BF2S Forums So Has It All Been Worth It?

Kmarion wrote:

The question is has it weakened us.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

The question is has it weakened us.

Weakened us by what perspective? (even though it has by every perspective I can immediately think of)

Yellowman03 wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Interesting theory, but I'm wondering just how the US screwed over the ME 20 years ago.

Are you referring to Afghanistan? Please explain how is helping them fight off a Soviet invasion of their country "screwing them over"?

I do agree with your final point. We've made a mess...it's up to us to clean it up.

I am referring to Afghanistan.

When the Soviets were preparing to invade, we sent special teams (I don't think necessarily special forces teams, though I'm sure there were some there, I think it was mostly CIA) to Afghanistan to arm and supply the local militias. Basically, we went and said hey good buddies howya doin, how about we give you a whole shitload of money and weapons and you help us fight them commies?

So we armed the local forces to fight against the U.S.S.R. in much the same style as current Iraq or Vietnam. The problem is we didn't particularly care about the people there, only about beating the Soviets, so some time after the Cold War ended we stopped sending aid, and they started to have military problems of their own. That was when the Taliban were coming to power, and the forces we had equipped, though experienced, didn't have the supplies to stop them. So the Taliban ended up in the control of the country, the people we equipped (later to become Al-Qaeda) were extremely angry at us, and then later went back to Afghanistan as friends with the Taliban.

Most of the history of this is from the book America's Secret War, a book about the present war in Afghanistan that I think I read in 2004. The same principles that applied in Afghanistan apply to Iraq, Iraq is just a second try for that elusive decisive military victory.

don't forget when we "re-throned" the shah of iran, established israel in palestine, and exploited saudi arabia for cheap oil.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

We're damn good at pissing the Middle East off.

Kmarion wrote:

The question is has it weakened us.

Don't take the actions of this Administration to be an example of what the US stood for in the past or what it truly stands for today. Taking the position you lay out is cynical in the extreme and at least partially blind to historical fact...particularly since it's based on a seven year period from our entire 232 year history.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2008-03-31 05:41:12)

lowing wrote:

Nope, it was not worth it. I support the troops so I support their efforts and since the decision was made to go to war I think not enough is/was done to win it decisively. That means, screw PC and go in and get the job done, but no, I wish we had not gone in.

David.P wrote:

What is this? Another fucken I told you so thread? Is using the Lives of 4,000 troops as an excuse to inflate your Ego? You think I dont notice that you're trying to rub your shit in my face like a fucken 5 year old yelling at the top of his lungs "Ha ha i was right and you were wrong" Because it makes you feel good.


Ofcourse i voted No but is your fucken pride worth the lives of 4,000 soldiers?

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Braddock wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

There was no other choice, barring invading a different ME country after Afghanistan.

Was the invasion botched, both in presenting it to the people and in politics getting in the way of military action, definitely, even to the point of setting us backward in the goals that led to the invasion. However, the fact at the time was not opening up another front in the Middle East was not an option.

I don't follow you. How was there 'no other option' exactly? What has this second front in the Middle East achieved in the name of US security or financial interests?

In my opinion, the entire invasion of the ME was to show the Islamic extremists the strength of the U.S. to prevent further attacks. After we successfully armed, and then proceeded to piss off a lot of people in Afghanistan in the tail end of the Cold War, the U.S. could not be seen as a sleeping giant to the rest of Islam. The people we trained knew they could strike the U.S. to make us look weak to their bretheren halfway across the world from the U.S., making us look like incompetent has-beens.

What are the two choices after that? Do the short-term sensible thing, nothing, because on paper the U.S. has far more to lose in a conventional military attack half-way across the world than to gain? The problem is once the blood is in the water, recruitment to these terror organizations would only increase when people see how weak the U.S. really is, people who want to see the only world super power left, who twenty years ago just screwed over their area of the world, crumble.

So the only option was to have a strong show of strength in the ME, and the only real influence on where was what would sound the most plausible to the American people. Al-Queda is a baseless organization (lol irony) that can operate from anywhere, with little contact from superiors, so there is no  way to really strike one place and expect a significant result against the organization itself. The special forces teams sent very shortly after 9/11 had just about the best effect against them possible, conventional attacks are nearly useless.

As we have found out they are, for the most part, counterproductive, because of the inspiring effect they have on the enemy. The U.S. is vastly technologically superior in every way, has the advantage of armor, air support, better recon, etc., but the fact is when it's one on one, a U.S. soldier with his M16 and a freedom fighter with his trusty AK, the odds are pretty much even. By no stretch of the imagination could the resistance ever completely "beat" the U.S. in a military sense, but as the world sees the U.S. bleed, more join the war against us and we become more and more demoralized on the homefront.

Which is why the U.S. is put in a painful position. We can't just "win" in the usual sense, there has to be a decisive victory. Once any hope of that was gone in Afghanistan...move right on to the next one. Obviously the whole ordeal has become rather counterproductive, but that's how I see it, and honestly I don't know if reacting any differently would have made things better.

It's a shitty situation in the shitty world, all we can do is do the best we can, and whining about it after the fact doesn't help. If anyone has a really good idea of what we should have done from December 2001-present, or really good analysis of exactly where we went wrong, great, lets learn from history. Saying "The Iraq war is bad, pull out, GWB looks like a monkey" is not productive at all.

sergeriver wrote:

Yes, for Halliburton, Texaco, Shell, BP, Exxon, etc.

