A number of trends have made is possible to guess what the possible crisis points might occur in the next year and a half. The first trend is the growing problem of Pakistan. An article in the New York Times describes the growing gap between the US and Pakistani strategies for fighting Islamic extremism in South Asia. For now the cracks can be papered over, but not for much longer. Briefly, Pakistan has wanted to be a dominant influence the pace and scope of US activity in Afghanistan and limit American response to militants operating in their country. The US can no longer play this game. Something may have to give.
Former Pakistani military officers voice irritation with the Americans daily on television, part of a mounting grievance in Pakistan that the alliance with the United States is too costly to bear.
“It is really beginning to irk and anger us,” said a security official familiar with the deliberations at the senior levels of the Pakistani leadership.
The core reason for Pakistan’s imperviousness is its scant faith in the Obama troop surge, and what Pakistan sees as the need to position itself for a regional realignment in Afghanistan once American forces begin to leave.
It considers Mr. Haqqani and his control of large areas of Afghan territory vital to Pakistan in the jostling for influence that will pit Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran against one another in the post-American Afghan arena, the Pakistani officials said.
This puts Pakistan’s interests on a major collision course with those of the US. Haqqani is one of the most potent enemies of the US in Afghanistan. Not fighting him is like not fighting the Wermacht in France and expecting to liberate it anyway. The contrasting views of Haqqani are illustrated by the NYT. In this case, the friend of my friend is the enemy of my friend. That is sure to put a strain on things.
For his part, Mr. Haqqani fights in Afghanistan, and is considered more of an asset than a threat by the Pakistanis. But he is the most potent force fighting the United States, American and Pakistani officials agree.
He has subcommanders threaded throughout eastern and southern Afghanistan. His fighters control Paktika, Paktia and Khost Provinces in Afghanistan, which lie close to North Waziristan. His men are also strong in Ghazni, Logar and Wardak Provinces, the officials said.
The US, for its part, has responded by threatening to widen the war with drones. The NYT mentions the threat, but gives scant details. AFP is more explicit. “Senior US officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan’s tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in the city of Quetta, The Los Angeles Times reported late Sunday. The newspaper said the prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta signals a new US resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington’s relationship with Islamabad.” That would be an understatement. It is one of the largest cities in Pakistan and site of major Pakistani military installations. AFP quotes the LA Times as saying:
“We are not a banana republic,” The Times quotes a senior Pakistani official as saying. If the United States follows through, the official said, “this might be the end of the road.”
The point of the NYT article, in case anyone has missed it, is that Pakistan is already looking beyond a US withdrawal, which is scheduled to begin in 18 months. The NYT article above said that Pakistan is already planning to use Haqqani to counter the influence of India after “America walks away”. “For that reason, Mr. Fatemi said, the Pakistani Army is ‘very reluctant’ to jettison Mr. Haqqani, Pakistan’s strong card in Afghanistan.” Haqqani will be a player long after Obama has moved on to another speech. Pakistan knows this and so does 60 Minutes. Steve Kroft pressed President Obama hard on this point:
KROFT: The West Point speech was greeted it was a great deal of confusion.
OBAMA: I disagree with that statement. …
KROFT: But it raised a lot of questions. Some people thought it was contradictory. That’s a fair criticism.
OBAMA: I don’t think it’s a fair criticism. The situation in Afghanistan is complex, and so people who are looking for simple black and white answers won’t get them. And the speech wasn’t designed to give those black and white answers. …
KROFT: Right.
OBAMA: There shouldn’t be anything confusing about that.
KROFT: Let me direct to you a couple of the questions that have been raised. People have asked, “Why are we gonna spend $30 million to send 30,000 troops halfway around the world? And then start bringing them back 18 months later?”
OBAMA: Well, as I’ve said, we’ve got a mission that is time-definite in order to accomplish a particular goal, which is to stand up Afghan security forces. And as I said, we did this in Iraq just two years ago. And General [David] Petraeus, who was involved in my consultations in designing this strategy, I think is the first to acknowledge that had it not been for those additional troops combined with effective political work inside of Iraq, we might have seen a much worse outcome in Iraq than the one that we’re gonna see.
While Obama never directly answered Kroft’s questions he seems to have conveyed a clear impression to the Pakistanis from between the lines. They are under the distinct impression that America will soon begin vanishing from the scene in a “time-definite” way. The Washington Post drily notes that the additional troops will generate a huge logistical effort which will be abandoned by the planned withdrawal even as it gets into high gear.
President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan will magnify one of the Pentagon’s biggest challenges: getting aviation and diesel fuel to U.S. air and ground forces there.
As the number of U.S. and coalition troops grows, the military is planning for thousands of additional tanker truck deliveries a month, big new storage facilities and dozens of contractors to navigate the landlocked country’s terrain, politics and perilous supply routes. And though Obama has vowed to start bringing U.S. forces home in 18 months, some of the fuel storage facilities will not be completed until then, according to the contract specifications issued by the Pentagon’s logistics planners.
Some day the US may have to destroy those fuel storage facilities if Haqqani uses them. To the phrase “we destroyed the village in order to save it” the more modern “we built the fuel storage facilities in order to destroy it” may take its place among the bon mots of war. But that’s OK because Pakistani fixers would have been paid off by then to let the materials through to build them.
The U.S. military remains heavily dependent upon supplies traveling long, windy and dangerous roads in the south from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Along those mountainous routes, theft is common and cash payoffs to insurgents and tribal leaders are believed to be made frequently by truck drivers navigating the region. The Defense Department reported that in June 2008, 44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel were lost because of attacks or other events, according to the GAO.
“This has become a business,” said Tommy Hakimi, chief executive of Mondo International, which arranges deliveries by 300 to 500 trucks a month. “The Taliban doesn’t have interest in taking the life of a driver. And instead of blowing trucks up, they take possession. It’s an asset. . . . Most of the time, they will sell it on the black market.”
So the first probable predictable crisis in the next 18 months will Afghanistan and Pakistan. But there’s a second: Iran. Iran has been found to be working on nuclear weapons triggers, according to the Times Online, the Iranians have been working on it since 2007, “four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons program”. Far from averting a crisis with Iran by pledging to talk to Teheran without preconditions, avoiding a criticism of its brutal crackdown on dissidents and releasing Iranian personnel caught attacking Americans in Iraq, the crisis is coming along right on schedule. The triggers are probably being built so that they may someday be used or threatened to be used. That means trouble down the road.
Confidential intelligence documents obtained by The Times show that Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.
The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.
An Asian intelligence source last week confirmed to The Times that his country also believed that weapons work was being carried out as recently as 2007 — specifically, work on a neutron initiator.
The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.
The third crisis can roughly be described as political. In 18 months the Labour government will have been thrown out of Britain and the Tories will be carrying out a halfhearted but painful attempt to slash the entitlements which bankrupted the UK. By the end of a year and a half the administration is likely to have lost many seats in the legislature; not enough to give conservatives control but enough to make it hard for the liberals to govern by fiat. In addition, the unemployment situation in the US and other countries may still be bad or even worse than they are today. As Obama himself admitted, this will mean that his polling will continue to fall. He asks “where will we be 2 or 3 years from now?”
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The answer to Obama’s rhetorical question is that in two years America will probably be in crisis: one with international, political and economic dimensions. It will enter a period of intense challenge both internal and external. Even with available free energy to meet problems at a low state, it is still possible for leaders to prepare for the future with thorough planning and by making the right organizational connections today. Unfortunately, most politicians don’t shown any sign of doing that. They continue to act as if tomorrow will just be the same as today. More deals, more bimbos, more spin. But maybe this time, things won’t be the same. It could be different. While nobody can forsee the future, 2010 is likely to be a year of peril and opportunity. The last chance, maybe, to prepare for 2011.
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Historians of the 21C are going to judge the presidents of the United States and Russia by what they did or did not do to permit or prevent an evolved form of religious Fascism–theofascism–from becoming nuclear armed.
If theofascism becomes nuclear armed within the next few years, the entire 21C will be known as the ‘Age of Anxiety.’ Throw Afghanistan under the bus; what is critical is nuclear Pakistan’s stability and their support against a nuclear-armed Iranian theofascism.
Priceless
“OBAMA: Well, as I’ve said, we’ve got a mission that is time-definite in order to accomplish a particular goal, which is to stand up Afghan security forces. And as I said, we did this in Iraq just two years ago. And General [David] Petraeus, who was involved in my consultations in designing this strategy, I think is the first to acknowledge that had it not been for those additional troops combined with effective political work inside of Iraq, we might have seen a much worse outcome in Iraq than the one that we’re gonna see.”
Oh WE did and YOU helped design the strategy.
He never said this:
“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” the Illinois senator said that night, a month before announcing his presidential bid. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/07/15/obama_web_site_removes_surge_from_iraq_problem/
Did he say it? Does he now wish he had not?
What will happen when Copenhagen devolves into triviality? That is happening already. I can see the seas receding already.
What about Health care? He has already been handed a defeat.
More “economic stimulus”? I think Americans would very much like to get back to work and know that printing more money is not the answer. Those of us still fortunate enough to have jobs are providing all of the stimulus we can thank you.
Loading up the front end to produce more money, productivity, and sons and daughters to fight in Afghanistan is getting worn.
You have not rallied the nation Mr. President. That is the one thing I thought you would be good at.
Spindok
Two crisis points – Iran and Pakistan, Pakistan now and Iran soon to be nuclear powers. How will these crises be resolved? In a few days there will be Christmas. Some two thousand years ago a light in the sky guided wise men from the East to a rude manger. One day wiser men than we may see another light in the sky, and perhaps they will follow it. But what will they find when they get there? A manger? Or a blackened cinder?
The Paki sky is dark with man-made birds
The night is deep the starlight weak and faint
The valley floors are hidden as the words
Of far off voices track the radar paint
At thirty thousand feet the UAV
Commanded from a half a world away
Banks slightly and as silent as the sea
Prepares to turn the night sky into day
Across the world at airdromes near the Med
Six pointed stars are reaching for the sky
In minutes now some millions will be dead
As Persian missiles hurl aloft to fly
The world has reached the point of no return
As hydrogen and science both combine
Producing star-like temperatures to burn
So bright that wiser men will see the sign
And follow that bright star to see a child
Once born and born again defying time
To save the worlds His creatures have defiled
And set for them His selfless paradigm
He knows some heed His words and some do not
He knows the joys and sorrows that will flow
As creatures He has made forget the plot
And think that they alone can run the show
And when they do the skies above grow dark
As man-made birds prowl everlasting night
Igniting fierce-flared fire from the spark
That one day shows some wiser men the light
If a crisis becomes deep and serious enough there are often calls for what is effectively a national government with representation from both parties. The idea would be to bury the hatchet, “reach out across the aisle” and run a country in trouble along consensus lines. By itself it may not solve anything. The governments of Macdonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain were “National Governments”. Indeed, Chamberlain really worked to undo many of the mistakes of Baldwin, but his misjudgment of Hitler and his relatively half-hearted efforts brought him down. Chamberlain initiated much of British re-armament.
