Situational Ethics
What’s changed since the bad old days of George W. Bush? Michael Hayden, Bush’s former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency summed up the differences between President Obama and George W. Bush’s tactics in fighting terrorism. President Obama kills more people.
“And so, we’ve seen all of these continuities between two very different human beings, President Bush and President Obama. We are at war, targeted killings have continued, in fact, if you look at the statistics, targeted killings have increased under Obama.”He said that was the case because, in one differing path between the two presidents, Obama in 2009 closed CIA “black sites” and ratcheted down on torturing detainees. But instead of capturing so-called “enemy combatants,” President Obama kills them instead, Hayden said.
“We have made it so politically dangerous and so legally difficult that we don’t capture anyone anymore,” Hayden said. “We take another option, we kill them. Now. I don’t morally oppose that.”
Obama’s kill list has even included American citizens.
The major difference which Hayden fails to note is that the press doesn’t talk about these things any more. There are no more “milestones” observed in Afghanistan. No more specials depicting the sad plight of innocent Jihadis. There are no more antiwar marches. No more protests. It’s just kill them, including American citizens, until they’re dead. The moral upliftment that President Obama has brought to what was formerly called the “War on Terror” consists in exactly this: you don’t read about it in the papers any more.
Then ...
Now
Optics matter. And to people who know only optics, they are all that matter. And by the way … its Romney’s fault.
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I don’t morally oppose it, either.
I just wish they would use MUCH larger warheads.
For moral, ethical, tactical, strategic, and financial reasons.
It’s sad that we have not adjudicated all the cases at Gitmo, which should have included execution of most of them, the remains wrapped in bacon and dropped back on their home villages.
For moral, ethical, etc reasons.
Daresay if we were doing that, there’d be a lot less hubbub about some stupid youtube video.
If we were not willing to do that, then kudos to Mr. Obambus, I guess he really does know his Pokiston.
Maybe General Atomic (builder of Predator aircraft) have earned a Nobel Peace Prize.
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Y’know, that all sounds bad, but here’s the thing, even while we do whatever with the drone strikes, we put men on the ground with these stupid ROE that make the men ineffective and get them killed. Not to mention these filthy “green on blue” incidents. We have not entirely faced up to the nature of the battle, nor deployed weapons nearly as effectively as we could. And the discussion is important, as there is almost certain to be a next time. Arguably we are killing more of the enemy than necessary BECAUSE we do not face up to it and fight more effectively.
If you’ll forgive the analogy, drone kills are like abortion. The pain and unpleasantness are momentary. Far better than be saddled with lives that will be terrible nuisances to ours for years. And the more often you do it, the more numb you are to any moral misgivings.
OT. I’m asking one of you financial gurus, is the Obama administration preparing a poison pill? Manipulating OIL prices and printing money hand over fist will pretty much destroy what is left of America. Maybe he thinks if he screws up the economy enough, he can run again in 2016? Hitler ordered a scorched earth policy in April of ’45. The Germans just ignored him. If Romney was doing this as a hostile takeover, one would expect a poison pill from an embittered loser.
Bush was bad but he didn’t intentionally pee in the punch bowl.
I cannot understand the moral issues. Enemies are for killing. Period. Killing them from a distance where they cannot harm you is just a smart way to kill them. To me immoral is letting your enemy kill you.
As a military chaplain I knew used to say “F–k ‘em all, F–k ‘em all, the long and the short and the tall …”
But … hypocrisy and double-dealing lies at the heart of everything Obama does … He must be defeated before he can corrupt the entire U.S. government.
Obama is just a visible symptom of the pathology of the Progressive movement. He isnt corrupting the USA, the government is already corrupted; Obama is their best chance to remake the Government in their image, and they are going to make the most of him while hes still in office. He’s their best tool in a generation, and they wont get another opportunity like him again soon. The best part of his administration is the Progressives that hes installed along the way, and those people wont be easy to remove, even if Romney stays 8 years. The Government is corrupted and only a total crash of the system is going to undo what has been done.
Folks, go see the Romney video that Mother Jones released. Very interesting indeed, and it actually reassured me about some things I’d been worried about re Romney.
He’s talking to top donors, and he tells them quite a bit about his foreign policy views (including what he would do about the middle east), his economic concerns, his strategy for the campaign, and his feeling about America.
