A study released by Brown University on the costs of the wars in Iraq, Afganistan, and Pakistan ( www.costsofwar.org ) has the following costs: 1) 350,000 dead 2) 6,800 US dead 3) 970,000 on disability 4) 7,400,000 civilians displaced 5) Total cost about 4,000,000,000,000 dollars.
Modern wars are less and less economically sustainable, this is the reality that politicians have to evaluate nowadays. Think to modern jet fighters. They can cost between 20 and 30 millions of US$ ... now think to how much did they cost, the planes used in WW II ... and you will realize that to employ 100,000 planes [like in WW II] today is economically impossible. We can enlarge the reasoning to Navy, land vehicles, helicopters ... In a few words, today the possibility to lose units is a nightmare, and economical nightmare ... It's an other reason why Western powers today tend to fight only wars impossible to lose ...
Vietnam is not "today", it's still in the past age and it was a regional war. Iraq is today, but pay attention: allies haven't lost the war [allies won the war], we [since Italy has taken part to the second phase, the occupation, I can say "we] lost the peace ... Anyway note that economically, the second phase of the Iraqi war was economically sustainable [theoretically we could keep on occupying such a country forever, but of course it would be an absurdity].
All these is no problem for our hawkish politicians. They compete in their fervor for action militarily, both liberals and conservatives. Hillary Clinton is considered a likely winner in 2016, but listen to what she is saying. By the way, she voted in favor of Iraq war under Bush presidency. Now, she wants more bombings and wars, despite chain of fiascos in Libya, Iraq and Syria. We are not learning from experience.
War is the natural state of mind. White westerners are too greedy and when they want something they can not take no for an answer.
War is vital and will keep happening, people need to get used to it and start thinking about winning wars rather than not wanting to have them. Iraq war was very good from the US point of view, you destroyed Al Queda and created a stable Kurdish region to limit instability in the region. Then the Iranian and Saudi's had a Proxy war for control after the US left, the US instead decided to stay and stop the Proxy war which you did, but then you just left again. You needed to stay in Iraq and move the war into Syria, Iran and Saudi to for new Shia and Sunni religious states. However that would mean the US putting everything it could into it. Instead you hoped that Iraq government would be able to buy and threaten people into overall control between the Shia and Sunni, with the Kurds keeping what they have and picking a side to support politically. The place that has no chance of working is Afghanistan, they US shouldn't be their you have no interests. Iraq I can understand, but Afghanistan is pointless. Even after 2001 you could have got the Taliban to kick Al Queda out to be roundup by the Pakistani's, Iranians or Russias. Instead you created an external threat to Pakistan as in 100,000 western troop in its western border. The Obama policy was totally wrong, Bush was better dispite making a number of mistakes.
And how were we supposed to do that since, by all accounts, it was al Qaeda, in a quid pro quo for safe haven in Afghanistan, that carried out the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud. Thereby decapitating the Northern Alliance and removing the only opposition to the Taliban?
The Taliban isn't Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda paid the Taliban so it could operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US government had more money than Al Qaeda, they could have just paid the Taliban to kick them out. You could have got the Pakistani's to support the Northern Alliance or Iran, they both hate Al Qaeda, the Taliban doesn't really care. However it cared when the US send in troops and took power away from it, then you had a massive problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which couldn't be sorted other than by taking over western Pakistan aswell. You must understand that nations are culture which form states which then create laws to reinforce the culture. Only in the case of the US did the laws come before the state because of US culture at the time. So you can only build a nation on the solid ground of culture, which is religion, language and enviroment.
Source? The Pakistani government created the Taliban for the specific purpose of fighting a proxy war with the Tajiks and other ethnic minorities in Afghanistan. To say that we could have somehow gotten them to just abandon this effort and support the NA instead is ridiculous. And Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni, to say that we could have somehow gotten them to support the Iranian Shia theocracy is almost as far-fetched.
There is no source. It is just where the power comes from. Al Qaeda wasn't a military threat to the Taliban, it wasn't a cultural threat, or political. It was therefor economic power which allowed Al Qaeda to operate from Afghanistan. The Americans have more money they could have just taken away Al Qaeda's power and gave the Taliban more money. Instead the US decided to make culture, military and political war on the Taliban, all the things they shouldn't have done. No that is what the Americans tryed to do, get the Pakistani's to fight the Taliban. I am saying they shouldn't have done that. Pakistan is cut between the Indian side and the Tribal side. The Indian side has a state and is interested in dealing with other states doesn't matter their religious faith to block Indian power. We can see this with the trade and infrastructure deals Iran and Pakistan have made. Then you have the non-Indian part which the Pakistan government can't control. So in an attempt to stop the non-Indian part threatening the Indian part the Pakistani's use proxy's.
They're both wrong. Iraq was about toppling a government so we could establish a monetary system that works much like ours, keeps the country needing US dollars, and prevent Iraq from trading oil in non-dollar currencies. It was a massive protectionist campaign to align their country to our needs, all in the name of freeing people and establishing democracy. What we imposed upon them is now being threatened, and I'm betting we'll have much larger numbers of troops on the ground and an air campaign in order to protect the system from changing. Notice how the media is spinning up the citizens by droning on and on about the ISIS threat to the US in order to gain public support for re-entry into Iraq. We'll see this continue to build and more visualizations of the atrocities to their military and citizens in order to propel support higher for another invasion. That's my best guess at this point based on what I see in the media and the interests we have in keeping things intact. The dollar is already threatened in other ways globally so they won't just sit back and watch it get worse in a country they setup themselves and spent trillions to put things in place.
