[quote]T-MIA wrote:
…that doesn’t have [/quote]a turbine[quote] wrapped so tight around its head… [/quote]
That could really make your head spin!
[quote]Sifu wrote:
…
[/quote]
You made perfect sense, and hit the nail with your Roosevelt paraphrase. The conclusion to be drawn is that the US don’t give a damn about democracy in Pakistan as long as the dictator is on their side. That is, all the talk about “spreading freedom” and “establishing democracy” in Iraq is nothing but rhetoric. But I think we all knew that already…
The point I was trying to make here is that, from an anti-terrorism point of view, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia should be the prime target. Those are the primary sponsors and harborers of terrorists. I understand that you have issues with Baghdad or Tehran, but for heaven’s sake, cut the hypocrisy and stop using the terrorism label to justify action against those countries when they threat they represent is only a tiny fraction of what Islamabad and Ryad are. I hope I made myself clear.
P.S: Your definition of “true leadership” is closer to stubbornness and oligarchy than to anything else. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Obama or any other candidate, so don’t misinterpret this. I’m not defending Barack here. I’m just pointing out that democracy is the rule of the people.
The head of a democratic state should give a damn about what his people think. Else, it’s not much of a democracy.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
The one thing that Obama had going for him is he hasn’t been around long enough to have any kind of a history. Now that he is on the campaign trail we are getting to know him and people are finally waking up to the reality that he isn’t all that bright.
Pakistan is a house of cards, with a hundred million people and nuclear weapons. There are opponents of Musharaf in the government who want to make Pakistan a Taliban state. The Pakistani ISI were the ones who put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan.
So we do have to tread lightly with them. The last thing we need to do there is push too hard, cause the state to collapse and have someone walk off with a few hydrogen bombs.
We haven’t even got Iraq put back together yet, but Obama wants us to let it go to hell in a hand basket while simultaneously going into Darfur while busting up Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Why Obama or any of the other Democrats think that the jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere wouldn’t follow us into Darfur is beyond me.
We could not have invaded Afghanistan without the help of Pakistan. The Pakistani’s gave us Kalid Sheik Mohammad, the mand behind 9/11. So Musharaf is not Sadaam. Or to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, Musharaf may be a son of a bitch but he’s OUR son of a bitch.
When we wanted to send weapons inspectors into Iraq Sadaam gave no cooperation. This is why we assumed he had them because he did nothing to convince us otherwise and he had used them in the past. The fact that he had used them on the Kurds and the Iranians proved he did have them. You have conveniently forgotten this fact Lixy.
For Obama to say that he would use nuclear weapons on the Pakistanis is stupid. Obama has poisoned any relationship he could have with them before he has even become president. If you think that the Iraq invasion inflamed sensitivities imagine what would happen if we started throwing nukes around.
Obama has consistantly put forward an ideology of not using the military until after we have been hit hard, then all of a sudden he comes out with using nukes in a country that has it’s own nukes. What I gather from that is one of his opinion poll focus groups said he was looking too much a wimp so he needed to toughen up his image.
True leadership is doing what you believe to be right and not worrying about opinion polls. Obama has failed this test in a big way.[/quote]
Good post.
“Pakistan is a house of cards, with a hundred million people and nuclear weapons. There are opponents of Musharaf in the government who want to make Pakistan a Taliban state. The Pakistani ISI were the ones who put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan… to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, Musharaf may be a son of a bitch but he’s OUR son of a bitch.”
Musharaf used to be the ISI’s/Taliban’s/Al Qaeda’s son of a bitch until Bin Laden did us the enormous favor of calling our attention to the region. Had Al Qaeda followed Zawahiri’s playbook and taken control of Pakistan by means of a military coup, they would have been in possession of nuclear weapons; General Gul’s tanks were garrisoned but a few blocks away from the capital.
But this cult of personality worshipped Osama and not Zawahiri, and the impatient Shiekh needed something immediate. In this respect, Osama’s determination to attack the United States is reminiscent of Hitler’s mad decision to invade Russia while already engaging the British.
