The Glade 4.0

Contrary to popular propaganda DE most nations (including Iran) are rational actors. The pool of irrational nations that have the capability to do harm to the US is exactly zero.

Continue to manufacture looming specters that threaten us but cannot actually be observed if you wish.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Whoa, wait...what? DE, do you think we should have nuked someone in retaliation to 9/11?

So Iran is just joking when it calls us the great Satan and wants to wipe other sovereign nations off the map?

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Simply slapping the label "propaganda" on facts you don't like does not make them go away.

The fact is that the spectre can be observed.

1) Iran has observably placed a satellite into orbit. This gives it the capability to de-orbit an object of equivalent size anywhere in the world, meaning Iran can make a working ICBM any time it pleases.

2) Iran observably is working on developing additional nuclear capabilities

3) Iran observably continues to antagonize Israel despite the ability of Israel to conduct a nuclear strike on Iran and Iran's inability to reltaliate - not a rational policy. Despite the fact that the Iranian president does not control the military, he far from the only person who engages in bellicose behavior; he is merely the most prominent.

4) Iran observably has no meaningful interest in said antagonism of Israel beyond creating an external enemy to direct the attention of its people elsewhere; they do not share a border, they have neither culture nor language in common with the Palestinians they use as proxy aggressors; they have little to no hope of material gain from Israeli misfortune. Their resentment against Israel is purely a product of western support of the nation combined with the offense that hardline muslims feel at the fact that a formerly muslim area is not presently governed by muslims, especially with major holy sites co-opted by Islam.

5)By your own admission, Iran observably maintains extreme hostility towards the west based on events taking place anywhere from 40 to 70 years ago, and takes little action to indicate it would care to stabilize relations. This is not a rational act; it is purely out of fear that interaction with the west will call more public attention to its own government's misbehavior, and weaken Islamic grip on the life of the nation.

The rest of the world is not going to conveniently adapt itself to make Ron Paul's foreign policy work just because you want him to be the perfect candidate. More than that, the fact that Iran has not engaged in a suicidal confrontation already nor started some war with Saudi Arabia (and make no mistake, Iran is the reason for major Saudi arms orders in recent years) does not make them overly rational. Even if they are rational, there is the possibility for grave miscalculation; "rational" does not mean "sees the world the way Elmo does". Saddam Hussein rationally thought that the U.S. would not invade and that he could at once disarm himself of proscribed weapons and get sanctions lifted while pretending to maintain a chemical arsenal to deter Iran. He rationally thought his legal defense team could get him restored to the presidency of Iraq by arguing the U.S. invasion and succeeding government out of existence. He rationally got his *** kicked by being wrong on the first one, and that led to him getting rationally hanged for being wrong on the second.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have covered this before. Following 9/11 we should have given the Taliban 3 days to either turn over Bin Laden or demonstrate full cooperation in attempting to capture him, or be subject to complete national destruction. If we were not satisfied that an 100% best effort was being made to that effect within 72 hours of the demand, a nuclear strike on every power plant, oil refinery (if there are any) and jet-capable runway in Afghanistan should have been made, and the issue declared closed.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wow, I didn't realize that was your position. Apart from the obvious moral objections, I have to say, that seems like a terrible idea from a strategic perspective. Nuking a Muslim country would not have decreased Islamist terrorism against the US, and establishing a precedent of nuclear retaliation in response to a limited conventional attack would massively damage US security in the middle to long run by increasing the likelihood of nuclear exchanges between other countries (disrupting trade, drawing us into conflicts, etc.) and providing a huge incentive to our non-nuclear enemies to develop their own nukes and use them against us in the event of an open conflict (if we're going to nuke them anyway, they might as well nuke Times Square instead of just setting off a car bomb, right?).

Not to mention that Afghanistan had no infrastructure to speak of. They're about the worst country to use nukes on, tactically or strategically. The population is spread out, they're dirt poor, they have nothing. You'd have to do WW2-style "carpet bombing" on them, and that would cause massive fallout on all their neighbors.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I don't see how you can possibly think that nuclear retaliation would not decrease Islamic terrorism. This sounds like the fairly typical "we shouldn't defend ourselves because they'll just get madder!" argument.

