Concerning trend :ISIS Related

[Galaril]

So just heard about this and a few things come to mind. I get this is not an entirely new thing with both domestic terrorists and Middle East Islamic terrorist recruiting teens for their "causes" but ISIS seems sooo unattractive to almost ever demographic on the planet except for Islamic extremist men with a western axe to grind. I mean do these three girls realkize what would happen to them about ten minutes after they got there -100 ISIS male members running them down an ass train. Stupid!
Also, living here and seeing more times than not these type of stories are about Denver or people here I am wondering what the fuck is up with Denver!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/21/us/col...syria-odyssey/

[CraigSca]

I thought the other Americans that tried to join ISIS were from Minnesota, so it's not an exclusively Denver thing.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Galaril

I mean do these three girls realize

They're 15, 16 and 17. Odds are good they either don't realize, or believe it would never happen to them because that's how teenagers think.

[stevew]

I kind of sympathize with the Kurds, and I could see how someone would want to join them. But ISIS, no way.

[molson]

There's something about ISIS that is drawing teens from all over Europe. Mostly boys of course, but some girls apparently too. It makes sense that there'd be a few from the U.S. too.

Pregnant Austrian teens in ISIS: We’ve made a huge mistake | New York Post

[jeff061]

Stupid teenagers, no more stupid than they've ever been. Thanks to the internet there is just more opportunity to make stupid decisions.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Stupid teenagers, no more stupid than they've ever been. Thanks to the internet there is just more opportunity to make stupid decisions.

I really don't remember ever being that stupid though.

[jeff061]

Speaking generally. I don't have to try all that hard to remember many idiots during my high school years that would do this.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by BillJasper

I really don't remember ever being that stupid though.

Assuredly, you were. The difference is, you lacked the opportunity to *act* that stupid, and so the manifestations of teenage stupidity on your part were less profound. There's no neon light flashing in your past going "I WAS DUMB."

For example, before the internet was really a big thing, was me and a friend in high school going "huh, the parents are out to dinner and we're bored. We should drive to Universal Citywalk" and finding ourselves in gang territory because we got lost.

Is that as stupid as flying off to Syria to join ISIS? No. Was a spur of the moment decision like that without telling anybody where we were going stupid? Yep. Could that have ended badly? Yep. Teenagers are a box of poor decisions awash in hormones which further reduce their capacity to make good decisions. Add opportunity, grab popcorn, and sit back and watch.

[Fidatelo]

I think the chasm between joy ride and ISIS is too large to leap via stupidity alone. You need to be seriously fucked up to see any glory in ISIS no matter how many hormones are coursing through your little veins.

[Lathum]

Am I wrong in thinking they should be tried for treason?

[Lathum]

And as for the two from that article no way should thy ever be allowe back in their home country. Maybe I've seen to many episodes of Homeland but that's too long to be with ISIS to ever be trusted.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Am I wrong in thinking they should be tried for treason?

Treason only can be charged during a time of declared war.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by cartman

Treason only can be charged during a time of declared war.

I know this is ancient but Aaron Burr was charged with treason despite no declared war at the time.

What law has changed since then?

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I think the chasm between joy ride and ISIS is too large to leap via stupidity alone. You need to be seriously fucked up to see any glory in ISIS no matter how many hormones are coursing through your little veins.

I really don't have much of a problem envisioning dumb kids either glossing over the atrocities, believing they don't exist or simply not educating themselves, before trying to join up. Rebelling, looking to be part of something, siding with the "oppressed", looking for a change in their angsty teen life, whatever it may be, kids are dumb and will gloss over what is obvious to the rest of us.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I really don't have much of a problem envisioning dumb kids either glossing over the atrocities, believing they don't exist or simply not educating themselves, before trying to join up. Rebelling, looking to be part of something, siding with the "oppressed", looking for a change in their angsty teen life, whatever it may be, kids are dumb and will gloss over what is obvious to the rest of us.

No I'm sorry, that just doesn't fly with me. There is dumb kid stuff and then there is this. This is D-U-M-B dumb. This is Full Retard dumb. This is the kid you knew was a fuck-up by grade 6 and it had nothing to do with being a kid, he was just a fucking useless human. We all knew that guy, and at 30 he's probably been to jail or is dead. This is that guy, only now he's got another avenue for being the dickhead that he's been since the age of 7.

[DaddyTorgo]

Yeah, but keep in mind in this case they're also (a) already Muslim, and (b) immigrants.

Still dumb, but not D-U-M-B dumb.

We don't know - they may never have acclimated very well to the West.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Am I wrong in thinking they should be tried for treason?

