Quote:
Originally Posted by mburbank
The USA and particularly the Bush presiencies are deeply emeshed with the Saudi Royal family. No conspiracy theory, just bidness.
|
And the implication here is what? Every president since FDR (with a few bumps in the road, like Truman) has at least seen the strategic value in staying tight with, if not fully embracing the Sa'ud family. The relationship hasn't been a give and take piggy bank like you'd like to think, and they
were a valuable partner during the Cold War. To imply that all of this has to do with Bush family business ties is erronious and daffy.
Quote:
Saudi Arabia obviously values our alliance. Whhile you may find the idea that might give us some leverare debatable, but I hardly think it's outlandish enough to warrant so many question marks.
|
You overestimate the leverage we have there. Our relationship with Saudi Arabia hasn't been strictly about oil consumption, but that's a big part of it. Well now there's a couple other big kids on the block, namely India and China. They are going to buy a shit ton of oil, and they probably don't care so much about the democratic makeup of the middle east.
They are in fact the ones who are all about bidness. While America is starting to talk more seriously about energy alternatives, These countries are talking crude, baby. If you want to understand why it has been slow-going in Saudi Arabia, don't look West, look East.
Quote:
They LIKE buying our weapons. we make the best ones. They want them. What if we tied the sales of those weapons systems to changes in their text books and support of 'charities'? It might not work, but it could be funny to try.
|
What makes you believe this hasn't happened? Why is the Saudi foreign minister in friggin Houston this week talking about SA being a democracy within ten years? Condi (and before her Powell) have been working overtime in the middle east.
Also, this goes back to the previous point. Those weapons? They're going to get them. So would you rather we keep selling them and maintain that leverage, or do we curse them out and watch them walk? How "realpolitik" would that be, Mr. Kissinger?
Quote:
Instead our foreign policy is to pretend the Saudi Royal family has nothing at al to do with state sponsored terrorism.
|
This an absolute fallacy. Again, the fact that a Saudi prince was at the US-Arab Economic forum
talking about building a better democracy than America's is worth noting. You seem to think America hasn't done a thing to press Saudi reform, but uh hello, Iraq!!!!!???!!!/?/?!
I mean, this is a country that didn't officially ban SLAVERY until 1962. The mere fact that countries such as this one are even
talking about such dramatic reforms is totally attributable to our pressure, primarily the invasion of Iraq. I'm amazed that you cant even see this, but then again, you've got those pesky Bush blinders.
The more alarming thing about Saudi Arabia's continuing spread of hate speech is that there's a market for it. If muslims all around the world didn't already believe this shit, the Saudi text books wouldn't be as much of a problem. And we're not just talking about the poor, frustrated, and uneducated. These texts, often omitting Israel from their maps, are used in the West too. Hell, one of them is a short drive away from me in
Alexandria. So once again, the problem isn't just corrupt regimes, or poverty, or whatever. There's a pervasive problem throughout Islam, and
that is our enemy. Stopping states that finance it is crucial, but not the whole war.
Quote:
I'm not sure how posting the full statement changes anything. My objection was to your idea of 'liberals' and the implication that associtting the word 'Liberal' with something somehow automatically discredits it. Something I've noted a lot of 'chowderheads' are fond of doing.
|
I think you misunderstood me. Maybe it's due to my own lack of clarity, but I wasn't trying to insinuate that "liberal" is the dirty word. I consider myself one, so that would be pretty counter-productive. True or false-- do liberals refer to the WOT as a police matter? Keep your own position on it in mind.
Quote:
You're right, theres no such thing as a police effort. There's no FBI, there's no CIA, there are no special forces, and if we ever acknowledge international law I'm sure that would vanish as well.
|
So is your argument that these resources aren't being utilized? If that's your argument, well you're wrong. Some of the more valuable aspects of the Patriot Act were to better connect these agencies so that they could share info and resources at the state & local level. If you think we've simply dropped bombs on two countries and declared "yahtzee!" you're sorely mistaken.
I opposed the invasion of Iraq. As I've said here numerous times, I'm more of a big stick, speak softly kind of guy. But we DID invade Iraq, and as abc has pointed out for you, the war on islamic terrorism is indeed now in Iraq. To abandon Iraq would be like handing a chaotic Afghanistan over tothe Taliban, or a chaotic Somalia over the muslim militias who want to stone rapists to death. Ifyou can't see the pattern, then you're not really paying attention.
