Political leanings

[JaiDee]

(Stewart @ May 11 2009,23:16) America is far from perfect, but overall more a force for good than evil over the decades.



Where is this wonderful new set of actions that is going to change people's perception of the US?

Exactly, and any 3rd world person who has gotten free clothes or food will tell you, as will the governments of about 100 different countries whom we have given help to over the years, either with aid or militarily {hello, France! et al,...}

  Obama....give him a chance, man..... he's been in only 110 days or so, he has 1300 more to go, minimum. But in reality he's a 2-termer as the Repubs have no one and Newt Gingrach or that fat pill-popping clown on the radio won't unseat him.  By reaching out to Iran and Venezuela and Cuba, trying to clean things up there and work with people whom the GOP were  too selfish and pig-headed to work with, that is one aspect of his foreign policy; having an open mind.  Iran would be a great ally in a fucked-up region of the world and we need them, and the new generation of young people there want to work with us;  Cheney and his pals refused to even hear them out.  Very mature. Ahmedinidijad will be ousted in the next elections, we need to hope that the clerics there will back a reformer who will WORK with the states, and not just more anti-US  rhetoric. That would help us more with Russia also, who have been flexing their sizeable muscles lately; Iran and them are buddies now and Moscow would hate to see us cozy up to Iran,  but I have the feeling that is coming.

          Agreed, we are still dropping bombs on Pakistan and Afghanistan, but that is the left-over legacy of President Cheney.  Obama made a big mistake sending 4K more men to Afg, we have no chance of ever ''winning'' there, IE installing a democratically-installed government, and the Taliban never give up. It's a lost cause, we need to get out now and just admit it was one more failure of the Cheney era.  Pakistan is more dangerous; those MFER's have nukes and we can't have those haters from the Taliban getting their hands on 'em, and yet the Paki's are too afraid of their eastern border with India to move substantial troops from there to quell this insurgency.

           Obama has already done a lot of good for the world IMO......  by us electing him it shows the world we are not the narrow-minded right wingers and war-mongerers that Cheney and his evil little stepson from texas portrayed us as;  people around the world now see us as more liberal and open-minded and hope that we can be leaders on the world stage once again. From 2000-2008 we were looked at as a joke and rightfully so, I mean look at the buffoon we had representing us?

 Obama will do his job, trust me.... his foreign policy will come around to be more liberal, and yet at the same time pragmatic in regard to todays world stage; he has his hands full now with the economy and a million other things but by 2012 I think we will see that he was a good choice.

I know *I* wouldn't want his job, it's the hardest one in the world right now

[Tomcat]

(f0xxee @ May 10 2009,20:57) The rest of the world do NOT like USA Genetically Modified Crops. (ask a farmer in India about Monsanto some time]

And you think that everything you eat is organic. Oh dear me

In ten years time the only organic food you will be eating are the weeds that grow in your garden..with 9 Billion to feed all food will be GM unless you find a desert island and rename yourself Robinson Crusoe

Just go to any farm in Europe, they feed the cows and pigs any ol rubbish including Genetically modified slosh and all sorts of sludge and its fully within the law. The label on the can is all bullshit...ask any farmer

[manarak]

err... no.

The only allowed GM crop, a corn by monsanto, has just been banned in germany and france (maybe this information is not 100% correct as I write it, but I remember hearing similar news).

[Torurot]

Right Stewart, throw away line "USA, 5% of the world population, 95% of the worlds problems". According to CIA world fact book, USA is approx 5% of the worlds population, so let's deal with the 95%. The exact quantity is indeed debatable. Rational commentators (those not based on Fox, the spin begins here) don't give the USA free pass. It's actions have consequences. So perhaps you can tell us why is the USA in Iraq, why is the USA in Afghanistan, & 95% (you pick your own figure) of the other "trouble" spots in the world. Ask Dieter why the USA still has Military bases in Germany and in 749 other places in the world etc ect. Depends if you believe the USA is part of the problem or part of the solution. Perhaps it's bits of both. If you keep stiring the pots in foreign parts, sooner or later you get burned. YMMV.

