Arming Syrian Rebels

[dmaddox]

[quote]b89 wrote:
Syria isn’t friendly to the United States, Syria and Iran have been in it together for a long time. The same goes for Russia. That’s why both nations are assisting Assad to keep him in power. It’d hypothetically be better for the United States if the opposition won, unfortunately for the United States the opposition is dominated by the same Sunni terrorist organizations the United States has been fighting for over a decade. There are no good sides in this, the United States would have to prop up the Free Syrian Army and defeat both the Assad regime and its supporters and the majority of the opposition. [/quote]

Or we could go in and take over.

[b89]

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:
Syria isn’t friendly to the United States, Syria and Iran have been in it together for a long time. The same goes for Russia. That’s why both nations are assisting Assad to keep him in power. It’d hypothetically be better for the United States if the opposition won, unfortunately for the United States the opposition is dominated by the same Sunni terrorist organizations the United States has been fighting for over a decade. There are no good sides in this, the United States would have to prop up the Free Syrian Army and defeat both the Assad regime and its supporters and the majority of the opposition. [/quote]

Or we could go in and take over.[/quote]

Why waste the time, resources and men? It’d meaning fighting AQ, Iran and Russian in an unconventional war and Syrian forces in a conventional war. That’s just for the possibility of the new government playing ball with America.

[DBCooper]

Pat, I think you’re taking a WAY too fatalistic view of this thing. Just because our current role in global affairs is as some sort of misguided, de facto police force doesn’t mean we have to be resigned to that fate forever. And we don’t have to wait until we’ve withered away as a global power like some new version of Rome for that fate to be changed, either. We control our own destiny and I don’t think there is much benefit to constantly going around sticking our noses in everyone’s shit.

It’s overly grandiose and egotistical to think that we have everything figured out and should be the sole arbiter of what gov’ts get to stay and go. Look at this whole garbage with the NSA and the IRS. They aren’t new issues at all. The fact is that the IRS has been used in the past to quash political opponents and such and the CIA, FBI and now the NSA have all been used on and off for decades to illegally or immorally spy on people. That isn’t exactly a shining example of democracy. Neither is a populace in which more than 50% of eligible voters regularly avoid the polls. I could go on and on about how our current form of democracy in this country has been undermined by the very people who claim to promote it. And that happens with regularity on BOTH sides of the aisle.

So where the fuck do we get off trying to spread the bastardized version of democracy that we’ve festered upon ourselves around the world? And like I said earlier, any foreign policy in which we find ourselves obligated to stick our noses into the kind of shit going on in Syria right now is a bullshit foreign policy.

And I have to seriously question your understanding of history if you think that what is left in Syria will support us for supporting them. Whatever faction in Syria that actively seeks our continued support and reciprocates by hopping to our tune once the actual civil war is settled will be either the target of massive terrorist activities by virtue of being supportive of us, or they will be forced to do a 180 degree switch in attitude so that terrorists cannot automatically target them for their alliance with us. Probably both scenarios will unfold.

And really, what price have we paid for Cuba turning Communist? What price has America paid? What, the Bay of Pigs disaster? Most people who died were Cubans, not Americans, on both sides. The Cuban Missile Crisis? Shit, if anything that episode reinforced our superiority over the Soviets. Are we suffering because of the embargo on Cuban goods? If so, that was a self-inflicted wound since we didn’t have to enact it.

We are a lightning rod in the Middle East, not a galvanizing force. Once we go in there with troops, more American soldiers will die for a lost cause. We CANNOT rebuild nations in that area. We haven’t done so successfully anywhere since WWII.

You simply do not understand the dynamics over there. This is a Sunni vs. Shi’ite war right now. Hezbollah and Iran against Sunnis, many of whom are no different than any of the Shi’ites we will be arming them against other than their interpretation of the Koran. You want to see a united Syria? Send in a few hundred thousand American soldiers to crack some heads. They’ll put down their arms against each other and take them up against us in a heartbeat. Once the Sunnis realize that all of the promises we will make to them aren’t coming true or aren’t happening as fast as they’d like, they’ll start blaming us for all their problems and they’ll turn on us, most likely with the same weapons we gave them.

Or, we successfully help the Sunnis kick out Assad’s forces and then a couple years later we look up and realize that it’s just a different brand of authoritarianism ruling there, and it probably won’t even be as secular as Assad’s was. Then what do we do? If it’s of such strategic importance to the U.S., then it’s of infinitely more importance to Israel. Let them fight that war. They haven’t sent shit for soldiers into Afghanistan or Iraq for us. Maybe it’s THEIR turn to try rebuilding a backwards country.

[dmaddox]

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:
Syria isn’t friendly to the United States, Syria and Iran have been in it together for a long time. The same goes for Russia. That’s why both nations are assisting Assad to keep him in power. It’d hypothetically be better for the United States if the opposition won, unfortunately for the United States the opposition is dominated by the same Sunni terrorist organizations the United States has been fighting for over a decade. There are no good sides in this, the United States would have to prop up the Free Syrian Army and defeat both the Assad regime and its supporters and the majority of the opposition. [/quote]

Or we could go in and take over.[/quote]

Why waste the time, resources and men? It’d meaning fighting AQ, Iran and Russian in an unconventional war and Syrian forces in a conventional war. That’s just for the possibility of the new government playing ball with America. [/quote]

I agree.

