Set me straight. 21,496 Iraqis have been killed since we pulled out in 2011 and we did very little.

[El Supremo]

Now since ISIS/ISIL has arisen, we decide to resume our fighting. Are they any different than all the past insurgents? Other than being more successful? Will our military attacks help at all? Won't there just arise some other bunch of Sunni murderers? What if they win? Then won't some bunch of Shi'a murderers start?

We hosed this country (if you can call it a country). We don't need to continue the mistake. They need to fix it themselves. As long as they don't attack other countries we need to stay out! I don't count Syria. It has its own civil war and ISIS/ISIL is just part of it.

[dipsydoodle]

1. aka vested interests.

.

[malaise]

5. Ding ding we have a winner

That oil must be rescued

[Enrique]

2. it seems different to me

the insurgents we had been fighting had tons of support, ISIS/ISIL has very little popular support. Of course, if we play our cards wrong our involvement could end up with them getting more support.

I have to be honest, my knowledge of the situation is pretty shallow, but that's how I see it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. I'm guessing the prior sunni v. shia fights

didn't drag in the Kurds or make explicit their desire to completely kill off every single person who wasn't exactly the "correct" kind of sunni.

I'm thinking Biden was more right than people knew, and that the nation of 'Iraq' created by Brits from three very separate groups of people was a really bad idea. Maybe they should have been allowed to separate out into three parts by ethnicity, with sunni ruling sunni, shia ruling shia, and kurd ruling kurd.

Hell, after a couple of hundred years, our own major division is full blown again, with half the country basically wanting to return to the Confederacy. We're at least not widescale killing each other, but we certainly don't get along well.

[El Supremo]

4. I'm all for splitting Iraq into three countries. The problem with that is...

the Sunnis wouldn't have any of the oil fields.

[malaise]

6. Is it yours to split?

There are folks out there who would split up the US as well? Would you support that?

[El Supremo]

8. Was it ours to make in the first place in 1920?

And split the US? Not now.

[napi21]

7. This group is different.

You gotta believe if Al Qieda rejected them because they were way to violent, that sure makes them really bad. I also don't recall hearing any group who made a common practice of beheading those who disagrred with them and then threatened others with those heads on a stick! There are a lot of unique things in this intervention. the Kurds have always been on our side and of course the Turks. Those 40,000 people isolated on that mountain top are a sect of the Kurds, and dropping food & water to them is something we should do for anyone, let alone those who are on our side in this mess. AFAIK the air strikes are to keep ISIS away from access to that mountain and give those stranded a shot at getting away and back to Kurdish terratory.

I believe the Prez. when he said we will NOT go back into Iraq to fight another war.

[El Supremo]

9. Killing is killing.

The Shia's and Sunnis have been massacring each other in much larger numbers.

And what makes the Yazidi any different than all the other group in the world that we haven't protected from genocide?

[Gman]

10. Wrong answer

Genocide and slaughter must not be allowed to exist.

[El Supremo]

13. Dream on.

Unless oil is involved. (notable exception is Bosnia)

[napi21]

11. The diff. I think, is that we feel guilty for the invasion of zziraq anad the killing of

Sadam Hussein. He was a rotten guy, but he DID keep the radically insane groups like ISIS controled. None of this would be happening if we had justt minded our own business. (Thank you GWB!)

[randome]

12. Some people hear the word 'Iraq' and go apeshit.

Forget about what Bush, Junior did that decimated that country unnecessarily. What is happening now and can we do anything to help?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

[El Supremo]

14. A noble goal!

So we are the policeman of the whole world?

Most of the time we try to do that we fail miserably.