wunksta wrote:

Steve wrote:Yes and Hilary will be POTUS next. During the Clinton years in the 90's the US did not engage in any wars.

Well, he did engage in conflicts iirc.

Hilary Clinton comes across as a war hawk to me. Elizebeth Warren will be swept into power by a wave of popular support though. Well there's no harm in dreaming.

Elizabeth Warren would be the best thing that happened to the US if she became president. Problem is, she doesn't want the job. The Wall Street Lobbyists would work very hard to keep her out too.

No matter what is done in the middle east, the US loses. If they attack Iran to support Israel, they lose the Iranian nuclear deal, and Iran has been fighting ISIS. That support would go out the window, and ISIS would become stronger. If the US gets involved with Yemen, where things have heated up, they would have to choose between supporting Sunnis or Shiites, either directly or indirectly, in all of the circumstances. They would either lose the Israeli alliance, or they would sabotage the Iran deal. Its a no win, no matter what they do. These people have been fighting for millennia, and it isn't likely to stop.

I think it was Sam Harris who identified the problem as an 8th century war being fought with 21st century weapons. Neocons want to simplify it to "Kill Muslims in Iran" as the single solution to the problem. Its not that simple. There are two broad groups of radical Islamists fighting each other.

There are two main pushes to war in the US. The first is the Industrial War Complex, who sell the machines and supplies to the conflicts, and their motivation is money. The second group is the Religious Right who need Israel to prevail against the Muslims, so there can be a second coming of Christ. This is why conservative governments are so supportive of Israel, rather than the "democracy" propaganda often cited. Bush was a converted Fundamentalist, whereas Obama is likely a closeted Atheist, who doesn't believe the end times prophesies. The right would rather try to paint him as a Muslim, a well established enemy in the corporate press, rather than draw the debate to the end times prophecies, which is much riskier with secular America. Even secularists have been trained to hate Muslims.

The_Piper wrote:How worried should I be about Iran? At the moment, the worry level is at a 0.

As it should be. They aren't the belligerent in the region.

Willie71 wrote:
If the US gets involved with Yemen, where things have heated up, they would have to choose between supporting Sunnis or Shiites, either directly or indirectly, in all of the circumstances. They would either lose the Israeli alliance, or they would sabotage the Iran deal.

We are already supporting Saudi Arabia to fight in Yemen, which is essentially a proxy war against Iran.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:I think it's pretty much all saber rattling at this point. I doubt Iran will ever get a real nuke, and I think Israel knows that.

Has it even been confirmed that they are trying? The International Atomic Energy Agency have always been inconclusive on this.

lutefisk wrote:With the huge contracts that US Companies gained from Iraq's oil fields http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1948787,00.html i don't doubt its all about the oil...but in this case, it seems that we're just out to protect the Palestinians!

Bah. It was about the contracts, the pork. There were plenty of fortunes made in the contract biz that had nothing to do with oil.

And about Bush being pissed off, and Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld wanting to "finish the job" after, in their minds, not having done so during the Gulf War.

If it had been largely about the oil, we would have blown the snot out of Saudi Arabia, which we have had much greater other justification and alibi to do.

wunksta wrote:

Willie71 wrote:
If the US gets involved with Yemen, where things have heated up, they would have to choose between supporting Sunnis or Shiites, either directly or indirectly, in all of the circumstances. They would either lose the Israeli alliance, or they would sabotage the Iran deal.

We are already supporting Saudi Arabia to fight in Yemen, which is essentially a proxy war against Iran.

The US has supported Saudi Arabia, but has the US become involved directly in Yemen?

"Anti-war president" lol, that cracked me up.

It looks like the anti-war president is closing a deal with Iran and the P5 as we speak.

Over under on how many months before some jets from the coast bomb the facilities?

Willie71 wrote:Elizabeth Warren would be the best thing that happened to the US if she became president. Problem is, she doesn't want the job. The Wall Street Lobbyists would work very hard to keep her out too.

