X. Benedict
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Posts posted by X. Benedict
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For Iraq, at the time, the idea was to leverage its greatest export: oil. You seed the economy there, help them manage it, and add funds where necessary.
And it was to use Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell's economics to create the Chicago School of economic model in Iraq.
(Forget Naomi Klein's book, and the Shock Doctrine which tends to the polemical) but at it's heart. It was a free capital model of development that pooped out.
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And this is where our pulling out of Iraq in 2011 is so ####ing frustrating. The fighting was essentially over and rebuilding had begun. We had essentially won, but then pulled out before order (and not oppression providing order like under Saddam) could be established and entrenched as the normal state of things. The vast majority of the people in Iraq (& elsewhere in the ME) simply want to live their lives in peace & safety. Our presence there was giving the Iraqis the opportunity to provide that on their own. Once we pulled out, the small minority of sick bastards that behead people for fun managed to come back out of the shadows. They weren't ready to handle that threat on their own w/ out our support, but they could handle it with our support.
I have a little bit of experience with this as I was designing a water plant to go in a major city there a couple of years ago. The security situation deteriorating was a large part of scuttling that. That was just one example of the myriad of projects that were restoring and reenforcing the normalcy that was starting to take root.
Our walking out caused the restoration of that country to come out stillbirth. There were many over there that trusted us, and we just abandoned them. And before somebody says the Iraqi government pushed us out; that is bull squat. There was a status of forces agreement to be reached. Our politicians wanted out and took a convenient way out - LT consequences be d*mned.
And now conditions are a lot worse than they were and we will likely have to put "boots on the ground" again - and lose 1,000's more of our kids. The big difference between then & now is there is no reason for the people that want normalcy & peace over there to trust we won't cut & run again. The 1st President Bush abandoned the Iraqi's after the war and President Obama abandoned them.
We threw away the gains we earned in Iraq and sat on the sidelines during the Arab Spring. Our world could & should be so much better today. And now there are 1,000's dead in the ME that didn't have to die at the hands of barbarians and over 100 in Paris. :cry:
Probably should've deleted this one before posting just like the 3 versions of it that were written last night. Oh well.
I think this idea that we were really successful in Iraq, and then lost or squandered our advantage is flawed. It assumes we had a workable political partnership inside Iraq. No. We never did. Our military can kick the tar out of any combatant. But anyone that thinks there was a workable state to be had in Iraq or Afghanistan is ignoring sectarian And tribal divides that predate our own national history.
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Yep. But no amount of mourning is really going to un- Lebanon.The bombing in Beirut was widely reported.
Paris, now that is the worlds Disneyland.
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For old time's sake ... and as a measure of how far we've come.
No! Not the Sabrepillar!
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*snip* for column inch conservation.
To East: "Winning hearts and minds" isn't silly or naive. I don't reference it with snide intent.
I just don't see (yet?) that radical Islam wants anything to do with our hearts and minds. When I hear "hearts and minds" I hear cackling laughter. It's not the laughter of US war hawks. It's the laughter of the the extremists.
Important nuance. I agree.
Yes. The goal is to radicalize Islam. If France kicked out every Muslim tomorrow, ISIS would be clapping and cheering, because France would be doing their work.
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How is it any more time than when the go to the booth to review any other goal? That happens all the time.
And I don't understand the "Have them challenge it right away" notion. What does that mean? Do people want coaches to be able to stop play? That's insane. In no way do I want a coach to have the ability to stop the game because he "thinks" he sees an offside. And if you mean at the first stoppage, it's irrelevant anyway. Once play resumes, any goal that happens after the offside would not be review-able anyway.
The coaches challenge is checked on ice for some reason.
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The goal of terror is not to kill for killings sake, but to polarize by provoking a response.I was fortunate enough to do a ride around in a police car for a full shift in Buffalo. I rode the east side in the backseat with two white officers. There is a fascinating dynamic
Now, not blaming those who are not aggrieved for responding forcefully (think French aircraft carriers) doesn't mean it's smart. It doesn't mean it's dumb, either. The magic policy trick protects your values without trespassing on others. I will think, but I'm not aware of a route protecting the values our President articulated as recently as last night that doesn't offend Islamic extremists. There is an element of the grievance that stems from what the west has done (legitimate) and there is an element of grievance that stems from
These are my thoughts, by the way, and are not meant to imply yours are same or different.
ISIS wants to create a world where ISIS is the only acceptable form of Islam. And it wants the West to help push Islam to them.
ISIsS doesn't want to push France, they want France to help push moderate Islam to them.
That's the goal, killing concert goers is only a tactic to that end.
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Apologies if anyone else already posted this, but it would be REALLY cool if they broke into some Vince Guraldi when they announce Ullmark is starting at home. (Thought the Bills should have done it when AVP entered the game as well, though they never did it. :( )
Play "Linus and Lucy"
That's Gold.
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Offsides is offsides, no need to start categorizing it.
Length of time of reviews and the "flow of the game" arguments continue to be the most bogus arguments against the replay system.
