Marine1: Another Government Employee: He's a cheery sort.

This has been predicted since at least the end of WW2. It seems like the parties go to the brink, then back off. Will it happen this cycle? Who knows? If it does, the gene pool thinning will be epic.

The parties that tend to back off are usually Western. After WW2, the Western powers and Soviet Union finally realized that wars were reaching a point where mass conflict on the scale of WW2 were going to destroy entire societies. The Middle East, having been at war for freakin' ever and not having gone through the mass destruction of a war like WW2, doesn't seem to have received this message very clearly.

You do understand that the Middle East perfected the art of destroying nations long before the Germanic tribes found their way to the Rhine, right?

If by all-out regional war you mean "they all kill each other and it forces us to find a viable alternative so we don't have to give a shiat anymore about a region whose mindset hasn't evolved since the seventh century", then yes it might just well be the optimal outcome.

No, it wouldn't. Trading with everyone in the Middle East would be optimal for American interests, because American interests = American wealth.

FTA

Absent an Israeli strike, America faces:

A nuclear-armed Iran;
Iraq's continued drift towards alliance with Iran;
An overtly hostile regime in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government will lean on jihadist elements to divert attention from the country's economic collapse;
An Egyptian war with Libya for oil and with Sudan for water;
A radical Sunni regime controlling most of Syria, facing off an Iran-allied Alawistan ensconced in the coastal mountains;
A de facto or de jure Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan;
A campaign of subversion against the Saudi monarchy by Iran through Shi'ites in Eastern Province and by the Muslim Brotherhood internally;
A weakened and perhaps imploding Turkey struggling with its Kurdish population and the emergence of Syrian Kurds as a wild card;
A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; and
Radicalized Islamic regimes in Libya and Tunisia.

Lets pretend he is right on all his assumptions wiht this list. Here is the other option.



With an Israeli strike, America faces:

A set back for a nuclear armed Iran, with a populace much more supportive of the theocratic govt;
Iraq's continued drift towards alliance with Iran;
An overtly hostile regime in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government will lean on jihadist elements to divert attention from the country's economic collapse;
An Egyptian war with Libya for oil and with Sudan for water;
A radical Sunni regime controlling most of Syria, facing off an Iran-allied Alawistan ensconced in the coastal mountains;
A de facto or de jure Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan;
A campaign of subversion against the Saudi monarchy by Iran through Shi'ites in Eastern Province and by the Muslim Brotherhood internally;
A weakened and perhaps imploding Turkey struggling with its Kurdish population and the emergence of Syrian Kurds as a wild card;
A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; and
Radicalized Islamic regimes in Libya and Tunisia.

"Don't believe in Goldman / His type like a curse....."

Am I the only one who spotted that a hard-right Jewish writer uses as a pseudonym the name of Oswald Spengler, one of the crucial influences on Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler? Truly the fanatics are more alike than different.

Amos Quito: Yeah, that "unremitted hatred" of the Jews has shown its face in many, many different places and among many, many diverse peoples over the centuries.

Actually, the only single constant I can see through all of these events is the Jews.

Any thoughts on that?

Yes: there were always anti-semite shiatstains like yourself around.

From the christian church stereotypes of those damn christkillers who refuse to accept Christs to being a tiny weak minority separated by religion, dress, customs and everything else making them an easy scapegoat, economical reasons, blood libels, etc and so on.

Why did they blame the Jews for the black plague ? because shtuttup, that's why.

Amos Quito: Any thoughts on that?

I'm not touching that one with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

LL316: madgonad: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: How about a nice old fashioned conventional ground war, where everyone is wearing uniforms and we have clear-cut good guys and bad guys?

Why would our opponents agree to play by our rules?

We could try bombing them until they agree.

That is another of our strengths. Our opponents should know better than to field an actual army by now. They already know that striking soft targets with non-uniformed forces gets shiat done (embassy bombings, 9/11). They are also fighting for God, we are just fighting to make some rich guys richer. When blood starts to flow on both sides our political will is unlikely to hold unless our territory or freedoms are actually threatened - which in this case it is not. The only threat to our freedoms is ourselves (and we are doing a bangup job of it it too)

So tired of the Israeli's thinking we should fight their battles for them. You guys wanna fight em? Go for it. Leave us out. We have a country to rebuild.

