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HershOstropoler
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
I don't agree that the U.S. wants to only have Europe be a loyal vassal, though I'm certain there are people who want this in pursuit of short term interest. In the long term though we want Europe to treat with us as equals who often have similar goals in the world, and are capable of carrying their portion of the load, including and especially the ability to act militarily in their own interest independentlywhen necessary. |
Who is "we"?
Both the Clinton and Bush admin have tried everything they can (which is very little, apart from slapping their poodle) to undermine a common european defense policy.
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HershOstropoler
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How many think this way? Or rather, how many think about this at all?
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
I don't agree that the U.S. wants to only have Europe be a loyal vassal, though I'm certain there are people who want this in pursuit of short term interest. In the long term though we want Europe to treat with us as equals who often have similar goals in the world, and are capable of carrying their portion of the load, including and especially the ability to act militarily in their own interest independentlywhen necessary. We see much of Europe as having spent decades under our protection and having developed an unrealistic view of the world, as if any other portion of the globe has the sort of security provided by the Atlantic alliance, much less the shared values and economic strength that make the rest of the growth of the European Community possible. |
quote:
I speak for the American people, the opinions and actions of the temporary residents of the White House (and for that matter of a few raving lunatics on this board) notwithstanding. |
I wish I could agree with you, but the display of hate against France and Germany (but now only France) I have seen on the American media, and in some lunatics of these boards who claim they're not alone, makes me feel differently.
Basically, the surge of hate happened simply because two of your allies vocally disagreed with an offensive war they didn't even have to back or agree with. Of course, there is the argument "we've done so much for them, can't they be thankful just for once ?". It led me to believe most Americans truly believe your allies should always support you. In the name of thankfulness for your protection, they have to follow you blindly. This is exactly my definiton of a vassal.
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HershOstropoler
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Sikander:
"who often have similar goals in the world, and are capable of carrying their portion of the load, including and especially the ability to act militarily in their own interest independentlywhen necessary."
That is a possible outcome of America's relative decline and the need to cut back on its strategic commitments. The other scenario is that the current alienation turns into a strategic rivalry. Unless you (american citizens) retake control of your political system, I think the second scenario is more likely.
"We see much of Europe as having spent decades under our protection and having developed an unrealistic view of the world, as if any other portion of the globe has the sort of security provided by the Atlantic alliance"
You have to admit that those who frame US "security" policy live in a fantasy world. As for security, EU-Europe is currently for the first time in its history in a situation where it is practically safe from internal war and invasion. A situation enjoyed by the US from 1800 on, which was the hightime of the classic liberal view on international relations, now replaced with this pseudorealist brain****ing.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
Would you deploy these as divisions, or use them as subdividable components of an ad hoc system of force creation? I would tend to think that two types of division would be preferable, Heavy and Light. |
I would create and deploy these new divisions as composite divisions - we have six heavy divisions, two light and two airborne/airmobile already, and each has it's own advantages and disadvantages.
What I'm looking for is a stabilization force that can be used to occupy places like Afghanistan, where the locals are unreliable and have their own agendas and rivalries, or Iraq, where long-term occupation by a flexible force is necessary if/when we knock over Saddam and try to impose some functional government.
Heavy divisions have great firepower, but they're slow to deploy, require a lot of materiel support, and they're limited in the types of terrain where they can operate. They're capital intensive as hell to raise, and we have limited hardware available, so new production of many major equipment types would be necessary.
Airborne or airmobile divisions are too training intensive (we can't shove that many people through training in any realistic timeframe, no matter how much we expand the schools) and too transport intensive, making their operating cost high.
Light division are just a bit too light, and also air transport and artillery limited.
The idea behind the composite division is to mix and match capabilities and cost, but in the same command structure so that the light and heavy sides get used to working closely together and coordinating to best use all their capabilities.
MOBIUS - DD has opinions, and they're not too hard to figure out. They're just different from yours. 
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:26
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I agree with Sikander that Bush I should have handled it, or Clinton. 12 years of sanctions hasn't slowed Saddam's reorganization of his forces much, and it hasn't cost him control of the country, so sanctions should have been lifted in most areas years ago. Right now, he's a hero in much of the "arab on the street" world (not the world of arab governments and elites) for his giving the west the finger. Seriously, you've got to admire the man's panache and resilience, despite his legion of faults - Hollywood couldn't create a better villain.