But you seem more intent on having a told ya so foreign policy. The tenets of Max Burbank's
toldyasoism is that no foreign policy can proceed unless the president is pure like a little girl in her Communion day dress. If you invade a country, the president better be right about why he did it, otherwise you can't do anything else. You must remain paralyzed by the told ya so, or else you look like a hypocrite. to practice toldyasoism all you have to do is compare every American action to something Christians did in the 16th Century, mention that the Americans killed Native Americans and stuff. It has the pomposity of Kevinism, but without the citations.
Quote:
No, he said we should invade Iraq, he said we had no choice, and at best he was totally wrong about why and at worst he was lying. I know we don't have a time machine and we can't undo what we did, but while you say you don't like Bush et al, you think it's good we're their and what we've brought is an unquestionable improvement. Should we only 'improve' the nations we can get away with on account of their lack of holy sites? Personally, I think we've used up all our free invasion cards.
|
And under toldyasoism, if the president puffed up the reasons for invading a country, well then you can't have done anything good in Iraq. :/
Saddam was an enemy, and while you seem to think he was "contained", I think he was a monster whose people are better off without him and his murderous lot there. To say that there were ABSOLUTELY NO links to Al Qaeda and islamic extremism is intellectually dishonest. If nothing else, he was an opportunist. He encouraged terrorist acts against Israel, and wanted to use Islam as a means to control his populace. The guy thought he was friggin Saladin. There most certainly was contact between Al Qaeda agents and Iraqi Baathists in the late 90's, and Zarqawi himself managed to flow in and out of Iraq.
Iraq was a weak spot, and we took it out. The Pentagon made some early mistakes that have continued to haunt our troops, but the toppling of Saddam has put every other nation in the Middle East on notice. Hell, why do you think Iran rushed their nuke program? They looked at N. Korea, they knew they were on our shit list, and realized that they wanted security. Iran doesn't want to suffer Iraq's fate. I think you will see some "realpolitik" in Iran, you will see a carrot and stick deal eventually worked out, and hopefully you'll
ultimately see reform in Iran.
Quote:
And SO... we use sanctions, leverage, and police actions (which we are doing in Iran right now, so don't say there's no such thing).
|
See above.
Quote:
And no, it does not bring democracy to Saudi Arabia. THAT's what the War on Terror looks like to me. Slow, dogged, unsatisfying, sometimes inaffective, not at all sexy country song patriotic. They keep their women in bags, they teeter on the edge of slavery with their guest worker program, they are totally not a democracy, and yet we have decided there are ways to fight terror without invading them. Now I think we should pressure them a lot more, hold them a lot more accountable, but we can do it without invading. I also think we could do it without inviting them to Crawford and Kennybunkport.
|
And we find ourselves in total agreement. The only problem is that I see the role theinvasion of iraq played in creating that pressure, and you can't.
North Korea's economy is totally relient upon foreign aid. The "slow, dogged" stuff isn't always effective, and doesn't necessarily stop countries from pursuing nuclear weapons if the technology is made available to them.
Quote:
I think though you absolute certainty that these things are 'directly related to the United States' invasion of Iraq and policy towards terrorist supporting states. ' while certainly arguable, is something you take as a matter of faith. I would challenge you to support it without saying "Isn't it totally obvious??????"
|
You're kidding, right? Max, is it all a grand coinsidence these political reform discussions and movements that are happening in the Arab world are happening
now? Why does all of this stuff just
happen to be a product of a post-9/11 world? More importantly, why did Libya trip over themselves to at least give us the token gesture of giving up on nuclear weapons? Why is
Pakistan, a nation with a high muslim population, bending to our wishes in the mountain region near the Afghan border? All of the current regime actions in the middle east today, be them good or bad, helpful or antagonistic, are a result of the United States.
I feel I've gone to great lengths to provide evidence for you, both anecdotal and quantified, to show you this. You on the other hand have never done this. Tell me Max, if not directly linked to the actions of the United States, what is causing it all? Any thoughts? I mean, I know one key tenet of toldyasoism is to focus on what the other is supposedly doing wrong, rather than what could be done
right, but please enlighten me.
Quote:
I'm not going to quote your whole next paragraph in the interests of space, but let me see if I can paraphrase it without sarcasm or jokes. W and company lied to us about the real reason for invading Iraq. The secret reason they chose Iraq was to topple a middle eastern country they thought they could bring democracy to.
Tell me if that's approximately what you are saying, and I'll get my huge bag of question marks ready. I don't want to waste them if that isn't what you are saying.
|
This is essentially what I'm saying, yes.
