The next war

[Sisyphus]

Here's the thing, though: Kagan's article can be considered a 'primer', and it is posted on the website instituted by Bush's entourage. Very influential people.

Frank,

Finally got round to reading Kagan's article. V.interesting and I enjoyed it. He rambled for 5 paragraphs but finally got into it. What a pity there isn't a debating chamber. You could have some real fun discussing it.

He makes a lot of sense but, occasionally, having sent the US/EU on diverging courses get them to bump together again with a 'throw away' sentence.

There's plenty to agree and disagree on. The title's 'Power and Weakness' but he has focussed entirely on military power. I'd like to ask him how he thinks his hypothesis stands up when economic power and weakness is factored in.

{ I read the other day that the US trade deficit is >$450bn. George is blaming this on cheap Chinese imports - which total c.$16.5bn????} Anyway..................

It's been a long time since I've read such a lengthy 'treatise' on the US and the word 'oil' hasn't been mentioned once. And, interestingly, he accuses the EU of isolationism [but in other words]. Funnily enough some Europeans accuse the US of exactly the same thing [Kyoto, steel tariffs, etc......]

I guess a major bone of contention is he suggests that, these days, the US is the primary tgt for terrorist because of its power [he's referring to military power]. I wonder how many other people think this. Many people argue it's the major target because of it's domination of world markets, excessive demands for oil, and interference [via the CIA] in other sovereign country's domestic affairs, etc..... I can't recall reading anywhere that OSb was after the US specifically because of its military power: rather what it uses it for.

None of this is discussed in his article. Hopefully, someone in touch with the 'influential' people is covering these points in another 'primer' and that someone else will collate all the info into one coherent document.

Anyway, it was a good read which I enjoyed. Certainly, plenty to think about.

[Tab]

Well what with France/Germany and Italy all spending millions of Euros that they don't have and breaching all the rules on the Euro currency it makes you wonder just how long the Euro will have any value. The way it is going the Euro will be rather like the Italian Lira with about 2,000 to the pound.

[Sisyphus]

Funnily enough, Tab, the Euro started at about US80cents. It's now something like $1.20 to the Euro. Samma samma Sterling. A year ago it was 1.62 to the £ (said this elsewhere today! ,sorry)

Anyway it's now 1.42. We're even thinking of selling up in Spain and taking the profit.

Now how long it's going to go on, who knows????

Never could understand how the international money markets work :crazyeyes:

[Wholley]

Hello Frank.
I think Bill Buckley speaks from a very narrow almost blindered point
of view.As a Catholic he supported the Kennedy's in the sixties and Reagan in the eighties.Although I much admire his formidable intellect
I do not believe he has that much influence on opinion in the US.
Fred Barnes,Bill Cristol and Rush Limbaugh however,do.
I mean some people still read Maureen Dowd.
Balance in the(mass) media is non-existent."If it bleeds,it leads"makes the point.Sensationalism is the rule here unfortunately and it is a
shame that so many people take it as Gospel.
Still,at least most on this forum take the time to sort the wheat from the chaff,which is good.
Wholley.

[BenChug]

I can't see the United States and the European Union going to war in the next 10 years unless one of them does something really stupid. Perhaps the next thing to cause these kind of problems will be the next strike made by the US Forces, maybe the StarWars system? Economy isn't everything look how long the USSR chugged along before it finally snapped its back.

No I think the problem will come from a country which openly hates the West, a state sponsered terrorist with a limitted nuclear attack on American soil, something along those lines will draw the next war I reckon.

[BenChug]

I want to know what some of the younger lads think about along these lines, I think I am the youngest person to post up on this one.

(this is going to be brutal I haven't tried this is quite awhile..)

Jason, by the chuffin' way 'ow'd the bloomin' gunners do this weekend? I fin' they were garn ter play blackburn? ya 'ave ter keep me updated on the games China Plate i'm stuck way over 'ere and ain't got channel 302 or whatever plays priemer league footie. far more important topic than world war ffree by aw accounts anyways.

'a did I do I fin' sum of me phrases 're way aahhht of wack it 'as been awhile since I was in 'ackney wif me china plates???

