interesting that such things should happen under Zardari, the most pro-American pres there can possibly be in Pak. Either Zardari seeks to escape the "puppet" tag, or he is simply in no control of the army, or some generals want to set him up because of his conflict with Musharraf. Or is it that Americans never crossed into Pak before and took Zardari's election as a permission? Hardly.

how about US citizens working in the dildo-production sector (OK, all the dildoes come from People's Republic)? Its THEM who pay to the defense sector. Its not the Polish and Hungarian taxpayers who'll pay for the stuff. It will be you, buddy. The thing is, to your arms industry people, American taxpayers dollars are as fine as that of the Polish taxpayers dollars. The USA doesn't earn a dime on the thing; the money changes hands within the US flying from your pocket to the pocket of the arms industry folks. Don't try to present the Missile Defense project as a lucrative deal for the US. The one who pays for it is you, not the Poles.


uncomfortable hardly. Few see the Georgia war as an omen to Poland. And then, if a Pole were to perceive a military threat from Russia, the missile deal is the most extravagant way to respond to it. In the prospect of a Russo-Polish war, that deal changes nothing.

u possibly remember some other Shiite movements in Iraq. Those were instrumental in the US takeover. Do u think the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a thouroughly pro-American movement, acted completely independent from Tehran? Do u think al Sistani was entirely autonomous in his return from Iran and his "pacification" of the Shias? Do you think Tehran woudn't be able to induce a hundred anti-American fatwas by Iraqi Shiite clerics and raise a Shiite uprising against the US? The occupation was a joint US-Iran project which one side has so speedily forgotten, and of which it shall be reminded if it proceeds with its anti-Iranian sable-rattling.

if u really want to subdue a Muslim territory u must take over the neighbouring areas and those that neighbour the latter and the farther outreaches as well. Simply striking a deal with neighbouring regimes and paying them money to do some job isn't good enough. With all the geostrategic Kamasutra going on between the US and the House of Saud, the KSA jihadists were never stopped from entering Iraq. And the smuggling from Egypt into Gaza was never stopped despite Mubarak being the babyboy of America. It's Dar ul Islam, folks, you will never localize your invasion into any part of it. It will tend to react as a whole.

that may be said of so many things. Even beyond smoking and alcohol. The question is how far will u go the way of this logic. Anything that causes you being UNDERPRODUCTIVE is a tax on your fellow citizens. In a society of the free healthcare any medical need of one is a hidden tax on others. Now look. Any activity/passivity contributing to health problems of an individual becomes a crime against society. You undermine your body and then appeal to the free healthcare for cure. Thus your compatriots are forced to pay for your unhealthy lifestyle. How far shall we go on the list of unhealthy habits? They all are, in fact, crimes, for their effects are treated at the cost of other people. Lack of physical activity? Bad eating? Hamburgers? Failure to clean the teeth? Failure to undergo regular health checks in order to detect illness at an early stage? I'm sure we're paying LOTS of money for the extremely expensive treatment of people whose levity allowed their illnesses to grow. We're paying huge bucks for the healthcare of the elderly who earn their ailments by refusing to perform basic physical exercises. How many unhealthy things are we to criminalize?


if freedom is universal, how can ideas of it differ so radically and for so long?  Which "American" freedom ideas do u not expect to be "naturally"  produced by any other society?


do you find the Chechen terrorism against Russia to be of "self-inflicted" origins? Let's put the question thusly: the terror attacks of the Chechen separatists against Russia have origins in: 1) violent imposition of Russian rule over Chechnya, 2) Muslim anger over self-inflicted failures of Islam.

Let's ask the same question of the Kashmir terrorists. Do they protest the subjugation of Muslim populace by India or do they protest self-inflicted failures of Muslim societies ?

Now let's ask same question about NON-Muslim terrorist groups. Was the IRA terrorist activity a protest against British rule over a part of Ireland or was it a protest against the self-inflicted traumas of the Irish nation?

Do the Basque terrorists act against Spanish rule over Basconia or do they react to the internal problems of the Basque culture?

