Fox News, right now, has a panel of people on who are complaining that neither Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump has a plan to direct the civil war in Syria and, with perhaps a half dozen people in the room, no one is questioning why it is the responsibility or business of the United States to direct a civil war in any other country. Why on earth is it unacceptable to expect the Syrians to direct their own civil war?
I agree, all we ever do is get killed in these things and cause problems for the US when we get involved. I used to be pro war back in the days of Iraq but I've changed my views seeing the outcome. We haven't really won or helped anywhere and it just causes more problems.
I was too, immediately after the September 11 attacks, but then I began to wonder why we were at war with Iraq, and then Afghanistan, when the attackers were Saudi. Also, when we get involved in these places it seems that we're always on the wrong side.
Yes, that's exactly when I was all for it too but as time wore on and really no end in sight, we still have troops in Afghanistan...right? Also, seems we unleashed more terrorism and more terrorists and terrorist groups. Why bother? Why have so many young men die for nothing because we never win a war anymore, nobody really does....those days are gone. We have enough problems in our own back yard, we need to fix US first.
Do you think that the U.S. & the rest of the world would be better or worse off if the U.S. would have stayed completely out of KOREA, VIET NAM,& ALL OF THE MIDDLE EAST.
Good question and I don't know the answer since we have intervened in all of these areas, don't know how diffrent things would be had we not. I wasn't even born when Korea started and know only what I learned long ago in History class which wasn't that much but N. Korea is still a problem, although lately I haven't heard too much from there.
@Ren Tanner Probably not, IMO, but "better off" defies accurate description, does it not? For example, are we better off for having lost 55,000 young men dead in Viet Nam? Korea? It was a quagmire when we engaged in war over the 38th. parallel back then, kept 50,000 some soldiers in S. Korea for the past 60+ years, at tremendous cost to the American taxpayers, and for what? Korea remains a quagmire still, today. Who can justify American involvement in everyone else's squabbles? Frank
Pardon me for this comment, guys. America is the big brother of the world and small countries like ours are looking up to big brother for help whether in economics or military. Without the US, our cold war with China will be a one-sided affair since the Philippines is just like a flea compared to the big dog. And the flea is irritating only because of the influence of our big brother. What I understand in Syria is the proxy war that US and Russia are playing. Russia is aiding the government of Assad while the US and some other countries, I guess, are helping the Syrian rebels to the advantage of ISIS. One reporter remarked that the ISIS grew by leaps and bounds because of the aid given to the rebels - I didn't get the connection in this one but I think the reporter meant that US aid was also extended to some ISIS groups.
Big business the military industrial complex it has been going on from the First World War to now. These elites are on both sides of the big wars and the small wars are just to sell military equipment. The Afghanistan war was for opium poppies and rare earth minerals. Iraq was over selling oil for Euros and not American dollars also to upset the Middle East. Libya had no Rothschild bank but the shooting only went on for a month and one was put in also they were going to a gold based currency. Syria refused the Saudi‘s building a pipe line across their territory to take oil to Europe. These countries had no big internal struggle until people were shipped in to cause it the countries are calling them terrorists and The Americans are calling them freedom fighters. I guess it only a matter of what side your on.
Probably better off, yes. A lot of Americans wouldn't have died, and I don't know what we accomplished through any of these wars that would have had a positive effect on the United States and its citizen. The job of our government and our military should not be to make the world a better place, but to look out for the interests of the United States and its citizens. When our interests coincide with those of our allies or others in the world, great, but we have "allies" that we expect nothing from, receive little from, and who often act like our enemies when it comes to criticizing our actions. We should have allies, but it should be a two-way street.
I think we should stay out of these situations. We should have left when the French did in Viet Nam. 1973, I was in Jerusalem when the Yom Kippu War broke out. At 3:00 pm Yom Kippur Day Syria and Egypt declared war on Israel. When flying out to Greece we were told that the US Navy was positioned in the Mediterranean in case an incident occurred that's all the farther it went. Israel had it under control. Everyone in Israel is a, "Front Line Solder."
@Marilyn Pahl "Everyone in Israel is a, "Front Line Solder." And, every former soldier in Switzerland owns a firearm, a machine-gun, at that! And, they managed to stay clear of the major wars. Frank
) I was in the Air Force & in Korea 1953. It was rumored that our Fighter Wing was headed to French Indo China (Vietnam) to give assistance to the French. We never went. The French Forces were defeated at Dien Bien Phu by Communist Viet Minh forces (1954) and the rest is history. I have often wondered if it would have made any difference for us to help the French. Frankly I don't think so. We would just have been in Vietnam a longer time with the same end results and loss of life and $$$$$$$$. For What???
Well first of all HI....Have you been on a visit to Viet Nam? I've only been to Singapore and Hong Kong. Some of my relatives had migrated to Perth Australia. We made a few trips to visit, and Husband wanted to see how well they cleaned up Singapore. I was afraid to change little one's diaper, it was so clean. They had foot patrollers that would ticket you if you dropped a chewing gum wrapper on the ground. It was beautiful, and we stayed at the Goodwood Park hotel. They had a buffet breakfast that had everything you every wanted.