Am I crazy to be on the side of total withdrawal of US Forces from the middle-east and other overseas Islamic conflicts? It seems to me that even if we have a reason to be there, we only ever destabilize situations further, do we not?
I condone and fully endorse our intervention and action in WW2, which was REstabalizing AND effective, neither of which have been any of our recent incursions in the middle-east, with many decades of nothing but failure after failure. This conflict is unique in that, from a military intervention standpoint, it is like a great mass that only gets bigger when you attack it.
It can only self-resolve, with perhaps some form of non-militarian support. It's an internal international, political and religious civil conflict that doesn't endanger American lives in any way that could be reduced by recent or further intervention/destabilization in the entire region reaching into Africa. Even if our boots don't reach the outer countries, our influence in the region certainly does.
I actually PREFER drone strikes, which should be suspended until they can work the potential collateral damage down from an astonishing 28 to 1 to something more, dare I invoke the word 'acceptable'?. I abhor the idea of any kind of drone use by any government agency for any reason in the USA, but I approve of the action of, if not the legality of, SOME of the Bush/Obama strikes and the intended purpose of a few more that caused far too much collateral death to be considered justifiable.
We got Bin Laden with a couple helis and a crack team of US Troops. We can do plenty of this without boots, but if we do, it can be less force and more finesse. Nonetheless, drone strikes seem perfect IF we can work out both the moral and legal kinks, like fixing congress so it's even a worthy body to appeal to in matters of who/when/how to kill.
Anyways I want our Troops out of situations where they are destined to fail and die. Lives lost in WW2 cannot be described as lost 'in vein' but I'm sorry to say this is not the case for the majority of US Military deaths since. This is not to say that a given US Troop died without honor, not at all, but that they were SENT to die BY their country rather than FOR it. USA don't supposed to be doin suicide missions.
Just thinking mathematically, a lower US body-count seems preferable to me, but perhaps the truth is something counter-intuitive. Perhaps our interventions have prevented attacks on US soil but I'm not convinced. Seems like we've thwarted alot more attacks since 9-11 than since ever before, only a tiny pinch of which occurred before the invasion of Iraq, when we were already in Afghanistan.
The Boston Bombing was a domestic attack and, while horrible, can never come close to comparing to the deaths, injuries, and global effects of 9-11. With this unique exception there hasn't been even an underwear-bomber-level credible attempt on US soil in 3-years and guess what, we've been out of Iraq about as long!
