Former Department of Defense Chief Expects "30 Year War" 425
HughPickens.com writes Susan Page writes at USA Today that Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA and Secretary of the Department of Defense, says Americans should be braced for a long battle against the brutal terrorist group Islamic State that will test U.S. resolve. "I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war," says Panetta, one that will have to extend beyond Islamic State to include emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. Panetta also says that decisions made by President Obama over the past three years have made that battle more difficult — an explosive assessment by a respected policymaker of the president he served. Not pushing the Iraqi government harder to allow a residual US force to remain when troops withdrew in 2011, a deal he says could have been negotiated with more effort "created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it's out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed." It is no surprise to Panetta that the assessment in his new book "Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace" is drawing White House ire. "Look, I've been a guy who's always been honest," Panetta says. "I've been honest in politics, honest with the people that I deal with. I've been a straight talker. Some people like it; some people don't like it. But I wasn't going to write a book that kind of didn't express what I thought was the case."
Oh please, Biden said it best (Score:4, Interesting)
ISIL is both financed and given logistics support from primarily three countries that are "supposedly" allies of the US UK etc.
Turkey.
UAE
and Saudi Arabia.
Nuke those and ISIL dies.
Re:Oh please, Biden said it best (Score:5, Interesting)
Not real keen on nuking anyone, but this is one of the underlying issues.
We can pretty well mop up ISIL's ability to generate revenue via oil, but we can't control Turkey, UAE, or SA by bombing ISIL. We need economic sanctions and UN backing (good luck with that, between Russia's veto and the world's addition to oil) to start putting pressure on these nations.
We can kill all the "generals" we want, but so long as the princes with the purses are funding their causes, some new general will step up to collect that check.
Also, kinda handy for Ponetta to release a book critical of the President/Democrats and go on a press tour claiming a 30 year war exactly 1 month before the midterm election. I'm sure that's just a coincident... right?
-Rick
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Good luck with that, between Russia's veto
Are you kidding me? Economic sanctions on UAE and KSA are Russia's wet dream. And unlike US, Russia is directly threatened by Salafi extremism, on its own soil - who do you think funds the mujis in Chechnya and Dagestan (and lately also Tatarstan)?
If there's one thing that Russia could agree on with US, it's blowing KSA to smithereens, whether figuratively or literally. The problem here is US.
Re:Oh please, Biden said it best (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not actually necessary to nuke anyone. But you won't have a lasting peace in the middle east without reducing the injustice.
The USA was founded on the principle of government of the people, by the people, for the people. And by "the people" the founders meant ordinary people - that the USA would be different from Europe where ordinary people were being exploited for the benefit of a small hereditary ruling class. Fundamentally, it's about individual freedom - that a person should not be artificially limited by the circumstances of their birth. Not that the USA always lived up to that ideal - e.g. slavery.
So that means two things. First, that USA needs take a stand for democracy and stop supporting hereditary dictatorships - even if those dictatorships are beneficial to a few rich Americans (e.g. the Bushes). Second, the USA needs to take a stand against all racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the middle east. And that includes Israel. It's a nice fantasy it's possible to discriminate in favor of a particular group without discriminating against everyone else. But you can't. It's not possible to have a "whites only" (or even "whites mostly") drinking fountain that doesn't discriminate against people who aren't white. To put it bluntly Israel would need to outlaw absolutely all discrimination against people who aren't Jewish.
We live in a world where it's technologically possible to hop on a jet plane and be literally on the opposite side of the planet in 20-30 hours. We live in a world where it's technologically possible for a Palestinian to go live in Japan and eat palak paneer while wearing a sombrero and listening to Beethoven. But politically we are still limited by the circumstances of our birth - the notion that someone born within some arbitrary little geographical boundary should be constrained to live out their entire life within that boundary - perhaps even that the people should be constrained to live in the same little region as their distant ancestors and that they should have to eat the same food and wear the same clothes and believe the same things as their distant ancestors.
There is little awareness of the benefits of taking the good from a variety of different cultures. Instead there is this simplistic desire to paint one culture as entirely good and all other cultures as entirely bad - and to then imagine some global conflict between the "good" culture and all the other "bad" cultures - where the fate of humanity rests on the "good" culture obliterating the "bad" cultures. In the end, the goal should be for the middle east to look something like the European Union - where people are free to live and work and travel throughout the region regardless of which particular country they were born in - or their race or religion or ethnicity or who their parents were.
