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April 07, 2013

Comments

RichatGMU

Not sure the Arab Spring is a good thing or well thought out.

narciso

Well it was well thought out, but it was not a good thing,

I was reviewing Jess Bravin's book, referred to in the last thread, and one thought Glen Carle
was a fool, well his chief source Couch, turns out to be even a greater one. We know now, that
Slahi was the first to mention Al Kuwaiti, the Courier, that Quahtani, another poor understood
lad, was the second, and he was much more then the bit player fooled by Couch.

narciso

I respect the likes of Makiya, much more then any of the nay sayers. However, we know in retrospect, that the Arab world was all to willing to 'snuff out' the fledgling Arab democracy, almost from the outset. This was certainly true of the three regional powers, Syria, Iran, and 'our friends' on the Arabian peninsula, the last is no surprise, as the Wahhabis tried the same, back in the early 1800s, and subsequently in the 20s

Gus

The anger vis a vis our invasion of Iraq was purely political. Completely. All the requisite libtards signed on, including Rodham. At first opportunity, they attacked Bush. When the job wasn't easy and sanitary, they attacked Bush. Whether Bush is St Therese the Little Flower or some version of Satan has no bearing on the LIBTARDS lack of PRINCIPLE. Bush for better or worse is a principled man. Obama is not. How's Obama's foreign policy working out? N.Korea? Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen...EGYPT, SYRIA, LIBYA, ISRAEL????????? What do you think ISRAEL is thinking, as N.Korea huffs and puffs??? They are thinking. WE MUST ACT or WE DIE. Iran is watching all of this. I believe Iraq was handled fairly well, relative to the dangers we see NOW.

Gus

Rich, one thing that truly bothers me, is the LIBTARD media or the LEFT (same thing) creating the LANGUAGE or TERMINOLOGY.

Arab Spring????? WTF???

narciso

As for Charles Ferguson, referred in one of the treads, back in 2007, he has gone on to greater
'category error' re Inside Job, about the financial crisis.

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

It's not bad enough how we wasted billions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to turn Iraq into Athens on the Euphrates we have to compound it by acting like replacing authoritarian but internally focused dictatorships with virulently anti American totalitarian ones is a positive thing?
The left is apparently hell bent on repeating every mistake with radical Islam that it did with communism.

RichatGMU

I would think it would be more accurate to say that the "Arab Spring" started with Obama's loud and oft stated promise to "get out of Iraq". It was the signal to Islamist groups everywhere that they finally had an ally in the White House.

Arab Spring????? WTF???

Better than a facebook revolution in a country where only about 70% of the population can read and write, less than a third have internet access, and electricity is generally unreliable. Wonder what the sharpies, who are advising the president, said about a country, which is dominated by the military and the brotherhood, which also imports more than half its food and its largest industry is tourism.

jimmyk

There was a positive element to the Arab Spring, just as there was with the earlier Iranian Green and the Lebanese Cedar Revolutions, namely the anti-tyranny, pro-freedom part. But it got superseded by the fanatical Muslim and other authoritarians, and the the US hasn't figured out how to help usher the pro-freedom movements. Certainly the JEF is clueless about the need to provide at least moral support to them, and has little interest in doing so anyway. On the other hand, there may not be enough internal strength for them to succeed anyway.

matt

One of the policies touted by the Bush Administration as we were struggling to find WMD's was that Iraq could become a beacon of democracy that would help transform the ME from its plague of dictators and sheikhs into something more democratic.

Good try. It was a noble idea but pollyanna-ish in its ignorance of the hatreds and schisms and tribal imperatives of the ME.

The Kurds have established their own autonomous state within Iraq, but otherwise the Shia have established a thug-ocracy in most of the rest of the country.

Syriua is an e evn more classic case of a strongman holding factions together under the elder Assad. Lebanon another, and Jordan with its large Palestinian population a third. From all accounts King Abdullah would very much like to have a more inclusive and democratic country, but those damned Bedouin and the Palestinians would just as soon shoot him.

There is no tradition of Western free thinking or democracy in the ME so the basic premise is, I believe, flawed. Look how well it's working out in Egypt. Or Libya, or even Tunisia.

