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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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 Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:47 pm Post subject: Very Serious People part one - Thomas Friedman |
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Suck. On. This.
Gotta love an interview about the Iraq war conducted in mid 2003 that starts out "Now that the war is over..."
It's worth watching this stuff from time to time, to remind ourselves how deeply stupid and corrupt our political culture was during that time, and how important it is to put the grownups back in charge. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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the system cannot be saved. corruption will always win out. at a bare minimum ban dual citizens from serving. can't have two masters and all that...
but the system, the nation are dead men walking. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:11 am Post subject: Re: Very Serious People part one - Thomas Friedman |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
Suck. On. This.
Gotta love an interview about the Iraq war conducted in mid 2003 that starts out "Now that the war is over..."
It's worth watching this stuff from time to time, to remind ourselves how deeply stupid and corrupt our political culture was during that time, and how important it is to put the grownups back in charge. |
Are you saying the political structure is not corrupt right now? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:40 am Post subject: Re: Very Serious People part one - Thomas Friedman |
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Well I guess we could go back to the 90's when the war was being waged against the US but the US didn't know about it.
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Al-Qaeda camps 'trained 70,000'
Thousands are said to have joined al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan
Some 70,000 people received weapons training and religious instruction in al-Qaeda camps, German police say.
The claim came at the retrial of Mounir al-Motassadek, a Moroccan man accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which were partly planned in Germany.
A German police officer told the court recruits at the camps were taught they had a duty to kill US citizens.
Mr Motassadek says he received training in Afghanistan and knew some of the 9/11 hijackers - but not of their plot.
Although initially convicted of involvement in the attacks, he is now facing a retrial.
The case against him collapsed last year when a judge ruled that US authorities' refusal to allow lawyers access to a key witness in their custody had prejudiced proceedings. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4146969.stm
Liberal democrats want to pretend that 9-11 never happened.
They don't know the difference between peace and peace in our time.
Remember grown ups like "move on" were even against the Afghan war.
Remember when "grown ups" like Jimmy Carter are in charge this is what happens.
The US still suffers today because Jimmy Carter had no idea of what was going on. Almost all of the strategic problems the US faces today are due to Jimmy Carter's foolishness.
Puting a liberal democrat in charge of the US is a risk to US national security.
Here is the truth: Khomeni followers , Al Qadists and Bathists are fascist bigots. Pretending that they aren't at war against the US won' t make them go away. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 6:00 am Post subject: |
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| Just for the record you don't see moveon offering any ideas of how to protect the US . Not like they are interested in it anyway. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:08 am Post subject: |
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You didn't know the war was over in 2003?
On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood underneath a �Mission Accomplished� banner and announced that �Major combat operations have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.�
You really oughta pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV once in a while.  |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:15 am Post subject: Re: Very Serious People part one - Thomas Friedman |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The US still suffers today because Jimmy Carter had no idea of what was going on. Almost all of the strategic problems the US faces today are due to Jimmy Carter's foolishness.
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Interesting theory - prove it.
Prove, in even the most basic of terms, that the troubles that the US is encountering around the world today can all be tracked back to Carter's foolishness. |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| The U.S. was aware and complicite in Saddam's gassing of the Kurds. So does that make Bush and Rumsfeld Baathists? Cool! |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Just for the record you don't see moveon offering any ideas of how to protect the US . Not like they are interested in it anyway. |
Having no ideas at all would be better than the ideas CPAC and Friedman and all their buddies came up with. Not that this is a meaningful comparison, of course, because MoveOn.org is not a think tank or a foreign policy organization in any way. They're pretty much just a Democratic fundraising vehicle. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Just for the record you don't see moveon offering any ideas of how to protect the US . Not like they are interested in it anyway. |
Having no ideas at all would be better than the ideas CPAC and Friedman and all their buddies came up with. Not that this is a meaningful comparison, of course, because MoveOn.org is not a think tank or a foreign policy organization in any way. They're pretty much just a Democratic fundraising vehicle. |
Having no ideas about dealing with Bathists, Khomeni followers and Al Qaedists is what caused 9-11.
Moveon all they do is crticize but they don't offer any solutions though it seems they were against military action after 9-11.
By the way what do you think of this article?
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The Oil-Addicted Ayatollahs
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The New York Times
February 2, 2007
MOSCOW
There may be only one thing dumber than getting addicted to consuming oil as a country � and that is getting addicted to selling it. Because getting addicted to selling oil can make your country really stupid, and if the price of oil suddenly drops, it can make your people really revolutionary. That�s the real story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union � it overdosed on oil � and it could end up being the real story of Iran, if we�re smart.
