yet in the background are Pakistan, India, and Israel
That horse left the barn long ago. The Bush administration actually did put sanctions on Pakistan and India, but it was too late: they'd already developed actual, deployable nuclear weapons by the time we found out about them, so they eventually gave up.
And gloss right over the reality, the resulting steady increase in human-excreted slow poisons
What "increase?" Are you under the impression that natural gas and coal release comparable levels of toxins?
There is no "increase" in the excretion of poisons involved in the replacement of coal with natural gas (which is called "natural" gas to distinguish it from synthetic, manufactured gas). Such a transition represents an enormous reduction in the emission of toxics.
A couple of points: natural gas-fired power plants release half the GHG per unit of power that coal plants release. The gains from switching from coal to natural gas, as a transition while renewables ramp up, should not be understated.
Also, the EPA regulations that will put the coal industry out of business did not just drop from the sky. This is a deliberate effort by Obama's awesome EPA Director, Lisa Jackson. After she leaves office, she's going to mount the coal industry's head on the wall of her den.
North didn't work at the Pentagon, but at the National Security Council. There's a big difference. A Lt. Col. can, indeed, be a big wheel at the NSC, or even the White House, but there are so many stars at the Pentagon that nobody cares.
The similarities between this bombing and the ones we see in Baghdad raises the question of whether these guerrillas are linked or even the same. It has been reported that fighters once based in Iraq have flocked to Syria.
If that is the case, then we're talking about international jihadists. "Regime opponents" in Baghdad include disgruntled Baathists, al Qaeda types, and hard-line Shiites.
The Baathists certainly are not going to work to bring down the Baathist regime Syria. Ditto the Shiites, who are not going to work to bring down a regime that is viewed as defending the Shiite majority.
Therefore, if the people setting off bombs in Baghdad are the same as those setting off bombs in Syria, then the people setting off bombs in Baghdad are not the indigenous Iraqi opposition(s), but al Qaeda types.
If the Obama Administration were really sincere about wishing to resolve Iran’s nuclear issue through diplomatic means and without resorting to a devastating war, it would ease up the pressure on Iran prior to the next round of talks in Baghdad on 23 May, and give the negotiators a chance to reach a mutually beneficial resolution to the dispute.
In contrast, many Egyptian activists believe that the military attacked the Salafis for no reason
Maybe.
We've seen plenty of examples of security forces attacking protesters over the past year or so. In how many of those situations have more military personnel died then protesters, as happened here?
I was more than half convinced that all of the crowing about the "trove of intelligence" collected at bin Laden's compound was just a psy-ops program intended to scare al Qaeda members into bolting from their rabbit holes.
I guess not. They seem to have legitimately hit the jackpot.
When I was a volunteer for the Obama campaign, we Dems had high hopes for an expedient withdrawal.
Can I ask why you thought that? He spent the campaign talking about Afghanistan as the right war, the one we should have been fighting all along, and promising to devote more resources to it.
Why does your description of Obama's strategy leave out the two most important planks: the peace negotiations with the Taliban, and the gradual withdrawal?
You seem to be making the same mistake that the most hawkish of hawks make: the belief that talking peace and withdrawing from an occupied country is something to do when your policy has failed, as opposed to the way Obama has treated them in both Iraq and Afghanistan: as integral parts of his strategy.
The military component of Obama's strategy - the troop surge, the counter-insurgency - was only supposed to arrest the collapsing military situation he inherited when he came into office, and set the table from the same kind of negotiated exit he carried out in Iraq. On that front, we have promising ongoing negotiations, and a force that has shrunk by about 25% from its peak without a return to the rather desperate situation of 2009.
Your response to a piece about sections of the Israeli government coming out for the more-peaceful position advanced by President Obama is to laud the sanity in Israel, and contrast it to the "warrior President" Obama?
Amazing. There is literally nothing that sidetracks this talking point, is there?
The exports, and the substantial revenue stream they bring to the transitional government, are another hopeful sign that the new state is becoming established and will have the wherewithal to develop new institutions and the economy.
Here's hoping.
Still, I worry about the Oil Curse. Are there any good examples of single-export, oil-rich countries that have managed to avoid it?
Since I can't read the document and get the tone, could the local Afghan newspaper be asking "What is this supposed to accomplish? Do you want the Americans to stay longer?" as a way of criticizing the Taliban?
There is a cottage industry of non-Muslims holding forth on Islamic doctrines. You sometimes see them arguing with actual Muslims, claiming to understand "Islam" better than those who practice it on a daily basis. As if the heart of a religion is what an outsider with no instruction gleans from scripture several hundred years after the fact.
Interesting. So Egypt after Mubarak's overthrow and the implementation of this political process is broken, while before it was not broken? They broke it when they overthrew Mubarak, and the actual, real, competitive politics we see now are "broken."
If you told the Syrian people that their country will look like this after they overthrow Assad, I think most of them would take the deal.
I would have enjoyed nothing more than to see a doctrinaire, extremist Salafist win the presidential election, attempt to govern in strict accordance with his campaign rhetoric and the positions his movement has been arguing for the past decade, and then face the voters in the next election.
I'm sure it would be a valuable educational experience for all involved.
It's probably not a wise move for you or me to speculate on what, exactly, the Iranian and UN positions were behind closed doors - what the sticking points were, what each side's bottom line was, and what movement has happened.
It is being put in the uncomfortable position of being the chief country defying the United States over the latter’s unilateral boycott of Iranian oil.
Huh. I've been using the word "unilateral" wrongly for years. I never it meant "cooperatively imposed with every country in the European Union."
The flaw in the west’s case is that it is hypocritical as long as the Israelis have some 400 nuclear warheads.
This argument makes any efforts at stopping or rolling back nuclear proliferation impossible, if it is taken seriously as a guide to action. Every country on the verge of breakout could say "But what about Country X?"
the U.S. Government to admit that it had been funding the opposition in Syria- in other words, the Syrian revolt was not part of the Arab Spring, but a U.S. inspired attempt to overthrow the government of Syria.
That's quite the leap in logic. I wonder, was the American Revolution "a French inspired attempt" to win the independence of the North American colonies from England?
The notion that the uprisings in Syria were, uniquely in the entire Middle East and North Africa region, unrelated to any actual movement among the citizens of a dictatorship to liberate themselves, seems rather far-fetched. It is possible for a legitimate, indigenous liberation movement to win the support of other countries.
Madame Secreatary, how about demanding that Palestinians be able to keep their land,farm,build homes, import medicine and live without fear of oppression.
