To add to my prior comment, it seems like expending military resources to retake this area is a waste, since the citizens there support ISIS. Instead of getting soldiers killed fighting to "liberate" people who probably don't want to be liberated, maybe they should have just dropped a bunch of leaflets on Mosul, explaining that the dam isn't being maintained under ISIS control, and without maintenance will fail in a few years, causing a massive flood and killing most of the people in Mosul. So if they want to avoid this, it's up to them to rise up and revolt against ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not willing to fight for your own survival and freedom, then maybe you don't deserve it, and you really have no right to expect others to do the dirty work for you and hand you these things on a silver platter.
So if they want to avoid this, it's up to them to rise up and revolt against ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not willing to fight for your own survival and freedom, then maybe you don't deserve it, and you really have no right to expect others to do the dirty work for you and hand you these things on a silver platter.
And these people back in 2003 were asking for the USA-led coalition to invade their own country, topple the government, wreck the country's infrastructure, and leave a power-vacuum in its place? A vacuum filled in by local warlords and ethnic-cleansing militias?
I dispute the idea that we in the West have no responsibility here to help.
Unless you're a GOP voter (and not a Trump voter), then it's obvious that in 2003, Iraqis were not asking for their country to be invaded.
However, since we made such a mess of it before, what makes you think we're going to do any better with another invasion and setting up another unpopular government? The people in that region don't like the government we set up because the Shias are too powerful; they want a government like what they had before, where the Sunnis have all the power, and the Shias and Kurds get stomped on. Are you willing to give them that government? If not, you're not going to get their support, and ISIS (or similar) is.
You may claim that the West has a responsibility to help, but I claim that the West cannot help, and that there is no way for us, a bunch of outsiders, to make the situation better. Only the people there can fix the problem for themselves. We cannot do it for them. If we try, we will fail, and they will not appreciate it or agree with our methods.
Well, that goes right back to what I said about them not appreciating our methods.
Yes, a lot of this mess is due to the way the British drew the borders there in the wake of WWI. However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no. The Kurds would certainly like to see the borders redrawn; it's obvious to anyone with a brain and some idea of the situation there that the borders are making the problems worse, but no one with power wants to change the borders. There's too many vested interests who want to keep their borders: Turkey doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (it has oil on it IIRC). Iraq doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (oil again). The Sunnis in Iraq don't want to lose control of the country because their portion has no oil. The Shias in Iraq would be happy to separate from the Sunnis because they do have oil. Saudi Arabia doesn't want the Shias to take control of the oil-rich areas and leave the Sunnis with a bunch of sand, because the Saudis are also Sunni and hate Shias. It's just a total mess, and pushing ourselves on the place yet again to try to fix it is going to be just as successful as the last time we tried. The only way to really fix it is to invade the whole region, take it ALL over (including SA and Iran and Turkey too, even though this could start a war with Europe, might as well throw in Egypt and Israel while we're at it), then redraw all the borders and set up all new governments run by dictators for a while. Obviously that's not going to happen, so the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it, except maybe for lending a little assistance here and there to deal with really awful groups like ISIS where pretty much everyone (including Russia) agrees that they need to go.
Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner.
> the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it
"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case...
Your argument is that we should just walk away from the mess we've created because it looks hard to solve. "Whups, pouring gasoline on it didn't put it out, let's take off and grab a beer."
None of these "leave the area to solve its own problems" ever include actually leaving, just continuing our meddling from a distance. It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists.
> However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no.
Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds - they've been trying to redraw them since the ink was wet. Something about genocide...
>Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial airliner.
WTF does that have to do with ISIS? That was in Ukraine.
Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they tried to cover it up because they were claiming the Russian army wasn't in Ukraine to begin with and that those were Ukrainian "rebels". But it's not like they actually meant to shoot down a passenger plane.
As for ISIS, yes they do care about ISIS. Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime, so ISIS is their natural enemy, along with anyone else who threatens the Assad regime.
And honestly, we should be backing the Assad regime too (or at least now working against it). It's the best hope that country has for stability. All the rebel groups are Islamists, so they're worse for stability and worse for human rights and worse for minority group rights. This happens every time we topple some "evil dictator" over there: it turns out the dictator was actually very tolerant of religious or ethnic minorities, as long as they didn't try to overthrow him (case in point: the Yazidis in Iraq). But then we topple the dictator, some "democratic" government gets installed that's mostly Islamists, and the minorities get stomped on. Nations in that region need dictators, not democracy.
>"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case...
Any why is that wrong? We're not willing to improve the situation there, we're only willing to make it worse. Proof: that's all we've done.
>It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side.
Yeah, and it'd do a lot of good if humans stopped having wars, and stopped being selfish. I don't see that happening any time soon.
