Comments Posted By Pro Cynic
Displaying 11 To 20 Of 20 Comments
IS THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIALIST POWER AND DOES IT MATTER?
So, what's your point?...
There seems to have been a bit of a foreign policy kerfuffle involving and Daniel Drezner, some of which was related by Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse, about whether American foreign policy is "imperialist." (You can go through the posts yourself ...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 21.08.2007 @ 17:40
TIGHTENING THE GORDIAN KNOT OF WAR
busboy33 said:
"#3)'Sanctions did nothing to force Hussein (who was much more pragmatic than the Mad Mullahs) to comply with what we wanted, why should much weaker sanctions get us what we want with Iran?â€
Depends on what you thought the sanctions were supposed to do. If you were expecting Saddam to renounce his dictatorship and give all Iraqis a free Hersheys Bar, then no, they didn’t work. If they were to keep him from developing WMDs and/or nukes and/or re-invading his neighbors, then they worked perfectly.'"
Um, not exactly. Even the Iraq Survey Group said his weapons development programs were in place, and that was while ignoring all the thousands of gallons of pesticide (WMD precursors) he had hidden in camouflaged, guarded bunkers in the desert. In addition, sanctions were being evaded by Saddam and his allies in France and Russia.
"5 – 'Although you don’t come out and say it straightaway, your belief that our troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan somehow prevent us from taking on Iran. If we were to list the three (Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan) in order of the threat to America, how can you (or anyone) not put keeping Iran from getting nukes at the top of the list? '
Kinda why us hippies were wondering why they hell we invaded Iraq. Afganistan made sense—Bin Laden was(is) there, and we want his head on a stick in Times Square. Saddam was a contained threat (we were still flying fighter jets in his airspace and bombing him at will).
"You suggest abandoning Afganistan. Putting aside the moral consequnces of creating a giantic turd pile then leaving someone else to deal with the smell, what makes you think the small force we have in Afganistsan would be enough to invade Iran (and not get slaughtered?). We’d have to bail on Iraq as well to even come close to an effective force. You willing to walk away from there? Remeber, if you do, the terrorists win."
Wrong again on your history of the invasion of Iraq. Saddam was not contained by sanctions. He was contained by the presence of 150,000 US troops in Kuwait, whose presence could not be maintained indefinitely. Again, the sanctions were ineffective. Ever heard of "Oil-for-Food"?
And don't get me started on Saddam's connections to terrorists, including al Qaida, which were confirmed by the Senate Committee on Intelligence.
What I would suggest, however, is that you look at a map. Assume we, as you seem to wish, had no presence in Iraq. From where exactly, would we strike Iran (a proposition in which I must disagree with your esteemed host in supporting)? We cannot strike from Afghanistan. We do not have enough manpower there to do the trick, nor can we ever -- Afghanistan is landlocked, so we are dependent on its neighbors for deployment there, guaranteeing a small presence at best.
Nor could we strike from Kuwait -- Kuwait shares no border with Iran; it is separated from Iran by the strip of Iraq that borders the Shatt al-Arab waterway. That strip is a limited area, which could be easily sealed off by Iran. So special forces operations would be severely limited, if not impossible.
We could strike from carriers, but that limits our hopes to air strikes, and puts the carriers in harms way. Teh loss of even one, a very real possibility given Iran's missile capabilities, gravely impacts our power projection capabilities and hurts the US on the world stage.
Note that all this would be takling place with Saddam still in Iraq and trying to complicate any action against Iran as much as he could. He hates us more than he hates them.
In other words, if not for our presence in Iraq, our ability to take any military action against Iran would be severely limited. That's probably what you want, but it is not a good prescription for protecting our security.
Because we are in Iraq, Iran is just as vulnerable as we are in Iraq. BTW -- don't get me started on how we can walk and chew gum at the same time, too. We'd be better able to handle Iran with our Iraq and Afghan commitments if Donald Rumsfeld hadn't been an idiot with the size of the military, but we can manage it.
The fact remains that negiotiations with Iran have been fruitless, used merely as a delaying tactic by them to continue to develop nuclear weapons. We have gained absolutely nothing from the negotiations and even look like idiots in the process.
The Iranian government has no incentive to negotiate with us without the very real threat of force. The US has never used such force on the Iranian regime since its 1979 inception, despite provocations too numerous to mention.
It is time that changed.
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 16.08.2007 @ 14:25
Rick,
I don't know that prosecution won't deter others. It would send the MSM into hysterics, true. But I think the government would have the people behind them on this. Like i said before, the declining subscriptions and directors revolts among the MSM management do mean something, even if Pinch Sulzberger doesn't think so.
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 24.06.2006 @ 17:50
The problem with NOT going against them legally is that there sseems to be no other way to dissuade publication of such materials. The NYT's revenues are in serious decline and the Sulzberger's are facing a revolt on their board of directors, in large part because of the direction of the news coverage. If hitting them in the pocketbook and threatening their little empire is having such a negligible effect, there may be no choice but to prosecute.
I also must respectfuly disagree with the statement that such a prosecution would create a constitutional crisis. It would be a simple espionage case. Plus, if even the NYT itself can't make a compelling case for publication in it story, I doubt that other MSM outlets would be able to defend it.
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 24.06.2006 @ 09:57
Ripfest
So you can enjoy bloggers rightfully ripping the bad guys in the Tony Bruno tradition:
Investor's Business Daily (via Instapundit) rips John Kerry for consistently siding with America's enemies, a criticism that can be levelled against the nationa...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 24.06.2006 @ 09:48
SPINNING THEIR WAY TO DEFEAT IN NOVEMBER
Snatching defeat
Rick Moran has an excellent piece on how the Dems are hanging themselves with their reaction to Zarqawi's death, perhaps costing themselves any chance to regain the House this November.
As my idol Tony Bruno might say, it's not defeat, it's the s...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 11.06.2006 @ 13:17
ABRAMOFF SINGING, HASTERT DANCING
The GOP is in full meltdown
Right now, the national Republicans are in such complete Chernobyl meltdown that I don't know where to begin discussing it.
1. The stance taken by W and the Senate on illegal immigration is simply inexcusable. Power Line rips it apart here. It's a...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 25.05.2006 @ 21:03
AHMADINEJAD AND HIS LIBERAL TALKING POINTS
Can we just bomb these people already?
Wizbang and Rightwing Nuthouse have the scoop on the Iranian president's latest shenanigans. Seems like the mullahs learned much from our so-called loyal opposition. Too bad it ws all the wrong lessons, not that that does us any good.
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 10.05.2006 @ 23:45
CIA VS THE WHITE HOUSE: THE LONE PARTISAN?
The politics of the CIA leak cases
My job has been so crazy lately that I’ve barely been able to keep half-an-eye on the first firing as a result of a leak from the CIA: that of Mary McCarthy, fired for allegedly leaking the existence of a CIA operation where suspected terrorists were i...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 23.04.2006 @ 15:26
Kosovo California
Rick Moran trashes the illegal aliens demanding special rights here in the US, noting the irredentist element to it.
What is happening here is the first stages of what I will call the Kosovo Syndrome. Kosovo, as you may recall, is considered the cra...
Comment Posted By Pro Cynic On 28.03.2006 @ 22:32