Could you please explain to me what it is wrong for Hillary Clinton, and anyone else, to want the violence in Syria to stop? And why she isn't supposed to try to make that happen, for a reason involving Palestine?
I find your comment little different from the raft of "But what about black-on-black crime?" comments coming from right-wingers who wish to get people to stop talking about the Trayvon Martin case.
We can play the "Don't talk about that, talk about this" game until the end of time.
I have a crazy thought: one's list of the top three "enemies" or threats to the United States should include at least one party that has killed at least one American in the last thirty years.
We should advise both Afghanistan and Pakistan that we will depart militarily, and the financial aid spigot will be turned off. in other words, we will leave them alone to determine their own fate.
...just like we did in Iraq. I remember when people, left and right, were assuring me that Iraq was going to "blow up" and "fall apart" as soon as we left.
Not so much, as it's turned out. Hopefully, this strategy of an announced withdrawal will work out as well in Afghanistan. I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it, but then, what choice do we really have?
But then that’s never been what the whole exercise was all about, if you dig down, has it?
Initially, it was. If you read about the light-footprint, CIA-led phase of the war up until Tora Bora, that's exactly what the exercise was about. The United States initially went in very light, and conducted very targeted missions. Do you remember who captured Kabul? Hint: not American or NATO troops.
Unlike the Iraq War, the main force war and occupation were not a part of this mission from the beginning. Afghanistan is more an example of mission creep.
I haven't seen anyone dismiss any of the possibilities you mention.
Now, you're turn: isn't it just possible that someone not in the ANA can get his hands on a uniform?
BTW, I'm not sure you know this, but pro- and anti-Taliban Afghans have been shooting at each since well before the United States became involved. No, really!
Someone who joined the ANA legitimately, and had a change of heart.
The rest of your comment reads like an excuse not to bother trying to know the truth, so you can choose your own adventure. Kindly go back and read my comment, read your reply, and note which one of us has made up a story he wants to hear, vs. which one of us is trying to understand the truth.
Interesting. This would mean that the people who ran this article are more concerned with boosting domestic morale, and with generating using Americans' economic concerns to drum up opposition to the sanctions, than with garnering sympathy from the rest of the world. Publicizing this story necessarily means sacrificing the claim that the sanctions are hurting the country, by putting out information that they are actually helping the country.
BTW, "Iran" is a big, complicated place with a very complicated political system. The phrase Iran - AKA "regime" suggests a simplistic unity that just does not apply. It wouldn't even be accurate to call the sources of the Javan article "Iran's intelligence community," much less "Iran."
Why do you imagine that the words "simple fact" refute the observation that Iran is going out of its way to tell the world?
"But it's true" is not an answer to the question "Why are they doing this?" Do you think that the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence agency puts out press releases to highlight everything they think is "a simple fact?"
Whether we're talking about "white" information (straight, accurate facts), "grey" (spin on the facts), or "black" (lies), intelligence agencies put out information for a reason. "It's a simple fact" doesn't cut it as an explanation for why an intelligence agency is saying something.
Yes, if the actual economic gain from it were less important to you than the psycho/soft-war value of publicizing such outcomes.
But even then, you would have to conclude that the argument about the sanctions harming your country and hurting innocent people was worth sacrificing in order to publicize this outcome.
Which scenario seems more likely to you:
1) Harsh international sanctions on a country's largest export harm that country's economy, and drawing attention to that harm is a more effective PR move than claiming the sanctions are actually helping you, or
2) Harsh international sanctions on a country's largest export help that country's economy, and accusing those who imposed the sanctions of incompetence is more effective than accusing them of starving innocent people.
If you were an organ of the Iranian government, and you actually believed that, for the first time in human history, being placed under international sanctions had actually helped your country's economy, would you go out of your way to tell the world?
The role of the West in helping the rebels in the military confrontation is pretty easy to understand, but what is the West supposed to be doing, that it is not doing, about the problems of governance and politics that you mention?
The problems you mention - except for the detention of prisoners of war, which (less than six months after the end of hostilities) doesn't seem to me to be that big a problem - stem from the new government lacking the reach to impose order and civil authority. The West is sending aid and providing the sort of official recognition intended to consolidate a government's writ. Where do you see the West's actions coming up short in this sphere? I doubt you want to see foreign troops sent in to restore order or curb the militias, so where does that leave us?
It is a bit amusing to see so many people who eagerly proclaim their adherence to fundamentally revolutionary doctrines - Marxism, anti-imperialism - act shocked, shocked! at the existence of revolutionary violence in a country in which a popular uprising deposed an oppressive dictator by force of arms.
This is what "Power to the People" looks like when the People win, folks. This is a step in the process of overthrowing a dictatorship and replacing it with a democracy. If you don't see any path from post-revolution anarchy and violence to a civil, functioning democracy - if you think that the existence of a post-revolutionary, pre-consolidation situation delegitimizes the uprising and its use of force - then you have no business proclaiming yourself to be a supporter of popular uprisings, or of any doctrine that embraces them.
Under the TNC, the violence is not just less, but there is a path to ending it. Under Gadhaffi, violence and oppression at greater levels than this was the plan.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the inclusion of the Sadrist protests in this list.
Public protests and even strikes are how politics are supposed to work in a democratic system. Their presence is quite a bit different from the al Qaeda bombings.
Except for being covered on the nightly news every single day, and being discussed by all of the leading presidential candidates every single day, the Afghanistan War is almost invisible in America.
Also, if inflation of the American dollar was causing oil prices to go up, it would be causing prices to go up across the board. They're not: inflation was 2.9% last month.
Food and, especially, oil prices are subject to price spikes unrelated to the monetary situation.
"Those who developed this story" had access to a trove of classified documents about bin Laden and his actions which you have never seen, and seem to disagree with you.
"In fact, most of what we hear about Al-Queda is their prevented plots."
No, Some Guy, however much it might appeal to your self-regard, the onus to prove that Russia and China are motivated by self-interest does not fall on me. To any sane person, attributing the behavior of those regimes to amoral self-interest is an obvious default position, and it is those who wish to claim that they are actually just looking out for the well-being of the world who need to come up with some pretty good evidence.
You give the game the away in your first five words: you're going to believe anything, and disbelieve anything, based on its convenience in making the case you want to make about intervening in Syria.
You might have noticed - might have, in some alternate reality, but didn't in this one - that I didn't write a word about the wisdom of intervention. I wrote about the motives of Vladimir Putin and the PRC government. For you to drag in the policy question and attribute a position to me shows just how determined you are to say anything, think anything, if it HELPS THE CAUSE.
