With ISIS on the rise, citizens are fighting and fleeing for their lives in Iraq and Syria, American journalists are being beheaded in Syria, what should the United States do? In January 2014, President Obama gave authorization for 800 military advisors to go to Iraq. A couple of weeks ago, another 125-150 advisors went. Today, another 350 advisors went to Baghdad. How much advising is necessary for the Iraqi people and their government to standup and fight for their own freedom, their own country? If we overturn regime, after regime, after regime, and the newly formed government never becomes effective and efficient, what more can the United States do? The United States cannot want freedom and democracy of these countries, more than the citizens themselves. It is not our responsiblity or obligation to POLICE the world!
Everyone is calling for President Obama to do something, but do what? The United States has released about 130 missiles during the airstrike missions in Iraq; dropped tons of food as a humanitarian effort, but that is not enough. Outside of sending in ground troops into these two countries, what more can we do? America is war weary. President Obama was elected, twice, to end wars, not start them. Much to his own demise, he is committed to that. That is the reason his foreign policy poll numbers are taking such a hit. With the beheading of the American journalists, people want him to RUSH into doing something, ANYTHING, for revenge. However, it doesn't quite work like that. If he rushes into Syria to fight ISIS, he will appear to be fighting along side the Bashar al Assad regime, who used chemical weapons on his own people, killing more than 1,400, including children.
Whenever we are considering sending our wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles into harms way, we need to take our time. We need good intelligence and we need a REGIONAL STRATEGY, before doing so.
If it is not our "obligation" to protect the lives of humans abroad, then who's is it? Do American's honestly believe that we are so superior to mankind, that we have no obligations to protect the civilized world? Our wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, and uncles voluntarily enlisted in the US military to protect human lives within and outside our borders. I find it odd that so many civilians in the US who are not in the military are the first to shout "keep our soldiers home." You see, President Obama prematurely removed troops from Iraq to end the Iraqi War. What was the outcome? Instability leading to the rise of ISIS. America can sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of innocent people murdered, but we expect our allies to be there and risk their soldiers when 3,000 American's were murdered. It's beyond hypocritical to ask for help, if we are not willing to give help. I urge you to imagine, if it were your relative, your friend, who was beheaded by ISIS, would you want intervention to prevent the next death?
ReplyDeleteGreg, isn't it the obligation of the government of these states to protect their own citizens? I am not saying we should never do anything, however, we cannot fight more for these people/government than they are willing to fight for themselves. I understand there are times when America must send it troops to help defend these countries and their citizens, however, military action alone doesn't solve problems, it increases them. There are times when we must have diplomatic approaches to these issues and crises. Do you realize that America has fought in 148 wars.......148! However, only 5 was those were declared wars. We are helping, we have always help, but we cannot police or save the entire world; that is not our responsiblity or obligation. Perhaps it may be our opportunity to do so!
DeleteI didn’t realize that those who enlist in the US military swore an oath “to protect human lives within and outside our borders” Greg? I also don’t recall seeing anywhere in the Constitution that the U.S. is supposed to be the world’s police.
DeleteYou see, if we hadn’t invaded Iraq in the first place, there wouldn’t be the sectarian violence there is today. Did you know that more than 100,000 innocent people were killed in the aftermath of our invasion in 2003? Sounds like we did a real good job at protecting the people there huh?
Every time we get involved somewhere, it backfires on us. We armed the Mujahedeen and now they’re using our weapons against us. Obama wanted to arm Syria’s opposition, now we find out that many of them are jihadis. Perhaps we just shouldn’t get involved this time.