Comments by "William Davis" (@williamdavis9562) on "How Afghanistan became a failed state" video.

@dongately2817 Hard to find a place which was unfortunate enough to fall under Russian influence that isn't in chaos.
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@ramr7051 Read the comment again. It's more so pertaining to quality not quantity. Considering your level of comprehension when reading something, I'm surprised you know how to spell the word "dumbass."
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@wumaobot For sure. But if you look at the amount of civilians who died, America's invasion was like a pat on the back compared to Russia's. What the US did in Afghanistan was horrible and I was against the occupation of those poor people from day one. But please don't compare the brutality of this compared to the brutality of the Russians. It doesn't even compare.
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@ramr7051 I know you were referring to the OP, no where in my statement did I allude to the fact you weren't referring to the OP. My point still stands.
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@eddiemitza2544 Yes Afghanistan hasn't been stable ever since the two superpowers of the world started meddling in their affairs. Post Soviet and American attention Afghanistan was doing quite well in the 60s and early 70s.
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@xmurshedz I'm not sure I'd call what happened in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan "imperialism" in the old sense of the world. Those events were something far worse and much darker than old school imperialism. Imperialism basically hurts one group while bringing their resources home to your own people. Those events you speak of not only hurt the poor people who are occupied but it is also designed to rob the middle class tax payers of the host country to redistribute that money into the pockets of the elites. They're killing the people they occupy and robbing the people in who's name they claim to be occupying. It's quite genius in an evil sort of way if you think about it.
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This channel is truly a gem in the youtube universe. This guy's documentaries should be spread far and wide. So much better than the B.S. childish talking points that are thrown at us by mainstream outlets like CNN and the BBC.
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@Kyle Prather I'm not really sure Iraq is in better shape post intervention. In fact I'm fairly certain it is far worse off. It's more fragmented, it's lost most of it's best and brightest either due to brain drain or death and has been in turmoil since the invasion. The limitations you speak of isn't with the military. The military knows how to do their jobs, they've been built to defeat armies. Something they're extremely efficient with. The real limitation is policy makers trying to turn an army which was built to fight wars into a police type occupation force. It simply doesn't work.
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@Kyle Prather It's been 20 years since the invasion. Their economy is dead, over one million civilians are dead, social cohesion has been destroyed. There has been nothing but misery and instability there. This idea that it's "too soon to tell" if the invasion helped them or hurt them is insanity. As far as dictators backed by the west being powerful in that region are a thing of the past. Iraqi and Syrian regimes will an extremely hard time regardless of who is backing them if they don't have good relations with their immediate neighbors. Lets assume for a second a dictator emerges in Iraq which is anti Iran and completely backed by the west. That regime will have very little wiggle room if for example lets say Turkey decides to destabilize it. The world is changing and it is changing VERY FAST. Invasions and occupations under the guise of freedom and democracy simply won't work. America will eventually realize it is not in the interests of it's citizens to go on these adventures and public pressure will eventually put an end to all this nonsense. Once that happens this idea of "being backed by the west" becomes irrelevant. Because without America no western nation has the ability to project that kind of power that far from it's shores. Who is going to do it? France? lol
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@Kyle Prather I can't think of any instance under which one can claim the American invasion of Iraq was a good thing for the Iraqi people. They've literally had nothing but death and misery for the last 20 years, not sure a bit of unlikely upside 20 years from now will erase that. Besides there is a very high probability Iraq in it's current form won't even survive as a state. As far as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE stepping up and making the presence felt in the region even more would be asking some of the most evil regimes in the world to spread their influence. Sure they throw their weight around these days basically bribing more powerful nations like America to protect them but once that western protection is gone (and it will be someone soon) these nations are dead in the water. Even though they have the most advanced weapons money can buy, their military prowess is below third world standards. Without superpower protection regional rivals like Turkey or Iran would steamroll all of those gulf nations on a weekend. By then the world will have probably switched to cleaner energy so these nations are going to look like Somalia in 100 years. Which will probably be a good thing for that entire region as they won't be spending trillions pushing insane ideologies which cause chaos. On the topic of France, you seem to think too much of them going forward. Once their perceived military might is exposed and America pulls out of the middle east and Africa, France will be pushed out of Africa. The French economy (in it's current form) cannot survive without the neo colonization of these African nations. France will not be able to exert any influence on any of these nations in anyway, shape or form in the future. Russia is another dying power and once the world switches to renewable energy in 50 years or so Russia will go into an economic meltdown and break up. Your comments about China I agree with, it's possible they might turn into the major player in that region if only to secure trading routes.