They seem like pretty legit arguments to me. They take time and break flow.
Keep in mind this isn't about replay or the Sabres -this is about a Coaches challenge.
Goals still go to Toronto to be checked. The Coach's challenge is the issue.
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Stopped. How ironic.There is nothing more stopping a black family from getting out of the ghetto than what is stopping a white family from getting out of the ghetto. The only difference is the race-hustlers playing the black folk, and all the black folk have to do is ignore the race-husters. In fact, a black family has access to more tools to elevate their situation than does a white family. And God bless 'em, we owe that to 'em.
I've been stopped twice in nice neighborhoods for absolutely no reason. And I was just the white passenger.
One cop literally said, "it looked like you drifted across a line, but I see youre okay." And nodded to me. And returned to his car.
This kind of stuff is probably not part of your experience. But I guess it has nothing to do with Paris either.
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For my edification, and with all due respect.
Are those opposed to military action willing to endure the occasional 9/11s, Charlie Hebdos, Paris Concert attacks, etc., until hearts and minds change?
This isn't a web blog based trap question.
I ask not having made a call for, nor having ruled out, the military. Several of you got ahead of me.
Well, we can no more completely stop non-state terrorists than we can completely stop school shooters. Military and intelligence is part of the imperfect solution, but with terrorists a military response is in someways at once invited because it legitimizes the perpetrators, but it also helps polarize their own constituency.
So I would be careful of the robust and muscular military response and fight these bastards by lethal stealth and whatever can be done to undermine what legitimacy they have.
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I hope they get this under control quickly with as little additional death as possible. I also hope they capture a few of the perpetrators alive so we don't have to write our own conclusions.I have a close personal connection to Paris. My heart is broken.
I'm sorry. It is awful.
Theater was an American band playing called Eagles of death
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Le mo de reporter saying possibly 200 hostages.
Bombs on scooters. My French is rusty.
California band ....the Eagles? That doesn't sound right.
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Reports of over 100 hostages Wow.
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Ullmark goes to Rochester and assumes #1 there while Lehner is given the Buffalo net as their #1. If Johnson is still playing ok he will get a few more games than a normal backup would
Waive Johnson. He'll clear.
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I'm with Andrew Peters: get the linesmen off the ice and make offsides calls from upstairs. More room to operate for the players, no missed offsides, and no coaches challenges. Everybody wins.
and then no linesmen to break up the fights. Perfect for guys like Petey. :lol:
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You're not listening hard enough. The fact the Sabres have been hurt by it twice plays a part, sure, but most posters most of the team are objecting for other reasons: it's overofficious, unnecessary, delays the game, sucks the soul out of the sport and so on.
Seriously, if I'm watching two teams casually, because I just like hockey. I'm usually happy to see a goal, I think gee this game is getting interesting. Once the review Challenge starts I change the channel . I come back...5 minutes later. No goal. I've lost interest. Seriously, even last night I chAnged the channel to NFL twice. Guess when.
It's a tempo killing mechanism. The game is speed. But let's compromise its best qualities with pendantic redundancy.
The play stands! I've lost 5 minutes to know the call was a good call. Baa! Or the play was offside to a slow mo camera but not the naked eye. Aargh!
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You won't get much argument. Maybe from Swamp. The league is killing a fly with a bazooka here. What you want to prevent is a blatant offside that immediately precedes a goal. How often does that happen? A handful of times a season? It. Is. Awful.
Nicely phrased.
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That's it. You don't want a play that's three feet offside deciding a playoff series. But how do you do that without getting out the magnifying glass on a goal in November in Sunrise? They should have set a time limit. Goal must have been scored within five seconds of the infraction to be overturned. And you get one look at a replay, no double dipping. How about allowing the challenge only in tied or one-goal games in the third period or overtime? Playoff only challenge? There has to be a better way. (And I'd say most fans would agree the better way would be to just live with a mistake that ends up having very little to nothing to do with any eventual goal.)
I think the whole thing is poor for hockey. It's just not the right sport for this.
In Tennis for example, the replay is a stadium event. It's fun.
In hockey it is just a buzzkill. Even commercials remove so much tempo in the stadium. Replays are toxic to the game.
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That would be dumb after letting O'reilly and Stastny go. Unless they think grigorenko is legit :P
Well he did spin Chara around and fed Duchene for the game winner. Nice play.
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Anyone know why Deslauriers was a scratch?
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3-0 Sabres outplayed, but winning.
Great games from Gionta, Franson, and Ulmark.
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linus!!!!!
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I'm told if you stand in front of a mirror at night and say "Scratch Webby" three times. Ghost will appear. :P
Hope you're well. :)
The politics of terrorism
in The Aud Club
Posted
There is some truth I believe with infrastructure. Hey, who doesn't like power and water.
But the point remains. There was no viable political partnership to be had. Nouri Al-Maliki and the Daawas were the best that could be found. And the best that could be found was deeply flawed. That pre-dated Obama.