Arming Syrian Rebels

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

“America Can Take a Breather. And It Should.”

82

[quote]Revanchist wrote:
“America Can Take a Breather. And It Should.”

I couldn’t agree more. I find it laughable that people think we can rebuild Syria or install some sort of puppet gov’t and that doing so will be successful. When was the last time we did something like that successfully? When was the last time we stepped into a regional conflict like a civil war and we accomplished our mission? We didn’t accomplish our mission in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran was a short-lived victory that ultimately led to an even worse alternative for our interests (the Ayatollah) than the previous alternative to the Shah (Mossadegh) and we certainly aren’t going to reverse that trend in Syria.

And I find it even more laughable that people think doing nothing will invite all sorts of future encroachments by countries like China that could ultimately lead to them supplanting us as the dominant world power. They have ONE aircraft carrier that is decades behind the TWO that we have sitting out in the Yellow Sea right now. And we’ve got much more than just those two. They may be a growing power, but they aren’t even close to being on our level for at least another decade or so, and that is assuming that we don’t continue to grow in military strength.

You know what’s an even greater threat to American prosperity and security than an unstable Middle East? An unstable U.S. economy, an uneducated American workforce and a crumbling American infrastructure. I’d MUCH rather invest the billions of dollars it will take (more likely, trillions) to attempt to stabilize Syria (an attempt that will undoubtedly fail if the last 60 years of history means anything) on stabilizing American infrastructures. We have aging levees around some major cities, electrical grids that need upgrading, roads that need repairs, a healthcare system that needs some reforms, an education system that has fallen far behind many other developed nations and an economy built largely on smoke and mirrors. We aren’t a country of infinite resources and attention. Every dollar spent in Syria is a dollar not spent here.

It is laughably naive to think that doing nothing in Syria will lead to massive negative consequences for the U.S. Massive unrest has existed for centuries in both the Middle East AND Africa and it hasn’t really hampered the U.S.'s ability to establish itself as the dominant global power.

83

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[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.[/quote]

There’s a lot going on here, but I don’t want to break it up.

-RE: “let Israel do it” I’m not entirely against this. I do NOT want boots on the ground. But I also see Israel as a friend. If we say, “F it, I’m out. You guys figure it out.” Will they then say the same when they receive intelligence? IMO, we need to stick together.

-RE: Arming the Taliban was the mistake. I disagree. We were on the brink of nuclear war. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. IMO it was ignoring them in the 90s that was the problem. “HISTORY IS OVER!” we can walk away! was the problem… perhaps we can agree to disagree.

-RE: 5-20 years from now. Yeah, maybe we will be fighting them. I just hope they aren’t on the side of China in the war, if you catch my meaning. Arming them is not a “good” it’s a “less bad”

-RE: list of dictators. I bet you can already guess my response. Go back to the one Europe and the US basically ignored. Arming Dictators is horrible, horrible, horrible. Maybe some of them should not have been supported. But we were staring at “War Three”… that would have been worse.

-If we go isolationist, China starts with Taiwan. Then they’ll expand and expand. I don’t think it would be long until we see China VS Japan. Maybe that is okay for you. It’s not for me.

IMO getting in bed with dictators was horrible. But WWIII would be worse. It’s ugly as hell when we start talking about IR. But putting up walls and pretending we’re not involved is not the solution. [/quote]

  1. Who cares if Israel provides us with intelligence or not? The CIA is still pretty damn effective at gathering its own intelligence, and if we aren’t nearly as actively involved in everyone’s shit over there then we won’t need Israel’s added intelligence capabilities anyways.

  2. Saying that we were on the brink of nuclear war with the USSR at the time that we armed the Taliban/mujahideen is patently false. Do a little research into something called “Team B”. The intelligence community in the U.S. at the time knew that the Soviets were on the brink of collapse. We knew that they had practically zero motive or ability to use nuclear weapons at that time unless it was to quicken their own demise in the form of us wiping them off the map. When KAL 007 was shot down by the Soviets, that was just further evidence that the Soviets simply were not a threat to us. They were so incompetent by that point that they couldn’t even distinguish between a commercial airliner from Korea and a U.S. spy plane.

  3. The U.S. will NEVER find itself in an all-out war with China, especially not with Syria on its side. China would be shooting themselves in the head if they went to war with us. Our economy is inextricably tied to theirs. They have a huge dependence on the U.S. buying the shit that they manufacture over there. If they went to war with us they would find themselves severely hampering the buying power of their biggest customer. The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them.

  4. I’m going back to the one the U.S. ignored, although there are two that I assume you are talking about: Hitler and Stalin. I don’t know what your point is there, or if you even have one. The U.S. basically ignored Hitler because we were isolationists at the time, although to say that we ignored him is a bit misleading. Britain essentially hoped that if Hitler went off the deep end he’d do so by attacking the Soviets and not them. My point about the list of dictators is that we regularly find ourselves aligning with some seriously fucked up people simply because of who they oppose. Britain did the same basic thing with Stalin and Hitler, although they didn’t really “align themselves” with Hitler.

  5. China won’t do anything that will provoke WWIII with the U.S. on one side and them on the other. They aren’t going to go after Taiwan, not unless the U.S. has already withered away to the point where the Chinese economy is not intrinsically tied to ours. The same goes for China vs. Japan. China is not the 21st century version of the Soviet Union. These doomsday scenarios you point to simply are not going to happen, so basing our foreign policy decisions on them is completely foolhardy and ignorant. It’s like having General jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove running the State Department.

Besides, I’m not suggesting that we go completely isolationist, only that we take steps in that direction in the Middle East. If we could remain isolated from as much of the bullshit in the Middle East as possible, it leaves us with way more resources to invest in THIS country and in protecting our interests from whatever encroachments China decides to make if they go off the deep end. [/quote]

Hmmm… I think you might just be throwing words at me rather than thinking through what you are saying. I haven’t slept much, so apologies if this is terse:

  1. You are ignoring my point. If you want a list of reasons why the US and Israel are good allies and should continue to support each other, PM Jewbacca. I don’t care to debate this with you.

CIA and intelligence gathering: Yeah, they are good. But then again, I think Iraq has WMD.

  1. I don’t care to debate “If the USSR was a true threat in the late '70s early 80’s.” You seem to be taking a stance that is directly against what most at the time believed. Your analysis of Team B seems… hmmm… unique? Anyway, if you don’t think the Soviets were a threat, there is nothing to debate.

  2. & 5) You wrote: "The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them. " In your worldview only the US’s actions can lead to war. This is silly.

If the US abandons the East, either because isolationists like you move us there politically or because we have “withered” as you put it, China WILL become more aggressive towards Taiwan.