Its hard to recall now what an extreme a figure Churchill was — had to be — to fight a winner take all contest with Hitler. He really did represent a major discontinuity from the tone of interwar moderation and engagement. The words, “blood, toil, sweat and tears”, “victory, for without victory there is no survival” were phrases uttered at the end of an era. They were an obituary over the graves of consensus. People were that desperate in 1940.
Of course this all becomes clear in hindsight. But at the time it probably seemed more reasonable, safer and in keeping with established policy to temporize. If you act decisively early enough, you can afford to land softly. The problem Obama is facing is that by not acting decisively enough early enough; but yielding to the spoils system and business as usual, the crisis — if it comes — will be that much sharper and that much more tragic.
Why has Pakistan been such a good friend (sic) to the US even this long? Presumably because Bush gave them an ultimatum on 9/12/2001 and they quite sensibly accepted its terms. Now, what about Obambus? Who knows.
What must we do to “win” in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan? I suspect that Obambus has an answer to that question, and it is along the lines of, we have to annoy them as much as they have annoyed us. And, use of the drones is just about the perfect answer in those terms, it’s like so many little 9/11′s, one after another, and not a d*** thing they can do about it except hide, hide, hide. Even for an Islamic jihadi that has to be disheartening after so many years.
Has the rest of our mission in Afghanistan/Pokistahn been coherent? Can’t say. Even our best thinkers (sic) apparently missed the total lack of secular infrastructure in Afghanistan, even in Iraq that had a semi-secular semi-infrastructure under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The Europeans had it more right, that you could not expect anything of “those people”, savages, to whom George W. Bush decided to extend Christian charity and the western chance of self-determination and self-realization. However, not enough wanted it, or not enough would fight for it, or not enough could get organized enough to fight the Islamic traditions of murder and destruction of self and others. I presume *some* wanted it, and more would accept it, but I wouldn’t want to bet money on specific numbers.
So, future crisis? Heck, the crisis is now, and five years ago. The precipitating next crisis will probably be military action involving the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, would be my guess. Or alternatively, a second wave of financial defaults probably US-based, or most likely of all a wave of extreme inflation as trillions of chickens come home to roost.
Pakistan ignores US requests to tackle the Haqqani Network
Every additional non-indigenous boot on the ground is a potential hostage.
The Pakis are not our friends. They never really were. Not even when they were helping us help the Afghans to kill Russians. Calling Pakistan an “ally in the Global War On Terror” has always been obvious bovine excrement that severely degrades the credibility of strategic communications, about as bad as calling Islam a “Religion of Peace.” RPOMA.
Regarding Pooh-Key-Stahn, one of the annoying things about Islamists and Islamic States is found in a hypocrisy that may be at the core of Islam. The very word of the faith means submission and that by definition should imply a selflessness. By western standards if you are being selfless then you are are at least as aware of the needs of others as you are of your own. That has no connection with our experience of Islam in practice and it is directly related to the conduct of the Pakistanis that puts them on a path of confrontation with the United States. In Islam you demonstrate your submission by thinking only of the will of Allah, to the exclusion of the needs or interests of other human beings. That will that you must submit to is as defined by the words and deeds of one human being as interpreted by a very narrow elite. What Allah wants is for you to obtain, by any means necessary, the submission of others, without regard for their interests or concerns and without consideration that they are as much examples of God’s creation and will as are you or any other person, past or present.
The result of that is that minor conflicts or impediments to a person’s will, when that will is to compel the submission of others, are elevated into major conflicts and used for unending self serving grievance and the justification of violence. To a Western observer that is the height of selfishness and makes the claim of submission to a transcendent will hypocritical. It also means that real concerns even existential threats faced by another are discounted. Allah does not command you to worry about the problems of an infidel.
Unlike what the Left and the Democrats and the Islamists believe, the United States did not go into these wars the way the British acquired their Empire, “in a fit of absent mindedness.” We are dealing with a real threat that is determined confront us on an existential level. If our presence in AfPak was merely a failed effort to corner the opium crop and chase the local versions of Pancho Villa around for the newsreels then we could declare defeat or victory or sell our interests to the Chinese, who if they ever get control will prove far more brutal than the US in suppressing an Islamist threat, and simply leave.
The expectation that we would get tired and go away made it a reasonable bet for the Pakistanis to offer sanctuary to the Taliban and turn a blind eye towards al-Qaeda. The fact that the US cannot walk away and leave the Taliban and al-Qaeda to reconstitute, and that India will also now see this threat as rising to a level of life and death, is a revelation to them. By aligning with China against India and with the Taliban and al-Qaeda against the US (hoping to keep the latter pointed at Afghanistan while they alternately dance and maneuver within Pakistan) the Pakistanis have painted themselves into a box.
Bush-Cheney refused to accept the traditional Social Worker model of dealing with dysfunctional threats as discrete events to be isolated and administered in an unending series of processes. They kicked over the green tables and insisted that the game of plausible deniability and perpetual conflict was over. Iraq could not use the open sore of the Palestinian grievances to give cover to Saddam’s aggressions. The Iranians could no longer use the perpetual conflict with the Sunni and the Jews to give cover to their aggressions. The Taliban could no longer use the threat of instability caused by Iran to cover for their giving haven to al-Qaeda. The Pakistanis could no longer use the conflict in Afghanistan to enable their support of terrorism in India and nuclear proliferation. Even when the players could point at long standing rivalries we knew the problems were linked.
The Left, the academics, pundits and diplomats have made a nice living for decades off these conflicts, at the end of the day and a well catered conference the summary of the summary of the executive report on any problem read “Blame America and the Jews,” and they labored mightily to restore the consensus that existed before 9-11. It did not work before and it will not work now. Existential threats must be faced. The Indians can not accept atomic weapons in the hands of al-Qaeda. The Americans can not accept atomic weapons in the hands of al-Qaeda or I would think Iran. The Israelis can not accept atomic weapons in the hands of Iran or its agents. The Israelis can not accept Europeans telling them to divide their capital and bow their necks before the knife. They have nothing to lose by saying “No.”
The Left seeks in an Alynskite tactic to generate conflicts between democratic regimes, knowing that others will pay the costs. They had gotten a local indictment issued in England against Tzipi Livni , the former Israeli Justice Minister/ Now in better days if a functionary of one nations government so deliberately presumed to insult the sovereignty and therefor the people of another government it would have lead to a rupture in relations and a demand, not a request, for an apology. Wars do start this way. If anyone doubts that then I suggest they look up “The War of Jenkin’s Ear” for what Her Majesty’s Government once took seriously. For an American example of how seriously a nation can and should take a threat or interference consider the “Zimmerman Dispatch” or the “XYZ Affair.” Should the Israelis respond by sinking a British warship or destroying an embassy? That is not how they have done things, although as the USS Liberty incident showed they would rather engage in combat than risk a defeat, but the Leader writers of the Grauniad look forward to the day they do.
Now the EU is presuming to tell the Israelis to give up half of Jerusalem. Apparently the staff in Brussels are now serving as pro bono lawyers for the PA. The Israelis could start issuing some indictments of their own, or even start issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
The West collectively, and the USA in particular, has had many chances to firmly grasp this particular nettle, and flinched from them all. (And thirteen centuries of history ought to have taught that this nettle stung.)
First, the foundation of Israel – which ought to have been supported, not resisted. Second, Suez; for reasons having nothing to do with good sense and a great deal to do with a lingering hatred of Britain in some quarters in the USA, the USA in its usual ill-informed and clumsy way threw its weight behind a socialist/jihadist theft of something that was built entirely with Western money – and that something of great stategic value.
Various examples of American idiocy followed, including the refusal of advice from the British and Israeli armies regarding helicopter operations in deserts – leading to a disastrously unsuccessful rescue mission. Somewhere in there the deliberate overthrow of a democratic government in Iran in favour of a despot who “just happened” to be a favourite of the American oil companies. Then sometime later, refusing to finish the job started in the first Gulf War. Somewhere in there, failing to support a semi-reasonable leader in Afghanistan in favour of mujahadeen (spelling?) lunatics. Oh, and supplying arms to a state that later turned out to be an enemy, thus making enemies of the two major regional military powers instead of just one. And then, when it was utterly clear who was at fault for the worst terrorist incident ever, punishing the wrong country. And then botching the job that should have been finished ten years before, by making a half-million-man army unemployed – among other mistakes.
All these errors, and almost all of them are errors by the USA, have led us to a situation in which there is very little choice left. We have one possible solution left; that of drastically reducing the ability of radical Islam to wage war, by reducing their income – which implies a crash programme to reduce Western dependence on Arab oil. And such a programme would cost less in ten years than the current military adventures cost in a month.
And if we don’t do that? Well, the tall man of smoke with a wide hat shall bend over many places in the Dar-al-Islam, a billion people will die – and the soul of the West will be tainted for as long as it endures. Which won’t be all that long.
The West collectively, and the USA in particular, has had many chances to firmly grasp this particular nettle, and flinched from them all. (And thirteen centuries of history ought to have taught that this nettle stung.)
First, the foundation of Israel – which ought to have been supported, not resisted. Second, Suez; for reasons having nothing to do with good sense and a great deal to do with a lingering hatred of Britain in some quarters in the USA, the USA in its usual ill-informed and clumsy way threw its weight behind a socialist/jihadist theft of something that was built entirely with Western money – and that something of great stategic value.
Various examples of American idiocy followed, including the refusal of advice from the British and Israeli armies regarding helicopter operations in deserts – leading to a disastrously unsuccessful rescue mission. Somewhere in there the deliberate overthrow of a democratic government in Iran in favour of a despot who “just happened” to be a favourite of the American oil companies. Then sometime later, refusing to finish the job started in the first Gulf War. Somewhere in there, failing to support a semi-reasonable leader in Afghanistan in favour of mujahadeen (spelling?) lunatics. Oh, and supplying arms to a state that later turned out to be an enemy, thus making enemies of the two major regional military powers instead of just one. And then, when it was utterly clear who was at fault for the worst terrorist incident ever, punishing the wrong country. And then botching the job that should have been finished ten years before, by making a half-million-man army unemployed – among other mistakes.
All these errors, and almost all of them are errors by the USA, have led us to a situation in which there is very little choice left. We have one possible solution left; that of drastically reducing the ability of radical Islam to wage war, by reducing their income – which implies a crash programme to reduce Western dependence on Arab oil. And such a programme would cost less in ten years than the current military adventures cost in a month.
And if we don’t do that? Well, the tall man of smoke with a wide hat shall bend over many places in the Dar-al-Islam, a billion people will die – and the soul of the West will be tainted for as long as it endures. Which won’t be all that long.
