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Mideastern Rage

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  • #16
    Re: Mideastern Rage

    This whole thing shows the incompetance of the Obama administration to fail to have a Marine Corps presence at consulates in the middle east. Because of B.O.'s foolishness, our embassador in Libya is dead.

    The article in Der Spiegel says it all:
    "DER SPIEGEL: US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy is in ruins"

    Time for change in November.

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    • #17
      Re: Mideastern Rage

      Originally posted by AlohaKine View Post
      This whole thing shows the incompetance of the Obama administration to fail to have a Marine Corps presence at consulates in the middle east.
      Two of the four killed were former Navy SEAL members (Glen A. Doherty, Tyrone S. Woods) - are you disrespectfully suggesting they were not competent enough to provide security?
      Last edited by Leo Lakio; September 14, 2012, 07:23 PM.

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      • #18
        Re: Mideastern Rage

        Originally posted by Kalalau View Post
        The violence continues to spread, 3 more dead. Anybody involved with this who can be deported to Egypt or Iran or any country with Islamic justice should be, nobody has the tiniest right to pull this crap against the US, to put innocent lives at stake, and cause murders.
        The brew continues to stew. How long before our conflict - stupid religious prejudice - erupts into more mass killing? It's frightening.
        Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
        ~ ~
        Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
        Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
        Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

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        • #19
          Re: Mideastern Rage

          The chaos in the region is a swirling mass of problematic proportions.

          There is no easy solution.

          The attack in Benghazi was probably planned (premeditated) whereas
          some of the other rioting maybe connected to the infamous youtube vid.

          The gent who produced the film turns out to be a former methamphetamine producer

          and FBI informant.

          There is some interesting stuff to read over at www.cryptome.org.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Mideastern Rage

            A serious question, was security at the embassies any different under Obama than under Reagan, Bush I & II, Clinton, etc? If not, it seems pretty unreasonable and unfair to blame President Obama for this. Things were going smoothly until that video hit the internet. What was the producer's purpose in doing the video? It was reportedly circulated by the Koran burning Florida pastor, also with his own agenda. When the country is attacked it is a basic duty to rally behind and support our leaders. As wantonly negligent as Bush was in ignoring warnings of the coming 9-11 attacks, the country still rallied behind him and to his credit he did a good job of keeping patriotic spirits alive. This disaster needs to be thoroughly investigated. What if it could be traced back to some political operative trying to throw the election? Stranger things have happened. Doesn't the timing seem remarkably convenient for enemies of the President? It does need to be investigated.
            Last edited by Kalalau; September 15, 2012, 05:26 AM.

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            • #21
              Re: Mideastern Rage

              Originally posted by AlohaKine View Post
              The article in Der Spiegel says it all:
              "DER SPIEGEL: US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy is in ruins"
              Meanwhile, from another German paper, Die Tageszeitung:

              "The conservative US media have already -- excessively -- labeled the anti-US protests in Egypt, Libya and Yemen as a 'wildfire' and interpreted them as a result of Obama's 'weakness.' It's lucky for Obama that his opponent Romney is acting in such a hapless manner. Instead of condemning the attacks in a statesman-like fashion and assuring the president of his support, Romney criticized the government's alleged 'apology' to the demonstrators. That was not just nonsense, but partisan maneuvering at a moment when patriotism would have been appropriate. With his attack, Romney has scored an own goal."

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              • #22
                Re: Mideastern Rage

                It's not a new problem for us. Suppose an ally is the friendly dictator of a people who, generally, dislike us. Should we support the dictator, to maintain the power and influence of the US in the world, or promote or at least acquiesce in a liberation movement which may lead to a regime antagonistic to our interests? The conservative's course is to support the dictator, because he's on our side, and that is being strong. Letting the dictator be overthrown is weakness. We let Batista fail in Cuba, and see how that let our great enemy the Soviet Union get a toehold just a few miles from our own shore. We let the Shah of Iran, our ally in the region, be overthrown partly because of stories of torture by his state police, and now Iran is our most prominent antagonist in the region. Was that a sign of our foreign policy weakness? I heard Farid Zakaria observe today that the anti-Americanism in Egypt we notice today was always there, but we see it more now, when before, when there was an anti-American demonstration, Mubarak would simply have had the demonstrators shot. So would the strong course in the Mideast have been to support Mubarak or some successor tyrant?
                Greg

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                • #23
                  Re: Mideastern Rage

                  Greg, you pose important and thought provoking questions with no easy answers. I'm glad I'm not President of the US.
                  Peace, Love, and Local Grindz

                  People who form FIRM opinions with so little knowledge only pretend to be open-minded. They select their facts like food from a buffet. David R. Dow

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                  • #24
                    Re: Mideastern Rage

                    When the USSR did it they were called puppet governments and we thought of it as tyranny. Nixon was strong in assassinating the duly elected president of Chile. Is there any national pride in that? Or disgrace? Eisenhower was strong in overthrowing the duly elected premier of Iran, Mossadegh. To me, the long term consequences were not worth it at all. We would have been much better off dealing honestly with Mossadegh, some historians credit his overthrow with setting in motion the whole Islamic nationalist movement. It sure took a while, but it has not turned out well for us at all. On Vietnam Liberation Day Ho Chi Minh quoted liberally from the US Declaration of Independence, evidently he actually thought the US would recognize his nationalist government. Unfortunately...well we all know that story. And now Vietnam is a popular and up and coming tourist mecca, its manufacturing and exports grow, and just think: it all could have been this way since 1955! And those 58,000 American soldiers would still be alive. Oh well.

