post 9/11 wars cost taxpayers over 6 trillion, cause 480,000 dealths to violence.

originally posted by: Propagandalf
a reply to: CriticalStinker

The study used numbers that they could attribute to the wars themselves. Did we kill all of them, no. Did they die as a direct result of the war happening in the first place, yes.

Most direct war deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria have been caused by militants. Let's try not to disguise this fact with pacifist casuistry.

Syria isn't part of this OP, but would surely make the number larger.

I haven't tried to disguise anything.

If you start a war somewhere, and people die to militants, those casualties are attributed to the war.

You can try and label me a pacifist all you want, but in reality your veiling your support for the wars under the justification of "helping them out".

So who has been helped? I'll give you maybe some have, but as a whole it's been devastating to the region.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I quoted that directly from the study. Shifting the blame to America is to undermine these facts. Oddly enough, the ones who bear the most guilt for the deaths are the same people American soldiers were fighting.

originally posted by: Propagandalf
a reply to: CriticalStinker

If we went to war with only countries that attacked us, the world might be dominated by communism, nazism and Islamo-fascism.

The US has become the very enemy supposedly all of those things were.

Hypocrisy isnt bliss!

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

originally posted by: Propagandalf
a reply to: CriticalStinker

If we went to war with only countries that attacked us, the world might be dominated by communism, nazism and Islamo-fascism.

The US has become the very enemy supposedly all of those things were.

Hypocrisy isnt bliss!

How much tyranny and oppression can you bear before you step in help the oppressed? Is there a limit or some threshold? Or is it just a matter of trying to stay out of it all, with a mind towards blissful ignorance?

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Dont worry about it. Iran is next says the PNAC document from the 90's, so by golly Trump needs to go to WAR with Iran.

If Iran does happen, I think it would be as a result of the Israel-Iran relationship getting worse by the day.

It'll be because of Israel being emboldened by US foreign policy (military imperialism) all these decades. Such as with the situation in Syria.

originally posted by: Propagandalf

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: Propagandalf

Islamo-fascism was effectively manufactured across so much of the globe because of US foreign policy (military imperialism that required a perpetual enemy to sustain a perpetual war economy).

Good thinkin'!

Riiiiight. No, I'm speaking of Baathism.

Hey just go by the version of reality as prescribed to you by the DOD/CIA/DIA via Fox & CNN.

Yeyeah!

originally posted by: Propagandalf
a reply to: CriticalStinker

I quoted that directly from the study. Shifting the blame to America is to undermine these facts. Oddly enough, the ones who bear the most guilt for the deaths are the same people American soldiers were fighting.

You're splitting hairs.

There was no war with Iraq until we made one.

All deaths due to that war are directly related to our actions.

Again, we didn't kill all of them. That's literally what this study is analyzing, the cost of the wars.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

You're splitting hairs.

There was no war with Iraq until we made one.

All deaths due to that war are directly related to our actions.

Again, we didn't kill all of them. That's literally what this study is analyzing, the cost of the wars.

You're playing loose with the facts. Most direct war deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria have
been caused by militants. Are you saying the Americans or the war forced them to kill civilians?

originally posted by: Propagandalf
a reply to: CriticalStinker

You're splitting hairs.

There was no war with Iraq until we made one.

All deaths due to that war are directly related to our actions.

Again, we didn't kill all of them. That's literally what this study is analyzing, the cost of the wars.

You're playing loose with the facts. Most direct war deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria have
been caused by militants. Are you saying the Americans or the war forced them to kill civilians?

How am I playing loose with the facts?

Iraq had no war. We brought war. As a result many people died, whether by our hand our someone else's....

As a result of the war.

It's really simple.

What's even simpler is that Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have had no large scale benefits from the wars you keep trying to frame as the "US fighting against tyranny and helping the oppressed"

If the US really cared about all the oppressed people in the world, we wouldn't constantly align with dictators (aka, we propped up Saddam, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, and many more).

How about Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Honduras, Qatar, UAE... All US allies.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

All fair points. There is a general hypocrisy about the standards we hold regarding military action. It's absolutely true that allied forces have botched many campaigns and wars mostly to the detriment of those living there. That's completely accurate.

But I just want to push back about the idea that America needs to atone for all the murder of civilians, as if they guided the hands that killed them. It's just untrue.

a reply to: Propagandalf

All fair points. There is a general hypocrisy about the standards we hold regarding military action. It's absolutely true that allied forces have botched many campaigns and wars mostly to the detriment of those living there. That's completely accurate.

And in some cases it's unavoidable, I'll admit.

But I just want to push back about the idea that America needs to atone for all the murder of civilians, as if they guided the hands that killed them. It's just untrue.

I'm not trying to paint that picture.

That said, we will have to atone for the ramifications of what happened over there. You're right, everyone over their did not die to our munitions, but the way people over there see it is that many are dead because we started a war.

How ever many legitimate enemies the US had in the region, just wait till the orphans get older. Again, to reiterate, that doesn't mean they are orphaned because our soldiers killed their parents, but in some cases they did. And even if their dad was a militant and we iced him, they don't care, they think he was fighting for the "good guys".

My whole point is this was all for nothing. No objectives (other than lithium, oil, and poppies) have been attained.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Some people just have to over-compensate their flawed ego's by getting off on images of things like aircraft carriers and blown up body parts of people and their children.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Some people just have to over-compensate their flawed ego's by getting off on images of things like aircraft carriers and blown up body parts of people and their children.

Unfortunately people really do believe it is for the good of something (more than profit for some, or power for others).

