Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi Are Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Helix · Oct 10, 2014

cpwill said:
:yawn: warfare is the natural state of mankind. You want an area soaked in warfare driven by religious and geographic differences, with heavy ethnic tensions overlaid to boot? It's called Europe.

a perpetual state of war has never benefited a nation, but it has sunk a few empires.

cpwill said:
That is incorrect. Up until currently the US has been a deterrent for both actors.

it didn't work. then the US is expected to go right back in. **** that. that is the job of the regional powers, not the US.

cpwill said:
That is false. The US is the only major force for stability in the Middle East and it is precisely when and where we are least active that there is the most instability. Take a look at Syria v Bahrain and ask yourself which one features more heavy US involvement in, say, the 2009-2011 era and then ask yourself which is today more stable.

the US is not a source of stability for the Middle East. that has been the goal, but it has not worked. we've tried puppet regimes. we've tried to trying to train "friendly" factions, who we end up having to fight twenty years later. we've chose the lesser of two evils in a war between Middle Eastern nations and then had to go back in and fight that very nation for decades. it just doesn't work. it's time for a new strategy.

cpwill said:
That's a great idea. We can call it "the 1990s", and it will never, ever, end.

Hey, however, in realityland, how good are you at farming?

i have a question for you, as well : do you think that what the US is currently doing will eliminate IS?

cpwill · Oct 10, 2014

Helix said:
a perpetual state of war has never benefited a nation, but it has sunk a few empires.

Hm. What do you think would have been the result if we'd decided to give up the Cold War?

In the meantime, paying for some global stability is the same formula as paying for cops. Sure, it's an upfront expense. That then allows you to make much more money due to the ability to trade.

it didn't work.

Actually it worked well beyond expectations for about 3 decades and some change. Then we got a President who shared your basic approach here, and since then it has fallen apart.

then the US is expected to go right back in. **** that. that is the job of the regional powers, not the US.

Deliberately creating a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is equal parts Dangerous and Dumb, and heavy equal parts at that.

Gosh, it would be nice if all the regional powers - if the Russia's, the China's, and the Iran's of the world were all nice actors. That would just be swell. Let me know when we get to that magical place.

The US is not a source of stability for the Middle East.

In fact it is. The only major force for stabilization in the Middle East, in fact. Every major local power (with the exception of Israel and perhaps now Egypt) is a centrifugal actor. Disagree? Take a look at the least stable parts of this section of the world - Libya, Syria, Iraq. Places where we spent the past few years deciding we'd rather not really be all that involved. Witness the effects of "leading from behind", of ignoring red lines, of doing nothing, of "letting regional powers take care of it". Chaos, bloodshed, terror, and horror.

that has been the goal, but it has not worked.

That is incorrect. If you disagree, please feel free to list all the times over the past 34 years that Israel and Egypt have gone to war, or Saudi Arabia and Iran.

we've tried puppet regimes. we've tried to trying to train "friendly" factions, who we end up having to fight twenty years later

Huh. That's an interesting claim. Like who?

we've chose the lesser of two evils in a war between Middle Eastern nations and then had to go back in and fight that very nation for decades. it just doesn't work.

:lol: yeah. because that strategy (coughSovietUnioncough) isn't part of basic foreign policy. You choose the lesser of two evils because a perfect world is not a realistic option.

it's time for a new strategy.

Yeah. We tried that "new strategy" for the past 5 years or so. It has been a complete disaster.

I have a question for you, as well : do you think that what the US is currently doing will eliminate IS?

Well I asked first. Given that your proposed foreign policy will result in re-regionalization, with disastrous effects for the global economy directly in proportion to how globalized your economy is (hint: it hurts the US far more than any major regional power), and that this nice, fat, 21st century lifestyle to which we've become accustomed will be sharply reduced - how good are you at farming?

My answer for you: no. It won't. Because President McChessMaster (like you) wants as little to do with this region as possible, and thus isn't willing to project force to create stability. At best our airstrikes will degrade ISIL. That's better than nothing, mind you.

cpwill · Oct 10, 2014

Something I put together a bit back when someone else went full-libertarian on this, somewhat modified and somewhat not:

1. the Middle East remains a strategic center of gravity in the world for two major reasons: the oil and the shipping chokepoints, and huge chunks of the world economy are dependent on both of those. instability in the region threatens those two facets, thus threatening the world (and our) economy.

