@modernpaladin Here's A Reply. M.E., Afghanistan and all deployments. Any deployment lasting over a 6 months should require the initiation of "the draft" having registered all at age 18. That includes deployments under the representation of some internationalist group like the UN or handy or new coalition. The reason we don't have regular demonstrations against endless wars is because a broad enough segment of population is not bleeding. The universal registration at age 18 & susceptibility to the draft is more ethical than the volunteer army from a population with less choices. Thus Spaketh Moi
NO we need to keep Iran from expanding.. get off the dirt in the middle east? Sure! having assets ready to respond to Iranian aggression? HELL YES!
Unless they committed a full scale of invasion of iraq or something. In that csse we just bomb their supplies and leadership so they can't sustain said invasion.
Let them fight it out and we will deal with the winner. We should protect anything vital to our national security however such as waterways.
If we weren't so addicted to oil it would be much easier to leave. Now is the perfect opportunity. With our domestic oil production combined with alternative energy sources, it's never been a better time to pull back. What oil we would need to purchase from the world market would not require us to devote so much military resources and regularly launch drones and missiles where we create hundreds to thousands of new enemies every time we do it.
I checked "I lean right - I say stay", but that is not a completely accurate statement. I believe that we should pull out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But we should stay in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. In other words, keep a footprint in the Middle East, but end our wars there.
Yes, get out and let them deal with their own darn problems. Inagine if all that war-money had been invested in something productive instead.
Yes, we should get totally the hell out of the Middle East. None of those Islam-dominated countries is worth one more American soldier's life or one more American dollar! And if anybody there does anything to threaten or harm the United States or our vital interests, we should bomb the living hell out of them with AIR POWER. No 'boots-on-the-ground', 'nation-building', land-invasions, or any of that horseshit. Just bomb them - VERY convincingly -- if they harm or threaten us or our allies, and tell them to leave us alone and we'll leave them alone, or else we'll come back and bomb them some more.... . "Go to the bunker NOW -- Americans are coming, and NOT to 'play nice' anymore."
There are billions of trade between the ME and the US, and a lot of crazies out there will try to ruin that.
Probably because the poll requires political identification--that changes the question. Do you want to know what Right, Left, and Center think or do you want to know if we should get out of the ME? That's why I skipped over it. As far as the question, I say we should get out of the ME. Our interests there are clearly not humanitarian, but economic. We should not use our military politics to enforce our economic interests in other countries.
Then how do we protect our economic interests? Create a more effective international legal structure?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. - A quote from Eve to the snake in the garden of Eden . Rumor has it She was a Sunni and Adam a *****. The Arab world has been at war with itself since the beginning of time. It is asinine to think we Americans can bring our form of government into the region. I say let them keep fighting it out and let God sort it out. Israel? According to Jewish custom they are Gods chosen people so God must be responsible for their fate. If the oil tried up tomorrow would any one care? As the world gets greener and less dependent on fossil fuels will the M.E. be of any importance? Is there any difference between a Jewish person, a Sunni Muslim, a ***** Muslim, a Persian, a Kurd, or any other native group in the M.E. other than religion? I think the last thing they want is for a Christian nation to tell them how to live. I seen on a bumber sticker many years ago "Live and Let Live". Good advice for a foreign policy.
I guess you have to keep it within the business world, and not assume we should use our military to force our business on the world. I don't know what kind of international legal structure we could create that the business world (and their politicians) wouldn't see as unfair and restrictive if it tried to balance things out. We are in their countries using our military to enforce our control over their resources under the assumption that we have some kind of right to those resources.
At first, I voted that I'm left and want to get out of the middle east. But, there were so many good arguments on why we should stay that I had to change my vote to I'm left and want to stay in the ME.
From humanitarian point of view YES, US should get out. But from economical point of view NO, they shouldn't get out.