Nope that was my thought and though I am ex military am a liberal and even I would charge them with something . Examples must be made to give the dissuade others from going this way.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I know this is ancient but Aaron Burr was charged with treason despite no declared war at the time.

What law has changed since then?

Here's the definition from the Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

If the girls were charged with treason, it would be because they adhered to the enemies or gave them aid and comfort. It is generally accepted that "enemies" refers to those that we've declared war against, which is why people like Aldrich Ames or Bradley Manning were not charged with treason.

The difference with Burr is he was accused of levying war, so the definition of enemies didn't matter in his case.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by cartman

Treason only can be charged during a time of declared war.

Treason is defined in the Constitution.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

There's nothing in there that specifies 'during a time of declared war,' or that 'Enemies' is defined only as opponents in a declared war. If the prosecutor saw three girls trying to go join ISIS as 'giving them Aid and Comfort,' he could charge them.

The reality, of course, is that treason is such a serious crime - one of the only ones defined in the Constitution as criminal - that it is seldom ever wielded as a legal cudgel. Could they be charged with treason? Certainly. Would they be, as teenage girls? Almost certainly not.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I know this is ancient but Aaron Burr was charged with treason despite no declared war at the time.

What law has changed since then?

He was charged for treason for attempting to "raise and levy war against the United States". The Supreme Court ruled that he could only be convicted if he confessed in open court, or if two witnesses provided testimony to an overt act being committed. The confession or overt act was needed to show that Burr "declared war" against the US.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by cartman

He was charged for treason for attempting to "raise and levy war against the United States". The Supreme Court ruled that he could only be convicted if he confessed in open court, or if two witnesses provided testimony to an overt act being committed. The confession or overt act was needed to show that Burr "declared war" against the US.

Well, and the Constitution specifically says that those are the requirements to get a conviction.

That's why it's so rare to see anybody get charged with treason even if the facts seem to support that charge. Not only is treason reserved for levying war or giving aid and comfort to the nation's enemies, but there has to be a confession in open court or at least two witnesses to the crime.

If you don't have that, there's all kinds of stuff you could convict on, generally, but "treason" isn't one of them.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by molson

There's something about ISIS that is drawing teens from all over Europe. Mostly boys of course, but some girls apparently too. It makes sense that there'd be a few from the U.S. too.

Pregnant Austrian teens in ISIS: We’ve made a huge mistake | New York Post

Could a jihadist rebel ever be called hot? KSyrup says yes!

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

Could a jihadist rebel ever be called hot? KSyrup says yes!

[Grover]

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic

Must read. Excellent piece of journalism.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Grover

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic

Must read. Excellent piece of journalism.

Concur.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by stevew

I kind of sympathize with the Kurds, and I could see how someone would want to join them. But ISIS, no way.

Kurds are a culture of people. Perhaps you meant you kind of sympathize with some of the terrorist groups that are Kurdish that kill and terrorize the Turks?

[booradley]

They just want to make a difference. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!!! Boo-hoo-hoo ...

[path12]

Thanks for that link Grover. I haven't paid tons of attention to this so learned a lot.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by booradley

They just want to make a difference. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!!! Boo-hoo-hoo ...

I don't understand this post. So there's that!

[Grover]

Originally Posted by booradley

They just want to make a difference. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!!! Boo-hoo-hoo ...

What? This has nothing to do with what I had posted. Read the piece.

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by Grover

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic

Must read. Excellent piece of journalism.

Saw this a little while back.

That group needs to be put down and put down soon. We can't treat them like a terror cell yet we continue to do so, major mistake.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

Saw this a little while back.

That group needs to be put down and put down soon. We can't treat them like a terror cell yet we continue to do so, major mistake.

Agreed. Though not an official country or body of government, they needed to be considered as such.

It's nearly impossible to kill an ideaology though.

[flere-imsaho]

Ideologies are killed by exposure to superior ideologies. Freer ideologies tend to win out in the long run. This is not to say we should ignore ISIS, but you can't really stamp out an ideology, so containment and whatever we can do to limit their activities is best. Over time people will grow disillusioned with living under their yoke and will move away from it, just like any other cult.

In addition, ISIS is not an existential threat to the West or the U.S. If it's an existential threat to anyone, it's established middle eastern states. Let's let them take the lead in dealing with ISIS instead of having to wade in ourselves, for once.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

In addition, ISIS is not an existential threat to the West or the U.S. If it's an existential threat to anyone, it's established middle eastern states. Let's let them take the lead in dealing with ISIS instead of having to wade in ourselves, for once.

Completely agree. While they hate us, we are not their immediate concern. They're more worried about Iran and Saudi Arabia than anything else.

