re: Our military just took down a Taliban leader

The Taliban? meh.......just meh

no money.........no advancement

it's that simple.

You're damned if you do damned if you don't with radical islam. You kill them, and they just replace. But if you leave them alone, they just conquer and kill and spread--get more money and get more bold to attack us on our own land.

The best strategy we ever had was putting into power and funding westernized dictators like Sadam Hussein, Gadddafi, the dude in Syria now, etc. Sure it's not democracy and sure they are brutal dictators...but they keep the terrorists under their thumbs because it benefits them to do it. All this Arab Spring crap Obama promoted just leads to chaos in the region...look at Libya, Egypt and Syria. Put iron-fisted, military dictators in power in these countries and fund them. They will do the dirty work for us. In retrospect, taking out Sadam, Gadaffi, etc has been a huge tactical error. You fund those guys and make them your puppets.

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Actually its doing this that makes terrorists want to attack the USA.

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Well, that ship has sailed, hasn't it. Honestly, they don't need reason to act crazy. If it isn't targeting us, they will target one of our allies. Remove those dictators and see what you get. Even Turkey is constantly sweating the crazies. Its not just about dictators keeping them off our back, it is them keeping them from killing each other and the innocent minority groups in their region.

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Saudi is an interesting point, but you'd have to also point out that they do what we tell them most of the time. 9/11 was the exception, not the rule...and their involvement is still a bit cloudy.

That said, there are tons of other examples of westernized dictators working well to squash islamic terrorism for decades and decades. I lived and worked in Indonesia for several years, and it's well known history there that their military leader who ruled for something like 30 years squashed islamic terrorism ruthlessly because he was about the money and that would hurt tourism, etc. Since he left office and they've gone to a democratic system, islamic terrorism has skyrocketed because they don't have a military dictator ruthlessly snuffing them out anymore. It's sad, but I really believe some societies are not ready for democracy and need an authoritarian leader.

Saddam sure as hell would't have let ISIS take over that country the way they have. He would have killed them and their families relentlessly as he did withe the Kurds. Again it's a damned if you do or don't deal, but the lesser of two evils is having a puppet in place to do the heavy lifting for you. Otherwise you end up with these countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria that are bastions of radical islam now. Heck, in Egypt the military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood thug that was elected by the people because he was driving their country into the ground. The idea that the rest of the world is like the USA or Europe and can be run in the same way is very naive.

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WTF did I just read?

Our country has never placed a person into power in another country without it coming back to bite us in the arse.

We took the Shahs out of power in Iran and put the Ayatollahs in their place.

We put Saddam in power in Iraq. If you think the Kurds were terrorists you are a fricking retard. Ever heard of the word genogcide. That is what the Islamic based government run by Saddam was trying to do to the Kurds, who are Christians. All they were doing is fighting back.

The CIA trained the Mujahideen, which literally means one who is engaged in Jihad, that became the Taliban to fight against the Russians.

We put the stupid motherfricker in charge on Egypt that was ousted by the Egyptians before the Islamic Brotherhood took over.

The Saudis' involvement in 9/11 is not cloudy one fricking bit. Why do you think the documents have ever been released? It is because they prove the Saudis' involvement. If you truly believe the Saudis do what we tell them to do you are one naive fricker. We need their oil too much to tell them what to do and will let them get away with anything.

Along the same lines as Saudi Arabia:

One of our other so-called allies that we won't do shite to because they have nukes, that not only is the base of operations for almost all Taliban activity in Afghanistan but were harboring Bin Laden, is Pakistan. I bet you think they do what we want them to also....LOL

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Our country has never placed a person into power in another country without it coming back to bite us in the arse.

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Actually most of the people we have supported in these dictatorships, we didn't technically place in power. We just supported them so they'd scratch our back in return. Do you really think things are more stable now in the cluster we call the Middle East than they were a couple of decades ago when we had puppets like Sadam and Gaddafi in place? Guess what? There was no ISIS under their watch. Attacks on the West were far more infrequent than now. It's when we allowed these guys to get toppled, or did it ourselves that we've seen this crap spiral out of control like it is now. These places need dictators...without them you end up with a vacuum of power that ends up filled by the radical elements of Islamic terrorism. Look at Somalia for another of many examples.

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We put Saddam in power in Iraq. If you think the Kurds were terrorists you are a fricking retard. Ever heard of the word genogcide. That is what the Islamic based government run by Saddam was trying to do to the Kurds, who are Christians. All they were doing is fighting back.

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Who said the Kurds were terrorists? I love those guys and hope they get their own country soon. Those guys have more guts than most people groups/nations and they have it in spades. You clearly don't know what you're talking about though. Kurds are not Christians. They have their own belief system that is a mish-mash of beliefs, but most closely align with Islam. Most Kurds self-identify as Muslims. In fact 98% of Kurds in Iraq identify as Sunni Muslims.

