Just a question we ought to ask ourselves before we dive head first into Iraq again. Our problems in the Middle East are largely caused by our actions in the Middle East. Do we really want to open the can of worms above up and see how bad things can really get? I truly believe that ISIS represents a threat of some sort to the US and that they're terrible people bent on making everybody around them miserable. Is that a good enough reason to get in bed with Iran and Syria at this point? We went the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" route in Afghanistan in the 80's and out of that we got Al-Qaida. What monstrous misbirth is going to come out of this alliance of convenience?
A sweet natural gas pipeline going from Qatar to Turkey. And maybe Kerry can get more free grub from Assad.
Iran and Syria are allies of Russia. They're also allies of the Iraqi Shiite regime that we installed. They're enemies of our Saudi allies and of most of the Gulf States. They're enemies of Israel, although the current regime in Syria may be the enemy the Israelis would prefer to have in power given the alternatives. Iran is a declared enemy of the US. Iran and Syria are also enemies of Al-Qaida. They're also enemies of the Sunni tribes we befriended in alliances of convenience from 2007 to 2009. The Iraqi Shiite regime is an enemy of the Sunni tribes we befriended. This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Every major strategic decision the US has made in the Middle East to date has blown up in our faces in a big way. Most of the decisions weren't even major commitments, just things we fell into when the Middle East did what the Middle East does cyclically with no end in sight. We're not smart enough to chart a path through the conflicting agendas and paths that Middle Eastern politics, society and warfare throw in our faces on a regular basis. Nobody is. Why do we keep diving in there like we're going to make a difference when in fact we just keep making things worse? We're the cause of our problems in the Middle East. Every time we step in we get another entanglement and the US becomes more threatened and less safe as a result. We've lost our basic right to privacy, guaranteed under the Constitution by a group of men who understood how bad invasive government was. We lost this because we went into Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and acted like there weren't going to be consequences in the end. What are we going to lose this time? If we're enslaved by our own government in an ever-constricting set of rules regarding privacy, police actions, quasi-private interactions between the state and group actors, and the triumph of the rule of law over the constitutional foundation of our freedoms what will we have gained? Will we actually be safer from terrorists or just at the mercy of the next time the government wants to reinforce the notion that we need their "protection"? This isn't a theoretical discussion at this point. All the constitutional shortcuts that were taken during the Civil War and WWII at least had an endpoint when they would be reversed: the end of the conflict in question. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs. It will never end. Every liberty that we surrender now, some willingly and some in the blind, will stay surrendered forever if it is based on the need to secure ourselves from forces that we can never fully defeat. We're watching America disintegrate in front of us in slow motion. The terrorists have won.
1) The terrorists have not won. Wow Brad, come on. We took Iraq in 4 weeks. ISIS is pacing around in the desert. Where is there funding going to come from? They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have only scare tactics that media feeds. Our Great Nation is wounded, but far from lost. 2) The greatest strategic move in the Middle East we could possibly adopt is, isolation; to a point where we only deal with the Middle East through a third party. Let them crawl to us. You think, honestly, they are going to want to stop trading oil with us? 3) Stop all funding to the Middle East. The entire region attacked our embassies over a bullshit youtube flick. Why are we still funding? Why are we still there? It's crazy amounts of money going to crazy people. Bring the funding back to USA. 4) Have at it with Drones and maybe few air strikes. Drone away. If there are reports of open conflict on the ground, get a drone on the way immediately. Monitor the area, but no boots on the ground. 5) The world needs stronger leaders. It has been a long time since USA has had a leader that rejects corruption or at the very least mitigates it. Big business controls politics more today than ever. Even Antitrust infringements are ignored, competition in the USA is weakening. Big mergers/powerhouse developments have to be shutdown. 6) "We are the cause of the problems in the Middle East" I think that statement is debatable. We certainly have not been a benefit to the Middle East. We have to stop supplying weapons to the area (big business). However, the Middle East has an internal problem that only it can look into. The radical movement is led by some of the craziest individual born to earth. There will be no "caliphate" because even Muslim brother to brother can't agree on peaceful environment on which to live. Interesting, point about our lost freedoms of privacy. I agree with you there and it's astounding to note that all of this stems from our involvement in the Middle East. I believe in precedent, the law of the land. Once, precedent is set; it is almost impossible to undue. My final side note, if there is one Nation in the region worth supporting there it will be Israel. If Israel is ever to fall, stability in the region will be lost forever. The world needs balance. In the Middle East Israel is the last Nation that offers balance. Fuck the Middle East, Fuck ISIS and Fuck anyone who supports attacking the United States.
