T
theophilus777
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We have changed it. They weren't terrorists in the 1300's. Or at least they didn't fly around the world to do so.
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Good luck with that.
This region has had a certain culture for centuries before America even existed. To think we are going to change that culture, is naïve at best.
And you can believe we haven't changed it at all and we can get knocked out if we do nothing about the change we actually have made.
Nothing of the sort. Do try to keep up? These are both ideas of what could have been done originally; you know, AF in '01. I haven't considered any application for either idea now.
Why do you pretend we didn't achieve swift and large military victory, greatly reducing the enemy's ability to do us harm? A lot of planning (thought) went into it, and it worked.
Perhaps you've heard of this stuff, "empirical evidence?" Yes, we are safer for it, as attested to by the fact we have not been successfully attacked again on domestic soil.
Not at all consistent with your fear of continued terrorist acts though, is it? Pretty much guaranteed to stop all that, and like nothing else would.
All that time reading Sunny Zoo and you don't know how the world works? Pay them well. Cheaper than our current ops in the WOT.
That's already been done long ago, as documented by Ian Fleming. and you spelled out the actions more plainly, right in this thread. Morality? Who would believe the claim? You can't be that naive?
Ok, so you ARE that naive! Is this the part where we all hold hands and sing kumbaya?
You have stated your opinion, that if we bow to Saudi kings like Obama, but this time complete with white flag, those big bad guys will stop beating us up and leave us alone.
Specifically that would mean getting out of the Middle East entirely and not supporting Israel any longer. Granted, those ARE primary reasons for terrorism in the first place, but it is naive to think those actions would stop their efforts.
You are overlooking your own observation, that it is western culture in their region that they object to. We wouldn't take it away with us, because some people there actually like it.
"Globalization," you might call it.
And with the Palestinian / Israeli conflict not resolved, we in fact ARE responsible for that mess, right in their midst. To think they would "stop stinging us" anyway is far more extreme on the bat guano scale than anything I've put forward.
So with no clearly superior solutions emerging, maybe we have to admit that what was actually done wasn't unreasonable, complete with mistakes and all. But Barry's trade for these 5 stinks to high heaven. We don't know all the details of the negotiations, nor do we know what aces might be up the sleeves of those on our side. Nor do we know if these 5 will be seen as friend or foe by our enemies. And we may not know much more for 20 years or whenever they start de-classifying it.
Beware arguing in the name of reason with anyone who's counter is that America earns the terrorism that falls on its people and shores.
Precisely why I think negotiations along these lines might have worked.
Giving people an option that is better for them tends to work.
You just have to reveal what's in it for you, too. I've done that. You haven't shown why it must fail. Just like you haven't shown why war can't be won by killing your enemy. You might be right on both counts, but you haven't shown either.
It may well be a dated idea, but throughout history war has been all about killing people.
I don't know of an instance where they fought to the last man, legend of the 300 Spartans excepted. Usually surrender is achieved first.
You're really not adorable when you think you're presenting new info that is actually old. War is not about being wanted.
The only aspect of my stated plan that has US in power there is colonization, which is not what is being discussed. You are the one not getting it. Why not?
We actually did that, remember? I'm pretty certain that after doing so, sticking around was a mistake in your mind. You may pick one or the other but not both.
Its what we've got anyway, the only difference is the iron fist to rule them with. We can't do that from here, but we could from there.
Think of it as opening up a new job marketSomeone else mentioned the only solution would be to eradicate the entire Middle East. Pretty much, it just defines eradication in a way that not merely keeps them alive, but improves their standard of living. As I started out by saying, just like the butter and blankets scenario, this one will never happen either. Which means AF has destroyed the US empire as well. Unless you see a way of salvaging our way of life?
It is if you're going to take them completely out of context as you have done.
No mix and match with Sun Tzu, who speaks to Nations; Jesus speaks to the individual heart, not the Gov't. Christianity has absolutely nothing to say on the subject of politics. Silent. And it was never designed to partner with political power, as the dark ages attest. Didn't you say you believe in learning from mistakes?
Better "better than" doesn't enter into it.
What corner of the globe hasn't leveled the accusation of Pax Americana? And I rather like Alexander the Great's model better, if you please.