Congratulations. You are now defending Vladimir Putin as a moral exemplar, whose intent should be assumed to be pure and decent, and throwing poo and people who don't take your George Bush-like naivete towards him as a given. Did you look into his eyes and see his soul too?
IMO all the big actors, US, UK, Russia & China are all led by swine. Yeah, right, that's why you decided it was so very vital to rush into the breach when someone dared question Russia and China's intentions.
I'm with you. The question of what is actually to be done by an intervening military was much more easily answered in Libya than in Syria.
I hate this feeling of standing by helplessly, but I haven't seen anyone explain, realistically, what we could accomplish with an intervention.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the doctrine that a government gives up its right to complain about its sovereignty when it starts making the streets run with blood, but hope is not a plan.
If we substitute “Bahrain” for “Syria” and consequently “US” for Russia, etc
...then we're eliding the difference between a few dozens death a few tens of thousands of deaths in order to deflect attention away from a large scale crime against humanity.
Perhaps because the US & UK continually take a mile when given an inch.
Yes, that must be it. That must explain why Vladimir Putin and the regime that repeatedly crushes Tibetan independence and domestic dissent are voting to protect their ally, Assad. Not because military bases or weapons markets, but because the mean old United States forced them to stand aside and allow the civilians of Homs to be massacred. I'm sure that they, like you, weep into their pillows every night over the fate of the Syrian people, but gosh darnit, whaddygonna do?
Obviously, it's only the corporately corporate United States (did I mention corporate?) that can ever justly be accused of acting in an immoral manner in the pursuit of its geopolitical interests. Moral exemplars like the governments of Russia and China would certainly never do anything like that, so whenever we find ourselves wondering why they're behaving in a way that looks like callous, greedy coddling of a client state, what we should immediate do is start dragging up stale tropes about the United States.
Because Lord knows, the United States is really the cause of everything the Russian and Chinese governments do. End of story.
A very interesting, thoughtful take on the matter.
The Iraq War really dealt our military personnel a double-whammy. We started a second major war, which greatly increased the number of troop rotations that were needed; and we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, allowing the war to linger for years, neither pulling out nor committing to finish the job, for years on end, thus guaranteeing that the number of rotations would go much higher.
Absent Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's obsession with invading Iraq, we would have finished up in Afghanistan in 2-4 years. At the high end, that's four war-years during the Bush and Obama administrations. But because of the decision to invade Iraq, that goes up to 20 war-years so far, and probably 22 by the time all is said and done.
Actually, the administration announced 2014 as the end of the war two and a half years ago, and recently said that the date might be moved up to next year.
This isn't "the longest war in American history" because the current administration is ramping down gradually instead of quickly. It's the longest war in American history because we spent the seven years after Tora Bora lingering around with no real purpose or exit strategy.
This very insightful, interesting post is going to be ripped to shreds, because it postulates that it is a bad thing for the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons capability, and ascribes motives to Israel that go beyond an Iago-like thirst for doing evil for its own sake.
They both – as well as the reconciliation government that he described as a “salvation government” – consider themselves as fedayeen that aspire to end their political careers with an accomplishment in the service of Yemen.
What does this mean? Is the writer saying that the president and prime minister believe that their "accomplishment in the service of Yemen" will end their political careers, and that they are like holy warriors who are willing to die for victory?
I think there are a lot of Republicans who answer poll questions strategically, instead of answering what they really think.
These people think that the "appeaser" Barack Obama, who they are constantly criticizing for being soft on Iran, is going to start a war with Iran? That doesn't make any sense.
This is all about negotiations - the words and actions of both sides. This is going to get worked out eventually around the bargaining table. What everyone is doing now is jockeying for a favorable position and trying to put forward the strongest face possible.
In that light, it doesn't bother me that Khamenei is, as the kids say, frontin'. He's willing to sit down at the table, or have someone sit there for him, and public bluster is just a part of that.
I think a more likely explanation, Yusuf, is that you are seeing the politics of other people through the lens of your own political orientation, and reducing the complexities of what other people are saying by looking at them only in terms of a thumbs up or down for your own politics.
Caring about Sonia Sotomoyor, and caring about racially-charged attack politics, are two different things.
It's true that different Latino groups have different organizations and issues, but none of them are cook with anything that looks like Latino-bashing.
It's similar to the occasional attempts by Republicans to appeal to black voters with anti-immigrant appeals. It might be true that a certain set of black voters don't like the Central American immigrants who have begun moving into their neighborhoods and "taking their jobs," but you know what those black voters like even less? Some redneck conservative campaigning on a racist platform. Whatever his target that day, anyone who has been or who can imagine himself being in the cross hairs of that type of rhetoric knows what it sounds like, and doesn't take kindly to those who employ it.
Rule of thumb…whatever McCain says you should do (Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran)…do the opposite and you’ll always do the right thing.
Nah, John McCain isn't like an opposite-facing compass, but a stuck one. He doesn't just point north when you're facing south, but points north all the time.
Imagine that there was a war that was so just and necessary that even JT McPhee thought the United States needed to fight it. Do you think John McCain would oppose that war? Of course not! He'd be doing what he always does.
The deal with John McCain is that his response to every war is exactly the same, no matter what the actual situation is. The only conclusion we can draw from John McCain's support for a war is that it is, in fact, a war.
The difference between Syria and Libya isn't the scale of the problem. As you say, things in Syria have now reached the same level of awful that confronted the world in Libya at this time last year.
The difference is in the likelihood of success. The physical and military situation in Syria makes it unlikely that an intervention could actually succeed in improving the humanitarian situation. When you're talking about whether a war is just or not, the likelihood of success goes beyond being a mere pragmatic concern, to a moral imperative that has to be met.
One rather obvious difference between the current situation and the runup to the Iraq War occurs to me:
This time, it is the doves who are ignoring what the UN weapons inspectors are saying, because they don't want to hear it.
I wonder, are those crafty Israeli agents leading the IAEA around by the nose, too?
I found it very frustrating, back when the truth came out about the Iraqi WMDs, that the people who got the question to completely wrong were still treated as serious, important voices in our foreign policy debates. I wonder how our side of the aisle will hold up if faced with similar developments.
to the peaceful use and development of Nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
Not only has President Obama no doubt seen that language in the treaty, but also the language requiring signatories to make their nuclear programs available for inspection to ensure their continued compliance.
As opposed to declaring off-limits facilities in which the IAEA suspect nuclear weapons-related operations.
But who cares if the professional nuclear weapons inspectors sent by the UN to monitor Iran's compliance are concerned? I read on the internet that they hare no reason to be.
Just popping in to note that, for all the sound and fury, no one has answered Bill's point about the relationship between sanctions and aggression in Japan in the 1940s.