Your strawman about China=USSR is just that: a strawman.

Your idea that fear of a war between China and Japan or Taiwan is a “doomsday scenario” is absurd. Your faith in trade/globalization is far beyond reasonable. You seem to be (because of ignorance or inappropriate faith in economics?) downplaying the animosity between these nations and the rampant nationalism of these nations. I don’t think that China will go to war with Japan over the Senkaku islands this year (I wasn’t so sure 6 months ago), but only fools would say it is beyond reasonable to see war as a possibility.

#4) My point was that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. The US could abandon its position in the world, to disastrous consequence. You seem to be moving toward “Peace in our time.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but don’t be surprised when others call you on it.

RE: you final comment: Finally you sound a LITTLE reasonable. That is a long way from saying “…we SHOULD ignore this situation. We SHOULD be isolationists”.

[/quote]

  1. Jewbacca is the last person whose opinion I want to hear about regarding Israel and the U.S.'s relationship. He’s hardly an objective source of information on the matter and for every argument he can make, I can counter it. Besides, the PM function doesn’t work and I’ve tried baiting him on the issue to no avail.

  2. It’s good that you don’t care to debate about USSR/U.S. brinksmanship during the late 70’s/early 80’s because there is no debate. You misunderstood what I meant about Team B. Team B was an alternative analysis of the 1975 NIE that historiography has proven was utterly inaccurate. The USSR and the U.S. simply were not on the edge of nuclear war at that time.

  3. Talk about strawmen. Where did I say that only U.S. instigation can lead to war? DId I say that? No. In the case of a potential war with China, U.S. aggression is the most likely action that would occur that could lead to war between the two. It is not the only way that war in this world can happen. If you think that war between China and Japan is at all likely, you are looking too far into the past and not enough into the present-day world in which the two exist. Of course war is a possibility. I never said it wasn’t. I don’t think it will happen and I certainly don’t think it is likely. China wants to fit in, for lack of a better term. They see the way the U.S. and South Korea and Japan have enjoyed prosperity and they know enough from their own history to understand that warfare with their neighbors is not a long-term solution for them anymore. China is hardly a flourishing democracy, but it is light years ahead of the days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. The people there have a much larger voice in the way their gov’t operates than at any time in recent history and they understand that warfare only brings them more hardships and less chance at prosperity. They are becoming a very materialistic society, and they understand that war may mean more “glory” or whatever, but it also means they get less shit for themselves. This isn’t the China of the Kuomintang vs the CPC anymore. They’re way beyond that stage now.

  4. You’re 100% correct in saying that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. But you know what ignoring problems ALSO doesn’t do? It doesn’t make them OUR problems, either. The tensions between various Shi’ite and Sunni sects in a tiny country with practically no resources such as Syria is not an American problem.

I’m glad you think that I’m being reasonable. Now it’s time for you to use some reason. I understand where you’re coming from and I don’t harbor ill will toward you for maintaining your position. But think about this issue for a minute. When was the last time that the U.S. stepped into a civil war like this and accomplished its goal, namely political, social and economic stability? Do you really think that we have a plan for Syria that will work? I don’t think so, mostly because the options being bandied about by everyone in a position to do something call for the same sort of actions that haven’t worked before in places like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and even parts of Africa.

84

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Revanchist wrote:
“America Can Take a Breather. And It Should.”

I couldn’t agree more. I find it laughable that people think we can rebuild Syria or install some sort of puppet gov’t and that doing so will be successful. When was the last time we did something like that successfully? When was the last time we stepped into a regional conflict like a civil war and we accomplished our mission? We didn’t accomplish our mission in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran was a short-lived victory that ultimately led to an even worse alternative for our interests (the Ayatollah) than the previous alternative to the Shah (Mossadegh) and we certainly aren’t going to reverse that trend in Syria.

And I find it even more laughable that people think doing nothing will invite all sorts of future encroachments by countries like China that could ultimately lead to them supplanting us as the dominant world power. They have ONE aircraft carrier that is decades behind the TWO that we have sitting out in the Yellow Sea right now. And we’ve got much more than just those two. They may be a growing power, but they aren’t even close to being on our level for at least another decade or so, and that is assuming that we don’t continue to grow in military strength.

You know what’s an even greater threat to American prosperity and security than an unstable Middle East? An unstable U.S. economy, an uneducated American workforce and a crumbling American infrastructure. I’d MUCH rather invest the billions of dollars it will take (more likely, trillions) to attempt to stabilize Syria (an attempt that will undoubtedly fail if the last 60 years of history means anything) on stabilizing American infrastructures. We have aging levees around some major cities, electrical grids that need upgrading, roads that need repairs, a healthcare system that needs some reforms, an education system that has fallen far behind many other developed nations and an economy built largely on smoke and mirrors. We aren’t a country of infinite resources and attention. Every dollar spent in Syria is a dollar not spent here.

It is laughably naive to think that doing nothing in Syria will lead to massive negative consequences for the U.S. Massive unrest has existed for centuries in both the Middle East AND Africa and it hasn’t really hampered the U.S.'s ability to establish itself as the dominant global power.[/quote]

That’s easy to say until the next attack. Syria is already our problem. Terrorism is the new face of war and a far more difficult one because it has no borders. A Syria that crumbles into an islamic theocracy because the outsiders who got involved were radicals will impact our interests negatively.
Economy is global, Syria is a strategic place both economically and militarily. It will impact the global economy which will impact ours. You cannot let Syria fall into the hands of radicals. It’s not only bad for the U.S., it’s bad for everybody.

85

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[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.[/quote]

There’s a lot going on here, but I don’t want to break it up.

-RE: “let Israel do it” I’m not entirely against this. I do NOT want boots on the ground. But I also see Israel as a friend. If we say, “F it, I’m out. You guys figure it out.” Will they then say the same when they receive intelligence? IMO, we need to stick together.

-RE: Arming the Taliban was the mistake. I disagree. We were on the brink of nuclear war. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. IMO it was ignoring them in the 90s that was the problem. “HISTORY IS OVER!” we can walk away! was the problem… perhaps we can agree to disagree.

-RE: 5-20 years from now. Yeah, maybe we will be fighting them. I just hope they aren’t on the side of China in the war, if you catch my meaning. Arming them is not a “good” it’s a “less bad”

-RE: list of dictators. I bet you can already guess my response. Go back to the one Europe and the US basically ignored. Arming Dictators is horrible, horrible, horrible. Maybe some of them should not have been supported. But we were staring at “War Three”… that would have been worse.