[zecarlo]

A billion Muslims in the world and it’s up to a “Christian” nation to play peacemaker?

The problem is that neither side wants peace; they want victory which both sides probably define as killing everyone on the other side.

[dmaddox]

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
A billion Muslims in the world and it’s up to a “Christian” nation to play peacemaker?

The problem is that neither side wants peace; they want victory which both sides probably define as killing everyone on the other side. [/quote]

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be blessed.

The issue I have is the US is not playing Peacemaker. They will be arming one side to cause more killing and war. Obama is just paying lipservice. I think he will do nothing at all because he is a scared little man who does not know how to lead.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
There is no good side to this, and it will turn out badly.

…

The islamist rebels are basically fucking crazy, feeding on religious fervor, and hate the USA as much as they hate Assad. [b]Not sure why anyone would help them, unless the goal is to have every able-bodied man in the country dead.[/b]
[/quote]

That is my take on this decision. Makes me wonder if Kissinger didn’t find himself a youth potion.

[quote]pat wrote:

That’s not the way the world works. Everybody’s money is tied together in some fashion. Syria’s importance to the region is to great, not just Israels. Are you going to let Al qaeda run Syria? That’s the price of doing nothing. Syria’s fate is tied to our national interests and there is nothing we can do about that. Syria going strait to hell is bad for everybody.[/quote]

Pat is right Cooper. Isolationism simply wouldn’t work. Neither will invasion though. Afghanistan should have taught us that simply ignoring a problem (Taliban) won’t work, but invasion and trying to take over won’t work either.

Jewbacca’s “hold the boarders” and let it work itself out might work…unless WMDs are being sold…

No good options to this one.

[b89]

I think American involvement could have its upsides, the Assad regime being forced out would be humiliating for Iran and Russia. America wouldn’t have to be very subtle about it either, not like when America backed the Muj in Afghanistan. The Syrians and AQ don’t get along very well either, they’d have no problem with turning their guns on them after the big war is over. The Syrians don’t want AQ there doing suicide bombings and recruiting. If America helped Syria with the rebuilding process it could strengthen America’s influence in the region. That’d be bad news for Iran and they’d hate it, especially since the new government would know Iran has been helping the Assad regime and they’d want nothing to do with them.

[DBCooper]

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
There is no good side to this, and it will turn out badly.

…

The islamist rebels are basically fucking crazy, feeding on religious fervor, and hate the USA as much as they hate Assad. [b]Not sure why anyone would help them, unless the goal is to have every able-bodied man in the country dead.[/b]
[/quote]

That is my take on this decision. Makes me wonder if Kissinger didn’t find himself a youth potion.

[quote]pat wrote:

That’s not the way the world works. Everybody’s money is tied together in some fashion. Syria’s importance to the region is to great, not just Israels. Are you going to let Al qaeda run Syria? That’s the price of doing nothing. Syria’s fate is tied to our national interests and there is nothing we can do about that. Syria going strait to hell is bad for everybody.[/quote]

Pat is right Cooper. Isolationism simply wouldn’t work. Neither will invasion though. Afghanistan should have taught us that simply ignoring a problem (Taliban) won’t work, but invasion and trying to take over won’t work either.

Jewbacca’s “hold the boarders” and let it work itself out might work…unless WMDs are being sold…

No good options to this one. [/quote]

I completely disagree.

First of all, just because WE ignore them doesn’t mean that they will be ignored entirely. If foreign military intervention on the side of one group of terrorists over the other is what is needed to maintain peace there, then let Israel do it because I’m sick of seeing American soldiers come home in bodybags or in need of serious therapy and counseling for a lost, pointless cause. And the first half of that last sentence is EXACTLY what we will be doing there. We will simply be arming one group of terrorists over another.

You cite Afghanistan. Go back a little further and ask yourself if ignoring the Taliban was the problem or ARMING the Taliban 20 years prior was the problem. THAT is the mistake we will be making in Syria.

In 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, we’ll be fighting the same people we just took sides with. These are not some 21st century, Muslim versions of the American revolutionaries we’re arming here. These are Sunni extremists with a tiny minority of democracy-focused fighters amongst them, who will be wiped out by the Sunni Islamists that comprise a large portion of the rebel cause and have the motivation to bring the pro-democracy faction to a bloody end.

The ONLY reason we are siding with the Sunnis is because Iran has sided with the Shi’ites. It’s the Cold War all over again. We let our allies be determined by who Iran sides with, just like we sided with a bunch of monsters like Trujillo, Diem, Pinochet, military juntas in Guatemala and Argentina, Mubarak, and even, yep, you guessed it, Saddam Hussein, all because of the fact that they were less communistic or socialistic than the alternatives. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I didn’t even mention pieces of shit like Reza Pahlavi or Somoza Garcia.

This is an eerily similar situation to all of those past interventions that went nowhere or saw us funding, arming and siding with authoritarian, violent and dictatorial monsters.

So yes, we SHOULD ignore this situation. We SHOULD be isolationists, because the other options are either A) kill every last motherfucker in Syria on BOTH sides of the fight, B) side with a group of Shi’ite psychopaths, C) side with a bunch of Sunni psychopaths or D) side with the tiny minority of democracy-centric rebels who will be killed and dragged through the streets by virtue of their alliance with us and who will be replaced by whatever group of psychopaths is violent and twisted enough to carry out those killings.

