Text 15389, 767 rader
Skriven 2007-06-10 22:32:43 av Vorlonagent (1802.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: unions
==================

"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ngkd63t5u6l9ma5njoc1pov8ejaetq0o9i@4ax.com...

>>You CAN build a uranium bomb without a test (the South africans did), but
>>a
>>uramium bomb is much simpler to construct.
>>
>>The NKs can drop a dirty bomb on Tokyo and that's the best threat you can
>>be
>>sure of.  (but then they could do that in 2003).
>
> It doesn't matter: no one is going to take the risk that a second
> attempt will fizzle.

...which proves my point.  If there is a substantial risk of failure even
after one partial-success and analysis of the results, then you MUST test in
order to assure yourself you have something that works.

Your entire argument is attempting to prop up the meme "NK has the bomb and
it's all Bush's fault"

...which requires that NK actually *have* the bomb.  Your actual argument
amount to "catastrophizing" the situation, taking every unknown and putting
the worst possible spin on it.

Me: NK's test wasn't successful

You: But that means they know what went wrong and can now make a bomb.

You are treating a partial success and a full success identically.  All
potential barriers to success are swept away in what can only be described
as blind faith.  I bring up established fact that the bomb is the hard part
of a plutonium device, that you have to have things exactly right in order
to make it work and that's all waved away by the magic plans NK got from
Pakistan.  They have the plans for a working bomb so naturally they can
build one.  Even though the one test they tried was more of a pop than a
bang.

This is the same sort of projection that was put on the Soviet Union.  Even
as it was crumbling on the inside, it was ascribed magical superpowers that
it could equal or exceed the US in all things when in fact it was keeping
pace on a few selected things and falling behind on a lot more.

During the 80's a Russian fighter pilot defected to the west along with his
state of the art MiG.  Among the things we found out was the MiG was made
out of common steel.  Our F-14s were composed of heat-resistant, light
metals sepcially developed for the job.  The lack of such materials in the
MiG should have told us something about the Soviets right there, and
probably did.

Similarly, the NKs have any number of institutional factors that could be in
play: namely the fact that NK is a starving, tinpot, 3rd world rat-hole.  To
assume this isn't impacting NK nuclear weapons research is to be rather
naive, but it's like assuming the soviets could keep pace with the US  or
best the US in every facet of life.

Still, I will agree that the smart money says that NK can probably take the 
results of their failed test and work out the kinks.  They probably have a 
design for a
working bomb.

I wrote all the above to underline the *probably* part of that sentence,
because you're underlining the "have" without any factual basis for assuming
it and in the face of reasons NOT to.  Proper skepticism is in order.

To sum up: The NKs do not have a working nuclear device.  They have at best
a failed nuclear device and ideas on how to make it succeed.  That does not
equate to a working device.  Further, the NKs are working under any number
of sub-optimal conditions that undoubtably are limiting their ability to do
research and could very well be roadblocks to a successful test.  We don't
know.  We do know that NK is trying to produce a nuclear bomb under much
worse conditions than the Soviets were when they produced that low-tech MiG.

With all this in play, granting full membership to the NKs to the nuclear
club would be a an act of blindness.   As I have said in other forums before
the test, "no boom, no bomb".  Well, we got a "pop" not a "boom" so NK gets
a probationary membership and nothing more.

Then you have the whole process of going from "prototype" stage to something
you can mount on a missile, which is a whole 'nother round of research.  You
have them ready to nuke Tokyo now.


>>No point.  There is nothing we can gain from this Iranian government.  No
>>promise we can extract that we can reasoably expect they'll honor.  Iran
>>and
>>the mideast have a long enough track record that we don't need to naively
>>follow after evey silky-smooth turn of phrase that sounds like moderation
>>from our enemies.  They'll say all the right things ("Full transparency")
>>but that is worth nothing.  You are being sold a bill of goods.
>
> You appear to be reaching conclusions here that aren't based on any
> solid evidence, just an a priori assumption that the Iranians will
> cheat to the point where an agreement becomes counterproductive. But
> we don't know that, and we won't know that if we don't try. As Ronald
> Reagan said, trust but verify.

No trust, no way to verify.  We can't measure the output of Iranian
centrefuges.  We can't monitor how much money flows from iran to Hezbollah,
Hamas, Al-Queda or Al Sadr in Iraq.

