Easy E wrote:
If I was him, I wouldn't want to get involved in the Iraq/ISIS mess either.

That's why I have underlings.

 djones520 wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
If I was him, I wouldn't want to get involved in the Iraq/ISIS mess either.

That's why I have underlings.

Of course not, it would mean admitting he screwed the pooch. The only way this is going to end in anything resembling something good for us, is if we boot combat troops on the ground again. The Iraqi's won't fight for themselves, the other Arab nations will only put troops in once it's to late. We cannot let these guys grow into a real international power. It's that simple.

 djones520 wrote:
Frazzled, I hate being over here. HATE it.

But I'd rather be over here fighting those people then letting them continue to grow and solidify their base of power. Look what Al Qaeda was capable of doing with the Taliban as their backers.

What do you think these guys would be capable of doing, when they have access to all the money that they will when they take over a large part of the Arabian peninsula?

Sticking your head in the sand won't do anything but get people killed Frazz.

To many Arabs support these guys. Al Jazeera just the other day announced a poll they conducted that found 81% of their respondents supported ISIS in some form or another. Hell, we can't go a week without finding out Americans, Brits, Germans, whatever are trying to go and join them.

 Albatross wrote:

Mustela wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

Nope. You literally could not be more wrong, and that's why this gak keeps happening on America's watch. You want to be able to sit thousands of miles away and access other people's resources without getting your hands dirty. You expect them to just act in your interests more or less spontaneously, or through a series of comparitively 'light-touch' economic and/or diplomatic levers, but what happens when that fails? You can install puppets, but what happens when the people try to overthrow them? It seems like the USA has yet to figure out what we figured out a couple of hundred years ago which is sometimes you have to just take over, and once you've taken over, stay the course. Even if it takes decades. The problem you have is that you start out by selling it to the American public in terms of 'regime change', 'Iraqi Freedom' and other such wooly terms, as if you're doing 'the natives' a favour. When bodies draped in flags start coming home, the public naturally grow fatigued of it. Even in this thread (and in other such threads) you have people blaming the Iraqis and Syrians for this mess, and making grotesquely ignorant statements to the effect of 'just bomb them all'. Everything that is happening in the ME is more or less a direct result of Western foreign policy; we sneezed, the whole region caught a cold.

We need to start telling the truth which is that our nations went to war with Iraq to safeguard our economic interests, and with that being the case we had a responsibility to stay there until Iraq was truly stable, however long that took, even if it meant annexing the country temporarily. The problem is, Yanks have no appetite for Empire because they think its primary purpose is power for its own sake, as opposed to expedience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tl;dr - you break it, you bought it

I agree with you that U.S. has done a pretty godawful job trying to "help" Iraq. However, there's a few things I disagree with.

1) Not all Americans feel entitled to other people's resources. Don't generalize we're not a hive mind.

The US economy patently has need of access to foreign markets. That is just a fact.

2) Install a puppet? Never mind that they don't always provide stability what about the egregious human rights abuses they involve?

Well, yes. Did you not read my post. Puppets governments are of limited effectiveness unless the territory in question has been your colony for long enough that the people living their have roughly comparable culture, values, aims etc. You can't just take over, install a puppet and then feth off home, expecting it to all 'just work out because freedom yay', as Iraq and Afghanistan have proven.

3) You're seriously advocating taking over? Besides there being a massive conflict of interests for the U.S., consider that most of the horrible things happening around the world are a direct result of of colonialism and how it bled countries dry of resources and bred divisiveness. LOOKING AT YOU BRITISH EMPIRE.

Your understanding of Empire, specifically the British empire is poor, and that's being generous. Seriously, to the point that I'm questioning whether or not it's worth discussing this with you.

The U.S. has pretty much done the same in South America. Are you suggesting that the same happen again?

Nope. I'm not suggesting that invading Iraq was necessary or even desirable, but there's no such thing as light-touch imperialism. The US engineered a unipolar world post WWII and that comes with responsibilities, responsibilities that the USA has shirked with disastrous consequences. Iraq: You break it, you bought it. You can't remake the world in your image without boots on the ground and flags in it. The USA ousted Saddam and just expected that Iraq would coalesce miraculously into a fully functioning US-style democracy. You should (if you haven't already) read 'Imperial Life in the Emerald City'. There is evidence that the UK tried to basically say to the US what I'm saying here now and received much the same response.

What's happening in the ME is a direct result of these failures. Basically, if you're going to do Empire, do Empire. If not, mind your own fething business and let people run their own affairs.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think you don't see the debate in Europe, but we are not generally interventionist. But there is a debate, I guess we just fall more on the side of war not being the answer.

 Frazzled wrote:
Or alternatively, just let Iraq break up into its three kingdoms.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Or alternatively, just let Iraq break up into its three kingdoms.

Breaking it into multiple countries initially might have been the best when we first went in. But now its not really an option. ISIS if left alone would eventually conquer the entire country, killing any who defy them along the way.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Or alternatively, just let Iraq break up into its three kingdoms.

