What should the world do If/When IS raise the ancient site of Palmyra to the ground ?

symyjym said:

At the end of the day this was all about Bush’s overwhelming desire to kill Saddam and nothing else mattered. .

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Norman Baker suck my lozenge said:

I would imagine the British government will welcome them home with a open arms,maybe even a ticker tape reception.

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RexCathedra said:

I'm not sure nothing else mattered. Bush was installed by the Supreme Court, after losing the popular vote, and began his term pre 9/11 with some of the lowest polling figures in history for a president at that stage. 9/11 fervour wasn't enough, not by itself. The mid-term elections were coming up, the economy was in the toilet. Afghanistan wasn't a big enough war to make one a real 'wartime president' in the Lincoln/WIlson/Roosevelt mold. And Osama obstinately refused to get captured.

But there's one sure-fire way to pump up the polls -- ¿como se dice 'Malvinas' en inglés?

So the drumbeat for war began in the summer of 2002 -- Iraq wasn't just about revenge -- it was also the world's most expensive campaign commercial. And it delivered two elections -- 2002 and 2004. If they hadn't made the dog's breakfast out of it, it would have delivered 2006 as well.

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RexCathedra said:

Bush on his own couldn't have done Iraq. There had to be sufficient political reward -- walk the elections, write the tax code, nominate the judges, direct the regulatory agencies -- to cover the risk for all the players involved.

The idea was to reduce the Democrats in Congress to an irrelevant rump, and run a de-facto one party state for a generation there was something in it for everyone. You'd need a war to pull it off, though. At the end of the day you could have invaded someone else, gotten the political payoffs, and if George Jr's revenge fantasy goes unfilled... well, that's too damn bad.

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hans kraay fan club said:

This

There is an in depth piece on the threat to Palmyra on the BBC site. There are comments from the local people, bemoaning the fact that 'the West' seems more concerned with the fate of the cultural heritage than that of the human beings who are suffering.

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TomandJerry said:

"Islamic State militants in Libya say they have seized the airport in the city of Sirte, as the group continues to make advances in the country.

The news was announced by the group and by a Libyan militia that withdrew from the coastal city's airport on Thursday.

Most of Sirte, former leader Muammar Gaddafi's hometown, fell to IS last week.

In a statement, the group said it had also seized the Great Man Made River water project.

The irrigation project, the world's largest, supplies fresh water to Libyan cities and was also the base for the opposition Battalion 166, which has now fled."

So do they now have airliners to fly around in?

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