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Well, according to the article, the pivot to Asia achieved stronger relations with several countries in Southeast Asia which are doing well economically, as well as bolstering their opinion of America. This arguably moves them into America's sphere of influence, where he sees greater technological innovation capability and greater economic potential, both of which are better benefits than the quagmire of the Middle East. It also mentions that as the explicit reason why he is trying to normalize relations with Central America and Cuba.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:09
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Xandu posted:There's absolutely no question that Obama walking back that red line was a bad mistake, and Kerry even admits as much in the article, but it's not clear to me that the world would be better off if presidents felt pressured into going to war so they don't look inconsistent. I would absolutely agree that being pressured into going to war over some trivial concept like "credibility" isn't a good standard, but I think that's aside from the point. As the article discusses, yes, it did very much appear that the US was going to strike Syria after Ghouta. But it also makes clear that Obama was very skeptical about it, and once he found his route to avoid it, he chose that and was completely at peace with it. All along, Obama has avoided conflict as a guiding principle, but the interactions with the Syrian opposition didn't reflect that. As an example, here's an article referring to diplomatic engagements between the US and opposition figures after Obama first called for Assad's ouster in 2011. quote:The “magic words” finally had been uttered, after five months of violence and a death toll of 1,800. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article31016274.html#storylink=cpy I suppose you could twist and contort that into just a good faith misunderstanding, but it's such a horrible result that could've been avoided. As for Kerry and Ford, their statements have been a bit more hawkish at times, but I don't think that was reflected in policy. Ford resigned in protest over how little his word counted for, and Kerry, as he said, got hosed over. I just see the disgust over how this saga played out as something that was completely avoidable. quote:I also think the US completely misunderstood the situation in Syria (and Libya and Iraq, but that's a broader topic). I think people imagined the regime (or at least Assad) would fall as Mubarak or Bin Ali or others did. They did not anticipate Assad being nearly as stable as he turned out to be, and once it became clear he wasn't going anywhere without a real invasion, the administration kind of washed its hands of the whole thing. I would agree with that as well, but I would consider that a pretty horrible mistake in policy. How many months and years are allowed to pass before letting things continue on unabated is indefensible? How many deaths must there be before a response is necessitated? By the Obama administrations calculations, the answer is 5+ years and 500,000+ deaths. quote:Finally, on the broader topic of what the US strategy in the Middle East should be, I keep coming back to this point. Sure, but there's also a lot of activists doing incredible work, and ordinary people who've suffered in ways none of us can even begin to comprehend, who still have the personal strength and courage to push for what they believe in. And in all that, there's a lot to be inspired by. That sort of cynical "nothing works" outlook leads into viewing the Middle East as a security situation. It views the Middle East as a sort of incurable disease, where there is no treatment. Just different methods that can be used so that you can "live with it." Those types of band-aids involve things like supporting authoritarians in the name of stability, avoiding the rise of human rights and democracy, and things of that nature. As horrible as all the poo poo I've seen in the Middle East is, I refuse to believe that we can't accomplish anything better than that.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:33
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I'm more pessimistic about the whole "red line" plot line than I was before reading this, but I think Obama was still in the right. For one thing, getting rid of the chemical weapons is a legitimate success. It was also fair to ask congress to weigh in, and they were unable to come up with a coherent idea. Maybe he learned for Libya. Republicans wanted him to bomb Gaddafi and then immediately turned on him when he did so. Its fair to ask for buy in, and his opponents are incapable of giving the sort of on-the-record support that war demands.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:40
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AlouetteNR posted:Well, according to the article, the pivot to Asia achieved stronger relations with several countries in Southeast Asia which are doing well economically, as well as bolstering their opinion of America. This arguably moves them into America's sphere of influence, where he sees greater technological innovation capability and greater economic potential, both of which are better benefits than the quagmire of the Middle East. It also mentions that as the explicit reason why he is trying to normalize relations with Central America and Cuba. Yea, Hillary's criticism that he doesn't have a grand strategy falls flat because this is basically it. He doesnt have a strategy for the mideast because he views it as increasingly irreverent and wants to wrap up our commitments and regional problems before supergluing us to Asian economies. Who knows if its a good plan, but that is his grand strategy.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:44
