Trump supporters, what would he have to say before you would not vote for him?

We are better off today than when he took office....but you think I'm clueless too so.....tell me more about the Viet Nam war eh?

 

If we're going to hand out blame maybe we should start with Sykes-Picot? The troubles afflicting Syria, Iraq and the Levant are very old, but you can trace a lot of the recent (i.e. last 100 years of) trouble to that misbegotten agreement between Britain, France and Russia.

Did Obama fuck it? I don't know, maybe? But people have been "fucking it" for a very, very long time in the region since the fall of the Ottomans. The problems run so deep and the choices are all completely unpalatable with no obvious winning plays to be made -- if you intervene, you're always going to be pissing off one faction or another no matter what you do or which group you back. Leave troops past 2011 and you piss off the Shia. Pull out troops and you give carte blanche for brutal Shia recriminations against the Sunni, which in turn leads to the rise of ISIS and a flood of refugees into Europe.

With respect to Trump and Clinton and how they're going to deal with the region, I'm guessing both of them are probably a disaster waiting to happen (in different, but equally fucked-up ways) and
the back and forth between certain people in this thread underscores just how complicated and intractable the situation really is in this part of the world.

Personally, I see getting out of Iraq and the ensuing sectarian violence that followed as inevitable. You could stay for 50 years and the problem would still be there ready to rear its ugly head the moment you left. The Ottomans knew this, and the British and French eventually figured this out too.

 

Yeah, I'd be firmly in the camp of leaving the Middle East to its own perpetual hell if only it weren't for that desire to get nukes and obliterate Israel. I'm afraid it's just a matter of when, not if, we're going to have to deal with that issue. With all due "respect" to Obama's Iran deal, of course.

 

We should leave both those places as well.

 

I respect our military but to say they are smarter guys.....well, we don't know that. One of them was dumb enough to join the Trump ticket. You can say what you want Denny....but I say...get every foot soldier out of that region as fast as you can....I know a couple of marines who wanted to go back but not for the purpose of saving the middle east...combat action pay and debts at home were their reasons. Actually we are sort of in a cold war with N. Korea...

 

What I see us doing in the future is focusing on our Navy and Air Force and special forces units and have foot soldiers home protecting the country and instead of building border walls....put army or marine bases on our borders. Basically change them from regular army or marines to reserves..call them up when needed. There's no reason we don't have a crack Coast Guard and Border Patrol staffed by the military. Money better spent. Use them against cartel gangsters and homegrown terrorists and to help in case of natural disasters. Take the military budget saved by reducing ground troops overseas and spend it on infrastructure jobs for all the servicemen and women to have when they get home.

 

Different circumstances. We stayed in Korea because the South Koreans didn't demand we leave. In the post WWII era, there was a very real threat of an expansionist Soviet Union steam-rolling Western Europe and West Germany needed us.

In Iraq you're never going to be able to quiet these blood fueds that go all the way back to the death of Muhammad -- They didn't go away under 600 years of Ottoman rule they just bubble back up whenever there is any kind of power vacuum.

 

Some countries love those greenbacks the military spend overseas...especially places like Japan, Germany and S Korea..port towns thrive when the Navy shows up..my house in Taiwan was a few blocks from the eastern port...when ships docked they loved the Americans...pubs made a ton of money and restaurants...when the Russian sailors would dock....they were poorer than the locals and would just walk around the parks smoking bad tobacco. There's a whole economy based on port towns...we leave, a lot of them dry up. That transition will sting until they adapt.

 

Bora Bora should become the next state....then Tahiti....watch out New Zealand!

 

Are you ready for some RUGBY!!!!