Any Iraq war vets here? Do you think it was worth it?

>>33938207
no

but we could have made it worth it

>>33938207
Fuck those dumb sand niggers, they deserved saddam. We should have never invaded.

>>33938207
Not really. My unit fought against Shiites, the same group receives alot of support in Iraq currently. My life has been pretty hell since I got out too, yah yah I know I signed the contract. It is what it is

>>33938251
maybe if you were a tranny with daddy issues and an obsession with killing unborn children you'd get more out of life.

>>33938225
This

Didn't serve in Iraq but I feel bad for the soldiers that put thier lives on the line just to turn a shothole into an even bigger shithole. They deserved a better mission, like one with well thought out and achievable end goals.

>>33938251
Which MOS did you have?

>>33938207
man this picture makes me want to go Y DAMN LOL

>>33938288
11b
>>33938286
To be fair it was pretty calm when the US started to withdraw the bulk of it's occupational force. Alot of the issues arose after we left when the Government started to persecute the Sunni regions that worked with us towards the end of the war

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>>33938267
I'm so hairy desu I'd make a horrible post op or trap

Have you looked at Iraq lately

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>>33938207
i'm not oif but i did go to iraq while in the army on an expeditionary deployment. i was in taji 15-16 basically being a fobbit with the rest of my unit as we pulled security on the airfield. one of my nco's said it was his 3rd time deploying specifically to taji. another one of my nco's said he was part of the last convoy out of iraq in 2011. and yet there we were 6 years later in the same shit hole fobs in the same shithole country.

they overthrew parliament while i was there. we asked the terps about it when it happened. they didn't give a shit. no one gave a shit. the only people that give a shit were the ones that were career and needed another bronze star for sitting on their ass.

the whole time i was there, we were giving the iraqis all kinds of equipment; mraps, up armored humvees, russian and nato ammo, and explosives. all kinds of shit to go fight isil. all the while we had contractors with uavs flying and lasing targets to drop gbus. we weren't helping, we were putting out fire with gasoline.

was the iraq war worth it? idk, i think it's too fucking early to tell. let them at least stand on their feet before we can judge it. but there's too many people walking around with black bracelets that say oif. pic related.

>>33938207
I was there in 05. ROE were garbage. The country itself is garbage and why were there so many pigeons?

>>33939234
>let them at least stand on their feet
the issue is they never will, sectarian and ethnic conflict is endemic to those peoples when they don't have a hardline authoritarian ruling over them. When one authoritarian leaves, another will try and fill the vacuum. The ME has always been that way.

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>>33938207
Yes.
Unsure. I had a job to do and i did it.

I went into Iraq hating Saddam, having a general dislike for all mussies,

I came out believing Saddam was the saviour of the middle, and now i hate Sunnis. Shia's are alright though.

I wish i could say that is a joke. But its not.
He protected religious minorities, including christians.
He raised the standard of living for iraqis.
And he would have crushed ISIS into dust.

So what he gassed a few villages? They kept the rest of them in line as an example.

Sometimes it takes an evil to defeat a far worse evil.

T. Bong, Served in 04'

>>33939836
>So what he gassed a few villages?
There is no proof of that.
They are still searching for the aluminum tubes required to make nuclear bomb,the yellow cake is still in the oven.
Will you guys ever stop being so naive and realize that is just a job,you are killing for the guy that is paying you.

>Retard Assmad bombs chemical factory
>Not realizing that chlorine gas is kept in huge silos as a byproduct/waste
>cloud of gas poisons near vicinity
>followed by 2 weeks of non stop new of how the used chemical weapons by CNN,BBC ect.
>even pentagon is feeding conformation of chemical attack
>month after
>on record that chemical weapons were not use t.Pentagon
Just stop

>>33938207
>Y U NO GO TO DAMNLOL.COM HAHA LE MEMES

>>33939932
>There is no proof of that
Exactly my point.

> Will you guys ever stop being so naive and realize that is just a job,you are killing for the guy that is paying you.
My job wasn't to kill, my job was to protect my boys and make sure they all made it back. If you have to kill to protect your brothers, you do it.

Never said anything about assad. Long may he reign.

>>33938239
I guess it served him right for invading a sovereign nation under a false pretense.

Do not delude yourselves... had the US stayed in Afghanistan and contained the Taliban and Al Queda, and not invaded Iraq based on a lie, the country would not have gone to shit. The Iraq resistance would not have birthed ISIS and we would not have as big a problem as we have today, in Iraq, Syria, and it's influence in other countries.

So cry about your died little storm troopers and thank them for their "service", but please God, whatever you do, never questions their actions.

You fucking idiots.

>>33938627
1st mistake was dissolving the Iraqi military post-invasion

2nd mistake was Obama pulling out too early

>>33938251
>My life has been pretty hell since I got out too

What's Hell about your life tough guy? You got the PTSD, you attention seeking crybaby? Are you getting Gov Welfare VA benefits?

>>33939699
Here's an idea, why shouldn't a Democratic nation INVADE them and force them to install a Democratic Gov?

Good Idea huh? I like how soldier now like to pontificate the merits of their actions from their armchairs

>>33940074
>Here's an idea, why shouldn't a Democratic nation INVADE them and force them to install a Democratic Gov?
wait are you unironically trying to violently install the democratic process from the outside on a people who have never built up the numerous social, cultural and political prerequisites to even consider such an idea. Democracy is a uniquely Western idea and even then it's been often rejected by those who invented it. You need centuries of build up of social trust and capital before you can entertain ideas of democracy, where everybody in a semi-united community votes in good faith. But most ME countries are hotbeds of ancient sectarian and racial conflicts kept subdued by whatever ruling tribe was in power at that time.

>>33940017
>>33940017
>I guess it served him right for invading a sovereign nation under a false pretense.

But kuwait fucked the oil production of iraq by producing more oil and stockpiling driving down iraqs oil price and effectively crushing their economy


>>33940030
T. Never served in the forces / was a REMF.
I've known people who went in being smiley and coming out mute and emotionless.

>>33940017
>had the US stayed in Afghanistan and contained the Taliban and Al Queda
t. historical illiteratus
name one country in the entire combined history of Afghanistan who "got a hold of it". It's known as the graveyard of empires for a reason. Greeks, Indians, Muslims, British, Soviets and now the USA all coincidentally saw the height of their power wane and eventually disappear after trying to "tame" that mountainous shithole. They don't call it the graveyard of empires for nothing.

>>33938207

No. Not even close. I've done 13 years total now and I don't think it was even close. When I started learning about the history of the region, and just how awful a job we did in that country I think it'll be one of the biggest black eyes on our countries history.

>>33940030
i seriously hope you get jumped by niggers, robbed and shot, i have mixed feelings about modern conflicts but you have too much of a scumbag to talk shit of veterans like that, like that fat cunt in one punch man after saitama beats the deep sea king.

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>>33938207
generally speaking no

but on a smaller scale I had lots of personal little victories that made it worth it. Helping the Iraqi police (that were total fuck ups) form counter terrorism task force, meeting locals that actually liked us and genuinely hated the taliban and al quaeda, finding and killing some of them after they did shit like murdering kids or burning womens faces off
granted for everyone one of those times there was another where we were hated and spit on. Im glad I got to go on the adventure when I did, I never served in Afghanistan but heard it was somehow even more of a cluster fuck. We were so naive back then, looking back on it now thinking it was as simple as "the radical terrorists are ruling over everyone and they need liberation" is almost comical. The sides over there are ever changing its like pissing against the tide. Im happy I got to go, not happy about what I saw and probably wouldn't do it again

>>33940236
>defends veterans of war
>uses anime as a comparison
/k/ really is a magical place isn't it?

>>33940265
> Iraq
>Taliban
> Al quaeda
> I never served in Afghanistan
Fuckoff mate.

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>>33938267

Of course it was worth it.

>>33940318
no you

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I genuinely think the arab spring was worth it. that whole part of the world has been a powder keg for hundreds of years and its time they went all out

I dont think the iraq war was worth it, but I do think its effects were

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>>33940659
>I genuinely think the arab spring was worth it
then youre stupid
>I dont think the iraq war was worth it, but I do think its effects were
really stupid

>>33938207
>months later
Fuck. Dude didn't last too long. Shit sucks.

Steve looks like a bit of a bitch

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It was worth it for some.

>>33940025
>Obama pulling out too early
Wasn't his dilemma, the government of Iraq didn't want us to leave behind any kind of contingency force.
>>33940030
Just posting my experiences. Don't need attention posting as anon on image board. I'm sure you're a real hard motherfucker in real life as well

>>33940123

This.

Only white people are capable of properly using democracy.

>>33938225
How? Iraq was a shit show that would've required major US presence indefinitely.

Strategically the whole thing made absolutely no sense unless the idea was to throw the whole middle-east into chaos because that's the only thing that would sense but you've could've done that just bombing Saddam to rubble from air. No need for boots on the ground.

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>>33938207
>watermark

>>33941562
>boots on the ground
please dear kek can we never use this fucking saying again.

>>33941664
Well anon once you get BOG....LOL it does sound corny me and one of my buddies used to have an ongoing joke making fun of weird POG NCOs who would say BOG or Boots On the Ground alot

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Just waiting to go back man

>>33942384
Where's that picture at?

>>33942403
Camp Liberty

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>>33938207
>tfw you will never get to invade a country in a M1 Abrams

>>33942447
Ok. I've been to like liberty a good bit, I recognize that unit name. I lived on a COP off of Irish.

>>33939932
I hope you realize that the guy in the picture is Saddam Hussein and that no one here is talking about Syria or Bashar Al Assad.

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>>33942541
yea I was on JSS Washash for a good few months on and off.

14 months of bullshit but I had fun

>>33938207
Define worth it. tactically? Sure. Strategically? Nah. Regret is for people who think democracies can into competent plans. I didn't delude myself into 'free muh hadjis' like sume dudes. I had some fun times, some sucky times, and killed some dudes who clearly had it coming. Then I got out and went to uni and am living happily now as a civvy.

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>>33940030

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>>33938207

>Fighting purely Jewish wars

Haha, man it must suck having sacrificed anything for such a shitty (((war))).

>>33938225
This. We kinda helped them, but not really. They benefitted due to our presence.

But then again that wasn't my job. I was sent there to kill "insurgents".

>>33938207
Not really so personally vain as to think that my deployments really changed much.

Ask your politicians and voters, they sent us there and kept sending us there, they thought it mattered.

Pretty much half the world warned Bush that if he invaded Iraq it was going to be a total shitshow, and he ignored everyone and sure enough it was.

Saddam was a bad guy but he was also the only thing holding that country together and the only thing keeping islamic extremists suppressed.

>>33940017

this

all soldiers who willfully participate in an unjustifiable war of aggression deserve death

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If we didnt go to war no one would know what "Molon labe" means

Plus that song let the bodies hit the floor would have never been a hit!