2. the Middle East is inherently unstable, as demonstrated by nothing better than the last few years when the exogenous source of stability (the US) reduced pressure and instability increased. Tyrannical governments keep their populace in line with the stick of the mukhaberat nd the carrot of the welfare state based on revenues generated from nationalized resources (read: oil and the Suez). But that rentier state carrot is intensely vulnerable to falling revenues and - as the Iranian Shah, Syria's Assad, and Egypts' Mubarak learned to their chagrin - can rapidly inspire revolution followed by replacement by radical (and themselves inherently destabilizing) elements. Internally, the Middle East is a bubbling cauldron, and the resources upon which much of the worlds' economy is based right there in the middle.

Internationally, among the Sunnis, Egypt and Saudi Arabia both consider themselves the natural leaders, and have already proven willing in Yemen to shoot at each other over that disagreement. The Iraqi's also consider themselves the natural leader of the Arab world, but lately they haven't been a serious contender. The Saudis are currently attempting to take control over the region through the exportation of Wahabism, which is itself inherently destabilizing, as it preaches the overthrow of the National-Socialist model governments left over from the 60's and 70's in Egypt (check) and Pakistan, (as well, obviously, as the democracy - as much as it exists - in Lebanon and in Israel) followed by the violent unification of the region under a single banner, followed by an invasion of the rest of the world. Islamists aren't kidding about that part, and we are idiots if we fail to take them at their word, especially as they seem to have just redeclared the Caliphate and announced that the Battle of Dabiq is on.

The Iranians are the largest terror-exporting nation in the world, and they are very, very good at it. The IRGC, and in particular the Quds forces, have fostered the growth of Hezbollah (the real deadliest terrorist network in the world - Al Quada was their student, not the other way around), Hamas, and even (through proxies) a-lQa'ida. They are currently waging a campaign in Syria and and Iraq to build a base with which to challenge the US and Saudi Arabia for dominance of the region; part of that struggle (they assume) including the destruction of Israel. The leadership of that nation Really Really Believes that the 13th Imam is coming soon, and that they must kick off international Jihad in order for him to arrive and bring about the End Times - and again, we are fools if we fail to take them at their word on that.

3. the region, thus, needs an overpowering, hegemon if it is to remain stable enough to ensure the non-collapse of the world economy. Someone has to impose order and keep these nutjobs from destroying the ability of the world to access the oil and the suez. There is only one nation currently on the planet with the capacity to perform this task: the US. The US Fifth Fleet, currently headquartered in Bahrain, is the major (and perhaps only realistic) force for stability in that region, contending with numerous, powerful forces for instability.

4. Withdrawal or severe downdrawl of US Forces would create a power vacuum and kick off fights within the sunni community and between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional dominance. Shiite Iran is seeking to get nukes. Syria has had a nuclear facility already destroyed by the Israelis. Sunni Pakistan (see: Wahhabi plans for governments, the overthrow and replacement of) already has them. In the face of a US Withdrawal, Saudi Arabia would certainly start developing her own.

Imagine a Mexican standoff, except that 3 of the 4 players are A) paranoid schizophrenics facing opponents they violently hate, B) convinced that death will be a net benefit for them, C) convinced that their souls are in peril if they don't shoot, and D) potentially armed with nukes (the 4th Player is the unfortunately-located Israel). I think everyone here can agree that that is not a "stable" situation, particularly when you add in E) these countries are not internally stable, but may feel forced into an external war in order to solidify internal support and F) at least two of the players (Iran and Saudi Arabia) are occasionally held hostage by their own extremists, who feel free to act without permission, are nearly impossible to stop, and are most desirous of the conflict. And I feel that A) deserves re-mentioning.

FUN FACTS WORTH NOTING: China (also nuclear) is rapidly becoming a good, good friend of Iran, and is semi-distancing itself from Pakistan (whom it largely views as a foil against India). China is also heavily invested in East Africa. It is possible that China would seek to intervene in the region to tilt the balance in Iran's favor as the US did in Saudi Arabia's. If that happens, then the newly Taliban Afghanistan and possibly Taliban (and nuclear!) Pakistan - which is deeply paranoid, xenophobic, and a wierd mixture of Wahhabist and neo-Deobandi - becomes an ally of Saudi Arabia, and our players are all now holding two pistols even as their inner demons scream at them to shoot first. BEST CASE SCENARIO here is that China is able to enable Iran to quickly defeat Saudi Arabia before they can build nukes, stabilize (kinda) the region, and merely takes all the oil for itself - only partially collapsing the world economy. But that's the "best" case, not the "most likely" one. it's not even really a "sorta likely" or a "semi likely" one...