I thought it was excellent. You can see it on http://www.CSPAN.org . I think, if people are actually curious enough to Watch it, they might be surprised at how reasonable he is. (People who aren’t political junkies or hard Leftists, that is.) You know, no horns and tail! Also, the rich people at the fund-raiser (not nearly so rich as the Dims’ donors in Silicon Valley) sound like a bunch of thoughtful, worried people with a payroll to meet and kids to watch out for. No horns and tails on them, either.
The Obama response in all areas can be summarized in one word: EXPEDIENCY.
noun, a regard for what is politic or advantageous rather than for what is right or just; a sense of self-interest.
The regime will take whatever actions necessary to resolve the issue Right Now! and ignore the long term consequences. They will placate the mob and bask in the adulation of the shallow mass media, and ignore the results of their previous words and actions.
By the preening bully boy standards of Chicago politics Bush deserves the abuse and contempt because he did not root out the treasonous infestation. Similarly McCain and Romney deserved to lose by the standards of the Left because they ran civil campaigns. Remember Obama is “The Won” and it does not matter if the election is won through fraud and theft. In fact winning dirty and getting away with it only proves to them how tough they are.
To root out the cancer does not require a violent revolution from the Right. It does require an overwhelming victory and an Executive and Legislature willing to really defund Leftist strongholds, like NGOs Unions and Academia, and terminate Leftists in government. It would mean using the powers that Congress has to restructure the Executive and Judiciary and fire federal Civil Servants and Judges. Obama has ruled unconstitutionally by Executive Order and without a budget. Romney, if he has a Congress to back him, can rule constitutionally and restore America. The supposed protections of the Civil Service laws for bureaucrats and lifetime appointments for Judges are a myth. The Second Judiciary Act fired federal Judges.
Stoicheon #3-
“I cannot understand the moral issues. Enemies are for killing. Period. Killing them from a distance where they cannot harm you is just a smart way to kill them.”
Ponder that while realizing that in his book Obama described the private sector as “the enemy”.
BFTP #8-
“It does require an overwhelming victory and an Executive and Legislature willing to really defund Leftist strongholds, like NGOs Unions and Academia, and terminate Leftists in government.”
This was Bush I’s greatest mistake. Worse by far than “read my lips”
Bush I had the moral imperative and history on his side as the wall came down. He could have defunded the entire left enterprise in academia in much the same fashion that Truman de-Nazified the academy, and he did not.
Like a lot (most?) Ivy leaguers and their ilk, Bush I had a loyalty to his academic clade that superseded his dedication to anything else. That the schools became infested with leftist TWANLOC is irrelevant. Musn’t take them out, it’s my alma mater! Much of the country-club republican squish can be attributed to this attitude – because if the school is no longer regarded as “great”, then neither will be the grads. And we musn’t lose the precious status. His eventual turning on the NRA is another indicator of this paradigm.
For America to survive, much of the left establishment must be completely defunded, forcing its individuals to seek whatever employment they can get in the private sector, without regard to what effect this will have on their income level. The left knows this, and it is why they fight so hard.
Could Romney do it? Too early to tell. Someone had better, and soon, or the real America will never come back.
3. stoicheion
A whole pharmacy of poison pills….
1. Printing Press Benny already launched the first step, 40B per month (and you can bet that is a low-ball estimate) of new money printing, no doubt to buy up the MSB and Tresuries that will go begging when Japan and China quit buying.
2. Obama has left the ME to go to hell, this boiled over a tab quicker than he expected but it will be THE problem for whoever gets sworn in next (hopefuly they actually have a Bible on hand for that!) the worse things get the more nervous oil futures get, prices can only rise.
3,. The Euro crisis, which has pretty well dropped off US radar due to the elections, is still going full-blast. Our banks (including the Fed) are deeply tied into that mess and we will go down with them.
4. The situation between China and Japan has been back-burnered for a while now, a crisis between two of our biggest trading partners and bond buyers (not to mention the second and third largest economies in the World). The Resident is no Teddy Roosevelt to step in and broker a deal; it is hard to bring people to the table when you are leading from behind!
5. Two Words; Fiscal Cliff
6. Faked data from the BLS is hiding an unemployment rate of 17%+ and a shrinking economy, this cannot continue much longer.
The list goes on but this is too depressing to ponder before I have finished my coffee…..