Legislators do not good presidents make. Professors are not much better. Warren has no credentials which makes me believe she would be capable of doing a good job. It is one thing to have the political ideals, another to actually implement them. Or did we forget about the campaigns Obama ran successfully? His ideals were passionate, but he is not effective as a chief executive.

Calilasseia wrote:So the neocons, having learned nothing from the Iraq débacle, want to repeat the same mistakes in Iran. Is there something in the water that right wingers drink, that somehow doesn't addle the brains of the rest of us?

First they took America into a disastrous war of attrition in Iraq, with Shrub making stupid noises about being told to bomb the country to rubble by Magic Man, whilst the real power behind the throne, in the form of Karl Rove, had zero plans covering what to do after the bombing with respect to reconstruction, except for "how can we let the Koch brothers earn even more wonga?". We all saw how well that turned out, didn't we? The much-vaunted "regime change" ended up letting ISIS flourish, one of the ironies arising therefrom being that Iran is now doing some of the work America won't touch fighting ISIS on the ground, courtesy of the fact that ISIS has pledged to exterminate Shias on a grand scale, and the Iranians aren't about to let them do it.

So now, the same idiot neocons who brought us this shit, want to start bombing the country doing America some serious favours with respect to keeping ISIS from taking over the entire Middle East. All because Netan-yahoo wants a chance to wave his geopolitical penis about, and wank-stain Rethuglicons want to shaft Obama. Who the fuck let playpen toddlers become involved in serious foreign policy decisions in America?

As for the idea that the arms industry is going to make a ton of loot from the ensuing fracas, well we all know what happened the last time America interfered in Iran. They ended up losing a major strategic foothold in the region, not to mention a honking big source of oil revenue, and launching the career of Ayatollah Khomeini. What are they going to do for an encore, hand the bombed remains of the country over to ISIS? The moment the operation starts going shit shaped, as it inevitably will, the arms industry is going to end up making sweet fuck all, because the only people who'll want to continue with the policy after that, will be the sort of people who have wet dreams about fellating the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

Why do I see this all becoming a real life, and ultra-dark, version of the Girl Genius comics, with added Götterdämmerung?

HUH? If anything they learned that they can make a shit ton of money and even shrug off losing a billion dollars but I think the world has woken up to America's aggression and we're all getting rather sick of these warmongering assholes stirring shit up everywhere.

The 1% must be getting hard up.

Scot Dutchy wrote:The 1% must be getting hard up.

Plus, there's still a disturbing segment within the American political and financial elite, that thinks the nice, easy solution to all their country's problems comes in a neat package labelled "Let's Drop Bombs On Smelly Brown Foreign People". Except that none of the stupid fuckers who treat this mantra as some sort of divinely dispensed wisdom, have woken up to the fact that a large number of America's problems are caused by this, not solved by this.

As for the 1% (more correctly, the 0.001%) getting "hard up", it's indicative of how divorced from reality some of them are, that they think not having the $100 billion in the bank they think they're entitled to, and having to make do on a mere $90 billion, makes them "hard up". Though I suspect the pressing for war on the part of some of the corporate robber barons, has more to do with the hard-ons they get at the prospect of bombing the shit out of more smelly brown foreign people, coupled with resentment at not being able to drop bombs on the unwashed plebs closer to home, though where they'll get their minimum-wage maids and drudges to do the shitty household jobs if they did get their way on this, is something that they manifestly haven't thought much about. Presumably they think the magic slave pixies will conjure up some docile replacements, after they've wiped out all the ones with enough brain cells to complain about being at the bottom of the dungheap. But I stopped being surprised at the stupidity of the über-rich a long time ago. Perhaps there's some sort of encephalitic virus in circulation, that you only catch after sufficient exposure to vintage Bollinger and lobster thermidor, which would make at least some sense given the data.

Meanwhile ...

