Doesn't change the fact of the matter. There were people here before us.Redbrickbear said:FLBear5630 said:That's all well and good, but they came from somewhere else. To say that English are the original Americans and that immigration from other places is a new concept is not accurate. Everyone on that lise left somewhere else to settle here.Redbrickbear said:FLBear5630 said:I think you will see that the Spanish, Dutch, French, Mexican, Russians and others were here too. It was not just some blank island that the Brits settled.The_barBEARian said:No. We are a nation of British colonialists who rebelled against the crown.FLBear5630 said:Hear, Hear. I have no issue with immigration, my Grandfather came through Ellis Island from Hungary. We are a Nation of Immigrants. But, enforce the laws and immigrants should obey the laws.Redbrickbear said:FLBear5630 said:The US does more than its share of immigration and is the #1 in the world. We have over 1 million of legal immigrants per year. Germany is the 2nd. So, we can close the border and still be the top at allowing new citizens to legally immigrate.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:The_barBEARian said:
You are like a female.
Your logic is so surface level and superficial.
I am a bad person bcs I want to limit immigration and only allow people who are willing and able to adapt to my culture so I can protect my quality of life.
Meanwhile you are a good person bcs you drank some beer, chopped down a tree, and gave away some worthless hand-me-downs to some brown people? Should we be heaping you with flowers?
This may come as a shock to you, but real life isnt some psychotic left-wing Hollywood movie. Wanting strict immigration doesnt mean you spend your weekends burning crosses in the colored part of town or dragging people behind your pick-up truck.
Strict immigration means you want to receive the same level of respect you give to others. It means not wanting people moving into your community and attempting to bully and harass you for things you and your family have been doing for generations, tearing down your cultural landmarks, and rewriting your history bcs it doesnt make them feel good.
I have pleasant interactions with people who dont look like me every day, but I dont brag about it bcs I'm not some ******* who thinks I am somehow morally superior to other people.
Just thinking about calling another person I've never met in real life racist makes me cringe so hard.
I don't bemoan the people wanting to come here. The vast, vast majority of them are merely looking to better their life….
Certainly true.
Also true that the United States does NOT exist to provide a better life for people from the 3rd world.
It exists to provide security and freedom for the American people and the States that make up the Union.
That I think is a major departing point between actual conservatives and liberals in terms of views around immigration.
There are certainly progressives who think the legitimacy of the USA is tied to how many 3rd worlders we can reduce from the poverty, corruption, and violence of their own homelands
(Then there are the chamber of commerce 1st republicans who don't care one way or the other but love that cheap labor)
Yea another part of the hypocrisy of the immigration debate.
We already let in 1 million LEGAL immigrants a year.
Basically resettling a population the size of Dallas every single year.
But now we are also supposed to accept 200,000 people a month breaking our laws?
If Congress wants more legal immigrants than they should pass a law to that effect. Not just let the President turn and blind eye to an actual invasion on our border
My ancestors rebelled against the British to create this country. This country had a distinct culture and society.
You might not like the people who founded this country, but it didnt appear out of thin air.
A bunch of you folks got here 100 years ago and suddenly we are a "nation of immigrants" which is so ungracious and disrespectful to those who came before you.
Certainly there were other groups here but they were driven out, bought out (Russians in Alaska, French in Louisiana, Spanish in Florida), or conquered (Dutch in New Amsterdam, French in Quebec)
There were not the majority nor major part of determining the future of North America above the Rio Grande
And they all had to deal with an aggressive, expansionist, and militaristic Anglo-Celt population coming from the British isles
It is worth pointing put that those Anglo-celts moved from one part of the British empire to another part of the British empire.
Why Are We in Ukraine?
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Last: 7 hrs ago by Redbrickbear
Well, Iraq is basically controlled by Iran now. I won't argue whether that's an improvement, but if it is it happened in spite of us.ATL Bear said:Afghanistan and Iraq are both better off than prior to our invasions. Probably not in the form the U.S. nation builders would have projected, but the statistics do show. Ironically, even the Taliban are evolving.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
A Sunni strongman was oppressing a Shia majority, so it was bound to go in that direction. Agree Iran's influence is exponentially greater than before, but we do have a dialogue and a place in the conversations. Not what I would have predicted. And the Iraqi people are seeking their own independent identity from Iran.Sam Lowry said:Well, Iraq is basically controlled by Iran now. I won't argue whether that's an improvement, but if it is it happened in spite of us.ATL Bear said:Afghanistan and Iraq are both better off than prior to our invasions. Probably not in the form the U.S. nation builders would have projected, but the statistics do show. Ironically, even the Taliban are evolving.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
A blunder as well as a crime. To congratulate ourselves for it would be obscene.Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
Sam Lowry said:A blunder as well as a crime. To congratulate ourselves for it would be obscene.Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
Being a Russian shill trying to be high and mighty is even more obscene.
