How do the US and its allies prevent making the same mistakes in the war on terror we made in the cold war?
"For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations." George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004 I mean countries like Saudi Arabia,Pakistan,can't they become a problem later and especially Pakistan,are they helping finding Osama or just taking money form both sides,same goes for Saudi Arabia. Used a Bush quote to show that this is not a partisan question at all,hope you see that. Or was Bush maybe over ambitious and SHOULD we still just put friendly dictators in place? Yeah we won that one but it can be argued our enemy today,Muslim extremism was made or encouraged by us during the cold war to fight communism.Read Osama's biography.
Politics - 9 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Seems to me the Cold War turned out fairly well (the fall of the Soviet Union and Communism). Maybe we should be taking more from the Cold War and apply it to the War on Terror.
2 :
We need to first identify an outcome for our actions. What SPECIFICALLY is it that isn't right and what do we need to stop or prevent? We need to break this action down into manageable short and long-term goals. We need allies. We cannot go it alone. We need to build coalitions and give them buy in and responsibilities. We need public support. The issue needs to be explained in detail to the American public. The first lie exposed on the road to war diminishes credibility, subsequent lies diminishes it exponentially. We need to exhaust all options before putting our Soldiers in harm's way. Economic, diplomatic and informational options MUST be used first.
3 :
actually the greatest lesson from the Cold War was Diplomacy and Containment. We succeeded with those policies in keeping violence in the world to a minimum. Imagine we even communicated diplomatically with our enemy the USSR. I think there is much to be learned from this period that would solve our problems of today. In Iraq the overflights and economic isolation had them completely contained and the cost was positively a bargain compared to what we are dealing with now.
4 :
didn't the U.S. win that one?
5 :
It's a different type of war. We will make different mistakes.
6 :
We won the cold war, didn't we? Yes we made mistakes, but hindsight is everything. We are making mistakes now, and hopefully they will be corrected. However, national interests should not be abandoned simply because a bunch of emotional leftists think we are not doing things correctly. We have ad visors that help form these decisions, they will make mistakes, but I think they are a little smarter and have more access to information than a bunch of anti-war protesters.
7 :
War on terror is a big business
8 :
The problem is we dont know what are decisions now will cause in the future but the facts are that a stance has to be taken with the proliferation of weapons and we cant do it alone. I think the alignment with the Saudis (being one of the few full practicing shariah law countries) are one of the worst things we could do but we have a drug addition to oil. This is one of the reason I think Iraq was so important to us. (but I digress) The cold war was between two semi rational countries that knew that if a nuclear war started it would kill billions of people but the people we face now have no regard for their own life. they are willing to kill them selves; so a nuclear standoff is not something they would use to stop their ideology. None of us know enough about these other countries and the reason we have done or will do what we will do with them so to condemn our govt for aligning with them is a little harsh to me. As we saw in Indiana Jones we have alot of different cups in front of us and we may chose wisely or poorly but we must choose to try to solve a global problem that if left unattended could destroy us all.
9 :
Th enemy today is directly related to the war on communism. All of it the whole effing thing. Anyone with a brain can make the correlation between the war on terror and the war on communism. Both bloated mistakes of the US that started wars and caused thousands their lives whilst lining the pockets of the military industrial complex. An endless war after all is the best way to co ntrol the people.