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Duuurrr. It's hard, so nuke them. Herp Derp.
Not only is a werewolf a myth, but so is the idea of a silver bullet solution .
unless you want to drink horrid beer. Life's really too short for that nonsense.
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is there any difference? this is iS, formerly known as syrian freedom fighters, remember? the pattern is old, already.
TFA is bullshit, it is only sort of correct about the 30-year war ... which has been already going on for 15. it's all the same war, the war US needs to keep its declining influence. 15 more til it rots, she prophesies? could be. anyway that's a lot of mayhem still to unleash ...
but it just could be another instance of the "magical three months syndrome". remember, when every month some rand
Re:You Forgot One (Score:4, Insightful)
No the problem is the USA is targeted the wrong target. You can't stop ISIS with bombs. You can't stop Al queada with bombs.
You can't stop them with guns or bullets. you can't kill them all.
It is like Afgahanistan in the 1980's the CIA got the Afghan's to fight the Soviets. then the USA left which let an entire generation become jihadists. You are fighting Ideas. You are trying to prevent the Sunni- Shitte war that has been brewing for Centuries.
The USA needs to step up and develop alternative energy sources so we don't need middle east oil and let them kill each other. Once the Middle east begins to use up their oil reserves(and that is many decades away) the fighting will stop. Actually it will get far worse for a while, but it will eventually stop.
However once the USA and Europe doesn't need their oil anymore they will stop caring and let the idiots slaughter each other.(any group fighting over religion is automatically an idiot)
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Wrong. We have the ability to eliminate absolutely every living thing in the middle east fairly easily. The few that are here would be easily dealt with after that. Libcucks are the only reason this is still going on.
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No the problem is the USA is targeted the wrong target. You can't stop ISIS with bombs. You can't stop Al queada with bombs.
You can't stop them with guns or bullets. you can't kill them all.
It is like Afgahanistan in the 1980's the CIA got the Afghan's to fight the Soviets. then the USA left which let an entire generation become jihadists. You are fighting Ideas. You are trying to prevent the Sunni- Shitte war that has been brewing for Centuries.
The USA needs to step up and develop alternative energy sources so we don't need middle east oil and let them kill each other. Once the Middle east begins to use up their oil reserves(and that is many decades away) the fighting will stop. Actually it will get far worse for a while, but it will eventually stop.
However once the USA and Europe doesn't need their oil anymore they will stop caring and let the idiots slaughter each other.(any group fighting over religion is automatically an idiot)
True enough, but what you can do is use airpower to knock out every tank, armored car, APC, artillery piece, truck and jeep that ISIS has destory their infrastrucutre and with it their economy. Then equip their enemies with heavy weapons train them in tactics likely to work against an ISIS whose arsenal has been reduced to AK-47s, SAWs, RPGs and mortars. With the way ISIS has been behaving I'm pretty sure the locals people in places like Syria, Iraq and Kurdistan can be relied upon to grab these ISIS asshol
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Funny, that's exactly what created ISIS, and every other renegade group that hates the US. Why would the exact same tactic that has never worked in 60 years suddenly work now?
Re:You Forgot One (Score:5, Insightful)
The US military industrial complex created them, the US military industrial complex fights them and the US military industrial complex keeps them going. It has spent years goading Russia to try and kick over the cold war again and is now poking China as well. The US military industrial complex runs around the war trying to put out fires with a flame thrower and then blaming everyone else when they fail at it.
Re:You Forgot One (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, you are right. Russia had every reason to steal part of Georgia. And Crimea, they were told to that by the U.S. military industrial complex, they've long been known to take orders from it. Ukraine? Same story, there's no history. And Taiwan? The U.S. m.i.c. moved Chaing there after the war just to give China a foil. The S. China Sea? China has long been taking orders direct from the U.S. to steal it. Islamo-Fascism? Why that's just another CIA plot, nothing home grown about it. Gee, now that I get to look at the world through your eyes, there's just nothing for which the U.S. is not responsible.
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You can't kill them all.
Sure we could, it would be pretty straightforward to use a combination of Nuclear weapons and Chemical agents to depopulate the entire area and then follow up with drones to catch any remnants. It wouldn't be ethical and we wouldn't do something like that, but don't mistake won't for can't.
