Gyroscopic Investing

Let's try this again, this time behaving like adults. IMHO it is a genuinely interesting subject.

I found an article on Politico that I thought might be worth sharing:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ml?hp=pm_1

Obama’s view was that Al Qaeda was holed up in the badlands of Pakistan and you could drone it into submission. Then, if you stopped stirring up hornets’ nests in the Middle East, and demonstrated your good intentions, and pulled entirely out of Iraq and stayed out of Syria, you could focus on “nation building at home”? and not worry about places like Mosul and Aleppo.

This, in a nutshell, was the theory of the “don’t do stupid stuff”? doctrine.

Every particular was wrong.

Al Qaeda is part of a worldwide ideological movement. You could decimate its “core”? in Pakistan, but it would roll on elsewhere.

Whatever we do, the hornets in the Middle East are plentiful and nasty, and hate us just as much.

Our good intentions, as Obama defines them, got us nothing. We elected a president with the middle name of Hussein who did all he could to liquidate George W. Bush’s foreign policy and made outreach to the Muslim world one of his top priorities — yet the terror threat has grown.

We pulled out of Iraq and assiduously stayed out of Syria, and now there is a caliphate stretching across the border that, in the words of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, represents “an imminent threat to every interest we have.”?

[...]

It is not that the latest events in Iraq and Syria necessarily vindicate a rigorously McCainite foreign policy. You can believe ISIL must be defeated and still think that the Iraq War was a mistake and McCain and his allies are too recklessly interventionist.

But events have vindicated the surge that devastated the forerunner of ISIL and demonstrated the folly of Obama’s total pullout from Iraq, the point at which the country began its downward slide.

[...]

The political worm has turned so completely that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who the day before yesterday was scolding interventionists for their simple-mindedness, now evidently supports war in Iraq and Syria. He told The Associated Press that as president he would seek “congressional authorization to destroy [ISIL] militarily.”?

Nothing to add except Me likey. (The article, not the situation).

Evil aka Islamic jihadist murderous terrorists is real and must be fought early and often. Thinking that it will not bother us if we simply leave it alone is absurd.

Reub wrote: Evil aka Islamic jihadist murderous terrorists is real and must be fought early and often. Thinking that it will not bother us if we simply leave it alone is absurd.

Yes, since "our" previous attempts along that line have been so successful, we should definitely keep it up! No amount of collateral damage is too much, and national bankruptcy is nothing to worry about either!

Billy Rose is reported to have said, "Never invest in anything that eats or needs paint."

Regardless, we had an investment in Iraq.  We chose to abandon maintenance of that investment.  Deferred maintenance is often very expensive.

Is this statement true?

"The US invading Iraq has inflamed Islamic terrorism while the US invading Afghanistan has not."

Let's take it as a given that the statement is not perfectly worded.

My basic question is this; Is it possible for the US to take visible action against Islamic terrorism without creating more of the same? Or, put a bit differently; Are there things we have done where the Muslim world in general thinks "Thank God (Praise be to Allah, or whatever) that the US did this because someone had to"?

barrett wrote: My basic question is this; Is it possible for the US to take visible action against Islamic terrorism without creating more of the same? Or, put a bit differently; Are there things we have done where the Muslim world in general thinks "Thank God (Praise be to Allah, or whatever) that the US did this because someone had to"?

Probably not. Even in cases in which some Muslims were glad for our intervention, the devil is in the details, and we got those details wrong. Plenty of Iraqis were very vocally in support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, no matter what our own tenuous reasons were. They wanted Saddam out, of course, and they didn't want him replaced by another dictator.

Well...we got the first part done. But it turns out this nation building is harder than we thought. We killed thousands of civilians along with the combatants and injured thousands more ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie ... casualties ), and then we left.

Even if we put aside the 'blood for oil' accusations and assume (just for funsies) that we went in there with the best of intentions, we botched it, obviously, and if many more people hate us, that is truly our fault.

