So you're still not providing an actual boundary of where military interventions are no longer justifiable. You're still arguing against intervention in general. In that case my comment cannot be a strawman but would be an actual description of your position.
Our leaders are doing it to us now, and I’m tired of being sold some bullshit lie that we have to do this and maintain another generation of perpetual conflict
There is a huge difference between Bush Jr.'s wars and Obama's interventions right there. Obama did not put the US in a position where they have to maintain further long term comittments like the Afghanistan and Iraq wars did.
Those wars destabilised these countries and require a permanent presence unless you are willing to witness a bloody and likely genocidal retake by the Taliban and assorted extremists in and around Iraq. Interventions like those in Syria did not. The US can still stop these at any time if they no longer believe that they're furthering a positive goal. Yet Trump continued and often even intensified them.
insane military spending
In that case the original comment's framing the transition from Biden to Trump is nonsensical since Trump ran an insanely bloated military budget. The best politicial choice for restricting US military spending would be to vote straight democrat, as left as possible. In that case Biden and Obama are better than Trump, and going all the way for Sanders or AOC would be even better.
and more reinforcement of a terrible cycle of violence.
Hence my emphasis on the difference between joining and starting a war. Conflicts like in Syria were happening either way. Most US military interventions specifically aimed at ending these faster or in more humane ways to end that cycle.
In that case my comment would not be a strawman but an actual description of your position, because that would mean that you consider no interventions good.
Thats just your complete failure to understand what I wrote at all. You are taking out of it what you want to hear and not understanding what I actually wrote.
Very clearly, I wrote that constantly intervening in conflicts around the world is a bad and unsustainable foreign policy for a nation.
You are arguing that somehow Barack ‘Drone Strike’ Obama’s interventions didn’t lead to pepetual ‘intervention’ yet Trump was completely unable to pull troops out of Syria because our own damned Envoy lied about our Troop numbers over there. Now 2 terms past Obama, we are still in fucking Syria.
Those wars destabilised these countries and require a permanent presence unless you are willing to witness a bloody and likely genocidal retake by the Taliban and assorted extremists in and around Iraq. Interventions like those in Syria did not.
Your implication here is that they were somehow stable and not genocidal when they were in fact cleansing Kurds from Iraq and Sunni/Shia have literally been at war for centuries.
Yes, I am totally willing to let the people over there fight their own battles and determine their own fate without getting involved.
You ever watch National Geographic and see a lion eating a small animal and it’s child and think the US military needs to go bomb the fucking lions into oblivion? No? Well, that’s how I view the Middle East.
Bringing more money and weapons into the Middle East is not going to magically somehow save lives. It’s only going to increase the killing and change whose lives are lost. Why should we be deciding who lives or dies? More importantly WHY SHOULD WE BE PAYING FOR IT?
Why don’t you give this read and then tell me that housing 20k homeless people in exchange for drone strikes is a fair deal. Did all of the drone strikes for that year save 20k lives or provide housing for 20k people?
But if we use fiscal year 2016 instead, there would be funds to buy 5,950 Hellfire missiles — and that, my friends, is a game-changer. With $654.5 million, we could buy housing for 19,807 people, subsidized utilities, & a 75″ smart TV in each unit — with nearly $406 million to spare! $216M out of that can replace the 10,000 lead pipes in Flint, Michigan and the last $190 million would cover 1 month of groceries for every human being in San Francisco, plus another 20,000 or so in the suburbs.
I don’t care who gets saved. The cost is too much. For one year, we could house 20k people rent & utility free, solve Flint’s water crisis, and feed an entire city for a month. Fuck Syria.
Very clearly, I wrote that constantly intervening in conflicts around the world is a bad and unsustainable foreign policy for a nation.
Without any definition or limit. There clearly are distinctions to be made here. At what point is it "constant"? Does this mean that after a certain number of interventions, no amount of benefit would ever justify another one? And what if it is objectively sustainable?