>>33946013
>all soldiers who willfully participate in an unjustifiable war of aggression deserve death
Holy fedora flipping edge. You lose your way from the /b/ rekt thread little guy?

>>33946044
Plus Rip Its

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>>33945986
In fairness to Bush (if I absolutely have to be), the half the world that warned him were getting sweet sweet deals with Iraq, that would only get sweeter once the UN sanctions got lifted. A good example is Power Corp in Canada, connected to PM Chretien and their deals with Total.

As for Iraq, it was bound to blow up one way or another eventually. The war just sped up the process. The problem with Iraq, and the middle east in general, is that populations are rising far faster than economic growth can accommodate them. Essentially, the average person is getting poorer, even though in absolute terms GDP is rising.

I don't see an easy solution to this, and it will be a threat to all the Middle Eastern nations for the near to mid term.

>>33947299

militarist cucks are so easy to trigger

>>33950132
>it was bound to blow up one way or another eventually
>hey guys, let's go in there and blow up the region ourselves and in such a way where their rage would be re-directed towards us, and with no local leadership to contain said rage

brilliant

what's worse, being a ideologue who advocated the deaths of millions to satiate a delusional and plainly impossible worldview, or making a buck with a tyrant who at least managed to keep shit somewhat under control

>>33940074
That's what the Soviet Union tried

>>33940154
>proving yourself to be the true illiterate of history by falling for a fucking meme about Afghanistan
The whole thing about Afghanistan always being a shithole of a country that noone could control is complete bull. The area's extreme level of tribalism has been a problem certainly, but has neither been one that always existed, nor one that was insurmountable.


The land as we know it today was created around the late 1200's by the horde of Genghis Khan (guess what happened?). Prior to that it was a part of a muslim empire of turks who were pretending to be persians, and was as settled, prosperous, and cultured as any other part of the nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarazmian_dynasty

Then the Shah made the mistake epically pissing off the Great Khan, who sent an army to destroy his country. And that's not a figure of speech, their orders were basically just to burn the fucking place to the ground, kill everyone in it, and specifically hunt down and kill the Shah. They essentially succeeded in 2 out of 3, since the Shah fled over the Caspian sea and it's hard for horses to swim across that much water.

Anywway, to get back onto topic, the area now known as Afghanistan suffered such catatrophic damage at Mongol hands, that it essentially was never able to recover, right up until today.

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>>33950132
Marxist reductionism. Most Muslim countries are full of inbred clit-cutting throat-slitting religious fascists. The remainder are merely semi-normal and will watch as the occasional madman slits your throat instead of pitching in and helping.

>>33951855
How the fuck did the Shah accomplish that? Was he retarded?

>>33938207
07-08.

No, it was all for nothing.

>>33951894
>Phil can't click links or read facts
Not surprised, but whatever, I'll answer for you...

Genghis Khan (or maybe all mongols, but whatever) had a hard-on for being nice to diplomats and other emissaries, taking the saying "don't shoot the messenger" to heart. But I'm getting ahead of myself with this detail.

The Mongols by this point were a full fledged nation, rough around the edges but recognized by neighbors near and far both for their might and growing sophistication. While the Khan was heavily engaged with conquering all of China in the East, over in the West he was looking for more peaceful relations with his neighbors (presumably). With ambassadors and trade envoys travelling along the 'silk road', making contact with the empires they found and establishing diplomatic and commercial relations with them.

Well unfortunately it turned out that one of the governors on the border grew suspicious, and started to think that the Mongol trade caravans coming into their country were full of spies (and they probably were). And being a greedy fuck he decided the best way to handle this was to slaughter them and take their stuff. After a while of this, Genghis Khan tried to be a nice guy about things (you read that right) and sent a huge diplomatic party to the Shah to tell him that this shit needs to stop or they can't be friends anymore. The Khan even gathered together a bunch of his muslim subjects specifically for the task, figuring that everyone would get alone better if they prayed to the same god.

Things didn't go very well, and while the specific details of what happened vary, but the Shah thought it would be a good idea to reply by beheading the Ambassador (ie: Genghis Khan's messenger), and light everyone else's beard on fire, before sending them home.

>>33951968

I'm obviously not Phil but I liked your telling of the story

>>33945986
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY
People knew way in advance that invading Iraq again would be a disaster

>>33951968
Jesus H. Christ. Muds gonna slime, I guess.

>>33952021
The /k/liffs notes version is usually better than Wikipedia.

>>33940123
>Democracy is a uniquely Western idea
you're so silly

>>33941123
>he supports quiet submission instead of chaos

>>33938207

Yes.
No.

>33951885
almost everyone is like that, it's called the bystander effect
and also the weight of cultural influence
and also the knowledge that any sort of revolt over there is bloody and temporary, even if you oust the throat-cutters for good, different ones will oust you in at most a few decades

>>33951885
>Turks are the least fucked up of the bunch
interesting

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>>33952074
If anybody came up with demos kratia anywhere else in the human record, I'd like to hear about it.

>>33952575
https://www.jstor.org/stable/542482?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

>>33952246
>>33940659
>he supports the kikes
good job faggot

>>33952635
since when does /k/ not want there to be war?

>>33952648
There are a great many kike suckers on /k/ who think that America's wars and government are somehow respectable and worth supporting. Those people are thoroughly brainwashed, but if you want to consider that "/k/" as a whole, then sure, /k/ does like war.

>>33952648

hard to believe, but not everyone on here is a violence-obsessed underage pizza face.

>>33950714
You're a faggot.

>>33938207
Not iraq, but Afghanistan. Holy god is the ANA a shit show. We'd have to stop in the middle of the mission so they could have fucking lunch. Ghans were showing up for missions high as giraffe pussy. We'd give them fuel for their vics, and they'd sell it. Then get butthurt when we wouldn't give them more. What a waste of fucking time. We once had to stop two different ALP checkpoints from killing each other because one checkpoint kidnapped the other's chai boy. Literally too stupid to govern themselves.

>>33944018
>They benefitted due to our presence.
that's a load of fucking shit. It's like saying "oh I cut off your arm, but here, let me give you this bandaid"

>>33951885
>Marxist reductionism.
don't use words too big for you to handle, fag.

GTFO.

>>33952866
The entire country of Afghanistan should browse /b/. They'd fit right in.

>>33952575
jesus you're really fucking stupid.

>>33952575
There are oblique references in Roman accounts to republics existing in India, Carthage was also described as being a republic, with an elected senate.

You're completely right, your points are right, but my autism needed to point that out.

>>33952897
What you're saying is horse shit. Watch men die. Watch little girls die, Iraqi girls then you come up to means say bullshit.

Face to face. I remember everything.

>>33938207
Iraq war brought the dumb ass jihadis out to fight US Troops in shit muslim country.
If we hadn't done it there, the dumb ass jihadis would have been killing US civilians in this country.
It was worth every drop of akmed blood

No one on /k/ was part of the "bigger picture" and were just fucking grunts. Baby Bush wanted to make his daddy proud by finishing the job the bigger man couldn't finish so he wasted thousands of american lives and tens of thousands more Iraqi lives just to kill one man and completely fuck up a nation that really had nothing to do with 9/11.

Every resource allocated to the military should've been solely invested into Afghanistan, the killing/capture of Osama and the complete elimination of Al Qaeda, its affiliates and anyone important showing support for either and afterwards sending everyone the fuck home good job you dun good.

Iraq was a sham and now hundreds of thousands are suffering for it. I wonder how the Marines that lived through Fallujah felt when it fell to fucking ISIS.

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>>33953080
>some poor bastard is going to live through all 3 invasions of Mosul

>>33952784
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>33938225
>but we could have made it worth it
How?

>>33944018
>the Baathists have to go
>wait, we fired all the policemen, military commanders, etc
>now they're pissed off more than they already were after being invaded
>surely they wouldn't start bombing us or anything

>>33951885
>Egypt
>the country that brought in El-Sisi after getting irritated with the Muslim Brotherhood

Curious about whom they polled desu

>>33952648
Because acquainting oneself with the realities of hard power often means coming face to face with the consequences and limitations of hard power

>>33952982
they wont be able to anon, their life never extended past shitposting on 4chan. They can only regurgitate what they see on the media because that is their only window.

Here is whats up to the "Civilized world" Yes. Iraq has cities, and yes, for the most part urban iraq is like your urban life, with the addition of being murdered for thinking wrong and speaking wrong from time to time, otherwise people are sheep and life goes on.

However once you get past the urban areas into the towns, villages, and tribal territory its a whole new world of shit. Let me tell you all a little story about afghanistan that translates to here. The US govt' pays out reparations to families who we hurt more often than not. The Afghani tribal fucks view children and women as currency, they are expendable. Never forget that. They do not think like us, they do not have the same concepts we do, which includes ideas of "debt, honor, etc." its mostly "I want mine and I am going to use you to get it." their entire community is like that out in the fucking bum fuck of no where.

So on the reg we have people coming to our hospital with kids who hands were held in burning oil to the point of needing finger/ hand amputation so the family can get 50-500 USD. There. That is who you are crying over.

Our concept of what is "humane, right and just" is simply a learned behavior and indoctrination. Same as theirs, and by the time they are old enough to hold a gun its too late for them. Muslim culture does not fucking mix with the west, because if they arent abusing each other, they unite to abuse someone else.

Fuck. Made me burn my dinner. #RAGEBURGERS

>>33953339
>shit afghans do to each other
>muslim culture
The population of Afghanistan is 2 billion now, huh?

>>33953339

implying those kids would have lost their hands if you weren't there

>Our concept of what is "humane, right and just" is simply a learned behavior and indoctrination
>i am too stupid to figure out my own moral compass so everyone else must be that stupid too

topkek

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>>33953408
I see that the shills are in full damage control right now. You know damn well how to abstract, and you know damn well that Afghanistan AND Iraq are muslim. You know what I mean, dont play your fucking little mental and verbal gymnastics in a text based medium of communication. People can go back and review, you look like a fucking tool. Probably are one.
>>33953465
So the same mentality for "If i dont go into the wrong neighborhood violence will never occur"? Will you offer that same rational for the immigrants of the world anon? I never defended my actions, I also dont need to. Not to you. I did offer insight into the world that exists there. You just rushed off to be ricky rescue, and try to create argument. Now you too, look like a fuck.

For both of you, feel free to contribute. Its an anonymous board, but I am walking away, feeling fine. My post wasn't for you. It was specially for the guy I responded to, any extra effort expended or butt-hurt generated by you is simply an added benefit.

Have a sandwich.

>>33953539
>I see that the shills are in full damage control right now
It's shilling to point out that shit that afghans or iraqis do isn't universal to all muslims?

I did know what you mean, but obviously you don't, since you can't see the difference between some crazy cultural shit, and crazy religious shit. The distinctions are often subtle, but they are separate things.

>>33941406
Democracy is not a magic system that solves everything.
Just a few western countries can use democracy effectively.
ME and Southamerican countries need a country with strong lidership, democracies actually fuck things up.
Africa cannot be an modern region, even with non democratic governments.
This is the reality.

