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If the US goes into a country saying, "We are coming to stamp out a subset of your population and then we are going to depart." then the people who stick up their heads do so for their own reasons and our departure does not represent a betrayal.
If we go into a country saying, "We are here for the long term. We think that your culture represents an ongoing threat and we are staying here until we change it substantially." and we do that, then the troops we send in to do this deed are aware of the level of our commitment, and the local people who stick their heads up know what the conditions are and what to expect.
When we go into a country saying, "Uh. Ehr. We are staying for a long ti...no we are leaving right now...no we are staying a bit longer it looks like..." then our own troops do not know what they have fought for and locals who stuck their heads up will be betrayed by our actions.
So I do not think the issue here is whether or not we should intervene but whether we know our own minds, express our goals, and keep our word.
Jan
The only way you are going to win a war in the Middle East is for their religion itself to be debunked as an absolute fraud or to destroy each and every last practitioner of it across the world. That's a billion people near last count. There's no other way to do it. That is the fundamental realization that all our politicians fail to grasp (along with basic economics).
You don't get an "I told you so" for self-fulfilling prophesy!
You don't get an "I told you so" for opposition to *invasion*. For opposition to intervention.
What has transpired is not the inevitable outcome of invading Iraq, but the outcome of crippling our war effort, of leftist do-gooderism, of being forced into nation-building *instead of conquest*.
We did not have a choice; this war was forced upon us. We had a choice of either fighting it full-force as we've fought wars in the past, or sitting behind our own shores, convinced in our non-exceptionalism, waiting for the next 9/11... and the next... *as we had done under the Clinton administration*.
Instead, the political class chose the middle course, which is always wrong; to invade, yes, but pretending we're invading WWII Italy and try to win hearts and minds which are unwinnable, rather than breaking asses into submission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3lQSxNd...
So, no, you don't get an "I told you so". You get an olive cluster medal (with dove overlay) for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
I was here when the tanks were waiting to roll. At that point, you could NOT predict this outcome, because at that point we had no idea that once again our military would win the battle (driving to Baghdad in 3 weeks) and our government, under another progressive Republican like Nixon, would give up our victory. *Every* indication was that we were going to war to win, that we were going to put our enemies into a hurt locker, and that the leftists so worried about persecuting Moslems would be quite properly ignored.
You get an "I told you so" the same way racists get an "I told you so" for predicting that the country would become a disaster under a black President. The mess we've made of the war is related to the invasion of Iraq the same way Obama's destruction of the country is related to his skin color; coincidental.
Are you going to scream "I told you so" again, when this exact same thing happens in Afghanistan? In Arizona?
Let's apply your logic to WWII... a special ops operation to take out Hitler would have solved everything... only it wouldn't have. It wouldn't have taken out the Party, it wouldn't have taken out the general staff, it wouldn't have taken out Mussolini, and it wouldn't have taken out Tojo.
In point of fact, Germany probably would have given us a much, much tougher fight *had* we taken Hitler out, thus letting the general staff actually fight the war rationally rather than based on Hitler's fantasies.
Where did we find bin Laden? In Pakistan, being succored by our good buddies... and how many tens of thousand of Pakis died as punishment for that? Zero. We are not serious, which is why we are not taken seriously.
This was not about taking out bin Laden as if we were going after Capone (we got Capone, how come the mafia didn't fold up and die? We got bin Laden, how come Al Qaeda didn't fold up and die?)
This war, in spite of Republican and Democrat progressive rhetoric, is a battle with fundamentalist Islam, which is out to establish itself as the dominant political power on the planet. I dunno about you, but I'm opposed to that. Seriously opposed to that. And I don't propose waiting until they're knocking (again!) on our front door before we crush them. *And those who succor them*.
As for the country becoming a disaster under a black President, the disaster we are in has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with altruism and fiscal irresponsibility. Herman Cain would have been a terrific president.
I don't know if Herman Cain would have been any good or not. Alan Keyes would have been, IMO.
As I like to say, it's not the black of his skin, but the red of his ideology that makes Obama a bad man.
Btw, the country is not becoming a disaster under a black President; we have no President.
I just wanted to clarify that in case someone accused me of ever referring to Obama as President. If you re-read my original comment, I attributed that to racists, not myself.
Nonsense such as "war for oil" and "Halliburton" are Leftist propaganda points that ignore the fact that multiple administrations and leaders in both political parties were concerned about a state-sponsored attack after 9-11 and considered Iraq as posing a high risk. The Clinton administration warned us of WMDs in Iraq, WMDs that might be smuggled over our porous borders. Also ignored is the fact that Iraq violated the cease fire it entered into after it was defeated for attacking Kuwait, thus eliminating their last claim of sovereignty.