I notice you do not make the charge that we can not do it.
I point out we were much more capable of doing it in '03, and by comparison to what was actually done, this idea might have been better for our Nation; bat guano crazy though it is.
Just so we're clear, Theophilus:
You dismissed as "immoral" my suggestion of staying out of the Israeli/Palestinian mess and letting them sort it out on their own,
but, your counter-proposal:
- Conquer the entire Middle East,
- Force them to accept American-style values whether they want to or not,
- Keep them under strict scrutiny to make sure they never become competitive with us on the economic stage -- which would necessitate sabotaging them if necessary,
- Force them to pay tribute to the United States in order to justify the expense of colonizing them,
- compel them into all of the above under the threat of military annihilation if they refuse to comply,
...is completely moral in your mind?
Iraq was the enemy? Since when?
We were never successfully attacked before on domestic soil, either -- what were we doing right then?
Right -- because conquered territories NEVER rise up and rebel -- such an act would be COMPLETELY unheard of in human history...
Hired thugs, then? Loyal to nothing but the paycheck? Renaissance Italy tried that -- with sad results.
I can forgive your utter ignorance of world history, since you clearly don't know the key flaw with hiring mercenary armies for defense: There's always someone out there willing to pay them more.
So, as a Christian, you admit that morality has no place in your thinking?
Ok, friend -- how about you tell me why the terrorists attack us; I could use a laugh.
Everyone knows we're Israel's attack dog; that we'll come running if anyone so much as glares menacingly in their direction -- so... what if that wasn't the case?
Neither Country was the enemy, remember? The Taliban was NOT the legally recognized Gov't of AF regardless what some here like to claim, but this was re: AF not Iraq.
We were never attacked before wise guy. And not for a lack of doing the 2 things you say we need to stop to quell their terrorism, either. Which brings up a point: at least no one has come in here blaming 911 as an inside job. OBL did attack WTC before, and we acted on good intel after 911.
NIMBY
Make it a consequence of losing a US election. That means you only run if you're actually willing to serve. Poetic justice
Your condescension got old long ago, give it a rest huh? There would be no $ for such a purpose; vassal state, remember?
When did you stop beating your wife?
We stop poking the hornet's nest, they still remember we paid to establish Israel. They're not going to forget just because we stop poking their nest, neither will they forgive.
"Skin in the game," I think its called?
I already addressed this: I don't see why we didn't rescue holocaust survivors to US, we have plenty of room.
At that time, we weren't the ones drawing the lines on the map. And I don't know of another imposition like that we financed other than Israel. Of course later mistakes made things worse, but would those situations even have arisen had we not paid to set up Israel?
You gave a brief summary of our footprints, propping up one terrible leader after another. Now they go nearly to Morocco, contiguously. How do you propose to undo that?
Even if we intentionally evacuate every US person and remove all our embassies, they STILL have western influence in their culture because some of their people LIKE it.
We can't undo that, either. You'll notice they don't mind our steel in their oil wells though.
Hmmm, everyone finds out if Israel really is a nuclear power or not? You calling heads or tails? Will Vegas lay odds, Israel in the 3rd round by TKO? I think the case could well be made that US balance of power acts more to keep Israel on a leash.
Ah -- well, of course, AF was more or less the forgotten war; not nearly as much media coverage.
Still raises the question of what we were doing in Iraq, of course...
Yes, but since we had 200 years without an attack, it seems presumptuous to assume that the 13 years since we've had without one (well, except for the Boston Marathon bombing, that is... oops!) would be an indication of success...
Of course -- the fact that they're on the other side of the Atlantic ocean will insulate us completely from problems... oh, wait...
So, instead of professional criminals, you want to send the worst kind of politicians -- the unsuccessful ones?
Your little thought experiment is a fail on so many levels...
Which brings up another question about your proposed colonies -- If they are going to be US "colonies," how much of a say will they get in our political processes? Obviously they're going to pay tribute-- er, I mean "taxes" to cover the expenses, but will they be represented in Congress? Will the inhabitants be considered US citizens? Will they vote? etc., etc...
Do you plan to keep them in a state of perpetual poverty? How do you plan to do that?
About a half hour after you decided that both American and Christian principles were too inconvenient for politics.
