Our New Improved Middle East
 

As near as I can figure it, we have right now the conditions the neo-cons wanted for the middle east. States have failed and are in turmoil. So now we wait for liberal democracy to sweep across the area respecting minority rights, building modern societies... maybe if we just topple Iran everything will be perfect?

Meanwhile we'll wish them a Happy Easter.

So version 2.0 of crony capitalism isn't working out for the beneficiaries of version 1.0? Who would've expected that?

I joined Cellar when I was 25. 9/11 happened later that year. I will be 40 in October.

Apparently God only lives in Jerusalem and we have to really fight over that piece of rock. Also, Shiites and Sunnis each have the corner on Islam and the leadership of the Umma if they can just kill off enough of the other heretics. Also, the US, back in 1947 told Israel and Pakistan that we are with you no matter what....apparently we are not allowed to re-evaluate that position. Also, I stubbed my toe this morning and all problems are local. My stream of consciousness at 0100 in the AM seems to be a bit loose.

We must always remember Israel is an ally not a friend.

Yemen has been in the news lately, what with the US getting the hell out of Dodge as it falls apart.

When I picture Yemen, I picture sand. Lots and lots of sand. I think an episode of the Amazing Race was shot there, and they had to learn how to drive SUVs at high speed through the sand dunes.

Anyway, Yemen isn't just sand.

This is Yemen. If we're going to be hearing about it in the news shouldn't we at least look at a few pictures of it so it's real to us?

It's also lush and green.
Attachment 50852
Attachment 50853

Google Images also puts that 2nd pic clear over in Nepal.
But then who knows what the internet portends.

All the khats lined up in rows :D

Interesting. I got that image from Panoramio in Google Earth. They are usually pretty good. It's located here. 13°51'59.37"N, 44° 3'3.16"E

But I agree that the image doesn't match the satellite view perfectly.

This is more typical of that valley:
Attachment 50857

I had no idea that there was decent land in Yemen. Wiki describes its recent government as a kleptocracy so maybe we can be forgiven for not touring the area.

Yemen, 25 million people but not very much food.

From Wikipedia, I'll have to check the numbers:

In Yemen, income from oil production constitutes 70 to 75 percent of government revenue and about 90 percent of exports.

I'll bet the the guys working the fields are like our guys working the fields only from Malaysia.

So the collapse of oil prices, which I assume was orchestrated to hit Russia, Iran, and maybe Venezuela probably had a huge impact on the existing (creepy American ally) government's ability to bread and circus...

One could not orchestrate oil prices like one could not control the wind... Too big

I assume too much. The US increased production a lot but not really enough to impact world prices.

All I'm saying is high production comes because high prices incentivize it and then there was innovation, not because any one person or government has the ability to sit behind a curtain and pull the levers to make it happen.

Speaking of the middle east, I found this article on ISIS very informative.
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Well worth reading.

My observation is that Americans, as a group, are hugely culturally biased about who and what the rest of the world is. On top of that, we don't as a people understand or know about our cultural bias. On top of that, we wade into the rest of the word with our bias and expect everyone to march to the tune of our drum, because we don't even know about our bias we can't understand and are genuinely baffled as to why no one is marching to the beat of our drum. It really doesn't matter if it's ISIS, Russia, China, or any other place that's not within our boundaries. Most of the people I now will read that article and begin to formulate ways to get in there and change what's going on...in our best interest of course. Maybe if we spend just a little more money, or maybe if we just keep troops on the ground a little longer, or maybe if we just engage long enough for them to see the error of their ways.

I say all of this to get to this point. The local culture is where this movement has grown. The local culture is where this movement must be addressed. It will take some very different, long term engagement for us in the middle east, North Africa, and Asia to assist in overcoming movements like ISIS. That is only if our assistance is wanted and asked for. I'll end with something the Brits discovered in Afghanistan long ago, most local nationals loyalties cannot be purchased. They can be rented, of course, for short indeterminate periods of time. That in my opinion is all we have been doing with our last 10+ years of engagements with the Middle East and Afghanistan. Renting for short periods of time, some ones loyalty. In the end the local culture is always going to be loyal to the local culture. There ain't dick we can do about that unless we want to set up shop and start having congressmen elected from Iraq.