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

--There was a positive element to the Arab Spring, just as there was with the earlier Iranian Green and the Lebanese Cedar Revolutions, namely the anti-tyranny, pro-freedom part.--

By that standard there was a positive element to the Russian Revolution.
There usually are some decent people involved in all revolutions, but it was fairly apparent, especially in the Middle Eastern neck of the woods, that there was a much greater likelihood of the Bolshevik equivalents coming out on top than the rest.
The Arab Spring has proceeded almost exactly as most sensibly cynical ME observers said it would.

jimmyk

I'm willing to defend Bush in a backhanded way. There's never been a war that went "according to plan." (Well, maybe the first Gulf War, or the Granada invasion, but those were very limited efforts.) So one can always point to failures of planning and execution. The risk of focusing on that is that we decide never to undertake any major military effort unless we are forced to, which usually means that it is more costly than if we'd acted preemptively.

Which raises the second point: What's the alternative scenario? Hard to know, isn't it? But not likely to be as rosy as implied by the critics of what actually happened. I'm not suggesting there weren't mistakes or ill-advised strategies, and that we shouldn't learn from that. But let's not learn the wrong lessons.

Danube of Thought

Actually, despite the happy outcome, the Grenada operation was a monstrous FUBAR. But 8,000 Bronze Stars were awarded.

narciso

Well the first Russian revolution, the one that deposed the Czar, wasn't so bad, in the big scheme of things. Kenensky and the likes of
Defense Minister Korshak, didn't have an easy time of it.

the most motivated cadre, Lenin then, as the Ikhwan today, made short work of the system.

narciso

Another observation, is that we were trying to reverse the consequences of the first intervention back when having learned nothing from their experience with Nasser, two CIA big wigs, Copeland, a band leader and Eichelberger,
a former ad exec, worked with some Baathist exiles in Cairo, among those was Saddamm to oust the warlord of the day, Quassem.

Anne

When Bush left office, the Middle East was stabilized, and his policies not only kept your sorry asses safe for eight years, but to this very day, they're continuing to keep you safe, also..

Obama and his administration of chronic screw-ups haven't only spitefully and deliberately undone everything that the Bush Administration accomplished in the Middle East, but they have completely destabilized the entire Middle East, also, putting the safety of countries all over the world in jeopardy.

Obama is a madman, the most dangerous man since Hitler. His supporters are identical to the creeps who initially supported Hitler and Stalin. They're the problem, not those demagogues.

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

--the most motivated cadre, Lenin then, as the Ikhwan today, made short work of the system--

Exactly. It's about now when George Santayana's most famous quote comes in handy.

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

--I'm willing to defend Bush in a backhanded way. There's never been a war that went "according to plan." (Well, maybe the first Gulf War, or the Granada invasion, but those were very limited efforts.) So one can always point to failures of planning and execution.--

It wasn't a failure of execution but it was one of planning.
They planned to turn a schismatic, backward, loose conglomeration of tribes and sects, all of whom adhere to one degree or another to an ideology exceedingly antipathetic to western liberal ideas, into a western liberal democracy.
It's not a technically impossible feat but near enough to be not worth the effort.
In the mideast as nowhere else 'rubble makes no trouble' is the only policy worth pursuing if one has decides to intervene at all.

iqvoice

I would remind everyone vis-à-vis the second Iraq War, how Turkey screwed us. I believe it was a Marine expeditionary force that was supposed to land and deploy into Iraq from the north via Turkey. Imagine how different the initial stages of the war could have been if those troops were in theater. Instead they had to turn tail and sail all the way back to the Persian Gulf.

I hope to live to the Turks get the fuckover they richly deserve.

narciso

Except doesn't Afghanistan, suggests too much rubble, causes trouble, the Afghan war, followed by the infighting between the various factions,
allowed the Taliban to rise.

Annoying Old Guy

Ignatz;

The problem with your view is that the USA simply won't follow a "more rubble, less trouble" strategy. That's as delusional as Athens on the Euphrates.

Because of who we are, because of our national character, we had to try. I still think the results in Iraq are better than they were and better than they would have been had we not invaded. I think it would be almost indisputable had Obama not made such a hash of things, but that's one thing for which Bush and his planners cannot be blamed.

maryrose

Anne:
You have made some very good points.
henry:
So glad to see the results of Tuesday's elections! I was on vacation so will catch up on the previous threads.