Well from what you are saying vital US interests were threatened by Saddam's Iraq, so the US went in to protect its vital interests. So Bush did the correct thing in 2003. Ofcourse the US went into Iraq for a number of reason none of them to do with currency or oil interest. Rather a very costly no-fly zone, threat of Saddam using or exporting WMD's mainly chemical weapons. What happened next was not expected by the US, Al Qaeda sent in fighters to attack US forces they were sucked into a battle with Al Qaeda in Iraq which took 3 years. In the end Al Qaeda was destroyed in all but name losing 25,000 fighters to the US 2,000 orso troops. At this point the US should have left Iraq as the proxy war between Iran and Saudi started, instead the US trying to stop it. This was the mistake the US made, it wasted and used up resources which left the US army and marines short in other places. In the end what we ended up with is a seperate Kurdist which has limited involvement in Iraqi politics other than protecting its oil interests. Then you have the Shia in overall control of the economy and the Sunni wanting more political power to makeup for their lack of economic power because they don't have the oil. The only possible threat to US currency on world markets is Gold, no other national currency can be used for world trade. On a regional level the Euro, Pound, Swiss Frank, Australia and Canadian dollor are all competitive, but none combined have the economic size or volume needed to challenge the US dollar, the only thing is Gold which is very limited. If the British Empire came back overnight then the US would have problem, but that isn't going to happen. On what the US will likely do now. I think limited action in support of Iraq, Iranian, Kurdish and Shia ground forces. To be frank the ship has sailed, the US should have taken action weeks ago. Now the Saudi's and Gulf states will give greater support to ISIS and Sunni leaders have tactically allied with them. As soon as Fallujah was taken over the US should have acted, they didn't. Now we have what we have. The US couldn't sit it out and allow Iran to dominate Iraq, but it doesn't want the Saudi's to support ISIS, the only possible option is Turkey taking action, but the Kurds wouldn't accept them and could totally breakaway from Iraq. So I don't think Turkey would be willing to take the action. The other option is the US sends in forces on the border between Syria and Iraq, cuts ISIS lines and undertakes to strike targets in support of Kurdish and Iraqi army forces. However this isn't political possible for the US.
No, I was saying the exact opposite. The system we went there to put in place is threatened. Had we not gone in 2003, nobody would care today other than to see on the news another regional war in a country we have no interest in. But since their oil is important to world markets, Saddam had tried to trade oil in non-US currency and he paid the ultimate price for it. The whole WMD story was a fiction that played into public fears, resulting in public support to go in. You're not familiar with Iran's market where oil is traded in non-US currency? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse The Yuan is really desired to be the world currency by the Chinese. Their efforts to work with Russia and the BRIC countries demonstrate their ability to circumvent the dollar and continue trading that benefits that group. The problem is the Chinese hold a lot of American debt, but they're also accumulating a massive amount of gold. My best guess is they're waiting for public opinion to sway as the media churns it up in the news, then we'll act in force. Politicians need public support to enter conflicts, and it appears the media is playing its role to stir up the public in support by instilling fear and eliciting emotional responses by showing the atrocities being committed repeatedly on news stations.
No I wasn't familiar with the Iranian oil market. However there is a massive difference between anything but the US dollar and another national currency to replace the US dollar, the fact that currency must be converted into the US dollar before being priced into another currency. It doesn't benefit the group it costs them more money, they are doing it for geopolitical reasons and they still have to convert into US dollars to price the trade into another currency. The problem for the Chinese is they don't have the comsumer market and private capital to support their currency in a price competition with the US. The same happened to the US when it tried to do it with the British Empire. It lost badly because Britain controlled sea trade and had a much large land circulation around the world. It was only when Britain lost its ability to project power after the loss of Ireland and defeat in the 1940 Norwegian campaign that the US gained the price fixing or reserve currency. It was a massive geopolitical defeat for the British. Debt holdings and Chinese state Gold hording has nothing to do with it other than keeping their currency low which is becoming an economic problem for China.
Iraq was over money, Libya was over money, and this current situation will be over money if the central banking system is threatened in Iraq. If you have 3 minutes, this video even discusses it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35_Ai6EsMU
The war was started so Iraq would use US dollars? Funny, I don't remember that as part of the Authorization for the Use of Force. Frankly that sounds like some conspiracy theory. If we wanted them back on the dollar train, all we had to do was lift the sanctions. Most of the UN was in favor of it since virtually every country except for the US was on the take in the oil for food scandal.
Bid Laden bragged about how he spent only 500K on 9/11, but yet according to the lowest estimates, and this 5-8 years, the US spent 500 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course it wasn't part of the authorization, nor was it claimed by our president as reasoning. They used WMD's and human atrocities to incite emotional support from the public, along with claims of affiliation with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. But their reasons were excuses. The oil and protecting the dollar were the purpose. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html
That's an opinion piece which doesn't prove anything, although your thesis makes no sense in any case.This really is conspiracy nonsense. There already is a section of the forum for that sort of thing. Please don't' contaminate this section with this nonsense.