Nor has Iran given us any reason to trust them.  Their terrible record in
talks with european leaders coupled with their seizure of a british military
ship and holding the crew hostage shows that they are not anyone we want to
negotiate or expect to reach a reasonable agreement with.

All you have are nice-sounding words.

I have a track record of obsfucation at the bargaining table and aggression
off it.

There's another saying that works here: Talk is cheap.


>>They want you to do exactly what you're doing: hearing the codewords that
>>make you think the guys running Iran can be reasoned with and as a result
>>make it harder for the US to act against Iran when and if that time
>>arises.
>>They can't be reasoned with.  Not under the certain circumstances.  We
>>have
>>little credibility by which they would either respect an agreement or fear
>>to break it.  Before iraq, we had none.  We could have more, but the
>>leftist
>>news outlets and politicians have done their level best to minimize it by
>>opposing and undermining the war at every turn and by any means at their
>>disposal.  Bush mistakes in iraq haven't helped things either.
>
> I see no evidence whatsoever that the Iranians can't be reasoned with.
> The country is run by an ideologue, yes, but there's no sign that he's
> irrational. In fact, he appears to have reigned in Iran's less than
> rational president.

I see plenty.

Anyway Iran is not a dictatorship, it is a theocracy.  Its government would
be likened to the soviet Untion and the cleics would be the politburo.
since
Iranian presidents have faster turnover than soviet premiers, probably more
power is centered in clerical hands.

When that fact of iranian life changes, negotiation can be weighed as a real
possibility.


> I find your assertion that "leftist" politicians and the "leftist"
> press opposed and undermined the war at every turn mind boggling.
> Congressional Democrats supported entry into the war. The press lay
> down and played dead.

Not even close to true.  Democrats voted for war when it was popular and put
up merely-symbolic votes to the contrary now that it's not.  I don't confuse
that with wholehearted support for the war and I doubt you do either.

Certainly you shouldn't.  It's more a measure of the courage of your average
democrat politician's convictions, which ought to worry you.  They voted for
it but were unrestrained critics later.  John Kerry's "voted for
it before he voted against it" line is a wonderful exemplar.

Democrats, leftists, the mainstream newsmedia all magified every US misstep,
leered over every US death, ignored every good deed or sign of hope that
came from Iraq that could possibly be ignored, wringing hands over every
real or perceived US "human rights abuse".  The Left in the US: the
mainstrem media, democrats, organizations have waged a bitter, widespread
propaganda campaign against the war from before it began to present.

Hell, the Left in the media and politcs has been the single best ally a
terroist could ask for.  Tirelessly working to demoralize the american
people, and destroy the will to win in iraq.  And best of all, they're a
free service, not true 5th columnists, but all the dedication you could ask
for.


> We can't destroy organized resistance in Iraq without a million men,
> and we aren't going to get a million men, because the public isn't
> going to send its children to die in someone else's civil war.

The best estimates have run between 300,000 and 500,000, not a million and
that's for a full-spectrum occupation of Iraq by the US at all levels.  Bush
attempted to do more with less and make up the difference wth trained Iraqi
forces, which hasn't worked out as well as he hoped.

The US citizenry want to win.  But if they aren't going to win, they don't
want needless losses.  People have become convinced that we're at or nearly
at the "not win" point, thanks to the mainstream media, which has worked to
to bring this about.


> You have to be realistic. Half of this mess came to be because Bush
> and his neocons weren't realistic. We were an /empire,/ they said. We
> could do anything, they said. The natives would strew flowers before
> our feet, they said.
>
> Never mind Vietnam.

The first war lost though the media.  RE: Tet Offensive and US media
distortions of it.


> Never mind the Israeli experience in Lebanon.

The Israeli experience in lebanon (and the US's in iraq) is don't go for
half-measures.  If you're going to dive in at all, go all the way.  Bush
throught we could make them like us by building roads and schools and such
instead of chasing down bad guys.  Now we're finally putting more effort
into chasing down bad guys.

Israel dithered through most of its conflict with hezbollah.  One it got
rolling there was little hezbollah could do to stop them.  It was a world
hue and cry, fanned by left-leading media that called the israelis back and
forced them to leave lebanon with hezbollah units still on he ground.

