Forever War

[Ron]

Not too much conversation on here regarding Trump attempting to extract ourselves from some of the conflicts in the Middle East.

As a former self described conservative who hesitantly supported our neo-con wars over there I couldn’t be more pleased with the possibility of us getting the hell out of there.

Intuitively I knew Iraq was bs, that Afghanistan morphed into something else and I’ve become increasingly against involvement in any country over there, regardless of Powell’s pottery barn rule.

Recently I read an article that reported Iraqi legislators were calling for us to get out of Iraq also, let it be so.

9/11 is not a legitimate justification for breaking whatever tenuous stability the entire region had and trying to remake the regions states into liberal democracies.

Of course historically wars are usually fought for land and resources, so the whole making the world safe for democracy is questionable.

[bedlamite]

Trying to bring democracy to the middle east is pointless, Islam will not allow it. The best option in that part of the world is to help keep two bit dictators just barely in power. Otherwise we need to get the hell out of there.

[230RN]

Of course historically wars are usually fought for land and resources, so the whole making the world safe for democracy is questionable.

I'm not clear on what you mean there.  I don't see the "so" part.

Assume true: "The sky s blue."

Assume  true: "The moon is full."

But "The sky is blue, so the moon is full," does not compute.

[Ron]

I'm not clear on what you mean there.  I don't see the "so" part.

Assume true: "The sky s blue."

Assume  true: "The moon is full."

But "The sky is blue, so the moon is full," does not compute.

The neo-con theme of making the world safe for democracy was used to justify much of the military action.

Was the goal democracy in the Middle East? Or was the goal access to land and resources?

The “so” was me calling into question the former in light of the latter.

[TommyGunn]

20/20 hindsight

If I could press the rewind button and also make myself benevolent dictator of Amerika in the shadow of 9-11-01,   I'd have blown the ****■□■□¤¤¤°☆☆☆♧****  out of AQ and the Taliban until they were holed up in ToraBora.

Then I would have nuked the ******** out of Torabora.

At that point I'd issue an ultimatum to the jihadis:  you want a caliphate?  Turn this sandheap into one.  Stay here and play nice with your own kind.   Attack America again ---- send one more Jihadi over to crash one airplane into a 100 year old outhouse,  and your caliphate will be glowing in the dark just like Torabora.
 Trying to rebuild A'Stan was/is a mistake.
 Iraq was a mistake.

Scaring the livin' h3ll out of the jihadis might stand a better chance ..... and wouldn't have cost so many lives.


But .... we'll never know.