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@Kyle Prather Yes money talks but what happens under these two conditions. 1. The United States eventually completely pulls out of the middle east. If it isn't politically viable no amount of bribes from the gulf nations can bring that big military machine back. 2. What happens when they start running out of money because the price of oil is tanking due to all the renewable energy which is probably coming down the pipeline in the next 20 years? Balkanization is horrible and it's horrible for Iraq. Which is why the invasion really screwed that country over because it was the invasion which opened up the divisions which will cause the balkanization of Iraq. No matter how you slice it or dice it everyone lost out in the war. Iraq's neighbors, the Iraqi people and the American tax payer. The only winners were Saudi Arabia which got rid of a rival and the military industrial complex which had billions of dollars funneled from the taxpayers into their pockets.
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@Kyle Prather Considering what the people have been going through for the past 20 years? Yea, Saddam wasn't just better he was 1000x better. You can't just assume because someone is a tyrant that invading that country and making the lives of people 1000x worse than the tyrant did is actually helping them. As far as people wanting or not wanting someone, there is always a segment of society which doesn't want their current leaders. Invading the country or giving resources to said groups to overthrow a current government isn't really a good thing to do. Simply claiming Saddam was a Tyrant doesn't even come close to the amounts of people who have died since the invasion, the damage to the economy, the loss of brain power due to brain drain and the soon to be Balkanization of the country. Saddam on his most prolific Tyrant streak wouldn't have been able to do this much damage and kill this many people even if he tried.
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@Kyle Prather Governments don't happen in a vacuum, it's essentially a group of humans deciding how their society should be governed. This idea that democracy is a one size fits all solution is extremely naive. Evolutionary biology is always at play and different people evolved with slightly different evolutionary instincts plus extremely different cultures and ways of thinking. For some groups of people society simply cannot function with certain types of governance. Most Arab nations will surely always have authoritarian governments because that is the only way to keep stability there. That is what works for them. Under Saddam for example Iraq had: 1. A decent economy (relative to middle eastern standards) 2. High quality of life (relative to middle eastern standards) 3. One of the best educational systems in the entire region and a literacy rate of over 95%. 4. Iraq a fully functioning modern healthcare system where everyone was insured. 5. The nation had stability, you didn't have to worry about being blown up in a car bomb while walking to the grocery store. Iraq for 20 years since the invasion. 1. Economy is shattered and 70% of people live under the poverty line. 2. On the quality of life index Iraq plummeted by 70 spots, meaning 70 nations which had a lower quality of life than Iraq now have higher. 3. Their educational system is in tatters and literacy rates among people under 25 is only 72% 4. There is barely a functioning healthcare system and the few good hospitals are so expensive only the rich can afford it. 5. Zero stability with all the infighting between the difference groups, you simply know know when you go to the grocery store if you're going to make it home. When looking at these aspects of life, I find it extremely insane when people are still claiming invasion might be a net positive for these people. The invasion was a crime against humanity, it was no different than me walking into your, murdering half your family and forcing the other half into a life of poverty.
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@Kyle Prather When you say it was never good, it's all relative if you remember. Also those times you're referring to was when we the United States forced the world to put an embargo on them right after the first gulf war. Even during this embargo they were in better shape than they are today. Also this sharia law thing is far overblown, less than 2% of Muslims worldwide live under such a thing. You only really see Sharia law in those gulf nations we talked about earlier and the unfortunate really poor nations which have fallen under their influence (Taliban and ISIS being two prime examples) No one anywhere really wants sharia law, it's something the scare mongering media took and ran with in the early 2000s. If we simply stepped back and let the gulf nations collapse, the idea of sharia law anywhere on this planet would vanish in 50 years.
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@Kyle Prather This isn't about being biologically more inclined to live under tyranny. This is about different groups of people going about different ways to organize their societies in ways that work for them. It would be ridiculous and arrogant for group to assume what works for them will work for everyone.
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@Kyle Prather Yea what you're saying makes sense. It's hard to be the salesmen of a certain way of life when you have guys with rifles walking around someone's village.
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