Qst...Would we be better off in the M.E....If.....

[nat4900]

Without the usual cussing and belittling, would we be better off in the Middle East if folks (with all their many flaws) like Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi and Mubarak were still running their respective countries?

Absolutely

Yes

No

Certainly not

Maybe

 

[The Rabbi]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

 

[Obiwan]

They would have kept the terrorists down, and they were leaving us alone. Of course, they weren't exactly helping their own people.

 

[MACAULAY]

Muslims gonna Muslim.

They have been raging around on camels in the desert, waiving scimitars at the imagined head of "the Infidel"......for many centuries.

The difference now is oil...rather the money it brings.

They can arm themselves now with nuclear bombs....and really kill "the Infidel".

Who thinks they won't?

Obama is working hard to bring "Peace in his Term".

But, if you plan to live longer than 6-10 more years, or if you have children...well.

 

[Kosh]

Without the usual cussing and belittling, would we be better off in the Middle East if folks (with all their many flaws) like Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi and Mubarak were still running their respective countries?

Absolutely

Yes

No

Certainly not

Maybe

The nuclear arms race in the ME would have started in 2005. It would have been between Iraq and Iran..

 

[nat4900]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

By "better off" I mean, with less US military deaths, a hell of a lot less deficits from the wars, and less hatred toward us from most Muslim nations.

 

[Statistikhengst]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

I concur with you about this.

 

[Penelope]

Really look at SA and Qatar, they were better than them.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Why would we think anything would be substantially different? The Rs want to say that the ME fell apart when Obama was elected but even they know better than that. Its been a mess for more than 2000 years.

Without the usual cussing and belittling, would we be better off in the Middle East if folks (with all their many flaws) like Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi and Mubarak were still running their respective countries?

Absolutely

Yes

No

Certainly not

Maybe

The nuclear arms race in the ME would have started in 2005. It would have been between Iraq and Iran..

Just saw this.

Why would anyone think it would have "started in 2005" when it actually started many MANY years before that?

There has never been a time in recorded history when there has not been an arms war in the ME.

 

[Obiwan]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

By "better off" I mean, with less US military deaths, a hell of a lot less deficits from the wars, and less hatred toward us from most Muslim nations.

Basically, it boils down to one of two choices:

1). Leave a regime that is no threat to us in place, or

2). Be prepared to provide security after we get the old regime out until the new regime can stand on it's own.

We can't afford to compromise our own security by leaving a power vacuum where groups like ISIS can move in and take over.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

That is not the reason we attacked and decimated Iraq or any place else in the ME.

Look at other places with incredible human rights abuses. If they don't have oil, we turn a blind eye.

 

[Obiwan]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

That is not the reason we attacked and decimated Iraq or any place else in the ME.
Look at other places with incredible human rights abuses. If they don't have oil, we turn a blind eye.

Sounds like an endorsement of the Keystone Pipeline, where we can get away from importing so much oil from the ME......

 

[Luddly Neddite]

It depends on what you mean by "better off." There was more stability for sure. But their presence was an affront to the idea that every person deserves a voice in his government.

That is not the reason we attacked and decimated Iraq or any place else in the ME.
Look at other places with incredible human rights abuses. If they don't have oil, we turn a blind eye.

Sounds like an endorsement of the Keystone Pipeline, where we can get away from importing so much oil from the ME......

Oh jeeeez.

Surely you know better than that.

Why don't you look up just how much we import/export as well as where Keystone oil would go.

Hint: to the world market.

 

[Obiwan]

Gee, last I heard, we still had a ban on oil exports...And no real need to take anybody else's. But nothing like a good back-up supply to keep prices down!!!

And we get to keep our refineries humming where we can sell the extra gas overseas!

Should the U.S. oil export ban be lifted - CBS News

The U.S. is almost drowning in oil. There's so much of it, in fact, that storage tanks are quickly filling up, and no one knows where to put it all.

Oil reserves are swelling in response to the country's fracking boom. Industry executives would love to send some of the surplus light sweet crude overseas, but their hands are tied by the country's 40-year-old oil export ban.

Now, there is a growing push from the oil industry to lift the ban. CEOs from ConocoPhillips and 10 other companies lobbied lawmakers earlier this month to roll back the restrictions. For them, real money is at stake: There's so much oil in the U.S. that it sells for about $10 a barrel less than it does in the rest of the world, Bloomberg reported.

 

[Obiwan]

Gee, Luddly

Looks like saying we need foreign oil is a bunch of hogwash after all, and the Keystone Pipeline actually means jobs and more gasoline exports! That should help our economy, shouldn't it?

 

[nat4900]

We can't afford to compromise our own security by leaving a power vacuum where groups like ISIS can move in and take over.

Why is "our own security" at stake? Simple and tragic....We try to subjugate ANOTHER country's citizens (as screwed up as they may be with their internal bickering and animosity)...and it ALWAYS comes back to haunt us.

 

[Obiwan]

We can't afford to compromise our own security by leaving a power vacuum where groups like ISIS can move in and take over.

Why is "our own security" at stake? Simple and tragic....We try to subjugate ANOTHER country's citizens (as screwed up as they may be with their internal bickering and animosity)...and it ALWAYS comes back to haunt us.

Gee, your average Iraqi isn't trying to get into the country to kill our citizens. ISIS is.

So giving Saddam the boot actually helped the Iraqi people by stopping him from killing his own citizens.

The problem came when we pulled out too soon, and let ISIS get established.

So, the two best options were to either keep Saddam in power and let him deal with any possible terrorists ( by gassing them, or whatever), or staying in Iraq long enough to insure stability once we left if we were going to remove Saddam from power. Those same options were pretty much what we ran had in Libya, Syria, etc, too.

 

[Obiwan]

Nat

Realize that I never said that, in hindsight, the war in Iraq wasn't a mistake, but BOTH parties voted for it, based on flawed intelligence. And once Saddam was gone, we had a mess we had to deal with.

Once we left Iraq, ISIS moved in, and now it's quite possible our troops may have to go back in to take them out.

Obama should have learned from that, and not gone after the regimes in Libya and Syria, leaving a power vacuum there and allowing ISIS to spread. That just made a bad situation worse.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Without the usual cussing and belittling, would we be better off in the Middle East if folks (with all their many flaws) like Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi and Mubarak were still running their respective countries?

Absolutely

Yes

No

Certainly not

Maybe

going back just that far, yes.

Those ruthless tyrants kept the muslims in line.

We would be even better off had we not gone to war with Germany

 

[nat4900]

Nat

Realize that I never said that, in hindsight, the war in Iraq wasn't a mistake, but BOTH parties voted for it, based on flawed intelligence. And once Saddam was gone, we had a mess we had to deal with.

There's a part of me that gets a bit tired of hearing the "shared blame" with democrats over the decision to go to war....

YES, blame many democrats for being cowards and going along with the frenzy pushed by Cheney and Bush....you know, the "mushroom cloud" etc. By all means blame the cowardice by democrats......

HOWEVER, the vast majority of the blame MUST be on republicans for not having the guts to stand up to the fabrications that came out of the executive branch.

But....the point of this thread was NOT to rehash the catastrophe that was and IS Iraq......the point was that the ME is a quicksand every time we step into it.