5. The West is dying. Literally - our creation of an entitlement culture and our devotion to materialism have left us with birthrates below replacement level. In both Europe and America the solution has been mass immigration - but both have had issues with assimilation. America here is comparatively lucky, her immigrants share many of her cultural assumptions. But Europe is not - the West in Europe is being replaced by a high-birthrate Islamic culture which does not accept the Enlightenment. As the immigrant populations threaten to break the local safety nets and culture, the backlash they provoke isn't what we would recognize as classic liberalism, but rather classic fascism. Nationalist groups are springing up all over Europe, though they are doomed by their own inability to breed to dying out after sparking conflict. All those aspects of the West that we consider dear; the rights of the individual, limited, secular government, free markets... they are doomed to wither and die as the culture that upholds them does.

cpwill · Oct 10, 2014

The situation at current cannot sustain indefinitely - eventually the destabilizing elements that are currently inherent in the Middle East will win, and the price of loss is not just a world wide economic collapse, but the slide, decline, and perhaps fall of the West. The long-term solution is therefore to change the rules of the game. The destabilizing elements in the Middle East must be replaced with stabilizing ones. Tyrannies must (carefully) be replaced with representative governments that give public pressure an outlet other than violent overthrow. Rentier societies that encourage stagnation, revolution, and hostility abroad must be replaced with market economies that encourage trade, growth, and a politically active middle class with a vested interest in stability. Radical Islam must be replaced with a new ideology that allows Muslims to recoup their pride and independence without striking at others. In short, we need to allow the Enlightenment to do to Islam what it has done to Christianity.

In the short run, a world without a global US presence is merely one in which Iran, India, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all compete against each other for control over the worlds' critical choke points, turning our current global system into a series of mercantilist blocs, and causing economic meltdown here in the United States. In the long run, a world without a global US presence is a much, much, much uglier place.

But hey, if you have evidence that the CCP or the Muslim Brotherhood leadership isn't a bunch of Nationalist Corporatist/Islamists willing to sacrifice nigh on anything to retain power, and is in fact a bunch of misunderstood liberal, free-traders who stay up late at nights reading Locke, I'd be glad to see it.

Helix · Oct 10, 2014

cpwill said:
Hm. What do you think would have been the result if we'd decided to give up the Cold War?

the cold war ended because the people there saw the western standard of living as much as it it ended because of nukes and tough speeches. basically, they saw blue jeans and rock and roll here, and then started seeing the suck that they had to deal with on a daily basis. eventually, enough was enough.

cpwill said:
Actually it worked well beyond expectations for about 3 decades and some change. Then we got a President who shared your basic approach here, and since then it has fallen apart.

complete bull****. we can't occupy the entire Middle East for 70 years, especially when the neoconservatives who want us to do so are unwilling to pay more in taxes.

cpwill said:
Deliberately creating a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is equal parts Dangerous and Dumb, and heavy equal parts at that.

they have to deal with their own region and figure out a path forward. they aren't lifting a finger to help us with the **** that is going on in Mexico and the narco states in central America.

cpwill said:
Gosh, it would be nice if all the regional powers - if the Russia's, the China's, and the Iran's of the world were all nice actors. That would just be swell. Let me know when we get to that magical place.

we are not the world's pro bono police force. when we withdraw, regional hegemons will be forced to deal with their own problems, or they will have to deal with the consequences.

cpwill said:
In fact it is. The only major force for stabilization in the Middle East, in fact. Every major local power (with the exception of Israel and perhaps now Egypt) is a centrifugal actor. Disagree? Take a look at the least stable parts of this section of the world - Libya, Syria, Iraq. Places where we spent the past few years deciding we'd rather not really be all that involved. Witness the effects of "leading from behind", of ignoring red lines, of doing nothing, of "letting regional powers take care of it". Chaos, bloodshed, terror, and horror.

should we occupy these countries, too? how do you propose to pay for that?

