When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Connect with
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
@tadcf: Yeah…the reduction in gas prices from all that oil we stole is awesome
What a retarded statement.
John ryan
13 years ago
Curt you don’t get it the oil is for the benefit of the OIL COMPANIES not the consumers, and yes they are doing VERY well. As far as victory let;s remember taht when the next government iin Iraq is formed it will be chosen by Mokkie Sadr. Remember him ?http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/14/sadr-steps-into-the-fray-once-again/Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is establishing a new fighting force to battle U.S.-led troops in Iraq, he said in a letter read in Iraqi mosques Friday.
Al-Sadr’s letter said that “the resistance will be exclusively conducted by only one group. This new group will be defined soon by me.”
this is the group that our “victory” has given to the power to form the next Iraq government
Sadrists killed more Americans than any other group. This is now the group that has benefited most by your victory
John ryan
13 years ago
and this new Iraqi government that you are so proud of is one of only 3 that supports Iran’s nuke program.
Randy
13 years ago
For John Ryan:
Every time I hear a jackass bray that we were in Iraq to enrich Bush and Cheney, I feel like calling animal control. Anyone with any brains would first try to understand how oil is sold. They might even look to see who has been contracted to actually get the oil out of the ground or they can just run around braying like a jackass that has no brains!
Iraqi oil goes into the world oil pool and is purchased by the highest bidder. I am sure Bush and Cheney were not bidding on the oil. Nearly all of the companies selected by the Iraqi government to develop and maintain the oil fields were from countries other than the US.
Was the invasion of Iraq for Iraqi oil? That is a complex no answer. If you are privy to any intelligence or actually read between the lines of the news broadcasts and papers, a smart person would understand the tremendous turmoil in the Middle-East. Saddam had the potential to shut down all of the oil from the Middle-East using a variety of means. Nuclear was only one. Can you imagine the world recession if more than 1/2 of the energy reserves were removed from the world market?
John Ryan, did you know that the US actually sold the yellow cake that Saddam had bought to the Canadians? (For John Ryan: yellow cake is a raw form of radioactive material from which nuclear explosives can be made. Betty Crocker has nothing to do with this form of yellow cake) This was after Valery Plame’s husband said there was no deal for yellow cake!
Did Saddam sponsor terrorism? There are tons of documents that prove he did. He was even on television in the Middle-East in Feb 2003 awarding a check for $25,000 to the family of a suicide bomber who killed an Israeli family. Do you actually think that Abu Nidal committed suicide with an AK-47 in Baghdad? (He had multiple bullet holes in his chest.) Remember Black September?
Life must be easy for those who never put two thoughts together. They just parrot what they hear from other ignorant people or they just bray when they are not littering the barnyard.
The time to argue the decision to invade Iraq is long past. I spent many hours (days, probably weeks, actually) of my life arguing it, when it was relevant. It’s no longer relevant. It’s history, just as the decision to fight a war in Vietnam was history. And Korea. It’s just one more thing to keep our minds focused in the past, instead of the present and future.
Time to move on.
Let’s talk about what we do now. The late Lt. General William Odom repeatedly wrote that Iraq would end up in the same place, no matter if and when we withdrew troops. I always thought he was right, and I still fear that he might be right, although I’m impressed that Iraqis from Sunni and Shiite sides both seem to want to make it work.
The Kurds seem more interested in being left alone, rather than in working to strengthen a true Iraqi nation. What happens if/when Kurdistan declares independence? We seem to be relying on the Turks to prevent that from happening, which is probably the best thing to do. So the Kurds are off, doing their own thing, while the Southern population segments try to form an actual government.
And we’ve got yet another 100 year occupational garrison. Does this garrison increase or decrease the chances of future terrorist attacks, recalling that Jihadists are not confined to the mid-East, but exist also in Europe and within our own borders, in some cases, among our own citizenry. The Japanese might not like our bases in Okinawa, but at least they haven’t declared a Holy War against us, over it.
Middle Eastern garrisons worry me. Kuwait .Saudi Arabia. Iraq. (not even considering, at the moment, South-West Asia).
What are we currently gaining from the Mid-East bases? I’m not taking a stand against them, right at the moment. I’d just like to see a cogent argument for why they are a net plus for us.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Randy
13 years ago
The Iraqis are a net plus for us because they with Jordan are becoming more economically ties with us. They even are more ideological tied with us than one would think. If you spent a few weeks in the Kurdish area, you could vividly see this. Other parts of Iraq are closer than you can see. Would you rather see a nuclear power in Iraq and Iran?
What are we gaining from the Middle-East bases. As much as I hate answering a question with a question, what do we get from any of our foreign bases. We use foreign bases to project power that protects our country and economy as well as those of our allies. Do you think Iraq will last long as a separate country with out air power? How long will it be before the Kurds are massacred without the US?
I also resent someone calling what I did wrong. I was in Iraq for 3 years. Those of us who were on the ground and worked with the Iraqis both in the government, military and communities understand our value to the Iraqis and the value of Iraq to the US world effort.
History is important because if we do not understand it, it repeats itself. You can see the Carter years returning right now because we didn’t learn and understand.
One reaction is that you firstly state that Iraq is valuable for economic reasons. This seems in line with critics’ charges that Iraq was invaded for economic reasons. I’m willing to accept that it was invaded for the reasons given at the time — the belief that the invasion was necessary for national defense. So the issue is this: is the long term occupation of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia in the national defense interests of the US? To put it another way, does the existence of these bases increase or decrease the probability of a nuclear bomb being detonated in Long Beach Harbor?
Do you agree with many geopolitical intelligence predictions that there’s a 50% probability of a nuclear terror attack within 10 years? If so, I’d think that our number one defense priority ought to be reducing that probability to as near zero as can be achieved. Do Middle Eastern bases help or hinder that goal?
I don’t think that it’s relevant to compare bases in the Mid-East with bases anywhere else. As I wrote, the Japanese may hate our continued presence in Okinawa, but there is no danger that we are going to be nuked over it. In an ideal world (i.e. no threat of nuclear terrorism), then, of course it’s good to be promoting commerce (for the sake of argument, even extending this to the petroleum trade). But it could be argued that we are better equipped to deal with interruption in the Middle Eastern oil supply than we would an aftermath of a nuclear weapons detonation in an urban center.
So the question is, what do Middle Eastern bases do to improve our national defense against the most important threat currently facing us?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Randy
13 years ago
How do you separate economics from national defense? Right now many high ranking military officers have stated that our economy is a threat to national defense.
Being able to project power and having the will to project that power when needed has always been part of our national defense. It is always better to fight the battles on other peoples land.
Will having bases in the middle-East keep a nuclear bomb from going off in Huntington Beach? You are vulnerable in CA because of our very liberal immigration policy. Do you know how easy it would be for someone to cross the border with at least a dirty bomb under the current administration’s policies? It is a likely hood. If I were a terrorist, I would not bomb LAX or other nationally prominent buildings, I would bomb quiet neighborhoods like yours. I would look at Des Moines IA or Boise ID or Selma, AL. That would create real terror in the US.
Right now we are tracking radioactive materials around the world. When some of that material has the potential to be used by terrorists, we should be able to act quickly. I doubt we can quickly bomb Iran or Syria if our bases are in Germany or Spain. Quick response capability is a real deterrent in the world today.
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@Randy, Please pay no attention to Johnny Ryan as I suspect that he was never in Iraq, AFPAK,
Jordan, Saudi, Kuwait or Somalia or Qatar when some of Us had boots on the ground in those places. I wouldn’t trust Johnny to water my horse, park my truck or tell the truth when it would serve him best.
Again Pardner, Huge Thanks for Your Service. I had two tours in AFPAK ( OEF Opening and on my final deployment ) and was with 5th Group in Iraq at the onset of OIF. Most Iraqis were happy to see Saddam out of power in Iraq and the majority of Arghanis were very pleased to see a little justice handed out by rule 5.56 mm and Rule .308 when we kicked open the door at Kandahar.
@Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA…Ask any Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Saudi or Afghani about that if you don’t mind my 2 cents worth. Ok Bud?
