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Post 0

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 8:34amSanction this postReply
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I wonder.

 

Do we take them at face value-- this is simply an opportunity in a power vacuum to re-establish a Squalor Caliphate using extreme, ruthless violence? Or is there a deeper strategy in this blatant attempt at provocation? (I for sure have no idea, but I wonder.) I wondered, Syria a year ago-- was that a provocation for broader US engagement? And the US/Obama did not bite. And now, requests for 'ransoms' of 137 million dollars and beheadings on the internet.

 

This is just to recruit? Poking the impotent Great Satan in the eye? Come join the Squalor Caliphate? Or does the next stage of this conflict require more acts of US force bombing Muslim hovels as justification for a long planned act of a smoking Chicago? A political softening of the world opinion beaches? "They came and bombed us, and we retaliated. Bombing Chicago was not terrorism, it was an act of war against a nation at war with us." They are demanding that we engage them. They are unilaterally engaged in a conflict with us. Why?

 

Not because they believe they would prevail in -that- kind of cpen conflict. Hovels would bounce yet again...more turkey shoots on the road to Basra...but they've(correctly)assessed our unwillingness(the entire West)to ever finish the job. Conflicts are ended by prevailing, or by making the costs of continuing unacceptable for both sides to proceed. In a conflict between the West and the Squalor Caliphate, it is only the West that has anything to lose. As powerfully imbalanced as this potential conflict is, the West is the side with the costs at risk.

 

If this hypothetical is correct and such an act is long in the planning, that act will eventually be carried out no matter we do or don't do; the fundamental fact is, we are in a conflict whether we are engaged in that conflict or not. That conflict continues until it is ended.  We are at war whether we send the troops and bombers or if we don't. We cannot negotiate with adversaries that are proceeding unchecked. Negotiation occurs between adversaries at stalemate. There is no stalemate. There is no engagement. There is one side engaged in open provocations to engage in a war and another remote adversary averting its eyes.

 

We also have to stop pretending these are isolated forces. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the shitfighters in Syria and Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan. Elements in Iran and Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Egypt ... throughout the entire Muslim world...are not so quietly on the sidelines, providing support. These shitfighters are not manufacturing their own weapons.

 

The West ended the conflict in WWI early, without defeating all the combatants. The remnants of the Ottoman Empire former colonies-- largely Muslin -- was ignored. Shuffled up into 'mandates' and told to get on with modernity. For a hundred years, the West partied on with modernity and ignored the hundreds of millions festering in squalor,permitting our trade based relations with them result in tiny enclaves of fabulously rich oil 'sheiks' (former desert camel jockeys) and a billion or so peasants festering in squalor. Squalor that in modernity was packed with satellite dishes in a 500 channel world and no longer content with the shitty end of the stick it was dealt.

 

But gradients drive everything, and the Muslim world is demanding of modernity to either defend its claim on the future or get the Hell out of the way. And its religious leaders have weighed what they regard as our secular depravity and are convinced the West is doable-- it enrages them to think that they've been pushed aside by the kind of culture they see in the West, which they deplore. It also has enraged them -- for decades -- that the West has not taken them seriously enough either to engage or defeat, and so... they are pressing the point,and so far, not meeting with any consistent resistance to their claims. The West has trained them only in the fact that eventually-- too soon, before the conflict is over, the West will grow tired of the conflict and unilaterally disengage.

 

And so, a smoking Chicago(as an example)is an inevitability in this world. All but guaranteed without extraordinary luck and execution in a nation with totally open borders and a world in which a Princeton undergrad in '77 named Aristotle, using information available from the public stacks and making one educated guess,  published a viable plan for an atomic bomb, and a crumbled USSR in '89 left nuclear warheads poorly fettered. The aftermath of such an inevitability is impossible to predict, but I suspect this nation could tear itself apart. We won't recognize whatever nation comes out the other side of that event. We might look back at 9/11 wistfully as the good old days of manageable mayhem.

 

regards,

Fred

 

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 8/24, 8:37am)



Post 1

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 9:14amSanction this postReply
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So if you could advise president Rand Paul(I'm such a frickin' optimist)how to lead us in this mess, what would you tell him?

 

I would have him make the following speech, at 12:01 on Jan 21, 2017, assuming they wait that long to pull this off.  (I doubt it, because I'm not really such a frickin' optimist).

