Some of that is happening, too. It's why we have bases in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, and Oman. Not just to have leverage on Iran and Pakistan, but to win the hearts and minds of potential future enemies. The core fanatics in Al Qaeda will never be bought off. But the people they depend on for finance, transportation, and recruits can be turned. Dubai has turned from a sheikdom into an extremely Western-oriented country making good money for its citizens. Hard to recruit there.
I agree with collateral damage being an aspect of conflict but I also agree risk should be minimized. What the NSA has tried to sell to Americans is the manner in which risk is addressed through the technology that is employed. They do not admit to being perfect but they will be the last, if ever to admit they are running a program with flaws. Obama put risk assessment as a priority to executing these raids, good job. Obama expects information being provided to him, by and through the NSA and the CIA to true. He is assured by these organizations that the proper risk assessments has been taken which, in turn authorizes those targets to be placed on the kill list. What I see, is a process that is flawed and set up to deliver false positives. A kill list is approved which gives an open 60 day window to drop a target. If after 60 days (and that target has not been found), that target has to go through the approval process...again. What started as a 60 day target now becomes an 18 month target resulting from the process. Human elements become even more reliable and that is where problems begin. With countries like Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia where we have limited boots on the ground gathering intelligence, assumptions become a greater part of the risk. Reliability on intelligence where SIM cards become a determining factor accelerates the potential for fuck ups AND it is now coming out in reports. That is in a country where boots are clearly on the ground. I suspect Obama is being told one thing, (enough to satisfy) but other things occur that may have...gone unasked by the guy who apparently has total faith in the process he outlined. If so, and in great thanks to Edward Snowden and the evidence that is now hitting the fan, I'd gather he is asking more questions now. Can't really blame a president for not knowing everything but with a remark like the one titled in this thread, he stands to look pretty stupid. Can't be good for somebody, somewhere in the intelligence community. What I took from this article is there will be more to come regarding the intelligence community. Edward Snowden dropped a bomb and man, if there is one thing Obama hates, he hates whistle-blowers. His war on whistle-blowers is epic and I truly fear what is to come from allowances made to accommodate corporations operating in America. He has made corporations that support Federal, local and state government even more powerful than they ever have been in the past. Edward Snowden is a dude I am stuck straddling the fence over. His claim is he dropped dime for the sake of human rights yet he takes asylum from a country not known to be a champion of human rights. Just the same he dropped dime. Obama has made him public enemy #1 and will stop at nothing to make him #2. Would be his trophy catch to display against all whistle-blowers from here to Mars. If he catches him, we are all screwed. I also like the publication which posted the article. They are new but PACKED with gifted journalist looking to deliver what the NY Times refuses to. Half the journalist live abroad in fear of prosecution for responsible, eye opening journalism. They have won to pretty high awards but cannot personally accept, shame. Like I said they are new and are currently devoted to all the information Snowden put out there. They do attract radicals but that is the nature of guilt by association. If you put anything out that is gonna defame the president, radicals will follow. I hope they maintain focus and spread the same philosophy towards other crooked shit not named the NSA. Time will tell...
Agree with all of that. Those are the sticks; but we have to find carrots to complement the sticks. The things you mentioned take the place of the military brute force. We have to find something to replace the 'nation building' part of the equation. Only it works from the outside and in conjunction with the drone sticks to move the country in our direction.
It's happening with foreign aid for the poorer countries and with defense arrangements for the wealthier ones. The aid we give Egypt and Pakistan (much of which must be spent in the USA) has bought us tremendous leverage in the Palestine conflict and the Persian Gulf and a lot of good will on the ground to balance the anti-American sentiment that exists. The Saudis grumbled for years about our insistence on their building giant forward bases in the desert. But when their existence was threatened they called upon us and we redeployed to those bases and defended the country. That has bought us a lot of goodwill. Twelve Arab nations lined up beside us on the ground in the Gulf War. Now our allies know that we can and will defend them. And they fear us because they have also seen that we can invade and occupy them and stay as long as we wish. Perhaps now we can ramp down the Superpower swagger and assuage their ego's a bit. There are a number of ancient and proud peoples there that need to regain a bit of national pride. The biggest carrot that we can offer in addition is to ramp up the trade and help improve economic heath in the area. Many of these islamist fighters are just bored young men with no jobs that would pursue capitalist dreams if more opportunities existed.
Red that was 20 years ago. According to you in earlier posts W pissed all that away when we invaded Iraq. That paragraph above sounds like Cheney or any neo-con would make. "Staying as long as we wish" has shown to be a failure time and again...Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. 5 years ago you and others were saying we wasted lives and treasure in these places for nothing and praised President Obama for getting out. You can't have it both ways sport. Today we see silence from the president in Syria, silence in Ukraine, silence in Venezuela. This morning on MSMBC's Morning Joe the administration was roundly condemned for lack of leadership and silence. Before you try to make is the false choice between putting boots on the ground or going to war in any form, no one argued that was the way or even an option. They looked for leadership in words and actions such as Reagan used in Europe and Clinton used. BTW most of these are liberals and supporters of the president. No one supported his lack of leadership. That isn't evidence of a superpower's action it is more proof that our president is out of his league and as I have noted many times an empty suit.
He did piss away a lot of goodwill, but that was 10 years ago. Much goodwill has been restored. Our bases and treaties are still there and our capability is undiminished. Obviously not. A fact is a fact. You berate me for a liberal, and on social issues I am. But in geopolitics I'm moderate and in support for the military I'm conservative. You just tend to argue with whatever I say without looking too closely at what I'm saying. Again, you confuse politics with military capability. Just because it was foolish to invade Iraq does't mean that we aren't capable of it. We wasted lives and treasure by being there and staying there too long, but we didn't leave because we were defeated or pushed out, we left when we decided to leave. My point is that this fact has not been missed by our friends or our enemies in the region. Then you aren't paying attention. Obama already took the chemical weapons off the table in Syria and is arming the moderate rebels. He's involved with the Saudis on further armaments and he's got his Secretary of State involved with the Syrian peace talks in Geneva. He's pressuring the Russians on Syria as well. Obama considers new steps against Syria ‘to pressure’ Assad Kerry: Assad stonewalling in peace talks Obama on Ukraine: ‘There will be consequences if people step over the line’ Obama condemns violence in Ukraine and Venezuela, urges dialogue to restore calm What is it that you want Obama to do? Be specific. Do you really want to get involved in Civil Wars in Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela? I'm talking about international geopolitical realities and you are caught up in anti-Obama rhetoric.
While I can agree with many of your comments, I am not straddling the fence over Snowden. The guy is a criminal and a showboater out for personal fame. "whistleblowers" are people who expose misconduct and illegal activity occurring in an organization. But when a person who took an oath and has a national security clearance and then illegally steals and releases classified documents it is called "espionage". If Snowden had a true feeling that the NSA was violating its mandate he could have reported this to the Congressional oversight committee. But instead he openly distributed top secret documents that cripples our ability to track terrorists. Then he took refuge in China and asylum in Russia, our two biggest threats. The guy is a spy and a traitor.
couldnt agree more, journalism and anti-terror policy do not go hand in hand and winning awards dont mean a fucking thing if we are not safe.