Take for e.g. two of the current wars of aggression.

The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan
May 11, 2009 ©stratfor.com


Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report

By George Friedman

After U.S. airstrikes killed scores of civilians in western Afghanistan this past week, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones said the United States would continue with the airstrikes and would not tie the hands of U.S. generals fighting in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has cautioned against using tactics that undermine strategic U.S. goals in Afghanistan €” raising the question of what exactly are the U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan. A debate inside the U.S. camp has emerged over this very question, the outcome of which is likely to determine the future of the region.

On one side are President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a substantial amount of the U.S. Army leadership. On the other side are Petraeus €” the architect of U.S. strategy in Iraq after 2006 €” and his staff and supporters. An Army general €” even one with four stars €” is unlikely to overcome a president and a defense secretary; even the five-star Gen. Douglas MacArthur couldn€™t pull that off. But the Afghan debate is important, and it provides us with a sense of future U.S. strategy in the region.
Petraeus and U.S. Strategy in Iraq

Petraeus took over effective command of coalition forces in Iraq in 2006. Two things framed his strategy. One was the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm congressional elections, which many saw as a referendum on the Iraq war. The second was the report by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of elder statesmen (including Gates) that recommended some fundamental changes in how the war was fought.

The expectation in November 2006 was that as U.S. President George W. Bush€™s strategy had been repudiated, his only option was to begin withdrawing troops. Even if Bush didn€™t begin this process, it was expected that his successor in two years certainly would have to do so. The situation was out of control, and U.S. forces did not seem able to assert control. The goals of the 2003 invasion, which were to create a pro-American regime in Baghdad, redefine the political order of Iraq and use Iraq as a base of operations against hostile regimes in the region, were unattainable. It did not seem possible to create any coherent regime in Baghdad at all, given that a complex civil war was under way that the United States did not seem able to contain.

Most important, groups in Iraq believed that the United States would be leaving. Therefore, political alliance with the United States made no sense, as U.S. guarantees would be made moot by withdrawal. The expectation of an American withdrawal sapped U.S. political influence, while the breadth of the civil war and its complexity exhausted the U.S. Army. Defeat had been psychologically locked in.

Bush€™s decision to launch a surge of forces in Iraq was less a military event than a psychological one. Militarily, the quantity of forces to be inserted €” some 30,000 on top of a force of 120,000 €” did not change the basic metrics of war in a country of about 29 million. Moreover, the insertion of additional troops was far from a surge; they trickled in over many months. Psychologically, however, it was stunning. Rather than commence withdrawals as so many expected, the United States was actually increasing its forces. The issue was not whether the United States could defeat all of the insurgents and militias; that was not possible. The issue was that because the United States was not leaving, the United States was not irrelevant. If the United States was not irrelevant, then at least some American guarantees could have meaning. And that made the United States a political actor in Iraq.

Petraeus combined the redeployment of some troops with an active political program. At the heart of this program was reaching out to the Sunni insurgents, who had been among the most violent opponents of the United States during 2003-2006. The Sunni insurgents represented the traditional leadership of the mainstream Sunni tribes, clans and villages. The U.S. policy of stripping the Sunnis of all power in 2003 and apparently leaving a vacuum to be filled by the Shia had left the Sunnis in a desperate situation, and they had moved to resistance as guerrillas.

The Sunnis actually were trapped by three forces. First, there were the Americans, always pressing on the Sunnis even if they could not crush them. Second, there were the militias of the Shia, a group that the Sunni Saddam Hussein had repressed and that now was suspicious of all Sunnis. Third, there were the jihadists, a foreign legion of Sunni fighters drawn to Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda. In many ways, the jihadists posed the greatest threat to the mainstream Sunnis, since they wanted to seize leadership of the Sunni communities and radicalize them.