>>33953579
>Africa cannot be an modern region, even with non democratic governments.
Ethiopia and Kenya, my dude

>>33953539
>So the same mentality for "If i dont go into the wrong neighborhood violence will never occur"?
the levels of death and violence undoubtedly increased with foreign military presence. nor did your presence improve matters in any way whatsoever.

>I also dont need to. Not to you.
implying you could

>Now you too, look like a fuck.
oh the irony

>>33953539
>butthurt
>feeling fine
>Have a sandwich

gotta chime in that the pseduo-intellectualism and snarkiness is a sure sign of a weak foundation

>>33953339
My buddy in Afghanistan said they boiled kids feet as punishment.

In Iraq it was different. She stepped on an IED and I watched her bleed to death. CO said Docs couldn't help because it means we would provide medical for entire village.

>>33953339
>So on the reg
>>33953638
>boiled kids feet as punishment

is there any proof whatsoever that this is a regular occurrence, or is it just the usual horseshit bandied about by teenage idiots, encouraged by the pentagon shrinks

i am betting on the latter

>ITT a bunch of autists who never went to Iraq

This is going to sound super edgy but hear me out.

There is no such thing as "human rights." That concept is a fallacy and has been used to justify pretty much every war in the last several centuries after its conception and evolution.

That said, whatever views you have about how Afghans or Iraqis treat their people, women, or children are totally irrelevant. It's not your place to impose your worldview on them. I hear so many of you complaining about shariah law, and you can't see the thickness of that irony.

>I'm going to invade you, kill you, and destroy your country because you don't think like me

The consequences of these actions are extremely visible and have a huge impact on the whole world - the state of the Middle East today is deplorable. However you may feel about Islam, it is invariably a religion entirely dependent upon domination and submission, NOT equality. They NEED strongmen dictators for stability. They are simply unable to deal with the western style of wheeling and dealing, political nuance, etc.

We should NOT BE THERE.

>>33953677
It's a fucking truth. Ask a corpsman. They boiled there kids feet and came to the FOB asking for medical treatment. I shit you not Anon.

>>33953607

http://ethiomereja.com/index/the-10-poorest-countries-of-the-world-ethiopia-10th-place/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Kenya

The best of the worst doesn`t mean they are good.

>>33953706
That's fair to say.

I think people are more or less against the lefts being feminist yet still being pro-Islam though.

In general that entire area just needs to be nuked and to start over again though. Arabs are so backwards thinking and will never flourish under current circumstances with dictators and terrorist groups everywhere. Everyone is indoctrinated into something there and there's no way to fix it without starting brand new.

>>33953714

So it really is just anecdotes and hearsay? I am not saying it never happened, but to claim it was a regular occurrence and accepted norm and present this level of "proof" is absolutely ludicrous.

Or maybe this bullshit is just the natural result of a war where the US military, in their counter-insurgency ignorance, used tactics which resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties. The coping mechanism for guilt would be the dehumanize and blame the victims.

I have yet to hear a single moral argument for the wars in the middle east. All evidence suggesting WMDs was proven false (not that it was justification for invasion). There was no strategic value for the wars (to the US). You can't name a single US citizen that benefited in any way to the wars, so you can't even call it a war for oil.

>>33953706
>That concept is a fallacy and has been used to justify pretty much every war in the last several centuries after its conception and evolution.

Which war has been fought with "human rights" as the stated casus belli before 1990?

>>33953815
It has been used as a propaganda tool to ensure public support for almost every war (fought by the US since we are discussing that) for the last 200 years.

The concept of human rights is fallacious because we are animals, and any "inherent rights" are entirely an invention OF man, and can and is violated at will by the very people who are proclaimed proponents of these "rights." Abu Ghraib is a popular example of many, many such examples.

>>33953866
>The concept of human rights is fallacious because we are animals, and any "inherent rights" are entirely an invention OF man

this is an entire false understanding of the moral argument for human rights. the notion of human rights, like any other moral philosophy, is an invention of man. that much is obvious. does that mean all moral foundations are false? different moral foundations exist because they satiate human emotional needs. most of these established foundations include many of the tenets of contemporary human rights.

nihilism is nothing more than intellectual laziness. claiming that human rights are false because they can be violated by anyone who claims to adhere to human rights is hardly an argument against them.

>>33953866
>It has been used as a propaganda tool to ensure public support for almost every war (fought by the US since we are discussing that) for the last 200 years.

Not really. The precursor to modern human rights instruments was natural law and arguably the only war the US fought with some amount of genuine belief in that ideal was the Revolutionary War. Wars with Mexico and Spain were fought with an extremely cynical application of natural law.

Other wars were fought with explicit opposition to that ideal, such as the Banana wars and the Indian wars.

>>33954008
The concept of equality and inherent rights for all people is an incredibly recent assertion originating with the rise of the US following the revolution of 1776, and further propagated entirely by western governments. The idea that "all people are equal and have basic rights" is fallacious for a large number of reasons, the two largest of which are
>differences in cultural norms
>differences in subspecies evolution and genetics
The assertion of modern western philosophy and ideology over other cultures via systemic military elimination of their religious and cultural beliefs and norms BY ITSELF contradicts the very principle of "human rights"

>>33954115

Codified human rights instruments are even more recent than you claim, they only came about after WW2.

>all people are equal
That is not what is being said. In reality:
>All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

The criticism of modern human rights hegemony over other cultures is a legitimate, especially in the context of some governments bureaucrats being fanatical in their assault on anyone who disagrees with them. But that is not enough to take down the entire moral philosophy.

>>33954115
>The assertion of modern western philosophy and ideology over other cultures via systemic military elimination of their religious and cultural beliefs and norms BY ITSELF contradicts the very principle of "human rights"

Nihilism is truly intellectual laziness

>>33954171
I never argued that the moral philosophy needs to be eliminated, just that it's fallacious and exists only at the whim of those in power. It's a nice idea, but not a realistic one, and certainly has done its fair share of harm to global stability.

>>33954185
I'd be happy to discuss this topic with you, but apparently you'd rather throw around insults than bring up any counterpoints.

>>33954171
The Bill of Rights is a human rights instrument.

>>33954242
>The Bill of Rights is a human rights instrument.
Not at the time of its inception, when the term "human rights" did not exist.

>just that it's fallacious and exists only at the whim of those in power
That people in power can ignore a moral philosophy does not mean said philosophy is fallacious.

>and certainly has done its fair share of harm to global stability
I would argue that was caused by zealots who abused the idea to further their own power, or charlatans who wedge complicated situations into a false good guy/bad guy dichotomy from which a human rights "argument" can be made to sway simpletons. Nothing more than a scapegoat.

Moreover I would argue that many critics of human rights do so because their own medieval barbarity is self-evident. Observe the backlash against human rights advocates from muslims whose systems of jurisprudence lack any sort of fairness or burden of proof.

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>>33938207
HELL NO.

We should've fucking glassed the whole place in '03.

Fuck them. Fuck the men, fuck the women, fuck the kids, fuck every single one of those cameljockies.

Nuke them.

>>33954424
>this level of butthurt

>>33954384
>That people in power can ignore a moral philosophy does not mean said philosophy is fallacious.

If those in control willfully contradict and undermine with one hand the very philosophy they proffer with the other, then there is no such thing as "human rights" outside of a mental exercise.

One of the most basic principles of human rights is the assertion that all human life is sacred.

Why is all human life sacred?

>>33953778
Dude. You have been in this thread the entire time trying to adjust the narrative. Here is the fact.

Our weapons, the US weapons, they kill. They fucking kill you. You dont get your feet and hands burned. You are hamburger. Want to see our weapons and what they do?

http://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/air-strikes/talibiker-smoked-by-a-10/1507698483001

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7af_1342634355

Those are our "auto cannons", the smallest weapons that our non infantry units bring to bear. They do not cause burns. They cause death. Here, lets drink it in.

A lot of us did double duty in the field, and in the medical centers, either as Corpsmen, or as assistants who had prior civilian experience/ cut trained in EMS. The shit that was brought in, that you hear about, was outside the war. It was people being fuckers because there was a new resource to exploit. You think the tribesmen were unhappy that we were there? No they fucking loved it, it unified the tribes, and got them exploiting the foreigners in every way they could. I dont care about that. I care about the fact that they would fuck up their own kids and women just to make a buck.

you will either never be convinced, or just wont care, but let me tell you one more story anon. Its from Afghanistan, its from Bagram, and its a story about the day they ended the on base Bazaar.

>>33953539
>So the same mentality for "If i dont go into the wrong neighborhood violence will never occur"?
you were the one committing and instigating the violence nigger

>>33954904
It starts with security forces, myself, and a local merchant. He brings his boy in, and the boy is sick. Merchants often have younger protoges, or so we thought. Turns out they help, yes, but are also called dancing boys. Blacken your soul a little with that read. Anyway;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

So this kid, he starts throwing up, a lot. The guy, his friends near by in the stalls are laughing. Its kind of a joke to them, we dont get it. Our terp' explains what is going on. The kid is throwing up cum. Cum from everyone he got done servicing. This is not uncommon in the Pashtun region of Afghanistan. welp. Here is the issue with war. We were there to fight war, not enforce law. Our hands were tied, we cannot intervene when a woman is being murdered for not wanting to marry an old man. By woman I mean 11 year old, my mistake. We cant help when a boy is being fucked in the head, mouth, and ass, to grow up to continue the cycle. We have to sit, and a lot of us have to watch it through FLIR lenses, while we wait for their fucked up uncle the actual terrorist, to come out and move on to his next area so we can follow and kill. The footage gets around, legal pours over what is and isint an lawful target, we really try our best to operate within the rules.

Again, I dont care if you find it just or not. Just commenting on the ROE.

anyway; so SecFo beats the shit out of the guy, takes the kid, hours later the kid is back with the guy, likely to get fucked again soon, or killed, whatever. Incident gets political for a second until the afghanis realize they cant make money off a raped boy in the public eye, and would prefer that to be silenced.

So. Fuck you. https://vimeo.com/11352212 and fuck that. that culture is not worth saving, the kids are, but that is about it. You cant have it both ways anon. Shits real, deal with it.

>>33953706
>it is invariably a religion entirely dependent upon domination and submission
kinky
>They NEED strongmen dictators for stability.
what about Jordan?

>>33954916
you keep commenting on that, like if somehow a local riot is agitated by an external force, and a woman is raped by the rioters, its not the fault of the rioters that she is raped, its the external force? Is this your logic? It is a rhetorical question. It is your logic. You are fucked in the head, and there is likely no reasoning with you.

>>33954991
>if somehow a local riot is agitated by an external force, and a woman is raped by the rioters, its not the fault of the rioters that she is raped, its the external force? Is this your logic?
I'm not saying it's your fault, I'm just saying you don't have room to complain about it
you bombed them, and then you offered them things-- would you not try to wring every drop you could out of the people that bombed you? sure you wouldn't use your own kids to that end, but what about your pets, your car, your home? if it really is ingrained in them to not value children, can you really get mad at them over it?