Pakistan is a house of cards resting on quicksand; stabilizing the area is just an impossibility, and trying to politically outmanuever its ruling elite is dangerously boneheaded (Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s finance minister, was able to negotiate Pakistan’s enormous foreign debt out of existence).
To quote Kipling: "And the end of the fight is a tombstone 'white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East”. Regardless of who are next president is, we’ll be over there before long.
Obama warns Pakistan on al-Qaeda
Aug 1, 2007
US presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he would use military force if necessary against al-Qaeda in Pakistan even without Pakistan’s consent.
Bill “PNAC” Kristol 3 weeks ago…
Neocon Bill Kristol expects Bush to attack Pakistan
July 12, 2007
“I think the president’s going to have to take military action there over the next few weeks or months. … Bush has to disrupt that sanctuary.”
“I think, frankly, we won’t even tell Musharraf,” Kirstol continued.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Neocon_Bill_Kristol_urges_Bush_to_0712.html
because…
Obama Will Seek To Convince AIPAC That He Is a True Friend of Israel
Obama Carefully Courts Jewish Vote
May 6, 2007
“When I am president, the United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel in search of this peace and in defense against those who seek its destruction,” Obama told an audience at the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), where his staff also handed out a 29-page “American-Israeli Relationship Issue Packet.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/politics/main2761773.shtml
The Israel Factor: Panel looks more favorably on Obama
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/844234.html
Unfortunately, when it comes to US foreign policy, look behind every bad idea and you’ll constantly find the same assholes over and over again.
JustTheJOOS
Is your paranoia ethnic, religious, or both?
One thing we don’t know about Saudi Arabia or Pakistan is what the US has secretly negotiated with them. I think that we probably do have some permission to take action in those countries, it’s just not something the leadership in those countries can be open about so we have to tread lightly in their territory.
By threatening to use nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Obama has created a situation where Musharaff may have to be less cooperative than he is now.
Tehran is a real problem in the middle east. They just signed an order with the Russians for two hundred fifty Sukhoi SU 30 fighter bombers with deliveries to begin by the end of the year. The Iranians are getting ready to go to war in a big way. The Saudis and the Pakistanis are not looking to be the kind of problem the Iranians are.
You can’t fix all of the worlds problems at once. But taking out the country where a third of the worlds oil supply comes from is not going to help anyone. Cutting off the Saudi oil supply would cause the entire global economy to collapse. You could trigger wars and famine across the globe.
Those who say we should just go and take out the Saudi’s are not thinking things through at all. It is not just America and Europe who need that oil supply. The entire world economy is so intertwined these days that it would affect everyone.
Lixy sometimes being a leader and doing what is right means doing something that is very unpopular with the people. I’ll give you an example. The American civil war was the bloodiest war in American history. It was an unpopular war for a people who noone cared about. There were viscious riots against the draft because noone wanted to go and fight. Today most people understand that it was the right thing to do.
I’ll give you another. During the Korean war people wanted Truman to take the fight into China and start world war three. Truman resisted and ended up leaving office with the lowest approval rating in history. When Truman left office in his farewell speech he said that communism would eventually fall because of it’s weaknesses and he would be vindicated. History proved Truman to be right.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
One thing we don’t know about Saudi Arabia or Pakistan is what the US has secretly negotiated with them. I think that we probably do have some permission to take action in those countries, it’s just not something the leadership in those countries can be open about so we have to tread lightly in their territory. [/quote]
I really REALLY doubt that.
You think Tehran shouldn’t be buying fighters? I wanna know what the logic behind that is. I mean, you included them in the ‘axis of evil’ and you showed the world that you mean business by invading Iraq. What do you suggest the Iranians do? Sit idly until you decide to knock on their door?
The rhetoric inside the Pakistani parliament is every bit as scary as what you guys from Iran. It’s just not publicized in the same fashion.
No country on Earth will dare to declare war on the US. That would be madness. On the other hand, terrorist cells attack you because they don’t fear the consequences (hard to deter someone who’s ready to commit suicide!). Iran isn’t at all associated with the terrorist groups who are after you. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are associated with them big time.