Janet

Missionaries should have been allowed to flooded in.
The problem with the ME is Islam.

maryrose

Annoying Old Guy:
Rigjt you are!

Gus

I'll say this!! Obama got the MIDDLE LOVING US!!! He told us that they would be willing to work with him, because he once lived in a Muslim country. He actually said so. He was in Indonesia from October '67 until the Summer of '70. From age 6-9 he lived in a Muslim Country. Big fuxing deal. He was a little boy in Indonesia. My niece and nephew lived in JORDON for 3 years. My niece celebrated her 13th birthday in Amman. Maybe John Effing Kerry could use her help.
Obama is skilled at nothing except running his mouth. We are in deep trouble and we have Capt Hazelwood at the helm.

Old Lurker

I suspect the worst price of the wars was not the wars themselves but the fact that in order to execute them W had to forfeit any claim he might have had as a fiscal conservative thereby greasing the skids for the demise which has followed.

I often wonder at what point a future Gibbons will conclude we turned the fateful corner once and for all? Though the seeds go back to Wilson or before, I do wonder where we might be had we elected a real conservative to follow Reagan.

jimmyk

By that standard there was a positive element to the Russian Revolution.
There usually are some decent people involved in all revolutions, but it was fairly apparent that there was a much greater likelihood of the Bolshevik equivalents coming out on top than the rest.

Of course, and I've said as much here, but that's true once they reach the mob state of revolution and chaos. There are examples of non-chaotic transitions with good outcomes, like 1989 in Eastern Europe, Chile, etc. It's when they become mobs that things become hopeless. That doesn't mean that a movement inevitably reaches that state.

jimmyk

The problem with the ME is Islam.

I agree, and that's partly why it may not have been likely that anything good could come out any of those movements. But the fact is that a sizable (perhaps majority) part of the populations in those countries is not so religious. And that's true in Turkey too. Who knows why they keep electing fanatics (when they can vote)? Who knows why we elected a fanatic?

Jim Eagle

Another thing that the Iraq war seems to have done is taken some Arab heat off of Israel. All that Arab SpringWinterSummerFall has done is given us the rise of the modern Persians and their front men in Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas.

Danube of Thought on iPad

I see no hope for the Islamic world, particularly the Arab world. I never have. Determinedly backward and intolerant.

Anne

"I'm willing to defend Bush in a backhanded way."

On Election Day, 2008, unemployment was at 4.7%, and, in fact, it didn't even begin to skyrocket upward to 9% (16% realistically) until after Obama was inaugurated in January, 2009. A vote of no confidence in Obama.

The economy didn't tank until 18 months after the Democrats regained control of Congress in January, 2007, unwilling, in collusion with a corrupt MSM, to take responsibility for the tanked economy which THEY caused (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank) and over which they presided. FYI, It is Congress, not our President, who confiscates and wastes our money.

Inflation didn't even begin to skyrocket upward until a year after Obama was inaugurated.

When Bush left office, the Middle East was stabilized. Since Obama took office, he and his administration and their policies/agenda have completely destabilized the entire Middle East.

And you're only willing to defend Bush backhandedly??? Get real, Geezez, dude, where do you get all of your news? At MSNBC?

Anne

Igvoice @ 1:51

Really? LOL

RichatUF nee GMU

I believe it was a Marine expeditionary force that was supposed to land and deploy into Iraq from the north via Turkey.

It was the 4th ID and unsuprisingly Powell gets a free pass for that cockup.

Anne

@ 2:44 - Really? LOL

Jim Eagle

More on Janet's bus stops in Arlington.

Typical public works and urban planning over-reach. Saw my whole life in engineering construction practice. That is why you have a little nugget called Value Engineering (VE) that is suppose to untie the knot of over-design and re-engineer the design to meet human and ergonomic factors rather than making sure you get your project recognized in Architectural Record.

The CM costs are ridiculous and probably recognized needs for disadvantaged, women owned and minority business requirements. They should consider using recycled materials, standard design and prefabricated modular construction to save expensive site costs. Most likely save over 50% of the costs.