Blog ate my first post. Please delete if duplicated.
which implies a crash programme to reduce Western dependence on Arab oil. And such a programme would cost less in ten years than the current military adventures cost in a month.
And yet if you asked any number of truly well meaning and ostensibly well educated persons what crisis faced the world, they’d say “climate change”. And these individuals would then proceed to talk about windmills and reducing the consumption of toilet paper and going barefoot and buying little certificates from Al Gore — all that fairy and pixie stuff — and might even care enough about it to chain themselves naked to a fence in Copenhagen. They would do so sincerely. And so it goes.
Well, maybe we’ll dodge the bullet through pure luck. Things don’t happen in a linear fashion. In six months, someone might solve the problem of cold fusion and President Obama will preside over the first mission to Mars as his second term ends in 2016. But the apparent signs are not so good. We march forward in folly, heedless and assured.
Wretchard missed probably the biggest crisis of all. It is not possible to buy small rifle primers in these United States of America. They have been back ordered since August and the soonest any outlet expects delivery is February (if then). I haven’t seen anything like this in my lifetime. So…waz up wit dat? Everybody join a reloading sorority? Or is something else brewin? Pakistan, Iran and elections will seem like child’s play if all of those hoarded primers start poppin!
The thing that really hit me in Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes was :
And, you know, I think that one of the mistakes that was made over the last eight years is for us to have a triumphant sense about war.
That says a lot, about for instance, his attitude toward that obsolete concept called “Victory.” The Left has never declared Victory in the War on Poverty or on Hunger or on AIDs or anything else – except possibly the US Constitution and the Republican Party, so maybe it is a genetic trait. Or maybe they realize it is a practical impossibility with them, The People They Have Been Waiting For, in charge.
But maybe it is more than that. “Triumphalism” is a post-Cold War communist codeword that means “Quit bragging about the West winning the Cold War because you didn’t.” In the early 90’s leftist “historians” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) even held an “Anti-Triumphalism” Conference in New York City. And there is even a book out “Tiumphalism and the End of The cold War: the Misuse of History.”
The Left’s position had been that there was no such thing as the Cold War, just two different ways of doing things that were a bit different. When the USSR came unzipped at the seams that was a difficult fact for them to swallow. So they don’t wanna hear about it.
And Obama don’t wanna hear about victory.
So the NYT is printing articles critical of Obama. Whose Wheaties got peed in this time?
So what are the odds now that Israel is going to air raid Iran in the next 6 months?
What if there is a series of nuclear explosions in Iran and Israel says, “It wasn’t us.”?
If oil prices skyrocket due to war in the Middle East, will it be over for Obama? “Miss three meals and the riots begin.”
Fletcher, I think I’ll go hang myself now, ok?
Maybe the Left will only ever have one enemy — the near enemy. That’s because it is the most internally oriented movement you can ever find. It’s purpose is power over people. Not “power to the people”. The wide expanses of the universe are really invisible to them. What matters is dominion over the consciousness of man. The Party members can be consumed by old age and disease. That doesn’t matter. What matters is the idea must rise to paramountcy. The really powerful thing about the Left is that it isn’t about any of the things it says it concerns itself with. It is really interested in only one thing: the soul that beats in your breast. All enemies of the Left are the near enemies. Once again, O’Brien from 1984.
It doesn’t want you to abandon your true beliefs. It wants IT to be your true belief. Only when you sincerely and truly sort all the dwindling items in your household garbage into the right recycle bins; only when you fall asleep at night genuinely penitent of the last politically incorrect thing you said, only when you finally do the right thing and lighten the load Gaia must bear — not under duress, but gratefully and lovingly — will peace be yours. And you will know love for what it is: the betrayal of all else but the Idea. Love is whatever you can still betray. When all is betrayed then will the only love that matters be yours.
“And General [David] Petraeus, who was involved in my consultations in designing this strategy…blah, blah, blah”
Do I detect a smidge of grandeur?
I thought it interesting that one could employ a timeline strategy on occasion. That you follow it seems clearly shallow. Nobody complained about 9 years in Bosnia because the war just droned on. But the constant IED attacks In Iraq that dominated the headlines during the Bush presidency and a firm commitment was needed to lay the insurgences low while the INF stood up. In Afghanistan a promise to pull out in 18 months may calm down the insurgents and keep a lid on things while the administration figures how to put it on the Afghanis and get the hell out. In their world of real politick I am sure that all they care about it the 2012 elections. This whole fiasco is posturing to keep good faith with the haphazard political promises that were made. Obama can call for a pull out in the future and change that date to suit his personal aspirations just as the PLO can call a ceasefire while letting weapons stores build back up.
The NIE was a political crock and the last its authors were clearly intending on a soft coup. Where are the gallows when you need them?
Mr. Obama seems to want to hold hands ans sing folk songs around the campfire with some of the most unreasonable people on earth.If the Shah was not abandoned by Jiminy Kricket sorry I mean Jimmy Carter we might not be facing any threat from Iran. OK the Shah was possibly not the brightest flame of democracy, but he was at least moving toward a modern society that was had least partially liberal views toward the West. I think when dealing with anyone that is willing to die to get what they want you basically have two choices. One give them what they want or two kill them. In the past it may have been Germany today is is radical Muslims. Since “moderate” Muslims are strangely unable to condemn the idiots among them they should just shut up and go along with the war against the radicals. Obama seems to think Jimmy Carter was on the right track.
It is quite simple. Obama is the symptom of a corrupt, decadent, female-oriented elite in the West. “Magical Shaman” and all that. Rainbows and unicorns with pictures of open-shirt Magical Shaman Obama. Or naked riding a Unicorn. No really, those pictures are quite popular among the Left, and the elite. But I repeat myself.
The logic is quite clear. Either Iran or Pakistan (or perhaps both) will nuke a city or cities. Perhaps “just” Israel out of existence, or more likely NYC, DC, and at least one other US city. And then the American people will under a military junta decide the only rational course of action … is killing every single Muslim on the planet.
It is that simple.
The “crisis” is that the rich, comfortable, middle class West cannot co-exist on the same small planet with Muslims, filled with polygamist-created rage, and empowered by modern technology. The West was mainly what it was in 1925, but the thought of Muslim Jihadis posing a serious threat to the West would have provoked laughter. Because they had nothing in the way of technology. No tanks, no planes, no battleships, no aircraft carriers. Not even many rifles.
Now, a state failed in every way save Jihad, Pakistan, has more destructive force than the US, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan did from the entire period 1939-1945 COMBINED. Iran is racing to join them.
This means that rage-filled, polygamist Muslims can and will kill Westerners at will. They won’t stop. Nothing, in fact, can deter them. Save killing about 75% of them. Obama, Brown, Berlusconi, Putin, Bush, Clinton, all that only matters around the edges.
The central problem is the spread of mass-killing technology to unstable, chaotic, tribal, fanatic, Muslim polygamist peoples. Ultimately the West has to either simply kill all those peoples, or rule them (as Ann Coulter suggested) to turn them into non-Polygamists at least. Which means effectively “de-Muslimizing” them as the Germans were supposedly de-Nazified. My cynical side says most Westerners would just as well decide the Muslim Third World be dead, as the effort to “rule” them would be tremendous.
Technology does a lot of good things, but also bad ones. This is its true price — forcing hard choices among the West. Israel is the first (kill Iran before it kills them) but not the last. America either simply kills most of the Pakistani people or it will lose city after city. It is that simple. It is also a dilemma that will be faced by Russia, China, France, the UK, and most other nations.
[Bush threatened nuclear action after 9/11 to gain cooperation, that threat simply will not be believed by ANY American leader anymore. Even if Obama, Biden, Pelosi, etc. all resigned and Dick Cheney was made President by acclamation.]
Within the limits of understanding that a moderately informed citizen has, I posit that the Obama Administration is indeed involved in a domestic and international campaign of misdirection and misinformation to achieve the continued political domination by their party.
Consider:
Eric Holder’s position of trying KSM and associates in New York City (media center of America), where he can be sure of issuing propaganda and controlling a message regarding the “terrible” way that KSM, etc., were treated in Gitmo by the minions of the Bush Administration. Obama promised convictions. Ha! He knows better and just the opposite may happen. Who will be blamed??
Consider that today:
The Federal Gov. has contracted to use an under-utilized prison in Illinois to house the 100 or so hard core types in Gitmo. More show trials for 2011 and 2012. The propaganda war continues.
Consider the logistics tail that the increase in Afghanistan will create:
With the requirement of continued convoys through and increasingly hostile Pakistan (huh?), the outlines of an American Anabasis could take shape in Afghanistan. The humiliation of the US Army and Marines in Afghanistan and the subsequent court-martials of the general Officers involved (Petraeus, McChrystal, and probably others) for “dereliction of duty” is the kind of political dynamite that the Obama Administration would like to throw around. Thoroughly discrediting the US military would help to solidify the Obama World-view.
I wonder what that will do for the re-enlistment rate?
The fly in this ointment is obviously the economy, stupid. As I read recently, there are two political parties in America; one for prosperity and one against it. Americans tend to vote for the pro-prosperity party regardless if they are called Democrats or Republicans. The long Gramscian march through the Academy and Media that gave birth to the Obama phenonmenon in 2008 may come to naught if the Obama administration cannot deliver on prosperity.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow to root against the well-being of your own country, but as their present tactics continue to fail, the public will indeed get tired of “Blame Bush” mantra for the economic problems that still hinder the economy. And the crypto-Marxist economics of Obama and Co. will indeed bring down the house around his ears, big and flappy as they are.
Their propaganda war that will take shape in 2010 may come a cropper if the floundering in the markets continues.
It really comes down to whether we have the will to destroy the Haqqani Network. The Pakistani government assumes that the United States will never destroy the Haqqani Network, so it will naturally seek good relations with its neighbor.
If the United States had a bloody minded purpose to completely destroy the power of the Haqqani Network, Pakistan could be induced to see the world differently.
The Pakistani military ought to fear our wrath more than the wrath of al-Qaeda.
5. Josh
“The precipitating next crisis will probably be military action involving the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, would be my guess.”
It would be interesting to see how China reacted to that, Josh.
I wonder what their emergency reserve is and how long it will last before they start shutting down.
wretchard, are you determined to out-gloom all your commenters? I suppose I still believe in the good intentions of most on the left. If the only common denominator of all their actions turns out to be power over others, perhaps this trend is unknown to themselves. Was O’Brien’s meta-confession in 1984 really believable, or just like Galt’s 30-page speech in Atlas Shrugged, a diatribe in literary form?
I look at these leftoids as pathological, solipsistic, they cannot imagine certain forms of evil, or are in blatent denial of them when obvious, and if this means they die, then they die – I think of the Jews in Nazi Germany here, they could not imagine what they were caught up in. I guess. They bury this in anti-religiousity and radical empiricism and self-congratulation, but we know they are consumed with hate, obsessed with hate, just unsure of the appropriate targets of that hate – which as often as not, is themselves.
