We could go for all-out mayhem and start launching Tomahawk missiles on Pyongyang’s rail, road and electrical infrastructure.
None of that has anything to do with anything I said, though.
I made a very narrow comparison - all I stated was that an air war is going to cost less and result in fewer American deaths than a ground war and occupation.
I also expressed, in literally all the other parts of my post you didn’t quote, and in the prior post I made in this thread which I directly reference in the part you DID quote, essentially everything you just argued as if I hadn’t just touched upon it.
I think the issue is that what is happening now is people are saying, “But this time bombing the middle east is a good idea!” so raising what happened 10 years ago (and years before that) is relevant. I realize this is different (has Iraq actually asked the US to do this?) but I think people are sensibly wary of military forays into the region.
You broke it, you bought it.
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This article is incredibly biased with no information at all, except that U.S. is attempting to protect some helpless people from ISIS. Is the guy tweeting a member of ISIS? Does he oppose the strike? Can he himself, or anyone he is affiliated with help these people that are trapped? This has been in the news for a couple of days and they knew it was coming. Perhaps we should get the perspective of an Iraqi woman in Iraq to tweet some info?
Why would anyone think that? It’s not what we said we were doing, it’s not what we did, and it’s not anything that could conceivably result from any of our actions. I don’t know anyone who believes that.
The primary goal of the Iraq wars was to delay the collapse of the petrodollar while keeping the price of Texas oil as high as possible. Saddam said he’d deal in Euros, so we stomped him. Occam’s razor.
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Hence the word “amenable”
This is why I supported not intervening in the genocide in Darfur. Sure, 400,000 people died, but think about how bad things could have been if we destabilized the region by killing those guys first? I mean, it wasn’t our dispute and neither is this one.
If ISIS wants to decapitate the children of these Yazidi people and stick the heads of tens of thousands of adults on pikes like they’ve done in with other minorities they disagreed with, so be it. Because just think about how bad things could be if we intervened. It could truly be terrible.
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Well, OK, I usually think of that word in the sense of “willing to co-operate” or “agreeable and compliant” but I guess you can use it to mean “hating us beyond all reason because that hatred temporarily serves our purposes”. The Intarwebs say the dictionary meaning encompasses both “manipulable” and “coercible”.
I think we need to seriously look at this.
We’d be greeted as liberators. Really, this time for sure!
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I think it depends on the situation. I think there is a point where you have to do something, otherwise it spills over. The mess in Iraq is a direct result of us doing nothing in Syria for example. All I’m really saying that I’m tired of the idea that its as simple as blowing the bad guys to hell and then everything is alright. We need to adequately realize that even when we’re doing something for the right reasons that our actions may have terrible consequences.
I am tired of the idea that just because we have the ability to blow them to hell that we should. We need to do whatever is best for the long-term. Whether that is a diplomatic solutions, working with the international community in a credible way. Blowing up the bad guys doesn’t necessarily make peace, just makes a lot of dead bad guys.
Do you apply this admirable moral philosophy consistently? If someone is being murdered in front of your house and you have the capacity to intervene safely do you say, “Oh, I better not. I might muck it up. Because just think about how bad things could be if I intervened. It could truly be terrible.” ?
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Anyone with an instant answer who doesn’t feel bad about whatever solution they come up with I suspect of being a bit simple.
The answer is that there is no good answer. US intervention probably can save some minorities from being slaughtered in a horrible and ruthless way. IS is an awful organization that will bring misery and destruction to the poor bastards that live under it, especially those of the wrong faith.
It is also true that US intervention will probably harm Iraq coming to a real solution to its own problems. IS didn’t appear out of a vacuum. It appeared because Maliki systematically destroyed the multi-ethnic democracy that the US left behind. He stripped the non-Shiites from the army and kicked Sunni out of government jobs. The Sunni support IS because Maliki is such a piece of shit that anything looks better than his rule.
The harm the US intervention brings is that it helps Maliki stay in power. If Maliki truly feared for his rule and life, he might surrender power so that the multi-ethnic coalition that is the only thing that can save Iraq might be formed. Instead, by helping to whack the biggest threat to his rule, we perpetuate the biggest drive to form a truly multi-ethnic government.
Both solutions are shit. Save folks from genocide and prop up that turd cannon Maliki, thus ensuring that the problem is never solved, or let IS be a big enough threat that a functional coalition might be formed. Either way, a lot of people are going to die. Short of a miracle , there is no avoid a lot of dead innocent people. I personally fall down on the “don’t touch it” side, but only because I think if it is horrible and bloody enough, a long term solution might be found. That, and at this point American intervention is bad for America in the long term. I don’t feel good about it.
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If I had a long track record of getting more people killed in the attempt, probably?
Oh of course. In fact, say the Germans were completely open from the beginning about exterminating the Jews and all it would take was a single phone call to make them stop. I would of course not intervene because who knows what would happen if we did.