The U.S. has chosen option C. I wish us luck, but the history of our attempts at foreign intervention tell me that luck alone will not prevent this from degenerating into some version of every other debacle our interventions have turned into.

[pat]

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Pat, I think you’re taking a WAY too fatalistic view of this thing. Just because our current role in global affairs is as some sort of misguided, de facto police force doesn’t mean we have to be resigned to that fate forever. And we don’t have to wait until we’ve withered away as a global power like some new version of Rome for that fate to be changed, either. We control our own destiny and I don’t think there is much benefit to constantly going around sticking our noses in everyone’s shit.

It’s overly grandiose and egotistical to think that we have everything figured out and should be the sole arbiter of what gov’ts get to stay and go. Look at this whole garbage with the NSA and the IRS. They aren’t new issues at all. The fact is that the IRS has been used in the past to quash political opponents and such and the CIA, FBI and now the NSA have all been used on and off for decades to illegally or immorally spy on people. That isn’t exactly a shining example of democracy. Neither is a populace in which more than 50% of eligible voters regularly avoid the polls. I could go on and on about how our current form of democracy in this country has been undermined by the very people who claim to promote it. And that happens with regularity on BOTH sides of the aisle.

So where the fuck do we get off trying to spread the bastardized version of democracy that we’ve festered upon ourselves around the world? And like I said earlier, any foreign policy in which we find ourselves obligated to stick our noses into the kind of shit going on in Syria right now is a bullshit foreign policy.

And I have to seriously question your understanding of history if you think that what is left in Syria will support us for supporting them. Whatever faction in Syria that actively seeks our continued support and reciprocates by hopping to our tune once the actual civil war is settled will be either the target of massive terrorist activities by virtue of being supportive of us, or they will be forced to do a 180 degree switch in attitude so that terrorists cannot automatically target them for their alliance with us. Probably both scenarios will unfold.

And really, what price have we paid for Cuba turning Communist? What price has America paid? What, the Bay of Pigs disaster? Most people who died were Cubans, not Americans, on both sides. The Cuban Missile Crisis? Shit, if anything that episode reinforced our superiority over the Soviets. Are we suffering because of the embargo on Cuban goods? If so, that was a self-inflicted wound since we didn’t have to enact it.

We are a lightning rod in the Middle East, not a galvanizing force. Once we go in there with troops, more American soldiers will die for a lost cause. We CANNOT rebuild nations in that area. We haven’t done so successfully anywhere since WWII.

You simply do not understand the dynamics over there. This is a Sunni vs. Shi’ite war right now. Hezbollah and Iran against Sunnis, many of whom are no different than any of the Shi’ites we will be arming them against other than their interpretation of the Koran. You want to see a united Syria? Send in a few hundred thousand American soldiers to crack some heads. They’ll put down their arms against each other and take them up against us in a heartbeat. Once the Sunnis realize that all of the promises we will make to them aren’t coming true or aren’t happening as fast as they’d like, they’ll start blaming us for all their problems and they’ll turn on us, most likely with the same weapons we gave them.

Or, we successfully help the Sunnis kick out Assad’s forces and then a couple years later we look up and realize that it’s just a different brand of authoritarianism ruling there, and it probably won’t even be as secular as Assad’s was. Then what do we do? If it’s of such strategic importance to the U.S., then it’s of infinitely more importance to Israel. Let them fight that war. They haven’t sent shit for soldiers into Afghanistan or Iraq for us. Maybe it’s THEIR turn to try rebuilding a backwards country.[/quote]

We are not dealing with a situation that is good or favorable in anyway. We’re not dealing with a situation where idealism will prevail into some type of Utopian fix for the middle east. We’re dealing with a situation where there are only levels of negative. We’re dealing with a situation where the rebels aren’t much better than the government. But still the problem is that the cost of doing nothing is far more detrimental than doing something to secure, limit and isolate the problem.

I would be lovely if we lived in a world where everybody could mind their own business, but we don’t. We are dealing with a situation where there are only bad options. People can and are getting involved in the Syrian situation.

So say we stay out of it. Who gets control of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, al qeada, Iran?
Syria’s problem is a bad one with far reaching consequences. We have a duty to ourselves and our allies to contain the situation the best we can. If we do not we will have a major stability problem in the region and then the world.

I suggest you do a little historical research on Cuba. I mean seriously, it only brought us to the brink of nuclear war, no big deal.

[pat]

[quote]b89 wrote:
I think American involvement could have its upsides, the Assad regime being forced out would be humiliating for Iran and Russia. America wouldn’t have to be very subtle about it either, not like when America backed the Muj in Afghanistan. The Syrians and AQ don’t get along very well either, they’d have no problem with turning their guns on them after the big war is over. The Syrians don’t want AQ there doing suicide bombings and recruiting. If America helped Syria with the rebuilding process it could strengthen America’s influence in the region. That’d be bad news for Iran and they’d hate it, especially since the new government would know Iran has been helping the Assad regime and they’d want nothing to do with them.