I look out for American interests more than Ukrainian or Russian. Probably not something you'd understand.Bear8084 said:Sam Lowry said:A blunder as well as a crime. To congratulate ourselves for it would be obscene.Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
Being a Russian shill trying to be high and mighty is even more obscene.
Sam Lowry said:I look out for American interests more than Ukrainian or Russian. Probably not something you'd understand.Bear8084 said:Sam Lowry said:A blunder as well as a crime. To congratulate ourselves for it would be obscene.Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
Being a Russian shill trying to be high and mighty is even more obscene.
LOL Not by your posts shill.
So we need a religious litmus test? We sure missed in Sudan then.Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
And Iraq was not a stable nation prior to 2003. As a Shia dominated nation, if anything they were being religiously persecuted.
While Iran has increased its influence, it may come as a shock that there is no love loss between Iran and Iraq, and there are fractures in the Shia alignment and that doesn't mention the Kurdish element. So no, it isn't an Iranian client state (at least not yet). Otherwise we would not have troops and bases there and have relative freedom to operate against Iranian interests with impunity as we have.
How you can say a bigger blunder than Vietnam when we lost nearly 60,000 men and had an equivalent financial cost is beyond me. We never even won the military objective in Vietnam. We failed the nation build plan in Iraq.
Without a doubt one of the unintended consequences of our misadventure in Iraq was that in taking out Saddam's regime we gave Iran access to increase its sway in the country.ATL Bear said:Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
While Iran has increased its influence, it may come as a shock that there is no love loss between Iran and Iraq, and there are fractures in the Shia alignment and that doesn't mention the Kurdish element. So no, it isn't an Iranian client state (at least not yet). Otherwise we would not have troops and bases there and have relative freedom to operate against Iranian interests with impunity as we have.
Of of the secondary reasons we were supposed to support taking out Saddam was that it would lead to Iran becoming weaker. Instead it increased Iranian political influence and gave them a trade partner.
Even DC admits that...
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/17/iraq-war-iran-cables/
[HOW IRAN WON THE U.S. WAR IN IRAQ
A trove of secret intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept reveals Tehran's political gains in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.]
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-much-influence-does-iran-have-iraq
[Iran has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. More than a dozen Iraqi political parties have ties to Iran, which funds and trains paramilitary groups aligned with these parties. Some paramilitary groups under the umbrella of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces have pledged allegiance to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These groups have used violence to crush opposition to Iranian influence ]
https://www.stimson.org/2023/retrospective-us-invasion-of-iraq-was-a-mixed-blessing-for-iran/
[The fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime 20 years ago gave Iran important strategic advantages that were not anticipated by U.S. invaders. Iran's most significant regional enemy was removed from the scene and Shiites and Kurds aligned with Iran found more maneuvering room in the post-Saddam political structure.
The power of the Sunnis decreased and a new system based on federalism and ethnic and sectarian quotas emerged, which significantly increased Iran's influence. These changes in Iraq allowed Iran to expand its strategic depth to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forming what King Abdullah II of Jordan called a "Shia Crescent."]
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2401446/business-economy
[Iran and Iraq pledge to forge stronger trade ties during official visit....in a meeting held in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani engaged in discussions with Iran's Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Abbas Ali-Abadi, to expand mutual trade and deepen partnerships across various sectors, reported the Iraqi News Agency.
Both sides expressed a strong commitment to strengthening their bilateral relations, with a specific focus on collaborative ventures in sectors such as petrochemicals and fertilizers.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_relations#:~:text=Iran%20has%20since%20become%20Iraq's,dominated%20by%20Shi'ite%20Muslims.
[Iran has since become Iraq's largest trading partner...]
Ironically, Iraq isn't happy about the lopsided trade relationship, and is (shock shock) looking to open more inroads to everyone from Saudi Arabia to the EU. Will be interesting to see how that progresses.Redbrickbear said:Without a doubt one of the unintended consequences of our misadventure in Iraq was that in taking out Saddam's regime we gave Iran access to increase its sway in the country.ATL Bear said:Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
While Iran has increased its influence, it may come as a shock that there is no love loss between Iran and Iraq, and there are fractures in the Shia alignment and that doesn't mention the Kurdish element. So no, it isn't an Iranian client state (at least not yet). Otherwise we would not have troops and bases there and have relative freedom to operate against Iranian interests with impunity as we have.