Braddock wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

sergeriver wrote:

Yes, for Halliburton, Texaco, Shell, BP, Exxon, etc.

Basically.

It doesn't matter if it's worth it for people like us, because we're not making the decisions.  The war profiteers decide if we enter war or not, and as long as it's profitable for them, we'll continue to do it.

That is very true. This is the reason I feel sorry to a certain extent for US soldiers. A soldier will often sign up with the noblest of intentions, to serve and protect their country. The war profiteers and dubious politicians make the decisions and send the troops into battle, by this stage the soldier has no say in the rights and wrongs of the conflict, they simply have to do their job as best they can. The decision men see none of the blood and guts and don't have to live with the horror and reality of the decisions that have been made, they just sit back and count the money.

Braddock wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Braddock wrote:

I don't follow you. How was there 'no other option' exactly? What has this second front in the Middle East achieved in the name of US security or financial interests?

In my opinion, the entire invasion of the ME was to show the Islamic extremists the strength of the U.S. to prevent further attacks. After we successfully armed, and then proceeded to piss off a lot of people in Afghanistan in the tail end of the Cold War, the U.S. could not be seen as a sleeping giant to the rest of Islam. The people we trained knew they could strike the U.S. to make us look weak to their bretheren halfway across the world from the U.S., making us look like incompetent has-beens.

What are the two choices after that? Do the short-term sensible thing, nothing, because on paper the U.S. has far more to lose in a conventional military attack half-way across the world than to gain? The problem is once the blood is in the water, recruitment to these terror organizations would only increase when people see how weak the U.S. really is, people who want to see the only world super power left, who twenty years ago just screwed over their area of the world, crumble.

So the only option was to have a strong show of strength in the ME, and the only real influence on where was what would sound the most plausible to the American people. Al-Queda is a baseless organization (lol irony) that can operate from anywhere, with little contact from superiors, so there is no  way to really strike one place and expect a significant result against the organization itself. The special forces teams sent very shortly after 9/11 had just about the best effect against them possible, conventional attacks are nearly useless.

As we have found out they are, for the most part, counterproductive, because of the inspiring effect they have on the enemy. The U.S. is vastly technologically superior in every way, has the advantage of armor, air support, better recon, etc., but the fact is when it's one on one, a U.S. soldier with his M16 and a freedom fighter with his trusty AK, the odds are pretty much even. By no stretch of the imagination could the resistance ever completely "beat" the U.S. in a military sense, but as the world sees the U.S. bleed, more join the war against us and we become more and more demoralized on the homefront.

Which is why the U.S. is put in a painful position. We can't just "win" in the usual sense, there has to be a decisive victory. Once any hope of that was gone in Afghanistan...move right on to the next one. Obviously the whole ordeal has become rather counterproductive, but that's how I see it, and honestly I don't know if reacting any differently would have made things better.

It's a shitty situation in the shitty world, all we can do is do the best we can, and whining about it after the fact doesn't help. If anyone has a really good idea of what we should have done from December 2001-present, or really good analysis of exactly where we went wrong, great, lets learn from history. Saying "The Iraq war is bad, pull out, GWB looks like a monkey" is not productive at all.

That's a scary theory. Are you claiming that the only tactic in the war against the terrorist elements of the Middle East was to have a show of strength involving the declaration of war on sovereign states (including countries with no link to AQ) even though these declarations of war would further serve to validate the views of extremists and those that hold anti-American views?

Why not, after finishing major operations in Afghanistan, retreat to the homeland and beef up domestic security making full use of your unique geographic advantages. It's not like AQ can get the ferry over and invade, and no amount of wars will ever remove the risk of one nutter flying another plane into a tall building.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Yes, except just the declarations of war do not favor the extremists and anti-Americans. (well, maybe the French, but I'm talking about the ME perspective)

The act of standing up after being attacked is good, we're showing that the attacks were unacceptable, and we're going to do something about it. The problem comes when we really put such a half-assed effort into it, not fully committing in the way military analysts said we should before we went into either country. Then when we start showing losses and not maintaining any semblance of complete order, it showed to the people that Al-Qaeda was right, the U.S. is weak and very deflatable. If we could have had a decisive victory it would have been a very good deterrent to future action against the U.S.

Why go into Afghanistan at all? You really think moving the whole army over there is going to be any more effective at finding Osama than the special forces teams that were already there before 2002?

Beefing up security does not work in a country like the U.S. that is tripping over itself trying to be as free as possible. In today's world, oceans really don't mean much as far as security. The fact is as complacent as America is today, 2000 civilians dying is absolutely unacceptable. The only way to really prevent another attack is to make them not want to do it again, because if they want to do it, they will succeed.

You do realize that the crazy people who enact things like 9/11 aren't exactly thinking in terms that match what you're saying.  Someone crazy enough to bomb us or fly a plane into a building aren't going to change their mind if we blow up their country.  In fact, that might even motivate them more.

You yourself said it -- if they want to do it, they will succeed.  America needs to understand that, no matter how hard we try to secure things, we will always be vulnerable to attack.  There will be more terrorist attacks in the future, and no amount of war will stop that.

Invading Afghanistan made sense, but invading Iraq was going too far.