10 ms·

‘Time to come home’ – acting Pentagon chief wants to end wars in Middle East

77 points by sahin-boydas 6y ago

rootsudo 6y ago
This is a good thing by the Trump administration. I wish it had more attention during the election. "Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on stopping “ridiculous endless wars” in the Middle East, took to Twitter last month to announce that American forces currently serving in Afghanistan will be home by Christmas." Imagine all that money, used instead on our infrastructure instead of propping up wars and enemy of west news broadcasts for the past 19 years. "The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Defense Department report."
- erentz 6y ago
  It’s much higher than 1.57 trillion. Most studies put it over 5 trillion. This one puts it at 6.4 trillion last November. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
  - rootsudo 6y ago
    Makes sense, but I referenced the article and it was quoted there in one of the first bullet points as the amount I quoted.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- briefcomment 6y ago
  Does it really require an outsider to execute something like this? Most politicians and the military industrial complex take us for a ride it seems.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Pulling out most forces from Afghanistan and Iraq has been tried several times already. It’s how Islamic State managed to establish themselves in the first place. The last pullout from northern Syria apart from betraying the Kurds also allowed hundreds of hardcore IS prisoners to just walk free. So far it’s been counterproductive, but here’s hoping.
    - lumost 6y ago
      One could make the claim that 20 years of US involvement in the Mideast has created unstable power structures that requires perpetual military support to maintain. There’s no guarantee that N more years of additional military involvement will stabilize this power dynamic.
    - inquirerofsorts 6y ago
      > It’s how Islamic State managed to establish themselves in the first place. No that was widely credited to the power vacuum created by the United States of America when they publicly hanged the President of Iraq for all the Muslim world to see. [1][2][3] Serious error of judgement by White House royalty trying to make their ancestors proud. The US gave the Taliban a decade of training, funding and weapons.[4][5][6][7] They gave ISIS the perfect environment for them to grow big and everyone knows it. It doesn't matter what business you are in, everyone is always trying to create more work for themselves, the military and intelligence services are no exception. [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middle-east-losing-iraq-and-gulf https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middl... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/how-the-united-states-helped-create-the-islamic-state/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/... [3] https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraqs-power-vacuum-counterfactual-analysis-saddam-husseins-authoritarian-rule https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraqs-power-vacuum-cou... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone > described as the "biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency." [5] https://theintercept.com/2019/08/21/taliban-peace-talks-afghanistan-militias/ https://theintercept.com/2019/08/21/taliban-peace-talks-afgh... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controver... [7] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who...
- alphabettsy 6y ago
  That’s fair as long as we also talk about the constant campaigning for increased military spending and the number of defense industry lobbyists in the administration or why the Secretary of Defense position is empty in the first place.
- SllX 6y ago
  Much of that money was borrowed. Still, that alternate universe where we didn’t waste money on two wars of occupation on the other side of the world, didn’t bail out loads of banks and large corporations during the financial crisis and weren’t actively looking to spend more money on unnecessary crap, with the top notch infrastructure minus the enormous cost overruns and CEQA and CEQA-like review processes of the past 20 years, must be pretty nice. Maybe they even kept their Nuclear Arsenal up to date, didn’t kill the F-22 and kept their medical stockpiles in stock and in good condition.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > Much of that money was borrowed. I'm not seeing how that is relevant. There are boots on the ground & bombs in the air. Someone is fronting real resources. There is no possible return on these resources. In fact, the return is negative since the US is taking fairly normal Middle Easterners and presumably making enemies for life. A situation has been set up that is even worse than borrowing resources to support an unproductive and unsustainable lifestyle. This is borrowing resources to ruin random strangers lives. Those resources could have been used for any inane project and literally everyone is better off.
