We have two critical allies BOMBING EACH other? What a freaking MESSED up place. You can't go OWL's meanest SOB' in the valley routine. What a desperate screwed up place where dreams go to die. It's hopeless.

(10-14-2014 10:19 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  We have two critical allies BOMBING EACH other? What a freaking MESSED up place. You can't go OWL's meanest SOB' in the valley routine. What a desperate screwed up place where dreams go to die. It's hopeless.

Actually you can go the meanest SOB in the valley route. And if we plan to do anything at all, we need to do nothing else or less.

That's been the problem, we've spent 12 years there without trying to be the meanest SOB in the valley, and that has failed.

We're not going to make them like us. We're not going to win their hearts and minds. We can make them think, oh sh*t, not the US again, we better behave. But we've got to be the US they don't want to see ONE TIME before we have any hope that they will be motivated by not wanting to see us AGAIN.

So we have two options, meanest SOB in the valley or hands off.

Quite frankly, at this point we've had so many instances where we've intervened and failed to be the meanest SOB in the valley, that I'm not sure doing it this one time would be enough to put the necessary fear into anyone's mind. That being the case, backing off and letting this play out is probably the right answer.

I can say unequivocally, without the remotest shadow of doubt, that sending out 1/10 the number of air strikes that we did in Kosovo is not the right answer.

What we really need to do is turn the Mideast into an area that is irrelevant to us economically as it was to Europe between the time that Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and the time that oil was discovered underneath those sands. We do that by eliminating our dependence on oil from the region. That requires:
1. Conservation
2. Alternatives
3. Maximizing domestic production.

We can get there from here, but not on the present path.

(10-14-2014 10:56 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 10:19 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  We have two critical allies BOMBING EACH other? What a freaking MESSED up place. You can't go OWL's meanest SOB' in the valley routine. What a desperate screwed up place where dreams go to die. It's hopeless.

Actually you can go the meanest SOB in the valley route. And if we plan to do anything at all, we need to do nothing else or less.

That's been the problem, we've spent 12 years there without trying to be the meanest SOB in the valley, and that has failed.

We're not going to make them like us. We're not going to win their hearts and minds. We can make them think, oh sh*t, not the US again, we better behave. But we've got to be the US they don't want to see ONE TIME before we have any hope that they will be motivated by not wanting to see us AGAIN.

So we have two options, meanest SOB in the valley or hands off.

Quite frankly, at this point we've had so many instances where we've intervened and failed to be the meanest SOB in the valley, that I'm not sure doing it this one time would be enough to put the necessary fear into anyone's mind. That being the case, backing off and letting this play out is probably the right answer.

I can say unequivocally, without the remotest shadow of doubt, that sending out 1/10 the number of air strikes that we did in Kosovo is not the right answer.

What we really need to do is turn the Mideast into an area that is irrelevant to us economically as it was to Europe between the time that Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and the time that oil was discovered underneath those sands. We do that by eliminating our dependence on oil from the region. That requires:
1. Conservation
2. Alternatives
3. Maximizing domestic production.

We can get there from here, but not on the present path.

on this, we are in total agreement

I agree with the energy independence angle. I've been saying it for years. We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.

We shouldn't wait until we run out of oil to become independent of it.

Secondly, we should get out of those countries and let the chips fall where they may. Let those God forsaken countries fight it out for control. Once a clear winner emerges, we isolate them like we did with Saddam.

(10-14-2014 11:30 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I agree with the energy independence angle. I've been saying it for years. We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.

We shouldn't wait until we run out of oil to become independent of it.

Secondly, we should get out of those countries and let the chips fall where they may. Let those God forsaken countries fight it out for control. Once a clear winner emerges, we isolate them like we did with Saddam.

We're not running out of oil any time soon. We really aren't. Otherwise, I agree, which should be obvious from my longer post.

(10-14-2014 11:30 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I agree with the energy independence angle. I've been saying it for years. We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.

We shouldn't wait until we run out of oil to become independent of it.

Secondly, we should get out of those countries and let the chips fall where they may. Let those God forsaken countries fight it out for control. Once a clear winner emerges, we isolate them like we did with Saddam.

That's good in theory, but in reality that will just bring us something akin to another 9-11. If we aren't over there, they'll still come after us over here. We don't live in a vacuum.

We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.



I like this. I never heard of it.

(10-14-2014 10:56 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I can say unequivocally, without the remotest shadow of doubt, that sending out 1/10 the number of air strikes that we did in Kosovo is not the right answer.

It depends on what the question is, who is answering it, and who is advising that person. Unfortunately, in this case, the question is "what can I do to make it look like I'm tough to optimize results in the fall elections?", the person answering it is Barack Obama, and he's being advised on what to do by his political advisers.

Stopping ISIS and minimizing violence in the middle east - a whole different ballgame.

(10-14-2014 11:32 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 11:30 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I agree with the energy independence angle. I've been saying it for years. We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.

We shouldn't wait until we run out of oil to become independent of it.

