Given that these countries are all now complete basket cases, riddled with dangerous extremists (most of them hostile to the U.S. and its allies), and in some cases spilling refugees into a Europe that’s not really equipped to deal with them, it’s difficult to imagine how the outcomes could have been worse.
There’s one important thing to remember about tinhorn dictators like Hussein, Assad, or Qaddafi - they don’t actually present any threat to us. And if we hadn’t intervened repeatedly in situations in which we had no business intervening, the fundamentalist loons would probably regard us with indifference, rather than vowing to slaughter us.
John Stewart, going for the serious but funny angle then tossing out a personal opinion/attack with no other comment or citation. How about an actual idea on how and who to fix it that is real.
He’s never going to get his pony either and that is seriously funny.
Afghanistan has been in a civil war since the 80s and was run by dangerous extremists since the mid 90s, and even nominally supported by Pakistan back then.
Syria was using chemical weapons to put down a civil war and Libya who as a state sponsor supported terrorists targeting Americans, from Munich to Lockerbie was already in civil war with Gaddafi threatening genocide and the Libyans, Europeans and Arab League begged us to get involved and now has a democratically elected government and is on the right path med-long term.
[quote=“lestatdelc, post:124, topic:37381, full:true”]
Afghanistan has been in a civil war since the 80s and was run by dangerous extremists since the mid 90s, and even nominally supported by Pakistan back then.[/quote]
I’m certainly glad that pouring American lives and money into Afghanistan has finally put a stop to that situation. No more internal strife, and the extremists have been banished. Huzzah!
And things are much better there now, right? No Syrians being slaughtered by their fellow Syrians, no groups of violent extremists on the loose, and a good life for everyone. Can’t imagine why they’re all desperate to get out.
Glad we took care of that quickly. A mere 23 years later… And just a year ago, ISIL-trained terrorists from Libya slaughtered over 20 European tourists in neighboring Tunis.
Yes, I can see how those impoverished Europeans and Arabs couldn’t possibly have taken on a towering presence like Qaddafi on their own.
Planning to vacation in Tripoli next year? The country is still a mess, with rival militias and jihadists on the loose. Some agreements were hammered out within the last year, but it’s a little early to be declaring “mission accomplished,” don’t you think?
I’m afraid that in each of these cases, we’ve paid a very high price for our involvement, with precious little to show for it. We’re roundly hated for our interventionism, and it almost never accrues to our benefit, by any measure, nor does it usually result in a better life for the people of the countries whose internal affairs we’ve waded into.
Well your straw man aside, the point was Afghanistan was worse before we got involved, up to and including being a safe have of al Qaeda while it put 9/11 into motion.
Well Syria is not going to be gassing its own people for a start. And again, this was the Syrian people’s civil war, not something we “created” despite the spin that somehow us opposing the Ba’athist regime slaughtering its own people over their demand for a less autocratic regime.
And just last year ISIL trained terrorist form Belgium slaughtered over 150 in Paris, so let me guess, that is our fault and on the doing of Sec. Clinton too?
Well actually there did take them on while we provided logistical, air-sea rescue and AWAC support.
Your lame strawmaning aside, my statement still stands. In the mid-long term Libya and the world will be better with the Gaddafi regime gone.
Except this is simply not accurate. The Libyans actually are grateful by and large we supported them when they asked. That extremists were able to exploit the civil war landscape is hardly “they are hating us”.
But do you think we should not have go into Afghanistan after 9/11?
Are you you saying we would have been better served if we told the Libyan people to go pound sand?
Sorry, but I just don’t buy most of your conclusions. In almost every instance, I don’t see how things are better now than they were before. And in the meantime, we’ve expended large numbers of lives and money, to little effect.
You mention al Qaeda, for example - what do you think gave rise to al Qaeda in the first place? And going into Afghanistan to “get” al Qaeda produced exactly what? The Taliban is back, we didn’t get bin Laden until years later, and not in Afghanistan, and we didn’t even make a dent in al Qaeda. In fact, our subsequent misadventures in Iraq simply made them stronger, and allowed them to spread even further. So we started with one band of jihadists, contained in one little corner of the world. Now, they’re all over the Middle East. How is this an improvement?
When it comes to intervening, I think my basic premise is that the world is littered with lousy governments. Unless they directly threaten our national interests, we should be thinking long and hard before deciding that it’s somehow incumbent upon us to fix them, especially when our allies seem to be content to watch from the sidelines.
(And BTW, not every counter-argument is a strawman, just because you don’t like it.)
Well when you try to set up “No more internal strife” as if that was the benchmark I was putting forward is the current state and the only measure of “better” yes, it is very much a straw man.
OK, then let’s be more specific. You maintain that before the U.S. intervened in Afghanistan, there was a civil war going on. And now there isn’t? The Afghan government is still involved in armed conflict, with the Taliban and with ISIL. Different Taliban factions are even fighting with each other. If anything, the conflict seems to ramping up at present, with the Taliban promising some sort of Spring offensive. The fighting has spread to more than a half-dozen districts.
In short, there’s still a civil war going on, by anyone’s definition.
Which part of this is the strawman? Where’s the “better” part of this?
