Is this what a lefty version of luckbox looks like?


Edit: and LOL @ thrillkiller...I was an intelligence analyst.

Victor has all sorts of correct ideas about the power nexus of corporations/media/government and their role in imperialism.

Thank you for your service

and who says I can't put two and two together.

huh?

Sounds like you did have an opinion

Again, sounds like you did have an opinion--humanitarian intervention.

For someone who claims to be a realist in the world of what is and not what ought to be, you're quite the moralist on war.

No, I just understand the good and bad that happened/happens as a result.

They are not yes, or no questions/answers. I can respect somebody who does a cost-benefit analysis and comes out on any either side... Anybody stating, unequivocally, it was a moral, or immoral are the idiots. There were legitimate reasons to overthrow Saddam Hussein... Whether that was worth the cost of blood, I don't know, definitely not, in hindsight, due to lack of commitment to Iraq, and ever shifting US priorities over time.

I also think it's pretty dishonest to use my mindset as a soldier in multiple wars and apply it to the context of a foreign policy question asked almost 20 years later.

Why?

I'm sure Hussein was a really bad guy. But anybody with a little bit of common sense could have seen in 2003 that the arguments for removing him were complete bs, that the US was going to spend forever there, spend countless billions of dollars, and make Iraq a lot worse.
Hindsight isn't needed when it's literally the worst people in the world (neocons) drawing up war plans. You can know that it is going to bad and probably a prolonged quagmire. Why? Because prolonged quagmires made the defense industry behind them a lot of them. And then let's not forget that the pretext for war was complete bs.
So it's pretty easy to call the whole thing completely immoral from day 1.

Actually that was all evident in 1992, but don't forget the nytimes pushing the war gave it a lot of credibility with the ruling class. Folks believed in wmds, however stupid that seems now. It's just as stupid to believe the current government narrative. As always there are some elements of truth, but the USA is often the belligerent actor, or at least not free from self—centered piracy. Everyone believes such a statement about google, bur the USA has flags and pledges and stuff, and moves to a higher god.

A war is a political instrument. It is generally the responsibility of politicians and voters, not the soldier. Within reason of course, we have laws of war and rules of engagement for good reasons, and soldiers should not be mute robots. But it is usually a healthy principle that the soldier is not the one to determine the validity of war. When you do it the other way around you get warlords - and those people are only fun in fiction.

So, to say that war is just the result of "corporate overlords" or "only about the strategic goal" are both too simplistic. Wars are subject to the same reasoning that govern politics in general, a multi-faceted array of causes that combine to make that policy a reality. That means all things play; public support, lobbying, appeals to emotion, winning elections as well as actual strategy, security and ideals.

But of course, war is a special case. It is hugely expensive, mistakes can hold enormous cost and it is very final, there is little room to turn back. It is a bad tool in the hands of leaders who rush in and those who have difficulty making tough decisions.

The US is a bit of a special case, as in modern times it has become the norm that its president will almost invariably have to make numerous decisions regarding military intervention during a term, and the "commander in chief" position is not just fluff. Something worth considering when electing one.

And yet I am sure the global economy as a whole has benefitted from not having to worry about a militarily strong Iraq led by a madman constantly threatening Middle East stability and the global economy.

I was young during the 80s-90s so I admit maybe my perception of geopolitics of the time might not be completely accurate. But I seem to remember he was constantly threatening to attack neighboring countries, and even followed through on it a couple times.

I mean, if he hadn't invaded Iran and Kuwait, and constantly threatening Saudi Arabia and Israel I am guessing we wouldn't have even cared too much about all his methods of quashing internal dissent. Heck, he probably could have really used chemical weapons on his own people and we wouldn't have cared too much.

I mean the link says it's vox. AFAIK it's not spin, I do think it's the authors real view because it's mine too. It does go a long way to explain the bewildering focus on Iran and the constant lying about it.

This is a good post overall.

