The phenomenon of not “talking” to countries we don’t like isn’t limited to the United States. Europe is falling into the same trap.
We all have the same problem with our neighbors. Most folks don’t even know who lives next door, but will claim “friends” that we’ve never met on Facebook and other social media. We not knowing neighbors merely hurts the social construct. Countries not even talking often ends up in war.
Countries don’t have to “like” other countries. They can learn to get along. Iran and Iraq, even with their history of animosity are cooperating militarily. Pakistan and India with their long hatred of each other have not used their nuclear bombs on each other, yet both have had them for a long time. North and South Korea have stayed on their side of the DMZ.
Running people off from a forum that is designed to have rational discussion over perceived problems doesn’t seem like a good idea. …
If you haven’t ever heard about the study “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” it’s been the driving force behind our never ending wars in the Middle East. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan you name have all been part of a plan/doctrine first written in 1996. The link to it is below.
Even Israel at the time thought the plan was too extreme. But we went off to support our Neo beliefs. We all know that plans don’t survive first contact and now we don’t know how to deal with defeat.
We continue to demonize Iran, but don’t want to invade Iran. If defeating Iran was really so important, we should left Saddam alive.
Iran and Iraq are training together to defeat terrorists in the Region. Imagine, two lifelong hatreds coming together to defeat common enemy! We created ISIS and brought two enemies together. I guess that’s a success of sorts.
And now we’re fighting for the same space that we’ve lost lots of good soldiers in. Too much weirdness. …
With the end of the Cold War, the US Defense Department has become both the State Department and the Department of Offense. We negotiate at the point of a gun and have ignored the defense of the United States.
We’ve spent $1.5 Trillion dollars on the F35, an airplane that marginally works and probably never will.
Russia had an advantage that the US didn’t in the past decades. They didn’t have the money to develop and field a huge, modern fighter aircraft fleet. Yes, they have done research on some really good jets. They still can’t afford to field a lot of them.
So, they concentrated on defending Russia with some awesome air defense capabilities. Having a large fleet of aircraft like we do doesn’t really matter if they can all be neutralized. And, missiles are cheaper.
Perhaps it’s time to concentrate on defending our country.…
I don’t understand what we gain by disengaging from Iran.
No one argues that Iran is a “nice” country. No one can honestly argue that Iran isn’t a big player in the Middle East. No one can make an argument that Iran doesn’t want to be more powerful in the region.
The Iran “deal” is an international agreement signed by seven countries. It does not require “certification’, but it does require regular inspections by international inspectors. The certification requirement was imposed by a Republican congress who disagreed with President Obama’s signing on to the agreement.
In a perfect example of the old saying “a broken clock is right twice a day” the ultra mega Neo Con group the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) makes some excellent points on the dangers to the US of messing with this International Agreement. Even our Secretary of Defense Mad Dog Mattis argues that this will hurt America in the long term because no one will trust us again.
Just like Syria, we’re doing this at the behest of our allies the Saudis. It’s clearly in their interest, which 9/11 should remind us is rarely in our interest.…
The Vegas shooting gets more bizarre by the day. Of course being an American event we all know that memories fade fast. Who recalls the Houston hurricane of a few weeks ago? Can anyone describe how their recovery is going today?
The same thing is happening with the Vegas shooting right now. It certainly doesn’t get much press anymore and certainly doesn’t get much critical inquiry.
I’m still watching it and paying attention to the little bits of information coming out from time to time. The timeline shifts are amazing and just add to the mistrust of the process. I’m still trying to figure out “who gains” from the shooting. More to follow on that.
As you look back at the videos, I’m still confounded by what you don’t see. This is an era where you always see a plethora of news and police helicopters during any incident. Hospitals own their own helicopters. I haven’t seen any helicopters in any of the footage. Seems odd.
Today’s post raises some more questions and observations. …
I’m no fan of Presidential Executive Orders. It’s a sad commentary on our political system when we allow a President to act like a King. You wouldn’t know it by our Congresses lack of action, but they can actually stop any executive order that they want to. Obviously during the Obama years, the Republicans didn’t want to stop President Obama.
Yesterday’s executive order signed by President Trump was the reverse of most executive orders. Instead of telling the country what they would do, he signed an order that said that states couldn’t infringe on freedom. How interesting and how refreshing.
