I'm sure the good idea fairy is hard at work coming up with ways to get out of this conflict with a 'win'. I will be the first to say that the larger vision, goal, perspective, or whatever term should be used, escapes my intellect most times. My only perspective is 7 deployments in 10 years and, with every following one, the question of "what the hell are we even doing anymore" is louder. Circling above troops in the fight with the sole purpose of providing close air support but unable to engage because the troop commander has to ask the battle commander to ask the brigade commander to ask the theatre commander to ask the JAG if we are clear to fire without ending up on CNN....frustrating is a gross underestimation of most troops on the ground. Yea, chalk 8 you are cleared hot but miniguns are not authorized unless you can confirm no civilians. Wtf? No one is wearing bad guy tshirts. I don't know who the **** is a civilian and who isn't. Just get the **** out already.
Sorry, not sure why it isn't playing, but it's a Prager video that specifically addresses why people become extremists. It's neither poverty nor a lack of education. Many Islamic extremists come from the middle class, and have a university education. Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-IchGuL501U
I'm not sure why we should intervene in the distributing of wealth in other countries, or should even care, tbh.
I agree. The larger issue is not that the problem exists there, as it has for centuries, but that we're bringing it here, IMO.
Osama Bin Laden was rich, the folks he recruited. The terrorist of Belgium, France, United States, and England have all been at least middle class. I don't buy the wealth distribution argument. We have been adversarial long before oil was discovered.
Wealth is either growing or shrinking. If they're spending it at home it is being spent within their society. If they go abroad, well that reduces inequality too.
There has been sources of wealth in the Middle East before oil was discovered. The hostility then revolved around wealth passing through their sphere of influence. Many of the people blowing themselves up and going on suicide runs are poor as shit. Or so I thought.
Apparently they're having trouble finding an imam that will bury those bastards: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/europe/imams-london-burial/
It shouldn't be easy to enter war, but if it's deemed a situation meets stringent standards, the military should be completely unleashed to win in the most convincing and fastest way possible. Unleash hell & get it over with. If we are unwilling to unshackle our military, we shouldn't send our military in the situation. God bless you guys.
I don't think we can or should even try outside of maybe diplomatic channels. We sure wouldn't allow another country to try here.
I would say it definitely is a factor, but what authority to we have to act in other countries to attempt to address it. We don't do a great job dealing with our own poverty issues. And our poverty is nothing compared to some of the problem areas in the ME in both scale and severity.
My answer would be, if we don't need what they have, it doesn't matter & we have no need to be there. I could be wrong.
The essential blackballing of Qatar by the Arab states is going to be interesting to watch. As Trump would say, who would have guessed that a phone call could be so complicated.
Well...the Arab world is now doing exactly what Trump asked them to do, only a few weeks ago. That's not coincidence.