Of of the secondary reasons we were supposed to support taking out Saddam was that it would lead to Iran becoming weaker. Instead it increased Iranian political influence and gave them a trade partner.
Even DC admits that...
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/17/iraq-war-iran-cables/
[HOW IRAN WON THE U.S. WAR IN IRAQ
A trove of secret intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept reveals Tehran's political gains in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.]
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-much-influence-does-iran-have-iraq
[Iran has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. More than a dozen Iraqi political parties have ties to Iran, which funds and trains paramilitary groups aligned with these parties. Some paramilitary groups under the umbrella of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces have pledged allegiance to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These groups have used violence to crush opposition to Iranian influence ]
https://www.stimson.org/2023/retrospective-us-invasion-of-iraq-was-a-mixed-blessing-for-iran/
[The fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime 20 years ago gave Iran important strategic advantages that were not anticipated by U.S. invaders. Iran's most significant regional enemy was removed from the scene and Shiites and Kurds aligned with Iran found more maneuvering room in the post-Saddam political structure.
The power of the Sunnis decreased and a new system based on federalism and ethnic and sectarian quotas emerged, which significantly increased Iran's influence. These changes in Iraq allowed Iran to expand its strategic depth to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forming what King Abdullah II of Jordan called a "Shia Crescent."]
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2401446/business-economy
[Iran and Iraq pledge to forge stronger trade ties during official visit....in a meeting held in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani engaged in discussions with Iran's Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Abbas Ali-Abadi, to expand mutual trade and deepen partnerships across various sectors, reported the Iraqi News Agency.
Both sides expressed a strong commitment to strengthening their bilateral relations, with a specific focus on collaborative ventures in sectors such as petrochemicals and fertilizers.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_relations#:~:text=Iran%20has%20since%20become%20Iraq's,dominated%20by%20Shi'ite%20Muslims.
[Iran has since become Iraq's largest trading partner...]
ATL Bear said:Ironically, Iraq isn't happy about the lopsided trade relationship, and is (shock shock) looking to open more inroads to everyone from Saudi Arabia to the EU. Will be interesting to see how that progresses.Redbrickbear said:Without a doubt one of the unintended consequences of our misadventure in Iraq was that in taking out Saddam's regime we gave Iran access to increase its sway in the country.ATL Bear said:Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
While Iran has increased its influence, it may come as a shock that there is no love loss between Iran and Iraq, and there are fractures in the Shia alignment and that doesn't mention the Kurdish element. So no, it isn't an Iranian client state (at least not yet). Otherwise we would not have troops and bases there and have relative freedom to operate against Iranian interests with impunity as we have.
Of of the secondary reasons we were supposed to support taking out Saddam was that it would lead to Iran becoming weaker. Instead it increased Iranian political influence and gave them a trade partner.
Even DC admits that...
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/17/iraq-war-iran-cables/
[HOW IRAN WON THE U.S. WAR IN IRAQ
A trove of secret intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept reveals Tehran's political gains in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.]
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-much-influence-does-iran-have-iraq
[Iran has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. More than a dozen Iraqi political parties have ties to Iran, which funds and trains paramilitary groups aligned with these parties. Some paramilitary groups under the umbrella of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces have pledged allegiance to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These groups have used violence to crush opposition to Iranian influence ]
https://www.stimson.org/2023/retrospective-us-invasion-of-iraq-was-a-mixed-blessing-for-iran/
[The fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime 20 years ago gave Iran important strategic advantages that were not anticipated by U.S. invaders. Iran's most significant regional enemy was removed from the scene and Shiites and Kurds aligned with Iran found more maneuvering room in the post-Saddam political structure.
The power of the Sunnis decreased and a new system based on federalism and ethnic and sectarian quotas emerged, which significantly increased Iran's influence. These changes in Iraq allowed Iran to expand its strategic depth to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forming what King Abdullah II of Jordan called a "Shia Crescent."]
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2401446/business-economy
[Iran and Iraq pledge to forge stronger trade ties during official visit....in a meeting held in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani engaged in discussions with Iran's Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Abbas Ali-Abadi, to expand mutual trade and deepen partnerships across various sectors, reported the Iraqi News Agency.