 

"US forces will not engage or respond to remote provocations made by the (Squalor) Caliphate.   US Forces will defend US interests in the world, including our borders in the US.   The US calls upon the nations in the Middle East to drain their own swamps of extreme elements operating outside of civilized norms and will asisst in any credible regional coalition actions to defend freedom when asked.   But at the same time, in this age, it will be my policy as POTUS to regard any attack on US cities or interests as a failure of the nations from which those attackes are launched and will hold them directly responsible.   The day aftet the world wakes up to the news of a smoking ruin in Chicago will be met by that image 50 times over throughout the Muslim World. That is my promise.  It will be my policy of such a failure of the Musluim world to drain its own swamps to end it, period.   The US res[onse to such an attack will not be in kind, will not be measured, will not be proportional.  The US response will be devastating to those nations who allow it.   Maniacs in your midst can, if unchecked, initiate great harm to the American nation.   But such a successfil act hosted from within your borders will end yours. You've been warned.  No matter what your interests were in draining your own swamps were before, those interests are as of today existentially paramount.

 

That is not a threat of initiation of violence.   That is a promise of repsonseto the initiation of violence with overwhelming violence.  The US and USSR successfully engaged in this policy for over half a century, so welcome to modernity and its responsibilities.  No need to read my lips.

 

Yours Truly,

Rand Paul

CIC of US Nuclear Forces"

 

Trivial to avoid; clean out the swamps and do not initiate violence..

 

That speech -- even if empty -- knocks the political legs out from under any such unprovoked attack on US Cities.   It would have to be regarded as deliberate insanity.   That might be all that such a speech does.   But it at least does that.

 

Inneffective pin prick bombings, Gesture Politics in service onlly of the petty domestic political Optics at Home, making a few hovels dance remotely from afar, is the worst of all worlds.   It does nothing, but it preprints our enemies Press Releases.   "Squalor Caliphate Responds to US Bombings of Muslim World by Smoking Chicago."

 

We've had the opposite policy-- endless nervous propitiation and fealty only to petty domestic politics-  and are realizing a world in flames.

 

What are some other alternatives for that speech by POTUS Rand Paul?

 

regards,

Fred

 

 

 

 

 

  



Post 2

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 9:18amSanction this postReply
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Remember..he's starting from a position of the West having next to zero credibility in the Middle East or elsewhere.  So what does he say?



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Post 3

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 10:20amSanction this postReply
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 So what does he say?

"Welcome to the future my brothers - we finally reached your level" ?

As powerfully imbalanced as this potential conflict is, the West is the side with the costs at risk.

"Never wrestle with a pig - you only both get dirty - except that the pig likes it" !

clean out the swamps and do not initiate violence

Where do I start cleaning? By the time I reach the other side of the swamp I can start all over at the beginning ...

Even if we get away from the violence agenda for a moment: same would hold true for educating the masses. It would take generations to get those in the world now to catch up - not to mention the generations coming along during that time. And don't think for a second your future would be secure if you manage those two impossible feats - the second you relax the next downsliding generation is born.

 

my personal little war: hunger them out - let them shoot each other until there's no one left standing on either side capable of lifting a club - get the few individuals worth your time and energy somewhere safe - build a utopia if you have to, but make it small enough no one get's interested in it except other individuals

time and evolution will tell who will survive - and I have a nasty suspicion it won't be us singular freaks ;)

'I' is not the norm of a species



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Post 4

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 11:09amSanction this postReply
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Fred,

We also have to stop pretending these are isolated forces. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the shitfighters in Syria and Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan. Elements in Iran and Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Egypt ... throughout the entire Muslim world...are not so quietly on the sidelines, providing support. These shitfighters are not manufacturing their own weapons.

 

Too true.  And nearly all of them are getting funding from somewhere, and many have training camps courtesty of one of the governments turning a blind eye.

----------------

...it will be my policy as POTUS to regard any attack on US cities or interests as a failure of the nations from which those attackes are launched and will hold them directly responsible.

I like the sentiment, and I believe that while it would make the leaders of every nation that had been supporting terroism to start containing it, as intended, but it would embolden some terrorists and encourage them to set of WMD in the US for the purpose of getting the US to start bombing the middle east.  I'm not disagreeing with it, just pointing out that it might not have the desired effect.

----------------

What are some other alternatives for that speech by POTUS Rand Paul?

I don't know that this is any better, or even as good, but I'd look at these:

 

1. Take out the money sources
    - Stop piracy off somalia,
    - drop herbicide on Afghanistan's poppy fields,
    - deny any use of the oil fields where those funds get into Nazi-Islamist hands
    - Partner with Israel to take out the regime in Iran for funding terrorism
    - Explain to the Saudi's that if any of their citizens let their money go
       to terrorists, they will experience a violent regime change.
    - Go to the international court, (then use the military, if need be), to take back for the
       stockholders all oil properties that have been nationalized around the world


2. Use the military to take out all military and nuclear capabilities of Iran as an example to
all of the other mid-East states


3. Leave the UN and kick them out of the US, start a new UN where you can't
join if you are a theocracy, or violate basic rights, or attack others, or tolerate
terrorism in any way.