Teague wrote:HUH? If anything they learned that they can make a shit ton of money and even shrug off losing a billion dollars

Actually, America lost a trillion dollars through wasting it on the Iraq adventure. Which wouldn't have been quite as bad as it was, if the same rich dickheads who run the corporate wank fantasy machine hadn't pissed another $8 trillion down the drain on subprime loan scams. After which they had the fucking gall to beg the taxpayer to bail them out, only to resume incompetent and venal business as usual. Perhaps if we'd told them to go fuck themselves with razor wire dildos, let them crash and burn, and let the 99% have a piece of them in the ensuing civil warfare, along with their paid political whores in the Rethuglicon party, we'd be in less mess now than we are.

But the trouble is, the hard on for dropping bombs on smelly brown foreign people is looking more and more fucked up to those with functioning brain cells with each passing second. And the corporate robber barons need people with functioning brain cells to keep their empires tended and their mountains of cash fanned. Those amongst the 0.001% who are too stupid to realise this, will be the first to tumble once the shit hits the fan properly. My view is that it'll hit the fan before they get the chance to pursue their hard-on for bombing smelly brown foreign people in Iran.

Teague wrote:but I think the world has woken up to America's aggression and we're all getting rather sick of these warmongering assholes stirring shit up everywhere.

The fun part being, of course, that when we were in the position to do this, our position consisted of "let's go over there, bang a few heads together, then show them how it's done" with respect to basic administration. The people responsible for these decisions in America seem to think that bombing the smelly brown foreign people is enough in itself, and that this will magically result in the smelly brown foreign people turning into coffee-hued versions of Mr Ford Edsel Buyer. The neocons in particular are too stupid to realise that whilst much of the world likes some of America's shiny toys, things like iPads and airliners (though they still prefer German cars and Japanese televisions), they hate with a vengeance the American capacity for thinking that the Stars and Stripes equals a licence to behave like spoilt toddlers on the world stage, which sadly isn't restricted to the have-yachts and their paid political whores.

Yes, I'm posting in Clarkson ModeTM. Though without the stale tobacco odour and the equally noxious Tory politics.

The talks between the P5+1 and Iran have been extended, which is a positive sign I guess.

Talks on Iran's nuclear programme will continue until at least Thursday morning, two days after the original deadline, the US says.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has extended his stay to continue negotiations, officials say.
However, a number of foreign ministers have left the talks and China warned compromise was essential, otherwise "all previous efforts will be wasted".
A deal would curb the nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
Negotiations between the so-called P5+1 - the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany - and Iran continued on Wednesday at Lausanne's Beau-Rivage Palace hotel after overrunning the self-imposed deadline of 31 March to reach a deal.

Continues: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32141704

wunksta wrote:"Anti-war president" lol, that cracked me up.

Indeed!

Good essay by Trevor Timm at The Guardian...

If this is what an anti-war presidency looks like to you, you're detached from reality

"If Obama is an anti-war president, he’s the worst anti-war president in history. In the last six years, the Obama administration has bombed seven countries in the Middle East alone."

Calilasseia wrote:Plus, there's still a disturbing segment within the American political and financial elite, that thinks the nice, easy solution to all their country's problems comes in a neat package labelled "Let's Drop Bombs On Smelly Brown Foreign People". Except that none of the stupid fuckers who treat this mantra as some sort of divinely dispensed wisdom, have woken up to the fact that a large number of America's problems are caused by this, not solved by this.

US involvement...

Photographer Gregg Carlstrom succinctly summed it up last week as Saudi Arabia started to drop bombs on Yemen:
“US praises US ally for bombing US-equipped militia aligned with US foe who is partnering with US to fight another US-equipped militia.”

(Link)

You cant be anymore involved as that. Great for the arms industry.

Mike_L wrote:
US involvement...

Photographer Gregg Carlstrom succinctly summed it up last week as Saudi Arabia started to drop bombs on Yemen:
“US praises US ally for bombing US-equipped militia aligned with US foe who is partnering with US to fight another US-equipped militia.”

(Link)

As Jon Stewart said, “we finally figured out how to fight a proxy war against ourselves”.

wunksta wrote:As Jon Stewart said, “we finally figured out how to fight a proxy war against ourselves”.

Ace!