Yes it does. Was Afghanistan better off before the pull out, or now under the Taliban? Iraq is a mess, sure, but at least nobody is gassing whole cities and we can be immensely proud of the liberation of Kuwait although that was more than 20 years ago. Right now we are providing vital military assistance to Ukraine, and I wish we were doing a lot, lot more.
The failures were political ones. Militarily the army did the job it was given efficiently, ethically and professionally. I'm not saying it's perfect by a long shot and in war mistakes often mean deaths, it should be held to account where necessary, but what organisation is flawless?
>> Was Afghanistan better off before the pull out, or now under the Taliban?
Why is that the comparison? The comparison should be was Afghanistan better off before we invaded in the first place. And committed war crimes. And radicalised a tonne of people who then came into Europe to murder civilians. You'd have to do mental somersaults to justify the Iraq + Afghanistan wars and think they were the right choice.
It's as contentious as the russian invasion of ukraine is. Meaning, not at all unless you fall for the obvious war justifying rhetoric.
I dont know why but it seems like there's been such a weird push for rehabilitating what the US and it's allies did to the middle east since the start of the russian war of aggression against ukraine.
The situation in Iraq is tough but no, I don’t think it’s obvious to me it would be better off still under Saddam Hussein, or maybe by now one of his sons. If you wonder what a dynastic succession like that can look like, check out Syria, and the young Assad is a pusseycat compared to Uday or Qusay.
There was no dynastic succession in syria, if anything the baathist regime shows how weirdly resilient it is even when faced with insane pressure. Keep in mind the iraqi baathist party was much more popular in iraq that assad is in syria. Also, no matter how violent a hypothetical baathist succession crisis would be, it would not have come close to what happened due to the invasion.
If anything, the iraqi war was the reason the syrian civil war was so bloody. The al qaida elements in iraq overtook the grass root rebellion in syria, and ISIS would literally have not existed if Saddam was still in power. Same for the sectarian violence that will plague iraq for decades to come.
Saddam absolutely deserved the rope, but that does not mean the US had any right to intervene because of that. Plus, the reason the US invaded had officially nothing to do with regime change. The "saving iraq from it's dictator" narrative only came after the WMD lies became evident.
> The "saving iraq from it's dictator" narrative only came after the WMD lies became evident.
True, none of which can be laid at the feet of the British army. I’m no fan of Blair but I’m not sure to what extent he knew it was all flimflam either.
There was no shortage of radicals coming to Europe already. I think the lesson from all of our engagement and lack of it in the Middle East, and beyond, is you can’t not be engaged. It will come and kick you in the arse whether you like it or not. For all the problems our interventions might have caused, our attempts to disengage have caused as many if not more problems.
I suspect anyone who thinks our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and abandoning its people to their fate is the end of our problems in that direction is going to be sadly disappointed.
> For all the problems our interventions might have caused
Might have caused? US is heavily responsible for the current state of the Middle East. A lot of the issues stem from the coups in Syria and Iran which were orchestrated by the CIA. Nevermind the shit show there of the last 30 years.
When you sign up to join the military, you are signing up to enforce those political decisions. You are not only signing up to "defend its people and friends." I would find this sort of article much more convincing if the author took an honest accounting of what it is that a military does. He has chosen to enable and participate in all aspects of British military activity, not just the patriotic soundbite version.
That is correct, but by and large I think the army is used mainly for those purposes. Not perfectly or without error, but mainly.
In any case defending our citizens and allies is a task that needs to be done no matter how much we wring our hands about the consequences. If we want it done more competently it’s on us to elect more competent governments, not the army.
So it's okay that the US military is used as the world police?
Neither the war in Afghanistan nor Iraq were justified. Not to mention Saddam was an ally of the US for some time. US even gave Iraq the chemical precursors for their chemical weapons program.
Yes, what's happening in Ukraine is awful, but by this logic, why has the US been supporting the Saudi Arabian regime in its war on Yemen? Why isn't the US providing humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen? There's political motives for nearly every recent conflict the US has gotten involved in. It's not for moral reasons. The "moral reasons" politicians give are sales pitches to gain support.
We've got our own problems at home. The taxpayer money thrown away on contractors and needlessly getting involved in these conflicts could have very well gone towards funding universal healthcare and higher education programs for the public, rather than giving folks the stick and carrot of putting their life on the line for such "benefits".
They're "benefits" because they're walled off in our country, whereas elsewhere they're covered by taxes. Providing them to each citizen from day 0 would only boost productivity/GDP in the long run, if money is the concern. But it's likely there's an awareness of that, and a worry of a healthy and educated population getting ahead, which would disincentivize people from joining the military.
A government that doesn't provide its people with, at the very least, healthcare, and uses healthcare (and education) as a means of drawing in folks to put their lives on the line in its military for selfish and offensive purposes, does not give two shits about its people. Its interests are morally devoid and elsewhere, not with its people nor the people of other nations.
What an original, dismissive, red-baiting-ish comment. Next it's gonna be the other classic dismissal, "whataboutism". Truth is, I despise Putin just as much as the next and am fully against the war.
Oh and Mohammed bin Salman understands you. See what I did there? Didn't take much effort.
I'm sorry but this is pure apologist rhetoric. It's so hand wavy that it puts even russian propaganda war justification to shame. "I bet they are doing better, if we ignore the 2 decades of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths!" is not a great argument, especially since you ignore the even more repulsive intervention in libya.
>Iraq is a mess, sure, but at least nobody is gassing whole cities
We didn't invade Iraq because of Saddam's genocide. That occurred while Iraq was allied with the US against Iran. The sudden concern for the Kurds was simply to manufacture consent for the war.
The failures were political ones. Militarily the army did the job it was given efficiently, ethically and professionally. I'm not saying it's perfect by a long shot and in war mistakes often mean deaths, it should be held to account where necessary, but what organisation is flawless?