@tadcf, You are the beneficiary of the Obama Regimes Kool Aid Party. Drink hearty but don’t spew your vomit here. The majority of FA folks see it for the Bravo Sierra that it is and Curt permits your variety of buffoonery for the sake of exposing buffoonery for what it is. Thanks for your contribution of buffoonery and exposing your point of view for the vast wasteland of ignorance that it represents.
Arrived back at the house this afternoon with six young Hereford Seed Bulls, a box of contraband Cubano stogies and another stamp on my Passport. Train trips are refreshing and the best way to haul livestock. Our Canadian Neighbors were both gracious and grand company for my cattle buying trek. My Virgin Mobile Intarweb connection was not the best up North butI reckon you learn something new every day.
I’d like to get up to Banf in October. For pleasure and not business.
Take Care FA Folks, I have to get six bulls branded with the X Lazy M rod before dinner. Some of Us still work for a living…
I don’t think that there is a credible threat from Syria or Iran. No nation is going to nuke us. Not even North Korea. The threat is a loose nuke in the hands of a non-governmental agency. And the bomb isn’t going to arrive courtesy of immigration policies (have the immigration policies been weakened since the prior administration? I wasn’t aware of this. How so? I thought that we’d just ADDED 1200 border patrol troops to the prior border protections.).
I think that the threat is our ports. Long Beach Harbor doesn’t even have its own Coast Guard cutter (comes down and visits from Marina del Rey). And there are thousands of small boats going in and out of the harbor each week and virtually none get boarded. A missile has a return address. Not necessarily so, for a small fishing or sailboat.
To my way of thinking, what we need is supply side antiterrorism. Reduce the supply. Reduce the amount of money which gets funneled their way by high roller sympathizers.
It’s interesting to ask what it is that motivates Muslims to take up Jihad. I suppose the idea is that they want to subjugate the world at the tip of a sword; so to speak. But they are taking over Europe, without the need for any swordplay and despite (not because of) the odd subway bombing. The point is, that Bin Laden wannabees aren’t after us to force us, under threat of death, to convert to Islam. As I said, they are doing pretty good without that. What they want is for us to just keep our nose out of their neck of the woods (or desert). That’s what they’ve continued to say.
So I just don’t see how having bases in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Kuwait reduces the supply of terrorists or keeps nuclear weapons out of their possession. And I really do worry about nuclear weapons going off nearby — all politics being local, and all that.
@trooper: I’m sure that many people in the world are very happy to have our blood and treasure protecting them (in the case of the Saudi princes, from their own people). But the Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese need mid-East oil more than we do. If the oil needs protecting, why not let others who derive the benefit do the job, and, in the process, put themselves at risk to be the main Jihadi targets?
OLD TROOPER 2: hi, NICE to know that you are back safely,from the dangers of the COWBOYS
IN CANADA WEST part. bye
YES I’M KIDDING
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
The Pretender in Chief is literally pissing away the treasure at a record rate on the planet. I have personally met Saudi Royalty, former Republican Guard Elite and Kuwaiti Royalty and Afghan Tribal Leaders and was on good terms with all but the former members of the Republican Guard.
Our Bases in the ME support the relationship and our commitment to things and issues far better than the Current Regimes Department of State ever could. They RESPECT strong Military FORCE
and NOT speeches or promises that can be broken in the blink of an eye or the next election. I rest my case. They RESPECT Warriors and Allies that are willing to defend them and not Career Politicians that can and will lie to them.
I served with NATO Forces in the ME. Europeans, Japanese, Italians and Poles, Soldiers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Australia and South Koreans. Allies support Allies by Treaty or being a Coalition of the Willing.
Enough said. I could start up my own website to explain it all but since this is on Curt’s dime I will stop here. Your transport runs on OIL, Your Electricity in the majority comes from Coal. Most of the water that fills swimming pools and flushes toilets in So Cal comes from the Colorado River so do some homework Pardner.
Randy
13 years ago
Who do you think sponsors those terrorists? Who do you think facilitates the border crossings? Have you looked at the nationalities of some of the people recently captured on the border? I think it is somewhere around 10% are from countries on the terrorist watch list. How many are we not catching?
Did you know there are at least 60 Hezbollah terrorist groups we have identified already in the US? Are you aware that one of the largest Islamic terrorist groups in the World right now is in South America? They are training Arabs to act like Hispanics so they can pass the border. How far is Huntington Beach from Mexico?
When Bush proposed his immigration bill, I was in Baghdad. ” I sent an email to every Senator: How can you expect me to fight the war on terrorism when you are proposing to let them in the back door? Who is protecting my family while I am away?” I got replies and I likely was not the only one sending this message. Now, we just turn loose captured illegals!
OT2 I know JR is a dope, but sometimes I need to just let loose. I will not kick my cat, so…. This is much better! I do feel quilty messing with mentally handicaped people. I wonder if I have ever run across you in your travels? I would surely love to spend a few days with you and Skook some time. A few beers and an elk roast would be nice! What does an X lazy M look like?
@Old Trooper: So you are, like Randy, arguing that the main reason we are in the Middle East is for economic reasons and not for national defense? I am confused. You have made a convincing case that it is in our economic interest to be there. You have not explained how being there does anything but increase the probability of a nuclear explosion in a US port, which is, far and away, the number one national defense threat against us in the foreseeable future.
@Randy. I’m all for a very strong border defense. But I’d argue that our ports are a FAR greater point of vulnerability. I’m not all that afraid of the odd fertilizer bombing. Cost of doing business in a global economy, so to speak. I’m worried about nuclear weapons and they aren’t coming in in trucks driven by coyotes. I’m also for a very strong immigration policy, in general. For starters, I’d fine every business and every household who employed an undocumented worker $1,000 per worker per day. That would not only stop illegal immigration in its tracks, it would pay for the entire border defense program. Why do you suppose that this has never been done? What is the political affiliation of most of the people who employ undocumented workers, one wonders.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Randy
13 years ago
Let me do this slowly. A robust national defense requires money. A country with a good economic base has the capability of supporting a robust national defense. When we help others (allies) militarily and economically, we reduce the potential for an attack. When you have a presence in an area with turmoil, you can hear and see things you would not hear sitting on your couch in Huntington Beach or at an army base in the US. There can not be a strong national defense without a strong economy. Check what General Petraeus said recently on this. Remember the defense dividend that occurred during the Clinton administration? Bush had to rebuild the defense at likely 5 times the cost. Sustainment is much more economical than destruction and then rebuilding.
After I returned home and retired from the military, I received an email from a group of Iraqis concerning an incident that became highly classified. I forwarded on my MSN email account, the email message to a friend in the Pentagon. I never heard anything else for months. Then over a beer, I was told that my email opened a firestorm north of Baghdad. Do you think that would ever happen if I had never been in Iraq and developed relationships? I saved lives sitting here at my desk in Colorado because I once served at a base in Iraq.
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@openid.aol.com/runnswim
When US Foreign Policy falls on it’s Ass, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen get sent off.
It encompasses US National Security, US Economic and Strategic issues that some folks
do not understand or can’t identify as pieces of the puzzle that make the US of A a good
Ally.
I have spent over 30 years of my adult life going to locales of “US Interest”concern and have a Masters in International Relations and as a War College Grad, I see a larger picture that you quite apparently missed here. I have spent years in locales that are not choices for vacations or holidays but stopped genocide, ethnic cleansing and tyranny on a few continents and have been sent on “Fools Errands” by more than a few dumb bastard politicians.
Thanks for asking Larry but the whole picture took me 30 years to acquire and I currently have
a Montana Cattle spread to run. My Own Cattle and I Own the patch of real estate that goes with it.
Let me explain why I seem so bent out of shape on this issue. I view the use of military force to be the most important and grave decision a commander in chief can make. We have had (I believe) 5,000 Americans (including contractors) killed in Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. We’ve had tens of thousands of Americans seriously (and often permanently) wounded. Christians used to be able to practice their religion openly in Iraq; now they can’t, without risking being killed. On and on. You know these data much better than I do.