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You assume the rest of the world would sit idly by as you did that. It would not. The only thing you would reach is that every single nation would overnight become the best friend with Russia and China. The next day, interesting things would start to happen in North America.
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Russia and China would very likely not object to it. Israel would very likely object to being wiped with the rest of Muslim world. Europe would object to the worst genocide in planet's history. The rest of the would would see US using Nuclear weapons at will and rise up in arms. The only alternative to US nuclear arsenal is Russia and China, so the rest of the world would turn toward them. They would immediately cease the opportunity, build a world coalition against US. Half of US citizens would raise in ar
Re:Oh please, Biden said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
No it isn't, no more than christiantity.
Seriously, meet a few muslems before you parrot lines off groups that have been looking for another demon to finance the MIC, and often had a hand in creating (Al Quaeda, orginally financed by the US to fight the commie threat.. etc).
95% of muslems want exactly what most 1st worlders want, a safe place to raise, feed and educate their children, and hopefully some opportunity for those children to do better.
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What are we doing, as men, beyond merely denouncing Islamic State? After all, the ranks of Islamic State are pretty much entirely male. Now, I'm aware that while many (virtually all)
First to say it (Score:3, Funny)
Now isn't that convenient to the business of war?
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So.... 3D printed drones?
Re:First to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
What? You nuts? How should the military industry complex benefit from that?
Why the fuck do you think we went on this eternal war? To end up with peace again?
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After years and years of screwing over half the world? Probably not. But you could start by not pouring more oil into the fire. I mean, let's be blunt here, look at how your soldiers treat people where they invade. If you're not anti-US in those areas before, you sure are after. There was an incredibly strong pro-US sentiment in Iraq right after the invasion. That changed damn quickly.
Re:First to say it (Score:5, Interesting)
WWI was a pointless battle between imperial powers and we should have stayed the hell out of it. The Pacific battle of WWII would not have happened if we hadn't played the empire game in the Pacific, stealing Hawaii and threatening Japan with Perry's "black ships"; the European theater was a straight-up result of WWI.
We should never have been in Korea or Vietnam. Or Iraq or Afghanistan. Or the Philippines or Cuba or Puerto Rico or Guam.
Our history since the Civil War shows that the founders were 100% right about the temptations of a standing army: once you've got one, you want to use it.
Re:First to say it (Score:5, Interesting)
But I was curious about the opinion of Europeans and Leftist Americans — they don't think all wars are wrong...
For someone who likes to use the word "communism" a lot, you sure don't seem to be well acquainted with its writings. Communists called WW1 a mindless imperialist massacre long before that became, essentially, the prevailing view - in fact, before it even began.
The more emotional argument is analogous to interfering, when you see somebody being beaten by thugs — no law requires you to interfere. Except honor...
Your honor seem to be quiet about using other thugs, though. Do the people massacred on the stadium in Chile in the name of fighting communism - most of them for nothing more than words - weigh up on your consciousness at all?
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Meaningless difference — communism is bad because of the dictatorship of the Communist Party. Wherever attempted in earnest, Communism resulted in millions of dead and utter devastation for the survivors, who are left without both human rights (a given with any Collectivist ideology) and any material wealth.
Dictators can be very different. C
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Meaningless difference — communism is bad because of the dictatorship of the Communist Party. Wherever attempted in earnest, Communism resulted in millions of dead and utter devastation for the survivors, who are left without both human rights (a given with any Collectivist ideology) and any material wealth.
This is patently untrue. Communism and dictatorship orthogonal to each other. One can exist without the other. Further, what you refer to was a socialism, communism was never reached, never even tried for, in the authoritarian socialist republics. Socialism by itself is thriving and well in Europe in Sweden, Danmark, Finland, France, and others. Those are the countries with some of the highest standards of living. The problems you describe are the result of the authoritarian rule of communist party. It is a
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I find it ironic that you cite figures for Stalin (the one from Solzhenitsyn at that, long since discredited as accurate data) and Khmer Rouge, but not the actual figures for Vietnam. Given that communists did take over, surely that would be the numbers to compare, no?
It's also funny that you have to bring up Khmer Rouge, given that ultimately it was the communist Vietnam that reigned them in. So how many people did those Vietnamese commies kill in Cambodia?