Both sides expressed a strong commitment to strengthening their bilateral relations, with a specific focus on collaborative ventures in sectors such as petrochemicals and fertilizers.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_relations#:~:text=Iran%20has%20since%20become%20Iraq's,dominated%20by%20Shi'ite%20Muslims.
[Iran has since become Iraq's largest trading partner...]
I can see that.
I can also see that now that Iran has its hooks in Iraq it will be unlikely to let it go.
And it has more than a dozen political parties inside Iraq with links to Tehran to do its bidding.
If we look back in 20 years and Iraq is still under the political sway of Iran... that will just be another indictment of the entire foolish coalition led war.
We replaced an enemy of Iran....for a government in bed with Iran.
There are only 32 large refineries in Russia processing the majority of their petroleum products.
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) February 6, 2024
Ukraine has begun blowing them up.
Tick tock. pic.twitter.com/JJbhB6ffUT
Iraq's economy depends upon energy export. Iran isn't a customer for that. My guess is that is the direction it goes in, not that they won't have a better relationship with each other. Shias fought Shias in the Iran/Iraq War so the assumption of a "client state" isn't a foregone conclusion.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Ironically, Iraq isn't happy about the lopsided trade relationship, and is (shock shock) looking to open more inroads to everyone from Saudi Arabia to the EU. Will be interesting to see how that progresses.Redbrickbear said:Without a doubt one of the unintended consequences of our misadventure in Iraq was that in taking out Saddam's regime we gave Iran access to increase its sway in the country.ATL Bear said:Realitybites said:
The bottom line on Iraq:
"In 2003, a total of 1.3 million Christians lived in Iraq and enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq's Muslim majority under Saddam. Now that number has dwindled to fewer than 250,000. "I have not met one person both locally and internationally who has said the 2003 military invasion was a good decision," Archbishop Warda told the Register. "No one, except corruption, has benefited from the invasion."
The impact of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's Christians has led many to question whether their interests were ever seriously considered by the U.S.-led coalition. Pope St. John Paul II frequently warned, in vain, against the conflict and sent peace envoys to try to avert it, largely because he could foresee the devastating effect it would have on Christians there."
https://www.ncregister.com/news/iraqi-christians-20-years-on
We destroyed a stable nation, created an Iranian client state, killed several hundred thousand people, and went trillions into debt to do it. From a foreign policy perspective, it was a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
While Iran has increased its influence, it may come as a shock that there is no love loss between Iran and Iraq, and there are fractures in the Shia alignment and that doesn't mention the Kurdish element. So no, it isn't an Iranian client state (at least not yet). Otherwise we would not have troops and bases there and have relative freedom to operate against Iranian interests with impunity as we have.
Of of the secondary reasons we were supposed to support taking out Saddam was that it would lead to Iran becoming weaker. Instead it increased Iranian political influence and gave them a trade partner.
Even DC admits that...
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/17/iraq-war-iran-cables/
[HOW IRAN WON THE U.S. WAR IN IRAQ
A trove of secret intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept reveals Tehran's political gains in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.]
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-much-influence-does-iran-have-iraq
[Iran has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. More than a dozen Iraqi political parties have ties to Iran, which funds and trains paramilitary groups aligned with these parties. Some paramilitary groups under the umbrella of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces have pledged allegiance to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These groups have used violence to crush opposition to Iranian influence ]
https://www.stimson.org/2023/retrospective-us-invasion-of-iraq-was-a-mixed-blessing-for-iran/
[The fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime 20 years ago gave Iran important strategic advantages that were not anticipated by U.S. invaders. Iran's most significant regional enemy was removed from the scene and Shiites and Kurds aligned with Iran found more maneuvering room in the post-Saddam political structure.
The power of the Sunnis decreased and a new system based on federalism and ethnic and sectarian quotas emerged, which significantly increased Iran's influence. These changes in Iraq allowed Iran to expand its strategic depth to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forming what King Abdullah II of Jordan called a "Shia Crescent."]
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2401446/business-economy
[Iran and Iraq pledge to forge stronger trade ties during official visit....in a meeting held in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani engaged in discussions with Iran's Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Abbas Ali-Abadi, to expand mutual trade and deepen partnerships across various sectors, reported the Iraqi News Agency.
Both sides expressed a strong commitment to strengthening their bilateral relations, with a specific focus on collaborative ventures in sectors such as petrochemicals and fertilizers.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_relations#:~:text=Iran%20has%20since%20become%20Iraq's,dominated%20by%20Shi'ite%20Muslims.
