The crisis in the Middle East is their mess now.

[Are_grits_groceries]

The US certainly bears a lot of culpability for the hot mess that is Iraq. However, ISIS and the recent developments are owned by the other countries there.

Our 'allies' such as Saudi Arabia are helping fund ISIS. They want a Sunni bulwark against the possibility of Iran gaining more power. If they are going to take this stance, we should be out.

The countries in the ME are the ones who will be directly affected immediately by the events happening there. If they aren't going to take ownership to try to control it, then what we do is futile to a large extent.

We have no idea of what alliances are being formed and changed at the drop of a hat. Our allies can become our enemies in a heartbeat. That is a lose-lose proposition for us.

It is utter hubris to think we can step into an area riven by sectarian violence for centuries and bring about peace. The fact that religion is a major factor in this violence just makes it that much worse. They hold grudges for eons.

Unless and until, the countries in that area take real ownership and put weight behind stopping the violence, our efforts are wasted.

No more wasted lives and wasting our country with crippling debt.

[merrily]

1. But....

oil.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. This is the time the USA should rethink our use.

I realize this is farfetched, but it better happen.
We can only sporadically control the oil we get from the ME especially as it devolves into this shite.

[merrily]

3. Long past time, really.

Carter tried to say it almost a half century ago. Even "turn down your thermostat" was anathema.

Apparently, we'd rather frack and war.

[Zipgun]

4. The only rational national security position is to free ourselves from oil dependancy. It would give

us a huge stick against other countries, like Russia, if we not only could produce much more oil than we need, but could flood the market when needed. The military knows that alternative energy sources are vital and are developing them. It's our legally bribed politicians who are keeping us dependent on oil and the Saudis.
China is becoming a world leader in the field, while we cripple ourselves with continued forced dependancy.

[merrily]

7. Hello, pastor. Choir here.

"It's our legally bribed politicians who are keeping us dependent on oil and the Saudis. "

They make the laws and the ethics rules that govern their own behavior, including the legal definitions of what constitutes a "bribe," or a "conflict of interest," what they are and are not required to disclose and when, etc.

Turns out, those laws are quite permissive--unless maybe you are Charlie Rangel or some other aging holdover from the Sixties. Then, the House investigation hangs over your head for three election cycles and the President makes a kindly remark about how you should retire before whatever is left of your reputation goes down the tubes entirely.

Funny, when Pelosi got the gavel in 2006 and announced that "the first thing we are going to do is drain the swamp," meaning rid the House of corruption, Democrats like Rangel and Waters were not the ones who leapt to my mind.

I can't remember now if that was shortly before or shortly after she announced that impeachment was off the table, but no matter.

[avebury]

6. But but but

the 1%ers and the MIC want to use oil to drive their desires and that is nothing more then old fashioned greed. The masses are just canon fodder in their eyes and the more canon fodder, the less people to consider rising up against their lords and masters.

[merrily]

8. As kindly faced, so often photographed grinning amiably, President Eisenhower

is said to have observed, "What's good for General Motors is good for America." And what was good for General Motors--and General Electric and many others--was a steady supply of oil.

Hell, the auto companies may have been the only thing that kept a lid on oil prices. Who's going to buy two, three and four family cars if the price of gas is through the roof?

[trof]

11. It was GM CEO Gharles Wilson who said that.

Here’s what happened. In 1953, President Eisenhower nominated GM’s CEO Charles “Engine Charlie” Wilson to be Secretary of Defense. I’ll turn it over to Wikipedia:

During the hearings, when asked if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

[merrily]

16. Yes, thank you, but I have heard it attributed to Eisenhower as well.

And no law says Eisenhower couldn't have said it as well at some point.

He was, after all the President who put Roosevelt's brainchild of a national highway system under the "defense" budget, because, as Ike knew, and we all know, in the event of a nuclear bomb, like the ones we had just dropped, the thing to do is get your car and evacuate the contaminated area (by driving into the ocean?) And it is purely incidental that the national highway system was also good for General Motors (and for New Jersey Standard Oil).

Because I knew the background of the quote, I worded my prior post accordingly.

As kindly faced, so often photographed grinning amiably, President Eisenhower is said to have observed,

For the purposes of my prior post, that was all that seemed necessary to me, but it's also great to have the full story on the board, too. So, thanks again.

[SkyDaddy7]

15. Israel...

ISIS is & will threaten Jordan next & if that threatens to overthrow the weak government there who has a peace treaty with Israel who knows what will happen?

Just saying...This thing has the potential to get much much bigger in ways no one can predict. Will we allow ourselves to get sucked back into the black hole which the Islamic Middle East?

We will see...

[merrily]

17. Unfortunately, we cannot wipe out over a century's worth of

Western actions, anymore than we can wipe out several centuries of Middle Eastern actions. Or Roman, for that matter.

[avebury]

5. It has always been their own mess.

I agreed with what Bill Maher said on his show the other night. He pointed out other countries with religious conflict and that we need to let Iraq fight it out until the hatred burns out enough to figure out that change needs to come. You cannot make people stop hating each other, they have to figure out that themselves. Outside interference is not going to help and may in fact delay the inevitable.