I don’t know whether to be surprised or terrified that anyone would think my previously stated position was anything but sarcasm. Good lord people. The knee jerk reaction to not intervene even to evacuate some people because a crazy war hawk started and f’ed up the previous wars is nearly as bad as starting stupid wars in the first place.
It is ok to be skeptical. It is ok to ask questions, but to completely assume any intervention no matter how small leads to catastrophe is ridiculous.
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Isn’t that a trifle hyperbolic? How do you even threaten ‘the very notion of civilization’; much less manage to do so while also holding together a reasonably complex and competent mixture of conventional and irregular military forces, a PR apparatus, and some local and regional governance functions modeled on a (probably historically questionable, as reactionary reclamations of alleged past glories usually are) ‘caliphate’?
It is the case that they are even more ruthless than usual toward their numerous enemies and I strongly suspect that this attempt at theocracy will go poorly even by the standards of people who think that theocracy would be awesome(mostly because that’s how theocracies always seem to go); but it’s fairly baffling how this would fail to qualify as ‘civilization’.
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It’s probably hyperbolic, and theocracies and even anarchistic failed states can qualify as civilizations in various senses (social stratification, specialized labor, etc) but I find the word “civilization” also carries connotations of e.g. refinement, compassion, the desire for the creation and upkeep of art and records, etc.
These people destroy art, records, and lives and seek to implement a repressive authoritarian form of government. This doesn’t qualify as civilization in the latter senses. If we care about extending circles of concern beyond the ancient bounds of race, creed, and tribe, we should be aligned against this kind of worldview.
I’m pluralistic up to a point; I wouldn’t say I’m multiculturalist in the “all culture is positive and worthwhile” sense but in the more minimal sense that “many disparate cultures—but not all—can mingle and coexist in a way that ensures relatively high social mobility and peace”. Some forms and practices of religion and society are better than others; the Kurdish conception of Islam is better than Saudi Arabia’s, let alone that of ISIS. Reformed Methodism is better than literalist Baptism.
My point there is that I’m not a moral relativist, and I’m worried that many of my leftist fellows take much of the edifice of modern life for granted. This project of ours is super-tenuous, and I worry so much about faraway barbarity because I know nothing really separates us from them but circumstance; if things were as shit here as there, similar violence would emerge from people who were civilized mere days before.
It’s not a coincidence that same kind of metaphysical bullshit and othering that guides theocratic idealizations in Western Asia make it such that we must have political debates about gay marriage and contraceptives in the US when we also have widespread and growing poverty, lack of access to food and healthcare, etc. The crazy is different in scope and degree, but not in kind.
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I assuming this view of yours only holds unless you are not in the situation where you are threatened with decapitation. You spout drivel.
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Wait, really? Well, that went completely over my head then. I was even going to use that exact Godwin example but refrained. I agree with you on your non-ironic position. One of the terrible consequences of our unnecessary adventures is that now we can’t intervene when there is an actual moral obligation.
History has shown clearly that politicians cannot devise or put in place a solution to the middle-east problem. The reason is vested-interests of the politicians involved. They may blame religion and extremism, but where foreign policy is dictated by western economic benefit and national interests, not the economic and national interests of the people of the middle-east. Therefore no matter what western politicians say, no long-term solutions will ever emerge because of the Achilles heel that is governed by the interests of the relatively few powerful entities behind the scenes that control what happens, not just in the middle-east, but in all western economies. Therefore political solutions will never work to overcome religious and economic interests dominated by immense global financial and economic entities. Considering this truism, only an independent solution evaluated and executed by non-political/corrupt factions and totally independent of political self-interest and vast economic external benefit, will ever solve the ever-growing hell that the people of the middle-east endure. Abject poverty is at the very heart of why things are as they are and not until a ‘master plan’ for pan-middle east economic development is put in place, will peace become a reality and war a past memory. This strategy would take 40-years to undertake, but where once in place, it would provide the only sustainable development mechanism in town. In other words, a ‘Marshall Plan’ for the middle-east transforming the region over time into a dynamic economic bloc. For history has shown also that so-called enemies work in harmony together when economics provides dynamic regional blocs providing growing standards of living. Indeed even religions and long-term human differences come together if it is in the economic interests of all parties. Simple really based on the history of the world and where warlike and terrorist groups have come together, but where the political elite and their backers currently will not let this happen behind closed doors.
Indeed, keep politicians and powerful interests lurking in the background in, and the whole dire destructive process will continue to be a totally non-ending spiral of horror and genocide…infinitum. The secret is therefore to keep politicians out and where military power has never succeeded in obtaining long-term peace when a nations people post-conflict, are not developed economically. Indeed without the ‘Marshall Plan’, Europe would have erupted into war many times over after WW2 as poverty would have driven this state to continually exist.
‘ISRAEL - PALESTINE WAR - The only Solution to what will be a never-ending Conflict if mindsets do not change to applied economic solutions’
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