U.S. policy under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been unbending hostility to the Sunni insurgency. The policy under Gates and Petraeus after 2006 €” and it must be understood that they developed this strategy jointly €” was to offer the Sunnis a way out of their three-pronged trap. Because the United States would be staying in Iraq, it could offer the Sunnis protection against both the jihadists and the Shia. And because the surge convinced the Sunnis that the United States was not going to withdraw, they took the deal. Petraeus€™ great achievement was presiding over the U.S.-Sunni negotiations and eventual understanding, and then using that to pressure the Shiite militias with the implicit threat of a U.S.-Sunni entente. The Shia subsequently and painfully shifted their position to accepting a coalition government, the mainstream Sunnis helped break the back of the jihadists and the civil war subsided, allowing the United States to stage a withdrawal under much more favorable circumstances.

This was a much better outcome than most would have thought possible in 2006. It was, however, an outcome that fell far short of American strategic goals of 2003. The current government in Baghdad is far from pro-American and is unlikely to be an ally of the United States; keeping it from becoming an Iranian tool would be the best outcome for the United States at this point. The United States certainly is not about to reshape Iraqi society, and Iraq is not likely to be a long-term base for U.S. offensive operations in the region.

Gates and Petraeus produced what was likely the best possible outcome under the circumstances. They created the framework for a U.S. withdrawal in a context other than a chaotic civil war, they created a coalition government, and they appear to have blocked Iranian influence in Iraq. But these achievements remain uncertain. The civil war could resume. The coalition government might collapse. The Iranians might become the dominant force in Baghdad. But these unknowns are enormously better than the outcomes expected in 2006. At the same time, snatching uncertainty from the jaws of defeat is not the same as victory.
Afghanistan and Lessons from Iraq

Petraeus is arguing that the strategy pursued in Iraq should be used as a blueprint in Afghanistan, and it appears that Obama and Gates have raised a number of important questions in response. Is the Iraqi solution really so desirable? If it is desirable, can it be replicated in Afghanistan? What level of U.S. commitment would be required in Afghanistan, and what would this cost in terms of vulnerabilities elsewhere in the world? And finally, what exactly is the U.S. goal in Afghanistan?

In Iraq, Gates and Petraeus sought to create a coalition government that, regardless of its nature, would facilitate a U.S. withdrawal. Obama and Gates have stated that the goal in Afghanistan is the defeat of al Qaeda and the denial of bases for the group in Afghanistan. This is a very different strategic goal than in Iraq, because this goal does not require a coalition government or a reconciliation of political elements. Rather, it requires an agreement with one entity: the Taliban. If the Taliban agree to block al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan, the United States will have achieved its goal. Therefore, the challenge in Afghanistan is using U.S. power to give the Taliban what they want €” a return to power €” in exchange for a settlement on the al Qaeda question.

In Iraq, the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds all held genuine political and military power. In Afghanistan, the Americans and the Taliban have this power, though many other players have derivative power from the United States. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; where al-Maliki had his own substantial political base, Karzai is someone the Americans invented to become a focus for power in the future. But the future has not come. The complexities of Iraq made a coalition government possible there, but in many ways, Afghanistan is both simpler and more complex. The country has a multiplicity of groups, but in the end only one insurgency that counts.

Petraeus argues that the U.S. strategic goal €” blocking al Qaeda in Afghanistan €” cannot be achieved simply through an agreement with the Taliban. In this view, the Taliban are not nearly as divided as some argue, and therefore their factions cannot be played against each other. Moreover, the Taliban cannot be trusted to keep their word even if they give it, which is not likely.

From Petraeus€™ view, Gates and Obama are creating the situation that existed in pre-surge Iraq. Rather than stunning Afghanistan psychologically with the idea that the United States is staying, thereby causing all the parties to reconsider their positions, Obama and Gates have done the opposite. They have made it clear that Washington has placed severe limits on its willingness to invest in Afghanistan, and made it appear that the United States is overly eager to make a deal with the one group that does not need a deal: the Taliban.