IMO, all-weather bus stops should be in the $250K to $300K range.

narciso

The tribesman of Ambar/Dulaimi, had 'chosen poorly' first supporting the Tikriti mob, then throwing in with the Salafi, ultimately they rebelled against those forces in the Sahwa, the Awakening, which the surge helped reinforce.

narciso

I guess the problem is similar to the Russian experiment, that Larry Summers and Jeffrey Sachs
were most directly affiliated with, I don't know if it was deliberate how all the assets of Russia, mostly went from the Konsomol in the Nomenklatura, to the Oligarchs and Siloviki, who were often the same people.

Janet

a comment at JiB's link -

"

"The cost comes down to $575,000 for construction/fabrication and $440,000 for construction management and inspections, where federal/state money took care of 80 percent of the total price tag."

It is not the city that is paying for the majority of the cost, it is federal/state money. And you have cities across US going bankrupt. "

Same with our Streetcar project - Fed & State taxes are paying for a big chunk of it....like that money isn't taxpayer money ALSO. Idiots.
And for the bus stop, we get the Fed. $ only for the first one. Like a drug pusher getting ya hooked!
What "green" outfits got contracts to "inspect" this boondoggle? "Green" locusts are on a feeding frenzy here in the DC area. :(

Anne

If the USA and the Brits were retaining bases on both sides of Iran, i.e., in Iraq and in Afganistan, and if we were to continue our naval presence in the area at full strength, I would be rather inclined to doubt that Iranians would want to have nukes. Unlike our current administration, Iranians aren't crazy.

jimmyk

I don't know if it was deliberate how all the assets of Russia, mostly went from the Konsomol in the Nomenklatura, to the Oligarchs and Siloviki

I don't know about "all," as some of them may have ended up in the hands of friends of Summers, if not Summers himself.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/03/real-larry-summers-scandal.html

Jim Eagle

Excellent Breitbart piece by Lee Stranahan on Kathy Boudin.

Why is it that these left-wing elitist selfish little bitches always end up smelling roses? She should still be in jail not Columbia but then Columbia is where the Rad-in-Chief hung out in his invisibiility cloak.

Jim Eagle

Janet,

The other reason for the enlarged costs is Davis-Bacon. Have to use union labor vs open shop labor. Adds anywhere from 25 to 40% additional costs. If those stops had significant electric-mechanical could mean double the labor costs due to this outrageous impediment to labor efficiency and productivity.

Rick Ballard

"like that money isn't taxpayer money"

Janet,

A BOzobuck is actually 60 cents taxpayer, 40 cents IOBen. It will be somewhat different if Mad Ben becomes inspired by the Kuroda Dragon. I'm not sure what happens if China drops the dollar peg.

Janet

It really is sickening that the gun grabbing leftists are embracing all these leftist murderers lately. Boudin story. Redford with his Weather Underground movie. Movie about Angela Davis. Ayers gets "visiting scholar" job at Minnesota State Univ.,...

Take law abiding American's guns away...but let's exalt these leftist killers.

Jim Eagle

Ha! Now Fox has picked up the bus stop story as well as Russia. Lets make this an international embarrassment. Sequester my A**. And you can't blame Bush (or can you:)

Jim Eagle

6 Americans killed in Afghanistan but Obama goes golfing to celebrate.

What difference does it make anyway?

matt

The U.S. and E.U. started the currency wars a few years ago. Why do you think the price of oil and commodities are where they are? Yes, there is increased demand from China and India, but there are more dollars chasing fewer goods. That's what happens when the printing presses run 24/7.

Mel is right regarding deflation, but all of that debt is parked at the Fed & Treasury now which were ready to implode anyway at some point.

In the meantime, China is striking deals with Australia and Brazil for convertibility of the RMB to lay off some of the risks. They have also been using the "suitcase full 'o cash" exchange mechanism in resource rich countries such as in Africa.

The Japanese are simply using the nuclear option because of all the places on earth that were screwed by China the Japanese were the last to react.

As to the Turks and Iraq, I don't think it mattered much in the end. Yes they did screw us, but the price they wanted; a subject Kurdistan was not worth it. Instead, Kurdistan is the only part of Iraq that works. We'll see if Maliki tries to screw that up, though.

Danube of Thought on iPad

What is to be done about the Astros?

maryrose

Great "Pieces" clarice. Shining a bright light on th truth will help inform those pople who remain clueless.