-If we go isolationist, China starts with Taiwan. Then they’ll expand and expand. I don’t think it would be long until we see China VS Japan. Maybe that is okay for you. It’s not for me.

IMO getting in bed with dictators was horrible. But WWIII would be worse. It’s ugly as hell when we start talking about IR. But putting up walls and pretending we’re not involved is not the solution. [/quote]

  1. Who cares if Israel provides us with intelligence or not? The CIA is still pretty damn effective at gathering its own intelligence, and if we aren’t nearly as actively involved in everyone’s shit over there then we won’t need Israel’s added intelligence capabilities anyways.

  2. Saying that we were on the brink of nuclear war with the USSR at the time that we armed the Taliban/mujahideen is patently false. Do a little research into something called “Team B”. The intelligence community in the U.S. at the time knew that the Soviets were on the brink of collapse. We knew that they had practically zero motive or ability to use nuclear weapons at that time unless it was to quicken their own demise in the form of us wiping them off the map. When KAL 007 was shot down by the Soviets, that was just further evidence that the Soviets simply were not a threat to us. They were so incompetent by that point that they couldn’t even distinguish between a commercial airliner from Korea and a U.S. spy plane.

  3. The U.S. will NEVER find itself in an all-out war with China, especially not with Syria on its side. China would be shooting themselves in the head if they went to war with us. Our economy is inextricably tied to theirs. They have a huge dependence on the U.S. buying the shit that they manufacture over there. If they went to war with us they would find themselves severely hampering the buying power of their biggest customer. The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them.

  4. I’m going back to the one the U.S. ignored, although there are two that I assume you are talking about: Hitler and Stalin. I don’t know what your point is there, or if you even have one. The U.S. basically ignored Hitler because we were isolationists at the time, although to say that we ignored him is a bit misleading. Britain essentially hoped that if Hitler went off the deep end he’d do so by attacking the Soviets and not them. My point about the list of dictators is that we regularly find ourselves aligning with some seriously fucked up people simply because of who they oppose. Britain did the same basic thing with Stalin and Hitler, although they didn’t really “align themselves” with Hitler.

  5. China won’t do anything that will provoke WWIII with the U.S. on one side and them on the other. They aren’t going to go after Taiwan, not unless the U.S. has already withered away to the point where the Chinese economy is not intrinsically tied to ours. The same goes for China vs. Japan. China is not the 21st century version of the Soviet Union. These doomsday scenarios you point to simply are not going to happen, so basing our foreign policy decisions on them is completely foolhardy and ignorant. It’s like having General jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove running the State Department.

Besides, I’m not suggesting that we go completely isolationist, only that we take steps in that direction in the Middle East. If we could remain isolated from as much of the bullshit in the Middle East as possible, it leaves us with way more resources to invest in THIS country and in protecting our interests from whatever encroachments China decides to make if they go off the deep end. [/quote]

Hmmm… I think you might just be throwing words at me rather than thinking through what you are saying. I haven’t slept much, so apologies if this is terse:

  1. You are ignoring my point. If you want a list of reasons why the US and Israel are good allies and should continue to support each other, PM Jewbacca. I don’t care to debate this with you.

CIA and intelligence gathering: Yeah, they are good. But then again, I think Iraq has WMD.

  1. I don’t care to debate “If the USSR was a true threat in the late '70s early 80’s.” You seem to be taking a stance that is directly against what most at the time believed. Your analysis of Team B seems… hmmm… unique? Anyway, if you don’t think the Soviets were a threat, there is nothing to debate.

  2. & 5) You wrote: "The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them. " In your worldview only the US’s actions can lead to war. This is silly.

If the US abandons the East, either because isolationists like you move us there politically or because we have “withered” as you put it, China WILL become more aggressive towards Taiwan.

Your strawman about China=USSR is just that: a strawman.

Your idea that fear of a war between China and Japan or Taiwan is a “doomsday scenario” is absurd. Your faith in trade/globalization is far beyond reasonable. You seem to be (because of ignorance or inappropriate faith in economics?) downplaying the animosity between these nations and the rampant nationalism of these nations. I don’t think that China will go to war with Japan over the Senkaku islands this year (I wasn’t so sure 6 months ago), but only fools would say it is beyond reasonable to see war as a possibility.

#4) My point was that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. The US could abandon its position in the world, to disastrous consequence. You seem to be moving toward “Peace in our time.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but don’t be surprised when others call you on it.

RE: you final comment: Finally you sound a LITTLE reasonable. That is a long way from saying “…we SHOULD ignore this situation. We SHOULD be isolationists”.

[/quote]

  1. Jewbacca is the last person whose opinion I want to hear about regarding Israel and the U.S.'s relationship. He’s hardly an objective source of information on the matter and for every argument he can make, I can counter it. Besides, the PM function doesn’t work and I’ve tried baiting him on the issue to no avail.
    [/quote]
    Or is it because he knows more about it than you ever will? You can counter it, but not effectively. He is an excellent source for regional information regarding the ME. He lived it which is more reliable that any idiot from thinkprogress.org.

Wow. Your facts suck. It leads me to believe you don’t really know what you are talking about.

U.S. aggression? lol

Syria is already our problem. Pretending it’s not won’t make it so. We have interests to protect and thousands of Syrian lives are at stake. You may not care, but it matters. It matters a lot. Iranian, Syrian, and Lebanese threats to Jordan and Israel will draw us into a much bigger conflict than trying to contain the Syrian situation will ever be.

[quote]
I’m glad you think that I’m being reasonable. Now it’s time for you to use some reason. I understand where you’re coming from and I don’t harbor ill will toward you for maintaining your position. But think about this issue for a minute. When was the last time that the U.S. stepped into a civil war like this and accomplished its goal, namely political, social and economic stability? Do you really think that we have a plan for Syria that will work? I don’t think so, mostly because the options being bandied about by everyone in a position to do something call for the same sort of actions that haven’t worked before in places like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and even parts of Africa. [/quote]
I don’t think you are reasonable. I think you are a hot head who talks too much and understands little. Gambit is a reasonable person, you are pure emotion.

86

Pat, I challenge you or anyone else to provide me with concrete evidence that the U.S. was on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviets at any point from 1975 onward. The fact that you are accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about regarding the NIE from 1975 and the Team B assessment of that intelligence estimate is clearcut evidence that you are the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Forget about what the average citizen thought at the time. We have the advantage of hindsight and also of knowing what was going on in the gov’t at the time. In 1975 the collective U.S. intelligence community produced its annual NIE, which Team B then contradicted. However, the historiography has shown that Team B was incorrect and that the NIE was correct. The NIE was an analysis built on highly classified intelligence, whereas the Team B analysis was simply a reworking of the NIE by people who operated outside of the intelligence community, hardly a position to make an effective counterargument about the meaning of and evidence behind top-secret intelligence. Donald Rumsfeld was the Sec’y of Defense at the time and responsible for pushing the alternative analysis. Paul Wolfowitz was one of the central members. The net effect of the Team B analysis was to exaggerate and overstate the actual strength and delivery/deterrence capabilities of the USSR, which ultimately led to an increase in arms production for the U.S. military/industrial complex, who was the only entity to gain from the erroneous alternative analysis.

