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Originally Posted by Griff
The Eighties.
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Yes, it was decided in the 80's that arming radical Islamists to prevent Soviet expansion into Afghanistan was a good idea. In hindsight, there have been obvious consequences to that decision. My point is that a lot happened between the fall of the Soviet government in Kabul to the rise of the Taliban that could have prevented Al-Qaeda's safe haven there. 9/11 was due to the a poor mix of intervention and non-intervention policies.
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They hate us because we're free should have gone out with Bush.
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I think there is very strong consensus on this. I haven't heard this argument since Bush honestly.
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Obama is now part of the Washington military industrial complex bubble.
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Yes, but every president is forced to become part of the military industrial complex.
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One problem One hammer One solution.
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I disagree. While ugly, Obama showed he wasn't going to intervene in Syria. With Iran, Obama hasn't militarily intervened but has relied on cyberattacks and economic sanctions (look at Iran's economy). Obama does use more than one tool in his foreign policy.
When it comes to fighting Islamists in the middle of Afghanistan and Yemen, while not ideal, drones seem to be the best tool.
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I know that comes off as snarky but my perspective is that government solutions to other peoples problems put us in a position to be fighting a religious war balancing extremist against extremist playing one against the other continuously in that greater region. There is no clean escape ever. If you've noticed, humans are often very bad at things. Things like saying "we can't" when someone in a higher position asks you to do the impossible. Ask a CIA dirt bag if he can make a clean kill with a drone and he'll lie right to your face. Ask a General if smart bombs will avoid civilian casualties and you'll get the same. Ask the NSA to give you the complete picture and they'll give you an unusable digital snap shot of all. Live in that bubble of limited intelligence and limited answers long enough and before you know it you'll spying on the goddamn Germans for Christ's sake!
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I actually agree with this. We should not be delusional to think that we will make the world a better place by intervening. Our country has obvious limitations and this has been emphasized for the past decade. That rhetoric is usually just used to gain public support (see Syria).
However, many interventions (not necessarily military) have had positive tangible and intangible benefits for the US so this cannot be ignored. Also, I strongly believe power vacuums are usually more dangerous than intervention because some other country will be more than willing to fill the void (see Syria). Its a lose-lose situation.