What we are seeing today is an unprecedented ability of our leftist elites to screw up a good thing. But that does not make their behavior unprecedented, it may be all too precedented. It’s only the technology that lends them scope, which is new, in finance, in WMD, in transportation.
The solution is simply better candidates and leaders from the right. Individuals. Communications. Either this will happen – or it won’t. Perhaps we help a little just by discussing it here – but others, on the left, help their disintegrative efforts by these same mechanisms.
Vernor Vinge writes of the technological singularity, well, maybe that singularity comes in a totally unexpected form, in which it eats itself like a black hole rather than accelerate at more than lightspeed.
But I hope not.
Josh
You seem like a good fellow and intelligent to boot. But you cannot believe in the “good intentions” of the people on the Left.
Their short term goal is to destroy the Lockean concept of the Rule of Law and that of a civil life of free citizens out of the reach of the government.
Their goal is to return us all to a Hobbesian state of “all against all”. The subsequent fear will allow the mutation of the State into Leviathan. People will DEMAND fascism, be it totally collectivist or corporatist, to save them from the chaos of the oncoming anarchy, and to keep up real estate values. The anarchy that is being created is by the very Left that will prosper from the State as Leviathan. they’ve got us coming and going.
The chaos will come in one of several forms (like Gozer), or perhaps all of the below:
1)Economic collapse due to runaway inflation caused by devaulation of the dollar and perhaps renuciation of our national debt.
2)The always feared terrorist nuke smuggled into an American city.
3)The capture of key sectors of the economy by government control: Media (networks and newpapers are almost there now), the Internet (it’s coming), financial markets (they will sell themselves to Obama for a few more years of big bonuses), manufacturing (hostage to Cap’n Trade).
These guys are playing for keeps. Do not be confused about how ruthless they are for power. Good and evil are constructs (they believe) that are used to befuddle the common man and allow the politicians to capture more….power!
We (the people) have become so USED to the outrages perpetrated on us by our governments (at all levels) that our sense of outrage is numbed by the frequency of it all. Could you imagine the if the Founders were alive today, how they would react to the weekly and monthly usurpations of power by our present Federal government? We are indeed all sheeple.
How do we react? How do we know our own minds? How do we get our Republic back?
I don’t know. The 8-ball says “ask again later”.
Annoy Mouse #16:
“I thought it interesting that one could employ a timeline strategy on occasion.”
There is nothing wrong with a timeline strategy as long as it is the timeline you create and hand to the enemy. Truman did it in 1945. Kennedy did it in 1961. Bush did it in 1990.
Such as:
“My fellow Americans, up until now we have employed a strategy in Afghanistan designed more to build than to destroy a compassionate approach to war that sought to separate combatants from noncombatants for a people who refuse to recognize the very concept, a approach that offered a hand up to the poor and oppressed, that offered democracy to people who have only known the worst of tyrannies.”
“We have had some success in some parts of that country, but not in others. But our patience is not endless. Over the next 18 months we will redouble our efforts, but if that does not lead to an appropriate degree of success, we will take action to end the war in Afghanistan. Peace will indeed come to that country, but it will be either the peace of freedom or the peace of the graveyard. Let the people there choose; we already have defined the options.”
That’s the kind of timeline speech we need.
On a lighter note, it’s Advent tomorrow. I’m headed to church with mom for soup and such for dinner. These are crazy days we’re living bros. God Bless the troops who shiver now in their foxholes for they are the noblest among us. Hopefully we can fill the legislatures with ass-kickers, in November, who can lead obama by the nose to victory in Afghanistan. While I sometimes conflict with myself, I think Whiskey is right when he states the path for victory. Unleash truly our bloodthirsty Rottweilers of war and the world will tremble with the sound and might of our most potent and perilous fury. They will soon remember the awful devastation that can be visited on they who go too far against America. Anyway, I wish all u BC’rs a happy Advent even though what lurks in the darker realms of my soul may bely and sentiments of Christianity, would I be not just as guilty were I to advocate peace in the face of pain and death of my countrymen? Please correct me if I’m out of line y’all.
““And General [David] Petraeus, who was involved in my consultations in designing this strategy…blah, blah, blah”
Do I detect a smidge of grandeur?”"
Yup. Let’s see here- a community organizer designing a military strategy, generously permitting ‘involvement in my consultations’ to a professional military man, the victor in Iraq.
What’s wrong with this picture?
#20 Alexis writes:
It really comes down to whether we have the will to destroy the Haqqani Network. The Pakistani government assumes that the United States will never destroy the Haqqani Network, so it will naturally seek good relations with its neighbor.
With no disrespect intended, I think you have it backwards. The major impediment to destroying the Haqqani network is the Pakistani government. They’re an industry. Many and various sanctions against Pakistan were lifted after 911, and the foreign aid has accelerated. If the Haqqani network is destroyed the incentive for the US to give Pakistan military and economic aid will fade away. So, what is the incentive for Pakistan to destroy the network? None. What is the incentive to pretend to make efforts to destroy it? Everything.
#20 Alexis
The Pakistani military ought to fear our wrath more than the wrath of al-Qaeda.
They ought to, but don’t. They know that while we have the power to have the nation of Pakistan become as relevant to the world as it Harrapan forebears; that power divested of will is the same as no power at all. They can take to the bank [or interest free Sharia Law equivalent] the fact that Buraq Hussein Obama will not use force in defense of the actual interests of the United States, nor will he under any circumstances use force against a Muslim country. Those circumstances include a nuclear attack on this country. It will take the removal not only of Obama from the position of National Command Authority, but the elimination of the Democrats and their fellow Leftists from any position in the government to allow this country to defend itself from attack. While I do not agree with Whiskey on everything, I do agree with him on that.
We have absolutely no leverage with the Pakistanis, nor can we pose a credible countervailing threat. Therefore, they will respond to those that they consider real threats. And since they cannot [and admittedly the part of their government controlled by the ISI will not] defeat any of the Islamist armed factions; they will try to cut a deal with them at our expense. There is no incentive to do otherwise.
Wretchard posits two years before the organic waste impacts the rotating airfoil. I am known by my friends to be a bloody pessimist. But, even then, I give us less than a year domestically, and no more than a year for an overseas crisis. The Oath speaks of “enemies foreign and domestic”. We are going to be a very busy country.
# 22 Josh
I suppose I still believe in the good intentions of most on the left.
One can intend and act to impose a tyranny on the mass of people, firmly believing that you are so morally and intellectually superior that it is for the masses’ own good. One can intend to be a benevelent dictator and a Philosopher King who sees beyond the shadows cast on the wall of the cave. But you will still be a tyrant, and your subjects would be slaves.
I cannot share your beliefs in the good intentions of those who I regard as TWANLOC. For all their “good intentions” they have a record of unadulterated human suffering and failure everywhere they have had any of their ideas put in force.
Once is Chance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is deliberate, hostile action.
With the Left, American and foreign, we are reduced to exponential notation.
Subotai Bahadur
Bob @ 21: “The precipitating next crisis will probably be military action involving the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, would be my guess.”
It would be interesting to see how China reacted to that, Josh.
I suspect they are underplanning for it, underpreparing.
A lot may depend on what the US would do, and under Obambus, who knows what that would be, on our behalf and/or on China’s. What would the Russians say, on their own behalf – or China’s? Does this include, or not, Israel nuking Tehran? Or Tehran nuking Israel? Contingencies, ….
I know what I wish China would do – send out their own million-man expeditionary force and occupy the straits, in concert with the UN or US, and pacify the region.
I know what I wish the US would do – start acting like a colonial power and impose our culture on large swaths of dar al-Islam, who might just welcome it. And yes, take the oil for our expenses. As would China for their efforts.
Simple and easy!
Was O’Brien’s meta-confession in 1984 really believable, or just like Galt’s 30-page speech in Atlas Shrugged, a diatribe in literary form?
I think Orwell actually got it right. Remember that Winston Smith was an upper party sort of person, not your average member who thinks that socialism is about giving people more food, health care or saving the earth. Anyone who has really watched its workings cannot really believe that. Socialist industrialization practically poisoned Eastern Europe. It’s made potentially rich countries poor. It creates gulags, tyrannies and monostrosities beyond belief. I’ll grant that the average leftist naively believes socialism is good for something. But for the socialist who really understands socialism, it must be about something else. The problem facing Orwell was what it could be about?
His answer was as good as anyone’s. O’brien’s monologue is really the Grand Inquisitor speech set in a dingy industrial torture setting. Yet no one who has seen at first hand the love, yes the love of Party Members for an organization which they know is covered with blood can fail to recognize the elements of truth in it. I think the best way to realize how true O’brien’s speech is to preface reading 1984 with Robert Conquest’s history of the Terror.
The really depressing thing about the Left is it takes you to very core of human failure. Something is terribly broken in mankind for him to want something like that. Even in their apparent altruism what many men want is power. Socialism is some man’s idea of kindness. And it is horrible. You begin to wonder whether we are truly capable of love, if even our love kills. It is the historical equivalent of the pathological love affairs which are the staple of horror movies. Oh they love you, and how they love you. This is why the Year Zero camps, the Great Leap Forward, the collectivization of the kulaks, the purges and the rectifications, the endless criticism-self-criticism sessions are so depressing. You see they were meant to be good. I don’t doubt that Zeke Emmanuel thinks his end of life panels are doing us all a favor. An honest attempt at kindness. Instead they are the fleurs de mal.
In my darker moments I fear this is the best we can do. And then it passes. But I think it was Buddy Larsen who said that some people chose to be atheists because they could not bear to find faith and discover it be false. Better for them to leave faith untasted because it left the possibility, even to the end, that truth might lurk in the one corner they didn’t look.
But I should have added that for the most successful players in the Leftist game, O’Briens speech is indeed a rhetorical exercise. They go straight from naivete to greed without ever stopping at where Winston Smith paused. When it stops being about altruism it directly becomes about making money at least for the better sort of person. Those who do it for love, as O’Brien did, and perhaps as Bill Ayers — who never wanted for money — did are the truly dangerous ones. “Guilty as hell and free as a bird!” I think he said. I’ve gone on too long. All I really wanted to say is that the True Believers do exist and they are the greatest proof that so does evil.
But the “useful idiots”, aren’t they by definition well-intended?
I mean, I *know* some. Several. Encounter more out and about town, especially on campus. Don’t y’all?
Wretchard,
I think the great sadness is that we understand in a sort of superficial conscious sense that we are a fallen people, destined to live East of Eden. We all have the mark of Cain on us.
But in some modern rationalizations some of us are deluded to think that “No, I’m different! I’m good enough, and smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”
No, we are all the same. We all have the Mark of Cain on us, the inescapable urge to do and think evil. All the while we rationalize that some of it is “good”.
I have no other answer. The struggle to do right, to live in virtue of some kind, a life in Christ if you are a Christian, is too personal a problem and struggle, and does not commend itself to a political agenda.
