While I'm an advocate of the US entirely removing itself militarily from the Middle East, none of those properly qualify against the parent's point.
The parent referred to starting wars. The first one doesn't qualify at all.
The US and NATO have intervened in the two civil wars (along with numerous other countries; with France recently pleading with the US to remain in Syria). It's an overreach to claim the US started the Libyan Civil War or the Syrian Civil War, neither is true. The US was opportunistic in trying to squeeze Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad out (with Russia on the other side, trying to prop up the dictatorship). Those civil wars are the inevitable result of decades of extreme oppression by dictatorship, which will always end in armed revolution.
I’ve noticed a tendency in the US to assume that everything that happens in the world is caused by internal US interests. That all international issues get re-cast in domestic political terms.
Did the US start the Libyan civil war? No, in fact the US was one of the last of the western militaries to get involved, after Canada, France and the UK. The US initially played a minor role.
Did the US instigate the Syrian civil war? Again, no, the US only involved when IS got involved.
I watched an interview with Tulsi Gabbard where she said the Ukraine War was caused by US corporations that profit from selling weapons. I mean what’s the theory, that Lockheed persuaded Putin to invade Ukraine? It’s absurd. I get that she hates the military industrial complex, and maybe she has many valid reasons, but in this case she’s delusional.
I’m not at all saying there aren’t factions in the US that do advocate military adventurism, and profit from it. That’s a real thing. The second Gulf war is an example, I’ll give you that one, but even in that case that was just one of many factors and I don’t think it would have been decisive by itself. Also yes, the west absolutely compromises principles for geopolitical and economic interests. But this idea that all foreign conflicts are a plot by the military industrial complex is a bit absurd. It’s not always all about you, guys.
I do not want to read another article by someone who thinks the Iraq war was about terrorism, and who seems to have potato levels of knowledge about international politics.
> and now in Syria, before in Libya, and only created more failed states and ungoverned spaces that provide havens for terrorists and spilled terror like dropped paint across borders.
Yeah, no, that isn't at all what happened. The US didn't create Syria or Libya. They're both civil wars that started organically (see "Arab Spring"); the US (and UK, et al) tried to fund certain factions after the conflicts kicked off, but they didn't initiate it.
While I agree with the overall thrust that we shouldn't sacrifice freedom for security, this whole article reads like a YouTube comment (meaning: uninformed, of low quality, making emotional but vapid arguments).
Syria is in a civil war, with Russia and Iran assisting the Assad government and various other nations including the US having intervened at various points.
South Sudan's civil war ended last year.
Venezuela is not at war but is being embargoed by the US while facing an economic crisis.
I have no idea what Honduras is supposed to be doing except that it's overrun with crime.
Belarus is facing civil unrests and political upheaval.
I'm not sure what you're referring to with your claim of "several" of them being in the middle of "actual wars". The US is in the middle of several actual wars and military actions outside war in foreign territories (mostly drone strikes). The comment you responded to clearly stated:
> No these countries do not conduct terrorist activities or war crimes on foreign soil like the US does.
The US does both of these things. As do several of its allies. We just tend to not to think of these things this way because we're "the good guys". Let's not forget Guantanamo (which despite Obama's promises still exists) and that US prisons routinely use "solitary confinement" which is considered torture by the UN.
The problem here is several fold, while America's disastrous invasion of Iraq exasperated certain conditions, that does not mean that similar conditions couldn't have come about without American intervention. Who is to say that should the US had not invaded Iraq there wouldn't right now be an Iraqi civil war just as there is the Syria Civil war.
None of this addresses the Somalian civil war which is the on going conflict and predates US invasion of Iraq as well as other on going Islamist conflicts throughout Africa.
First, I was indicating that this 'ability to project force' is protection, I wasn't indicating that the war in Libya was a form of protection.
Second, I don't think it's fair to say the conflicts in Europe's periphery are surreptitiously promoted by the us: the war in Crimea, Russia invasion of Georgia, conflict in Yugoslavia, 'Troubles' in Ireland etc. - these were not 'made in the USA'. Neither was the Arab Spring.
I'm not saying the US should disconnect, but our focus on Israel in particular isn't doing us favors.
Syrian Civil War started 2011, and I don't see any connection to Obama reducing our involvement. In fact the US funded rebel groups both secretly before the war (leaked later) and openly afterwards, though this stopped when ISIS formed and they began defecting. Then the US got heavily involved fighting ISIS, leading a coalition there. Btw, Israel was not in that coalition, nor has it ever fought ISIS.
The "US-led destructive interventions" were requested by European countries who've been meddling with Syria and the surrounding countries since WW2. Stop trying to blame European issues on the USA.
I agree with you. The cost in lives and treasure of mounting a military campaign against some of these dictatorships would be very high. And practically speaking, it's not necessarily worth it for America (as cold as that sounds).
On the other hand, some dictatorships are 'friendly' to America, and would never be considered for an invasion anyway.
But my point was more the mindset of the author, who appears to believe that America's goal really is to spread democracy around the world.
And in the case of Syria, American silence is deafening. Assad reportedly tortures even the children, and there is not a peep of protest from America, let alone a threat of military intervention.
I agree those were mistakes, but the US didn’t undertake those interventions unilaterally. Both were international efforts. France was actually the first to say “Gaddafi must go.” France was also one of the leaders in the Syrian intervention: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/1...
> France’s hawkish stance towards Syria contrasts with the reluctance among many U.S. policymakers to expand American involvement in the conflict. This is the latest move in a long history of French resistance to American foreign policy decision-making.
When you aggressively invade and destroy the government of a sovereign country, there is chaos, a power vacuum and civil war. This is what Washington did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria (failed).
Arguing that Washington technically didn't invade any of these countries because there were already internal tensions is laughably stupid (what has been happening in Donbass since 2014?). Kindly knock it off.
Not sure where Syria came in. The original comment expressed a desire to get back to a more civilized age where “American soldiers [were not] dying in other people's wars.” My point is not the morality or efficacy of that adventurism. My assertion is that time never really existed.
The best probable outcome for the current go round in Afghanistan & Iraq was something like Korea. Armistice or not we’ve had 30-50,000 soldiers stationed in an active war zone for 60 years. Earlier the US military fought and controlled the Philippines for 50 years. Before that it was China and central America.
The 5 declared wars, with a tidy declaration and cessation, are the exception not the rule. The US public may have an aversion to adventurism, but the US state certainly does not.
Edit: the first found reasonably complete list of these “small wars” with US combat deaths https://www.militaryfactory.com/american_war_deaths.asp I dont have a citation for how it compares to other major nations, but Im skeptical thats its substantially “smaller”.
The parent referred to starting wars. The first one doesn't qualify at all.
The US and NATO have intervened in the two civil wars (along with numerous other countries; with France recently pleading with the US to remain in Syria). It's an overreach to claim the US started the Libyan Civil War or the Syrian Civil War, neither is true. The US was opportunistic in trying to squeeze Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad out (with Russia on the other side, trying to prop up the dictatorship). Those civil wars are the inevitable result of decades of extreme oppression by dictatorship, which will always end in armed revolution.
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