Don't fool yourself into thinking the Hezbos drove the Israelis out.


> "Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that
> anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and
> hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever
> must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master
> of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." -
> Churchill
>
> "When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go
> and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War
> settles nothing." - Eisenhower

With all due respect, I disagree with Esisenhower.  War settled Hitler's
ambitions.  Negotiations fanned them.  War allowed to run to its conclusion
often has this effect, albeit in a very bloody, destructive way.

Churchill, as usual, is right on the money.  Churchill does not say, "don't
go to war" but "don't expect it to be easy or what you thought it would be".
Bush may well have underestimated his opponents.  he has certainly paid for
it.  That does not mean the undertaking was bad, merely the attitude toward
it and I'll grant you the attitude, but nothing more.


>>We may wish to hold talks with opposition leaders in private and see what
>>we
>>can do to help topple the clerics fro power but those negotiations would
>>be
>>highly unofficial.
>
> The policy of not talking has failed every time Bush has used it.
> That's hardly surprising. An attempt to accomplish something may end
> in failure; the failure to make the attempt certainly will.

The policy of *negotiating* with iran has failed too.

If I have to choose my failures, I'll take one that has some principle
involved: choosing not to negotiate with a country one cannot trust as far
as one can throw it.


>>Unfortunately, experience has shown that we can't trust the
>>Administration's claims about intelligence or who supports Al Qaeda,
>>so we're in the dark as to what's actually happening. Which being
>>said, why would Iran support Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda is fighting against
>>the side they favor in Iraq, the Shites.
>>-------------------------------------------------
>>Al Queda is fighting for their own side.  Al Queda wants Iraq as a staging
>>area, not unlike what Afghanistan was for them.  They aren't anything more
>>than allies of convienence with the shiites.  They bombed the Golden
>>Mosque,
>>remember?  They fight for the (radical) shiites because they get their
>>money
>>from iran.
>
> Al Qaeda is fighting /against/ the Shiites.

They're fighting for themselves against anyone they see in their way.  They
target the shia because to wahabbist thinking, they're heretics (and because
they have been trying to create and stoke sectarian violence), but they are
bullies to sunni neightborhoods they use as hideouts and would not hesitate
to gun down a sunni for any reason you'd care to name.

None of this precludes money or support from iran, either.  Iran has no
concern for iraqi sunnis and little for iraqi shiites.  The sunnis are
heretics and the sunnis get the honor of being martyrs for the greater cause
of Islam.  Whoever Al-Queda kills Iran wins, as long as Al-Queda keeps
killing.


> Al-Zawahiri on Iran:
>
> "Such as the slogan 'America, the Great Satan,' which became the
> slogan 'America, the Closest Partner,' and such as the movements which
> used to claim that they were carrying the message of Islam to liberate
> the Muslims in Iraq from Saddam the Baathist, but are now sending
> messages of surrender to keep the forces of Bush the Crusader in the
> Muslims' lands."

Talk is cheap.


>>Bottom line: I think you're overlooking Iran's self-interest, the
>>regime's sensitivity to pressure, and the diversity of opinion within
>>the Iranian elite, a diversity that was present even in the days
>>following the revolution, when an anti-American course was not a
>>given. We have what appears to be a real opening. But as so often the
>>Administration chose to overlook the signs of a thaw and set
>>unrealistic requirements for opening negotiations, thus undercutting
>>the progressive elements within Iran.
>>---------------------------------------------------
>>We have no "opening" of the sort.  We have Iran spinning neat-sounding
>>lies
>>for you to latch onto.  It's fodder to earn and reatin your sympathy so as
>>to reinforce talks that block action.
>
> Again, I don't see any evidence of that.

Their failed and pointless talks with europe while they continued to refine
uranium seems a pretty obvious example to me.


>>  It's more like the Tet offensive, which
>>the US media blew up into a US defeat when it was nothing of the sort.
>
> The Tet Offensive was /the/ defeat of the US: as a friend who was
> there at the time working for RAND put it, it's when we knew that the
> war was lost. Because while we did fight off and essentially destroyed
> the VC, we also learned that our efforts to pacify the country and
> pound the North Vietnamese into an agreement hadn't succeeded and
> weren't going to.