Now, before committing US forces to something like this, there must be a clear explanation to the American people and their representatives and to the people of the world why we are doing this. So the explanation was made and I, for one, accept it. I’m not saying that I’d have personally voted to invade, had I been given a vote, but I respect, now, that honest decisions were made at the time, based on best available evidence. Not all evidence turns out to be accurate. Not all decisions turn out to be good ones. But I believe that our leaders (Democratic, as well as Republican) did the best job they could, with the information they had.
But the point is, the war was presented as a national defense necessity, because of concern over WMD, the most important of which were nukes. The biggest threat to the US is still nukes. That’s why we went there in the first place; so I don’t think I’m being out of line in still being worried about them. I’m asking the same questions the Bush administration asked: “How can we best protect ourselves against attacks by terrorists wielding WMD?” It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
I’m asking the question, but you and Old Trooper are giving me lectures about geopolitical economics. But we didn’t go to Iraq for geopolitical economic reasons (at least President Bush did not try to make that case). We went there because we were concerned about WMD. I am STILL concerned about WMD. So I’m asking, how do bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq do anything but increase the already 50/50 (according to intelligence experts) risk that we are going to be nuked within the next 10 years?
@Old Trooper: While I certainly am grateful for your service and appreciate and respect your experience and expertise, I do not accept that professionals in the Department of Defense should expect citizens like me just to get out of the way and not to ask questions and simply let the professionals do what they think is best. Military dictatorships often do a pretty good job of running a country (e.g. Turkey was arguably better off when it was a little less of a democracy than it is today), but that’s not our system of government, nor do most people wish it to be.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Randy
13 years ago
I am answering you because you seem to want to understand. Let’s do this one question at a time. What is the result of a country or terrorist organization setting off a WMD? Please be specific and explore in detail.
What is the result of a country or terrorist organization setting off a WMD? Please be specific and explore in detail.
Very well. On the map below, “A” is my house. I am next door to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons stations (supplies ordnance, including, no doubt, nukes, to the Pacific Fleet). A little ways up the road is Long Beach/LA Harbor, busiest in the nation, I think. Undefended. Reliable winds to carry radioactivity inland, to percolate throughout the LA basin, stewing those of us who live here in its juices, so to speak. In detail, death will be horrible. Sloughing off of lining of mouth, tracheobronchial tree, GI tract, with bloody diarrhea, coughing up blood, death from bleeding and/or infection (from bone marrow suppression).
(Rats, couldn’t get image to imbed, here’s the URL for the map:
Well, you missed a few issues. So the WMD killed 10,000 people out of 300,000,000 in this country. That is .003% of the US population. If it was nucear, it placed a major part of CA off limits.
What is the economic contributions of Huntington Beach in $s to CA and the US?
What do you think the cost of drastically increasing TSA and Homeland Security?
How much longer will it take to load and unload ships in US Harbors than it did before?
What will happen to the value of any companies affected by the WMD strike to include 2nd, 3rd and more effected businesses?
Yes, 10,000 people were killed, but the major impact was economic. Look at what happened after the WTC strike. If you and yours are part of the death toll, that is a bad thing, but the major impact is going to be economic devestation followed by higher taxes and possible total economic failure.
openid aol: hi, I would think that it could create a danger to be to specific, just to remind that this is a public forum. bye
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@ Missy, Just doing my part fer the Economy, I bought six bulls, ate a steak or two smoked a few cigars and had some rather smooth sipping whiskey.
Had I known that it was Terrorist Season in Canada I would have brought a few Friends, more, ammunition, firearms and bought more whiskey and cigars. Far be it from me to mix Business with Pleasure! 😀
Opinions are nice and we are all free to have them.
But the point is, the war was presented as a national defense necessity, because of concern over WMD, the most important of which were nukes.
But, I believe you left out quite a few “Where Ases” from that Resolution that was quickly passed in ’02’ Tommy Daschle got right on that one, oh yeah….before midterms. Public sentiment was such that the dems wanted to get in on some of the atta boys President Bush was getting. All the pontificating about that mean old Saddam, I remember well.
WMD was thought a major threat, so was leaving Saddam in power with the two young ones who were busy grinding up Iraqis in the shredders and raping school girls. Just a couple of their favorite events…..that they filmed.
They would have made excellent leaders upon the retirement of their dear father. We should have just left them alone, the sanctions would have been dropped and all would be well.
Do you happen to remember about that Dr. in Tennessee? After the fall of Baghdad he was part of the team sent over to Iraq to help set up their medical services? He was given a newspaper by an Iraqi attorney that befriended him. It had current information in it about al Qaeda operatives, named them, including bin Laden, the article was calling them friends of Iraq and the newspaper belonged to Saddam’s son.
Well, the Dr. sent the information to his hometown paper not knowing that type of information wasn’t to go public. Everything was immediately scrubbed, I actually had printed it out before the scrubbing, but I no longer have it.
So we have three human WMDs, friends of al Qeada waiting for sanctions to be dropped by the UN, still firing on our planes, inciting terror groups to attack US citizens and installations abroad. They were still in possession of the means to restart their WMD programs, embezzling from the Oil For Food program, spending the funds on illicit material, torturing, starving and killing their people, burying them in mass graves, and belligerently defying every single one of the UN Resolutions.
IMO going into Iraq was a National Defense necessity.
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA…
The greatest danger You currently face in Ca. is the rampant undisciplined spending that Your State Legislature is up to. At this rate California will be in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy before your can say “Bobs Your Uncle!”
suek
13 years ago
Randy…
Re: what the X lazyM brand looks like – you can probably figure it out here:
Larry’s entire premise, is that our bases in the Middle East is what’s causing these otherwise sensible and peaceful Moslems to go nuclear on our butt’s, so to eliminate that threat, we should buckle under the demands of religious, murderous savages to make him able to put his head back in the sand.
-He conveniently ignores all acts of “Human-Caused-Disasters” that happened before we ever had bases in “Foreign-Lands-That-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Islamic”, as well as the acts that occurred in countries “That-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Non-Islamic”, and have no connection to America or the West at all, let alone have any bases anywhere near the Middle East.
So to answer his thinly-veiled red-herring question; Our bases in the Middle East have little to no direct effect at keeping San Diego free of ionized radiation, nor are they meant to.
As for keeping San Diego that way, there are hundreds of protections in place to greatly reduce that threat. None of which Larry has bothered to research, and very little being done by the military, because other agencies have that responsibility.
-All cargo/passenger ships headed to America are scanned before they ever leave that foreign port, and their cargo manifests randomly checked.
-All American ports have sensors on the cranes, and at the road-exits of said ports.
-Almost all major cities have sensors in the freeway-approaches, usually hanging under signs and overpasses.
-Canada and Mexico have extensive sensor-abilities installed in their ports, placed there and monitored by us.
-Border road-crossings have sensors installed, and all truck-traffic is inspected.
Nuke materials are very easy to sense now-a-days, and we can do it from miles away, including from orbit. Which is good, because the biggest “holes” are on the southern border, and 1500 more guys isn’t going to help anything there.
No it’s not fool-proof, but no system is…but capitulation to religious freaks pining for a caliphate can be easily defined as the worse of all proposed systems, because they will ALWAYS have another demand to make of the willfully-weak.
Ask the Israelis about pulling out of Lebanon and Gaza how “nice” the savages have been ever since. One started a war, the other elected Hamas, and started lobbing missiles…at a country that has NO foreign bases anywhere in the world.
Greg
13 years ago
“They would have made excellent leaders upon the retirement of their dear father. We should have just left them alone, the sanctions would have been dropped and all would be well.”
Maybe should have expedited their “retirement” before we left in 1991.
But when that proposition was approached, the liberals in America and Europe, screamed, “NO!”, and the Middle-East countries made it loudly known that they still wanted the now-crippled Saddam as a buffer (and fodder) against Iran’s machinations.
Are you surprised that Greg appears to be more macho than Generals Powell, Schwartzkoph, the UN members, President GHW Bush, the Desert Storm Coalition of the Willing and Sec/Def Darth Cheney? I am.
