I can assure you that you won't be able to foster an environment conducive to building a strong nation if you slaughtered civilians. You'll lose the trust of the locals and their leaders in a heartbeat - as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I spent 13 months as a mechanized infantry platoon leader in an area just north of Baghdad. I always thought it was laughable when I'd hear people in the US argue that the rules of engagement (ROE) were too strict and that was the reason Iraq was the mess it was. That certainly was not the case for me and my unit's area of responsibility. If we felt threatened, lethal force was easily justified and never questioned. I don't care to go into detailed accounts, but I dealt with my fair share of civilian casualties due to a lenient ROE and never was anyone in my platoon or myself questioned or called out on it. A kid got shot by one of my Soldiers during a firefight? No problem. He shouldn't have been there. A white van filled with candy and two (dead) civilians was shot by one of my vehicles with it's main gun? No problem. It shouldn't have been there. I've got way more stories like this that I was a part of than I care to admit. (For what it's worth, these sorts of incidents weigh heavily on my conscience even 13 years later - just as they did when I was there dealing with them).
For subjugation and colonial-style imperialism brute force with no regard for civilian casualties works but it will not work for the building of stable democracies as we hope to do in the Middle East. With that in mind, I don't believe it is possible to be successful in our endeavors in the Middle East by our standards.
Yes, I agree with you. To defeat ISIS brutality is required. However, when the are eliminated, something else will come in and fill the power vacuum. In defeating ISIS we will have alienated the people that we wish to build a nation with and we will not be a part of their nation's rebuilding as we will have no legitimacy or support from the civilians. In absence of our ability to do so, we leave it wide open for a faction we may have no control over (or stomachs for tolerating) to take charge. Again, the potential for another ISIS or worse.
Edit to add:
I agree with you, that we should just leave the Middle East and let them sort it out. However a part of me does feel like we do owe it to the people there to be a major part of the solution. After all, it is our policies that turned the Middle East into the place it is now. However, the thought of throwing away more lives and money into the problem over there is idiotic in my view.
Hindsite is always 20:20, but had we dumped a trillion dollars into renewables and infrastructure in the US and made energy independence a national priority after September 11th instead of iraq, we'd all be s lot better off right now and free from the entanglements in the Middle East.
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