[Iran has since become Iraq's largest trading partner...]
I can see that.
I can also see that now that Iran has its hooks in Iraq it will be unlikely to let it go.
And it has more than a dozen political parties inside Iraq with links to Tehran to do its bidding.
If we look back in 20 years and Iraq is still under the political sway of Iran... that will just be another indictment of the entire foolish coalition led war.
We replaced an enemy of Iran....for a government in bed with Iran.
who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
excellent breakdown by Zeihan, which explains why Russian defeat in Ukraine is so essential if we are to avoid war between Russia and Nato.Redbrickbear said:
It is terribly important for critics of Ukraine support to understand that Russian history is a long recurring cycle of Russian expansion (for reasons Zeihan cited) to the point of overreach, then collapse. Russia collapsed in 1991. Now, the expansion has started again. It will continue until they overreach, at which point it will collapse.
The key question is: when & where do we want that collapse to occur.
Eastern Ukraine is the cheapest, lowest-risk place for that to occur, the best chance we have of having a Russian/Nato crisis in the Baltics a decade from now.
Quote:
you missed the point, entirely.
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
I'm afraid you've missed the point. Afghanistan, and it's natural resources, are now a Chinese client state. Since your foreign policy perspective seems to resemble a Toby Keith song, unfortunately he died yesterday.
We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
LOL. Afghanistan, the jewel in the crown! He who owns it rules the world!!Realitybites said:Quote:
you missed the point, entirely.
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
I'm afraid you've missed the point. Afghanistan, and it's natural resources, are now a Chinese client state. Since your foreign policy perspective seems to resemble a Toby Keith song, unfortunately he died yesterday.
Very funny
yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decade until we got tired of doing it and then left. Today, we are in a better position than we were when he walked the streets there, and are causing fits for both Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions with only a portion of the soft power available to us.Sam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
The only thing in a trap is your mind. It's upside down in a dark & smelly place and you can't seem to pull it out.
From time to time, you fail to consider the patent absurdity of your posts, and the problem is getting to be something of a habit.
Schumer plans to force a procedural vote on an emergency aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan on Wednesday — and drop the new border deal — after Republicans block the larger package today.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 7, 2024
McConnell and other top Republicans have endorsed the move, so it’s possible…
whiterock said:yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decadeSam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
And now they are back in power.
I am all for a Barbary pirates way of dealing with enemies....swooping in and punishing the enemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars
But that is not what we did....we hung around and tried to nation build for 20 years and spent $2.3 trillion dollars and cost the lives of 5,000+ coalition soldiers
That is the problem with DC....they demand to try and nation build in the 3rd world and spend vast amounts of cash...and push modern progressive social values at the same time that never really work out.
Your posts should be required reading for anyone who's still naive enough to trust our foreign policy establishment. You've fundamentally misunderstood the Ukraine war in almost every way, resulting in spectacularly wrong predictions. You've clearly given no more thought to Al Qaeda's strategy and motives than you have to Putin's. The poster who compared you to Toby Keith was doing Toby a disservice. His thinking was nuanced compared to yours.whiterock said:yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decade until we got tired of doing it and then left. Today, we are in a better position than we were when he walked the streets there, and are causing fits for both Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions with only a portion of the soft power available to us.Sam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
The only thing in a trap is your mind. It's upside down in a dark & smelly place and you can't seem to pull it out.
From time to time, you fail to consider the patent absurdity of your posts, and the problem is getting to be something of a habit.
Bin Laden set out to bankrupt and humiliate the United States while fueling resentment against us. In this he was wildly successful. Yes, we killed some people and blew some **** up. Congratulations...I'm sure no one saw that coming. We also spent at least $8 trillion we didn't have, showed our complete inability to impose our will through force, and retreated in our most shameful moment since Vietnam.
And before anyone chimes in with "it's not the defense spending that's killing us, it's the entitlements," understand that the two are not unrelated. Reagan learned this when he tried to outspend the Soviets on defense without adding to the domestic budget. Congress said no way -- you want your guns, we want our butter. That dynamic still exists and always will. The trillions wasted on nation-building have a ripple effect that goes well beyond the sticker price.
