On Bombing the Middle East Again
I don’t really get why we are yet again bombing the middle east. Twenty years ago, when I was in elementary school, it made sense. 9/11, terrorism, America the savior, we defend freedom, trust us, we’re the government, we’re here to help. Afghanistan, they attacked us. Iraq, they had WMD’s. But then we stayed, for twenty years, sent our people to the grave. I’m sure we helped, I’m sure we did some good, but when it drags on year after year, decade after decade, and nothing seems to change except the enemy names. First they were in the Afghani hills, then the cites, then we left, and no matter how we propped the ‘proper’ government up, spent money, sent weapons, food, engineers, help them make more equitable laws, the old world clawed itself back again, and all the people who said we should stay and work and help, somehow they couldn’t stand up by themselves. I don’t know the reality, I just heard stories, of villages fighting each other, tribal conflicts, family squabbles over who’s in charge, a public security no-one could guarantee, leaky borders with lukewarm countries, a seemingly endless supply of explosives and angry young men. Hundreds of thousands of people apparently despise whatever we’re doing over there, and no matter how much money, time, or blood we spend, the conflict never actually ends. In theory it's simple, right? Ya go in, blow up the bad guys, then organize all the surviving leaders of both the franchised and the unfranchised, and lock them in a room until they agree to a basic set of laws they can all live with, then get the hell out before any of this becomes our problem. They organized themselves before, they can do it again, and if they screw up and keep attacking our country, then we hit them back until they learn not to screw with us. But in the meantime, we certainly don’t mess with them. If they can’t stand up by themselves, then supporting them with our third leg isn’t going to fix that. - It just means they’ll fall over later. Now, our influence can be used to stop other countries from abusing the situation, but that’s about the extent of the help, creating a basic balance.
Cause it's the same story, right? Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Iran. There’s some chaos, people are fighting each other, we drop some bombs, the keep fighting, we drop more bombs, they continue to fight, we decide to support one side or another, they still can’t win because it turns out that each side, no matter how evil or belligerent we think they may be, still has millions of people who support them fighting the enemy. It's like weeding the yard: Either you poison the ground year after year after year, doing who knows what harm to yourself and the land, or you work with the native plants and stop making the impossible happen. Now, it may make sense to continue working in your own yard, but your neighbors yard, or your neighbors neighbor’s yard? At some point there are diminishing returns on the traveling work, and your own house begins to suffer. Unseen, weeds spring up in corners, a drain is blocked by a root, mice nest in the walls, and the foundation begins to crack.
Way back when, the Soviet Union was messing around in the middle east, and we had a stake in making sure that they did not on either a democratic or a militarily friendly carcass feast. We could have picked better and more moral friends, but at least there was a theory to follow about what actions to take. Eventually protecting oil supplies became important, so Desert Storm sort of made sense. Terrorism hit us from Afghanistan so we just hit back, even if our aim was a little broad. From what I understand, Iraq was the step too far, because there was nothing to replace the scars we made except another terrorist array. Libya and Syria, where we supported a side, but not enough to actually go move in force. - Just enough to keep our oar in treading water. Twenty years we’ve spent doing the same thing, bombing the same places, killing the same people, and for what? Are there strong democracies there now? Is there no terrorism? Did the people stop fighting themselves? We picked a side, we slowed the tide, we saved some lives, but I don’t know that we’ve fixed anything. As far as I know, terrorist attacks still happen every day in every country we’ve interfered in. We’re trying and trying, or at least that's what our government is telling us. Just a little further, a little farther, we can do this, but I don’t know that we can. If I’ve learned anything, it's that we cannot make peace happen, we cannot make a democracy rise up from nothing. There must be something to work with, a hope to reach for, a grand plan, a clear picture of what ten years from now will look like, and how to get there.
From where I am standing in the United States today, my biggest grip with all these conflicts is that nobody seems able to say that the actions they take will lead to a lasting peace. All they have is quiet in my time, quiet for five more years, but then the conflict will just reappear. As far as I can tell, that has been the play for my entire lifetime. Israel and Palestine are the most obvious example of two groups, negotiating in bad faith, both supported by outside powers, who don’t trust or believe the other side, made up of two ethnic or religious groups, and who both claim to speak for an entire race, never mind that there are, even within their own state, other sides.. Nobody has a long-term plan except hoping that the other side magically disappears, and meanwhile the regular folk who have no say in government because a legal system says their vote doesn’t matter, continue to live in fear. India and Pakistan are squabbling over Kashmir, Syria is barely holding together, Iran and Israel are tossing missiles, Yemen closes the red sea, Sudan is going up in flames, sparks are spreading through the Sahel, the gulf states are in a proxy war, and now we have joined in again, picking a side, hoping they win, but even if Iran’s government falls, there are ninety million people in that country who will remember being bombed. Honestly, if I was any country on the planet with the ability to make a nuclear bomb, I would construct one post-haste. Ya think someone would try this, an undeclared assault on major military bases, with Russia, or China, or India, or Britain? The nuclear powers rule the world for good reason, and if you aren't one of them, or allied under their umbrella, then you can only push so hard before they push back. I think many middle-income countries are going to learn from this attack.
