regional conflict

Yup

 

Oops.

[ January 10, 2007, 19:47: Message edited by: Dinsdale ]

 

@Chandos
"Really? Maybe we should just invite them over for a few beers or some coffee and cake...then they will stop killing Americans because we are such nice people...."
You had it coming.
There´s no international conflict where American soldiers aren´t involved, since the WW2.
And you had your hands in any matter of middle east since the late 60´s, so now don´t come here crying ´bout "they don´t leave us alone" stuff, when almost every US administration had something to do with any other goverment in the world.
After all this time, it may just be that old and simple rule:"Live and let live"(and you certainly throw the first punch, you"nice" people)
@Dinsdale
"I'd be interested to know how to defeat terrorism, then. Talk? If so then just leave it to the useless, impotent UN. You'll get plenty of talk then and not much else."
May be if the most powerfull country in the planet doesn´t have to lie to the entire world about the "menace" of those (invisible) weapons of mass destruction (that Saddam bougth so cheap in the black market), and push everybody around in the UN just for vote them in order to use te force in Irak, may be this international organism will have enough power to solve that kind of conflict or any future one.

[ January 10, 2007, 21:09: Message edited by: Lord FOX ]

 

@Dinsdale
"Ruthless? Ah, but so is Al Quaeda. Sometimes you just have to fight the enemy the way they fight you. Nobody ever won a fight by being nice."

The "an eye for an eye" policy will make the world goes blind. (Ghandi)

 

So did they...but I'm glad you are here to tell us that - since you don't believe in an "eye for an eye" ...

 

It tells the situation perfectly. One of the best posts I have ever read in AoLS. I completely agree with you.

 

@Argohir
I´m glad to see that we´re not alone in this world, that are other people also lives(and think different) in this planet, no matter if it is "first world" or (like myself) "third world"(where lies the "second"?), or most likely, "the rest of the world that is not the US soil".
EDIT
While I was writing this, I read the news(and excuse me if this goes out of topic):
"US forces attacks an Irani Embassy in Irak in order to arrest some diplomatics suspected to support terrorist action of Al-Qaeda in the area of Irak.After a few hours, the prisioners were released, the forces break an entracy, and with air support;also took documents and various computers."
If anybody supports my way of thinking about all this matter, is the very US goverment itself.
Just for a minute, think about what would happend if an Irani strike force do the same in any American embassy around the world.
The next day, the Irani townsfolk have to dodge the "generous" and large "american help of democracy"(it comes in the forms of a bomb), because any attack of an US embassy is an attack to the American soil.
And I´m not supporting any kind of terrorims, because we lived here trough a bomb attack to the Israel´s embassy in march of 1992(and the Irani goverment is suspected of authority),and I´m not anti-american, but in this case , the above type of action just "boils" thing up.
"WAR is the way GOD teaches geography to the american people"

[ January 13, 2007, 01:41: Message edited by: Lord FOX ]

 

Lord Fox, the irani did attack an american embassy and held it for over a year, we did NOT bomb them. Check your history!

 

Ouch, sorry dmc, forgot where I was reading.

 

In the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings (August 7, 1998), 257 people were killed and over 4,000 wounded in simultaneous car bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.[1] The attacks prompted the United States to seek out an organization the assailants could be linked to and prosecuted. Al Qaeda was deemed responsible for the attack, but at the time it was only a loose collection of a few Islamic militants[citation needed]. The U.S.'s efforts to try those responsible for the attack, brought bin Laden and al Qaeda to international attention for the first time, giving the organization its name and portraying it as a large and threatening network of terrorists across the world. This also resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden atop its Ten Most Wanted list.[2]

Along with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the Embassy Bombing is one of the major anti-American terrorist attacks that preceded the September 11, 2001 attacks. The United States responded to the attacks by freezing financial assets of related parties and by initiating military action against Afghanistan and Sudan.

Al Qaeda’s list of grievances against the West included American participation in the first Gulf War, military operations in Somalia, and military involvement in Yemen. However, the United States presence in Saudi Arabia - a state that is home to a number of the holiest sites in Islam - was perhaps the focal point of Al Qaeda’s anger. Permanent U.S. military installations in the region represented a lack of Saudi Arabian control over its territory and were thought to threaten the Muslim sacred cities of Mecca and Medina. Osama bin Laden believed that “the Americans were infidels and their garrisons propped up a corrupt, insufficiently Islamic Saudi elite.” As U.S. economic and political interests continued to create a greater presence in the Middle East, Al Qaeda began targeting U.S. interests abroad

My mistake(again), but to me any regional conflict in the east it´s ON topic.
But,hey ,you are the boss here, dmc.
Yes,sir! (my final words abou it)

 

Is there a point to this "history lesson," Lord Fox? Or are you just in the habit of listing what is already common knowledge here is the US (and pretty much everywhere else in the world where there is a news media or wire service)? There is no such thing as the "War on Terror." That is a political slogan dreamed up by the Bush adminstration for the folks back home.

America is really engaged in attempting to bring to justice an international oraganization of criminals, (who are also seen that way by many in the ME as well). Any time innocents are killed it is considered a crime by many in the civilized world. Btw, many Americans ARE nice people, and I can say that from experience - even to those who don't know anyting about them.

