The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Check what you wrote yourself

We went into Afghanistan because they harbored those who attacked us. Has the other party profusely thanked the international community for their assistance? If not, why is it important the first party do so? If I say a heartfelt Thank You! will that suffice?

Then, we tried nation building. Stupid is as stupid does, to quote a certain movie character.

As far as Iraq, the Middle East is all about oil. World oil. Iraq was threatening regional stability, particularly the Saudis, who are one country in the region trying to participate positively in international affairs. Had the Gulf War gone according to how Shwartzkopf planned it, Saddam would have still been in power, but "de-fanged" of his Republican Guard, thus less of a major threat to the region. The Gulf War did not go accordingly, however, which created "unfinished business" there. Hussein remained a significant regional threat. And that distilled down to a threat to a major part of the world's oil supply.

Bush junior and his administration recognized a previously unavailable opportunity--with the Soviet Union gone--to go back in and finish things. Unfortunately, they decided to do this while still messing around in Afghanistan. Stupid is as stupid does again. Sorry we tried. The world would probably be a better place with Hussein in control of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Middle East oil production. At least all the current problems of a fragmented region would not be troubling us. We would only need to cope with Hussein. He would have a locked grip on everything else for us. And screw the populations there. At least we would have oil and stability, right? That's what's most important? Peace and harmony? Damn the US for screwing that all up! And troubling the self interests of Europe with a refugee problem, and other issues. Perhaps the Europeans should have acted in the region instead. I am sure the outcome would have been better. (Yup, uh-huh.)

The Crimea was taken so quickly that it was a done deal before anyone could really react. Thus putting Russia in the region already. If we had then threatened to enter with our own forces and confront the Russians, we would not be debating any of this. We would all be radioactive carbonized debris. You yourself have pointed out how not normal, and serious a threat Putin is. You do seem quite determined to have the Apocalypse. My apologies again for us not reacting the way you wanted, and having it for you.

Your world view is so hung up on one of our political parties that it has blinded you to a few things, thereby distorting your outlook to a point of borderline absurdity. And it is this kind of thing that has helped create the growing view here that we should just retire, and let the critics sort it out, and do it better.

Democracy gives everyone a voice, and the right to complain, comment and criticize. A pleasure exercising the right with you.

Previous Message

I agree that in some cases US actions are helpful to others. They are certainly helpful in the case of Ukraine, for example, or the recent very strong contributions to NATO exercises to demonstrate its power. And certainly in cases where international law is being defended.

But even if, for example, something is in the interests of the states allied to the US, it is still in the interests of the US itself, because alliances like NATO also strengthen the US itself (such as the US alliances with Japan and Australia). In such cases it is also the other way round - and it makes sense to emphasise that each member must contribute to the alliance.

I do not have the impression that, for example, the contributions of other states to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are even noticed by a certain political party in the US. These wars were certainly mainly motivated by the ideology of that party and were very detrimental to Europe because of the destabilisation of the region (in that sense also detrimental to the US itself). The heavy Western involvement in these wars also helped Putin because it made it much less likely that there would be Western intervention against Putin's wars. Furthermore, I do not have the impression that a certain political party is taking responsibility - for example, for the serious violations of human rights and international law that have taken place in these wars. Putin and other members of his regime repeatedly paraphrase Bush when justifying their own actions..

I wonder what would have happened if the US had made it clear that any further Russian aggression against Ukraine would be met with a military response. Such threats were made to prevent the use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons - and very likely were successful, i.e. responsible that these were not used by Putin's regime.

The US had astonishingly accurate intelligence about Russian plans to attack Ukraine in 2022 - and it was made public before the attacks. Unfortunately, this alone did not prevent the attack. "Normal" governments would have cancelled their war plans if they were made public with such precision. But Putin did not care and attacked anyway. This should be a powerful lesson in the scale of the threat Putin poses. He is threatening to reclaim the former Russian colonial empire (which included not only most of Eastern Europe but also much of Central Asia and even South Korea - and if we take him literately also Alaska).