cpwill said:
That is incorrect. If you disagree, please feel free to list all the times over the past 34 years that Israel and Egypt have gone to war, or Saudi Arabia and Iran.

it is their region, and it is their regional instability. we have a country to rebuild right here, and we have a lot of people who need jobs. on the other side, we have a significant part of the population which is unwilling to pay the extra taxes needed to fund perpetual war, and they are the ones promoting this failed policy.

cpwill said:
Huh. That's an interesting claim. Like who?

we funded and trained the Vietnamese during "Vietnamization." result : the communists prevailed. we placed a puppet regime in Iran. result : the Iranian revolution. we helped the Mujaheddin in a proxy war with the Soviets. result : Al Qaeda. We chose Iraq in the Iran / Iraq war. result : we had to fight Iraq in the 1990s and in the 2000s. we gave Iraq a ton of weapons. result : the current assholes are using those weapons to fight us. how much more evidence do you need? this **** does not work.

cpwill said:
:lol: yeah. because that strategy (coughSovietUnioncough) isn't part of basic foreign policy. You choose the lesser of two evils because a perfect world is not a realistic option.

yeah, and the Soviet Union was destroyed in part because they tried to occupy Afghanistan.

cpwill said:
Yeah. We tried that "new strategy" for the past 5 years or so. It has been a complete disaster.

Obama has been frustratingly neoconservative when it comes to the Middle East. though he campaigned on ending the wars, he has not done so, as it is politically inconvenient.

cpwill said:
Well I asked first. Given that your proposed foreign policy will result in re-regionalization, with disastrous effects for the global economy directly in proportion to how globalized your economy is (hint: it hurts the US far more than any major regional power), and that this nice, fat, 21st century lifestyle to which we've become accustomed will be sharply reduced - how good are you at farming?

i'm decent at it, though i have less land to farm than i'd like.

cpwill said:
My answer for you: no. It won't. Because President McChessMaster (like you) wants as little to do with this region as possible, and thus isn't willing to project force to create stability. At best our airstrikes will degrade ISIL. That's better than nothing, mind you.

i don't agree. i think that there are better ways to deal with this, such as a national initiative to transition from oil as our primary transportation fuel.

cpwill · Oct 10, 2014

Helix said:
the cold war ended because the people there saw the western standard of living as much as it it ended because of nukes and tough speeches. basically, they saw blue jeans and rock and roll here, and then started seeing the suck that they had to deal with on a daily basis. eventually, enough was enough.

That is correct. Changing a culture in order to effect positive change in hostile areas can be done, but takes time.

Now, what would have happened if we had decided to enact your preferred foreign policy circa 1946?

complete bull****. we can't occupy the entire Middle East for 70 years, especially when the neoconservatives who want us to do so are unwilling to pay more in taxes.

You are arguing against a Strawman. No one has suggested that we occupy the entire Middle East for 70 years. What I pointed out to you was that the US policy of fostering stability in the Middle East has caused it to become more stable, and that when we decided to leave it to solve itself, it became much less stable. You can rant all you like, it does not change that basic reality, which any responsible policy maker needs to accept.

they have to deal with their own region and figure out a path forward. they aren't lifting a finger to help us with the **** that is going on in Mexico and the narco states in central America.

This is also not an answer. Not least because those states do not have the projection capability to significantly effect positive change in those areas. Thanks to our new brilliant "meh, we'll let them figure out a path forward" strategy, Saudi Arabia is dealing with resurgent ISIL on her northern border and Huthis and AQAP on her southern border.

Deliberately creating the conditions for a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia remains abysmally idiotic. It's not so much cutting off your nose to spite your face as it is blasting your face with a shotgun to spite your face.

we are not the world's pro bono police force.

We are, actually.

when we withdraw, regional hegemons will be forced to deal with their own problems, or they will have to deal with the consequences.

Yeah? And what do you think those will be? What regional power out there do you think is going to say "Hey, you know what, I'm a nationalistic and possibly a nutjob Islamist psycho, but what I really want to do is expend lots of time, effort, and resources in making sure that the world is safe for the global supply chains that benefit the United States."? Who is the secret Liberal out there? Iran? China? Russia? Saudi Arabia?

Because if we can identify a regional hegemon dedicated to liberal governance, we can absolutely draw down in that region. We expend very few resources protecting Belgium and France from Germany.

should we occupy these countries, too? how do you propose to pay for that?