Since when have international law and the Law of War considered sanctions an Act of War? The sanctions the U.S. and the E.U. had in place against Burma (Myanmar) for years were just as onerous as those against Iran. Do you consider our sanctions against Burma an “Act of War”?
Just popping in to note that nobody has answered Bill's questions.
So, when you say "AIPAC moutpiece," are you referring to him warning Israel not to carry out a strike? Or to making public statements, and more, in favor of the Arab Spring uprisings?
Perhaps to the "leak" about the Mossad conducting a false-flag operation to recruit anti-Iranian forces?
Oh, I know - you're thinking about his condemnations of the assassination of Iran scientists.
Oh, yeah, he's quite the AIPAC mouthpiece. Anyone except him - say, John McCain or George Bush or Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney of Joe Lieberman - would totally stand up to Likud more than Barack Obama.
Name my a nation that doesn't feel that it has moral authority over those nations that are hostile to it. What you've done here is note that Israelis, like the rest of humanity, have nationalist or tribal sentiments.
I hardly think that "the problem" is to be found there.
it is remarkable how little swayed Israeli Jews have been by these extravagant positions
Or Americans Jews.
I don't find it remarkable, though, because these extravagant positions are not formulated to appeal to people who actually have to live in the Middle East, or who feel kinship with those who do. They are formulated to appeal to people who want a big ol' war against the Muslims, whether for Biblical or geopolitical reasons, and who view the Jews of Israel merely as cannon fodder in that war.
If Israel attacks Iran, Assad would almost certainly exploit heightened anti-Israeli sentiment to squash the opposition.
Just like the Iranian government itself did when the United States attacked Iraq. People forget, but in the years immediately before the invasion of Iraq, there were protests in Iran so powerful that the government felt the need to imprison some of its own security personnel for killing protesters. Then, when the clouds of war gathered, the Iranian public rallied 'round the flag, and the protests petered out.
At that point, the balance of power will get closer to an equilibrium and there’s a glimmer of hope in reaching a fair and lasting modus vivendi with the Pals and their neighbors.
Has it generally been your experience, Travis, that countries which feel themselves to be threatened and declining in relative power become more eager to make peace with their neighbors, and more respectful of internal minorities seen to pose a security threat?
It seems to me that the reverse is true - that countries which feel secure are more willing to accommodate and treat with competitors.
It doesn't actually refute Glenn's argument to point out the Israel preempted an attack. Preempting an attack is still a defensive action.
Now, if you could demonstrate that Israel was not about to be attacked when it launched preemptive strikes, that would refute Glenn's point, but you don't actually have to wait for the muggers to stab you in order to defend yourself.
"...without any reference to the long standing and ongoing wars of attrition and acts of wanton anti-civilian terrorism initiated by Israel’s Arab neighbors."
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were launching anti-civilian terrorism against Israelis? Really?
You do understand that the wars Prof. Cole references, with the exception of 2009, weren't launched against the Palestinians, right?
If anything, these figures understate Israel's superiority. Israel's modern tanks are roughly equivalent to a US Abrams, while Iran's are Soviet-era. Israeli military personnel have a similar advantage on a man-to-man basis over the Iranians Ditto aircraft, ditto APCs.
JFK may or may not have kept advisors in Vietnam, but your quotes marks implies there was not a difference between advisors and ground troops.
You will frequently see this pseudo-sophisticated conflation on the internet. Because LBJ dishonestly described certain combat troops as "advisors," it has become an article of faith among certain segments of anti-interventionists that the term "military advisors" can only ever be, and has only ever been, used as a misrepresentation of the mission of combat troops.
Whatever you think about the American effort to prevent North Vietnam from taking over the South - personally, I think it was a bad idea from the beginning - it is not a war of aggression to defend an ally that has been attacked by its neighbor.
Also, Kennedy did not authorize the coup. His administration seems to have been asleep at the switch, and confronted with a fait accompli.
One of the most frequent intellectual failings of the anti-imperialist left is to assume that whoever the most violent, most anti-American faction in any given country is, by definition, the legitimate voice of the people of that society.
It's really just another unprincipled expression of the "Enemy of my enemy" mindset, but with the very special bonus of defining the United States as "my enemy."
Just because someone shoots an American doesn't mean they're the good guys.
© 2024 All Rights Reserved
yet in the background are Pakistan, India, and Israel
That horse left the barn long ago. The Bush administration actually did put sanctions on Pakistan and India, but it was too late: they'd already developed actual, deployable nuclear weapons by the time we found out about them, so they eventually gave up.
And gloss right over the reality, the resulting steady increase in human-excreted slow poisons
What "increase?" Are you under the impression that natural gas and coal release comparable levels of toxins?
There is no "increase" in the excretion of poisons involved in the replacement of coal with natural gas (which is called "natural" gas to distinguish it from synthetic, manufactured gas). Such a transition represents an enormous reduction in the emission of toxics.
A couple of points: natural gas-fired power plants release half the GHG per unit of power that coal plants release. The gains from switching from coal to natural gas, as a transition while renewables ramp up, should not be understated.
Also, the EPA regulations that will put the coal industry out of business did not just drop from the sky. This is a deliberate effort by Obama's awesome EPA Director, Lisa Jackson. After she leaves office, she's going to mount the coal industry's head on the wall of her den.
North didn't work at the Pentagon, but at the National Security Council. There's a big difference. A Lt. Col. can, indeed, be a big wheel at the NSC, or even the White House, but there are so many stars at the Pentagon that nobody cares.
"Romneynejad" is just all kinds of awesome.
The similarities between this bombing and the ones we see in Baghdad raises the question of whether these guerrillas are linked or even the same. It has been reported that fighters once based in Iraq have flocked to Syria.
If that is the case, then we're talking about international jihadists. "Regime opponents" in Baghdad include disgruntled Baathists, al Qaeda types, and hard-line Shiites.
The Baathists certainly are not going to work to bring down the Baathist regime Syria. Ditto the Shiites, who are not going to work to bring down a regime that is viewed as defending the Shiite majority.
Therefore, if the people setting off bombs in Baghdad are the same as those setting off bombs in Syria, then the people setting off bombs in Baghdad are not the indigenous Iraqi opposition(s), but al Qaeda types.
If the Obama Administration were really sincere about wishing to resolve Iran’s nuclear issue through diplomatic means and without resorting to a devastating war, it would ease up the pressure on Iran prior to the next round of talks in Baghdad on 23 May, and give the negotiators a chance to reach a mutually beneficial resolution to the dispute.
I want to buy a car from this man.