4. Terminate all foriegn aid... most of it is just "Aid to Dependent Dictators"

 

5. Encourage non-Islamic nations to join NATO while at the same time giving a 4 year notice that we are leaving NATO and it will need to find the replacement for our funding and our military might.  The hope is that this would spur European nations to build up the arms they need to defend themselves and not expect us to play world policeman.

---------------


What does President Paul say? "Ladies and Gentlemen, as I'm speaking to you tonight, our bombers, in conjuntion with fighters from Israel, are targeting the command and control as well as military structures in Iran. The Treasury department has seized accounts of the Iranian government and various Saudi Arabian citizens for supporting terrorism. The day where America sits idly by watching its citizens beheaded by savages supported by Islamist nazis is over.

 

We have declared war on Al Queda and on all of its sister organzations. Now we are going to wage that war. Let it be understood that any person or any governent that gives any aid to an Islamic fundamentalist will be brought to a harsh and sudden justice."

------------

 

Without extremely strong military action, like a massive bombing campaign against Iran, no one will have credibility in the eyes of the middle-east where only the harshest exercise of force is respected.  And if Iran's leaders are all taken out, and totally disarmed (not just their nuclear facilities, but all military, all navy, all forts, artillery, etc.), then the other nations will immediately fall in line - at least for a while.  Nothing else will work, in my opinion.  And even that doesn't guarantee success.  The Middle-East saw how we demolished the Iraq of Saddam Hussain but they didn't take that as a lesson.

-----------

 

After that, a way must be found to fight fundamentalist Islam as a religion and philosophy and political system.  And that can't be done with the military.  It has to be discredited in the eyes of all non-extremists to such a strong degree, that they change the Koran and they reform their religion, and then they will police their own - chasing out the clerics and crack-pots who want Sharia and jihad.

-----------

 

These things are certain:

- Most of the terrorists will not stop until they are killed

- The philosophy of fundamentalist Islam with its death to the West, Sharia for all, enforced world-wide Caliphate will continue to increase in popularity and in effectiveness until something very different is done than anything we are doing now.

- When in a conflict where the other side won't compromise or quit, you can't stop till they are dead or in a state of total submission

- Failure to follow thru to the total capitulaton is just postponing disaster till later when it will be worse.



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Post 5

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 11:50amSanction this postReply
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that they change the Koran and they reform their religion, and then they will police their own - chasing out the clerics and crack-pots who want Sharia and jihad

same could be said about the Bible and those hiding behind 'Deus vult' (god will's it) - while I agree with your sentiment that they have to be discredited, it's not gonna happen with a few wars and some paragraphs in an old book (that never actually need changing, but understood correctly in both books) - Christians needed several centuries to change after having crusaded themselves almost into extinction

Nazi-Islamist hands

one thing to be said for the political 'crackpots': their turnover is much faster than the religious zealots - I have the Arians right under my nose every day ;)



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Post 6

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 1:22pmSanction this postReply
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Vera, there HAVE been reforms in the Christian world.  But they never needed them as badly because the Bible was written by the apostles and written after Christ died, where the Koran is alleged to be the direct word of Allah.  If the muslim world could reach a point where they rewrite the Koran, then the religious part of the war is over.  Right now most of the moral strength of the fundamentalists comes from their claim that they are following the Koran.  What helps is if the moderates can say, "No you don't."  

 

I'm open to better ideas.



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Post 7

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 4:11pmSanction this postReply
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Yes, Christianity took centuries to learn to behave itself, but history moved more slowly in those days because information got around more slowly.  Shinto took less than four years (December 41 to August 45).  I'm optimistic.



Post 8

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 4:50pmSanction this postReply
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I like your attitude, Peter!



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Post 9

Monday, August 25, 2014 - 8:23amSanction this postReply
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@ Steve,

sorry - fresh out of ideas ... except the individualistic one I posted above ... I can't fix humanity, I can only try and fix my personal little life - as far as my own humanity allows me to ;)

 

@ Peter,

political defeat will do that to a religion if the leader holds both offices - as I said: the political crackpots have a faster turnover ... maybe we can get the CIA do find Mohammed and send in Seal Six to do him in ;)

 

What they all have in common (not just religions, political countries, but cultures, idealists, every group so proud to vocally identify as 'a group') is the belief that everybody has to be 'just like me' (cause I'm the best, right) - if he's not, he's at best deluded and needs to be re-educated (by force if necessary - it's for his own happiness) or at worst a threat to your own life and happiness (if someone would have good grounds to be better than you, then your life and happiness will be extinguished in the long run), and you're justified to initiate force to defend said life and happiness.