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The CIA trained the Mujahideen, which literally means one who is engaged in Jihad, that became the Taliban to fight against the Russians.

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At the time the Soviet Union was much more of a threat to our nation. Made sense at the time to train the Taliban...and frankly it worked. They whipped the Russians and made them leave. The problem I hope we are learning is that arming and training radical islamists is always a bad idea. There are no "good guys" in that arena.

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One of our other so-called allies that we won't do shite to because they have nukes, that not only is the base of operations for almost all Taliban activity in Afghanistan but were harboring Bin Laden, is Pakistan. I bet you think they do what we want them to also....LOL

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Pakistan and the Saudis are clearly our most contentious "allies". I'd never dispute that. But if you don't think both of those nations kiss our butts when we want them to in order to get the billions of dollars, military equipment, etc that we provide them you are naive beyond words. Pakistan has very advanced radars, military equipment and air force. You really don't think they knew we came in to get Bin Laden? Of course they did...they have to fake outrage everytime we do something like that to keep the radicals happy. They are very much complicit in our operations over there as is Saudi Arabia. It's complicated, but I promise you it isn't a one way street...they may get theirs, but our government sure as heck gets theirs too.

The bottom line is the Middle East is more unstable now than it's been in our lifetime. That's not even debatable. And this is happening as the military dictatorships are failing and "democracy" is winning--ie Arab Springs. You can pretend like democracy works well everywhere, but the results simply don't support that hypothesis. Quite the opposite actually.

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Kill one, three more pop up. Being a martyr is a huge recruiting tool for them.

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Exactly, but you pull out from the region and you end up with Somalia, Libya, Syria, etc. Places that breed terrorism and embolden attacks in our cities and neighborhoods. So what's the solution? Let the radicals take over the Middle East and wipe out all minorities so they can attack us from a vast kingdom?

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Your circular logic doesnt add up no matter how many times you spin the merry-go-round. Trying to argue that we need to interfere with Middle Eastern politics and support puppet governments making America the face of evil and repression in order to stop terrorism is an amazing act of mental gymnastics that more simply put, is mental retardation. This is only bolstered by the fact that the terrorism actually came from one of the US biggest allies in the region Saudi Arabia.

Then you add on to the fact that we purposely destabilized the region full well knowing this would be the outcome. But sure dont let facts keep you from spinning that no matter what the US does, its good.

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It's not circular at all. It's very simply a hypothesis that is supported by the facts. Would you argue that the Middle East is more or less stable now than it was under said dictatorships that were supported by Western countries, including the US? Answer that question honestly...which you have refused to do to this point. If there is any circular argument here, it would be yours. In fact, you really have just disputed that my hypothesis is incorrect without actually presenting a viable opinion/option of your own. So how should we deal with the ME given the fact that things are indisputably WORSE now than they were under the dictatorships? Answer that question, or don't bother responding by taking up space in this thread that adds nothing substantive to the discussion.

I agree that we destabilized the region, the question is to what end? There are multiple theories out there as to why we did it. Oil, money, the war-machine, wall street, moving toward a more globalized government system, etc. Again, lots of theories. But what isn't theory is that these places operate in a more orderly fashion and are generally safer for the rest of the world under a military dictator that has incentives to keep the West happy. And that's coming from someone who has actually lived on that side of the world and has family members still living over there that have witnessed the shift from the 1970's until now. Places that used to be safe, fun places to live are now too dangerous to even visit. Those again, are facts and there is nothing circular at all about these facts. I'll look forward to your hypothesis and solution as to what works better in the ME than the dictators who kept things relatively calm there for decades.

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America's meddling in the Middle East has never produced stability. It has only produced conflict.

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Your argument is flawed. You basically state that our involvement results in problems so we should not be involved. It is impossible to prove you are wrong because it is impossible to know if not being involved would result in more problems.

There are many regions of the world that are fricked up without any US involvement. Also, you ignore that there are other nations that are also manipulating politics in the region. Do we sit back while Russia, China, and Iran manipulate the region for their own purposes?

I am no defender of the Israelis but their flaws are no to blame for all the regions issues. You are merely buying into the narrative spewed by the denizens of the Middle East and their left wing apologists in the west. Are they responsible for the dictatorship in Egypt? Are they the cause of the Syrian civil war? They had nothing to do with the sectarian warfare in Iraq. Do they force the Yemenis to embrace radical ideologies? Do they force the Iranians to cower before a group of religions assclowns and their thug enforcers? Did they cause the Taliban to attempt its takeover of Afghanistan?

You are focused on sins of the past that nobody can undo and you choose to ignore the regional pastime of killing each other for millenia. Not saying we are always right in what we do, but I have seen what certain members of that society do if not held in check and have no desire to see it happen on a larger scale.