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@ Randy & suek
It is an X with an M laid on it’s side resembling the numeral 3.
A Montana Registered brand for over70 years.
Where are you going to shop for bulls next? Caracas?
Maybe pick up a couple bottles of fine wine and Skookum. 😛
Greg
13 years ago
Hey, it wasn’t liberal, democratic administrations that provided Saddam Hussein with billions of dollars in U.S. financial assistance and military and technological support throughout the 1980s. The U.S. even provided the strains of anthrax Saddam used in his biological weapons program.
So by saying that Greg, (and once again attempting to change the topic) you are of the thought that Iran should have been allowed to win it’s war with Iraq, because that’s what was at stake.
The fact that Reagan was in office during that war, was the ONLY reason that a “liberal” admin didn’t help Iraq, or it would have. Proof of this is in the fact that the Dems who controlled both houses approved of that assistance in light of Iran’s dangerous Mullahs, working with the Russians.
Now…who was in power in France during that war? Germany? Both had very liberal governments at the time, and helped Saddam as much as we did, if not more. France built his nuke-plant, for instance.
From the article that your silly Wiki article drew some info from:
Also before the Gulf War, Iraq took delivery on billions of dollars of equipment “useful for making mass destruction weapons” from companies operating in more than a dozen Western nations: Germany mostly, but also the United States, Britain, France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and more, according to Iraq Watch, a research group affiliated with the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.
Note that all of these countries were run by liberals of the day.
And yet another:
And Cattani of USF cautioned against being too quick to judge past decisions.
“It’s common knowledge that, prior to the events of September and October of 2001, the policy or the ability for anyone to purchase some of these agents for research and testing was unrestricted commercially, and that’s changed,” she said. “There were uses for these things, especially for testing animals against anthrax. A lot of these are nonhuman pathogens naturally. Anthrax is a disease of cattle, basically. Because they were used in the context of veterinary screening and treatment, no one really thought of their potential at that time as biological weapons.”
He could have bought everything he wanted, even if we didn’t want to sell it to him.
Now if only we had used Reagan’s mind-reading ability to foresee what Saddam was going to do 10 years later…
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@ Missy, If I do go to Caracas I will bring back some wine and Hugo Chavez’s head on a pike.
I wonder if Venezuelan Customs will let it through without a Mad Cow Disease Inspection?
😉
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@ Greg, Since you rely on Wiki for info here is something of interest for you:
” Iranian and Israeli attacks
Further information: Operation Opera
Iran attacked and damaged the site on September 30, 1980 with two F-4 Phantoms, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. This was the first attack on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in history of the world. It was also the first instance of a pre-emptive attack on a nuclear reactor to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon, though it did not achieve its objective as France repaired the reactor after the Iranian attack.[8][9][10][11][12][13]
In Israel, intelligence agencies authorized an air strike based on the fear that Iraq would use the nuclear fuel to produce weapons. This took place on June 7, 1981, in what was known as Operation Opera. The Israeli Air Force launched a strike with eight F-16 multi-role fighters and six F-15s for escorts, which flew from Etzion Airbase.
Shortly after that, the northern Sinai base was vacated and returned to Egypt in accordance with the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. At the time, Etzion was Israel’s southernmost airbase – the closest it had to Iraq. The strike force flew 680 miles (1,100 km) across Jordan, Saudi Arabia and into Iraq to bomb the target. Arriving at around 1730, the strike force quickly destroyed the reactor site and returned safely to Israel. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French researcher were killed in the attack.[14] It was supposed that the strike force evaded detection by flying close together so that instead of appearing as a squadron of small fighters on radar, they appeared as a single large jet, and not much attention was given to them.
One of the Israeli pilots on the mission was Ilan Ramon, who would later become Israel’s first astronaut and died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003.”
****************************************************************
Good old American Aircraft and Ordinance did the deal on Osirak.
Aren’t you happy that an American Administration sold them that gear?
Larry’s entire premise, is that our bases in the Middle East is what’s causing these otherwise sensible and peaceful Moslems to go nuclear on our butt’s, so to eliminate that threat, we should buckle under the demands of religious, murderous savages to make him able to put his head back in the sand.
I don’t believe that I stated a premise; I simply asked a question, which has still not been answered by anyone. Missy talked about Saddam’s bad sons (window dressing, not even close to being a salable justification, methinks). Everyone keeps talking about geopolitical economics. Someone brought up California’s financial mismanagement.
I never said or implied that our bases in the Mid-East are the entire motivation for Jihad, the motivation for which is a variety of things, from Hollywood (hey, they do have a bit of a point on this one, don’t they? Not that I’d blow up the Hollywood sign, much less people, but don’t you think that our own cinema, music, digital games, etc. have had more to do with the losses to the American national soul and way of life mourned by Glenn Beck on Saturday than Barack Obama ever did — or ever will? There’s nothing which can or should be done about it. It’s the price we pay for the 1st Amendment, which is central to who we are. But, if you look at it from the point of view of a very insular, socially conservative culture, you can see that this is an irritant).
Anyway, getting back to why Radical Islam doesn’t like us, I was saying that it’s everything from Hollywood to our support for Israel; it’s our support for dictators ranging from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi Royal family; most of all, though, it’s our presence on Islamic sand. It was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, after all, which got bin Laden into the game of Jihad in the first place, and Russia was neither a supporter of Israel nor an exporter of morally decadent cinema.
Patvann reassured me about all the means we have at our disposal to detect and interdict a nuclear weapon. O.K. That’s good, but, apparently, not good enough:
Rather than demanding a perfect defense—something that is unachievable—we should leverage what we know about terrorist psychology to minimize the odds of catastrophe.
So my question remains: Does the presence of American military boots on the sand of the Middle East minimize the odds of a catastrophe or does it increase the odds of a catastrophe?
The greatest danger You currently face in Ca. is the rampant undisciplined spending that Your State Legislature is up to. At this rate California will be in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy before your can say “Bobs Your Uncle!”
You don’t understand how it works here. The legislature can’t pass anything substantive, regarding spending or taxing, because of the requirements for a supermajority vote. A whole lot of the spending obligation is initiated by the voters, themselves, who seldom are presented with a spending proposal which they don’t like — in what other state would voters decide to fund a $3 billion stem cell research program, for example?
If you don’t like politicians running your government, be careful what you wish for. The “people” do a far worse job of it.
Our bases have nothing to do with why they hate us, nor does it increase or decrease the odds of another attack.
I’m sorry if you don’t want to accept that, but I gave plenty of evidence within that comment to support my posit.
The meathead version is:
If we never had a base in the Middle East, they would have come up with another reason, so the answer is a resounding NO.
The odds of a nuclear attack is minuscule, and we are using lots of psychs to fleshout motivations.
-It would be nice however to get the leftists of the entertainment community to actually used their talents to show the bad-guys that we are unified against them.
They see that fracture, and they use it to their benefit. They are more aware of psych-strategy than our leftists want to see, and our agencies are struggling to make the best of that fact.
Old Trooper 2
13 years ago
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim
If you don’t like politicians running your government, be careful what you wish for. The “people” do a far worse job of it.
May I offer you afew H. L. Mencken quotes?
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
“The People” generally are looking for that “Free Lunch” and as most of Us know, it does not exist. Someone always has to pick up the tab. I would not want to be in California when the “Free Lunch” runs out.
Randy
13 years ago
As I talk to my liberal/progressive friends (don’t have many of them!) I continue to be amazed by their lack of reasoning maturity. When my sons were very young, they focused on one thing like a rattle or a mobile. Nothing else mattered to them. They could see nothing else. They failed to understand relationships with other objects until they were a little older.
Liberals are like that. They focus on the shiny bauble and fail to understand that there may be danger in other directions. Not only do they focus on their idea, they defend their views like a child saying “because!” The problem is they pretend they are adults with mature reasoning powers!