[/quote]

Unfortunately, just going to war and kicking someones ass isn’t the end of the problem. The cure is not much better than the disease, but it can be manipulated to some degree to be more favorable to the U.S. If nothing else, isolating Iran would be a very good result from this.
This is a complicated, messy situation.
I think the best option for the U.S. is to define some fairly simple and attainable goals and focus on those and not overly concern ourselves with the micro management. For instance, goal number one is to stop the mass slaughter of the Syrians. Goal two is to use our resources to steer the new government (and there will be a new one) to be more U.S. friendly. No, they won’t love us, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a mutually beneficial agreement. They will never ‘like’ us. But they can benefit from us and we intern from them. Which would in turn mean that Iran is more isolated and reduced land mass for terrorist sympathizers. Those would not be bad results.

[DBCooper]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Pat, I think you’re taking a WAY too fatalistic view of this thing. Just because our current role in global affairs is as some sort of misguided, de facto police force doesn’t mean we have to be resigned to that fate forever. And we don’t have to wait until we’ve withered away as a global power like some new version of Rome for that fate to be changed, either. We control our own destiny and I don’t think there is much benefit to constantly going around sticking our noses in everyone’s shit.

It’s overly grandiose and egotistical to think that we have everything figured out and should be the sole arbiter of what gov’ts get to stay and go. Look at this whole garbage with the NSA and the IRS. They aren’t new issues at all. The fact is that the IRS has been used in the past to quash political opponents and such and the CIA, FBI and now the NSA have all been used on and off for decades to illegally or immorally spy on people. That isn’t exactly a shining example of democracy. Neither is a populace in which more than 50% of eligible voters regularly avoid the polls. I could go on and on about how our current form of democracy in this country has been undermined by the very people who claim to promote it. And that happens with regularity on BOTH sides of the aisle.

So where the fuck do we get off trying to spread the bastardized version of democracy that we’ve festered upon ourselves around the world? And like I said earlier, any foreign policy in which we find ourselves obligated to stick our noses into the kind of shit going on in Syria right now is a bullshit foreign policy.

And I have to seriously question your understanding of history if you think that what is left in Syria will support us for supporting them. Whatever faction in Syria that actively seeks our continued support and reciprocates by hopping to our tune once the actual civil war is settled will be either the target of massive terrorist activities by virtue of being supportive of us, or they will be forced to do a 180 degree switch in attitude so that terrorists cannot automatically target them for their alliance with us. Probably both scenarios will unfold.

And really, what price have we paid for Cuba turning Communist? What price has America paid? What, the Bay of Pigs disaster? Most people who died were Cubans, not Americans, on both sides. The Cuban Missile Crisis? Shit, if anything that episode reinforced our superiority over the Soviets. Are we suffering because of the embargo on Cuban goods? If so, that was a self-inflicted wound since we didn’t have to enact it.

We are a lightning rod in the Middle East, not a galvanizing force. Once we go in there with troops, more American soldiers will die for a lost cause. We CANNOT rebuild nations in that area. We haven’t done so successfully anywhere since WWII.

You simply do not understand the dynamics over there. This is a Sunni vs. Shi’ite war right now. Hezbollah and Iran against Sunnis, many of whom are no different than any of the Shi’ites we will be arming them against other than their interpretation of the Koran. You want to see a united Syria? Send in a few hundred thousand American soldiers to crack some heads. They’ll put down their arms against each other and take them up against us in a heartbeat. Once the Sunnis realize that all of the promises we will make to them aren’t coming true or aren’t happening as fast as they’d like, they’ll start blaming us for all their problems and they’ll turn on us, most likely with the same weapons we gave them.

Or, we successfully help the Sunnis kick out Assad’s forces and then a couple years later we look up and realize that it’s just a different brand of authoritarianism ruling there, and it probably won’t even be as secular as Assad’s was. Then what do we do? If it’s of such strategic importance to the U.S., then it’s of infinitely more importance to Israel. Let them fight that war. They haven’t sent shit for soldiers into Afghanistan or Iraq for us. Maybe it’s THEIR turn to try rebuilding a backwards country.[/quote]

We are not dealing with a situation that is good or favorable in anyway. We’re not dealing with a situation where idealism will prevail into some type of Utopian fix for the middle east. We’re dealing with a situation where there are only levels of negative. We’re dealing with a situation where the rebels aren’t much better than the government. But still the problem is that the cost of doing nothing is far more detrimental than doing something to secure, limit and isolate the problem.

I would be lovely if we lived in a world where everybody could mind their own business, but we don’t. We are dealing with a situation where there are only bad options. People can and are getting involved in the Syrian situation.

So say we stay out of it. Who gets control of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, al qeada, Iran?
Syria’s problem is a bad one with far reaching consequences. We have a duty to ourselves and our allies to contain the situation the best we can. If we do not we will have a major stability problem in the region and then the world.

I suggest you do a little historical research on Cuba. I mean seriously, it only brought us to the brink of nuclear war, no big deal.[/quote]

I’m MORE than familiar with the history of Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis was something that was at least partially provoked by the U.S.‘s failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent attempts to assassinate Castro. Putting missiles there was no different in the Soviets’ eyes than us stationing missiles all over Europe and on the Turkish/Russian border. Maybe if we weren’t putting missiles up pointing them at everyone someone wouldn’t do the same thing to us. But that’s neither here nor there.

