If you want to end up punching walls, cursing like a madman and then finally understanding why we can't win against the terrorist then go here and read this piece of garbage from the Atlantic.
Question.
If someone kicks in your door, and your family is at risk do you wonder why they're there? Do you wonder about their ideology or motives? Or do you simply shoot them in the face, twice in the chest and keep shooting till you're out of ammo, do a quick reload and keep shooting?
This is why I utterly despise Washington academics. This is why our State Dept needs to be ignored by our Defense Dept and we need to (militarily) prepare for diplomatic failure at every stage.
The King of Jordan gets it. Thats why he acted and spoke decisively about the threat. Even Egypt gets it.
The current administration doesn't.
That's why we will have wild animals rampaging thru the US soon. They want to understand the criminals instead of stopping them before they can hurt others.
Rant over.
Man that's fucked up.
ReplyDeleteWhen pictures of this truck hitting unarmed protesters hit the internet, perhaps they will think about what they done.
that's the global economy mixed with greed for ya. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out but they just don't give a damn. its about money and markets. people don't matter.
ReplyDeleteWill take some time, but i will read it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find really funny are these military veterans going over there to volunteer and fight with the Peshmerga and YPG against ISIS. I could understand Peshmerga, but YPG is defined as a terrorist organization by NATO. Once those guys get back they're screwed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they don't plan on coming back.
ReplyDeleteA lot of former soldiers are pretty unhappy being former soldiers. More than anyone should be happy with are unemployed, alcoholic, drug addicted and / or homeless.
You don't get a much better fresh start.
Quick question just to play devil's advocate, what can we really do about ISIS? Does anyone want to stomach another land invasion? And then what do you do once you take their territory? My sense is we are in the midst of a multidecade implosion of the entire Islamic world that could easily get a lot worse. This could be one of those situations where there are no good options. I did some reading on Yemen recently. They are running out of oil, running out of water, and torn apart by sectarianism. That egg is so scrambled it can't be put back together again.
ReplyDeleteThis is the answer .
ReplyDeleteBut you does have a point... what to do after this is over.
ReplyDeleteyou do nothing. savages must be punished. the region purified. it will take them 100 years to rebuild but that will give the rest of the world peace while they try and rebuild. will many die? yes, but lets be honest. war is for realist, not idealist.
ReplyDeleteI think it is odd that the post keeps going "Ford Ford Ford" and glasses over the company that sold these to China: http://www.interarmored.com/en/contacts/locations
ReplyDeleteI was going to react a bit differently, but after reading others reactions:
ReplyDeleteThe only way one can seriously advocate nuking a whole region is if one believes human lives do not have equal worth. Americans ,Westerners, Dutchmen, or whoever are worth more then Middle Eastern people, WHATEVER their behavior.
No insult meant, but you do realize that is very close to the type of mindset we despise in extremists like those in ISIS. Judge people for where they were born, what they believe instead of what they DO!
In my opinion the most dangerous thing in the world is an extremist, be they Islamic, Russian Nationalist... or from our own neck of the woods!
This is out there but take it for what it's worth. I recently went to a Tesla Motors presentation in Manhattan where Elon Musk said in 15 years almost all new cars will be electric. The gigafactory that will build the battery packs (outside Reno) will also sell batteries to consumers as home electric storage systems that will connect to your solar panels. Under his vision, you as a homeowner will eventually create all the power you need purely with the sun, whick you will use to power your house and car. All of the technology exists and works well, it is purely a matter of bringing the price down. If that scenario plays out at all like he thinks the price of oil will implode to less than 20 bucks a barrel. That could bring down Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar ect ect. Without oil money to buy peace the Middle East could make things going on now seem to be calm in comparison.
ReplyDeletefor some reason the powers that be have determined that it isn't in the national interests to be free from Middle Eastern oil. we don't have to wait for some capitalist to swindle the American people out of their money. all we need to do is to explore, drill and extract the natural resources that are present here in our country. instead environmentalist on the East and West Coasts as well as Florida have restricted offshore drilling. they're doing the same with drilling on federal land.
ReplyDeleteThe nuke photo is just an example to what i really meant to say.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more in terms of more drilling. It is a no brainer, but I totally disagree the powers that be are stopping battery powered cars. Venture capitalists and the government have spent tens of billions in the last decade working on wind, solar, batteries, ect. The cost of solar has gone down massively in the last 4 years and is getting closer and closer to parity with conventional fuels. When that happens the demand will go up exponentially year after year. Look at the cost per watt in this chart http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdiamandis/2014/09/02/solar-energy-revolution-a-massive-opportunity/ My boss has the Tesla Model S, which I have driven. It is amazing, but it is also a $100k car. The battery pack alone costs 25k. The model 3 comes out in 2017. 200 mile range for 35k before government incentives. It will be very interesting to see how well it sells.
ReplyDeleteSo the lives of all the Soldiers and Marines that have been lost by the US to bring civilization to Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing? all the heartache and pain experienced by the families is nothing compared to the Iraqi's and Afghanistani's?
ReplyDeleteeither destroy it or let it destroy itself. but i am TIRED of getting pulled into the tar baby that is the Middle East and the STUPID tribalism that IS the region.
i'll say it again. war is not for idealist. they are ill equipped to wage or win it. more people die for lack of decisive action than ever from properly applied brute force. especially when it comes to savages. we wouldn't even be talking about the region except for their unthinkable barbarity. instead of fighting back you would instead have us open our doors, welcome them in and sleep while they're in the other room waiting to slit our throats?
maybe in your house, but in mine, i'll shoot them in my yard, drag their bodies to my truck and feed the alligators by dumping them in the bayou.
