightmare, after
Dubya Bush decided to (liberate) them from their (evil) dictator Saddam Hussein.
Now, they must endure another 3 to 5 more years of this insanity?
And Arkansas Senator Cotton boasted that a war with Iran will last a (few) days.
It appears that Dubya and Cotton were guests at the same crack cocaine parties
Bill Clinton held in Mena Arkansas.
If it's laissez faire, it isn't capitalism.
Capitalism is a mixed, industrial, state-regulated economy.
You can have capitalism or you can have free markets, but you can't have both.
And "Democratic Capitalism" is the original oxymoron.
Iraq can’t be saved by a puppet government. Ever since the 2003 invasion all Iraqi leadership – except for Allawi, possibly – have been sectarian figures who really want to be puppets of the Iranian theocracy, but who are also have a weakness for US money and destructive toys.
The only force in the area threatened by Nusra-al Qaeda-ISIS that represents the genuine anti-sectarian and anti-imperial needs of the Arab people is the government of Syria and such allies as it is able to rally. Puppets such as the Barzani faction or those isnuggling near to the Green Zone in Baghdad can never make anything better of Iraq after the US orIran degrades ISIS for them.
Iraq should make Bashar President of both countries, since he is the only legitimate leader in the whole mess. All Bakr and Hafez were about toi unite the two states in1979 anyway, before Saddam seized power and took it all down the road to Hell.
After 70 years an illegitimate state has fought to earn its legitimacy in the ME but hasn't been able to do it! Likewise It is going take that long or longer to fix the broken Iraq!
The basic error in the header is the assumption that there is still an "Iraq" to overcome ISIS in.
In that sense ISIS have already achieved their primary goal and are into the consolidation phase.
If it was only going to take 3-5 years, then we'd have been done by 2008!
A 'free market' can only exist with regulation and supervision. A free market only exists when sellers have transparency and accuracy about what they are selling. Human nature says that without regulation and supervision, everyone lies for a quick buck, and what you have is just rampant fraud and not a 'free market'. If you want a free market, then someone has to be watching to make sure its fair. What we have now is just a bunch of crooks and con-people stealing from everyone.
Ever since 9/11 the Military/BANKER/Industrial Complex has done everything it could to provoke and create MORE terrorists —- WAR PROFITEERS have to have a war going for SELF-ENRICHMENT. Iraq quieted down and NEW threats -ISIS- HAD to emerge.
"Don't forget what I discovered—that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars." Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
before the existence of private central banking, there was no such thing as a world war.
YOUR schools, electric grid, healthcare, national infrastructure, are being blown up in the form of $250,000 bombs dropped on $10 MUD HUTS, so the WAR PROFITEERS can eat lobster and lounge on yachts.
I once heard the internal combustion engine described as a "mature
technology", as in "we know everything there is to know about how to
manufacture them". It should come as no surprise to us, after all these
centuries, that manufacturing war is also a mature technology. They have
the psychology of this down to a "T", how to whip up the monkeys into
fighting each other, while they sit in their mansions enjoying fine
cigars and brandy while daydreaming of their next sexual perversion.
"There is an 'industry of the Dead' in this world and a lot of people in power live off the war. Many powerful people do not want peace because they live from the war." -Pope Francis May 2015