IntenseDebate - freshnotbitter

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Libya and the Obama Cult · 1 reply · 0 points

Wait, I'm not sure I read that correctly. You say a Republican introduced a bill which prohibit congress from adding to the deficit with defence spending in Iraq and Afghanistan?

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Libya and the Obama Cult · 1 reply · -10 points

Obama did not campaign on his plan for the Arabian revolts because no such revolt was forseen in '08.

Given the situation we are in - the situation left to us by Bush and the neocons - we ought to encourage Obama to buffer the revolts as best he can while being sure to get out of the way when the regimes are toppled.

And I am tired of the voices on the right who "warn" that the successors to Qaddafi et al will be unsavory. Nobody expects the anti-thesis to dictatorship to emerge after the revolution. When has that ever happened?

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. That is the way of history. What the synthesis of Islam and modern Arabia turns out to be in practice may be anybody's guess. Trying to stop it with Bush's corporate socialism or Hillary's bureaucratic totalitarianism may be where the mistakes occur. I say we help the revolts and deal with whatever develops without creating more dependent Frankenstein's monsters like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo. They are unnecessary. Arabs are materialistic. We just need to sell them stuff. Sounds simple. It is.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Conservatives Challeng... · 0 replies · 0 points

You have huge petro interests in Saudi Arabia/Gulf States who eye this whole Libya affair with suspicion. If USA takes out Qaddafi, why not the Gulf Sheikdoms?

Of course, they will never make their position public. They have paid congressmen to do that for them in the guise of "non-interventionism", "American interests", etc.

Thus, we have money for 10 years of NATO war in Afghanistan and Cheney/Haliburton's war for oil in Iraq but not a dime remains for a 4 day war to take out Qaddafi.

One of these days we will drop i-phones from helicopters all over Arabia and call it the CocaCola war. That one will win for sure. " I'd love to buy the world a coke....."

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Conservatives Challeng... · 0 replies · +1 points

I am not so sure repubs would be supporting an attack on Libya. Republicans like the dictatorships in arabia which they call democracy or tyranny depending on whether or not they support or oppose America. Republicans are happy to call Kuwait our "democratic ally" in the war against terrorism when they are an autocracy whereas the Iranian regime, which has wide popular support (and opposition) is called tyrannical.

Of course, they would say this hypocrisy is explained by the fact that they see things according to American "interests" and that actually sells quite well with the party faithful in red states. Abraod it does not sell all that well but the "opposition" it creates can be held up as a threat that requires American military interventiond or surveillance and, certainly, taxpayer support.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Conservatives Challeng... · 0 replies · +7 points

"Even an insect wants to live". (Chekhov, Rothschild's Fiddle)

Do you think a trillion dollar arms industry is going to go away quietly ?

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Conservatives Challeng... · 0 replies · +2 points

We need to stop comparing the serial "awakenings" in Arab countries with every other instance of foreign catastrophe and start dealing with them as something new.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Conservatives Challeng... · 0 replies · +2 points

Justin speaks of interventionism in absolute terms. He is absolutely against interventionism. Personally I believe that we cannot cause revolutions to happen - as the neocon/bushies thought they could in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, but we can certainly urge them along when they appear from indogenous sources, such as progress in technology that brings awareness of power to do something about long festering discontent with the old order (Tunisia, Egypt).

Unfortunately, a bureaucracy is an organism like any other that would not exist but for its instinct to live, to survive, to preserve itself. Thus, NATO, a conglomeration of 20 something nations marching before the Christian cross (plus Turkey), which maintains the occupation of Jerusalem and sends armored warrior with weapons to invade Arabia, now finds itself as the "indispensable" force that will soothe all hurt, solve all problems, bring calm to a terrifying situation.

It doesn't matter that NATO's presence will immediately cause "opposition" to form. Because that will be just fine. It is the trillions of dollars bureaucray's survival that is at issue. More later, space run out.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Liberals March to War · 0 replies · -2 points

I think the problem the paleo's will have is that we are entering an historical "change" period. They will, of course, argue that change has to come unassisted and without any interference from the USA. The problem is that we are already involved in these countries. I was not in favor of the colonial war in Iraq and thought the mission in Afghanistan was over in two weeks. Why did we not simply put some people in charge in various pars of Afghanistan and say "ok, we are leaving, don't make us come back of there will be heck to pay". Sure, things would change as soon as we left but I'll bet one change would be that the Afghanis would not tolerate foreign mercenaries training to attack other countries who were not interfering with Afghanistan. End of story.

And if we had to go back at some point, so what? Would that be worse than playing sitting duck for 10 years with no end in sight?

But now we have someting else to deal with in that part of the world. It is not the same.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Liberals March to War · 0 replies · +2 points

Clinton was a crook. Obama is beginning to see the light. That is, the world is changing. The old order with its Victorian empires in Iraq and Afghanistan is being overtaken by events. The problem with Justin's position on Libya, in my opinion, is that it ignores the impact our actions will have on Saudi Arabia, Oman, Dubai, et al.

It would be helpful to have a new foundation in US foreign policy which does not rely on "boots on the ground" which I think could be described more aptly as "boot in your face" in the Arab world.

You wonder where the CIA is in all this with their $50 billion budget. You'd think they would have created a unifying theme in Libya, a revolutionary flag to rally around. But, of course, they are still living in the past, having high tea on the back of a camel on some far away mountain top. These public servants need a new master because the old one is dying.

14 years ago @ Antiwar.com Original A... - Liberals March to War · 0 replies · +2 points

Good point. Countries with oil are fortunate in the sense that they have a collective wealth and they ought to distribute that collective wealth collectively, not privately. Health care is a prime example of a collective good because everybody is at risk and, today, everybody will very likely benefit from health care at some point in his life. With oil wealth, a government can insure that every person receives health care even if it is provided by privately operated health care providers.

Indeed, one way of uniting the Libyan people's tribal differences would be the aim of creating a transparent sovereign wealth fund in lieu of Qaddafi's present system.

This whole question raises the issue of whether it is good to support Obama the revolutionary or Justin the corporate raider imperialist who is siding with the Saudi Kings in their efforts to keep evey drop of oil in their private bank accounts.

Certainly there is the question of whether or not the Libyan revolution is ripe, in the sense that Egypt's population was ripe for revolution.

IntenseDebate Comment System

Connect with freshnotbitter

People I'm following

freshnotbitter