Danube of Thought on iPad

Not that it matters, but Arlington is not a city. It is one of three counties in the country that contain no cities. Neighboring Alexandria is one of three cities that are not in any county.

maryrose

should b people and the truth...

Janet

Thanks for the links, JiB. I'm putting them up on FB (not that it will make any difference).

Anne

Turks are cool dudes. They fought (and died) alongside Americans in Korea. At considerable danger to themselves, they allowed ICBM's in their country as a deterrent to the Soviets. They had a great rapport with the USA until the usual obtuse, sleazy and obnoxious jerks in our Congress made the HUGE blunder of chastising them for events which occurred a hundred years ago, a successful attempt to undermine and sabotage Bush's prestige in the area.

Clarice

Thanks, maryrose.

I say we get behind a Janet for Country Council campaign.

Clarice

*County* Council.

pagar

One of the key facts from JiB's link.

" can shelter 15 people at a time while waiting for buses to arrive"
That is not a lot of potential riders.

Seems to me that the following approach makes more sense.

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/15287/citizens-make-big-impact-with-low-cost-bus-stop-seating/

Janet

No, no, no..seriously, I have too much of a past to ever run for office. Pretty much all of the 80s.
I'm good at going to events, holding signs, & writing responses...but talking off the cuff is hard. After seeing Joe the Plumber attacked, I won't even talk to any press people at rallies.

Jim Eagle

Anne,

I flew with Turks. Their military is based on our military doctrine. Deadly fighters with superb discipline. The problem in Turkey is Islam which has taken over the secular politics of the nation. The military has stayed out of it so far. But they are nervous and if it looks like they are going a dimension to far they will step in and restore Ataturk's ideal.

But I believe it may be too late. the PKK (Kurds) distract the army too much. Plus NATO doesn't help or the EU. I have a former partner firm there that we did great things with and they were very useful for us in Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia and even Russia.

Old Lurker

The problem in Arlington is not just that they waste their taxpayers' money, or that they waste the money of Federal taxpayers, but they have arranged the zoning process such that they extract from property owners who want a building permit money for off site unrelated improvements that neither they nor the Feds will fund. It is blatant extortion.

Janet

Yeah, OL. We just made some builder put up money for a crap "art" thing in our traffic median. My neighbors were SO excited.
They made the builder fund it.
Why should he have to do that? It was creepy to read about the joy this extortion brought my neighbors.

Gus

Janet, it's D.C., it's FUN to spend other peoples money, so long as your check arrives.
I'm originally from MD and both of my parents are buried at Arlington. I have mixed feelings when I visit. But Arlingtons' governance and the attitudes of it's and the general area's citizenry, is hopeless.

Jim Eagle

This says it all.

Brad Thor tweets:

110 million (shrinking) privately employed workers vs. 88 million (rising rapidly) welfare recipients & government workers. #Obamanomics

That is scary and unsubstainable.

gk1

I think we need to lump the Iraq war in with the Korean war in that it may take many years to sort out whether it was worth it to the United States interests. There is no doubt the Iraqi people are, but that's hardly a compelling argument to make on any future wars which we will probably fight. (Hey, its what we do!)

Fen

"They planned to turn.. into a western liberal democracy."

Thats bull. Via people Bernard Lewis and others, the Bush team knew that it would NOT be a "western" democracy.

You prob swallowed a strawman from MSNBC or CNN.

Gus

Yes, I'm lumping Iraq in with this war on women.

Foxjohnsix

Here are the facts:

* Obama LOST Iraq after failing to achieve a final settlement with them.

* Arab Spring was coordinated by Obama-Clinton State Dept. to allow
The Muslim Brotherhood access to Egypt and other Arab countries
with the goal of wreaking the USA.

* Obama-Clinton State Department / CIA is infested with Muslim
Brotherhood sympathesizers and agents.

* The true freedom fighters are this Egyptians fighting Obama's friends
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood at this moment.

daddy

I often wonder at what point a future Gibbons will conclude we turned the fateful corner once and for all? Though the seeds go back to Wilson or before, I do wonder where we might be had we elected a real conservative to follow Reagan.