Unfortunately the muslim problem is culturally and theologically a systemic one. You can’t kill a rose bush by simply pruning the flowers. That is all Obama has done over the past 4 years. And unfortunately, if Americans believe that the muslims will simply see the errors of their ways, like the Germans and Japanese after WWII, and become productive members of western society then we are in the middle of a 1000 year cultural war.
Unfortunately, the Mustafa Kemal’s of the world have no say in the present muslim world fantasy view. With people like Obama/Chicago Democrats in charge in the US, I believe that they would have watched the Wall fall in 89′ and worked to ensure that the Stasi took over.
This is simply brilliant. The administration simply changed the war on terror to a series of postnatal abortions, performed with drone-delivered hellfire missiles. No muss, no fuss, nothing to see here, all simple, tidy and antiseptic because it’s half a world away. Why report abortions? They’re not news, they’re simply a boring matter-of-fact choice. “The moral upliftment that President Obama has brought to what was formerly called the “War on Terror” consists in exactly this: you don’t read about it in the papers any more.” Brilliant and exactly correct. I wish this was the headline of every blog and newspaper in the country.
Although I find the idea of another four years of Obama unpalatable to say the least, it may be for the best in the end. We’ve reached a tipping point – we will continue to snowball downhill towards massive system failure without drastic measures. While he might not be a bad guy, Romney is just not going to be able to pull us out of this tailspin. If he wins, we’ll just be delaying the inevitable.
Because let’s face it, if Team Romney can’t successfully counter a predictably hostile media – something EVERY conservative candidate in the US has had to deal with for what, the last 40 years? – why should I, or anyone else, believe he can successfully guide our nation through the burgeoning mine field of domestic and international crises we find ourselves in today?
As much as it pains me to say it, perhaps we just have to let it all crash. We Americans have been growing weaker and more divided as a society with each successive generation since the Boomers. Perhaps a major crisis or war, something that truly shakes up the status quo, is the only thing that will arrest our free fall into nihilism.
Note that the reason that the BUsh Admin did not try one Gitmo prisoner in a court of law was that the action was hotly opposed and interdicted by the Left. For them to say that proves that military trials won’t work shows that the Left are not serious people as well as being totally corrupt.
If it had been up to me, I would have expanded Gitmo and filled it up with ACLU and their pet judges.
But despite his campaign promises Obama does just the same thing. Still no courts, military or civil. And he stops adding to Gitmo simply by killing people.
And of course the real reason for this is it provides a way to deny the real problem even exists. We are not at war with Eastasia, and think they are fine, peaceful people. Those ships that were sunk on 7 Dec 1941 was an example of work related violence.
Well, with a new Admin, those drones will be useful for dealing with the ACLU and their pet judges.
Morality? To the Left there is only Power. It is self justifying and self rationalizing. For the Left, morality and shame are for fools and to be treated solely as a weakness to be exploited.
Penetta thru Japan under the bus yesterday (today here)… Ya know the Genie is out!
Who had a bad week? Funny how the Dems do not want to discuss Libya or the Arab Spring anymore. And they sure do not want to discuss the war on terror any more either.
With the announcement that we are ‘suspending’ patrols with Afghans troops, we are announcing that the war is over, Afghanistan is lost. Obama has succeeded in turning Afghanistan into another Vietnam.
I wish he had just pulled out all of our troops immediately upon taking office. According to http://icasualties.org/ we have lost about 1,466 KIA in Afghanistan in the 3.5 years since Obama became C-in-C, compared to about 655 in the seven years under Bush.
And now this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/18/afghan-attacks-isaf-ends-joint-operations Afghanistan exit strategy in doubt as Isaf command bans joint operations
Warnings about breakdown of trust as mentoring of Afghan allies suspended following latest deaths in ‘green-on-blue’ attack.
My liberal friends actually argue that waterboarding is much worse than Predator-Hellfire attacks. That’s more than situational ethics, that’s willful blindness, that’s hysterical delusion, that’s evil.
There are several different defined ways of killing. These drone attacks raise the level to murder, it seems to me.
A moral threshold has been crossed in this war. Just like the one we crossed with Roe v Wade.
“Ghost inventories haunt China’s steel sector.
Lenders find steel pledged as collateral missing from warehouses.”