In contrast, many Egyptian activists believe that the military attacked the Salafis for no reason
Maybe.
We've seen plenty of examples of security forces attacking protesters over the past year or so. In how many of those situations have more military personnel died then protesters, as happened here?
I was more than half convinced that all of the crowing about the "trove of intelligence" collected at bin Laden's compound was just a psy-ops program intended to scare al Qaeda members into bolting from their rabbit holes.
I guess not. They seem to have legitimately hit the jackpot.
When I was a volunteer for the Obama campaign, we Dems had high hopes for an expedient withdrawal.
Can I ask why you thought that? He spent the campaign talking about Afghanistan as the right war, the one we should have been fighting all along, and promising to devote more resources to it.
Why does your description of Obama's strategy leave out the two most important planks: the peace negotiations with the Taliban, and the gradual withdrawal?
You seem to be making the same mistake that the most hawkish of hawks make: the belief that talking peace and withdrawing from an occupied country is something to do when your policy has failed, as opposed to the way Obama has treated them in both Iraq and Afghanistan: as integral parts of his strategy.
The military component of Obama's strategy - the troop surge, the counter-insurgency - was only supposed to arrest the collapsing military situation he inherited when he came into office, and set the table from the same kind of negotiated exit he carried out in Iraq. On that front, we have promising ongoing negotiations, and a force that has shrunk by about 25% from its peak without a return to the rather desperate situation of 2009.
Your response to a piece about sections of the Israeli government coming out for the more-peaceful position advanced by President Obama is to laud the sanity in Israel, and contrast it to the "warrior President" Obama?
Amazing. There is literally nothing that sidetracks this talking point, is there?
The exports, and the substantial revenue stream they bring to the transitional government, are another hopeful sign that the new state is becoming established and will have the wherewithal to develop new institutions and the economy.
Here's hoping.
Still, I worry about the Oil Curse. Are there any good examples of single-export, oil-rich countries that have managed to avoid it?
Replacing nuclear plants with wind power does nothing to reduce climate change.
Awesome, so you'll make sure there are jobs available for them?
Since I can't read the document and get the tone, could the local Afghan newspaper be asking "What is this supposed to accomplish? Do you want the Americans to stay longer?" as a way of criticizing the Taliban?
There is a cottage industry of non-Muslims holding forth on Islamic doctrines. You sometimes see them arguing with actual Muslims, claiming to understand "Islam" better than those who practice it on a daily basis. As if the heart of a religion is what an outsider with no instruction gleans from scripture several hundred years after the fact.
Interesting. So Egypt after Mubarak's overthrow and the implementation of this political process is broken, while before it was not broken? They broke it when they overthrew Mubarak, and the actual, real, competitive politics we see now are "broken."
If you told the Syrian people that their country will look like this after they overthrow Assad, I think most of them would take the deal.
I would have enjoyed nothing more than to see a doctrinaire, extremist Salafist win the presidential election, attempt to govern in strict accordance with his campaign rhetoric and the positions his movement has been arguing for the past decade, and then face the voters in the next election.
I'm sure it would be a valuable educational experience for all involved.
It's probably not a wise move for you or me to speculate on what, exactly, the Iranian and UN positions were behind closed doors - what the sticking points were, what each side's bottom line was, and what movement has happened.
Maybe we'll know in 20 years.
It is being put in the uncomfortable position of being the chief country defying the United States over the latter’s unilateral boycott of Iranian oil.
Huh. I've been using the word "unilateral" wrongly for years. I never it meant "cooperatively imposed with every country in the European Union."
The flaw in the west’s case is that it is hypocritical as long as the Israelis have some 400 nuclear warheads.
This argument makes any efforts at stopping or rolling back nuclear proliferation impossible, if it is taken seriously as a guide to action. Every country on the verge of breakout could say "But what about Country X?"
the U.S. Government to admit that it had been funding the opposition in Syria- in other words, the Syrian revolt was not part of the Arab Spring, but a U.S. inspired attempt to overthrow the government of Syria.
That's quite the leap in logic. I wonder, was the American Revolution "a French inspired attempt" to win the independence of the North American colonies from England?
The notion that the uprisings in Syria were, uniquely in the entire Middle East and North Africa region, unrelated to any actual movement among the citizens of a dictatorship to liberate themselves, seems rather far-fetched. It is possible for a legitimate, indigenous liberation movement to win the support of other countries.
Madame Secreatary, how about demanding that Palestinians be able to keep their land,farm,build homes, import medicine and live without fear of oppression.
Could you please explain to me what it is wrong for Hillary Clinton, and anyone else, to want the violence in Syria to stop? And why she isn't supposed to try to make that happen, for a reason involving Palestine?
I find your comment little different from the raft of "But what about black-on-black crime?" comments coming from right-wingers who wish to get people to stop talking about the Trayvon Martin case.
We can play the "Don't talk about that, talk about this" game until the end of time.
That seems a bit of a stretch, as if the old regime would have supported the proposals.
Tell me, if it's hot in Iraq this August, will that, too, be the fruit of the US "victory?"
Well, it sure says something about Republican voters.
It certainly doesn't say anything about the rest of us.
I have a crazy thought: one's list of the top three "enemies" or threats to the United States should include at least one party that has killed at least one American in the last thirty years.
We should advise both Afghanistan and Pakistan that we will depart militarily, and the financial aid spigot will be turned off. in other words, we will leave them alone to determine their own fate.
...just like we did in Iraq. I remember when people, left and right, were assuring me that Iraq was going to "blow up" and "fall apart" as soon as we left.
Not so much, as it's turned out. Hopefully, this strategy of an announced withdrawal will work out as well in Afghanistan. I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it, but then, what choice do we really have?
But then that’s never been what the whole exercise was all about, if you dig down, has it?
Initially, it was. If you read about the light-footprint, CIA-led phase of the war up until Tora Bora, that's exactly what the exercise was about. The United States initially went in very light, and conducted very targeted missions. Do you remember who captured Kabul? Hint: not American or NATO troops.
Unlike the Iraq War, the main force war and occupation were not a part of this mission from the beginning. Afghanistan is more an example of mission creep.
I haven't seen anyone dismiss any of the possibilities you mention.
Now, you're turn: isn't it just possible that someone not in the ANA can get his hands on a uniform?
BTW, I'm not sure you know this, but pro- and anti-Taliban Afghans have been shooting at each since well before the United States became involved. No, really!
No, the ANA is a real thing, not a reification.
I see three possibilities:
Someone who bought a uniform in a market;
Someone who joined the ANA for this purpose;
Someone who joined the ANA legitimately, and had a change of heart.
