Don't Forget How We Destroyed Iraq. No Victory There

Would be better off with Saddam still there.

And Hitler in Germany.

 

lol. A powerful rebuttal. We're better than Saddam and Hitler.

Well, that makes me feel better.

 

Well, that was a point I wasn't even considering. I was comparing current Iraq (without an American presence) vs American occupied Iraq.

Maybe we are worse?

 

Saddam wasn't a good guy, but is the country any better off. There still a bunch of suicide bombers, and corrupt ass government. When we leave what is going to stop another corrupt ass dictator taking over?

 

I could understand this argument better if it wasn't for the Hitler reference. That non-sequitor reeks of a sarcastic play to compare our mess with some hypothetical "worst case".

 

Well what's a D&D thread without a Hitler reference

 

These people are going to remember what we did to their country.
When the balance of power eventually shifts and the Middle East becomes a reigning force, then we are ****ed beyond all measure.

 

Why do you think that would ever happen?

 

History has seen the rise and fall of empires and nations over time.
I'd be inclined to believe that maybe we halted that trend... but I just don't want to be naive about that.
Just a rogue possibility.

 

While i think the whitewashing is not surprising in the context you portray, I think it's also a context of respect for lives given to the cause, that there was a purpose and facilitation that had some amount of nobility and that it should be recognized that many gave their lives for that. Not so much "Yeah, you can thank us later, lucky we came when we did, America, $#!@@ yeah."

 

It's also possible that we become good friends in the future.

 

The Middle East is not particularly strong economically or technologically, the level of education is far behind the Western world, not to speak of where they stand in terms of cultural development or morals. Corruption is a big problem there, as is internal conflict. Freedom of religion and freedom of the media are not really there.

If not for the oil money, they would be even further behind.

What makes you think they could possibly rule the world anytime soon?

 

1,000 years ago, the possibility of Europe rising to being the cultural and economical center of the world would've been a laughable notion to any empire along the Silk Road, e.g. China, India, the Middle East.

This statement of yours leads me to believe that you don't think the Middle East ever rising to a global power is at all a plausible or feasible notion.

I'm sure we all think of Western domination and Democracy/Capitalism as being the "showstopper" as it were, but the deterministic force of history is beyond our microscopic view of what our contexts and eras are driving at.

 

"The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers."

The countries on the outskirts of Middle East, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt in that order are the countries that will have real influence in the Middle East in the forseeable future. But it will only be regional, and to think that they will surpass the Western world is simply ridiculous.

As for the OP: Iraq was a mistake, and I'm glad it's over. But people still make the wrong mistakes about it, and so it's sad - I pity and mourn those Americans who lost their lives so a bunch of Arabs can play democracy for another 20 years before they select another thug. That is what a war for humanitarianism, for junk like waging a war to end all wars or for some neoconservative delusion about democracy gets you. War is the deadliest tool, and America should only wield it for the sake of America. Nothing else.

 

Let's go back 70 years shall we?

I do wonder, what indeed.

 

I'm not arguing with you that the idea of the Middle East rising to become a new powerhouse is improbably, it certainly is. However, it is internal ****ups in already established powerhouses that usually end up shifting the balance of power globally.

Just want to wary of all possible consequences.

 

Sure. In a 1000 years from now the Middle East could take control. But I don't really think that the US should be making decisions based on what could or could not happen a thousands years from now. I don't care what the world looks like a thousand years from now, as long as humans are still alive. Preferably America rules the world, but it's not something to lose sleep about. And frankly, I don't really think the Middle Easterners 1000 years from now will care, anymore than Northern Europeans in 1300 gave a crap about the fact that the Romans ruled them for hundreds of years.

 

I think we might have, but only because we got a whole hemisphere to work with and Brits learned how to bank right before we got here. And we figured out mass communication, a bunch of physics, and advertising while everyone else was learning totalitarianism.

 

I am not saying it is never possible, but if you concern yourself with the reasons for economic success in East Asia and look at the current situation in the Middle East, you will quickly see that you are looking at two vastly different situations.