re: #4 Great White Snark

CL I would point out the liberation of Kuwait went just fine. And notably that force had a lot of pan Arab forces involved. So yeah that’s critical. And when we fight for the right reasons I think we have a fair shot at a positive outcome. IMHO.

Do you think if Kuwait (and neighboring Saudi Arabia) didn’t have scads of oil that we would’ve given a rat’s ass about liberating them? If so, then why don’t we do the same for countries that don’t have oil?

BTW, the invasion of Kuwait and our subsequent presence in SA is part of what riled up AQ. From a reporter who met & spoke with Bin Laden twice:

At that second meeting, we spoke about what he was fighting for, and what he hated. At first, he told me, he had been opposed to the Americans because of their military presence in Saudi Arabia and because he felt they were too near to Mecca. That was a provocation to the entire Muslim world, he said.

But once those early encounters in his homeland had stoked his feelings, he came to concentrate more on America’s involvement in the Middle East. He declared a jihad against America and Israel jointly, he said, because he believed Israel was killing and punishing Palestinians with American money and American arms. […]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/26/afghanistan.terrorism3

So I’m gonna say the outcome was good for the Kuwaitis and good for the Saudis (who aren’t even close to being a democracy), but for us? Not so much.

BTW please don’t take my now depleted reluctance or objection to the idea of our guys going in as a cowboy or GWBush-esq arrogance we can just up and kick ass. I don’t think like that. I just do have a deep fear of what happens if for any reason Daesh is not rolled back. FWIW One atrocity at a time my reluctance drips away. And the end of them is not in sight.

I know you’re not a cowboy type, but I think you are reacting with emotion, a gut-level horror at what Daesh is doing, and I fear that’s exactly what they want—reaction. That’s what all their snuff films are about. Why else would they film & distribute such things?

They’re horrible, but things can always get worse. As I said above, we thought AQ (not to mention the Taliban) were really awful, the worst thing we’d ever seen, then along came Daesh…