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>>33953202
The ride...

NEVER ENDS!
E
V
E
R

E
N
D
S
!

>>33954428
You're goddamn right I'm butthurt.

Fuck those dirty, godless heathens.

>>33954975
it's not like we don't have that here, it's just hidden a lot better, and the authorities are actually organized and powerful so they can do something about it

>>33954424
if you burned an area that size down to glass you'd affect the climate of the whole region if not the whole Earth and you'd make any future use of that area a lot harder

>>33954904
>>33954975
Yep, just hearsay and individual anecdotes.

Fact: all US soldiers carry auto-cannons.
Fact: US weaponry cannot start fires which cause burns. They just kill. Instantly.

>adjust the narrative
>coming from someone who is making shit up to justify his behavior, then loudly pronouncing he doesn't care what other people think
topkek

>that culture is not worth saving
dat strawman

>>33954460
>the very philosophy they proffer with the other

You are missing the point. They aren't proferring human rights at all.

>Why is all human life sacred?

You mangled the phrasing again. Human right instruments state a right to life. That is different.

>>33955093
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>33955036
Dont think anyone was complaining man. Not in the sense that it would be called a complaint. I am disgusted to this day by the actions I saw. I also am irritated, that after all of the logical jumps we made, you ask if I would do that after stating its in my/ our culture, to not do such a thing. So no. I would not. They would, because it is acceptable to do so in their culture during a time where there is no bombing or invasion. There is no argument here. Just statements, but since you seem to be interested in learning, here is something else to gnaw on. There is no "Us" to them, there is no Afghanistan, there is just the tribe and their territory. Look up the US wedding bombing. We were fed bad intel by a rival tribe. The people who were bombed did not want vengeance on us, but the information of who said that a wedding was a high level terrorist meet up. The US is just another chip in play to these people. Again, I am not trying to rationalize, or seek anything from you other than to show you the whole of the situation, purely because you were talking about it. Now you know, and now im going to bed. burned burgers and all. I will say one thing you have done incorrectly, consistently applied western logic and rational to people who are not western. You really cant do much better though because you are not aware. Cant punish a guy for blah blah blah if he doesnt blah blah blah ya know?

>>33953276
Only a small educated elite and the army supported sisi. The common people are a bunch of backwards islamists hicks which is why they elected Muslim brotherhood in. The moral of the story is that third world countries should be run by an aristocracy of the top 10% smartest people because the average third worlder has too low an IQ for the country to function as a democracy.

>>33939932
>There is no proof of that.

Are you an idiot?

Al Anfal was open chemical warfare on the Kurds.

>>33953607
Ethiopia exists only due to its strategic positions. That and it was the 1st (racially) African Christian country, so it benefited from this status.

>>33942482
You can!

Offer your services to Saudi Arabia, invade Yemen in Abrams tank. Watch out for hooties.

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>>33950714

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>>33955324
>edgy, go back to /b/
>i win!

>>33938207
these iraq threads always hit me in the feels

I graduated high school in 08 and went to college because I was lazy and hedonistic and wouldn't even consider lowering myself to enlist since my dad was an officer. I don't know why, in retrospect, that I thought this way, considering I hadn't earned shit when I was 18.

I should have been there with the rest of my generation to witness it instead of fucking around on my campus drinking and chasing random tail/stupid whores who just made my life miserable anyway.

I feel like, out of selfishness, I fucked up and let people down who I should have served with. I also feel like I missed out on a major generational experience that's much more historically significant than the bullshit I "learned" in college doing a liberal arts degree.

Anyone else get these feels?

>>33955356
>i should be a welfare queen in the tail end of a lost war instead of figuring out your own way in the real non-government world

whewlad

>>33955128
Go to a nightclub.
>>>/lgbt/

>>33950132
>Iran-Iraq war 1980-88
>No real major population dip

>Soviets in afghanistan
>population tanks
Ruskies
never once

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RodrZ2we_hQ

>>33953080
>I wonder how the Marines that lived through Fallujah felt when it fell to fucking ISIS.

In college, I was friends with a guy (in school on his GI bill) who made a fairly well-known documentary about the battle for Fallujah and it's aftermath among members of his USMC platoon. He talked about this fairly often the few times we hung out after class, we bonded since he was a vet I was thinking about going to OCS after graduation and we were the two typically male guys in a small 400 level history class full of people eager to deconstruct the feminist implications of life in Ming Dynasty China.

Lost contact with the guy after last summer. Seems like he dropped off the face of the earth... no updates on his linkedin, doesn't have a facebook, never responded to an email I sent last summer... Privately he frequently talked to me about suicide and I'm genuinely worried he killed himself, but no longer have his number since I bricked my phone.

Fucking hell guys. Buddy if you're out there hit me up.

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>>33955373
>Gay rape in military underreported by Pentagon
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/3/gay-rape-military-underreported-pentagon/

>>33955128
>Fact: all US soldiers carry auto-cannons.

Source?

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>>33955421

>>33952961
Carthage is way more west than Greece, just look at the map

>>33954975
>Taliban tried to stamp out bachi bazi abuse
>US invasion and subsequent greenback based COIN "strategy" increased the abuse

US military literally enabled child rape

>>33953801
>You can't name a single US citizen that benefited in any way to the wars, so you can't even call it a war for oil.

Dick Cheney via Haliburton.

>I have yet to hear a single moral argument

Moving target, which you are intentionally setting up to fail as a strawman. Our national policies, motives, and actions don't need to satisfy whatever moral code you subscribe to. At the end of the day, it's no more right or better than the moral code of any other person on the planet.

Ascribing some altruistic meaning to your morality is self-delusional bullshit. Your beliefs aren't there to make the world a better place, they're there to make you feel better and give you a justification for what you do. Whatever it takes to get you through each day.

Just like every other human on the planet.

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>>33955540
>it's no more right or better than the moral code of any other person on the planet.

translation: i cannot defend my beliefs or actions so i simply play the nihilist card and dismiss their reasoned moral foundations

pic related: its a pictorial representation of a nihilism argument

>>33955433
Ah. My bad.

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>>33941562
>>33953233

Take the fucking oil.

>>33955575
>translation: i cannot defend my beliefs or actions so i simply play the nihilist card and dismiss their reasoned moral foundations

You missed my point by a mile. So badly, in fact, that I suspect you intentionally did it to be contrarian.

Everybody adheres to some sort of morality. They may not be able to articulate it very well, but it's there. Your 'reasoned moral foundations' is a roundabout way of saying that some thought went into the matter. I didn't dismiss anybody's morality, I simply stated that they're all equal. Nor is that nihilism.

Btw, on what grounds do you make your claim of moral superiority?

>>33952866
>chai boy
What that?

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>>33953233
A mixture of culturalcide, genocide, and US colonies would have actually changed the region. Killing a million fighters does nothing, just brew more hate from the women and children you didn't kill.

>>33955753
No one cares for Iraq oil. US gets oil from Canada and Mexico.

>>33939836
Saddam is a Sunni, the whole Ba'ath class that ruled the country that was killed or made to leave the country were Sunni

>>33957239
Saddam "was". I watched him die.

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>>33955356
I graduated high school in 03, I could have been right in the shit if I had wanted to be, but I rightly felt that it was a (((Neocon))) war and I wanted no part of that. My family that served all made me promise that I wouldn't join up, so I didn't. That said, I still sorta wish I'd gone, but if I think more clearly it's more accurate that I wish my generation had a decent war that was worth fighting. No offense to the guys that went there, but it in my Civvie estimation it seems like it was a crock of shit.

>>33957311
I graduated in 03. I joined for shits and giggles.

It's not for everyone. Just don't be a dick, which you seem ok.

>>33957239
>Ba'ath

Just another form of vermin. Like islam, commies, soviets, best kores, Nazis etc

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>>33957326
>Just don't be a dick, which you seem ok.
I don't disrespect the dudes who went over and played in the sandbox, whatever their motivations. I'm just saying that even knowing that it wasn't for me and I disagreed with it on multiple levels, part of me wishes I had gone if that makes sense? I sorta regret not going even if I know that I would probably consider having gone over there a huge mistake.

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>>33940154
Holy shit please stop getting your history from 4chan infographics or wherever the fuck you read that.

None of those "empires" "waned" as a result of conquering/invading Afghanistan. They are one of the most frequently conquered peoples in history, and the people called Afghanis rarely, if ever successfully kicked any of them out. The Persians only took over for a relatively short time before nearly their entire empire was absorbed by Alexander the Great. After his death, Afghanistan (part of Bactria then) was taken over by Seleucus, another Greek. The Greeks living there revolted and repelled the Seleucid sent to reconquer them and ruled Afghanistan for another 300 years. Not to mention the Timur or the Mongols, which ruled for hundreds of years each.

If that's not getting conquered, then I guess Germany defeated the Soviets in WW2 because the Soviets eventually left.

>>33955790

They are absolutely not equal.

If one cannot articulate their reasoning (however simple) or defend their foundation, then it is worthless. If one can defend it against criticism, then it has value and is superior by definition.
Your "roundabout way" is precisely what gives a foundation value, to answer your what grounds question.

>>33950753
>advocated the deaths of millions

Of course that is the worse option. Bush and his cabal never did that. They advocated a position that they believed would lead to less suffering in the long term for the peoples of the Middle East. Let's not descend into hyperbole.

>making a buck with a tyrant

This is still a really shit thing to do. It also will lead to that rage being directed outwards when the tyrant gets deposed and they come after all the outside forces that supported him. What, did you think it was his buddies who'd come out on top?

>>33951885
A rising standard of living shuts off a lot of extremism.

>>33958486
>If one cannot articulate their reasoning (however simple) or defend their foundation, then it is worthless.

Wrong. Regardless of how inarticulate a person may be, their moral values have worth to that person.

> If one can defend it against criticism, then it has value and is superior by definition.

Again, it only has value to the person defending those values. 'These are my values and this is why' is largely meaningless to the listener. Hence without value. Morality is derived, in part, from cultural and social memes. It's a form of survival pressure, so all members of a given society will share the bulk of their collective morality. Nonetheless, there is enough variation between individuals that no 2 people will share exactly the same morality. Each person knows that their morality is the superior one, which is why they adhere to it.

Morality can change over time (your well-reasoned foundation) as the individual learns from experience what are the best survival traits for their culture and society. To the individual, this is maintaining moral superiority. To the observer, it's a sign of moral weakness because it's in flux.

Moral superiority is purely subjective.

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>>33938207
my relative was sf from panama to fallujiah, from what he told me it was definitely not

No, it wasn't worth it for the country. It was certainly worth it for me. I've build an overwhelmingly successful life on the foundation that the Military gave me. I'm on my way to solid upper middle class territory, have zero debt from insane private schools and generally did nothing but benefit from the military. People that fuck up after the military were destined for that. It's nothing but advantageous if you've got the slightest bit of motivation when you leave.

