GWOT: The More Things Change . . .

[Smitty-48]

Yeah dude. They're cool. They have like 10 kids or something, so they aren't worried about a couple of them blowing up.
They'll just blame themselves and move on, cause I mean, they're not really human, ya know? S'all good.

Look, the people who are even open to be on your side to fight a war against AQ/IS, are the people who are on your side to fight a war against AQ/IS, the people who are so turnable, as to turn on you for a drone strike, were never going to be on your side, so don't bother to try to appease them, focus on the people are willing to fight with you, like the Kurdish Peshmerga for example, no sense trying to sway people who say "AQ/IS are free to do as they please, and if you try to fight back, everything is your fault", those people, are simply stalking horses.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Yeah dude. They're cool. They have like 10 kids or something, so they aren't worried about a couple of them blowing up.
They'll just blame themselves and move on, cause I mean, they're not really human, ya know? S'all good.

Look, the people who are even open to be on your side to fight a war against AQ/IS, are the people who are on your side to fight a war against AQ/IS, the people who are so turnable, as to turn on you for a drone strike, were never going to be on your side, so don't bother to try to appease them, focus on the people are willing to fight with you, like the Kurdish Peshmerga for example, no sense trying to sway people who say "AQ/IS are free to do as they please, and if you try to fight back, everything is your fault", those people, are simply stalking horses.

They are people. Period.

You blow up their families and say 'oops' enough times, and they will take up arms against you. You prop up dictators and corrupt-ass puppet 'democracies' that get their people tortured and killed, and they will take up arms against you. This is not complicated.

What's the counter-narrative exactly? There's just a tiny hardcore group that has evaded colossal manhunts and drone strikes for 20 years, and we just have to kill a few more? That's not how this works. And it doesn't even matter much how the people that live there feel about it. The optics are bad, and inspiring more radicals across the planet every year.

This is equivalent to having 1.1 billion sworn Communists spread around the planet, while we bomb the fuck out of Vietnam, and then act surprised when there are punji stick traps in our cities. This is not a 'war' and cannot be won by firepower. Yet we keep on swinging like a champ, blowing shit up, and expecting a different result. Astounding.

It's almost as if there were massive, vested interests in just blowing stuff up...

[Smitty-48]

You're either up for a war, or you're not, there is no such thing as a clean war, war is dirty business no matter how you slice it, if you are a pacifist, then you are a pacifist, if you are an isolationist, then you are an isolationist, but I don't think that America is actually a pacificist isolationist country, no matter what the pacifists and isolationists therein may try to claim.

Donald Trump, did not promise to end the GWOT, anymore than Hillary Clinton did, and quite frankly, Bernie Sanders wouldn't have neither on the off chance that Bernie had ended up in the WH, there is a war in progress, America is fighting the war, peace now, and splendid isolation, is simply not at hand.

Shooting people and blowing shit up, there will be a whole lotta that, in any war scenario; who knew?

[SuburbanFarmer]

You're either up for a war, or you're not, there is no such thing as a clean war, war is dirty business no matter how you slice it, if you are a pacifist, then you are a pacifist, if you are an isolationist, then you are an isolationist, but I don't think that America is actually a pacificist isolationist country, no matter what the pacifists and isolationists therein may try to claim.

Donald Trump, did not promise to end the GWOT, anymore than Hillary Clinton did, and quite frankly, Bernie Sanders wouldn't have neither on the off chance that Bernie had ended up in the WH, there is a war in progress, America is fighting the war, peace now, and splendid isolation, is simply not at hand.

Shooting people and blowing shit up, there will be a whole lotta that, in any war scenario; who knew?

We aren't at war. We have not been at war since the 40's, and you do not want us to declare a war, because it would be the end of your civilization.

Whatever the hell we are doing needs to stop, and now. It's not working any more than the idiotic "War on Drugs".

[Smitty-48]

Whatever, de facto if not de jure, it's a war, no matter what you want to call it, Imperial Policing, Police Action, Stabilization Operations, Overseas Contingency Operations, Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency, ephemism, ephemism, blah-blah-blah.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Whatever, de facto if not de jure, it's a war, no matter what you want to call it, Imperial Policing, Police Action, Stabilization Operations, Overseas Contingency Operations, Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency, ephemism, ephemism, blah-blah-blah.

gritty voice: "Police actions.... police actions never change.... "

[Smitty-48]

Well, technically, Police Action is a fig leaf for proxy war between nuclear superpowers, the GWOT is more similar to the Interwar British Imperial Policing paradigm.

Essentially, the Middle East, is the British Empire, and the American Empire, is the inheritor.

[skankhunt42]

Whatever, de facto if not de jure, it's a war, no matter what you want to call it, Imperial Policing, Police Action, Stabilization Operations, Overseas Contingency Operations, Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency, ephemism, ephemism, blah-blah-blah.

gritty voice: "Police actions.... police actions never change.... "

What is your plan exactly? To completely change the monetary system? Have a complete global revolution as to how the world works? The game is what it is. It has its rules. There are winners, and there are losers. We are a clandestine empire, everyone not just Islamic neophytes are trying to knock us down to our knees. The solution is to absolutely kill them. The problem was really caused when we took down Iraq. We need the Ottoman empire to come back. Something to stabilize that region. Until that happens, fuck em. Sometimes its time to start killing mother fuckers.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Whatever, de facto if not de jure, it's a war, no matter what you want to call it, Imperial Policing, Police Action, Stabilization Operations, Overseas Contingency Operations, Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency, ephemism, ephemism, blah-blah-blah.

gritty voice: "Police actions.... police actions never change.... "

What is your plan exactly? To completely change the monetary system? Have a complete global revolution as to how the world works? The game is what it is. It has its rules. There are winners, and there are losers. We are a clandestine empire, everyone not just Islamic neophytes are trying to knock us down to our knees. The solution is to absolutely kill them. The problem was really caused when we took down Iraq. We need the Ottoman empire to come back. Something to stabilize that region. Until that happens, fuck em. Sometimes its time to start killing mother fuckers.

"Everyone is out to get us". "It's time to start killing them". Who exactly? Everyone? That should work.

And what do you suppose happens 10 minutes after an Ottoman Empire is born? They become Enemy #1.

[Smitty-48]

We need the Ottoman empire to come back. Something to stabilize that region.

Yes, and this was the rabbit hole that the British went down and then left for America to deal with, the Ottoman Turks were integral to maintaining the stable line of communication through the Near East, to the Middle East, and Far East beyond, when the Ottoman's sided with the Kaiser, and so the British sent Lawrence into Arabia to bring the Ottoman's down, that can of worms has been in play ever since, when America bought the British Empire out, America inherited the can of worms.