Our violent and menacing actions taken to ensure oil flowing at low prices has created this situation. Stationing troops in Saudi Arabia long after Desert Storm was over was an outrage to most in the Middle East. And of course, our number one ally in the area, Israel. In all cases, US arms and sometimes soldiers would be used against exactly whom? Why wouldn't a young person in the Middle East in 1999 have a strong dislike or hatred for the US?
For a very brief period after 9-11 the US could claim justification for what we did. But then again, we just continued to kill young men in the Middle East well past that mandate and the violence continues to expand every year. Vigilance against terrorism sounds like a very different process and set of actions than what we are actually doing. Vigilance against terrorism is something I can support but it sounds like you equate a drone strike with vigilance. Not the same at all.
And I DO claim that Shrub wasn't vigilant pre 9-11. Then stupid in his invasion of Iraq. And Obama made a dumb decision to take sides in civil actions that led to more wars. If mistakes and stupid, violent acts aren't working to make peace, maybe we should try something intelligent?
Desert Storm was about Iraq commandeering Kuwaiti oil fields. I don't think we wanted Iraq controlling a huge percentage of the world's oil supply.
If you wish to call that 'menacing actions taken to ensure low oil prices', that's up to you. Maybe Iraq would have sold it cheaper if we let them just keep it. I'll bet we could have negotiated that. But I don't think that would be an American kind of thing to do.
As far as drones, there are high value terrorist leaders out there. Nobody had a problem going into Pakistan to kill bin Laden in the middle of the night, 10 yrs. after 9-11. I never said we should drone just anybody. But there are people over there that are justifiable to kill.
You obviously don't agree. But if another 9-11 ever happens, the following slaughter will make a drone hit seem like nothing.
It's decades late to just walk away. Even if oil becomes valueless tomorrow, there will still be crazy jihadists who want to kill people. It's a religious war in their minds in a region that's been at war for 2000 years.
The whole region is shaky, no wonder their ordinary people want to come over here to get away from the madness.