[path12]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

In addition, ISIS is not an existential threat to the West or the U.S. If it's an existential threat to anyone, it's established middle eastern states. Let's let them take the lead in dealing with ISIS instead of having to wade in ourselves, for once.

This is my view as well, especially after reading that article. Our middle east intervention has not helped us materially in the past 15 years and I don't see what further intervention accomplishes, despite what the usual suspect war cheerleaders keep telling me.

[flere-imsaho]

It's sort of ironic that the stated goal of the Bush neocons in invading Iraq was to "plant a seed of democracy" there. Instead we planted, if anything, a more radical Islam. And to think I once thought the worst case scenario for Iraq was for it to be a client state of Iran. If only!

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Grover

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic

Must read. Excellent piece of journalism.

I read that too recently. Really rare to find such a well written, fact-based, article.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

It's sort of ironic that the stated goal of the Bush neocons in invading Iraq was to "plant a seed of democracy" there. Instead we planted, if anything, a more radical Islam.

That was, as I believe I said shortly after it popped it, an ill-conceived p.r. ploy.

[Dutch]

I'm okay with ISIS vs a nuke building rogue regime. Baby steps.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

It's sort of ironic that the stated goal of the Bush neocons in invading Iraq was to "plant a seed of democracy" there.

I said it at the time, this is the way to go, but we would need to be there for 20 years ensuring a stable democracy could grow. Instead we bailed and left a bigger mess than when we started. The American public does not understand, nor has the patience, for nation building.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

The American public does not understand, nor has the patience, for nation building.

Nor the money, you really think we could have afforded to fund a presence there for 20+ years?

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

I said it at the time, this is the way to go, but we would need to be there for 20 years ensuring a stable democracy could grow. Instead we bailed and left a bigger mess than when we started. The American public does not understand, nor has the patience, for nation building.

20? You're optimistic.

Democracy worked in the United States because the colonists came from a (generally) democratic tradition. They may not have had representation in Parliament, but they knew the tune and could dance to it. When the FF's set up our government, they weren't trying to invent the wheel. They were trying to perfect it, or at least provide a mechanism for further perfection.

Canada? Kind of the same deal, really. They've been, to greater or lesser degrees, attached to the British form of government for their colonized history. They knew the tune and could dance to it.

Democracy has generally been far less successful to our south. All sorts of reasons for that, but a big one is that they never had that tradition to build on. American meddling/insistence on the "right" people running those democracies hasn't helped, but they went from tribal existence to Spanish non-parliamentary rule to democracy along with all of the other impositions they've had to deal with in the last two hundred years.

Russia? Same gig. Democracy really hasn't been their thing. They've had a generation or so, and it has still tended more towards the autocratic rule they've known for centuries, with lip service paid to the concept. Difference, of course, is they tried to set that up from within rather than having it imposed externally.

Germany had one democracy imposed on them a century ago, it fell apart, and I'm not entirely certain the second one wouldn't have, also, if they hadn't had the specter of Communist East Germany reminding them that "there but for the grace of God..." Even today, half of Germany's population has more experience of Communism than of Western democracy.

I don't even know what to make of Japan, whether it's a success story or if it took because we left our military there for 50 years to keep Communism out.

The point I'm trying to make, though, is that culturally Central/South America and Russia are much better examples of what to expect from the Middle and Near East than most Western democracies are. 20 years just ain't enough to impose a system on a region that has no experience of that system, and frequently those systems slide back towards rule by demagogue, because that's what the citizenry knows. John McCain was ridiculed for his "100 years" rhetoric, and in the context of military operations, I agree with that ridicule. That's the kind of thing you do when you're engaged in empire building, not in putatively imposing a transition from autocracy to democracy.

In the context of how long you'd need a presence in the area to ensure a stable democracy, though? That might be closer to the mark than many would be comfortable with.

[Dutch]

The people of Russia and South America are so backwards and over-run with corruption that Democracy could never be easily or quickly achieved without some method of eliminating or suppressing that corruption. Germany, Japan and Italy were all extremely advanced people but ideologically corrupted, so the presence of the USA AND the saber-rattling idiots over in the USSR helped those nations grow and prosper. Russia was an enemy of Democracy until 1990 when they finally decided to try it, but they are going it alone and while less backward than South America, they are still very easily susceptible to corruption. South America needs our continued influence and support, some call it "meddling"...ahem...but they truly need our help and influence. It's either us or economically bankrupt Mother Russia.

The Middle East is suffering at the hands of perverted and extreme religious controls in government...Islam has been completely abused and corrupted...the only power Islam has right now on the political stage is it's ability to generate fear. It's a failed experiment (mixing religion with government) and installing a Democratic framework in Iraq is the only thing that will work for Iraq or the Middle East. That's not the elimination of Islam or religion, but like in Europe and the USA, it's a buffer that will happen in time.