I think USA has a chance to add a second ally in Middle East. So far, they have prevented Kurds to establish Kurdistan. if this were to happen, USA and Israel would have an important ally in the region. With Kurds, you can control Turkey, Iran and Syria due to their Kurdish minorities. Not sure why USA insists on keeping the defacto situation in Iraq. Let Irak divide into 3.
I agree. The Kurds have been in the region for a long, long time. They actually seem like a people we could work with. USA is my home. If you threaten to attack my home, you are my enemy. The Kurds, don't seem too interested in attacking my home. They seem like they just want to protect their own home.
What ever happened to "I'd rather have a nanny state than a Nazi state?" Or does that only work during a topic on firearms?
This is true. Look. I am from Turkey and I am Turkish. But I feel shame for what my country did to Kurds for years. Turkey forced Kurds to change their names to Turkish names. Changed the names of the towns from Kurdsih to Turkish etc. On the other hand, Saddam used Chemical weapons and killed thousands of Kurds in Iraq to punish them for their support of USA in the first war during father Bush. So I think it is time for USA to support a free Kurdistan so those people can finally have a home without the fear of dicators like Saddam or Asad etc.
Dude, every e-mail you send, every text and phone call you make and every website you visit goes into a file somewhere for future review. This is done legally but not constitutionally. It took a guy essentially defecting to Russia to bring this out into the open. The Obama administration has consistently prosecuted whistle-blowers and leakers who made a big public case about this type of unconstitutional activity by the government. What they've done to the people who had the goods on them but against whom the government had no leverage is an open question at this point. Snowden made his allegations from Hong Kong and very publicly for a reason. No way for a black van to grab him in that situation. This wouldn't resolve anything. We used the Saudi's as our main middle man for oil for a generation from WWII to the 70's and everything still blew up on us in the end. We couldn't stop ourselves from interfering in Iraq and Iran to put a middle man in place in both countries and that blew up in our face. We tried to co-opt all the smaller Gulf States, including Kuwait, and that blew up in our face. If we picked another middle man we'd just find a new way to have things blow up in our face. Every barrel of oil we choose not to buy will be snapped up by China. They have huge cash reserves at this point and they're going to try to make a huge petroleum reserve, just like ours. The entire region reacted to the youtube video because it was a reminder of 70 years of crappy US policy in the Middle East. Every time something like that video surfaces the average middle eastern citizen is going to assume it is true because there are so many instances in the past where we did worse. You can't kill ideas with drones. Sieg heil! The US role in the Middle East is beyond dispute at this point. We have toppled and installed governments over and over again since the early 50's. We have funded indigenous movements that turned against us. We have funded quasi-political organizations that turned against us. We have installed a huge amount of infrastructure in various places in the region only to watch it taken when the government we installed fell. We have supplied Stinger anti-air missiles to the group that formed Al-Qaida. We have supplied F-14 Tomcat fighters, at the time one of the best fighters in the world, to Iran and then bargained with them to launder money for the CIA in return for spare parts for the F-14's which were falling out of the sky by then and should have been allowed to do so. Everything we do in the Middle East backfires on us eventually. The bigger the thing we try to do (drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, drive Saddam Hussein from power) the bigger the backfire (Al-Qaida, ISIS). We're just totally hopeless at interfering in the Middle East to our profit. Our Middle Eastern credibility and safety deficit is topped only by our national debt at this point in terms of destabilizing forces in America. We need to stop meddling. Things can and will get worse if we continue. You will not like the government that we put in place that is capable of effectively sitting on the Middle East because it is going to be sitting on us just as hard.
I don't necessarily disagree at all with what you are saying Brooklyn especially how it pertains to the U.S. however.. The messed up thing is that there are a lot of parallels between the Kurds and the Palestinians. Both are large ethnic groups seeking independence they once had. In Israel's case, the creation and supporting of an independent Kurdistan seems at the very least contradictory and I wonder what that would do to already strained relations in the region.. How is Turkey and/or Egypt & Iran going to react to that "marriage of convenience" ? Secondly, it doesn't seem like Turkey would appreciate the creation of an independent Kurd nation in their own back yard... I also worry about the Kurds in general. They've been loyal to the U.S. and Israel for years despite getting the shaft in return but is that just because it's convenient for them in their struggle for independence? What happens when they gain that independence - and the massive amount of oil $$, do they continue to stay loyal or do they just become another enemy down the line. Does allowing Iraq to split into 3 just create 3 separate enemies down the line? I do think supporting the Kurds in their fight against these ISIS group is a good idea though. I just don't know about independence.