Even sadder, is typically these are the same people who will laugh at a few billion in federal spending to help out our own people, in one way or another.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I think the results of these wars have fundamentally altered the way the US military engages in operations. They've since added more principles to their principles of war. They've added Unity of Effort, Restraint, Perseverance, Legitimacy. Hopefully these principles carry through into future campaigns.

I think you're right that the Iraq war was, in the end, poorly executed and all for naught. They should have ended Saddam's reign the first time. And I do not know why they are still fighting in Afghanistan.

Still, I think the United States is a force for good in the world. I just worry that if someone attacks an ally or there is some genocide kicking off somewhere, the continued demonization of the US military will cause it to turn a blind eye to evil.

a reply to: Propagandalf

Still, I think the United States is a force for good in the world. I just worry that if someone attacks an ally or there is some genocide kicking off somewhere, the continued demonization of the US military will cause it to turn a blind eye to evil.

Like Yemen or Myanmar?

originally posted by: Propagandalf

They've since added more principles to their principles of war. They've added Unity of Effort, Restraint, Perseverance, Legitimacy.

I need some of what you've been smokin.

I’ll disagree here. The death tolls in Iraq alone are estimated to be about 1.5 million. I followed this very closely since 03. Informationclearinghouse.info has had the toll and sources posted on their main page for the last 15 years.

Also, as to us changing the policies due to our wars? When I was stationed at the Air Force academy in Colorado Springs the rape statistics for our OWN WOMEN SOLDIERS was 50%. You think a group who will rape their own peers at home will follow directives in a field of war?

a reply to: CriticalStinker
Or Djibouti? Rwanda? In fact, I can’t think of a single real genocide the us has gotten involved in. And certainly not to the levels that it has in the genocides it’s created.

a reply to: pexx421

Previously secret documents published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University prove that the United States government gave the green light for the 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which resulted in the deaths of some 200,000 Timorese people over the ensuing quarter century.

At the Archive’s request, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library released two key declassified documents revealing the role of President Ford and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The Archive posted them on its web site on December 6, accompanied by five previously unpublished State Department documents.

The documents expose the official silence and outright lies advanced over the past 26 years to deny that Ford and Kissinger were involved in, and ultimately responsible for, the atrocities carried out by the Indonesian military dictatorship.

US approved 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor



But I'd like to bring up another aspect in this topic:

Written by Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown university who has served as an adviser to the US state department, it places the Paris attacks - and all acts of terrorism by Isis - in perspective:

“Occasional terrorist attacks in the west are virtually inevitable, and odds are, we’ll see more attacks in the coming decades, not fewer. If we want to reduce the long-term risk of terrorism — and reduce its ability to twist western societies into unrecognisable caricatures of themselves — we need to stop viewing terrorism as shocking and aberrational, and instead recognise it as an ongoing problem to be managed, rather than ‘defeated.’”

She concedes that “politicians don’t like to say any of this” and goes on to list nine “painful truths”. In short form - you need to read Brooks’s piece in full - they are:

1: We can’t keep the bad guys out. All borders are permeable. There aren’t enough guards in the world to monitor every inch of coastline or border

2: Besides, the threat is already inside. The 2005 terrorist attacks in London were carried out by British citizens, the Boston Marathon attack was perpetrated by a US citizen... and the Paris attacks appear to have been carried out mainly by French citizens. Every country on earth has its angry young men.

3: More surveillance won’t get rid of terrorism, either. As Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks made clear, the United States is already surveilling the heck out of the entire planet and so are half the governments in Europe. The trouble is, the more data you collect — the more satellite imagery and drone footage and emails and phone calls and texts you monitor — the harder it gets to separate the signal from the noise.

4: Defeating Isis won’t make terrorism go away. Aside from Isis, there is Nigeria’s Boko Haram. Before Isis, there was al-Qaida and before that there was Hezbollah and Hamas... and before that there was Abu Nidal, Black September and various other PLO factions. And it’s not just Islam. Right-wing extremists in the United States still kill more people than jihadis. The 2011 attack in Norway — which left 77 people dead — was carried out by a single far-right terrorist. Since 2006, more than half of all deaths in terrorist attacks in the west have been caused by non-Islamist “lone-wolf” attackers.

5: Terrorism (in the west) remains a relatively minor threat. Between 2000 and 2014, only 2.6% of terrorism victims in recent years lived in western countries.

6: But don’t relax too much, because things will probably get worse before they get better. From a historical perspective, the relative safety and security currently enjoyed by those in the western world is anomalous. The history of the west is every bit as violent as the modern Middle East. The world is likely to see an uptick in violent conflict in the coming decades, and the west is unlikely to be fully spared.

7: Meanwhile, poorly planned western actions can make things still worse. The fat, happy, over-privileged west wants to turn away the hundreds of thousands of desperate Muslim families seeking shelter and peace, just because a tiny fraction of those refugees might be militants. Islamic militants couldn’t ask for a better recruiting gift. The same goes for stepping up military action against Isis.

8: Terrorism is a problem to be managed. We can’t “win” a “war” against terrorism or terror or terrorists any more than we can “win” a war on crime or drugs or poverty. But we can adopt sensible policies to reduce the risk and damage caused by terrorist attacks, such as funding moderate Muslim organisations. If we’re creative in our approaches, we can find ways to make terrorist attacks a little harder to carry out successfully, and make successful attacks less rewarding to those who carry them out.

9: To do this, however, we need to move beyond the political posturing that characterises most public debates about counter-terrorism, and instead speak honestly about the costs and benefits of different approaches.

Brooks concludes by arguing against overreacting to terrorism. “We need to stop viewing terrorism as unique and aberrational. The more we panic and posture and overreact, the more terrorism we’ll get.”

Why a 'war' on terrorism will generate yet more terrorism