this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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[–] Vqhm@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In both those wars there was a plan for war. But not a plan for peace.

The civilian leadership in Iraq made a choice to send the Iraqi military home with no pay and no plan to do anything but hold up in the green zone as if everything after opening up the war would just turn to roses.

The civilian leadership refused the military leadership's requests to negotiate with the Iraqi religious leaders calling for violence. To create a plan for peace.

These guns your jerking off over did not bring peace. Nor could they win a war. All they did was create a stalemate.

To plan for peace is a tiny bit harder than telling a few young men to leave the FOB every once in awhile. It involves negotiating with religion, creating win/wins, making sure people have the means to support themselves. Or crushing those that oppose the system. It's easier if you get the locals to do it for you in exchange for reconstruction for instance in Germany and Japan.

There small local conflicts you're describing are in places with a long history of tribes fighting other tribes. They are used to that. WWIII will be a flash point conflict among civilians that may not stomach a prolonged conflict and will be more likely to want to negotiate peace.

If coolers heads prevail then peace is possible. If shareholders just want a war that drags on far away and civilian leaders ignore military leadership you end up with the wast of time and money Iraqi and Afghanistan were. The difference is the endgame of politics. Why did the war continue after Osama was caught and killed? What was the objective after that? Why was holding the dirt so important after the enemy had been reduced to a point that could no longer project power behind their hill of dirt?

If getting Osama was the main goal why did we ignore all the Intel that he was across the border in Pakistan for so long? Why did we keep searching where we knew Osama wasn't? Because Halliburton wanted a prolonged war and the military leadership had no authority to stop the madness, win the war, negotiate peace, and move on after the mission of taking out the terrorist leader Osama was complete. So instead it devolved into holding a hill of dirt for no reason except to line pockets.