Breaking it into multiple countries initially might have been the best when we first went in. But now its not really an option. ISIS if left alone would eventually conquer the entire country, killing any who defy them along the way.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
On topic, I'd fully approve if we got the hell out of the ME and paid attention to our own damn country. Let it be dealt with internally.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

Mustela wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

Nope. You literally could not be more wrong, and that's why this gak keeps happening on America's watch. You want to be able to sit thousands of miles away and access other people's resources without getting your hands dirty. You expect them to just act in your interests more or less spontaneously, or through a series of comparitively 'light-touch' economic and/or diplomatic levers, but what happens when that fails? You can install puppets, but what happens when the people try to overthrow them? It seems like the USA has yet to figure out what we figured out a couple of hundred years ago which is sometimes you have to just take over, and once you've taken over, stay the course. Even if it takes decades. The problem you have is that you start out by selling it to the American public in terms of 'regime change', 'Iraqi Freedom' and other such wooly terms, as if you're doing 'the natives' a favour. When bodies draped in flags start coming home, the public naturally grow fatigued of it. Even in this thread (and in other such threads) you have people blaming the Iraqis and Syrians for this mess, and making grotesquely ignorant statements to the effect of 'just bomb them all'. Everything that is happening in the ME is more or less a direct result of Western foreign policy; we sneezed, the whole region caught a cold.

We need to start telling the truth which is that our nations went to war with Iraq to safeguard our economic interests, and with that being the case we had a responsibility to stay there until Iraq was truly stable, however long that took, even if it meant annexing the country temporarily. The problem is, Yanks have no appetite for Empire because they think its primary purpose is power for its own sake, as opposed to expedience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tl;dr - you break it, you bought it

I agree with you that U.S. has done a pretty godawful job trying to "help" Iraq. However, there's a few things I disagree with.

1) Not all Americans feel entitled to other people's resources. Don't generalize we're not a hive mind.

The US economy patently has need of access to foreign markets. That is just a fact.

2) Install a puppet? Never mind that they don't always provide stability what about the egregious human rights abuses they involve?

Well, yes. Did you not read my post. Puppets governments are of limited effectiveness unless the territory in question has been your colony for long enough that the people living their have roughly comparable culture, values, aims etc. You can't just take over, install a puppet and then feth off home, expecting it to all 'just work out because freedom yay', as Iraq and Afghanistan have proven.

3) You're seriously advocating taking over? Besides there being a massive conflict of interests for the U.S., consider that most of the horrible things happening around the world are a direct result of of colonialism and how it bled countries dry of resources and bred divisiveness. LOOKING AT YOU BRITISH EMPIRE.

Your understanding of Empire, specifically the British empire is poor, and that's being generous. Seriously, to the point that I'm questioning whether or not it's worth discussing this with you.

The U.S. has pretty much done the same in South America. Are you suggesting that the same happen again?

Nope. I'm not suggesting that invading Iraq was necessary or even desirable, but there's no such thing as light-touch imperialism. The US engineered a unipolar world post WWII and that comes with responsibilities, responsibilities that the USA has shirked with disastrous consequences. Iraq: You break it, you bought it. You can't remake the world in your image without boots on the ground and flags in it. The USA ousted Saddam and just expected that Iraq would coalesce miraculously into a fully functioning US-style democracy. You should (if you haven't already) read 'Imperial Life in the Emerald City'. There is evidence that the UK tried to basically say to the US what I'm saying here now and received much the same response.

What's happening in the ME is a direct result of these failures. Basically, if you're going to do Empire, do Empire. If not, mind your own fething business and let people run their own affairs.

Aren't you a music major? I thought you needed a degree in the subject to be able to critique somebody else's work? Yeah...not letting you live that down.

On topic, I'd fully approve if we got the hell out of the ME and paid attention to our own damn country. Let it be dealt with internally.

Toxic Nation: After Ramadi, USA Shows Itself to be the Worst Kind of Friend

On the fall of Ramadi, Ash Carter, the U.S. secretary of defense, had this to say on CNN: “What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight.” A few days earlier, Martin Dempsey, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a similar point to a group of reporters in Brussels: “The ISF was not driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi.”

These remarks constitute the latest evolution of administration talking points on our failing campaign against the Islamic State. Shortly before Ramadi fell, U.S. officials were complaining to the press that its coverage of the war was biased against American efforts. In particular, the officials wanted television news to stop recycling old B-roll footage of IS from 2014, showing the fighters moving in mass formations of vehicles. The argument was that because our bombing campaign was so successful, IS could not and did not operate “in broad daylight” like that anymore.

Then Ramadi fell, after which “convoys of heavily armed Islamic State fighters paraded triumphantly through the streets” of the city. The initial response was to pretend that the capture of the capital of Anbar Province, a city that U.S. Marines fought and died in large numbers to secure during the last decade, wasn’t a significant event. It was a “tactical setback,” in the words of President Obama. The president’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, asked in a peevish tone if we were “going to light our hair on fire” over every such manageable “setback” like this.

With Carter’s questioning of the courage of the Iraqi forces, the administration’s spin has evolved from “everything is going great,” to “this is not a big deal,” to “it’s not our fault—it’s those cowardly Iraqis who can’t get it done.” And Carter may have a point. Reports from Ramadi indeed suggest that a combination of weak leadership and poor logistical planning in the face of a bold Islamic State assault cost the Iraqis control of the city.