And you still haven't answered the question. How m
LP's comments will sink the 2014 Democrats (Score:2, Insightful)
What has happened to Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What has happened to Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the good editors and commentors moved to better sites. This is what's left.
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Thank god we still have Ralph Wiggam here. :^P
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The only reason I came back after a 12 year hiatus is that the IT department at work started blocking all of the popular sites.
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While Slashdot has certainly been influenced by the Reddit-esque meme generation, it certainly remains one of the better places for well-thought commentary on tech. It's weathered pretty well in my opinion.
Hacker News has defended itself pretty well against this so far. I wonder how much more difficult that will become as it grows in popularity.
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I would argue that that's not really what happened. When CmdrTaco left, the tone of /. was possibly more political than it is now. CmdrTaco did a lot to try to bring /. back to its roots, but the users kept on pushing the content in a more political direction. I don't blame CmdrTaco or the mods, though I agree that some more strict moderation would help the situation as it stands.
I would say that it was two factors:
1) Heavy internet use became mainstream.
2) 9/11
On the first point. Slashdot started in
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I've also looked for "better sites" and I've found the "blackjack" and "hookers" sites. I'm still looking for the "theme park" sites though.
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Any story about pot or war ends up on Slashdot. That's what Dice and the editors have done to this site.
Re:What has happened to Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
The world is way to political lately. Or rather, it's way too loaded with propaganda. I haven't seen anything even resembling "news" lately. The older ones around here might remember what that was, "news". It was when you got information about stuff happening.
Now, you still hear about what's happening, but not straight. Just like you can't get straight black coffee anymore without someone dumping some kind of syrup in for flavoring, it has become near impossible to get information without the addition of what you should think about it. News has turned into opinion gradually and we're now essentially where opinion is all that's left.
It is actually to a point comical when you can turn on, say, Fox News, watch it for a while, then switch over to RT and see the SAME pictures shown with exactly opposite captions. Here our benevolent soldiers crush the oppression of that other side, and on the other side the evil invasion force assaulted the gallant defense militia that protects the poor innocent civilians. It's really awesome entertainment... well, it could be if it wasn't such an insult to the intellect of the viewer. And if it wasn't real.
It would be a blast as a soap.
The information age is over. The age of lies has started.
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This kind of comment pops up every time we get an article that is about something less technical than processor architecture design. Slashdot is not a technology news site. It is a news site for nerds. There are politics nerds, biology nerds, and nerds of virtually every other kind.
That's just the kind of drivel I've come to expect from a filthy emacs user!!!
Well... (Score:3)
Awful damned easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Where was HE when the shit was getting ready to pile up?
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We learned from first world war that leaving a vacuum in defeated countries and making them fend for themselves is a recipe for disaster.
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are you comparing the Germans, who in 1918 were the most industrious, most scientifically advanced, and socially cohesive people on the planet, to modern Arabs?
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
Post wwI Germany, yes.
You and the GGP couldn't be more wrong in that comparison.
The end of WWI left Germany with a functioning representative government. It's their economy we kept fucking after the war. It took the Nazi's 15 years to topple the Weimar republic after many failures (most famous of which was the beer hall push). Eventually the terms placed on the Germans by the treaty of Versailles caused so much economic damage that the Nazi's were able to get popular support.
We _DID_ learn that lesson, which is why post WWII Germany and Japan became economic powerhouses.
The lessons the US did not learn were the ones taught in Vietnam. "Don't go fucking around with the internal politics of nations that dont want you to" as well as "Invade and we will fight you".
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I think we should stay gone. This thing has been building for decades. It's going to have to play itself out and the longer it takes for it to happen the worse it will be.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
It's easy for him to bash the current Regime, especially that crack about pushing harder to keep troops in Iraq. They wanted us GONE. Hell, WE wanted us GONE.
Yep, and they conveniently leave out that W signed the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq in 2008 that got us out, including the time table for doing so.
Awful damned easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Where was HE when the shit was getting ready to pile up?
Apparently, he was writing a book... because at no time during either of his positions under the Obama administration did I ever hear him say one word about "we must leave troops in Iraq" or anything even close to that. Maybe someone can find a quote or video for me, but this sounds a lot like pandering to a base constituency to buy his book given how popular Obama bashing is these days.
Mission Accomplished? Thanks GWB (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW I'm not American so my kids aren't going to be fighting in Iraq, its the US young service men and women I feel sorry for.
