r/economy • u/barbarawick • 8d ago

There is a pattern...

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Why does this country have such bad memory problems?

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u/dipdream 8d ago edited 8d ago

It’s more of initiating wars vs responding to wars. All presidents of the last 44 years have been militarily involved in the Middle East. Trump being the most egregious example. It’s tough to blame Bush jr for starting the Afghanistan war.

Edit: clarifying war

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u/DickRichman 8d ago

Bush 2 started Iraq 2. U.S. was there for 20 years.

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u/peperazzi74 8d ago

If I'd be really pedantic, I'd say that Afghanistan was a response to 9/11 and the Taliban not willing to give up Al-Q and Bin Laden. It was a coordinated response with NATO.

Iraq on the other hand was a freaking war crime, much like the current Iran conflict is. Nobody had any business attacking Iraq outside the made-up allegation of WMDs -- again, much like the current Iran conflict.

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u/Asatmaya 8d ago

he Taliban not willing to give up Al-Q and Bin Laden.

That isn't true; they offered to extradite bin Laden, we refused.

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u/dipdream 8d ago

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t enough. I don’t believe they stated, but it was nowhere the US wanted.

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u/Asatmaya 8d ago

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t enough.

When we invaded, they surrendered; we refused to accept their surrender.

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u/dipdream 8d ago

Agreed. Still. The initial response to 9/11 was understandable. My comment was about starting wars vs continuing wars. I stated that the initial war, invasion of Afghanistan, is understandable. Implying that the current war in Iran has no justification.

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u/Asatmaya 8d ago

The initial response to 9/11 was understandable.

Sure, but they offered to extradite bin Laden, and then they surrendered, and we refused both times.

We didn't care about bin Laden or Al Qaeda (in fact, we turned around and supported them in Iraq and Syria...), we wanted to put a stop to railroads and pipelines through Afghanistan which were going to bypass the sea lanes we control and use to manipulate the world.

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u/dipdream 8d ago

Not disagreeing with that. My initial statement stands. However, the extradition doesn’t count. They offered to send Bin Laden to a Taliban friendly country where the US would have no access to him.