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/china/ghost-inventories-haunt-chinas-steel-sector-20120918
The Chinese bubble is about to pop. There is a huge overhang of unsold real estate and the developers are defaulting in record numbers. The “Ghost Cities” are a trillion dollar hole in the ground.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19049254
http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/bizarre-chinas-eerie-ghost-cities-arise/
When the bubbles pop the Chinese will most likely liquidate the only real assets they possess – U.S. Treasury securities. They will be sold at a huge discount as the only way to raise enough cash in the short term to “fix” the problem. Look for yields on new issues of treasury notes to exceed 5%.
The weighted average maturity of the Treasury portfolio has declined precipitously in the last few years:
http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Chart-of-the-Day-Lengthening-the-Average-Maturity-of-Outstanding-Treasury-Securities-.aspx
Those additional trillions of debt will cause our debt servicing to skyrocket. I’m guessing hundreds of million dollars a year.
Think we got troubles now? You ain’t seen nuthin yet.
why do people pretend all of this debt is going to be enduring, is going to be paid back? it will be as much a burden for the young people tomorrow, as the versailles agreement is a burden to germans today.
19. Tony
“Obama has succeeded in turning Afghanistan into another Vietnam. I wish he had just pulled out all of our troops immediately upon taking office.”
When Obama announced a withdrawal date, Romney’s response was (as IIRC) this was no way to win a war and we should’ve pulled out the very next day.
The more I see, the more I like Romney. Business experience, financial savvy, the wisdom to pick Ryan, and strong on national security, energy independence, Israel and secure borders.
Drone strikes will eliminate the target and those around him. Some of those around the target are guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This does bother me.
Another thing that bothers me is the fear of capturing and holding enemy combatants greatly reduces intelligence gathering capabilities. How can we know what is going on in the enemy camp if we cannot question some enemies?
The political calculus wins out. If there is a Republican president, then the Democrats, advocacy groups, Academia, Hollywood and eventually the courts will defend the enemy. During the Bush presidency the courts demanded the release of some Gitmo prisoners. Many of those released went on to kill again.
#3 stoicheion
Romney has promised to replace The Bernanke if he is elected. Bernanke is going to double, triple down pushing that rope as hard as he can; doing anything so that he is not the one to get the blame for a century of ill-conceived policy. A lot of the old economic models are proving themselves failed. Obama and the whole Progessive movement simply cannot believe it; they are unable to change their programming. Just my opinion but I think the excrement has already hit the blades. The clean-up will be dirty and take a long time but if the people can rid themselves of the delusions that Progressives have planted over the last century (and we boot that Jackass out in November) I see no reason why we cannot dig our way out of the mess.
beverly – “go see the Romney video that Mother Jones released. ”
Kinda funny that you’d have to go to Mother Jones to get the scoop about Romney isn’t it? My contempt for the MSM just grows. I can’t watch Fox either, they give more time to David Axlerod, DWS than any other and that puke Bob Beckel. Blech!
rd @ 7 – The Obama response in all areas can be summarized in one word: EXPEDIENCY.
Add to that, his response is overshadowed by the personal arrogance inherent to Marxism – “I have all the answers to the troubles of mankind right here in my head. I can make all scarce resources freely available so that there will be no unfulfilled need.”
24. Black Bart;
When this continent was first settled there was nothing here but a few stoneage savages. America was built from the ground up by Americans. We can do it again.
After a stumble and fall, you pick yourself up and keep going. It won’t be easy but it is far from impossible.
As far as intelligence gathering, WE know who the enemy is. Killing them just requires target data. Intelligence is only required for police operations. For military operations you just need location. Other data is nice to have but not needed. Patton said something like that to a new G-2. The G-2 was worried about the German forces. Patton told him that numbers were only good for after action reports and doing a body count to see if any got away. I don’t remember his exact words and the term “body count hadn’t been coined yet. The idea is valid though.
In the military arts, aggressiveness always pays off.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
s @ 3: Manipulating OIL prices and printing money hand over fist will pretty much destroy what is left of America.
On the oil prices, Obambus is just green and confused. He’s dogmatically committed to raising energy prices to the moon so that green sources make sense. OTOH, as soon as gasoline prices spike a few pennies he drops his panties and taps the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But that doesn’t matter, in the end fracking wins and oil prices will be lower in the next twenty years than in the past twenty years. Obambus and his green wienies can maybe slow it down by a year or two, that’s it.
