I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.
Now, it’s fair to say that none of this is America’s problem. And I probably agree with you. But there is a risk we wake up 30 years from now and huge swaths of the world have been taken over by fundamentalist ideologies that are very hostile to us. We should think a bit about what that world would look like and whether it’s desirable.
Americans take for granted that we live in a world shaped by American norms. 160 constitutions around the world are based directly or indirectly in our own. (Bangladesh’s constitution begins with “we the people” just like the United States’.) The Star Trek version of the future (“America in Space”) comes about because of our willingness to invest in the security and economic and social development of the world. And maybe we’ve done enough, and maybe it’s time to let others lead. I’m pretty sympathetic to the arguments that it’s time to turn our focus inward, and we’re doing more harm than good. But the analysis is much bigger than whether certain specific people are attacking US soil at this very moment.
So you have people like Osama Bin Laden, an elite Saudi funded by other elite Saudis, with a recruitment pitch that was heavily dependent on the intense hatred many arabs have for the brutal dictatorships of the middle east, and their American backers.
America is more or less the sole reason why dysfunctional dictatorships like Saudi Arabia survive. They provide the arms, the intelligence, the diplomatic cover, and sometimes the military assistance these states need to survive. The same states then fund the most intolerant forms of Islam, while radicalizing their own citizens and those of neighboring countries through intense repression and military adventurism.
Third, you’re conflating fundamentalism with terrorism. Though the former often leads to the latter, the two are a bit different. Saudi isn’t funding terrorists that want to overthrow the Kingdom. That would make no sense. But they do want to promote and export their fundamentalism brand of Islam to make the Muslim world more cohesive (with themselves at the head of it). And insofar as there is funding of terrorism, at least the intention isn’t for it to be directed back at themselves.
Fourth, everyone, even people who intensely dislike these governments, fear what would replace them if they fell. Syria is a good example. Assad might have been a dictator, but he was propped up by the west for a long time because what was waiting to replace him was ISIS.
The Howard Zinn-style “blame America for everything” approach is illuminating to a degree because our involvement really is a key factor. But these countries also have vast and complex politics that have nothing to do with us. Overlooking the factors behind American involvement encourages magical thinking—that if only we would disengage, these problems would sort themselves out.
This creates a very strange and perverse set of incentives, where the US is incentivised to back their clients, even while the clients are essentially destabilizing the region.
I would assume[1] Saudi Arabia doesn't fund terrorists that aim to topple the kingdom. I do think that terrorism and instability is most common in states that don't have strong civil institutions, a civil society capable of mediating disputes.
Client regimes are already toxic to civil institutions, because at the end of the day, they don't need a very broad platform of civil support when their primary source of power comes from abroad. By propping up bloody-handed dictators, the US basically ensures that whatever replaces them will be worse - because the dictators are so damaging to the kind of civil society that would allow for a peaceful transition into something better.
I'm not saying that America is responsible for this. Probably if they withdrew support for Saudi Arabia, some other power would fill their shoes. I am saying that they, and nations like them, are inevitably powerful forces for instability in resource-rich, strategically important regions like the middle east. America is particularly bad because their policy is so inconsistent - one moment, it's about US strategic interests, next, economic, next, it's about exporting democracy and protecting human rights. So they prop up somebody like Saddam Hussein for years, then they sanction Iraq for years, then they basically demolish his entire country and state, and somehow expect this completely savaged country to gin up a functioning government from literally nothing while fighting a civil war. Their involvement in Afghanistan was even more insane.
[1]: It's impossible to be sure about this kind of thing. In the Russian Revolution, government funded terrorists blew up the minister of the Interior, for instance. Even a functioning state is pretty far from monolithic.
If the US were targeting the House of Saud then I might believe what you say, but those guys going untouched undermines claims that the US is combatting radicalization coming from the euphemistic "rich middle eastern countries with fundamentalist ideologies funding schools"
But yeah, I’m sympathetic to your overall point, for sure.
All of them? What percentage of the dead were terrorists? Because "they" in this case is referring to around 1 million people now.
It's a vicious cycle, and the murdering of innocent people only makes it worse.
Note that leaving terrorism unchecked also has a cost. I agree folks tend to have a perception of terrorism risks that outweighs the actual cost in lives. But while the psychology is in peoples’ heads, the dollar impact is real. People don’t want to invest in an area where terrorism isn’t a risk. People with means and opportunities leave such areas, creating brain drain. The existence of these unstable places like Afghanistan imposes a real cost on the people in surrounding countries.
