So Tee.... (or other like minds)

[BT]

If i am reading your responses correctly and filtering out the usual anti-american bias, basically you don't have a problem with Iran joining the nuclear weapons family. Is that correct?

lanya posted not long ago that the Saudi's are looking to upgrade if the Iranians are successful. That ok too?

How about corporations getting their own arsenals?

Guess that could cut out the middleman(govt) .

That ok too?

[The_Professor]

Americans I think, by and large, simply do not fully comprehend this anti-American bias evident globally. There are obviously many reasons for this. I will present one and perhaps others may discuss this and present their own? Well, it is clear that our sometimes-shortsided foreign policies can cause this effect. As an example, we support the Mung tribesmen in Laos, we not only support them we train and arm them and then what do we do? Leave them to the Vietnamese in the debacle that was the Vietnam Conflict. How many other such examples are there?

[Michael Tee]

<<If i am reading your responses correctly and filtering out the usual anti-american bias, basically you don't have a problem with Iran joining the nuclear weapons family. Is that correct?>>

Not exactly.  I've got a problem with anyone having nukes.  The U.S., Israel, Pakistan and yes, even Iran.  But I balance the concerns; my general uneasiness over anyone having a nuke, the aggravating factor of the Iranians in particular being led by a collection of ignorant, torturing, murdering bastards,  they are all factors why the Iranians should not have nukes.  Then I look at the factors in favour of them having nukes:  the general principle of fairness, respect for national sovereignty (within limits,) the size of the nation, its valuable oil resources which make it a natural next target for the ever-rapacious U.S.A., its vulnerability to Israeli blackmail, allowing Israel more freedom to continue the God-awful oppression of the West Bank and Gaza; and ON BALANCE I say, better they have the nukes than not.  But I wouldn't say I have "no problem" with that.  There's a lotta problems with a nuclear-armed Iran, but there'd be a lot more with a non-nuclear Iran - - the Americans and Israelis could turn it into another Iraq, only on a huge scale.

<<lanya posted not long ago that the Saudi's are looking to upgrade if the Iranians are successful. That ok too?>>

Probably not.  Who's threatening them?

<<How about corporations getting their own arsenals?>>

Mine, sure.  Yours, no way.

[Michael Tee]

Semi-humourous note on mistaken intentions.  Professor, I was reading through your post, thinking Yes, Yes, Yes - - -

<<<Americans I think, by and large, simply do not fully comprehend this anti-American bias evident globally. >>

Yes.

<<There are obviously many reasons for this. >>

Yes.  Many reasons for the anti-Americanism and many reasons for Americans not fully comprehending it.

<<I will present one and perhaps others may discuss this and present their own? Well, it is clear that our sometimes-shortsided foreign policies can cause this effect. >>

Uh-huh, they sure do.

<<As an example, we support the Mung tribesmen in Laos, we not only support them we train and arm them . . .>>

Tell it like it is, Prof.

<< . . . and then what do we do?>>

Oh boy!  Get 'em to fight against the people's revolution and thus incur the people's wrath?

No.  Wrong answer, apparently.

<< Leave them to the Vietnamese in the debacle that was the Vietnam Conflict. >>

Oy, Professor.  For a minute there, I actually thought you had seen the light.

[BT]

Life is an ugly business.

Sometimes decisions made in the heat of battle are not that great when viewed at a later time through different lens.

Until we invent a time machine, do-overs are academic.

[The_Professor]

The pont I was making here, MT, is that we made a promise and then broke it.

Doesn't this damage our credibility?

[BT]

<<lanya posted not long ago that the Saudi's are looking to upgrade if the Iranians are successful. That ok too?>>

Probably not.  Who's threatening them?

If the real reason for all this is oil, Saudi Arabia would be a very logical target, Twice the oil and half the population.

Friends come and go. Cheap oil provides comfort.

[The_Professor]

Be honest. If you were the Saudis, you would be predictably scared at a neighbor you inherently do not trust that is growing stronger every day....Might you look into acquiring the most devastating "gun" you could, just in case you needed it...

[Michael Tee]

<<The pont I was making here, MT, is that we made a promise and then broke it. Doesn't this damage our credibility?>>

Sure it damages your credibility.  But credibility comes with a price tag.  You couldn't afford to stay on fighting so a lot of your promises were broken, to a lot of people.  The alternative would have bled you dry.

People who trusted your word got killed, your credibility took one hell of a shellacking - - but Professor, NONE of that was unforeseen.  Whoever made the ultimate decision to pull the plug factored all of the negatives in, including those, added up the pros and the cons and then went ahead and pulled the plug anyway.

In retrospect, who's the criminal?  The guy who had to acknowledge the impossibility of continuing the fight, or the guy who promised the Mung America's eternal protection in the first place and suckered them into becoming LBJ's paladins?

[The_Professor]

Well, MT, we should have at least got them out of there once "all hell broke loose" and it was clear we had to depart. Wouldn't you agree?

[Michael Tee]

<<If the real reason for all this is oil, Saudi Arabia would be a very logical target, Twice the oil and half the population.

<<Friends come and go. Cheap oil provides comfort. >>

Saudi is holy land to a lot of gun-owning, quick-to-anger, nothing-to-lose people.  Inside or outside Saudi, these folks would not be pleased by an invasion.

Speculate all you like, the fact is that at the present time, the threat level inside Iran compared to the threat level inside Saudi stands at a ration (metaphorical if not scientifically measured) of a thousand to one.

[BT]

Saudi is holy land to a lot of gun-owning, quick-to-anger, nothing-to-lose people.  Inside or outside Saudi, these folks would not be pleased by an invasion.

Oh , we wouldn't stay long. We would just secure the oil and negotiate very favorable long term contracts and then wait for the anti-war crowd to work their magic.

Rinse

Repeat

[Michael Tee]

<<Well, MT, we should have at least got them out of there once "all hell broek loose" and it was clear we had to depart. Wouldn't you agree?>>

Professor, in the real world, you couldn't even get your own people out of Saigon.  I remember watching the fall of Saigon on TV like it was yesterday.  The crowds at the gates, the guards battling them back with fists and gun butts, the masses who had to leave, the tiny little single files that could be fitted into each helicopter.  

The Mung lived in the mountains and I'm not even sure they WANTED to come to the evac centres and leave their homes and their way of life.

I'll agree that in some ideal world they all should have been transported out to America and lived happily ever after in some kind of tract home subdivision on the outskirts of Santa Barbara.  Or failing that, whoever recruited them and promised them America's protection should have been stood up against a wall and shot.

[Michael Tee]

<<Oh , we wouldn't stay long. We would just secure the oil and negotiate very favorable long term contracts and then wait for the anti-war crowd to work their magic. >>

LOL.  Not as easy as it sounds, is it?

[Michael Tee]

<<Be honest. If you were the Saudis, you would be predictably scared at a neighbor you inherently do not trust that is growing stronger every day....Might you look into acquiring the most devastating "gun" you could, just in case you needed it...>>

I AM being honest.  If I were a Saudi, I'd be scared of somebody coming after what I had.  But objectively speaking, there isn't any current threat against them.  Not only that, they are a very small population.  I don't think that nuclear weapons which can kill hundreds of thousands of people should be employed to defend the assets of a few million of anybody.  Fuck 'em, if worst comes to worst, those millionaire sheikhs will lose their fucking wells to a stronger neighbour, but I don't see that a million people have to die in a nuclear holocaust so that a nation of only a few million can continue its pampered existence.  Iran, by contrast, is a nation of 70 million people and they can't all afford to be ripped off by the U.S. or anyone else.  The extent of human misery and poverty would be on a gigantic scale.