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US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

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Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

For a non polar world, he blew it. The world was just trading, travelling, talking online. The US' world position was starting to soften. No need for US 'leadership'. But as with Fox benefiting from a Democrat win, a fading US presence doesn't serve Putin's purpose.

I wouldn't be surprised if ISIS started gaining extremist support with the tailwind of Russian global confrontation behind it. Anger breeds anger. The difference is that those attracted to the Putin world vision have hope...those attracted to the ISIS vision have no hope. Both are dangerous...but no hope is always more dangerous.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

Putin doesn't want the truth because deep down, in places he doesn't talk about at international summits, he wants us on that wall. He needs us on that wall.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Putin doesn't want the truth because deep down, in places he doesn't talk about at international summits, he wants us on that wall. He needs us on that wall.
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The best gift we can give the Russians and Chinese is to go right on bankrupting ourselves to maintain our oligarchs' Empire. And when we finally go the way of the Spanish, Dutch and British empires, our billionaires will be just as happy living their same lifestyle in St. Petersburg or Shanghai.

To be honest, the Netherlands looks pretty nice, so hasten unto the day when America is no longer a superpower. It might be a decent place to live again.
 
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Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
The Senator from Ohio will take a lot of flak for this. It's a shame, because he's about 80% right.
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They are terrorists. However, how many of them are lone wolf shooters with severe mental illness? We are supposed to have databases to protect us from allowing these people to get firearms. I'm not at all saying we need a database of Muslims. That's reprehensible and nauseating.

So, I'm not entirely sure what his point is. Congratulations? You're technically correct, Brown, but what's your point?
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

Obvious.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In February 2004, you already had Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in your hands -- he was imprisoned in a military camp, but got cleared later as harmless by a US military commission. How could that fatal mistake happen?

Flynn: We were too dumb. We didn't understand who we had there at that moment. When 9/11 occurred, all the emotions took over, and our response was, "Where did those ******** come from? Let's go kill them. Let's go get them." Instead of asking why they attacked us, we asked where they came from. Then we strategically marched in the wrong direction.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The US invaded Iraq even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11.

Flynn: First we went to Afghanistan, where al-Qaida was based. Then we went into Iraq. Instead of asking ourselves why the phenomenon of terror occurred, we were looking for locations. This is a major lesson we must learn in order not to make the same mistakes again.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Islamic State wouldn't be where it is now without the fall of Baghdad. Do you regret ...

Flynn: ... yes, absolutely ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: ... the Iraq war?

Flynn: It was huge error. As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him. The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.
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So this Flynn guy is just some surrender monkey, right?

Michael Flynn, 56, served in the United States Army for more than 30 years, most recently as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he was the nation's highest-ranking military intelligence officer. Previously, he served as assistant director of national intelligence inside the Obama administration. From 2004 to 2007, he was stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, where, as commander of the US special forces, he hunted top al-Qaida terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the predecessors to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who today heads the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. After Flynn's team located Zarqawi's whereabouts, the US killed the terrorist in an air strike in June 2006.
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In all honesty, is there anybody left on the planet who doesn't realize that the Neocons made the US ten times more vulnerable with all their idiocy? And that they are still out there, just waiting to get the band back together if a Republican wins in 2016?
 
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Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

This isn't a news.

This was evident in 1979.

The shah kept Iran under wraps. "Freedom" doesn't work for some people. The Middle East would do well with a few figureheads who suppress their 'people' and give us oil - cheaply.

Again, not a news flash by any stretch
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

mookie1995 said:
This isn't a news.

This was evident in 1979.

The shah kept Iran under wraps. "Freedom" doesn't work for some people. The Middle East would do well with a few figureheads who suppress their 'people' and give us oil - cheaply.

Again, not a news flash by any stretch
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This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the quotes provided by Kepler. So, we have a handful of brutal, terrible individuals that are keeping a collection of people under their thumb through murder and terror, and included in the collection of suppressed people are groups who are bitter at the U.S. for assisting/facilitating the dictator to remain in power, but that's the choice we should make because it's better to let a thug keep these monkeys in line than opening the cage to the zoo? Doesn't sound like a great solution either way.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

SJHovey said:
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the quotes provided by Kepler. So, we have a handful of brutal, terrible individuals that are keeping a collection of people under their thumb through murder and terror, and included in the collection of suppressed people are groups who are bitter at the U.S. for assisting/facilitating the dictator to remain in power, but that's the choice we should make because it's better to let a thug keep these monkeys in line than opening the cage to the zoo? Doesn't sound like a great solution either way.
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That's the thing about grown-up decision making. Even a child can choose between good and bad - it takes an adult to choose correctly between a range of bad alternatives. In this case, you're right that it's a lousy alternative, but it sure beats what we've been doing or the 3rd option of nuking them and starting over.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

Problem is the normal people have been suppressed forever and don't rally have the wherewithal to take control. If we "collective we - US Europe demo-Asia" could have siphoned off refugees over years we could offer hope in a new world for them.

