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[–] 103 points 2 years ago (18 children)

Because if it didn't work the last 20 years the US was doing it, it'll work the next.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Drones are effective at killing people, but they're dogshit at killing ideology.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    More than that, drones are bad at constructing infrastructure, but they're really good at destroying it. If you're tearing through a housing complex to kill a terrorist, you're going to make a lot more disillusioned people out of those who are now homeless. It's really epic how people don't understand this, and don't understand how people might not look kindly to a military occupation generally, especially one that isn't helping much to build out their infrastructure, or, maybe more importantly, position them in a way where they're actually well off in the global market, since that's something they have to worry about now in a neoliberal, globalized society. And then instead everyone's just like, yeah, well, they don't want our help, but they're still a threat, let's kill everyone, and then we can save the little girls that are never going into the classroom again after they're fucking dead.

    I hate this place, bro.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago

    If you kill enough of the right ones, it'll work. When their leader's first act in office is to hose what's left of the last guy (and it will have been a guy) off of the floor and walls, I think they'll gain some perspective and make better choices. Can't be as polite and delicate as we were over the past couple decades.

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  • [+] -35 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    You're right, what I've described above is the same as what you're talking about. Good job not noticing the differences which were clearly meant to mislead.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    The US has caused this shit, why don't you guys fuck off and stay out of conflict...just for like a week and see how it goes.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)
  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    During the cold war, the US armed and supported radical islamist factions called mujihadeen because they were opposed to the communists. This didn't help, but ofc there were other factors. When the US began its wars in the middle east in earnest, they killed a lot of people including civilians. As a consequence, they were probably the most effective recruiters for radical islam (when a foreign government kills your friends or family, you'd feel positively incluned towards fundamentalist groups fighting them too). Throughout the iraq war and the related conflicts analysts warned that us intervention was fuelling islamic terror. I was under the impression that by now this was common knowledge.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    What an ignorant take. Radical Islam existed long before the US went there. Salafism and Wahhabism have been around for more then century at this point, to name two of several fundamentalist movements.

    Muslims have been infighting with fundamentalists and more secular members of Islam for centuries.

    The US surely didn't help, but they are so, so far from being the sole or main cause for the turmoil in Afghanistan and the middle east in general.

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  • [+] -16 points 2 years ago

    That's some mental gymnastics. I dislike the US going abroad with their military as much as the next non-US person, but if I had to choose one instance where they weren't the biggest dicks on the battlefield, it would be Afghanistan.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago

    It's too late. Americans have adopted the 'brown people need to solve their own problems' mantra for this generation.

    Come back in 20 years when things are so shit we can no longer look away.

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