The rest of your comment reads like an excuse not to bother trying to know the truth, so you can choose your own adventure. Kindly go back and read my comment, read your reply, and note which one of us has made up a story he wants to hear, vs. which one of us is trying to understand the truth.
Afghan soldiers, or guys in Afghan army uniforms?
As the ACA is phasing in, the United States should be yellow on this map.
Unless it is overturned, and which point grey would be accurate.
Joe, all the other countries shown in gray on the map (except Turkey, which Ctanyol below says should be in orange) are poor.
Israel? China?
You can also find quite a few poor countries that are orange on the map, such as Sri Lanka and Costa Rica.
Uh, Bob? Did you see the map?
Hundreds, eh?
I wish them luck.
Interesting. This would mean that the people who ran this article are more concerned with boosting domestic morale, and with generating using Americans' economic concerns to drum up opposition to the sanctions, than with garnering sympathy from the rest of the world. Publicizing this story necessarily means sacrificing the claim that the sanctions are hurting the country, by putting out information that they are actually helping the country.
BTW, "Iran" is a big, complicated place with a very complicated political system. The phrase Iran - AKA "regime" suggests a simplistic unity that just does not apply. It wouldn't even be accurate to call the sources of the Javan article "Iran's intelligence community," much less "Iran."
Why do you imagine that the words "simple fact" refute the observation that Iran is going out of its way to tell the world?
"But it's true" is not an answer to the question "Why are they doing this?" Do you think that the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence agency puts out press releases to highlight everything they think is "a simple fact?"
Whether we're talking about "white" information (straight, accurate facts), "grey" (spin on the facts), or "black" (lies), intelligence agencies put out information for a reason. "It's a simple fact" doesn't cut it as an explanation for why an intelligence agency is saying something.
Yes, if the actual economic gain from it were less important to you than the psycho/soft-war value of publicizing such outcomes.
But even then, you would have to conclude that the argument about the sanctions harming your country and hurting innocent people was worth sacrificing in order to publicize this outcome.
Which scenario seems more likely to you:
1) Harsh international sanctions on a country's largest export harm that country's economy, and drawing attention to that harm is a more effective PR move than claiming the sanctions are actually helping you, or
2) Harsh international sanctions on a country's largest export help that country's economy, and accusing those who imposed the sanctions of incompetence is more effective than accusing them of starving innocent people.
If you were an organ of the Iranian government, and you actually believed that, for the first time in human history, being placed under international sanctions had actually helped your country's economy, would you go out of your way to tell the world?
So what you're saying is, one man likes to push a plow, one man likes to chase a cow, but that's no reason why they can't be friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_QRxV15PNM
I guess I don’t read in the right places, where apparently Radic-Libs, maybe, commit the jejune hypocrisy charged to them here.
You quite frequently read these comment threads, so the problem is not one of exposure, but of recognition.
The role of the West in helping the rebels in the military confrontation is pretty easy to understand, but what is the West supposed to be doing, that it is not doing, about the problems of governance and politics that you mention?
The problems you mention - except for the detention of prisoners of war, which (less than six months after the end of hostilities) doesn't seem to me to be that big a problem - stem from the new government lacking the reach to impose order and civil authority. The West is sending aid and providing the sort of official recognition intended to consolidate a government's writ. Where do you see the West's actions coming up short in this sphere? I doubt you want to see foreign troops sent in to restore order or curb the militias, so where does that leave us?
It is a bit amusing to see so many people who eagerly proclaim their adherence to fundamentally revolutionary doctrines - Marxism, anti-imperialism - act shocked, shocked! at the existence of revolutionary violence in a country in which a popular uprising deposed an oppressive dictator by force of arms.
This is what "Power to the People" looks like when the People win, folks. This is a step in the process of overthrowing a dictatorship and replacing it with a democracy. If you don't see any path from post-revolution anarchy and violence to a civil, functioning democracy - if you think that the existence of a post-revolutionary, pre-consolidation situation delegitimizes the uprising and its use of force - then you have no business proclaiming yourself to be a supporter of popular uprisings, or of any doctrine that embraces them.
Under the TNC, the violence is not just less, but there is a path to ending it. Under Gadhaffi, violence and oppression at greater levels than this was the plan.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the inclusion of the Sadrist protests in this list.
Public protests and even strikes are how politics are supposed to work in a democratic system. Their presence is quite a bit different from the al Qaeda bombings.
Except for being covered on the nightly news every single day, and being discussed by all of the leading presidential candidates every single day, the Afghanistan War is almost invisible in America.
Also, if inflation of the American dollar was causing oil prices to go up, it would be causing prices to go up across the board. They're not: inflation was 2.9% last month.
Food and, especially, oil prices are subject to price spikes unrelated to the monetary situation.
"Those who developed this story" had access to a trove of classified documents about bin Laden and his actions which you have never seen, and seem to disagree with you.
"In fact, most of what we hear about Al-Queda is their prevented plots."
Indeed. Elections have consequences.
No, Some Guy, however much it might appeal to your self-regard, the onus to prove that Russia and China are motivated by self-interest does not fall on me. To any sane person, attributing the behavior of those regimes to amoral self-interest is an obvious default position, and it is those who wish to claim that they are actually just looking out for the well-being of the world who need to come up with some pretty good evidence.
You give the game the away in your first five words: you're going to believe anything, and disbelieve anything, based on its convenience in making the case you want to make about intervening in Syria.
You might have noticed - might have, in some alternate reality, but didn't in this one - that I didn't write a word about the wisdom of intervention. I wrote about the motives of Vladimir Putin and the PRC government. For you to drag in the policy question and attribute a position to me shows just how determined you are to say anything, think anything, if it HELPS THE CAUSE.
Congratulations. You are now defending Vladimir Putin as a moral exemplar, whose intent should be assumed to be pure and decent, and throwing poo and people who don't take your George Bush-like naivete towards him as a given. Did you look into his eyes and see his soul too?
IMO all the big actors, US, UK, Russia & China are all led by swine. Yeah, right, that's why you decided it was so very vital to rush into the breach when someone dared question Russia and China's intentions.
I'm with you. The question of what is actually to be done by an intervening military was much more easily answered in Libya than in Syria.
I hate this feeling of standing by helplessly, but I haven't seen anyone explain, realistically, what we could accomplish with an intervention.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the doctrine that a government gives up its right to complain about its sovereignty when it starts making the streets run with blood, but hope is not a plan.
If we substitute “Bahrain” for “Syria” and consequently “US” for Russia, etc
...then we're eliding the difference between a few dozens death a few tens of thousands of deaths in order to deflect attention away from a large scale crime against humanity.