Even when we don't intervene- like with the Arab Spring in Egypt, things don't turn out for the better. Oh well.

However, I agree with Reub and with the Rich Lowry article that PS put up here that it's ridiculous at this point to think that the problem of Muslims hating us is going to go away if we just mind our own business. The horse is out of the barn.

Perhaps in my deepest, most embarrassing fantasies we could replace ISIL with BASIL, a peaceful Balsamic State, but it's not going to happen. I do think that we should focus on thwarting attempts at terrorism here at home -- we have successfully stopped many -- and no longer toppling regimes and invading other countries.

The exception to this, for me, would be non-Islamic countries. The North Koreans need our help and I think the people would appreciate our intervention. But, until we find a way to aid them without blowing up the world...

My answer to that is a resounding yes. I also disagree with his fatuous sentence which immediately follows:

Fact is, when you use the most powerful military in the Mideast to continuously brutalize Palestinian children, your usefulness as a regional ally becomes pretty limited.

Israel’s conduct should be judged on the same level as that of other democracies during wartime.
THE STAR DOT COM

“This was the first air campaign in history where only precision-guided munitions were used. (We) approached each individual targeting decision with extraordinary caution. We had solid intelligence and a very strict target selection process . . . to minimize any risk of civilian casualties.”?
You might think that this was the response of the Israeli government to accusations of using excessive force in Gaza recently. But actually, it was a statement of NATO rebutting the same kind of allegations regarding its 2011 air campaign in Libya.

...

There is no other democracy that faces such challenges, both externally and internally, and still keeps its democratic nature. Except that we don’t get credit for that. It reminds me of the joke about Bill Clinton’s visit to Israel. During a boat cruise in the Sea of Galilee, Hillary’s hat falls into the water. Bill steps out of the boat and walks on water to retrieve it. The press, in hot pursuit in another boat, concurs: Clinton can’t swim.

TennPaGa,

I agree that there are other countries in the region who should step up, but my guess is that the US doesn't trust them to do the "right" thing. Where does Turkey stand in all this? They share borders with Iraq & Syria, and have long dealt with/oppressed/ fought the Kurds in their own country. They would seem to be the obvious choice to come to the fore in these times.

I happen to think the same about China when it comes to North Korea but that is not a Islamic terrorist issue.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the Islamic terrorists would start their nasties in North Korea.  I wonder if dear leader would negotiate (or refuse to call it terrorism like he who will not be named did)? 

... Mountaineer

TennPaGa wrote:

dualstow wrote: My answer to that is a resounding yes.

Are you referring to this question?

has anyone seen a hint that our vital regional ally could be of any assistance at all in the supposedly civilizational battle against ISIS?

Yes. See the rest of the my post.

[quote="TennPaGa"]
An alternative take:

Only Cool Heads Can Defeat ISIS

[quote]

Only cool heads can defeat ISIS? .An interesting choice of words!

Did we end up deafeting Al Queda? If we did I missed it. Or are they now our allies again, I forget?

What about the Axis of Evil? Did Iran get the bomb yet? When is N Korea going to get us? I remember Bush saying they were part of the Axis of evil along with Iraq. Since Iraq turned out be a scam, did they admit the other two are yet? Again what about Al Queda? Where did they go?

Is Lybia good now that Gaddafi is (SP) gone? Is it safe there now for me to visit Tripoli?

Did we end up getting Castro? i know Cuba was a big threat, are they still? What about the Viet Kong? Did the domino effect happen yet? Did bombing Cambodia clear up things there for me?

Should we still bomb Syria? I though Assad used chemical weapons and we needed to do something about it. What changed there? Is Hamas and Hezzbollah still a big threat? Can we afford to go after ISIS and ignore them?

What about EastAsia, haven't we always been at war with them?

I have so many enemies I just can't keep track of which one is going to get me next. Good thing I have great guys like Obama and Bush to figure out who I should pay for bombs to drop on next. I hope there isn't too much collateral damage but hey you gotta break a few eggs to make an omlete right? So you kill a couple hundred thousand women and children, what's the worst that could happen right?