OL,

describing a later phase of the decline, the reign of Diocletian (284-305 A.D.), Gibbon spells out this reference to oppression as the product of twin evils which always go together: a swollen bu­reaucracy and excessive taxation. To quote his account:

"The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and of servants, who filled the different departments of the state, was mul­tiplied beyond the example of for­mer times; and (if we may bor­row the warm expression of a con­temporary) ‘when the proportion of those who received exceeded the proportion of those who con­tributed the provinces were op­pressed by the weight of tributes.’ From this period to the extinction of the empire it would be easy to deduce an uninterrupted series of clamors and complaints. Accord­ing to his religion and situation, each writer chooses either Diocle­tian or Constantine or Valens or Theodosius, for the object of his invectives; but they unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public impositions, and par­ticularly the land-tax and capita­tion, as the intolerable and in­creasing grievance of their own times."

The Olde Man

RE: Turks activity in first Gulf War.

Check around and see if perchance a couple of French diplomats did not visit Turkey just as we were ramping up. Amd just after their visit, Turkey pulled the rug out from under us.

Seems as if I remember seeing something like that. And don't forget, the Ayatollah came from France when he succeeded the Shah

Clarice

I have it on good authority that the Turks didn't come to our aid because we didn't really go there and work with them to get their approval. Don't blame the French for Powell's refusal to get on a plane and do his job.

daddy

JiB,

According to your link, Katherine Boudin, "communist, a Weather Underground radical, a terrorist, and a convicted felon", has been named the Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School.

Last month, Bill Ayers, "communist, a Weather Underground radical, a terrorist," was named a visiting scholar at the Minnesota State University at Moorhead.

Thankfully these appointments, and the new HollyWood Blockbuster from Robert Redford that glorifies the Weather Underground as heroes, is purely coincidental.

Anne

# 5:48 - Really? LOL

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

--Thats bull. Via people Bernard Lewis and others, the Bush team knew that it would NOT be a "western" democracy.--

If you mean they thought it wouldn't actually be in the west I suppose you're correct.
They did think it was going to be a cohesive, functioning nation with a free electoral process that was relatively independent.
Today it has a nearly autonomous northern Kurdish province with a southern, Shia dominated remainder which is thoroughly corrupt and increasingly unstable and increasingly entering the Iranian orbit.

No one can foretell the future and perhaps things will evolve positively but anyone who bets on that outcome in that benighted part of the world is probably someone worth playing poker with.

Ignatz Ratzkywatzky

--Ignatz;

The problem with your view is that the USA simply won't follow a "more rubble, less trouble" strategy. That's as delusional as Athens on the Euphrates.--

We followed one in the first Gulf war. A "more rubble" strategy is a bit of a misnomer these days as it no longer has to involve total war; it merely has to either cripple militarily or dethrone those who harm our vital interests.
If a regime knows that harming our interests will result in a quick and decisive destruction of their regime we will soon have little trouble and those non state actors who seek refuge with such regimes would soon find themselves unwelcome.

--Except doesn't Afghanistan, suggests too much rubble, causes trouble, the Afghan war, followed by the infighting between the various factions,
allowed the Taliban to rise.--

We should have obliterated the Taliban as we did Saddam and left the survivors to their goats rather waste ten years trying to build a nation out of sand and rocks in an area which has proven itself fairly inhospitable to anything we would recognize as a nation for most of its existence.
What do we have to show for hanging around besides wasted money, wasted lives, a diminished military reputation and an even more destabilized Pakistan?

Melinda Romanoff

Olde Man-

The French continue to use the DeGaulle Uniform Code of Influence. "Lead with the nose but always promise someone else's cash."

Jim Eagle

Its a tragedy anytime you lose a foreign service officer doing their jobs but what the hell is a US diplomat doing delivering books?

Amy Smedinghoff was only 25 but at least she wasn't blowing up buildings and robbing Brinks

Melinda Romanoff

clarice-

It wasn't Powell's job in '91. He advised Bush 1 as member of the Joint Chiefs. There were far more moving part of intrigue in '91 than the utter lack of mystery wrt Saddam that was surrounding them in '03.

Anne

France's DGSE has provided us with
extraordinary intel on radical cells.
I wouldn't be surprised if they found
and gave us the location of bin Ladin.

Annoying Old Guy

Ignatz;

We followed one in the first Gulf war. A "more rubble" strategy is a bit of a misnomer these days as it no longer has to involve total war; it merely has to either cripple militarily or dethrone those who harm our vital interests.