BS. You didn’t think twice about the global consequences of invading Iraq, now did you?
I don’t need an example. I know that most people are dumb fucks who would rather watch Paris Hilton on TV than learn about what’s going on outside their borders. Basically, few people are gonna research what doesn’t affect them directly. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that often, the populace is rarely aware of all (if any) the facets of an issue. My post scriptum had nothing to do with that. I pointed out that your definition of “true leadership” was at odds with the concept of democracy. There’s no going around that.
Personally, I don’t believe in protecting people against themselves. It’s not only pretentious, but it also leads to all kinds of abuses as illustrated by history.
[quote]lixy wrote:
tveddy wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
Deterrence worked once, against a far more powerful foe. Would it work against a far weaker opponent? You betcha.
The most dangerous swordsman in the world is the man who has never wielded one, for you don’t know what he will do with it.
I’m confused. Do you mean to say that the US is the least dangerous nuke-swordsman in the world? As far as I know, it’s the only country that has ever used nukes in a war.[/quote]
Between 1945 and 1949, we had a monopoly in atomic weaponry. Why didn’t we use that power to conquer the world?
Also, your slander against us for using nukes is very unjustified: imagine our president telling grieving mothers and fathers “Well, we had a weapon that could have ended the war and your son would be alive. We didn’t use the weapon out of our concern for the innocent Japanese.” He’d have been lynched.
[quote]Veratyr wrote:
JustTheJOOS
Is your paranoia ethnic, religious, or both?[/quote]
Reality.
You should follow the news Lixy, we blew up a madrassa in Pakistan just a couple of months ago tyring to hit Zawahiri. If we didn’t have some kind of arangment with the Pakistanis beforehand don’t you think that there would have been a hue and cry of protest from them.
The Iranians have to import gasoline because they have very little refining ability of their own. Poverty is a real issue for a lot of Iranians. Yet what do they chose to spend a lot of money on? 250 fighter bombers and 20 long range tankers.
Do you honestly think that a backwards country that cannot produce it’s own state of the art fighters has an ice cubes chance in hell of taking on and defeating the US? Also if as you suggest the US would be the aggressor and strike first do you honestly think that much of any of this new air force would survive? What the Iranians need to do is stop threatening to attack the Israleis.
Iraq was only producing one million barrels a day of oil, they were one of the lesser producers. Saudi Arabia produces over ten million barrels a day they are the number one producer. It’s not BS to say that taking Saudi Arabia out would have a major impact on the world economy. They produce a significant portion of the worlds oil supply. I think that you are just angry that your hero Saddam got took out.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Do you honestly think that a backwards country that cannot produce it’s own state of the art fighters has an ice cubes chance in hell of taking on and defeating the US? [/quote]
That’s exactly how the Vietnamese did it.
I have a question in all of this. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia are where al-qaeda is getting it’s backing. There was an article in the news last week about insurgents going to Iraq through SA via Damascus, Syria.
Pakistan is also crawling with al-qaeda. You need to look no further than the Red Mosque siege and the tribal areas of Waziristan to see this.
Then you’ve got Iran, buying weapons from Russia, afraid because we’re on it’s borders.
If they are so innocent in all of this, why are they not helping us stabilize Iraq? If they want their nuclear program for peace, why not put forth a peaceful gesture instead of stirring things up? If they became a instrument for peace and a threat to al-qaeda, maybe they wouldn’t have a need to fear us on their borders.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Do you honestly think that a backwards country that cannot produce it’s own state of the art fighters has an ice cubes chance in hell of taking on and defeating the US? [/quote]
Of course not. That is the reason Iran is trying to avoid a confrontation with the US. You’d have to be stupid to think Iran is any threat to the safety and welfare of the American people.
