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Militiamen withdraw from U.S. Embassy but Iraq tensions linger

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By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and JOSEPH KRAUSS

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Iran-backed militiamen withdrew from the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Wednesday after two days of clashes with American security forces

This is no Benghazi. Trump ordered the reinforcements to protect the embassy.

In an orchestrated assault, hundreds of militiamen and their supporters broke into the embassy compound, destroying a reception area, smashing windows and spraying graffiti on walls 

They're lucky they all didn't get shot. This is U.S. territory inside the walls. Incredible restraint.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Donald Trump is the weakest foreign policy “president” of our lifetimes.

And so now we begin spending millions of dollars on a dozen or so Congressional investigations to find out what happened, with the Secretary of State being grilled on a hotplate for 20 or 30 hours.

That's what we going to do now, right, Republicans? Am I right? I said, am I right?.......

-5 ( +5 / -10 )

Tensions have steadily risen since Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and embarked on a campaign of maximum pressure through economic sanctions. Iran has responded by abandoning some of its commitments under the deal.

A predictable result that Trump seems completely unprepared to respond to.

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Who had greater control over Iraq? Saddam Hussein or the U.S. led military forces?

Does a country like Iraq need a nasty dictator to prevent it from coming apart?

4 ( +6 / -2 )

All the dead and maimed US servicemen and billions of dollars spent to remove Saddam Hussain only to put Iraq in the control of the Iranians....

That must hurt!

3 ( +6 / -3 )

The picture isn't of any helicopter. It is of an Osprey tilt-rotor.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Donald Trump is the weakest foreign policy “president” of our lifetimes.

Not according to the majority of soldiers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/veterans-trump-iraq-afghanistan.html

And so now we begin spending millions of dollars on a dozen or so Congressional investigations to find out what happened, with the Secretary of State being grilled on a hotplate for 20 or 30 hours.

That's what we going to do now, right, Republicans? Am I right? I said, am I right?.......

You guys wanted to impeach the guy, I mean.....

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

America destroyed the country, killed a million people

c’mon. Destroyed the country yes, but killed a “million people”? Hardly

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

There's a little hole in the narrative that the thousands of protesters who came out to tell the US they were REALLY no longer welcome in Iraq were Kataeb militia, and that is the numbers.

These militias aren't known for having large numbers of members just sitting around in Baghdad, far from where ISIS is, they're known for having just about every member close (often shouting, as well as shooting, range close) to where ISIS is active or trying to find an opportunity to be active.

They're also not known for having fleets of passenger airplanes or buses, just small trucks and some cars.

So, for even half of the thousands of protesters who collected around miniwashington (The sprawling complex of military barracks, secret police headquarters, and looting facilitation offices that the US calls an Embassy) to have been Kataeb members, they would have had to commandeer almost a thousand vehicles from the area around their camps, drive them all down the highways leading from ISIS territory to Baghdad, grabbing all the available fuel along those roads as they went, and then flooded the roads around Baghdad with enough cars and trucks to make a Tokyo rush hour sized traffic jam.

Oh, and do all this completely unseen by the US military surveillance that watches for EXACTLY that sort of large movements, from exactly that area, and in and around Baghdad.

Like basically every conspiracy theory, once you work out the timelines and numbers, the whole thing becomes ridiculous.

Oh, and feel free to do the math yourself, start with a map, figure out where Kataeb is concentrated, what roads lead from there to Baghdad, and then how many vehicles you want to be used to get a couple thousand people from point A to B. Then look at how much fuel, how close together the vehicles would be...

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Since when did troopers and VET's become politicians?

Probably around the same time the Pentagon has.

The Trump impeachment was going to happen from the day he was elected because he lacks both political and diplomatic experience. He's thinks he's above the laws.

Ok, it was all planned, this entire farce to overturn the election of a duly elected President by the people. I’m glad you admitted that, I just wish more Democrats would have a pair like you to admit that instead of putting the country through a dog and pony wasted spectacle.

America destroyed the country, killed a million people and had no exit or reconstruction plan. Poverty and unemployment are very high.

