tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4066062120776667625.post3524596813039265877..comments2024-03-27T15:31:49.368-07:00Comments on American Politics: Asleep at the switch or Perhaps we just don't give a damn anymore?Twinsdadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07768095454310182677noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4066062120776667625.post-60743404436291072162015-11-22T07:22:04.185-08:002015-11-22T07:22:04.185-08:00Diversion is everything when faced with the realit...Diversion is everything when faced with the reality that doing nothing created the power vacuum that ISIS not fills. The Ottoman empire, ROTFLMAO. <br />It was probably more Attila the Huns fault. <br /><br />The Iraq that President Obama inherited was, by his own reckoning, “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant.” Obama used those words when announcing the complete American withdrawal of forces in 2011. He went on to say that Iraq had “a representative government that was elected by its people.”<br />There was a free and fair election in 2010, in which a moderate Sunni alliance led by a secular Shiite received a plurality. But the loser, Nouri al-Maliki, hijacked the election and took power. President Obama looked the other way, perhaps because he wasn’t interested in Iraq’s fate, or more likely because Maliki was Tehran’s man, and President Obama has consistently leaned toward Iran’s interests in the Middle East.<br />Obama stuck to his determination to withdraw every American from Iraq, thereby radically diminishing U.S. influence in the most explosive part of the globe. He also failed on the diplomatic front. He and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had boasted so often that they would use “smart power” and “soft power” and wouldn’t “do stupid [stuff],” were guilty of something that looks a lot like stupidity in their handling of Maliki. As the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack told The Atlantic: The message sent to Iraq’s people and politicians alike was that the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road. . . . [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war. What came next was even worse. Acquiescing in the stolen election, Obama then backed Maliki even as Maliki brutalized Iraq’s Sunni minority. Jobs and salaries promised to Sunni groups who had cooperated against al-Qaeda when Bush was in office were never paid by Maliki. Dozens of Sunni leaders, many of them moderates, were driven from office, others were arrested, and some, including the staff of Iraq’s vice president, were tortured. Shiite militias were permitted free rein in Sunni regions of Iraq, committing rapes, murders, and arson. As one Sunni activist told the New York Times, he didn’t like ISIS, but “ISIS will be the only Sunni militia who can fight against the Shiites.”<br />All the while, President Obama could not bestir himself to utter a word of condemnation or warning to Maliki.<br /><br /><br /><br />loumanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04882146154150499756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4066062120776667625.post-61347386936013929112015-11-20T23:27:19.920-08:002015-11-20T23:27:19.920-08:00Your history is fine as far as it goes but regardl...Your history is fine as far as it goes but regardless of who Muslims wish to blame on any given day fact is this is just the most recent move in a 3 dimensional chess game that has been played around the world for millennia. <br /><br />Nationalism vs Globalism, Religious vs Secular, Authoritarian vs Libertarian, Socialist vs Capitalist… and all the permutations and conflicts within each.<br /><br />The last caliphate, as just that… the last caliphate in a string. Islam is a late comer to Christianity as well as the Persian and Byzantine empires. Remember the Roman Empire didn’t fall until the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks and that didn’t happen for 800 years after the death of Mohammad…<br /><br />Make no mistake; there is a never ending war between all not believers and Islam. Just like there is no respite from the constant onslaught of authoritarian governance against the last vestiges of liberty. The sympathetic excuses for both are endless. <br /><br />Just like the crap that occurred in Mali today. Ostensibly it was because France (who happened to have been a colonial power in Mali) was asked for help by the legitimate Mali government from being overrun by jihadists from Chad. Again the yelling “Allahu Akbar" as they slaughtered another 27 unarmed civilians.<br /><br />To the point of the post was that our government is not protecting us and their policies work to make us more unsafe. <br /><br />I have read a couple of articles of late where people are worried about the safety of their families particularly in Germany. They have no ability to protect themselves and the state apparatus is inadequate to do the job. Of course if it is the kind of place you want to live, Paris turned out more police on the Paris streets then the UK has in total….<br /><br />Back in 2013 the Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month's deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya – and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians. <br />In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Noble said there are really only two choices for protecting open societies from attacks like the one on Westgate mall where so-called "soft targets" are hit: either create secure perimeters around the locations or allow civilians to carry their own guns to protect themselves. <br />"Societies have to think about how they're going to approach the problem," Noble said. "One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you're going to have to pass through extraordinary security." <br /><br />Of course, of the above comments, one has to ask... are the people who are trying to rearrange the world really looking for a democratic world and open societies...<br /><br />I choose to take my chances with 357 instead of 911....<br /><br />Make no mistake Rick... your friends are trying to reorder the world and this stuff won’t go away just because the west packs up and goes home... we have already invited them into our house and if you think allowing Islam into a society is a counter weight to Christianity... you have no idea what is being unleashed on the streets of the west... or maybe you do, because the authoritarian left make their greatest advances in chaos when it looks like a heavy hand is needed.<br /><br />TheScotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18427002288730961167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4066062120776667625.post-8852562028967721512015-11-19T14:27:23.174-08:002015-11-19T14:27:23.174-08:00History TS. Germany and France get the blame for c...History TS. Germany and France get the blame for crushing the Islamic homeland once known as the Ottoman Empire, the end of the caliphate. Grudges run deep on that continent. <br />I just finished reading a good book written by Dean Acheson about his time as Secretary of State under Harry Truman. It took years, years to get the French and English to trust even a little bit to allow Germany into the European defense community against Russia. never mind that all three countries were crushed physically and financially. Never mind that Germany was the on frontier of communism. Never mind that Germany was the one who could recover it's war making power the quickest because of it's infrastructure. Never mind that the others couldn't do it alone. It took years to convince them that they needed Germany that Germany would be held powerless by the US, the French would take the German cash but didn't want anything to do with the German soldier. Old rivalries die hard in that part of the world. Things are never really forgiven. Plus Erdogan is an idiot. He incites a lot of that shit. He's the next one that needs to go. He is another US backed radical in sheep's clothing. <br />All the people who booed didn't necessarily agree with the radical actions in France, but that didn't keep them from being happy that France got what they feel they had coming for past transgressions on islam. It's a complicated region always has beenrick0427https://www.blogger.com/profile/16896247508408180825noreply@blogger.com