The question for the Middle East (and Iraq in particular) is, "can it work on it's own without the USA or Europe's support?" The moot hypothetical is, "Could it have worked with 20 more years of USA support of which we've seen in Germany, Japan, and Italy?"

In football terms, the answer to the first question is "Doubtful" and the answer to the second question is "Questionable".

The Middle East, on average, is about 500 or 700 years behind the Europeans in terms of suffrage. Democracy in Iraq requires modern thinking citizens and freedoms as we enjoy them in Europe and the US may just be too far ahead of them for success to take hold now. If the majority of the people can't even wrap their head around the concept or think it's evil, then it's probably too soon. However, in Iraq, I still remember all those Iraqi's voting, including women, and there was a glimmer of hope...couldn't tell you if that's even going on anymore now that we've left.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Dutch

The people of Russia and South America are so backwards and over-run with corruption that Democracy could never be easily or quickly achieved without some method of eliminating or suppressing that corruption.

See, I would argue that that's chicken-and-the-egg. Corruption is frequently a product of the environment. If you have a single ruling figure, corruption happens as people exploit their closeness to the center of power. If you have a lack of social mobility, corruption happens as those who have privileges exploit them.

Germany, Japan and Italy were all extremely advanced people but ideologically corrupted, so the presence of the USA AND the saber-rattling idiots over in the USSR helped those nations grow and prosper.

The thing is, Germany wasn't "ideologically corrupted" after WWI. And yet, the Weimar Republic fell apart. Why? In large part because the way it was imposed externally was designed to foster German weakness (giving an ideologue something to exploit) and because Germany didn't have a democratic tradition on which to build. They were a young nation at that point in time, having really only Been A Thing for, what, 60 years? The second time around, we were there for a long damn time because the USSR was viewed as a menace to the rest of Europe, and West Germany was seen as a bulwark against Communism (in much the same way that the appeasement faction in Britain saw Hitler's Germany when he demanded the right to rearm). We had incentive to be there and help to ensure that they didn't fail and present an opportunity for Communist reunification.

Japan was not "extremely technologically advanced." They are NOW, but you're making the mistake of conflating modern Japan with 1940s/1950s Japan. As a nation, they were older than Germany; as a member of global society, they were roughly the same age. Remember, even after their defeat in WWII, for the first couple of decades, "Made in Japan" was seen as a marker of inferior quality. They embarked on an ambitious game of catch-up, which they ultimately achieved by the '90s. But to say that they were at that point technologically at the onset of their externally-imposed democracy is incorrect. Ideologically corrupted? I don't know about that. I think a better explanation is that they were so culturally shocked by the Fat Man and the Little Boy that it caused a fundamental shift in their society. Remember, they didn't have a democratic tradition on which to fall back, either. I would argue that part of why they've made it work was that they recognized that their former system made it exceptionally easy to go to war, and as a society they chose to reject war after the nuclear events.

Italy was ALSO a young nation at the time of the Great Wars. WWII, viewed through that lens, is a story of three upstart nations looking to assert their places on the global stage against the existing world order. In all three cases, I'm not sure "ideological corruption" is the proper brush with which to tar them. Germany of the 1940s was under the thrall of Nazism, to be sure, but as I've pointed out, democracy had collapsed there (or more precisely been dismantled) once already.

I think your latter point about about the juxtaposition of the United States and Russia is more cogent. West Germany and Japan had every reason to fear Russia after the war, and the United States had a vested interest in stopping the further spread of Communism. They committed to a decades-long presence in those countries, and that's the point I made in my last post - that 20 years' presence simply isn't enough. One generation isn't enough to erase the memory of what came before. You need two, or even three, generations to make it take hold. If you're going into a country with "planting the seed of democracy" in mind, that's the sort of financial and military commitment required.

The neocon dismissal of Iraq as a war that could be won in a matter of months and then their oil could pay for their conversion to a shining democracy on the hill was always a fool's dream.

Russia was an enemy of Democracy until 1990 when they finally decided to try it, but they are going it alone and while less backward than South America, they are still very easily susceptible to corruption.

It was the early 20th century before Russia really committed to modernization at all. I wonder how "backward" the rest of the world would see them as without their nuclear arsenal. Their present economy is still considered an "emergent" economy. What they had for fifty years was really the economy of about a dozen nations combined. That's why I kind of lump them in with some of the other European countries which had democracy externally imposed, even though they chose that route themselves after the fall of Communism. There are several shared experiential points between those nations.

