The Resurection of the USSR

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

Just as a little aside, I would actually disagree with the idea of
Pakistan being a nuclear threat - I mean an indirect or ‘accidental’ threat due to its political/social instability.

Despite everything we are seeing in Pakistan, the control over its existing nuclear weapons is actually pretty damn tight. The army brass has firm control; nobody, apart from them, is pushing any button.

Some analysts thought the Bhutto assassination might spark serious violence between the county’s different provinces, greater unrest, more questions over who’s in charge…but that hasn’t happened, and still doesn’t look very likely.

Nope, I would still be more worried about what might be floating around outside Pakistan (but not necessarily Iran) thanks to Dr. Khan…

82

[quote]red bull wrote:
Just as a little aside, I would actually disagree with the idea of
Pakistan being a nuclear threat - I mean an indirect or ‘accidental’ threat due to its political/social instability.

Despite everything we are seeing in Pakistan, the control over its existing nuclear weapons is actually pretty damn tight. The army brass has firm control; nobody, apart from them, is pushing any button.

Some analysts thought the Bhutto assassination might spark serious violence between the county’s different provinces, greater unrest, more questions over who’s in charge…but that hasn’t happened, and still doesn’t look very likely.

Nope, I would still be more worried about what might be floating around outside Pakistan (but not necessarily Iran) thanks to Dr. Khan…
[/quote]

Do you believe Musharraf is in control of the nukes, or the country, for that matter?

83

[quote]red bull wrote:
…

Nope, I would still be more worried about what might be floating around outside Pakistan (but not necessarily Iran) thanks to Dr. Khan…
[/quote]

What do you mean? It looks like Israel took out Syria’s program (which may have come from Iraq).

I am not sure who else is trying to build one.

Do you think there are Russian ones floating around?

84

Questions for Musharraf on missing terror plot suspect …

“Such things happen everywhere,” he said of Rauf’s escape.

Rashid Rauf, from Birmingham, was said to have vanished after two police officers escorting him from court to prison stopped at a roadside mosque and allowed him to pray alone. He had been held for 16 months after being arrested during an investigation into an alleged plot to bring down 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

Pakistani authorities insist that Rauf was allowed to escape after the two police officers accepted a bribe. But his lawyer, Hashmat Ali Habib, says he believes he is being held in secret detention, possibly to prevent him from being handed over to British police.

The Pakistani leader, who seized power in a 1999 military coup, rounded fiercely on a Pakistani journalist at the event who asked how the country’s security services could be trusted in the fight against terrorism and over stewardship of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

“Do we need enemies from outside when our own nationals are casting such aspersions on our country’s prestigious institutions?” Musharraf demanded.

The Pakistani government was also embarrassed earlier this month by the escape of two more Islamist militants, this time from a supposedly high-security prison in Quetta, in the province of Balochistan.

85

[quote]LiftSmart wrote:
Russian history is just one shit storm after another. I pity the average Russian workers who’ve had to endure dictatorships and incompetent monarchies for so long.

Not to mention the ass-freezing winters![/quote]

But the hot tennis broads…

86

[quote]lixy wrote:
So, maybe, just maybe, you should start questioning the real motives for the war on Iraq.[/quote]

Oh sure its all about Money or Oil, right? Or is it about Power? How about we get the discussion out of Junior High School and try the following reasons I’ve gotten:

  1. Point of honor – response to an honor-based culture.

  2. Show the Arab world the the most high-level functioning state in the region is absolutely no match for the US.

  3. Scare the Hell out of our allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan etc. that if they continue to support jihadis we will stomp them next

  4. Give any jihadis fully armed US soldiers to shoot at if they want to kill Americans rather than making civilian targets in the US attractive.

  5. Look for WMD, which Saddam basically lied about having to intimidate Iran. He got caught in his own bluff. Very important message sent: if you are even thinking of them and we don’t trust you, you might get an army parked on you.

Commentary on each point.

  1. Honor – showing nobody can do things to you with impunity is very much alive outside of the West. It is required in those societies that do not have strong social institutions. From the perspective of bin Laden and al Qaida, they wanted to oust the Saudis and we were seen as the only reason they were still in power. They figured we would not hit back hard and by attacking us as they did meant to show that the Saudis were not credible at stopping an uprising.