Again, you are creating a strawman. No one has suggested the occupation of Libya or Syria. But US power exists on a spectrum and there is a wide variety of tools available for projecting stability.

it is their region, and it is their regional instability.

yeah, but their region includes major chokepoints for the global supply chain and oil that the rest of the worlds' economy needs not to crash. From a purely Realist Interest-Based viewpoint, we wouldn't care if it was (for example) interior Africa. If CAR is in crises (and it is), that mostly just effects CAR. If Saudi Arabia and Iran go to war, this nice pretty first-world lifestyle you've got built up is in danger. Hope you like farming.

We have a country to rebuild right here, and we have a lot of people who need jobs.

Yup. How, again, does producing a global economic meltdown by removing the Security Guarantee that underpins the current global economic order help those people?

on the other side, we have a significant part of the population which is unwilling to pay the extra taxes needed to fund perpetual war, and they are the ones promoting this failed policy.

The policy hasn't failed - in fact it is the policy you are proposing that has failed. Take a look at Iraq in 2009 and take a look at it today. The difference is that this president did what you are suggesting.

we funded and trained the Vietnamese during "Vietnamization." result : the communists prevailed.

So the people we trained lost, and we didn't have to fight them again 20 years later, making this not an example

we placed a puppet regime in Iran. result : the Iranian revolution

This is incorrect. The Shah was already in power in Iran. All we did was lend him support in countering a coup by a Prime Minister with a messianic complex.

we helped the Mujaheddin in a proxy war with the Soviets. result : Al Qaeda

This is also not an example. The people we funded largely were tribal forces that became (to the extent that they retained power) local warlords. The Arabs who came to fight went into Afghanistan north of our efforts, through Haqqani territory out of Miram Shah. Al-Qa'ida was not fully formed after the Afghanistan war, but rather after the 1991 Desert Storm campaign, when Saudi Arabia turned down Bin Laden's offer to defend Saudi territory, choosing instead to go with the Americans.

We chose Iraq in the Iran / Iraq war. result : we had to fight Iraq in the 1990s and in the 2000s.

We wanted both sides to lose in the Iraq/Iran war. And this is also not an example of "us training friendly factions who we then have to fight", as we did not train the Iraqi military during that conflict.

So.... it looks like no, you can't come up with any actual examples of: "we've tried to trying to train "friendly" factions, who we end up having to fight twenty years later".

yeah, and the Soviet Union was destroyed in part because they tried to occupy Afghanistan.

Yup, and before that we worked with them in order to defeat Hitler. Because letting the less evil be the enemy of the Perfect is an immature response of the ears-in-the-finger-I-can't-hear-you variety, and wise policy makers avoid it.

Obama has been frustratingly neoconservative when it comes to the Middle East.

:lamo Obama has done everything he could to reduce US presence in the Middle East. He pulled us out of Iraq as fast as he could and bragged about it. He got dragged into Libya and then insisted on "leading from Behind" and refusing to try to influence events afterwards. When the Iranian Green Revolution kicked off and student protesters were being dragged into the black vans to disappear into the torture prisons they chanted "Obama you are with us or you are with them" and we put out a statement saying both sides should resolve their differences peacefully. Syria has been a chaotic hellhole for years and we are only just now doing the bare minimum - not to actually effect change on the ground, but to get the Washington Chattering Class off the President's back. The idea that this President has adopted neoconservative assumptions in his foreign policy is completely without foundation.

though he campaigned on ending the wars, he has not done so, as it is politically inconvenient.

Do you need me to link approximately six dozen examples of Obama bragging about ending the war in Iraq and declaring our withdrawal from Afghanistan?

cpwill · Oct 10, 2014

Helix said:
i'm decent at it, though i have less land to farm than i'd like.

I was surprised how much you could pull out of how little dirt.

i don't agree.

You think that we will destroy ISIL with a few scattered bombings?

i think that there are better ways to deal with this, such as a national initiative to transition from oil as our primary transportation fuel.

:lamo Hooray! A national initiative for alternative energy - that has always worked the last however many decades we've been trying it! And once we are running on sunlight and corn and flower power, Europe can fuel their cars with Unicorn Poop! And instead of trading via sea-lanes, we'll use star trek transporters! And we'll stop the idea that Islamist radicals might seek to launch attacks in the West with the the power of the Care Bear Stare! This is going to be awesome! We should definitely drive off a cliff on the assumption that all of these plans will catch us mid-air!

