you might be right after WW3 and half of the world is destroyed and Marshall Plan II is implemented, but American troops in Syria under current conditions === dangerous occupation. Long term presence in Iraq is equally sketchy given the nation is currently an active war zone, and was so even after a decade of US troop placement.
It was a lot less of an active war zone before we abandoned the Iraqi people and created this huge ISIS problem. A permanent base in Iraq was the obvious solution, but we weren't smart enough for that. Hopefully we learn our lesson after we go back in and clean up the mess we caused.
Although some of what you say here is true, it is, just as it almost always seems to be when it comes to Western understandings of the Islamic world, lacking complete nuance of what the end-goal of these organizations are. In recent history, the Iranian revolution was another such event that brought the idea of a "global caliphate" to the minds and fears of Westerners. It was the most traumatic shift in national alliances the world had seen in ages--Iran went from being one of the U.S.'s most crucial allies in a given region to becoming an utter and complete enemy seemingly overnight. Yet still, even in the light of an Islamic revolution giving way to an Islamic republic--which some Iranians even thought was being led by the Imam Mahdi himself [Khomeini]--Iran has been reduced to nothing more than an ultra-corrupt nation where its leaders espouse "Islamic" values only for public consumption, and engage in a myriad of "un-Islamic" behaviors behind closed doors. This is well-documented. The clear endgame of this so-called Islamic "call to unity"? Money and power. The thing is, much of the same will be the case for IS. I believe that at this point their fight is an ideological one, but very soon it will not be. Just as Iran carries out its draconian laws, so will IS--it is a form of social control. It is not a mystery how a fringe group like IS was able to mobilize itself into a "mainstream" organization. They harnessed the vacuum of central authority in two broken/breaking countries in Iraq and Syria, and are offering a real, alternative system to nations that used to be [relatively] secular, and where that secularism had failed. Islam is and always has been a system moreso than a religion, and it has not always manifested itself in these heinously "evil" ways as you put it. When you say that IS are "true believers" or that they follow the Qur'an "to the letter", I can't help but laugh. You are basically saying that a book that has had a thousand years worth of scholarly, theological analysis and interpretation--of which none of these efforts resulted in any holistic consensus--are somehow nullified in the face of some insane terrorist group, because IS has somehow found a way to "follow the Qur'an to the letter" when Muslims a thousand times smarter than them have failed to even find out what "the letter" even means. Islam, a system, an organization, and a structure, will always pop up where there is chaos in the Middle East. It is the easiest, most readily recognizable, most familiar form of governance at hand, and in times of crisis people will turn to it as a way to stabilize their lives. That does NOT, however, mean that those who wield it as such a weapon understand it. Moreover, the concept of pan-Islamism is a relatively recent phenomenon (and a direct response to European intervention in the Middle East, at that), one that was trumpeted by al-Afghani (a Persian Shi'a who converted to Sunnism and presented himself as an Afghan in order to attain credibility in the Islamic world) in the 19th century, and short of the early, early days of Islam's advent, pan-Islamism has only recently manifested itself in this extremely violent form. Its rhetoric got hijacked by men like al-Wahhab, Sayyid Qutb, and the notorious House of Saud, perhaps the most pernicious of the fractured Arabian tribes that finally attained power with the ideological vigor of Wahhabi thought--all of these things occured in the 18th and 19th centuries, and we are finally experiencing their culmination in the modern era. The Iranian revolution was the wake-up call for the radical Sunni world, as they saw the Shi'as were doing more to "realize their global caliphate" than they were doing, and once America bombed the crap out of Iraq and the Arab Spring sparked up, radicals who held these visions of power and pan-Islamism finally saw a chance to fill in a gap where there was once none. So don't fool yourself, this issue is not a purely religious one--it IS economical, it IS social, it IS historical. And it is easy for these groups to gain soldiers when all they do is blame the West--the West has unfortunately played a negative role in Middle Eastern affairs over the last few centuries, and with recent American activity in the Middle East, hating the West is as valid and relevant as ever for most of these people. The amount of variables that go into the cluster**** we see today cannot simply be explained away as "Islam evil. Islam bad. Muslim making whole world sad." It is nuanced and complex, and when Westerners refuse to investigate more deeply into why these things are happening, their ignorance only serves as an even more effective recruiting tool for these savage extremist groups. You also need to understand that you, as a soldier, witnessed virtually the WORST of what that world had to offer. You only saw suffering, destruction, murder--and all of it done in the "name of God". You were witness to that society/culture at one of the lowest points of its existence. But what we truly need is a grander historical scope than that, and we need to understand that it wasn't always like that, either. When we can find solutions as to how to make it better without going "just make 'em Western, that'll fix'em right up!", you are always going to have these primitive, jackbooted scum trying to murder people in cold-blood out of some misguided, "religious" obligation.