Although I'd get rid of economic sanctions, I'd keep the bit about reparations to Kuwait, and protection of the Kurds and Shiites. Reparations could have been handled by a form of lien against oil sales - even tell Saddam, "OK, we'll lift the sanctions, but we're going to take X percent of your oil revenue to fund the reparations to Kuwait until it's paid off." Saddam doesn't have to be cooperative with that, since the claims would have the force of international law, and be enforced at the purchaser side of the transaction, where the money is.
Dealing with NBC weapons development is fairly straightforward - like anyone else, including the Al Qaeda County Animal Shelter, developing bio and chemical weapons is damned hard to stop - but if someone verifiably deploys them, anywhere, you can send him to hell, with a much clearer and less ambiguous casus belli.
The crap that George II spewed about Iraqi ship-launched UAV's flying with spray rigs hundreds of miles into the US without being detected is just too absurd.
Nuclear weapons are a different story - the Israelis already showed how to deal with that when they took care of the O'Chirac reactor. Nukes are big factory intensive things, despite Clancy novels and movies, and their production facilities are pretty identifiable.
Despite the propaganda about Saddam being a rogue dictator who attacks his neighbors, he's only a rogue in terms of being the US's boy. His casus belli for attacking Iran was a good one, and he tried to avoid that fight for a while, but there was no avoiding it without becoming Khomeini's *****. Nobody liked the Kuwaitis, and Saddam had good reason to be pissed, it was just a bit heavy handed to invade them. He got punished for it, so that was a pretty clear example of effective deterance. Despite the indignity of O'Chirac, Saddam didn't do much to Israel, and his Scud games in Gulf War I were pretty token - he sure as hell didn't use chemical warheads he was known to possess.
In my view, Saddam was always deterable after the ass-whooping handed to him, but the whole drawn out sanctions bit has given him (and the US/UN) way too much an ego stake in the confrontation over sanctions, so it's a no-win situation for us to walk away from sanctions now. IMO, we basically painted ourselves into a corner by maintaining open-ended sanctions this long.
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HershOstropoler
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"Why, turn them over to our command, like good colonials, of course."
The forces or the money?
Seriously, what troop strength for a force with projection capability would go with that amount of money? I can't imagine much above 1 million total.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:26
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"O'Chirac reactor" Of course, the French also built Diamona for the Israelis...
Sikander: You call the European world-view unrealisitc, that for 50 years they have felt safe, so forth and so on: And for 50 years we haven't as well? Were the Europeans less afraid of nuclear war than us? and in the event of any actual war, weren't they the front line, as opposed to ebing an ocean away? And what about those Europeans older than 60? They certainly have seen a much crueler world than Americans: the last time any American saw his home burned to the ground by and invader was 1865. Wasn't the Europeans who had metal detectors first, cops and cameras everywhere first? weren't London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid facing bombings regularly back when no American thought it was possible here? So were does this "realisitc" view of the world come from, when we have faced less difficulty, less suffering and less crisis than anyone and any other people in the world? Until 9/111, every single crisis the US saw was far abroad. Maybe you knew someone directly involved, but the last time involvement was widespread was Vietnam.
The European view of the world is not unrealistic, or certainly no more unrealistic than ours. If "suffereing" and living in insecurity is the measure of being able to "see the real world", then by god, lets ask someone from the Congo to tell us what the world is like, cause they sure as hell have seen more than anyone here, or the US, or Europe.
Che: DD is correct; realists are perplexed by this war: Wolfowitz and those that developed this notion are not realists: they are neo-cons, and neo-cons have an evengelical spirit that realist lack utterly. Realists don't think force can make the world better (nothign can), only safer for a time. That is a fundamental difference.
MtG: I agree that the ability of the rich world to affect the situation around the world is more limited than people think: which is why I see such rgeat danger form this war. The people oin the admin. overestimate the ability of the US (or anyone) to change hearts and minds through violence, which opens up a whole new set of expectations and possible actions down the road for which the American people are not ready.