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Pox posted:I'm more pessimistic about the whole "red line" plot line than I was before reading this, but I think Obama was still in the right. For one thing, getting rid of the chemical weapons is a legitimate success. It was also fair to ask congress to weigh in, and they were unable to come up with a coherent idea. The thing about the chemical weapons deal is that it only removed Assad's "declared" stockpile. Even the OPCW, who were responsible for destroying the weapons, won't say the stockpile is eliminated. Sarin was used on the one year anniversary of the Ghouta attack for funsies, and chlorine and other chemical weapons are used fairly frequently in Syria to this day. In fact, the OPCW is doing another fact-finding mission this month to investigate 7 incidents from September of last year to February that were flagged for further investigation in an initial report. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53291#.VuJbEfkrLIU It really accomplished nothing for the people of Syria or the region.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:50
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rudatron posted:I think actually that's the best way to characterize Obama's foreign policy. Remember the 'reset' with Russia? Or how about the 'pivot to Asia'? What did either of them actually achieve? The reset with Russia kept relations from being as bad as they would have been otherwise. Bush rushing to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and sending troops into Georgia after the 2008 invasion, risked a much larger conflict. It didn't cut deep enough, but it at least walked us back from the brink.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:53
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Given the lessons that we've learned over the last 15 years, Obama was right not to intervene in Syria. The idea that we could quickly and cleanly pop in, kill Assad and his cronies, and then pop back out again without getting stuck is laughably naive. The ME is a trap for arrogant interventionists, no matter their intentions, and the idea that we could pick a winner at a low cost to ourselves when every single one of Syria's neighbors plus KSA, Iran, and Russia are pouring weapons and bombs all over the goddamn country is a fantasy.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:54
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Didn't notice this thread was made, here are my two cents cross posted from another thread. I like how the article is trying to paint Obama as a sighing nihilist who laments tribalism and stuff being the reasons why the middle east can never change when him and his allies oversaw the destruction of the Arab spring in the countries allied to his government, one of which happened to be so central to the Arab world that if it had been allowed to run it's course would've changed the middle east forever for the better. instead they installed a military fascist, doubled down on support on the same governments that shackled the middle east for decades who are their allies to them come hell or high water. I mean, I don't have any illusions of expectations of Obama ever shifting from the institutional foreign policies of the united states, but claiming ignorance and saying the middle east is what it is and will never change is either indicative of being massively shortsighted or flat out lying. Al-Saqr fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 07:01
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Volkerball posted:The thing about the chemical weapons deal is that it only removed Assad's "declared" stockpile. Even the OPCW, who were responsible for destroying the weapons, won't say the stockpile is eliminated. Sarin was used on the one year anniversary of the Ghouta attack for funsies, and chlorine and other chemical weapons are used fairly frequently in Syria to this day. Where are you getting this from? I'm not seeing any reports of sarin use by the Syrian Army since 2013, and it hasn't been determined that the chlorine gas attacks came from government forces at all. E: more importantly, it's kind of silly to say that the OPCW mission didn't accomplish anything. Even if Assad kept some weapons from the inspectors, there are still considerably fewer now than there were in 2013. Assad's ability to create more of them is pretty much nonexistent now. That's a significant accomplishment. Majorian fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 07:29
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Majorian posted:Where are you getting this from? I'm not seeing any reports of sarin use by the Syrian Army since 2013, and it hasn't been determined that the chlorine gas attacks came from government forces at all. It's been determined dozens of chlorine attacks have come from the regime. They are responsible for several attacks both before and after Ghouta, mainly through chlorine barrel bombs. The UN even said so (page 19), so I have no idea what kind of truther bullshit outlet is still trying to play the "who knows what really happened, the truth is probably in the middle" line. As for sarin, it was a small attack that Brown Moses dug up on the day of. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3390388&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1581#post433796223 Symptoms are the same as the Ghouta attack. Edit: as far as there being fewer chemical weapons in Syria, Assad has VX, which is far and away the nastiest of all nerve agents. Traces of it were found at an undeclared military research site, and it's suspected to have been part of the chemical cocktail used in Ghouta. Just 1 ton of VX could kill thousands and thousands of people. There was no oversight whatsoever when it came to making sure Assad declared all of his stockpile. He said "here's 1,300 tons of chemical weapons," the OPCW said "ok, we'll take that," and that was it. I wouldn't bet money that Assad gave up enough of his reserves to the point it affected his capability of killing a metric fuckton of people, because it was entirely his choice to decide what he did and did not want to give up. If the regime wants to commit a chemical massacre a la Ghouta tomorrow, that deal isn't going to have done anything to stop him. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 07:46
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rudatron posted:I think actually that's the best way to characterize Obama's foreign policy. Remember the 'reset' with Russia? Or how about the 'pivot to Asia'? What did either of them actually achieve? They got him a couple of points in the opinion polls, which, for his entire presidency, has been the only thing that has really mattered to him.
