Afghanistan was certainly a justified war, and Iraq was done under false pretenses and badly executed, but (if done right) it would have been worth the effort.
Fighting oppressive regimes is always worth the price. The only thing that must not happen (yet again) is to fuck up the "what happens after neutralization of regime forces" part.
Implementing a Marshall-like plan for Afghanistan and Iraq would certainly have led both countries to a richer life instead of the clusterfuck that both countries are now. Thousands of soldiers, millions of civilians unneccessary dead, all only because of political fuck ups.
One can argue that even with a Marshall-like plan the region was doomed from the start. The country is not homogeneous like a European nation or especially Japan. It is made up of several ethnic groups who all want to dominate/eradicate the others. The British carefully drew the lines in the middle east to make sure the powers there would never be a threat to their empire and would instead be forever embroiled in petty tribal rivalries and incessant power grabs. It also insures that whomever is in power doesn't care about roughly half of the country and will almost certainly be corrupt as hell.
The only power system that seems to work is the hideously authoritarian dictatorships, because they're the only ones who can make people believe that everybody is being oppressed equally and who have the agility to violently and ruthlessly quash uprisings while they are still small and peaceful.
Of course even if the maps were redrawn to match the ethnic boundaries you would still have fairly regular border skirmishes. Due to the gender politics in the region there is always a need to get rid of the excess young males, and fighting otherwise pointless border wars is the time honored way to accomplish that.
> The British carefully drew the lines in the middle east to make sure the powers there would never be a threat to their empire and would instead be forever embroiled in petty tribal rivalries and incessant power grabs. It also insures that whomever is in power doesn't care about roughly half of the country and will almost certainly be corrupt as hell.
And it wasn't just the Middle East where this happened, it's happened all over Africa too, and the big colonial powers - again the Brits, the Portuguese, the Spanish, Dutch and the Germans - all did their part in creating the clusterfuck the entire region is suffering from to this day.
> Fighting oppressive regimes is always worth the price
Yes if there is a long term strategy in place. USA wasted billions on Iraq, it didn't make the middle more stable.
> Implementing a Marshall-like plan for Afghanistan and Iraq would certainly have led both countries to a richer life instead of the clusterfuck that both countries are now.
I don't believe that. The Marshall plan worked in Europe because despite all the nazi stuff, Europeans were somehow reasonable and could draw conclusions from their mistakes. Afghanistan, Iraq and co have a highly tribal culture, with a total different mindset than Europeans. The Talibans are still here, 14 years after and they still view the west as "the great Satan". Do you really think folks like these are reasonable? can they compromise ? I believe they cannot, that's their culture. No matter how much money one give these guys , unless there is a cultural shift, one is not going to achieve anything.
Afghanistan was certainly a justified war, and Iraq was done under false pretenses and badly executed, but (if done right) it would have been worth the effort.
Fighting oppressive regimes is always worth the price. The only thing that must not happen (yet again) is to fuck up the "what happens after neutralization of regime forces" part.
Implementing a Marshall-like plan for Afghanistan and Iraq would certainly have led both countries to a richer life instead of the clusterfuck that both countries are now. Thousands of soldiers, millions of civilians unneccessary dead, all only because of political fuck ups.