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> The people in that region don't like the government we set up [...] And they didn't like all those borders we drew for them. Ungrateful lot, I say.

Grishnakh 11y ago
Well, that goes right back to what I said about them not appreciating our methods. Yes, a lot of this mess is due to the way the British drew the borders there in the wake of WWI. However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no. The Kurds would certainly like to see the borders redrawn; it's obvious to anyone with a brain and some idea of the situation there that the borders are making the problems worse, but no one with power wants to change the borders. There's too many vested interests who want to keep their borders: Turkey doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (it has oil on it IIRC). Iraq doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (oil again). The Sunnis in Iraq don't want to lose control of the country because their portion has no oil. The Shias in Iraq would be happy to separate from the Sunnis because they do have oil. Saudi Arabia doesn't want the Shias to take control of the oil-rich areas and leave the Sunnis with a bunch of sand, because the Saudis are also Sunni and hate Shias. It's just a total mess, and pushing ourselves on the place yet again to try to fix it is going to be just as successful as the last time we tried. The only way to really fix it is to invade the whole region, take it ALL over (including SA and Iran and Turkey too, even though this could start a war with Europe, might as well throw in Egypt and Israel while we're at it), then redraw all the borders and set up all new governments run by dictators for a while. Obviously that's not going to happen, so the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it, except maybe for lending a little assistance here and there to deal with really awful groups like ISIS where pretty much everyone (including Russia) agrees that they need to go.
- EdHominem 11y ago
  > everyone (including Russia) agrees Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner. > the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it "Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case... Your argument is that we should just walk away from the mess we've created because it looks hard to solve. "Whups, pouring gasoline on it didn't put it out, let's take off and grab a beer." None of these "leave the area to solve its own problems" ever include actually leaving, just continuing our meddling from a distance. It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists. > However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no. Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds - they've been trying to redraw them since the ink was wet. Something about genocide...
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    >Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner. WTF does that have to do with ISIS? That was in Ukraine. Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they tried to cover it up because they were claiming the Russian army wasn't in Ukraine to begin with and that those were Ukrainian "rebels". But it's not like they actually meant to shoot down a passenger plane. As for ISIS, yes they do care about ISIS. Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime, so ISIS is their natural enemy, along with anyone else who threatens the Assad regime. And honestly, we should be backing the Assad regime too (or at least now working against it). It's the best hope that country has for stability. All the rebel groups are Islamists, so they're worse for stability and worse for human rights and worse for minority group rights. This happens every time we topple some "evil dictator" over there: it turns out the dictator was actually very tolerant of religious or ethnic minorities, as long as they didn't try to overthrow him (case in point: the Yazidis in Iraq). But then we topple the dictator, some "democratic" government gets installed that's mostly Islamists, and the minorities get stomped on. Nations in that region need dictators, not democracy. >"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case... Any why is that wrong? We're not willing to improve the situation there, we're only willing to make it worse. Proof: that's all we've done. >It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. Yeah, and it'd do a lot of good if humans stopped having wars, and stopped being selfish. I don't see that happening any time soon. >We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists. Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing to change that. The politics are too complicated (Turkey is a NATO member after all), so we're not willing to directly oppose Turkey and ally ourselves with the Kurds and promote independence there. As I see it, we have options: 1) stop backing the wrong side as you say, and start working to improve things there, or 2) get out. Well, we're obviously not willing to do #1, we've been doing the opposite of #1 for decades now, no matter who gets elected President, so that only leaves one choice, #2. >Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds They've been trying to redraw borders, yes; what I meant was, has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders (since the complaint here is how we screwed up in how we (after WWI) drew those borders to begin with. And the answer there is no. The western powers have done absolutely nothing to try to redraw the borders. Some groups there would like new borders, but other groups don't (the ones who want new borders usually sit on valuable resources that the other ones want to maintain control of), and we back the wrong sides consistently, so we don't.

Grishnakh 11y ago

Well, that goes right back to what I said about them not appreciating our methods. Yes, a lot of this mess is due to the way the British drew the borders there in the wake of WWI. However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no. The Kurds would certainly like to see the borders redrawn; it's obvious to anyone with a brain and some idea of the situation there that the borders are making the problems worse, but no one with power wants to change the borders. There's too many vested interests who want to keep their borders: Turkey doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (it has oil on it IIRC). Iraq doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (oil again). The Sunnis in Iraq don't want to lose control of the country because their portion has no oil. The Shias in Iraq would be happy to separate from the Sunnis because they do have oil. Saudi Arabia doesn't want the Shias to take control of the oil-rich areas and leave the Sunnis with a bunch of sand, because the Saudis are also Sunni and hate Shias. It's just a total mess, and pushing ourselves on the place yet again to try to fix it is going to be just as successful as the last time we tried. The only way to really fix it is to invade the whole region, take it ALL over (including SA and Iran and Turkey too, even though this could start a war with Europe, might as well throw in Egypt and Israel while we're at it), then redraw all the borders and set up all new governments run by dictators for a while. Obviously that's not going to happen, so the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it, except maybe for lending a little assistance here and there to deal with really awful groups like ISIS where pretty much everyone (including Russia) agrees that they need to go.

EdHominem 11y ago
> everyone (including Russia) agrees Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner. > the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it "Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case... Your argument is that we should just walk away from the mess we've created because it looks hard to solve. "Whups, pouring gasoline on it didn't put it out, let's take off and grab a beer." None of these "leave the area to solve its own problems" ever include actually leaving, just continuing our meddling from a distance. It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists. > However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no. Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds - they've been trying to redraw them since the ink was wet. Something about genocide...
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  >Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner. WTF does that have to do with ISIS? That was in Ukraine. Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they tried to cover it up because they were claiming the Russian army wasn't in Ukraine to begin with and that those were Ukrainian "rebels". But it's not like they actually meant to shoot down a passenger plane. As for ISIS, yes they do care about ISIS. Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime, so ISIS is their natural enemy, along with anyone else who threatens the Assad regime. And honestly, we should be backing the Assad regime too (or at least now working against it). It's the best hope that country has for stability. All the rebel groups are Islamists, so they're worse for stability and worse for human rights and worse for minority group rights. This happens every time we topple some "evil dictator" over there: it turns out the dictator was actually very tolerant of religious or ethnic minorities, as long as they didn't try to overthrow him (case in point: the Yazidis in Iraq). But then we topple the dictator, some "democratic" government gets installed that's mostly Islamists, and the minorities get stomped on. Nations in that region need dictators, not democracy. >"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case... Any why is that wrong? We're not willing to improve the situation there, we're only willing to make it worse. Proof: that's all we've done. >It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. Yeah, and it'd do a lot of good if humans stopped having wars, and stopped being selfish. I don't see that happening any time soon. >We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists. Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing to change that. The politics are too complicated (Turkey is a NATO member after all), so we're not willing to directly oppose Turkey and ally ourselves with the Kurds and promote independence there. As I see it, we have options: 1) stop backing the wrong side as you say, and start working to improve things there, or 2) get out. Well, we're obviously not willing to do #1, we've been doing the opposite of #1 for decades now, no matter who gets elected President, so that only leaves one choice, #2. >Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds They've been trying to redraw borders, yes; what I meant was, has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders (since the complaint here is how we screwed up in how we (after WWI) drew those borders to begin with. And the answer there is no. The western powers have done absolutely nothing to try to redraw the borders. Some groups there would like new borders, but other groups don't (the ones who want new borders usually sit on valuable resources that the other ones want to maintain control of), and we back the wrong sides consistently, so we don't.