Still the US didn't cause the initial unrest in Middle-Eastern countries. And Nate you have some very good points. Are you 100% sure the US killed more civilians than Terrorists though? I thought they minimize collateral damage. And maybe more Middle-Eastern civilians but overall the Terrorists must've killed more civilians if you ignore race right? And if you could estimate how much civilians died in the Iraqi War it'd be very useful to me. And aren't some troops well payed though? SEALs get 12,000$ after the training. And let's say that the US is after Global Control by becoming rich and powerful, would that be so bad? The US seems to be a decent nation to have strong control globally no? A non-angry country seems pretty perfect to have Global Leverage in my opinion. And Divine just made an amazing point for all of you guys here :P And yes ISIS is angry at US Occupation which was the cause of them being founded but still don't you think that they're methods are way too much and just need the US to stay more and longer to stop them? And c'mon the U.S. Killed Osama. That's already an amazing Global Contribution that the U.S. Military achieved beyond U.S. Borders. And Nate I am very grateful for your politeness while discussing this topic with me This is how discussions should be like, valid points and politeness while pointing them out.

Maybe paid fairly at the very least for their services. We gotta remember their family didn't serve in the military so the salary is fair towards the actual troops if you exclude the possibility of them having a family in the future. The ones who serve get paid enough for them. And I was referring to 12,000$ as a 1 time reward for finishing training that I think they get. And yeah Psychologists get like 40,000$ a year so I see your point but the salary could definitely be enough for some people. And they get a pension after their service duty. Also not all troops get PTSD. I don't know the statistics but I assume it's in the minority. And some troops get other jobs after they serve in the military. SEAL Team Captains require College Degrees so they have the credentials to apply for jobs after serving in the military.

The real question is;
"How come Canada always has to clean up the mess America makes, to stop a potential war?"

Like honestly, the Middle-East conflict America started, was closed by Canadian forces.
America stole all their oil, and Canada made sure all the civilians wouldn't get shot.
Although many of them did, for the most part. Canada kept the peace.

But the US still has more military might for big situations.

That's because they get into big situations, unlike Canada.

Oracle I know what happened at 9/11 no need to correct every sentence dude. Flying planes into stuff is also known as Kamikazi Bombing which the Japanese started so it can infact be called "Bombing" for the sake of simplifying the sentence rather than saying "The group hated the government and then flew a plane into the World Trade Center which killed many civilians instead of killing members of the government that they hate.". And we can argue about this and we can have discussions about this topic and that would be mentally stimulating but in reality we cannot do much about it so if you guys do feel the US is practicing modern-day colonialism then at the very least we should be glad it's them rather than someone else like an angry country or a Non-UN country. At least the US won't go attacking all the other countries to claim land with their power since they are a member of the UN and the UN would not allow it. Yes sometimes good intentions lead to bad results but I'm sure some good things can come out of their global leverage. And what I meant was in their eyes they were trying to restore freedom to Iraq hence the name of the op. And idk why they didn't attack Saudi or Afghanistan. Maybe they had received intel making them believe that the Org was stationed in Iraq or had plans there. And don't the neighbours encroach on Israel too? This all said I respect all your opinions. And almost everyone has confirmation bias without knowing it, it's hard to avoid which is why Discussions get messy and some turn into arguements.
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Replying to Divine now with some very good points in his last post:
Yeah see I totally agree, Al-Qaeda and other national powers usually go corrupt if unsupervised by the US or UN which is why they need to occupy to maintain leverage so that there's no injustice happening via the national government of said country. And ikr "No threat to US Citizens", says this 5 days after the 14th anniversary of 9/11 where 3000 innocent citizens were killed. Now that's what I call good intentions(In the terrorist's eyes) pave the road to hell. They thought they were martiers serving their religion but they were terrorists killing the innocent. And let's say for 1 retarded milisecond that it's the fault of the US, well now they are stationing troops to help out so get over it guys, it's like Divine said, they are letting troops occupy high-conflict zones to defend the Middle-East so if you feel that they are doing more bad than good then first of all your most likely wrong and secondly you can't do much and third they just want to make sure no civilians get killed and then kill the terrorists that came to us for war. Also I just saw the first section of Divine's post it's amazing From now on we are teammates here :P Like Divine said they can't argue that there is terrorism there as an excuse to steal resources as there are actually terrorists there which are behaving in an extremely obvious mannor. Sure the US takes some resources but like Divine said they started the war by attacking our homeland and now we are taking the war to them and taking advantage of the strategically correct oportunity to take advantage of the resources there before the terrorists/enemies do. Like Divine said(Sorry if I seem to just quote your whole post XD) if they declare war on us or an ally then we go attack them by stationing troops or defend the land they are attacking by occupying troops at said place, it's basic warfare it's so simple, if they attack and declare war we send troops to attack them back to win the war. It has been happening forever in every war since the beginning of time even excluding human wars. Ants send troops to attack enemy bases. You can't argue with the way a war works Deprav since it's very basic, they hit us, we hit them, we repeat that process again and again until someone wins and then both parties stop hitting. We will use resources at their country while we are there but that's they're fault for starting the conflict which caused us to occupy their country. It's not the fault of the US if they gave Al-Qaeda weapons and then Al-Qaeda went corrupt, they were assisting who they thought was their ally. Like Divine said they started the war so we took the war to them and when it is all over we will achieve peace. Well I covered all of Divine's amazing and accurate post Seriously don't think I'm being sarcastic please I 100% agree with you and your last post. It was just so good and accurate. Again, no sarcasm in this Sorry if I quoted all your points they were really good points to this Discussion so I just had to quote them.