I'm amused that this article compiles a list of horrible things that will happen if Israel does not bomb Iran, and yet not a single item on said list would be remotely mitigated if Israel *does* bomb Iran and quite a few would only be *exacerbated* by Israel pre-emptively bombing Iran. Not to mention the fact that no *actual* technical analysis of the situation shows any chance of significantly *delaying* the Iranian program with an aerial strike, let alone *destroying* it. (Osirak was a free-standing building among the civilian population just outside Baghdad. Fordo is *carved into a well-defended mountain next to a Republican Guard base*.)

hdhale: Marine1: Another Government Employee: He's a cheery sort.

This has been predicted since at least the end of WW2. It seems like the parties go to the brink, then back off. Will it happen this cycle? Who knows? If it does, the gene pool thinning will be epic.

The parties that tend to back off are usually Western. After WW2, the Western powers and Soviet Union finally realized that wars were reaching a point where mass conflict on the scale of WW2 were going to destroy entire societies. The Middle East, having been at war for freakin' ever and not having gone through the mass destruction of a war like WW2, doesn't seem to have received this message very clearly.

You do understand that the Middle East perfected the art of destroying nations long before the Germanic tribes found their way to the Rhine, right?

At a time when destroying tribes meant wiping out a few hundred people and leaving society mostly intact. The sort of warfare that emerged in the aftermath of WW2 would have eliminated millions and wiped complete regions clean of anything related to humanity for as long as the area remained radioactive.

Long term destabilization of any resource rich region is always in America's best interest. This way we can send aid,advisors and trade agreements. You know, for stable relations with their new best buddies and benefactors. American corporations. Paid for by the american citizen.

As long as they're killing each other with American arms, we can profit mightily.

Another Government Employee: He's a cheery sort.

This has been predicted since at least the end of WW2. It seems like the parties go to the brink, then back off. Will it happen this cycle? Who knows? If it does, the gene pool thinning will be epic.

The parties that tend to back off are usually Western. After WW2, the Western powers and Soviet Union finally realized that wars were reaching a point where mass conflict on the scale of WW2 were going to destroy entire societies. The Middle East, having been at war for freakin' ever and not having gone through the mass destruction of a war like WW2, doesn't seem to have received this message very clearly.

While the loss of human life would be unfortunate, I've about come to that conclusion, myself.

International intervention, and US meddling in particular, is pretty much all that has "kept the peace" over there for generations, and that "peace" is a joke as-is. It's honestly getting to be about time that we (the rest of the world) just yank our support entirely and let them figure it out for themselves, potential for wide-scale war in the region notwithstanding.

And that includes Israel. Let them all fight it out for a while, and check back in a decade or two.

He's a cheery sort.

This has been predicted since at least the end of WW2. It seems like the parties go to the brink, then back off. Will it happen this cycle? Who knows? If it does, the gene pool thinning will be epic.

Amos Quito: No, really.

Explain the "senseless scapegoating animosity" that Muslims (and other non-Christian groups) have had toward Jews.


/Bearing in mind that Jews have never played any part in their own history, of course

Where to start ? from inferiority complex, religious reasons, to being humiliated by the Jews. Of course the Jews played a part in their own history, they did so by having the audacity to exist.

How about you tell us why the Jews are hated ? i'd like to hear the anti-semitic turd's take on this.

Amos Quito: appingTheVein said that all of the sufferings that Jews have endured are caused by "anti-semite shiatstains" (accusing me, of course)

Well, that's mostly because you are an anti-semite shiatstain. Tell us again how the Jews caused WWI and WWII, are behind 9/11, JFK's murder but do it in your distinctive style by insinuating only so when people call you out on your anti-semitism you can roll your eyes and say 'but i never said that!' like a retarded child.

As long as it gives me something to watch on CNN, I'm for it.

YixilTesiphon: No, it wouldn't. Trading with everyone in the Middle East would be optimal for American interests, because American interests = American wealth.

No problem, then. We just sell guns to all sides.

Amos Quito: Great, now do Muslims, my little Semitist friend.

Gee, i wonder why. They can actually teach you a thing or 2 about anti-semitism.