Although I'm not sure how I feel about it, don't forget that Rand said that any county that does not recognize individual rights has no claim to legitimacy. She was talking about the USSR and all but advocated an invasion.
Our initial belligerence in the Mid-East caused several countries to become less aggressive and cooperate, Libya, Egypt and Pakistan being three.We were also supported by Turkey and other less radicalized Muslim countries. We have lost all of that by pandering to the Muslim Brotherhood and other radicals. The smart money is now on the religious collectivists and tyrants.
Finally, to say someone with a contrary view was correct in the past with no way of letting the alternate history play out into the present is a huge logical fallacy and not worthy of anyone dedicated to reason.
excuse for calling intervention a mistake,,, is this an
example of central planning being stupid??? -- j
Our country goes into endless nononsensical wars of attrition over philosophical issues when there is NO objective except: "Win the hearts and minds of people who don't think that the American way of life is the only option " ... and it never registers in their minds that attacking someone who has done nothing to you is something only a "bad guy" would do!
Even a little child would see the folly of this.
We didn't attack anyone who didn't do anything to us.
Only a fool worries more about being a "good guy" than about the survival of his nation.
Just like in Vietnam, we WON the war. And the asshat hippies protested until we finally backed out, leaving our friends (who stuck their heads out for us) high and dry to be murdered by the communists. And that they did.
Now, the same thing is happening in Iraq because "we need to get out".
So if ANY of you dickbags are glad we took all our troops out of Iraq, I'd like to give you a big giant middle finger right now. Thank you for getting our friends killed.
It's so bad now, if I was not American, there is NO way I would stick my neck out in my country to fight on the American side, so long as there was a sizable threat from the opposing side, because I have ZERO CONFIDENCE that America would stand behind me after I stood behind her, simply because "non-interventionists" will bitch and whine until they quit, leaving me to die.
America has no compelling interest in what is essentially a recrudescence of sectarian war in the Middle East. Both sides will play us against the middle for their own ends. Your screed fails to note that our Iraqi "friends" asked us to leave in 2011, after refusing to accept a Status of Forces agreement that would have given our military and intelligence personnel immunity from Iraq's laws and judicial processes. Keep in mind that Sadamm Hussein was once our Iraqi "friend," when he was fighting our Iranian "enemy," who will now presumably become our Iranian "friend" in the fight against ISIS.
I don't like decapitations, but I'd rather see Middle Easterners being decapitated in their centuries-old war than Americans who have been sent to execute incoherent polices among ever shifting alliances for allies who take us for all we'll got and reward our "friendship" with betrayal (our Saudi Arabian "friends" are providing arms and funding to ISIS). That's not bitching and whining, it is based on a hard-headed calculation of America's best interests.
One thing I've learned. When someone has to resort to calling names and crude gestures, they don't have a well thought out argument.
We left them high and dry. They stuck their necks out, and now they're being murdered. It's happened over, and over, and over in our history, with few exceptions. To the point that nobody with two nickels to rub together upstairs would ever believe our word anymore, thanks to the idiotic mindset that we should leave a place as soon as we can.
That's not how war works. You don't go in to "win kinda", you go in to win the damn thing and crush the face of the other guy into submission, so that he'll never think of screwing with you or your friends again.
Debate however much you want before it's started, that's fine, but once we're there, don't say a damn word about how we shouldn't be there, that we should get out, etc. That's called stupidity. It's like walking with one foot on each side of a picket fence. It's going to hurt your boys.
you points are excellent.
I am convinced that many in the US (the worlds police force... why we fear so many amazes me since we are the strongest) have no real understanding of most of the Middle East culture. In general, I would say they value life
(their own, their neighbors, their children's) much, much less then us in the USA or many, many other cultures.
They have been constantly killing each other their (more so than the rest of the world...) since
people harvested and saved grain after the invention of pottery.
Over the last 6000 years I think everyone who valued living more than death has been leaving the place. and Islam is the current belief system used to keep up the culture of death in the area - could have been another type.
It is misplaced hope/wishful thinking, power grab, political positioning, etc. that interventionists into the area continue to have.
This problem will only be fixed very slowly by people being more educated over time - too bad that process is also greatly inhibited by the current dominant culture - once a great source of knowledge.
Invaders into the area will, perhaps sadly, not solve anything. I am sure they will encourage resentment and resistance efforts (including local and remote, if possible, "terrorism").
YOUR
PREMISES
"because there is no way to win it."
Grant me complete and unfettered command of our armed forces (including requisitioning and logistics), and I'll win the war in a year.
There you go.
