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Except that the US are the main cause for those bad guys being there in the first pace, as they waged war (with justifications that later proved worthless) agai

by Udik 12y ago

Except that the US are the main cause for those bad guys being there in the first pace, as they waged war (with justifications that later proved worthless) against the dictator that was able to keep the area under control. So, what the US should do now in Iraq? I have no idea. What should they do in general and in the future? Stop messing with foreign countries, destabilizing governments and waging wars with the silly idea of making the world a safer and more peaceful place. It doesn't work.

tessierashpool 12y ago
What the US should do now in Iraq is learn some restraint, diplomacy, and humility. In other words, we should learn the lessons everybody but the military had already learned from Vietnam.
- knowaveragejoe 12y ago
  It might be a surprise to you, but it is the military who learned the most from Vietnam. It is the American public and our politicians who seem to have learned the least. The military is simply doing its job when presented with a task, whether it was spawned out of noble intentions or kneejerk reactionism. They know that they must be careful in pursuing anything that looks vaguely like a target, because the sentiment of the population is far more important than a small victory like that. Hence the multi-billion-dollar communications and failsafes chain described in this article. This is a key concept that seems to be going over people's heads in this thread. Yes, it failed in this case and in many others. But the very fact that it exists at all and is sophisticated as it is should be a clue as to the lessons learned. The military is achieving far more value with far less collateral damage. Contrast this with the Soviet's preferred method of waging war against the Afghani Mujahideen, which was to kill every living thing and totally and utterly raze every structure in the direction from which they were shot at from. So again, can you conceive a better alternative for dealing with reality as it is now? Time travel is not possible, answers like "don't invade other countries" are pretty worthless. Nobody wants this war(well, nobody with a soul and a modicum of compassion), but it is what it is, and as far I know, it's the best solution to minimize civilian deaths.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    The military is simply doing its job when presented with a task That was presented as a defense of My Lai and was a not successful argument. The military is achieving far more value You're going to need to quantify this statement, because from this distance it doesn't look like much is being achieved at all. Yemen has fallen to the rebels and ISIS still hold much of northern Iraq. answers like "don't invade other countries" are pretty worthless. Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      > Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem. > It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! This quote seems very fitting here. It is indeed a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule - just one that doesn't bring in profits.
    - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
      > That was presented as a defense of My Lai and was a not successful argument. I'm not sure how that's relevant. The "job" here being of far larger scope along the lines of "prevent future terrorist attacks". If you're the military presented with that task, you will go down generally the same route that US has, though perhaps without the same level of consideration for innocents. The real "solution"(which is only in retrospect) is to identify the factors leading to extremism in the first place(American foreign policy) and change them. But that wasn't done, so here we are. Are you to argue that we simply stop trying to fight them on their soil? Instead we hope they don't retaliate? > Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem. I totally agree, but it's not applicable to the current situation. I'm not sure why people think this is a "solution" rather than a "yeah, we should have done that instead".
      - pjc50 12y ago
melling 12y ago
That's what we tend to do in fact. We support whatever dictator is in power because it's better for business. With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's. As we now know, that turned out to not be the case, and they actually did destroy them. Before the war, it was reported by most media outlets that WMD's were still in Iraq. Then you had the UN weapons inspectors who kept being thrown out of Iraq. If the weapons inspectors had been allowed to remain and do their job, there wouldn't have been a second Iraq war.
- 6d0debc071 12y ago
  > With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's That doesn't explain the necessity of the attack. If he'd had WMDs he'd had them since the 1980s and it's not clear why it was important at that point to remove a capability that had not caused us trouble in twenty years.
  - melling 12y ago
    Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_progra... I suppose if someone has a weapon, isn't afraid to use it, and actually has used it and many occasions, you'd be a bit foolish to argue that point, "well, he hasn't used them in 20 years..."
    - 6d0debc071 12y ago
      > Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's And? He didn't use them against us. To do so would have been suicide. From a strategic perspective, why was it necessary to our interests in the world to remove him from power in Iraq - as it was not during the Gulf War?
- astazangasta 12y ago
  Your narrative is broken. What actually happened was a bunch of ideologues came to power, saw an opportunity to remake the middle east in aid of a "new american century", then lied about wmds to convince the public there were WMDs. The weapons inspectors were thrown out of Iraq because they were spying for the CIA. They were desperately invited back by Iraq to try and stop the war, to no avail, because WMDs were never the issue: war was.