Then start off with Saddam, Iran, Al Qaida, Isis, I’m not saying the US and allied forces are not in some way responsible, but to put the blame solely on the US is just wrong and not dealing with reality. Liberals need to stop doing that, it undercuts all of their arguments.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Can’t make up their liberal media minds. Militiamen, then protestors, then militia then protesters. All the narrative makers are still on vacation, they will get this directly blamed on Trump shortly.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Blacklabel: Can’t make up their liberal media minds.

What are you thoughts about Iraq, Trump's foreign policy, and Iranian interference?

You don't have to answer if you lack the confidence.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I am not a democrat,

But you’re also nowhere near a conservative either...

I don't have an American voting right. But the actions of Trump were easy to predict his actions would cause him to be impeached by 100% his own criminal actions.

Nonsense and impeached for what, we still don’t have a clear definition, but at least we can thank the Dems for his re-election, it’s helped him a lot. I’m just happy we have a President that’s trying his best to get out of these wars even though the Pentagon wants to stay in them, but this egregious act does need a serious response.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Zichi

thanks for the #’s. It’s so horrible what my country has done. I was activated during the first gulf war back in 92. It opens your eyes. There is a theory that Washington green lighted the invasion of Kuwait. And we all know how CNN entertained the nation with fake news about babies being thrown out of incubators. This is hardly Trumps fault, it is the Deep State.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

That is correct.

For the record, that’s a good starting point.

Time for all American troops to leave just like Trump promised.

After retribution is done in whatever form it takes, I agree.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Iraq: we have wasted enough time and money and blood on them. They won’t even defend our embassy against Iran militia in their own country.

trump foreign policy: totally support. NATO needs to pay up and UN can handle the world police stuff. America first in everything.

irsn interference: would not have been possible without the money from Obama administration and support of John Kerry.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Invade a country and then totally destroy it and kill a million of its citizens and then complain when they don't say thank you.

Uhhh, the sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia did the majority of the damage.

No other country asked America to invade Iraq.

They don’t have to.

Saudi, an American ally are a greater supporter of terrorism than Iran.

Both are supporters of terrorism, but with the Saudis we protect the royal family, they keep Iran contained and we have diplomatic relations with them.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Didn’t stop the previous President from visiting and bowing to their King or his Secretary of State from accepting 25 million in donations to her Foundation. so they took money from and bowed down to terrorist supporters?

or does this only matter after Trump was elected? Saudi isn’t attacking our embassy, getting our taxpayer money in cash or developing nukes. Try again.

Saudi, an American ally are a greater supporter of terrorism than Iran.

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

Little question, wouldn't the protesters, if they were militiamen as the article claims, have obeyed their commanders when they called for people to leave, and not cared what the civilians of the rather suspect and untrusted government said?

On the other hand, if they were the sort of ordinary Iraqis found in Baghdad, they might just wait until they were sure that that rather suspect and untrusted government had heard their message that the US had to get out of Iraq, and if the government wasn't going to make that happen, the people would try doing it themselves.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Do you get this sinking feeling that things are spiraling out of control and the executive doesn't know how to deal with it? One would think the Baghdad issue was foreseeable.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Crazy: Donald Trump is the weakest foreign policy “president” of our lifetimes.

That statement has no basis in reality.

And so now we begin spending millions of dollars on a dozen or so Congressional investigations to find out what happened, with the Secretary of State being grilled on a hotplate for 20 or 30 hours.

That's what we going to do now, right, Republicans? Am I right? I said, am I right?

Wrong.

Tensions have steadily risen since Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and embarked on a campaign of maximum pressure through economic sanctions. Iran has responded by abandoning some of its commitments under the deal.

SuperLib: A predictable result that Trump seems completely unprepared to respond to.

Uh, no, that deal sucked, it was going to let Iran eventually get nukes. Instead of giving pallets of cash to the Iranians for them to fund terrorism, Trump has put the financial screws on them, whilst avoiding war.

zichi: Saudi, an American ally are a greater supporter of terrorism than Iran.

You mean Saudi Arabia? Yeah, Saudi Arabia has been an American ally for generations. Obama had no problem with them.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Crazy: Do you get this sinking feeling that things are spiraling out of control and the executive doesn't know how to deal with it? 

