The Third Hundred Years War Has 86 To Go

[The Grand Nudger]

It's odd because as you know more than most here, some of us shoulder all the responsibility. I don't mind paying my taxes for their paychecks, but I sure ain't comfortable sending them into a situation where delivering MREs puts them on the wrong end of the rifle.

The fact is that we're seen by many there as being an occupying force, and that is why American GIs end up as targets, no matter our good intentions. It's too late for us to take back our invasion.

They're volunteers.  The manner in which we pursued the invasion put up one hell of an obstacle to nation building, agreed.  Thing is, many of the means and mistakes we pursued in Iraq/Afghanistan we also pursued, initially, where our intervention has succeeded.  This goes to show that it -can- be turned around, but it doesn't make it any less difficult, ofc.  

And if that's what their feelings and motivations lead them to do, what purpose is served by continual deployments? They will almost certainly continue their internecine warfare once we've left, if we go by history. Why in the world should we volunteer to be targets?

Multitudinous purpose.  Cheif among them, however, is putting up a solid object between those who feel that way and those who do not.  This is what it means when we intervene, when we decide to fight someones battles for or alongside them.  We are volunteering to die for them, if it comes to that.  I suppose people don;t think of it that way, especially joes...they think about killing the other motherfucker...but that is the practical reality of the commitment we've made.  It really can;t go any other way.  You cannot intervene on someones behalf against a militant opposition without becoming a target of that opposition.  Right behind that is moving people from one collum to the other, and that can mean taking a few hooks to the jaw - exhausting their frustration. The latter is the most difficult, but without it we're unlikely to achieve our stated ends excepting the unrealistic scenario in which we kill every single one of them without making any more in the process. There is no reason for a militant to "switch sides" or compromise or comply when they know that the end result of a return to civil order will be a sponsored purge that targets them. Even if their ideological commitment to militantism was wavering, at that point, it becomes a commitment to their own survival. They keep shooting, because if they stopped, they would be shot.

I was being sarcastic, not serious.

But in seriousness: if they don't want peace, all the peace-keeping personnel deployed there are only so many potential targets. Without that desire for peace, all the nation-building is only so much pissing in the wind. I've got no problem with helping them who want help. Let them show it.

They™ -do- want peace.  As much as any human being anywhere wants peace.  Iraqi parents are not huddling in the rubble with their children wishing for a state of perpetual war. For many "showing it" ha been a thing that would get them killed by a unit that patrols their streets even when we don't - and even still...they've "shown it" time and time again.

I agree, very much, that the whole thing is a giant shit sandwich, I'm only suggesting that some components of our malaise, while it's easy to understand and agree with them conceptually, aren't really compatible with reality. In incorporating them as-is we've done nothing but adhere to the battle plans of the enemy. No one but those who wish harm on the others wants the world or anyone else to believe it;s hopeless. That;s -their- propoganda. Leave now, this can never work. Leave now, or I'll hurt people and make things worse. Leave now, or more of you will die. Leave now, my victims don't want your help. Leave now, the conflict is embarrassing you. Leave now, before you become bankrupt. This is nothing more or less than militant pr reading our malaise and feeding it back to us. We've already done the work for them, they know it's compelling to us, even if they're poor arguments in and of themselves.

The situation isn't entirely different from any other type of domestic abuse..wherein the abuser threatens the abused and forces their complicity to their own abuse even when assistance is standing right in front of them. We don't say "Fine, fuck you then, Jane - I hope he kills you, you obviously want to be abused. Get back to me when you're ready to show that you want our help. Being here is sucking up money and your boyfriend might hit me for my trouble."