Leaders Of Iraq's Anbar Province Call For US Ground Forces To Stop ISIS

[big_dog]

Source: CNN.com 1 hour ago

Leaders in Iraq's western Anbar province pleaded Saturday for U.S. ground forces to halt the relentless advance of ISIS, while hundreds of kilometers away in the city of Kobani, Kurdish fighters desperately struggled to hold off the advancing extremist group.

The situation in Anbar, just to the west of Baghdad, is "very bad," the president of Anbar Provincial Council told CNN by phone on Saturday. Sabah Al-Karhout said the council has intelligence that ISIS has dispatched as many as 10,000 fighters to Anbar from Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq.

The council's deputy head, Falleh al-Issawi, told CNN that it had asked the central government to intervene immediately to save the province from imminent collapse -- and to request the deployment of U.S. ground forces there. That would be a significant shift, since the Iraqi government has until now been adamant that it does not want U.S. forces on the ground. President Barack Obama has also previously ruled out the use of U.S. ground troops.

The Iraqi government said it has not received any official request from Anbar province for U.S. military intervention and ground forces to help in the fight against ISIS, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's media office said Saturday. "If we receive any request, we will look into it and we will give our recommendation, but thus far we have not received any request," the office said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/11/world/meast/isis-threat/index.html

[dmosh42]

1. Sorry, you had over ten years to get your shit in order!

[L0oniX]

17. It didn't help that we bombed the fuck out of their country.

I mean ...wouldn't it be hard to get stuff in order after it's all been fucked up? It's not like they were a very advanced country in the first place. Can you compare it to the restoration time length of Japan or Germany?

[TwilightGardener]

2. They couldn't wait for us to leave. Now they're getting their asses kicked

despite our training and weapons, and suddenly they want our guys to come in, stand and fight and die INSTEAD of them. How about a big fat "noooooooo"? (Although I feel certain our advisors/special forces are moving closer to the action as things heat up.)

[big_dog]

3. let the brave female Kurds clean this mess up

[TwilightGardener]

4. Unfortunately the Kurds are busy keeping ISIS out of Kurdistan, they wouldn't be

expected to fight in Anbar--that's predominantly Sunni, and where we lost the most troops the last time around from many Sunni insurgents joining Al Qaeda. Also why we shouldn't put any real numbers of American troops there again--they'll just be targets.

[big_dog]

5. where are the Iraqi Kurds in the north, last I heard some were in Syria?

at least they have something to fight for

[amandabeech]

12. Most of them are native Syrian Kurds.

There are Kurdish populations in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

[rtracey]

10. why

After Iraq under Hussein gassed the Kurds, you think they are going to bail out Iraq......let them defend their territory, kill as many ISIS fucks as possible, and go on....

[L0oniX]

16. Well ...we weren't invited in the first place.

[EEO]

6. No.

[belzabubba333]

7. we're not falling for that again

[humbled_opinion]

8. Boots on the ground, Boots on the ground...

Kowtowing starts in ...3, 2, 1,......

[L0oniX]

15. Doc Martin will be happy.

[louis-t]

9. Republicans want to give ISIL exactly what they want.

Sorry, your neighbors are going to have to get involved first.

[amandabeech]

11. From CNN's on air report about an hour ago with Ben Wedeman in Baghdad:

Car bombs going off inside Baghdad--reports that ISIS has cells inside Baghdad.

Trip to the front about 20 miles west of Baghdad put on by the Iraqi Government. Troops look well-equipped and have decent attitude. Wedeman said that on government sponsored trips reporters get to see what the government wants. Wedeman said that the local army practice was for troops to pay their commanders to allow the troops to go home and be with their families rather than man their posts. Not good if you are expecting an attack at any time.

ISIS has surrounded the al-Haditha dam and the town of the same name. The dam is on the Euphrates River and supplies electricity and water to the surrounding river. If ISIS should blow the dam, there would be flooding and lack of electricity.

ISIS is attacking 8 miles from the Baghdad Airport where the Apache helicopters are based. If you read the whole CNN article, it says that we lost two Apaches this week. There is no mention as to where the Apaches went down or what happened to their crews. The Apaches were originally meant to protect the US Embassy. Well, I guess that they are mounting a forward defense.

There was no mention of the A-10s that a CNN military analyst said were on the way, and no mention of any C-130 gunships, either. No mention of Iranian groups prepared to come in and keep ISIS out of Baghdad. Nor has there been any mention of drawing a defensive perimeter further south to protect the southestern Iraqi oilfields. See the first map in this collection:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Iraq+oil+fields+map&client=firefox-a&hs=sIP&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&imgil=4gHOKw_YM_oRCM%253A%253BLWfCN-OdbpRjWM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252F%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.vox.com%252F2014%252F8%252F11%252F5988377%252Fkurdistan-oil%3B400%3B453

It looks like there will be a massacre at Kobani, and that is bad, but there is trouble brewing around Baghdad and its nine million people, and at this point, CNN isn't showing much that would allow one to conclude that Baghdad will be defended. How much mission creep will there be when the fighting comes to the capital? How much mission creep will there be if ISIS tries to move south into the Shia areas surrounding the southeastern Iraqi oil fields? I really don't have any good answers.

[TwilightGardener]

19. I don't believe we lost any Apaches, despite what the article says, although

Iraq lost two of its helicopters (different models). I don't think we gave Iraqis any Apaches, though I could be wrong on that. If WE lost a couple, plus crews, that would be big news, I would think.

[roamer65]

13. Let Tehran deal with it.

I would support an Iranian invasion of the Shia south of Iraq all the way up including Baghdad. That would stop the IS advance and force the Iranians to deal with a problem they helped create.

[L0oniX]

14. I take it that was a collect call.

[Kingofalldems]

18. I bet free republic wants troops on the ground also.

[Volaris]

20. And are the Leaders of Anbar Province SURE they want to be an Occupied Territory again?

Here's my crazy solution to ALL OF THIS...
Give ISIS EXACTLY what they want. Let's have an international conference whereby, we see if we can't just let them build their own large scale, regional caliphate. Let every "state" or group that wants in come to the table, agree to a set of GENERAL rules that they can ALL live by, and lets see if they can actually SELF GOVERN. Part and Parcel to the negotiations is that borders get redrawn (the Kurds and Palestinians get their own semi-autonomous States ETC), and every state is equal to another in a larger house or branch of Caliphate Government.
Sort of like an Islamic Constitutional Convention, if you will. I don't think there's a good reason it couldn't work.

The only reason that there aren't still armed border disputes between Kentucky and Tennessee is because BOTH of them know that if they do that, the UNION ARMY will come down there and not give a SINGLE, solitary fuck WHO they have to kill in the name of maintaining Domestic TRANQUILITY.

No reason a Greater Caliphate government couldn't do the same between Member States...
It would require us NOT giving a damn if the Saudi Royal Family doesn't get to rule anymore...

We can't run the whole damn world, it's too large and too dynamic, and it COSTS too much.