Whatever is wrong with #2: Calling it a War for Oil

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune


No, I´m thinking in realpolitik terms. If the fundamentalists were really so powerful (they are not!), they would be an Allah-sent counterweight to the US Empire.

Destroy each other, and Europe will rule supreme!

They're not very powerful now. Given the growth rate, the emergence of leadership, and the long term goal of Islamising the entire world by force, they will be a force to be reckoned with. The results for pro-Taleban and fundamentalist parties in Pakistan's last parliamentary elections should be one indicator of what could happen if you have any real democratization in the mideast. It wouldn't take that much of a shift to see half a dozen Islamic fundamentalist states in the next decade or so, with potentially more to follow.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I'll give you an example of why you're totally naive. Just because you don't target somebody one day, doesn't mean they're a friend, or neutral, or whatever. It means, they're simply a lower priority target for the time being, since nobody can take on everybody at once.

Yes, and Europe is a low-priority target of the United States. But nevertheless, you *are* already trying to hurt our economy.

It´s not 'Islam against the World', dear. It´s 'US against the World'.

I am a bit ahead of others to realize that, but be assured it´s only a question of time.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Given the growth rate, the emergence of leadership, and the long term goal of Islamising the entire world by force, they will be a force to be reckoned with. The results for pro-Taleban and fundamentalist parties in Pakistan's last parliamentary elections should be one indicator of what could happen if you have any real democratization in the mideast. It wouldn't take that much of a shift to see half a dozen Islamic fundamentalist states in the next decade or so, with potentially more to follow.

You are being optimistic.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune


You are being optimistic.

In'sh Allah.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
In'sh Allah.

Deo Concedente. (As say we Catholics.)

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Israel is being economical. Don´t underestimate their thinking.

Yes, the great ZOG. When you start accepting the conspiracy theories of the neo-Nazis, there's little hope left for you. The US controls Israel, not vice-versa.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara Yes, the great ZOG. When you start accepting the conspiracy theories of the neo-Nazis, there's little hope left for you. The US controls Israel, not vice-versa.

Part One: Nonsense. If I wanted to take a cheap shot at you, I´d say: When you start accepting the notion that Aipac is a neo_Nazi fantasy, there isn´t much hope left for you.

But I am not saying that. I am just saying you are wrong on this.

Part Two: Sure, Israel depends on the US. But this is not mutually exclusive with what I´m saying. Think Symbiosis. Ruling castes are inter-dependent. I see the New World Order as a half-step back to Capitalism/Feudalism.

Now you might disagree with this, but flaming me for it is nonsense.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Part Two: Sure, Israel depends on the US. But this is not mutually exclusive with what I´m saying. Think Symbiosis. Ruling castes are inter-dependent. I see the New World Order as a half-step back to Capitalism/Feudalism.

My problem is that you are retreding a thin-worn neo-nazi lie when you say that the US is controlled by Israel or by Jews. Israel is part of US domination of the ME. Israel is a cog, not a lever.

Yes, there is a symbiotic relationship, but that doesn't mean Israel can control American policy. Israel is our muscle in the region, nor our brains. We use Israel to keep the ME in line. Israel doesn't use us, even if they benefit from this relationship.

Israel's ruling class isn't even in the same league as America's ruling class. Israel is a military outpost, not a member of the imperialist club. Maybe if the Rothschild's moved to Israel, but for now, they're still part of the French ruling class.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
My problem is that you are retreding a thin-worn neo-nazi lie when you say that the US is controlled by Israel or by Jews. Israel is part of US domination of the ME. Israel is a cog, not a lever.

Yes, there is a symbiotic relationship, but that doesn't mean Israel can control American policy. Israel is our muscle in the region, nor our brains. We use Israel to keep the ME in line. Israel doesn't use us, even if they benefit from this relationship.

Israel's ruling class isn't even in the same league as America's ruling class. Israel is a military outpost, not a member of the imperialist club. Maybe if the Rothschild's moved to Israel, but for now, they're still part of the French ruling class.

I actually agree with most of this; I´d still be happy if you word your part-disagreement with my posts in somewhat less loaded speech.