I doubt Bin Laden wanted to die at the hands of American troops, but from his point of view it was "heads I win, tails you lose." If he eluded us he was an embarrassment (and he did for quite a while). If he was killed he became a martyr. Each result served the larger goal in some way. He probably never imagined that we'd still be supporting Islamic terrorists to annoy Russia 20 years later, this time in Syria. We didn't even learn the obvious lesson about blowback. That's a special kind of stupidity that even our worst enemy would never have pinned on us.
And so it begins. There won't be a limit on the ways the regime will persecute Tucker if this interview is broadcast. They're sending Douglass Mackey to prison for a single meme, and here's Tucker platforming the man the regime wants you to believe is Adolf Hitler reborn. https://t.co/ruenNpRRr2
— RAW EGG NATIONALIST (@Babygravy9) February 7, 2024
Whiterock: "If Russia wants to co-exist, I say it needs to change its historical behavior and join the modern world."whiterock said:excellent breakdown by Zeihan, which explains why Russian defeat in Ukraine is so essential if we are to avoid war between Russia and Nato.Redbrickbear said:
It is terribly important for critics of Ukraine support to understand that Russian history is a long recurring cycle of Russian expansion (for reasons Zeihan cited) to the point of overreach, then collapse. Russia collapsed in 1991. Now, the expansion has started again. It will continue until they overreach, at which point it will collapse.
The key question is: when & where do we want that collapse to occur.
Eastern Ukraine is the cheapest, lowest-risk place for that to occur, the best chance we have of having a Russian/Nato crisis in the Baltics a decade from now.
Also Whiterock: "Russia can never co-exist with the modern world because I say its behavior is dictated by past history."
I just want to know where you got $8 Trillion.Sam Lowry said:Your posts should be required reading for anyone who's still naive enough to trust our foreign policy establishment. You've fundamentally misunderstood the Ukraine war in almost every way, resulting in spectacularly wrong predictions. You've clearly given no more thought to Al Qaeda's strategy and motives than you have to Putin's. The poster who compared you to Toby Keith was doing Toby a disservice. His thinking was nuanced compared to yours.whiterock said:yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decade until we got tired of doing it and then left. Today, we are in a better position than we were when he walked the streets there, and are causing fits for both Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions with only a portion of the soft power available to us.Sam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
The only thing in a trap is your mind. It's upside down in a dark & smelly place and you can't seem to pull it out.
From time to time, you fail to consider the patent absurdity of your posts, and the problem is getting to be something of a habit.
Bin Laden set out to bankrupt and humiliate the United States while fueling resentment against us. In this he was wildly successful. Yes, we killed some people and blew some **** up. Congratulations...I'm sure no one saw that coming. We also spent at least $8 trillion we didn't have, showed our complete inability to impose our will through force, and retreated in our most shameful moment since Vietnam.
And before anyone chimes in with "it's not the defense spending that's killing us, it's the entitlements," understand that the two are not unrelated. Reagan learned this when he tried to outspend the Soviets on defense without adding to domestic spending. Congress said no way -- you want your guns, we want our butter. That dynamic still exists and always will. The trillions wasted on nation-building have a ripple effect that goes well beyond the sticker price.
I doubt Bin Laden wanted to die at the hands of American troops, but from his point of view it was "heads I win, tails you lose." If he eluded us he was an embarrassment (and he did for quite a while). If he was killed he became a martyr. Each result served the larger goal in some way. He probably never imagined that we'd still be supporting Islamic terrorists to annoy Russia 20 years later, this time in Syria. We didn't even learn the obvious lesson about blowback. That's a special kind of stupidity that even our worst enemy would never have pinned on us.
The Taliban was cooperating on a counter terrorism level which was the ultimate objective of this fighting (no friendly harbor states), but the Kandahar kooks have made some rumblings about jihad. We'll see if the Doha agreement gets chalked up as a Trump blunder, or if foreign money becomes too enticing to go back to the old Taliban.
Maybe we should use Russian logic and invade again on the threat alone. At least we have a track record of violence against us as justification…
If Afghanistan were on our border I'm sure we would.ATL Bear said:I just want to know where you got $8 Trillion.Sam Lowry said:Your posts should be required reading for anyone who's still naive enough to trust our foreign policy establishment. You've fundamentally misunderstood the Ukraine war in almost every way, resulting in spectacularly wrong predictions. You've clearly given no more thought to Al Qaeda's strategy and motives than you have to Putin's. The poster who compared you to Toby Keith was doing Toby a disservice. His thinking was nuanced compared to yours.whiterock said:yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decade until we got tired of doing it and then left. Today, we are in a better position than we were when he walked the streets there, and are causing fits for both Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions with only a portion of the soft power available to us.Sam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
The only thing in a trap is your mind. It's upside down in a dark & smelly place and you can't seem to pull it out.