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Mar 11, 2016 08:01
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Volkerball posted:It's been determined dozens of chlorine attacks have come from the regime. They are responsible for several attacks both before and after Ghouta, mainly through chlorine barrel bombs. The UN even said so (page 19), so I have no idea what kind of truther bullshit outlet is still trying to play the "who knows what really happened, the truth is probably in the middle" line. Eyewitnesses say they saw barrel bombs being dropped by helicopters. That probably means it was the government, I agree. But to use that as evidence that the agreement to get Syria to join the CWC was all for nothing is simply not accurate. Syria's ability to use WMDs against its own civilians has been decimated. What's more, while use of chlorine as a weapon is illegal under the CWC, the possession of chlorine is not. Clearly Assad is in violation of the CWC, but you can't exactly claim this as a failing of the agreement. quote:As for sarin, it was a small attack that Brown Moses dug up on the day of. I'm looking for OPCW reports on it; if I find something I'll comment on it. Until then, though, bear in mind, even if the Syrian government used sarin again, we at least now have a legal mechanism through which to hold them accountable, we have a means of applying more pressure on Russia, and we've reduced Damascus' ability to use WMDs dramatically. I don't think that makes our intervention a success by any means, but it's hardly the fault of the inspectors or the negotiators. e: I'm not seeing anything on it. That doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't an attack, but I'm guessing that the video BM posted was from a separate incident. quote:There was no oversight whatsoever when it came to making sure Assad declared all of his stockpile. He said "here's 1,300 tons of chemical weapons," the OPCW said "ok, we'll take that," and that was it. All evidence suggests that the OPCW teams have done their due diligence under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances on the ground. I don't see any reason to believe that they were as credulous or incompetent as you're portraying them. Yes, Assad kept some facilities secret. Everybody knew he would probably try to do so. The inspectors found them. You're making it seem like someone else stumbled onto them, or that Assad just shouted, "Hah! Gotcha! I have an undeclared facility over there!" Plus, keep in mind, the only reason why these inspectors can function in Syria in the first place is because the Obama Administration got Syria to join the CWC. The fact that there's further probing is a good thing; it means the inspection and enforcement mechanisms are working, in spite of the fact that Damascus has behaved deceptively and in bad faith. e2: Also keep in mind that finding "traces of VX" does not mean that CERS had been weaponizing VX up to the moment it was discovered. Given that the only piece I can find on this is the Reuters article, my instinct is that whatever VX weapons were created at CERS were destroyed with the rest of them. Majorian fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 08:08
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McDowell posted:Actually I think setting a precedent of assassinating heads of state we don't like is a worse outcome. It's a good outcome. "Don't start wars/gas people unless you, personally, are willing to die over the issue" is a higher barrier to war and will incentivise tinpot dictators to limit their activities to topping up Swiss bank accounts and building gold plated mansions.
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Mar 11, 2016 10:27
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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"Don't go kill heads of state" is reminiscent of "don't shoot officers" in warfare 200 years ago.
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Mar 11, 2016 10:40
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It's a good thing assassinations are guaranteed to succeed and there can't possibly be blowback from such an activity.
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Mar 11, 2016 10:52
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:It's a good thing assassinations are guaranteed to succeed and there can't possibly be blowback from such an activity. 
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Mar 11, 2016 10:58
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:It's a good thing assassinations are guaranteed to succeed and there can't possibly be blowback from such an activity. The most likely form of these 'assassinations' would be a PGM through the bedroom window of wherever the jerk in question happens to be sleeping that night.
