robert gates sez the US will retreat to a secondary role within a few days. other people will take up the slack. no idea if he means someone who isn't britain or france. hope so!
idk, if i were in the libyan military, id be at a 'fuck this' crossroads right now. but im not, im some message board guy. wonder what they'd post.
― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:35 (thirteen years ago) link
free baluchistan comes from this article:
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899/
"In a June 2006 article titled "Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look", Peters conducted a thought experiment by changing the borders in the Middle East: "In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism—but iran have a perfect blood border-in some cases, both."[16]
He has drawn strong criticism for his maps in the countries involved, who viewed these as a direct attack on the integrity of their borders and usually attributed the maps to US Military and US Intelligence services and government, and their future plans for the region, rather than the retired Lieutenant Colonel.[citation needed]
In a February 2008 column, Peters called for giving the majority-Serb enclave in northern Kosovo to Serbia, calling it a "cancerous issue" that "just promises further conflict down the road - like forcing an ex-husband and -wife to share an apartment after a savage divorce." In the same column, he also called for a division by ethnicity of Pakistan, writing that "Islam has not been enough to unite Sindhis and Punjabis, Baluchis and Pashtuns."[17]
Regarding Iraq, he wrote, "might it not have been wiser - as several of us suggested in 2003 - to shake off Europe's vicious legacies and give Kurds their state, Iraqi Shias their state, and the country's Sunni Arabs a rump Iraq to do with as they wished?" Regarding all these countries, he wrote, "We needn't launch an endless war to fix the mess Europeans in pinstriped trousers left us - but we'd damned well better accept that, when we expend blood and treasure to prop up phony states, we're standing on the tracks in front of the speeding train of history."[18]
In a column for Armchair General Magazine, he wrote in support for regime change in Syria, Iran and Pakistan:
Syria's determination to develop nuclear weapons apes Iran's and North Korea's nuke programs, as well as Pakistan's successful bid to join the club of nuclear powers. ... Given a choice between taking out Osama Bin Laden and his entire leadership network and eliminating renegade nuclear engineers, the latter option might do far more for our long-term security.[19]"
― max, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:41 (thirteen years ago) link
wonder what they'd post.
― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Monday, March 21, 2011 1:35 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
"pls ban me from ilx for the next few weeks, i have a big project"
― max, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:42 (thirteen years ago) link
lol
on a srs tip, maybe the libyan military are not at a 'fuck this' xroads because what happens to them post-qaddafi is really bad.
― goole, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
can we just combine Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, into something appropriately Wilsonian like "Arabic North Africa"?
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
xp: Libyan military saying "fuck it".
The ones who sided with the rebels in the East were already in this state. After Gaddafi detained/kidnapped the families of their officers in Tripoli they just sat in their barracks while the kids from Benghazi got shot up.
― What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. (Sanpaku), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:47 (thirteen years ago) link
maybe the libyan military are not at a 'fuck this' xroads because what happens to them post-qaddafi is really bad.― goole, Monday, March 21, 2011 5:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
― goole, Monday, March 21, 2011 5:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
this is another big worry, yeah. ugh.
― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:50 (thirteen years ago) link
the big problem with the free baluchistan map is how lame the country names are
― max, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:51 (thirteen years ago) link
at first I thought it said "Belugastan" and I thought ew caviar fuck them
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:52 (thirteen years ago) link
to fix the mess Europeans in pinstriped trousers left us
goddam it I KNOW, so SICK of this
― goole, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:52 (thirteen years ago) link
can we just combine Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, into something appropriately Wilsonian like "Arabic North Africa"?― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 21, 2011 5:46 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 21, 2011 5:46 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark
p sure this was what a bunch of people in those countries wanted [via pan-arabism]
― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Trump crowing about "screwing" Qadafi out of a bunch of money is disgusting fwiw
― Hyper Rescue Troop (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Unconfirmed: Qaddafi's son dead in suicide attack.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Love Clemeanceau's mopey mien:
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/image/PagesAnnexes/Annee_1918/820_GerorgesClemenceau2.jpg
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 17:56 (thirteen years ago) link
DIABEETUS
― goole, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:57 (thirteen years ago) link
this whole no fly zone is a very jed bartlett move
― max, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:58 (thirteen years ago) link
wouldve been a good 6-episode arc
I think the West should not have got involved in Libya, because then we could have complained about how they were propping up crazy dictators.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, 21 March 2011 17:58 (thirteen years ago) link
While it seems highly sensible to recreate the middle east as a larger set of smaller nations, of more equal size and more consistent ethnic makeup, I've got a hunch that it could rather easily lead to a lot of border skirmishes between the new ethnically-assembled nations and the older border-shrunken nations, sometimes turning into hot wars, similar to what we saw when the former USSR broke into pieces. In the former SSRs, this didn't matter so much. In the heart of Oildom, this is still nagl.