And, to reiterate, I think the corruption is more related to prior forms of government and ease of social mobility than it is to anything inherent about those cultures. There is nothing about being Venezuelan, or Brazilian, or Russian, that make those nations ipso facto corrupt. It's more about governmental traditions in those nations which haven't necessarily been shared by Western democracies.

South America needs our continued influence and support, some call it "meddling"...ahem...but they truly need our help and influence. It's either us or economically bankrupt Mother Russia.

It has been meddling more often than not, and that's part of why so many Central and South American nations have looked to the USSR or Russia over the years. There is a distrust of the United States because of actions either explicitly taken, or implicitly supported, by various American administrations over the decades. There has been a history of interference in Latin American democracies when we don't like their policies, and a large part of the instability of those democracies are directly attributable. Those interferences might have been in the short-term interests of the US, but they certainly haven't been in the long-term interests of the US. They were never in either the short- OR the long-term interests of the nations with which we interfered.

The Middle East is suffering at the hands of perverted and extreme religious controls in government...Islam has been completely abused and corrupted...the only power Islam has right now on the political stage is it's ability to generate fear. It's a failed experiment (mixing religion with government) and installing a Democratic framework in Iraq is the only thing that will work for Iraq or the Middle East. That's not the elimination of Islam or religion, but like in Europe and the USA, it's a buffer that will happen in time.

If only the American South would get its head out of its ass on the bolded point.

See, here's the thing. Look at the Middle East. What do you have? A bunch of theocratic monarchies (existing or nascent), an Islamic "revolutionary council," and an externally imposed democracy. In all of those countries, the tradition you have is for a single charismatic ruler. Iran has their Revolutionary Council and the illusion of a democracy, but the Supreme Leader calls the shots there. That, more than the religion, is what makes democracy in the region such a tough sell. There's no democratic or republican tradition (lowercase in both cases). You need at least three generations to give one time to take root. Iraq may muddle through the next 50 years and eventually make it to that point, but the expectations the previous Administration had - that we'd go to war, topple Saddam, the people would love us and democracy would spring up as a shining, glorious example to the rest of the Arab world - was always way way optimistic.

The question for the Middle East (and Iraq in particular) is, "can it work on it's own without the USA or Europe's support?" The moot hypothetical is, "Could it have worked with 20 more years of USA support of which we've seen in Germany, Japan, and Italy?"

The answer is "not unless they want it badly enough to work for it themselves." If they don't really want a democracy or a constitutional republic, the only way to make it work is multiple generations of "hey we're here so don't try nothin' funny" until nobody left alive remembers anything else. Twenty years wouldn't have been enough. Japan ended up going the UK route. I'm pretty sure they're a constitutional monarchy, not a true democracy. They weren't willing to completely throw away their old system, but they realized that unfettered power in the hands of one person was a good way to wind up in "oh shit" land. West Germany badly wanted to not be East Germany. Both of those nations had more like 50 years of US presence, not 20.

In football terms, the answer to the first question is "Doubtful" and the answer to the second question is "Questionable".

Again, "questionable" is overly optimistic. If you want to impose democracy on a nation with no previous history of such, you need at least two (and more likely three) generations. Anything less isn't going to work, because the people you inculcate are not the people who are in power. They're the people who are born and grow up in your externally-imposed democracy. For it to work, you need to be there long enough for those kids to take power, and maybe a generation or so beyond so you can make sure they have a grasp of the institutions.

The Middle East, on average, is about 500 or 700 years behind the Europeans in terms of suffrage. Democracy in Iraq requires modern thinking citizens and freedoms as we enjoy them in Europe and the US may just be too far ahead of them for success to take hold now. If the majority of the people can't even wrap their head around the concept or think it's evil, then it's probably too soon. However, in Iraq, I still remember all those Iraqi's voting, including women, and there was a glimmer of hope...couldn't tell you if that's even going on anymore now that we've left.

Part of the problem was you had women voting, which is a definite step forward for the region. You also had such sectarian distrust that a sizable minority refused to even engage with the system. When one faction demands to share power but refuses to engage with the nation's institutions, it doesn't work. And how can you compel them to participate?

It's been said by smarter folks than I, but part of why President Bush the Elder didn't take down Baghdad wasn't a lack of ability. It was because the conventional wisdom was "without Saddam, that place is going to burn in civil war." The sectarian divisions were always there. They just weren't able to smolder with Saddam in power.

Twenty years would not have been enough. It would have taken much longer than that, not just for the reasons I outlined, but also because there were and are groups who wanted a US presence in the Middle East not for stability, but to use as the bogeyman to aggrandize additional political power to themselves. ISIS is just the latest in that line. The longer we were there, the more blood and treasure we would have had to spend, and all the while we would have been working on establishing a single democracy in the region.

