So how do you prosecute 47 traitors? Perhaps we need to find out.

[4est_4est_Gump]

Deporting Justin Bieber got more signatures...

http://spectator.org/blog/62024/pet...on-gets-fewer-signatures-deport-justin-bieber

​

 

[Wrong Element]

It pains me to imagine that Vetteman won this debate.

Vetteman couldn't win a debate with a handless mime.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

Vetteman couldn't win a debate with a handless mime.

Yeah but you could use his arguments to beat the WTF OMFG holy shit out of his own comrades.

 

[1sickbastard]

Let's start with the fact that whether you agree with the invasion of Iraq or not, it was fait accompli when Obama took office. The investment had been made, now it appears we're going to have to make it again. It was not Bush that abandoned Iraq to the likes of ISIS, it was Obama. Bush is not responsible for Obama's failures, those belong to Obama and Obama alone. So when you start yapping about Bush you start sounding like Charlie Brown's teach. Blah, blah, blah.

And whether you like it or not, Iran is going to have to be dealt with. And we are going to be intimately involved there as well. It appears that the Israelis are willing to act, with force, where this administration has not only taken that option off the table, but has engaged in a policy that virtually insures that Israel is going to act. And when they do we're going to be dragged into the morass. More the pity in that continuing and tightening sanctions were actually beginning to have an effect.

And from a historical perspective, you do realize that it wasn't until the late 1950's that Germany had a stable government. And that stability was achieved as a result of our massive commitment of occupation forces to that nation. Of course the counter argument is that that was necessary to contain the Soviets. And that argument is spot on, but applying that to today's situation have you failed to notice that Iran is now running amok in Iraq and Syria? Has it occurred to you, or any of the other 'progressives', that a substantial occupying force just might have prevented the collapse of the Iraqi government AND contained the Iranian expansion into the region?

You seem to be concerned about the cost of these operations. And that is a somewhat valid point. But those expenditures will diminish over time, there is an end to the spending. While at the same time you seem to be totally unconcerned about the approx. $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities that we are being crushed by as a result of out of control 'social justice' programs. Spending that is guaranteed to destroy the nation over time. No, that spending bothers you not one whit. As a matter of fact the 'progressives' are continuing to insist that we need to spend even more. Our children and grand-children have been sold into indentured servitude to the state and they had no say or vote on the decision to do so.

Bottom line, your financial argument is a smoke screen. An invalid argument until such time as you commit yourself to the abatement of domestic spending on 'entitlement' programs.

Ishmael

Two things:
1)Domestic spending is not the issue of the discussion you and I are having. Nice try at tossing in a red herring, but no.
2)You've not made any convincing case for using military force (again) as the least shitty method for dealing with the Levant & Mesopotamia.

If you want to make that case, let's start at the top:
What are the strategic objectives?
By what metric is said military action considered to be over & the military withdrawn?
Or, are you arguing for a permanent occupation?

Answer those three questions, if you please.

 

[1sickbastard]

And from a historical perspective, you do realize that it wasn't until the late 1950's that Germany had a stable government. And that stability was achieved as a result of our massive commitment of occupation forces to that nation. Of course the counter argument is that that was necessary to contain the Soviets. And that argument is spot on, but applying that to today's situation have you failed to notice that Iran is now running amok in Iraq and Syria? Has it occurred to you, or any of the other 'progressives', that a substantial occupying force just might have prevented the collapse of the Iraqi government AND contained the Iranian expansion into the region?


Ishmael

Okay three separate points here:

1)How many troops does it take to occupy a well armed, hostile region the size of Iraq? At one point the US had like 140k+ troops, and it still wasn't enough. what's the actual number? 250K? 500K (which was the troop commitment in Vietnam, a much, much smaller country)? A million? The US Military only has about 3 million people. Which parts of the globe do we withdraw troops to redeploy? You do realize that, according to the DoD (at least from what I'd read) that having occupation forces in both Afghanistan & Iraq had stretch the US military pretty thin, globally.

2) Iran is running amok. And prior to 2001 it had two hostile neighbors on both its NW frontier and all along its western frontier. By 2004, those hostile neighbors had been nullified, courtesy of the US Military. There's a reason Bush Sr didn't greenlight removing Saddam Hussen or collapsing the Iraqi regime, bubba.
But now Iran has a real threat close to its western frontier; ISIS. It's enough of a threat that Iran is coordinating intel to facilitate US airstrikes. Oh, yeah, and with a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran has an emerging threat on it's NW frontier again.

3)Yes, I do realize how long it took to stabilize post WW2 Germany. Germany, which was (prewar) heavily urbanized, heavily industrialized, and had developed a unified culture, a strong centralized government and a professional civil service & military, and managed to do all those things, more or less on it's own.

And it took over a decade.

Now contrast to the Middle East: The area was dominated by the Ottoman Turks who played tribal and ethnic loyalties against each other so the Empire could control the region, but was forcibly broken up at the end of WW1 and split up between the French & English (see the Sykes-Picot Agreement). The area was divided, not based on the internal realities of ethnicity, religion, or tribal affiliations, but for the what the British and French considered in their best interests. Post WW2, the colonial mandates ended, but the Cold War dynamics had both the US & the USSR making sure the region was locked down as far as national boundaries, but encouraged both superpowers to meddle in the region's affairs. The US had Turkey, the KSA, Iran, and after 1967, Israel as our proxies, the USSR had Syria, Iraq (both of which were governed by socialist, secular Baath parties) and up until the mid 1970's Egypt. During that time, both superpowers maneuvered in the region using proxies, in some cases nation-states, in some cases tribal or ethnic groups.
The point I'm trying to make is that the region is NOT pre WW2 Germany or Japan. There are no geopolitical imperatives, historical forces or trends evident that would make this region unified or stable.

It took nearly an entire generation after WW2 to stabilize two nations that were previously unified and internally homogeneous. And the US pursued that stabilization because of Cold War strategic imperatives.

What strategic imperative does the US have, now, to spend expend the same sort of effort and lives in trying to nation build in a region that is historically not unified, not stable, and is filled with groups who are busily doing as much damage to each other as they can?

To use an analogy, Us involvement in the region is like being caught in a rip current & sending in the Troops is tantamount to trying to swim against that current to get back to the beach; it's a great way to make drowning victim.
On the other hand, using diplomacy to set the regional actors against each other, creating and maintaining a balance of power which constrains those actors is like swimming along with and out of a rip current; that's what one does if one wants to avoid drowning.

 

[about_average]

I am willing to bet that not only are you wrong, but also that the Iranian Mullahs don't give a rats ass how the US government works.