RWE – “That’s the kind of timeline speech we need.”
Agreed. Timelines can be useful. Will our leadership do so effectively? Well, I guess we will see.
Pakistan’s “strategy to fight Islamic extremists” seems to be to funnel hundreds of millions in US aid dollars to Pakistani jihad groups. Pakistan is not our ally, and Obama is a fool to think otherwise (sadly, Bush made the same mistake). If we are confident as to the location of Pakistani nukes, the only thing we should do is capture them and let Pakistan collapse. Pakistan’s conversion to a Taliban-controlled state is inevitable, and if we do not capture their nukes the Taliban will send us a few live ones.
#28 Subotai Bahadur
I don’t agree with you that we we have no leverage against the Pakistanis, we do but we just won’t use it. The nasty little Taliban are a threat to the entrenched leaders in Pakistan. The elites in Pakistan are playing a game, pitting the US against the Taliban. The Pakistani elites can keep the Taliban from coming after them by threatening to give the US the power to come into Waziristan and wipe them out. And so long as the Taliban has bases in Pakistan that the US cannot come into the infection will never go away. A nice little game that can go on just so long as we keep pretending the Pakistanis are sincere.
Its time to stop pretending. If we were really honest and determined about it we would tell the Pakistani government that if raids keep coming out of Pakistan that all aid to Pakistan, economic and military, will end. We’ll watch while the Taliban eat you, and won’t lift a finger.
I have always thought we would have been better off invading Pakistan than Afghanistan with India covering the common border when it became obvious the Paki nukes may be out of positive control. For one thing they are littoral so supply lines can be controlled. Without Pakistan would Afghanistan be so belligerent? Would they be easier to control politically if they were isolated eliminating a reason to invade all out?
Wretchard @ 15—this reminds me of Orwell learning how the main objective of the Soviets (Russians) in Spain 1936-39 was to neutralize or worse the indigenous Spanish Communists, more important than beating Franco; and in a large sense the whole fight between Fascism/Nazism and Communism/Bolshevism was a family feud within the larger Left.
Re Afghanistan–I do not understand what is the United States’s grand strategy in world affairs, or its strategy wrt radical Islam and al Qaeda. This pre-dates Obama and even Bush 43, and really goes back to Bush 41.
What are we (USA) trying to accomplish, and how are we going about it? Nothing makes sense. Fletcher Christian’s double comment got at some of this.
A few exammples:
1. Radical Islam’s home and nurturing comes from Saudi Arabia (money) and Egypt (ideology). We play whack-a-mole with jihadists in places like Afghanistan, the Philippines and Indonesia, while we support and strengthen the places that create and sustain those jihadists. WTF??? Yeah, I get it, Saudi has oil and is in a strategic location, and Egypt is key to stability in the “Middle East” which really means Israel’s neighborhood and the Suez Canal. But what is our grand strategy to set achievable goals and reconcile all this?
2. What are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan, and how is that furthered by a time-limited commitment?
3. How are we to handle logistics to Afghanistan? Every soldier or Marine we or NATO send there is a potential hostage to Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Russia. It’s just insane to think they won’t exact a price, and that price will keep going up until we refuse to pay it. Then what? Pull out? Why bother in the first place if that’s the most probable denouement?
4. Iran?
5. Energy dependency?
6. Fiscal and monetary policy?
7. Military posture, including resources and force structure?
8. China? East and SE Asia, generally?
9. NoKo?
10. Latin America?
11. Soth Asia–India, Pak, Indian Ocean…
On and on.
I wrote a month or 2 ago and I’m still of the opinion that in Afghan we need to work with the Paks to make sure Afghan isn’t a terror base. Beyond that, let the Paks have it as a satellite/buffer, why should we care? We keep putting the Pak’s in a terrible position in terms of their domestic issues and fights within their government, but don’t convey any resolve to help see them through the troubles we are in part causing them. Frankly, the BEST possible outcome for the US may be Afghan as a Pak dependency, as long as we maintain a respectful relationship with Pak, Pak does not use its secure rear to threaten India, and everyone knows that an international terror base in Afghan is a no-go. Better to strengthen whatever forces for stability exist in Pak, so long as it is within bounds that do not threaten India or us, and I do not understand why that isn’t possible. Of course I may be wrong but I just fail to see how the current plan is going to work.
I don’t get any of this, haven’t gotten it since 1991 when Bush-41 encouraged the Iraqi Marsh Arabs and Kurds to rebel and then sat back to watch Saddam slaughter them, and doubly so after 9/11 when Bush-43 refused to deal with Saudi and Egypt while overpromising about Afghan and underestimating problems in a post-Saddam Iraq.
I don’t get it and am coming to believe there isn’t anything to get; for almost a generation US foreign policy has been handled at the mental level at which my high school friends and I played “Diplomacy” back in the day.
I don’t get it and am coming to believe there isn’t anything to get; for almost a generation US foreign policy has been handled at the mental level at which my high school friends and I played “Diplomacy” back in the day.
I’ll bet Obama never played Diplomacy. Or Risk. Or Stratego. And of course, not Monopoly!
Whiskey – “is killing every single Muslim on the planet”
Not very likely, by your own logic you know that women (50% of the population) are attracted to swarthy interlopers and are enthralled by the big man with statists dreams; a king by any other name. Throughout the course of history, some woman sided with the invader who killed their children and their husbands and took them, forcefully into their arms to keep their house and to raise the conquerors children. It is a genetic predisposition to embrace the victor, whom a western male will never be because the fight for freedom is long over. Women fantasize about brutal rape and will vote for it statistically. These women are probably around 30% of the voting public. They hate you and there is nothing you can do about it. Be nice, play along, and tell them you are a Democrat. Then they will consider not hating you. It is a loser’s proposition.
I completely agree with wretchard’s commets @ 30, and that seems to me to require the US to be all the more realistic and hard-headed in all its dealings—not realistic in teh narros sense of “international realism” a la Mearshimer and Walt, but realistic in seting goals, directions, Plands and Plan Bs. Because it is indeed a cold hostile world and genuine evil exists and will defeat us if given half a chance.
While we worry about which defense contractor gets which contract and how many jobs (alwasy a trivial number) go to each Cong District, and so on.
15. wretchard:
All the confessions that are uttered here are true.
We make them true. And above all we do not allow the dead
to rise up against us. You must stop imagining that
posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
Posterity will never hear of you.
You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history.
And you will know love for what it is:
the betrayal of all else but the Idea.
Love is whatever you can still betray.
When all is betrayed then will the only
love that matters be yours.
…………..
I’ve heard pastors say from time to time that if
a man does not put God before his family
that man cannot actually serve
well either his family or God. And when the pastors say this
they might as well be bouncing rocks off the forheads of the men
in their congregation. It is something only dully understood by most.
I’m as dull as anyone.
Luke 12
49″I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
50″But I have a (BA)baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
51″(BB)Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;
52for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
53″They will be divided, (BC)father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
54And He was also saying to the crowds, “(BD)When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.
55″And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a (BE)hot day,’ and it turns out that way.
56″You hypocrites! (BF)You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
57″And (BG)why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right?
Luke 12:
56″You hypocrites! (BF)You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
….
40 years after Jesus was crucified, Jerusalem was leveled and the the temple destroyed.
Some nice ones Charles. I like “55″And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a (BE)hot day,’ and it turns out that way.”
‘cept around here they’s Santa Ana winds. The saints blow from the nor’east.
And this – “but why do you not analyze this present time?” This is a part of the teaching that is considered very oriental in leaning if not in origin. Personally, I believe.
but it was a great forty years
my but the dear leader does love to quote himself.
“Well, as I’ve said…”
“And as I said…”
Why oh why do I see more and more burkas and head scarves on women these days? I see that as indicating increased rates of immigration from Muslim countries. That seems to me to be suicidal.
This is again using our legal and moral system against us. Freedom of religion works when all tolerate the others. Islam most emphatically does NOT tolerate other religions being a most aggression mental virus.
Of course, there are individual Muslims I know and respect but there are too many I do not trust.
It seems to me that the best balance for Pakistan is India.
#8 – ”Various examples of American idiocy followed… Somewhere in there the deliberate overthrow of a democratic government in Iran in favour of a despot who “just happened” to be a favourite of the American oil companies.”
Excuse me? It was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. whose assets were nationalized by the Iranians. It was the British government that,in 1953 proposed to Eienhower “Operation Ajax” to overthrow Mosaddeq. Check your chauvinism at the door, nimrod.
Why 2011? Why not 2012? US arm forces will be sitting ducks.
Duh’Oh! WHY? Why did you think something like that? This creature of no thing has never done a damn thing to call his own. Nothing. I can hardly stifle my gob-smacked laughter!
Lugh Lampfhota @ 11:
Mmm, I don’t think he has missed that Hugh, he is just not going there. He has lived through a revolution and rightly cautions us about a revolutions effects. I have said elsewhere that there is 8 to 10 billions rounds manufactured in the US per year. Popular calibers are HARD to get. The only affordable .223 REM is Russian make.
Next year we are going to use the ballot box. Until then we must use the soap box to convince those that need convincing the real change that is going to be needed. We are not to the use of the 4th, yet.
#49: Well, the soap box has pretty much failed; witness DC’s and the press’ reaction to the Sept 12 Tea Party in Washington; arguably the largest in US history. Forget the jury; it’s a rigged process these days with activist judges. That leaves just the ballot for 2010, and then the ammo.
#10 Wretchard – I agree. Except that many of the things that would reduce Western dependence on Arab oil would also as a by-product reduce carbon emissions.
I find it interesting that even James Lovelock, the man who set out the Gaia Hypothesis so hated by the Right, has come out firmly in favour of nuclear power. Of course the nukes have to be of a safe design. There is at least one class (ceramic pebble-bed) or reactor that is intrinsically stable, and there are others; but even fast breeder reactors in the hands of the US are safer than nuclear bombs in the hands of Pakistan.
Others include SPS, OTEC and two different possible paths to fusion power. (There are three being worked on at the moment, but the one getting all the money may never work and will in any case only ever be suitable for huge installations – and will also produce even more radioactive waste than a fission plant.)
Start building nukes now, to give us some breathing space. And in the meantime, drastically increase gasoline tax and spend the money on alternative energy that might actually work. Also, stop – altogether – spending money on wind and ground solar power. Power density is the problem here.
I imagine most of our current crop of politicans tell themselves that if tomorrow doesn’t bring more of the same, more deals, bimbos and spin, then who wants it? Really, if instead of Carribean junkets, Irish cottages and a quick trip to Edgartown to do the new staffer who always forgets to button the top button, if instead of all that tomorrow is full of “blood, toil, tears and sweat”, well, they’re sooooo not intested. Why put all the work into planning for something you don’t want? Let some Earnie Goodyshoes clean up the mess, if it comes to that, is what they probably think.