― Aimless, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:00 (thirteen years ago) link
goole killin it itt
― HOOStory is back. Fasten your steenbelts. (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 21 March 2011 18:02 (thirteen years ago) link
A lot of those claimed ethnic make-ups are nonsense anyway, and it mixes up religion and ethnicity. I don't see any particular reason why Shia muslims in what is now Bahrain would like to be in the same country as coreligionists in Iraq that they have never really had anything to do with. The map also ignores how intermingled a lot of these people are (though the article it comes from does not - the crazy man who wrote it was upfront about how he thought ethnic cleansing was a great idea) and it ignores all the little groups like Christian Arabs (or various stripes) and Armenians who live in a lot of different countries as small minorities.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Evidently Turkey finally relented:
AFP French foreign minister Alain Juppe has said that NATO is ready to support the coalition intervening in Libya “within a few days”.
― What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. (Sanpaku), Monday, 21 March 2011 18:09 (thirteen years ago) link
A lot of those claimed ethnic make-ups are nonsense anyway, and it mixes up religion and ethnicity. I don't see any particular reason why Shia muslims in what is now Bahrain would like to be in the same country as coreligionists in Iraq that they have never really had anything to do with. The map also ignores how intermingled a lot of these people are (though the article it comes from does not - the crazy man who wrote it was upfront about how he thought ethnic cleansing was a great idea) and it ignores all the little groups like Christian Arabs (or various stripes) and Armenians who live in a lot of different countries as small minorities.― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, March 21, 2011 6:05 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark
― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, March 21, 2011 6:05 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark
i... agree. long story short. when people say libya or iraq are fake countries, you know, i get it, but so is belgium if you want to look at it that way.
― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Monday, 21 March 2011 18:17 (thirteen years ago) link
In a column for Armchair General Magazine
heh
― Ismael Klata, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:18 (thirteen years ago) link
fakest country of all is the u.s. in that regard, if we want to take it all the way
― omar little, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:23 (thirteen years ago) link
*strokes beard*
― max, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:27 (thirteen years ago) link
More champagne!
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 18:27 (thirteen years ago) link
can we just combine Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, into something appropriately Wilsonian like
I read this as Wisconsin-like.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:28 (thirteen years ago) link
http://content7.flixster.com/photo/11/97/40/11974065_gal.jpg
― omar little, Monday, 21 March 2011 18:38 (thirteen years ago) link
http://i54.tinypic.com/nl5vv5.gif
― What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. (Sanpaku), Monday, 21 March 2011 18:43 (thirteen years ago) link
f u washburn county, f u very much
― gtfopocalypse (dan m), Monday, 21 March 2011 20:08 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/03/21/intervention-in-libya-neo-cons-1-civilized-world-0-39224/
^^^ i think i'm starting to work out a position on this whole thing because this really pissed me off
― HOOStory is back. Fasten your steenbelts. (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:05 (thirteen years ago) link
like the defense budget was ever going to be cut
― Fuck bein' hard, Dr Morbz is complicated (Dr Morbius), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
At least this particular argument pissed me off--elsewhere I've been reminded this was not done as candidate Obama promised something like it would be done, that no compelling case has been made for it to occur, that no endgame has been elucidated...so max otm is what i'm saying
― HOOStory is back. Fasten your steenbelts. (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm basically holding out for the fantasy scenario of the_west's material self-interest coinciding with a humanitarian success :D
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
plus a pony
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:30 (thirteen years ago) link
so no one cares that this is unconstitutional, i guess
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
lol are you serious
― Hyper Rescue Troop (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Given the visceral hatred of the CinC by some on the other side of the aisle, I await their challenge to the Court. Precedent suggests the Consitution is just another political tool, and the Right knows they will have to abide by a strict interpretation, too.
― What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. (Sanpaku), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
I heard on NPR an hour ago that Obama had "informed" Congressional leaders, which I suppose meets the requirements of the War Powers Act (which probably needs a constitutional challenge or two). I'm not crazy about what's going on constitutionally either.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm sure this is covered somewhere else itt but how did enforcement of a no fly zone become the degrading of Gadaffi's military capability?
― utterfilth (whatever), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
um that's kind of what a no-fly zone is?
― Hyper Rescue Troop (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:14 (thirteen years ago) link
I marvel at some of the objections raised against the UN actions here, alternately sad and laughable
Think of planes and tanks as the terminal twigs of a command and control branching tree. Prune severely.
― What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. (Sanpaku), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:14 (thirteen years ago) link
― utterfilth (whatever), Monday, March 21, 2011 6:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
he can't use planes to bomb the shit out of his own people--any other questions?
― call all destroyer, Monday, 21 March 2011 22:16 (thirteen years ago) link
enforcing a no fly zone
― utterfilth (whatever), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:18 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/21/congress_war_powers_the_president/index.html
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:20 (thirteen years ago) link
shoulda said shoot the shit out of his planes, sorry
― utterfilth (whatever), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
lol'ing at the insinuation that congress would somehow do the right thing here (and in a timely fashion too)
― Hyper Rescue Troop (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Nah, I'm pretty sure Congress would have given him the authority, even if it is Barack Hussein Obama -- they're chickenshits when it comes to this.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 March 2011 22:24 (thirteen years ago) link