by Udik 12y ago

tessierashpool 12y ago

What the US should do now in Iraq is learn some restraint, diplomacy, and humility. In other words, we should learn the lessons everybody but the military had already learned from Vietnam.

knowaveragejoe 12y ago
It might be a surprise to you, but it is the military who learned the most from Vietnam. It is the American public and our politicians who seem to have learned the least. The military is simply doing its job when presented with a task, whether it was spawned out of noble intentions or kneejerk reactionism. They know that they must be careful in pursuing anything that looks vaguely like a target, because the sentiment of the population is far more important than a small victory like that. Hence the multi-billion-dollar communications and failsafes chain described in this article. This is a key concept that seems to be going over people's heads in this thread. Yes, it failed in this case and in many others. But the very fact that it exists at all and is sophisticated as it is should be a clue as to the lessons learned. The military is achieving far more value with far less collateral damage. Contrast this with the Soviet's preferred method of waging war against the Afghani Mujahideen, which was to kill every living thing and totally and utterly raze every structure in the direction from which they were shot at from. So again, can you conceive a better alternative for dealing with reality as it is now? Time travel is not possible, answers like "don't invade other countries" are pretty worthless. Nobody wants this war(well, nobody with a soul and a modicum of compassion), but it is what it is, and as far I know, it's the best solution to minimize civilian deaths.
- pjc50 12y ago
  The military is simply doing its job when presented with a task That was presented as a defense of My Lai and was a not successful argument. The military is achieving far more value You're going to need to quantify this statement, because from this distance it doesn't look like much is being achieved at all. Yemen has fallen to the rebels and ISIS still hold much of northern Iraq. answers like "don't invade other countries" are pretty worthless. Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem. > It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! This quote seems very fitting here. It is indeed a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule - just one that doesn't bring in profits.
  - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
    > That was presented as a defense of My Lai and was a not successful argument. I'm not sure how that's relevant. The "job" here being of far larger scope along the lines of "prevent future terrorist attacks". If you're the military presented with that task, you will go down generally the same route that US has, though perhaps without the same level of consideration for innocents. The real "solution"(which is only in retrospect) is to identify the factors leading to extremism in the first place(American foreign policy) and change them. But that wasn't done, so here we are. Are you to argue that we simply stop trying to fight them on their soil? Instead we hope they don't retaliate? > Absolutely not! It's a simple, clear, actionable, moral rule. It's also a core principle of international law. I'm not sure why this is so much of a problem. I totally agree, but it's not applicable to the current situation. I'm not sure why people think this is a "solution" rather than a "yeah, we should have done that instead".
    - pjc50 12y ago

melling 12y ago

That's what we tend to do in fact. We support whatever dictator is in power because it's better for business. With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's. As we now know, that turned out to not be the case, and they actually did destroy them. Before the war, it was reported by most media outlets that WMD's were still in Iraq. Then you had the UN weapons inspectors who kept being thrown out of Iraq. If the weapons inspectors had been allowed to remain and do their job, there wouldn't have been a second Iraq war.

6d0debc071 12y ago
> With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's That doesn't explain the necessity of the attack. If he'd had WMDs he'd had them since the 1980s and it's not clear why it was important at that point to remove a capability that had not caused us trouble in twenty years.
- melling 12y ago
  Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_progra... I suppose if someone has a weapon, isn't afraid to use it, and actually has used it and many occasions, you'd be a bit foolish to argue that point, "well, he hasn't used them in 20 years..."
  - 6d0debc071 12y ago
    > Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's And? He didn't use them against us. To do so would have been suicide. From a strategic perspective, why was it necessary to our interests in the world to remove him from power in Iraq - as it was not during the Gulf War?
astazangasta 12y ago
Your narrative is broken. What actually happened was a bunch of ideologues came to power, saw an opportunity to remake the middle east in aid of a "new american century", then lied about wmds to convince the public there were WMDs. The weapons inspectors were thrown out of Iraq because they were spying for the CIA. They were desperately invited back by Iraq to try and stop the war, to no avail, because WMDs were never the issue: war was.