Of course, some of the same architects partially responsible for this unnecessary increase in arms production were the same who erroneously evaluated the threat that Iraq was to the U.S. in 2002/2003. Much of what we think of or point to when we talk about U.S./Soviet brinksmanship from 1975 until Gorbachev took over builds upon the falsehoods perpetrated by Team B and the ensuing reshuffling of the Ford administration and the general intelligence/defense community. There was no real threat from the USSR that didn’t exist previously or hadn’t degenerated drastically due to the Soviets’ own ineptitude, as evidence by the mistaken shooting down of KAL 007.

87

[quote]pat wrote:

That’s easy to say until the next attack. Syria is already our problem. Terrorism is the new face of war and a far more difficult one because it has no borders. A Syria that crumbles into an islamic theocracy because the outsiders who got involved were radicals will impact our interests negatively.
Economy is global, Syria is a strategic place both economically and militarily. It will impact the global economy which will impact ours. You cannot let Syria fall into the hands of radicals. It’s not only bad for the U.S., it’s bad for everybody.[/quote]

Pat - you seem like a good guy with well meaning intentions, but you don’t seem to understand the situation going on in Syria. The “rebels” are the radical group that want to install an islamic theocracy and promote terrorism. Assad is secular, his opponents are not. He is a brutal dictator, but the majority of the Arab world is not even close to being ready for democracy, and his opponents are islamists that promote terrorism and our supported by al-queda. I’m also not aware of any direct or sponsored attacks on the U.S. or Israel performed by Assad.

The U.S. media was very biased covering this situation and I think that is causing many to think supporting Assad’s downfall is beneficial to the U.S. or the Syrian people. I see a shift in how things are being reported but we’ll see what happens over the summer.

88

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Pat, I challenge you or anyone else to provide me with concrete evidence that the U.S. was on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviets at any point from 1975 onward. The fact that you are accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about regarding the NIE from 1975 and the Team B assessment of that intelligence estimate is clearcut evidence that you are the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Forget about what the average citizen thought at the time. We have the advantage of hindsight and also of knowing what was going on in the gov’t at the time. In 1975 the collective U.S. intelligence community produced its annual NIE, which Team B then contradicted. However, the historiography has shown that Team B was incorrect and that the NIE was correct. The NIE was an analysis built on highly classified intelligence, whereas the Team B analysis was simply a reworking of the NIE by people who operated outside of the intelligence community, hardly a position to make an effective counterargument about the meaning of and evidence behind top-secret intelligence. Donald Rumsfeld was the Sec’y of Defense at the time and responsible for pushing the alternative analysis. Paul Wolfowitz was one of the central members. The net effect of the Team B analysis was to exaggerate and overstate the actual strength and delivery/deterrence capabilities of the USSR, which ultimately led to an increase in arms production for the U.S. military/industrial complex, who was the only entity to gain from the erroneous alternative analysis.
[/quote]
Challenge accepted.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm

Of course these documents are all about the same thing, the 1983 Soviet Nuclear Wars Scare. But you wanted evidence, so here is evidence.

I don’t think you really understood the mindset at the time. Whether the arms increase was necessary or not is irrelevant. What was relevant was the effect it had on the Soviet Union and how it changed the game significantly. You mix that with the Star Wars scare and the Cold War took a significant turn in our favor and had enormous impact on the Soviets, particularly economically. It forced the soviets to scramble and spend tons of money on counter moves, money they did not have.
What’s funny is that STI wasn’t really feasible, but the Soviets did not know that; it scared the shit out of them. It made a significant turn of events that led to it’s fall in 1990.

89

[quote]BPCorso wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

That’s easy to say until the next attack. Syria is already our problem. Terrorism is the new face of war and a far more difficult one because it has no borders. A Syria that crumbles into an islamic theocracy because the outsiders who got involved were radicals will impact our interests negatively.
Economy is global, Syria is a strategic place both economically and militarily. It will impact the global economy which will impact ours. You cannot let Syria fall into the hands of radicals. It’s not only bad for the U.S., it’s bad for everybody.[/quote]

Pat - you seem like a good guy with well meaning intentions, but you don’t seem to understand the situation going on in Syria. The “rebels” are the radical group that want to install an islamic theocracy and promote terrorism. Assad is secular, his opponents are not. He is a brutal dictator, but the majority of the Arab world is not even close to being ready for democracy, and his opponents are islamists that promote terrorism and our supported by al-queda. I’m also not aware of any direct or sponsored attacks on the U.S. or Israel performed by Assad.

The U.S. media was very biased covering this situation and I think that is causing many to think supporting Assad’s downfall is beneficial to the U.S. or the Syrian people. I see a shift in how things are being reported but we’ll see what happens over the summer.[/quote]

You apparently didn’t read what I wrote. I am not for supporting the rebels per se, I am for exerting control and influence over the situation. The rebels will take help from whoever will give it and it better be us rather than Iran or Al Qaeda. Everything we do needs to have strings attached. I am not under aware of the failure of the Arab Spring. I don’t want the region in control by radicals, that’s why we have to be involved or it will be.
Assad is done, period. It’s only a matter of time. We can either exert our influence and contain the situation or we can give Syria up to radical nuts. Those are our options.
We cannot support Assad under any circumstance. He murder 90,000 or his own people and used chemical weapons. The fact the he is technically secular did not stop him from being loyal allies of his Islamic nuts next door.

If you want Syria in the hands of crazed islamic radicals, than staying out of it is our best option. If we want to contain the situation and prevent the radicalization of Syria, we have to be involved. And stopping the rampant slaughter of Syrian people is good PR. When you have a gun in your face, anybody willing to remove that threat is your best freind.

90

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

Hmmm… I think you might just be throwing words at me rather than thinking through what you are saying. I haven’t slept much, so apologies if this is terse:

  1. You are ignoring my point. If you want a list of reasons why the US and Israel are good allies and should continue to support each other, PM Jewbacca. I don’t care to debate this with you.

CIA and intelligence gathering: Yeah, they are good. But then again, I think Iraq has WMD.