    - SllX 6y ago
      I’m arguing that not borrowing and spending money on two foreign wars of occupation does not automatically lend itself to permission for borrowing and spending money on something else instead. I think we are basically in agreement otherwise, unless you want to argue the details.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  It got the attention it deserved. He had 4 years and a tweet right before the next election means nothing. Especially with this president. It also didn't get much press that Trump said he was about to release his tax returns.
  - SlipperySlope 6y ago
    Correct. Trump voter here. Covid was the issue. Nobel prize Trump deserves gets awarded later.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Animats 6y ago
Yeah, we lost. The US doesn't really need the Middle East any more. North America is now self-sufficient in energy, and that situation improves as more solar and wind go in.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  Sounds like a win to me.
  - inquirerofsorts 6y ago
    A win that could have happened 15 years earlier with a tiny fraction of war spending put into R&D. What a waste.
    - travisoneill1 6y ago
      Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with that.
  - SteveNuts 6y ago
    A win that could have happened with better domestic policy rather than expending the lives of military personnel and civilians.
- nickik 6y ago
  Actually not really the case. The US never really relied on fossil fuel from the Middle East in the last couple decades. That oil was important for Europe and most of all Japan and China. And that is still the case in many ways. Of course now the US maybe doesn't want China to have cheap oil anymore. If it was about securing US oil, war in Venezuela and Canada would be far more sensible. And even then the US didn't need to do anything, everybody would have happily sold the US oil without the need for any kind of war or US troupes of any kind. The US increase intervention was required because of policy growth, where the US wanted an ever increasing control over these places for things other then oil. Once the Soviet Union was gone, the US started to dream of reshaping the the region and integrating it fully in the the US system.
blackrock 6y ago
It sounds like he’s gearing up for a huge kinetic war in.. Asia. Get ready for The Draft boys.
- nichos 6y ago
  I'm not sure if we'll ever see a draft again. Since we print money now, they can (and have been), increasing the incentives to sign up. I do agree though, Asia will be the next boogeyman. In my lifetime it's been: Russia->iraq->other middle eastern countries->now china
  - redisman 6y ago
    Back to another Cold War eh? That was before my time so I guess I’ve got that to look forward to
    - ardit33 6y ago
      as long as it doesn't get hot, It can be fun actually... some republicans will agree on spending on research if it is about national defense/security... Last time we got rockets to the moon, and the internet, which was transformational for the whole world. who knows what will be discovered in the next couple of decades in the name of 'defense'.
  - xenihn 6y ago
    I obviously don't want a draft, but it would be extremely interesting to see the reactions from everyone if it remained male-only.
- redisman 6y ago
  That was too close for comfort for the elites, they’ve learned their lessons. Make the poor fight for you by offering them a decent salary.
kyle_morris_ 6y ago
On 9/11 I was a junior in high school. I joined the US Army in 2003 at 18 and served in the Rangers. I had a deployment to Afghanistan in 2004 and three to Iraq(2005, 2006 x 2). I’m 35 now and the wars are finally near an end. Had I had kids younger, they could have been deployed in the same war. Roughly 7,000 Americans were killed, 50k+ wounded, not to mention then hundreds of thousands of men, women and children killed. I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way. RLTW
- scruple 6y ago
