Page 5 - Michaelo Hanlan News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You know, we might still be occupying western iraq today, with a substantial number of troops. look, who negotiated the reduction of our troops and the withdrawal? not barack obama, george w. bush did in 2008. and then, you know, i agree with michael o'hanlan that the obama administration can be criticized for some things and he wanted to get the troops out by 2012. undoubtedly partly for electoral purposes. but look at that another way, chris. he campaigned in 2008 on getting those troops out. that was a campaign promise he made to the american people. the other guy, john mccain, was promisin...

This is where we could also be critical. if you want to learn from history, you can say, anytime you go to war, you better be prepared for it to be a lot more ugly than you might first hope. and mr. rumsfeld and others at the pentagon did not have a plan that allowed for that possibility. that's where i've been the most critical, and i think that senator rubio, for example, could have chosen that tact. >> well, the situation in iraq is a function of what happened back in 2003 and what happened subsequent to that. let me stay with you, michael o'hanlan. it seems to me they sold the war as absol...

>> a group of separatists can't shoot down military transport planes, or they claim, shoot down fighter jets without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training. and that is coming from russia. >> and on top of that, michael, at brooke,ininbrookings, at you you have a piece up saying the most damning evidence so far, separatist leader igor wrote, an antonov-26 has just been shot down crashing somewhere near the mine called process. we have warned you, do not fly in our air space. the ukrainian air force flies transport aircraft and the posting is consistent with the time and location of...

Guess. putin himself is probably the best example of that. he goes out of his way time and again to explain how little leverage and influence he has over the -- what they call pro-russia separatists. those are their arms. those are their attacks. those are their bombs. while in reality, look at the kind of adoring relationship that the separatists had during the official crimea handover back in march or april. putin looked like a grandfather surrounded by his little cubs there. his military intelligence people are training those pro-russian separatists. and he conveniently stayed out of that w...

They're only sending three people, two people from the fbi and one from the ntsb or three people total and to kiev, not to the crash site itself so far. so there are real risks there. it's unclear whether that is the way to strengthen the government in kiev or whether money and munitions is the best way right now going forward. >> yeah, and michael, on that same point, on the idea of strengthening militarily that government so they could actually go in and start to really fight and stand up to these rebels. what are the chances of that coming from the international community or even from the u...