That is actually the beauty of Musk's vision. If we didn't need oil, we would do what we do in regards to the deadliest conflict of the last 15 years, the tribal battles in Central Africa:ignore it. If we could get to the point where we don't worry about needing oil we can sit back and let these idiots kill each other.
ReplyDeletebut thats the point. we don't need Musk's vision. we just need national will. my point is that we could be energy independent today. if the Federal govt and the American people actually considered US invovlement in the Middle East as hazardous as I do then we would be free from that regions stupidity today.
ReplyDeletebut we aren't. and the bankers, govt and globalist like it that way.
No. Oil can't go below 30 today because the oil production growth we have had isn't economic there. So under the Sol plan we open up Anwar, offshore, everything..crude still would not go below 30 because it wouldn't be economic and you haven't touched the demand side of the equation. To get a total collapse in oil will require an entirely new transportation energy infrastructure.
ReplyDeletewait you're switching horses here. i'm not talking about lower oil prices i'm talking about energy independence from the Middle East. to make it work we'd have to embargo....take all our oil off the market. the rest of the world might be screwed but we'd be sitting pretty
ReplyDeleteyou cannot embargo the Middle East. That would start a war with China. Energy independence could be achieved with oil north of 75. That's realistic over the next few years, but you are missing your best point. The Middle East is a tar baby, we have to disengage somehow with a long term strategy to move towards either electric, natural gas, or hydrogen cars. If we did that we could sit back and drink beer while watching the savages go at it. Solar prices are dropping 20 percent a year. I really think in 4 years they will hit grid parity and then the world will start to change.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I rather "democracy" not get rolling in China too much for now. The average Joe Chinaman is very proud and nationalistic and can be counted on to cause trouble just to show how big his balls are. Turn it into a voting system and popular policies system and you're going to be very much closer to a shooting war. At least the fat cats currently in charge have a vested interest in keeping things peaceful to rake in the big bucks, but the average Chinese isn't as plugged in to the global economy as their leaders, so won't be as reluctant as them to take shots at Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, the US etc. And I mean the "take shots at" literally. Their average citizen believes in manifest destiny and isn't afraid to show it.
ReplyDeleteUntil iSIS drew publicity with its head-chopping, it was a part of the US divide-and-conquer strategy. And it possibly still is, if they can manipulate it. I wrote about it here.
ReplyDeleteHow is that funny?
ReplyDeleteFirst of , you do not really react to my post. Where is the flaw in my comparison? or is there non?
ReplyDeleteSecondly: of course the lives of all soldiers and marines matter, what ever the reason is politicians send them in to battle for.. they end up fighting for US and standing guard for our freedoms.
I am however not so sure they went to Iraq or Afghanistan to bring civilization. Revenge, power, oil all come to mind, or maybe a genuine believe it would make the world safer..
I tend to believe Bush Sr, Colin Powel and Schwarzkopf were right when they refused to occupy Iraq because it was a no win situation. I will also admit I did not agree with them at the time, I wanted them to go in and remove Sadam, but reality has shown these men were sadly right back then.
As far as war not being for idealists.. sure, but it should at least be done realistically!
Realistically your comparison about 'them' coming in your yard is flawed. It mostly is us being in theirs. As far as the terrorists are concerned, you will not stop them this way.I dare to say you make it worst.
You are right about one thing, a possible solution is to stop any involvement over there. That should involve sale of weapons and political pressure and will inevitably mean a big decline in US/Western power across the globe, but it will ...eventually.. in a few decades .. stop them from caring about us enough to want to send terrorist. Maybe after they destroy Israel.
Let me rephrase that: not funny, more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I'm getting out of the Navy soon and I'm seriously considering a career as a war correspondent. I would like to travel over there see if I could fall in with one unit with a camera and a Go Pro. Part of me understands why they went over there since the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan seemed to disillusion a lot of veterans about fighting in war under the American flag. Both wars were more or less occupations and there were no good guys on either side. The insurgencies were pure evil and the governments we tried to prop up to keep the peace after we left were filled with corruption and lacked the will to fight when it mattered most (though I have heard some exceptions from guys in Afghanistan regarding some Afghan security forces that they're training).
The war against ISIS has a lot less moral ambiguity than any previous conflict for the past couple decades. ISIS has some very clear beliefs that we in the west can easily associate with evil and them raping women, enslaving children, and slaughtering civilians is something that pulls on the strings of many American veterans since a good portion of them (I'm willing to be most of them) envisioned that when they went to war they would be fighting to stop such things.
It's hard to stomach for most, but I really like the fact that a bunch of soldiers from the west went to go fight ISIS and I'd really like to film them and get pictures of their efforts.
I agree and thank you for the clarification, I and all of my buddies would like to think that the scarifies made by our brothers and sisters were left to better stewards, but unfortunately we live in an era mired by an utter lack of leadership on all accounts through out our government and military, hopefully your future reports will have an impact and inspire others with the strength to change the system. Be Safe and Semper Fi! Wil
ReplyDeletebetter stewards? in my dreams Will. i'm looking at your president giving a speech and all i can think is that the guy should have stayed teaching college. he is so far over his head when it comes to the role of commander in chief that its sickening.
ReplyDeletecall me what you like but the guy is losing it. by the time his term is over we'll be lucky if WW3 hasn't started.