On the printing money, afaik the regime’s Treasury Department only *borrows* money, which is bad enough, and only the semi-independent Fed *prints* money. I don’t think Obambus his own self knows the difference or cares. I guess I don’t know the details, either. I would think that Treasury *could* print money on their own, and I’m gonna guess that the Fed uses that Treasury power to do what they do. But the point of this is, it’s not really regime policy to print money, as far as I can tell. Frankly, I don’t think Obambus wants to print it or borrow it, he wants to get it from YOU! Actually, that’s quite conservative, isn’t it?
@E2 14 I feel like we are witnessing the death of a system – loosely the regulated capitalism that has dominated the developed world from the mid 20th – with say Sweden on the left and the US on the right. The trick seems to me to be getting the balance between private and public sectors right for the particular culture. We learned that making the public sector 100% led to collapse, but it seemed possible to favor a larger welfare state if you valued security like the Scandinavians and a smaller public sector if you favored the creation of a highly productive private sector. But we grew our public sector in uncontrolled ways that were too expensive – health care costs double what it should in the US as any travel agent out the US knows because they have to charge double for insurance to travel to the US – and as we know Congress and Wall St corruptly got together and destroyed much of our wealth. What we have is unsustainable and neither the politicians nor the electorate seem ready to face that, Ryan might be able to face it as President and Romney has the business and financial skills to recognize the problem but even if they win the country isn’t ready to give them a mandate to fix it. So I agree E2 – more collapse is needed to really finish off the delusional and reactionary progressives. OTOH I don’t think the country is about to trust Obama with a Democratic congress again. If the Republican’s win the Senate and Obama is reelected then i think the electorate will have decided to hamstring government because it doesn’t like either side. That will certainly dig the hole deeper.
I was specious when I heard about the “Tape” of Romney, than I really knew it had to be a cut and splice montage when I heard where it came from, but now I gotta laugh, thinking people are thinking it matters now who published it or that it is spliced together the damage is done, I don’t think it’s really that much damage but it did what it was intended to do and the MSM ran with it to get as much mileage out of it for 0bama as they could! It’s different people now than when Dan Rather over played his hand and there are a Whole Lot More of them getting the “redistributed” moola… I do want to go off topic (not that I’ve done that before here) It dawned on me today as I sat under the tree outside my office eating my Chic-fil-A lunch that I haven’t seen or heard one Rapter (F22) flying in or out of the base for nearly 2 months, no F16 or 15 ether, this than leads to the revelation that very few Heavey Lift planes ether, Why I haven’t noticed this before now is disturbing.
LG @ 29: I feel like we are witnessing the death of a system – loosely the regulated capitalism that has dominated the developed world from the mid 20th.
This may well be the case, as I rant here all too often.
The problem being we are so rich, we don’t know what to do with it. We have all the food, iPhones, and houses we need, but no way to employ people and give them the money to buy them. The physical goods just appear as if by magic, capital having soundly defeated labor – at least domestic labor. That is, technology – automation – has defeated labor.
But then, how *do* we run the post-economic world?
There are no more “milestones” observed in Afghanistan.
Please, wretchard. The term is “grim milestone”.
Josh, “The problem being we are so rich, we don’t know what to do with it. We have all the food, iPhones, and houses we need, but no way to employ people and give them the money to buy them. The physical goods just appear as if by magic, capital having soundly defeated labor – at least domestic labor. That is, technology – automation – has defeated labor.”
I would have to strongly disagree.
Over the past twenty years or more, starting at least with Bush I, the government has been allowed to intrude and so over regulate every facet of the economy, particularly the basic necessities, – housing, energy, food, transportation, insurance, and health care, that the cost of living for the average family has skyrocketed to the point where the Middle class lifestyle is out of reach. Yes we are rich in gadgets like an Iphone, but poor in the basic necessities.
Young people just graduating from college has little hope for the future. Life has become too damn expensive.
This just didn’t happen for no reason. It happened because of government intrusion pushed by the Left. We now belong to the government, all right – as serfs.
31. Josh
“The problem being we are so rich, we don’t know what to do with it.”
Once upon a time America could truly say that. Now, how much of the “riches” have actually been paid for and who do they really belong to? The debtor or the creditor? The same applies to those hocked to the eyeballs Europeans.
As George Jonas says (his order of quotes reversed) ” …If you borrow money, spend it and can’t pay it back when it’s due, you had better be able to print some. ….But wait a minute. Printing money devalues the currency. Ah, you don’t understand the essence of the welfare state, son. Being paid in worthless currency is the creditor’s problem. The debtor’s problem is default.”