10/10, would wage imperialistic war for my gain again.

>>33957028
Those sand niggers fuck little boys.

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>>33950714
>nothing personnel kid

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TO ALL OF OUR SOLDIERS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FIGHTING FOR ISRAEL!

TODAY OUR JEWISH BROTHERS LEAD THE CHARGE ON IMMIGRATING MUSLIMS INTO THE US AND EUROPE!

THEY ARE ALSO LEADING THE CHARGE FOR PEDOSEXUAL TOLERANCE AND GUN CONTROL!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SERVICE TO ISRAEL!!

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>>33955288
these guys?

>>33959911

Moral systems by definition codify behavior between individuals, therefore your argument that moral systems belong entirely to the individual is laughable. With the exception of hardcore autists, sociopaths and psychopaths (which make up a majority of this board, I know, but is still a definite minority in the real world), an individual's adherence to moral codes do indeed depend on the reaction and acceptance of others.

Humans are social animals; no man is an island and therefore moral foundations exist to codify group behavior. Your view of morality is irredeemably stunted.

>>33960010
>still in school
>overwhelmingly successful life

>>33957311
I was thinking about joining up when I left high school to get money for college, a good first job on my resume, and some better personal discipline, and that's when my mom told me what her dad said on the matter (who died when I was little)
he had my mom promise him she wouldn't ever let me join the military, because it was in his words "bullshit" and "not worth it", he said the brotherhood was real but everything else was fake, the government doesn't care, the officers don't care, the citizens don't care, the pay doesn't make up for anything, so on and so forth
that was a deciding factor in my decision not to join up

>>33960343
Who types this Israel shit? Honestly?

Is it a white kid meme? Or muslims? /pol/ I know you're here, answer.

>>33960010
>It's nothing but advantageous if you've got the slightest bit of motivation when you leave.

On the contrary, if you have the brains and motivation to get ahead, wasting time in the military for shitty pay is the last thing you want to do. No amount of GI bill bennies can make up for a $90k starting salary coming out of school, even if you deduct the cost of loan repayment.

This is especially true during the wars of last decade: the feds were consolidating student loan and offering interest rates under 3%. Essentially a free loan. For people with the skills to get those starting salaries, bragging about being debt-free is a joke, it is like saying taco bell offered to pay for college if I worked there for 3-5 years.

>>33938207
No, but it's whatever. I hope America learned a good lesson here. Unless you have to kill Arabs for your own interests, you shouldn't get involved. These people don't want a free and equal society, they want a society where whatever particular group they belong to shits on all the others. That was Iraq before we came and now it's Iraq after too. Unless we want to keep a high military presence there until the end of time, it's a fruitless venture helping them.

>>33961400
Pretty much this. There are faster and smarter ways to get there without selling your asshole to daddy government and risking your life.

Should've balkanized Iraq into a Shia, Sunni and Kurdish part. A monarchy or theocracy in those lands also wouldn't have hurt.

>>33961484
>Should've balkanized Iraq into a Shia, Sunni and Kurdish part.
this
people use the term as an insult but you don't see so much violence in the Balkans these days now do you?

>>33961593
>split up a country into constituent parts
>every dickhead nearby now realizes that they can become president for life if they can just get enough people to shoot at the existing government
>none of the governments are strong enough to survive on their own, and end up as proxies of larger powers
>all of the ethnicities try to ethnically cleanse each other enough to expand their slice of the pie
>anyone on the wrong side of the line loses everything

>>33961627
I mean it's not flawless, but if you draw the lines right and you allow the few who are on the wrong side to relocate beforehand, you eliminate some of those problems, and if you do "nation-building" you lessen some of the other problems

>>33961279
Morality-

"principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior."

By this definition, morality can be considered to be a personal decision.

"a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society."

This definition more closely matches the point you're trying to make, however you'll notice it also specifies personal conduct. Not social interaction, which is your point, but conduct, which occurs with or without other persons being present.

>an individual's adherence to moral codes do indeed depend on the reaction and acceptance of others.

Yet our judicial system is packed with people who didn't adhere to the socially accepted morality. Those people have different moral values which allow them to differ from the codified moral norm. The fact that we have laws and a judicial system argues against your argument that morality is a social construct.

Social mores will be a driving force behind individual morality, but not the defining factor. That comes from the individual experiences within the social environment. This is why your neighbor feels it perfectly acceptable to beat his wife, and the guy across the street considers you a troglodyte for owning guns. They developed those moral stances from their own experiences and environmental exposures.

>no man is an island and therefore moral foundations exist to codify group behavior.

No. Laws codify group behavior. Moral foundations serve to regulate individual behavior within the framework of the law. Every person you interact with every day has a different moral code than you. There's considerable overlap, since you both function within the same society, but your individual settings for right/wrong will be different on countless different things.

>>33961677
Yep, Arabs gonna Arab, but homogeneous nations tend to be safer and more peaceful. The only problem in the Balkans right now surrounds those who feel like they are still living in the wrong nation.

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>>33938207
>Any Iraq war vets here?
Served in Iraq in 2009, US Army

>Do you think it was worth it?
Absolutely not. We should have left Saddam in power.

>>33961627
A shia part could definitely fall under the sphere of Iran, but that might be a sacrifice for the better (unless some large scale war between sunnis and shiites breaks out)

>>33962078
>personal conduct
What is the value of codes of personal conduct in a sealed context of a single person? None whatsoever. Morality cannot exist in the total isolation of an individual. Context matters.

>Yet our judicial system is packed with people who didn't adhere to the socially accepted morality
Yes, and they are being punished. What is your point?

>The fact that we have laws and a judicial system argues against your argument that morality is a social construct.
No, it argues for it. The laws of a society is a reflection of that society's values. The law isn't always right, but ideally, the law reflects a generally accepted moral foundation of that society.

>Social mores will be a driving force behind individual morality, but not the defining factor. That comes from the individual experiences within the social environment.
Morality and prejudice are different things. You give two examples, a wife-beater and a hoplophobe. That illustrates the difference.

>Laws codify group behavior.
Already mentioned above, but again, ideally, laws are derived from moral foundations.

>Every person you interact with every day has a different moral code than you.
People are absolutely free to build their own moral foundations as they see fit, just be prepared to be judged and criticized by every single other person. To say that one's moral foundation is equal to everyone else's is nothing more than a shitty excuse to slap down criticism and avoid debate. That would be the nihilist argument.

>>33940659
you're just spouting memes kid

>>33953339
>muslim culture is the same as tribal afghanis
sure activates my ahmonds

>>33938627
I was there during that withdrawal and it was calm because they were waiting for us to leave. It was primed to fall apart already and it fell apart rapidly when we left because we didn't do anything real there anyway.

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>>33953579
>what is Rhodesia
Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa, before Black Hitler took over and destroyed the agriculture then required UN food handouts. It's more like niggers can't into democracy.

>>33955109
World biggest mirror

>>33963383
>It's more like niggers can't into democracy.
It's more like changing political systems won't change their race. So what if they did adopt a democratic government? It wouldn't make them any better at farming or anything else that required long term planning.

>>33963436
>It's more like changing political systems won't change their race
Well said, that does make more sense. The overnight change to democracy doesn't mean they appreciate the nuances or even understand why it is valuable.

>>33963383
>>33963436
Worked for Botswana.

>>33962197
>Morality cannot exist in the total isolation of an individual.

It certainly can. Morality defines right/wrong, and gauges behavior against that scale. Individuals judge right/wrong by what generates positive emotional content. Putting additional people into the picture complicates the behavioral dynamic, but it doesn't change the bottom line- we do what makes us happiest. Happy is a sliding scale, btw. In some circumstances, individuals will do what makes them least unhappy.

>What is your point?

That their individual morality let them behave in a manner that society deemed wrong.

>law reflects a generally accepted moral foundation of that society.

No. It's a best guess. Individuals draft laws, reflecting the morals of those individuals. If morality was a social construct, we wouldn't need laws because everybody would have identical values.

>Morality and prejudice are different things. You give two examples, a wife-beater and a hoplophobe. That illustrates the difference.

Prejudice drives morality. This is why racists think it's morally ok to deprive citizens of their rights based on their skin color.

>People are absolutely free to build their own moral foundations as they see fit, just be prepared to be judged and criticized by every single other person.

Which is exactly what happens.

>To say that one's moral foundation is equal to everyone else's is nothing more than a shitty excuse to slap down criticism and avoid debate.

Wrong. Morality is subjective. Individuals form their own moral foundation based on their own prejudices and experience. Morality within a society will be similar, but not identical. Hence, the need for laws. There is no one objective authority to declare that one morality is superior to another.

>That would be the nihilist argument

No. Nihilism rejects all morality. My statement is that all persons have their own morality, that aligns with their social mores to a greater or lesser degree.

>>33964211
>It certainly can
No, it cannot. In the vacuum of an individual, morality loses all context.

>That their individual morality let them behave in a manner that society deemed wrong.
>society deemed wrong
Hence, it is the broad moral foundation of said society that decided that the moral foundations of the criminals is inferior.

>No. It's a best guess.
Hence, "general".

>If morality was a social construct, we wouldn't need laws because everybody would have identical values.
Not the point. Moral foundations are judged in a social context.

>Which is exactly what happens.
What is the point of criticism if at the end they are all equal? Praise/acceptance and criticism elevates the superior and discards the inferior.

>Wrong. Morality is subjective.
Again, not what is being said. One is free to define his own morality. In that sense, it is subjective. But to say that it is impossible to gauge superiority/inferiority because of that is bullshit. People have been debating philosophies for millenia, keeping the superior ones and discarding the garbage.

>Nihilism rejects all morality
No, it rejects all judgement of authority. By saying there is no way to judge morality, that is nihilism.

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>>33963225
>kid
wanna know why anything you say will always be laughed at, junior?

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>>33938207

Yes

No

Will answer questions for an hour or 2 if anyone wants to chat.

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>>33938251

Were you embedded with any ISF?

I was on a ~200 man JSS with IFP and Pesh for a year and a half in Baghdad.

Pesh were great, if over eager. IFP at least fired in the right direction, but had no intestinal fortitude.

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>>33964211
>There is no one objective authority to declare that one morality is superior to another.
Congratulations. You just shitcanned the entire premise of American civilization.

>>33964318
Sooooo.... every anchorite and hermit in history was fulla shit? Thoreau was fulla shit when he hung out innawoods at Walden? The people who went into the wilderness for holy contemplation were seeking jack and shit?

You kids, I swear. There's this vacuum where the Judeo-Christian ethic used to be and you're just floundering around in it.

>>33964730
>confusing self-fulfillment with morality

tripfag pls go

>>33964730
>Judeo-Christian
Phil pls

>>33938207

No, we made the situation infinitely worse. The world, including the USA,, was better off with Saddam

>>33965138

This.

Realpolitik.