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Re: Mission Accomplished? Thanks GWB (Score:2, Informative)
Those other guys didn't threaten to open an oil bourse denominated in Euros, or, more succinctly, "anything but the USD".
We will tolerate a lot, but threaten the petrodollar hegemony and you're done.
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Bullshit and you know it.
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Re:Incompetent Administration (Thanks GWB) (Score:4, Insightful)
All meaningless crap.
Saddam did not violate any ceasefire agreements in anyway that mattered to US interests.
Yeah, the US hates dictators. You have to got to be fucking kidding.
"The fault, however, is not in invading in the first place,"
Killing thousands upon thousands of people using a bunch of lies as the justification pretty much dooms the operation to failure from the beginning. Nobody is going to like that, and if nobody likes an invasion, it's going to fail. Also, killing innocent people is wrong all by itself. There's a reason starting wars is considered a criminal act.
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Bzzz! Lying substitution #1: I said nothing about "mattered to US interests". Only that he did violate the agreement. This is an important distinction, because we can spend years arguing, what the "US interests are" exactly, whereas the fact of violation of agreements stands.
Bzzz! Lying substitution #2: I sad mad dictators. Pinochet — our kind of d
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Saddam did not violate any ceasefire agreements in anyway that mattered to US interests.
Oh yeah, shooting at American aircraft is like totally not a big deal.
I should try that line of defence in court though. "Your honour, it's true that I violated my parole conditions, but I didn't do it in any way that matters to your interests. Ya gonna let me go, right?"
Re:Incompetent Administration (Thanks GWB) (Score:4, Insightful)
The no-fly zones enforced by those aircraft were part of the cease-fire agreement.
Nope. Not until we promise Russia to not fly over certain areas ourselves and agree (however grudgingly) to allow them to enforce it.
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but here in America we have a distinct dislike for mad dictators
You mean, like Rafael Trujillo, Fulgencio Batista, Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, Mobutu Seso Seko, Islam Karimov, or King Abdullah?
Are you ESR's subconsciousness, by chance? I can't believe that another asshole so big and so deluded could possibly exist in this world without it collapsing on itself.
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Petro Poroshenko was elected by free elections. He got 57% of the vote. There was no "coup d'etat", and you forgot to provide links proving American financing of whatever happened.
Kremlin much?
Obama's head is stuck in 2003 ... (Score:2)
"Panetta also says that decisions made by President Obama over the past three years have made that battle more difficult — an explosive assessment by a respected policymaker of the president he served. Not pushing the Iraqi government harder to allow a residual US force to remain when troops withdrew in 2011, a deal he says could have been negotiated with more effort "created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it's out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed.""
The problem is that Obama's head in stuck in 2003. In 2003 the al qaeda types were not in Iraq. However in 2006 they were and proto-ISIS was defeated by US troops and Sunni forces in the Anbar Awakening. And in 2011 Obama's head was so stuck in the 2003 anti-war rhetoric and politics he could not accept that the situation was now radically different in Iraq and that a residual US force was needed. Al qaeda had migrated out of Afghanistan, they were active and recruiting in Iraq. Obama just wanted to be out
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Obama already admitted that there was a US intelligence failure in understanding the fast rise of ISIS. Maybe if the US So Called Intelligence community spent less time spying on Americans, Germans, Australians, British, etc, they might have some time and money left over to look out for
I don't think he means war for 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he's referring to the Thirty Years' War. [wikipedia.org]
Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
Pull out.
We've bankrupted our nation to pay for a war that was waged on false pretenses, bankrupted our nation, and corrupted our spirit. What more do we need to pay for a complete failure to accomplish anything other than creating political instability in both nations we invaded?
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The country is not even near bankrupt. In fact, Congress could fix the budget deficit, issues with entitlements, and overspending on defense with a few tax and/or spending bills. We do have enough money in this country to deal with this. We just don't have the political will.
I do agree with getting the fuck out of the Middle East, though.
Plague (Score:3)
Early X-Mas Present.... (Score:2)
Just say'n....
in case you need it [wikipedia.org]....
The Merchant of Venice Beach (Score:2)
Military contractors are literally rubbing their hands together and preparing to grub money.
We've always been at war with East Asia (Score:2)
30 years late, 30 years more. Then another 30 when that's all done.
When the say war, they mean "war".
