Policing Debate (Moved from the Confessional Thread)

[Frownland]

Sounds like you mirror what a lot of Americans were thinking in Ireland. I was only seven at the time but I remember quite a bit about the subject surprisingly and that made up a good deal of the rhetoric I heard.

[John Wilkes Booth]

also... the whole "we went in for oil" trope... uhhh, duh? why do you think we even have any strategic geopolitical interests in that region at all? why do you think we went in in 91? to help the poor downtrodden citizens of kuwait? cracka pls. the saudis requested the US to intervene. saddam was making them nervous, because his military was miles ahead of theirs and he was starting to act like an arab napolean. we had a strategic interest to intervene because the prospect of a major power gaining control of a significant portion of the oil-rich mid-east that was hostile to US interests was undesirable to us. so we were more than happy to oblige the saudi's and kuwaiti's request for assistance.

and had we went in and finished the job, dismantling the baath regime completely, the whole IS situation we're looking at now would've simply manifested years sooner. because iraq, like many other mid east nations, is an artificial entity carved out european imperialists. so it consists of several different feuding nationalities that, without an oppressive saddam-like tyrant to keep them in check through brutal murderous police-state policies, have a tendency to want to balkanize and split into feuding sectarian entities.

all that said, i do think the war was mismanaged. it could've been used to a much greater effect. the two major mistakes, as i see them, are:

a) failing to capitalize on the potential leverage it granted us. iirc, after saddam was invaded, ghaddafi openly came forward willing to surrender his own WMD's, out of fear of becoming the next saddam. similarly, for a brief period after the invasion, iran was willing to pursue greater diplomacy with the US out of a similar fear. bush rejected this attempt using the line of 'we don't negotiate with terrorists' or some dumb walker-texas-ranger brand redneck bull**** like that. as a result, a potential for diplomacy with one of the US's major rivals in the region was missed.

b) blacklisting the baath party, thus guaranteeing that many of the most capable and qualified iraqis were disqualified from participating in the new regime, thus undermining the effort to stabalize the country after the dismantling of saddam's regime.

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

No of course I don't think the trouble between Russia and the US comes via the Middle East. I'm 52 after all: I know my history. It began when Russia became a superpower after WWII and Stalin grabbed all he could of Eastern Europe, even up to part (half?) of Germany, resulting in East/West Germany. Then the Cold War, the Space Race and so on all helped fuel tensions. But Gorbachev was doing a lot, against stiff opposition in the Kremlin no doubt, to help thaw relations between the two powers. The collapse of communism and the fragmentation of the USSR left Russia with few bargaining chips and their power much reduced, but Putin is doing his best to drag us all back to the days of the Cold War. If Russia had not vetoed the resolution something could perhaps have been done about Syria. The US has done it before in, oh, 2003? Little place called Iraq?

honestly after campaigning as the sort of anti bush the last thing obama wanted to do was get tied up in his own mid east adventure... plus the nation is weary in general about putting boots on the ground after iraq.

syria is just one of many mid east countries that we watched fall to pieces after the initial uprisings in 2011 across the arab world


basically washington had no real intentions to get involved beyond providing arms in syria.

[RoxyRollah]

@Exo He was asking for it?

[John Wilkes Booth]

^