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Mar 11, 2016 11:09
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I'm very skeptical about relying on decapitation strikes as foreign policy. For starters, it seems like the sort of thing that's way easier to talk about than it is to implement. So you're likely looking at a high chance of failure out of the gate, highly dependent on a whole bunch of murky stuff like intel and chains of command. What's the impact of a failed strike? I don't know, but it's not going to be a pure win. Even in the best case scenario, where you've killed your man, it's not as if it magically resolves the underling situation. Leaders come from power bases. Kill just Assad and the SAA is still there. Destroy the SAA, and the Alawites, Iran, and Lebanon are still there. Maybe if there's a clear winner among the competing power bases that's ok, but in Syria there hasn't been, nor have I seen such a thing in other situations. Anyone got any positive examples? I'm also skeptical that the threat of decapitation is really a good deterrent to a dictator. The idea that threatening their life will somehow make them more pliable geopolitical actors is, uh, sketchy at best. We even have a nice little example in North Korea. We've had joint command forces in the area transparently training for a decapitation invasion for decades. It's got the NK elite terrified, certainly. I suppose that that sort of thing has its place in geopolitics, but I find that US policy with such things tends to be schizophrenic to the point of uselessness.
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Mar 11, 2016 11:47
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Haystack posted:I'm very skeptical about relying on decapitation strikes as foreign policy. For starters, it seems like the sort of thing that's way easier to talk about than it is to implement. So you're likely looking at a high chance of failure out of the gate, highly dependent on a whole bunch of murky stuff like intel and chains of command. What's the impact of a failed strike? I don't know, but it's not going to be a pure win. It's kinda bass ackwards. The way it works now is that if you're a dictator and you try to flee you're in far more danger than if you stuck it out and tried to fight a civil war due to the nature of the ICC. You're also right, though, that the forces that fueled the civil war bubble undereath the generalities of a Syrian Government, rebels, and ISIS. Any notion of a democratic Syria would've required a brand of politics with a lot of finesse and I don't think that was ever going to happen. It's the same with Iraq. You can criticize Maliki, but a shia-majority country is going to elect pro-Shia candidates in a normal situation and the notion that the US is going to support less Iran-aligned Shia like Sadr in the heyday of the War on Terror is a bit silly. Instead we doubled down on bribing the Sunnis to shut up as our exit strategy and expected it to work consistently.
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Mar 11, 2016 11:55
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blowfish posted:"Don't go kill heads of state" is reminiscent of "don't shoot officers" in warfare 200 years ago. How would the American people react if a foreign plot to assassinate the President succeeded? Would they change policy or double down? A better taboo to break would be the one against tactical nuclear weapons.
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Mar 11, 2016 13:46
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McDowell posted:How would the American people react if a foreign plot to assassinate the President succeeded? Would they change policy or double down? Given what happened after 9/11, I'd say we'd go completely psychotic.
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Mar 11, 2016 13:53
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-Troika- posted:They got him a couple of points in the opinion polls, which, for his entire presidency, has been the only thing that has really mattered to him. That's not quite true. He's also big into "internationalism" and the standardization of international norms, which as the TPP showed, includes solidifying the power of multinationals at the expense of labour and consumers, despite being unpopular.
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Mar 11, 2016 14:29
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McDowell posted:How would the American people react if a foreign plot to assassinate the President succeeded? Would they change policy or double down? It's almost like dictators don't actually rely on public opinion to continue ruling
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Mar 11, 2016 15:19
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Majorian posted:The reset with Russia kept relations from being as bad as they would have been otherwise. Bush rushing to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and sending troops into Georgia after the 2008 invasion, risked a much larger conflict. It didn't cut deep enough, but it at least walked us back from the brink. Having Russia occupy like a quarter of Ukraine and slowly eat up Georgia is certainly doing wonders for relations with them.