  I left university (hated it, was looking for an out) and enlisted on Thursday, 9/13/2001 (after spending a considerable amount of time talking to my uncle, who served 8 years USMC and ultimately 30 years US Army, my father who spent 8 years with the US Navy, and my brother who was 8 years US Army 10th Mountain Infantry). I was USAF, combat communications. 1 deployment to Afghanistan, 2 to Iraq. I enjoyed my time in, and I wouldn't change anything, but I desperately wanted out when I found myself building pallets for the invasion of Iraq. > I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way. Agreed.
- suifbwish 6y ago
  Thank you for serving. It is unfortunate that avoidable wars are fought when there very well could be wars in the near to distant future that are not avoidable. With an ever expanding population there will eventually be land disputes which may not have solutions. That’s one of the reasons I really hope we can stop getting caught up in political problems and wasting valuable time on worrying about creating automated income sources and focus our attention on figuring out how to actually live in space
  - nickik 6y ago
    Even after 100 years of the same idiotic logical fallacy the population bomb myth will not die. How many times do these theories have to be shown to be total nonsense before people get it. Absolutely incredible how we are still dealing with this nonsense.
jariel 6y ago
The assumption that 'intervention is war' and 'withdrawal' is peace is really short-sighted. The world is a balance of power, every move changes that dynamic. Complete American withdrawal in Europe may have seen Putin do what he did in Crimea also in the Baltic states or possibly further, which creates the conditions for the possibility of 'real war' which would draw the US back in anyhow. The US is the 'lynch pin' of peace between Israel and Egypt, and keeps most the Arab peninsula more or less under wraps. The #1 recipient of foreign aid from the US is Egypt, of course a Muslim country, this surprises a lot of people - it's to keep Isreal/Egypt tensions under wraps. Because they have not had 'hot fighting' in a generation, most of us don't think about that as the 'problem spot' but really it is - if that broke down it would suck the entire region into a bad black hole of fighting. Without the US to protect House of Saud (and it doesn't need to even fire a bullet for that, just the credible threat of retaliation is enough) and their Sunni neighbours, Iran and Saudi Arabia would be going at each other, and though they don't have plans to 'invade' each other, it would break out into something ugly probably very quickly. The populists in Egypt (i.e. Muslim Brotherhood) could easily gain power, and their more radical factions would turn 88M people against Israel and that's a real problem, imagine the pro-Trump vs. anti-Trump rallies we see this weekend, but 100x as big, right on the Egypt/Isreal border - maybe neither government wants it, but as soon as 'someone dies' then they are forced to react and it gets swiftly out of hand. If 88M people 'want blood' then war is innevitable. And Iran's intransigence, though obviously fuelled by the US somewhat - is real. (Aside from 'total breakdown' of power i.e. E. Syria in which case some radical group like ISIS will take power) The 'piece on the board' that would 'make the system peaceful' if it were to be removed is point blank Iran, that's obvious. Yemen, the Gulf, Syria, Shia Iraq, Kurdish lands, and Lebanese instability via Syria ... it's Iran. The US forces in the M/E right now are not fighting for the most part, this is no longer Gulf War, so the 5th fleet + support is well placed. There is so much 'inherent instability' there it would fall apart very quickly. The availability of Oil money, concentrated into a few hands of people with personal and ideological vendettas is just too much. (Of course the real 'piece on the board were it to be removed would mean peace' is Oil).
- ackbar03 6y ago
  As sad as it is, I feel this is more or less accurate. Unfortunately humans and society as a whole are wired such that we are compelled to form factions and destroy each other. But I guess that's what other animals do anyways
bradbot 6y ago
As much as I want these wars to end, they should leave it to the Biden administration to figure it out. I'm concerned this is GOP strategy simply trying to gum up the works and cause headaches for the Democrats. Anything they can do to obstruct and then use that to rally uninformed voters in the midterms in 2022 and the next presidential election.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  We lost. I'm not sure even Trump would make us leave the "wrong" way.
  - bradbot 6y ago
