If.

[kpete]

If.

Two letters long, it is arguably the most fruitless word in the English language, an evocation of paths not taken, possibilities foreclosed, regrets stacked high — and it lies like a pall of smoke over President Obama’s Wednesday-night announcement that this country is returning to war, albeit with air strikes only, in a place we just left behind in 2011 after spending almost nine years, over a trillion dollars and 4,425 lives. ...

If.

As in, if President Bush had concentrated on toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, which harbored the authors of the terrorist strike we suffered 13 years ago last week, if he had not rushed to judgment, convincing himself Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was behind the attack, if his administration had not used suspect intelligence to claim Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, if we had not bought into the fantasy that we could impose a Jeffersonian democracy on another nation and have them thank us for it, if we had not destabilized the region, if we had never kicked this hornet’s nest, would we now find ourselves obliged to confront the criminal gang that calls itself the Islamic State?

It’s doubtful, to say the least.


more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/09/13/4344858/if-is-nohelp-instopping-war.html

[underpants]

1. Damn I thought this was a Bread appreciation thread

I was looking forward to Robb Royers's extended flute solo in the live version of "If"

[malaise]

2. Two more ifs

If we weren't so gullible

If we could force them to change the narrative

[AuntPatsy]

4. True

[tridim]

3. If the SCOTUS didn't take a big crap on Democracy... nt

[chervilant]

5. Those are mighty big ifs.

Weren't the majority of the terrorists responsible for the attack Saudis?

I wonder "what if" AND "WTF?!?" all the time now...

[underpants]

6. Good article

Wahhabist money kept groups like this alive for a long time. The Saudi royals thought they could appease the weird cousins in the family and nothing would come of it because there was nowhere for them to operate. Now they did build quite an infrastructure to keep their ideas alive and spread the word but IF they had actually popped up anywhere the tyrannical leaders of the region would have put them down quickly and ruthlessly. Even in Saudia Arabia these ISIS types knew that any actions would not only have been crushed with some good US weaponry but would have cut off the money.

Dick&W opened up an area they never thought would be available AND mishandled the situation in ways no one ever imagined including alienating the Sunnis and disbanding the Iraqi Army.