I don't have any sources at the Rand Corp so I can't confirm or deny your
assertion or assess whether the view you describe is a majority or minorty 
view or whether it was skewed by political filters from then and there to 
you.

I do know what is in public record and that record says the US media turned
a VC defeat into a VC victory and that was the turning point for popular
opinion. The will to wage war was destroyed by something the US media made
up rather than reported.


>>Yes, there are people fed up with the clerics, but there's no way to tell
>>when critical mass will occur for action.  It could be tomorrow or 20
>>years
>>from now.  Either way there's no official negotiating we can undertake
>>with
>>anyone among the fed-ups.
>
> The accommodation of the street to power is only half of the story:
> the other half of it is that Middle Eastern power accommodates the
> street. It's a subtle balance, and it's one that must be recognized if
> one is to deal intelligently with the region.

How does that work exactly?  Most mideast protests are staged.  Behind the
scenes, most governments use violence and intimidation to enforce their 
will.

The "arab street" as we see it in the west is mostly stage-managed by the 
power brokers in the mideast and we  like it's
genuine

You may wish to be more specific.


> Also, you've overlooked the fact that the Iranian elite is /not/
> monolithic, that it is self-interested, that it has common interests
> with the United States, and that it values its own survival and has
> been reacting to our threats on that basis. Unfortunately, Bush has
> been frittering away our position while refusing to take advantage of
> some very clear overtures. As with everything he tries to accomplish,
> his methods are strangely askew. He's in a world of his own, as
> Secretary O'Neil put it. He's like a badly made key that never quite
> fits the lock.

I agree that Iran has a self interest but you see them as intimidated by the
US and clutching at a nuclear weapon for security against the US threat.

Iran's ruling clerics also crave power and prestige in the mideast in
addition to their own security.  By phrasing things as you do, you accent
the "security", but conviently forget the ambition, which whitewashes iran
into being much more innocent-sounding and reasonable-sounding than they
actually are.  And by implication cast the US in the false role of bully and
victimizer.

Naturally Iran is concerned about its security and naturally the US is a
threat, but Iran chooses to manage that threat by stringing out negotiations
and media manipulation, as is common in the mideast.  Iran knows it has a
faithful megaphone in the US media, so whatever it says generally gets
amplified and cast in a favorable light just as you're doing right now.  As
the last 30 years have shown, it's easy to tie the west up in negotiations.
We never seem to run out of people who think that powerlust can be talked
away.

Iran desires a nuclear weapon because such a weapon is very prestigious and
it confers an invulnerability to invasion that helps Iran greatly in its
drive to dominate the mideast.  That drive is what brings Iran into conflict 
with the US.
Iran has invested considerably in Hezbollah, and is divesifying into Al
Queda and Hamas.  Any calculation of iran's trust-worthyness has to take
this into account along with their recent actions against the british navy.
They are the money men behind huge amounts of strife in the mideast.  Not
the only ones you understand.  The saudis have much to answer for too, but
that's not relevant to this discussion.

What is relevant is that Iran is currently an enemy of the US and one of the
most extreme. We negotiate with enemies that can be negtiated with about
things that can be settled with negotiation.  Iran's nuclear ambitions, it's
support for Hezbollah, Hamas and insurgents in Iraq are not things iran will
negotaite in good faith over, as recent experience has shown.  I see no
reason to negotiate just for the sake of it.

If Iran indeed has moderates who wish better relations with the US, let them
show it by actions.  Reduce iranian support for its terror arm, declare a
moratorium on uranium enhancemnt until the UN can come in and set up
monitoring.

Until I see some actions, Iran is best treated as an enemy to whom I have
little to say until we can negotiate on my terms.  At the moment, all the
talking is on Iran's terms, which is why Europe has nothing to show for its
involvement with Iran over Iran's nuclear ambuitions.

It's an ironic position Europe finds itself in.  They sold Iran the very
centrefuges they later vainly tired to talk Iran out of using.


>>Then there is the South Africa solution, which is even more elegant and
>>less
>>sledgehammer: Disinvestment in companies that do business in Iran.  The US
>>has already made it illegal for US companies to do business there so this
>>would hit companies in europe or elsewhere.
>
> We have so far been unable to garner sufficient support for meaningful
> sanctions. If the Russians and Chinese weren't so self-interested,
> that wouldn't be a problem, but in the real world, we have to live
> with their refusal to take strong action.