I think the problem is, there’s barely a thimblefull of real patriotism to be found in D.C. The people there didn’t go to Washington to serve the country, they went to serve themselves. So even if the odds are against the game continuing as is, that’s still the only bet they’ll make because anything else is a total loss for them anyway. No sense hedging bets when the hedge is a bucket full o’ hard work and no bimbos. No Siree. Better grift while the griftin’s good.
#52 JMH
Politicians are perfectly comfortable with things going to hell, as long as they can kick it far enough down the road so that it doesn’t happen while they’re in office. Most have there promised law positions, lobbying, and speaking/consulting fees to ensure that they don’t suffer unduly.
After all, look at the fun they’ll have screaming, “See what happens when you kick me out of office?” on all the networks.
Fletcher
I wonder if James Lovelock is in favor of throwing the EPA out the window? Of removing nuclear power plants (and their construction process) from the juristiction of the court system (Federal and State)? Of taking a big, double-bladed broad axe and swinging it like a hero to chop down the regulatory bramble that we have today?
Are you in favor of that?
Because if you aren’t, then you aren’t in favor of nuclear power. Because as long as the EPA exists in its current form, as long a regulation-via-litigation is allowed, as long as Environmental Impact Reports are unavoidable regulatory hurdles, then we aren’t building any nuke plants, safe, sketchy or otherwise. The people who don’t like nuclear power are well-armed with red-tape dispensers and well-trained in using them. You’ll have to demolish the current regulatory structure in order to defang them. Otherwise the plants will be stuck in the approvals process and subsequent litigation until the Sun blows up into a Red Giant and toasts all our marshmallows, ending our energy problems once and for all.
In the meantime, those additional gas taxes will be pouring into the government coffers. Probably a good percentage of them finding their ways into the hands of the anti-Nuke groups, with a few percentage points skimmed off into some Senator’s freezer no doubt.
But that’s kind of a microcosm of our fundamental problem. The government we have today is more adept at adding new burdens to the handfull of things left that work than it is at cleaning up it’s own messes and mistakes.
Are you up for the sort of changes necessary to build nuclear plants again?
Don’t forget the financial crisis! What? You thought that was over? It ain’t over.
We got into this mess for many reasons, but the key symptom was an unsustainable rise in real estate values, both commercial and residential. All that wealth has to be given back, and we are not even halfway there.
Recall that the bad mortgages written in 2002-2006 are on a five-year fuse, and only the first round of resets (’02 vintages in 2007) crashed the whole system. Central Bankers have responded by lowering interest rates to 0.00% so that ’03 and ’04 vintage ARM resets don’t create foreclosure-inducing payment shocks (well, not too many anyway) while simultaneously running the money-printing presses at full speed to replace the losses at the banks with new money as fast as they can. Both of these tactics are highly inflationary.
But the 2010 and 2011 resets are still to come, and they’re both the largest by lending volume and the least credit-worthy. They were bad risks in ’06 when the mortgages were written, and after five years of 10% unemployment they’re much worse. If they are simply allowed to go bust they’ll take the banking system with them and send us into a deflationary depression (which will kill ALL the banks, even the ones that didn’t make bad loans). But if Ben Bernanke prints enough money to paper over the losses he risks (1) causing China to pull the trigger on their dollar holdings, and (2) hyperinflationary death-spiral.
But don’t worry. There are still a few optimists that believe Bernanke can walk the razor’s edge between deflation and hyperinflation (assuming such a razor exists at all), in which case we get 20 years of stagflation. And the real Pollyannas imagine the US electing a political class that’s actually willing and able to remove the regulatory barriers to a real recovery and sustainable entitlement system.
But here’s a question for you. If you’re Bernanke and you can see that there’s actually no safe path between Scylla and Charybdis, would you tell the crew?
43. Annoy Mouse:
And this – “but why do you not analyze this present time?” This is a part of the teaching that is considered very oriental in leaning if not in origin. Personally, I believe.
…….
What the Dead Sea Scroll’s tell us is that the accounts of the destruction of the northern kingdom Israel 721 BC and the southern kingdom Judah plus the temple in 589 BC that We read today –and the accounts the Jesus read are one and the same.
What modern archeology shows is that those accounts are historically accurate.
Jesus reference point was not eastern mysticism but rather the history as told in the bible. Judah/Jerusalem/ the temple — for example — had been in the hands of the babylonians for a time and was only destroyed in 589 after it rebelled. similar things happened in 70 AD.
Jesus was making an historical analogy. Just as people will make a historical analogy to things leading up to WWI or WWII or the Viet Nam War.
My own historical analogy is that our age maps over best onto about 1500 when the catholic church was selling indulgences, columbus had recently been to the new world, the printing press had recently been invented,Roman era Ptolemy cosmology was slowly being overturned, the moslems were approaching their high water mark for that age (1532 vienna).
Tcobb:
Of course Pakistan uses the Haqqani Network as a way to shake down the United States for money. If you were to look at this situation from the perspective of a Pakistani strategist, why not?
A smart Pakistani strategist would know that if the United States is not willing to destroy the Haqqani Network, it is best to sidle up to it. Moreover, since Pakistan has learned that the United States sends massive aid only when there’s trouble in the neighborhood, it is only natural for the Pakistani military to see trouble as a form of rent.
We need to reverse the strategic thinking of Pakistan. Pakistan needs to know that (1) we will destroy our enemies and (2) Pakistan will suffer if it helps our enemies. We will never be in a position to defeat al-Qaeda so long as we let al-Qaeda use Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to deter the United States.
I do not propose directly attacking Pakistan. However, it is critically important to show Pakistan that its nuclear arsenal simply will not deter us.
John Quincy Adams once argued that an inability or unwillingness to govern people living in a claimed territory effectively deprives a nation’s territorial claim of its legitimacy. Without this highly effective diplomatic argument from John Quincy Adams, General Jackson’s invasion of Florida would have been illegal and the United States would not have annexed Florida. Likewise, if the Pakistani government refuses to assert its authority over its western territory to deny safe haven to al-Qaeda, international recognition of Pakistan’s territorial claims to the Federally Administered Tribal Area and Northwest Frontier Province ought to become null and void.
Many thinkers in the Pakistani military (particularly Lieutenant General Hamid Gul) regard the Haqqani Network as a means to expand Pakistan’s strategic depth against India. It must be made clear to the Pakistani government that any continued support for the Haqqani Network (and al-Qaeda) will effectively narrow Pakistan’s strategic depth.
W@10: And yet if you asked any number of truly well meaning and ostensibly well educated persons what crisis faced the world, they’d say “climate change”. And these individuals would then proceed to talk about windmills and reducing the consumption of toilet paper and going barefoot and buying little certificates from Al Gore — all that fairy and pixie stuff — and might even care enough about it to chain themselves naked to a fence in Copenhagen.
And yet we hear Goldman analyst Abbey Joseph Cohen saying that any resurrection of the Middle Class (it’s capitalized again) will require increasing the, ahem, level of education of current and future displaced workers to improve economic competitiveness; this in spite of the recent rise in labor productivity that powered the markets during last half of 2009. Mercy Ms Cohen – is that populist rant?
.
RE: #15 Wretchard:
Maybe the Left will only ever have one enemy — the near enemy. That’s because it is the most internally oriented movement you can ever find. It’s purpose is power over people.
I think it was Pogo who said it, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
But I think you are correct, it’s the Left which exhibits it more…and probably because of the tsunami wave the Left has created. But “it” is in all of us!
What individuals are ready to do, what sits in us ready to burst out, goes far to explain why people do the monstrous things they do. They are set to do them. There is a “real presence” of evil scarcely beneath the surface of every human action and transaction. And yet, this still doesn’t go far enough. The magnitude of evil in human deeds is also the result of its corporate dimension (ie. we all participate in it together), and so it infects all of our institutions as well: family, education, journalism, entertainment, politics/government, etc, to where it becomes our “system.”
A person who earns half a million dollars per year is “more acceptable” to the colleagues if s/he uses some recreational drug, so s/he surrenders to this force. Another is able to get a part in the drama on Broadway by being appropriately “available” to the men or women who make the decisions. A building contractor can meet his budget by skimping on materials and bribing an “understanding” inspector. A professor is influenced in his grading by the need to have many students, or he manufactures data in order to get grants or recognition (just ask Mann at Penn State, or those at East Anglia). Or maybe it’s a young black man who slacks off and has others do his work for him, but gets a free ride because he runs the ball well. Later he receives a multimillion dollar contract in the NBA, NFL, or an Illinois state senate seat where he can continue to slack off and vote “present” rather than do the hard work….or hire numerous czars as president to do his work so he continue to golf and make TV appearances. Or how about that star athlete whose fame and fortune everyone wants a piece of, and so colleagues and press “wink” when they see him with numerous blondes on his arm, because his fame rubs off and makes all feel special!
These “structures” are not, strictly speaking, in any individual, but in the world where we live. And they depend for their existence and power upon the readiness that is in each of us individually. Structural evils are practices that, whether they are stated or not explicitly formulated, are accepted and enforced by others in the context of our actions. But none of these would continue to function if “goodness” was generally observed. Just imagine what the world would look like, for example, if lying did not exist. Imagine if individuals were incapable of telling a lie in word or behavior. Almost all evil deeds and intents are begun with the thought that they can be hidden by deceit. And when we realize that “success” with lying almost always depends upon collusion with others, we understand that if only a large part of the population were unswervingly truthful, lying would be forced out of life. Suddenly we can see how the kingdom of evil rests on lies, and why Satan is called the father of lies (John 8:44). BUT, the kingdom of evil is structurally weak, for all its fearsome appearance. Pull one string and the whole unravels (Witness Climategate and AGW).
Unfortunately individuals cannot be counted on to do what is right. Hence they are easily moved in the wrong direction, and these movements amass and build throughout communities and nations. They are like a droplet of water, which has little structural strength. Yet, because of its malleable nature, a droplet of water responds to every other quivering droplet around it, and all droplets then begin to move in cooperation and sympathy with each other. Enough droplets create a wave, a wave that can be so large as to crush an entire nation…world.
Isaiah had that insight about the wicked resembling a tossing sea. The vast forces of humanity that make possible large-scale evil are generated as individuals pool their wickedness in joint action or inaction. The Left is doing this to a tee. The mystery of lawlessness is becoming clearer to those who do not submit to it. Alas, soon it is beyond control…even the Left’s control, as the destructive power of evil crushes us like a tsunami wave, and the destruction is left to run its course until it collapses back into fragmented individuals and communities.
It is this “sea of humanity” that makes straight the path for destruction. No longer heard is the lone voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Instead a different kind of Advent is on the horizon, one whose voice is corporate humanity… individual drops amassing in concert, parting the sea to make a way for it’s supposed Utopia. Alas, not utopia, but Armageddon.
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea…And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority….and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder.” Revelation 13
Brock @ 55: Recall that the bad mortgages written in 2002-2006 are on a five-year fuse, and only the first round of resets (’02 vintages in 2007) crashed the whole system.