30 years...100 years...it doesn't really matter (Score:2)
The US has been at war for the last decade+, and what have US citizens faced? Rationing? Higher taxes? A draft? Anyone? Bueller?
The law of unintended consequences .. (Score:2)
Does Leon Panetta or anyone else in the US administration, not realize that everything they attempt in the Mid-East is bringing about the exact opposite of what they want. Every drone strike is recuiting a whole streetfull of 'terrorists'. It's called the law of unintended consequences.
Und [therealnews.com]
Oink, Oink! (Score:2)
Wrong and wrong (Score:3)
The battle against overly authoritarian shitheads is not a 30-year battle. It is likely an eternal battle (for moderate values of the concepts of "battle" and "eternity").
(There is no Islamic State in the west, but there are other examples one could name. For example: despite mountains of evidence to the contrary there are still hundreds of millions of people in the western world who think that sending drug addicts to prison is a great idea.)
It is also not a battle that can be successfully fought by anyone who does not picture themselves having their great grandchildren live in the region, because only those who do will have the stamina to keep fighting forever. Americans or Europeans can't be responsible for fighting the battle for a Middle east free of The Islamic State, or whatever other pretentious banner these guys will be fighting under next year.
Obama behaving like a far left zealot ... (Score:4, Interesting)
His Peace Prize will solve everything (Score:2)
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Well he sure didn't decline it...
Obligatory Orwell Quote (1984) (Score:5, Insightful)
For as long as Winston can recall, Oceania has been in a constant state of war – with whom it was at war is of neither importance nor consequence.
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:5, Insightful)
Your both wrong the democrats and the republicans are exactly the same. They are just two sides of a authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
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authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
Is that like a cryto-currency that's going to finally replace USD?
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Yeah, and much like any other crypto-currency the average person won't even know how to get it.
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We need less fiat currency, not more.
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:4, Funny)
How about a Renault currency? Or a Datsun dollar?
Kongbucks anyone?
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:5, Funny)
Your both wrong the democrats and the republicans are exactly the same. They are just two sides of a authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
Well the Democrats want it to be a gay authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
So that's a small difference.
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:4, Funny)
While the Republicans want it to be a wide stance authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
Not so much of a difference to me...
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to think of it as a square. The top half of the square is the authoritarian, war is peace, big government, power hungry thieves. Those people are in it for personal power, and everyone else be damned. The bottom half of the square are the idealists who genuinely want to do what's best for the country and the people.
Somehow, the media has managed to slice this square though, not into top and bottom halves, but into left and right halves. As a result, regular people who identify themselves as Democrat, point to the upper right corner of the square and see authoritarian, power hungry scoundrels, and yell: "Evil Republicans!". Meanwhile, regular people who identify themselves as Republican, look at the top left and identify the authoritarian, power hungry scoundrels they see as: "Evil Democrats!". Each unable to see that the "misguided people in their party who are wrong on *some* issues" are just as bad the set of scoundrels they criticize.
Just notice how often big controversial issues are brought up (and their often suspicious timing - like trying to fast track immigration reform the week after the Snowden leaks), and how often those issues are actually solved (hint: never - they're far too convenient for demagogueing the other side ["we wanted to pass Issue A, but the other side wouldn't let us" vs. "Issue A be damned, but they included issue B in the bill which they wont budge on which will end America as we know it!"]).
Saddest part is that because the battle lines are so clearly (mis-)drawn in people minds, they don't listen to the people they "hate". Thus almost all information they get about the people they "hate" they find out from non-neutral 3rd parties. These 3rd parties, use their role to aide the authoritarian scumbags in painting the idealists in the opposing parties as the anti-christ (effectively flipping top and bottom of the other side in their follower's minds).
A coalition government containing: Ralph Nader, Bernie Sander, Ron Wyden, Sarah Palin, Justin Amash and Glenn Beck would oddly be more unified in purpose, more functional, and more for the people than one composed of "moderate centrists" like John McCain, John Kerry, George Bush, and Barack Obama.
The problem with the USA right now is the square is very top heavy.
Planning a 30 year war with Eastasia now is only the authoritarians following Orwell's 1984 instruction manual.
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A coalition government containing: Ralph Nader, Bernie Sander, Ron Wyden, Sarah Palin, Justin Amash and Glenn Beck would oddly be more unified in purpose, more functional, and more for the people than one composed of "moderate centrists" like John McCain, John Kerry, George Bush, and Barack Obama.
