"The absurdity runs deep: America is using American military equipment to bomb other pieces of American military equipment halfway around the world. The reason the American military equipment got there in the first place was because, in 2003, the US had to use its military to rebuild the Iraqi army, which it just finished destroying with the American military. The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago. And so now the US has to use American weaponry to destroy the American weaponry it gave Iraqis to make Iraqis safer, in order to make Iraqis safer.
It's not just ironic; it's a symbol of how disastrous the last 15 years of US Iraq policy have been, how circuitous and self-perpetuating the violence, that we are now bombing our own guns. Welcome to American grand strategy in the Middle East."
– Vox: The US bombing its own guns perfectly sums up America's total failure in Iraq
I almost forgot the quote was about the present conflict.
The 2nd Gulf war already displayed occidental countries fighting against occidental weaponry.
The 2nd Gulf war all about our* countries forcing Saddam Hussein to pay its debts for buying us weaponry. (And protecting Koweit too). He got those debt from buying us weapons to assault Iran.
Back then, our media showed us Saddam Hussein as the "good" secularist and modernist leader.
He made war against the "bad" religious Iran. Sure, Iran leaders are assholes, not because they're religious, but because they're tyrant that oppress their population and kill every dissident. Still that's no reason to allow their country to be assaulted by Hussein!
* I'm French, so my country sold weapon too. Darn it.
(We earned nice monikers in 2003 for refusing to follow Bush like the Englishes : weasels, cowards, Chirac depicted like having a head the shape of a worm, female soldiers that have special camouflage hiding under their arm hair…)
To my point of view, today's America is less crazy than before.
In general, foreigners loved Clinton for its international policy (and his sex life was not an issue), and we still love Obama. We had not as high expectation as American, so he did not deceive us, we live far away.
To sum it up, we like your democrats. We cross our fingers that you don't elect another warmongering moron on the next election, and so do you, I expect.
I would like to know why Dick Cheney and G. Bush have not been charged with war crimes. Why are we ignoring the 'elephant' in the room.
This was a nice summary of things.
And you don't suppose Afghanistan is far behind?
The most botched foreign policy decisions EVER, and this country has plenty to chose from.
But those in the Military Industrial Complex love every day of it.