I get it, man. You're frustrated. But Cliche's don't make for good foreign policy.

Helix · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
That is correct. Changing a culture in order to effect positive change in hostile areas can be done, but takes time.

the Middle East is not Japan. engaging there is participating in a holy war which has gone on for eons.

cpwill said:
You are arguing against a Strawman. No one has suggested that we occupy the entire Middle East for 70 years. What I pointed out to you was that the US policy of fostering stability in the Middle East has caused it to become more stable, and that when we decided to leave it to solve itself, it became much less stable.

so what does your preferred strategy look like? how many troops, how many years, and what is the likelihood that the American people will ever support such a strategy? how much more are you willing to pay in taxes to enact this strategy?

cpwill said:
This is also not an answer. Not least because those states do not have the projection capability to significantly effect positive change in those areas. Thanks to our new brilliant "meh, we'll let them figure out a path forward" strategy, Saudi Arabia is dealing with resurgent ISIL on her northern border and Huthis and AQAP on her southern border.

ok. let them handle their region, as this is their responsibility.

cpwill said:
Deliberately creating the conditions for a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia remains abysmally idiotic. It's not so much cutting off your nose to spite your face as it is blasting your face with a shotgun to spite your face.

it is the responsibility of regional hegemons to deal with instability within their region. it is our responsibility to ensure stability within our own region.

cpwill said:
We are, actually.

no, we are absolutely not a pro bono global police force. if the world wants a police force, the world should build and fund one.

cpwill said:
Yeah? And what do you think those will be? What regional power out there do you think is going to say "Hey, you know what, I'm a nationalistic and possibly a nutjob Islamist psycho, but what I really want to do is expend lots of time, effort, and resources in making sure that the world is safe for the global supply chains that benefit the United States."?

if Saudi Arabia and Iran want regional stability, then they are going to have to step up and make it happen.

cpwill said:
Because if we can identify a regional hegemon dedicated to liberal governance, we can absolutely draw down in that region. We expend very few resources protecting Belgium and France from Germany.

Europe is not the Middle East, as i have already explained to you.

cpwill said:
Again, you are creating a strawman. No one has suggested the occupation of Libya or Syria. But US power exists on a spectrum and there is a wide variety of tools available for projecting stability.

The current foreverwar has done nothing to promote regional stability, because this goal cannot be achieved through external military force.

cpwill said:
yeah, but their region includes major chokepoints for the global supply chain and oil that the rest of the worlds' economy needs not to crash. From a purely Realist Interest-Based viewpoint, we wouldn't care if it was (for example) interior Africa. If CAR is in crises (and it is), that mostly just effects CAR. If Saudi Arabia and Iran go to war, this nice pretty first-world lifestyle you've got built up is in danger. Hope you like farming.

ridiculous hyperbole.

cpwill said:
Yup. How, again, does producing a global economic meltdown by removing the Security Guarantee that underpins the current global economic order help those people?

perpetual war does not promote stability in the Middle East.

cpwill said:
The policy hasn't failed - in fact it is the policy you are proposing that has failed. Take a look at Iraq in 2009 and take a look at it today. The difference is that this president did what you are suggesting.

the roots of the sectarian violence were there in 2009. once again, are you advocating long term occupation?

cpwill said:
So the people we trained lost, and we didn't have to fight them again 20 years later, making this not an example

we have tried this strategy again and again, and it has failed every single time. we're getting ready to do it again in Syria.

cpwill said:
This is incorrect. The Shah was already in power in Iran. All we did was lend him support in countering a coup by a Prime Minister with a messianic complex.

1953 Iranian coup d'état - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

cpwill said:
This is also not an example. The people we funded largely were tribal forces that became (to the extent that they retained power) local warlords. The Arabs who came to fight went into Afghanistan north of our efforts, through Haqqani territory out of Miram Shah. Al-Qa'ida was not fully formed after the Afghanistan war, but rather after the 1991 Desert Storm campaign, when Saudi Arabia turned down Bin Laden's offer to defend Saudi territory, choosing instead to go with the Americans.