Gates and Obama have pointed out that there is a factor in Afghanistan for which there was no parallel in Iraq €” namely, Pakistan. While Iran was a factor in the Iraqi civil war, the Taliban are as much a Pakistani phenomenon as an Afghan one, and the Pakistanis are neither willing nor able to deny the Taliban sanctuary and lines of supply. So long as Pakistan is in the condition it is in €” and Pakistan likely will stay that way for a long time €” the Taliban have time on their side and no reason to split, and are likely to negotiate only on their terms.

There is also a military fear. Petraeus brought U.S. troops closer to the population in Iraq, and he is doing this in Afghanistan as well. U.S. forces in Afghanistan are deployed in firebases. These relatively isolated positions are vulnerable to massed Taliban forces. U.S. airpower can destroy these concentrations, so long as they are detected in time and attacked before they close in on the firebases. Ominously for the United States, the Taliban do not seem to have committed anywhere near the majority of their forces to the campaign.

This military concern is combined with real questions about the endgame. Gates and Obama are not convinced that the endgame in Iraq, perhaps the best outcome that was possible there, is actually all that desirable for Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, this outcome would leave the Taliban in power in the end. No amount of U.S. troops could match the Taliban€™s superior intelligence capability, their knowledge of the countryside and their willingness to take casualties in pursuing their ends, and every Afghan security force would be filled with Taliban agents.

And there is a deeper issue yet that Gates has referred to: the Russian experience in Afghanistan. The Petraeus camp is vehement that there is no parallel between the Russian and American experience; in this view, the Russians tried to crush the insurgents, while the Americans are trying to win them over and end the insurgency by convincing the Taliban€™s supporters and reaching a political accommodation with their leaders. Obama and Gates are less sanguine about the distinction €” such distinctions were made in Vietnam in response to the question of why the United States would fare better in Southeast Asia than the French did. >From the Obama and Gates point of view, a political settlement would call for either a constellation of forces in Afghanistan favoring some accommodation with the Americans, or sufficient American power to compel accommodation. But it is not clear to Obama and Gates that either could exist in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, Petraeus is charging that Obama and Gates are missing the chance to repeat what was done in Iraq, while Obama and Gates are afraid Petraeus is confusing success in Iraq with a universal counterinsurgency model. To put it differently, they feel that while Petraeus benefited from fortuitous circumstances in Iraq, he quickly could find himself hopelessly bogged down in Afghanistan. The Pentagon on May 11 announced that U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. David McKiernan would be replaced, less than a year after he took over, with Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal. McKiernan€™s removal could pave the way for a broader reshuffling of Afghan strategy by the Obama administration.

The most important issues concern the extent to which Obama wants to stake his presidency on Petraeus€™ vision in Afghanistan, and how important Afghanistan is to U.S. grand strategy. Petraeus has conceded that al Qaeda is in Pakistan. Getting the group out of Pakistan requires surgical strikes. Occupation and regime change in Pakistan are way beyond American abilities. The question of what the United States expects to win in Afghanistan €” assuming it can win anything there €” remains.

In the end, there is never a debate between U.S. presidents and generals. Even MacArthur discovered that. It is becoming clear that Obama is not going to bet all in Afghanistan, and that he sees Afghanistan as not worth the fight. Petraeus is a soldier in a fight, and he wants to win. But in the end, as Clausewitz said, war is an extension of politics by other means. As such, generals tend to not get their way.

Tell STRATFOR What You Think

[alan1chef]

Interesting article with some valid points. I think that the key player in this region is India. India has the ability to provide important intelligence to the US from within Pakistan and the capability to pressure the Pakistani government. There is no way you paint Afghanistan with the same brush as Iraq...the strategy has to be different.

As for the US being responsible for 95% of the world's problems...that is an absolute fabrication...makes good type but it's not even close to being factual. Does anyone remember Communism...the invasion of Poland...the occupation of East Germany? Would Europe prefer to go back to that scenario? Is American foreign policy perfect...no. However, US foreign policy has certainly solved more problems than it has created.