As for creating a greater likelyhood of nuclear exchanges in other countries, I understand why you think this but I think you are engaging in an erroneous cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of these other nations. Although they might think "hey if the Americans did it, we can too" that will not get them past the fact that their opponent is likely to think the exact same thing. If their opponent is us, they cannot escape the fact that with the limited numbers of warheads available, plus losses to our own weapons and our missile defense, they cannot hope to inflict crippling damage on us, but we can inflict annihiliating damage on them (this applies to Russia and China as well, and Britain and France based on their own arsenals plus their alliance with us)

If their opponent is another nation, such as a Pakistan-India confrontation, they are still up against the fact that neither side is likely to be able to inflict significantly more damage on the other than it will receive. These are facts their leaders cannot possibly be unaware of, and also is why we concern ourselves with NK or Iranian nukes, but far less with Indian or Pakistani; their leaders are far more likely to give a **** about these facts.

As for the moral considerations, that is part of the reason for a 72-hour ultimatum. People can be moved out of danger areas; warheads of no more than 100 kilotons in size would be adequate I should think. That also is the reason for the target selection: the point is to cripple Afghanistan as a nation, not actually slaughter its people. In point of fact, Afghanistan would probably suffer far less than many other nations since its level of technology is already low enough that people are well prepared to survive without electrical power. If we really wanted to be careful, runways could be taken off the target list, which would eliminate any need for groundbursts and thereby vastly reduce persistent fallout.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is nonsense. Afghanistan certainly does have electrical power plants. You target those, and everything else that runs on electricity goes with them. Do you seriously think cities like Kabul and Kandahar don't use electrical power? Electrical power plants are a major counterforce target in all strategic plans.

You never, ever "carpet-bomb" with nuclear weapons; that's silly and wasteful. The goal isn't to slaughter the people; it's to eliminate the cohernecy of the society and its government - and to make the point to everyone else that they'll suffer the same fate if they try the same thing. Enough people are going to die to get the point across without resorting to such unsophisticated, crude, and wasteful means as "carpet-bombing". (Which was only used in WWII because high-altitude bombing wasn't accurate enough to knock out factories any other way.)

If you did want to slaughter the people, it wouldn't cause nearly as much fallout as you think, either. If you want to kill a lot of people you airburst the weapon; both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were airbursts. Airbursts cause far less fallout than groundbursts because dirt does not get in the fireball to anywhere near the same degree.

Groundbursts, which create much more fallout, are for hard targets like ICBM silos, runways, rail yards, and bunkers. They're not for soft targets or killing lots of people.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

George W. Bush should have had Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz on the phone within minutes of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center; he should have had him on the phone when Mecca burned to the ground.

Things would be a lot better off right now if he had. You see, you use that phrase "obvious moral objections" without considering the geopolitical realities of the Middle East. We did not invade Iraq because of 9/11. We did not invade Afghanistan because of Al Qaeda. And I'm quite certain that no one on these forums will live long enough to know exactly why we did; I know lots and lots and lots about Islamic nations, politics, and culture ...

And government people with more time to think about these topics with me had a vested interest in containing Iran; they just needed an excuse.

The actions George W. Bush should have taken would have achieved the same end with less human expense on all sides.

_________________

http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/11/17/p ... -ron-paul/

Iran does not "call us" that. Crazy President 14th in line for power says that. The same President who does not control their military who has two years left, a nation who our CIA had said has no evidence it is creating a nuclear weapon, that has very limited military power, cannot refine enough gasoline for itself.

Every time we talk about how we will punish them we feed into their propaganda machine which wants Iranians to be distracted by phantoms outside its walls so they ignore the real horrors within them (sound familiar: Patriot Act, Wiretapping, Assassination of US Citizens).

I understand lots of people don't have the free time in their lives to investigate all of what the news media and politicians tell us is important and/or dangerous. I understand fear is an easy emotion to let into our heart and the chemical reactions it causes further reduce our ability to consider things outside that fear focus. But eventually we have to poke our head up and take a look around and see if what we are being told is true actually is.