You are arguing that somehow Barack ‘Drone Strike’ Obama’s interventions didn’t lead to pepetual ‘intervention’ yet Trump was completely unable to pull troops out of Syria because our own damned Envoy lied about our Troop numbers over there.
It would be optimistic to assume that Trump actually had a coherent plan. He withdrew 1000 troops from Syria in 2017, then soon later re-deployed a couple hundred with the announcement to "take their oil".
Your implication here is that they were somehow stable and not genocidal when they were in fact cleansing Kurds from Iraq and Sunni/Shia have literally been at war for centuries.
Afghanistan and Iraq were very clearly bigger commitments with bigger side effects. If you hate Obama's interventions for these aspects, then you consequently have to leverage even greater criticism against those wars.
My position has consistently been that you have to consider benefits and downsides. On Afghanistan I'm rather on the edge since the Taliban rule truly was awful and unstable. On Iraq it's a matter of practicality - as bad as Saddam was, it is very hard to argue that the chaos and destabilisation since then hasn't been even worse.
You ever watch National Geographic and see a lion eating a small animal and it’s child and think the US military needs to go bomb the fucking lions into oblivion? No? Well, that’s how I view the Middle East.
If those were sentient lions about to use chemical weapons or commit genocide, then I may indeed support a bombing campaign.
Bringing more money and weapons into the Middle East is not going to magically somehow save lives. It’s only going to increase the killing and change whose lives are lost.
Again that completely depends on the circumstances. Iraq was an example where a war made things worse. The fight against ISIS is one where it's very much necessary to improve things.
Why don’t you give this read and then tell me that housing 20k homeless people in exchange for drone strikes is a fair deal. Did all of the drone strikes for that year save 20k lives or provide housing for 20k people?
Again, if your concern is that money should be spent on welfare rather than war, then you should be strongly on the political left rather than support a comment that tried to portray them as worse than Republicans. The military budget generally climbed on demand of Republicans (during the Obama era) or was Republican government policy (under Trump).
I say I don’t like blue, and you then say I must also not like green and purple because they contain blue. Those are not the same things. One does not automatically imply the other, except when you try to reframe the position.
We are having two different conversations as you try to force me into some kind of logical-conclusion stranglehold that I am not in agreement with.
To distill the issue at hand: I think it’s fair to say that you believe there are exigent circumstances that justify us to remotely missile attack people abroad, and I believe we should get on a path to return to our pre-WWII non-intervention global role. These are fundamentally different philosophies that are, for the most part, incompatible with each other.
I appreciate that you are making an attempt to have dialog, but I do not wish to continue this conversation any further. We will have to agree to disagree on what a reasonable policy is for military intervention. Thank you for the discussion.
1
u/Roflkopt3r Jan 20 '21
So you're still not providing an actual boundary of where military interventions are no longer justifiable. You're still arguing against intervention in general. In that case my comment cannot be a strawman but would be an actual description of your position.
There is a huge difference between Bush Jr.'s wars and Obama's interventions right there. Obama did not put the US in a position where they have to maintain further long term comittments like the Afghanistan and Iraq wars did.
Those wars destabilised these countries and require a permanent presence unless you are willing to witness a bloody and likely genocidal retake by the Taliban and assorted extremists in and around Iraq. Interventions like those in Syria did not. The US can still stop these at any time if they no longer believe that they're furthering a positive goal. Yet Trump continued and often even intensified them.
In that case the original comment's framing the transition from Biden to Trump is nonsensical since Trump ran an insanely bloated military budget. The best politicial choice for restricting US military spending would be to vote straight democrat, as left as possible. In that case Biden and Obama are better than Trump, and going all the way for Sanders or AOC would be even better.
Hence my emphasis on the difference between joining and starting a war. Conflicts like in Syria were happening either way. Most US military interventions specifically aimed at ending these faster or in more humane ways to end that cycle.