Weapons Systems the US Donated to ISIS

[rlogan 2,036]

Sorry but I'm going to have to call a possible ethics breach here. These were not donated to ISIS as the titles states but captured by hostile forces. The title appears to have been phrased in such a way to purposefully cause possible discord amongst those of us who take time to thoughtfully consider and discuss such matters.

lol.

I have magical powers to prevent you from "thoughtfully considering"? Wow, I have a lot of power over you! But you have none over me. Personal insults are all you seem to have against a great historical disgrace of not just George Bush, but the American people for re-electing him after it was known, essentially, that he lied us into war.

This is William R. Polk's piece entitled "Ready, Fire, Aim!" with respect to our disastrous middle east policies:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/william-r-polk-on-grand-strategy-iraq-and-syria/373221/

The diplomat and scholar William R. Polk (right) first wrote about the Middle East in The Atlantic back in 1958, in an article called "The Lesson of Iraq." Repeat after me: "The past is never dead..." In the past few years, I've quoted his updated analyses many times, for instance on U.S. prospects in Afghanistan and on the tragedy in Syria.

This is the kind of experience you need to speak on the problem -

Analysis of foreign affairs problems often ends in a mental block. As we have seen in each of our recent crises—Somalia, Mali, Libya, Syria, Iraq, the Ukraine and Iran—"practical" men of affairs want quick answers: they say in effect, 'don't bother us with talk about how we got here; this is where we are; so what do we do now?' The result, predictably, is a sort of nervous tick in the body politic: we lurch from one emergency to the next in an unending sequence.

More eloquent than me, sure. But I'm just a hillbilly:

Our leaders still believe it. They think that our "shock and awe," our marvelous technology measured in stealth bombers, drones, all-knowing intelligence, our massed and highly mobile troops and our money constitute a devastating broadside. All we have to do is to point in the right direction and shoot.

So we shoot and then shoot again and again. We win each battle, but the battles keep happening. And to our chagrin, we don't seem to be winning the wars. By almost any criterion, we are less "victorious" today than half a century ago.

My thoughts exactly on this utter futility - this counterproductive self-destructive path we are on that has resulted in arming worse people than Bush the Boy President tried to scare us with in the first place. If you can't admit that, then hey - make personal insults.

Yes, we anti-war protesters are used to being vilified. Stupidest people in the room.

This piece touches tangentially on the CIA arms shipments to Syria getting into the hands of ISIS too:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/12/anti-war-protesters-iraq-invasion-bloody-chaos

But the point in general is that the Iraq catastrophe is even worse than we war protestors could have imagined. The British accept this more readily than Americans because they are not as much blinded by the irrational "revenge on A-Rabs" mentality from 9/11.

Not being able to admit this is kind of a national sickness.