From time to time, you fail to consider the patent absurdity of your posts, and the problem is getting to be something of a habit.
Bin Laden set out to bankrupt and humiliate the United States while fueling resentment against us. In this he was wildly successful. Yes, we killed some people and blew some **** up. Congratulations...I'm sure no one saw that coming. We also spent at least $8 trillion we didn't have, showed our complete inability to impose our will through force, and retreated in our most shameful moment since Vietnam.
And before anyone chimes in with "it's not the defense spending that's killing us, it's the entitlements," understand that the two are not unrelated. Reagan learned this when he tried to outspend the Soviets on defense without adding to domestic spending. Congress said no way -- you want your guns, we want our butter. That dynamic still exists and always will. The trillions wasted on nation-building have a ripple effect that goes well beyond the sticker price.
I doubt Bin Laden wanted to die at the hands of American troops, but from his point of view it was "heads I win, tails you lose." If he eluded us he was an embarrassment (and he did for quite a while). If he was killed he became a martyr. Each result served the larger goal in some way. He probably never imagined that we'd still be supporting Islamic terrorists to annoy Russia 20 years later, this time in Syria. We didn't even learn the obvious lesson about blowback. That's a special kind of stupidity that even our worst enemy would never have pinned on us.
The Taliban was cooperating on a counter terrorism level which was the ultimate objective of this fighting (no friendly harbor states), but the Kandahar kooks have made some rumblings about jihad. We'll see if the Doha agreement gets chalked up as a Trump blunder, or if foreign money becomes too enticing to go back to the old Taliban.
Maybe we should use Russian logic and invade again on the threat alone. At least we have a track record of violence against us as justification…
$8 trillion is a conservative estimate of the total cost of the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Sorry I may not have made that clear.
Proximity is irrelevant. Being an actual threat to your citizens is relevant.Sam Lowry said:If Afghanistan were on our border I'm sure we would.ATL Bear said:I just want to know where you got $8 Trillion.Sam Lowry said:Your posts should be required reading for anyone who's still naive enough to trust our foreign policy establishment. You've fundamentally misunderstood the Ukraine war in almost every way, resulting in spectacularly wrong predictions. You've clearly given no more thought to Al Qaeda's strategy and motives than you have to Putin's. The poster who compared you to Toby Keith was doing Toby a disservice. His thinking was nuanced compared to yours.whiterock said:yep. ran that trap all the way across the Hindu Kush, Pakistani plains, cities & neighborhoods, busted down his bedroom door and perforated his cowering ass a couple hundred times with FMJ in front of his wife & kids. Then we stayed around and pounded the Taliban for over a decade until we got tired of doing it and then left. Today, we are in a better position than we were when he walked the streets there, and are causing fits for both Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions with only a portion of the soft power available to us.Sam Lowry said:We reacted exactly as Bin Laden hoped we would. Even though he'd stated his plan repeatedly, we fell right into the trap.whiterock said:who gives a flip about Afghanistan! The goal is not to rebuild them, it's to inflict a painful pavlovian lesson about what happens to people who provoke the mightiest nation in the world. 20 years of lost time & money - lost for pushing their islamist BS and using political power to reward themselves, friends, etc...Sam Lowry said:The point was that we didn't help Afghanistan.whiterock said:you missed the point, entirely.Sam Lowry said:We did nothing to help Afghanistan. What I said here 20 years ago has proven correct. The Taliban are the only viable authority in that country, and they will wait as long as it takes for us to confront reality. Those of us who bought into the nation-building rhetoric will learn no lessons and suffer no immediate consequences. Afghans who made the same mistake will pay dearly for it.FLBear5630 said:When was the last time the US killed hundreds of thousands or destroyed a whole Country? Name one Country that the US has been involved where the infrastructure, freedoms and education for everyone was worse after we left? Even Afghanistan was in better shape than we found it.Sam Lowry said:That is essentially what we do, except we destroy entire countries and kill hundreds of thousands instead of just ruining a few competitors.ATL Bear said:
Using oligarch seems to be an effort to smear wealthy people one disagrees with. And I'm all for people spending lots of money on building yachts or homes. It's an actual economic activity with jobs, supplies, etc. versus asset transfer purchases.
