Lets Get Political

[Maedhros]

41 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Yes that makes sense......the Saudi's attacked  themselves,  glad you pointed that one out. I had completely missed that connection  

There aren't really a lot of scenarios that makes much sense here. Framing your enemy to gain casus belli has been known to happen in history.

On a sidenote, Japanese Tanker Owner on the attack: https://www.thedailybeast.com/japanese-oil-tanker-owner-says-us-is-wrong-about-gulf-attack

Edited June 14, 2019 by Maedhros

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Maedhros said:

There aren't really a lot of scenarios that makes much sense here. Framing your enemy to gain casus belli has been known to happen in history.

On a sidenote, Japanese Tanker Owner on the attack: https://www.thedailybeast.com/japanese-oil-tanker-owner-says-us-is-wrong-about-gulf-attack

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-06-13/us-says-iran-removed-unexploded-mine-from-oil-tanker

Occam's razor, Iran is responsible because of the US  sanctions  having a hugely negative impact on there ability to sell oil so they want to interfere with the Saudis oil resources

The link I posted is further evidence of Irans Revolutionary Guard being involved in the latest attacks, its irrefutable 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Agiel said:

As if the IRGC has never needlessly landed Iran in diplomatic hot water before, or that it's categorically impossible for the Iranian leadership's right hand to not know what its left hand is doing:

 

Yeah, except Abe wasn't meeting with Rouhani, he was meeting with Khamenei instead. It's one thing to embarrass the (fairly weak) President knowing that the Supreme Leader and clerical establishment has your back; it's quite another embarrassing the Supreme Leader as well.

And if we want to go historical precedent we don't need to go too far to find that for US casus belli being massively overegged- or simply fabricated.

2 hours ago, 213374U said:

And then suddenly tankers start blowing up in Hormuz. Good thing that crises that threaten the vital interests of the US know to wait for the previous one to subside before happening!

It also happens when the rumours were that arch hawk Bolton was goneburger.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

[Elerond]

13 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-06-13/us-says-iran-removed-unexploded-mine-from-oil-tanker

Occam's razor, Iran is responsible because of the US  sanctions  having a hugely negative impact on there ability to sell oil so they want to interfere with the Saudis oil resources

The link I posted is further evidence of Irans Revolutionary Guard being involved in the latest attacks, its irrefutable 

 

 

As irrefutable as proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Elerond said:

As irrefutable as proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

Well Iraq use to have WMD and used them against both the Kurds and Iran in the past, also  the worlds credible intelligence agencies said Sadam Hussein still had them ....Im sure you can appreciate how these things can be misunderstood 

Also we cant keep bringing up Iraq every time we want to dismiss other blatant breaches of law and order or attacks like this latest Iranian aggression. Elerond sometimes we just need to accept what we observe as true 

 

[Agiel]

Trump presses Lockheed to keep open a Pennsylvania plant slated for closure

 

I've banged on about this before, but for as much as the GOP claims to have been the party of the "Cold Warriors" Trump seems to find a lot to love about Soviet industrial policy (i.e. "Nothing wrong with epicly wasteful spending as long as there's jobs in it").

[Guard Dog]

Just when you thought you could not have any less respect for the human race: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/us/tennessee-preacher-cop-lgbtq/index.html

 

Quote

God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to the LGBT freaks and arrest them and have a trial for them, and if they are convicted, then they are to be put to death," he said in the clip.

 

 

Fritts said it would be easy to find people to arrest at events such as gay pride parades.

"We have a bunch of them we're going to get convicted because they have all their pride junk on, and they're professing what they are, that they're a filthy animal," he said.

 

I prefer the company of animals.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Guard Dog
And another thing

[injurai]

20 hours ago, KaineParker said:

Funny how the mind retraces worn paths.