[BlueBallz]

JD-Since you are such an internationalist when will I see you at your next REAL football match???

[BlueBallz]

You know it really bothers me when so many blame "American imperialism" for all the worlds ills. It also bugs me while the world bemoan "American imperialism" they talk out the other side of their collectivist mouths IMPLORING America to do somethign about Darfur, The Balkans, The Albanians, Zimbabwe, AIDS in Africa or help out some other shithole. In hindsight, I agree Iraq was a horrible misadventure and many said so at the time. I wont get into all the other intel that came out of our Euro friends indeed buttressed bush's argument. Howl all you like but that is fact. As for Afghanistan, what should be done?? Permit a resurgance of the taliban?? That worked well for us didnt it??

It also bugs me when people place a moral equivalebce between America and lets say the Islamic terrorists or even lets say Russia. I am reading a good book now by BBC correspondent Jonathan Dimbleby, although a flawed charecter, he delves into not only the cruel history but the cruel rising of the oligarchs. But everyone wished to blame Amercia first...

Agree with most of what Stewart says above!!!

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!

[blonde_havoc]

All I have to say about America...

If you're willing to come here on a floating door, your own country must be pretty miserable.

Whether you want to believe it or not (and most of you don't but you're Europeans with a high standard of living so I can understand why), America is one of the best places in the world to live.

I tried once to explain to Marla why Americans don't really visit foreign countries much. Our country is so damned big! You want beaches? Go to Florida, Southern Calif., Hawaii... Mountains? Go to Vermont, Colorado, Alaska... We have everything here in the world to see and a higher standard of living. I don't begrudge anyone if they don't want to leave the states. *I* barely have the desire to leave the states. It's awesome here. Of course I want to visit other places, but I love the US.

As for the Fox News stuff... why is it ok to hate Fox News for having a conservative slant when all the other news networks are decidedly liberal in nature? Why is it so wrong to have just one conservative news network? Are you all really so afraid of discourse that you'd rather see Fox News eliminated? Are you really that close-minded? Let them have their network. How about you just don't watch it or pay attention to it instead? It's just as easy to turn off the tv as it is to turn it on.

[Torurot]

You are missing the point about Fox (the spin begins here). It couldn't tell a straight story if you paid them. If they could, then I wouldn't have a problem with them.

[sev7en]

(blonde_havoc @ May 12 2009,15:17) America is one of the best places in the world to live.

Have you ever left your own state?

[f0xxee]

(Tomcat @ May 12 2009,00:01)

(f0xxee @ May 10 2009,20:57) The rest of the world do NOT like USA Genetically Modified Crops. (ask a farmer in India about Monsanto some time]

And you think that everything you eat is organic. Oh dear me

In ten years time the only organic food you will be eating are the weeds that grow in your garden..with 9 Billion to feed all food will be GM unless you find a desert island and rename yourself Robinson Crusoe

Just go to any farm in Europe, they feed the cows and pigs any ol rubbish including Genetically modified slosh and all sorts of sludge and its fully within the law. The label on the can is all bullshit...ask any farmer

Hi Tomcat,

As i am from a farming family, an Aussie, and we are a bastion of non GM crops I raise the following issues with Monsanto GM seed.

Farming as we know have known it for roughly 8000 years has been a matter of ploughing the field to improve it, sowing seed and in return for each seed planted hopefully gaining a few hundred seeds back in return. That returned seed is then sold, except for enough to re-sow next year PLUS enough to feed the pigs, chooks cattle etc. and maybe swap a little with the neighbor. Some is also stored for the proverbial hard times, and anyone who knows farmers knows that the livestyle is perilous.

The trouble with Monsanto (and I single them out as the very worst) is their GM see is bountiful in extreme. But it is GENETICALLY MODIFIED TO BE INFERTILE: in that it produces seed, but the seed produced cannot in turn be replanted to grow more seed.