They passed Obamacare, the stimulus and other bills ignoring the impact of their bills on the economy. My posts on this forum tried to show several liberals that the use of military force, military bases on foreign soil and military force projection are inseparateable. OT2 reminded me that these liberal posters were only looking to either tire me out or for me to slip and allow the liberal to use my words against me.
There are some very smart people who post here. I should take their advice. Maybe I should just let these liberals face into the wind and wet themselves.
Thank you, George Bush, for what? He should be thanking us for allowing our troops to further his oil interest by neutralizing Iraq.
tadcf, ARE you getting paid for trashing THE PRESIDENT BUSH?,
how low can your party goes, to get you to say theses lies?, exactly no class at all.
@tadcf: Yeah…the reduction in gas prices from all that oil we stole is awesome
What a retarded statement.
Curt you don’t get it the oil is for the benefit of the OIL COMPANIES not the consumers, and yes they are doing VERY well. As far as victory let;s remember taht when the next government iin Iraq is formed it will be chosen by Mokkie Sadr. Remember him ?http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/14/sadr-steps-into-the-fray-once-again/Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is establishing a new fighting force to battle U.S.-led troops in Iraq, he said in a letter read in Iraqi mosques Friday.
Al-Sadr’s letter said that “the resistance will be exclusively conducted by only one group. This new group will be defined soon by me.”
this is the group that our “victory” has given to the power to form the next Iraq government
Sadrists killed more Americans than any other group. This is now the group that has benefited most by your victory
and this new Iraqi government that you are so proud of is one of only 3 that supports Iran’s nuke program.
For John Ryan:
Every time I hear a jackass bray that we were in Iraq to enrich Bush and Cheney, I feel like calling animal control. Anyone with any brains would first try to understand how oil is sold. They might even look to see who has been contracted to actually get the oil out of the ground or they can just run around braying like a jackass that has no brains!
Iraqi oil goes into the world oil pool and is purchased by the highest bidder. I am sure Bush and Cheney were not bidding on the oil. Nearly all of the companies selected by the Iraqi government to develop and maintain the oil fields were from countries other than the US.
Was the invasion of Iraq for Iraqi oil? That is a complex no answer. If you are privy to any intelligence or actually read between the lines of the news broadcasts and papers, a smart person would understand the tremendous turmoil in the Middle-East. Saddam had the potential to shut down all of the oil from the Middle-East using a variety of means. Nuclear was only one. Can you imagine the world recession if more than 1/2 of the energy reserves were removed from the world market?
John Ryan, did you know that the US actually sold the yellow cake that Saddam had bought to the Canadians? (For John Ryan: yellow cake is a raw form of radioactive material from which nuclear explosives can be made. Betty Crocker has nothing to do with this form of yellow cake) This was after Valery Plame’s husband said there was no deal for yellow cake!
Did Saddam sponsor terrorism? There are tons of documents that prove he did. He was even on television in the Middle-East in Feb 2003 awarding a check for $25,000 to the family of a suicide bomber who killed an Israeli family. Do you actually think that Abu Nidal committed suicide with an AK-47 in Baghdad? (He had multiple bullet holes in his chest.) Remember Black September?
Life must be easy for those who never put two thoughts together. They just parrot what they hear from other ignorant people or they just bray when they are not littering the barnyard.
The time to argue the decision to invade Iraq is long past. I spent many hours (days, probably weeks, actually) of my life arguing it, when it was relevant. It’s no longer relevant. It’s history, just as the decision to fight a war in Vietnam was history. And Korea. It’s just one more thing to keep our minds focused in the past, instead of the present and future.
Time to move on.
Let’s talk about what we do now. The late Lt. General William Odom repeatedly wrote that Iraq would end up in the same place, no matter if and when we withdrew troops. I always thought he was right, and I still fear that he might be right, although I’m impressed that Iraqis from Sunni and Shiite sides both seem to want to make it work.
The Kurds seem more interested in being left alone, rather than in working to strengthen a true Iraqi nation. What happens if/when Kurdistan declares independence? We seem to be relying on the Turks to prevent that from happening, which is probably the best thing to do. So the Kurds are off, doing their own thing, while the Southern population segments try to form an actual government.
And we’ve got yet another 100 year occupational garrison. Does this garrison increase or decrease the chances of future terrorist attacks, recalling that Jihadists are not confined to the mid-East, but exist also in Europe and within our own borders, in some cases, among our own citizenry. The Japanese might not like our bases in Okinawa, but at least they haven’t declared a Holy War against us, over it.
Middle Eastern garrisons worry me. Kuwait .Saudi Arabia. Iraq. (not even considering, at the moment, South-West Asia).
What are we currently gaining from the Mid-East bases? I’m not taking a stand against them, right at the moment. I’d just like to see a cogent argument for why they are a net plus for us.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
The Iraqis are a net plus for us because they with Jordan are becoming more economically ties with us. They even are more ideological tied with us than one would think. If you spent a few weeks in the Kurdish area, you could vividly see this. Other parts of Iraq are closer than you can see. Would you rather see a nuclear power in Iraq and Iran?
What are we gaining from the Middle-East bases. As much as I hate answering a question with a question, what do we get from any of our foreign bases. We use foreign bases to project power that protects our country and economy as well as those of our allies. Do you think Iraq will last long as a separate country with out air power? How long will it be before the Kurds are massacred without the US?
I also resent someone calling what I did wrong. I was in Iraq for 3 years. Those of us who were on the ground and worked with the Iraqis both in the government, military and communities understand our value to the Iraqis and the value of Iraq to the US world effort.
History is important because if we do not understand it, it repeats itself. You can see the Carter years returning right now because we didn’t learn and understand.
@randy. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
One reaction is that you firstly state that Iraq is valuable for economic reasons. This seems in line with critics’ charges that Iraq was invaded for economic reasons. I’m willing to accept that it was invaded for the reasons given at the time — the belief that the invasion was necessary for national defense. So the issue is this: is the long term occupation of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia in the national defense interests of the US? To put it another way, does the existence of these bases increase or decrease the probability of a nuclear bomb being detonated in Long Beach Harbor?
Do you agree with many geopolitical intelligence predictions that there’s a 50% probability of a nuclear terror attack within 10 years? If so, I’d think that our number one defense priority ought to be reducing that probability to as near zero as can be achieved. Do Middle Eastern bases help or hinder that goal?
I don’t think that it’s relevant to compare bases in the Mid-East with bases anywhere else. As I wrote, the Japanese may hate our continued presence in Okinawa, but there is no danger that we are going to be nuked over it. In an ideal world (i.e. no threat of nuclear terrorism), then, of course it’s good to be promoting commerce (for the sake of argument, even extending this to the petroleum trade). But it could be argued that we are better equipped to deal with interruption in the Middle Eastern oil supply than we would an aftermath of a nuclear weapons detonation in an urban center.
So the question is, what do Middle Eastern bases do to improve our national defense against the most important threat currently facing us?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
How do you separate economics from national defense? Right now many high ranking military officers have stated that our economy is a threat to national defense.
Being able to project power and having the will to project that power when needed has always been part of our national defense. It is always better to fight the battles on other peoples land.
Will having bases in the middle-East keep a nuclear bomb from going off in Huntington Beach? You are vulnerable in CA because of our very liberal immigration policy. Do you know how easy it would be for someone to cross the border with at least a dirty bomb under the current administration’s policies? It is a likely hood. If I were a terrorist, I would not bomb LAX or other nationally prominent buildings, I would bomb quiet neighborhoods like yours. I would look at Des Moines IA or Boise ID or Selma, AL. That would create real terror in the US.
Right now we are tracking radioactive materials around the world. When some of that material has the potential to be used by terrorists, we should be able to act quickly. I doubt we can quickly bomb Iran or Syria if our bases are in Germany or Spain. Quick response capability is a real deterrent in the world today.
@Randy, Please pay no attention to Johnny Ryan as I suspect that he was never in Iraq, AFPAK,
Jordan, Saudi, Kuwait or Somalia or Qatar when some of Us had boots on the ground in those places. I wouldn’t trust Johnny to water my horse, park my truck or tell the truth when it would serve him best.
