The Third Hundred Years War Has 86 To Go

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Remember, this is the area where they invented organized warfare. Nothing has changed in all those thousands of years. They don't WANT to stop fight, not until every enemy is dead.

[Minimalist]

We have broken it and we can't fix it, Khem.  Armies are generally shitty tools to do anything except kill people and break things.  Sadly, our only tool seems to be the army.

Meanwhile, it begins.



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41269877

Iraq MPs vote to sack Kirkuk governor over Kurdish referendum

The Iraqi parliament has voted to sack the governor of Kirkuk province amid rising tension ahead of a planned referendum on Kurdish independence.

The Arab-led central government in Baghdad strongly opposes efforts by the autonomous Kurdistan Region to secede.

AND,

On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament rejected the referendum as unconstitutional and authorised the prime minister to "take all measures" to preserve national unity.

Now, whatever the fuck will we do when the Shi'ite government tries to crush the Kurds?  The Kurds which have been about the only reliable allies we have had?

Here's a hint.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideas...SKCN1BP19Y

Western powers press Iraq Kurd leaders to shelve 'very risky' independence vote

Expect the Kurds to tell both us and Baghdad to go fuck ourselves.

[The Grand Nudger]

Remember, this is the area where they invented organized warfare. Nothing has changed in all those thousands of years. They don't WANT to stop fight, not until every enemy is dead.

-and also organized society...civilization.

We have broken it and we can't fix it, Khem.  Armies are generally shitty tools to do anything except kill people and break things.  Sadly, our only tool seems to be the army.

Our military is only as good as it's orders.  In any case, the solution to some local peoples immediate problem is to kill someone or break something.  This isn't ideal, but it's a practical reality.  It's a vanishingly small fraction of our armed forces that actually do this killing...and most of them are just as good..if not better, at the sort of manual labor required in disaster relief.  Among that vanishingly small fraction that kills...they spend and even smaller fraction killing.  Mostly, they engage in the sorts of manual labor expected of disaster relief.  This is how we fill the time between shootings.  Mech units go so far as the bring the equipment, you need it to support mech units anyway.

Now, whatever the fuck will we do when the Shi'ite government tries to crush the Kurds?  The Kurds which have been about the only reliable allies we have had?

The right thing, I hope.....but somehow I don't think that we will.

Here's a hint.

Expect the Kurds to tell both us and Baghdad to go fuck ourselves.

Yeah, we told our allies to quiet down and not poke the bear.  I can see why we would do that and why they would go ahead and poke the thing anyway.

[Minimalist]

The "bear" is a mouse if we don't support it with air power.

I remember when Bush the Smarter sent troops into Somalia because there was a civil war and a drought and a famine and we had lots of nice pictures of Marines carrying water and feeding starving kids and all the usual GOP propaganda they so love but Bush failed to understand the underlying problem and within no time at all these "humanitarian soldiers" were involved in the civil war.

The one thing about helping people is we always assume that people want to be helped.  Sometimes, they don't.  I remember joking to a friend back when one of the first skirmishes happened that the Somalis said "okay, now we've eaten.  Get out."

[The Grand Nudger]

The "bear" is a mouse if we don't support it with air power.

You expect us to bomb the kurds ourselves, then, or?  

I remember when Bush the Smarter sent troops into Somalia because there was a civil war and a drought and a famine and we had lots of nice pictures of Marines carrying water and feeding starving kids and all the usual GOP propaganda they so love but Bush failed to understand the underlying problem and within no time at all these "humanitarian soldiers" were involved in the civil war.

That's what happens in civil wars.  The people there during a civil war, get caught up in the civil war.  

The one thing about helping people is we always assume that people want to be helped.  Sometimes, they don't.  I remember joking to a friend back when one of the first skirmishes happened that the Somalis said "okay, now we've eaten.  Get out."

It hardly matters whether or not a person who needs help wants help.  There are plenty of times that people do this on an individual level, and ofc we end up doing it on a national level as well.

I'm just trying to get through all the "for their own good", and "they don't want us" and "we can't do anything about it"s and get back to the root of the objection. It's expensive, it's difficult. I'd add "it gets us embroiled into other peoples problems" to the list, per your comments above...but doing nothing does that as well, so, it's a wash.

I really don't understand. Assuming the absolute and unqualified truth of the statement "We fucked up the middle east." only makes an even -stronger- argument for our continued responsibility in helping them to fix what we purportedly fucked up.

[Minimalist]

You expect us to bomb the kurds ourselves, then, or? 

I'm sure the Iraqis will expect that.


And the Turks.

I really don't understand. Assuming the absolute and unqualified truth of the statement "We fucked up the middle east." only makes an even -stronger- argument for our continued responsibility in helping them to fix what we purportedly fucked up.

Do you think the Iraqis were blowing IEDs up under our trucks/tanks because they wanted us to help fix things?

---

And then there is Afghanistan...........

[Minimalist]

Oh, dear.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41279682

Kurdish MPs say yes to independence referendum

I wonder.  How do you say "go fuck yourselves" in Kurdish?

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's a shit sandwich, and while I get trying to help out others, I reckon that if they're shooting at us while we provide such assistance, our assistance is probably unwanted. And at that point I see no reason to stay.

[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™.

---

Do you think the Iraqis were blowing IEDs up under our trucks/tanks because they wanted us to help fix things?

"The Iraqis" weren't doing that.  It was a rather more specific subset thereof. Thinking of it like that gets a trigger happy soldier in trouble, and creates just the sorts of problems we're dealing with now.

And then there is Afghanistan...........

Another mess.  We both recall the brilliant team of fucking leadership that got us into this, though, right? I'd be more inclined to pin our recent failures on that then on a fundamental incompetence of the US to help or do any good. We don;t exactly have stellar leadership now, either....but we also can't just cut and run. Rock and a hard place.

[Pat Mustard]

No one, but I'm not sure what the relevance is?  We don't have to be the king of anything to try and use what we have...and that others don't...to help them. 

Don't get me wrong, we can choose not to intervene....but I think that it's important that we don't offer convenient rationalizations for doing so.  It's not that we can't or couldn't help and that nothing will ever work and that the people of the middle east are fundamentally barbaric.  Maybe we just don't want to anymore.  It's expensive, and really hard.   

We're not holding back the red right hand for their own good.  No good can come of watching a government execute it's people, for example.  We're doing it to diminish our own malaise at the expense of whatever good we could have done.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes that the US interventions (and UK and French ones for that matter) have an altruistic pupose in mind. These interventions have had three goals 1) topple a country's legitimate government 2) uphold the power of a favoured dictator or 3) topple the previously favoured dictator and replace him with a new one because he "went rogue".

None of these can possibly be construed as being in favour of the oppressed in whichever country intervention is happening.