This certainly doesn’t repeal Obamacare. Obamacare’s mandating coverages for things that most people don’t care about is the biggest reason for the huge increases in costs. You ought to be able to buy coverage for those things you are most worried about.
This is a good first step. It doesn’t matter if you like or dislike Rand Paul or President Trump. The notion that an actual doctor was counted on to provide input into reform of medical care is refreshing to those who watch the uninformed make decisions that affect our lives.…
Never thought I would support Puff Daddy! He actually kind of understands how business works. If you don’t like the rules of your employer, start your own business and make up the rules that you want.
Of course there is no guarantee of success when you start the business. Your ideas and ideals have to resonante with your customers. Get enough customers and you’ll be able to get advertisers and others who will support your venture.
The NFL has 32 teams. One of them is publicly owned. Of the other 31, 30 of them are billionaires. Puff Daddy is worth $800 million, so he doesn’t have the net worth of even one of the team’s owners.
Player salaries in the NFL alone amount to just under $5 BILLION dollars in 2016! That doesn’t count the other costs of running a team. $5 BILLION!
Think about that when you hear their “players are slave” arguments. I wish Puff Daddy the best of luck.…
During the Cold War, Turkey was one of our very good friends. Of course this was all because of geography. We wanted to put listening posts on their borders to spy on the Soviet Union.
Nonetheless it was a good relationship.
After the cold war ended and we didn’t need them anymore, the relationship cooled. We still kept our airbase there and still kept nuclear bombs there, but the relationship wasn’t so friendly.
Turkey like many countries in the region has all sorts of issues, most related to different “brands” of Islam. We’ve never negotiated well through the different sects and most Americans don’t even understand the differences. Short analogy: Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, only on steroids.
Christian and Muslim wars were rampant from 1095 to 1588! As different as the various sects are within the Muslim world, they only unify against an outside threat. Once that outside threat is gone, then they fight amongst themselves. Look at the Sunni’s and Shias in Iraq for an example.
Our current relationship with Turkey is a function of a lot of things. The cold war ended and we didn’t really “need” Turkey anymore. So they lost their special status and don’t really understand why. The US’s on again off again relationship with the Kurds scares Turkey. The last thing they want is a larger group of Kurds in an autonomous state right next door. They have enough problems with the Kurds who are citizens of Turkey. Turkey believes that the attempted coup last year was orchestrated by Fethullah Gulen. Gulen lives in the US and the US has protected him from standing trial in Turkey.
Looks like we’re going to lose another ally in the region.
As the banner on our blog reveals, it’s been over 69 years since we’ve had diplomatic relations with North Korea. And we wonder why there is mistrust between our two countries. North Korea does talk with its neighbors, and there is nowhere near the level of animosity between them that there is between them and the US.
China and Russia have proposed a peace plan commonly called the double freeze. The double freeze plan calls for North Korea to halt its nuclear program in exchange for the US and Korea to suspend joint military drills. North Korea has agreed with Russia and China. Germany endorses the plan. The US won’t have anything to do with it.
I don’t understand why cancelling the Team Spirit exercises is a bad trade off to toning down the tensions that could cause World War III. I was talking with a friend the other day and asked him why we even had soldiers stationed in South Korea anymore. He responded with the common answer that our soldiers were a trip wire. Basically a target so that when they died America would feel obligated to respond. He didn’t mean it in a callous way, but more an acknowledgement of our geopolitical strategy.
I do think it’s pretty hideous that we’re willing to sacrifice 20,000 American lives merely to justify a nuclear war with North Korea. …
Continuing in my theme of “what’s the harm in talking”, Saudi Arabia’s King traveled to and met with the President of Russia last week. Historic in the fact that it was the first visit ever by the King to Russia.
Unlike our media, the rest of the world sees the economic power, growth and influence of Russia in the Eurasia region. We fixate on military might. Russia and China are focused on economic might.
Russia and Saudi Arabia have some key differences and some key common interests. Both want higher oil prices. They disagree on Iran and they disagree on Salafi-jihadi terror. Amazingly (not really) oil won the day and the Saudis didn’t get their way on controlling Iran.
It was a win-win for Russia and Saudi Arabia. Of course Saudi Arabia still controls the US, so we’ll do their bidding in Iran. …
