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I'll admit I just plucked a year at random there and it was a poor example. You've aptly demonstrated your grasp of history but think it's a case of refusing to

I'll admit I just plucked a year at random there and it was a poor example. You've aptly demonstrated your grasp of history but think it's a case of refusing to see the forest for the trees. The question in my mind is whether you've soured on the entire imperial project or not. Were the American objectives there ever realistic? Did the war ever make sense? The Syrian conflict itself is far too big a can of worms to open here. We probably disagree on the ground truth of what precipitated the conflict there and who's fighting whom and for what reasons. Regardless, it's very hard to convince the average American that whatever geopolitical maneuvering is happening there is worth caring about - despite very hard propaganda push campaigns in support of it. Back to the start of the thread, it was my observation that media outlets such as CNN, Fox etc are broadly pro-war... you're basically getting the range of perspectives between State and DoD and that's about it. The broad heuristic you can use to predict their editorial slant on any issue is use-of-force maximization. And that's definitely a discernible agenda.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> The question in my mind is whether you've soured on the entire imperial project or not. That presupposes that at one time I supported the “imperial project”; as someone who repeatedly argued that it was an example of the crime of aggression for which we rightly hung a bunch of people after WWII, I don't think that is a valid premise. OTOH, I don't think the illegality of how you got into a position does anything to.absolve you of responsibility for the consequences of the manner of your exttication; quite the opposite. > Were the American objectives there ever realistic? Did the war ever make sense? No, and no. But, unless we are in a sci-fi scenario where we get to rewind time and attempt to alter the past, those are entirely irrelevant questions—as they address only should we have intervened (and actually address some of the less important factors of that question, as prospexts for success are only relevant when provocation is established) but are largely irrelevant to the question of “given that we are there now, what is the most appropriate manner for extricating ourselves from that situation.”
- neetdeth 8y ago
  What I intended there was not to accuse you of anything. I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never realistic, and thus the effort is Doomed with a capital D, and dogged persistence can only result in perpetual war. It's also possible that, given the political, religious/sectarian, and economic factors at play, the region is likely to "relax into a minimum energy state," so to speak, which is unlikely to be much perturbed by the specifics of withdrawal. There are always better and worse ways to do something. The hazard of holding out for the optimal withdrawal strategy is that it aligns you with disingenuous people who don't really want an end to the thing at all. They will poke holes incessantly in any proposal because either they still think the thing is winnable, or prolonging it advances their personal or institutional interests. I'm still curious to know what precisely is so complicated about US withdrawal in Syria, what the counter-proposal is, and what objective it's supposed to achieve. This thread is going to get depth-limited at some point though, so I may not find out.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Obama's withdrawal from Libya was perfect, but for a few drone operators who seem to have lost their maps. We should do that again for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Jordan, Niger, Somalia, Cameroon, Djibouti, Uganda, Tunisia, Ukraine, Georgia, etc.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never realistic, and thus the effort is Doomed with a capital D, and dogged persistence can only result in perpetual war. I think that your equation of my argument about the need for care in extrication with something dependent on the viability of the original war aims is misguided; the concerns are almost entirely unrelated.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The question in my mind is whether you've soured on the entire imperial project or not. That presupposes that at one time I supported the “imperial project”; as someone who repeatedly argued that it was an example of the crime of aggression for which we rightly hung a bunch of people after WWII, I don't think that is a valid premise. OTOH, I don't think the illegality of how you got into a position does anything to.absolve you of responsibility for the consequences of the manner of your exttication; quite the opposite. > Were the American objectives there ever realistic? Did the war ever make sense? No, and no. But, unless we are in a sci-fi scenario where we get to rewind time and attempt to alter the past, those are entirely irrelevant questions—as they address only should we have intervened (and actually address some of the less important factors of that question, as prospexts for success are only relevant when provocation is established) but are largely irrelevant to the question of “given that we are there now, what is the most appropriate manner for extricating ourselves from that situation.”

neetdeth 8y ago
What I intended there was not to accuse you of anything. I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never realistic, and thus the effort is Doomed with a capital D, and dogged persistence can only result in perpetual war. It's also possible that, given the political, religious/sectarian, and economic factors at play, the region is likely to "relax into a minimum energy state," so to speak, which is unlikely to be much perturbed by the specifics of withdrawal. There are always better and worse ways to do something. The hazard of holding out for the optimal withdrawal strategy is that it aligns you with disingenuous people who don't really want an end to the thing at all. They will poke holes incessantly in any proposal because either they still think the thing is winnable, or prolonging it advances their personal or institutional interests. I'm still curious to know what precisely is so complicated about US withdrawal in Syria, what the counter-proposal is, and what objective it's supposed to achieve. This thread is going to get depth-limited at some point though, so I may not find out.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Obama's withdrawal from Libya was perfect, but for a few drone operators who seem to have lost their maps. We should do that again for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Jordan, Niger, Somalia, Cameroon, Djibouti, Uganda, Tunisia, Ukraine, Georgia, etc.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I still think the question is relevant, because it may be that the political objectives were never realistic, and thus the effort is Doomed with a capital D, and dogged persistence can only result in perpetual war. I think that your equation of my argument about the need for care in extrication with something dependent on the viability of the original war aims is misguided; the concerns are almost entirely unrelated.