Oh Good Lord

[Professor S]

*The following are my opinions and please take them as such*

I have decided to not have kids.

That reason is because Donald Rumsfeld has resigned and will be replaced by Robert Gates. Now I am no fan of Donald Rumsfeld outside of his "no bs" style of interview. But, at least Rumsfeld was resolved to fight the war against extreme Islam this generation.

For those of you not familiar with Robert Gates, he is not a stranger to Bush administrations. In fact, he worked for the previous Bush administration and was a key member of international defense policy for many years while Bush Sr. was CIA director (I think during that time) and VP.

The problem in my eyes is that unlike Rumsfeld, Gates is from the school of "situation management". Now that sounds fine and dandy, and would likely reduce the US presence in the Middle East, it is also the ethos that got us in this mess. It is the ethos that fed Saddam Hussein weapons to fight Iran. It is the ethos that put Pinochet and Noreiga in power. It is the policy that states: "as long as they are killing each other, they aren't killing us". It is a vulgar, morally bankrupt, ethnocentric (viewing non-Western cultures as barbarians that must be managed) and in the end, futile way of thinking. At best it merely delays the inevitable.

Here is an example of possible way this way of thinking could get us into another Vietnam, and I mean a REAL Vietnam, not the political lie that you heard on TV ads: Gates pulls back from the current mindset in Iraq and instead believes that either the Shiite or Sunis need to gain power for the benefit of US security (we have done this before, don;t think it can't happen) and ask them to convince us which side we should support. So we think that we can sway diplomacy by scaring the hell out of them with picking a side or we'll just help one side annihilate the other (once again, we have done this before under Gate's historical ideaology). Problem is, the Shiites don't need us, they have Iran. So the Suni's accept our help and now we are in the middle of a proxy war between the Shiites and Suni's but its really between the US and Iran. FYI: this is the short version of the situation I imagine so it might come off as simplistic.

The alternative to that scenario is that we convince the Middle East to begin fighting itself again, and meanwhile the population grows, extreme ideaology continues to win and we end up back where we were pre-911, except with a bigger problem on our hands in terms of population and firepower of our enemies when the situation finally becomes completely untenable in a few decades.

Gate's ethos also operates under the asumption that the current state of extreme Islam is manageable, and I think it passed that point in the 90's. Islam is growing far too quickly and we cannot try and keep it in a cultural bubble any longer. Part of our diplomacy HAS to be one of influence in some form or another, or else our very way of life will change in a mere 10-50 years (IMO).

[Typhoid]

First, I'll just say I hate the term "pre-911".
[Not to quote you] "How things were pre-911."
"Remember before 9/11?"
Well ****, lots of good things happened before 9/11.
Jesus was born pre-911.
That's apparently a good thing.



Anyways, I've always thought one of two things will happen in the middle east:

1. Nothing. The cycle repeats itself. All the countries invading will pull out. Resulting in a big f*cking mess for the middle-easterners to clean up on their own. So they'll go right back to solving their own problems how they did before any of us stepped in; war with eachother. Except now it will be more volitile than before, and will have a never ending watchful eye of hte media documenting every refugee's leave and calling them a terrorist. The population in those designated areas will grow, and be raised as they have been before. Some hating western culture, others adapting and embracing it. And thus, the cycle is copmplete again with another threat, resulting in another 'invasion'.

2: It will escalate into some pseudo-world war. Not really a world war, (though im sure the media would pounce right on it) but more like The middle east vs. Europe and North America. Asia can tally score and bring refreshments, while slowly building a counter-attack army of their own.

[GameMaster]

Sargent Johnson, I have good news, Sir. The Democrats are coming back home!

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by GameMaster

Sargent Johnson, I have good news, Sir. The Democrats are coming back home!

That really has nothing to do with this topic, but since you brought it up, I found it funny that the day of the election Democrat leaders said they really couldn't change any policy on Iraq (Gephardt and Pelosi I think).

So they run an anti-war campaign and then tell you they never could do anything about it anyway... suckers. Kind of like John Corzine in New Jersey. He runs for governor on a policy of lowering property taxes, then once he hits the office he raises the state sales tax and re-instates government spending he previously cut to excuse the tax increase... suckers. Kind of like how the Democrats play the race card every single election to maintain power in urban areas, yet its the same minorities that they claim to serve that have remained impoverished over decades of Democrat leadership.... suckers.

The stock market is already dropping because of the election, the tax cuts will likely be repealed and John Bolton might not get assigned as UN representative when in his short stay he has done a great job representing the US (he personally put together a coalition to prevent Hugo Chavez from taking the South American seat on the security council).

If the Democratic leadership works towards goals established by the newly elected Blue Dog Dems, then there won't be an issue, but looking at the leadership I doubt that will happen. Look forward to 2 years of bitterness and subpeonas.

Typhoid, when I refer to pre-911, I was specifically referring to foreign policy. I thought that was pretty self-evident. I guess I could have used different terms, but pre-911 is just easier.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Typhoid, when I refer to pre-911, I was specifically referring to foreign policy. I thought that was pretty self-evident. I guess I could have used different terms, but pre-911 is just easier.

I know what you meant.
Thats why I said "not to quote you".
I too, thought it was pretty self-evident that I wasnt referring to you specifically.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I know what you meant.
Thats why I said "not to quote you".
I too, thought it was pretty self-evident that I wasnt referring to you specifically.

Must have missed that part. My apologies.