"America has no compelling interest in what is essentially a recrudescence of sectarian war in the Middle East"
So what? America has other interests in the region, namely, making Al Qaeda and ISIS collectively dead.
It was awful nice of them to stick their heads up so we can now chop them off (figuratively speaking).
What you will end up seeing is Americans being decapitated... in America.
And I don't *have* to resort to calling names or crude gestures... but I figure I might as well, because the terminally obtuse can at least get an idea of my sentiment since they're incapable of rational thought.
In the first place, Hussein wasn't our friend when he was fighting Iran; it was in our interest to keep them beating up ON EACH OTHER, which we did by trying to keep the balance of terror roughly equal.
See, here's the big flaw, caused by you and your ilk, and the rest of the "blame America" crowd...
"Your screed fails to note that our Iraqi "friends" asked us to leave in 2011, after refusing to accept a Status of Forces agreement that would have given our military and intelligence personnel immunity from Iraq's laws and judicial processes. "
And that's because you and your ilk wouldn't let us go in as conquerors; in your defense, I doubt you're among the truly suicidally moronic who liked the idea of us going in as do-gooder nation-builders, but the entire question of "asking us to leave" and of "a Status of Forces agreement"... shouldn't even enter into thought, much less discussion.
"We'll go when we decide to go. We may let you know before we leave.
"Americans are immune to Iraq laws and judicial processes because... America."
But that's harsh and selfish and not at all altruistic, so we can't (politically) do that.
It's the same freaking war we lost in the 70s; no, not Vietnam, which we didn't lose, but the political war here at home, that cost us Vietnam.
I'm not surprised, however. Just because a progressive has a Republican label, like Bush sr and jr, doesn't make him conservative, and it doesn't make him immune to the urge to be magnanimous and benevolent, inappropriately.
No, I'm not glad we took our troops out of Iraq... when we did. If it weren't for you "dickbags" (his word, not mine), we would have taken our troops out of Iraq (and Syria, and Iran, and Afghanistan, and probably Pakistan and/or one or two other protectorates) five or even eight years ago.
But, no, you had to ally yourselves with the anti-Americans, like spoiled children ("But I don't WANT to go into Iraq; no matter how necessary, practical and righteous it is, it doesn't fit my definition of Objectivism, so I don't care what harm I do, I'm going to fight to cripple and put an end to it! waaaaah!")
Again, you can't claim "I told you so" for self-fulfilling prophesy. There was *nothing* wrong with the strategy of invading Iraq. The error came in stopping to nation build instead of conquering the middle east (I imagine you need smelling-salts every time I say that...)
How dumb are people?
otherwise I'm a corrupt evil capitalist making money.
I got news for you... there would be no Iraqi oil production if it weren't for private companies. The Bedouins sure didn't have the capability to acquire it. The middle east wouldn't be able to disrupt the world the way it continually does if not for the benevolence of the west in actually paying them for what we in the west developed the means to acquire.
Maybe you didn't live through the 70s when OPEC used oil as a tool of economic warfare, but I did. Any plot to break OPEC is fine with me.
As for WMDs... Hussein USED them on the Kurds. We had survelliance of WMDS and the tools to make them being trucked to Syria. We have soldiers getting sick from exposure to WMD materials.
But, who gives a shit about WMDs? I certainly do not!
At the end of the Gulf War, after Hussein used WMDs on the Kurds, we established a "No-Fly" zone as part of the armistice. He fired on our warplanes flying the no fly zone. This was a violation of the armistice, and an act of war.
Why wasn't THAT reason enough to stomp him into a damp stain? You're seeing now the price of being a paper tiger; Obama's "red line" in Syria has become a joke as terrorists spread their business throughout the middle east... again.
We should have stomped him into a damp stain as an example to the rest of the middle east as to what is gained by tweaking the nose of the U.S. For that reason alone, forget the Al Qaeda training camps, forget the WMDs... forget even the brilliant strategy of taking out Iraq as part of the beginning of the conquest of the entire middle east.
I didn't count on the Iraqi army being such cowards. You can't fix cowardice. So today I say: let it pass.
those which weren't taken to Syria, but we
screwed up the peace. -- j
I won't say it was impossible to make work. Maybe they would have had better results if they had kept the Baathist institutions more intact and had offered a large program of non-violent jobs with job training to young men. Maybe they could have had some program to encourage professionals who fled the fighting to come back and rebuild the country's institutions. I don't have the answers.
We have a hugely expensive military, and when something happens in the world it's natural to think maybe this is an opportunity to use that massive military for good. Even when it works, it makes us the big bad guy some people's minds. It makes us an ideal scapegoat for strongmen around the world: "Jews/Christians are using that huge military to make things work out for them and not for your family."