Hey, this idea of asking rhetorical and sarcastic questions sure looks a lot easier than actually governing, and it looks like fun to boot! I should give it a try as well.

How did appeasing Hitler work out? I can't remember? (fondles left side of mustache). Did it cool him down, or did he do something naughty? Hmm?

Yup, that was fun. Thanks for turning me on to that neat activity. For my next trick, I'm going to challenge a kindergartener to a game of basketball and tell you what, I am going to absolutely trounce the little turd.

While we're at it, isn't it easier to look for secret conspiracies surrounding 9/11 then to deal with the murderous ideology from whence it came?

dualstow wrote: How did appeasing Hitler work out? I can't remember? (fondles left side of mustache). Did it cool him down, or did he do something naughty? Hmm?

how did England and France declaring war on him work out? How did it work out for Poland? How did it work out for the population of the Jews in Europe? How did making the world safe for the Soviets to dominate Europe work out?

How did invading Afghanistan work out? How about Iraq? How do you think bombing them now will work out?

The point of my questions is to show that all the news and government lies about who we need to fight everyday of the week turn out to be lies and nonsense.

Kony 2012 anyone? Didn't think so.........

Reub wrote: While we're at it, isn't it easier to look for secret conspiracies surrounding 9/11 then to deal with the murderous ideology from whence it came?

It's certainly easier to use it as the excuse to bomb and invade rather than actually understand anything about it.

Kshartle wrote: The point of my questions is to show that all the news and government lies about who we need to fight everyday of the week turn out to be lies and nonsense.

I get that, and I agree with you that the media tends to drum up fear. It's no different than reporting on shark attacks during a slow summer. And, I certainly respect your anti-interventionist views more than the "bomb them into oblivion crowd." But I think we can only be anti-interventionist to a point.

Sometimes we need to be the arrogant world police that the much of the rest of the world thinks we are.

As I wrote above, I don't think we should continue to invade other nations the way we invaded Iraq or use the CIA to instigate coups. We should learn from our past mistakes. Still, we can't afford to be completely passive. Islamic nations would *not* see that as a move toward peace. (The moderates would). They would see it as weakness, nothing more.

RE: September 11

It's certainly easier to use it as the excuse to bomb and invade rather than actually understand anything about it.

It was a bad idea to invade Iraq. That is separate from understanding who perpetrated 9/11 though. I can't stop you from posting your theories about dancing Mossad agents, but when it comes to this marketplace of ideas, I'm not shopping at the KShart. I'm not in denial. I've read all kinds of pages about Building 7 by scientists, physicists. I'm going with them.

If your mind is already made up that attacking murderous Islamic jihadist terrorists is a bad idea, then a conspiracy theory about 9/11 is very helpful.

[quote=Kshartle]What about EastAsia, haven't we always been at war with them?[/quote]

I thought we were at war with Oceana.  Or was it Eurasia?  I can never remember. 

Sorry, Tenn, I meant that the rest of my post should make it clear which question I was addressing (the quoted question about Israel).
It was in response to the writer's comment about Israel "brutalizing children" immediately after the question, which you did not quote but which I did.

After all, even that writer knows that Israel would be a very powerful tool fighting ISIS or any foe in the middle east. Even the writer's dachshund knows it, for heaven's sake. No, the question says "in the supposedly civilizational battle against ISIS?" In other words, he is not questioning Israel's willingness or ability to fight. He is saying how can those barbarian baby killers in Israel take part in a civilized way. So that is precisely what I addressed, Tenn.

I will admit, though, that there are moments when Craig's comment, "let them blow each other up" sounds pretty good to me.

TennPaGa wrote: My question is why haven't we heard anything about Israel taking steps to help protect the United States by engaging ISIS directly?

I don't know, but I imagine we will unless it is believed that it will result in the destruction of Israel.