                    There are trends of history that just can't be resisted, nationalism is one of them. You can't plug up a volcano forever, and the longer you try, the worse the inevitable explosion will be. How about Batista, our puppet in Cuba? What if, instead of setting up a puppet who bullied and exploited his people, we had encouraged Cuba to have a more popular, benevolent government? Why would there have been a Castro? If the Cuban people had been happy with their government, if they had had a stake in their economy instead of being exploited peasants, they would have laughed off the appeal of Communism like Americans always have. Its not that hard. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Put yourself in the shoes of someone from a country with a puppet dictator. None of us would like it a bit.

                    It is also very expensive to maintain puppet governments. The USSR went out of business, it went bankrupt, from the expense of their Afghan war, trying to keep their puppet in power. We deal honestly and honorably with most of the countries of the world: Brazil is no puppet government, neither is Italy, France, Japan, its a long list. We don't have a big army in Brazil propping up some puppet, its better for them and for us that way, if you actually want occupying armies around the world look for taxes to go a lot higher, it isn't cheap.
                    Last edited by Kalalau; September 15, 2012, 04:18 PM.

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                    • #25
                      Re: Mideastern Rage

                      Terrorists are cowards who slay innocents with glee. Too cowardly to confront their real enemies - or even their perceived enemies.

                      How many innocent Muslims were in the World Trade Center on 9/11?

                      Allah must be laughing his heaven off at the antics of those who claim to follow him, but don't even follow the Koran.
                      Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
                      ~ ~
                      Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
                      Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
                      Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Mideastern Rage

                        Terrorists are just like you and me. There is no difference. None. Whatsoever.

                        [The above has been fact-checked and is absolutely true.]
                        May I always be found beneath your contempt.

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                        • #27
                          Re: Mideastern Rage

                          Originally posted by Kaonohi View Post
                          Allah must be laughing his heaven off at the antics of those who claim to follow him, but don't even follow the Koran.
                          Sorta like the Christians who interpret the Bible to explain whatever non-Jesus-like behaviors they wish to get away with. Or insert any other religious movement into that statement - they all fit.

                          Same as salmoned's point; we're all part of that same pool.

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                          • #28
                            Re: Mideastern Rage

                            Originally posted by salmoned View Post
                            Terrorists are just like you and me. There is no difference. None. Whatsoever.
                            Put yourselves in their shoes and ask whether you would be acting as they act. They've taken the measure of modern Western society with the breakdown of the family and traditional authority, where women and young people no longer know their place, where public immoral displays are freely permitted, and they've decided they don't want to go there. It's wrong. It's not that hard to understand -- after all, there are many Americans of like mind. So if you saw your own society going down the tubes, in an evil direction, and you were not a terrorist, what would you be?

                            I mean to be agreeing with salmoned, sort of, except that, personally, I could not be a terrorist, because I do not treasure traditional values. I see the way the world is changing, and I like it, mostly.
                            Last edited by GregLee; September 16, 2012, 08:34 AM.
                            Greg

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                            • #29
                              Re: Mideastern Rage

                              Originally posted by GregLee View Post
                              I mean to be agreeing with salmoned, sort of, except that, personally, I could not be a terrorist, because I do not treasure traditional values. I see the way the world is changing, and I like it, mostly.
                              I think the idea is that people like you and me "could not be ... terrorist(s)" in the way that we prefer to define "terrorist." But in the definition of other peoples of the world, they could call us "terrorists" because we are citizens of a regime that they feel is oppressive and imperial.

                              Salmoned is skilled at presenting perspectives that are not always blatantly obvious - we often have to work (and think) harder to come close to understanding his points. Don't have to agree with 'em, but I find it pleasantly challenging to make an effort to "get" what he says - a place it took me a while to get to.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Mideastern Rage

                                Originally posted by Leo Lakio View Post
                                But in the definition of other peoples of the world, they could call us "terrorists" because we are citizens of a regime that they feel is oppressive and imperial.
                                Leo, I have been very fortunate to visit a great part of this world and lived in intimate and prolonged contact with a couple of other cultures. It is true, that there will always be a significant number of people in any culture who will view "Americans" as "terrorists" if for no other reason than introducing McDonalds into their pristine culture. People I have come in contact with have always treated me with respect and never view me personally as a terrorist (I don't eat McDonalds anywhere) but it is always "those other people in the US." They wonder how the population can support and elect the leaders we have that are most often viewed as oppressive and imperialistic and greedy and arrogant and uncaring and uneducated (it is pronounced E Rahn not Eye Ran and E Rock not Eye Rack) and lazy and....and....and.

                                American tourists come to Mexico and expect Mexicans speak English to them. They expect Mexicans to conduct financial dealings in US dollars. They expect Mexican food to be prepared for the American palette. They expect that Mexican laborers should work for $1 per hour because that's all they are worth. They expect when they say 9am, that Mexican better be there at 9am by Zeus or all h3ll breaks lose. From some Mexican's viewpoint, this is a kind of terrorism.....killing their culture. I dunno, I guess that's the way indigenous Hawaiians must feel too.

                                It is all a matter of perspective; survival of the "fittest" (wealthiest) maybe.
                                Last edited by matapule; September 16, 2012, 09:14 AM.
                                Peace, Love, and Local Grindz

                                People who form FIRM opinions with so little knowledge only pretend to be open-minded. They select their facts like food from a buffet. David R. Dow

                                Comment

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