It’s just situational ethics applied to honouring one’s debt. If you are the debtor you devalue your currency in order to avoid default and to screw the naive creditors who trustingly thought you were good for it. It’s the situational ethics of doing the “wiley coyote” manoeuvre, AKA temporary survival.
If you are the creditor you get steaming mad and start yelling “unethical” if the guy you lent your cash to welshes on the debt. Of course if the creditor gets aggressive then the debtor will paint him as Simon Legree, or simply change the rules if you are a creditor of Chrysler. In this situation the ethics narrative from the debtor will be the innocent lamb who is being led to the slaughter.
This isn’t the post economic world – I think it’s the economics of debtors versus creditors world.
FWIW:
Obama’s Foreign Policy Approval Rating Drops After Mideast Turmoil
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-s-foreign-policy-approval-rating-drops-after-mideast-turmoil
Everyone worries about the debt, and rightfully so. But The die is cast. The debt is there and getting bigger every hour. Since currency was first invented, the only way to repay excessive debt is through inflation. Debt of this size can not be paid back in today’s dollars. If the inevitable inflation is slow and incremental in an economy growing in absolute terms, it can be relatively painless. If, however, inflation becomes cataclysmic and sudden in a stagnant economy, we will be like Zimbabwe and post-WWI Germany, the perfect soil for tyranny to thrive. This is what Obama and the left are aiming for. Romney has the best credentials to guide the government through this crisis. I do not have much hope of Romney leading the way in cutting government back, for example by eliminating one or more federal government agencies or allowing the states to confront problems on a local basis. He will, however, handle the world-wide islamic insanity much more effectively and without apology.
“But then, how *do* we run the post-economic world?”
Elementary, my dear Watson. It will be fueled by suffering. No telling how far we can go once we get out of the ditch of comfort and the terrible self-complacency it has produced.
ss @ 34: who do they really belong to?
Possession being 9/10s of the law.
Some European bank has a fifth derivative instrument they think is backed by my house, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs and AIG – that’s their problem, isn’t it? Actually it’s not even backed by my house, but by some government index that is supposed to be based 1/100000000 on the price of my house.
The point is, the house is there. If I get evicted, the house is still there.
When there are rows of empty houses, yes there’s a problem but it’s not a problem with actual wealth, it’s some kind of a mixup in the paperwork.
The conventional answer is that, in such cases of oversupply (!), the price of goods falls. Deflation. And as there is a shortage of money and prices fall, at some point you can’t build houses anymore, nor iPhones. That just does not seem to be the case. What is? Well, it’s hard to say, not that that stops me from trying.
It is a distribution of wealth problem. It is only secondarily a problem of “entitlement”. Kid goes to state college, gets a nice new civil engineering degree, and ends up a bartender, maybe not even making enough to pay income taxes (though he does pay social security). Probably qualifies for food stamps, and may go get them. Week by week, his chance of *ever* getting a job in civil engineering, evaporates. Considers going to grad school, but is that going to help?
/based on real-life example
So, is this a guy who would never vote for Romney or a Republican?
China will have no better time to strike than these next few Months! They (China) will wait for Nov 7th to make their decision, unless 0bama is re-elected than China will have a much longer widow to push America out… If 0bama is re-elected there will be a very different political landscape than there is even today! We, the US will become a third world nation before the end of his second term, Demoncrat’s will demand 0bama, “our” history making President get a “historical” chance to have a third term so he can fix what he didn’t get time to fix in the second four years… and on and on and…. President for Life!
38. Josh
I don’t think the civil engineering graduates or the bartenders in Argentina celebrated after their default, even though the houses stayed put. Default is the problem for a debtor and that’s the reason for the Bernanke. The same thing applies in Europe.
The Bernanke is prepared to print enough money to pay back current debtors in clipped coinage and to buy his own new bonds when he can’t sell them to anyone else. The interesting thing will be when creditors revolt and en masse refuse to refinance sovereign debt. As in Argentina any resulting defaults and deflation, will be followed later by high inflation. If the Bernanke Brigade dumps so much printed money from helicopters that the sun is blotted out, will the resulting global cooling give us a financial first – very high, but frozen, inflation?
Any way you look at it the prospects are thin. As my mom used to say “as thin as a rasher of wind stood up sideways.”