I hope I've given you enough to start your own investigation. Please don't believe anything anyone says about any candidate - go investigate for your self. I say this because I understand you will believe what you find much moreso than you will believe if I say it and that I am confident you will come to my point of view the more you find out.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I think DE has stated he scoffs at the notion of Blowback.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The most troubling thing I hear being reported is this:

http://joe-burd.newsvine.com/_news/2011 ... at-america

Seems pretty hard to believe, but that doesn't mean it's not true. I've heard the same thing from a variety of sources...pretty scary.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

I say all this with the caveat that he was a great legislator. I just have issues with the appearance of the foreign policy. Maybe the situation is overrated which is what I was trying to say in the first place

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Hence my point. You can't nuke something that already had no coherency of society or government.

(Well, you can. It just wouldn't change much. I read somewhere that less than 10% of Afghans even had electricity. Yay! You took out their power plants. That affects them, how? They already had no gas stations, no cars. They make the third world look advanced. They make Haiti look wealthy. The only things in Afghanistan are people, animals, and dirt. And the occasional poppy farm.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

One wouldn't need a nuke to take out Kabul.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Afghanistan certainly did have a cohereent society and government at the time. It may have been fighting a civil war, but it had one.



Which 10% of Afghans do you suppose had electricity? What else do you suppose had electricity besides households?

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I understand it's very easy to dismiss what someone who knows vastly more about geopolitical strategic realities than you do as "fear", but trust me, you're not going to win my vote for Ron Paul by trying to make it appear you know what you're talking about with word games that make it sound like I'm just sitting back and taking in whatever the mainstream media says. Especially not since I vote for the President almost entirely on his foreign and military policy merits (the two are inextricably related); economic and domestic issues are very much secondary to me.

You see, Elmo, I don't give a ****. My viewpoints, like the idea of a nuclear strike on Afghanistan, massive transition to a strategic-response force, disavowing of arms control, are no more likely to be espoused by the mainstream media than Ron Paul's are. The reasons are different, however. Ron Paul's are unworkable because they ignore the ruthlessness of others; mine are simply too ruthless on our part for the public to be comfortable with. They're too ruthless for you to be comfortable with. My signature says it all, pretty much, at least to the degree it can be said in only 2 lines.

RD actually pointed out the strongest objection possible to nuking A-stan after 9-11: the moral factor. The bottom line is that the American people do not want this country to be that outwardly ruthless. They want their ruthlessness, all right, because they want their internet, their X-Box 360, their cheap groceries, cars, jeans, educational programming with muppets, and everything else, and sometimes you have to make people in shitty little countries that think the most important thing in the world is how **** big a hump your cow has play ball in order for everyone not to have to live in a shithole country. But they don't want that ruthlessness right out in the open. Neither do any other "western" countries, and increasingly, even countries like China; they want to dress it up as something else, either fancy words and "reforms" or if you're a European you want the U.S. to do it while you sit back, enjoy the fruits, and gain the political capital of ***** about the U.S.

That is why Ron Paul doesn't belong anywhere near foreign policy. He isn't ruthless enough. Not in the right kind of way to deal with foreign countries that do not give a flying **** about philosophies of rights or what is and isn't Constitutional here in this country. Barak Obama is more ruthless than Paul. Not enough so for my taste, but I do have to give him credit in that he's a lot more ruthless now than he sounded as a candidate.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Pansy.

_________________

What? Is it my sig? Not brutal enough for you?

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What part of Mecca should have burned did you miss?

_________________

That wouldn't have been my preferred move. In the Arab world (which Afghanistan isn't part of, but would be reached by the message) when you tell someon you are going to kick their ***, you kick their *** in detail. That shows strength. What shows even greater strength is to reach out in a positive way after that.

After you nuke the few power plants in Afghanistan off the face of the earth (which basically means Kabul too, as I can't imagine they'd be anywhere else) then you make it quite clear to everyone else: Hussein, Ghaddaffi, Asad, Mubarak, Saud and of course their people that there are two options: Leave Israel and the West alone and do business, or keep **** around. Mecca is still there. If they want to keep it that way, they better start policing their own.

