The US interventionist policy has a long history of failure. The policy should be abandoned.
On Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 2:17:53 PM UTC-6, Travis wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2016/02/25/the-tough-choices-of-overseas-intervention-n2124213/page/2 > *The Tough Choices of Overseas Intervention* > > Victor Davis Hanson <http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/> | > Feb 25, 2016 > > · > > · > > [image: Description: > http://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2015/340/2015-12-06T145412Z_1_LYNXMPEBB50BG_RTROPTP_3_LIBYA-POLITICS.JPG] > > The United States has targeted a lot of rogues and their regimes in recent > decades: Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Mohamed > Farrah Aidid, Manuel Noriega and the Taliban. > > As a general rule over the last 100 years, any time the U.S. has bombed or > intervened and then abruptly left the targeted country, chaos has followed. > But when America has followed up its use of force with unpopular > peacekeeping, sometimes American interventions have led to something better. > > The belated entry of the United States into World War I saved the sinking > Allied cause in 1917. Yet after the November 1918 armistice, the United > States abruptly went home, washed its hands of Europe's perennial > squabbling and disarmed. A far bloodier World War II followed just two > decades later. > > It may have been wise or foolish for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon > Johnson to have intervened in Vietnam in 1963-1964 to try to save the > beleaguered non-communist south. But after 10 years of hard fighting and a > costly stalemate, it was nihilistic for America to abandon a viable South > Vietnam to invading communist North Vietnam. Re-education camps, mass > executions and boat people followed -- along with more than 40 years of > communist oppression. > > The current presidential candidates are refighting the Iraq war of 2003. > Yet the critical question 13 years later is not so much whether the United > States should or should not have removed the genocidal Saddam Hussein, but > whether our costly efforts at reconstruction ever offered any hope of a > stable Iraq. > > By 2011, Iraq certainly seemed viable. Only a few dozen American > peacekeepers were killed in Iraq in 2011 -- a total comparable to the > number of U.S. soldiers who die in accidents in an average month. > > The complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops in December 2011 abruptly > turned what President Obama had dubbed a "sovereign, stable and > self-reliant" Iraq -- and what Vice President Joe Biden had called one of > the administration's "greatest achievements" -- into a nightmarish > wasteland. > > Hillary Clinton bragged of the 2011 airstrikes in Libya and the eventual > death of Gadhafi: "We came, we saw, he died." > > But destroying Gadhafi's forces from the air and then abandoning Libya to > terrorists and criminals only created an Islamic State recruiting ground. > The Benghazi disaster was the nearly inevitable result of washing our hands > of the disorder that we had helped to create. > > In contrast, when the United States did not pack up and go home after its > messy wars, our unpopular interventions often helped make life far better > for all involved -- and the U.S. and its allies more secure. > > The United States inherited a mess in the Philippines in 1899 after the > defeat of imperial Spain in the Spanish-American war. But after more than a > decade of bloody counterinsurgency fighting, America finally birthed a > Philippine national government that was given its independence after World > War II. > > President Harry Truman's intervention to save South Korea from North > Korean aggression quickly turned into a quagmire. Communist China soon > launched a massive invasion into the Korean peninsula. By 1953 -- at a cost > of roughly 35,000 American lives, about eight times more U.S. fatalities > than in Iraq -- America had at least saved a viable South Korea. > > President Eisenhower, facing re-election in 1956, resisted calls to pull > American peacekeepers from the Demilitarized Zone and quit the detested > "Truman's war." > > More than 60 years after the U.S. saved South Korea, thousands of American > peacekeepers still help protect a democratic and successful south from a > nightmarish, totalitarian and nuclear north. > > Some 60 million people died in World War II, a global war that the United > States did not start and did not enter until 1941. Yet American power > helped defeat the Axis aggressors. > > Unlike the aftermath of World War I, the United States stayed on to help > rebuild war-torn Europe and Asia after World War II. The Marshall Plan, the > NATO alliance, the defeat of Soviet Union in the Cold War, the foundations > of the later European Union, and Asian economic dynamism all followed -- > along with some 70 years of relative peace. > > In 1999, President Clinton convinced the NATO alliance to bomb Serbia's > genocidal Slobodan Milosevic out of power and stop the mass killing in the > Balkans. After Milosevic's removal, only the presence of American-led NATO > peacekeepers on the ground prevented another round of mass murder. > > Donald Trump has rightly reminded us during his campaign that Americans > are sick and tired of costly overseas interventions. But what Trump forgets > is that too often the world does not always enjoy a clear choice between > good and bad, wise and stupid. Often the dilemma is the terrible choice > between ignoring mass murderer, as in Rwanda or Syria; bombing and leaving > utter chaos, as in Libya; and removing monsters, then enduring the long > ordeal of trying to leave something better, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. > > The choices are all awful. But the idea that America can bomb a rogue > regime, leave and expect something better is pure fantasy. > > > > > __._,_.___ > ------------------------------ > Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected] <javascript:>> > ------------------------------ > > > Visit Your Group > <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmMWxmNzRjBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0NTY0Mjg0MjI-> > > > > [image: Yahoo! 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