No. The Iranian-backed militia got spiraled out of our embassy though.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

What a great decision it was to invade Iraq. By a bunch of “foreign policy experts”

3 ( +3 / -0 )

America gets to own what it did to Iraq and Afghanistan, America's longest war. Both costing about $7 trillion

ha

is cost really important when ALL the first world nations are printing their own money?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Liberals don’t even want to talk about how Trump could respond so quickly and decisively to prevent a Benghazi type situation from happening.

Last administration claimed nothing they could do in response to people mad about a video (lie and lie).

“Trumps Benghazi“ claims liberal media. Yes it was! No one killed and our embassy is controlled by us and all the militants are gone because Marines are in control.

“Trumps Benghazi” just shows how incompetent the last administration was.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Trump's Benghazi!

LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Trump's Benghazi!

Hmmm...did we lose another ambassador? Did we lose a special forces soldier or a CIA operative?

Yeah, I thought not.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

interestingly it took this event for liberals to admit what an unmitigated disaster and failure of leadership that Benghazi was.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Wakarimasen:

What a great decision it was to invade Iraq. By a bunch of “foreign policy experts”

So what is your opinion on the decision to destroy Libya. By foreign policy experts Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Blacklabel:

All the narrative makers are still on vacation, they will get this directly blamed on Trump shortly.

Easiest prediction ever. Orange baaaad!

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Yep Orangemanbad. No future evidence or explanation needed.

it’s hillaryious that liberals aren’t even self aware enough to realize that attacking Trump by calling this his Benghazi.....means finally admitting actual Benghazi which was 1000 times worse was a failed disaster.

that boomerang keeps coming right back around. It this is Trumps Benghazi he was pretty successful with it. Unlike others who got people killed cause they were asleep.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Where is the evidence that they are "Iran-backed".

It seems like anybody unhappy with US troops in the Middle East is labelled as "Iran-backed" by the media.

You got a lot of down votes on that one, however within the very first sentence under the photo it says, "In this photo provided by U.S. Department of Defense, the Army's AH-64 Apache helicopter from 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 34th Combat Aviation Brigade, prepares to conduct overflights of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019. Helicopters later launched flares as a show of presence while providing additional security and deterrence against protesters. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Khalil Jenkins, CJTF-OIR Public Affairs via AP)" Now obviously they cannot tell the difference between an Apache or an Osprey Helicopter, what makes anybody believe they can tell the difference between Iraq or Iran militiamen. After that sentence the whole article must be taken with a grain of salt, especially since the US has an embargo* on Iran and is itching for Iran to make one error and it'll be time to get the good old US into another losing shooting war. You have to keep in mind what *General Wesley Clark once said another General told him, "“I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” They're are a little off of their time table, but does that really matter, the US has invaded so many countries since WWII, you have to ask yourself, how many has Iran invaded, the one with the highest score is the aggressor. oh, and another thing, they didn't really win any of them, that's not the agenda obviously.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Where is the evidence that they are "Iran-backed".

If they are Hizbollah (Hisb-Allah), they are by definition Iran backed. Commentators might want to read up on the Sunni-Shia divide and who represents who in the region.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

that boomerang keeps coming right back around. It this is Trumps Benghazi he was pretty successful with it.

...and he did not scapegoat some little Youtuber with a made-up story, who subsequently had his life destroyed. The difference to Hillary Clinton is stark.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Just Iran pointing out how vulnerable US assets are in the Middle East.

Saudi our refineries trashed, tankers disabled and now embassies easily taken....

US paper tiger?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Hardly, now if we had an ambassador killed a CIA operative and a Special service agent and a coverup, he would indeed.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

...and he did not scapegoat some little Youtuber with a made-up story, who subsequently had his life destroyed. The difference to Hillary Clinton is stark

Bingo.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

zichi;

The Trump impeachment was going to happen from the day he was elected

Yes. The "insurance policy", remember?

because he lacks both political and diplomatic experience. He's thinks he's above the laws.

No, because the swamp hated him as the outsider that he is and because he promised stop the criminal warmongering.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

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