 

@Lord FOX
1970's american embassy in Iran, prisoners held and kept for many months, alright for Iran but wrong for the US? You don't look far enough back and the same kind of aggression by islamic militants is why Ethiopia sees a need to be in Somalia now. After 30 years of taking crap off of militant muslims other countries are starting to worry a bit too. As you said

Responded.... not started. The slaughter in Somalia should have been addressed long ago.
One more thing I am one of the people that think the US should just leave Iraq and come home, leaving the equiptment with the Kurds and let the peacefull Shea and Suni shake hands instead of killing each other. I'm positive all the killing the US is being blamed for would stop, aren't you?
We don't kill nuns because someone said something we don't like or attack over cartoons.
Extremist are excused for anything and somehow the US gets blamed for one african nation invading another. Could it possibly be the actions of a muslim militant group that caused the action? Ethiopia is a christian country and that alone is enough to cause problems with some of its neighbors. Raids across it's borders don't help either. It's time the militants took credit for the response they are getting from -whatever- country and stop trying to blame anyone else.
Please excuse typos, been up since 3am my time and sorry if too far off topic.

 

Exactly. Any country has the right to defend itself, and to respond to agression. Great post, Old One.

 

In all sympathy folks, especially Old One and Chandos, but I see you grasp at straws.

Sure, these backwards 'down there' are so ****ed up, corrupt, can't live in peace, and all they do is blame us, ask for aid and they don't tackle their problems. It certainly feels much better seing it this way, but a lot of this is just as true as irrelevant.

A key strategy of the Bush men, promoted then by Wolfowitz, has been a forming a global network of friendly militias.

For years the US were backing some of the war lords, and paid them for fighting islamists, and in the last months they had to look and see how the Islamic courts rolled them back and back further, and eventually took over Somalia, ruining all the investment and bribes the US had spent there. The cynic in me sais that for a militia leader bent on increasing his clan's base of power in Somalia seeing islamists is a profitably ability.

If you believe that in paying Somalian militias you're fighting Islamo Facism, you must interprete that as a very threatening development. The urge for intervention follows its own logic. Just think of it as another domino theory, in the traditional sense.

Originally I saw the Ethiopians as full proxies. I now think I was wrong. They were called in only as the spear-tip to allow the US backed militias to take over again. I didn't see that right away, but the increasing and increasingly open US meddling suggests nothing less to me.
Sadly, the more open US involvement squanders the major benefits of a proxy war: Discretion and deniability. With US boots on the ground the Ethiopian intervention can hardly be sold as a Ethiopian idea the US have only seized upon. Stupid.

The chances for survival of the 'interim government' are IMO increasingly bleak. They have no authority of their own, not even force of arms, to back up their ambitions. They have the US backed militias, but despite US money they were beaten, which should tell you something about their standing in Somalia. That the people greeted the courts with relief was that compared to the war lords and their kath-crazed goons, the islamists look good. The new so-called government will have to arrange itselves with the Islamic courts to survive and that will water down the GWOT, which will put them under intense US pressure for 'appeasing evil'.
In a typical spectacle known from Iraq, the so-called 'interim government' have been falling over themselves in a hurry to denounce the US airstrikes and meddling etc. It gives testimony to the sad state of affairs the US are in - and these folks are the US allies. If that's all you have, goodnight ...

For the Bush men Islamo-Facism is the enemy, and that conflation allows to ignore the tiny little differences like shia islam, sunni islam, ethnic or national backgrounds, borders, interests, groups or individuals - all the same. The equation is: Ahmedinajad = Rafsanjani = Sadr = Bin Laden = Al Quaeda = Nasrallah = Hezbollah = Hamas = Islamic Courts.

The point where I have to admit I have a hard time deciding is the _threat perception_ in the Somalian affair, and wether I should give the Bushies the benefit of a doubt: Maybe the islamic courts were not-so-nice and did indeed support Al Quaeda. Then it might be the sensible to prevent them from taking over. But if the Bush men are doing business as usual, and nothing suggests they changed their minds, to the contrary, the 'threat' posed by the Somalian Islamic Courts can be counted on be inflated at the very least.
The threat might turn out to be as imaginary a threat as those sandinistas on whose behalf the US invoked a state of national emergency in 1986. And there I'm basically clarifying the final point of my first post.

 

Ragusa - Do you honestly believe, even for a moment, that I support the Bush policies in the ME and Africa? I am only saying - as is the Old One - that we have a right to defend ourselves, especially against Al-Quaeda. As you rightly point out, there are far better ways to accomplsih this. But make no mistake, Ragusa, Al-Quaeda is an enemy of the US, Israel and other countries in the West as well, and should be dealt with in such a manner.

Speaking of regional conflicts - it is becoming clearer that Bush is about to expand the war in the ME. Who's next? Iran or Syria?

[ January 13, 2007, 20:48: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

The domestic terror exist almost in every country in any era of the history, when that type of action exceeds the country borders, it becames in a regional conflict.
There are still some of examples of domestic terror(ETA,IRA) but there´s no way for to escalate to a regional level.
We have to live the late 70´s with domestic terror and the 80´s with conflicts with our neighbours(and 90´s with several bombing attacks).
But who declares the US goverment the World police system? How do you feels if a foreign country invades you (or support the adversary with everything they got), with the excuse that you are a menace for the zonal democracy?
what the next step? Venezuela may be? they have just declared that they gonna have a "socialist" goverment( and "socialist" sounds like "comunist")
I repeat it again: I´m not anti-american (or pro-terrorism) but how it comes that the US is the most unliked country ever ? It has sometrhing to do with the last actions of the US "boyscout" and their personal war against terrorism?
I don´t know if this may work, but let the people to exterminate theirselves "in peace" each other it´s not the way to go? May be if we let them alone to figth(or solve) their conflcts don´t turn on us their anger?