What Other Countries Should America Liberate Next?

[harrypotter]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]harrypotter wrote:
Typical responses in the thread to my post, perhaps theres not enough fuel to start a fire under me? Because I am not a nutjob who you can poke fun at because let me guess, you’re ignorant?

Heres the current situation (as it stands) now in the world of 2013.

Before you try and ignore a post thinking its either a load of BS because you dont think you’ll go in or because you think you’re the most unstoppable nation the world has ever seen, consider some logical thoughts about the matter.

War on terror is non-existent. Its merely drones operating in the ME and Pakistan/Afghanistan border regions.

Western forces are still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, civilian and military losses are at what number now? Sorry I lost count.

During the time here we went into Iraq, threatened some other countries, namely Syria and Iran to keep insurgents in check, which they happily never did.

Iraq is still problematic at the least. Most civilians are without adequate water, electricity and sanitary conditions, how long did it take for New Yorkers to start complaining about conditions of Sandy? Not too long, now imagine it for 10 years, several of those being quite nearly your last days on this Earth. (maybe)

Iran is bigger, its has a better military, it has chemical weapons and by the looks of it you’re quite convinced it has nuclear material.

Your government and military is convinced that the only logical response is to remove such facilities and hope for the best but thats not good enough is it? You reckon Iran’s hardliners have a few tricks up their sleeve so you need to remove them too.

That leaves an open military option involving NATO.

So we now have 3 countries in one sizable area which are in the shit. Syria, Iran and Iraq.

Turkey being on the edge of its seat is just itching to get into Syria, no expert opinion needed there.

You have god knows how many Jihad soldiers in Syria and plenty more in Iraq who are still eager to kill western people. You’ll have the battle hardened and experienced insurgents from Afghanistan coming along for the ride and then you have the Iranian military and civilian population.

Still with me? I like logistics and distribution from a military and commercial point of view (hobby of mine) and from where I am standing, you’re already in trouble.

Lets look at economics now shall we.

USA and western Europe are in deep financial trouble. The USA has no infrastructure to support itself, it relies too heavily on China like western Europe.

Oil is key, where is Iran? Slap bang in the middle of the richest oil source on Earth. They’re also right on the doorstep of your allies in Saudia Arabia and the Suez Canal.

Care to hazard a guess on where oil prices will go once a US naval fleet enters the area to “secure” oil operations there? The type of security required to stop Iranians mining the entire canal? If I was an Iranian hardline general that would be my first port of call, why should we care? You’re coming for us and you;ve been hitting us with UN sanctions for years.

Your economy will belly out before a theatre of war has even begun. The rest of the western world would follow because for some inexplicable reason, the $ is prized higher than anything else.

How much is gas/petrol for you guys now? Can you comfortably live on as you do if it doubles? How many others would be able to do the same without breaking into debt?

So you see, my post is not horse shit. We’re bound by the rules of war, thats why we cannot end a conflict in a shitty backwards country that has forced us to re-evaluate our position on fighting wars.

So what are the legitimate strategies you can undertake to remove Iran as a problem without the problems listed above? Please inform me because for all other reasons I dare not hope you’ll let the Israelis take care of the problem by themselves, that would be an even bigger mistake.

[/quote]

What exactly do you think would be the result of a conventional war between Iran and the United States?

I’ll give you a hint: the answer’s somewhere in here–

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures[/quote]

Cost of the war on terror so far has easily tripled that number.

Cost to your economy? Enormous.

Human cost? Big. What price do you put on life? How much is a single dead marine/soldier/spec ops?

Cost to rebuild what you destroyed? Bribes? Religious cost?

This is like buying insurance on your home where you wonder why it costs so much.

Knock it down, clear the rubble and materials, pay for rebuilding. Emotional cost doesn’t come into it and hell, maybe you cannot afford the repayments. Things add up.

[groo]

[quote]harrypotter wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]harrypotter wrote:

[/quote]
You are misguided on a few things. We won the “war” with Iraq by any meaningful measure. The problem is the attempt to stay and do some nation building and humanitarian things. The same would be true with any war with Iran. We could entirely destroy their infrastructure and let those that didn’t die from the bombings starve or die from disease.

Certainly it would be impossible to make any of these countries a 51st state, but destroying them would be easy.

But ultimately you miss the point of the entire series of wars since we lost our dearest frenemy the Soviets.

“War , not peace , is the goal of each nation’s oligarchy . War is a form of control by the ruling elite uniting the citizenry against a common enemy .
It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.” [/quote]

You “won” the war?

It wasn’t a war, it was a conflict that killed many that didn’t deserve it and you ignored the real issues, religion and factions.

If a victory was seen as removing Saddam Hussein then yes, it was a victory but you tried and failed to get anything worthwhile out of the country.

You spent a lot of money and ended up with no oil contracts which were the prize at the end of the day. I bet you’re forgetting that aren’t you?

I bet you also forget how the US defence contractors also profited from this little jolly and still do. They would never allow the US fed to tax them on the money they made, off shore accounts made that impossible.

Then you have the normal Iraqis, still without basic amenities after all of this time. I say again, do you really believe all is won when suicide bombs and no real political processes are evident in a country you so happily liberated?

You also quote something about the goal of war.

Ghengis Khan, the Romans, Germany in WW2, heck every single empire in history has one thing in common except the USA/western powers of today.

They went and secured assets, prizes, women (not Germany), resources and land. What have we got in return except for thousands of dead, recession and a conflict that will never end.
[/quote]

Ya its from 1984 and its something Orwell stole from Trotsky. And its apt. We if you mean society as a whole haven’t got a lot from this war and arguably from any war. But the societal elite have certainly benefited from maintaining an ongoing conflict. Its a goal in and of itself. And I’d argue the primary goal of the elite. This would be the part about the defense contractors and others benefiting financially I figured you could infer it from the quotes. I won’t overestimate you again though I’ll lay it out there more explicitly. Osama was used much as the opposition was used by Big Brother. WAR FOR THE COMMON MAN IS PEACE FOR THE ELITE.

You said something along the lines that a war with Iran would destroy the US. If the goal was utter destruction(and lets take the moralist bullshit out for a moment, whether someone was a civilian in Dresden or Iraq or in the world trade building dead is dead) we could utterly destroy Iran. It would have consequences but we could turn it into an unlivable wasteland. We as a people likely don’t have the stomach for it and it wouldn’t be very moral but it would be the foregone conclusion if we perceived a valid threat to the nations existence where only one country could exist. And if the general population were convinced Iran were a conventional threat it may get the willingness to destroy Iran. After all it was deemed ok to give away many civil liberties and kill hundreds of thousands of people in response to the killing of a few thousand. We are big on overkill when roused. And likely if we killed 90 to 100 percent of its population we’d be hated but it would certainly mark out a position that would ensure a bit more respect for when we tried diplomacy after.

[orion]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
There are a lot of Australians who’d like to be liberated from our oppressive Communist regime. Liberate Australia.[/quote]

No way, liberate Austria first, because we are much smaller, have no deserts and we have no badass kangaroos.