Can we all see the danger here?

Let me illustrate by giving the example of the wheat farmers of India.

Clever MONSANTO salesmen went on a selling spree in India demonstration the far better return on the the crop with the GM product than the local cultivar. Soon everyone was swapping over to MONSANTO product or they were missing out.
In order to raise the money many were mortgaging the family farm of generations to local money lenders, not fully understanding the nature of the GM crop.

So everyone had a couple of bumper seasons and then the unthinkable happened: a glut of wheat on the market and the crops could not be sold.

Now with the traditional seed the farmers whould have taken thier lumps (and the glut may not have happened in the first place) and riden out the glut as they would have a mouse plague or a drought and re planted next year.

Biut they couldn't replant next year. the grain was good for nothing: not for sale and not for replanting and the farm was lost.

And the farmer? the plague of woebegone farmers who necked themselves by drinking weed killer made the international news.... All because MONSANTO want that dependency....

MONSANTO STORY 2:
I am a little hazy on this one, but this is what I recall:
The GM crop is still capable of cross polination during the flowering stage. Lets take Canola or Rape seed as an example.
Farmer A is growing his MONSANTO crop next to farmer B. Farmer A uses MONSANTO GM, Farmer B uses his own seed.
During the flowering stage cross pollination occurs. Some MONSANTO Seed fertilizes Farmer B's crop.
MONSANTO comes along and sues Farmer B for breach of Patent if he refuses to destroy his crop. I beleive this story has happened several times over the last 5 years in the American Mid west. I will souce the story further if anyone has any doubts.

IN a nutshell: GM crops destroy a nations ability to grow its own food, making a country indebted to a the company that owns the GM seed. The farming cycle of grow, sow, save grow is broken.

That is my problem with Monsanto GM seed.

Thank you and good night.

[pacman]

(alan1chef @ May 11 2009,07:27) You may not agree, however I think that the free trade agreement between Australia and the US had made Australia better...

Thank you Foxxee, I couldn't have put it better myself...

Add this quote from Alan above & there is the mechanism that has allowed Monsanto access to our farms & crops.

Yes, it was widely touted how the Americans had done us a favour with the Free Trade Agreement between our two countries, now the hidden stuff is coming out & we are no longer happy.

Monsanto would go close to being the most insidiously evil corporation on earth, able to carry out their business under the cloak of Free Trade protection.

I wish to see the end of Monsanto, a change in American Foreign Policy & the wising up of all the American citizens who still haven't woken up to just what has been going on for the past 60 years.

Sorry Alan, but your government has been feeding you lies & bullshit since the day you could walk.

[f0xxee]

From the Public Patent Foundation (USA) newsletter:

Monsanto Anti-Farmers Patents

In September 2006, PUBPAT filed formal requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to revoke four patents owned by Monsanto Company that the agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in many cases bankrupt - American farmers. In its filings, PUBPAT submitted prior art showing that the patents were undeserved and, as such, should be revoked. The U.S.P.T.O. granted each of those requests in November 2006, finding that PUBPAT had raised "substantial new questions of patentability" with respect to every claim of each patent. In February, May, June and July 2007, the Patent Office issued complete rejections of all four patents.

[f0xxee]

My last on Monsanto, which backs up my story above on Mid west US farmers:

Monsanto Genetically Modified Seeds

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Magazines & Newspape articles gmo [/quote]

[BlueBallz]

BloneHavoc makes a very valid point. What would you open minded individuals do to FoxNews?? Dont give me bullshit that they dont "play it straight'. Are you trying to tell me that ABC, NBC, and CBS do?? Dont make me laugh. I dont begrudge that piece of shit network MSNBC their slant so why should you begrudge Fox's?? Or is it YOU decide what passes your arbitrary tests?? Do me a favor thats called Fascism.

BTW I wonder what the % of the population in Russia, China and thailand have passports??? I also wonder the % of Canadians have one??