Quote of the Day, This WILL Become Our Problem Again edition.

And very likely sooner than we would hope, think, and/or certainly want. Jim Geraghty:

We want the world to solve its own problems for a while. The problem is that all this — invasions, wholesale slaughter, ethnic cleansing, missile tests, naval provocations, and raw brutality — is how the world beyond our borders solves its own problems.

‘This’ being, among other things, this (content warning after the fold):

Moe Lane

PS: We were able to stay out of this sh*t in the long term for half of our country’s history, but that ended with the Spanish-American War. We are never going back to that state of detachment from the planet. Never. And every time we try we just end up getting dragged back in.

12 thoughts on “Quote of the Day, This WILL Become Our Problem Again edition.”

  1. Eddie Izzard nailed it on the head:
    .
    Killing your own people? Fine, help yourselves! We’ve been trying to kill you for ages!
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    Attack and killed people next door? After a couple of years, we won’t stand for that!
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    I understand this is a gross oversimplification of the problem, but there is a basic truth to what he said. And just so you know, I do not endorse this as a foreign policy strategy.

  2. I’m having trouble reconciling why our bravest and best died in Iraq and Afghanistan because Bush had no end game and Obama has no backbone. Should we send our children into battle on foreign soil?

    1. War does not work the way you think it should, apparently.
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      The “end game” in Iraq was “Saddam Hussein’s regime can no longer attack U.S. or allied assets in the region”.
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      The “end game” in Afghanistan was “the failed state of Afghanistan is no longer a haven for terrorists”.
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      Both of these “end games” have been met. “Mission accomplished”.
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      What comes *after* that, the rebuilding process, is never easy. We’ve fumbled every rebuild since VietNam, largely because the idiot left do not understand why, having won, we must rebuild *authoritatively*, and the idiot right (yes, there is one) do not understand why, having won, we must *rebuild*.
      .
      Mew

      1. You and Luke always make personal attacks. When I reply in kind, Moe rebukes me. THAT doesn’t work the way I think it should, apparently. 😉

        I don’t think “end game” means what you think it means, because you added “what comes after”. End game is that point where we are done, through, finished, out, usually after unconditional surrender and hostilities have ceased. Hostilities never cease in that part of the world. Never. So you think we have a chance of rebuilding something, anything, in the Middle East? Good luck with that.

        1. Oh, I assure you, there’s a line, and when I cross it, I get whapped on the nose.
          .
          But I don’t believe I’ve ever launched a personal attack on you.
          (Which isn’t to say that you haven’t taken some of my commentary personally, because obviously, you have.)

        2. Umm, nothing in there is a “personal attack”, simply an “observation” that your understanding seems off. If you took it as an attack, that’s really not my problem.
          .
          Let me be clearer. *Wars* have goals and ends. Both the Iraq wars, and the Afghanistan war met their goals, and came to ends.
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          *Time* does not have an end, there *IS NO* “end game” for Time, so there are *always* things that “come after”. The observation of this is called “history”.
          .
          We used to call what comes after a war a “peace”, as in “the peace of Versailles”. We have also used the phrase “winning the peace” or “reconstruction”.
          .
          When post-war activities succeed, “success” here defined as “no repeat war for 25+ years”, there are some pretty consistent hallmarks, like the victor dictating reasonable terms and staying involved…
          .
          Mew

          1. “*Wars* have goals and ends. Both the Iraq wars, and the Afghanistan war met their goals, and came to ends.”

            Uhhh, no. That would be incorrect. But by all means, keep arguing. And if you can’t understand that “end game” and “end” are one and the same, then you must be a delight at parties.

          2. Okay, jetty .. if wars don’t have “ends”, then please explain what they *do* have that causes them to cease going on.
            .
            Mew

    2. Not entirely true.
      You can see Bush’s endgame by looking at a map. We had Iran surrounded and isolated. We got the Iranian people to rise up against their theocratic despots.
      Unfortunately,he was out of office by then. (And the less said about the President who let the moment be slaughtered in the streets, the better.)

  3. As to the original post, I can’t help but notice that we could provide small arms to most of the people in Ukraine for less than the cost of the loan guarantees we’re currently extending.
    And that the prospect of guerrilla warfare is much more of a deterrent than disdainful commentary about how “invasion is SOOO 19th century”.
    Time to once again be the arsenal of democracy.

    1. I should note the obvious: that this would take a lot less effort if Dick Lugar and Barack Obama had stuck to their knitting, and not pressured Ukraine to disarm.

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