It is also the case that hundreds (at least) of Iraqis loyal to their government died in the defense and fall of Ramadi. It is pretty rich for the American secretary of defense, who supervises a strategy designed to keep American servicemen out of the fight on the ground, to claim that the Iraqis lack fighting spirit. What about American fighting spirit? Our airstrikes are ineffectual, hampered by the same strict rules of engagement that held troops back in Afghanistan during 2009 and 2010. Our special operations troops are forbidden from leaving their bases to coordinate air support for the Iraqis, thus preventing the kind of campaign waged in Afghanistan in 2001, where a handful of American advisers partnered with the Northern Alliance achieved a stunning and swift victory over the Taliban.

We refuse to share any risk with our Iraqi partners, and then call them cowards in public when they fail. As a strategic matter, who will want to fight alongside us in the future after a display as pathetic as this?

In Brussels, General Dempsey had this to add to his witty putdown of the men actually doing the fighting and dying in Iraq: “But I said then, and I reiterate now, there may be tactical exchanges—some of which go the way of Iraqi security forces and others which go the way of ISIL. But the coalition has all the strategic advantages over time.” It is a strange sort of general who congratulates himself for maintaining the “strategic advantage” in the face of what most people would consider to be a string of major defeats. And it is a strange sort of strategy that is based on an expectation that, “over time,” we will have any friends left, if our leaders continue to find it politically expedient to belittle allies after sending them out to die alone. The only thing being degraded in the campaign against the Islamic State is American prestige.

 djones520 wrote:
We do like we did in Iraq the first time. We put 3 divisions on the ground, and we crush them. We hunt them down, and absolutely destroy them. It's not like we don't know the lay of the land. That we don't know where they would go to ground to. We've beaten them once before, it will not be that hard to do so again.

We start crushing the Iraqi forces, and the Syrians will most likely start to gain ground on them. Once we crush the Iraqi side of ISIS, we seal the Syrian border off, and let Syria's military finish the fight. At least those guys have some back bone.

We go in there, we hit them so hard with the hammer of the 21st century warfare that their heads break orbit, and we leave.

Then next time some donkey-cave tries to raise up and do it again, we don't sit on our asses for years on end until it becomes a problem that it takes a full Corp of the Army to deal with, like we've done this time.

 whembly wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
We do like we did in Iraq the first time. We put 3 divisions on the ground, and we crush them. We hunt them down, and absolutely destroy them. It's not like we don't know the lay of the land. That we don't know where they would go to ground to. We've beaten them once before, it will not be that hard to do so again.

We start crushing the Iraqi forces, and the Syrians will most likely start to gain ground on them. Once we crush the Iraqi side of ISIS, we seal the Syrian border off, and let Syria's military finish the fight. At least those guys have some back bone.

We go in there, we hit them so hard with the hammer of the 21st century warfare that their heads break orbit, and we leave.

Then next time some donkey-cave tries to raise up and do it again, we don't sit on our asses for years on end until it becomes a problem that it takes a full Corp of the Army to deal with, like we've done this time.

Don't get me wrong... I love this idea.

But... could we do that, and then leave. That is... let the rest of the world and the Iraqis pick up the pieces/?

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
We do like we did in Iraq the first time. We put 3 divisions on the ground, and we crush them. We hunt them down, and absolutely destroy them. It's not like we don't know the lay of the land. That we don't know where they would go to ground to. We've beaten them once before, it will not be that hard to do so again.

We start crushing the Iraqi forces, and the Syrians will most likely start to gain ground on them. Once we crush the Iraqi side of ISIS, we seal the Syrian border off, and let Syria's military finish the fight. At least those guys have some back bone.

We go in there, we hit them so hard with the hammer of the 21st century warfare that their heads break orbit, and we leave.

Then next time some donkey-cave tries to raise up and do it again, we don't sit on our asses for years on end until it becomes a problem that it takes a full Corp of the Army to deal with, like we've done this time.

Don't get me wrong... I love this idea.

But... could we do that, and then leave. That is... let the rest of the world and the Iraqis pick up the pieces/?

Isn't that basically what we did the first time?

 Frazzled wrote:
Meanwhile in more important news, the Chinese have built an island in the Pacific to enforce their claims of control of the China Sea.

We are moving towards major war in the Pacific and people are fething around with this B team crap.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Those sound like Japanese and Korean concerns.

Wow I agree with Ouze. I'm scared.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Those sound like Japanese and Korean concerns.

The tens of thousands of US service members and families co-located on their bases are concerned a bit as well.

Sounds like an opportunity to sunset our treaties and be out of there in the next five years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Those sound like Japanese and Korean concerns.

The tens of thousands of US service members and families co-located on their bases are concerned a bit as well.

At what point do we stop being the world police?

When you forget that existential defensive wars are much better fought overseas than on US territory.

Unless you don't have enemies of course.

Oh, now you care what China is doing?

 Jihadin wrote:
Be easier if we can get them to WEAR A DAMN UNIFORM!!!!
Yes I BIG CAP for YELLING!!

Be much simpler