It takes a while for an idea like disinvestment to catch on, as South Africa
showed.


>>A revolution shouldn't be necessary to shift the balance, just a new
>>consensus among the elite. See forex the selection of Gorbachev after
>>military expenditures threatened to bankrupt the Soviet economy or the
>>alliance of convenience between Mao's China and the US.
>>-----------------------------------------
>>Note that Gorbechev had to deal with a US that was a threat, not a US
>>trying
>>to be harmless, unintimidating and accomodating.
>
> We have been anything but harmless, unintimidating, and accommodating
> to Iran. We've been fighting a nasty cold war with them for many
> years.

And iran is feeling it.  Attempting to BE more unintimidating and
accomodating merely gives an enemy breathing space.


> That is not even faintly true. It was an American liberal, Harry
> Truman, who drew the line against Soviet expansion. It was an American
> liberal, Lyndon Johnson, who mistakenly got us into Vietnam. And it
> has been American liberals like John Kerry who have called for
> increased support for the Army.

It's interesting that you chose the classic "strong" democrats rather than 
the more recent democrat presidents. There's a problem with choosing the 
oldies but goodies.

They're not liberals.

Not in foreign policy terms.

Both Truman and Johnson were democrats, true.  But their policies toward 
American enemies do not remotely track with current liberal thought. 
Neither did JFK's for that matter.  These democrats knew that there were 
times when a foe needed confronting.  All understood that the struggle of 
freedom vs trynanny lay in facing down and containing the spread of 
communism without sparking a nuclear conflict (JFK came damn close to 
sparking exactly that kind of conflict, but didn't).

Democrats that use the post-60s liberal foreign policy have produced 
disasters for the US.  Case in point: Jimmy Carter, who thought that thought 
dismantling the US military was a good idea..  True to the no-nukes wing of 
his party, he had the one CVN built during his presidency redesinged to run 
on oil.  It is the biggest white elephant in the US navy, quite possibly the 
world.  All his foreign policy did was telegraph weakenss, which the 
iranians underlined with the hostage crisis.

Then there's Bill Clinton, while talking tough and bombing Bellgrade, he
also sent under-equipped US soldiers into Mogidishu, producing "Black Hawk
Down", which again telegraphed US weakeness and lack of resolve.  It also
gave Osama bin Laden the idea that the US could be further intimidated by a
terror attack at home.  Not as bad as Carter by any means but bad enough. 
But then Clinton made a point of deviating from the liberal model.

Liberalism (in the current, postmodern definition of "liberal") sucks at
foreign policy, a fact of life re-confirmed by Nancy Pelosi's recent trip to
Syria.

It was a **conservative**, Ronald Reagan, whose poilicies, again hotly
opposed and vilified by the liberals of his day, that finished the job
Truman started.  Then as now, Liberals thought the enemy of the moment was a
fixture of life and sought to accomodate and appease, a course you adovcate
concering Iran.  Reagan called evil "evil" and his preparations to make sure
we'd win in a war destroyed the soviets when they tried to keep up.  Bush
has called evil "evil" as well and is that much to the good regardless of
the mistakes he made in how he chose to answer evil.  Then as now, the
prisident was attacked regularly, personally, viciously.  Then as now, the
president was said by liberals to be stupid, and out of touch with reality.
Reagan won the Cold War, something Liberals expected to go on indefinitely. 
Now we
hear al the same rhetoric with "communism" scribbled out and "terrorism"
written in the margins.


>>It would make much more sense I think to destroy their oil
>>infrastructure or interdict shipments, but we've managed to close off
>>that possibility by failing to reduce consumption and develop
>>alternatives.
>>---------------------------------------
>>If you want to get violent, merely destroy their refineries and interdict
>>inbound gasoline.
>
> But, again, we can't do that, because our myopic,
> oil-company-dominated policies have left us open to the economic
> consequences of the loss of Iranian oil.

Iran's refineries only refine for domestic consumption.  Flattening them has
no direct consequence for outbound oil shipments.  Iran would have to choose
not to sell crude oil and I've established without rebut from you to date
that iran would be hurt worse than the rest of the world if it stopped
selling oil for any lnegth of time.