[Wholley]

That,Ben is also one of my greatest fears.
A dirty bomb or worse would attract massive reaction from this country.
With the under current here in the popular press it would spell disaster.
Lets hope higher minds prevail.
I personally think a good two coats of looking at would be good before we
dash off to boldly free another oppressed people.
Anyhoo,my Pizza just arrived,Battle Star Galactica has just started,
so I'm off to save the human race from my recliner.
Wholley.

[Wholley]

Ben.
Have another cocktail and git orrf to yer pit.
Whoooolleey.

[Rod Spinks]

England could be the next as we have an enemy in the Asylum seekers also some so of the called British people we don't like them and the way they look at us, it's obvious they don't like us.Enoch Powells words will come true .

[Jason The Argonaut]

Jason, by the chuffin' way 'ow'd the bloomin' gunners do this weekend? I fin' they were garn ter play blackburn? ya 'ave ter keep me updated on the games China Plate i'm stuck way over 'ere and ain't got channel 302 or whatever plays priemer league footie. far more important topic than world war ffree by aw accounts anyways.

Sorry I have not keep you up to date lately Ben, we won against Blackburn 1-0 Dennis Bergkamp, top of the league again.


Sorry to go off topic lads

[Tazzers]

I think the EU will invade, or at least attempt to invade Britain in my lifetime. I hope not but I've thought long and hard about this and although I don't think it is in anybody's interest or is even considered by most Europeans, the French would. They would if they thought they were powerful enough and they were determined to 'bring Britain to heel'.

I don't think Britain will ever play a central part in the EU even if we threw ourselves into it wholeheartedly because the French wouln't allow it. However we have very strategic geography with regards the western seaboard of Europe. By default we control it. Nothing comes out of Europe including the Mediteranean (because of our position in Gibralta) without the British knowing about it. Britian is Europe's western gateway, it is a jump off point and an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier'. More than this it is also in the top three richest nations in Europe with a strong and stable economy. If you add the fact that the French psyche is generally perported to be 'Anglophobic' and they may very well become the centre of a huge European arsenal, the temptation might be insurmountable assuming they can drag the rest of Europe with them. The way it is going in Europe, even those who don't want to get involved might not have much of a choice in the matter.

The best we can hope for is, ironically, German pragmatism and its balancing effect in the EU with regard to France.

[Frank S.]

Interesting take on things. I think you may be giving us too much 'credit'. Attacking the UK? This I really can't see. Anglophobic? Oh hell no.

Manoeuvering politically to isolate Great Britain, maybe, but overt war, no. If there is danger across the channel, I think it has more to do with an islamic element getting out of control, but that would be better defined as a criminal than a military threat.

As to Germans being more pragmatic than the French, I really don't know about that.

[Sisyphus]

I think the EU will invade, or at least attempt to invade Britain in my lifetime.

Tazzers

What do you think the E U is? WE are EU. How can we invade ourselves. But, if not the EU, then France? So individual members of the EU are going to attack other members at some point, for some reason no one can think of???

When the effects of that spliff wears off, have a rethink.

[Frank S.]

Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 31/12/2003)


President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.

The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.

The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.

In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.

Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state.

Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and call for the United States to keep open the prospect of dialogue with the Teheran authorities.

Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.

It may be assumed that their instincts at least are shared by hawks inside the government, whose twin power bases are the Pentagon's civilian leadership and the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular, free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise and a swift handover of power next June.

The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear programme.

As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery.

Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.

The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists.

The authors urge Mr Bush to "tell the truth about Saudi Arabia". Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund al-Qa'eda, they write.

The Saudi government backs "terror-tainted Islamic organisations" as part of a larger campaign to "spread its extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and into Europe and North America".

The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it states. Britain's independence from Europe should be preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to American defence markets.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.j ... wstop.html

[synrg]

As i'm a young un' on these boards (17), ill have my say its far fetched but who cares

This is what i think:

Iran was the next target after Iraq, and because the US knew they would lose the remaining support (from their own military...u cant court marshall 100 thousand troops ) they have if they attacked Iran, they used a weapon on it instead, something which causes an earthquake...now iran is out of the way...i wonder which "natural disaster" will happen in Syria? or the US will make up some bullshit documents saying yea yea this proves that they had ties to terrorists and so will ask the UK to help once again, or they will say nah we dont need help we can go it alone and when the shit hits the fan after they have 'liberated' another country, they will ask for international help

i think the last target is NKorea.