Comments on: Wider still yet wider

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:28:14 +0000

@Mike Sylwester #24:

We played the banjo gaily
Where historic waters flow.
We drove the tanks together,
Where we should have drove before.
You can talk about your Schickelgruber
And sing of Imelda too.
But ’twas the Butcher of Baghdad
Whose turn came to be through.

Yes, with those two rivers there, the outlines of Iraq are approximately where they ought to be.

Iraq, at the center of the fertile crescent should prove prosperous, even without oil revenue. Through the latter in and you got
something good going.

The reason that Iraq became a gangster state was that the Baathists overthrew the monarchy in 1957. Regime change was long overdue.
Getting a functional replacement up and running took some doing, but it looks like that has been accomplished.

Good positional warfare, I would call it.

By: Walt

Walt — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:32:58 +0000

JWT @16

I’ll work on it, but the only thing that rhymes with pantywaist is candy taste.

By: Mike Sylwester

Mike Sylwester — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:07:34 +0000

In the industry (@12)
Iraq made no sense as a state

Iraq essentially covers the basins of the Euphrates River and Tigris River. In that regard, Iraq makes geographic sense.

By: Mike Sylwester

Mike Sylwester — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:03:00 +0000

whiskey (@5)
Once you accept the background of the man … (his trip to Pakistan while a College student one summer, unexplained and undocumented, doubtless for Jihad) everything becomes clear.

He was transfering from a college in Los Angeles to a university in Manhattan. His mother was living in Indonesia, so he did the trip in that direction, around the world. As he continued from Indonesia to New York, he stopped in Pakistan and India to visit the families of his Pakistan friends from the Los Angeles college. Obama’s roommate in Los Angeles was a student from Pakistan, and Obama knew several Pakistani and Indian students through his roommate.

So, his trip to Pakistan has an explanation that should satisfy everyone except the people who think Obama is a secret Moslem.

What is really questionable about that trip is that he did not stop in Kenya, where his alleged father lived.

By: NahnCee

NahnCee — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:59:47 +0000

“…bodes ill for all of us, even those who believe in the Obamessiah.”

I do not consider those who believe in the Obamessiah to be “us”, but a mutated bunch of “them”.

By: Willie G

Willie G — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:33:08 +0000

Whatever the Plan for “Hope and Change” we can rest asured that it bodes ill for all of us, even those who believe in the Obamessiah.

The time between now and then is best spent cleaning, oiling and sharpening.

By: mikec

mikec — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:09:41 +0000

I really doubt Kaplan’s assertion that the Taliban were created by the Pakistan’s government. In “The Rise of the Taliban” by N.Nojumi, it’s pretty convincing that the initial Taliban revolution was a surprise to the Pakistan government. After the Taliban had taken Qandahar, The Pakistan army and the rest of the government started to give full support to them, but that’s a long way from “creating” them.

I really respect Kaplan’s work and I’m surprised that he would promote this false idea.

By: 3Case

3Case — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:00:44 +0000

The bow of fealty to the Saudi King made the something else quite clear and is completely consistent with his newborn use of his middle name.

By: E. Nigma

E. Nigma — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:37:40 +0000

As I have been told by a military friend of mine, “hope” is not a plan.
The outlines of a plan begin to form, and yes, “hope” seems part of it. Our President seems to hope that the nature of Islam will change after about 1400 years. He hopes that Pakistan will begin to behave in a coherent manner. He hopes that he can mediate a resolution to the Islam-Hindu dispute that goes back a bloody 800 years to the beginnings of the Moghul Empire (Islamic caliphate ruling India).
Hope is not a plan.
The country is in the best of hands.

The other day, while waiting for a flight in an airport, I caught a talking head interview with a CNN anchor, Tina Brown and Tony Blankley. One of the questions was “why did Barack Obama use his middle name (Hussein) so much in Turkey?” Why, when the Rethuglicans used it during the campaign, they were chastised. But is this hypocrisy, when a man uses his own middle name?
He is signaling that he is not a Crusader, I think. He is signaling something else, but that is not yet altogether clear to many of us. When the cold wind of reality blows away the smoke of Hope and Change, perhaps we will all have a clearer view.

By: Nomenklatura

Nomenklatura — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:51:03 +0000

“The idea is to resolve The War in Afghanistan in the framework of some grander regional bargain which will ’suck the life’ out of radical groups like al-Qaeda… what this probably means is that the Obama administration simply means to alter the proportions between these two ingredients. They are going to get their chance to try out the new approach. How they will fare only the future will show.”

Obama’s ‘resolutions’ have not so far featured any actual accomplishments, other than his own personal advance from one position to the next.