True, but they're more likely to use their limited resources on the more direct target -- Israel and its allies... of which we will no longer be.
Are we ever going to be buddy-buddy with them? Highly unlikely, but washing our hands of the Middle East will inspire them to direct their attention towards their primary target.
And plenty of antisemitism to go with it. You're assuming that just because we weren't gassing Jews, that we liked them. NIMBY, remember?
We can't undo our first mistake, but we can fix the subsequent ones.
Let them replace their own terrible leaders with other, equally terrible leaders on their own -- just like we do it in America.
Iran has a relatively young population, and many of them aren't too thrilled with their government's policies -- since the old guard can't live forever, it's inevitable that they'll mellow out... provided we don't do anything stupid to put ourselves in their crosshairs.
Now that's an interesting idea -- we're not protecting Israel, we're protecting the Middle East from Israel.
So what are the odds that Israel is a rogue state with nuclear weapons? An interesting question indeed...
I think AF may have also gotten forgotten in terms of military strategy, not just media coverage. Like I said, even if Iraq needed to be invaded, toppled, or whatever, the timing was pretty terrible and I thought it made more sense to stay focused on AF until it was "successful." However that might be defined. Instead I think it was forgotten, and we doubled our mess. Or so it seems.
Boston doesn't really count, does it?Wasn't that a domestic attacker?
But this is a case of statistics don't lie, statisticians do. Your contrast of 200 years vs 13 glosses over a few important details, like technological feasibility, motive ... those 13 years had far more intent and capability than the previous history of the world combined.
Listen to yourself?! You're seriously trying to say that a terrorist attack on domestic soil is less likely under the current conditions in the middle east vs if we had the whole region under our thumb? Any uprising on their part would be domestic; to them, not us.
Another pointless critique; you use ordinary channels to fill a job before resorting to extraordinary ones. And as for your concern about losing their allegiance to a higher bidder? You mean like happens to our Congress?
I think it's a little premature to hash out those details, don't you?
No gun ownership rights, that much is clear.
They're pretty much serfdoms now, right?
Couldn't be too hard to improve their standard of living and still collect tribute.
No say in US politics obviously, but put up a suggestion box; our appointed Dukes will need kindling sometime. lol They'll be mad we're stealing all their oil anyway. You must admit we get accused of that, and haven't taken a drop. Kind of a "how do you like me now?"
Hey, not everybody can be King. Tribute collected is dependent on leaving a better standard of living than they have now. Just not be too much.
On what basis can the US have pretense for morals? Propping up (and tearing down) leaders all over the place? And you just want to abandon everything and say "oops?" That's somehow better?
Just think of it as a corporate hostile takeover; perfectly legal.
Some very strange wording. Who do you refer to? And last I checked, boko haram had not yet targeted Israel. But speaking of "thought experiment," you know your ideas here will never happen either.
Oh I get your idea now! Muslim killing Muslim is MUCH more moral than imposing a stable Gov't on the whole place and making it productive, improving everyone's life in the process.
Back to reality, somebody ought to help these guys determine sensible boundaries w/o having to hash out every inch of God forsaken land via bloodshed.
England drew up the map, and a lot of these clashes are only because incompatible cultures got forced to play nice with one another.
A lot of territorial disputes are foregone conclusions. External influence could be diplomacy w/o military intervention.
A valid function of the UN? Let them agree on how much turf they can't agree on, and kill each over over those areas, w/o having to fight over everything. Its sad that their re-drawn borders will no doubt be along religious lines, but that's their deal.
Here, our first mistake is financing the creation of Israel, and the subsequent ones are the Govt's in the region we have propped up and torn down.
How do we fix the subsequent ones again?
You have us walking away from everything.
You mean like by denying them nuclear powered electricity? Good point. Why does the IAEA exist?
And you think the grief with the nutters over evolution and separation of Church and State is bad?? My man, you are walking headlong into the wacky world of Biblical prophecy ... be afraid, be very afraid.
There will be no rational National discourse on abandoning Israel. I think the best we can do there is stoke their natural proclivity to resent US aid, and the control that comes with it. We might even be past the 1/2 way point?
You're skipping over the question: did Iraq need to be invaded, toppled, or whatever?
You tell me if it "doesn't count."