Presidential decisions to use military force are very difficult for observers to evaluate accurately in the moment, mostly because of the information asymmetry between the decision-makers and the observers. That information asymmetry never goes away entirely, but it does shrink over time. (As an aside, I don't mean to suggest that presidential decisions to use military force invariably would seem more reasonable to observers if there were no information asymmetry. W's decision to invade Iraq looked worse and worse as more information about the decision became available.)

The bolded is very important when evaluating Trump's military decisions. Never in U.S. history has a president been as woefully unprepared to deal with a foreign policy crisis as Trump is. That means we should all be hoping that Trump opts for a low-variance approach to using military force. By low-variance, I mean an approach that tends to preserve the status quo and reduce the chances of an acute crisis. The decision to kill Soleimani was not a low variance decision.

Put another way, even if killing Soleimani would have been the right decision for some U.S. president (and I'm not saying it would have been), it doesn't follow that it was the good decision for Trump to make.

Thx to the support of USA n1.

Maybe if americans stopped creating monsters half of their time they wouldn't spend the other half killing them.
IDIOTS

Also lol hotinvegas, people question americans decisions in WW2 constantly, in what world have you been living? (hint:nagasaki as the most blatant, but lot of USA strategy is still discussed).

Anyway I'm sure USA#1 will establish the new talibans or a new saddam somewhere and fight him when they see it convenient.

I just don't think there is a strong appetite, on either side of the aisle, to engage in conflict with Iran. A targeted attack against a single person, in response to proxy attack, is not really indicative of wanting to go to war, no more than killing Bin Laden is an indication we want war with Pakistan.

There are provocations that would have been orders of magnitude of worse than the general's killing.

I think you over estimate the variance.

Do you think that all the investigations into Trump leading towards impeaching him, and threatening to imprison him and his family, are conducive towards a low-variance approach?

I agree we should be favoring a low variance approach. But IMO the domestic strategy of the Democratic Party and media towards him is pushing him towards extreme high-variance decision making.

I think Trump has been remarkably restrained considering the **** that is thrown at him everyday. Iran has been provoking him for months daring him to retaliate. He even warned them not to step over the line, but they did and here we are.

Obama would have just sent them more pallets of cash.

Democrats and the media may have incited Trump to be somewhat worse than his natural inclinations would otherwise dictate. But if he is worse because of Democrats and the media, it's mostly reflected in his comportment and his willingness to shred the dignity the office.

If Trump is pursuing high-variance strategies w/r/t to using military force mostly because Democrats and the media are being mean to him, then he is an even worse human being, and even less fit for office, than I imagine him to be.

Trump's decision to kill Soleimani looks best if Iran (i) doesn't do anything too reactionary in response; and (ii) is more conservative in the future about taking actions that might draw a U.S. military response.

That doesn't square very well with the idea that Iran was deliberately trying to provoke Trump into military action. It doesn't make much sense from Iran's perspective to provoke Trump into military action if the plan is to cower in a corner if and when that provocation is successful.

Russia is already expanding their influence in their area, and Iran has met with china..

to think this is anything but a MASSIVE loss for US interests is just silly.

He certainly wouldn't be the first leader to instigate conflict abroad to try to shore up domestic support. Most people agree this is a main component of the Iranian regimes foreign policy strategy. Probably Netanyahu's and Hamas's also in that conflict. In fact, I would guess historically in a huge % of conflicts this is an underlying theme. You seem to be operating under a very naive mindset if you think it is really that rare or exceptional.

What is the US? This is how much of the world sees the US.

Whether Trump would initiate military action to increase his own popularity at home is a different question.

Are you arguing that the Democrats and the media should do more to encourage Trump to believe he is immensely popular at home and doing a great job, because if he believes those things, he is less likely to wag the dog?

To put it mildly, that's an unusual take on the proper role of a free press.

Do you realize that the cash that was sent was theirs? We sold them military equipment in 1979, but we kept the money and never delivered the goods. The money sent to Iran was repayment of that with interest.