    We absolutely lost (and I'm reading this as the US lost the war). There's no question about it. I'm more curious as to how you can reason that Trump and/or the GOP would not be so vindictive? If Trump had any interest in what's best for the country and its citizens his administration would not be hindering the transition to the new administration. Something similar can be said for the GOP.
    - briandear 6y ago
      Did Bill Clinton facilitate George Bush’s transition in November 2000?
      - bradbot 6y ago
        From what I've read the transition from Clinton to Bush was shortened due to the issues of the recount in Florida. I don't think any fair-minded individual would argue that the circumstances are similar for the 2020 election.
      - js2 6y ago
        “CIA briefers faced a difficult situation after the 2000 election, when the country didn't know for some time whether Republican George W Bush or Democrat Al Gore had won. Bush had received a four-hour CIA briefing in September before the election at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, but he had never seen the President's Daily Brief, which Gore saw daily as vice president. As their lengthy ballot recount dragged into December, President Bill Clinton authorized intelligence officials to share the so-called PDB with Bush, too."
haram_masala 6y ago
We still have a Congress that is subservient to Israeli political and security needs, thanks to the Jews and Evangelicals who have legally bribed our representatives into it. So yeah, I think we're going to be fighting wars in the Middle East for a long time to come.
- jariel 6y ago
  Please take these racist conspiracy theories elsewhere.
  - haram_masala 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...
    - jariel 6y ago
      Wow, you mean foreign interests lobby the US Government, I'm so surprised, I was unaware of that! /friendly sarcasm/ Saying that 'Congress is Subservient to a Foreign Power' is completely different than saying 'A Foreign Power has influence in Congress'. The US gives billions to Egypt and Saudi Arabia in aid, military equipment, and literally by contract guarantees the Sovereignty and power of the House of Saud - so conspiratorial statements that make this about 'one side' or that anyone 'controls congress' are damaging and false.
      - haram_masala 6y ago
        "Saying that 'Congress is Subservient to a Foreign Power' is completely different than saying 'A Foreign Power has influence in Congress'." I'm well aware of that.
  - bsder 6y ago
    Acknowledging that the Evangelicals supporting Israel is because they see the Middle East and Israel, in particular, as a gateway/prerequisite to the end times is hardly conspiracy--it's quite well documented.
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
I'm expecting a Biden administration is going to be all-in on war. It's somewhat clear the "establishment" is dying to get rid of Trump for being unpredictable, free-wheeling and unwilling to repeat the usual pieties about the war industry. It was galling to see the bureaucrats confess this week to lying about troop numbers in order to bypass Trump. https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-en...
nl 6y ago
I wonder how many of the “successful stalemate” alluded to in this article comes down to the “he’s just crazy enough to do it” factor? Obama’s Syria strategy mostly failed because when it came down to it Assad read him correctly: the “bright line” was crossed and Obama didn’t really want to intervene beyond air power. With Trump, I think Iran genuinely thought he was looking for an excuse to nuke them (especially when he had Bolton as an adviser). I think that moderated their responses and led to the stalemate we saw.
blast 6y ago
What can he do in two months? If the military industrial complex can hold on for 20 years they can surely manage another few weeks. It would be interesting to understand the intricacies of why Trump was unable to do anything about this before now. Maybe it's just because he's an idiot but I doubt it. Obama also started out wanting to do this. Remember "I'm against dumb wars"?
- jjeaff 6y ago
  It could be some corrupt force. Or it might be that once a president gets in and gets up to date on all the intelligence and geo-politics and complexities of leaving those countries, they decide it isn't such a good idea after all.
  - xellisx 6y ago
    The Soviet–Afghan war is proof of that. We went in, got the Soviets out, then high tailed out of there and we know what happened 20 years later.
Nginx487 6y ago
There's no vacuum in "power projection". Since US gives up control of Middle East, China and Russia would be there soon. Maybe for good, this is how USSR ceased to exist.