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I feel like the only way to really make democratic nation building work in that region would be occupation of the entire area, and a decades-long presence while the old guard died out. Just too much antagonism, guerilla and otherwise, to ever be able to make it work in a single nation.

[Warhammer]

20 years may not have been enough. We've been in Germany and Japan for 70 years now. My take is we should have been prepared to be there for a good length of time to ensure the survival of a democracy there.

A lot of people forget, we rebuilt Europe after WWII, with the Marshall Plan. Unfortunately, we have become much more insular in outlook since then, and are uninterested in putting the time and money in strategic enterprises. That said, we have had several boondoggles since the end of WWII which have soured our taste for these endeavors.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

The thing is, Germany wasn't "ideologically corrupted" after WWI. And yet, the Weimar Republic fell apart. Why? In large part because the way it was imposed externally was designed to foster German weakness (giving an ideologue something to exploit) and because Germany didn't have a democratic tradition on which to build.

As long as we agree that the European "support" for the Weimar Republic was a complete 180 from US support for the Marshal Plan, I agree. The Weimar Republic was under severe penalties from the Versailles Treaty which caused mass inflation and recessions and depressions. The corruption I am speaking of followed that when the Nazi's exploited the situation where the Weimar was trying to meet the demands of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi's first act of power was to tell the British and the French to fuck off. And then they acted as a rogue state from then on until their defeat in 1945.

Japan was not "extremely technologically advanced." They are NOW, but you're making the mistake of conflating modern Japan with 1940s/1950s Japan..Ideologically corrupted? I don't know about that. I think a better explanation is that they were so culturally shocked by the Fat Man and the Little Boy that it caused a fundamental shift in their society. Remember, they didn't have a democratic tradition on which to fall back, either. I would argue that part of why they've made it work was that they recognized that their former system made it exceptionally easy to go to war, and as a society they chose to reject war after the nuclear events.

I give them credit militarily by generating enough wealth and resources and know-how to take over large swath's of China and control the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Australia and on over to Hawaii. It was pretty impressive. The "ideological corruptness" was in the God-worshiping they did of their Emporor, which allowed the government to persuade them to obediently wage and support war. And yes, those Nukes definitely changed their mindset...but to this day, that still only have a defense force, because that was imposed on them and they have respected that.

The neocon dismissal of Iraq as a war that could be won in a matter of months and then their oil could pay for their conversion to a shining democracy on the hill was always a fool's dream.

You had me enthralled with your post except for this embedded talking point. But I'll leave it alone.

It has been meddling more often than not, and that's part of why so many Central and South American nations have looked to the USSR or Russia over the years.

I'm curious if you would classify the Russian support as "meddling"?

It's been said by smarter folks than I, but part of why President Bush the Elder didn't take down Baghdad wasn't a lack of ability. It was because the conventional wisdom was "without Saddam, that place is going to burn in civil war." The sectarian divisions were always there. They just weren't able to smolder with Saddam in power.

That was never part of the equation though, President Bush Sr. stuck to the letter of the law when it came to the coalition. They only would support the removal of Iraqi forces in Kuwait. And at that point, there was a belief that Saddam Hussein would agree to WMD inspections and shut down his nuclear program. Another misstep on our part to believe that. But not everything in World Politics is sure-fire. There are risks in everything, nobody knows the future...that's why I am okay labelling things as "Doubtful" or "Questionable".

Twenty years would not have been enough. It would have taken much longer than that, not just for the reasons I outlined, but also because there were and are groups who wanted a US presence in the Middle East not for stability, but to use as the bogeyman to aggrandize additional political power to themselves. ISIS is just the latest in that line. The longer we were there, the more blood and treasure we would have had to spend, and all the while we would have been working on establishing a single democracy in the region.

ISIS is nothing compared to Saddam Hussein. Iran, and Syria and the Turks and the Kurds and the Jordanians would never fight with the nation of Iraq...but they openly war with ISIS. That's progress. -10 to -5...but progress never the less. I'm probably overly-optimistic, but I believe nothing would have been more powerful than a stable Iraq under the protection of the USA. That would have been a hard sell for extremists...but when we left, it was the belief of the power vacuum that emboldened ISIS. Iraq is actually holding it's own right now, on the verge of taking back Tikrit, so we'll see how it goes.

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I feel like the only way to really make democratic nation building work in that region would be occupation of the entire area, and a decades-long presence while the old guard died out. Just too much antagonism, guerilla and otherwise, to ever be able to make it work in a single nation.