Quote:
Because wether you believe it of me or not, a LOT of people who voted for W and believed in him don't like the war, don't think it's an "obvious, Exponential improvement in Iraq" and if they hate W now, it's because of the war.
|
I know, and that's more an indictment of the American people than it is of the president. Americans, as I have frequently lamented, love to blow shit up, but they hate to clean it up. Everbody likes to make a mess, but nobody likes to be the guy in the cleanup aisle (now, the cost, the hypocrisy of cutting taxes while at war, that's certainly worth the outrage).
Presidents do unpopular things. Bush isn't setting any precedent here. But history doesn't judge a president or a policy on 1 week, 1 month, or even 1 year. IMO, we will look back on this presidency, taking into account all of its problems and mistakes, and they will be judged by Iraq. I am of the opinion that it will be a pleasant judgement, but that's just me.
Quote:
But I bet smarterer people with less raging hatreds than mine also might think, possibly, that we have not improved the lives of the Iraqi people. I bet some of them are good folks nd not just blind, liberal, Bush Haters.
|
Find me the respected scholar or policy analyist who says we've only made matters worse, or made NO improvements for the Iraqi people. I'd like to hear their thoughts, and heck, I'd love it if you brought something to the table here!
Quote:
I just think expecting a think tank to tell you what living in Ira is like via statistics only says so much. I think for instance, the cable recently written by our own ambassador is also a valid picture.
|
Well sweet Jesus Max, you can't see it, but I'm throwing my hands up for you right now. I mean, my opinion is apparently unsubstantiated, the factually supported data from some think tank (one of the oldest and most highly respected in the country) means nothing, obviously the White House's opinion means nothing, obviously the opinions of the newly elected Iraqi PM mean nothing, etc. etc.
Apparently the only opinions worth listening to on Iraq are the ones that say everything is going wrong.
"Told ya so!"
Quote:
How can you possibly know that in twenty years Iraq might not be a democracy (or some other form of decent government) without our intervention? Not every country in human history that has undergone progressive growth required an invasion and occupation.
|
Allow me to repeat myself. Look at Afghanistan. Look at Somalia. Look at
Palestine. There'sa pattern here, Max. Where we allow Islamic tyranny to thirve, it most certainly will. I believe this was our mistake in the past. I believe we need to do something about it now, rather than just looking back at our dubious record in Afghanistan, Iraq/Iran, and the rest of the Middle East, and saying "told ya so!".
Quote:
How about if Iraq spirals into civil war, drags neighboring countries in and is ground zero for your Great War?
|
This won't happen if we fight this war. I see this more likely to happen were we to withdraw. I see iraq becoming a carte blanche for Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and every petty thug and Islamic radical who wants a piece of the pie.
And Max, if we
dokeep at this war, and that STILL happens, I'll invite youto say "I told ya so!"
Quote:
Almost, Kev? I'm not a soul peerer, but I'd say you're treating that 'almost' line like a runner itching to steal Second.
|
Perhaps you missed my point. I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown and Preechr.
My point
was that some nations haven't gotten on board with this war to the extent we have. I pity the small time Islamic thug who messes with Russia or China. They won't be getting Halal food and prayer time in those prisons. Heck, look at how France of all nations has clamped down on their extremists.
My point was that Radical Islam wouldn't stand a chance if the sleeping giants in the East and Europe woke up. I think extremists counton the liberal guilt of the European nations, and it plays a partin fostering great degrees of intolerance in presumably liberal and free nations.
Quote:
Tell me, if the Great War comes, will you fight in it, or would you prefer to be one of those guys in suits with other priorities?
|
Well, I look pretty good in a nice tie.
I think your point is to bait me, but whatever. If it came down to a draft, I most certainly would fight. However the best military in the world is made of voluntary citizens, and that's one reason we have the finest military inthe world.
Quote:
I myself would really like to see us work harder on NOT having that war. I know, I'm an isolationist and the only way I can prove I'm not is to kill some people.
|
I think we are working to avoid tragedy now. But part of that will include not having such shitty regimes in the Middle East.
[qote]You're off in La-La land dreaming about all the good shit we could do if we had a dream government. I'm angry about the things our current government is fucking up, and I think being concerned about those fuck ups could be constructive in getting a better administration.[/quote]
I'm glad you're concerned aboutyour next president, it's of personal interest to me too. But frankly, I'm more interested in winning a war and seeing out our mission in iraq.
I hope the next president (hopefully President Warner) continues this fight, but does more here at home to create consistent American sacrifice both here and abroad. We shouldn't be watching our men and women dying on the evening news and think that's how to win.