 

/ YaRlly

grotto_man: BolshyGreatYarblocks

Am I the only one who spotted that a hard-right Jewish writer uses as a pseudonym the name of Oswald Spengler, one of the crucial influences on Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler? Truly the fanatics are more alike than different.

While the Nazis copied some of Spengler's critique of Western liberalism, he disliked them. He dismissed Hitler as vulgar and said Germany needed a real hero, not a vulgar tenor, and disagreed with their pseudoscientific racial theories and antisemitism. The Nazis banned his best selling "The Hour of Decision".

What's sad, and revealing, is the amount of ad hominem attacks on the author, rather than critiquing the actual content of the article. Unsurprisingly, out and out antisemites like "Amos Quito" spew their bile into this. It's also worthy of note that these sort of attacks usually aren't leveled against left-wing, and crypto or not so crypto antisemitic authors.

When an author welcomes the onset of the Third World War, the ethnic or religious background of the author is almost moot. But since Israel is ostensibly an ally of the US, one wonders whether we need look to Islamic states for radical statements, if this is what passes for the attitudes of America's ally.

Kind of ironic to be calling them vermin, animals, or barbaric while at the same time advocating their destruction....if we are going to thump our chests as the moral superior shouldn't we take the high ground?
We are the leader of the world, this has brought us great privilage but it also carries responsibility, we can't stoop to the level of every zealot or despot...

bdub77: Amos Quito: bdub77: The only thing you should read is this tagline at the end:

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman. His book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, It's Not the End of the World - It's Just the End of You, also appeared last fall, from Van Praag Press.

And from wikipedia: David Paul Goldman is an economist and author. As a religious Jew, Goldman says that he writes from a Judeo-Christian perspective and often focuses on demographic and economic factors in his analyses; he says his subject matter proceeds "from the theme formulated by Rosenzweig: the mortality of nations and its causes, Western secularism, Asian anomie, and unadaptable Islam."

In other words, this article was written by a Jewish zealot.


You sound anti-Semitic.

The ONLY question is, is this war GOOD for the lovers of the Zionist regime, or BAD for the lovers of the Zionist regime?


Nothing else matters.

I didn't realize I have to spell everything out for you in big crayon colors for you to get the implications. Zionism? Sure. You can use that word. Jewish nationalism would be another word for it. It has nothing to do with anti-semitism. Anti-semitism has to do with hating people because they are Jewish. I hate people who argue that other people need to die for 'the greater good'. I'll call out extreme evangelicals and muslims for the same batshiat insane ideas they have about war.

And your question is the wrong question anyway. The question is whether THIS GUY thinks the war is good or bad. And whether that bias plays into his article. It's pretty friggin obvious what his opinion is.

A war in the Middle East is the worst idea for this country and any other country that participates in it. There's no rationalization on earth that will currently make me believe otherwise.

Wars suck but they also tend to destroy political machines. WW2 destroyed the Japanese political machines. The Civil War was about the industrial north fighting the feudal south. There were advocates at the time saying that slavery wasn't just for "black people" but for poor white people who had no use for "education" or any ambition in their lives. It's starting to be thought that Karl Marx may have adopted Marxism from a particular US philosopher (whose name escapes me) who advocated such a thing. The Civil War effectively ended the agricultural era in the US and ushered in the Industrial Era. And now today we are seeing the Digital Revolution crush the old Industrial Era centers of power and see new centers of power emerge in other places, a lot of them in the south, ironically.

I'm not familiar with this guy's work, but I do know a big factor that is causing population decline in the US and other parts of Europe is oppressive and unreasonable divorce laws regarding men. Spengler mentions religion as a factor, which might have some merit, but in the case of men wanting to marry and have kids, that's more to do with them wising up to divorce laws being too financially and emotionally risky to chance partaking in, giving them no real incentive to do so. When you see these laws correct themselves you'll probably see people start investing in having families again.

As for the Middle East, well, that place is pretty rotten due to the various political machines of that region. A war will be bad but could help cleanse the rot and perhaps help them properly modernize and start afresh.

MonoChango: netcentric: Got nuthin'

But an obligatory military type picture is needed.

[imageshack.us image 640x480]

I hope you realize that F-16 is from the UAE. I'm not sure which side they would be on between any proverbial "Arab vs Israel" fight, but they have been so friendly to us for so long that they fly more advanced F-16's they we do.