Now ask that same question about the Sikhs.


bin Laden, by the time he began his "career" in terrorism, was richer than you and me will ever be. Practically all the folks envolved in the "Qaeda" trademark "have good jobs, a steady income, stability at home, happy children, educational opportunities, a voice in their government, and an expectation for future success and prosperity." Moreover, some of them were raised in Western societies, and were successful there. You theory is sinking.

the two can be difficult to distinguish. I guess you see power as "freedom to make decisions about others" while freedom concerns only the self.



in this supply and demand dialectic, the demand for freedom is not always present. The sheer aspirations for rights are formed historically, not given to every human by default. My aspirations for "freedom" are much greater than that of most Westerners. I consider myself fully entitled by nature to any chemical substances (save explosives) and any consensual sexual relations (save children). However, Western state holds a number of prohibitions restricting my natural rights in these areas. To many folks, yet, these prohibitions do not appear violent. They submit to them as a self-evident truth. Now take this dialectic several levels lower. You find people readily submitting to various restrictions which a typical "submissive" Westerner finds atrocious. The thing with bringing "freedom" to foreigners is that they might not have formed a demand for it yet.


you evidently take Muslim feelings about the US-Israel actions for pathological. You shove a knife into flesh and the flesh feels pain. Aparently, "to destroy the very conditions that breed and cultivate terrorists" you need to destroy the very body that feels that pain. So that American, Israeli et al. intrusion into Islam would not envoke any negative sensations. You seek to trample Muslims into earth so hard that they would feel foreign occupations of their land as pleasant positive experience. Were I Muslim, even by identity and not by faith, I would most certainly contribute to terrorism. My anger at aggressors would find justifications for that.

Freddie wrote:
 
you define "conflict" too narrowly. Not always involves guns. There was also "no conflict" in Yugoslavia under Tito. And then there was.

he will probably end up like his wife. Who ever gets him first, - Islamists or the army and the ISI. I hope he at least abandoned the insane idea of recognizing Israel. The Bhuttos offered that thing on the D.C. political market to buy the U.S. support.

Zardari might as well back off from his militant agenda after a period of torturous efforts. He might realize that fetching the army against the tribes is too costly, in all respects, and revert to the business as usual. Meanwhile, it's another case where a pro-American leader is substituted with a more pro-American one.

he's mostly right. Iran has indeed cooperated with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mostly in the early stages. The fact is that the entire Muslim world, as represented by government, partook in the American occupation of Iraq and Afgh. Funny that both Iran and KSA aided Americans in Iraq, expecting opposite results. Iran's bet proved a better one. 

yes, redrawing borders, creating new countries. Multiethnic states (where ethnic groups are long-established in their residential areas rather than a collection of idispersed mmigrant communities) are problematic. If Spain cannot quite settle her ethnic divides, - Basque, Catalunya, Galicia, - Afghanistan won't be able to do that for long. Even Europe's culture of coexistence does not prevent ethnic violence. It will be long before Afghans develop a peaceful conflict-resolution culture. No need to forcefully keep them together. Of course, there can always emerge fighting WITHIN same groups. But there is usually less energy going into that. Afghan civil wars have mostly been structured along ethnic and religious lines.

power, Crypto, people naturally yearn for power. "Freedom" is difficult to define. I tell you from my experience of the post-Soviet existence, there are lots of folks who eagerly relinquish "freedom", what ever that means, for the sake of security, financial certainty, national "greatness".

So coming back to power, the thing with Afghanistan is that important people got disempowered. The Northern Alliance, Tajik-Uzbeck in ethnic composition, plus the Shia Hazara, plus the Karzai Pashtu clan got the power (that limited power left to them by the US) at the cost of other good people. You don't believe, I hope, that the entire resistance to NATO, call it Taliban or whatever you please, is based solely upon religious zeal. There are material causes on the ground, the power factor. My solution for that tortured country is ethnic deconstruction.

the issue always seemed to me plain. Money. It's a bit commonplace but it's old good lobbying stuff. Somehow a few folks in the Pentagon are more concerned about security of the Europeans than the Europeans themselves. Neither the governments nor the public in Europe have qualms about Iranian rockets. Most Europeans are surprised to even consider a possibility of Iranian strike on Europe.  It looks like -

USA: listen folks, u need some protection against Iran.

Folks: eh.., we're fine, thanks.

USA: no no no, you NEED that goddam shield against Iran. It's for your own sake.

