Existential Threats To Common Sense
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The military lesson is straightforward: if two of your enemies are duking it out, let them. Does that lesson have any relevance today? The Sunni and Shi’a sects have been duking it out across the Middle East for centuries. Neither one likes the US; extremists from both have threatened to annihilate us. Why then, should the US intervene on either side when they make war against each other? War is always terrible and innocents are killed, wounded, and displaced, but isn’t it better that Sunnis and Shi’a kill each other rather than Americans? You don’t see China or Russia taking sides.
The military lesson is straightforward: if two of your enemies are duking it out, let them. Does that lesson have any relevance today? The Sunni and Shi’a sects have been duking it out across the Middle East for centuries. Neither one likes the US; extremists from both have threatened to annihilate us. Why then, should the US intervene on either side when they make war against each other? War is always terrible and innocents are killed, wounded, and displaced, but isn’t it better that Sunnis and Shi’a kill each other rather than Americans? You don’t see China or Russia taking sides.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaSXTk4KL...
Besides engaging in short term tactics.
Can you not see, that is, use your powers of foresight?
If you were to stop random people and ask what the specific reasons they are fighting are, it would be reminiscent of a Jay Leno "Walkabout". The killing has been going on so long now, the reasons for the fighting have escaped them, now its vengeance and vendetta rather than fighting for an actual goal.
At root it is about belief, and people cling to what the believe emotionally to be true in defiance of facts all the time.
1. Total War
2. In it to win it
As a country we no longer have the mass will to do either of those. Not doing number 1 increases the time required to the point where we give up and leave.
911 was a significant attack and it didn't cause us to pursue the fight with the vigor of WW2.
Multiple 911s might have done so... but not a single one of that size
And that involves a willingness to let go of preconceived notions--in your case, I submit, fixation on the short term. And perhaps, the political.
Germans of a certain generation have a saying,
'To the eastern front he was sent'. It was said in a quiet voice, they knew that 'he' would not exist in one piece for long.
Your theme is probably correct, but it is hard to resist the rescue of victims, hard not to support those attacked, and harder not to join with the winning side. Yes the Russians and Chinese show greater discipline in their own interests.
The second problem we have had is that we don't believe in our own values, ie., the Constitution. This means that we have failed to win the battle of ideas, which is the only way to win a war in the long run. The only other alternative is complete annihilation.
On an ethical level, no banker should accept money from a Stalin, Mao, etc.
And that was sufficient unto the day for them.
But as always, its easier to pick the low hanging fruit.
Germany was GOING to do it! Regardless of Swiss neutrality declarations or the fact that they were armed to the teeth. That wasn't going to save them.
The German war strategy demonstrably didn't make sense. They attacked Russia for reasons that amount to "Well, let's keep our troops busy. They have nothing better to do since we're not going to get to Britain quickly". When that operation went pear-shaped, they couldn't bother with a country that wasn't giving them trouble.
War plans serve many purposes, including training tools for your officer corps.
I agree that in one one respect Switzerland did luck out tremendously.
The lets invade synapse in Hitler's unstable mind did not trigger on Switzerland. Or perhaps he listened to the OKW in that instance.
We no longer hold the wealth power or the might power
The root cause of the problems in the middle east is that America has withdrawn, unlike after WWII, when Europe and Japan were occupied until stable, and America has become weakened to the point where we no longer have the influence we once had. Until America is on the right track again, --bye bye libs--we will not be able to make gainful contributions to the stability of the world.
I also think you need to identify some probably repressed emotions behind the question itself.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in the last statement, in that I intended that we may owe to ourselves the need to make gainful contributions to the stability of our own nation. (In the last decade or so, the US has dropped way down on the list of countries with the most freedom, either economically or individually. We currently have the largest prison population per capita or actually of any nation on earth. Some 2.1 to 2.6 million) But to do even that, we would have to stretch the concept of individual to our nation of individuals.
As to repressed emotions, I've always worked hard to not allow emotions to control my actions or opinions.
Secondly. you might read the history of the Interwar Years in Europe. Were their eyes closed, and why?
I agree with you in one respect, America is weak now, after 6 years of President Wimp.
Most assuredly it has not been stable simply because of their socialistic governments. They have been able to retain government dependencies only because America has taken on their defense.
Now look at what they are up against, as America has abdicated that responsibility.
If there was some Shia/Sunni conflict going down in Iran or Pakistan or what-have-you, I'd get your point about the insanity of engaging in the conflict. I agree with your logic: no matter whether the Shia or the Sunni win, we win because they weaken themselves. Also, while they're distracted fighting each other, it's harder for them to make trouble for us. It's pretty much the 1980s policy of letting Iran and Iraq war with (almost) no involvement.
However, we're talking about Iraq here. We can't pretend like we're not involved there already. We've been there for a decade and this fiasco is happening as we're pulling troops out. ISIS is judging that we're too weak to repel them at this stage. Are they right? Probably.
Would ISIS be in its own power struggle against the other Islamic factions should they gain a foothold in Iraq? No doubt.
Does that mean we should just let them take over? You know what a takeover means? We've got an embassy there. An ISIS takeover means mass beheadings in the green zone...what happened in Libya times ten. There are two ways to avoid that outcome. Way #1: lower the US flag and vacate. Declare that the last decade was folly, and allow the rise of a new strongman. Way #2: engage the enemy and acknowledge that you may as well make Iraq the 51st state because we're never leaving. I don't think we've got a workable middle ground on this. We're either in for some humiliation or some territorial expansion. If we try to achieve something in the middle, we're just going to have a lot more death with nothing to show for it.
I agree with you that we should either clear out of Iraq or completely take it over. My preference is the former.
I never wanted us involved there in the first place. Its never going to be quick and clean, there is no easy solution.
By the way, I also think we let Russia take the brunt of using up Germany's war machine before we entered Europe. I think that was an excellent read of Hitler's idiocy.