[merrily]

9. "You cannot make people stop hating each other, they have to figure out that themselves."

Yes, like we did.



But, no, you can't stop them from hating each other. And, even if that were possible, we are lousy at winning hearts and minds, maybe because our techniques seem limited to things like paying and protecting brutal and greedy dictators, or "Get them by the ***** and their hearts and minds will follow," or genius strategies, like handing out demon-eyed Osama dolls to little children (if they cry after we vaccinate them?).

And, if all else fails, demonize, bomb, drone, invade occupy, torture, export for torture, whatever, as long as we can control their resources. And, by "we," I don't you and me. I mean the US's corporate "welfare queens," once known as "big business."

Hard to believe we're so hated in that part of their world. Well, there's no accounting for those religious extremist Arabs, now, is there? I think God every day we're not like that.

[avebury]

10. That is not the only part of the world that we

are disliked. More and more of the "western" world are waking up to the fact that the US is not really their friend (Poland being the most recent example). A lot of countries now view the US as a greater threat to peace then any other country or group. How far we have fallen since WWII. They should be concerned. We are not the economic power house we once were. We are not the industrial power house we once were. They only thing that keeps us somewhat relevant is our military. Doesn't this kind of remind you of the USSR before they collapsed because they could not keep pace with the US on military spending? If the right continues to try to obtain total domination in the US, how long will it be before the US has our version of a Putin in control?

The far right Republicans and Tea Party Crowd, have as their goal, to make the US a country of religious extremism, i.e. "Christianity" even if they have to drag us kicking and screaming to that point. We are no longer in a position to really criticize any other country on the area of religion. Part of our efforts in the Middle East are oil driven (there is no doubt about it) but you have to wonder at what point Christian religious extremists are running the 21st Century version of the Christian Crusades.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. I really think that we need to tend to matters at home if we want any chance at avoiding the path we are currently on.

[merrily]

12. If I believed in my heart that your description applied only

to Republicans, I'd be dancing in the street this very minute.

ETA: Turned out, though, Democrats like money and power, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025138357#post9

The really amazing thing? How long it took me to get that.

[grahamhgreen]

13. It always was.

[The_Commonist]

14. Iraq needs to be broken up.

And so do some of the other countries in the region. That's the only long-term solution that will end this kind of sectarian violence. People of different cultures and backgrounds who do not want to live with each other in fake countries, fighting over control of resources. These kinds of conflicts are bound to happen, when you have people controlling resources that other people live on top of.

Some of these nations were hobbled together from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, after WWI, by the British and French. And they were hobbled together on purpose in such a way as to ensure these kinds of conflicts. On the one hand, that makes it easier to install and prop up corrupt strongmen who will do the bidding of the Capitalists. On the other hand, it helps to ensure that a Pan-Arab empire will never emerge, as was dreamed of by both Saddam and Qaddafi, among others.Look what happened to them. Sykes and Picot are two of the most important names of the 20th century, people whose influence is still felt daily, and nobody knows about them.

Of course, the United States probably needs to be broken up too, but that's a conversation for another thread...

[merrily]

18. And before Saddam and Qaddafi (who didn't really look as though they were

working as hard at Pan Arabism as they were on amassing wealth and satisfying their own desires), there was Nasser, founder of the United Arab Republic, until Syria revolted and got its independence.

Trouble with visionaries--the vision always seems to be unity--more nations and resources--under his control.

Could be why it doesn't work or last?

I don't know if partition will work either, though. Seems as though someone is trying to sell us on it, though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251367943#post2

[The_Commonist]

19. I missed that yesterday.

And of course, there's no way of knowing if partition will work. But what's happening now doesn't work. Hasn't worked for generations. Time to think "outside the box." Or outside the border, as it were.

[jeff47]

20. Actually, it's the UK and France's mess.

At the end of WWI, the Ottoman Empire was split between British and French protectorates. The UK and France drew the lines where they felt like, instead of drawing the lines based on any sort of "natural" boundaries. Such as ethnicity, or sect, or traditional alignment.

The result is utterly artificial countries that can only be maintained via oppression. We toppled that oppression in Iraq's case. So "nature is taking it's course".

Iraq is breaking up into 3 countries based on ethnicity and sect - the Kurds in the North, the Sunnis in the West, and the Shiites in the Southeast. Where this becomes an international problem is the effects across Iraq's borders.

There's a large Kurdish population in Turkey, a US ally. They will want to join the new Kurdish country formed from Northern Iraq. There's a large Sunni population in Eastern Syria and Jordan. They will want to join the new Sunni country formed from Western Iraq.

So now we've destabilized no only Iraq, but Turkey, Jordan and Syria (yes, Syria can get worse).

Best we can do is to try and steer the breakup into a non-violent course. Then the hard part begins: convincing Turkey, Jordan and Syria to give up some of their land. Or there will be lots more violence as they do it anyway.