@ 22. cjm
“why do people pretend all of this debt is going to be enduring, is going to be paid back? it will be as much a burden for the young people tomorrow, as the versailles agreement is a burden to germans today.”
Who is to say it wasn’t a burden and that the debt won’t remain, the Germans only finished paying off the WWI reparations two years ago this month as it turns out.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315869/Germany-end-World-War-One-reparations-92-years-59m-final-payment.html
“as thin as a rasher of wind stood up sideways.”
I haven’t heard that in 50 years at least. Steve, are you another old fart?
As an alt. to nuking them, how about a blockade? Prevent all ships and airplanes from entering or leaving any Islamic country. They cannot grow anywhere near enough food to feed themselves, no matter if it’s 1.5 billion or 800 million. Their ‘natural’ population is maybe 600 million, most of them in India and SE Asia (2/3).
N. Africa and the Saudi Peninsula Might feed 100 million. The rest will starve. To me that seems worse then being nuked, but I understand some people have phobias about atomic bombs.
Haji can’t shoot.
1@Josh: Man, did you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed! Of course, I agree with everything you said about the boys at Gitmo. They are all guilty and should have been sent to see the 72 raisins long ago.
30. CharlesWhite
IIRC, Strategypage had an article on the F-22′s going to Kuwaitt and Guam. With maybe Atsugi. Not sure. Guam makes sense. The purpose of the F-22 is an escort fighter for the B-2 & B-1. Sort of a modern P-51, B-17 & B-24 combo.So it would make sense that the air farce forward deploys them. They got the OBOG working.
I still think the best bet for the Won getting re-elected is an air campaign against Iran. From a military POV it would be no more difficult then killing baby seals, or machine gunning small children as they flee their burning elementary school. The ONLY time Obama’s approval rating got over 50% was after he had Osama skragged. If he has forgotten, Axelthing hasn’t.
“I say we pull out and nuke ‘em from orbit. It’s the only way to make sure.”
- FO Ripley.
Using drones to kill the enemy is not materially different from sniping from 1000 yards. Both reduce ‘collateral damage’ when compared to bombing and machine gunning. It is one of the few things Obama has done that I could agree with if, that is, if he intended to be victorious. Waging war without victory as the intended outcome is immoral.
The definition of victory has, since WWII, become elusive and much too flexible. Korea, Viet Nam, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan have used death and betrayal as a means to merely kick the can down the road.
“The definition of victory has, since WWII, become elusive and much too flexible.”
Maybe. The definition of win will ALWAYS be imposing your will on your enemy.
it is just that traditionally that was accomplished by killing them, destroying or stealing what they had built, Raping their women, enslaving their children.
Modern society is caught between stools so to speak. We still want to impose our will on our enemies, only without the Rape, pillage and murder.
Not sure that is possible. What it does if cause not very smart people to prattle nonsense about “winning Hearts and minds” and other such tripe. I got banned from “Small Wars Journal” for asking anyone if they had evidence of hearts and Minds being used and actually working. I used Giap’s book to back my point. Giap said the one thing that scared the VC was the USA destroying the system of dykes and canals (yeh, I know that sounds like a lesbian garage band). America killed about 2.5 million North Vietnamese during the war. Destroying their irrigation system would have doubled that number and won the war in Vietnam. At least according to Giap.
Charlie don’t surf.
The answer is to turn back the results of the first oil embargo of 1973.
Newt has an energy university program in which they discuss north american energy independence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SsykPvEqENE
Skim to the last two speakers to get the raw stats. Leasing on federal lands is half of what it was under clinton and 1/10th of what it was under reagan. If oil leases on federal lands were restored to what they were 40 years ago–revenues to government from oil leases would come to 3/4 of a trillion dollars annually. Even without the green river formation. (In newt’s concluding remarks he mentioned that he figured total annual revenues–when all sources including ones not mentioned by previous speakers –could be triple or quadruple the 3/4 trillion cited by earlier speakers.)
Roy @ 21. “When the bubbles pop the Chinese will most likely liquidate the only real assets they possess – U.S. Treasury securities. They will be sold at a huge discount as the only way to raise enough cash in the short term to “fix” the problem. Look for yields on new issues of treasury notes to exceed 5%.”