I strongly disagree with that assessment. IMHO we followed a Vietnamesque proportional response strategy which failed.

FX Phillips

I think you are missing the point.

By saying the disaster known as the "Arab Spring" started with the Iraq war they are shifting the blame from pharaoh Obama to Bush.

iqvoice

Anne: If you are referring to the Armenian Genocide committed by the turks, then I've got news for you. I have Armenian friends (now living in the USA) who had to flee for their lives from turkish-inspired pogroms during the 1980s. (FYI while it might feel that way for some, the 1980s was not 100 years ago.)

The turks have embraced radical islam, and can kiss my ass. I hope the Kurds cut turkey in two.

iqvoice

Don't worry, i'm sure it's not a hate crime.

And if does turn out to be a hate crime, then I'm sure the media will classify it as "age discrimination."

daddy

As we continue our national dialog on $800,000 Federal subsidies to build Million Dollar Bus Stops, which don't keep out wind or rain and that only serve 15 people maximum, thought I'd mention this:

The Chinese opened a new Nuclear Power Plant today.

The four units will generate 30 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity annually by then, accounting for 16 percent of the total electricity consumption in 2012 in Liaoning Province

According to multiple recent stories they have a further 25 Nuke Power plants under construction.

One country is interested in Winning The Future. Guess which one?

KayyyyRoooooo.


Joan

Mubarak lost Egypt because of unrest and riots that began because of a shortage of subsidized bread--the wheat imports had fallen. Right now rich Gulf states are buying land in Africa, disrupting villages and tribes, in order to control farmland and export the crops to their countries. I was surprised (guess I don't keep up very well) to read that in Africa right now there are large herds of cattle, grazing under large tent-like structures and misted with cooling water--owned by Arabs, and production of meat and milk specifically for export to the Gulf states.

Boy, that was difficult to write that sentence. I wanted to get so much in--TMI. :)

It just surprises me that there isn't more information from the media about African countries being exploited, all for export. Guess I'm wondering why this hasn't been denounced.

Old Lurker

Daddy thanks for the Gibbon quote. That nails it.

Narc had better watch his back.

Anne

Igvoice @ 6:28 - baloney.

Clarice

Mel, I was talking about the real Iraq war when we desperately needed to bring out troops in from Turkey and Colin was too busy undercutting Bush with his pals in the press to bother going to Turkey to et the necessary permission.

narciso

I'm much more cynical about the First Gulf expedition then the other one, yes we drove Saddamm out of Kuwait, but what was the lesson,
Bin Laden used it as an excuse, to say she should have done the job, because the Kingdom couldn't. In part somewhat like the '67 war, it encouraged fundamentalists to rally from North Africa into the Balkans.

Melinda Romanoff

Thank you for the clarification on the military bureaucrat's self-promotion.

Joan-

Why were Ayers and Dohrn in the ME giving lectures on how to foment social unrest using social media in February of 2011? And who paid for it? Famine was just part of the action going in.

Danube of Thought

I would place the corner-turning at the point where JFK looked around for a place to demonstrate his machismo, test the efficacy of his new darlings the Green Berets, and demonstrate that we could halt the perceived trend toward communism. He found Vietnam.

rse

jimmy-I had never heard of that scandal in your link until a couple of weeks ago. The prof even more involved who was reping the govt over there is on the Advisory Board of the Center Broad created at H in 2008 to create a science of education. Remember I said they were all behavioral economists or psychologists? Condi chairs the board and a J Klein from NYC who used to be the Super and an M Rhee who used to do the same in DC finish out the board.

Thinks just keep getting more interesting. What are the odds?

Jim Eagle

daddy,

See what you can accomplish when you don't have Greenpeace, NRDC, WWF and Myron Cherry in your country? I just hope the Chinese can run their Nukes better than they have run their HS Rail program.