>>33964730
The people who founded America were deists, not the prottie Christfag trash that flooded in during the Ellis Island era and diluted the bloodline

>>33938207
Not a vet, grew up in Saudi fora bit and went to Iraq a few times. Saw the shit that Shiites and other muslims there did. Guess who is now a Christian and would rather see Islamic faith as a whole wiped out?
Politics aside. I think the US pulling out of Iraq when it did was a mistake. My old man served with the USAF for 20 years as a TAC-P and said just another year or two over there would've guaranteed a stable government. At least the war machine goes on, insuring jobs for those still being deployed.

>>33964730
>Congratulations. You just shitcanned the entire premise of American civilization.

Oh fuck off, Phil. The operative word in my sentence was 'objective'.

And for the record, I'm considerably older than you. You can take your 'you kids' horsecrap, fold it until it's all corners and ram it vigorusly up your fundament.

>>33965266
Thing was, Al-Maliki was demanding US troops leave.

If we told him to fuck off, there's a real chance the Shia paramilitaries would start killing US troops again.

Besides that, the dumb bastard essentially undid all of the US's work as soon as we left.

>>33965362

He ran on a platform of "Iraq for Iraqis" which was a great way to get votes, but a terrible strategy in the sectarian civil war that was playing out in the streets.

no, it could have worked but we weren't allowed to do what was necessary to make that happen

t. ramadi and fallujah

>>33965362
Exactly my point. There was a chance of literally unfucking Iraq and then we got told to leave and we pulled out.

>>33965381
From what I understand, he was more or less openly a Shia strongman, and had the US leave so he could consolidate power and begin persecuting the Sunnis again.

>>33940030
You cunt

>>33965396
The way I see it, the government in Baghdad has survived.

Sure, it's absolute dogshit, but so is everything in the Middle East.

It's still there, and at least in the Shia areas of Iraq, will continue to be a regional player.

Now here's the question I ask myself every now and again

>if Obama had bombed Syria in 2013, would IS still exist

>>33965430
Thats a question we can only speculate and hypothesize about. Either way, I want to see mass mobilization to depose the leadership in Iraq and actually make sure the job is fucking done. But thats a political shitshow and I know it.

>>33965403

From my view, he just seemed like a typical politician who was willing to do whatever he needed to in order to win--up to and including indirectly filling the streets with bodies, if people would vote for a platform of "GIT DA AMERIKUNS OUTTA AR CUNTREE" the only military force in the country capable of keeping the lid on civil war that was brewing.

>>33940030
He's mad you can get more from the VA than neet bucks. Go buy another mosin to talk to so you don't have to shit up /k.

>>33965396

>Unfucking Iraq

Please, unpack what exactly you mean by this. because that's an important distinction.

>>33940030
Well, considering that most vets deployed to Iraq are suffering from (((unknown))) effects.

>>33965444
I have this recurring fantasy where the US invades the Islamic State.

Once they're done with IS, they keep going west and invade the parts of Syria the SAA still holds. Maybe they do Al-Nusra too just for good measure.

Once all of the relevant leaders have been captured, the US flies them back to the US to be tried for war crimes. Most of them will, of course, be put to death, because they're serial war criminals.

At the same time, the US leaves once it's captured all of the major players and then just lets come what may.

>>33965474
Either returning it to goat herders and farmers or instilling an actual democratic government with modern infrastructure and shit. Or glassing it. Either way, I have no qualms against any of these options.

>>33965444

And replace them with who? There's no one in Iraq who could run a functional democracy.

On top of that, the tribal thinking of you every day Hadji has ZERO appreciation for democracy, or any respect for who is running the government anyway (since it'll be different in 10 years).

Your average Iraqi doesn't give a shit about the nation or it's government, they just want to keep their head down and survive. That's how they've lived since they were born, and their fathers before them.

No one is invested in the success of their country.

>>33965507
Do you think it would have turned out any differently if the US had kept the occupation government going for a while longer before handing power over to the Iraqis?

Absolutely not. I remember getting out and feeling like I missed out on 8 years of my life. Total fucking waste of time; other than the comrades I made.

I miss my friends. That's it. Fucking glass that shithole.

>>33965504

See >>33965507

Democracy will NEVER work there. They need a strong hand at the wheel to maintain order and security, as a society. Democracy isn't always the answer for everyone.

As long as the water and power works, and there's no murder in the street, your average Iraqi could care less who ran the show in Baghdad.

>>33965521

No, not really. It would have limped along for maybe a decade or 2, but without a constant deployment of professional soldiers (ie, the US), it would have fallen regardless.

Your average Iraqi doesn't feel any investment in the country or the government.

>>33965525
>>33965504

>Fucking glass that shithole.

I'm not mad at the average Iraqi. I get it. They live in a shit country with an awful government. Hell, I'd probably be the same if I was raised there.

What they need is a government that's capable of providing security, so that the bad parts of their society don't have an outlet. It is unlikely that said government could ever be a democracy, at least not within our lifetime.

Just remember that the Iraqis dying in the street and starving in their homes over ideologies they couldn't care less about are the real victims. Not us.

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>>33938207
>>33953202
Mosul vet here, 06-07.

I am honestly conflicted on this. Where I want to invest greater importance in what we actually accomplished, in regards to the sacrifices made by those I knew and by myself to a much lower degree.

From my time in the service, I have personally known 12 friends who have been killed in action, 11 in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Known about two dozen wounded in Iraq, also only four wounded in Afghanistan.

Honestly the most sincere gratefulness that we experienced were from the Iraqi Kurds, straight up good people.

Honestly the worst part of our deployment, from my point of view was the explicit targeting of civilian populations, in tit-for-tat manner between the Sunnis and Shiites.

Iraq and Afghanistan are unequivocally our modern "forever wars", and I'm torn on that as well. Still maintain the mindset I had a decade ago, better to fight them over there than here.

>>33965604

>Honestly the most sincere gratefulness that we experienced were from the Iraqi Kurds, straight up good people.

I agree, but even the Kurds weren't perfect. A Pesh soldier that we worked with literally executed an Arab in the street for talking shit to him. They're not above the senseless violence that breeds in Iraq, even if they're a step above.

>Honestly the worst part of our deployment, from my point of view was the explicit targeting of civilian populations, in tit-for-tat manner between the Sunnis and Shiites.

I was '08-09 surge, so that was literally my bread and butter. We lost people, but were rarely the actual target in attacks. We were literally the referees in a royal rumble melee match between everybody who had a grudge in the last 1000 years in Iraq, and it only got better when they'd killed enough of eachother. I was tough to watch.

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Also, for the uninitiated anons out there, a little context:

It REALLY matters what years you served in Iraq as to what your experience was.

The all out blitzkrieg of the 2003 invasion was completely different than the "wild west" occupation of 04-06, which was itself quite different from the de facto sectarian Civil War that broke out in late 06 to early 07, and lasted until the Maliki era and SOFA agreement in summer 09.

We veterans would be well served to also appreciate that we all have very different experiences for the same reasons.

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>>33965744

Also, Baghdad was a major city with sophisticated infrastructure. The war there was motorized patrol/pursuit in most cases.

In other, less developed regions I can imagine the experience was drastically different.

>>33952247
See why can't we just get these type of fucking answers. Respect from a Midwestern homegrown anon.

>>33965691
>We lost people, but were rarely the actual target in attacks. We were literally the referees in a royal rumble melee match between everybody who had a grudge in the last 1000 years in Iraq, and it only got better when they'd killed enough of eachother. I was tough to watch.

I feel bad for feeling good that we were also secondary targets. First and foremost were soft target attacks (might just be in memory more than reality), and then hajj targeted the IA/IP a hell of lot more than us as well.

Don't know how much of this is on us, but I fully understand how the IA folded across Nineveh, Anbar+. The recruits we encountered were there solely for a paycheck, with 20% deserting every time a boatload of their guys were killed due to sheer complacency.

From the IA/IP units that we tried to train, they'd keep it up in front of us, and get killed a month or so later by forgetting the simple fundamentals that we taught them.

Getting a bit pissed at this moment, looking at this sincerely.

>>33938207
When I signed up, yes. I genuinely believed we were going to fight to free them. It was freeing a suppressed people from an evil dictator.

I saw it in terms of a combination of: "What if it were me" and the American revolution, but the people had neither the means, nor the strength. I envisioned that even if I died, I would be dying so that the people would have an America (or something close to it, like Japan) in the middle east. I genially imagined my friends and family, and for that matter the rest of the world vacationing in the cradle of civilization; along side brown Americanized children going to school and being free doing whatever they wanted.

Make fun of me if you want, but I believed this.

What I FOUND were fucking monstrous, stupid, selfish, greedy, drug addicted cowards.

It was like coming to an alien planet. I have never met a less worth culture or people. They are scum and literally sold their children into slavery.

Fuck Iraq, nation building, and the middle east. I lost so many friends both to the war and suicide for people worse than animals.

>>33964318
>In the vacuum of an individual, morality loses all context.
>the broad moral foundation of said society that decided that the moral foundations of the criminals is inferior.

Let me put it another way; morality is an individual choice, partly driven by the need to conform to social expectations. However, that is not the entire impetus behind the formation of individual morality.

Yes, from the standpoint of society, criminal behavior is inferior morality. However, from the standpoint of the criminal it's a survival trait. Survival, again, defined as the behavior that brings the greatest satisfaction/positive emotional context.

Morality is always a personal choice, resulting from individual exposure to the unique environment that each individual experiences. Social mores are part of that environment.

>Praise/acceptance and criticism elevates the superior and discards the inferior.

Not necessarily. Antifa and /pol/ are duking it out in various venues across the country. They each represent a particular moral leaning. Neither expects to convert the other. Is the winner morally superior? Doubtful.

Morality is flexible and pragmatic, but moral changes must always come from within.

>>33938207

>Any Iraq war vets here?

Yes.

>Do you think it was worth it?

Who cares? I got paid.

>>33965810
19k Tanker btw if you want some stupid stories. But they are going to be mostly depressing and bitter.

>>33965792

The IFP I was with had been through hell and back 10 times already by the time I got there. They were more concerned about surviving than being heroes, but at least they were on the right side.

Kurds, on the other hand, had a home and an identity to fight for. They were much more motivated, and therefore effective. It's a real tragedy that they don't have their own nation, but that tragedy is a tiny whisper in the greater tragedy of that nation.

>>33965810

I felt the same as you when I left anon. I thought that inside of every oppressed Iraqi was a democracy-loving American just waiting for his chance to break out.

What I found was a numb and traumatized populace, the victim of tyrants and war older than their grandparents. It was difficult for them to feel invested in a nation when they couldn't be sure that they or their children wouldn't be killed tomorrow walking on the street.

I understand that, and I'd probably be the same. It's tough to believe in something bigger than you when your mortality is challenged every day.

I don't hate them though. I pity them. I'm saddened that a blameless mass of humanity was never given a chance to thrive. If you take an Iraqi out of Iraq and into America (many of our interpreters did just that) they thrive. They aren't evil or bad people. They're just victims of a toxic society.