So my question is not only is the world safer because we’ve spent twenty years fighting in the middle east, but specifically are we safer because we’ve spent twenty years fighting in the middle east? I’m not sure the answer is yes. Europe has a great interest in peace, refugees, and open seas around the middle east, and yet we, literally on the other side of the planet, are interfering more. It's already not at peace, the overwhelming number of refugees can’t walk to us, and our marine trade generally does not go through the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. China sends money, India doesn't do much, Russia has a mercenary touch. Are we fighting their influence? Is that what this is about? Did the cold war never end and nobody told the American public? There was oil, and still is, but now we produce our own, and have the technology to literally draw forth electrical and motive power by means of free sunlight. Why wouldn’t we focus on that, instead of stabilizing the oil price? We support various regimes, but also don't want the dominos to fall as they may, so we continue trying to demand that things be done our way, never mind that a general peace hasn’t arrived in the last thirty-six thousand days. How many US citizens today truly believe that we’ve done more good than harm with our money and our bombs? Fewer than when I was young. Yes, we want to make the world a better and safer place, but all it seems we’ve done in the last twenty years is to lose both face and faith. We can afford to lose one, but not both.
Cause it's the same story, right? Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Iran. There’s some chaos, people are fighting each other, we drop some bombs, the keep fighting, we drop more bombs, they continue to fight, we decide to support one side or another, they still can’t win because it turns out that each side, no matter how evil or belligerent we think they may be, still has millions of people who support them fighting the enemy. It's like weeding the yard: Either you poison the ground year after year after year, doing who knows what harm to yourself and the land, or you work with the native plants and stop making the impossible happen. Now, it may make sense to continue working in your own yard, but your neighbors yard, or your neighbors neighbor’s yard? At some point there are diminishing returns on the traveling work, and your own house begins to suffer. Unseen, weeds spring up in corners, a drain is blocked by a root, mice nest in the walls, and the foundation begins to crack.
Way back when, the Soviet Union was messing around in the middle east, and we had a stake in making sure that they did not on either a democratic or a militarily friendly carcass feast. We could have picked better and more moral friends, but at least there was a theory to follow about what actions to take. Eventually protecting oil supplies became important, so Desert Storm sort of made sense. Terrorism hit us from Afghanistan so we just hit back, even if our aim was a little broad. From what I understand, Iraq was the step too far, because there was nothing to replace the scars we made except another terrorist array. Libya and Syria, where we supported a side, but not enough to actually go move in force. - Just enough to keep our oar in treading water. Twenty years we’ve spent doing the same thing, bombing the same places, killing the same people, and for what? Are there strong democracies there now? Is there no terrorism? Did the people stop fighting themselves? We picked a side, we slowed the tide, we saved some lives, but I don’t know that we’ve fixed anything. As far as I know, terrorist attacks still happen every day in every country we’ve interfered in. We’re trying and trying, or at least that's what our government is telling us. Just a little further, a little farther, we can do this, but I don’t know that we can. If I’ve learned anything, it's that we cannot make peace happen, we cannot make a democracy rise up from nothing. There must be something to work with, a hope to reach for, a grand plan, a clear picture of what ten years from now will look like, and how to get there.
From where I am standing in the United States today, my biggest grip with all these conflicts is that nobody seems able to say that the actions they take will lead to a lasting peace. All they have is quiet in my time, quiet for five more years, but then the conflict will just reappear. As far as I can tell, that has been the play for my entire lifetime. Israel and Palestine are the most obvious example of two groups, negotiating in bad faith, both supported by outside powers, who don’t trust or believe the other side, made up of two ethnic or religious groups, and who both claim to speak for an entire race, never mind that there are, even within their own state, other sides.. Nobody has a long-term plan except hoping that the other side magically disappears, and meanwhile the regular folk who have no say in government because a legal system says their vote doesn’t matter, continue to live in fear. India and Pakistan are squabbling over Kashmir, Syria is barely holding together, Iran and Israel are tossing missiles, Yemen closes the red sea, Sudan is going up in flames, sparks are spreading through the Sahel, the gulf states are in a proxy war, and now we have joined in again, picking a side, hoping they win, but even if Iran’s government falls, there are ninety million people in that country who will remember being bombed. Honestly, if I was any country on the planet with the ability to make a nuclear bomb, I would construct one post-haste. Ya think someone would try this, an undeclared assault on major military bases, with Russia, or China, or India, or Britain? The nuclear powers rule the world for good reason, and if you aren't one of them, or allied under their umbrella, then you can only push so hard before they push back. I think many middle-income countries are going to learn from this attack.
So my question is not only is the world safer because we’ve spent twenty years fighting in the middle east, but specifically are we safer because we’ve spent twenty years fighting in the middle east? I’m not sure the answer is yes. Europe has a great interest in peace, refugees, and open seas around the middle east, and yet we, literally on the other side of the planet, are interfering more. It's already not at peace, the overwhelming number of refugees can’t walk to us, and our marine trade generally does not go through the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. China sends money, India doesn't do much, Russia has a mercenary touch. Are we fighting their influence? Is that what this is about? Did the cold war never end and nobody told the American public? There was oil, and still is, but now we produce our own, and have the technology to literally draw forth electrical and motive power by means of free sunlight. Why wouldn’t we focus on that, instead of stabilizing the oil price? We support various regimes, but also don't want the dominos to fall as they may, so we continue trying to demand that things be done our way, never mind that a general peace hasn’t arrived in the last thirty-six thousand days. How many US citizens today truly believe that we’ve done more good than harm with our money and our bombs? Fewer than when I was young. Yes, we want to make the world a better and safer place, but all it seems we’ve done in the last twenty years is to lose both face and faith. We can afford to lose one, but not both.
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