It was a looooooootttt less of an active war zone before the US decided let's intervene militarily into Iraq because ?????. I dislike Saddam and his ilk, but maybe the US should take a lesson on how hastily convened wars go very very badly. At least this administration seems to have learned.
This administration has been a complete disaster when it comes to foreign policy and military policy. In fact, it would be hard for them to have done things worse than the way they did it. The previous administration wasn't good, but damn, they look pretty competent by comparison.
You do realize that the previous administration to which you refer invaded a country based on long debunked "evidence," destabilizing the entire region when there was no good reason for us to be there in the first place. Then, after a series of spectacularly stupid decisions that virtually assured there would be chaos in the region for the foreseeable future, they signed the very treaty which necessitated the removal of troops by a certain date. But it is Obama that f***ed things up? Delusion, thy name is Bobby.
You simply don't know what you are talking about when it comes to the first part and I blame Bush as well as Obama for abandoning the Iraqis and essentially creating the ISIS situation....both administrations were poor.
THIS is a drop in the bucket. This is a tiny sampling of what ISIS is doing. Do not forget, please, that just a few weeks ago they tried to wipe out an entire ethnic group, chased them up onto a barren mountain, executed hundreds en masse, and took their women and children back to the IS to be sold into slavery, taken as slave wives, or sent to re-education camps. You're goddamned right we haven't seen anything like these people in decades. These guys are worse than the Norks, worse than Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Of course this is not unprecedented in the ME - it's all straight out of the Koran, and it's happened before. The difference is, we don;t tolerate this shIIt in the modern world, and with international travel networks none of this is ever really confined to any particular geographic area. They haven't made the numbers yet, but we are only a few months into this, really. Give them some time and freedom to operate and they will kill hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. And they WILL attacks us here. They WILL reach out and touch us. They know who their enemies are, we should too. You know what's irrelevant? The particular method one uses to murder masses of innocent people. Again, Assad is a butcher - we already know that. Guess what? Pretty much everyone is. But with Assad we can get stability, we can get someone who doesn't threaten US interests, won;t attack his neighbors, won't attack us. Those are some pretty nice features, when with ISIS you get a group that will cause fantastic regional instability, threaten the West, commit genocide, invade every single neighbor they have, destabilize oil prices, carve out a safe haven for terrorists the world over to flock to... How do you not see this? Lesser of two evils. It's not a difficult concept. Take the blinders off - our choices suck. We need to pick the least suckiest one of the lot.
And just to reiterate - when I talk about throwing in with Assad, I am not talking about an actual alliance like we have with the Kurds. I am talking about back channel stuff - pass intel, receive intel (very important, we have little on the ground there), possible have some covert assets with their forces that could coordinate strikes, an informal agreement "don't shoot at our planes, we won't accidentally drop any bombs on you" sort of thing. No need for Kerry to rush over there for a signing and photo op, no need to send over a few thousand troops to coordinate like we are with the Iraqis and Kurds (note, two different entities at this point). They can give us access to capabilities on the ground that we don't have, and that we can't have, unless we put our own boots over there in large numbers. It's Assad's country, he and his people know the lay of the land - we do not. We will get NOWHERE without some sort of allied presence on the ground. And the FSA isn't cutting it. You want to pretend that the old borders still exist, and that we're talking about two countries instead of three (4 if you include the Kurds). That ship has sailed. We have to deal with what is, not with what was, and we need people on the ground to do it. And we cannot ignore half of the problem and hope it goes away.
ROFL, it certainly doesn't appear as if I am the one who doesn't know what they are talking about regarding Iraq. The "evidence" used by the Bush administration to support war was largely based on "Curveball," an asset that the CIA didn't consider reputable. However, he told the story that the Bush administration wanted told, so he was afforded credibility by the administration when, as the evidence eventually showed, he was lying. You really seem to believe an awful lot of liars, perhaps you should consider fact checking your sources more carefully.