What is is said about a vacuum???

Iraq W2 only worked if the US stayed and made it Puerto Rico. Neither side wanted to hand hold (or win).
It was dumb going there, but equally as dumb to pull out en masse like we did. Oil coulda paid for us to stay and drone off the bad guys and welcome the locals into the 19th century. The the 20th before the 21st.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

SJHovey said:
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the quotes provided by Kepler. So, we have a handful of brutal, terrible individuals that are keeping a collection of people under their thumb through murder and terror, and included in the collection of suppressed people are groups who are bitter at the U.S. for assisting/facilitating the dictator to remain in power, but that's the choice we should make because it's better to let a thug keep these monkeys in line than opening the cage to the zoo? Doesn't sound like a great solution either way.
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I'm not an advocate of mookie's real politik. I don't believe the US should have sullied its hands by supporting the Shah (or for that matter overthrowing the democratically elected government and installing him in the first place).

There is a middle ground between propping up dictators and going in guns a blazin'. It has the advantage of (1) not murdering thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and (2) ya know, working.

But it takes a long time and makes it (slightly) harder to sell missiles, and it doesn't further chicken hawks' careers. And of course if you let a democracy develop from inside a country rather than being imposed from outside, those people might pick the wrong democracy.
 
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Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

Kepler said:
I'm not an advocate of mookie's real politik. I don't believe the US should have sullied its hands by supporting the Shah (or for that matter overthrowing the democratically elected government and installing him in the first place).

There is a middle ground between propping up dictators and going in guns a blazin'. It has the advantage of (1) not murdering thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and (2) ya know, working.

But it takes a long time and makes it (slightly) harder to sell missiles, and it doesn't further chicken hawks' careers. And of course if you let a democracy develop from inside a country rather than being imposed from outside, those people might pick the wrong democracy.
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So I assume you would use North Korea as the perfect example?

The problem is at some point something happens, and with or without our support the dictator simply loses the ability to keep everyone under his thumb, and then you just have a mess. At the end of the day do we feel that much better about ourselves because we let Stalin, Pol Pot, Assad, Hussein and the rest enslave/murder the hundreds of thousands as they line their own pockets?
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

SJHovey said:
So I assume you would use North Korea as the perfect example?

The problem is at some point something happens, and with or without our support the dictator simply loses the ability to keep everyone under his thumb, and then you just have a mess. At the end of the day do we feel that much better about ourselves because we let Stalin, Pol Pot, Assad, Hussein and the rest enslave/murder the hundreds of thousands as they line their own pockets?
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I completely understand the humanitarian issues involved. But don't fool yourself for one second -- we didn't go into Iraq for humanitarian reasons. That was pure window dressing, and the death and chaos that resulted probably hurt far more people in Iraq than we helped.

We went in for oil. There's a reason Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfeld didn't launch a crusade for regime change to end the terrible abuses of the regimes in Eritrea or Central Africa Republic or Mali or Columbia (an ally!) or Cameroon or Burma or Liberia ('nother ally) or Darfur.

Charlie don't drill.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

Kepler said:
I completely understand the humanitarian issues involved. But don't fool yourself for one second -- we didn't go into Iraq for humanitarian reasons. That was pure window dressing, and the death and chaos that resulted probably hurt far more people in Iraq than we helped.

We went in for oil. There's a reason Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfeld didn't launch a crusade for regime change to end the terrible abuses of the regimes in Eritrea or Central Africa Republic or Mali or Columbia (an ally!) or Cameroon or Burma or Liberia ('nother ally) or Darfur.

Charlie don't drill.
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Sure, but Norway has oil as well and I don't see us invading Bergen. These types of actions have always been as much about opportunity as they have been about doing good.
 
Re: US Foreign Policy: The Wogs Begin at Calais

SJHovey said:
So I assume you would use North Korea as the perfect example?

The problem is at some point something happens, and with or without our support the dictator simply loses the ability to keep everyone under his thumb, and then you just have a mess. At the end of the day do we feel that much better about ourselves because we let Stalin, Pol Pot, Assad, Hussein and the rest enslave/murder the hundreds of thousands as they line their own pockets?
Click to expand...

Quite frankly, yes. I'm not sure what separates us from that list, unless you want to say we had good intentions. The results have been nothing short of disastrous, and every bit as bad.
 
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