Kicking ass in Afghanistan was the right thing to do. Staying and trying to turn them into good little Republicans was stupid; they don't want it (or not enough of them want it to make it work) and they're culturally not suited for it. Bomb, rinse, repeat as necessary, should be the policy for places like that.
I fell for the Iraq scam, along with Congress and a bunch of others. There just wasn't any real justification for that, unless you think it was worth all those lives and limbs, and American treasure to punish Saddam Hussein for trying to have Bush 1 killed, which I don't. The Israelis have the right idea about this stuff. Some of the people of Iraq may appreciate the new order, now that the power stays on most of the time, but thousands, likely tens or hundreds of thousands of their countrymen and kin died to establish that, which they're unlikely to forget or forgive. All praise and honor to our military for the job they did there, and a pox on the politicians and diplomats who failed to apply the lessons learned in previous wars and interfered with the process, resulting in unnecessary casualties. Throwing pallets of American dollars at people will never make them your friend or trustworthy allies, especially if you've just blown their country to schitt and killed their favorite uncle.
Trump is right to pull our troops out of Syria too. It may have been possible to do it in a way that would have been less dangerous for the Kurds, but it's done. The Yurrupeans, especially the Germans (go figure) are showing some interest in being the traffic cops in Syria, perhaps to train for the coming civil war to suppress dissenting member nations of the EU who might decide Brexit looks like a pretty good idea. Let them. We have all the oil we need; they should be the ones to protect their supply.
Last edited by Pappy348; 10/23/19.