>They did it because they wanted more money.
>
>>That's the thing with many powerful men, especially dictators and
>>autocrats.
>>You give them what they want now and their appetite merely gets bigger.
>>Chamberlain made that mistake with Hitler, just as Amassador Fox made that
>>mistake with the Centauri.
>
> It's not that simple, not by a long shot. For one thing, Iran isn't
> North Korea: it isn't trying to extort money, which it has in plenty,
> thanks to the Bush Administration's energy policies. For another, both
> are trying to defend themselves from regime change. They know -- would
> be foolish not to -- that the best guarantee they can buy has
> plutonium in it.

Iran is doing its level best NOT to have oil money.  It's output is slipping
due to poor maintenance and a lack of reinvesting in new equipment.

And Inever said they were attempting to extort money so much as buy time to 
build a bomb.

BTW, keep your axis of evil members straight.

Iran = uranium
NK = plutonium.

If you want to write a really good ominous ending line, it's best if you
have your facts right or it loses most of its punch.


>>Pay Iran not to make nukes and they will cheat, move the goalposts or
>>both.
>>And all the time continue to fund and encourage terroism.
>
> You have no evidence of that.

Iran's conduct over the last 30 years is ample evidence.  The place is one
of the biggest enables ot islamic terrosim, if not THE biggest enabler of
islamic terrorism in the world.  Not just enabler but active participant.
You can shrug off Saddam's ties, but not Iran's.

If that coupled with recent experience doesn't make the point the iranians
in power cannot be trusted, nothing will.  This to me doesn't just seem
merely obvious but glaring, blindingly obvious.  There is no reason or point
is negotiating with a nation with its fingers as deep in terrorism as Iran's
yet you sit there and honestly say to me, "gosh John I can't think of a
reason why we can't trust these guys."

It boggles the mind.


>>If that were the actual case, I might agree.
>>
>>NK resumed their nuclear program to try to finesse more money from the US.
>>Pre-2003 Bush Admin policies did not have a great impact on that decision
>>save to open a convienent moment for attempting the finesse.  The results
>>are at best a mixed success, despite your alarmist rhetoric.  You assume
>>far
>>more capability for the NKs than reason would support.  They are not
>>invulnerable by any means.
>
> I'm not aware of any evidence to back up your claim that they did what
> they did to get more money. And I'm aware of a fair amount of evidence
> that they did what they did because of the Axis of Evil speech and
> other actions taken by the Administration.

They demanded more money, IIRC.  Certainly given the timing (brink of the 
invasion
of Iraq) and the most expedient action the US could take to deal with NK 
would be to pay
them.

It's my theory, not something I read anywhere so I could be wrong, but I
don't think I am.


> I've never suggested that they're invulnerable. However, we would have
> to sacrifice at a minimum Seoul to take them down.

...which was true in 2003 as well.


>>Saddam's Iraq is gone and we are that much to the good and no great harm
>>done to the iranian people's desire to be free of their mullahs.  Indeed,
>>by
>>putting pressure on the clerics by invading iran, we might be hastening
>>Iran's demise than putting it off, the same way that Reagan's
>>Leftist-reviled military buildup pushed the Soviets over the precipice.
>>We
>>see iraninas turning toward iraq's Al-Sistani and away from the
>>iranianclerics, something not possible wihtout an iraqi invasion.
>
> The Iranians had turned away from the clerics long before Bush even
> took office.

No doubt.  If Afghanistan is any judge, Islamic theocracies get unpopular
fast.  That does not address the importance of iranians turning toward
Sistani and away from radicalism.


>>I also heard a NPR radio report of organizations in iraq making common
>>cause
>>with the americans locally and trying to take it nation-wide.
>>
>>You want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?  Side with the
>>liberals
>>in congress and pull US troops out.
>
> Er, pardon me for asking, but where's the victory? Things just get
> worse and worse -- more bombings, more deaths. The surge has been a
> flop, as everyone but Bush and a few on the far right knew it would
> be. There is no sign whatsoever that leaving the troops in Iraq will
> do anything except further erode the Army and attract more recruits to
> Al Qaeda.

Sez you.  I think it's too soon to render any informed verdict.