Which also explains why people believe the "Just nuke 'em all" is the only solution. I just hope we can get through the 100 or 200 years of evolution that is required before they nuke Tel Aviv...which I still think happens before Middle Eastern Democracy...hey, everybody needs a "smoking gun" or a powder keg, I suppose to make war feel right.

BTW, I don't think you are globally cynical, I think you are also very optimistic about certain things, much the way I am the reverse (not all, but in many cases). For instance, the USA had good reason to want regime change in Iraq. One point of contention, we weren't there to take anybody's oil, we pay for that oil fair and square. To label us as thieves is not fair. President Bush and Clinton as well, wanted nothing more than for Iraq to join the global trade of "Money For Oil" fairly. It was the Iraqi's that wanted to take oil. They tried to take Iran's oil, they tried to take Kuwait's oil (and to be fair, Kuwait tried to take Iraq's oil through that side-ways drilling tactic) and in the end, it was the Iraqi's that were always the "Blood For Oil" gang...not the USA.

Anyway, lots of words in your last post, I tried to pick out a few that I thought provided "interesting" response. Overall, interesting discussion (even if just you, me, and Warhammer think this is interesting).

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Dutch

As long as we agree that the European "support" for the Weimar Republic was a complete 180 from US support for the Marshal Plan, I agree. The Weimar Republic was under severe penalties from the Versailles Treaty which caused mass inflation and recessions and depressions. The corruption I am speaking of followed that when the Nazi's exploited the situation where the Weimar was trying to meet the demands of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi's first act of power was to tell the British and the French to fuck off. And then they acted as a rogue state from then on until their defeat in 1945.

Oh, the two levels of support were absolutely 180 degrees different from one another. The Weimar Republic was set up to be toothless, because the idea was that Germany was supposed to never again pose a threat. West Germany under the Marshall Plan was supposed to be a bulwark against Communist Eastern Europe and the USSR, and so the West had a vested interest in the success of the West German state.

As far as the Nazi regime goes...there was ideology in play there, no question, but I think it's a mistake to attribute that ideology to the nation as a whole. Remember: the Nazis, even at the height of their power, never surpassed 50% of the vote, let alone 40%. At the time they took power, their support among the citzenry was actually waning. Hitler only ever came to power because a coalition government was necessary and some other parties on the right made the mistake of thinking that Hitler could be boxed out as chancellor through the appointment of non-Nazis to other positions of power. It...didn't work out that way. Gleichschaltung allowed the Nazis to consolidate power once they had seized it, but it's important to remember that everything they did, and everything that flowed from that seizure of power, happened with the support of a minority of the population.

I give them credit militarily by generating enough wealth and resources and know-how to take over large swath's of China and control the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Australia and on over to Hawaii. It was pretty impressive. The "ideological corruptness" was in the God-worshiping they did of their Emporor, which allowed the government to persuade them to obediently wage and support war.

How was that any different from American war propaganda exhorting American citizens to buy war bonds, grow "victory gardens," and generally support the effort? I think characterizing that as "ideological corruption" is a stretch.

And yes, those Nukes definitely changed their mindset...but to this day, that still only have a defense force, because that was imposed on them and they have respected that.

More to the point, it's embedded in their constitution, and they haven't had the political will or desire to change that.

You had me enthralled with your post except for this embedded talking point. But I'll leave it alone.

Not a talking point. That comment was derived from at least two separate things said by President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld in the lead-up to war. Rumsfeld saw the war as something to be won in a matter of weeks - which, to be fair, in terms of fighting conventional forces, was probably correct. His was a failure to envision the guerrilla resistance which followed. You can quibble with the language I've chosen, but that was absolutely the mindset of the Administration: the war wouldn't last long, and Iraq's oil revenues would pay for her reconstruction, so it wouldn't even cost the American taxpayer much.

I'm curious if you would classify the Russian support as "meddling"?

Well, when I say "meddling," that kind of predates the USSR. That goes back to the 19th century. The other thing I'd suggest is that whether or not the nature of a country's involvement rises to internal "meddling" depends on whether or not that involvement is solicited. From an American worldview, we might certainly see it as meddling because it was a Communist footprint in what we viewed as our backyard. What are they doing here? Get out of here with that shit. This is our house. The thing is, though, that's an eye-of-the-beholder viewpoint. We see/saw it as meddling because it was Russian involvement in American interests. Cuba or Nicaragua, say, would be looking at it through the lens of their interests, not ours.

It's an important distinction to keep in mind. When I talk about "meddling," I'm talking about unsolicited intervention in the affairs of other nations. I don't mean that to imply a value judgment about the quality of that intervention - simply that it was intervention with our interests in mind and a paternalistic view ("father knows best") of the best interests of the nation with whom we interfered.