So what?
So what?
As the man said when the waiter asked where the spoon was, Ah Ha!

Agree 100%, we followed the example of previous empires in bullying weaker nations into submission. Lots of bluff and bluster then if that fails, send the Marines. When United Fruit said the natives are revolting, an incredulous Congress said, they certainly are.
Before communications shrunk the world, and definitely before the internet, we could often convince the second and third world everyone else obeyed us. No more

Ah, as the collective, condescending, bored sigh of America continues to say "so what???"

So what, good question. So what is that until we understand ourselves we will continue to spend billions in dollars, thousands in American lives, and even more in foreign lives continuing to wonder why the rest of the world just cant see it our way.

You're right, "so what" only works if I-fish-on-my-side-you-fish-on-your-side-nobody-fish-in-the-middle.
If we insist on meddling, and apparently half the country thinks we should, it would behoove us to get it right.

The multi-cultural advocates are telling us that all cultures are basically the same, we merely eat different foods and have different skin colors and celebrate different holidays. If there were actually some deeper cultural differences that lead to misunderstandings, they would have explained that to us. Joe you can't go on believing they are "different" because they are brown people. You are part of the problem

That would suggest that what is being sought is monoculturism, not multiculturalism.

My understanding of multiculturalism - is not that all people are identical and all cultures basically the same - but that all people share an essential humanity and that the varied ways in which cultures have developed to answer essential questions of existence can co-exist and by doing so enrich each other: a multicultural society is one in which multiple cultural understandings come together - it is a constant and ongoing negotiation of shared and conflicting terms.

It is, in fact, a fault of ISIS that they are not multicultural enough, but... ah shit now we are demonstrating an understanding of them that we can't actually have and interpreting their statements and whatnot

and judging them for their beliefs

this post was made quickly and is more of an offhand remark

Unfortunately that myopia still exists with some in The Cellar. Obama is apparently and successfully getting local powers to take responsibility for their region.

In the rare case where the US put down a red line (Syria's bio-chemical weapons), the result was an outstanding success. You would not know that from so many extremists who attacked Obama for it by reciting Limbaugh wacko extremist mantras. They now will not admit how wrong they were. Because they parrotted extremist rhetoric rather than see facts.

That was a rare case where direct US involvement with an ultimatum was necessary. And resulted in world wide cooperation to eliminate those weapons.

Meanwhile, the conflict is their problem. US is and should only be a support function. Even Turkey does not yet get it. US only does support when local powers have failed to provide those capabilities for themselves.

We did same in Libya. Again, once extremist rhetoric is removed, then US involvement did not happen. Responsibilities were with and still lie with local powers. Then Britian, France, et al discovered they did not have sufficient weapons beyond one week of operation. Even learned that French and British planes must fly from one another's aircraft carriers. Europe must learn that many other countries (ie Pakistan) have more military (especially attack planes) - have more teeth - then those European nations.

More lessons learned because we are no longer rushing madly (in Cheney style) to get into or start every war. Its not our job to be world policemen even though Tea Party extremists say otherwise.

Our New Improved Middle East
 

There's a few good vacation spots; but, not as many as eight years ago.

TW, Pakistan doesn't have any real teeth to speak of....unless you mean the Taliban living in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And they don't have any planes.

If Pakistan is toothless, it only says how inferior the military is in most European countries. Pakistan's Air Force is superior to what is in most European nations. Equivalent weapon systems in greater numbers.

You spending a lot of time in Pakistan tw?

You make me laugh TW, they (Pakistan), have the planes without the maintenance package, they have the pilots without the hours, they have the nukes without the expertise to use them properly, etc... It's all politics and show. They roll the F-4's out of the hanger every now and then with fresh paint to show them off. If they were all that and a bag of chips they would not routinely get their asses handed to them in the tribal territories by a bunch of rag tag under equipped yet motivated Islamist insurgent groups. They would not have to rely on our CIA drone program to do their dirty work with these same groups.