Bin Laudin was a Mujahideen. then we ended up having to fight the same Mujahideen later. this strategy does not work.

cpwill said:
We wanted both sides to lose in the Iraq/Iran war. And this is also not an example of "us training friendly factions who we then have to fight", as we did not train the Iraqi military during that conflict.

we trained the Iraqis and gave them military equipment, which IS has now seized, and is using against us. so we should do it again, after this strategy has failed every time it has been tried? **** that.

cpwill said:
So.... it looks like no, you can't come up with any actual examples of: "we've tried to trying to train "friendly" factions, who we end up having to fight twenty years later".

i already did.

cpwill said:
Yup, and before that we worked with them in order to defeat Hitler. Because letting the less evil be the enemy of the Perfect is an immature response of the ears-in-the-finger-I-can't-hear-you variety, and wise policy makers avoid it.

the entire western world was fighting Hitler, and the top tax rate was more than ninety percent while it was happening. perhaps we should do that again if this is an unavoidable war. i am assuming that you support this.

cpwill said:
:lamo Obama has done everything he could to reduce US presence in the Middle East. He pulled us out of Iraq as fast as he could and bragged about it. He got dragged into Libya and then insisted on "leading from Behind" and refusing to try to influence events afterwards. When the Iranian Green Revolution kicked off and student protesters were being dragged into the black vans to disappear into the torture prisons they chanted "Obama you are with us or you are with them" and we put out a statement saying both sides should resolve their differences peacefully. Syria has been a chaotic hellhole for years and we are only just now doing the bare minimum - not to actually effect change on the ground, but to get the Washington Chattering Class off the President's back. The idea that this President has adopted neoconservative assumptions in his foreign policy is completely without foundation.

Do you need me to link approximately six dozen examples of Obama bragging about ending the war in Iraq and declaring our withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Obama's continuation of foreverwar has been a real disappointment.

Helix · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
I was surprised how much you could pull out of how little dirt.

You think that we will destroy ISIL with a few scattered bombings?

no. and if we did, something worse would pop up.

cpwill said:
:lamo Hooray! A national initiative for alternative energy - that has always worked the last however many decades we've been trying it! And once we are running on sunlight and corn and flower power, Europe can fuel their cars with Unicorn Poop! And instead of trading via sea-lanes, we'll use star trek transporters! And we'll stop the idea that Islamist radicals might seek to launch attacks in the West with the the power of the Care Bear Stare! This is going to be awesome! We should definitely drive off a cliff on the assumption that all of these plans will catch us mid-air!

we should announce a moonshot initiative to replace our transportation energy model, and then we should massively upgrade our electrical grid for the transition.

cpwill said:
I get it, man. You're frustrated. But Cliche's don't make for good foreign policy.

neither does ignoring history. i want the US to be a country, not an empire in a perpetual state of war.

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
:raises eyebrow: Both of those instances are available in the open-source material.

US Intelligence and the Indian Bomb

India Nuclear Test takes US Intelligence by Surprise

Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the rise of proliferation networks

AQ Khan: The Godfather of North Korea's Bomb

Well of course everything printed, especially from gov't intel sources is accurate, WMD's in Iraq were 100%.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
Well of course everything printed, especially from gov't intel sources is accurate, WMD's in Iraq were 100%.

:roll: whatever man. You want to go full-retard, that's your call.

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
:roll: whatever man. You want to go full-retard, that's your call.

Look closer in the mirror before you call people that name.

You're the one Googling links for info as being infallible.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
Look closer in the mirror before you call people that name.

You're the one Googling links for info as being infallible.

:lol: you denied well-known reality, man, and all you had to depend upon when a 10 second google search linked to the source data demonstrating you were incorrect was conspiratorial mutterings. The India case in particular is taught at every single Denial and Deception class I have ever sat in.

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
:lol: you denied well-known reality, man, and all you had to depend upon when a 10 second google search linked to the source data demonstrating you were incorrect was conspiratorial mutterings. The India case in particular is taught at every single Denial and Deception class I have ever sat in.

Guess what, the gov't doesn't spy on citizens either, it's a well published fact. :roll:

You believe what you want and I'll live in reality.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
Guess what, the gov't doesn't spy on citizens either, it's a well published fact. :roll:

You believe what you want and I'll live in reality.

:lol: Dude you either don't believe what you are actually saying, or can't tell the difference between reality and the Bourne movies. But if all you have at this point is strawmen... :shrug: It's sad, actually. You are usually smarter than this.

