I mean there are enough people that are critical of the mess in Iraq and Afganistan. They are either worried that we are the war mongers. Or they are worried that it is costing too much. Or worried that American Military personnel are being killed or maimed without a direct threat to the USA. As for myself, I am worried about the military personnel, their families and the financial cost.
However, given that Sadam was a power hungry killer, and it did not make sense to keep him in the no fly zone box forever, something needed to be done. And given Taliban's terrible treatment of women and their allowing terrorist training camps to thrive, it seemed something needed to change. My biggest concern is that the folks in that region have been fighting on and off for ~5,000 yrs, and I don't have a lot of hope for them finally seeing the light. Mesopotamia wiki
Often, I wonder what the Pacifists and Peace Lovers would have done with Sadam and the Taliban? Would they have let Saddam keep Kuwait? Would they have kept him in the No Fly Zone box forever? Would they have let him keep killing and torturing his people? Would they have let him destabilize the Middle East? (ie high fuel prices) Would they have let the Taliban continue providing Al Queda a base of operations? Would they allow the Taliban to keep all their women uneducated?
Since we are spending too much, it does seem that we will need to really consider whether we can afford to maintain this global foot print and be the world's primary Police.
Zfacts Debt Clock
Cost of Iraq and Afganistan (~1.2 trillion)
US Armed Forces Wiki (Overseas: 820 installations in 135 countries)
Unknown News Casualty Estimates (take with a few grains of salt?)
G2A China... America's Banker
G2A Korea Challenges and USA Wealth
USA 2010 Budget by Category wiki
So what do you think?
- Should we keep our strong overseas presence?
- Should we pull our troops back to the USA and jack up security? (ie screw em all...)
- Will we be America if we turn our backs on these situations?
- How would the world and American economy be affected?
- Where do we go with Iran and N Korea?
- Open microphone time... Thoughts?
16 comments:
Rebel Leader Pleads for Immediate NO Fly Zone... Or more will die...
C'mon I know you have some feelings and thoughts regarding the topic....
Seems like a no-fly zone is a poor solution from several standpoints. There is the expense, the "cowboy diplomacy," the fact that most of the damage is being done on the ground, and the fact that the rebels are too poorly organized and equipped to win. I'm far from isolationist, but I think you have to pick your battles.
J.
Speaking as a pacifist/peacelover, I am against providing military help to the rebels/civilians in Libya. After having been quite riveted bythe scenes and success of protests in Egypt, for some reason I have paid scant attention to the ongoing strife in other N. African countries. If there is a need and a way to provide humanitarian aide to civilians that would be something I support.
As for US interventions in the middle east over the last twenty years, I supported going after Al Queda and the Taliiban immediately following 911. If President Bush had stayed with only the Afghanistan war, we may have been much more successful in rooting out Al Queda, rather than waging 2 seemingly unwinnable wars for the last 9 years at tremendous cost. I was strongly against G.W.'s war against Iraq and joined in a few large street protests prior to the invasion. As for the first Iraq war, I have always suspected it may have been prevented by better diplomacy. Once Saddam invaded Kuwait, however, I didn't object to that brief war and supported Bush Senior's decision not to pursue Hussein after he withdrew his troops back to Iraq.
In general, I do not support the interventionist policies/wars of the US over the last half of 20th century, especially in Central and S. America countries. I am really not very knowledgeable about any of it, but have been persuaded by progressive groups protesting those actions. I was thinking perhaps the US intervention in the Balkans was more successful, until I google that term and most of the hits included the word "failed."
In conclusion, I think the US should maintain, but decrease, its military footprint in the world. The pentagon is the number one area of the budget I would target for major cuts. This would be much wiser than the GOP's recent domestic budget slashing proposals, which include a big decrease in $ for port security.
Nokomis,
Just curious... What would you have done with Iraq and Saddam?
Remember that the USA and allies were maintaining no fly zones and sanctions were being applied against Iraq for apparently 12 years with no positive end in sight.
Iraq No Fly Zone War
Keep the no fly zone going indefintely? Let Saddam run free again and let him take out his angst against the people of Southern Iraq that tried to overthrow him? At what cost to the people of Iraq and the American people?
I don't think there is much of a right answer. I just don't see how Pacifists/Peace Lovers rationalize standing by and letting ruthless Dictators kill or torture their own citizens.
It seems like quite the Catch 22 for folks of that mindset. Allow peace loving civilians to die through inaction. Or risk losing soldiers and citizens by attempting to improve the situation. I am happy I don't face that moral dilemma.
As for Bosnia and Herzegovina, to me it looks like holding back is what caused the problems. Being more agressive sooner may have saved 10's of thousands of lives. Though we will never know... Checkout this link.
John,
I don't care enough about the Balkans to go beyond my aforementioned "research", so consider me convinced that earlier military action may have been effective and wise.
