The government of Iraq did, in fact, say "no" to the presence of US troops, which is why they all left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from...
The much smaller recent bolstering of US troops in Iraq was also by invitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_I...
Whether or not it would be a great idea for Afghanistan to tell all UN troops to book it is a different question. But at the end of the day, they have not asked that.
So, you destroy the security apparatus, leave almost a million weapons trained without an income for their families and sack most competent civil administrators.
This was basically telling the Shia majority to get even with the Sunnis. 15 years later, the resentment is cemented and Isil is using it to their advantage.
Yes, technically a democracy but large parts of the populace cannot vote because they're under Sharia rule.
Thanks, Paul.
Not by any means. The US vetoed all candidates they didn't like. That's as un-democratic as it gets.
That may be true, but having the permission of these governments to launch bombardments shouldn't be a moral argument.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/middleeast/yemen-sp...
Looking farther back you find Iraq and Afghanistan on the list with similar disclaimers. In any case, neither was a "lob a few missiles from the stratosphere and peace out" strikes the parent comment implies.
Let me know if I'm forgetting something.
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/deadly-drone-strike-on-mu...
FWIW the Philippine military denies that it happened -- http://news.abs-cbn.com/nation/07/09/12/philippine-military-.... Which is at odds with objecting to it.
Or the government would be replaced by more sympathetic one.
- Iraq
- Pakistan
How is this different from when the USSR bombed Afghanistan with the permission of Afghani government which the Soviets installed?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/president-al-assad-to-belgian-m...
[I'm not endorsing this website in any way. It just was the first in the google that had a transcript of the interview.]
We also had forced demonstration of support for the government. Had to go into parades, etc.
The question is if you would be willing to go there now and publicly propose that Assad should not be a president, without fear of being thrown into prison?
Also what do you think of experiences of people who were tortured and killed by his subordinates for expressing dissent on facebook, or twitter, or in demonstrations?
Key words
>The question is if you would be willing to go there now and publicly propose that Assad should not be a president, without fear of being thrown into prison?
Not right now, they are in a state of civil war, I'd wait until it's over and things settle down.
[0] www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/middleeast/syria-executions-amnesty-international-report/
Oh right. So what's with all those people who want him to stop being in charge so much that there's been a civil war raging for years? How popular can he be if so many people are willing to risk their lives to move him out of power? To have a civil war, he's surely got to be massively unpopular with a large segment of society.
Also, some of the factions seem to be heavily influenced / supported by foreign powers [2]
Taken together, every war is somewhere on a scale between "civil war" and "ordinary war" and just calling it a "civil war" doesn't mean it's necessarily one.
Of course, since war is unpopular, all interventionist democracies would like you to believe that it's a civil war and they're not meddling at all.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aleppo_(2012%E2%80%9...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War.2C...
but, we speak about Switzerland. don't forget many in middle east conflicts are mercenaries or volunteers from all over the world
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/07/saydna...
There's a lot of nuance here, because there isn't really a (current) clear-cut case of the US bombing a sovereign nation where the government has not given the US permission. Of the current active campaigns:
- Afghanistan
- Iraq
- Pakistan
Each of these countries has a functioning government, even mostly democratically elected, and all US military involvement is with the permission of the host -- if Pakistan told the US to stop using their airbases, it would happen.
- Syria
There's less explicit permission here, but the US is bombing a current enemy of the Syrian federal government, so there's no real complaining.
- Somalia
- Yemen
- Libya
It's completely ambiguous which government you consider to be the sovereign one (arguably, there really isn't one). Either way, at least the publicly backed government is OK with US airstrikes.