The picture is a Sufa, (look at the Pythons, no rwr's, no ext flir)

But it's nice to know someone recognizes that UAE has the block 60 F with conformal tanks and most modern avionics of all 16's to date. Mo' money, Mo' bells and whistles.

Peace or War.... we sell good product for whatever you want

According to the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD), the Arab nations are suffering from a persistent shortage in all types of farm products and the gap has steadily worsened over the past two decades. Food imports into the Middle East have soared to new highs, and are now running above $25 billion a year on a net basis. There is a particular need, and shortage, of cereals and grains. Is it any wonder that central and eastern Africa has become a target for Middle East nations, looking to lease easily improved farmland?

While the EIA's IEO 2010 correctly notes the trend to further world reliance on OPEC oil as Non-OPEC oil production growth stalls out, clearly the demographic trends as expressed by food demand are another way to see how wrong the EIA's forecast has become, about future oil available for export. Also according to the AOAD: The Arab population was estimated at nearly 351 million at the end of 2009. Since 1990, it has grown by nearly 2.34 per cent annually compared with global growth of about 1.16 per cent.

Accordingly, not only will Middle East nations need more of their own fossil fuels to fund domestic construction, but the improvement of leased, foreign farmland to match their above trend population growth will also require fossil fuels. To the declining oil export model of Brown and Foucher, it appears we will need a new model of Increasing Agricultural Imports to the Middle East. As for the EIA's call that these nations will somehow level off their demand for oil, and switch to natural gas? That makes no sense at all. On a number of levels. The Middle East is not going to voluntarily transition away from oil, even marginally. And, the natural gas that our flaky EIA in Washington imagines will be used to "substitute for oil" will instead be used for new power generation and to make fertilizer.

At some point, the cost of securing oil supplies from the Middle East will exceed the marginal benefit of doing so. It seems that time is rapidly approaching. It was hoped that a satellite Iraq might quickly ramp-up oil production to very high levels, but this was a miscalculation on both counts. In the absence of a new swing producer to replace Saudi Arabia, the U.S. will in due time reduce and abandon its role there, leaving the region to slowly starve to death as local/regional demand eats into the oil exports that pay to feed its rapidly-expanding populations. Israel will be left to cope as best as it can - when the Jews chose the Levant as the site for their new homeland, they chose poorly.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: "How about a nice old fashioned conventional ground war, where everyone is wearing uniforms and we have clear-cut good guys and bad guys?"

Didn't the British say that in 1776?

Need a Dispenser Here: netcentric: Got nuthin'

But an obligatory military type picture is needed.

Out of curiosity, what's up with the hunchback?



F-16I SUFA Israel's F-16

Israeli modified. Conformal fuel tanks for additional range. Dorsal spine for additional avionics/electronic warfare etc...

Lots of hardpoints for.... well, you know.

Need a Dispenser Here: netcentric: Got nuthin'

But an obligatory military type picture is needed.

Out of curiosity, what's up with the hunchback?

Conformal fuel tanks. Increases range without increasing drag. F-15s put 'em under the wings, '16s above. I think they look kind of cool. Makes the Viper meaner looking.

The former President of Iran has already said, a big nuke war would kill about 50 million Moslems, but it would totally wipe out Israel.

The scary part is, he considers it worth the price, because they could breed that many more Moslems in 2 years or less, at the rate these vermin multiply.

thisbusinessisgoingtogetoutofhand.jpg

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: How about a nice old fashioned conventional ground war, where everyone is wearing uniforms and we have clear-cut good guys and bad guys?

Why would our opponents agree to play by our rules?

wonder how many minutes the middle east will exist after they nuke one american city?

Yay weapons contracts?

/out of control
//lucky to live through it
///blah blah blah

Sooo boils down to kill em all let God/Allah sort em out. We get oil. Profit?

The results were pretty well covered in this RPG supplement:



No, it's not a pretty world at all. The Middle East is a nuclear slag pile, and everyone is scrambling to secure new supplies of oil and starve off economic collapse.

i'm ok with this

/so long somebody also kills the last man standing

I claim the popcorn and baklava consession!!!!