[Elerond]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Well Iraq use to have WMD and used them against both the Kurds and Iran in the past, also  the worlds credible intelligence agencies said Sadam Hussein still had them ....Im sure you can appreciate how these things can be misunderstood 

Also we cant keep bringing up Iraq every time we want to dismiss other blatant breaches of law and order or attacks like this latest Iranian aggression. Elerond sometimes we just need to accept what we observe as true 

 

And they even had pictures of Iraq's WMD's that they showed to UN, but at end we learned that those credible intelligence agencies had made mistake and Iraq didn't have any WMD as they were destroyed according to rulings by UN, but that haste to punish Iraq and Sadam for breaking said UN ruling still 16 years later has world wide effects and has caused death of hundreds of thousands people and it doesn't look like that its effects will disappear any time soon. 

 Iran-USA dispute blatant breaches of law seem to be quite norm, considering that it was against international law to USA break its agreement with Iran and USA's current sanctions against Iran are against international law and as is USA's threats towards everyone who does business with Iran. But it also means that when USA who has aggressively broke international law and agreements in order to force its will over Iran, gives debatable proof that Iran has done something without verification from some other source, it would be quite wise to be somewhat sceptical towards that proof especially when you take in account that in past USA's proofs towards countries which they are in dispute with has been less than accurate, some would even say falsified.

[Zoraptor]

The US pulling out of the JCPOA was not actually illegal. It was unjustified- and to practical purposes admitted as such- and completely arbitrary/ unilateral, but that isn't the same as illegal. The US has definitely used some extremely shady tactics, been utterly inconsistent (eg Mr Bone Saw still not officially blamed for Khashoggi's death despite everything because he bought out Kushner's debt buys lots of arms; Iran blamed immediately thanks to 120p cellphone footage from 1998) and the flagrant dishonesty and prior disregard for agreements makes Iran negotiating with them pointless- but that isn't actually illegal, just immoral.

As for the rest, yeah. The amount of outright evidence fabrication is and was pretty astounding. I'd blame the media for a lot of it due to their unquestioningly supine worship of authority, but then I also remember that for all the Yellow Journalism leading up to Gulf War 2 and the various other military adventures the only publication to be significantly censured for their coverage was... the anti war BBC in a report by from Lord Hutton Haw Haw v2.0, that gibbering gobbet of sputum, which deprived the entire Mediterranean of whitewash for a decade. Pretty clear message delivered, pretty clear message received.

[Gorth]

On 6/15/2019 at 9:16 PM, BruceVC said:

Well Iraq use to have WMD and used them against both the Kurds and Iran in the past, also  the worlds credible intelligence agencies said Sadam Hussein still had them ....Im sure you can appreciate how these things can be misunderstood

Sorry, but those "credible" intelligence agencies weren't really that credible, even at the time. It didn't help that those in power took whatever musings they came up with as gospel because it was convenient for their own agendas at the time. Nothing but echo chambers.

Just about the only intelligence agency I would trust to know what is really going on in the region these days is Mossad, and I wouldn't trust them to tell anyone outside their own clandestine circle what is going on

[Zoraptor]

To be fair to the CIA at least, their assessments were in general a lot more realistic than they are given credit for. But they got end run by what was effectively a parallel intelligence apparatus set up by Cheney, Rumsfeld et alia which was designed with the sole purpose of removing every bit of nuance and equivocation from supplied intelligence about Iraq. When the CIA did believe bad intelligence it was usually a case of scenario fulfillment. And, in the end, it was CIA director Tenet (and, facpov, Powell) who took the fall for the bad evidence despite having tried to get accurate statements made on things like the Yellowcake issue; all the little asteriskroaches doing Cheney and Rumsfeld's bidding went and hid under metaphorical couches.

The same was true to an extent with MI6 and GCHQ in Britain. The big issues there were the thesis plagiarisation and the 45 minute claim* both of which were almost certainly political additions. The biggest direct intelligence issue was them ending up circularising the evidence of yellowcake- the US using the Brits running with the story to reinforce their own belief and vice versa. Which is a similar situation to the Iranian limpet mine story: the Brits say it must be true because the US says it must be true, then the US points at British support as evidence they're right.