You keep saying that the price of doing nothing is too great but I haven’t really heard you say anything in regards to what that price is. Do you really think that Israel will allow those chemical weapon stockpiles to flow freely from Syria if we stay home? Of course not. So there’s one “price” we can cross off the list.

We have ZERO duty to our allies. Our allies have a duty to US. We’ve done WAY more for our allies than they have done for us. We owe them nothing. What are we worried about over there? Some chemical weapons? So what? There are stockpiles of them all over the Middle East. How many have been used by al Qaeda or Iran against the U.S.? You think that al Qaeda will get their hands on Syria’s? Why haven’t they done so in the past? Because Assad controlled them. Why do you think there is a push to get Assad out? This is something that was a small minority of concerned Syrians and that movement has now been commandeered and taken over by Sunni extremists looking to get them before their Shi’ite extremist rivals get them. Why? Because the side that gets them first will use them on the other side.

And do you think that Iran wants to see us get dragged into this mess? Of course they do. Our enemies know they can’t defeat us in a straight-up fight. They have to nickel and dime us to death over the long haul. This is another way for them to do so.

I firmly believe that the first step toward defeating terrorism is to what is necessary to eliminate us as a favorite target of terrorists. Otherwise, we are fighting the Forever War and we will lose it. Terrorism is an idea, a mindset, a method, that has been around long before the U.S. and will be around long after the U.S. It CANNOT be stopped entirely. That is a fundamental fact of the world that we live in that you and others seem to be completely unwilling to admit. The fact is that we can NEVER stop terrorism, but we can take steps to lessen the motivation of terrorists to attack US.

And I know people don’t want to hear it and it pisses people off because it’s kind of like admitting defeat and acquiescence and compromise and all that shit isn’t the macho thing, but we HAVE to change our actions in the Middle East 180 degrees if we want to lessen the motivation for terrorists to come over here and kill Americans with dirty bombs and jets and rocket launchers and chemical weapons. If someone gets it in their head that they want to kill a lot of Americans, they can do it. But if we give them less motivation by refusing to constantly stick our noses into everyone’s shit telling them what to do, how to live, how to behave, what they can and can’t use their oil money for and so forth, we will reduce the amount of people who are crazy enough and pissed off enough at us to risk everything to kill some Americans.

I really don’t know what is so hard to understand about that. So what if we lose some face in the process? So what if we piss off some of our allies? What have they done for us anyways? What the FUCK has Israel ever done for us? What the FUCK has Saudi Arabia ever done for us? What the FUCK has Western Europe ever done for us? How many of their soldiers have died in Afghanistan and Iraq? You know what happens if we go into Syria? We fuck things up even worse, just like we’ve done in Afghanistan and Iraq, maybe kill a few thousand civilians along the way and BOOM, you have the next generation of al Qaeda crazies looking to kill Americans out of revenge for the “injustices” we’ve committed in Syria. What happens if we do nothing? A bunch of wacky Syrians get killed, maybe some chemical weapons get out and they get used against each other or possibly Israel. That’s a shitty thing to happen, but shitty things happening is an eventuality over there no matter what we do. As an American, I’d rather see Israel at risk with a bunch of Syrians getting gassed to death than the exact same thing happening PLUS American lives and money going down the drain while resentment and motivation for attacking the U.S. increases rather than decreases.

[drunkpig]

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

You keep saying that the price of doing nothing is too great but I haven’t really heard you say anything in regards to what that price is. Do you really think that Israel will allow those chemical weapon stockpiles to flow freely from Syria if we stay home? Of course not. So there’s one “price” we can cross off the list.
[/quote]

Weren’t you recently bemoaning the aid we send to Israel? Now here you are using them as an example of how we needn’t concern ourselves in the Middle East.

It’s like you have foreign policy ADD.

I would triple or quadruple our support of Israel, and let them be the attack dog in the Persian Gulf region. Unleash them, and send them out to reclaim the lands they were forced to give back.

It would accomplish two things.

1. The Radical Islamists would have a much more visible and real enemy to fight.

2. Israel will kill enough people and break enough shit necessary to maintain peace. Something the US is too scared, or to beholden to the MIC to do currently.

Both of these achievements will lessen our need to get personally involved every time a camel takes a shit over there.

[DBCooper]

We can enjoy a high standard of living without having to prove ourselves as the alpha dog in every fucking conflict around the world, you know. We can extract ourselves from the current mindset that we have, which is basically that it is our duty to correct every injustice we see around the world. As a country, we aren’t fit to pass moral judgments on others, not with things like legalized abortion, the NSA scandal, the IRS scandal, massive racism, corruption in our gov’t, and on and on and on. We can be a much more isolationist country and still enjoy a high quality of life. Last I checked, Norway, Sweden, Australia and Switzerland all have pretty high standards of living and no one in the Middle East is foaming at the mouth to attack them.

Terrorists don’t hate this country for its ideals and the freedoms that we value. There are all sorts of countries that hold those same values near and dear, and they aren’t being targeted by terrorists. No, it’s our actions that motivate terrorists. Actions like arming Sunni terrorists over Shi’ite terrorists, actions like taking sides in an issue that we have NO BUSINESS taking sides on. Imagine how Americans would react if China were constantly sending troops or weapons over here to combat every little thing we did that they didn’t like.