That is true, but a lot of those later loans have already crashed, without resets. They were speculative or fraudulent, some huge number never made even their first payments, and the rest went under water last year even without any reset. In fact, hmm, I speculate here, but prices were still much lower in 2002, so I will bet you a nickel that there have been far more defaults in 2005 loans already, than 2002 loans.
“which implies a crash programme to reduce Western dependence on Arab oil. And such a programme would cost less in ten years than the current military adventures cost in a month.”
Anyone who believes that is incredibly ignorant of the technologies and the scales involved. Now of course it can be done by simply shutting down imports; but that will create a depression so great that it will make the 30′s look like a sunday school picnic.
For a clue as to how the biggest players see things taking shape, consider Exxon’s $41 Billion investment in XTO 2 days ago, a north american nat gas producer. And Warren Buffet is now putting most of his free capital into coal and coal related investments. Realistically, those are the only 2 bets that the US has left.
Many of you hereon greatly underestimate the valiant left. A vast lot of them are extremely dedicated and willing to die for their cause. Many likely will but unfortunately some of us will be forced to go along. The cause for which they are willing to give their liberal lives; Their insatiable need to be liked.
It seems as though the hyper inflated liberal ego dines dangerously upon itself….Like it or not.
We must not triumph as someone may not like us.
“The core reason for Pakistan’s imperviousness is its scant faith in the Obama troop surge’
I do not blame them.
With respect to drones, if I were a CIA drone driver I would seriously consider a career flipping burgers and avoid the future FBI investigation concerning the exact nature of my hate crime.
We would do well to listen to our enemies. They telegraph their intentions daily.
The Jihadis are fighting against the slow boil degradation of their culture and religion which emanates from the secular West. Their Caliphate is intended to be a fortress that stands against a godless (“for there is no God but Allah”) west; A place of rest where the forces of Dar al-Islam can marshal their strength to continue their long war for domination of all the people of the world. Their vision is just as all-encompassing and global as is the greater vision of the Transnational Socialists.
The tranzi Left, having transcended national borders, could care less about a couple western cities being nuked although they are not yet powerful enough to openly care less. They know/believe that a [fixed] Fortress Islam would be in actuality a Muslim Maginot line that will be eventually outflanked via modern technologies of propaganda and war. They are looking at the long [Gramscian] game where God is to be completely expunged from western societies whereupon they will have sufficient -which is to say complete- state power and time-space to concentrate their full collective’s efforts upon those in the east who still dare bitterly cling to their religion and their guns. That opposing the jihadis serves as a wedge and a distraction for the near enemy is just frosting on the collectivist cake. In the mean time they hinder, harass, and demoralize the clingers of the west and preserve those of the far enemy who they believe they will defeat in the end.
Their synergy of ends stems from the left’s belief that they need primarily to crush the near enemy (Christ) before they can concentrate on ‘normalizing’ the far enemy out of existence. Until the near enemy is defeated they will tolerate any non-existential number of eggs being broken on the way to constructing their latest version of a world-sized omelet.
The enemy of the socialist left’s enemy is essentially their friend…For the time being.
We fight for our survival with one arm and one leg bound tight.
Today, in the US, the *best* possible case is that a Nuke plant takes 15 years from the beginning of construction till power is actually generated, and it can take 20. That includes permitting and the host of regulatory roadblocks. As JMH pointed out, unless you are in favor of abolishing the EPA and the associated regulatory structures, this cannot change. Even if there is a political backlash, the EPA is not about to be abolished.
What this means in practical terms: Nuclear Energy is already out of the picture as a means to fix our problem, since we’ve already waited too long. Even if we started a wave of construction *today*, there would be no resultant energy produced before 2025. And our crisis hits *FAR* sooner than that.
Btw, have the “green energy” proponents noticed the humiliating collapse of the much vaunted geothermal project in California? Site suddenly abandoned, all federal money pumped into it lost forever. Not clear yet whether the proposed Oregon test project will suffer the same fate, but it’s the same company and it seems a likely outcome. Seems they actually *didn’t* do the science before they started spending the money. (Question: Did they really believe Al Gore when he said the center of the Earth was “millions of degrees”?)
Another factoid that the the green energy proponents gloss over – the large wind farms built in Texas over the last 6 years only have enough wind to provide power 30% of the time, below projections. The rest of the time their contribution to the grid comes from natural gas backup generators.
So, in real life terms, wind power = 30% wind, 70% nat gas. Heck of a a deal!
No other technology is even close to being able to generate power on the scale that is required. We are out of options.
There is always the oil we have in the US that WOULD NOT take 10 years to get as is often misrepresented by the media. It would not be instantaneous but will NEVER happen until we begin. China would love to buy our oil which would reduce our debt directly.
I am convinced the only way to pull the power back from DC to the people is for states to secede and be self-reliant. Which ones can do that would be eye-opening to say the least. A realignment of the republic is in order. Congressmen should only meet, and be paid, for 3 months to settle legislation. They should not be paid full time- nor get lifetime pensions, for part-time work. That should take the appeal out of the job for the corruptocrats. End the perks- we gained independence to rid ourselves of monarchs. etc.
Don’t want to go full-rant mode here.
Using the pebble bed reactor design we could have a demonstration “nuclear gasoline” plant in operation by 2020. It would need a bit more development of the pebble bed reactor to increase outlet temperature and the chemical cycle using sulfuric acid to convert water into hydrogen and then react the hydrogen with coal to make hydrocarbons.
We have 155 oil refineries in operation today. 200 nuclear gasoline plants could meet our needs for liquid transport fuels and be carbon-neutral compared to day AND produce oxygen as a by-product.
BTW, I’m a nuclear engineer and have done some work on the pebble bed. But the government blocks it at every turn and nothing gets done in the nuclear field without the support of the government.
Hamas is socialist to the core – although few think of them this way except the actual Socialists who love them.
News item buzzed by today which is significant. Hamas has banned smoking in all public places.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/16/content_12658215.htm
Pretty much near all adult males in Gaza smoke. As one can imagine in a place with high unemployment, heat, and crowding, lots of men are hanging out outdoors and in cafes and smoking is a big part of the culture of that. The effect and purpose of this ban is to get people off the streets and keep them from gathering in groups.
So we have a culture with already few pleasures and enormous frustration. The authorities see these groups of guys hanging out sipping tea, smoking and talking together. This makes them nervous.
Individual pleasures anyway make them nervous because it takes from their power. They have taken everything else from them and consigned them to perpetual war and dependance on the state. Now another humiliation designed to crack the will of those who defiantly sit for hours at the sidewalk table in that wordless conversation of men who have long suffered under the same whip.
Since we are in Orwell mode, from 1984:
“There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Spindok
E Nigma
You wrote:
Josh
You seem like a good fellow and intelligent to boot. But you cannot believe in the “good intentions” of the people on the Left…
For a wonderful illustration of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, take a look at this piece on my city, San Francico, The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ye4ch2w
You know, I don’t think it really matters what these folks’ intentions are. The was (is) some wisdom in the “road to hell” cliché.
Jamie Irons
Whitehall, I agree with you that the pebble bed concept is probably the most promising technology I have heard of that has yet been proposed. It has the potential to do everything you say it can do.
And yet, as you say, the US govenment has done everything it can possibly do to ban any development of this technology. And it’s not “big oil” blocking this; rather, ask Harry Reid why he has done everything he could possibly do to destroy the Yucca Mountain repository. He knows, as does anyone else paying attention, that destroying Yucca Mtn was a proxy for permanently destroying the nuclear industry in the US.
When Yucca Mountain is funded and open, then I’ll believe the US is serious about restarting nuclear projects. Till then, it’s all just a pipe dream.
…my city, San Francisco…
;-(
Jamie Irons
The United States could have 250 nuclear power plants up and running within ten years if the federal government runs the program. However, if the United States goes for the nuclear option, I don’t see any (politically) realistic alternative to government ownership.
If the Tennessee Valley Authority and the US Army Corps of Engineers aren’t socialist, then this option wouldn’t be socialist either.
#67 Whitehall—
Energy, from whatever form, is that which allows us to have a modern society. Manufacturing, agriculture, your lifestyle, it all depends upon energy. If you can control the energy–ration it–you control society. That’s what the little goblins behind the curtain are trying to bring about. They promote policies that don’t allow us to use the resources that are available to us and promote idiotic “alternative” energy sources that are purely unworkable fantasies.
The goal? Produce a society that has insufficient energy to keep the society running. At which point the Wise will step in who will decide how to ration the use of energy, which will be done by political rather than practical considerations.
Examples?
How dare those people run off to the suburbs to escape the rule of their betters? Make them pay the price. If there is an overload on the grid cut their electricity first. If there is a shortage of gasoline cut it off from the commuters to the suburbs so that the people in the big cities won’t be inconvenienced.
Nasty little Neanderthal people in flyover country? We’ll make you suffer. If you piss your betters off its you who will be freezing in the dark, even if you are producing the energy. The power may be generated where you are but the need for it is so much greater in the blue states. All your energy are belong to us.
That, I am convinced, is what its really all about.
wws@65: No other technology is even close to being able to generate power on the scale that is required. We are out of options.
No we’re not. Coal. It’s plentiful. It’s cheap. It’s efficient. And it can be “Clean” – and still cost-effective!! – if you’re a True Believer. It has the potential to bridge the energy transition gap.
Liquid fuel of course is a separate and different issue.
But energy for electric – we have several good options.
Nasty little Neanderthal people in flyover country? We’ll make you suffer. If you piss your betters off its you who will be freezing in the dark, even if you are producing the energy. The power may be generated where you are but the need for it is so much greater in the blue states. All your energy are belong to us.
That already happens on Missouri River water issues to upriver states. It’s nothing new.
re: geeze louise – I agree! see my post #61 in this thread, where I noted that Warren Buffet over the last year has been putting large amounts of capital into coal and coal related industries – especially Burlington Northern Railroad, which gets 25% of its total revenue from coal shipments.
yet another industry the “greens” hate… but I don’t think they can stop it.
and re #72 alexis – if the Federal Government runs the program, we’ll still be arguing about permitting and union work rules 10 years from now, ground won’t even be broken.
#75 Alexis:
That already happens on Missouri River water issues to upriver states. It’s nothing new.
True, but I think its a matter of scale. Having the law set where children are allowed to steal the fruit off the trees in your yard is annoying, but having the law where “children” are allowed to break into your house and steal everything you have, and the right to sue you if you try to stop them, is qualitatively different.
Similar past experiences also account for why Texas doesn’t want to be part of a national electric grid. We’ve been screwed before along the lines of “Animal Farm,” in that citizens of more politically connected states are “more equal” than others.
But as I say, if the “Progressives” get what they want the injustices of the past will pale in comparison.
The trouble with left oriented (democrats) many I call friends, is that although many are smart and focused,all they perceive/hear in the neo-comms message (which is cloaked in ambiguity and generality)is what works for them either morally, or financially.