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Mar 11, 2016 15:50
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Volkerball posted:Depends on how quickly it could've been done. The more massacres that were perpetrated by Alawite militias and by the regime, the more the tensions rose and the threat of reprisal killings grew. If your goal was the prevention of genocide, there's no question whatsoever that a quick and speedy resolution would've done the most to stop that. Turning our back on it was not the proper response to that because A. Your strategy empowered acts of genocide in the name of preventing genocide, such as the Bayda and Baniyas massacres that didn't happen until 2013, and B. Extremism on both sides is infinitely more entrenched now than it was in early 2012 when it was prime time to act, which has made genocidal massacres that much more of an inevitability. I know people tend to look at this position as the "realist" one, but it was never not dumb. Assuming it could have been ended quickly it would have been better, yes. I'm questioning why you make that assumption. We've been having a not-so limited air campaign against ISIL for 4 years and they are still around. Russia has been bombing the rebels for 3-4 months and the civil war is not over. Why do you think an air campaign could destroy the Syrian government when it has not destroyed ISIL's government or the rebels? Why do you think Alawite and other loyalist areas would surrender just because the Syrian state is destroyed when Sunni and other rebel areas don't surrender when they don't have a functional state or state army? This is not about toppling a leader or holding a hilltop. This is sectarian. When the Iraqi state was toppled and a strong military occupied the area the sectarian divides did not go away and the war didn't end. You're asking us to believe that in Syria it would be different. THIS TIME it will be different. Even with Iran and Russia shoveling weapons and money at anything opposing a Sunni-led state. I'm not buying it. Bottom line is nobody knows what Syria would look like without Assad but what is fairly guaranteed is that resistance to regime change would not go away with Assad nor would jihadist movements be deterred or less ambitious.
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Mar 11, 2016 16:02
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Volker has been on the 'a perfect strike at the most perfect time and everything would have ended up perfectly, also unicorns' since like 2011 now.
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Mar 11, 2016 16:03
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icantfindaname posted:It's almost like dictators don't actually rely on public opinion to continue ruling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGZqOkeYbB0
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Mar 11, 2016 16:18
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Stultus Maximus posted:Obama has made some mistakes but I think he's set the correct path to go on. It's not an easy path and there will be a lot of points where it seems like a bad idea, but I think he's on the correct path of internationalism. It's a nice narrative, but it falls flat - Obama has had no problem going unilateral on things when it suited US interests. It's like people forget there's been more to US foreign policy this past eight years besides Libya, Iran, and Syria. Besides, this so-called "internationalism" is fundamentally incapable of being a complete foreign policy solution - all it really means is identifying where our allies' interests match ours and cutting our own costs and liabilities by strongarming them into doing the heavy lifting on those cases of shared interest. icantfindaname posted:You keep insisting that things would have been as bad as Vietnam or WW1 if we had intervened, but guess what, it's that bad despite us not intervening. It turns out that non-intervention, like intervention, is a conscious choice with distinct consequences, no matter how hard you stick your fingers in your ears and scream you can't hear it The reason we didn't intervene in the first place was because every faction involved was horrible, we didn't want any of them to win, and Iraq and Vietnam are perfect examples of what happens when we try to use military force to create a "good" faction out of essentially nothing. Backing one of the factions wholeheartedly and pushing them to a quick victory would certainly have ended the war faster and maybe even resulted in slightly less immediate death and destruction and deprivation, but when the choice is between backing Assad or backing ISIS then it's hard to spin non-intervention as the real immoral solution. When you're arguing that your solution might possibly have maybe resulted in fewer mass massacres of civilians and less thorough ethnic cleansing, I feel like maybe the time to make good choices was long before 2011. Sure, maybe a full military intervention really early in the civil war might have pre-empted the rise of ISIS, at least temporarily...but if anyone thinks it would have prevented ISIS or even really weakened them much, then they've learned nothing from the last century's worth of Imperial collapses. I wouldn't go so far as saying "nothing works", but we've been making bad decisions in the Middle East for decades, which is a big part of what created this situation in the first place, and it's downright silly to say that one single decision a few years ago could have instantly undone all that.