You know how many Chinese are killed by American cigarettes? It must be in the hundreds of thousands PER YEAR. What would Americans do if the Chinese started bombing Phillip-Morris factories and accidentally killed a bunch of civilians in the process? What if China essentially justified those actions as their sovereign right to go after factories that produce WMDs, which is exactly what cigarettes are, and then downplayed the deaths of innocents in the process by saying, “Oh well, gotta break some eggs to make an omelette”, which is basically a simplification of our foreign policy? We would flip the fuck out and go after China with everything we have. How can we expect anything less from these terrorists in the Middle East? It’s absolutely insane to expect anything but more terrorists to be motivated to come after us if we go into Syria and start killing people there. And it’s a complete fallacy that we have to do so in order to protect our way of life here in America.

[DBCooper]

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

You keep saying that the price of doing nothing is too great but I haven’t really heard you say anything in regards to what that price is. Do you really think that Israel will allow those chemical weapon stockpiles to flow freely from Syria if we stay home? Of course not. So there’s one “price” we can cross off the list.
[/quote]

Weren’t you recently bemoaning the aid we send to Israel? Now here you are using them as an example of how we needn’t concern ourselves in the Middle East.

It’s like you have foreign policy ADD.

I would triple or quadruple our support of Israel, and let them be the attack dog in the Persian Gulf region. Unleash them, and send them out to reclaim the lands they were forced to give back.

It would accomplish two things.

1. The Radical Islamists would have a much more visible and real enemy to fight.

2. Israel will kill enough people and break enough shit necessary to maintain peace. Something the US is too scared, or to beholden to the MIC to do currently.

Both of these achievements will lessen our need to get personally involved every time a camel takes a shit over there. [/quote]

Israel has a booming economy and they’re more than capable of taking care of their own shit over there without our help. I do not think that we should fund their war machine, nor do I think it would wither up and die if we cut them off. So we should cut them off. Israel will continue to go after extremists like those we’re arming in Syria and those Iran is arming with or without our help. At least if we aren’t footing the bill for the Israeli war machine we can take the first small step toward lessening one of the MAJOR motivating factors for terrorists looking to kill Americans.

There are all sorts of reasons why terrorists want to kill Americans. But the biggest and most identifiable reasons are because we constantly meddle in their shit and make it worse and we pay for Israel to go after them. Stop meddling in every Middle Eastern affair and stop paying for the Israeli war machine and we remove two major reasons why terrorists want to fly jets into our buildings. We will not eliminate every reason, and we never will. But we can whittle those reasons down quite a bit.

[drunkpig]

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Israel has a booming economy and they’re more than capable of taking care of their own shit over there without our help. I do not think that we should fund their war machine, nor do I think it would wither up and die if we cut them off. So we should cut them off. Israel will continue to go after extremists like those we’re arming in Syria and those Iran is arming with or without our help. At least if we aren’t footing the bill for the Israeli war machine we can take the first small step toward lessening one of the MAJOR motivating factors for terrorists looking to kill Americans.[/quote]

Israel would not exist, nor would they have a booming economy today if not for US support. And I’m not just talking about official US government support. I have no facts to back it up, but I believe that the majority of Israeli citizens have either direct connections with the US or are no more than one generation removed from direct connections to the US.

In my opinion, Israel is the defacto 51st state - or 52nd, after Puerto Rico.

So treating our support of Israel as if they are Egypt, or Syria, or Pakistan is wrong.

They have the most feared military in the region - with Egypt and Iran a very distant second. But to call it a war machine is not accurate - especially given the fact that Israel’s military has been muzzled and chained for the better part of 40 years. Our money has gone to them to keep them quiet - not to fund a war machine.

I am suggesting that to achieve a reduction in violence in the Persian Gulf region - and by extension, in the US - an un-muzzled and unchained Israel is the most effective tool we have in our possession. It always has been, but the policy wonks are either too stupid to grasp the concept, or they are too worried about being liked.

There are all sorts of reasons why terrorists want to kill Americans. But the biggest and most identifiable reasons are because we constantly meddle in their shit and make it worse and we pay for Israel to go after them. Stop meddling in every Middle Eastern affair and stop paying for the Israeli war machine and we remove two major reasons why terrorists want to fly jets into our buildings. We will not eliminate every reason, and we never will. But we can whittle those reasons down quite a bit.

I agree we do too much meddling. But, they take our money in exchange for their oil. We have had a vested interest in their shit for 60 years. We’ve purchased the right to meddle 100 times over. We need stability, and stability in the middle east is as foreign to the people of that region as a pulled-pork sandwich or a BLT. I have no problems piling up dead Islamo-fascists as high needed for them to understand that there shit will no longer be tolerated.

Unleashing Israel would make the vast majority of the rebellious rock throwers over there sit down and shut up. I could give a shit if they like us. Getting them to do so is a pipe dream. But if we removed ourselves from the daily chattel and let Israel be the enforcers - we would be much less visible.

What we need to do is become energy independent, and tell the towel-headed bastards to fuck off. But when we do that, then China and Russia move in and exert even greater influence than they already do.