  1. I don’t care to debate “If the USSR was a true threat in the late '70s early 80’s.” You seem to be taking a stance that is directly against what most at the time believed. Your analysis of Team B seems… hmmm… unique? Anyway, if you don’t think the Soviets were a threat, there is nothing to debate.

  2. & 5) You wrote: "The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them. " In your worldview only the US’s actions can lead to war. This is silly.

If the US abandons the East, either because isolationists like you move us there politically or because we have “withered” as you put it, China WILL become more aggressive towards Taiwan.

Your strawman about China=USSR is just that: a strawman.

Your idea that fear of a war between China and Japan or Taiwan is a “doomsday scenario” is absurd. Your faith in trade/globalization is far beyond reasonable. You seem to be (because of ignorance or inappropriate faith in economics?) downplaying the animosity between these nations and the rampant nationalism of these nations. I don’t think that China will go to war with Japan over the Senkaku islands this year (I wasn’t so sure 6 months ago), but only fools would say it is beyond reasonable to see war as a possibility.

#4) My point was that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. The US could abandon its position in the world, to disastrous consequence. You seem to be moving toward “Peace in our time.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but don’t be surprised when others call you on it.

RE: you final comment: Finally you sound a LITTLE reasonable. That is a long way from saying “…we SHOULD ignore this situation. We SHOULD be isolationists”.

[/quote]

  1. Jewbacca is the last person whose opinion I want to hear about regarding Israel and the U.S.'s relationship. He’s hardly an objective source of information on the matter and for every argument he can make, I can counter it. Besides, the PM function doesn’t work and I’ve tried baiting him on the issue to no avail.

  2. It’s good that you don’t care to debate about USSR/U.S. brinksmanship during the late 70’s/early 80’s because there is no debate. You misunderstood what I meant about Team B. Team B was an alternative analysis of the 1975 NIE that historiography has proven was utterly inaccurate. The USSR and the U.S. simply were not on the edge of nuclear war at that time.

  3. Talk about strawmen. Where did I say that only U.S. instigation can lead to war? DId I say that? No. In the case of a potential war with China, U.S. aggression is the most likely action that would occur that could lead to war between the two. It is not the only way that war in this world can happen. If you think that war between China and Japan is at all likely, you are looking too far into the past and not enough into the present-day world in which the two exist. Of course war is a possibility. I never said it wasn’t. I don’t think it will happen and I certainly don’t think it is likely. China wants to fit in, for lack of a better term. They see the way the U.S. and South Korea and Japan have enjoyed prosperity and they know enough from their own history to understand that warfare with their neighbors is not a long-term solution for them anymore. China is hardly a flourishing democracy, but it is light years ahead of the days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. The people there have a much larger voice in the way their gov’t operates than at any time in recent history and they understand that warfare only brings them more hardships and less chance at prosperity. They are becoming a very materialistic society, and they understand that war may mean more “glory” or whatever, but it also means they get less shit for themselves. This isn’t the China of the Kuomintang vs the CPC anymore. They’re way beyond that stage now.

  4. You’re 100% correct in saying that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. But you know what ignoring problems ALSO doesn’t do? It doesn’t make them OUR problems, either. The tensions between various Shi’ite and Sunni sects in a tiny country with practically no resources such as Syria is not an American problem.

I’m glad you think that I’m being reasonable. Now it’s time for you to use some reason. I understand where you’re coming from and I don’t harbor ill will toward you for maintaining your position. But think about this issue for a minute. When was the last time that the U.S. stepped into a civil war like this and accomplished its goal, namely political, social and economic stability? Do you really think that we have a plan for Syria that will work? I don’t think so, mostly because the options being bandied about by everyone in a position to do something call for the same sort of actions that haven’t worked before in places like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and even parts of Africa. [/quote]

  1. Still ignoring the point.
  2. We’ll just agree to disagree.
    3a) I quoted directly from you. This is why I don’t think you are actually thinking…just typing.

3b)China/Japan-
Senkaku war possible? Could Asia really go to war over these? | The Economist

  Relations/propaganda: http://www.economist.com/news/china/21578699-government-reins-overly-dramatic-anti-japanese-television-shows-staged-warfare?fb_action_ids=10151490183410888&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=scn%2Ffb_ec%2Fstaged_warfare&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

 You don't have to burn the books, they just remove them: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21574629-how-china-makes-sure-its-internet-abides-rules-cat-and-mouse/print

 Peoples opinions about war: (from the link above) [i]A recent poll suggested that just over half of Chinaâ??s citizens thought the next few years would see a â??military disputeâ?? with Japan.[/i]

  1. Syria is not important in your opinion. I disagree.

  2. (your last comments) When did we achieve stability? Again, you don’t think there is a “real” risk of WWIII; I do. In my opinion, the world has been relatively stable.

91

[quote]pat wrote:

You apparently didn’t read what I wrote. I am not for supporting the rebels per se, I am for exerting control and influence over the situation. The rebels will take help from whoever will give it and it better be us rather than Iran or Al Qaeda. Everything we do needs to have strings attached. I am not under aware of the failure of the Arab Spring. I don’t want the region in control by radicals, that’s why we have to be involved or it will be.
Assad is done, period. It’s only a matter of time. We can either exert our influence and contain the situation or we can give Syria up to radical nuts. Those are our options.
We cannot support Assad under any circumstance. He murder 90,000 or his own people and used chemical weapons. The fact the he is technically secular did not stop him from being loyal allies of his Islamic nuts next door.

If you want Syria in the hands of crazed islamic radicals, than staying out of it is our best option. If we want to contain the situation and prevent the radicalization of Syria, we have to be involved. And stopping the rampant slaughter of Syrian people is good PR. When you have a gun in your face, anybody willing to remove that threat is your best freind.[/quote]

We are operating under different assumptions and what we believe are facts so we will naturally disagree. I respect where you’re coming from, I just think you are misinformed and idealistic.

I don’t think Assad is done and operating under this assumption is dangerous when using this non-fact as a way to justify our intervention. Right now Assad has the momentum. That’s just too big of an assumption and I haven’t seen anywhere in this thread where you make the case that Assad is finished.

WRT to “it better be us rather than iran or al-queda” helping the rebels:

Iran will not be helping the rebels as Assad is an ally and the only ally that supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war (where saddamm hussein savagely used chemical weapons on a massive scale and no one in America gave a flying fuck about at the time). I also strongly question Assad’s use of chemical weapons – this is regarded as a dubious claim internationally.