That was never part of the equation though, President Bush Sr. stuck to the letter of the law when it came to the coalition. They only would support the removal of Iraqi forces in Kuwait. And at that point, there was a belief that Saddam Hussein would agree to WMD inspections and shut down his nuclear program. Another misstep on our part to believe that. But not everything in World Politics is sure-fire. There are risks in everything, nobody knows the future...that's why I am okay labelling things as "Doubtful" or "Questionable".

And part of why the coalition would only go that far is because part of that coalition was concerned about increased US power in the region, as well as what a destabilized Iraq might mean. I don't think President Bush was in favor of evicting Saddam - perhaps to avoid mission creep, perhaps because of the fear of Iraq becoming an Iranian client state, perhaps for other reasons - but he certainly had advisers urging that outcome.

ISIS is nothing compared to Saddam Hussein. Iran, and Syria and the Turks and the Kurds and the Jordanians would never fight with the nation of Iraq...but they openly war with ISIS. That's progress. -10 to -5...but progress never the less. I'm probably overly-optimistic, but I believe nothing would have been more powerful than a stable Iraq under the protection of the USA. That would have been a hard sell for extremists...but when we left, it was the belief of the power vacuum that emboldened ISIS. Iraq is actually holding it's own right now, on the verge of taking back Tikrit, so we'll see how it goes.

Iraq under Hussein had resources that ISIS doesn't, at this moment in time. That helps. On the other hand, an ISIS that isn't blowing up historical artifacts and chopping heads off probably isn't inspiring that kind of coalition against them, either. Here's the thing: the extremists *wanted* the United States in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. An American presence in those countries wasn't a deterrence. It was exactly what they wanted, and the longer they could string out those wars, the more they could bleed us physically and fiscally, the more it played into their hands.

Which also explains why people believe the "Just nuke 'em all" is the only solution. I just hope we can get through the 100 or 200 years of evolution that is required before they nuke Tel Aviv...which I still think happens before Middle Eastern Democracy...hey, everybody needs a "smoking gun" or a powder keg, I suppose to make war feel right.

Part of the reason the Middle East is such a mess is the arbitrary lines drawn on a map in the aftermath of World War II. It's still very much a tribal region, and yet the drawing of lines was done without consideration for those entanglements, and partly out of a sense of guilt for what was allowed to happen in central Europe.

BTW, I don't think you are globally cynical, I think you are also very optimistic about certain things, much the way I am the reverse (not all, but in many cases). For instance, the USA had good reason to want regime change in Iraq. One point of contention, we weren't there to take anybody's oil, we pay for that oil fair and square. To label us as thieves is not fair. President Bush and Clinton as well, wanted nothing more than for Iraq to join the global trade of "Money For Oil" fairly. It was the Iraqi's that wanted to take oil. They tried to take Iran's oil, they tried to take Kuwait's oil (and to be fair, Kuwait tried to take Iraq's oil through that side-ways drilling tactic) and in the end, it was the Iraqi's that were always the "Blood For Oil" gang...not the USA.

I don't think, from a national perspective, there was a "hey America needs oil let's go take Iraq's" push. I think that is very much a talking point by those on the left who object to the Iraq war.

But...there was definitely the comment that Iraq would be able to pay for her own reconstruction using her oil revenues. Iraq's oil was viewed as a resource that would enable the US to effect regime change without incurring significant cost in so doing. Not in a grabby 'ours' way, but in a 'we broke it, YOU buy it' way.

And I DO think that some of the Bush Administration's allies expected that they would have an opportunity at exploration contracts for the Iraqi fields that they would not have had as long as the embargo remained in place (even though those contracts ended up going more to Chinese companies than American companies). So I do think there were economic considerations in play.

I don't think the Iraq war was 'blood for oil.' I DO think it was foolish, unnecessary, short-sighted, and those most eager to prosecute it were so bound up in their short-term views that they failed to consider what was really necessary to accomplish the objectives they sought.

And I think many of those same things are true also of those who want to go to war with Iran. The only thing they see is the idea that we have to stop Iran from getting nukes. They refuse to countenance the idea that diplomatic efforts can achieve that, and I think they're making the same short-sighted mistake of not realizing the breadth and depth of the commitment necessary to finish the job if we do go to war and seek to evict Khamenei and the Revolutionary Council.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That was, as I believe I said shortly after it popped it, an ill-conceived p.r. ploy.

You don't doubt that some of the higher-up neocons believed in it, do you?

For guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld it was an ill-conceived PR ploy, as you say. But for guys like Wolfowitz? That was the plan, IMO.

[Dutch]

'we broke it, YOU buy it'

We didn't break it. Saddam Hussein broke it.