About the post above: The part I disagree with is: You equate saying the US is controlled by 'the Jews' -this is what Neo-nazis said, last time I checked-, with saying that 'there is a strong Jewish Lobby with considerable influence on shaping foreign policy', which is what I say. See the difference?

That the way the Israel Lobby uses its influence may actually help Neo-nazis is just another bad effect of this influence; however it doesn´t make the fact that Aipac &c exist and do exert considerable influence a 'Neo-nazi lie'. It´s still an unfortunate fact, double unfortunate, as it gives ammo to Neo-nazis, yes. But if the Left pretends not to be aware of that (pretty obvious) fact, this will help the Neo-nazis even more, at least in the long term.

[GePap]

Che: judging by the fact that Israel has a hard enough time being able to keep 3 million poor, relatively unarmed Palestinains down, I fail to see their ability to conquer the ME which you speak of: it to enought to move into a piece of land if you can't hold it. If Israel can't control Gaza, what makes you think they could control Cairo, Damascus, so forth? (also remember their experience in tiny little Lebanon).

Israel is not our muscle in the region, we are our muscle in the region.

But continue the good fight v CT.

[chequita guevara]

As I wrote, holding it would be another matter. Frankly, if we let them, the Israelis could probably hold down Gaza and the West Bank quite well. But they'd lose any sympathy they have for the brutal measures it would require.

[Ned]

Well, GePap, if the Israeli's were really RUTHLESS, they would depopulate the conquered territories in the pattern of the Angles and Saxons in Britain .

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


According to an article on Salon.com yesterday, war in Irqi would very like damage much of the Iraqi oil infrastructure. I saw an estimate of $20 billion to get it up and running again. Even if it isn't destroyed in the fighting, the twelve+ years of embargo have takn their toll on maintenance. The Iraqi oil floodgates won't be opening anytime soon.

Perhaps, but that wasn't my question.

Let me put it another way: what happens to the fundamentalist money pipeline if we 'break' the mideast oil economy?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

Sikander: You call the European world-view unrealisitc, that for 50 years they have felt safe, so forth and so on: And for 50 years we haven't as well? Were the Europeans less afraid of nuclear war than us? and in the event of any actual war, weren't they the front line, as opposed to ebing an ocean away? And what about those Europeans older than 60? They certainly have seen a much crueler world than Americans: the last time any American saw his home burned to the ground by and invader was 1865. Wasn't the Europeans who had metal detectors first, cops and cameras everywhere first? weren't London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid facing bombings regularly back when no American thought it was possible here? So were does this "realisitc" view of the world come from, when we have faced less difficulty, less suffering and less crisis than anyone and any other people in the world? Until 9/111, every single crisis the US saw was far abroad.

Sure we all faced imminent destruction via massive nuclear war, if the Soviets launched an all out attack. It didn't matter whether you were in Germany or Colorado either, the threat of that was pervasive, if tiny. So I don't buy the front line argument. In addition to the European security situation, the U.S. faced considerable risk of involvement around the world, including two large wars in Asia, one of which is still smoldering today in Korea.

It is true that the U.S. didn't face much risk of its homeland being destroyed by its involvement in these far off wars, but it did suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties to its conscripted forces, which is not an inconsiderable direct risk if you were a young man at the time. Everyone knew someone who was involved in the fighting, and for many it was a father, brother, husband, or a son whose life was on the line. Europe never faced these sorts of challenges on the same scale, their contributions to the Korean War notwithstanding. There are millions of U.S. combat veterans living among us, and most from wars much more recent than WW2.

As for the terrorist threat to Europe, while the U.S. never faced such a thing to the degree that Europe has until recently, the actual scale of these attacks was tiny. Our own domestic murder rate in one year blows these numbers for the whole period since the end of the Second World War out of the water. So I stand by my argument, that a violent world is much more realistic to an American than a European, just as a violent world is much more realistic to almost anyone around the world than a European.

Originally posted by GePap
Maybe you knew someone directly involved, but the last time involvement was widespread was Vietnam.
The European view of the world is not unrealistic, or certainly no more unrealistic than ours. If "suffereing" and living in insecurity is the measure of being able to "see the real world", then by god, lets ask someone from the Congo to tell us what the world is like, cause they sure as hell have seen more than anyone here, or the US, or Europe.