Al-Queda is already supporting the rebels. Well not really, it’s more that jihaidsts/islamists have completely taken over the movement. What’s left of the FSA is begging for arms ASAP so they can become a force in the rebel movement again. There are several articles out there detailing, from the rebels themselves, how they have lost the movement. That their men are defecting to the radicals, and are stealing their arms. The FSA in its current form is barely a disorganized militia let alone an opposition army. All the real power fighting Assad right now are radicals being backed by arabs in the gulf. No we should not support radicals just because we assume Assad will fall and we need them to like us. Having “strings attached” to our support is idealistic talk. The FSA has proven incapable of keeping their weapons from radical units.

You also say Assad is responsible for killing 90,000 of his own people, which is another irresponsible claim thrown around in the media. Do you think everyone who died in Syria were rebels? That the christians, moderates/seculars, alawites, etc. did not suffer any casualties? I’ve already gone on too long but there is so much misinformation being spread about this war.

Ideally, yes we could exert our influence and Syria situation would be resolved to the benefit of the U.S. and the Syrian people. Recent history suggests the exact opposite. I haven’t seen anything suggesting exerting our influence will result in a more stable middle eastern country. You and DBCooper have already had a lot of this debate so I won’t comment any further than that.

It seems like the only one of us who lives in the middle east is jewbacca and his opinion is that both sides stink. One man’s opinion doesn’t matter but the majority of Israelis support letting them kill themselves or reluctantly admitting that Assad at least kept Syria from chaos. Jewbacca - if you have a different opinion on what the common Israeli wants, please share.

92

Did not realize my last post was so long - sorry for that.

I’d like to add one more thing that is very relevant to this discussion - Obama has already confirmed that “all options are on the table” EXCEPT U.S. troops on the ground, and that it is not a possibility. Obama and Kerry have confirmed several times they would be providing arms to Syrian rebels, but nothing has been done yet and the rebels are getting anxious. My guess is that we provide small arms and ammunition in a gesture to the gulf arabs but not taking too strong of a position either way.

Source: White House plan to arm Syrian rebels raises fears of terrorist links | Fox News

93

[quote]Revanchist wrote:
“America Can Take a Breather. And It Should.”

This was a good article. I often like Haass

94

[quote]BPCorso wrote:

Right now Assad has the momentum.

…

… the majority of Israelis support letting them kill themselves or reluctantly admitting that Assad at least kept Syria from chaos. [/quote]

Assad gains the momentum. Then the US starts arming rebels while many are saying “I hope they kill themselves.” Obama/Kerry say they won’t put boots on the ground. No one is enforcing a no fly zone or putting any real resources in.

IMO this IS what a respite for America looks like.

95

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]BPCorso wrote:

Right now Assad has the momentum.

…

… the majority of Israelis support letting them kill themselves or reluctantly admitting that Assad at least kept Syria from chaos. [/quote]

Assad gains the momentum. Then the US starts arming rebels while many are saying “I hope they kill themselves.” Obama/Kerry say they won’t put boots on the ground. No one is enforcing a no fly zone or putting any real resources in.

IMO this IS what a respite for America looks like. [/quote]

I agree with you. NATO will definitely not be putting in any real resources in at this point. Saudi’s and the rest of that bunch will provide money and arms but they’re too lazy and disorganized to actually do anything but bitch to the U.S. about not cleaning up the shit storm they started. You won’t see anyone committing their armed forces to this conflict.

96

This whole situation is completely fucked to the point where the mass violence and terrorist attacks (connected to the Syria conflict) are occurring right now in Lebanon and Iraq are largely being ignored. That above link shows what kind of situation we have going on right now. Radical, batshit crazy clerics randomly committing terrorist attacks on people that are not on either side of this nonsense. They attacked the Lebanese army, killing 18 soldiers due to a fucking jihad order from the clerics. For the uninformed the Lebanese army is in no way connected with Hezbollah. This is just representative of the random and wide-spread violence that is occurring from these people and it’s happening all across the middle east. A bunch of savages crying for jihad and we want to support these people? Fuck Saudi Arabia and fuck their proxy war. If we want to engage Iran militarily we do it directly not through these bullshit proxy wars that serve Saudi interests.

Putzing around in Syria in a shallow attempt to exert influence will do nothing for our interests. This is way bigger than Syria, it’s the entire Middle East. What we have occurring right now is the result of the colossal fuck-up the French and British provided the world with the Sykes-Picot agreement. The world is not ready yet to solve this fuck-up. Until then we monitor and observe.

97

[quote]BPCorso wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

You apparently didn’t read what I wrote. I am not for supporting the rebels per se, I am for exerting control and influence over the situation. The rebels will take help from whoever will give it and it better be us rather than Iran or Al Qaeda. Everything we do needs to have strings attached. I am not under aware of the failure of the Arab Spring. I don’t want the region in control by radicals, that’s why we have to be involved or it will be.
Assad is done, period. It’s only a matter of time. We can either exert our influence and contain the situation or we can give Syria up to radical nuts. Those are our options.
We cannot support Assad under any circumstance. He murder 90,000 or his own people and used chemical weapons. The fact the he is technically secular did not stop him from being loyal allies of his Islamic nuts next door.

If you want Syria in the hands of crazed islamic radicals, than staying out of it is our best option. If we want to contain the situation and prevent the radicalization of Syria, we have to be involved. And stopping the rampant slaughter of Syrian people is good PR. When you have a gun in your face, anybody willing to remove that threat is your best freind.[/quote]

We are operating under different assumptions and what we believe are facts so we will naturally disagree. I respect where you’re coming from, I just think you are misinformed and idealistic.
[/quote]
I don’t think you know what assumption I am operating because you haven’t read what I wrote throughout the thread, only current posts which was evolved based on commentary from earlier in the thread and therefore do not know what assumption I am operating under.
Now, you are by no means obligated to read all of that, save for if you comment under what assumption I am working under.

With in the case of the war itself the momentum goes back and forth. Assad is done as the leader of Syria and his regime is over. He will never lead Syria again. The situation has disintegrated beyond the point of return. Time will tell of course, but I will eat my hat if he comes back to rule. The pressure in and out is to great, even if he were to win. He won’t.

He’s an ally until he is irrelevant, which is not far off. Iran needs a friendly Syria, it is strategically significant to them. If the U.S. creates a vacuum, it will be fulfilled if not by Iran, somebody else, not likely to be west friendly.

I haven’t made any contrary claims to this. I know Al Qeada is trying to get a foothold in Syria and that’s a problem. Of course they are backing the rebels as thats where the vacuum is.

Assuming you do not have an deep intelligence inlet, you have the same facts that everybody else has including me. Now the current casualty count is somewhere between 92,000 to 110,000. I don’t think unless you have some in, you know much different. I never said “who” these victims were only that most were civilians.

