the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

Re:the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the... by misja111 on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @02:26AM (#36768611)

This is just plain wrong. The millions of refugees came from Syria. The US was hardly bombing Syria at all, it just bombed Libya. Actually it was mostly EU countries, in particular France, that pushed for fighting the Assad regime at the time. The Obama government didn't even want to be involved at first.

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Re:the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the... by sangnoir on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @03:09AM (#36768894)

> The US was hardly bombing Syria at all, it just bombed Libya.

I was mostly thinking of Syria and Daesh, and had forgotten about Libya. A non-insignificant chunk of refugees headed to Europe transit through Libya - which didn't use to be the case before Gaddafi was deposed.

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Re:the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the... by networkchad on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @03:50AM (#36769171)

Relevant:

https://www.businessinsider.com/qaddafi-warns-france-if-i-go...

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Re:the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the... by modo_mario on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @04:03AM (#36769284)

I think you got things backwards. France wanted to bomb libya (as well as the UK) whils the US was a reluctant partner.

The US went for Syria/Assad leading the intervention and whilst France picked up it's involvement against ISIL & the like particularly after the Paris attacks it wasn't as big on it as Libya.

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Re:the US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the... by misja111 on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @05:32AM (#36769879)

France was also eager to bomb Libya, that's true. But the US really didn't want to intervene in Syria at first.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-the-united-states-has...

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