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Comrade Tribune
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Vienna, Austria
Nov 1999
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What if other countries decide they don't have to obey? Better to crush one country today than have to crush half a dozen tomorrow. |
Yes, I think youīre right, and this is *part* of the reason of this whole business, America being the bully on the block. But picking up the oil is a bonus, and pleasing Israel and its lobby is more than a bonus, its probably equally as important as your argument. I think the diverse opinions on this are not mutually exclusive.
I might also mention that this is also a War Against Europe, given the fact that Europe has a lot to lose, economically, there. Now they add insult to injury (with Spiff even supporting them  ), by demanding we pick up part of the costs.
Paying for a war against *our* interests? Now this is chutzpah, amazing.
Not a cent for tribute! 
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:26
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CT, you just don't get it.
Israel doesn't need us to protect her. The Arab states need us to protect them from her. Israel has only come close to losing one war, and given the break up of the Arab block, that's unlikely to ever happen again. Israel would crush any Arab state stupid enough to attack it. Israel could take out Hussein if they felt it was necessary to their survival. Syria and Jordan would fall in days, Egypt would be take a few weeks. Lebabnon's not a threat, nor are the Saudis. Who is this great danger to Israel that we are supposedly going to war to protect it from.
Fer chrissake! Israel improves all of the weapons we sell them. They have bio/chem/nuke weapons (at least 200 of the latter). They have a highly trained and dedicated army and litterally millions of reserves. The only reason Damascus, Amman, and Cairo aren't Jewish cities today is because we forced them to pull back.
As for oil, it's a tertiary concern. Nice bonus, but it's not the reason we're doing this.
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Comrade Tribune
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Vienna, Austria
Nov 1999
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
As for nothing exploding in Europe, Comrade Tribune, you must be daft. Europe has been the target of far more Islamic terrorism than the US has. We just got the worst single attack, and probably the most victims. But France has been suffering attacks many years. The Pan Am bombing over Scotland, whether you believe it was the Libyans or the Syrians. There were Moslem attacks in Italy. You aren't getting away with anything. We've been free of such things for so long just cuz no one's had the balls to attack us directly. |
Ahh, cool down.  I am not daft, and you stop being Marxist here.
Do you think losing a plane once in a decade (or generation!) is a threat? I mean, come on.
And it was an *American* plane, even if it exploded over Scotland.
Of course, if OBL wants the US out, he should rather attack their soldiers all around the world, would seem a better strat. So he maybe *is* a provocateur, after all. The jury still out on this.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
You have it perfectly wrong.
Islamic fundamentalists are not a threat to us; never have been. They are not even much of a threat to the US Empire; how I wish they were. |
You're naive, dear. Modern Islamic fundamentalism as a socio-political phenomena is barely half a century old. Despite obstacles to publication and travel, repression, imprisonment, torture and execution by secular governments in the Islamic world, it has spread all throughout the Islamic world, and has strong support among the majority of people in those countries who've been bypassed by the "benefits" of the modern world.
The notion that Islamists have a duty to overthrow non-Sharia governments is something that was created (or at least first published) by Sayyid al Qutb in the early 1950s, so it's very new in the 1300-odd year history of Islam. What the fundies lacked in al Qutb's time was effective communication, charismatic leadership, and capital. They have all that, now. Their goal is nothing less than the total conversion of all to (their concept of) Islam, and the destruction of anyone else. It's just taken them a little while to get organized.
Of course, you can always ignore them for another 50 years and see how things go then - or maybe you figure they'll be impressed by your progressive thoughts and culture?
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Iīll give you an example why you are totally wrong: Germany recently arrested a presumed terrorist leader. This guy is probably guilty, for all I know, but the important thing is: *He explicitly gave order to his group never to target Germans.* |
I'll give you an example of why you're totally naive. Just because you don't target somebody one day, doesn't mean they're a friend, or neutral, or whatever. It means, they're simply a lower priority target for the time being, since nobody can take on everybody at once.
It's also convenient (a la Mohammad Atta et al) to plan an operation in a different country from the target, because it is much harder for intelligence and law enforcement to operate across borders without good cooperation (and good reason) between the host governments.
quote:
They definitely know who their enemies are, and who arenīt. |
You're right, they do. You should read al Qutb or al Maududi. They define their enemies as all non-believers. OBL is a disciple of al Qutb.
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26-02-2003 15:06
So are you pro-war or anti-war, DD? 
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