Recent history isn’t about influence, it was all out war. And technically, now that the smoke has cleared to some degree, there is more U.S. friendly presence in the ME then there was previously. I am not advocating all out war or boots on the ground. Providing support and assistance militarily or otherwise in return for U.S. friendly relations is in our best interest. Letting it alone and having the chips fall where they may is a far more dangerous proposition.

[quote]
It seems like the only one of us who lives in the middle east is jewbacca and his opinion is that both sides stink. One man’s opinion doesn’t matter but the majority of Israelis support letting them kill themselves or reluctantly admitting that Assad at least kept Syria from chaos. Jewbacca - if you have a different opinion on what the common Israeli wants, please share. [/quote]

And I agreed, as stated earlier in the thread you have bad and worse. You do not have a ‘good’ option. You have less bad options. Nothing here is golden. It all sucks. You deal with what you have and what you have is shit. But you have an opportunity here for 2 things, to reduce the casualties in Syria, particularly of the innocent and to establish friendlier relations with the new government. Whatever form that takes, there wasn’t much worse in terms of relations than what we had, so there is a great deal of room for improvement.

Whatever we do here, it’s all still a gamble. Anything can happen and anything can go wrong, but indications for positive effect for Syria, for the ME, for Europe and for the U.S. is tipped towards interventionism rather that isolationism.

98

[quote]BPCorso wrote:
Did not realize my last post was so long - sorry for that.

I’d like to add one more thing that is very relevant to this discussion - Obama has already confirmed that “all options are on the table” EXCEPT U.S. troops on the ground, and that it is not a possibility. Obama and Kerry have confirmed several times they would be providing arms to Syrian rebels, but nothing has been done yet and the rebels are getting anxious. My guess is that we provide small arms and ammunition in a gesture to the gulf arabs but not taking too strong of a position either way.

Source: White House plan to arm Syrian rebels raises fears of terrorist links | Fox News
[/quote]

And I agree with his stance, I just think he is moving a little too slow. I get it, it’s a huge gamble and you want to tread as carefully as possible, but I think as some point you have to come up with a decisive plan and implement. You don’t want to be fully reactive.

99

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Pat, I challenge you or anyone else to provide me with concrete evidence that the U.S. was on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviets at any point from 1975 onward. The fact that you are accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about regarding the NIE from 1975 and the Team B assessment of that intelligence estimate is clearcut evidence that you are the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Forget about what the average citizen thought at the time. We have the advantage of hindsight and also of knowing what was going on in the gov’t at the time. In 1975 the collective U.S. intelligence community produced its annual NIE, which Team B then contradicted. However, the historiography has shown that Team B was incorrect and that the NIE was correct. The NIE was an analysis built on highly classified intelligence, whereas the Team B analysis was simply a reworking of the NIE by people who operated outside of the intelligence community, hardly a position to make an effective counterargument about the meaning of and evidence behind top-secret intelligence. Donald Rumsfeld was the Sec’y of Defense at the time and responsible for pushing the alternative analysis. Paul Wolfowitz was one of the central members. The net effect of the Team B analysis was to exaggerate and overstate the actual strength and delivery/deterrence capabilities of the USSR, which ultimately led to an increase in arms production for the U.S. military/industrial complex, who was the only entity to gain from the erroneous alternative analysis.
[/quote]
Challenge accepted.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm

Of course these documents are all about the same thing, the 1983 Soviet Nuclear Wars Scare. But you wanted evidence, so here is evidence.

I don’t think you really understood the mindset at the time. Whether the arms increase was necessary or not is irrelevant. What was relevant was the effect it had on the Soviet Union and how it changed the game significantly. You mix that with the Star Wars scare and the Cold War took a significant turn in our favor and had enormous impact on the Soviets, particularly economically. It forced the soviets to scramble and spend tons of money on counter moves, money they did not have.
What’s funny is that STI wasn’t really feasible, but the Soviets did not know that; it scared the shit out of them. It made a significant turn of events that led to it’s fall in 1990. [/quote]

I think you DO understand the mindset at the time, except that it’s the mindset of the public at the time, not the mindset of those who knew the most about what the Soviets were likely to do in a given situation. The people with the most access to intelligence on the Soviets, including the Soviet Russia Division of the CIA, understood that they were very close to collapse regardless of the arms race. If anything, the arms race that developed in the late 1970’s simply served to prop up the Soviet gov’t even longer that it would have if left alone. Arms production floated the Russian economy along for a few years while the “specter” of an American arms buildup allowed the Soviets to further demonize the U.S. while distracting from the reality of their own situation. The 1975 NIE argued that letting the Soviets fall on their own sword rather than provide them with further ways to distract the populace from the nature of the ineffective gov’t was the fastest way to ending their regime. Subsequent information that came from post-Soviet Russia, such as the Mitrokhin Archives, strongly support the conclusions that the NIE reached in 1975.

Communism was a flawed system of gov’t at best. And in the hands of the Soviets it was doomed to fail. By the late 1970’s they simply didn’t need any help from us to come to an end. Most Soviets were simply too uninformed to know anything about the Star Wars program. They were served highly exaggerated propaganda. The ONE thing the Soviets had going for them is that they had WAY more agents within various areas of the American intelligence community (and had enjoyed an overwhelming advantage over the CIA in this respect since at least 20 years before the CIA ever existed) than the U.S. had in Russia. The Russian gov’t probably had a very good idea of what the Star Wars program was really capable of. We do know for sure now that the Soviet gov’t was using the American arms buildup as an excuse to exert tighter controls over its populace and promote a climate of suspicion, which conversely enabled them to justify even longer than they should have their authoritarian regime. “We may be bad, but the Americans are even worse, and if you don’t believe us then why else would they be ramping up their arms production?”

In a country as destitute as most Russians were aware theirs was by that time, it was easy to sell the anti-American angle. It was easy for the Russians to lie to their people about the reasons for the U.S. preparing to come after a broken down nation like what Russia was then. When you’re a broken country like Russia was, the only thing worse to an uneducated, ill-informed populace than the gov’t responsible for such poverty is the country willing to kick you when you’re down with their nuclear-tipped boots.

100

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

Hmmm… I think you might just be throwing words at me rather than thinking through what you are saying. I haven’t slept much, so apologies if this is terse:

  1. You are ignoring my point. If you want a list of reasons why the US and Israel are good allies and should continue to support each other, PM Jewbacca. I don’t care to debate this with you.

CIA and intelligence gathering: Yeah, they are good. But then again, I think Iraq has WMD.