About the Iraq war, however, I am not in the least persuaded. If the Iraq war was for humanitarian reasons (and not about oil as us lefties like to assert) there were much better ways to spend the money. See WaPo:The true cost of the Iraq War: $3 Trillion and Beyond. If we are trying to save innocent lives how far would $3 Trillion go in feeding hungry children, almost 16,000 die every day. (Bread for the World)
Lucky for you one of my kids has need of our computer for homework and will cut my rambling short.
I believe the Iraq war was about multiple things:
- get us out of maintaining a country sized prison.
- getting the USA a base of Operations in the area.
- putting us smack dab between Iran and Israel.
- helping our "allies" in the South and North of Iraq.
- protecting our nation's and the world's primary energy resource
- Nation or Democracy building
- and on and on
Now was it worth the cost? That is another question... The WP article was interesting... Though they did not discuss some of the economic benefits of this war... Or that a great deal of that money acted as domestic stimulus dollars. Even the care of the wound soldiers funds new prosthetic development and will pay many Doctors and Nurses for 50 yrs...
And almost all the salaries and funds paid to military and private American employees and companies working in Iraq will find there way back into the US economy. It was like one huge "make work" project... Yet the Economist forgot to mention that.
The endless development of new equipment and vehicles to deal with the environment and the Improvised Explosives that are set along the road. Being an engineer I find this to be important. And since many of our everyday things started out with NASA or the military, necessity may have triggered some great inventions. (benefit unknown)
The USA based production of everything from munitions, to equipment, to clothing, to weapons, to vehicles, etc. Here are some of our local beneficiaries.
Osh Kosk Defense
BAE Defense
Aerostar
As for charity for developing countries... I am torn... World Population Growth My empathy is sorely tested when poor people in any country bring more kids into this world than they can afford to take care of. Maybe we provide them with birth control first, food second?
So All: What should we do with the Koreas? Pull our ~30,000 troops out and let them duke it out... We have been maintaining that country sized prison for even longer...(~58 yrs) I am scared to even ask what that has cost.
I lost the link to my neighbor in Plymouth. Here it is...
ATK Defense
John,
I agree somewhat with most of your points. I am confused about " -get us out of maintaining a country sized prison." Didn't the Iraq invasion get us into maintaining a country sized prison? Also, while $3 Trillion in war spending definitely acts as a stimulous to our economy, those same $ spent another way could have been more stimulative (or better yet, spend only some of them, thereby growing our debt more slowly.) Obama's stimulous was less than a trillion $ and is credited with creating or saving up to 3.3 million jobs. As Think progress explains, Obama created more jobs in one year than Bush created in eight . The WSJ agrees, G. W. Bush sucked at job creation (even with his reckless deficit spending.) Getting back to your question, the US should lower troop levels in most places, including S. Korea. We can no longer afford to police the world.
Here is the unemployment rate history chart... Unemployment History 10 yrs
It looks like the jobs were pretty good through most of his Presidency... But that housing bubble / recession was a killer... Now was that a typical business cycle or something we can attribute to Bush's policies? I don't know.
I know my company experienced record sales from 2002 to 2008, and Lord knows housing values just kept going up... Right up to the crash. However the reality is that people will remember Bush for the Great Recession, not the 7 years of affluence.
I agree, we did react to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait by putting him and Iraq's citizens in a country sized prison. Now, how long did we want to enforce the jail term? And at what cost?
I wonder who would have seen all the Iraqi in-fighting and senseless killing once they were free to live in Peace. If anything, it seems Bush was guilty of having too much faith in the good in people.
Many would think the people of Iraq would have sought Democracy once they were free to choose. Instead a portion of the population decided to work at killing their fellow citizens. Therefore dragging out the conflict. Thus my concern that maybe that region is doomed to Conflict.
I am not saying the war was the best investment of public dollars, but it did seem odd that an economist did not evaluate the cost and benefits.
Even though the original post was about US role in conflicts around the world, I have to return one more time to Bush administration's jobs record, because something is very puzzling to me. As my WSJ link shows, during the Clinton years population growth and job growth were nearly equal,about 24 million each. There was similar population growth under President Bush with only 3 million new jobs created. How could unemployment not go up significantly? I must be missing something. Also, about that 7 years of affluence before the crash, it was not widely shared.
(CAP, that progressive think tank that includes well sourced graphics)
Finally, to end back on topic, how do you think things will go in Iraq as we continue the troop withdrawal?
I printed out both the articles and will look them over in more detail. Because something definitely does not make sense... Created fewer jobs, but unemployment went down??? I'll post about it sometime in the future...
I forgot to mention the corollary... If the timing makes it bad to be Bush... It makes it excellent to Obama... He could be the worst President ever and look like he had stellar results. The good thing about taking over in the middle of a large but normal cyclical economic recession.