Perhaps because the US & UK continually take a mile when given an inch.
Yes, that must be it. That must explain why Vladimir Putin and the regime that repeatedly crushes Tibetan independence and domestic dissent are voting to protect their ally, Assad. Not because military bases or weapons markets, but because the mean old United States forced them to stand aside and allow the civilians of Homs to be massacred. I'm sure that they, like you, weep into their pillows every night over the fate of the Syrian people, but gosh darnit, whaddygonna do?
Obviously, it's only the corporately corporate United States (did I mention corporate?) that can ever justly be accused of acting in an immoral manner in the pursuit of its geopolitical interests. Moral exemplars like the governments of Russia and China would certainly never do anything like that, so whenever we find ourselves wondering why they're behaving in a way that looks like callous, greedy coddling of a client state, what we should immediate do is start dragging up stale tropes about the United States.
Because Lord knows, the United States is really the cause of everything the Russian and Chinese governments do. End of story.
If there is a one percent chance that Canada is dangerous...
The United States is in negotiations to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban.
Perhaps an offer to turn him over to face Afghan justice would be a nice bargaining chip. I wouldn't lose any sleep over him.
A very interesting, thoughtful take on the matter.
The Iraq War really dealt our military personnel a double-whammy. We started a second major war, which greatly increased the number of troop rotations that were needed; and we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, allowing the war to linger for years, neither pulling out nor committing to finish the job, for years on end, thus guaranteeing that the number of rotations would go much higher.
Absent Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's obsession with invading Iraq, we would have finished up in Afghanistan in 2-4 years. At the high end, that's four war-years during the Bush and Obama administrations. But because of the decision to invade Iraq, that goes up to 20 war-years so far, and probably 22 by the time all is said and done.
The really striking thing is how perfectly acceptable in American eyes for all this to be happening
Huh?
Every media source in the country is covering this as a major world event and talking about the need to get out of Afghanistan.
Obama says he wanted to treat this war as the good war, as opposed to the Iraq war so he could not be accused of being weak
Obama said this, where?
Actually, the administration announced 2014 as the end of the war two and a half years ago, and recently said that the date might be moved up to next year.
This isn't "the longest war in American history" because the current administration is ramping down gradually instead of quickly. It's the longest war in American history because we spent the seven years after Tora Bora lingering around with no real purpose or exit strategy.
This very insightful, interesting post is going to be ripped to shreds, because it postulates that it is a bad thing for the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons capability, and ascribes motives to Israel that go beyond an Iago-like thirst for doing evil for its own sake.
They both – as well as the reconciliation government that he described as a “salvation government” – consider themselves as fedayeen that aspire to end their political careers with an accomplishment in the service of Yemen.
What does this mean? Is the writer saying that the president and prime minister believe that their "accomplishment in the service of Yemen" will end their political careers, and that they are like holy warriors who are willing to die for victory?
Meh. I remember when it was believing that American troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011 than showed that Democrats were blind.
Maybe the people who aren't expecting the worst are right.
I think there are a lot of Republicans who answer poll questions strategically, instead of answering what they really think.
These people think that the "appeaser" Barack Obama, who they are constantly criticizing for being soft on Iran, is going to start a war with Iran? That doesn't make any sense.
This is all about negotiations - the words and actions of both sides. This is going to get worked out eventually around the bargaining table. What everyone is doing now is jockeying for a favorable position and trying to put forward the strongest face possible.
In that light, it doesn't bother me that Khamenei is, as the kids say, frontin'. He's willing to sit down at the table, or have someone sit there for him, and public bluster is just a part of that.
I think a more likely explanation, Yusuf, is that you are seeing the politics of other people through the lens of your own political orientation, and reducing the complexities of what other people are saying by looking at them only in terms of a thumbs up or down for your own politics.
Caring about Sonia Sotomoyor, and caring about racially-charged attack politics, are two different things.
It's true that different Latino groups have different organizations and issues, but none of them are cook with anything that looks like Latino-bashing.
It's similar to the occasional attempts by Republicans to appeal to black voters with anti-immigrant appeals. It might be true that a certain set of black voters don't like the Central American immigrants who have begun moving into their neighborhoods and "taking their jobs," but you know what those black voters like even less? Some redneck conservative campaigning on a racist platform. Whatever his target that day, anyone who has been or who can imagine himself being in the cross hairs of that type of rhetoric knows what it sounds like, and doesn't take kindly to those who employ it.
a cyberspace network that works only in Iran and is disconnected from the world wide web
I, for one, look forward to the development of LolGoats.
Nor did Obama say, "Yes, the United States will go to war alongside Israel if they strike Iran."
By your reasoning, this refusal to make an absolute statement "looks like" Obama is refusing to fight that war.
But, of course, this is all silly. The absence of a clear Statement X in diplomacy is not evidence that the opposite of X will be our policy.
There is nothing in Holder's speech that even comes close to violating international law.
Name a single treaty or protocol that forbids shooting at the enemy in a war.
Rule of thumb…whatever McCain says you should do (Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran)…do the opposite and you’ll always do the right thing.
Nah, John McCain isn't like an opposite-facing compass, but a stuck one. He doesn't just point north when you're facing south, but points north all the time.
Imagine that there was a war that was so just and necessary that even JT McPhee thought the United States needed to fight it. Do you think John McCain would oppose that war? Of course not! He'd be doing what he always does.
The deal with John McCain is that his response to every war is exactly the same, no matter what the actual situation is. The only conclusion we can draw from John McCain's support for a war is that it is, in fact, a war.
"for the benefit of…we all know who."
Who?
I'm curious about exactly what variety of conspiracy theory we're dealing with here.
The difference between Syria and Libya isn't the scale of the problem. As you say, things in Syria have now reached the same level of awful that confronted the world in Libya at this time last year.
The difference is in the likelihood of success. The physical and military situation in Syria makes it unlikely that an intervention could actually succeed in improving the humanitarian situation. When you're talking about whether a war is just or not, the likelihood of success goes beyond being a mere pragmatic concern, to a moral imperative that has to be met.
Any chance anyone will look for the billions missing in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Any chance we have a conversation about Libya? That'd be nice.
One rather obvious difference between the current situation and the runup to the Iraq War occurs to me:
This time, it is the doves who are ignoring what the UN weapons inspectors are saying, because they don't want to hear it.
I wonder, are those crafty Israeli agents leading the IAEA around by the nose, too?
