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[PTTG??]

Like I said, the only way to "finish" it is to glass it. Ipsil, you say we'll be back in 10 years? If we stay, we'll surely be there for 20.

What stability are we building? The only thing you can be sure of is if you have a wedding or a funeral, the US will drop a drone on it.

Believe me, if Trump said that things fall down when you drop them, I'd check to make sure gravity was still working. But we've been in the middle east for two decades, and nothing is working. And hey, maybe in 10 years we'll be greeted as liberators, we'll clean everything up, and be home by Christmas. But for now, we're throwing away money and making enemies while driving our soldiers to suicide and aiding and abetting atrocities. Doing nothing at all would be better than this.

Let me put this another way: I'm of fighting age. Would I ever join the military in order to serve in the middle east? No. Therefore, it's immoral to ask other people to risk their lives, regardless of whatever benefit I may or may not get from it.

[hector13]

This is because there’s no funding for the wall that Mexico is going to pay for.

Ah well, I’m sure what everyone wants is a government shutdown for Christmas.

[Dunamisdeos]

Those poor refugees sure are romantic as they flee from our bombs to our country, but we'll be damned if we have to actually get up and work or sacrifice something of ours to save lives that won't make us look virtuous on Facebook. U-S-A. We utterly annihilated your homes and culture for personal profit, and if you don't want to die in the ashes you'd better emigrate. Come see what we spent your children's lives to create in scenic America.

It's not like the US has personally created the vacuum that every major Middle-Eastern terrorist organization has formed within in the last 30 years. No sir. No previous experience to draw from.

[PTTG??]

You should have read the whole post. The whole point was that the US' continued occupations are pointless and inhumane slow-motion atrocities. I compared them to a larger and faster atrocity to show how pointless and counterproductive they are.

I'm saying we should _STOP_ being involved in being the world police.

God damn, this reminds me of republicans saying they won't get Obamacare because Obama made it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yes, and I'm comparing your argument to every single other time we've pulled out of the Middle East after heroically blasting it to rubble, whereupon we have the gall to get morally outraged when that somehow (shock!) creates more and far worse problems for the entire planet.

It's not time to start the cycle again, it's time to put in the effort needed to repair what we destroyed. That will take American money, and American time, and American lives, and it's time we held ourselves accountable for what we've done. At this point we are frankly lucky that our allies are willing to help.

[Folly]

Well, Donald Trump just gave a speech stating that he is going to insist on money for his 'steel slat wall', and he intends to shutdown the government until he gets it.
The House is still firmly opposed to wall funding, so we are now in countdown mode with a little under 2 days until shutdown.

[PTTG??]

Dunamisdeos, who do you know that you're willing to send to war? Is it yourself? A brother? A father or son? Because unless you have someone who you would happily sacrifice in the name of some interim government, don't talk about the American lives we need to spend to "hold ourselves accountable."

Anyway it's nice to be back to disagreeing with Trump.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yes that's very poetic, thank you. I'm talking about how perfectly willing we are to sacrifice the fathers, sons, and brothers of people on the other side of the planet, while using their deaths as political capital, then leaving the survivors to starve/die/get murdered by extremists when it turns out that oh no, we can't solve this without putting something of real  value on the line ourselves, time find a moral excuse to get out of it.

I have plenty of family members/friends in the service, thank you very much. We're in the Navy, the Marines, and the Army. They didn't join the military expecting not to be sent into combat, and frankly, yes, I am willing to risk the lives of a comparatively extremely few heavily armed, organized, trained, and supplied members of the armed forces in lieu of literally signing off on the deaths via circumstances we created of piles and piles of civilians.

The reality here isn't making sure the people you like don't get hurt, it's making sure you aren't complicit in another hundred or two dead children via drone strike trying to solve a situation that we could have prevented.

EDIT/TLDR: Over 18000 people died the last time we pulled out early. Your argument is tantamount to saying that 18000 human lives are an acceptable price so that Americans don't have to physically risk themselves.

[PTTG??]

The reality here isn't making sure the people you like don't get hurt, it's making sure you aren't complicit in another hundred or two dead children via drone strike trying to solve a situation that we could have prevented.

The victory you're chasing will never come. There is no winning this war. Yes, Bush and Obama are responsible for the US' actions there, but the US is not the only adult in the room. We aren't responsible for the things we could have prevented with the benefit of hindsight (to think otherwise is surely absurd, or else the US is responsible for every problem in the world since 1776). By leaving we are ending our contributions to the atrocities, not creating more.

Did I not say we should invite refugees with open arms? Somehow that makes more sense to me than bombing a school bus now in order to get a head start on bombing them ten years down the line.

I agree that, if there was some compelling reason to believe that the war could be won in a week or two, we should continue, but that is simply not the case.

I am insulted by your TLDR. You know as well as I do that fighting the war now is sure to result in more casualties. Leaving might lead to more casualties at some point in the future.

[Dunamisdeos]

What? Not the only adult in the room? Our allies aren't responsible for this. They didn't invade for oil gains. If I recall, almost all of our allies were against us getting involved in the first place. We're lucky they're helping at all, and it sure isn't to help our sorry asses save face. They sure don't value your comfort over human lives, nor should anyone.

Are you saying it's hindsight that could have prevented us from going looking for WMD's in the desert, or Obama from reading reports on  dead kids via US drone strikes and signing off on more? Like they had no idea what leaving behind a power vacuum in the most violent spot on the planet could do? It wasn't a vacuum of information there, they didn't accidentally ignore the reports that said it was exactly the wrong thing to do for everyone, everywhere but us. It was a conscious decision then, too. The idea behind sticking around and rebuilding is that a highly organized military state doesn't rise behind us is the first place.

How does it follow that anyone BUT us should clean this up? Are we seriously that kind of trash? Sorry we created the greatest threat to human freedom since WW2, but we're too special to see it through with our boys, have fun with that Europe??? It becomes MORE important for us to be there if we know lives can be lost.

A week or two to win my ass, we've been ruining every inch of the place for the better part of 50 years. Too bad so sad that it could take longer than a couple weeks to fix it.

[hector13]

Defence Secretary Mattis has resigned, citing Trump's right to have a Defence Secretary whose opinion more closely aligns with his own.

[Dunamisdeos]

Also look PTTG I'm sorry I don't mean to make this into some personal thing, I just feel very strongly about it. Not trying to attack you for your opinions or beliefs, and obviously your motivation is to save lives I'm not trying to make you out to be the same as Bush or whatnot.

To me I feel like the idea that pulling out WON'T create another ISIS is the fantasy.

[Kagus]

Defence Secretary Mattis has resigned, citing Trump's right to have a Defence Secretary whose opinion more closely aligns with his own.

This is big... He's gonna lose a lot of cred with the military without Mattis on his team anymore.

And that reason for leaving, hoo...

[Folly]

The catchphrase I keep hearing today seems to be 'The grownups are all gone from the White House'. It seems that Mattis was viewed as the last responsible person capable of reigning in Trump.

[Telgin]

It's too bad that nothing of substance will change.  I'm at least a little more hopeful that Trump won't be reelected in 2020, but I'm not getting my hopes up that anything good will happen before then.