  1. I don’t care to debate “If the USSR was a true threat in the late '70s early 80’s.” You seem to be taking a stance that is directly against what most at the time believed. Your analysis of Team B seems… hmmm… unique? Anyway, if you don’t think the Soviets were a threat, there is nothing to debate.

  2. & 5) You wrote: "The only thing that would instigate a war between us and China would be an overtly aggressive action on our part toward them. " In your worldview only the US’s actions can lead to war. This is silly.

If the US abandons the East, either because isolationists like you move us there politically or because we have “withered” as you put it, China WILL become more aggressive towards Taiwan.

Your strawman about China=USSR is just that: a strawman.

Your idea that fear of a war between China and Japan or Taiwan is a “doomsday scenario” is absurd. Your faith in trade/globalization is far beyond reasonable. You seem to be (because of ignorance or inappropriate faith in economics?) downplaying the animosity between these nations and the rampant nationalism of these nations. I don’t think that China will go to war with Japan over the Senkaku islands this year (I wasn’t so sure 6 months ago), but only fools would say it is beyond reasonable to see war as a possibility.

#4) My point was that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. The US could abandon its position in the world, to disastrous consequence. You seem to be moving toward “Peace in our time.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but don’t be surprised when others call you on it.

RE: you final comment: Finally you sound a LITTLE reasonable. That is a long way from saying “…we SHOULD ignore this situation. We SHOULD be isolationists”.

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  1. Jewbacca is the last person whose opinion I want to hear about regarding Israel and the U.S.'s relationship. He’s hardly an objective source of information on the matter and for every argument he can make, I can counter it. Besides, the PM function doesn’t work and I’ve tried baiting him on the issue to no avail.

  2. It’s good that you don’t care to debate about USSR/U.S. brinksmanship during the late 70’s/early 80’s because there is no debate. You misunderstood what I meant about Team B. Team B was an alternative analysis of the 1975 NIE that historiography has proven was utterly inaccurate. The USSR and the U.S. simply were not on the edge of nuclear war at that time.

  3. Talk about strawmen. Where did I say that only U.S. instigation can lead to war? DId I say that? No. In the case of a potential war with China, U.S. aggression is the most likely action that would occur that could lead to war between the two. It is not the only way that war in this world can happen. If you think that war between China and Japan is at all likely, you are looking too far into the past and not enough into the present-day world in which the two exist. Of course war is a possibility. I never said it wasn’t. I don’t think it will happen and I certainly don’t think it is likely. China wants to fit in, for lack of a better term. They see the way the U.S. and South Korea and Japan have enjoyed prosperity and they know enough from their own history to understand that warfare with their neighbors is not a long-term solution for them anymore. China is hardly a flourishing democracy, but it is light years ahead of the days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. The people there have a much larger voice in the way their gov’t operates than at any time in recent history and they understand that warfare only brings them more hardships and less chance at prosperity. They are becoming a very materialistic society, and they understand that war may mean more “glory” or whatever, but it also means they get less shit for themselves. This isn’t the China of the Kuomintang vs the CPC anymore. They’re way beyond that stage now.

  4. You’re 100% correct in saying that ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. But you know what ignoring problems ALSO doesn’t do? It doesn’t make them OUR problems, either. The tensions between various Shi’ite and Sunni sects in a tiny country with practically no resources such as Syria is not an American problem.

I’m glad you think that I’m being reasonable. Now it’s time for you to use some reason. I understand where you’re coming from and I don’t harbor ill will toward you for maintaining your position. But think about this issue for a minute. When was the last time that the U.S. stepped into a civil war like this and accomplished its goal, namely political, social and economic stability? Do you really think that we have a plan for Syria that will work? I don’t think so, mostly because the options being bandied about by everyone in a position to do something call for the same sort of actions that haven’t worked before in places like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and even parts of Africa. [/quote]

  1. Still ignoring the point.
  2. We’ll just agree to disagree.
    3a) I quoted directly from you. This is why I don’t think you are actually thinking…just typing.

3b)China/Japan-
Senkaku war possible? Could Asia really go to war over these? | The Economist

  Relations/propaganda: http://www.economist.com/news/china/21578699-government-reins-overly-dramatic-anti-japanese-television-shows-staged-warfare?fb_action_ids=10151490183410888&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=scn%2Ffb_ec%2Fstaged_warfare&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

 You don't have to burn the books, they just remove them: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21574629-how-china-makes-sure-its-internet-abides-rules-cat-and-mouse/print

 Peoples opinions about war: (from the link above) [i]A recent poll suggested that just over half of Chinaâ??s citizens thought the next few years would see a â??military disputeâ?? with Japan.[/i]

  1. Syria is not important in your opinion. I disagree.

  2. (your last comments) When did we achieve stability? Again, you don’t think there is a “real” risk of WWIII; I do. In my opinion, the world has been relatively stable.

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You provide an article from the Economist about the massive Internet censorship that exists in China, and then you turn around and try to support your argument that China and Japan were on the brink of war over the Senkaku Islands by pointing to the majority opinion of Chinese who believed this was the case.

Do you understand why that is a completely ridiculous way to support your argument? The opinion of the Chinese populace means NOTHING on the matter, given that, as you pointed out via the Economist article, they have extremely limited access to basic information. Their opinion may be that they were on the brink of war or that it will happen eventually, but their opinions are extremely ill-informed, as you yourself indicated. I’m sorry, but the opinion of a populace in which many, many people aren’t even aware that there was massive bloodshed in Tiananmen Square and who have never seen the famous picture of the Unknown Man standing in front of the tanks there is hardly something to build an argument from or use to lend any legitimacy to what you are saying.

Obviously it’s you isn’t thinking if you are going to use the opinion of a people who know only what their gov’t tells them to strengthen your point.

Also, I understand that the world is relatively stable, perhaps more so than at any previous time in the last several hundred years. But in a more specific sense, when was the last time that a country was stabilized due to the U.S. gov’t going in and using the same sort of methods that will undoubtedly be used in Syria should we follow the advice of you and others on here? Name one country since WWII where we went in and established a puppet gov’t in the name of stabilizing an area and actually achieved that. You’re absolutely right in saying that we have a pretty stable world. But that stability has NOT been achieved through the methods that will be used in Syria if we go in there and try to do more nation-building.

Iraq is hardly more stable than it was in 2001, and the same can be said for Afghanistan. We certainly didn’t stabilize Vietnam when we started putting money into it in the 1950’s. What are we going to do differently in Syria? I could see your point if you were offering some sort of solution, but you aren’t. You’re simply saying we should go in there for the sake of stabilizing the country. But the methods that you seem to think will work are exactly the ones that have failed all over the continent already. What is going to be different about Syria?