General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBefore we contribute to regime change in Syria, how are Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya doing?
Are people in those countries better off than they were before we invaded or bombed their governments out of office?
Are they even up to as well off as they were before we "helped" them?
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grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)
warrant46
(2,205 posts)
pscot
(21,024 posts)There seem to lingering unresolved issues in some of those places.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)Libya: Various militias still roam the country with little or no oversight.
Iraq: AQ insurgency is increasing in that country
Afghanistan: Afghan and Pakistan Taliban will probably forge alliances with other tribal leaders shutting out the west.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Some war hawk imperialists will be along shortly to tell everyone those were stunning successes while simultaneously trying to pretend they foresaw all the *little* problems through the haze of their obscene cheering. All of it bullshit.
malaise
(268,930 posts)Were there not garlands of flowers?
Catherina
(35,568 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...and there's no sign that it will improve in the foreseeable future.
It is debateable if Afghanistan is worse off than they were under the Taliban, although they are probably worse off than before the Russians invaded. They have been in a state of almost constant war for 35 years, probably no one can remember peace and stability.
Libya has collapsed into a real mess. They are worse off than under Qadaffi, although its too early to write them off....it might turn around in the next few years, though it will take a stroke of real luck.
In general, none of those countries were helped by US military involvement. Their current instability doesn't make their regions more secure. But a lot of corporations made some fat profits in the destruction of those countries... kind like how a chop-shop can take a perfectly fine-running late model Corvette, strip off any parts they can re-sell for top dollar, and leave a stripped-down empty shell.
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)Just in case, since it's getting so weird around here:
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)I've heard exactly jack shit about that country's government situation in the mainstream media since the bombings and killing of Gaddafi.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Special report: We all thought Libya had moved on – it has, but into lawlessness and ruin
A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.
Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.
Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.
As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-report-we-all-thought-libya-had-moved-on--it-has-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)If the goal of our "nation-building" efforts is to develop a strong government in control of the country, under which the population can enjoy peace and stability and develop a functioning economy that will improve their standard of living...then our "nation-building" is an abject failure.
If the intent is to install a weak and corrupt government that is willing to sell off natural resources to multi-national corporations, and allow exploitation of the people....then our "nation-building" is a rousing "success".
polly7
(20,582 posts)finally opened up to all avenues of western exploitation. That the people are suffering isn't even a blip on the radar.
A rousing success. 
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)No effective government, so the ex-rebel militias have de-volved into criminal gangs. For an example, one group has seized an oil-port, and is selling oil on the black market. The situation is more similar to Somalia than it is a recognizeable "country".
pampango
(24,692 posts)Amazingly, after just a few decades of repression and rule by the gun and whim of the dictator, these people have not been able to create a "Sweden of the Middle East". And they have had more than 2 whole years to do it. Do they know how long it took France or Russia to create stable democracies after ousting a king or a tsar? Never mind. Bad question.
The one thing that secular and religious political opponents in Libya today seem agree on is that they are happy that Mummar is not dictator-for-life any more. Imagine that. People not wanting to live under a dictator. There is just no figuring what some people want.
On one side stood the Muslim Brotherhood and allied Salafis as well as representatives from cities that had sacrificed the most blood and treasure during the civil war. These hardliners were pushing for an ongoing revolution to uproot just about all of those who played a role in the former regime.
In the opposite camp stood the National Forces Alliance. They are sometimes called “liberals". They prefer a more moderate law that would apply based on an individual’s conduct under the regime, the version that passed cuts wide and deep across Libyan society, and makes no exception for those who played a significant role in the revolution.
Libya is grappling with the legacies of Muammar Gaddafi’s reign and the civil war that unseated him. In many ways, the real divide is between the people, tribes, and cities that Gaddafi pitted against each other in a strategy of divide and rule, whether they stood with or against him during the war, and how much they suffered.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/groundtruth/how-militias-took-control-post-gaddafi-libya
Part of the divide in Libya seems to be between those who want to bar from government everyone who had anything to do with the Qaddafi dictatorship and those who want to consider "an individual's conduct under the regime" and whether each played a role on the revolution that ousted Qaddafi.