All the crackpots and zealots are just the paper-tigers pushed in front to give us something to point to so they don't have to put their own little human life out there saying 'I am, I do' - knowing full well they wouldn't even measure up to their alleged ideals, not to mention be an individual. And let's not argue about the nincompoops who volunteer for that role to fulfill their desire for fake handed-down power.

 

So I grant you both, that there's always been times when some individuals managed to make inroads in the mass-centric human world (usually at some crisis-point where individuals had more influence or after decimating large parts of that human world and leaving some individual space to breathe), but in the long run they were always taken over again and their accomplishments used to feed the masses.



Post 10

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 6:54pmSanction this postReply
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Rand Paul, I think, has a decidedly non-interventionist bias.    I don't think he would sign off on any pre-emptive strikes unless the 'pulled punch' evidence was compelling.

 

I think there is a lot in Steve's list that is worth whispering in his ear.

 

The resurrection of a kind of MAD-- not really MAD, but mutually assured 'share the pain' if these countries in the region don't do more than stand by and tap their toes instead of at least making an attempt to drain their pwn swamps, cut the funding from Qatar and Kuwait and the Saudis and all the other feet in both camps actors-- may not be effective primarily because we've spent so much effort in losing any credibility we once expensively had.   It is only effective if it is credible.  If it is not credible it is less than pointless.

 

I don't think it would prevent any attack;  what it would do, its intent, would be to remove the PR optics of such an attack on the US being a response to some less than effective provacation by the US; the kind of 'limited strikes' that are at their essence nothing but Gesture Politics aimed at playing to the cameras at home.   That policy -- the policy of less than effective Gesture Politics attacks on ISIS,is IMO the absolure worst of all worlds.  It gives ISIS exactly what they are asking for:  political PR cover for an eventual attack on a US city.   They will play the optics of those limited attacks as their justification for their attack.  And those limited attacks will have been in the service of only their goals.   To avert that evential attack requires the focused attention and involvement of countries today on the sidelines biding their time and watching our weakness and placing their anxious bets.   The Israeli's have figure out they are on their own in the M.E., at least for another two years.   That is a long time in harm's way with the region in flames and the  US with its lowest credibility ... ever.

 

There -was- a brief moment of credibily in the wake of Gulf War I.  It was quickly squandered in Somalia and Rwanda and Iraq '96.    And even in Iraq2, briefly, in 2003.   But we quickly squandered that as well.

 

These actors know they don't need to defeat us on any battlefield; they've learned because we've taught them that all they need to to is outlast our short attentions spans, to rope a dope all the senseless pinpoint hovel bouncing and eventually the West will pack up and go back home and wring its hands and endlessly apologize and otherwise tear ourselves apart.  The West does not ... finish.   We expenxively push boulders 90% of the way up the hill and then quit early,allowing the same boulder to roll back on our heads.   That is Iraq today.

 

I don't think the 2016 elections will get here anywhere near soon enough to be much of a help in this window of weakness.   Whether by design or incompetence,  the welcome mat to mayhem is out.   The ... many folks in government charged with detecting and thwarting any such attack will do their best.   If they manage to do that, it would be an extraordinary feat, noted only by the passing of yet more time in which ... nothing happens.

 

A POTUS Ron Paul could easily be presiding over the aftermath of a national catastrophe.   The election itself might be an opportune time to pull off such an attack.

 

So assuming he takes office in Jan 2017, what does he say?   Or, what speech does a POTUS H. Clinton make on that day?  What does either of them do, standing in a deep pit of US non-credibility?

 

regards,

Fred



Post 11

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 8:11pmSanction this postReply
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I'm not confortable with the all of Rand Paul's approach to foreign policy.  I definitely like his refusal to be the world's policeman, and I agree with him that we should not have gone into Iraq, and that Afghanistan should have been a 6 month, not 11+ year event.  But I don't think he grasps the dangers of the Islamic-Nazis.  I expect that ISIS, as soon as it believes it can do it, will take Mecca and Medina - probably won't have to fire a gun, just let the Wahabi power structure know that they either lay down arms and welcome them, or it will be off with their heads.  After that we will see a massive increase in recruits, funds, support, extremist energies, and geopolitical ambitions.  And it will be the "Arab Spring" on steroids.  Joining with the extremists in Pakistan would mean nuclear arms spreading throughout an increasingly hostile and rapidly growing Caliphate.