Innocent people will die in any significant military action. And if avoiding those casualties is the overriding concern, then you should never engage in non-defensive military action. And that’s certainly a very defensible position, but I’m not sure it’s always the correct one.
India does not de facto share a border with Afghanistan (Its claimed extent of Kashmir does have a small border, but in practice that's irrelevant)
True, but I believe there were a LOT less terrorists on this earth, before the US started its War On Terror.
So fighting terror, yes, but maybe not by blowing up whole weddings, because one guest has a cell phone that was linked to a bad guy?
(sadly not really exaggerating)
-Curis LeMay
A little more complicated than that: invasion of Kuwait, 1st Gulf War, chemical weapons, WMD confusion, violation of UN sanctions, post 9/11 fears/unknowns, concern about impact to global energy economy, etc.
One of the benefits of the US energy leverage created by fracking is that the energy market considerations that were part of our Middle East policy aren't as important any longer, we have many more degrees of freedom in this regard. I believe there are other benefits that come from less money available for state-sponsored terrorism/extreme groups due to lower oil prices.
The US engages with the rest of the world in a way that is advantageous to the US. This is clear when you learn about the modern history of US foreign policy[1]. The US backed over 40 authoritarian coups through the 20th century. To write such a long comment about how the US cares about the places they bomb is at best naivety and at worst willful ignorance.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
s/US/<any-country>/
Acting according to self interest is not unique to the US. And just to be clear that doesn't mean that any country's foreign policy is immune from criticism just that the US isn't unique in this respect.
Yes Saudi Arabia which we continue to sell weapons to and blindly support. This administration is even more willing to bend to SA, as seen with Trump's visit and subsequent veto the bipartiston resolution to end US military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.
> while America has been fortunate to be spared from a major terrorist attack since 9/11
That is untrue. The Orlando shooting was absolutely driven by islamic fundamentalism, as was the 2015 Chattanooga and San Bernardino attacks and arguably the Boston Marathon Bombings.
Sure, if you are doing it, killing fewer bystanders is preferable on the surface. But if individual assassinations are less likely to cause an international outcry since fewer people died that likely leads to more assassinations.
Wars being a terrible thing and all, one won't expect a speedy and fair trial on a battlefield.
It's mainly a local conflict with the superpowers backing different factions. Kind of like a proxy war during the cold war. A lot of countries backing opposing local factions while trying not to escalate.
A full blown declaration of war would give us WWIII in no time due to it being such a complex mess of alliances they're.
Rather than develop those missiles, what could be achieved by investing those millions into developing economies and relationships abroad?
It's the difference between sending an assassin and a suicide bomber.
The question by GP is more along the line of "what if instead of spending lots of money to kill fewer bystanders we spent that money to reduce the number of people that are so dangerous to us that we kill them".
Of course we know that won't happen because building weapons helps US companies and building hospitals and helping local people in foreign countries doesn't.
Or, after even the terrible decision of invading Iraq, if the US had been halfway competent / invested in post-invasion administration...
Like, would you rather drink a shoe leather smoothie or a shoe polish smoothie? Neither! Why are we drinking shoe related smoothies at all?!
Why do we need to assassinate anyone at all?
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/992742
"Paul Kersey: Nothing's too good for our friends!"
"Bin Laden been happening in Manhattan Crack was anthrax back then, back when Police was Al'Qaeda to black men"
Rest assured, there are people who wake up every single day plotting how they can kill Americans or Westerners, or training to do so.
This may be the West / USA's fault - but it's where we find ourselves, regardless.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_St...
The article specifically references that these devices used on members of aal-Qaida; the group responsible for 911.
It's neither proportional nor effective.
My point was the OP said "these people do not pose a threat to my freedom" which is categorically false. Aal-Qaida is a terrorist group that directly caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, ripping them from their loved ones. To make _this specific argument_ against this weapon is just insulting to the victims.
Dropping bombs on civilians all over the world in response to 3k people being killed in a single, highly unusual event, is not going to deter anyone - quite the opposite.
Same here. Prematurely joining conflicts now allows us to save scores of lives abroad (at least in theory).
As a counterargument, you can't know that. It seems like this argument could be restated as "I don't trust the US government to dispassionately determine who is a threat and even if they were a threat I am not in favor of killing people as a response." Which seems fair but the world is a complicated place and there are justifiable uses of drone strikes.
Herein lies the problem, different people and groups see different actions as justifiable or not. Drone striking the hell out of a country half way around the world has very debatable justifications. And what throws a lot of shade on the justification is when the country doing the bombing goes on to ally itself with with countries that are, from the point of view of the justification, no better or worse than the one being bombed.