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
:lol: Dude you either don't believe what you are actually saying, or can't tell the difference between reality and the Bourne movies. But if all you have at this point is strawmen... :shrug: It's sad, actually. You are usually smarter than this.

It is clear to everyone that the legacy of partition is a key driving force behind the nuclear standoff that now exists between India and Pakistan. Partition split apart a region that had been united for millenia amid communal massacres on a scale never before seen, leaving in its wake the unresolved issue of contested Kashmir - a Muslim-majority region held by Hindu-majority India. The skirmishing that has continued now for over fifty years, punctuated by outbreaks of full-scale war (in 1947, 1965, and 1971), have given both nations ample motivation to develop potent weapons to gain advantage over -- or restore balance with -- the other.

The new government of India passed the Atomic Energy Act, on 15 April 1948, leading to the establishment of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) not quite one year after independence. At that time Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declared:

We must develop this atomic energy quite apart from war - indeed I think we must develop it for the purpose of using it for peaceful purposes. ... Of course, if we are compelled as a nation to use it for other purposes, possibly no pious sentiments of any of us will stop the nation from using it that way."

In 1954 the Indian nuclear program began to move in a direction that would eventually lead to establishment of nuclear weapons capability.

India's Nuclear Weapons Program - The Beginning: 1944-1960

If you want to go strictly by what's printed, then both nations developed nukes without any help or interference geopolitically. I, personally, from history believe that the Indians were on their way to developing them eventually anyway and that the US didn't try and prevent it, because of the terrible wars between them and the Pakistani's over Kashmir. Then the US (IMO) made sure that Pakistan acquired nukes, so the two countries would achieve MAD status and stop the wars, after the last severe one in the early 70's.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
If you want to go strictly by what's printed, then both nations developed nukes without any help or interference geopolitically

That is correct. However, what was under discussion was the relative ability of each nation to exercise deception, denial, or clandestine activity.

I, personally, from history believe that the Indians were on their way to developing them eventually anyway and that the US didn't try and prevent it, because of the terrible wars between them and the Pakistani's over Kashmir. Then the US (IMO) made sure that Pakistan acquired nukes, so the two countries would achieve MAD status and stop the wars, after the last severe one in the early 70's.

:lol: Did we give them the nukes from our secret moon base?

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
That is correct. However, what was under discussion was the relative ability of each nation to exercise deception, denial, or clandestine activity.

:lol: Did we give them the nukes from our secret moon base?

Believe me, I gave you far more credit to understand that after we allowed the Nazi's to advance as far as they did, that we'd never allow another nation to do so, hence the long Cold War.

But because you believe the printed word only, you are left with that reality only.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
Believe me, I gave you far more credit to understand that after we allowed the Nazi's to advance as far as they did, that we'd never allow another nation to do so, hence the long Cold War.

But because you believe the printed word only, you are left with that reality only.

:shrug: I believe the basic facts of the history of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear program.

Just to be clear, you are denying that they were able to successfully hide their development from US intelligence?

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
:shrug: I believe the basic facts of the history of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear program.

Just to be clear, you are denying that they were able to successfully hide their development from US intelligence?

After WWII the US decided to never allow another country to accede to the power that the Nazis did, hence the Cold War. We were most certainly in control.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
After WWII the US decided to never allow another country to accede to the power that the Nazis did, hence the Cold War. We were most certainly in control.

You aren't answering the question - were India and Pakistan able to successfully develop nuclear weapons in a campaign that included a successful D&D strategy employed against the United States of America?

You are projecting an omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience onto the US that we simply don't have.

grip · Oct 11, 2014

cpwill said:
You aren't answering the question - were India and Pakistan able to successfully develop nuclear weapons in a campaign that included a successful D&D strategy employed against the United States of America?

You are projecting an omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience onto the US that we simply don't have.

We had it, trust me. The US owned he info of atomic explosions.

cpwill · Oct 11, 2014

grip said:
We had it, trust me. The US owned he info of atomic explosions.

Sure, we had it. So did plenty of others. The Soviets, for example. Then the Chinese, the French, the British, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Israelis...

At no time in post-war history, however, did we have control over who got it. That left our abilities as soon as Stalins' spies got him ours.

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi Are Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

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