>We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists.
Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing to change that. The politics are too complicated (Turkey is a NATO member after all), so we're not willing to directly oppose Turkey and ally ourselves with the Kurds and promote independence there.
As I see it, we have options: 1) stop backing the wrong side as you say, and start working to improve things there, or 2) get out. Well, we're obviously not willing to do #1, we've been doing the opposite of #1 for decades now, no matter who gets elected President, so that only leaves one choice, #2.
>Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds
They've been trying to redraw borders, yes; what I meant was, has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders (since the complaint here is how we screwed up in how we (after WWI) drew those borders to begin with. And the answer there is no. The western powers have done absolutely nothing to try to redraw the borders. Some groups there would like new borders, but other groups don't (the ones who want new borders usually sit on valuable resources that the other ones want to maintain control of), and we back the wrong sides consistently, so we don't.
> Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they tried to cover it up because
But when they were found to have done it, it was covered up. And yes, because it would have interfered with another lie of theirs, not that it's a defense.
> Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime
As I said. Russia doesn't care about ISIS, Russia cares about a handy puppet state. If ISIS turned back-around into Iraq Russia would stop fighting them. If Russia kills more people than ISIS in freeing the country they won't care at all.
> we should be backing the Assad regime too
Hmmm, yeah. No. Shooting ISIS is awesome, helping a dictator is not. If we actually collaborate to help Assad hold the Syrians hostage, we're as bad as ISIS.
> Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing to
Because you're far enough from the problem that blowback rarely hits you. If you actually faced even a small percentage of the problems you caused from it you wouldn't be able to lose interest so often.
The truth is that ISIS isn't a big issue to the USA as long as oil flows. You're not willing to - for the cost/benefit in this case.
> has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders
No, in fact Western powers sold Iraq poison gas to avoid the issue.
But the fact of the matter is that isolationism doesn't work. Terrorists will bring the war to you, especially if you're perceived as having meddled.
Commit to fixing it, or expect to paying for more over time as you continually half-fix it.
>But when they were found to have done it, it was covered up. And yes, because it would have interfered with another lie of theirs, not that it's a defense.
You were trying to claim that Russia intentionally shot down a passenger plane, when it's obvious that they didn't.
>As I said. Russia doesn't care about ISIS, Russia cares about a handy puppet state. If ISIS turned back-around into Iraq Russia would stop fighting them. If Russia kills more people than ISIS in freeing the country they won't care at all.
So, yes, Russia DOES care about ISIS. If ISIS magically teleported to the Moon and turned into pink unicorns, then Russia would stop caring about them, but that's about as likely as ISIS turning around and staying in Iraq, so it's pointless to discuss such possibilities.
>Hmmm, yeah. No. Shooting ISIS is awesome, helping a dictator is not. If we actually collaborate to help Assad hold the Syrians hostage, we're as bad as ISIS.
And you're as clueless as George W Bush. How do you propose to deal with the power vacuum when you get rid of ISIS and Assad? Just let the other Islamist groups like Al Nusra take over? Great plan! Or no, I know, let's have elections and set up a democracy!! Yeah, that worked so great in Egypt, where they elected the Muslim Brotherhood!
And how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway? A large chunk of the Syrian population wants the Assad regime, just like a large chunk of the Iraqi population was happy with the Saddam regime.
You have three choices: back a dictator, help Islamists overthrow the dictator, or stay out of it. I don't see how #2, your choice, is at all morally defensible.
>Commit to fixing it, or expect to paying for more over time as you continually half-fix it.
You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the problem, other than putting more people like ISIS and Al Qaeda in charge.
I know what I'm trying. And you're wrong. I'm not claiming Putin wanted an airliner shot down. I'm saying that when Putin's forces shot down an airliner he kept supporting them.
In other words, Russia doesn't care.
> So, yes, Russia DOES care about ISIS.
No. Because if ISIS wandered off into Iraq, they'd be done.
>> If we actually collaborate
> How do you propose to deal with the power vacuum
You want to plug it with a dictator? Brilliant.
> how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway?
Their dictator has ordered his security forces to fire on civilians.
> A large chunk of the Syrian population wants the Assad regime
Got a fair vote that shows that? And see below.
> just like a large chunk of the Iraqi population was happy with the Saddam regime.
Yeah, those in his good books, whose power came from him.
But it's irrelevant anyways because even popular support for an illegal government (ie, not recognizing human rights) doesn't legitimize it.
> You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the problem
Move the goalposts much? It's not the job of the guy who says "Stop throwing gas on the fire" to have the entire roadmap planned out.
You're the one who proposes we take an active stance - to shift our alliances and protect a dictator we'd previously told to leave power. You want to commit military resources. The burden of proof is on you.
