Eight Hard-Headed Questions About The Third Iraq War

[Draggingtree]

The Federalist: Eight Hard-Headed Questions About The Third Iraq War

Let's apply the Powell Doctrine to the next Iraq war.

By Fred Cole SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

They say the junior officers in one war are the senior officers in the next. Colin Powell served two tours in Vietnam. The first was 1962 to 1963, cut short when his foot met the business end of a punji stick. The second time was in 1968. By then, he was in a position to see all the Army sausage being made. He could take the long view on what went right and what went wrong, and over the subsequent decades in Washington developed ideas about when and how the United States should go to war.

 

By the time first Iraq War came around, these ideas had solidified into what became known as the Powell Doctrine. It is a series of questions that must be answered in the affirmative before the United States engages in military action. They are a standard, the bare minimum necessary for the United States to go to war and conclude it sensibly. These questions are a rational examination of the situation and what every president and congressman should ask themselves before committing the United States to war.

A list of these questions is available on the Wikipedia.

[Valin]

 

 

 

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So guess you’re not for the Powell Doctrine not saying I’m for or against, So tell me how we should go forward on this threat, oh yes I do believe it a very serious threat.

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Meandering Expansion

Posted on

 

9 September 2014

by eehines

 

And it would have done LBJ proud. Now the US is taking potshots at ISIS terrorists threatening the Haditha Dam in Iraq’s al Anbar province. This dam on the Euphrates River backs up a large reservoir and holds a major hydropower plant.

The US’ first move was to take potshots at the terrorists who had trapped Yazidis, for humanitarian reasons.

That was followed, ad hoc, by US potshots at the terrorists who were holding the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River, http://aplebessite.com/2014/09/09/meandering-expansion/

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With Whom Among the Kurds Should We Work?

Posted on

 

10 September 2014

by eehines

 

How about with all of them?

 

President Barack Obama appears, finally, to be agreeable to arming the Pershmerga of the Kurds’ Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq and to be working a little more closely with them in where the US takes its potshots against ISIS forces—the Mosul Dam effort comes to mind in this context.

 

But that can’t be all of it, if ISIS is to be destroyed. That will require attacking ISIS in Syria as well as more serious efforts against ISIS in Iraq http://aplebessite.com/2014/09/10/with-whom-among-the-kurds-should-we-work/

[Valin]

 

 

 

 

So guess you’re not for the Powell Doctrine not saying I’m for or against, So tell me how we should go forward on this threat, oh yes I do believe it a very serious threat.

 

 

 

1 I've been in a real cranky mood lately, so I ask forgiveness.

 

2 ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..for the last 2-3 weeks you have not been about to swing a dead cat without seeing ISIL. ISIL/S is a symptom of the greater disease, which is a war going on inside Islam.

 

* 3. As regards to Powell Doctrine, it sounds real good and it appeals to the kind of war liberal democracies like, short followed by a big parade. The problem is it bumps into The Pottery Barn rule...you break it, you own it. We broke Iraq (this was a very very good thing, as Tom Barnett said "he was a real bad guy with multiple priors") then we left. The American electorate in the their infinite wisdom and based on deep analysis they read in their papers and watched on TV 5 years was just too long and they were tired/bored of this war, and we had to get out now, because.....because this is what we want! The Powell Doctrine is based on the false premise that you can have a short war and come home.

 

4. if we go back in (and we should0 someone really needs to tell people we're going to have to be there for the next 20 years (at least).

 

*

Apr 15, 2008

http://www.ted.com In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

[Draggingtree]

 

 

 

 

 

So guess you’re not for the Powell Doctrine not saying I’m for or against, So tell me how we should go forward on this threat, oh yes I do believe it a very serious threat.

 

 

 

1 I've been in a real cranky mood lately, so I ask forgiveness.

 

2 ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..ISIL..for the last 2-3 weeks you have not been about to swing a dead cat without seeing ISIL. ISIL/S is a symptom of the greater disease, which is a war going on inside Islam.

 

* 3. As regards to Powell Doctrine, it sounds real good and it appeals to the kind of war liberal democracies like, short followed by a big parade. The problem is it bumps into The Pottery Barn rule...you break it, you own it. We broke Iraq (this was a very very good thing, as Tom Barnett said "he was a real bad guy with multiple priors") then we left. The American electorate in the their infinite wisdom and based on deep analysis they read in their papers and watched on TV 5 years was just too long and they were tired/bored of this war, and we had to get out now, because.....because this is what we want! The Powell Doctrine is based on the false premise that you can have a short war and come home.

 

4. if we go back in (and we should0 someone really needs to tell people we're going to have to be there for the next 20 years (at least).

 

*

Apr 15, 2008

http://www.ted.com In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

 

You and I are on the same page “We broke Iraq, we own it”