  2. Most observers at the time figured that the Iraqis would fight us to a standstill and we’d get caught in another Vietnam. That the war ended in a few weeks and ended up with Saddam’s body guards quibbling over how much they were going to get for him sent the desired message to all the despots in the region: Your countries are too fragile to sustain military actions and once they fracture you have too many internal enemies to hope for getting out of it alive. That it devolved into sectarian violence is a long sad tale, but the leaders in the region got the point.

  3. For many years through the 1970’s and 1980’s any internal dissent in our Arab friend’s country was dealt with by shipping them off to Afghanistan to be jihadis against the Soviets. When that ended, the Saudis and Egyptians still kept this up. Getting them to shut this down was hard because they didn’t have to do much to get the jihadis to leave the country on their own. It seems the friendly Arabs were more than happy to have their malcontents fly aircraft into US skyscrapers rather than deal with their own internal issues. The invasion of Iraq put them on notice. Suddenly the Saudis and others started finding terrorists all over the place and sharing intelligence about their networks.

  4. One anti-climax is that there really haven’t been any serious plots found in the US since 9-11. One of my friends federal marshal) credits US policy with that directly. It did not take too long for them to realize that US soldiers do shoot back and have pretty good aim. The number of US casualties has actually been pretty low for any war. This is why they switched to the policy of killing Iraqis civilians. During the recent election campaign this became a big political football, with everyone blaming the US for the “War”. It seems that we were personally to blame for Iraqis killing Iraqis. Note that once the election was over, this level of hysteria evaporated. Now we get nada. zip.

  5. I do think that this turned out oddly enough as being more of comment on how sincere the US took the threat. Look if we’d wanted to fake it we easily could have supplied any nuclear or biological weapons we wanted and claimed we found them at some secret site or even make a fake site. That you end up with the press getting dragged from location to location and finding nothing was because the US really did think there were WMD. It’s weird that a lot of people who talk about being fair and letting other countries have WMD like the US are also strongly in favor of gun control too. Be consistent. If I think you shouldn’t have an Uzi you definitely shouldn’t have a nuke. FWIW we know al Qaida doesn’t have a bomb because they would have used it.

Note that the last point got Libya to divulge its WMD project which in turn implicated Iran and N. Korea. N. Korea hemmed and hawed for a while before coming clean and gave us very valuable intelligence on projects in Iran (hence the report exonerating them) and Syria (which got the Hell bombed out of its main site by the Israelis last year).

While I would certainly admit the report card is mixed, I also fail to see why people don’t read up on legitimate sources that dissect foreign policy nor do they read up on the history or cultures of the regions – people in the US State Dept. do tend to do this, BTW. Instead we are often regaled with paranoid free associations that read more like an X-files episode.

I know I’m gonna get flamed for this…

– jj

87

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

Note that the last point got Libya to divulge its WMD project which in turn implicated Iran and N. Korea. N. Korea hemmed and hawed for a while before coming clean and gave us very valuable intelligence on projects in Iran (hence the report exonerating them) and Syria (which got the Hell bombed out of its main site by the Israelis last year).

While I would certainly admit the report card is mixed, I also fail to see why people don’t read up on legitimate sources that dissect foreign policy nor do they read up on the history or cultures of the regions – people in the US State Dept. do tend to do this, BTW. Instead we are often regaled with paranoid free associations that read more like an X-files episode.

I know I’m gonna get flamed for this…

– jj[/quote]

Iran and North Korea received help for their projects from?? You yourself need to read your “legitimate sources” to the end. Focus your eyes on Pakistan, and perhaps China if you dare.

88

[quote]Limbic wrote:
Iran and North Korea received help for their projects from?? You yourself need to read your “legitimate sources” to the end. Focus your eyes on Pakistan, and perhaps China if you dare.[/quote]

Agreed. I did not write that it was exclusively from those sources, just that N. Korea ended up ratting them out. China has, in the past certainly played its role but their help in getting Kim Il Jong to the table probably reflects a shift in thinking that as they grow, they might well be at odds with their former allies. At any rate we can certainly rely on the Chinese to put their interests first, can’t we?

