General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsToo bad so sad sux to be them
Women of Iraq and Syria: We feel bad you are being sold into sex slavery, your husband and children murdered before your eyes.
We feel bad for you, Yazidi, Chaldeans, etc. You are losing your homelands, your history, your identity. Just like the native Americans. But just as no one came to their aid, we cannot and will not come to yours.
Sure, we COULD send some airplanes to help support the people trying to rescue you. But we really don't want to. Because if we don't, everybody will quit hating us.
Sux to be you guys. Good luck in the non-existent afterlife. But be of good cheer. At least your deaths will help reduce human overpopulation.
So that's a good thing as long as we can claim innocence, amiright?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Atrocities are happening everyday all over the world. Why here? Why us? Why aren't the nations neighboring Iraq and Syria concened enough to bomb them? Why are the European nations concerned enough to bomb them?
It's not about claiming innocence, which the US could never claim anyway. Btw, that is a strange frame you are trying (again). It suggests you know what the US is doing is wrong, but that it is worth it.
JI7
(89,249 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)That is the question. And the answer is yes. Of course. We are not the sole Air Force in the world capable of blowing people up.
AnalystInParadise
(1,832 posts)military power alone should not decide whether we bomb or not. Would be better if we stayed out of this. Not our business.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)I guess.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)Are there ANY atrocities that we can address?
Yes, atrocities are happening all over the world. And we cannot stop them all. But where else in the world are they happening with this kind of speed and brutality?
Are we so morally corrupted by our past that we can never take sufficient action to help people at least catch their breath and regroup so they have a chance at self defense?
Will a lack of action, a total disengagement, bring us peace and safety?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)IS is not a threat to the US.
The US military cannot solve this problem or any problem like this. The US military can topple governments and intimidate nations. It can not bomb away ideology.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)Many of the same people would have opposed it.
JI7
(89,249 posts)they bring up conspiracy theories and try to deny what is actually happening there.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Anyone who advocates war should be willing to fight it, not just send others to do the dirty work.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)and operate drones...
Aerows
(39,961 posts)FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)Too old, broken down, and I am not a pilot. So I would be a battlefield liability, not an asset. But yes, to stop this group from slaughtering the helpless in Iraq and Syria, and perhaps pull us back a bit from nuclear war, I would if I could.
But I DID sign up and serve 35 years ago.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)and I'm strongly against U.S. involvement at this point.
bvf
(6,604 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)are probably the most despicable of all the chickenhawks.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)(snip)
If you read enough news and watch enough cable television about the threat of the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Muslim militia group better known simply as ISIS, you will inevitably encounter a parade of retired generals demanding an increased US military presence in the region. They will say that our government should deploy, as retired General Anthony Zinni demanded, up to 10,000 American boots on the ground to battle ISIS. Or as in retired General Jack Keanes case, they will make more vague demands, such as for offensive air strikes and the deployment of more military advisers to the region.
But what you wont learn from media coverage of ISIS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up Americas military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: Americas defense industry.
Keane is a great example of this phenomenon. His think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which he oversees along with neoconservative partisans Liz Cheney and William Kristol, has provided the data on ISIS used for multiple stories by The New York Times, the BBC and other leading outlets.
Keane has appeared on Fox News at least nine times over the last two months to promote the idea that the best way to stop ISIS is through military actionin particular, through air strikes deep into ISIS-held territory. In one of the only congressional hearings about ISIS over the summer, Keane was there to testify and call for more American military engagement. On Wednesday evening, Keane declared President Obamas speech on defeating ISIS insufficient, arguing that a bolder strategy is necessary. I truly believe we need to put special operation forces in there, he told host Megyn Kelly.
Left unsaid during his media appearances (and left unmentioned on his congressional witness disclosure form) are Keanes other gigs: as special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater; as a board member to tank and aircraft manufacturer General Dynamics; a venture partner to SCP Partners, an investment firm that partners with defense contractors, including XVionics, an operations management decision support system company used in Air Force drone training; and as president of his own consulting firm, GSI LLC.
To portray Keane as simply a think tank leader...
http://www.thenation.com/article/181601/whos-paying-pro-war-pundits#
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025532054
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)to stop our decimation of Native Americans?
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)the Lakota Nation do it, yeah. Not taken the U.S. out, but just stopped the settlers from taking much of the land they took. I mean, come on, it was a completely lopsided victory in which was shown zero restraint. Did we have to take all the land that we did?
Did we have to look at them as a people that needed to be subdued instead of a people that had rights?
I certainly don't think a decimation was in order.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)his example of what happened to the American Indians was weird cuz we were ISIS in that scenario.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)We feel bad that you and your children are barely able to feed yourselves, that bridges are collapsing and support structures are dwindling.
Good news. We can still afford to kill people in a foreign country while you languish in the "luxury" of poverty.
P. S. I hope you and your children don't get shot by the police.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)I hope NOBODY'S children get shot by the police.
But ISIL is not going to stop shooting and slaughtering until they trigger a nuclear war.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)There you go. Some high grade bullshit hyperbole, fear-mongering and general paranoia.
Damn, you don't see that every day. That's some high test shit.
I hope to heaven you are employing sarcasm.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)In fact, over half of the world is a f'd up place. We export democratic institutions when peoples are ready to handle them, or we impose them on fully defeated enemies (at least we used to, but Japan and Germany are our last successes at that) but if societies are not able to deal with getting along with their neighbors who are different, then they just have to fight until they're sick of it, like Western societies did.
We're not the world's policemen or its babysitters.