You have your own way you'd play it.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE:

What part of Ron Paul's stated position about, "Declaring war, invading, winning the war in no uncertain terms, and then coming home," leaves you to believe he's unwilling to fight wars? Ron Paul is a guy who advocates absolute property rights, and a citizen's right to defend what he owns. He believes that peace is always a better option, when it's available, but when it's not available, you kick the **** out of the guy you need to kick the **** out of, and come home. You don't rebuild him, you don't send him money for his war stricken and impoverished. You win, leave, and wash your hands, leaving the example you mean to set in your wake. He's far from a kumbaya peacenik, he's just not an imperialist.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I do not believe he intends to actually ask for any declarations of war using various excuses, and thereby will avoid invading or otherwise attacking anyone, and will in turn use this as an excuse to cripple our ability to do so in the future. If we're going to start actually declaring war every time we need to conduct a punitive air raid such as Operation El Dorado Canyon or Operation Preying Mantis, fine, but I don't think he's going to do that because for some reason people think there's an actual difference between Congress "authorizing military action" and "declaring war".



Absolute property rights (or "absolute" rights of any kind or description) are a hideous idea that should not even remotely be considered; they cannot possibly work in anything other than a fantasy world that doesn't involve actual people. I'm all in favor of citizens being allowed to defend what they own. but this is really a question that will be resolved by the courts. It might be nice to have Ron Paul appointees on the court (one of the few points in his favor IMO)



While kicking the **** out of the guy and coming home is something I agree with, "peace is always a better option when it's available" is saying nothing. Duh. Of course it is. Peace is cheaper than war and (ostensibly) kills a lot fewer people. It's the "when it's available" part that's the problem. I do not want peace to be thought "available" because it suits someone's ideology of "not getting involved" when all the while we are slowly being economically strangled by China, India, or **** fills the power vaccuum that appears if we try to re-create pre-WWI foreign policy. I can't give you a more specific example than that because "when peace is avaialable" is meaningless. Some nitwits would insist peace is available with nuclear warheads going off above New York, San Diego, London, Paris, Ottowa, and Melbourne because "well, maybe they'll come rebuild us!"



All in favor of that, presuming we don't start finding excuses to simply twiddle our thumbs.



"Not an imperialist" is a silly qualification. "Imperialism" is one of those weasel words; people just slap it on any foreign involvement they don't like. It's meaningless. We haven't been engaging in meaningful "imperialism" in decades, maybe over a century depending how you look at it. In fact, there have been exactly two events that could really be called imperialism by anyone since the end of WWII that I can think of and we fought against the imperialists in both cases; Korea and Desert Storm respectively. Contrary to the silly insistence of a lot of people, Iraq and Afghanistan have zero to do with imperialism. We don't want to rule Iraq; we don't even want to set up a puppet dictator. At most, we want a fairly weak form of hegemony, which we give a **** about only as long as they have oil and we need it.

I'd also point out that American "imperialism" has generally worked out at least halfway decently for the people supposedly victimized by it. Is Iraq worse off than under Saddam? Maybe, but then again Saddam's own imperialism in 1991 already **** their standard of living. Afghanistan? Already such a shithole it's unlikely to matter.

American Indians? Treated horribly for much of our history but in reality they're living in a for more modern society with access to a great deal they wouldn't otherwise have; how much better woulkd their lot be if we'd actually treated them decently after conquering them? Arizona and New Mexico? A damn site better off than they would be under Mexico. Alaska? Far better off than it would have been under Soviet Russia.

It's been far from perfect, but "imperialism" is just a word to bludgeon people into agreeing because they think all "imperialism" is bad because of the British Empire and because the Communists used it as a slur against us. I don't give a **** that he wants to "avoid imperialism"; it's far too late for that. I want to know specifically what does he have in mind as far as force structure and his criteria for use.

Is he going to.. maybe stop wasting money on silliness like the LCS, and start funding CGNs again? Eliminate fossil-fueled warships in favor of all-nuclear propulsion? Re-instate Ares/Constellation? Fund B-1R? Re-start the F-22 production line? Anything substanitally similar to those? All things that would point to him being serious about kicking *** and going home..

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No DE the strongest negative to nuking Afghanistan is a world wide trade embargo, the dumping of the dollar as the reserve currency and the total collapse of the US to riots. A far more devastating blow than any terrorist group could have created.

Its not that your position isn't ruthless - it is that it's simpleminded and short sighted. It is the response one would expect from an aggressive teen unsure of his place in the world and compensating with bravado.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville