The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

[Handyman]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Maybe...though I discount religion more than you do it seems.

[St. Clown]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

I'd like to see what would happen if the US just took a step back, told both sides that it's up to them to figure it out for themselves. Would "unleashing" Israel lead to a genocide either by the Israelis or of the Israelis? I don't expect that would be the outcome. In fact, it wouldn't be overly surprising to see both sides temper down their behavior to some degree. I think we offer too much of a cushion so that smaller skirmishes happen with regularity while both sides know that an end is nowhere near a possibility. Remove the cushion, let both sides understand the full possibilities of their actions, and watch the rhetoric become a bit more civil. Israel is armed to the teeth, but lacks the population numbers. The Palestinians side has the population figures (when counting support from neighboring nations), but would have to wage a guerrilla-style conflict and Israel isn't likely to be as wishy-washy, as we have been at times, in dealing with its enemies' leadership if that were to occur.

Or maybe I'm just going Pollyannish here.

[joecct]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

The old maxim is that Israel must bat 1.000 on wars while the Arabs only have to get one hit to win.

[Handyman]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Israel doesnt have the numbers...if the US backed out of the region sooner or later something bad would happen and if the Arab States go "War of Attrition" on the bit Israel would be done for.

That probably wouldnt happen, but it wouldnt be your Pollyanna idea either. Not at first anyways.

[Kepler]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

They can be a free country or a Jewish state, but not both. Their choice makes sense for them -- plenty of other free countries to go to if that's your bag.

Us underwriting them is another matter. If BP and ExxonMobil still need them as a beach head, they can arm them directly. Better we pay at the pump than Arlington Cemetery. And if petroleum couldn't hide its warfare externalities as federal liabilities, renewables would suddenly be a whole lot more cost-effective.

[Rover]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

I'd like to see what would happen if the US just took a step back, told both sides that it's up to them to figure it out for themselves. Would "unleashing" Israel lead to a genocide either by the Israelis or of the Israelis? I don't expect that would be the outcome. In fact, it wouldn't be overly surprising to see both sides temper down their behavior to some degree. I think we offer too much of a cushion so that smaller skirmishes happen with regularity while both sides know that an end is nowhere near a possibility. Remove the cushion, let both sides understand the full possibilities of their actions, and watch the rhetoric become a bit more civil. Israel is armed to the teeth, but lacks the population numbers. The Palestinians side has the population figures (when counting support from neighboring nations), but would have to wage a guerrilla-style conflict and Israel isn't likely to be as wishy-washy, as we have been at times, in dealing with its enemies' leadership if that were to occur.

Or maybe I'm just going Pollyannish here.

I tend to agree with this. If each side doesn't necessarily want peace, the US involvement becomes counterproductive. The only thing I would push is a 3 state view where Gaza and the West Bank are separate entities with their own governments. Then they could negotiate without worrying about what the other faction on the other side of Israel thinks.

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Your last sentence is frankly bizarre -- the obsessive hatred on the right for all things Obama and the projection of a mythic equally strong obsessive allegiance to Obama is like a psych experiment. We've been over him for years, Bob. He's just another disappointing president. The only people keeping his supposed exceptionalism alive are his opponents.

But more important are the facts: Obama is following what is an unbroken tradition since Nixon of getting involved (and failing) in the peace talks. I can't think of a more non-partisan stance that US presidents have taken. There is nothing new here (nor could there be, since we matter so little to the participants).

But I do understand the gist of the rest of what you're saying. I'm not sure I agree in the abstract, but in the concrete instance I do not agree at all, and it seems like a 19th century British argument, as if we are responsible for framing the goals and prospects in that part of the world. Those people quite literally could not care less about what we think and the reasons we put forward for our involvement, unless we are actually having one of our fits or moral superiority and bombing their schools for, ya know, peace. Everybody since at the very least Edward Said wrote Orientalism 40 years ago, and probably long before that, has understood that western involvement in the Middle East is driven strictly by national self-interest. The idea that we are somehow holding out false hope doesn't make any sense -- those dudes are gonna do what they're gonna do; they know it, and everybody over here but Brian Williams and the evening news knows it.

My last sentence isn't bizarre at all. It happens every day around here. There's a lot of folks on here that will never admit Obama makes any mistakes, as they are so locked in on partisan political bickering that to admit less than perfection is apparently viewed as giving ground to the enemy. Obama isn't following an unbroken tradition. Bush Jr. had this one right in that he said he wasn't going to push peace talks if the parties involved weren't serious about making it happen and there wasn't a realistic possibility of getting a deal.

