Let's make a small résumé of the blunders the US did in the middle east Afghanistan: >Be US during the cold war >get butthurt about Russians invading Afghanistan >start arming extremist guerrillas to fight them off >years later, use those guerrillas to commit a terrorist attack on US soil >use that as a pretext to invade Afghanistan >it goes horribly wrong and you kill a ton of civilians, further empowering the afghani jihadis Iraq: >invade Iraq and kill Saddam, the only guy who had Iraq together and managed to tell islamic extremists to fuck off >destabilize Iraq to no end >fuel sectarian war and force Iran to make their own guerrillas, thus creating a clusterfuck Libya: >buttfuck libya by killing their leader and arming religious extremists Syria >start arming rebels and ISIS goons in syria, and we know what will happen next Yemen: >help Saudis distabilize the whole country and give them heavy arms which were used to bombard civilian areas like eden
>proceed to make a bullshit story about US ops killing bin laden and throwing his body in the sea and make propaganda movies about "WE WUZ LIBERATORZ OF THE MIDDLE EAST" like american sniper and other movies
Why do people have the audacity to say "all muslims are terrorists" when the US caused about 90% of this clusterfuck?
because were the worlds super power and our people dont have to stand in breadlines
Dominic Jackson
>>>years later, use those guerrillas to commit a terrorist attack on US soil The rest of your post has some merit but tinfoil stuff like this and questioning the necessity of the afghan intervention really hurts your argument.
Asher Brown
There are a bunch of factual inaccuracies in this post, but we should probably start with the fact that neither Afghanistan nor Libya are in the Middle East.
Jaxson Allen
America's foreign policy problem is basically just a democracy problem.
When your leader has a limited amount of time in office and there's an election every 2 years, foreign policy decisions will inevitably be made based on whatever can make the biggest impact right away, with little care taken towards the long-term interests of the country.
Take our repeated mistake of arming rebels, for example: Giving missile launchers to Osama meant dead Soviets on the evening news. America, fuck yeah! Reagan gave no fucks about what would happen after the Soviet war was over, because he'd be out of office by then and it would be someone else's problem.
Angel Thompson
>Afghanistan invasion a failure, because civvies got killed Was is war.
Benjamin Jones
fuck off turk piece of shit FUCK YOU
John Sullivan
For the purpose of determining what is history, please do not start threads about events taking place less than 25 years ago. Historical discussions should be focused on past events, and not their contemporary consequences. Discussion of modern politics, current events, popular culture, or other non-historical topics should be posted elsewhere. General discussions about international culture should go on /int/.
Hunter Baker
>Be US >arm Afghans >ignore Arabs >for some reason years later everyone thinks you armed Arabs
Robert Robinson
the US armed """""moderate"""" rebels in syria though, and also al qaeda
Not even the same guy. Just calling out that joke of a website.
Anthony Price
US Military in general:
>Scrap perfectly interservice uniforms with shitty individual, overpriced, garbage >inb4 that's not a serious problem >What is Operation Barbarossa >Replace excellent long range rifle (M16A2) with short range unreliable barbie crap (M4 Carbine) >F-35s >Gerald R. Ford Class Carriers
Afghanistan >Providing aid to Mujahideen in the first place >Not taking decisive action to kill/capture Osama bin Laden after the 1st World Trade Center bombing >Thinking the Northern Alliance/ANA were a remotely competent force >Stalling for nearly a month before going to launching the first attacks on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, giving them ample time to prepare to flee into Pakistan rather than immediately dropping airborne troops (who can be mobilized within 24 hours) to seal off Al Qaeda's strongholds in Afghanistan >Relying on goatfuckers and often-inaccurate air power to fight the first stages of the Afghan War when professional ground troops were what was needed to cordon off the Tora Bora >Not deploying the 10th Mountain Division in full force to crush the Tora Bora stronghold, thus allowing bin Laden to escape >Waiting 9 fucking years to go into Pakistan to kill bin Laden rather than just telling them to fuck off and invading in 2002 when we had the momentum >Not withdrawing once we had militarily crushed Al Qaeda and killed bin Laden, and let the Afghans go back to killing one another as they have since the beginning of time