Again Pardner, Huge Thanks for Your Service. I had two tours in AFPAK ( OEF Opening and on my final deployment ) and was with 5th Group in Iraq at the onset of OIF. Most Iraqis were happy to see Saddam out of power in Iraq and the majority of Arghanis were very pleased to see a little justice handed out by rule 5.56 mm and Rule .308 when we kicked open the door at Kandahar.
@Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA…Ask any Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Saudi or Afghani about that if you don’t mind my 2 cents worth. Ok Bud?
@tadcf, You are the beneficiary of the Obama Regimes Kool Aid Party. Drink hearty but don’t spew your vomit here. The majority of FA folks see it for the Bravo Sierra that it is and Curt permits your variety of buffoonery for the sake of exposing buffoonery for what it is. Thanks for your contribution of buffoonery and exposing your point of view for the vast wasteland of ignorance that it represents.
Arrived back at the house this afternoon with six young Hereford Seed Bulls, a box of contraband Cubano stogies and another stamp on my Passport. Train trips are refreshing and the best way to haul livestock. Our Canadian Neighbors were both gracious and grand company for my cattle buying trek. My Virgin Mobile Intarweb connection was not the best up North butI reckon you learn something new every day.
I’d like to get up to Banf in October. For pleasure and not business.
Take Care FA Folks, I have to get six bulls branded with the X Lazy M rod before dinner. Some of Us still work for a living…
RANDY: hi, THANK you for all your comments here at FA;
LET me say, that you are some smart person. bye
@randy.
I don’t think that there is a credible threat from Syria or Iran. No nation is going to nuke us. Not even North Korea. The threat is a loose nuke in the hands of a non-governmental agency. And the bomb isn’t going to arrive courtesy of immigration policies (have the immigration policies been weakened since the prior administration? I wasn’t aware of this. How so? I thought that we’d just ADDED 1200 border patrol troops to the prior border protections.).
I think that the threat is our ports. Long Beach Harbor doesn’t even have its own Coast Guard cutter (comes down and visits from Marina del Rey). And there are thousands of small boats going in and out of the harbor each week and virtually none get boarded. A missile has a return address. Not necessarily so, for a small fishing or sailboat.
To my way of thinking, what we need is supply side antiterrorism. Reduce the supply. Reduce the amount of money which gets funneled their way by high roller sympathizers.
It’s interesting to ask what it is that motivates Muslims to take up Jihad. I suppose the idea is that they want to subjugate the world at the tip of a sword; so to speak. But they are taking over Europe, without the need for any swordplay and despite (not because of) the odd subway bombing. The point is, that Bin Laden wannabees aren’t after us to force us, under threat of death, to convert to Islam. As I said, they are doing pretty good without that. What they want is for us to just keep our nose out of their neck of the woods (or desert). That’s what they’ve continued to say.
So I just don’t see how having bases in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Kuwait reduces the supply of terrorists or keeps nuclear weapons out of their possession. And I really do worry about nuclear weapons going off nearby — all politics being local, and all that.
@trooper: I’m sure that many people in the world are very happy to have our blood and treasure protecting them (in the case of the Saudi princes, from their own people). But the Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese need mid-East oil more than we do. If the oil needs protecting, why not let others who derive the benefit do the job, and, in the process, put themselves at risk to be the main Jihadi targets?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
OLD TROOPER 2: hi, NICE to know that you are back safely,from the dangers of the COWBOYS
IN CANADA WEST part. bye
YES I’M KIDDING
@Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
The Pretender in Chief is literally pissing away the treasure at a record rate on the planet. I have personally met Saudi Royalty, former Republican Guard Elite and Kuwaiti Royalty and Afghan Tribal Leaders and was on good terms with all but the former members of the Republican Guard.
Our Bases in the ME support the relationship and our commitment to things and issues far better than the Current Regimes Department of State ever could. They RESPECT strong Military FORCE
and NOT speeches or promises that can be broken in the blink of an eye or the next election. I rest my case. They RESPECT Warriors and Allies that are willing to defend them and not Career Politicians that can and will lie to them.
I served with NATO Forces in the ME. Europeans, Japanese, Italians and Poles, Soldiers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Australia and South Koreans. Allies support Allies by Treaty or being a Coalition of the Willing.
Enough said. I could start up my own website to explain it all but since this is on Curt’s dime I will stop here. Your transport runs on OIL, Your Electricity in the majority comes from Coal. Most of the water that fills swimming pools and flushes toilets in So Cal comes from the Colorado River so do some homework Pardner.
Who do you think sponsors those terrorists? Who do you think facilitates the border crossings? Have you looked at the nationalities of some of the people recently captured on the border? I think it is somewhere around 10% are from countries on the terrorist watch list. How many are we not catching?
Did you know there are at least 60 Hezbollah terrorist groups we have identified already in the US? Are you aware that one of the largest Islamic terrorist groups in the World right now is in South America? They are training Arabs to act like Hispanics so they can pass the border. How far is Huntington Beach from Mexico?
When Bush proposed his immigration bill, I was in Baghdad. ” I sent an email to every Senator: How can you expect me to fight the war on terrorism when you are proposing to let them in the back door? Who is protecting my family while I am away?” I got replies and I likely was not the only one sending this message. Now, we just turn loose captured illegals!
OT2 I know JR is a dope, but sometimes I need to just let loose. I will not kick my cat, so…. This is much better! I do feel quilty messing with mentally handicaped people. I wonder if I have ever run across you in your travels? I would surely love to spend a few days with you and Skook some time. A few beers and an elk roast would be nice! What does an X lazy M look like?
@Old Trooper: So you are, like Randy, arguing that the main reason we are in the Middle East is for economic reasons and not for national defense? I am confused. You have made a convincing case that it is in our economic interest to be there. You have not explained how being there does anything but increase the probability of a nuclear explosion in a US port, which is, far and away, the number one national defense threat against us in the foreseeable future.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Randy. I’m all for a very strong border defense. But I’d argue that our ports are a FAR greater point of vulnerability. I’m not all that afraid of the odd fertilizer bombing. Cost of doing business in a global economy, so to speak. I’m worried about nuclear weapons and they aren’t coming in in trucks driven by coyotes. I’m also for a very strong immigration policy, in general. For starters, I’d fine every business and every household who employed an undocumented worker $1,000 per worker per day. That would not only stop illegal immigration in its tracks, it would pay for the entire border defense program. Why do you suppose that this has never been done? What is the political affiliation of most of the people who employ undocumented workers, one wonders.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Let me do this slowly. A robust national defense requires money. A country with a good economic base has the capability of supporting a robust national defense. When we help others (allies) militarily and economically, we reduce the potential for an attack. When you have a presence in an area with turmoil, you can hear and see things you would not hear sitting on your couch in Huntington Beach or at an army base in the US. There can not be a strong national defense without a strong economy. Check what General Petraeus said recently on this. Remember the defense dividend that occurred during the Clinton administration? Bush had to rebuild the defense at likely 5 times the cost. Sustainment is much more economical than destruction and then rebuilding.
After I returned home and retired from the military, I received an email from a group of Iraqis concerning an incident that became highly classified. I forwarded on my MSN email account, the email message to a friend in the Pentagon. I never heard anything else for months. Then over a beer, I was told that my email opened a firestorm north of Baghdad. Do you think that would ever happen if I had never been in Iraq and developed relationships? I saved lives sitting here at my desk in Colorado because I once served at a base in Iraq.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim
When US Foreign Policy falls on it’s Ass, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen get sent off.
It encompasses US National Security, US Economic and Strategic issues that some folks
do not understand or can’t identify as pieces of the puzzle that make the US of A a good
Ally.
I have spent over 30 years of my adult life going to locales of “US Interest”concern and have a Masters in International Relations and as a War College Grad, I see a larger picture that you quite apparently missed here. I have spent years in locales that are not choices for vacations or holidays but stopped genocide, ethnic cleansing and tyranny on a few continents and have been sent on “Fools Errands” by more than a few dumb bastard politicians.