Of course many things drive what is happening in Israel and the Middle East and nobody is saying that Obama's failed, doomed talks are even the primary driver of the problems, just one of many that contribute to the problem.

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

I tend to agree with this. If each side doesn't necessarily want peace, the US involvement becomes counterproductive. The only thing I would push is a 3 state view where Gaza and the West Bank are separate entities with their own governments. Then they could negotiate without worrying about what the other faction on the other side of Israel thinks.

Glad to see some folks get it. I don't disagree with what you say. It's hard to know how helpful splitting Gaza and the West Bank is. A fundamental problem on the Palestinian side is that even if a main player like the PA signs a deal, you'll have lots of offshoots and other groups that likely won't sign on and will continue terrorist activities, and the PA isn't competent enough to put a stop to it, let alone in Gaza, where Hamas holds sway.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

uh, oh....

Jihadi insurgents rampaging across Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research from a university in the country’s north.

Iraq sent an urgent letter to the United Nations appealing for help to “stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad.”

Nearly 88 pounds of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq’s UN ambassador told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the letter obtained on Wednesday.

“Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state,” Mohamed Ali Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.”

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

What the hell is Iraq doing with 88lbs of Uranium?

[Kepler]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

My last sentence isn't bizarre at all. It happens every day around here. There's a lot of folks on here that will never admit Obama makes any mistakes, as they are so locked in on partisan political bickering that to admit less than perfection is apparently viewed as giving ground to the enemy.

Nope, there's a world of difference between "never admitting a mistake" and not rolling over and accepting whatever talking point is on WND's front page. I don't see anybody here who is still enamored with Obama, just as I didn't see anybody during the last 3+ years of Dubya who was in lockstep with him. As presidents roll up tenure the passion in the "for" column drops towards zero, while the passion against them either rises or at least stays the same. The sole exception I can think of for this normal effect is Reagan, who hung on to a pretty large number of blind followers right up until the day he left office.

Obama makes certain people's blood boil, and those people then accuse everyone who doesn't buy their Manichean worldview of "drinking the Kool Aid." That is nonsense. Speaking as somebody with VERY high hopes for Obama when he took office, I've been down to about a 6 on him since around 2010. I'm sure the Haters think that's a 10, but that's their cognition problem.

[unofan]

What the hell is Iraq doing with 88lbs of Uranium?

It's low grade stuff that would be extremely difficult to weaponize.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

It's low grade stuff that would be extremely difficult to weaponize.

Ok, that makes sense.

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Nope, there's a world of difference between "never admitting a mistake" and not rolling over and accepting whatever talking point is on WND's front page. I don't see anybody here who is still enamored with Obama, just as I didn't see anybody during the last 3+ years of Dubya who was in lockstep with him. As presidents roll up tenure the passion in the "for" column drops towards zero, while the passion against them either rises or at least stays the same. The sole exception I can think of for this normal effect is Reagan, who hung on to a pretty large number of blind followers right up until the day he left office.

Obama makes certain people's blood boil, and those people then accuse everyone who doesn't buy their Manichean worldview of "drinking the Kool Aid." That is nonsense. Speaking as somebody with VERY high hopes for Obama when he took office, I've been down to about a 6 on him since around 2010. I'm sure the Haters think that's a 10, but that's their cognition problem.

I mostly see never admitting a mistake around here. You are a rare, but refreshing exception in that you'll change your stance if good info pointing another direction is provided. Not so with most of the hardcore lefties around here. Don't carry their water for them. Let them do it.

[Kepler]

Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Thank you for the kind compliment. Although obviously I can not speak for others, I do think the better explanation is that the INTENSE OPPOSITION vs INTENSE SUPPORT dualism early in a pol's tenure morphs into INTENSE OPPOSITION vs INTENSE OPPOSITION TO INTENSE OPPOSITION later.

When the "WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!111!" brick bats are still being thrown even after everybody in the "pro" camp has sobered up and gone home from the party, those people (who are already pretty irritated that they've been let down, after all) just aren't in the mood to be labeled as blindly partisan. Nobody sees more clearly than they the flaws in the standard bearer who failed to deliver on his promises and, often, who failed to even try. As vile as I found Dubya, I doubt I felt anything like the disgust his voters felt once they saw what he was.