re: #188 GlutenFreeJesus

What dilemma? The solution is easy. STAY OUT OF IT.

I understand the feeling that there’s a dilemma here. On the one hand, even though we shouldn’t have invaded, we DID, and set up the conditions that now exist. Further, we probably will not like the outcome of not intervening, and further still, the people of Iraq may not like them either. So we ARE responsible, and there’s a natural desire to fix what we fucked up.

But on the other hand, why do we think we can have a positive effect on the outcome? We spent 10 years, 4000 American lives, and > $1e12 on Iraq and it wasn’t enough to make it what we wanted. It seems more likely to either blow up in our faces - American troops captured and/or killed, more money poured away for nought, EVEN MORE resentment of us in the region - or to leave us with a weak Iraqi government permanently dependent on our blood and treasure for their survival.

The folks like McCain who never saw a situation he didn’t want to get involved in seem to think that our presence will magically fix things. The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan is the direct opposite - it’s about the limits of power, which we find are far lower than we’d thought. Our ability to control events is a lot less than we’d thought.

Fortunately, the folks who got us into this mess in the first place aren’t in charge now. Unfortunately, lost of people appear to have missed the whole “limits of power” lesson, and think if we just do this next thing, it’ll all be fine.

It won’t. It’ll never end.