Thanks for asking Larry but the whole picture took me 30 years to acquire and I currently have
a Montana Cattle spread to run. My Own Cattle and I Own the patch of real estate that goes with it.
@Old Trooper 2:
Uh, huh, and what did you say you were doing in Canada last week? Vacationing?
Was our OT up to something?
Coincidence? 😉
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/terror-cell-broken-canada
@Randy:
Let me explain why I seem so bent out of shape on this issue. I view the use of military force to be the most important and grave decision a commander in chief can make. We have had (I believe) 5,000 Americans (including contractors) killed in Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. We’ve had tens of thousands of Americans seriously (and often permanently) wounded. Christians used to be able to practice their religion openly in Iraq; now they can’t, without risking being killed. On and on. You know these data much better than I do.
Now, before committing US forces to something like this, there must be a clear explanation to the American people and their representatives and to the people of the world why we are doing this. So the explanation was made and I, for one, accept it. I’m not saying that I’d have personally voted to invade, had I been given a vote, but I respect, now, that honest decisions were made at the time, based on best available evidence. Not all evidence turns out to be accurate. Not all decisions turn out to be good ones. But I believe that our leaders (Democratic, as well as Republican) did the best job they could, with the information they had.
But the point is, the war was presented as a national defense necessity, because of concern over WMD, the most important of which were nukes. The biggest threat to the US is still nukes. That’s why we went there in the first place; so I don’t think I’m being out of line in still being worried about them. I’m asking the same questions the Bush administration asked: “How can we best protect ourselves against attacks by terrorists wielding WMD?” It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
I’m asking the question, but you and Old Trooper are giving me lectures about geopolitical economics. But we didn’t go to Iraq for geopolitical economic reasons (at least President Bush did not try to make that case). We went there because we were concerned about WMD. I am STILL concerned about WMD. So I’m asking, how do bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq do anything but increase the already 50/50 (according to intelligence experts) risk that we are going to be nuked within the next 10 years?
@Old Trooper: While I certainly am grateful for your service and appreciate and respect your experience and expertise, I do not accept that professionals in the Department of Defense should expect citizens like me just to get out of the way and not to ask questions and simply let the professionals do what they think is best. Military dictatorships often do a pretty good job of running a country (e.g. Turkey was arguably better off when it was a little less of a democracy than it is today), but that’s not our system of government, nor do most people wish it to be.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
I am answering you because you seem to want to understand. Let’s do this one question at a time. What is the result of a country or terrorist organization setting off a WMD? Please be specific and explore in detail.
@randy (#23):
You ask:
Very well. On the map below, “A” is my house. I am next door to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons stations (supplies ordnance, including, no doubt, nukes, to the Pacific Fleet). A little ways up the road is Long Beach/LA Harbor, busiest in the nation, I think. Undefended. Reliable winds to carry radioactivity inland, to percolate throughout the LA basin, stewing those of us who live here in its juices, so to speak. In detail, death will be horrible. Sloughing off of lining of mouth, tracheobronchial tree, GI tract, with bloody diarrhea, coughing up blood, death from bleeding and/or infection (from bone marrow suppression).
(Rats, couldn’t get image to imbed, here’s the URL for the map:
http://www.weisenthal.org/myamerica/longbeach.png
Next question?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Well, you missed a few issues. So the WMD killed 10,000 people out of 300,000,000 in this country. That is .003% of the US population. If it was nucear, it placed a major part of CA off limits.
What is the economic contributions of Huntington Beach in $s to CA and the US?
What do you think the cost of drastically increasing TSA and Homeland Security?
How much longer will it take to load and unload ships in US Harbors than it did before?
What will happen to the value of any companies affected by the WMD strike to include 2nd, 3rd and more effected businesses?
Yes, 10,000 people were killed, but the major impact was economic. Look at what happened after the WTC strike. If you and yours are part of the death toll, that is a bad thing, but the major impact is going to be economic devestation followed by higher taxes and possible total economic failure.
Now think about the impacts of a WMD again.
openid aol: hi, I would think that it could create a danger to be to specific, just to remind that this is a public forum. bye
@ Missy, Just doing my part fer the Economy, I bought six bulls, ate a steak or two smoked a few cigars and had some rather smooth sipping whiskey.
Had I known that it was Terrorist Season in Canada I would have brought a few Friends, more, ammunition, firearms and bought more whiskey and cigars. Far be it from me to mix Business with Pleasure! 😀
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Opinions are nice and we are all free to have them.
But, I believe you left out quite a few “Where Ases” from that Resolution that was quickly passed in ’02’ Tommy Daschle got right on that one, oh yeah….before midterms. Public sentiment was such that the dems wanted to get in on some of the atta boys President Bush was getting. All the pontificating about that mean old Saddam, I remember well.
WMD was thought a major threat, so was leaving Saddam in power with the two young ones who were busy grinding up Iraqis in the shredders and raping school girls. Just a couple of their favorite events…..that they filmed.
They would have made excellent leaders upon the retirement of their dear father. We should have just left them alone, the sanctions would have been dropped and all would be well.
Do you happen to remember about that Dr. in Tennessee? After the fall of Baghdad he was part of the team sent over to Iraq to help set up their medical services? He was given a newspaper by an Iraqi attorney that befriended him. It had current information in it about al Qaeda operatives, named them, including bin Laden, the article was calling them friends of Iraq and the newspaper belonged to Saddam’s son.
Well, the Dr. sent the information to his hometown paper not knowing that type of information wasn’t to go public. Everything was immediately scrubbed, I actually had printed it out before the scrubbing, but I no longer have it.
So we have three human WMDs, friends of al Qeada waiting for sanctions to be dropped by the UN, still firing on our planes, inciting terror groups to attack US citizens and installations abroad. They were still in possession of the means to restart their WMD programs, embezzling from the Oil For Food program, spending the funds on illicit material, torturing, starving and killing their people, burying them in mass graves, and belligerently defying every single one of the UN Resolutions.
IMO going into Iraq was a National Defense necessity.
Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA…
The greatest danger You currently face in Ca. is the rampant undisciplined spending that Your State Legislature is up to. At this rate California will be in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy before your can say “Bobs Your Uncle!”
Randy…
Re: what the X lazyM brand looks like – you can probably figure it out here:
http://www.cowboyshowcase.com/brands.htm#reading%20brands
Larry’s entire premise, is that our bases in the Middle East is what’s causing these otherwise sensible and peaceful Moslems to go nuclear on our butt’s, so to eliminate that threat, we should buckle under the demands of religious, murderous savages to make him able to put his head back in the sand.
-He conveniently ignores all acts of “Human-Caused-Disasters” that happened before we ever had bases in “Foreign-Lands-That-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Islamic”, as well as the acts that occurred in countries “That-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Non-Islamic”, and have no connection to America or the West at all, let alone have any bases anywhere near the Middle East.
So to answer his thinly-veiled red-herring question; Our bases in the Middle East have little to no direct effect at keeping San Diego free of ionized radiation, nor are they meant to.
As for keeping San Diego that way, there are hundreds of protections in place to greatly reduce that threat. None of which Larry has bothered to research, and very little being done by the military, because other agencies have that responsibility.
-All cargo/passenger ships headed to America are scanned before they ever leave that foreign port, and their cargo manifests randomly checked.
-All American ports have sensors on the cranes, and at the road-exits of said ports.
-Almost all major cities have sensors in the freeway-approaches, usually hanging under signs and overpasses.
-Canada and Mexico have extensive sensor-abilities installed in their ports, placed there and monitored by us.
-Border road-crossings have sensors installed, and all truck-traffic is inspected.
Nuke materials are very easy to sense now-a-days, and we can do it from miles away, including from orbit. Which is good, because the biggest “holes” are on the southern border, and 1500 more guys isn’t going to help anything there.
No it’s not fool-proof, but no system is…but capitulation to religious freaks pining for a caliphate can be easily defined as the worse of all proposed systems, because they will ALWAYS have another demand to make of the willfully-weak.
