Everyone remember those few exceptions to the rule when America supplies weapons to dozens of entities across the world and most of them amazingly don't get turned on us!
Conflates various non-state actors with disparate motives and abilities in a confused and chaotic situation with reliable nation-state actors engaged through multilateral trade and diplomatic ties. Apples : Oranges.
Oh yeah BTW that ISIS totally wouldn't have existed had we aggressively gotten rid of Assad. There will be no consequences to our inaction!
Right, because in your fanfic our white knight Christian Crusader presence inspires no resistance or resentment at all.
The US
cannot control the flow of food to a militant group from a single outlet.
The police and military force typically serve two-week shifts, Moustapha says. When they are off duty, most soldiers based in the camp eat from the food basket donated by the international community at their family’s residence, he says, but even those who return home during their “on duty” weeks, in and around Rabouni, are known to rely on the World Food Program (WFP) bounty. Considering that Rhonda Shore, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, stated that her office hasn’t even approached the Polisario as a potential counterterrorism partner — in my September communication with her she stated that the United States only has a relationship with “sovereign” nations in the Maghreb (which don’t include the SADR) — the central role that U.S.-linked food assistance plays in sustaining Moustapha’s force is, at the least, surprising.
“Do U.S. officials know this?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says, convincingly, reminding us that he’s never met with any government official from the United States before. Maybe they do know, he says. “Maybe they don’t want to.”
MOUSTAPHA’S ADMISSION, EVEN IF GLIBLY MADE, IS SIGNIFICANT, AS IT ARTICULATES A STEADY FLOW OF GOODS BETWEEN AN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AGENCY AND POLISARIO FIGHTERS, A RELATIONSHIP THAT U.S. OFFICIALS ADAMANTLY CLAIM SHOULD NOT EXIST.
I therefore have absolute certainty that any arms and munitions provided to the FSA could not possibly wind up in the hands of the Islamic State or possibly be used against American interests.
Oh, that's what you did in the military! I heard that 95% of our combat troops are on the front lines with rifles and not in various support and logistical roles. But hey man, that 5%.
Protip buddy: everybody gets combat training and things like IED recognition exercises these days, thanks to people like you who took us into wars where everybody was at risk.
I'd support the troops more if I knew most of them didn't play couch jockey like you most likely did. But if you were an infantry grunt that saw combat, COMMENT RESCINDED.
"How
dare people with field experience object to my pampered, cushy, North-Easterner perspectives? I bet those people don't own two homes! They know nothing of the stark oppression of the capitalist class! What is a tooth-to-tail ratio? Is that some plebian proletariat measure of height? Do not speak to me of how modern wars are waged,
boy, I only respect the knight errant astride the battlefield! Only
his lifesblood is worth its weight in gold!"
The thing that amuses me is that the other side pursues a conscious strategy of putting the kids where they'll be killed, fights with tactics designed to kill those kids, and laughs with glee when their deaths convince normally entirely cynical people like you that Israel's just massacring them out of hate.
I'm sure that Hamas deliberately sent those kids to UN schools, which the UN provided coordinates to the IDF for over 30 times saying "Do not bomb these places," to get them killed, yes. The UN is clearly in on it. Are we sure there isn't a line in the UN charter about destroying Israel? I mean, they denied the Zionists the right to take the whole thing way back when, and they're chastising Israel now, so they must be in cahoots with Hamas.
Why is this even part of your argument? If you abandoned it on the Syria question it has literally no place here.
While I do not agree with the perspective that inaction carries no consequences or culpability, the attribution of responsibility is much diminished, which is why legal and ethical concepts such as negligent homicide are separate and distinct from murder. For example, no one was arrested for failing to stop Kitty Genovese from being killed. In that same way, the US does not bear responsibility for killing people in Syria; the people in Syria do, even if the US could theoretically "stop" it (by killing people). Israel, however, does bear responsibility for killing the Palestinians, because it's directly dropping bombs on them.
I know this is hard to understand for someone who sees the world in black and white, but it's not an unusual concept.
1. You vote for the party with factions that would also cut defense spending. This isn't an issue with clear party lines anymore, broseidon
Actually, it is, because the Republicans vote more or less as a bloc and they all voted to cut funding, as I articulated earlier. There is a difference between "some" and "all." Literally the entirety of your preferred party is in favor of crippling the military because it had to throw a hissy fit over Obamacare. No, don't bother finding the one guy who isn't, I don't care.
2. Right that's right because I advocated an IRAQ-STYLE GROUND WAR in Syria! We lost a lot of troops in Kosovo didn't we
You realize that Kosovo only came to an end once heavy ground forces were finally committed and the Serbs saw the writing on the wall that Russia wouldn't save them, and that the air war was ineffective in breaking their morale in the face of their entrenched air defenses, right? Air defenses similar to those the Syrians had. No, of course you didn't know that, because you don't actually research these things before saying them. There was also this bit where Wesley Clark almost started WWIII, but that's another story.
3. We're portrayed as conquerors, occupiers and proselytizers under any policy. The same way that you demonize me for my beliefs, America is demonized for what it does, no matter how it does it. A stirring parallel.
Yeah, so may as well make it a reality because that'll make things
so much better. I mean, by your logic, since the Middle East is populated by whitey-murdering killbots, why don't we just throw some holy water on some nukes and burn it all away in purifying fire? God will know his own!
You know, your points are easily swatted away, it's just that you usually manage to outlast the opponent with volume.
Actually you're really bad at this.