I wonder if the Chinese require a PSAR and FSAR? [Preliminary Safety Analysis Report and Finall Safety Anaylsis Report]. And all the other hoops and hurdles we run through here to make sure everyone feels comfortable with a Nuke next door. Not that we are a streamlined process but it does keep us on our toes technically and operationally. Plus it adds 25% to the total cost of a Nuke.:)

When you pay your electric bill and you have an Nuke at your utility built after 1970 you can bet you are paying at least 25% more than you should. Thank a tort lawyer and a greenie.

narciso

Thanks for the warning, OL, much of the conventional narrative, doesn't fit what we have subsequently learned, the Paks certainly were keeping UBL as their 'hold card' as he lived in three cities, all through out the period. The foolishness is further seen in this fellow Couch, who is the hero of Bravin's dispatches,
well we know now he misread the situation as completely as possible, as did the other persons who told Mayer, Priest, et al, about these poor
misunderstood lads.

Joan

Melinda,
I can't see anything but 'bad' coming from this Arabic 'land grab' of African land. There's always social and political unrest in many African countries. Ethiopia, DR Congo, et al.

Those evil people, Ayers and Dohrn--they should be in prison, not spreading their hate-filled ideas.

jimmyk

is on the Advisory Board of the Center Broad created at H in 2008 to create a science of education. Remember I said they were all behavioral economists or psychologists? Condi chairs the board and a J Klein from NYC who used to be the Super and an M Rhee

I presume that's Michelle Rhee, who I'd had the impression was pretty good--at least she seems to have annoyed the right people (teachers' unions, educrats, etc.). Klein didn't seem all bad either--he was fairly innovative, and he had the good sense to fire Rashid Khalidi from a teacher training program. Then there's Condi. So all in all that sounds like a reasonable group, no?

The professor involved in the scandal isn't a behavioral economist. I went to school with him.

rse

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/04/01/dostoevskys-6-nightmare-prophecies-that-came-true-in-the-20th-century-part-two/?singlepage=true

is excellent. The necessity of Private property, Social engineering, and Intellectuals as the Source of Much Social Harm. Right on the Money.

narciso

Well here's a paper, that brings all these threads together;


http://scholar.harvard.edu/shleifer/publications/teaching-practices-and-social-capital

the problem is the OS, that Klein, Rice, and
Rhee are installng into the system, as rse has discovered.

Gus

Joan! So the new admin in Egypt is feeding it's people? Excellent!! And they are NICE LEADERS?? Excellent again!! And they don't need our food or our money!!! Even more excellente!!!!!
Here's the deal. If ANY COUNTRY wants ANY AID from US/U.S., we give it to them with ABSOLUTE PRECONDITIONS.

Has Obama done that?

Jim Eagle

Gee.

Gun control and Gay Sex all in one incident. It doesn't get any more weird than this.

Marcus Hook, PA — A member of the Michael Bloomberg-sponsored gun control organization “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” has been arrested and charged in connection with a handgun incident at his home.

James Schiliro, a.k.a. Jay Schiliro, the mayor of Marcus Hook, a small town in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, faces charges of official oppression, reckless endangerment, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, and furnishing a minor with alcohol. He surrendered to authorities on Thursday morning, and his attorney declared that “we intend to fight these charges.

Schiliro, 38, allegedly ordered a local police officer to bring a 20-year-old male friend to his home, where the mayor plied him with alcohol, and made sexual advances which the man refused. Schiliro allegedly brandished several handguns and fired one of them into the floor in an apparent attempt to intimidate the young man, who reportedly was in fear of his life.


rse

jimmy-you may not consider him one but he is described elsewhere as one now. Joel announced in my presence at a luncheon that we need new kinds of minds for the 21st century. What he is involved in with Rupert is a dream of personal psychological data gathering. Rather troubling to want new kinds of minds with that data. Rhee did stir people up but she has also said she has a very progressive vision. Condi did a CFR report on the Common Core with Klein and about how it will make us internationally competitive. She also just went on the Board of jeb's foundation.

The co-author of Freakonomics is also on the board with your classmate. Broad says the purpose is to advance equality and that has a special meaning in ed world now.

Would you agree that you former classmate is now the most cited economist in the world? That is also the verbiage that came up and I have seen comparable statements before in other disciplines.

Extraneus

I see no hope for the Islamic world, particularly the Arab world. I never have. Determinedly backward and intolerant.

You might feel differently if you were one of them. Israelis unable to speak at universities while those same universities are installing foot-washers, headscarf-wearing women more and more evident at BJ's all throughout the US, demographics in Europe indicating that the takeover is only a few decades away.

At least we have three more wives to look forward to.

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