Pakistan is definitely the source of too much nuclear proliferation and is simply too unstable. I still think the most likely way a nuclear exchange will come about is that Pakistan implodes, India is unsure who is in charge of the arsenal and decides to pre-emptively strike, figuring there it too much chaos for their command structure to react in time. But that’s another thread.

– jj

89

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
Limbic wrote:
Iran and North Korea received help for their projects from?? You yourself need to read your “legitimate sources” to the end. Focus your eyes on Pakistan, and perhaps China if you dare.

Agreed. I did not write that it was exclusively from those sources, just that N. Korea ended up ratting them out. China has, in the past certainly played its role but their help in getting Kim Il Jong to the table probably reflects a shift in thinking that as they grow, they might well be at odds with their former allies. At any rate we can certainly rely on the Chinese to put their interests first, can’t we?

Pakistan is definitely the source of too much nuclear proliferation and is simply too unstable. I still think the most likely way a nuclear exchange will come about is that Pakistan implodes, India is unsure who is in charge of the arsenal and decides to pre-emptively strike, figuring there it too much chaos for their command structure to react in time. But that’s another thread.

– jj[/quote]

I don’t think India will do any preemptions. They are down-wind after all and fallout would be considerable. Not saying it’s impossible of course.

The whole world seems to be viewing Pakistan with a raised eyebrow at the moment. Credibility?

90

US homes in on militants in Pakistan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA30Df02.html

91

Musharraf lambasted by ex-judge

“Is there a precedent in history, all history, of 60 judges including three chief justices being dismissed and arrested at the whim of one man?” Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry

92

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
[…]

I know I’m gonna get flamed for this…

– jj[/quote]

That was a mouthful.

It’s 2am around here, so I’ll be brief.

  1. You speak of honor, then immediately bring up Al-Qaeda and the Saudis. Forgive me for not finding the link to the war on Iraq straightforward. Clarify.

  2. Characterizing Iraq as “the most high-level functioning state in the region” is the most ignorant statement in your post. In the 80s and at the peak of its power when it had the West (yes, the US of A included!), Iraq couldn’t defeat a country that was fresh out of a revolution. After GWI and over a decade of straining sanctions, Iraq was literally in shambles.

As for the ludicrous idea that the US needed to “show the Arab world” its superiority, I’ll have to remind you that the Arab world couldn’t even make a dent in Israel’s military force. The US’ superiority has never come into question for a couple of decades now.

  1. So, because Saudis and Egyptians are “happy to have their malcontents fly aircraft into US skyscrapers”, you attack the Iraqis who had absolutely nothing to do with it? What kind of sick logic is that?

  2. This point is simply not understandable to me. You go in and invade a country thousands and thousands of miles away, claim that it’s a diversion and make one of those trippy correlation-causality tricks. Don’t even bother on this one. Whatever your rationalization, I am not interested.

  3. No, you couldn’t have “easily” made “a fake site”. It’s 2008 for Heaven’s sake! Cell phones have cameras, WikiLeaks is up and running, and dissent towards the war has been very pronounced from within the armed forces before it even started. Even a crooked dictatorship couldn’t have got away with something like that, let alone a democracy with checks and balances.

In any case, I fail to see why you quoted my post. You did exactly what I asked; namely, question the motives behind the attack.

93

[quote]lixy wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
[…]

I know I’m gonna get flamed for this…

– jj

That was a mouthful.

It’s 2am around here, so I’ll be brief.

  1. You speak of honor, then immediately bring up Al-Qaeda and the Saudis. Forgive me for not finding the link to the war on Iraq straightforward. Clarify.

  2. Characterizing Iraq as “the most high-level functioning state in the region” is the most ignorant statement in your post. In the 80s and at the peak of its power when it had the West (yes, the US of A included!), Iraq couldn’t defeat a country that was fresh out of a revolution. After GWI and over a decade of straining sanctions, Iraq was literally in shambles.