*and lest we forget just how much of a whitewash Hutton was; the 45 minute claim was obviously incorrect and equally obviously manipulated for maximum effect- there really isn't any dispute about it at all- but the only people who got in trouble for it were... the BBC and its reporters who debunked it for making an unprovable sourcing claim.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

Sorry, but those "credible" intelligence agencies weren't really that credible, even at the time. It didn't help that those in power took whatever musings they came up with as gospel because it was convenient for their own agendas at the time. Nothing but echo chambers.

Just about the only intelligence agency I would trust to know what is really going on in the region these days is Mossad, and I wouldn't trust them to tell anyone outside their own clandestine circle what is going on

Okay but we focusing on the wrong developments over the last 20 years in the ME  if you  want to  address or understand the geopolitical, historical  and societal problems   if you think "  Americans illegally invaded Iran and Libya , they to blame for the chaos  ", I will contend those events ostensibly contributed towards aspects of instability in the region but they not the fundamental reasons for the problems 

But before we can have this debate everyone needs to ask themselves a simple question " what do we expect  from the ME "  because then we can see a way forward to achieve and agree on common and sustainable objectives 

I have spent quite a lot of time travelling for business to the region  and trying to understand the complicated political undercurrents that influence the region and I have changed my view several times on what is the best way forward. What I want to see is simply

1. Effective ME governments  that offer quality of life to there citizens, this in turn would make the region stable
2. Oil production must continue and oil prices must be manageable and fair 

I am not asking for things I use to think would work like implementing Democracy or even expecting ME governments to necessarily  believe in the correct "  Western "  way of belief in human rights

So  then we  have to identify what are the core strategies  we would implement to  achieve these goals and that mean articulating the problems, in summary the main problems that have lead to instability in the ME  are

1. The historical Shia/Sunni conflict
2. 9/11 which lead to the  rise of ISIS which has been a major source of conflict and sectarian violence 
3. The Arab Spring 

You will notice none of these developments were caused by the invasions of Iraq or Libya, these interventions were symptoms and outcomes  of some of the points above but not the actual reasons these events occurred.

Finally if you disagree then can anyone give honest and proven justifications  how for example "  the Iraq invasion "  contributed towards these events from a foundation perspective? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gorth]

41 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Finally if you disagree then can anyone give honest and proven justifications  how for example "  the Iraq invasion "  contributed towards these events from a foundation perspective?

Not sure I disagree as much as just put a different weight of importance on some of the previous events in history. As I see it, the Middle East has two major sources of conflict at the moment. One is the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the other is the centuries old Sunni/Shiite conflict. Enough has been said the last 15 years on the former I think, but many people underestimate the hatred that Saudi Arabia is spreading in the region against Shiite's. The complete genocide of Iraqis, Iranians, the Houtis etc. all need to die, anything less will not make wahhabists in Riyadh happy and they will stop at nothing to instigate conflicts and distribute money to "special interest groups" like Isis and AQ to accomplish that long term goal. When they label Iran supporters of international terrorism, the irony is so bad it's not even funny. Hamas is a sunday school compared to the groups Riyadh is backing world wide. Trump thinks with his **** and his wallet and doesn't give a damn about ethics, so he'll say anything and support anything he thinks makes for better golf courses with the Trump brand on them. Why didn't he (Trump) call for international sanctions and a blockade of a regime that murders it's own journalists when they dare to reveal corruption?

 

Well, my thoughts on the matter

 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Not sure I disagree as much as just put a different weight of importance on some of the previous events in history. As I see it, the Middle East has two major sources of conflict at the moment. One is the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the other is the centuries old Sunni/Shiite conflict. Enough has been said the last 15 years on the former I think, but many people underestimate the hatred that Saudi Arabia is spreading in the region against Shiite's. The complete genocide of Iraqis, Iranians, the Houtis etc. all need to die, anything less will not make wahhabists in Riyadh happy and they will stop at nothing to instigate conflicts and distribute money to "special interest groups" like Isis and AQ to accomplish that long term goal. When they label Iran supporters of international terrorism, the irony is so bad it's not even funny. Hamas is a sunday school compared to the groups Riyadh is backing world wide. Trump thinks with his **** and his wallet and doesn't give a damn about ethics, so he'll say anything and support anything he thinks makes for better golf courses with the Trump brand on them. Why didn't he (Trump) call for international sanctions and a blockade of a regime that murders it's own journalists when they dare to reveal corruption?