Ask the Israelis about pulling out of Lebanon and Gaza how “nice” the savages have been ever since. One started a war, the other elected Hamas, and started lobbing missiles…at a country that has NO foreign bases anywhere in the world.
“They would have made excellent leaders upon the retirement of their dear father. We should have just left them alone, the sanctions would have been dropped and all would be well.”
Maybe should have expedited their “retirement” before we left in 1991.
Yes Greg, we should have…
But when that proposition was approached, the liberals in America and Europe, screamed, “NO!”, and the Middle-East countries made it loudly known that they still wanted the now-crippled Saddam as a buffer (and fodder) against Iran’s machinations.
@Patvann:
Are you surprised that Greg appears to be more macho than Generals Powell, Schwartzkoph, the UN members, President GHW Bush, the Desert Storm Coalition of the Willing and Sec/Def Darth Cheney? I am.
@ Randy & suek
It is an X with an M laid on it’s side resembling the numeral 3.
A Montana Registered brand for over70 years.
@Old Trooper 2:
Where are you going to shop for bulls next? Caracas?
Maybe pick up a couple bottles of fine wine and Skookum. 😛
Hey, it wasn’t liberal, democratic administrations that provided Saddam Hussein with billions of dollars in U.S. financial assistance and military and technological support throughout the 1980s. The U.S. even provided the strains of anthrax Saddam used in his biological weapons program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
So by saying that Greg, (and once again attempting to change the topic) you are of the thought that Iran should have been allowed to win it’s war with Iraq, because that’s what was at stake.
The fact that Reagan was in office during that war, was the ONLY reason that a “liberal” admin didn’t help Iraq, or it would have. Proof of this is in the fact that the Dems who controlled both houses approved of that assistance in light of Iran’s dangerous Mullahs, working with the Russians.
Now…who was in power in France during that war? Germany? Both had very liberal governments at the time, and helped Saddam as much as we did, if not more. France built his nuke-plant, for instance.
From the article that your silly Wiki article drew some info from:
Note that all of these countries were run by liberals of the day.
And yet another:
And Cattani of USF cautioned against being too quick to judge past decisions.
He could have bought everything he wanted, even if we didn’t want to sell it to him.
Now if only we had used Reagan’s mind-reading ability to foresee what Saddam was going to do 10 years later…
@ Missy, If I do go to Caracas I will bring back some wine and Hugo Chavez’s head on a pike.
I wonder if Venezuelan Customs will let it through without a Mad Cow Disease Inspection?
😉
@ Greg, Since you rely on Wiki for info here is something of interest for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak
” Iranian and Israeli attacks
Further information: Operation Opera
Iran attacked and damaged the site on September 30, 1980 with two F-4 Phantoms, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. This was the first attack on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in history of the world. It was also the first instance of a pre-emptive attack on a nuclear reactor to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon, though it did not achieve its objective as France repaired the reactor after the Iranian attack.[8][9][10][11][12][13]
In Israel, intelligence agencies authorized an air strike based on the fear that Iraq would use the nuclear fuel to produce weapons. This took place on June 7, 1981, in what was known as Operation Opera. The Israeli Air Force launched a strike with eight F-16 multi-role fighters and six F-15s for escorts, which flew from Etzion Airbase.
Shortly after that, the northern Sinai base was vacated and returned to Egypt in accordance with the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. At the time, Etzion was Israel’s southernmost airbase – the closest it had to Iraq. The strike force flew 680 miles (1,100 km) across Jordan, Saudi Arabia and into Iraq to bomb the target. Arriving at around 1730, the strike force quickly destroyed the reactor site and returned safely to Israel. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French researcher were killed in the attack.[14] It was supposed that the strike force evaded detection by flying close together so that instead of appearing as a squadron of small fighters on radar, they appeared as a single large jet, and not much attention was given to them.
One of the Israeli pilots on the mission was Ilan Ramon, who would later become Israel’s first astronaut and died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003.”
****************************************************************
Good old American Aircraft and Ordinance did the deal on Osirak.
Aren’t you happy that an American Administration sold them that gear?
@Patvann:
You write:
I don’t believe that I stated a premise; I simply asked a question, which has still not been answered by anyone. Missy talked about Saddam’s bad sons (window dressing, not even close to being a salable justification, methinks). Everyone keeps talking about geopolitical economics. Someone brought up California’s financial mismanagement.
I never said or implied that our bases in the Mid-East are the entire motivation for Jihad, the motivation for which is a variety of things, from Hollywood (hey, they do have a bit of a point on this one, don’t they? Not that I’d blow up the Hollywood sign, much less people, but don’t you think that our own cinema, music, digital games, etc. have had more to do with the losses to the American national soul and way of life mourned by Glenn Beck on Saturday than Barack Obama ever did — or ever will? There’s nothing which can or should be done about it. It’s the price we pay for the 1st Amendment, which is central to who we are. But, if you look at it from the point of view of a very insular, socially conservative culture, you can see that this is an irritant).
Anyway, getting back to why Radical Islam doesn’t like us, I was saying that it’s everything from Hollywood to our support for Israel; it’s our support for dictators ranging from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi Royal family; most of all, though, it’s our presence on Islamic sand. It was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, after all, which got bin Laden into the game of Jihad in the first place, and Russia was neither a supporter of Israel nor an exporter of morally decadent cinema.
Patvann reassured me about all the means we have at our disposal to detect and interdict a nuclear weapon. O.K. That’s good, but, apparently, not good enough:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,459927,00.html
I’m simply asking a simple question, based on the philosophy expressed below:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13097/how_likely_is_a_nuclear_terrorist_attack_on_the_united_states.html
So my question remains: Does the presence of American military boots on the sand of the Middle East minimize the odds of a catastrophe or does it increase the odds of a catastrophe?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Old Trooper (#29), who wrote:
You don’t understand how it works here. The legislature can’t pass anything substantive, regarding spending or taxing, because of the requirements for a supermajority vote. A whole lot of the spending obligation is initiated by the voters, themselves, who seldom are presented with a spending proposal which they don’t like — in what other state would voters decide to fund a $3 billion stem cell research program, for example?
If you don’t like politicians running your government, be careful what you wish for. The “people” do a far worse job of it.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
testing…There seems to be trouble with the comments section on the is post
I’ll say it again Larry
Our bases have nothing to do with why they hate us, nor does it increase or decrease the odds of another attack.
I’m sorry if you don’t want to accept that, but I gave plenty of evidence within that comment to support my posit.
The meathead version is:
If we never had a base in the Middle East, they would have come up with another reason, so the answer is a resounding NO.
The odds of a nuclear attack is minuscule, and we are using lots of psychs to fleshout motivations.
-It would be nice however to get the leftists of the entertainment community to actually used their talents to show the bad-guys that we are unified against them.
They see that fracture, and they use it to their benefit. They are more aware of psych-strategy than our leftists want to see, and our agencies are struggling to make the best of that fact.
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim
May I offer you afew H. L. Mencken quotes?
“The People” generally are looking for that “Free Lunch” and as most of Us know, it does not exist. Someone always has to pick up the tab. I would not want to be in California when the “Free Lunch” runs out.
As I talk to my liberal/progressive friends (don’t have many of them!) I continue to be amazed by their lack of reasoning maturity. When my sons were very young, they focused on one thing like a rattle or a mobile. Nothing else mattered to them. They could see nothing else. They failed to understand relationships with other objects until they were a little older.
Liberals are like that. They focus on the shiny bauble and fail to understand that there may be danger in other directions. Not only do they focus on their idea, they defend their views like a child saying “because!” The problem is they pretend they are adults with mature reasoning powers!
They passed Obamacare, the stimulus and other bills ignoring the impact of their bills on the economy. My posts on this forum tried to show several liberals that the use of military force, military bases on foreign soil and military force projection are inseparateable. OT2 reminded me that these liberal posters were only looking to either tire me out or for me to slip and allow the liberal to use my words against me.
There are some very smart people who post here. I should take their advice. Maybe I should just let these liberals face into the wind and wet themselves.
RANDY: hi, YOU said, there’s some pretty smart people here, AND I say that yes and you are one of them. bye