Unlike actual oligarchs that purchased state assets at gigantic value discounts, or nothing at all in some cases using government loans from buddies like Putin to do so. Putin's one of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to his oligarch back doors into companies like Gazprom, which he helped consolidate by bankrupting competitors and imprisoning corporate leaders unfriendly to him (see Yukos).
Yes, we are not good at nation-building. But we are incredibly good at nation-destroying. The Taliban knows they best not mess with us again, or we will very easily run their asses back up into the Hindu Kush and commence target practice. And if we're angry enough, we can pick any one of their leaders which strikes our fancy to chase thru the caves, down the mountains, across the plains, into the city, along the streets, to their front door which we will kick in and charge up three flights of stairs to barge into their bedroom to load them up with a few hundred 55gr FMJ 5.56 rounds the hard way,(in front of their wives & children, if circumstances permit), then duct tape a Bible to their bullet-ridden corpse and haul it off to some random grid square in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a midnight burial in a shroud sprinkled with pork chop scraps while a Rabbi sings the Star Spangled Banner over the ship's intercom. Man, nobody thinks getting us riled up is a good business model.
We just need to remember that deterrence does not require the defeated to adopt democracy. It just requires them to remember the lesson about 'effin' with Uncle Sam.
As for the Taliban, you really think they didn't expect a response? They headed for the hills and waited...and waited...while Dubya was busy prepping his ridiculous occupation.
sitting in a cave getting pounded by MOABs is not a terribly good business model. It only took one bombing raid for Qaddafi to learn that lesson.
The only thing in a trap is your mind. It's upside down in a dark & smelly place and you can't seem to pull it out.
From time to time, you fail to consider the patent absurdity of your posts, and the problem is getting to be something of a habit.
Bin Laden set out to bankrupt and humiliate the United States while fueling resentment against us. In this he was wildly successful. Yes, we killed some people and blew some **** up. Congratulations...I'm sure no one saw that coming. We also spent at least $8 trillion we didn't have, showed our complete inability to impose our will through force, and retreated in our most shameful moment since Vietnam.
And before anyone chimes in with "it's not the defense spending that's killing us, it's the entitlements," understand that the two are not unrelated. Reagan learned this when he tried to outspend the Soviets on defense without adding to domestic spending. Congress said no way -- you want your guns, we want our butter. That dynamic still exists and always will. The trillions wasted on nation-building have a ripple effect that goes well beyond the sticker price.
I doubt Bin Laden wanted to die at the hands of American troops, but from his point of view it was "heads I win, tails you lose." If he eluded us he was an embarrassment (and he did for quite a while). If he was killed he became a martyr. Each result served the larger goal in some way. He probably never imagined that we'd still be supporting Islamic terrorists to annoy Russia 20 years later, this time in Syria. We didn't even learn the obvious lesson about blowback. That's a special kind of stupidity that even our worst enemy would never have pinned on us.
The Taliban was cooperating on a counter terrorism level which was the ultimate objective of this fighting (no friendly harbor states), but the Kandahar kooks have made some rumblings about jihad. We'll see if the Doha agreement gets chalked up as a Trump blunder, or if foreign money becomes too enticing to go back to the old Taliban.
Maybe we should use Russian logic and invade again on the threat alone. At least we have a track record of violence against us as justification…
$8 trillion is a conservative estimate of the total cost of the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Sorry I may not have made that clear.
You must be using the Brown study number, which is garbage. The entire defense and intelligence budget for all 20 years is $12-$13 Trillion and includes Veteran expenses. And even if you said every Homeland security dollar goes to these conflicts it still wouldn't touch that level. And how do you add Trillions in interest for expenditures not borrowed for?
Quote:
LOL. Afghanistan, the jewel in the crown! He who owns it rules the world!!
Very funny
The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html
Realitybites said:Quote:
LOL. Afghanistan, the jewel in the crown! He who owns it rules the world!!
Very funny
The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html
I am starting to suspect that Afghanistans minerals and the ability to have USA military bases stationed in Central Asia (Russia, Iran, & China in striking distance) was the real reason our soldiers were kept there so long….
Redbrickbear said:Realitybites said:Quote:
LOL. Afghanistan, the jewel in the crown! He who owns it rules the world!!
Very funny
The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html
I am starting to suspect that Afghanistans minerals and the ability to have USA military bases stationed in Central Asia (Russia, Iran, & China in striking distance) was the real reason our soldiers were kept there so long….
I hope so. That makes sense. Staying 20 years for "Nation building" without benefit bothers me more than being there