Hi, Tenn. I reread your posts and now I'm thinking the "point" from Scott McConnell is part of what you were saying you don't understand. Is that the case? If so, you can skip the rest of my post below. But, I took your post to mean, '1. there are countries that should have more motivation to attack ISIS' (and you don't understand why they haven't joined in the fight) 'plus there's this guy who thinks Israel should be attacking ISIS and I think they should be attacking ISIS, too.' If that latter interpretation is right, please read on, even though I feel like I'm stating the obvious.
- - - - 

TennPaGa wrote: In any case, let's ignore his last sentence (one which I didn't quote anyway).    You claim that it is obvious that Israel would be a powerful fighting tool.  Could you point me to statements where anyone in the US or anyone in Israel has proposed that Israel engage ISIS?

No, because I have not seen such a proposal.

TennPaGa wrote: My question is why haven't we heard anything about Israel taking steps to help protect the United States by engaging ISIS directly?

(dualstow) I don't know, but I imagine we will unless it is believed that it will result in the destruction of Israel.

(TennPaGa)We *will*?  With all the apocolyptic pronouncements coming out of the US, you'd think we'd have heard something by now.

Firstly, it's difficult for me to ignore the sentence that you want to ignore, because I think it was the writer's whole point. Secondly, he didn't mention Israel engaging ISIS directly and if I'm not mistaken that is your question and yours alone.

What Scott McConnell wrote was "could be of any assistance at all." Now at this point, you had not yet mentioned direct engagement, and again the writer certainly hasn't, so when I gave my resounding yes, what I had in mind was information, support via intelligence.

Joe Biden can make all the apocalyptic pronouncements he wants with the pronoun 'we', but I of course have no idea what kind of talks the U.S. and Israel have had or how far they have come. Would it be appropriate for Biden to say, "We're coming after you, and so is Israel. so watch out"? I don't think so.

Lastly, I think it is one thing for Israel to fight Hamas when it is being attacked with rockets and via tunnels that end up on its very soil. The world already hates Israel for that because apparently there aren't supposed to be civilian casualities in urban warfare in one of the most densely packed places on the planet.  It is quite another situation if Israel starts bombing ISIS without there first being similar provocation or aggression toward Israel.

For Israel to directly engage ISIS, ISIS would probably have to engage Israel (or build a nuclear facility). They're already in Syria and surely if we don't stop ISIS first, they will engage Israel, perhaps at the Golan Heights. In that case, no proposal from the U.S. or another country would be necessary. They (ISIS) are of course no different from any other terrorist organization in the area: they want Israel gone.

---
Edited to fix quote tags.

I thought this might be of interest.

... Mountaineer

Jihadist vs. jihadist
September 8, 2014 by Gene Veith

Remember the Badr Brigade, the vicious jihadists that were the bane of our existence in the Iraq War?  Remember Iran, the vicious jihadists that have been the bane of our existence ever since the hostage crisis during the Carter administration?  Well, the Badr Brigade and Iran are both our allies in the struggle against the even more vicious jihadists known as the Islamic State.

The fact is, the struggle in the Middle East is not just against the West or even Israel.  We are seeing a religious war between the two major sects of Islam, the Sunni and the Shi’a.  Their relationship is about the same as that of the Catholics and the Protestants during the Thirty Years War.  While they are both arrayed against the West and Israel (just as Protestants and Catholics were both arrayed against the Muslims in the 17th century), these two groups consider each other heretics and apostates and wage jihad against each other.  Rough guide as to who is on what side.

Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL = Sunni

Syria’s dictator Assad = Shi’a, oppressing a Sunni majority

Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein = Sunni, oppressing a Shi’a majority

Iran = Shi’a

al-Qaeda = Sunni

Lebanon’s Hezbollah = Shi’a

Palestinians = Sunni

Afghanistan’s Taliban = Sunni, oppressing a Shi’a minority

Pakistan = bitterly divided

Muslims in Africa = mostly Sunni

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Arab Emirate, Bahraine, Qatar = Sunni

This would make a great quiz! So is Obama Sunni or Shia?