As for affluence sharing... As long as Americans continue to buy product that is developed and built by foreign based firms in low cost countries, our standard of living will drop until we are closer to theirs. This is because we are losing high skilled and paid jobs, and replacing them with low skilled and paid jobs. So everyone, just remember that when you buy your Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, LG, VW, BMW, etc... You are personally choosing to send those higher paid jobs overseas... (for better or worse)
As for Iraq, we have bought them a chance at peace and Democracy with our money and the lives of our soldiers. I sincerely hope they will take advantage of the gift we have given them. Unfortunately history shows that they will throw it away. Let's pray they learned from their own past.
John,
So it seems G.W. Bush just got stuck taking over the reins at the wrong time in the economic cycle. Booming economy, budget surplus, there is no way he could sustain that! A recession was bound to happen. This Slate article shows an interesting slide comparing income growth rates for different groups from 1948-2005 under Dem vs. GOP presidents. Notice how all groups, including the wealthy, fared better with a democrat leading the country. The GOP needs to get better at picking the right times in the business cycles to get elected!
Obama, otoh, was fortunate enough to have the benefit of taking office during multiple crises. Talk about opportunity! No one will expect much and things will surely get better. There were those pesky midterm results, which kind of disprove this theory, as voters apparently want immediate, strong improvements. Maybe The Onion had it right in their story "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job."
Moving on from my lame attempt at humor, you seem to be implying in your comment that that you view G. W. Bush as a pretty successful president, except for the financial crisis near the end. Presidential historians and my dad would disagree. In a C-SPAN survey Bush received an overall ranking of 36 out of 42 former presidents from 65 historians. My dad, an independent voter who used to complain to me about how Bush was destroying the country, would have ranked him lower.
Your buy American idea sounds both sensible and impossible. In this day in age when multinational corporations create products with component parts from all over the globe, it can be very difficult to determine which products are (mostly) made in America.
About Iraq, I have often wondered how the Iraqi people would respond to an opinion poll about were the benefits of greater freedom worth the high costs. I was surprised to see the death toll of Iraqi people estimated at just over 100,000. I would have guessed more.
From Nokomis...
John,
So it seems G.W. Bush just got stuck taking over the reins at the wrong time in the economic cycle. Booming economy, budget surplus, there is no way he could sustain that! A recession was bound to happen. This Slate article shows an interesting slide comparing income growth rates for different groups from 1948-2005 under Dem vs. GOP presidents. Notice how all groups, including the wealthy, fared better with a democrat leading the country. The GOP needs to get better at picking the right times in the business cycles to get elected!
Obama, otoh, was fortunate enough to have the benefit of taking office during multiple crises. Talk about opportunity! No one will expect much and things will surely get better. There were those pesky midterm results, which kind of disprove this theory, as voters apparently want immediate, strong improvements. Maybe The Onion had it right in their story "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job."
Moving on from my lame attempt at humor, you seem to be implying in your comment that that you view G. W. Bush as a pretty successful president, except for the financial crisis near the end. Presidential historians and my dad would disagree. In a C-SPAN survey Bush received an overall ranking of 36 out of 42 former presidents from 65 historians. My dad, an independent voter who used to complain to me about how Bush was destroying the country, would have ranked him lower.
Your buy American idea sounds both sensible and impossible. In this day in age when multinational corporations create products with component parts from all over the globe, it can be very difficult to determine which products are (mostly) made in America.
About Iraq, I have often wondered how the Iraqi people would respond to an opinion poll about were the benefits of greater freedom worth the high costs. I was surprised to see the death toll of Iraqi people estimated at just over 100,000. I would have guessed more.
Not sure if Bush or Obama are good or bad Presidents. I was just questioning articles that did try to draw a conclusion. It seems to me that the Congress holds as much or more sway.. And then again there is the delay affect of policies and laws implemented today that do not reach fruition until years later.
Which just confounds a true Cause and Effect analysis even further. Wouldn't it be ironic if income grew during the Democratic Presidency due to the policies of the prior Republican administration.
Though it seems the middle class did not think much of the Democrats Universal Healthcare or likely tax increases since they gave the Republican's control of the house. Thank heavens for gridlock !!!
I wonder if you may have a point... Could the economy at election time bias if Democrats or Republicans get elected President? If so, then timing could actually be an issue.... My company gray hairs say we run on about an 8 yr cycle... (major slow downs in 2008, 2000, 1992, 1985...)
Buying American is actually pretty easy... Where are their Corporate Headquarters and Product Development centers? And is most of their finally assembly done in the USA... See this link for more details. Made In America
Looks like we may be too late to help the Libyan rebels... Only time will tell though.
Buying American would be a lot easier if Government didn't punish people trying to BUILD American. I see we've now pushed out incandescent light-bulb manufacturing with our silly light-bulb rule. Second highest corporate taxes in the world, I believe. High capital gains taxes, and now, government soaking up every nickel of available capital and debasing the currency, all at the same time. Every advantage the US COULD and did have in global business is being thrown away by government edict. What morons.
J. Ewing
So is this for the bleeding heart or the war monger? An interesting turn of events. I had given up on the rebels. No Fly Zone Approved
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