 

Well, my thoughts on the matter

 

You make several good points and I  agree with several

But I just want to add something relevant to the  whole perceived  and real"  Saudi Arabia is spreading and funding Islamic extremism ", you can make the argument that there are different types of Islamic extremism and not all of them we need to be concerned with to achieve my previous objectives of a stable ME

What  are the most destabilizing and militant groups are the likes of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, these are not supported by the Saudi government but rather funded by certain wealthy  Saudis, and other people in the ME, who have  there own ideological objectives outside the official Saudi government. 

Saudi Arabia has been a key partner  to the USA and its allies in the war against Islamic extremism, yes they really started this alliance when they were targeted by extremism themselves but the outcome is still the same. They have played, and other countries like Jordan and UAE, an important role and assisted in  fighting Islamic extremism 

Edited June 17, 2019 by BruceVC

[Guard Dog]

Demonic networks are aligned against Trump: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449226-trump-spiritual-adviser-a-demonic-network-aligned-itself-against-the

 

 Pretty bad when even the demons want to see you lose! What network is that I wonder? Must be one DirectTV doesn't carry. 

[BruceVC]

12 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Demonic networks are aligned against Trump: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449226-trump-spiritual-adviser-a-demonic-network-aligned-itself-against-the

 

 Pretty bad when even the demons want to see you lose! What network is that I wonder? Must be one DirectTV doesn't carry. 

I dont think Trump  is very religious at all, I think he adopted a  " renewal\belief "  in faith because he wanted to connect to part of his base to gain support and win the 2016 election. Trump is someone who can read successfully certain voting patterns and peoples concerns and he knows how  to reach out to those groups and what they want to hear him say 

It helped him win in 2016 but its uncertain if the same methodology will help him win  in 2020 ?

[Guard Dog]

A persons's faith and relationship to the man upstairs (or lack thereof) is entirely their own business. But I am suspicious of displays of faith from political leaders. Not all of them. Bush and Obama were both regular church attendees prior to being elected so I was 100% willing to accept theirs are genuine. But when Trump or Clinton did it it strikes me as a tad exploitative.  Just politicians being politicians. That does not mean they were not religious. No one knows what's in another persons mind. I'm a very religious man and except for weddings and funerals have not set foot in a church in decades. I'm just put off by disingenuous gestures done for appearances. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Who would have thought Trump would be involved in the Blood War?

[Malcador]

On 6/19/2019 at 12:11 AM, Guard Dog said:

Demonic networks are aligned against Trump: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449226-trump-spiritual-adviser-a-demonic-network-aligned-itself-against-the

 

 Pretty bad when even the demons want to see you lose! What network is that I wonder? Must be one DirectTV doesn't carry. 

These people are the same that believe their preacher when he says God told him he needs a private jet.

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

These people are the same that believe their preacher when he says God told him he needs a private jet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3rBBRIVYsc    

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3rBBRIVYsc    

Ahhh yeah Robert Tilton.  Proof that dogs are wise, an old dog of ours used to attack the TV everytime he showed.  Still for TV preachers, can't top

 

 

 

[Agiel]

I probably fit all but two of those criteria.

Edited June 20, 2019 by Agiel

[smjjames]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

These people are the same that believe their preacher when he says God told him he needs a private jet.

Also the same people that think praying constantly during a hurricane makes their leader generate a hurricane proof shield :P

Anyhow, the crisis with Iran has suddenly escalated as they've managed to shoot down an US drone (lucky shot I suppose) and apparently the WH is scrambling to decide how to respond. I can get the WH scrambling, but I'm slightly surprised that the Pentagon  is scrambling since the military (rightly or wrongly) has a reputation for having contingency plans within contingency plans within contingency plans. But I suppose the saying 'the plan never survives contact with the enemy' (not quite verbatim, but that's the basic idea) applies and they can't do contingency for every possible situation and every possible permutation of everything.