Iraq: >Making April Glaspie ambassador to Iraq to begin with >Not deposing Saddam in 1991 when we had the army to occupy it and could have rebuilt and reintegrated the country into the international community quickly >12 years of dithering about, making a half-hearted effort to depose Saddam, bombing Iraq, starving civilians, and causing the degradation of basic social services in Iraq (a major contributing factor to the exacerbation of the eventual insurgency in Iraq) rather than making a definitive peace or
Easton Wilson
Cont'
Iraq: >12 years of dithering about, making a half-hearted effort to depose Saddam, bombing Iraq, starving civilians, and causing the degradation of basic social services in Iraq (a major contributing factor to the exacerbation of the eventual insurgency in Iraq) rather than making a definitive peace or removing him from power >2003 >Accusing Saddam of having WMDs at all >Spending a mere four months and mobilizing half the of the recommend number of troops in preparation for war >Issuing WOODLAND MOPP equipment to troops who were invading a fucking DESERT >Not seizing and destroying Iraqi weapons depots as soon as we captured them >Firing Jay Garner (a decorated Vietnam veteran who had fought in the Gulf War) as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority and replacing him with Paul Bremer (a fucking bureaucrat and a terrible one at that) >Having private contractors involved in the occupation at all >Abu Grab-Ass
Syria/Libya/Yemen: >Getting involved at all
Charles Moore
Cont'
This one's a throwback but arguably prophesied the mess we would find ourselves in 20 years later
Lebanon:
>Getting involved at all >Not taking far more stern action to discipline Israel after they allowed the Shatila massacre to occur >Deploying US Marines to Lebanon but not deploying them in sufficient numbers (like Iraq, it was chronically understaffed) and issuing them outdated equipment (until the last months of their deployment, Marines were issued obsolete M1 helmets despite the newer PASGT already being available for use, causing additional casualties) >Giving Marines in Beirut excessively restrictive ROE (the Barracks attack was successful in part because the guards at the base were not permitted to keep their weapons loaded) >Cutting and running from Lebanon after the Barracks attack rather than deploying elite troops (ex. 82nd Airborne) to find those responsible for and make them pay
Gabriel Fisher
>namefag >posts are nothing but uninformed memes
checks out
Eli Moore
he's right though
Chase Jenkins
>country falls apart because their leader dies >blame the west It's easy to treat westerners as scapegoats to distract from the own fundamental problems.
Andrew Phillips
Die imperialists
Kevin Jackson
>deleting your name to samefag namefags pls lev
Thomas Murphy
>being this much of an autistic armchair general >namefag >wannabe klansman Pottery.
Elijah Anderson
First off, Mujahideen in Afghanistan, Taliban and Al-Qaeda are not the same, but yes there are overlaps in the first and the latter. Second, the idea that the US used Osama to bomb WTC so they could invade Afghanistan begs the question as to why the fuck the US would wanna invade Afghanistan. Third, how the fuck can you even begin to believe that the Taliban are better off than they were before the invasion of Afghanistan? They controlled most the country and had the Northern Alliance pressed into a corner, now they're the ones hiding along the border to the Pakistani tribal territories while the the Northern Alliance get to call themselves the government of Afghanistan, sure it's still a shit show, it's been so for a looooong fucking time before the US went in.
>Why do people have the audacity to say "all muslims are terrorists" when the US caused about 90% of this clusterfuck? 90% of a harsh estimate, don't underestimate the bullshit groups like the Saudis are pulling, the US is not the only country capable of playing geopolitcal games on the expense of others, Libya for instance was France's idea, hell shit like Libya and Syria wouldn't even have any soil to grow in of the people living there didn't have cause to a pissed, you can't fund armed uprisings if people aren't angry.
Easton Fisher
>Libya >America's fault France and Britain dragged us in. We initially wanted nothing to do with it.
Justin Smith
>Second, the idea that the US used Osama to bomb WTC so they could invade Afghanistan begs the question as to why the fuck the US would wanna invade Afghanistan
So they can have military foothold/influence in afghanistan, they relied alot on bagram air base
And to tie off the loose end that is the mujahdeen.
Lincoln Carter
Afghanistan isn't middle east.
Zachary Smith
but very very close to it
Grayson Edwards
You're correct about Syria and Lybia but literally everything you wrote about Afghanistan is wrong.
