Memo to Hillary (and POTUS) : What happens when you arm sort-of allies who then turn into opponents:

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Peter Van Buren ‏@WeMeantWell 1h
Memo to Hillary: What happens when you arm sort-of allies who then turn into opponents: http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2014/08/11/u-s-bombing-own-weapons-in-iraq/ … #ISIS #Iraq

So about this time you’re asking yourself “How could the situation in Iraq become any more awful and absurd?”

. . . It looks like some of the stuff the U.S. is now blowing up in Iraq is some of the stuff the U.S. first brought to Iraq to blow up Iraqis in 2003, then gave to the Iraqis after we were done blowing them up and left in 2011, only to see those same Iraqis abandon the gear on the battlefield last month so it could be picked up by ISIS this week, which led to the U.S. bombing it today.

. . . When the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Division broke and fled ahead of the advancing columns of ISIS fighters near Mosul earlier this summer, they left behind a mountain of U.S.-supplied military equipment. Included were were hundreds of Humvees, small arms and ammunition (including 4,000 machine guns that can fire upwards of 800 rounds per minute), and as many as 52 American M-198 howitzer mobile gun systems – the same guns that two US Navy F/A-18s most likely pounded with 500 pound laser guided bombs on Friday.

Obama gave the green light for strikes anywhere in Iraq where U.S. citizens were in danger, so CENTCOM commander Lloyd Austin gave the order to strike on Friday when it was determined that the city of Erbil was in range of the American-lost guns. All of the Americans being protected in Erbil are there because the U.S. government put them there, including U.S. Consulate staff and Special Forces. Presumably those personnel could have been moved out, thus avoiding this whole thing.

Now the good news here is for the U.S. defense industry, which has achieved the state of karmic perfection. The weapons they once sold to the U.S. are now being destroyed by other weapons they sold to the U.S., which will need to be replenished. Why, it’s a win-win situation for nearly everybody!


read more: http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2014/08/11/u-s-bombing-own-weapons-in-iraq/

related:

Hillary Clinton: I Wanted to Arm Syrian Rebels, But Obama Refused

US to directly arm Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq

Unedited Politics ‏@UneditedPol 27m
In 2012, Hillary Clinton Said Syrian Rebels Not “Viable,” Arms Could Help Al Qaeda – 8/11/14 http://wp.me/p2VWF6-g67