Your prolonged presence in Iraq is making sure the probability to clash with Tehran is high. A side effect I’m sure the neo-cons had in the mind all the way.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
If they are so innocent in all of this, why are they not helping us stabilize Iraq? If they want their nuclear program for peace, why not put forth a peaceful gesture instead of stirring things up? If they became a instrument for peace and a threat to al-qaeda, maybe they wouldn’t have a need to fear us on their borders.[/quote]
First of all, let’s make one thing clear: Iran is not helping Al-Qaeda. No matter what you hear on Fox, that is simply untrue. They’re probably arming Al-Sadr, but then again, they’ve been trying to help the oppressed Shi’ites even under Saddam. So, the “if they became […] a threat to Al-Qaeda” in your question is plain silly 'cause everybody knows they are already Al-Qaeda’s enemies. And starting a question with “if they are so innocent” is quite disingenuous. We’re not talking about individuals here. We’re talking about countries, none of which is innocent. But on the world scene, you can clearly see that Iran is a lot more innocent than the US for example because they don’t invade other countries.
Iran understandably doesn’t want a US-controlled Iraq. They would much rather have an Iraq where the Shi’a majority is properly represented in government. As you can probably recall, the major Shi’a block boycotted the elections (because the American military was on their soil). So, you can bet your sweet ass that Iran has no incentive to keep the status quo - if one can call a mess a status quo.
The ideal and most profitable scenario (from an American perspective) would have been for the White House to accept sitting down with the Iranians when the latter offered to negotiate. You had the upper hand at the time. Now, you’re so deep in shit that your leverage just isn’t the same. So, yeah, why would a country not interested in peace propose a sit-in and negotiations? Which country seems the most “peaceful and innocent” to you? The one that encourages diplomacy or the one that rejects it?
[quote]lixy wrote:
“First of all, let’s make one thing clear: Iran is not helping Al-Qaeda.”
No one is saying that they are. But Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both claim they are not helping al-qaeda. Whose to say which country is and which is not.
“'cause everybody knows they are already Al-Qaeda’s enemies.”
“But on the world scene, you can clearly see that Iran is a lot more innocent than the US for example because they don’t invade other countries.”
Iran has its share of bloodshed on their hands.
“Iran understandably doesn’t want a US-controlled Iraq. They would much rather have an Iraq where the Shi’a majority is properly represented in government. As you can probably recall, the major Shi’a block boycotted the elections (because the American military was on their soil). So, you can bet your sweet ass that Iran has no incentive to keep the status quo - if one can call a mess a status quo.”
The government is Shia controlled. Their leader is a Shia.
It seems stupid for Iran to want to drive the US out of Iraq. What will happen if they do leave and a full scale war breaks out between the wahabi proxies and the Iranian proxies? Is this what Iran wants on their border now? A den of wahabi terrorists? Logically, they should want to work with us to stabilize this country.
“Which country seems the most “peaceful and innocent” to you? The one that encourages diplomacy or the one that rejects it?”
I understand. But if they were truely interested in peace, they would pursue the issue. Obviously, they are not.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
I understand. But if they were truely interested in peace, they would pursue the issue. Obviously, they are not.[/quote]
What do you mean by “pursue the issue”? The Swiss ambassador got reprimanded for carrying the message. What was the Ayatollah to do? Get on his knees and implore the US to deign talk to him? You’re not being realistic here.
Ok, if the article you posted above is true, Washington screwed up big time.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
lixy wrote:
“Iran understandably doesn’t want a US-controlled Iraq. They would much rather have an Iraq where the Shi’a majority is properly represented in government. As you can probably recall, the major Shi’a block boycotted the elections (because the American military was on their soil). So, you can bet your sweet ass that Iran has no incentive to keep the status quo - if one can call a mess a status quo.”
The government is Shia controlled. Their leader is a Shia.
It seems stupid for Iran to want to drive the US out of Iraq. What will happen if they do leave and a full scale war breaks out between the wahabi proxies and the Iranian proxies? Is this what Iran wants on their border now? A den of wahabi terrorists? Logically, they should want to work with us to stabilize this country.
[/quote]
What about this? Why does Iran want this on it’s border?