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icantfindaname posted:Because it led directly to the worst war and humanitarian disaster since the Iran-Iraq war, possibly since Vietnam? The scale of the disaster is such that it's difficult to defend complete inaction. But I forgot the answer to every question in foreign politics always must be "gently caress amerikkka" The syrian civil war could've been avoided had the US stuck its dick in there or started posturing, obsessing over its own credibility.
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Mar 11, 2016 02:49
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icantfindaname posted:A large majority of the deaths and damage would have been avoided yeah. Pointing this out doesn't fit the narrative obviously, but it's still true Barrel bombs kill people like this- MK. 84s kill people like this.
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Mar 11, 2016 02:54
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icantfindaname posted:Moved to remove Assad at the start of the war in 2012 or 2013 Then the US ends up propping up a side in another civil war. The officials end up being corrupt(most of the people willing to be propped up by the US do) and unpopular and the US is embroiled fighting Sunni and Shia/Allawite insurgents.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:04
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McDowell posted:So what would your strategy be? This guy's characterization of ISIS is kinda laughable because any time someone says "they've been doing this for centuries" you've just heard or you're about to hear some really dumb poo poo.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:11
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icantfindaname posted:No, it doesn't. If the US had literally swooped in, assassinated Assad and his top generals, and flown away, it's very likely 80% of the deaths in this war would have been avoided. Even if you're absolutely 100% committed to die on the hill of everything Amerikkka could ever possibly do being bad and evil, you can't argue with a straight face the war would not have been significantly alleviated. Not gone entirely, obviously, but significantly less bad I'd be okay with that if we did the same to the Sauds, Erdrogan, and Bibi.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:12
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icantfindaname posted:Sure, works for me See, here's the problem: most of the people who invaded Iraq in 2003 thought they would be gone in a few months, too- that it wouldn't be a big thing. Lo and behold, poo poo happens, and we end up staying there. Things come up, mission creep happens. Foreign policy is not as simple as moving a few pieces on a chessboard. Most of the great powers in WW1 thought there would be a limited war over specific grievances. The "red line" statement should never have been made because it imposed a certain inertia on policy and let the Pentagon have a say. Never loving trust the Pentagon. The Pentagon liked Vietnam.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:31
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icantfindaname posted:You keep insisting that things would have been as bad as Vietnam or WW1 if we had intervened, but guess what, it's that bad despite us not intervening. It turns out that non-intervention, like intervention, is a conscious choice with distinct consequences, no matter how hard you stick your fingers in your ears and scream you can't hear it Yes, thank you, all decisions have consequences. Well done.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:39
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Haystack posted:I'm very skeptical about relying on decapitation strikes as foreign policy. For starters, it seems like the sort of thing that's way easier to talk about than it is to implement. So you're likely looking at a high chance of failure out of the gate, highly dependent on a whole bunch of murky stuff like intel and chains of command. What's the impact of a failed strike? I don't know, but it's not going to be a pure win. It's kinda bass ackwards. The way it works now is that if you're a dictator and you try to flee you're in far more danger than if you stuck it out and tried to fight a civil war due to the nature of the ICC. You're also right, though, that the forces that fueled the civil war bubble undereath the generalities of a Syrian Government, rebels, and ISIS. Any notion of a democratic Syria would've required a brand of politics with a lot of finesse and I don't think that was ever going to happen. It's the same with Iraq. You can criticize Maliki, but a shia-majority country is going to elect pro-Shia candidates in a normal situation and the notion that the US is going to support less Iran-aligned Shia like Sadr in the heyday of the War on Terror is a bit silly. Instead we doubled down on bribing the Sunnis to shut up as our exit strategy and expected it to work consistently.
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Mar 11, 2016 11:55
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Those foreign policy think tanks were on board with George Bush from day 1. They have always been the Stupid poo poo caucus. Those guys are just telling us to do what the gulf wants anyway. Be their gun against Iran, Syria, Iraqi Shias.
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Mar 14, 2016 01:03
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If you're trying to look out for number one you can't be locked in by garbage like "responsibility to protect" where it becomes a bludgeon where George Bush types find a justification to invade where they want anyway. If you do what the think tanks say, you're basically being the KSA/Israel's hired goon.
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Mar 14, 2016 02:04
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Volkerball posted:Yeah, I imagine liberals who spend a lot of their time preaching about the Saudi regime being a blight on humanity would begin to disparage the opposition as ~no angels themselves~ really drat quickly once things fell to poo poo, no matter what they were out protesting for. Your friends in Project for a New American Century would probably say that exact thing. If there's a critical mass, enough for a revolution to work, then they'll be able to win the civil war without US intervention. Otherwise, you'll say we should've provided "security assistance" where the US props up whoever we want, destroying said faction's legitimacy and creating an unsustainable regime.
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Mar 14, 2016 02:13
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Volkerball posted:I tried to specify so you wouldn't make that first argument, but here we are. Assuming the Nazi's hadn't espoused aggressive expansion as an ideology, what then? Do you respect their sovereignty and let them do as they please with the Jewish people who were living within Germany? What about Rwanda? Should we have recognized their government as legitimate while it was a figurehead for the ruling militias that were out massacring people in the streets? They were in fact the leaders of Rwanda, after all. You always go on about Rwanda but you don't even know what happened. The Rwanda genocide ended prematurely. The US-supported RPF invaded and overran the country. Mission accomplished. It cost a lot less than a full blown US intervention where the USG would've had to prop up some kind of corrupt government in the interest of being "even-handed" to the perpetrators of genocide. They won the civil war, and lo and behold, Rwanda has a stable government.
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Mar 14, 2016 10:50
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