Europeans: well,.. eh..., why would Iran attack us? Never really thought of that.

USA: who knows, why. Cos they're crazy, those mullahs. They're nuts. They will strike everyone, everyone. They enjoy hurting people, choking freedom, attacking democracies. Insane bastards. But don't worry, we'll take care of you. Uncle Sam is here to defend.

Euros: We're fine, really, don't bother. It's OK.

US: No no no no no! No! You’re NOT fine.You NEEED protection. You NEEEED missile defense. Fortunately we're here to help.

Euros: what if...

USA: Shut up! You don't know what the hell you're talking about! They are comming! Islamofascism Is coming! why is it always so hard to talk Euros into some nice tough stuff? You need the mthfking missile defense, got me?!

The West won't do much; it's the good old world where difference rules apply to different players. They could give Tbilisi some cash to buy the air defense systems. It looks like the Ukrainian S-300 downed several Russian planes. Russians already made the noise about Ukrainians pushing Georgia to war by supplying the air defense. Of course my position is that the entire Osetia, that is BOTH North OSetia and South Osetia, should be a unified sovereign state of the Osetian people. Guess who makes this impossible? Russia. Cremlin will gladly tear South Osetia from Georgia but would bomb into dust NORTH OSetia, should that part of Russ Federation exhibit any taste for independence.

? How about Sergio Ramos? He was the real difference. Spain played like Barcelona, but Barca lacks Ramos to show same result. Best defender of the cup, possibly the best player. That's the first time I ever saw Spaniards with a good defense; they always have immaculate midfielders and fairly goos strikers, but suffer because of the weak inattentive defense. That was the first time Spain had good defense, and Ramos was the true difference. I am a Barcelona fan, so u know what it means if a Barcelonista praises a Real Madrid player.

I still don't see any salience to this piece of news. "In their [the Americans'] view there are some people at some level in the ISI who tip off the Taleban at some level about impending missile attacks..." Yeah OK. Americans think the info is leaked by "some people at some level". It is only some info with some people at some level. We're NOT talking here caravans of modern weapons endlessly supplying Taliban; we're NOT talking rivers of cash pumped into Omar's pockets. Some info leaked by some people at some level. Is that such "help" that -

?

Regarding those camps allegedly operated by ISI, the story is unreliable, since the Pak army is actually fighting in those "border areas"; even if there are some camps, they are almost useless since it is not the "training" but the weapons and money that sustain war effort. You can "train" people shoot AKM and crawl under barbed wire all you love; if they don't have the stuff to knock a chopper down, or hit a tank from a mile, they are moving targets for a modern digital war machine.

Once again, simply compare "Taliban" (which, as I said, no longer exists) with Hezbollah. In the terrains of Afghanistan, Hezbollah would have killed thousands of NATO soldiers using the guided anti-tank missiles.

If ISI leaks some info at some level, that per se is NOT an explanation of why "Taliban" still exists. That MIGHT be an explanation (an unconvincing one) of how Taliban avoids greater casualties; but "leaking info" does nothing to create and sustain a large military movement. There are local Afghan factors that sustain the resistance to NATO; leaking information cannot do that.

survival at the cost of survival of the others. I don't know any moral doctrine, besides those rooted in voluntarism and social Darwinism, that commands such logic. It if it indeed that "oil decides who lives and who dies", then invasion for oil is a flat murder whereas a vital resource is denied to those to whom it lawfully belongs. But I don't think these wars, factual and speculative, have any thing to do with oil. The thing so widely forgotten is that oil profits are commonly made without military invasions, and that the oil lobby is generally regarded as "pro-Arab" in the US.

The question is whether neocons can rely on Obama to strike Iran. His trend is completely in the direction of war. Obama has "explained" his Iran vision so much that it is barely distinguishable from McCain's. Both say that ALL means must be used, both say that sanctions, harsh sanctions, must be tried first. Both say there is a place for diplomacy. Both say "Israel's security is sacrosanct". Both say if dimplomacy and sanctions fail, force will be used. The only difference is that one is ready to meat directly, and the other says any talks can go only via EU and Russia. I wonder if Obama's drift towards war is a factor in the neocons slowing down the war march, or Iran's refusal to be daunted is the only factor.