[DBCooper]

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Israel has a booming economy and they’re more than capable of taking care of their own shit over there without our help. I do not think that we should fund their war machine, nor do I think it would wither up and die if we cut them off. So we should cut them off. Israel will continue to go after extremists like those we’re arming in Syria and those Iran is arming with or without our help. At least if we aren’t footing the bill for the Israeli war machine we can take the first small step toward lessening one of the MAJOR motivating factors for terrorists looking to kill Americans.[/quote]

Israel would not exist, nor would they have a booming economy today if not for US support. And I’m not just talking about official US government support. I have no facts to back it up, but I believe that the majority of Israeli citizens have either direct connections with the US or are no more than one generation removed from direct connections to the US.

In my opinion, Israel is the defacto 51st state - or 52nd, after Puerto Rico.

So treating our support of Israel as if they are Egypt, or Syria, or Pakistan is wrong.

They have the most feared military in the region - with Egypt and Iran a very distant second. But to call it a war machine is not accurate - especially given the fact that Israel’s military has been muzzled and chained for the better part of 40 years. Our money has gone to them to keep them quiet - not to fund a war machine.

I am suggesting that to achieve a reduction in violence in the Persian Gulf region - and by extension, in the US - an un-muzzled and unchained Israel is the most effective tool we have in our possession. It always has been, but the policy wonks are either too stupid to grasp the concept, or they are too worried about being liked.

There are all sorts of reasons why terrorists want to kill Americans. But the biggest and most identifiable reasons are because we constantly meddle in their shit and make it worse and we pay for Israel to go after them. Stop meddling in every Middle Eastern affair and stop paying for the Israeli war machine and we remove two major reasons why terrorists want to fly jets into our buildings. We will not eliminate every reason, and we never will. But we can whittle those reasons down quite a bit.

I agree we do too much meddling. But, they take our money in exchange for their oil. We have had a vested interest in their shit for 60 years. We’ve purchased the right to meddle 100 times over. We need stability, and stability in the middle east is as foreign to the people of that region as a pulled-pork sandwich or a BLT. I have no problems piling up dead Islamo-fascists as high needed for them to understand that there shit will no longer be tolerated.

Unleashing Israel would make the vast majority of the rebellious rock throwers over there sit down and shut up. I could give a shit if they like us. Getting them to do so is a pipe dream. But if we removed ourselves from the daily chattel and let Israel be the enforcers - we would be much less visible.

What we need to do is become energy independent, and tell the towel-headed bastards to fuck off. But when we do that, then China and Russia move in and exert even greater influence than they already do.
[/quote]

First of all, since when was the U.S. in the business of propping countries that could never exist on their own? Secondly, at some point Israel has to take the reins themselves. You don’t believe in using tax dollars to fund other people’s lifestyles here in America. What is different about Israel that lets you toss that belief aside in their case? The support that we give them is nothing more than international welfare and entitlements.

While we certainly invest a TON of money in the Middle East by virtue of our oil expenditures, that same logic could applied to us by China. But we would NEVER stand for another country to tell us what to do. That would be a violation of a little something we here in America like to call “sovereignty”. Our country exists in part as a testament to the right of sovereignty, yet we toss that aside when it comes to other countries’ sovereignty. So I don’t buy the argument that us buying oil in the Middle East gives us the right to tell those countries how to run themselves. If we don’t like how they run their shit, fine. But trying to force a region that doesn’t have the same cultural, political or economical background as us to accept our values is EXACTLY what provokes a lot of this terrorism. Justifying it by saying we buy their oil doesn’t cut it.

[DBCooper]

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Israel has a booming economy and they’re more than capable of taking care of their own shit over there without our help. I do not think that we should fund their war machine, nor do I think it would wither up and die if we cut them off. So we should cut them off. Israel will continue to go after extremists like those we’re arming in Syria and those Iran is arming with or without our help. At least if we aren’t footing the bill for the Israeli war machine we can take the first small step toward lessening one of the MAJOR motivating factors for terrorists looking to kill Americans.[/quote]

Israel would not exist, nor would they have a booming economy today if not for US support. And I’m not just talking about official US government support. I have no facts to back it up, but I believe that the majority of Israeli citizens have either direct connections with the US or are no more than one generation removed from direct connections to the US.

In my opinion, Israel is the defacto 51st state - or 52nd, after Puerto Rico.

So treating our support of Israel as if they are Egypt, or Syria, or Pakistan is wrong.

They have the most feared military in the region - with Egypt and Iran a very distant second. But to call it a war machine is not accurate - especially given the fact that Israel’s military has been muzzled and chained for the better part of 40 years. Our money has gone to them to keep them quiet - not to fund a war machine.

I am suggesting that to achieve a reduction in violence in the Persian Gulf region - and by extension, in the US - an un-muzzled and unchained Israel is the most effective tool we have in our possession. It always has been, but the policy wonks are either too stupid to grasp the concept, or they are too worried about being liked.

There are all sorts of reasons why terrorists want to kill Americans. But the biggest and most identifiable reasons are because we constantly meddle in their shit and make it worse and we pay for Israel to go after them. Stop meddling in every Middle Eastern affair and stop paying for the Israeli war machine and we remove two major reasons why terrorists want to fly jets into our buildings. We will not eliminate every reason, and we never will. But we can whittle those reasons down quite a bit.

