ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[a completely inoffensive name]

Don't be so quick to see it that way. Iraq had a chance to retain over 10,000 US troops after the pull-out, if they had only signed an agreement saying our Soldiers retained their immunity from the Iraqi court system. They absolutely refused, and so this is the bed that they made for themselves. As a nation, we made the choice to let this happen in 2010. Pretty much everyone knew it was going to happen, and said it was going to happen, and it all rested on the security agreement.

Your dignity or your security. It was their choice of course, but the options were ones we decided upon.

[a completely inoffensive name]

That's fair.

I disagree.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I meant your analysis. As to the situation, fair or not, it is what it is. 8 years should have been enough to get them ready to govern themselves again, but it wasn't. Should we have given more? Without that immunity, they would have spent more time prosecuting Americans for political reasons than anything else. We were right to keep that in the agreement, and they had every right to not sign it. I wouldn't call the current situation fair, but I wouldn't call it all that unfair either. Maliki was fairly elected.

My mistake for misinterpreting you. I don't think any amount of time would have had Iraq become what we imagined it to be. I am just mad that we destabilized an entire country and worked against our own efforts for literally nothing. Nothing that can be done at this point but let Iraq fragment and see if we can work with the Kurds and Shia's.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You and me both. I like to think some day I'll be able to visit Baghdad and hang out in the palm tree forests without the threat of war, but its looking like that may never be. Its a total waste.

That sums it up perfectly. What a waste. Is it any wonder why millennial's are apathetic when the US started the 21st century under the policies of Bush?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

We do not have what it takes to be a Great Power.

We need to vacate the field for the real contestants: China and Russia.

Go back to the Monroe Doctrine and spend a couple of decades building real relationships with the rest of the New World.

The Old World will get along just fine without our boorish efforts.

[Fisherking]

It only gets worse.

The US arms sent to Syria that helped arm these guys and this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...years-ago.html


We are Imperialistic. It is all about the money of course and making a safe business environment for the banks and corporations funding our politicians and directing policy.

[Lemur]

Go back to the Monroe Doctrine and spend a couple of decades building real relationships with the rest of the New World.

The Old World will get along just fine without our boorish efforts.

A decent take from today:

I’d say eight years of blood and treasure and failure in Iraq is enough. Unless, like Wieseltier, you see the entire planet as a patient and America as the only nurse. [...]

So let me put this as kindly as I can. We lost 5,000 young Americans trying to keep this centrifugal country in one piece. After eight years, and huge expenses in training and equipping the Iraqi army, we bear no blame and never have for the pathological sectarianism of so many Arab countries, culturally or politically. And it’s time to have enough self-respect to say so. The sanest, wisest way to wriggle out of this trap is precisely to do nothing – again and again – until the pathology of dependence is finished.

[ICantSpellDawg]

A decent take from today:

I’d say eight years of blood and treasure and failure in Iraq is enough. Unless, like Wieseltier, you see the entire planet as a patient and America as the only nurse. [...]

So let me put this as kindly as I can. We lost 5,000 young Americans trying to keep this centrifugal country in one piece. After eight years, and huge expenses in training and equipping the Iraqi army, we bear no blame and never have for the pathological sectarianism of so many Arab countries, culturally or politically. And it’s time to have enough self-respect to say so. The sanest, wisest way to wriggle out of this trap is precisely to do nothing – again and again – until the pathology of dependence is finished.

Hey, you guys won 2 elections. Let's try it your way for a while, see how it goes.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A decent take from today:

I’d say eight years of blood and treasure and failure in Iraq is enough. Unless, like Wieseltier, you see the entire planet as a patient and America as the only nurse. [...]

So let me put this as kindly as I can. We lost 5,000 young Americans trying to keep this centrifugal country in one piece. After eight years, and huge expenses in training and equipping the Iraqi army, we bear no blame and never have for the pathological sectarianism of so many Arab countries, culturally or politically. And it’s time to have enough self-respect to say so. The sanest, wisest way to wriggle out of this trap is precisely to do nothing – again and again – until the pathology of dependence is finished.

Translation: Filthy WOGs.

Let's be clear, America, along with the UK and France, is directly responsible for every stage of this mess. The partitioning after WWI, the establishment of Israel after WWII, the toppling of the relatively progressive monarchs in favour of Tyrants during the Cold War, and then the post-Cold War invasions, along with the Soviet-Afghan War which has created not one but two generations of Jihadist fighters, and the failure to support Israel even when it tries it's best to emulate Nazi Germany.

Before you disagree with the last, remember the Israelis state was sterilising "Black Jews" to keep the race pure.

Now, let me quote the bit right before the bit you quoted:

I love this formulation: hegemony means inaction is action, so there’s no difference between the two!

Yes, that is what it means. If you have the power to act and choose not to, then you have chosen and becomes responsible. What the writer is saying is that Iraq is not worth dead Americans, implicit in this is that Americans are, as individuals, worth more than Iraqis. If he had said, "intervening will not help" then that would be one thing, but what he said was "we have already expended enough blood."

Oh, and Vietnam was winnable, had the NVA been crushed in the North.

[HopAlongBunny]

We can be great without being imperialistic. Pacifying another nation requires true hatred and brutality,

This. You understand how to supplant a culture/nation, you just don't have the will.
Extermination of the existing population and declaring the land open for settlement worked well in the past; selling such a policy to your citizens is much tougher.