The Third Hundred Years War Has 86 To Go

[The Grand Nudger]

OFC it's the kind of hellhole where people trying to help get shot at, if it weren't..they wouldn't need help in the first place.  Getting shot at is just a reality on the ground in these situations.  There were reports of people (presumably looters or people who thought they were confronted with looters) shooting at boats working Texas, too.  It's a thing that people with guns do, even when it seems like they wouldn't.  Let;s call it a universal truth.  No matter how good your intentions are, and how much you;ve helped some group x...somebody there wants to punch you right in your face for reasons™.

Well, I figure they're shooting at us in two of those countries because we were the ones who broke the place, and many of them seem to wish that we'd just go home. No matter the good points of your argument, help delivered at gunpoint makes as many enemies as it mollifies. Starve defeat.

Yeah, it was us, we broke the place.  The middle east was all lollipops and cotton candy before we showed up.

Let's recall for a moment that the reason we are feeling this malaise, is that we botched the removal of two regimes who were both guilty of crimes against humanity............

There's no need to deliver help at gunpoint.  I've certainly never handed anyone an MRE while pointing a rifle at them. There is, however, a need for a gun in places where help is needed most. It is difficult, it does make enemies. -That's the reality on the ground, again...not ideal at all, just a practical necessity of a conflict zone and a consequence of the predictable ways that people respond to outside intervention, whether it's armed or not. Unarmed rescue workers in syria get shot at with regularity, as well. In places like those, due to elements of their own populace..the simple act of repairing a four way stop sign requires a security detail. Having functioning roads would be of objective benefit to everyone involved, and particularly to the very people who might shoot at the posthole diggers or concrete mixers...and shooting back at them (if you get the authorization to return fire in the first place) -will- make some portion of the locals more sympathetic..even though the guy being shot at is a terrible dick to the locals too, using them as bait and blowing the shit out of them in their attempt to blow the shit out of us.

The comment above, about our interests, isn't strictly true. We have a compelling interest in preventing the mass execution of citizens by government. We've made statement after statement and commitment after commitment to that effect. It;s very much an interest of ours...hell, you could even say that it's part of our brand. This is why rebels are so giddy to get us on their side, and why they get so shitty when we abandon them. The global humanitarian crisis it caused effected us through our allies, and directly. The phrase "one global village" springs to mind. It's simply no longer the case that others peoples problems can be expected to remain their problems if we pursue some form of detachment or isolationism as a solution.