Secondly, we should get out of those countries and let the chips fall where they may. Let those God forsaken countries fight it out for control. Once a clear winner emerges, we isolate them like we did with Saddam.

That's good in theory, but in reality that will just bring us something akin to another 9-11. If we aren't over there, they'll still come after us over here. We don't live in a vacuum.

But how often does a 9/11 scenario happen? How many thousands of Americans are dying now because we are over there?

I'd rather suffer a 9/11 every 50 years or so and save our economy rather than send thousand of troops over there and have them die every 10 years.

(10-14-2014 11:43 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 11:32 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 11:30 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I agree with the energy independence angle. I've been saying it for years. We didn't get out of the stone age for lack of rocks.

We shouldn't wait until we run out of oil to become independent of it.

Secondly, we should get out of those countries and let the chips fall where they may. Let those God forsaken countries fight it out for control. Once a clear winner emerges, we isolate them like we did with Saddam.

That's good in theory, but in reality that will just bring us something akin to another 9-11. If we aren't over there, they'll still come after us over here. We don't live in a vacuum.

But how often does a 9/11 scenario happen?

Stop and ask yourself why.

(10-14-2014 11:43 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I'd rather suffer a 9/11 every 50 years or so and save our economy rather than send thousand of troops over there and have them die every 10 years.

I'd bet the families of the 9-11 victims would disagree whole heartedly with you.

I posted this prematurely, but I'll provide a teaser... the author is Peruvian and is comparing the defeat of the Shining Path (IIRC, a work in progress) to reforms in Tunisia. I haven't finished the article yet...

The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism - WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-capit...m++terror# Wrote:This led to a treaty with the U.S. that encouraged Peru to mount a popular armed defense against Shining Path while also committing the U.S. to support economic reform as an alternative to the terrorist group’s agenda. Peru rapidly fielded a much larger, mixed-class volunteer army—four times the army’s previous size—and won the war in short order. As Mr. Guzmán wrote at the time in a document published by Peru’s Communist Party, “We have been displaced by a plan designed and implemented by de Soto and Yankee imperialism.”

Looking back, what was crucial to this effort was our success in persuading U.S. leaders and policy makers, as well as key figures at the United Nations, to see Peru’s countryside differently: as a breeding ground not for Marxist revolution but for a new, modern capitalist economy. These new habits of mind helped us to beat back terror in Peru and can do the same, I believe, in the Middle East and North Africa. The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Arab world’s informal economy includes vast numbers of potential Islamic State recruits—and where they go, so goes the region.

It is widely known that the Arab Spring was sparked by the self-immolation in 2011 of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian street merchant. But few have asked why Bouazizi felt driven to kill himself—or why, within 60 days, at least 63 more men and women in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also set themselves on fire, sending millions into the streets, toppling four regimes and leading us to today’s turmoil in the Arab world.

To understand why, my institute joined with Utica, Tunisia’s largest business organization, to put together a research team of some 30 Arabs and Peruvians, who fanned out across the region. Over the course of two years, we interviewed the victims’ families and associates, as well as a dozen other self-immolators who had survived their burns.

These suicides, we found, weren’t pleas for political or religious rights or for higher wage subsidies, as some have argued. Bouazizi and the others who burned themselves were extralegal entrepreneurs: builders, contractors, caterers, small vendors and the like. In their dying statements, none referred to religion or politics. Most of those who survived their burns and agreed to be interviewed spoke to us of “economic exclusion.” Their great objective was “ras el mel” (Arabic for “capital”), and their despair and indignation sprang from the arbitrary expropriation of what little capital they had.

de Soto is an excellent analyst and writer. I have several of his books.

(10-14-2014 11:53 AM)I45owl Wrote:  I posted this prematurely, but I'll provide a teaser... the author is Peruvian and is comparing the defeat of the Shining Path (IIRC, a work in progress) to reforms in Tunisia. I haven't finished the article yet...

Thanks for the read. I'm heading down to Peru in about a month. The Shining Path was terrible and remnants still remain in the jungle. However, its beat down is the one of the best things to happen in Peru in the last 30 years. Unfortunately, the Peruvian President that orchestrated all that got big headed and had to flee the country later. lol.

(10-14-2014 11:43 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  But how often does a 9/11 scenario happen? How many thousands of Americans are dying now because we are over there?

I'd rather suffer a 9/11 every 50 years or so and save our economy rather than send thousand of troops over there and have them die every 10 years.

Stop living in fantasy land.

ISIS is very open about major terrorist attacks inside the USA being their ultimate goal.

Lets ask if the 9/11 victims and their families are willing to deal another one of those attacks.

They had no choice. Unlike our all volunteer Military that WANTS to do this thing.

(10-14-2014 11:43 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  But how often does a 9/11 scenario happen? How many thousands of Americans are dying now because we are over there?
I'd rather suffer a 9/11 every 50 years or so and save our economy rather than send thousand of troops over there and have them die every 10 years.

So would I. But that's not the choice.

Remind me again, why do we have to do anything over there?