Not sure what you mean here. The debt service on bonds already issued, but sold buy one investor to another does not change. If the seller accepts a deep price discount, the buyer still gets the periodic coupon rate, earning his return by having paid a lower amount to own the cash stream. If you mean NEW debt will go to 5%, it will start as longer term debt. 5% is an historic norm, and will only affect total debt service as its pro-rated portion of the overall debt increases, which when dealing in trillions and trillions will take some time. Of more concern is the unwillingness of investors to buy. I sure ain’t and I am a pure income investor…hell, I won’t touch a Federal bond or that of most states/ munis.
Josh @ 38. Re: Civil Engineer not finding a job? I don’t buy it. As a working construction engineer for 40 years (Mechanical) I can only tell you the boy (or girl) ain’t trying very hard. If he has his heart set on a particular portion of the field, or has limited his geographic horizons he is a fool. Further, the SeaBees and Corps or Engineers (or even Air Force Civil Engineering squadrons) are always looking for energetic, well trained CE’s, not to mention all the other options open to CE’s. Engineers always find (if flexible) something in the larger field. (Note, the ‘Environmental Engineering’ option is part of most CE programs. By that they MEAN waste treatment, but most of them want to be tree huggers (foresters). But even they can still build a road or work in a rural county engineering department.)
46. stoicheion
Back then, Charlie didn’t surf; he was busy doing other things.
Now, there are quite a few spots along the Viet coast that host some serious surfers.
Old story; first the locals were just providing the board and bike rentals and the food and lodging for the adventurous Australians, Americans and Europeans. Over ten years go, I started noticing surfboards in the “oversized” baggage coming off flights into Viet Nam.
Nowadays, you can see the native sons and daughters of the hospitality biz out on their boards as well.
What angers me more and more, and I doubt I am alone, is how responsibility no longer gets you ahead. In fact the more successful you are in managing your affairs, the more you owe to those who do not. This is why I don,t think the 47% comment by Romney will have the effect the Obama team is hoping for, we all know it is true. I think there are times when you can’t get elected telling the truth but there are other times, like the present, when the truth is too painful to ignore and it can be spoken. At least i hope this is the case.
A group of people who are actually concerned about the NCA’s “kill list” interviewed DNC delegates, posing the question “Can Americans trust Mitt Romney to make the right call on which U.S. citizens to extrajudicially assassinate?”
Hypocrisy and hilarity ensue. Chuck Shumer makes an appearance. Gloria Allred proves herself the moron we all knew her to be. Worth a look.
http://dailybail.com/home/must-see-gawker-asks-the-dnc-can-americans-trust-mitt-romney.html
What I find extremely troubling is the recent out-and-out lying by Hillary and this Rice lady regarding the riots and killing of Stevens. Just blatant, easily disproved LYING, like they don’t give a damn because they know the MSM press will not challenge them. Out of all recent events, that is what I find most disturbing.
We need to vote these people out of power ASAP.
48. michael hoskins
From Forbes 3/21/2011:
Schweikert noted his concern that the weighted average maturity of the Federal debt (WAM) was “somewhat dangerously short.” Lehrman pointed out that the average maturity of the debt is approximately four years and made the following startling point:
“Were the level of debt service payments to rise to close to market rates which are typical of full employment, the level of debt service payments would rise by an order of magnitude and consume a part of the federal budget which today is almost unthinkable and could only be four or five years away.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2011/03/21/coming-soon-an-uncontrolled-800-billion-federal-spending-increase/
The imminent Chinese crisis will exacerbate the problem and perhaps cause the “no buyers” problem you mentioned. In fact, the no buyer situation is upon us in that to implement QE3 it is the Fed member banks who are buying the treasuries rather than foreign or domestic buyers. Further, the pending crash of the Euro will be the stink on the sh*t of the problem.
“Still no courts, military or civil. And he stops adding to Gitmo simply by killing people.”
“As far as intelligence gathering, WE know who the enemy is. Killing them just requires target data. Intelligence is only required for police operations. For military operations you just need location. Other data is nice to have but not needed.”
Bush’s biggest mistake was Gitmo. The twisted muddle in the thinking is obvious: One way or another, those people will need to be killed. None of the Gitmo prisoners had any colorable real war information. Now we have a confusion: We have no sharp distinction between “war” and “police operations.”
I strongly support Obama’s drone killings: They are morally and philosophically indefensible, but also honest and necessary. There is one line in the movie “The Siege” that sums up our correct strategy:
Kill them! Kill them NOW!