>>33965840

Most of mine are the same. Or funny, but only in the darkest and blackest kind of humor, that makes my wife cringe and stare at me. So I stopped telling her stories.

My experience in Iraq left me a Nihilist. I don't think I'm sad, or broken, I just find it difficult to believe that any sort of God could allow such massive human suffering willingly. And if there is a God, then his hands are just as dirty as ours for letting it happen.

>>33964318
Forgot to add this part-

>By saying there is no way to judge morality, that is nihilism.

That's not what I'm saying at all. Every person judges the morality of every other person through the filter of their own morality. Every thinking human does that.

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>>33965900
>>33965924
>>33965971
Alright this thread is getting too real for me, until tomorrow gentlemen.

>>33965840
go for it

>>33965744
>It REALLY matters what years you served in Iraq as to what your experience was.

Every Vietnam vet I've ever talked to made the same point, in not so many words. When and where you were in-country mattered hugely.

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>>33938207

Chairforce JET tasked to work RPAT with the Army at Camp Victory '08-'09. I can't really say much about the Iraqi people since I only interacted with a handful of them, but I can talk about how much of a clusterfuck the logistics were at that place.

In fact that whole deployment was a clusterfuck from the very beginning. I had three days notice that I was going to leave to Ft. McCoy to train, and then when I got there they didn't even know if we were going to Iraq or Afghanistan. I still have the cold weather gear they issued me for Afghanistan, because for whatever reason we weren't supposed to return that gear to the Army.

Anyways so we did this cool training at Ft. McCoy for a few weeks learning combat life saver, how to drive humvees, how to shoot, etc. The Army didn't really like us all that much but I had fun. However the fucked up part is we did all this training and didn't use a single day of it, but when we got to Kuwait we got a three day death by powerpoint on what our real job was actually going to be - and we still didn't have a fucking clue. So the first month when we got there we got as much info from the group we were replacing and then did whatever made sense to us at the time.

Of course what makes sense to us didn't make a lot of sense to the Army because after that first month we had higher ups on our ass and were changing procedures every week. For example:

>Okay I want you to load these containers with at least 8 of X radio and put a packing list outside the box.
>No you're only supposed to put 6 of X in there. What the fuck is with this packing list? Do you want the haji driving this shit to Kuwait to know what's inside?
>WHY THE FUCK WERE THERE NO PACKING LISTS ON ANY CONTAINERS! ALSO CAN'T YOU COUNT? 10 RADIOS PER BOX! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

etc. etc.

... too long, next post.

>>33965507

What about the Yakuza way? Install one "democratic" party with a bunch of minority parties and have it back by an American backed criminal syndicate like the Mafia or Motorcycle gang who have the authority to dispose of anyone too uppity.

That is how the LDP ruled Japan undisputed because make no mistake, Japan also lacked the conditions for democracy either.

Bonus points for making sure they are in perpetual ceasefire aka if they ever get uppity it is punitive war time.

>>33965604
>in tit-for-tat manner between the Sunnis and Shiites.

It didn't take them long either, in 03 I saw my first full on legit massacre. Was pretty used to dead people by then having been through Afghan, but we had our unit in the western desert and a US unit which was picketing the nearby roads to check who was making a run for it.
Whole bus of Shia's going to Hajj, they let us know they where coming and that's cool by us, we'll keep an eye out for them.
They never arrived.
So towards the late afternoon I put a call back to the US fellas and they hadn't seen them turn around and we decided to go for a look. US guys found them first and somewhere between A-B they got jumped by another group, pulled out of the bus, lined up and machinegunned. About 24 men and a dozen or so kids.

That whole cradle of civilisation, also has a river of blood running though it as long as anyone remembers too.

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>>33966013

See you around.

>>33966096

Why not just skip the pleasantries and install a strong man?

It's not like anyone would care enough to rise up against him anyway.

The US wasn't shy about doing just that throughout the Cold War, we just said that he was "anti-communist" to make it OK.

>anti-communist does NOT mean democratic.

>>33966123

Because destablization operations keeps nearby foreign powers nervous, despite how we are all first world countries, we don't play nice with one another. A destabilized nation serves as a very valuable asset as they are too busy sorting their own shit out.

As for a strongman democracy, it leaves a less bitter taste in our tongue, it is quite funny how we only managed to make Japan democratic through using criminals we can control. Bush though the democratization of a nation was instant like Japan was as well as the general population. Remember WWII gave the general public very obvious threats to democracy.

>>33966097

First time we got hit, it was a suicide bomber.

Local insurgents found a girl in her late teens who was mentally retarded (and I'm using the term in the scientific way) and look the part. You knew just glancing at her.

My unit was pulling security while some of the brass was meeting with a local imam to discuss checkpoints, strategy, etc. as well as just making social connections.

Johnny Jihad strapped a suicide vest with remote detonator to the retard and gave her a brand new pair of shoes. Then they told her to walk towards us.

The guy pulling security could tell she was slow, and kept telling her to back off. All the Arabs just ignored her.

They detonated her about 10 ft from the cordon, once that Sergeant raised his rifle and started yelling at her in English to turn around.

Took out 60+ local Iraqis (we were in the middle of a crowded market), 2 of our brass, the sergeant on security, and the imam and his clergy.

We CASEVAC'd our casualties out, I was on QRF and got there within 5 mins. We set up a perimeter so the local emergency services could pick up the body parts in peace.

I still remember the retard girl's legs laying there, side by side, with shiny new gray reeboks on. The rest of her was vaporized.

>>33939934
>>33938324
Kekking hard

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>>33966079

Making things even more complicated were having to have different civilian groups from who knows where, who were responsible uninstalling and inventorying things like blue force trackers. Inevitably shit would come up missing and we would get blamed for it even though we had no hand in whatever went missing.

Not that the Army made things any easier. The fact that we had to keep an inventory on everything was made even more of a challenge by soldiers who would go through the humvees we've inspected and steal whatever they had missing so they could turn their vehicles in. It got really annoying to call them out on their bullshit all the time and for a while I got to a point where I actually hated them. Speaking of... we also had a section for Battle Damage/Battle Loss humvees that we had to account for and make sure no one took any photos of anything while they were here. You would be surprised, and I still have no fucking idea why anyone would do this, how many people want to come up to a blown up humvee and get a smiling picture of themselves to post on facebook. And every fucking time we would tell them to go away it would turn into another dick measuring contest. On of our DLA civilians was actually knocked out cold by an E-6 MP while arguing with him. That lucky bastard got a vacation out of it.

You would think that our own higher ups would be a little more involved and could try to make things easier, and to their credit they did what they could, but they were stuck playing the political game for most of this and we often found ourselves making "crack deals" for the Army just to get essential stuff like fuel for our forklifts or whatever we needed to get the job done.

See the gas station we went to was run by Hajis, and those hajis had a list of approved units. And our name was never on that list so we were SOL most of the time.

Cont.

>>33966170

It might work, but there's nothing analagous to the Yakuza in Iraq. As soon as you give Shi'ites power, there is ethnic cleansing of Sunnis. The exact opposite is also true.

Maybe you could put the Kurds in power, but they couldn't give fewer fucks about greater Iraq.

>>33966202

When in doubt, just install your own homegrown gang and have them be the teethkickers while the military act as the refs.

But yeah, I saw WWII harmful in the long run since it made everyone think all future wars are just wars and for granted it was since the Axis despises democracy as much as the Iraqis.

>>33966245

>When in doubt, just install your own homegrown gang and have them be the teethkickers while the military act as the refs.

It would have to be kept secret. The American people don't have the stomach for that sort of thing.

>>33966193

If you think work WITH the army is bad, try working FOR the army.

It's just one huge gaggle fuck of angry people looking for an excuse to take a dump on someone of lower rank for the slightest mistake.

It's a horrible, toxic culture run by careerist with zero leadership skills.

>>33966193

Though usually we could get what we wanted from them by either paying them or giving them extra stuff we had like food from the chow hall or stuff from care packages. I remember having to trade a bag of sugar (probably from a care package) to some haji to weld a door hinge on our CHU that we worked out of. Why the military couldn't fix that I have no idea. Not that it matters because it broke off in less than a month.

Now the job (for me) mostly consisted of sending things on trucks back to Kuwait, from humvees to sensitive comms and nightvision. We used haji truck drivers. You might think that this would be a terrible idea, and you're absolutely right. Before we even started working we heard about some attack a while ago on our troops with insurgents using our own thermals and night vision. Of course I wondered how the hell did over 100 pieces of night vision just go up and missing, and then it starts to make sense when you're using haji truck drivers who if the Army isn't escorting, mercenaries are. So we're using foreign mercenaries and middle eastern truck drivers to haul some of our most sensitive equipment. And yes sometimes this equipment would include weapons like 50 cals and Mk 19s.

To be fair though the mercs were really awesome people. The guys I talked to were Britfags with Blue Armor Group who were getting paid $15,000 a month tax free just to escort trucks. They were only supposed to be escorting these trucks but they found themselves doing all the paperwork as well because, go fucking figure, they're the only ones who spoke English and weren't completely retarded.

I've heard a lot of fun stories from them, from how they would deliver some stuff to the Iraqi military only for it all to be stripped apart and sold. There's one story where an Iraqi general refused to sign for some humvees delivered to him because they didn't have spare tires on the back (which he solved by just driving them off himself and signing for the general).

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>>33964658
I see you were also a 19k.
Did you actually get to bring tanks to iraq or were you a TWAT (tanker without a tank) too?

I don't even know what it was for. Feels wrong to shoot hajis with out a goal.

>>33953233
Tell the Iraqi's "we're only after Saddam, once we've got him we'll leave him be"
The ba'athist party was in the midst of a split as a result of Saddam's constant military mismanagement. Once it seemed clear that the americans were gonna give the lot of them the shaft, that split rectified quite quickly.

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>>33966323

Mechanized Infantry (Bradley). I was crew during training and stateside, but just a bog standard 11B once we were in Iraq.

We brought a platoon of BFVs with us, but only used them once on a battalion level HVT raid.

All the rest of the time it was armored humvees, or MRAPs if we weren't getting off the highways.

>>33965840
how did the tank hurt you anon?
What unit were you in?

>>33966363

Armored vehicles are literally trying to kill you 24/7. They want blood for the blood god, and couldn't care the slightest whose blood it is.

I saw fingers cut off in the turret ring, feet smooshed flat by tracks, toes smashed by the infantry ramp, eyes poked out by gun barrels, and more.

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>>33966354
I've spent time in Bradleys before (dismount)
not so fun riding around in that thing

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>>33966375
no, I know, I was just asking if being a tanker specifically made him miserable.

I know it made me pretty bitter and pissy for awhile after I got out.

>sign up to fuck shit up in a tank
>don't even take a tank to Iraq

I was there in 2009 btw.

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>>33966384

I did everything but BC in my 6 years with them. It's a decent enough vehicle, now that we've figured out what to fix on them. I enjoyed them, being in a mech unit really gives you a lot of job options to get some cool experiences.