77 points by sahin-boydas 6y ago

This is a good thing by the Trump administration. I wish it had more attention during the election. "Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on stopping “ridiculous endless wars” in the Middle East, took to Twitter last month to announce that American forces currently serving in Afghanistan will be home by Christmas." Imagine all that money, used instead on our infrastructure instead of propping up wars and enemy of west news broadcasts for the past 19 years. "The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Defense Department report."

erentz 6y ago
It’s much higher than 1.57 trillion. Most studies put it over 5 trillion. This one puts it at 6.4 trillion last November. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
- rootsudo 6y ago
  Makes sense, but I referenced the article and it was quoted there in one of the first bullet points as the amount I quoted.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
briefcomment 6y ago
Does it really require an outsider to execute something like this? Most politicians and the military industrial complex take us for a ride it seems.
- simonh 6y ago
  Pulling out most forces from Afghanistan and Iraq has been tried several times already. It’s how Islamic State managed to establish themselves in the first place. The last pullout from northern Syria apart from betraying the Kurds also allowed hundreds of hardcore IS prisoners to just walk free. So far it’s been counterproductive, but here’s hoping.
  - lumost 6y ago
    One could make the claim that 20 years of US involvement in the Mideast has created unstable power structures that requires perpetual military support to maintain. There’s no guarantee that N more years of additional military involvement will stabilize this power dynamic.
  - inquirerofsorts 6y ago
    > It’s how Islamic State managed to establish themselves in the first place. No that was widely credited to the power vacuum created by the United States of America when they publicly hanged the President of Iraq for all the Muslim world to see. [1][2][3] Serious error of judgement by White House royalty trying to make their ancestors proud. The US gave the Taliban a decade of training, funding and weapons.[4][5][6][7] They gave ISIS the perfect environment for them to grow big and everyone knows it. It doesn't matter what business you are in, everyone is always trying to create more work for themselves, the military and intelligence services are no exception. [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middle-east-losing-iraq-and-gulf https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middl... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/how-the-united-states-helped-create-the-islamic-state/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/... [3] https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraqs-power-vacuum-counterfactual-analysis-saddam-husseins-authoritarian-rule https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraqs-power-vacuum-cou... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone > described as the "biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency." [5] https://theintercept.com/2019/08/21/taliban-peace-talks-afghanistan-militias/ https://theintercept.com/2019/08/21/taliban-peace-talks-afgh... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controver... [7] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who...
alphabettsy 6y ago
That’s fair as long as we also talk about the constant campaigning for increased military spending and the number of defense industry lobbyists in the administration or why the Secretary of Defense position is empty in the first place.
SllX 6y ago
Much of that money was borrowed. Still, that alternate universe where we didn’t waste money on two wars of occupation on the other side of the world, didn’t bail out loads of banks and large corporations during the financial crisis and weren’t actively looking to spend more money on unnecessary crap, with the top notch infrastructure minus the enormous cost overruns and CEQA and CEQA-like review processes of the past 20 years, must be pretty nice. Maybe they even kept their Nuclear Arsenal up to date, didn’t kill the F-22 and kept their medical stockpiles in stock and in good condition.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > Much of that money was borrowed. I'm not seeing how that is relevant. There are boots on the ground & bombs in the air. Someone is fronting real resources. There is no possible return on these resources. In fact, the return is negative since the US is taking fairly normal Middle Easterners and presumably making enemies for life. A situation has been set up that is even worse than borrowing resources to support an unproductive and unsustainable lifestyle. This is borrowing resources to ruin random strangers lives. Those resources could have been used for any inane project and literally everyone is better off.
  - SllX 6y ago
    I’m arguing that not borrowing and spending money on two foreign wars of occupation does not automatically lend itself to permission for borrowing and spending money on something else instead. I think we are basically in agreement otherwise, unless you want to argue the details.
jjeaff 6y ago
It got the attention it deserved. He had 4 years and a tweet right before the next election means nothing. Especially with this president. It also didn't get much press that Trump said he was about to release his tax returns.
- SlipperySlope 6y ago
  Correct. Trump voter here. Covid was the issue. Nobel prize Trump deserves gets awarded later.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Animats 6y ago

Yeah, we lost. The US doesn't really need the Middle East any more. North America is now self-sufficient in energy, and that situation improves as more solar and wind go in.

travisoneill1 6y ago
Sounds like a win to me.
- inquirerofsorts 6y ago
  A win that could have happened 15 years earlier with a tiny fraction of war spending put into R&D. What a waste.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with that.
- SteveNuts 6y ago
  A win that could have happened with better domestic policy rather than expending the lives of military personnel and civilians.
nickik 6y ago
Actually not really the case. The US never really relied on fossil fuel from the Middle East in the last couple decades. That oil was important for Europe and most of all Japan and China. And that is still the case in many ways. Of course now the US maybe doesn't want China to have cheap oil anymore. If it was about securing US oil, war in Venezuela and Canada would be far more sensible. And even then the US didn't need to do anything, everybody would have happily sold the US oil without the need for any kind of war or US troupes of any kind. The US increase intervention was required because of policy growth, where the US wanted an ever increasing control over these places for things other then oil. Once the Soviet Union was gone, the US started to dream of reshaping the the region and integrating it fully in the the US system.

blackrock 6y ago

It sounds like he’s gearing up for a huge kinetic war in.. Asia. Get ready for The Draft boys.

nichos 6y ago
I'm not sure if we'll ever see a draft again. Since we print money now, they can (and have been), increasing the incentives to sign up. I do agree though, Asia will be the next boogeyman. In my lifetime it's been: Russia->iraq->other middle eastern countries->now china
- redisman 6y ago
  Back to another Cold War eh? That was before my time so I guess I’ve got that to look forward to
  - ardit33 6y ago
    as long as it doesn't get hot, It can be fun actually... some republicans will agree on spending on research if it is about national defense/security... Last time we got rockets to the moon, and the internet, which was transformational for the whole world. who knows what will be discovered in the next couple of decades in the name of 'defense'.
- xenihn 6y ago
  I obviously don't want a draft, but it would be extremely interesting to see the reactions from everyone if it remained male-only.
redisman 6y ago
That was too close for comfort for the elites, they’ve learned their lessons. Make the poor fight for you by offering them a decent salary.