(10-14-2014 11:53 AM)I45owl Wrote:  I posted this prematurely, but I'll provide a teaser... the author is Peruvian and is comparing the defeat of the Shining Path (IIRC, a work in progress) to reforms in Tunisia. I haven't finished the article yet...

The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism - WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-capit...m++terror# Wrote:This led to a treaty with the U.S. that encouraged Peru to mount a popular armed defense against Shining Path while also committing the U.S. to support economic reform as an alternative to the terrorist group’s agenda. Peru rapidly fielded a much larger, mixed-class volunteer army—four times the army’s previous size—and won the war in short order. As Mr. Guzmán wrote at the time in a document published by Peru’s Communist Party, “We have been displaced by a plan designed and implemented by de Soto and Yankee imperialism.”

Looking back, what was crucial to this effort was our success in persuading U.S. leaders and policy makers, as well as key figures at the United Nations, to see Peru’s countryside differently: as a breeding ground not for Marxist revolution but for a new, modern capitalist economy. These new habits of mind helped us to beat back terror in Peru and can do the same, I believe, in the Middle East and North Africa. The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Arab world’s informal economy includes vast numbers of potential Islamic State recruits—and where they go, so goes the region.

It is widely known that the Arab Spring was sparked by the self-immolation in 2011 of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian street merchant. But few have asked why Bouazizi felt driven to kill himself—or why, within 60 days, at least 63 more men and women in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also set themselves on fire, sending millions into the streets, toppling four regimes and leading us to today’s turmoil in the Arab world.

To understand why, my institute joined with Utica, Tunisia’s largest business organization, to put together a research team of some 30 Arabs and Peruvians, who fanned out across the region. Over the course of two years, we interviewed the victims’ families and associates, as well as a dozen other self-immolators who had survived their burns.

These suicides, we found, weren’t pleas for political or religious rights or for higher wage subsidies, as some have argued. Bouazizi and the others who burned themselves were extralegal entrepreneurs: builders, contractors, caterers, small vendors and the like. In their dying statements, none referred to religion or politics. Most of those who survived their burns and agreed to be interviewed spoke to us of “economic exclusion.” Their great objective was “ras el mel” (Arabic for “capital”), and their despair and indignation sprang from the arbitrary expropriation of what little capital they had.

But can we outspend the Sheiks and Emir's in that region. I'm all for drilling and being 'energy independent ' ( imagine how close we'd be now had we started to drill ANWR 10 years + ago). But the rest of the World will still buy enough Petroleum from the region that they will still be filthy rich. I took a somewhat different tact to the Arab Spring in that these people unfiltered what Americans have and can do and wanted the same. But instead of fanning THOSE flames and providing help and support, we did nothing. People would be shocked if the knew how close Iran was to changing leadership because of the Green Revolution. A lot of great unsung people put a lot of effort into laying that groundwork, only to see it die of neglect. Now look where we are
The point being we were close and it will take years to get that close again. In the mean time people like a winner and ISIS is winning, not us.

(10-14-2014 12:14 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Remind me again, why do we have to do anything over there?

Economically:

The US doesn't need Mideast oil; Europe, Japan, and China do. We get the vast majority of our oil from the western hemisphere.

But.........

If Europe, Japan and China have their oil cut off we have to go turn the tap back on.

Why........?

Because all the crap we buy for cheap comes from China; and Europe/Japan tanking would kill the world economy too and our economy with it (yes, the current economy CAN get worse).

OPEC controls the price of oil, and a good portion of our oil comes from an OPEC country (Venezuela) who also has a semi-hostile government. So even though we have our own oil, its price will always be tied to the OPEC price of oil and so will the price of all our imported consumer goods.

So bottom line economically: We are over there to make sure we aren't paying $20 gal at the pump and all our Walmart T-shirts aren't $60.

Option 1. Long term strategic bases in the region. Just like Europe and Asia after WWII.
Option 2. F*** them, let them kill each other. Back Israel in any covert operation they want to undertake to ensure that nobody gets a nuke and keep our mouths shut about it. Draw a red line in the sand (and mean it) saying that if action X is observed by anybody in the region we will carpet bomb the **** out of them (and mean it).

(10-14-2014 12:27 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 12:14 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Remind me again, why do we have to do anything over there?

Economically:

The US doesn't need Mideast oil; Europe, Japan, and China do. We get the vast majority of our oil from the western hemisphere.

But.........

If Europe, Japan and China have their oil cut off we have to go turn the tap back on.

Why........?

Because all the crap we buy for cheap comes from China; and Europe/Japan tanking would kill the world economy too and our economy with it (yes, the current economy CAN get worse).

OPEC controls the price of oil, and a good portion of our oil comes from an OPEC country (Venezuela) who also has a semi-hostile government. So even though we have our own oil, its price will always be tied to the OPEC price of oil and so will the price of all our imported consumer goods.

So bottom line economically: We are over there to make sure we aren't paying $20 gal at the pump and all our Walmart T-shirts aren't $60.

Yep, I have no idea why anyone thinks we can have a totally isolationist foreign policy. That has never worked.