They never drill down to the policy detail, and question the multiple outcomes possible (mostly negative). Arguing is futile because without exception, denial in the form “I don’t know that” will follow.
I have been away from this blog too long. I’ve been saying since 2003 (to anyone that would listen), that 2011 will be the year of a reckoning.
Nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, et al. None of these technologies are out of reach if this country had a coherent energy policy with reductions and possible elimination of foreign sources of energy. We have a nationwide highway network put together because the government was willing to do what was necessary to make it happen. A strong national energy policy would prioritize energy to de-conflict agencies and NGO’s from the EPA to Greenpeace. A concerted effort could reduce dependency, reduce cost while producing overall less emissions in the process. It would add to the health and prosperity of the USA immeasurably while taking Middle Eastern oil out of our critical path and subsequently get us out of being beggars at the negotiation table. I think that it take pressures off all around except for the energy producers like Russia, Iran, and the Gulf states, and some of them simply have it coming. China would probably be pleased to at least see the threat to their prosperity and growth diminished.
Great comments on nuclear above; love to see the enthusiasm in that discussion. And it is about transportation fuels; we generally have fuel for electrical generation covered here in the US. Not so for Europe and China on either count, although China is in pretty decent shape on electric gen fuel.
Whitehall, you don’t even need to do as much as you propose. Since the US doesn’t really import much crude ex Canada, we could size the production to our current level of imports from non-Canadian sources. Combine that with higher efficiency autos (turbo-charged hydrids), at some point we could tell the Euros and China that the Persian Gulf is now their problem.
As much as I hate to say it ~ I sometimes think only WHISKEY sees the solution, wait for them to strike first, them blow them off the map.
Norm @ 50:
Norm, that is what the Leftists/Statists/Commies counted on. We tried one thing, ONE, and give up? Exactly as they imagined. Kind of remind you of someone else? OBL said that the US/The West did not have the stamina for the long fight. That we were the weaker horse. What we have to learn is that we stand and yell at the top of our lungs and KEEP YELLING! The Leftists will say that we are divisive, blah, blah… , yak, yak, yak and in this case they will be correct. What the he!! do you think they have done for the last 50 years or more? So, we have to get out the hammer and keep hammering at all of the issues.
Fer instance…. are you active with your local political party of choice? Walking the streets, getting the messages out? If not, then go sit back down and be quiet.
Alexis @ 77:
Can I have some of what you been smoking? That is plain laughable, Alexis. Never in a million years could the US Gov’t do anything on time and under budget. Never. Those days are dead and gone.
Whitehall, slightly OT, but, I have two questions.
1. I have heard that used fuel pellets are only about 5% depleted, yet we do not reprocess. Is this correct? If so, doesn’t reprocessing minimize waste and lower cost?
2. I understand that it takes tons and tons and tons of ore in order to obtain a few pounds of useful material. If the material is merely concentrated natural matter, wouldn’t in make sense to use as much of the fuel as possible (see 1 above) then simply dilute the material back into the same earth from which it came. It seems that the now partly used material spread back into nature would actually reduce native radiation. Or, as I learned building fossil plants, the solution to polution is dilution.
thnx
You are correct that most of the fissile energy remains in the “spent fuel.” Reprocessing and re-use of the spent fuel from today’s reactors could produce $1 TRILLION of electricity at wholesale.
We have two reasons why we don’t reprocess. 1st is yellowcake is cheap and plentiful. Second, the cost of disposal is passed on directly to the customer as a “fee.” So the least cost fuel cycle for a utility now is once-through. Of course, Jimmy Carter banned reprocessing but that’s not a reason.
Not everyone is happy with Yucca Mountain. Here’s an alternate plan with cost savings.
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1108
(49) RagnarD asks,concerning my earlier comment, a very good question:
(me) You have not rallied the nation Mr. President. That is the one thing I thought you would be good at.
Spindok
Duh’Oh! WHY? Why did you think something like that? This creature of no thing has never done a damn thing to call his own. Nothing. I can hardly stifle my gob-smacked laughter!
To which I reply:
Precisely because of that.
Either he has preconcieved ideals or does not. That really doesnt matter. He seems an opportunist with considerable skill. He is elected president after all. He may have communicated vapid platitude but did so with exceptional ability and the proof is in the pudding.
Perhaps he cannot rally the nation to war because he is less shallow than I thought. Maybe he cannot rally the nation because he tastes the bile as he says it. That tells me he believes in something, however wrong it may be. Yet I always thought he believed in only himself.
Too bad. The president knows he must advocate something he hates and thought would not be needed. Like I had to clean up after the dog last week when I swore to my wife that the leftover chili was perfectly safe and in keeping with normal dog diet.
So, because he had nothing and got elected anyway he must be a good communicator. Once accepting the message, as he has now concerning the Afghanistan war, he would go out and make those nice phrases and soulful eyes and get the rest on board. That is his job. But he has not and it is obvious to the US Marine as it is to the Taliban in his sights. This does not bode well.
Spindok
Suppose the worst-case scenario occurs, and parties unknown detonate a small atomic bomb in NY harbor. In that event I don’t believe we’d need to nuke more than one Islamic capital to convince Muslims to rein in their own fanatics.
Reason is that the only bomb Islamic terrorists are likely to be able to obtain is an *atomic* bomb–yield in the low tens of kilotons. Lethal radius a couple of miles, tops. By contrast, we’d be replying with a *thermonuclear* device–say, 300 kilotons, or roughly ten times more powerful.
Admittedly the lethal radius isn’t directly proportional to size, but still–big chunk of green glass.
I realize nuking, say, Teheran would kill *lots* of innocent people. And I would feel *really* bad for those innocents. (Remember this is all a hypothetical planning exercise.) But at some point American liberals and Democrats have to answer the question: If we keep absorbing hits with no retaliation, what incentive to Islamic fundamentalists have to *stop* setting off big bombs in our harbors?
Again, big hypothetical. Not intended seriously.
Replies to various people:
I believe that Mr. Lovelock is in favour of dismantling the entire regulatory structure that has grown around nuclear power. And so am I – with the proviso that the plants ought to built to an intrinsically safe design.
Other alternative sources – Wind and ground solar will never work and everyone knows it although some won’t admit it. As for the rest; I watched a wave power pilot plant running on TV last night, and that was just one of two proven designs – all that is needed now is money to build the things. Which might now be difficult to get, for a project with slightly more financial risk than average – and that is yet another charge to lay against the Wunch. OTEC pilot plants were built in 1930, believe it or not. And SPS? Well, the primary necessity to get that running is to disband NASA and use its budget partly for the science projects (planetary probes) that it currently runs, and partly for a series of large prizes for agreed goals – and then let private industry go at it. After all, if the Japanese believe something will work they are generally right – and they are putting serious money into SPS. Large-scale development of this particular concept, however, has other benefits that will be literally astronomical. As for fusion – well, preliminary results in both Polywell and focus fusion research are very encouraging indeed.
Busainess as usual is not going to work.
RagnarD:
General Groves built the Pentagon ahead of schedule and under budget. That’s why his next assignment was the Manhattan Project.
If a man with the energy and competence of General Groves (or John Wesley Powell or Gifford Pinchot…) were running a federal nuclear power agency, chances are that my estimation of 250 nuclear power plants in 10 years would be an underestimate. Leadership does make a difference.
Alexis,
I wish I could paste images into the comments. One can tell a lot from reading a face.
Compare a portrait of General Groves
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Leslie_Groves.jpg
with our current Secretary of Energy:
http://www.lanl.gov/news/albums/people/SecretaryChu.jpg
Which personality would you hire to solve our energy problems and which would dilly dally?
BC Team. I build power plants. Or more correctly, used to build power plants. After permiting (and that is a big After) a plant can be on line in 5 to 6 years. The limiting factors are three, $$, Skilled engineering and construction personnel (you do not do this with house builder plumbing contractors and immigrant drywall hangers) and industrial capacity for long lead items, particularly the reactor vessel. We have allowed the second two items to lanquish. Steam turbine, generator and switch yard manufacturing capacity could handle 200 or so units (most plants would have two or three units) in the 5 year time span.
Until killed politically, Westinghouse/ Tenneco (the then owner of the shipbuilder in Newport New, VA) had a single repeatable design planned to be built on barges and floated to coastal sites. The production facility was built in Jacksonville FL and is now a ship repair yard (Blount Island). It was able to produce three to six barge plants a year. Beautiful. Still a good idea.
Drill
Refine
Mine
Liquify
Fission
In that order.
Alexis @ 88 said:
Precisely my point. That was almost 70 years ago. Two generations. We have bred the leadership out of the military by choice. Stupidly, but we have. We do not have them kinds anymore in place. For proof – see the reaction to Ft. Hood.
So, your point was? I think you have proved mine for me.
michaelhoskins @ 90:
Precisely. Because of the tree huggers we have allowed our industrial capacity to die. Not slow down, not decay, DIE! We cannot make steel effectively. We have let the skills of building big sh-t go away or offshore. Here is the thing, should we find ourselves facing a determined foreign set of enemies who want us defeated, conquered and occupied, what could we do with our access to good steel, aluminum and other things cut off? And can you see the gathering storm clouds yet? Hmm?
The current crop of wimps in the WH would fold like a sorority house during a pant raid. We are in deep sh-t and most ignore it.
spindok:
Much too complex. Apply Occam’s Famous Razor. “…he believed in only himself.” Pathological narcissist who is played by the PLAYAH’s. HE thinks he shall be king of the world. They only want Freedom to die and they will be the Tyrants, not HRH BH0bama. That he would be vaporized in the flash of the nuke that takes out DC gives them their martyr to parade to the world.
0bama is only the precursor, the 1st wave, of what is to come.
I’ve commented a lot on this thread, and the subject seems to have wandered – although Western energy independence and the fight against jihad are interlinked.
I’ll put forward a fantasy scenario, but one that is actually possible. Possible, as in we don’t know whether it’s feasible yet. The reason is that we don’t know whether focus fusion and/or Polywell will work and we don’t know how small an example of either can be made.
Anyway, consider this. It’s 2018 or so, and DoD funding (because they wanted small, cheap, safe power sources for Navy vessels) has led to the development of a radiation-free (possible – proton/B11) fusion plant that will serve the needs of a large vehicle or medium-sized house – and do it in a turnkey unit that costs about $10,000 to build and fits into the space of a refrigerator.
Some visionary president over-rides the usual security obsession of the military, and orders that these units will be made available to anyone, anywhere, who wants one – and for cost price.
What happens? Russia’s stranglehold on the EU evaporates. The economies of all the oil nations collapse and stay collapsed. And that’s just for a start. It’s one conceivable way of cutting off the Dar-al-Islam and various energy dictatorships at the knees.
Of course, the oil industry wouldn’t like it. Neither would the coal and gas industries. F*** them.