I found it very frustrating, back when the truth came out about the Iraqi WMDs, that the people who got the question to completely wrong were still treated as serious, important voices in our foreign policy debates. I wonder how our side of the aisle will hold up if faced with similar developments.
to the peaceful use and development of Nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
Not only has President Obama no doubt seen that language in the treaty, but also the language requiring signatories to make their nuclear programs available for inspection to ensure their continued compliance.
As opposed to declaring off-limits facilities in which the IAEA suspect nuclear weapons-related operations.
But who cares if the professional nuclear weapons inspectors sent by the UN to monitor Iran's compliance are concerned? I read on the internet that they hare no reason to be.
Just popping in to note that, for all the sound and fury, no one has answered Bill's point about the relationship between sanctions and aggression in Japan in the 1940s.
I'm beginning to see a pattern.
Since when have international law and the Law of War considered sanctions an Act of War? The sanctions the U.S. and the E.U. had in place against Burma (Myanmar) for years were just as onerous as those against Iran. Do you consider our sanctions against Burma an “Act of War”?
Just popping in to note that nobody has answered Bill's questions.
Why do you think Ahmedinejad and his bloc did so poorly in the election, and Khamanei's bloc so well?
I wouldn't say I'm disturbed, but I'd welcome more on that subject, too.
Anyone can write about Rush Limbaugh.
So, when you say "AIPAC moutpiece," are you referring to him warning Israel not to carry out a strike? Or to making public statements, and more, in favor of the Arab Spring uprisings?
Perhaps to the "leak" about the Mossad conducting a false-flag operation to recruit anti-Iranian forces?
Oh, I know - you're thinking about his condemnations of the assassination of Iran scientists.
Oh, yeah, he's quite the AIPAC mouthpiece. Anyone except him - say, John McCain or George Bush or Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney of Joe Lieberman - would totally stand up to Likud more than Barack Obama.
Name my a nation that doesn't feel that it has moral authority over those nations that are hostile to it. What you've done here is note that Israelis, like the rest of humanity, have nationalist or tribal sentiments.
I hardly think that "the problem" is to be found there.
it is remarkable how little swayed Israeli Jews have been by these extravagant positions
Or Americans Jews.
I don't find it remarkable, though, because these extravagant positions are not formulated to appeal to people who actually have to live in the Middle East, or who feel kinship with those who do. They are formulated to appeal to people who want a big ol' war against the Muslims, whether for Biblical or geopolitical reasons, and who view the Jews of Israel merely as cannon fodder in that war.
If Israel attacks Iran, Assad would almost certainly exploit heightened anti-Israeli sentiment to squash the opposition.
Just like the Iranian government itself did when the United States attacked Iraq. People forget, but in the years immediately before the invasion of Iraq, there were protests in Iran so powerful that the government felt the need to imprison some of its own security personnel for killing protesters. Then, when the clouds of war gathered, the Iranian public rallied 'round the flag, and the protests petered out.
At that point, the balance of power will get closer to an equilibrium and there’s a glimmer of hope in reaching a fair and lasting modus vivendi with the Pals and their neighbors.
Has it generally been your experience, Travis, that countries which feel themselves to be threatened and declining in relative power become more eager to make peace with their neighbors, and more respectful of internal minorities seen to pose a security threat?
It seems to me that the reverse is true - that countries which feel secure are more willing to accommodate and treat with competitors.
A better reader would notice that the thesis of the essay is based on the assumption that hostile relations between Israel and Iran is a given.
I will be happy to accept your donation of your investment portfolio, to relieve you of such oppression.
Gotta hand it to the Russians on that one.
This is nuts. The American media were peddling the "besieged Israel" line throughout each of the Arab-Israeli wars.
It doesn't actually refute Glenn's argument to point out the Israel preempted an attack. Preempting an attack is still a defensive action.
Now, if you could demonstrate that Israel was not about to be attacked when it launched preemptive strikes, that would refute Glenn's point, but you don't actually have to wait for the muggers to stab you in order to defend yourself.
"...without any reference to the long standing and ongoing wars of attrition and acts of wanton anti-civilian terrorism initiated by Israel’s Arab neighbors."
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were launching anti-civilian terrorism against Israelis? Really?
You do understand that the wars Prof. Cole references, with the exception of 2009, weren't launched against the Palestinians, right?
"Whether launched by Iraq or Iran doesn’t really make any difference."
Wait...WHAT?!?
Nuclear weapons are really only good for preventing the other side from using their nukes.
You don't think they're useful for deterring conventional attacks as well?
If anything, these figures understate Israel's superiority. Israel's modern tanks are roughly equivalent to a US Abrams, while Iran's are Soviet-era. Israeli military personnel have a similar advantage on a man-to-man basis over the Iranians Ditto aircraft, ditto APCs.
At last, definitive proof that Omar Khayyam was not Irish.
JFK may or may not have kept advisors in Vietnam, but your quotes marks implies there was not a difference between advisors and ground troops.
You will frequently see this pseudo-sophisticated conflation on the internet. Because LBJ dishonestly described certain combat troops as "advisors," it has become an article of faith among certain segments of anti-interventionists that the term "military advisors" can only ever be, and has only ever been, used as a misrepresentation of the mission of combat troops.
Imagine what the right-wing media machine would do to a Democratic candidate who wore sweater vests!
Publicize the French term for them, no doubt.
Whatever you think about the American effort to prevent North Vietnam from taking over the South - personally, I think it was a bad idea from the beginning - it is not a war of aggression to defend an ally that has been attacked by its neighbor.
Also, Kennedy did not authorize the coup. His administration seems to have been asleep at the switch, and confronted with a fait accompli.
And just because two guys are American, and wear uniforms, that does not mean they are the good guys either.
The different, Mr. McPhee, is that nobody has argued any such thing.
Tu quoque is a logical fallacy under the best of circumstances. When it isn't even true, it's just a dodge.
Perhaps you should hold your fire until you have a target, even if you're really eager to squeeze a few off.
I'm going to throw this out there: the guy who shot two people is, perhaps, a better target for the accusation of "gung-ho military mindset."
Even if the dead people are American.
Thank your for pointing this out, Bill.
One of the most frequent intellectual failings of the anti-imperialist left is to assume that whoever the most violent, most anti-American faction in any given country is, by definition, the legitimate voice of the people of that society.
It's really just another unprincipled expression of the "Enemy of my enemy" mindset, but with the very special bonus of defining the United States as "my enemy."
Just because someone shoots an American doesn't mean they're the good guys.
the idea of the Afghan just shooting them for no reason whatsoever seems to me implausible
Well, of course he did it for some reason. The question is, what reason?
There have been any number of cases of Afghan military or police personnel suddenly turning their weapons on Americans.