By Rachel Martin
A decade (click here) after the U.S. took control of Fallujah, America is at war again. NPR's Rachel Martin talks with former Lt. Col. John Nagl, whose counter-insurgency manual helped shape U.S. strategy in Iraq....
That was FORMER Lt. Col, right? I wish him the best of luck selling his book especially a good read for war mongers frustrated by the dynamics of peace.
Evidently the former colonel believes the USA needs a base of operations, similar to that of the Islamic State needing a base of operations. He doesn't get it. The USA is not going to have soldiers as convenient targets for militants and extremists in the Middle East. The USA Navy is stationed in Italy and there is a base in Qatar. Not every country in the Middle East is going to have a convenient base for their pleasure? Is that it? Every country in the Middle East is going to be a territory of the USA because I'll tell you something, it hasn't done a darn thing for Turkish autonomy.
There are two bases in Turkey as a matter of fact, Incirlink (clear here) and Izmer Air Base (click here).
To the right is the location of the USA military base in Al Udeid Air Base, Abū Nakẖlah, Qatar.
The military authorities that come out to state the USA has to have a permanent base in Iraq does not understand nor cares to understand the people of that region. They defame them by stating the leaders of the governing bodies are not capable of governance, yet they play this game of putting all the ethnicities and religions into one room and states they will be functional now.
The people of Iraq are capable of voting and whether or not the USA likes it they are capable of governance. When the USA was in Iraq it was Maliki's private militia killing whoever the Prime Minister believed to be the problem. Now, today, the people of the USA finally see the folly in all that. American soldiers are not going back to the Middle East to some government's private militia terrifying populous of people nearly as much as the Islamic State.
The country of Iraq may or may not succeed in their ability to organize around the concept of a 'melting pot' as the USA did for so long. If they don't than the USA is going to have to accept their government for what it is. The USA is providing air support along with a coalition of countries. Does Mr. Nagl actually believe those countries are not capable of their own governance in joining a coalition to organize their own military prowess to destroy the evil that resides in Syria in the Islamic State? I happen to believe they can and should and succeed in protecting their countries and it's borders.
Nagl wants 15,000 troops in Iraq FOREVER.
I don't think so.
We don't belong in Iraq.
We never did.
