Originally Posted by
Belmont31R
OBL was going to be an outcast one way or another. I get he was mad that we had troops in KSA but its one of those things if weren't that he'd have been kicked out over something else. OBL was on a path towards extremism and terrorism no matter what.
I agree that we should support or at least not condemn secular govt's over there as the other option is muslim brotherhood or radical types. Thats why I don't get why Syria became such an issue because if we took that govt out the people who'd have filled the power vacuum would have been much worse. Iraq and Syria both are hosts to Kurds/Christians/Shia/Sunni. MB and other extremists don't play well with 3 of 4 of those groups, and that's what happened in Egypt after the 1st Arab Spring which had to be fixed with the 2nd Arab Spring that Obama was opposed to. He also sat back and did nothing when major protests were ongoing in Iran.
As far as the Taliban I don't really understand why they became the focal point other than war hawks wanting perpetual war. They didn't attack us, and the people there have the right to choose who they want in charge. A lot of rural AFG doesn't mind having them in charge. From watching interviews with a lot of Taliban people most of their contempt for us is just our presence where we don't belong. AQ left AFG in late 2001 and they want us gone. The Taliban is highly localized. We'd be better off putting those resources into attacking AQAP and subordinate groups in Africa.
As far as Iraq Im just saying once we went in the way things were handled was very stupid. Looking back, if given the chance, we shouldn't have gone in but once we did leadership failed the boots on the ground mission. Since we did we should support the groups that can make a difference and set them up as best we can. Lots of people in N Iraq could be transported to a western country and fit right in.
The ME is extremely complex and we haven't ever really gotten the policy perspective right.
I don't have much argument with any of that. But seriously Glaspie gave Saddam some serious mixed messages. There is a vocabulary you have to use with brutal dictators and even I can see how Saddam thought he had been given the green light to fix his domestic issue with Kuwait so long as he didn't make a mess.
Bush (41) is one of the worse Presidents in recent memory, imagine if we just let arabs handle arab business and we still had a strong (well better than the one we have with Saudi) alliance with Iraq. So many things could have been so much better. Seriously screw Turkey and Saudi, if we could have staged out of Iraq for the war on terror in Afghanistan we'd have had a shitload of better options.
Of course it's also true that we'd have solved a lot of other problems by letting Russia stay in Afghanistan without undermining them but we were too eager to pay them back for Vietnam and it did lead directly to bringing down the wall and freeing most of Eastern Europe. Of course Bush (43) wasn't a lot of help when Putin contacted us to ask if Russia could assist us with anything after 9-11 and rather than get on the same page Bush instead called him out on human rights abuses in Chechnya so he could avoid criticisms of fighting a religious war with islam even though that it technically what we had actually been given on 9-11.
All in all I feel we failed all those who fought and sacrificed, I seriously hope they feel otherwise.
Last edited by SteyrAUG; 09-15-19 at 00:50.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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