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Mar 11, 2016 16:22
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Main Paineframe posted:The reason we didn't intervene in the first place was because every faction involved was horrible, we didn't want any of them to win, and Iraq and Vietnam are perfect examples of what happens when we try to use military force to create a "good" faction out of essentially nothing. Backing one of the factions wholeheartedly and pushing them to a quick victory would certainly have ended the war faster and maybe even resulted in slightly less immediate death and destruction and deprivation, but when the choice is between backing Assad or backing ISIS then it's hard to spin non-intervention as the real immoral solution. When you're arguing that your solution might possibly have maybe resulted in fewer mass massacres of civilians and less thorough ethnic cleansing, I feel like maybe the time to make good choices was long before 2011. There were a lot more moderates back in 2011/2012/2013 before Assad killed them all. But the problem with the bolded, like I said in my reply to Helsing yesterday, is that we're talking about Obama's presidency here. Yes, neocons have been loving up the middle east since at least the early 80s, this is true. But Obama had a chance to do something productive and he chose not to take it. It's baffling to me to see people doubling down on what was in hindsight obviously the wrong choice. You say "Obama made the wrong choice" and the response is "but but so did everyone else!" That's not an defense of Obama or his policies, it's attempt to deflect blame. quote:Sure, maybe a full military intervention really early in the civil war might have pre-empted the rise of ISIS, at least temporarily...but if anyone thinks it would have prevented ISIS or even really weakened them much, then they've learned nothing from the last century's worth of Imperial collapses. I wouldn't go so far as saying "nothing works", but we've been making bad decisions in the Middle East for decades, which is a big part of what created this situation in the first place, and it's downright silly to say that one single decision a few years ago could have instantly undone all that. 80% of the deaths in this war have been caused by Assad and the SAA. The focus on ISIS as the real problem and attempts to portray them as worse than Assad, is more of the blame shifting and equivocation. Yes ISIS is bad. No ISIS is not the main driver of the war or the vast majority of the atrocities in it. The primary reason Obama and the US cares about ISIS is that it's bad PR. Like Obama said they're not an existential threat anyone outside of Mosul and Raqqa icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 16:33
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mobby_6kl posted:Having Russia occupy like a quarter of Ukraine and slowly eat up Georgia is certainly doing wonders for relations with them. There's not much we can do to stop them that won't make the situation markedly worse.
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Mar 11, 2016 16:50
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I think totally loving up Libya was a great move.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:00
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The idea that Obama is an isolationist is loving hilarious. America (and the UK) committed a bunch of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the whole escapade was criminal as defined under the Nuremberg principles and Obama has done nothing to challenge that or hold those who fleeced the American tax payer for trillions accountable for their criminal actions. Hope this helps.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:03
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Wait have you guys seriously written 3 pages of responses to Obama's foreign policy without mentioning drones? I'd have thought waging a campaign of robotic assassinations in allied, enemy and neutral states would raise some eyebrows since its going to be his major contribution to US foreign policy. Especially since they're incredibly bad at anything other than destabilising allied governments, increasing jihadi recruitment and killing shitloads of civlians.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:48
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icantfindaname posted:It's almost like dictators don't actually rely on public opinion to continue ruling "We'll be greeted as liberators." -George Bush, 2003 2016:
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Mar 11, 2016 17:54
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Tesseraction posted:"We'll be greeted as liberators." -George Bush, 2003 If the American president were assassinated, as mentioned in that post, the American people would double down in defense of the current American regime. Killing Saddam did not result in Iraqi people doubling down in defense of the Baathist regime. Can you figure out why that was?
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Mar 11, 2016 17:56
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nopantsjack posted:Wait have you guys seriously written 3 pages of responses to Obama's foreign policy without mentioning drones? yeah, it's p. illegal and repugnant and we have no idea on the number of civilian casualties.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:57
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icantfindaname posted:If the American president were assassinated, as mentioned in that post, the American people would double down in defense of the current American regime. Killing Saddam did not result in Iraqi people doubling down in defense of the Baathist regime. Can you figure out why that was? The vast majority of Iraqis were safer and had better lives under Saddam even with the US led sanctions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their children.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:58
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icantfindaname posted:If the American president were assassinated, as mentioned in that post, the American people would double down in defense of the current American regime. Killing Saddam did not result in Iraqi people doubling down in defense of the Baathist regime. Can you figure out why that was? We didn't assassinate Saddam. He was captured by US forces and then tried and executed by an Iraqi legal process.
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Mar 11, 2016 17:58
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nopantsjack posted:Wait have you guys seriously written 3 pages of responses to Obama's foreign policy without mentioning drones? Are drone strikes morally different from conventional airstrikes, in your view?
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Mar 11, 2016 17:59
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McDowell posted:We didn't assassinate Saddam. He was captured by US forces and then tried and executed by an Iraqi legal process. Do you think if the US had drone strike assassinated Saddam and his top generals the Iraqi people would have rallied to the Baathists' defence?
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Mar 11, 2016 18:00
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