All things Middle East related

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

While I generally don't agree with That Guy on a lot of politics, I am with him on this one.

Boots on the ground? If history has shown us anything, it has demonstrated that putting troops into a place is always easier than withdrawing them. Once Americans die, there had damn well better be a reason for being there and, if there is, we damn well better win. In the Middle East, barring the economic need for oil, there is no reason for young Americans to die. I bought into that theory once. Not again.

Who is in those boots? Young Americans fighting ... who? Assad? ISIS? For the rebels? For some of the Rebels but against others? With Turkey but not with the Kurds? And when in this mish mash of religious radicalism, rampant ethnic loyalty, and generally undemocratic forces, we end up siding with folks who - it turns out - also commit atrocities, we inevitably make more enemies.

ISIS is bad. Assad is bad. Many of the rebels are bad. Not a lot of folks fighting for "Truth Justice and the American Way."

I don't know what the right answer is. I am convinced, however, "boots on the ground" is the wrong answer unless their is a clear, rock-solid, exit strategy. Because war is messy - particularly the war being fought in the ME, I just don't see a scenario that warrants Americans dying in the dessert.

Here's the deal, and it's really a lot more simple than people want to make it. ISIS is coming to fight the West, whether you like it or not, no matter what.

They are either going to be permitted to operate in Iraq and Syria where they control lots of revenue-generating assets, and thus enabled to coordinate attacks throughout Europe, or someone is going to fight them on their turf, disrupting their ability to generate the cash necessary to fund their operations. But either way people are going to die, it's just a matter of how many, on whose side, and where that happens.

We are extremely fortunate here in the US that we don't face the same threat to our homeland that Europe does. Belgium demonstrates the severity of Europe's problem. So you could say there's no way we should put American boots on the ground without Europe (and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Egypt and...) being along for the ride.

Except we were the ones who created the mess in the first place, by toppling Saddam and leaving before the power vacuum was adequately filled. So we, the United States of America, are to blame for creating an environment for ISIS to operate and fund its machine. Build a coalition, fine. But we have to go in. ISIS doesn't exist if we never toppled Saddam, and ISIS doesn't kill hundreds of Parisians and 30+ Belgians if not for our extremely serious mistakes.

Are these nations our NATO allies or not? We belong there, cleaning up our mess properly. Blame it on Bush if you want, that's appropriate. But nevertheless it's the mess we left. We can't just practice sea gull foreign policy - fly in, sqwauk a lot, shit all over the place, and fly away.

We have a responsibility to the world now, like it or not.