It is hard to come to Moscow and not notice what the last five years of high oil prices have done for middle-class consumption here. Five years ago, it took me 35 minutes to drive from the Kremlin to Moscow�s airport. On Monday, it took me two and half hours. There was one long traffic jam from central Moscow to the airport, because a city built for 30,000 cars, which 10 years ago had 300,000 cars, today has three million cars and a ring of new suburbs.
How Russia deals with its oil and gas windfall is going to be a huge issue. But today I�d like to focus on how the Soviet Union was killed, in part, by its addiction to oil, and on how we might get leverage with Iran, based on its own addiction.
Economists have long studied this phenomenon, but I got focused on it here in Moscow after chatting with Vladimir Mau, the president of Russia�s Academy of National Economy. I mentioned to him that surely the Soviet Union died because oil fell to $10 a barrel shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev took office, not because of anything Ronald Reagan did. Actually, Professor Mau said, it was �high oil prices� that killed the Soviet Union. The sharp rise in oil prices in the 1970s deluded the Kremlin into overextending subsidies at home and invading Afghanistan abroad � and then the collapse in prices in the �80s helped bring down the overextended empire.
Here�s the story: The inefficient Soviet economy survived in its early decades, Professor Mau explained, thanks to cheap agriculture, from peasants forced into collective farms, and cheap prison labor, used to erect state industries. Beginning in the 1960s, however, even these cheap inputs weren�t enough, and the Kremlin had to start importing, rather than exporting, grain. Things could have come unstuck then. But the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the sharp upsurge in oil prices � Russia was the world�s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia � gave the Soviet Union a 15-year lease on life from a third source of cheap resources: �oil and gas,� Professor Mau said.
The oil windfall gave the Brezhnev government �money to buy the support of different interest groups, like the agrarians, import some goods and buy off the military-industrial complex,� Professor Mau said. �The share of oil in total exports went from 10-to-15 percent to 40 percent.� This made the Soviet Union only more sclerotic. �The more oil you have, the less policy you need,� he noted.
In the 1970s, Russia exported oil and gas and �used this money to import food, consumer goods and machines for extracting oil and gas,� Professor Mau said. By the early 1980s, though, oil prices had started to sink � thanks in part to conservation efforts by the U.S. �One alternative for the Soviets was to decrease consumption, but the Kremlin couldn�t do that � it had been buying off all these constituencies,� Professor Mau explained. So �it started borrowing from abroad, using the money mostly for consumption and subsidies, to maintain popularity and stability.� Oil prices and production kept falling as Mr. Gorbachev tried reforming communism, but by then it was too late.
The parallel with Iran, Professor Mau said, is that the shah used Iran�s oil windfall after 1973 to push major modernization onto a still traditional Iranian society. The social backlash produced the ayatollahs of 1979. The ayatollahs used Iran�s oil windfall to lock themselves into power.
In 2005, Bloomberg.com reported, Iran�s government earned $44.6 billion from oil and spent $25 billion on subsidies � for housing, jobs, food and 34-cents-a-gallon gasoline � to buy off interest groups. Iran�s current populist president has further increased the goods and services being subsidized.
So if oil prices fall sharply again, Iran�s regime will have to take away many benefits from many Iranians, as the Soviets had to do. For a regime already unpopular with many of its people, that could cause all kinds of problems and give rise to an Ayatollah Gorbachev. We know how that ends. �Just look at the history of the Soviet Union,� Professor Mau said.
In short, the best tool we have for curbing Iran�s influence is not containment or engagement, but getting the price of oil down in the long term with conservation and an alternative-energy strategy. Let�s exploit Iran�s oil addiction by ending ours. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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| blaseblasphemener wrote: |
| The U.S. was aware and complicite in Saddam's gassing of the Kurds. So does that make Bush and Rumsfeld Baathists? Cool! |
Khomeni was a fascist bigot like Saddam was. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:49 pm Post subject: Re: Very Serious People part one - Thomas Friedman |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The US still suffers today because Jimmy Carter had no idea of what was going on. Almost all of the strategic problems the US faces today are due to Jimmy Carter's foolishness.
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Interesting theory - prove it.
Prove, in even the most basic of terms, that the troubles that the US is encountering around the world today can all be tracked back to Carter's foolishness. |
The Ayatollah was vunerable when he was in France . The US could have assassinated him or thrown him in a secret prison.
Jimmy Carter pressured the Shah on human rights, and the Khomeni followers took advantage of it.
Jimmy Carter wouldn't see the Shah rubber bullets , tear gas or water cannons.
Kill Khomeni support the Shah.
If Khoemni never comes to power the mideast not just Iran is completely. |
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