We are slowly withdrawing from Iraq
This slipped waaayyy under the radar. I almost missed it entirely.
This was from a couple months ago.
The shift from a U.S. combat role to one focused on training and advising the Iraqi security forces was announced in April, when a joint U.S.-Iraqi statement said this transition allowed for the removal from Iraq of any remaining U.S. combat forces on a timetable to be determined later. It did not specify what combat functions the U.S. was engaged in then, nor did Biden get into such specifics on Monday.“We’re not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission,” he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say how many troops would remain in Iraq by year’s end.
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The Iraqi prime minister made clear before his trip to Washington that he believes it’s time for the U.S. to wind that mission down.
“There is no need for any foreign combat forces on Iraqi soil,” al-Kadhimi told The Associated Press last weekend.
OK. That doesn't mean much. I remember when Obama declared an end to a combat mission in Afghanistan. In 2014. Where even the ceremony was interrupted by a Taliban attack.
So why should this be any different?
Because this item came out last month.
Head of Joint Operations Command of the Iraqi army Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji told the Iraq News Agency (INA) that the US troops have started their withdrawal in large numbers.Al-Khafaji said that the United States has not made any requests to continue the presence of its troops in Iraq.
The commander added the US side has said it will abide by the agreements reached in the strategic dialogue and that December 31 will be the last day of the US military presence in Iraq.He claimed that the US military cooperation with Iraq will be limited to advising missions
This is encouraging. It's something tangible.
I must admit that Biden has so far been a mildly pleasant surprise when it comes to foreign policy.
Way back at the start of 2020, the Iraqi government officially demanded that we leave.
The Trump Administration officially dared them to make us.
The winner in the election of a couple weeks ago was Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's party.
He opposes all foreign interference in Iraq, whether by the United States, against which he fought an insurgency after 2003, or by neighbouring Iran, which he has criticized for its close involvement in Iraqi politics.Sadr, however, is regularly in Iran, according to officials close to him, and has called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, where Washington maintains a force of around 2,500 in a continuing fight against Islamic State.
For those of you with longer memories, Sadr organized his followers that resisted the U.S. occupation in several bloody battles in 2004.
Meanwhile, we still have no intention of ending our illegal occupation of Syria.
Comments
I would be good to see it happen but it is more like musical
chairs.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/10/13/US-troops-stay...
https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/131020211
chairs.
I'm not pleasant.
Henchmen/Henchwomen to major meetings involving major countries with the message to do as we say and not as we do?
Our relations with countries that are changing the world, against our wishes, are appalling at best.
I don't blame biden. I blame those who give him credit for anything that happens in a positive note.
The man is basically a puppet for his doctor jill to manipulate.
It's a nancy raygun redux.
Peace will only come with the removal of the exceptional one. The exceptional one will not accept peace.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
That's a bad attitude
I've personally given Trump credit for doing a few things right, and I hate him.
I'm going to be consistent. Biden is awful, but he gets some things right.
It costs me nothing to stay consistent.
I'm not known as pricknick for nothing.
I was born to be what I am. I wasn't trained.
Consistency is commendable. For that I give you great credit.
Biden was trained to be what he is. A good dog always pays homage to those that feed him but not beat him. He's absolute shit on a good day and an absolute horror on a bad one.
You can always find nice things to say about anyone. Some don't deserve your gratitude.
To you I give mine.
Peace
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Yes, Hitler was good to his Alsatian dog
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I suggest you're both wrong
For at least 5 years now - FAR longer, by some measures! - the American Throne has stood empty, save for a series of mannequins and rotten jack-o-lanterns; the Deep State has demonstrated its autonomy.
Remember Rule 1 of Being American: There are no kings, here. One guy along the way sure as hell tried, and in so doing reminded us of why we don't want that.
At the moment, the "President" might as well be Terry Schiavo; credit goes to the same source it did for the 2006 elections: The heartless Pimp-Hand of Reality.
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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I'm the only person
I have ever known who likes Joe Biden. I've felt he is a highly placed corrupt politician who can only stomach so much hypocrisy among his colleagues and therefore regulary blurts out the ugly truth. Hence, the attribute, "Biden's Gaffes."
The most important of his gaffes occurred in October 2014 when he stated that our problem in the Middle East was our allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who were arming Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
I thought, when I read that statement, they're going to kill him. But they didn't, and they've been promoting him since. The "They" I refer to is the Deep State War Machine Fascist control of our government.
The most profound point reinforcing my belief Biden may be fighting the Deep State happened the week before he took us out of Afghanistan. A British news source released a laptop video of his son Hunter naked, sitting on a bed with a naked woman, telling her his Russian drug dealers had additional laptop video of him doing the same thing, doing drugs and having sex, and that they could therefore control his father, who, he said, was running for president.
A week later, Biden took us out of Afghanistan anyway. As a person who has respected his candor, while facing the reality that he is part of the problem, I can only see his courage in calling their bluff that week as a willingness to draw lines and to demonstrate that for every bit of dark matter they have on him, he has more on them.
When did Washington D.C. become The Rocky Horror Picture Show???
Seeming idiot-savants, murderers, torturers, closeted Nazis, open sexual predators, useless investigators, backstabbing divas, highly-suspicious "doctors", roving packs of attack dogs, all manner of pathological relationships, suspiciously convenient coincidences, bizarre props, needlessly overdeveloped weapons wielded by people who don't know jack about technology, routine violations of privacy, astonishingly bad hair, institutions of Medieval royalty inappropriately placed in North America, "scenery changes" that amount to literally nothing more than replacing a layer of thin red film with a layer of thin blue film, decadence everywhere you look, and hecklers who make more sense than the professionals, all taking place at or near what can only be described as "some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos" - yet everyone declares, "It's so bad, it's GOOD!"
In fairness, however...there weren't any pedophiles at Frank's place.
In all seriousness, while I find the notion that anyone with Biden's track record is secretly a 4D chess grandmaster and Severus Snape-like double-agent against the Deep State even harder to believe than parallel claims made for Trump, I cannot fault you - indeed, I applaud you - for your courage, candor, and fundamental generosity of spirit.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Your description
of our state of affairs is beautiful, hilarious, and accurate! I don't think Biden is so much a 4D chess player as he is a disgusted participant in what he recognizes as hellish corruption. "... murderers, torturers, ... Nazis, ... sexual predators," as you say, that's who they are.
I recently saw a video of Biden in Ukraine praising the Nazi killers who overthrew their government as freedom loving revolutionaries. What crap, what diabolical horseshit. He lies with the rest of them, with his colleagues. He takes the money. A Ukrainian "energy holding company," whatever that is, paid his son $50,000 a month for years. Nobody asks how, in the second largest country in Europe that is somehow the second poorest country in Europe, such a company could pay that kind of money for influence. Where is the cash coming from? The Ukrainian economy is going down the drain. The IMF austerity measures require the end of school lunches and hospital meals, but somehow the energy "sector" is drowning in money. How?
I'm ranting in order to let you know I see Biden as an active part of the problem. But he's standing up to the Deep State about Afghanistan, even though, as others point out, it has no intention of letting him do that. Maybe he just wants to stick it to the cartel, to the heroin glory hole that enriches the Deep State, because his son is an addict.