re: Iraq's Fallujah falls to Qaeda-linked militants

Tragedy that we were ever there.... Sickening to think about.

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Fallujah was one of our hardest earned victories and to allow them to piss that away is very disturbing.

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Those people don't really care about all that. If it doesn't have to do with their tribe or religious sect, they can't be bothered.

It sucks they don't have the nuts to take control of a country that was handed to them, even though we should have never been there in the first place.

A Federal System will never be possible as long as the Iranians and Saudis are waging a proxy war. The subject of this post should really be Iraq 's Fallujah falls to Saudi linked militants.

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In theory a federal system that allowed self rule for each sect would dampen conflict

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I agree with that in theory, but I think the Sunnis and Shiites would still fight each other to see who really had control. IIRC, the way the US sponsored govt was set up was to have both sects share power, but it turned out that the PM had more power than the president or something similar to that. One was Sunni and the other Shiite (or maybe the other way around).

That coupled with the widespread corruption caused the people to not trust the govt and the sectarian violence got worse.

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I suspect they're going the Saddam route instead though - creating a powerful central state that will stamp out civil conflict with brute force.

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I imagine you are right, but I really don't think their military/police force have the balls to actually enforce laws. Especially the police who are usually from the neighborhoods they patrol and side with their family over govt. I can't blame them for not trusting the govt, though.

So why did I go to fallujah?

Should have left Saddam alone in the first place. He really wasn't any worse than our "allies" the Saudies in how he treated his citizens.

I did three tours in Iraq (2 in Baghdad) and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis I met said they missed Saddam because under Saddam everyone was afraid of him while now everyone was afraid of everyone and at least under Saddam you could walk down the street and go to a cafe and not risk dying.

Hope and Change
What difference does it make?
Ann Romney ha a mother fricking horse for the love of God.

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In theory a federal system that allowed self rule for each sect would dampen conflict.

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In Theory. I can't think of any successful states that combine two bitterly opposed ethno-religious groups. Nations like Belgium, Canada, etc have unique mitigating factors and even with their economic success are sharply divided culturally and have major secessionist political parties.

Cause you were told to. Just like the rest of us. Don't try to make it more than it is. It's depressing when you do that.

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IDK why they don't just split into 3 countries; seems like what everyone wants. I guess because that isn't what is in our best geopolitical interests.

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Splitting the south would be fairly simple. The big issue would be Mosul and the oil revenue in the north.

It's strange how we unlearn the lessons of the past. After WW1 and WW2 we supported the creation of largely homogenous states in Europe. We believed they were inherently more stable.