Posting wild speculation does nothing to address one glaring fact. European nations have severely diminished military capacity. Turkey even fears attacking ISIS in Iraq without US air support. And yes, Pakistan (and many other lesser nations) have more military than many European nations.

Just because the fact is mostly unknown means you can deny it? For most of the past decade, America has been trying to get the Europeans to address their diminished militaries. Even the Brits are not advocating less military due to the attitude of their current Prime Minister combined with the foolishly deployments previously by Tony Blair.

Are British voters learning in this election that their leaders now want diminished military abilities? Most all European nations are not spending what even their NATO commitments required them to spend. Why was European so toothless even during the Balkan wars? Back then, those nations had larger military abilities. One would think they see the threats demonstrated in Ukraine. They don't.

BTW, who is the world's number two spender on military? Nobody will guess. A nation that should not have an offensive ability: Japan. Or did you also not know that?

I am certainly not engaged in wild speculation.

Don't know much about the other Euro nations, but Britain has always had a quirky relationship with its army. There have been reductions and reorganisations over the last couple of years. There are always reductions to the army in peacetime.

That is a fairly typical British approach: plow in funding and resources when it becomes necessary, then reduce the regulars when the war is over and try to plug the gaps with the territorial army (weekend soldiers).

This has been the British paradigm for the last two or three hundred years.

That's how we played until we killed every heavy industry but defense...

If someone were to nuke Pakistan, I bet it would throw enough dust into the atmosphere to counteract global warming. It would also create a new heavy industry for the massive cleanup. Did I mention it would leave Iran without a convenient alternative location to develop a clandestine nuclear arms program. Pakistan has been fickle with the USA. Hmmm...

Another Israel.

That is why the wacko extremists so hated Clinton. Using shuttle diplomacy, he averted a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. And start some cordial respect between India and the US.

Wackos hate it because 1) Clinton did it. And 2), their mantra as stated by Rush Limbaugh is "We want America to fail."

Wackos love wars. And the massive deficiets that wars create. Because with Fox News, then the brainwashed Americans will blame it on the Democrats. Bad things are always good for wacko extremists. That is how extremists get into power. No wonder George Jr tried to subvert the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And told Russia, unilaterally, we were going to restart our nuke production.

You make me laugh TW, it's so easy to get you to do an encore.

Britain previously was the exception in Europe. Brits have long taken their military obligations seriously. Unfortunately, some like Tony Blair have also done harm to the military in irresponsible deployments. But Cameron seems to have taken a 'disarmament' attitude. That an observation from distance.

Other European nations have taken an "America will defend us" attitude.

Recently a Russian submarine was lurking off the Swedish coast. Sweden had decided to eliminate all of their anti-submarine air forces. They did not have even one helicopter that could search for submarines. A critically essential weapon system for any nation with an ocean to defend. Whatever the Russian sub was doing, it got cleanly away.

Sweden is not the exception. Saudi Arabia has apparently and recently gotten the message. They have now stopped blaming Obama for not providing a robust Saudi defense. They have finally learned the primary defense of Saudi Arabia must be performed by Saudis. But other nations are still reducing their military capabilities.

A glaring fact exists. Even Pakistan has a better armed military than many European nations.

Japan understands this. They are not calling it an Aircraft Carrier. But Japan is building their first carrier since WWII. Due to obvious threats.

How many ignored warning of Sprately and Parcel Islands? How many know of the military confrontation where Chinese naval vessels trapped a Philippine naval vessel in confrontation over these islands?

Maybe so, in recent times. But the period you are talking about is very short. The 'disarmament' attitude is much older. I may be wrong - but I suspect that the half-century consensus on Britain's responsiblity to remain permanently armed to the teeth and acting as deputy to the world's sheriff, may turn out to be a blip in a much longer tradition.

sexobon is my new hero. The humor I get from some of these exchanges is priceless.
Thanks!