I've known people directly involved in almost every action the U.S. has been involved in from WW2 until the present. Of course I am certainly more connected to these events than most Americans are, being older, having served in the military, coming from a military family, and having spent 6 years of my childhood on Okinawa where the Vietnam war wasn't something that you only saw on the news, but felt everyday. Two of my friends lost their fathers in the same week there, I saw the 3rd Marine Division saddle up and deploy right by my house on their way to the DMZ, combat air patrols messed up out TV reception at 10 minute intervals, and I was awoken by the sound of a B-52 crippled over Vietnam being turned into a mountain of scrap aluminum as it crashed attempting to land at Kadena, and all of its bombs went off.

So I'm not exactly a typical American, and I'm getting less so every day. That said, I do think that the ROTW and the U.S. understand each other better than the U.S. and many Western Europeans do when it comes to these issues. Our viewpoint is more logical to India and Pakistan than Germany's viewpoint, because as different as our experiences are in every other way, we both understand what it's like to be at war more or less constantly. In many instances we agree with the values that Europe can afford to live out to a greater extent than we do, but we also see much more readily how these values will not protect you from the vast majority of the world's population that do not share them. This head in the clouds thinking (fairly absent here on this wargame site in comparison to its popularity in the general population) that gives birth to such phrases as "War must always be the last option." (apparently somewhere after surrender) is what I object to, as it lessens the feasability of even my own intermediate viewpoint on the usefullness of power, and dooms those who claim to have the moral high ground with what is essentially a pacifist policy. Pacifism only works if everyone else is a pacifist, or you allow someone else to protect you, which essentially means that pacifism cannot work in today's world, and probably won't ever work completely. That said, I do think that the world can back away from the level of violence and industrial scale destruction that it has experienced since WW1. I just don't think we are going to get there solely by singing Kumbaya and blithely assuming that everything will be just fine if we follow the golden rule.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Sikander:

"who often have similar goals in the world, and are capable of carrying their portion of the load, including and especially the ability to act militarily in their own interest independentlywhen necessary."

That is a possible outcome of America's relative decline and the need to cut back on its strategic commitments. The other scenario is that the current alienation turns into a strategic rivalry. Unless you (american citizens) retake control of your political system, I think the second scenario is more likely.

Perhaps so, were I President I would always have the worst case in mind as I worked for the best case. In the past I would have assumed that the geopolitical geometry would make strategic rivalry practically unavoidable, but these days I can't see how this would work exactly. The costs for merely putting ourselves in this position are extremely high. Were such a rivalry to develop, I would simply give ground until Europe was up to its a$$ in the swamp of Africa, the Middle East and Western Asia. Welcome to our world.

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
"We see much of Europe as having spent decades under our protection and having developed an unrealistic view of the world, as if any other portion of the globe has the sort of security provided by the Atlantic alliance"

You have to admit that those who frame US "security" policy live in a fantasy world. As for security, EU-Europe is currently for the first time in its history in a situation where it is practically safe from internal war and invasion. A situation enjoyed by the US from 1800 on, which was the hightime of the classic liberal view on international relations, now replaced with this pseudorealist brain****ing.

Interesting point, though I have a couple of quibbles regarding the 19th century. Firstly, we had foreign troops on our soil as late as 1814. Until 1848 we had a very large Mexico on our southern border, and it was the conventional wisdom amongst European observers that the U.S. would have its a$$ handed to it in the Mexican war. Then the civil war (and France's intervention in Mexico while we were busy, and finally a long border with the world's preminent power Great Britain. The war with Spain was not too tough, so we'll ignore it. It all adds up to a less than rosy security picture, but I agree better than being a small state in central Europe or the Balkans.

As for this administration's foreign policy, it seems to have been hijacked from a secure and phased withdrawl policy as outlined during the campaign (written by Condi Rice) into a policy that I cannot for the life of me parse. Some of the original policy is still visible (Regime change in Iraq for instance, and even some of the Axis of Evil stuff), but the rhetoric is outlandish to say the least. In any event it is enormously ambitious whatever one thinks of it, which isn't a good sign.