As for the ludicrous idea that the US needed to “show the Arab world” its superiority, I’ll have to remind you that the Arab world couldn’t even make a dent in Israel’s military force. The US’ superiority has never come into question for a couple of decades now.

  1. So, because Saudis and Egyptians are “happy to have their malcontents fly aircraft into US skyscrapers”, you attack the Iraqis who had absolutely nothing to do with it? What kind of sick logic is that?

  2. This point is simply not understandable to me. You go in and invade a country thousands and thousands of miles away, claim that it’s a diversion and make one of those trippy correlation-causality tricks. Don’t even bother on this one. Whatever your rationalization, I am not interested.
    [/quote]

We’re spreading democracy, and as long as we’re spreading democracy, we’re justified. Our military is sworn to uphold the defense of democracy around the world, after all. We’ll spend as many of our soldiers and tax dollars as we deem fit making the world safe for democracy.

This talk of Iraq not being involved in 9/11 is foolishness, I’ll demonstrate. Al Qaeda leaders originate from the Mid-East, correct? Well, Iraq is in the Mid-East! Aha! So, we’re in the correct region of the world, you have to admit. Furthermore, Saddam might’ve eventually become a member of Al Qaeda, or worked with them to attack us. You can’t say it’s completely impossible. Saddam in fact might have nuked us and then led the vast Iraqi army into invading us, setting up a Baathist goverment to rule us.

Might, may, maybe, possibly, could’ve, would’ve, and maybe defines who is a proper target. They may work with Al Qaeda in the future. They would’ve worked with Al Qaeda, given the chance. They might nuke us. Though there is no evidence they helped Al Qaeda attack us, they could’ve (anything is possible).

But we don’t need any of those justifications really. We’re spreading democracy, and you’d better damn well like it. We’ll stretch our forces to the breaking point, and borrow our asses off (regardless of our present financial problems), to make the world safe for democracy. And destroy those who may, possibly, at some point, might, could’ve, would’ve, one day attack us.

94

[quote]Sloth wrote:

But we don’t need any of those justifications really. We’re spreading democracy, and you’d better damn well like it. We’ll stretch our forces to the breaking point, and borrow our asses off (regardless of our present financial problems), to make the world safe for democracy. And destroy those who may, possibly, at some point, might, could’ve, would’ve, one day attack us.[/quote]

^^^^^^You were letting your avatar do the talking? Forebrain-free.

95

[quote]Limbic wrote:
Sloth wrote:

But we don’t need any of those justifications really. We’re spreading democracy, and you’d better damn well like it. We’ll stretch our forces to the breaking point, and borrow our asses off (regardless of our present financial problems), to make the world safe for democracy. And destroy those who may, possibly, at some point, might, could’ve, would’ve, one day attack us.

^^^^^^You were letting your avatar do the talking? Forebrain-free.[/quote]

It’s called sarcasm. At least it reads that way.

96

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Limbic wrote:
Sloth wrote:

But we don’t need any of those justifications really. We’re spreading democracy, and you’d better damn well like it. We’ll stretch our forces to the breaking point, and borrow our asses off (regardless of our present financial problems), to make the world safe for democracy. And destroy those who may, possibly, at some point, might, could’ve, would’ve, one day attack us.

^^^^^^You were letting your avatar do the talking? Forebrain-free.

It’s called sarcasm. At least it reads that way.[/quote]

It could’ve, might’ve, should’ve been sarcasm. That’s how it reads. It may have been alcohol-lol.

97

This article’s a fine piece of propaganda. As if the only role of a Pakistani is to defuse suspicion from externalities. Echoes of “Corruption as national sport in Pakistan”:

Media war against Pakistan

98

Yup, sarcasm. Completely critical of our involvement in Iraq. Hell, critical of our policy in the mid-east, period.

99

Fall back, men, Afghanistan is a nasty war we can never win

“Two years ago anyone expressing scepticism towards this rosy scenario was greeted at Nato headquarters in Kabul with guffaws of laughter.”

Pakistan, Cambodia … it’s all the same to U.S.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2008/02/03/4810242-sun.html

100

Maybe if we weren’t screwing around in Iraq…