You're on the opposite side of the argument than he is. You're arguing for foreign interventionism, he's arguing against it... You're fully able to address his points (you could start with his point about the Middle East being screwed from the get-go after WW1).

So you have no thoughts at all about Oracle's points? That's funny, 'cus Oracle's points all discredit your argument. In a discussion, one of the things you need to do is justify your argument.

Though, I think perhaps you haven't researched this topic much, which is why you're not willing to address his points - and that's fine.
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edit: Realised that may have seemed a bit blunt..

I'm coming at you because you said this;

My argument, and Oracle's argument, is that the messes were made by the West, since the West intervened in the development of the region (especially after WW1 and during the Cold War). If you're claiming that the messes were made by the Middle Eastern countries themselves, then I want to hear why you think that, and why you think the interventions we talked about don't matter.

Why is there still arguments happening? Oracle basically summed everything up. No one has been able to counter his arguments. 9/11 was a sham (and I don't mean to say that no one died). It only gave the US reasons to go to their country and soak up their resources. If we were fighting for their freedom then we wouldnt still be in their country.

Do you know how many 0's a trillion has ?
We're not talking about other countries and it's irrelevant, the thread is about the USA, probably because their military presence in those countries is redundant and in the center of the conflicts. Tho, we did mention a few other western countries because the USA isn't the only country in that position and taking advantage of the complicated geopolitic situation of the middle-east, indeed.
Still they have a debt they'll never be able to repay, the american people suffer the consequences of a ruthless and uncontrolled financial system while the government spends trillions on the US army in order to control ressources in a region they (and other western countries) fucked up.

Originally Posted by Divine

Next you just go on the make assumptions without having any real arguments. If were at war against a terrorist group or defending an ally were going to station troops in those places. Yes we may take advantage of the national resources and that may persuade us to go over there, but were going to station troops where were defending allies or at war, its not that difficult of a concept.

How is making a shit tone of money when you control large amount of ressources an assumption ?
And that's where you miss the point I think : they do not "defend their allies" and "ho look, some oil, maybe we could take a little" ; those countries are their "allied" precisely because there are a shitload of natural ressources in that area, ressources that USA don't have. They WANT those ressources. That's why they make allies and use pretexts to occupy the region.

Originally Posted by Divine

The government uses terrorism as a strawman? Do you really even know what a strawman is? Terrorism isnt a fucking argument, that can be set up. Them literally coming over to us and openly physically attacking us isnt a fucking argument bud. They literally started the war, and then we took the war to them. We're not going in to make peace, were going in because were at war. The end goal is peace but the current goal is beating them in the war.

I didn't say a "strawman argument", I said "a strawman", the fake human-shapped thingy made with straw we put in fields to scare birds (people, in my poor analogy). I'm not saying terrorism is fake tho, I'm saying they use it to scare people and forge an emotional opinion.

They started the war ? You'll have to give some solid sources for that one. If you're talking about 9/11, I invite you to make some research and find out the military presence of the US in those regions goes way back, wayyy before 2001.

Originally Posted by Divine

We have several allies thanks, and seeing as the middle east is a high conflict zone we have troops over there constantly to defend them.

That's not how it works. They didn't make alliances because they like them and put military bases there in order to gently help them as allies. They made "alliances" IN ORDER TO put military bases there, because the US needs those bases there, because they need those ressources. Do you know how wrong the US economy would turn without the middle-east's oil ?

Originally Posted by Divine

You ever heard of 9/11 bud? Like?......

Yes ? So if 6% of the terrorist attacks have been made by islamic extremists, have you heard of the rest ?

And even then, how is that a viable reason to be used to occupy countries and kill people who don't have anything to do with the attack which happened 14 years ago. Because emotions... It's easy to justify and legitimate everything when you use people's emotions, that doesn't make it right nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Divine

That was before they were a Islamic extremist/terrorist group and since they've turned all funding has been cut off. We funded them to help overthrow their corrupt governement but since then they've been unable to handle the power and have become corrupt themselves. You also act like the US is the only country who has done this, two other notable countries who have done something similar is Australia funding al-Shabaab and Germany funding Hamas.

They were already jihadists and extremists when they financed them, but they were usefull jihadists because they could be used to fight the soviets who invaded Afghanistan. It wasn't in order to overthrow a corrupt government, they didn't care much about Afghanistan, they cared about the Soviet Union at that time. And since they didn't care, the Taliban took the leadership of Afghanistan and shit ensued, thanks for the help. Afghanistan got fucked up and the USA financed fanatics who hate them, good job. Anyway, that's not the only time/country they messed up, I refer you to Oracle's post if you're interested in the matter.


Well you shouldn't, I'm not only adressing my answer to you but to anyone who shares that opinion, it's a discussion board not a PM exchange. Oracle wrote a pretty precise description of the situation I'm trying to show you, and there probably is much more to be told.