I agree, and I think in the end, we will end up supporting Assad to stop ISIS, might as well do it now. Assad is clearly the lesser of the two evils, and in time people will realize this.
The problem with the US in the Middle East is that we have no true allies, just varying factions using us to achieve dominance. HOW THE NSA HELPED TURKEY KILL KURDISH REBELS https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/31/nsaturkeyspiegel/ PKK is still considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, its image has been improved radically by its recent success in fighting ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria. That was 2012, now the Kurds are looking more like allies as Turkey turns more radically islamic. We support democracy and we elect Malicki. There is just no winning strategy other than supporting the humanitarian efforts and limiting genocide where you can. Hell, ISIS may come around when they figure out they need BP, Exxon and ELF to be rich.
Heh, it's funny how arrogant civilians that have never worked intelligence in their lives can be. You don't even know enough to know how little you actually know and it shows. You probably want to find a different conversation.
Heh, it's funny how arrogant partisans that haven't engaged in critical thought in their lives can be. You don't even know enough to know how much you've been lied to and it shows. You probably want to substantiate your claims or STFU.
I would agree, that's pretty much the problem I'm having with you right now. I blame both sides for actions that were wrong, you blame only one in a childish effort to "win" political points. Heh, infosec is a thing. I'll leave it at that.
Wrong in politics is a subjective judgement. There are never any objective valuations because all the alternatives are hypothetical and their unintended consequences never materialize. Was Bush wrong to invade Iraq? You'll never know how things might have been different, but it seems the invasion and occupation results were minimally positive for the investment in lives and money. Is Obama wrong for not invading Syria, he's not going to so you will just have to guess. But experience tells us we would be in for a lot of losses with little resolution. So, you can make reasoned projections of potential outcomes when you have to make choices. Usually the more radical actions have the greater unpredictability and chances for far reaching failures. They should be engaged in only when there is a clear goal possible. Would an expeditionary force of 100,000 Americans produce a resolution for ISIS/Assad/Iranian backed Shia/Kurds? Probably not. That's why it's so Orwellian that 'conservatives' are the ones that always want to send in the troops.
An American force of 100K would slice through IS territory like a hot knife and kill 95% of the problem in fairly short order. Hell, 2-3 Army Brigades with SOF, proper air support, a sprinkling of Marines just to make it a really bada$$ cake, and good ROEs would probably roll IS out of Iraq and could head straight to Raqaa with minimal casualties. I don't think you have any idea how good we are compared to the locals. But I don't think anyone here is talking about anything like that. My main point in particular is that the problem can't be dealt with only on one side of the border. And frankly, ISIS cannot be contained indefinitely. Containment only works with rational actors, and they are anything but that. Our goal needs to be the annihilation of the IS, and we need to be prepared to do some unpleasant things to achieve that goal. And mind you, I don't think that any of our options would require large casualties on our part, as most of the dirty work can be done by proxies. The toughest thing at this point seems to be getting POTUS to decide on a strategy and start implementing it. Not sure this has been mentioned. "Apoplectic"... [youtube]YENGfHUKwKo[/youtube] Conservatives are more likely to support sending in troops because 1) they do not live in a fantasy land where everyone can be friends if only the right words are uttered, and they understand that there are great evils in this world that can only be confronted with military force; 2) they understand that some people cannot be dealt with diplomatically or in a rational manner, and must be killed instead; 3) they understand that air campaigns can only accomplish limited objectives, and that often putting infantry/armor/artillery on the ground is required to achieve a military goal; 4) they understand that ignoring threats or pretending they are not what they are will not make a problem go away - on the contrary, it generally will make the situation even worse; and 5) they generally aren't interested in half-a$$ing military campaigns and would prefer to crush our enemies with overwhelming force so we don't have to worry about them again. If that's "Orwellian" to you, then you should probably check up on that particular reference.
It certainly doesn't appear that way to this observer. I also give Obama blame for things that he did wrong, but see you utterly ignoring the actions of the previous administration and heaping blame they earned on Obama, in a childish effort to "win" political points. So is projection, nuff said.
