Comment by legitster
4 days ago
I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period
Why? They accomplished their goal (making money in Iraq for US business interests, expanding the power of the presidency massively) and have suffered no consequences.
Any war on <concept> is illegitimate by default. Because there will not be any argument that survives scrutiny capable of defending it.
I’m not sure it’s the same. Seems like one man at the top just wants to continue chaos to divert attention from bad poll number, inflation, pedo friend circle etc.
Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.
Oh yeah these are the true motives, I was talking about the usual pretext that they need to sell it on TV and these days on social media too.
It even has a name: 'the resource curse'.
> Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"?
"Good" news! The War on Drugs and The War on Terror have been combined with the invention of the concept of "narcoterrorism"!
Trump pardoned the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht).
I don't want to defend Trump - starting a war is about the most serious thing a country can do, and doing it unilaterally is terrible. Trump should be condemned for this.
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
The 2011 action in Libya was an international effort carried out under a UN authorization to protect civilians, not a unilateral move by Obama based on a fabricated rationale. There were limited airstrikes and aid to rebels, but the US did not directly take out Gaddafi or make any pretense of "running the country."
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
Those people were not condemning Fordow. But nearly everyone has high ground on Trump, so they don’t base their objections on simply having the high ground. He’s unfit to be president.
2011 was 15 years ago. I was not even legally adult back then. And even if I was old enough back then, people are allowed to change their opinions in 15 years.
Morality isn't real, but power certainly is.