kyle_morris_ 6y ago

On 9/11 I was a junior in high school. I joined the US Army in 2003 at 18 and served in the Rangers. I had a deployment to Afghanistan in 2004 and three to Iraq(2005, 2006 x 2). I’m 35 now and the wars are finally near an end. Had I had kids younger, they could have been deployed in the same war. Roughly 7,000 Americans were killed, 50k+ wounded, not to mention then hundreds of thousands of men, women and children killed. I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way. RLTW

scruple 6y ago
I left university (hated it, was looking for an out) and enlisted on Thursday, 9/13/2001 (after spending a considerable amount of time talking to my uncle, who served 8 years USMC and ultimately 30 years US Army, my father who spent 8 years with the US Navy, and my brother who was 8 years US Army 10th Mountain Infantry). I was USAF, combat communications. 1 deployment to Afghanistan, 2 to Iraq. I enjoyed my time in, and I wouldn't change anything, but I desperately wanted out when I found myself building pallets for the invasion of Iraq. > I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way. Agreed.
suifbwish 6y ago
Thank you for serving. It is unfortunate that avoidable wars are fought when there very well could be wars in the near to distant future that are not avoidable. With an ever expanding population there will eventually be land disputes which may not have solutions. That’s one of the reasons I really hope we can stop getting caught up in political problems and wasting valuable time on worrying about creating automated income sources and focus our attention on figuring out how to actually live in space
- nickik 6y ago
  Even after 100 years of the same idiotic logical fallacy the population bomb myth will not die. How many times do these theories have to be shown to be total nonsense before people get it. Absolutely incredible how we are still dealing with this nonsense.

jariel 6y ago

The assumption that 'intervention is war' and 'withdrawal' is peace is really short-sighted. The world is a balance of power, every move changes that dynamic. Complete American withdrawal in Europe may have seen Putin do what he did in Crimea also in the Baltic states or possibly further, which creates the conditions for the possibility of 'real war' which would draw the US back in anyhow. The US is the 'lynch pin' of peace between Israel and Egypt, and keeps most the Arab peninsula more or less under wraps. The #1 recipient of foreign aid from the US is Egypt, of course a Muslim country, this surprises a lot of people - it's to keep Isreal/Egypt tensions under wraps. Because they have not had 'hot fighting' in a generation, most of us don't think about that as the 'problem spot' but really it is - if that broke down it would suck the entire region into a bad black hole of fighting. Without the US to protect House of Saud (and it doesn't need to even fire a bullet for that, just the credible threat of retaliation is enough) and their Sunni neighbours, Iran and Saudi Arabia would be going at each other, and though they don't have plans to 'invade' each other, it would break out into something ugly probably very quickly. The populists in Egypt (i.e. Muslim Brotherhood) could easily gain power, and their more radical factions would turn 88M people against Israel and that's a real problem, imagine the pro-Trump vs. anti-Trump rallies we see this weekend, but 100x as big, right on the Egypt/Isreal border - maybe neither government wants it, but as soon as 'someone dies' then they are forced to react and it gets swiftly out of hand. If 88M people 'want blood' then war is innevitable. And Iran's intransigence, though obviously fuelled by the US somewhat - is real. (Aside from 'total breakdown' of power i.e. E. Syria in which case some radical group like ISIS will take power) The 'piece on the board' that would 'make the system peaceful' if it were to be removed is point blank Iran, that's obvious. Yemen, the Gulf, Syria, Shia Iraq, Kurdish lands, and Lebanese instability via Syria ... it's Iran. The US forces in the M/E right now are not fighting for the most part, this is no longer Gulf War, so the 5th fleet + support is well placed. There is so much 'inherent instability' there it would fall apart very quickly. The availability of Oil money, concentrated into a few hands of people with personal and ideological vendettas is just too much. (Of course the real 'piece on the board were it to be removed would mean peace' is Oil).

ackbar03 6y ago
As sad as it is, I feel this is more or less accurate. Unfortunately humans and society as a whole are wired such that we are compelled to form factions and destroy each other. But I guess that's what other animals do anyways

bradbot 6y ago

As much as I want these wars to end, they should leave it to the Biden administration to figure it out. I'm concerned this is GOP strategy simply trying to gum up the works and cause headaches for the Democrats. Anything they can do to obstruct and then use that to rally uninformed voters in the midterms in 2022 and the next presidential election.

