When you choose sides in a senseless war, you only perpetuate the violence, and everyone loses.

[reformist2]

Hillary and the Neocons keep falling into this trap, over and over again. The best thing we can do as Americans to advance Middle East peace is to STOP FUNDING THESE WARS, and demand that nations around the world - Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. do the same as well.

[Hortensis]

1. Pretty absolute statement. How about the first Gulf war,

when Iraq invaded Kuwait and poised to take Saudi Arabia next? Notably, we and over 100 other nations satisfied ourselves with a limited war, limited to necessary goals to stop "senseless" war and violence and put Saddam Hussein in a box so he couldn't do it again.

[reformist2]

2. The first gulf war was a mistake as well, but nobody cares because we won so quickly.

[Hortensis]

3. Oh.

[politicman]

6. our mistake was not the war, our mistake was using the war to further our own goals

The reason that the first gulf war was successful was precisely because nearly all of the Muslims in the region agreed that Saddam was in the wrong for invading Kuwait and thus needed to be stopped.

Our mistake was not pushing Saddam out of Kuwait through military force, our mistake was taking advantage of this war to punish Iraq but destroying their country and then to make matters 1000 times worse by installing sanctions and refusing to lift them for a decade.

We could have been viewed as a noble force in the world by pushing Saddam out of Kuwait, but instead we gave even more reason to hate us by using that war as a way to strengthen ur presence in the mid-east region.

[Hortensis]

7. Yes. Though, frankly, people prone to hate manufacture excuses

as needed, they don't need help from anyone. Others did not hate us, even if they did recognize the planet's interest lay in continued flow of oil and had very little to do with them. Sensible people, and there are as many in the Middle East as anywhere else, recognize their own faults when they are reflected in the in the decisions of the rest of humanity.

[politicman]

8. ..............

Yeah there are some people who are prone to hate and will manufacture excuses, but when a country like the U.S uses the excuse of removing Saddam from Kuwait to further its own goals, then ordinary people who don't want to hate end up hating what they see as an injustice.

Take the sanctions on Iraq for example, for a decade America insisted that the sanctions remain in place even though the people suffering from these sanctions were ordinary Iraqis and most especially Iraqi babies.

Over 500,000 Iraqi children died during the sanction regime as a result of the sanctions, all because it was in America's interest to keep Iraqi oil from being sold in Euros instead of dollars.

So you see, actions like this from the U.S make people in the region end up hating the western world for legitimate reasons.

[politicman]

4. But it doesnt stop there.

The biggest single blow we can inflict on ISIS and other extremist groups is to take away the biggest weapon that we provide them with, our hypocritical foreign policies.

Take that away and you immediately put ISIS and other groups on the defensive by giving the rest of the Muslim population in the region and the world the ability to combat ISIS without looking like they have sold out their religion on behalf of the western world.

[Hortensis]

9. I agree, we need to back out as much as possible

for especially just that reason. Also, to simplify things for those who hate us so they can concentrate on one enemy, ISIS.

Also for our own sake, because we can't fix the many disasters brewing over there, only perhaps help here and there, and pretending that we can will only set us up for more failure and more self blame.

[upaloopa]

5. I wish the world and life were so simple

everyone on a discussion board could encapsulate all it's complexity in a one sentence post.