Iraq Is Lost

Iraq is lost. As an Iraq war vet I can tell you that this has been one of the hardest things to watch as the forces of ISIS tear the country apart and take cities and towns that we once fought over and paid for dearly.

There are few times that I agree with this president about anything but this is one of them. We can't spend ten more years in a country that doesn't comprehend democracy. We can't afford any more American lives wasted in an area of the world where Sunni and Shia have been butchering each other for centuries. Perhaps we shouldn't have pulled out in 2011 with out leaving any kind of contingency force there, but if they can't straighten out their religious differences in a peaceable manner, then no amount of our money, blood or troops would ever be able to fix it. Make no mistake this is a very dangerous religious war that, contrary to political beliefs, is not going to be solved by politics and troops on the ground. The people of Iraq are going to have to do it.

The argument can be made that we should have never been in there in the first place. Saddam Hussein was a dictator but he was no threat to us and if he had really ever attempted to use his chemical weapons against his own again, or any one else, we could have hit him with enough fire power to turn the whole place into one very large parking lot. He knew that, and while he may have tried to bluff a few times after the first Gulf War, he wasn't likely to commit suicide by pushing things too far especially with all our military might surrounding him.

Having said all that, and agreeing that we should have never gone there in the first place, this is going to come back and bite us, and possibly Israel, in the back side.

The first thing that no one in DC seems to get about these folks(Sunnis and Shia) is that they don't share any of our moral or political values. They aren't interested in fairness or equality, they don't care about political correctness or democracy, for them their lives are all about Islam. They live it, and breathe it. It fills all aspects of their lives and controls all, as it has for 1400 years. They are a patriarchal religious society where the men rule with an iron hand and women are treated with contempt and abuse, almost worse than animals, where any one who does not follow the Koran and Sharia is an infidel worthy of death. Even worse here is that this war is over little more than who has the right to be religious leaders in their religion and for that they are willing to massacre each other.

The second thing that no one in DC seems to understand is that they, the Jihadi's, ISIS, the kissing cousins of the Taliban and Al-Quada, want us, as in all Americans, that’s moms, dads, grandma, grandpa, right on down to our newborns, dead because we are the infidels and we don't follow Allah. They want to wipe us and Israel right off the map and they will use whatever means necessary to do so. This is not hear say, as some have tried very hard to suggest, this comes straight from the mouths of their various leaders in the middle east. Our media doesn't report what they say because it doesn't fit with the presidents agenda and his strange PC view of the world, but you can find it in the news and on web sights all over the middle east, including Israel.

So how is this going to bite us?

First; they have control of all the equipment that we left behind, weapons,tanks, missiles, ammunition, plus all the weaponry we have supplying the so called rebels in Syria, the ones that have joined this ISIS movement, as well as the weapons that the Iraqi troops have been dropping. You now have an army of radical Islamic jihadists who are well armed. We won't bomb them with conventional weapons or drones so it comes down to whether or not the Iraqi army can stop them. I don't think they have the will. Unless Iran or someone else intervenes, which could open up another can of worms, Iraq, as we have known it, will fall.

Iraq is also something like the third of fourth largest exporter of oil to us and the world. Consider, if you will, all that oil in the hands of terrorists who now have the firepower to hold on to it or destroy it. Oil prices will skyrocket, gas prices will double and triple almost overnight, everything in our economy that relies on transportation, which is literally everything, will skyrocket in price and the economic structure that we know will collapse and make 2008 look like a pleasant Sunday stroll.

Second they have the will and the determination to attack us here and bring the fight to our streets. They smell our weakness and our lack of will to fight, that’s like blood in the water to sharks. With our wide open borders, with little effort to stop the influx of so called “refugees” coming from many different countries we have the perfect setup for the Jihadists to enter into the country. Add to that the many training facilities and camps that are here in this country, that are known about by the FBI, CIA, DHS among others, that are being allowed to operate by radicals because they haven't officially done anything illegal as of yet, our military being cut and our enemies looking at us with scorn, think China and Russia, and you have just about the perfect storm that is likely going to come crashing down on us soon.

One of the leaders of ISIS told one of his captors, just before he was released from Guantanamo, “I'll see you again in New York” I'm guessing it's not going to be for pizza.

So while I agree that we shouldn't have gone in the first place and I agree that no amount of troops on the ground is going to fix what is an essentially a religious war, I do believe that we should target them with drones and missiles and blow them apart before it becomes too late and restrengthen our military, because for them they are willing to die for Allah and if that means bringing the fight to us here on our streets they will gladly do so.

We have shown them weakness; Make no mistake they will be coming.