I could be a SAW gunner for a few months, then a driver, then a rifleman, then a Bradley Gunner all in the same year.

>>33961484
If the US was doing stuff like that, then maybe people would figure out that mass fucking immigration into our countries won't end well.

Instead they need to pretend that Iraq is aiming towards some "free liberal democracy", because every kid is brainwashed into thinking thats how we are supposed to be.

>>33966397

I was in a CAB, our tankers got a pretty shitty experience. I'd hate to have a very specific set of skills with a tank, then get to the country and get told "oh, btw, now you're basically infantry" in a unit that's a third the size of an infantry unit.

At least I knew that when the 6 angry fuckers in the back of my vehicle got out, they knew how to operate a 240, SAW, etc. and were ready to fuck up someone's day.

I don't know if a tanker unit would have the same kind of bloodlust, for lack of a better word--or at least the weapons in the armory to make it happen.

>>33961484
>>33966421

The problem there is that the resulting nations would be so weak, they'd be easy prey for surrounding powers.

I'm sure Iran would love to settle some scores and expand its borders.

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>>33966316

Motherfucker this thing didn't include the picture.

Anyways...

The mercs had to deal with some bullshit so whenever I could I would hook them up, like food from the chow hall or water. There's more I could talk about them but lets move on.

Back to the Army and us dealing with them... I already mentioned all the stealing they would do. Another pain in my ass was all the ammunition, grenades and other junk they didn't want that we would just happen to find lying around in our yard because they wouldn't take this stuff to an amnesty box.

Now me personally I would have just love to shoot this stuff off myself, but the Army higher ups would come down with an order that not only does ammo/grenades have to go to an amnesty box (which we didn't have), but X thing of the day (which could be humvee antennas one day, fire extinguishers the next) had to be dropped off at Y location. So rather than drop X at Y we would find all kinds of stuff thrown around our yard - for instance ammo and grenades in our dumpster.

Because nothing makes you hate the Army more than standing in garbage, in a dumpster, looking for every .556 you can find. But I digress. To solve this problem we had a wooden box built to put ammo in and then we would deal with it later on... only that was too fucking easy because then our higher ups stated they wanted every round, grenade, and whatever the fuck else we found cleaned, inventoried, and turned into supply.

Fuck
That
Shit

The tactical maps, comm frequencies, locations, etc. I either kept myself as a souvenir or shredded and burned. If it wasn't important enough for them to come and get then it wasn't important. The ammo and grenades went into an amnesty box en masse just before we left (you don't know how badly I wanted to pull the pin on one).

>>33966430
Nothing wrong with Iran forming some Greater Shia country

But if we're talking about doing sane stuff, then you don't invade in the first place

>>33966444

Maybe, but they'd fuck the Kurds over, and maybe kick the Sunnis in the nuts too just for spite's sake. It wouldn't be pretty.

The middle East is a huge mess, but I don't think the US has any obligation to be part of the solution. To paraphrase Chaucer:

"Let them fry in their own grease"

>>33966179
Yeah I did another 2 tours of Afghan before I went back to Iraq in 2008 in a different unit
By then it was just mental with suicide bombers, IED's and other random shit going off all over the place. Was doing IED and any Chem-Biological clearance which was a bad enough job by itself, but our escort units used to take a fucking beating as my guys where prime targets for the insurgents popping up and wanting to drop an RPG or mortar on their arse. But mostly it was sort of split 50-50 with half the violence directed towards troops and the other half was on each other.
Bombs in markets where really a thing in 2008 too, they'd run cars, trucks... wheelbarrows or whatever the fuck would roll around.

There wasn't a lot of good feelings then either, the job was hard, too much work and just fucking so dangerous. About the only real light in there was a couple of the Iraqi's we got to know, mostly rural fellas that just wanted the explosive shit out of their towns, fields and trying to lead a decent life. They gave us some good leads which stopped a lot more people from dying on either side.

>>33966424
yea, that's pretty much why I hated life
all the maintenence, training, etc on a tank, then deploy with no tank doing infantry shit with like half the guys to do it with.
We were always short of men for everything. It got to the point where our trucks had no dismounts, we were just driver, gunner and TC with only 4 vics, and then 1 medic with PSG truck

>>33966460
When we spend decades fucking stuff up there, I don't think you can turn around to say they should just stew in their own problems.

This terrorist stuff largely didn't exist before the US spent the last 50 years funding jihadists/protecting Saudi Arabia

>>33966502

Oh it was fucked before we got there, thank the British Empire for that. Did we help? Certainly not.

But there's really nothing that the US can do to fix it, imo. At least not without being seen as either conquering imperialist of murdering psychopaths.

At this point, it's probably best to wash our hands of the whole thing, and disentangle ourselves from Iraq. Let them sort it out. At least whatever solution they find, they can have ownership of it. It won't be in our lifetimes though.

>>33966481

Yeah, we were first response to a tanker unit in MRAPs who caught some RKG grenades. They literally had 3 guys per MRAP and a medic. They couldn't even dismount to help each other out.

We put up a perimeter and helped them put straps on the disabled MRAP and they towed it out.

Some other shit happened, we spotted the trigger guys and got into a running gun battle that ended in a house getting blown up, but that's a whole other story.

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being betrayed by the cia for isrial , no.
fuck isrial, fuck yahwh , fuck the cia never trust a spook just give them the opportunity to show there colors and then take the pleasure of killing the traitors slowly.
fuck isrial.
I will arise and kill yahwh.

>>33966479

I never did Afghan, but I kind of wish I had. Everyone I know who went said it was a real rifleman's war. Weeks in the bush digging patrol bases, shooting from one mountain to another at some of the hardest men alive trying to kill you. Real exciting stuff, or at least it sounds that way.

Iraq was just mechanized patrol and pursuit for me. Just walking around and fucking with stuff until someone shot at us and it got exciting. Or you just got hut by a bomb and turned into beef stew in your vehicle faster than you could feel the pain.

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>>33966439

Anyways enough of my personal gripes. I'm trying to point out the fucked logistics of all this.

One thing I noticed at Victory was all the construction going on. We were constantly building shit. New walls, new buildings, new roads, and so on. So imagine my mild disbelief when we threw it all away and pulled out of Iraq. I can't imagine how many millions of dollars we wasted making buildings only so the hajis there could tear out the lights in each one and sell on the market.

There were a lot of Iraqis living and working on that base. Some doing construction, some working as barbers or cashiers at the BX, some even driving around doing god knows what. Hell there was even a car wash at Victory run by these people. Now of course there were all sorts of different nationalities on this base (Ugandan guards, Australians, French UAVs, etc.) but it feels kind of weird thinking about it now. How all this was built up as if we were going to make it last and after we left it's all gone. One giant waste.

So in summary the whole thing was a clusterfuck. Whether this has anything to do with OP's question... I dunno. If Iraq is anything like our logistics then the whole thing was fucked from the very beginning.

At the end of it all I don't think we accomplished anything in Iraq. Come to think of if I don't think we accomplished anything with the job I was given - redistributing vehicles and supplies where they're needed. So ... whatever I guess.

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>>33966581

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>>33966581
GET THE FUCK OFF MY TANK YOU AIR FORCE FAGGOTS!!!!!!
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>33966527
>At least whatever solution they find, they can have ownership of it.

Nope. They will blame the US forever. We "detangled" ourself from Iran after the revolution. Look how that turned out.

Isolationism never works.

>>33940030
I can't believe you got replies for such shitty b8, here's another (You) for (You).

>>33966602

>We "detangled" ourself from Iran after the revolution. Look how that turned out.

Meh, they seem alright. They can hate us if they want, they'll never be any real threat. Economically they, and everyone else, depend on us.

I'm not isolationist, more non-interventionist. The most potent weapon America has is capitalism; if the nations of the world rely on use to either buy whatever shit they make (China) or sell them what they need to survive (holy shit so many examples), there will never be war.

Hell, every war since WW2 was a war of convenience for the US, with the only possible exception being Korea.

>>33966573
Afghan was pretty interesting from a strategic and tactical engagement.
I was mostly doing comms and long range patrols, bit of door kicking, kill-capture and being a general menace. Dunno about them being 'hard', they where not pussies but didn't really have a lot of skilled soliders except for the odd couple of Chechens we'd come across. Think they where probably the nastiest because they'd actually aim :)
But yeah, we'd run the gamut of opposition- Paki northern tribals, Saudi 'adventurers', Indian gun runners, crazy drug dealers and anyone else that was stupid enough to go running around the mountains. Hell some areas where literally clan warfare like hillbilly's shooting at each other every afternoon, its a whole other planet stuck in the 16th century for the most part.

About the only upside was that they where all completely loathsome human beings, so you never really felt bad about shooting them

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>>33966649

>Saudi 'adventurers'

Oh man, I'm imagining some soft oil millionaire with a golden AK who gets mad that his bugatti veyron can't drive around in the mountains.

All the gulf Arabs I've ever met were a joke. Softest men alive. At least Iraqi Arabs were hardened in a certain way by the chaos of war over the decades.

>>33966618
>Meh, they seem alright. They can hate us if they want, they'll never be any real threat.

They have heavily mined international seaways, attacked us ships, directly advised (and most likely armed) iraqi insurgents with IEDs construction, took about 50 American citizens hostage for 444 days, PLUS a fuck ton of dickery.

State actors are always a far bigger threat than non state actors, and can cause far more damage.

>>33966671

>took about 50 American citizens hostage for 444 days

That sorted itself out once we had a leader who showed he was willing to do something.

By the same token the attacks on US ships have gone down thanks to uncle Don.

We would also have armed anti-Iranian actors in their country if we could. They're not doing anything outside the international norm.

They're assholes for sure, I don't LIKE Iran, but they know who the boss is.

When the US has a president who isn't afraid to use force, Iran is REMARKABLY quiet. I don't think we should invade them a la Iraq and try to initiate regime change, but I also think that the threat of force is enough.

>>33966666
Fun fact: when it comes to sorting foreign recruits into who gets to fight and who gets to suicide bomb, saudi boys almost always end up in the suicide bombing role.
They're useless for most anything else.

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>>33966601

Oh I did more than get on it. I drove it.

In fact one of you guys left a HEAT round in one of these. You have NO idea how badly I wanted to shoot it.

>>33966666
Oh I reckon most of them where the bumblefuck peons that just got recruited out of Saudi with promises of easy cash, virgin donkeys and other bullshit. None of them could shoot, they'd be broken down wrecks with tender sore footsies after 10km of walking anywhere and pretty clueless for the most part.
They where hilariously bad. Kids now see stuff on youtube with people shooting ak's blind around walls, corners, rocks and generally being stupid, but I reckon they where probably even worse. Could have sworn half of them didn't know where the safety was on their guns and that probably saved us the odd angry shot.

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>>33966666

Just realized I got Quint 5s AND 6s in the past 2 days.