Playing politics by certain rules does not seem to be a lesson that Qaddafi taught Libyans. Rule by gun was the lesson they learned. Libyans will have to unlearn the latter and learn the former in the long run, but that has been true of most revolutions throughout history.
LearningCurve
(488 posts)Thanks.
Hutzpa
(11,461 posts)those Countries have DEMOCRACY that means they're doing fine.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)for the 'victims' we claimed to be going there to protect.
Iraq, eg, millions of Iraqis are living as refugees in Syria (now they have had to move again as they came under attack by the 'rebels') and Jordan, which was far less accepting of them than Syria.
The Taliban are alive and well in Afghanistan so I forget why we even went there in the first place, there have been rapes of young Afghan women, bombings of wedding parties. so much loss of life, poor Afghan children being sold by their parents in order to protect them from starvation.
In Iraq they now have Al Queda, driving the Kurds out of Syria, fighting for the 'Syrian Rebels'. Christians and other ethnic groups, protected under Saddam's regime, are no longer safe and most have fled.
Babies are being born deformed, from our use of White Phosphorous. We don't seem to be interested in helping any of the innocent victims we claimed to care so much about.
Anyone who thinks any of this was ever about 'innocent victims' must still believe in the tooth fairy.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)I think not.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Average Brits were working 16 hours a day, 7 days a weekand living in squalid, rathole tenements.
Empire's benefits have a bad habit of not trickling down.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)I appreciate your history lesson.
ty
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)[quote]Reuters) - When hundreds of al Qaeda fighters in armored trucks attacked the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat with machine guns last week, the local army unit called for backup and set off in pursuit.
But after a two-hour chase through searing desert heat, most militants vanished into a cluster of Kurdish villages where the Iraqi army cannot enter without a nod from regional authorities.
It was just one example of how distrust between the security forces of Iraq's central government and of its autonomous Kurdish zone helps the local wing of al Qaeda, the once-defeated Sunni Islamist insurgents who are again rapidly gaining ground, a year and a half after U.S. troops pulled out.[/quote]
malaise
(268,930 posts)
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)In short, things there are at best chaotic. The Prime Minister is threatening to bomb his own ports because the militia there are not co-operating. Not just at the ports, the entire nation is in chaos. Give it another year, and we're looking at Somalia, a nation without a Government, where different warlord rule different sections.
Blue Owl
(50,349 posts)n/t
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)They didn't have Twitter, et al, but they did finally sort it out.
Sarah Palin made a quote...god save me from purgatory...but it was "Let Allah sort it out." And that's why we can't win this. We don't get Allah so we have missionaries trying to convert them to Jesus/Western Christianity. Conversely, Islam reveres Jesus as a prophet...just not in the same way we do.
We don't nor will we ever understand the Middle Eastern/Asian culture or mind set. They are born and live and die by different rules. We grew up with nuclear families and a Baptist Church on every corner...they grew up in multi-extended families and have Mosques. We don't have a clue.
Their people are no less important than our own, and that includes their children. But our Civil War, Revolutionary War, and all the other foreign "interventions" have nothing in common with the Arabic/Persian cultures...nor will it ever.
Finally, there is a reason it is called the graveyard of conquering nations.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Iraq: Far better off. For an indicator consider that we absolutely pulverized that country, killing god only knows how many hundreds of thousands, and we are NOT universally despised there. Hussein really was THAT bad.
Afghanistan: It was a shithole before we invaded. It's a shithole now. It will remain one until the world grows out of stone age mythology.
Libya: a despot is gone and they have a chance now at something better.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)doing in the ME right now but this is the fruit of the bush/chaney actions that were supposedly supposed to lead to the overthrow of all those governments in favor of democracy. What a mess and what they are calling democracy is nothing like what we imagined back then. And it will most likely get worse.
