Xequecal wrote:
I'm more worried that ISIS is going to knock down another building and force us into another $4 trillion war that accomplishes nothing and makes us look like the idiots. I mean, this is an Al-Qaeda offshoot. The whole situation makes me suspicious and makes me think of the "manufactured war" and "military industrial complex" conspiracy theories. We spend $4 trillion fighting them, and all they have to do is change the name on their business cards and now they have their own country.
They don't have their own country yet, and at the rate they're going pissing off the locals they may never be able to govern even if the rest of the world just says "**** it."
As for the idea that we accomplished nothing, that is certainly not true. First, ISIS is not Al Quaeda despite similarities. We are never going to just not have enemies. OBL is dead, and Al Quaeda is really now just another terrorist organization - it isn't ISIS. ISIS originated from AQI, but it isn't the same organization, and in fact AQ cut ties with them back in February.
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I know the Vietnam comparisons aren't all that relevant but it sure looks that way. They're stronger now than they were in 2001. $4 trillion down the drain and it accomplished nothing. Its certainly looking like terrorism is about the best strategy ever. Knock down 2 buildings, accept a few thousand casualties on your side, and you cost your enemy $4 trillion and get more recruits than you lost.
ISIS is stronger than in 2001 because it didn't exist in 2001. Al Quaeda is not; it's barely hanging on to existence. The Taliban is relegated to shadow control of some mountain regions.
ISI, furthermore, is not fighting a terrorist battle. They're fighting as a conventional military force against a conventional military force in the form of the Syrian and Iraqi militaries. They are trying to take and hold territory. Terrorists don't do that, primarily because they can't. Terrorism is a political strategy where you try to skirt the line between a military and a law enforcement matter so that the government you are fighting always looks either heavy-handed or ineffective. It's drawback is that in the process it's very easy to make people hate you just as much as the government.
If we go into Iraq as a ground force, ISIS will be forced to morph into a terrorist/insurgent threat, or cease to exist. It's really only a matter of whether they bother to try to resist first - they have absolutely no chance whatsoever against NATO armor. Then what? They become yet another in a long litany of terrorist groups -
which are going to exist no matter what we do. That's as good of a win as we're going to get. Much of the moaning and groaning over failures comes from a public that has wildly unrealistic ideas of success conditions - people that think we are realistically going to totally annihilate these groups through brute force (nuclear or otherwise) and those that think if we are only nice enough they will leave us alone. The only way we would ever get these people to stop hating us is to become an Islamic theocracy ourselves, and even that probably wouldn't work - Saudi Arabia is a strict religious country and still faces extremist threats because they aren't strict
enough.
As for 4 trillion, that's over 13 years, but there's nothing that says we
have to spend that kind of money. We don't
need to stick around and nation build for years on end; we do that to appease a western public that thinks that's the thing to do because we did it after WWII.
As for Viet Nam, South Viet Nam was not defeated by terrorism. The terrorist-insurgent group, the Viet Cong, was essentially destroyed in the Tet offensive, and after that the main antagonist was the North Vietnamese Army, which used irregular tactics to wear down the U.S. One the U.S. was gone, they switch to conventional tactics to defeat the ARVN. We left in 1972; they defeated South Viet Nam in 1975. We pulled out of Iraq in 2011; in 2014 ISIS is making its effort - except it doesn't have an existing country to support it, and it shows in the fact that their drive has, at this point, essentially stalled in Iraq. They can't deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqis or Syrians the way the NVA did to the ARVN, despite the fact that the ARVN was fundamentally better led, organized, and motivated.
Yes, terrorism is expensive and frustrating to combat. It still has to be combated, though. Just sitting around and wailing about how you're worried about it doesn't do any good, though.
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It's a shame we sunk trillions of dollars into a military excursion against forces that were not a credible threat to the United States over our own bloody nose. We'd be much more willing to piss money away chasing down yet another Islamic terrorist group that doesn't pose a credible threat if we hadn't already spent thirteen years **** off in the Middle East. Oh, if only we hadn't used up so much of our society's patience and tolerance for extended military engagement. But now U.S. citizens are more interested in our flagging economy than the activities of a bunch of religious fundamentalists half a world away.
I hate to break this to you, but killing a few thousand people in a few hours made them a credible threat. "Credible threat" is not limited to "can invade and conquer the CONUS". Do you actually think we should have just said "well, yeah they knocked down 2 buildings and part of a third and killed around 3,000 people.. but hey, they're not a
credible threat. They don't actually
affect us." Why? Because the government might spend money?
If we'd spent the last 13 years just ignoring AQ and letting them run around blowing up whatever they want, we'd have just as much public outcry, just over different matters entirely. You'd still be here, no doubt making sarcastic comments about how the government just doesn't give a ****, just like now. You're right - the public's patience is thin, and much of the reason is a public for whom cynicism about the government is simply a pastime. It doesn't matter what's actually being done - the results are just never going to be good enough for the armchair generals and politicians that don't need to deal with the fact that the enemy will not cooperate nicely and that problems are complex.
Yes, the last 13 years are what they are, and it would have been nice if things had been different. Hindsight is just so wonderful, isn't it, especially when your ideas weren't the ones ever subjected to the test of reality - and won't be, even now. Most of us won't have our ideas tested in that way, but that does not mean that we can't consider the issues and their complexities. But why do that when it's so much more fun to just attribute all the problems to the fact that everyone else - the military, politicians, the entire rest of the public - must be stupid, petty, and/or incompetent! I wonder, would
any course of action satisfy you? If so, is it one even remotely practical, or is it one of the "oh yeah, everything would be perfect if they just did something I can type up in 1 paragraph" that you then get to hand-wave away the difficulties of because it's just an internet discussion, and that might call into question your righteous indignation that the entire rest of the world that isn't as smart as you is making decisions?
Really, what would you do with yourself if you were ever satisfied with what was being done? You have some legitimate criticisms of the time and cost spent on ineffective nation-building, but I somehow doubt that it's really about those issues. I suspect it's just about having something to criticize.
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