How exactly does having them "under our thumb" keep them from attacking us? Will we be sealing their borders to keep them from leaving? Monitoring their communications to make sure they're not contacting any buddies outside our influence? Have you even considered the consequences of trying to conquer the entire Middle East? How far "under our thumb" are you able/willing to keep them?
Not my fault you don't know the problems with mercenaries.
Gun control; good luck with that; I'm sure you'll have no difficulty wih that one.
"better standard" according to whom? And you're assuming that the tribute will be handed over voluntarily -- what do you plan to do with those who don't comply?
It's called "conquest." If you can't call it what it is, why are you bothering to justify it?
Muslim killing Muslim is a whole lot preferable to Muslim killing us.
You seem to think world peace through conquest
The thought of them fighting back hasn't even entered your mind... why is that? How big a thumb do you think you can keep hundreds of millions of people under?
Foreign policy 101: Every war is a turf war. They're going to fight, kill, and die over their borders -- the only question is whether they fight each other or us.
I vote "not us." You?
Funny, you were praising the use of the "big stick" not too long ago. Now you think they're going to listen to you without it?
So how is that different from what I proposed? I'm just not naive enough to think they're going to listen to the UN, or that an outside influence can do with without military force -- you suddenly seem to think it's possible.
Which is where I agree with you that Christianity has no place in politics... look at the mess it's gotten us into here.
Theophilus:
Ignoring the morality of attempting to conquer the entire Middle East and keep it under your thumb, have you given so much as a single thought to the feasability of it?
You betcha! *intentional Palinism*
Don't forget the context here is the butter and blankets idea first. You have yet to state how Tzu addressed this, beyond altruism which is a red herring. The colony idea only applies in 2003, as in instead of what we actually did. The military advice Bush got was it would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, far more than we ever deployed. So do that, starting in AF, and stay there until its "settled." Utilize that massive troop build-up, and move west in a wave. First make the side trip to Pakistan if need be, hopefully just to help the existing Gov't secure their nukes, and root out terrorists. Take what we want, and respect Nat'l borders that we can. What would make this feasible is what we failed to do in AF; not relinquish military control until civil control is established. With some overlap. This is where employees come in as Dukes and Princes; well paid, with inherent risk. Like the board game risk, stop expanding when you no longer have resources to do so. Fix the unemployment situation! Lehman Bros might not have even collapsed. Even if they still had, the recovery would've been much quicker.
You betcha! *intentional Palinism*
Don't forget the context here is the butter and blankets idea first. You have yet to state how Tzu addressed this, beyond altruism which is a red herring. The colony idea only applies in 2003, as in instead of what we actually did. The military advice Bush got was it would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, far more than we ever deployed. So do that, starting in AF, and stay there until its "settled." Utilize that massive troop build-up, and move west in a wave. First make the side trip to Pakistan if need be, hopefully just to help the existing Gov't secure their nukes, and root out terrorists. Take what we want, and respect Nat'l borders that we can. What would make this feasible is what we failed to do in AF; not relinquish military control until civil control is established. With some overlap. This is where employees come in as Dukes and Princes; well paid, with inherent risk. Like the board game risk, stop expanding when you no longer have resources to do so. Fix the unemployment situation! Lehman Bros might not have even collapsed. Even if they still had, the recovery would've been much quicker.
You betcha! *intentional Palinism*
Don't forget the context here is the butter and blankets idea first.
You have yet to state how Tzu addressed this, beyond altruism which is a red herring. The colony idea only applies in 2003, as in instead of what we actually did.
The military advice Bush got was it would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, far more than we ever deployed. So do that, starting in AF, and stay there until its "settled."
Utilize that massive troop build-up, and move west in a wave. First make the side trip to Pakistan if need be, hopefully just to help the existing Gov't secure their nukes, and root out terrorists.
Take what we want,
and respect Nat'l borders that we can.
What would make this feasible is what we failed to do in AF; not relinquish military control until civil control is established.
With some overlap.
This is where employees come in as Dukes and Princes; well paid, with inherent risk. Like the board game risk, stop expanding when you no longer have resources to do so. Fix the unemployment situation! Lehman Bros might not have even collapsed. Even if they still had, the recovery would've been much quicker.
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