I agree we do too much meddling. But, they take our money in exchange for their oil. We have had a vested interest in their shit for 60 years. We’ve purchased the right to meddle 100 times over. We need stability, and stability in the middle east is as foreign to the people of that region as a pulled-pork sandwich or a BLT. I have no problems piling up dead Islamo-fascists as high needed for them to understand that there shit will no longer be tolerated.

Unleashing Israel would make the vast majority of the rebellious rock throwers over there sit down and shut up. I could give a shit if they like us. Getting them to do so is a pipe dream. But if we removed ourselves from the daily chattel and let Israel be the enforcers - we would be much less visible.

What we need to do is become energy independent, and tell the towel-headed bastards to fuck off. But when we do that, then China and Russia move in and exert even greater influence than they already do.
[/quote]

And you couldn’t be further from the truth regarding your assumptions about where Israelis come from or where they have connections. Almost 70% of all Israelis are born in Israel, and most of that 70% are 2nd or 3rd generation Israelis. About 3% descend from North America. I assume that when you say “direct connection” you mean descended from, moved from or have relatives who have moved to the U.S. About 10% of the Israelis in the world live in France, the U.S. and Canada.

If by “direct connection” you mean people living in the U.S. who are Jewish, well, there are just as many Muslims in the U.S. as there are Jews, and there are WAY more Muslims who are 1st or 2nd generation Americans than there are Jews who are one or two generations removed from Israel. So perhaps by your logic Israel is the 52nd state, but that would make the rest of the Middle East the 53rd, 54th, 55th states and so on.

[harrypotter]

These ME conflicts are ignorance at its finest.

It smells awfully familiar of Iraq and we all know where that has led. Thousands dead and no favourable end result but debt and oil contracts awarded to countries you dont want resources going to.

So the US thinks it can open negotiations with the Taliban? Putting aside the foreign soldiers in their midst, they are from Afghanistan and they see the US as invaders so to see the likes of Kerry stomping about the place saying they need to come to the table is hilarious. I am pretty sure they did the same with NVA back in Vietnam.

And now here we are, stepping once more into Islamic bloodlust, I was against the very idea of it being a Christianity vs Islam thing but how else is this going to be seen?

Giving weapons to a bunch of rebels who promise the keep the weaponry out of the hands of the nutjobs? Hmm, heard that before. They cannot even stop mass murder from these Jihad warriors on their own turf and they’re promising to keep weapons to themselves. I smell bullshit. These people cannot be trusted.

The worst of it is that there are still people in the west who have the power to give weapons and are trying to figure out the best way forward regardless of the outcome.

When are people going to learn from history. Its not even 30 years ago for fucks sake!

[b89]

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
We can enjoy a high standard of living without having to prove ourselves as the alpha dog in every fucking conflict around the world, you know. We can extract ourselves from the current mindset that we have, which is basically that it is our duty to correct every injustice we see around the world. As a country, we aren’t fit to pass moral judgments on others, not with things like legalized abortion, the NSA scandal, the IRS scandal, massive racism, corruption in our gov’t, and on and on and on. We can be a much more isolationist country and still enjoy a high quality of life. Last I checked, Norway, Sweden, Australia and Switzerland all have pretty high standards of living and no one in the Middle East is foaming at the mouth to attack them.

Terrorists don’t hate this country for its ideals and the freedoms that we value. There are all sorts of countries that hold those same values near and dear, and they aren’t being targeted by terrorists. No, it’s our actions that motivate terrorists. Actions like arming Sunni terrorists over Shi’ite terrorists, actions like taking sides in an issue that we have NO BUSINESS taking sides on. Imagine how Americans would react if China were constantly sending troops or weapons over here to combat every little thing we did that they didn’t like.

You know how many Chinese are killed by American cigarettes? It must be in the hundreds of thousands PER YEAR. What would Americans do if the Chinese started bombing Phillip-Morris factories and accidentally killed a bunch of civilians in the process? What if China essentially justified those actions as their sovereign right to go after factories that produce WMDs, which is exactly what cigarettes are, and then downplayed the deaths of innocents in the process by saying, “Oh well, gotta break some eggs to make an omelette”, which is basically a simplification of our foreign policy? We would flip the fuck out and go after China with everything we have. How can we expect anything less from these terrorists in the Middle East? It’s absolutely insane to expect anything but more terrorists to be motivated to come after us if we go into Syria and start killing people there. And it’s a complete fallacy that we have to do so in order to protect our way of life here in America.[/quote]

Those nations aren’t a superpower. Being a superpower requires an innate ability to demonstrate your power, violent actions have always been respected as power. China and Russia do send support to help fight against us in conflicts. The Russians supported the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam war and the Chinese supported the North Koreans in the Korean war. That’s just the reality of the world. Every nation knows about espionage and conflicting interests, the stronger nations just get their way.

Terrorism is peculiar thing. Especially when it comes to Islamic terrorism. At this point in time to problem wont just disappear, they were largely just left alone prior to 9/11. Sure, America was active in various nations but even something as simple as defending Saudi Arabia at the request of Saudi Arabia turned this nation into an enemy. They’ll always use something as propaganda or a recruiting tool. And even if America made concessions to them they’d just say America is weak and they’d declare victory over us, they’d use it as propaganda too.