Brad, I agree on the invasion of privacy. The government has no right to look into my phone calls, texts, etc, etc. They don't have the right, and it is wrong. Snowden, is a defector and he is also a traitor. I think, today, even you would agree; Russia is our enemy. Saudi, is a Middle Eastern country. I'm thinking more like Portugal or Spain, maybe Greece, which could be a huge boost for their economies (our allies) and with the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement going into effect, could make the transactions even more smooth. Isolation, has not been tested on the Middle East. Even you agree we have to stop meddling there. Let the kids fight it out in their room. Monitor from above, and from the sea, and let the unhappy radicals find a solution to their internal problems. This would mean we can no longer fund, supply or trade with the Middle East at all, except oil, through a third party (non Middle Eastern nation). No more weapons to the Middle East. The entire region is crazy and if that is the kind of extreme reactions made from a youtube video; perhaps it is time to pack up the bags, shut down the embassies and come home. Our aid and funding are no good, they are unhappy, c'est la vie. Bring the funding we spend there, home. Spend it here. Let the Chinese snatch up the oil reserve. Let the Chinese trade with the Middle East. I don't envision a clean trading platform. I don't think the two cultures will work well together; total speculation, and I feel confident in that decision regardless. Way too much corruption right now in USA politics. Way, way too much. We need a strong leader, more than ever. The country thrives on competition. Big business is killing new ideas in America, big business is killing competition. No, but you can kill radical extremists with drones. You can also, help to, eliminate ISIS threat to the USA with drones. When I was in the Marines they sent out a Memorandum of sorts to every Marine on duty. The memorandum was called "irregular warfare". The idea was that we would be in Iraq and in the Middle East for a long, long time. That the war could not be won in a few years, but only over time by influencing change to cultures lifestyle, by interacting with people and building relationship and community with the people. This was under Bush administration. If we were still in Iraq today, there would be no ISIS, maybe no Syrian civil war and much more stability in the region. There would also be more American casualties. It's a lawless, intolerable land, with radical leadership and uninhabitable environment. The only way to win the Middle East is full commitment or no commitment; either figure it out for them, or let them figure it out for themselves. When we left Iraq, we chose figure it out for yourself. Now, we have to stay committed to that decision.
Its all about this: Same reason Puttin had issues with Ukraine (and still does), he wants run a pipeline into Sudan I think.
We're not being Nazi, and we're not even being fascist. We're being socialist. Now turn in your gun, citizen.
We took out Saddam for two reasons: 1. He attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush in 1991. President George W. Bush was looking for a reason to take Saddam down when he came to power. This is understandable if an epic lesson in why personal grudges have to be set aside when you assume power. 2. There was a ton of money to be made in Iraq by supporters of the Bush administration as of 2003. Everything else was window-dressing.
We should keep boots off the ground in Iraq and Syria. Anyone who leaves this country to go to Iraq or Syria should not be allowed back into this country. Drone away, airstrike away; especially whenever there are reports of open conflict. While everyone fights, we grow more powerful. Stop sending resources to these wastelands. Let Europe take the lead on the Ukraine situation. For once in a long time, stay the fuck out of these non American interested conflicts. Protect our borders; build and develop here.
I remember my american government professor saying something similar to this and I agree. We would be so much better if we just focus on our own land.
Shouldnt bother with these muslim nations, let them destroy themselves and send themselves backwards so they can live their 7th century lifestyle.
Agreed and they will NEVER be happy with us because they dont want us to affect the way they are living. They are desert dwellers, its the way they grew up, its the way they believe, they dont want computers, they dont want ipads, they do not want big cities, none of it. We need to stop trying to modernize them because they have a 7th century ideology that will NEVER change. Look at Dubai, the most modern muslim city, has parts that are empty. There are skyscrapers sitting completely empty, why? because they dont want anything from the kafir, they dont want anything from the infidel. They dont want any modern thing because they have been brainwashed by their cult, they believe everything built out in the west is demon possessed. Bottom line is we need to leave, because things will never change with these people.