>>>>>But -- and this is where I think the Adminstration let us down:
>>>>>
>>>>>'Instead, Bush administration hard-liners aborted the process. Another
>>>>>round of talks had been scheduled for Geneva, and Ambassador Zarif
>>>>>showed up - but not the U.S. side. That undermined Iranian moderates.
>>>>>
>>>>>My jaw fairly dropped when I read that.
>>>
>>>The US has been letting the Europeans take the lead in dealing with Iran.
>>>For all the good it has done.
>>
>>Right, it's a failed policy. Bush used the same failed policy in North
>>Korea. In both cases, he refused to talk one-on-one. Didn't work.
>>Nothing he ever does works. It's astounding.
>>---------------------------------------
>>Say it enough times, it may actually come true.
>
> Name one thing Bush has done that he hasn't screwed up. One. It's
> amazing.

That you would accept?  Nothing.

I've written plenty about what I think Bush has done right and wrong in both
this e-mail thread and plenty of previous.  I refer you to my collected
works on the subject.


>>Unilateral talks with the NKs impinge on too many other nations.
>>Non-starter.  Everybody's voice needs to be heard.
>
> Nonsense. We held unilateral (bilateral, actually) talks with the
> North Koreans under Clinton.

...and it got us an agreement that the NKs broke when it pleased them to do
so.  Fat lot of use it was.


>>The US has nothing to say to this Iranian government .  Entering into
>>diplomacy would put all other options on hold so as to "not jeapodize the
>>talks".  Again, a bad, bad idea.
>
> Again, nonsense. We just talked to them, and we didn't put other
> options on hold to do so.

Irrelevant.  When formal negotiations begin, the kind that run for months
and years on end, it's different story.  Nobody can do anything because "it
might upset the talks".  That's the way it's been since the 60's ended.


> Iran has everything to lose. They do not want to suffer serious
> sanctions or be cut off from the world. They do not want to suffer a
> military attack.

...which is why they'll be happy to negotiate...and stall those negtiations
endlessly.  It serves to continue the status quo, which favors them.  Why
negotiate away an advantage, when the act of negotiating preserves it?
Again: RE Europe's fruitless talks with Iran on their nuclear ambitions.

If they have to negotiate something away, they can be good for a year or two 
and then cheat.  Neither world nor UN will hold them to their word.  The US 
might want to if there's a conservative in the white house, but the world 
(and the liberals in the US) will do everything possible to forstall any 
kind of consequence for Iran's actions.


>>>> That's one of the reasons this administration makes me cringe. They're
>>Except that Roosevelt and Churchill knew damn well that one fought the
>>most important enemy and sought help where you could get it. Roosevelt
>>decided to concentrate initially on Germany rather than the
>>less-threatening Japan. Both he and Churchilll made alliances with
>>Stalin; as Churchill put it, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least
>>make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
>>------------------------------------
>>We sought help.  Our genuine allies answered.  The US put together a
>>52-country coalition, IIRC.
>
> Dude, we couldn't even get Canada aboard.

I'd have been *surprised* if he got Canada.


>>Bush selected the proper country at the proper time for the proper action.
>
> I can't believe you said that. I simply can't believe you said that.
> Saddam had no WMD's. Saddam was an enemy of Al Qaeda. How can you
> possibly have said that?

<sigh>  We're back to this *again*?  There's nothing about my statement that 
should surprise you.  I don't expect you to agree with me, but we've sparred 
enough that you should at least have some idea of what I think and why, 
where I agree with Bush and where I don't. It's ground we've been over any 
number of times.

It's enough to say that neither of us have changed our minds since 2003
about the whys and wherefores of the US invasion and let's save ourselves a
lot of time and bandwidth.

When you reply to this post, you may or may not get a reply from me.  These 
huge posts get time-consuming and tedious.  We're both long-winded SOBs who 
have a tendency to nitpick each other's points, making for an exponential 
growth of post size.


-- 
Q: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about
global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them
hope? What's the right mix?

Gore: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is.
In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of
unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any
discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't
think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is
appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how
dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to
what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve
this crisis.

Al Gore, Grist Magazine, 2006
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
 * Origin: Time Warp of the Future BBS - Home of League 10 (1:14/400)