Ericson2314 6y ago
We lost. I'm not sure even Trump would make us leave the "wrong" way.
- bradbot 6y ago
  We absolutely lost (and I'm reading this as the US lost the war). There's no question about it. I'm more curious as to how you can reason that Trump and/or the GOP would not be so vindictive? If Trump had any interest in what's best for the country and its citizens his administration would not be hindering the transition to the new administration. Something similar can be said for the GOP.
  - briandear 6y ago
    Did Bill Clinton facilitate George Bush’s transition in November 2000?
    - bradbot 6y ago
      From what I've read the transition from Clinton to Bush was shortened due to the issues of the recount in Florida. I don't think any fair-minded individual would argue that the circumstances are similar for the 2020 election.
    - js2 6y ago
      “CIA briefers faced a difficult situation after the 2000 election, when the country didn't know for some time whether Republican George W Bush or Democrat Al Gore had won. Bush had received a four-hour CIA briefing in September before the election at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, but he had never seen the President's Daily Brief, which Gore saw daily as vice president. As their lengthy ballot recount dragged into December, President Bill Clinton authorized intelligence officials to share the so-called PDB with Bush, too."

haram_masala 6y ago

We still have a Congress that is subservient to Israeli political and security needs, thanks to the Jews and Evangelicals who have legally bribed our representatives into it. So yeah, I think we're going to be fighting wars in the Middle East for a long time to come.

jariel 6y ago
Please take these racist conspiracy theories elsewhere.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...
  - jariel 6y ago
    Wow, you mean foreign interests lobby the US Government, I'm so surprised, I was unaware of that! /friendly sarcasm/ Saying that 'Congress is Subservient to a Foreign Power' is completely different than saying 'A Foreign Power has influence in Congress'. The US gives billions to Egypt and Saudi Arabia in aid, military equipment, and literally by contract guarantees the Sovereignty and power of the House of Saud - so conspiratorial statements that make this about 'one side' or that anyone 'controls congress' are damaging and false.
    - haram_masala 6y ago
      "Saying that 'Congress is Subservient to a Foreign Power' is completely different than saying 'A Foreign Power has influence in Congress'." I'm well aware of that.
- bsder 6y ago
  Acknowledging that the Evangelicals supporting Israel is because they see the Middle East and Israel, in particular, as a gateway/prerequisite to the end times is hardly conspiracy--it's quite well documented.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

I'm expecting a Biden administration is going to be all-in on war. It's somewhat clear the "establishment" is dying to get rid of Trump for being unpredictable, free-wheeling and unwilling to repeat the usual pieties about the war industry. It was galling to see the bureaucrats confess this week to lying about troop numbers in order to bypass Trump. https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-en...

nl 6y ago

I wonder how many of the “successful stalemate” alluded to in this article comes down to the “he’s just crazy enough to do it” factor? Obama’s Syria strategy mostly failed because when it came down to it Assad read him correctly: the “bright line” was crossed and Obama didn’t really want to intervene beyond air power. With Trump, I think Iran genuinely thought he was looking for an excuse to nuke them (especially when he had Bolton as an adviser). I think that moderated their responses and led to the stalemate we saw.

blast 6y ago

What can he do in two months? If the military industrial complex can hold on for 20 years they can surely manage another few weeks. It would be interesting to understand the intricacies of why Trump was unable to do anything about this before now. Maybe it's just because he's an idiot but I doubt it. Obama also started out wanting to do this. Remember "I'm against dumb wars"?

jjeaff 6y ago
It could be some corrupt force. Or it might be that once a president gets in and gets up to date on all the intelligence and geo-politics and complexities of leaving those countries, they decide it isn't such a good idea after all.
- xellisx 6y ago
  The Soviet–Afghan war is proof of that. We went in, got the Soviets out, then high tailed out of there and we know what happened 20 years later.

Nginx487 6y ago

There's no vacuum in "power projection". Since US gives up control of Middle East, China and Russia would be there soon. Maybe for good, this is how USSR ceased to exist.