On Jun 16, 8:10*am, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:40:38 -0700, eatfastnoodle *
wrote:



On Jun 15, 12:34*pm, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:52:15 -0700, Tiger *
wrote:
Hell Right now the Pakistaini's & our Nato allies wish we learn to *
shoot *
only the enemy. The Guys in the clouds are ****ing off the friendlies *
*
Again based on yesterdays news.



* * * * Look at their defense agreements, military history and joint defense *
programs, to include that nice new port the Peoples Liberation Army-Navy's *
building there. China and Pakistan are closer to each other than the US *
and Germany was in the Cold War. And if you look closely at that, what you *
see is that they're defacto members of SCO. And any professional order of *
battle in that coalition will include Pakistan in China's column, not ours..

That's because Chinese has been on their side ever since the Pakistani
independence, both countries has undergone major political and
economic changes ever since. Yet no matter who is in charge in
Pakistan, generals, politicians, good guy, bad guy, crooks, whatever,
China always stands with Pakistan in their fight with India. Their
relation is fundamentally in line with their strategic interests.
That's why it's so strong. As for the US, I guess everybody agrees
that in the eyes of US government, Pakistan is nothing more than a
convenient ally at best, a tool I would say. As for average joes, the
image of Pakistan isn't that much better than Taliban.


* * * * As far as doublecrossing them, I agree. Washington doublescrosses *
everybody. One of the problems with being as big as we are, and having *
decision cycles predicated on the news cycle, the fundraising cycle and *
election cycles, is that it makes for a government that has a rather short *
range view of things. That's bad, and it's going to bite us, and arguably, *
it is biting us. That's what we get for having a political structure *
composed of people who believe that it's possible to act without *
consequences. Welcome to the real world.

* * * * It's one of the reasons that I'm absolutely opposed to handing over the *
Kurds to Baghdad. We've doublecrossed em twice that I can remember and I'd *
just as soon leave things in working order there, than to hand the whole *
mess over to the first pimp that takes a State Department employee to *
lunch.

* * * * From my view though, it's not a matter of why our friends are fast *
becoming our enemies. We're agreed on that point. My point of view has to *
do with maintaining the national security interests of the United States *
in a world where our politicians have created the classiest pack of *
enemies that anybody could ever want, leaving us to deal with them if we *
can.

* * * * And that means some fundamental changes to how we approach things, *
starting with the Middle East. We can't afford sideshows in sandtrap wars, *
period. Our capabilities have shrunken too much. Our industrial base is *
short, our logistics are lousy, (the only reason that Desert Storm was *
possible was because the British Merchant Navy provided critical sealift) *
our military overdepends on boutique weapons that we can neither procure *
consistantly in useful numbers or replace when they are destroyed. In *
short, we've got a mess.

* * * * I'm not gonna argue the point about how we got into the mess that we're *
in. That's obvious, even to a Senator. Chuckle I'm not gonna argue that *
we've made some implacably deadly enemies, starting with the old Weiqi *
players in Beijing. That much is as obvious as a corpse floating in the *
pool.

* * * * No, my point is that having made all of these enemies, we must survive *
having done so, and that means some major shifts in how we base and use *
our military assets, and the Middle East, is a luxury right now that we *
can ill afford, so I'm all for cutting our losses, letting Europe deal *
with their own security issues and shifting our focus to the Carribean, *
the Pacific and our Southern Border, where we've got some critical and *
potentially lethal problems.

One change of approach I would like to say is for the US to give up on
its obsession to stick its noses into other people's business. US used
to be far better a friend during the cold war when Soviet Union used
to send tanks into any of its ally who dared to think about leaving
the Warsaw pact, France kicked American troops out and opened pursued
its own path, US accepted it and worked with France still. Seriously,
the kind of "Manifest Destiny" attitude ****es off everybody.

I'm not an expert on the nitty-gritty details, but please elect
somebody who knows what he's doing and who has at least a little
common sense. WMD issue aside, whether or not the military is
"winning" in Iraq now aside, anybody who has common sense would hope
for the best but plan for the worst even though you are 100% sure the
best case scenario would happen because any sane people would know
that there isn't 100% sure thing. instead, this administration based
its plan on the assumption that US soldiers would be welcomed as
liberators. That's beyond dumb.


--
"Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral *
Elmo Zumwalt, USN.