The best part is that it'd be a real life political version of the game "Clue." The entire US population could play, guessing which of the above bludgeoned Ron Wyden to death with a candlestick in the library.
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Your both wrong the democrats and the republicans are exactly the same. They are just two sides of a authoritarian expansionist kleptocratic coin.
Only on slashdot could this be modded "insightful" and not "funny"
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or somewhere where people know what they are talking about go look at political compass and tell me I am wrong
http://www.politicalcompass.or... [politicalcompass.org]
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Every time I hear that I think the same thing:
"Hey look, another knucklehead who doesn't actually pay attention to politics but says what ever group think crap he pulls out of his ass so he can feel important."
Really both sides want ongoing endless war in the middle east, both sides want to increases surveillance and move toward a police state, both parties side with big media, both sides want internet censorship,... need I go on. Its not crap when its true. Look at the debates what gets argued, abortion which has been in an endless stalemate since the 60s the. health care well some movement but not in a direction that anyone other than the insurance companies wanted, they argue about war in the middleast but bo
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:5, Insightful)
Reagan was a moderate Republican. People don't remember those much because just like the moderate Democrat they're pretty much extinct. Everything is extremism now.
Can't trust the Democratic leadership ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Reagan was a moderate Republican. People don't remember those much because just like the moderate Democrat they're pretty much extinct. Everything is extremism now.
True Reagan negotiated, compromised and made deals with Democrats. For example he made a compromise with Democrats on the budget, that new spending would be followed by budget cuts. Reagan got his new spending but the Democrats never got around to the budget cuts. And then the Democrats attacked Reagan for a growing deficit. Its things like this that contributed to the modern era of mistrust and extremism. Whether it was a trick by the Democratic leadership or simply a leadership that was ineffective and couldn't fulfill its promises I don't know.
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We use that new math now. 10 minus 12 equals 22.
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Life is always better while you're maxing out your credit cards. It's not till the "paying them down" part happens that it sucks. And it's going to suck, but I expect only to whatever extent one has a fixed-in-dollars benefit when the dollar loses, say, half its value (and anything "inflation-adjusted" by an inflation number picked by the government will be nearly as sucky).
Fortunately, there are just a couple bubbles left for us to suffer through: the tuition bubble, and the sovereign debt bubble. Won't
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Sure, you can take FDRs approach and extend a short downturn needlessly by 15-20 years. The problems of the 30s were deep, structural, and one can take different lessons from them depending on one's point of view.
But anyhow, saying you can't meaningfully measure debt in terms of years of income is total rubbish. I'm sure you believe the answer is to just give everyone $10000000000000000000 of printed money, making everyone rich for life. Well, it's been tried before.
It's all about how much stuff we colle
Re:And some say Obama isn't a Republican (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a false dichotemy. Everyone's moved to the right to the point that Mitt Romney's quite successful healthcare program is considered "socialist" if you attach Obama's name to it (actual socialized medicine is quite different [wikipedia.org])
There is no left any more. Obama's continued warmongering is the best evidence.
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stances on things like abortion and gay marriage are just attitudes to herd popular support into opposing factions. works pretty well given there's enough uneducated population to create the illusion of a tension, an actual clash of ideologies where there is none, really.
politics is about power, and has always been extreme right wing. abortion? gays? death penalty? environment? religion? wellfare? education? power doesn't give a flying fuck about these issues.
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Raygun's beliefs would put him solidly a Democrat
Yeah, I miss the days of staunchly pro-life, tax cutting, communist hating Democrats that aggressively expanded military spending during peacetime, appointed moderates like Rehnquist and Scalia, outlawed hiring of illegal immigrants and causally joked about nuking the Soviets on live radio.
Where did those Democrats go, anyhow?
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Well that's like saying the Crusades weren't wars.
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Well that's like saying the Crusades weren't wars.
Right and the slaughter of 100's of millions by the Muslims for centuries preceding the Christian crusades were not crusades? Maybe they weren't, after all the crusades were about taking territory back whereas what the muslims did were about converting others to islam or killing them if they refused. The Caliphate was the ISIL of that day.
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Congratulations. That's the most awesome piece of twisted logic I have seen in a while.
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(africa has tons of oil.)
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