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England is out! Ha Ha 😀
All they needed was for Italy to pull off the simple win against underdog Costa Rica, and they failed. I wonder what the British were thinking about the Italians after that.
There was a fort in my home state that was manned I believe around that time, but I thought the main reason was for protection against Indians.
Sounds British to me, so that's a step in the refined direction. My brother named his first dog Soren, after the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. He named his next dog ROV after Regine Olsen (+last name), after Kierkegaard's love interest. The next dog he named Marty, after Martin Heidegger.
Well, congratulations on getting another book done! I didn't realize you delved into more recent, twentieth-century material in addition to early modern stuff. I hope the book does well.
obviously they still wanted to repay New England for its rebellion.
Actually, I didn't know that there was lingering resentment toward America by England into the late nineteenth century.
Starting from after the invasion is a false premise. What was the strategic logic in invading in the first place?If we accept the invasion as fact then once we toppled the regime we had a moral responsibility to replace it or facilitate the Iraqis coming up with one and then staying around long enough to ensure it would stick for at least a reasonable amount of time. We did the first, but not the second because of moral collapse at home in the States. All the whiny lefties did not think living up to our moral responsibility was worth the blood and treasure their cowardly behinds were not putting on the line anyway. By God, if we are going to do something then we need to do it right and that is something America has signally failed to do since at least the Bay of Pigs. That goes under both GOP and Dem admins.
I was hoping to avoid the issue of whether we should have gone to war (still the biggest question though) and go to the secondary issues, which is why I put the question as I did. Interestingly, it seems like you and Donnie propose almost opposite approaches on a theoretical level.
We should have wrecked the Iraqi military as we toppled Saddam, and then simply just pulled out and watched the chaos ensue. Whoever came out on top we throw in our support to the new regime and help them rebuild their nation by investing in their oil industry via exclusive contracts. We turn our eyes away from the human rights issues and pay attention only to our national security interests. Otherwise we should have left Saddam alone.
That's actually a very interesting view in light of what we know now, since it would have saved Americans a lot of hassle. It sounds like you are against the micromanaging role that the U.S. took, and that in the future the U.S. should take more of a macromanagement role (if even that). Was the U.S. influenced too much by ideas of a Marshall Plan-like approach which could not translate well in the Middle East?
Ok, I want to play arm-chair quarterback for a moment. Starting from after the invasion in 2003, what should the goal have been for the U.S.? How should it have been achieved differently during both Bush's term and Obama's term?
I could care less about the thorny moral issue. The only thing those people over there understand is brute force. We tried to be nice and what did it get us?
So sounds like you'd have no problem dropping a nuke on them, right? I mean if we're not concerned about morals and need to use brute force.... Ok, ok, I know you wouldn't suggest that. I also agree that the Iraqis need to step up sooner or later and take charge of their own situation. There's really only so much the U.S. can do.
A foriegn policy defeat, oh yes. Not a defeat of American ideals. The two things are mutually exclusive.
Well, I simply point to the kind of elections existing now compared to what existed under Saddam Hussein. More according to American ideals, IMO. I don't think it's a stretch to think that elections would be changed again if ISIS started running the show. But this is beside the point...I still think it's a case of the Muslim world vs. Non-Muslim world, at least in terms of what the groups represent or who they side with.
I would not characterize an ISIS victory as a defeat for American ideals. Anybody who has paid attention to what has gone on in Iraq understands that there was always very little of true democracy in Iraq. Maliki was always the lesser of two evils and was never truly democratic, he was someone who we hoped would not be as oppressive.
Call it what you will, but it is definitely becoming a defeat of American foreign policy, and I consider this policy to be embedded with American ideals on some level. I'm not claiming that we set up America Lite in the Middle East, but that American interests are generally served with the present Iraqi government in control.
What is happening is no surprise. We went in and tried to nation build when we should have just went in and toppled Saddam and then pulled out. Who cares whether Iraq is stable or what government rules so long as they no longer have a military as powerful as Saddam's and a means to threaten our oil interests or Israel.
Do you honestly think it would have benefited the U.S. to topple Saddam and then leave? Not only could that put Iraq in turmoil and given it into the political hands of a Taliban-like regime, but it would have put the U.S. in a morally thorny situation. I think the real question is still whether we should have invaded in the first place. Not only did that choice lead to the potential collapse we are seeing now, but it also effectively handed America over to the power of leftists by shifting political power. Hindsight is 20/20, though.
November 12, 1944…I will say near Metz? I admit I did have to use Google but only to see where the U.S. was around the time, rather than for the specific name on the monument.
On a very real level, the success of Iraq means the success of the United States and of western ideals which oppose radical Islam. I imagine this concept is familiar to all Iraqis and to Al-Qaeda/ISIS; perhaps the Iraqi government is even seen as a pawn in the plan of the United States. Because of the close link between Iraq and the U.S., I'm guessing that ISIS is portraying it as a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims.
What is surprising is that Iraq resisted during the Iran-Iraq war (or atleast get a stalemate) but not anymore today.I wonder why
Would it have to do with the fact that Iran-Iraq was not primarily a Muslim vs. Non-Muslim struggle, whereas with the current situation it is? Or simply the fact that the present Iraqi government may not have been very organic or internally-inspired, but instead reflected the ideals of the West?