 

What I do like about Paul is that he will say what he believes and he will most likely be believed.  If he doesn't use the military when I think he should, it will not be out of fear, or political correctness, or because he is playing to his base, or because he has just read this or that poll.  I don't think it would take long for both allies and enemies to grasp that he can't be manipulated or counted on to hide out of fear of making the wrong move.  I don't see him playing that game of carefully chosen pin-prick strikes that take out a pickup truck or two... just to look engaged.  I see him as in or out and in very clear and strong moves that wouldn't be mistaken.

 

And here is another thing... If we don't get someone as strongly libertarian as Paul on economic issues, what will we use to fight the next war?Quantitative Easing?  How much more than, say the 20 trillion of debt we'll have by 2016, do we think we can borrow?  Do we think we can avoid interest rates ever going up?  And when they do go up to say 5 or 6% how will the government avoid being declared bankrupt when they can't pay the interest on that debt?  Will the economies keep humming along if taxes were jacked up by say another trillion or so a year?  

 

A president Hillary Clinton would be a different animal altogether and I have no idea what she would do in foreign policy.  I'm not sure she knows what she is going to do until she has the latest poll in hand and has sniffed the political winds.  I do know that she is thought to be to the left of her hubby, and even to the left of Obama, except that she may be so tightly aligned with making money that ideology takes second place except where she can do both at once.  She goes out and gives $250,000 dollar speeches where she inveighs against the 1% and calls for the rich to pay their fair share!  How can anyone keep a straight face with that?  There has never been anyone that was more the poster child of crony capitalism than Hillary (I've lost track of how much Goldman Sachs has given her to date... millions, maybe 10s of millions if you include Bill, their foundations and Chelsea).  And can you imagine Bill wandering the halls of the White House, bored and looking for something to do?  Does a country that would elect Hillary president deserve to continue on?  And 'continue on' to where?

 

I can't think of any opening speech that would change anything.  Positive change will require a return to common sense, some sensible economic and political principles and people who say what they mean and do what they should do.  Even with that it would be a long and messy road.  Right now everything is upside down.



Post 12

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 9:34pmSanction this postReply
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You KNOW ISIS is bad news when Iran offers to send 10000 revolutionary guard into Iraq to kill them.



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Post 13

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 8:01amSanction this postReply
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What we are fretting over as 'recruiting' is also serving to attract American Dumbasses and, at least temporarily, get some of them out of the country.

 

The only problem with this is, freely allowing them back in on the same passport after their trip to Squalor Caliphate Disneyland in the Desert.

 

Fuck 'em.  If they are getting trained to come back here and shitfight, then let them sneak across the border like every other derelict in the world.

 

Now they are using rap music to recruit.   "From Damascus to Atlanta."     As long as American Dumbasses are paying their own way to the killing fields, I say let the herd self culling proceed, unimpeded.

 

Its like a deliberate infection, drawing all the pus laded disease to one spot for now.  We are unfortunately not in a position to take advantage of this circumstance right now, not with Obama in the White House.   He will likely proceed as we've seen other third wayers proceed, with ineffective gesture politics and limited strikes, far worse than doing nothing at all.    If that infection is allowed to fully spread back throughout the world after its violent rave in the desert,  the level of violence in the US is going to reach a new level.    Not that it is rising from '0'.    

 

regards,

Fred



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Post 14

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 8:02amSanction this postReply
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...dude on ABC just said "For the first time, we know where all the rats are."



Post 15

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 8:13amSanction this postReply
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now we just have to figure out if he meant the white house or the white sands of the desert ;)



Post 16

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 5:09pmSanction this postReply
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Imam to Hannity: Convert-Or-Die Caliphate 'Coming to You in America,' 'You Don't Have a Choice'



Post 17

Friday, September 5, 2014 - 6:43pmSanction this postReply
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Why is that piece of shit still breathing?  He is more than deserving of a double tap.



Post 18

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - 10:01pmSanction this postReply
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Jules, whom are you referring to?

 

Oh, right -- the Imam. :-)

 

(Edited by William Dwyer on 10/08, 10:03pm)



Post 19

Sunday, October 12, 2014 - 9:32amSanction this postReply
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Yes the Imam is scum of the earth.  If his hatred for western values is the norm preached in mosques then maybe it is time to start closing them.  Maybe it is time the west declared Islam as a rogue subversive warrior cult antithetical to western values not protected by freedom of religion.  



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