Great news comrades!
We have won in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are slowly returning our victorious hero soldiers home!
NZ troops coming home from Iraq, staying in Afghanistan for at least another 18 months
New Zealand troops will soon be coming home from Iraq in the next year, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.
But troops will remain in Afghanistan for at least another 18 months, although with a new focus.
We are so brave and we need to have a victory rally in every city to welcome our triumphant boys and girls home!
I would have thought winning in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been leading news on all the networks, but I must have missed that announcement.
Now cynics might suggest that this entire clusterfuck of an invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan that has cost 6 trillion dollars, that has murdered at least half a million and has left at least $100billion in reconstruction costs was a horrific and illegal over reaction to 9-11 that was seized upon by US Hawks for geopolitical purposes and that our own military involvement in war crimes that killed citizens and breached the Geneva convention should be a stain upon our honour and integrity.
But screw the cynics eh! Mission Accomplished! Let’s do our ‘aren’t we so brave and heroic’ dance.
The real reason we are getting the hell out while Canada is increasing its involvement is because the Iranian sanctions will cripple the Iraqi economy and plunge the region into more radicalism. We really don’t want to be anywhere near the region when that ticking time bomb goes off.
We can’t evaluate our role in this war crime of an invasion because we are too close to it and don’t want to sully the engagement, but history will judge us as merely a poodle of deeply flawed US foreign policy, the involvement of which made our soldiers commit war crimes.
Invading Iraq and Afghanistan was always wrong, and the speed with which the situation will implode again will be our legacy once we leave.
Mission accomplished.
Given that the Iraqi government wants all foreign troops out of the country, leaving is a good idea
We’re the cheapest mercs available
“The real reason we are getting the hell out while Canada is increasing its involvement is because the Iranian sanctions will cripple the Iraqi economy and plunge the region into more radicalism. We really don’t want to be anywhere near the region when that ticking time bomb goes off.”
Nailed it Martyn
Where ever the Yanks go, they leave a trail of misery and destruction
No wonder so many refugees are heading north from Latin America. They are escaping the right wing regimes and death squads financed and supported by Washington
A disgrace for Kiwis being involved in an Yankee resource grab and killing approx 1.4 million in the process. All oil assets now in the hands of private US corporate.
Helen Clark lied to us about the SAS involvement.
911 – reaction – hardly. 911 was a mood settler used to get US taxpayer support to spend trillions in a one sided illegal war, to fill the pockets of US billionaires.
The view of the Illegal Iraq / Afghanistan slaughter and theft is very different outside of NZ, Oz and others countries who took part in the shameful, despicable assault on a war trodden population without any cause.
The oil assets were put on the market but not bought by American corporates (the prime US goal was assertion of global power, and privatising ownership of socialist state oil).
If you follow the money the oil is in hands controlled from the US alliance and entrenched investor bodies.
Mercenary armies are another matter.
Our defence force has beaten the baddies and clubbed some peace and democracy into our middle eastern cuzzies. Yeah right. Westerners will probably never be safe visiting these countries ever again thanks to these fucking psychopaths masquerading as freedom fighters. And now we have a NZ$20 billion miltary spend on our next foe…climate change. Yes we need to purchase drones to surveil the evil sea level rise monster.
Removal of the Taleban for hosting a terrorist group was not (in principle) wrong.
Though the difficulty of then having the responsibility for installing new government (and difficulty of western nation building in another culture) was a known before the regime change in Iraq.
At least we were not then part of that more tenuous regime change in Iraq. And our subsequent involvement – security for development was good-willed.
Our recent involvement in training Iraqis to defend their country from Islamic State was a responsible one, and given its mission has been achieved, its timely to leave. Know when to fold them.
Given we are not a bullied state like Canada (NAFTA+) we had more freedom to act as we see it.
And yeah by all objective opinion, American aggression to Iran will exacerbate the Sunni-Shia divide and thus make stability in Iraq more tenuous. Given we have to this point disengaged when the Americans are making things worse it was/is time to go.
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