Best idea I've heard today

[SassyIrishLass]

"It’s time for Obama to make a choice: Lead us or resign"

This fails as a false dilemma fallacy, in addition to being a ridiculous lie.

You're redundant

 

[Zoom-boing]

"It’s time for Obama to make a choice: Lead us or resign"

This fails as a false dilemma fallacy, in addition to being a ridiculous lie.

You're redundant

You misspelled retarded.

 

[JakeStarkey]

No, we are not going to invade the ME yet again with an army.

 

[Londoner]

By "lead up". You mean go into another clusterfuckery war ?

We've had enough of that kind of "leadership".

Washington & the Law of Unintended Consequences

1959 - U.S. Intervention and the radicalization of Iran
In 1959 we removed the wildly popular / democratically elected Mossedeq in Iran (because he wouldn't give his nation's oil to foreigners. He wanted to keep oil-profits home and use those profits to build a well educated middle class nation with access to education and health care. He and a significant portion of Iranian people wanted a stable quasi-westernized nation, modeled on western Europe. And yes, of course there was a far right faction of Islamic fanatics who wanted to preserve Islamic Tradition and keep Iran in the Dark Ages, tide to the barbaric Koran as tightly as the American right wants to tie us to the Bible).

Point is: in 1959 we didn't want democracy, we wanted an Iranian leader who would hand the oil to U.S. contractors (many of whom were investing heavily in Reagan by the late 70s). We didn't want the Iranian people to determine their fate - we wanted/needed the oil. So we replaced Mossedeq with the brutal Shaw, who did our bidding but was hated by his own people. (...but we got the oil)

We tinkered with something that wasn't ours to tinker with because we needed the oil.

We made choices, and those choices affected people, who acted out.

... Resulting in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 where a group of far right, heavily religious Iranians took the country back from Western Intervention.

Here is the unintended consequence of Washington's tinkering: Mossedeq was moderate. He had moderate support and was modernizing the country, moving it slowly away from Islamic radicalism. The younger generation was being heard and Islamic radicalism was being isolated. But we removed their leader because of oil (because of our economic dependence on cheap oil). The act of removing their chosen leader and replacing him with a Western Puppet gave power to the far right Islamic radicals, who were now able to point at the chaotic, destabilizing intervention and say "see what happens when you trust the West? See what happens when you modernize and move away from Islamic Tradition?"

Washington's attempt - in 1959 - to control Iran's politics (because of oil) gave power to the Islamic radicals, which radicals used Western intervention as a recruitment tool to foment revolution and take back their country - resulting in the Ayatollah, Khomeini and the movement of Iran from a potentially modern nation back to its pre-Moseddeq radicalism, which gave a home to Islamic fundamentalism and Jihad.

Fast forward to today, the Republican Right points at Iran's radicalism and says we have to fix it, but there is one problem: Washington is incompetent when it tries to do BIG THINGS.

Whenever you give Washington money & power to fix big problems, it makes those problems worse. Why? Because real change can't happen artificially from the top down, by an outside power thousands of miles away. It must come internally, by an organic collision of all the groups vying for power. Washington can't fix a thousand-year Civil Conflict by dropping bombs and installing a puppet. This is what Bush didn't understand with Iraq when we removed Hussein, who Reagan protected/supported because we needed a counterbalance in the 80s to the Iranian problem we created.

Washington didn't understand or anticipate the unintended consequences of tinkering with Iran (replacing the moderate Mossedeq, who had popular support, triggered a series of events that moved Iran in the wrong direction, and created far worse problems).

Washington didn't understand or anticipate the unintended consequences of tinkering with Iraq (supporting the monster Hussein in the 80s).

In each case, Washington tried to fix a problem, but ended up making the problem worse.

Washington didn't understand the unintended consequences of tinkering with Afghanistan. Reagan supported the Afghan Mujahideen (an early version of Al Qaeda) in order to defeat Russia in Afghanistan. We put Islamic terrorists like Bin Laden on the CIA pay roll in order to fuck the Soviets in Afghanistan - and it worked. But we ended up making terrorist cells more powerful, and now we can't contain them.

So when the American Right says Washington needs to keep tinkering with Middle East politics, be careful with their advice. In my experience, the average Republican voter has never studied U.S. intervention in the region. Their knowledge is at the level of bumper sticker: "Evil Doers" & "Freedom is on the march."

I'd love to see Washington transform the middle east into a peaceful market system, but I don't have faith in the ability of Big Government to do Big Things without making things worse - and I certainly don't have faith in a Republican Party that always seems to preach about Washington's Limitations but never seems to listen their own advice. (No political party in my lifetime has entrusted Washington with Big Things more than the current version of the Republican Party, who tells us that Washington isn't competent enough to run a laundromat while at the same time [wait for it] giving Washington the money & power to transform the greater middle east. Are you fucking kidding?]

When the next Bush draws up plans to turn yet another Islamic nation into freedom loving democracy, do you think the Republican voter will pause and ask if giving Washington more money & more power (to fix the world form the top down) will make things better or worse? Here is the problem. Republicans never ask this question when it comes to giving Washington more money and power. They always have faith that Washington can fix the world (rather than making it worse). Look at the Middle East. What could go wrong with removing Hussein (who was a counterbalance to Iran and ISIS)? What could go wrong with removing Mossedeq? What could go wrong with installing the Shaw? What could go wrong with supporting Hussein in the 80s? What could go wrong with pouring money and weapons into the hated Saudi Royals for over 50 years? What could go wrong with supporting the Mujahideen in the 80s?

We must trust Big Government to fix the world. What could go wrong?

[God help. Republicans vote. And they don't know history]

 

[Timmy]

When has put Mid East meddling ever worked out ? Maybe gulf war 1. And that's only cause bush at was smart enough to pull us out after we evicted Saddam from Quaite