46 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

saw this earlier today in a norwegian newspaper and wondered when it would come up in the international papers.

http://www.jpost.com.....icle/ShowFull

"UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen raised an "alarm" about the situation in the Middle East, warning that the region faces the possibilities of full-scale war, a fresh effort to contain the current violence, or energetic diplomacy to try to bring lasting peace.

"One is that we continue on the path of violence - the kind of mildest one being that we continue on the slippery slope of violence that we've seen not only in Lebanon but also in Gaza, West Bank, Iraq and elsewhere in the region," he said. "The other one is that it leads to a full confrontation, and worst case to a regional confrontation with arms."

The second option is "energetic diplomacy" by the international community to address the underlying problems, he said.

Roed-Larsen said this is "extremely difficult" today because the four conflicts in the Middle East are separate, but have become entwined.

"Hopefully there is still a possibility to address this diplomatically and with peaceful means," he said. "However, that this will happen in the very foreseeable future is not that likely."

The third option, he said, is "a vigorous containment policy which stems the slide on the slippery slope" and moves to address "broader regional tensions."

basically, i have to agree with his assessments on the things happening down there right now. before there was only one variable to worry about, and that was Israel. now there are like 4 different things that are intermingled, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Iran. if things continue down the same path the next few years as they've done the last few years, i fear that we might have a conventional "continental war" coming up.

[Hostile]

I read the article you posted. It makes me reinforce my opinion that the US is vital to stay in Iraq. To maintain the balance of power.

If Syria and Israel should happen to go to war. It should be the US that clinches it by attacking the Syrians, Enough with this BS. We know Syria is funding the terrorists operations just like we know Iran is.

So kick them in the balls, geopolitically isolate them, financially isolate them, and militarily isolate them.

And if that doesn't work, go in and smack them.

I'm poking here to get some reaction.

[narboza22]

What exactly would a full scale "conventional continental war" be? The way things are now, every one is fighting insurgents and small groups, not other nations. To me, the only possible way for there to be a conventional war in the Middle East would be for Iran to really piss someone off in such a way as to draw a military response.

[duke_Qa]

What exactly would a full scale "conventional continental war" be? The way things are now, every one is fighting insurgents and small groups, not other nations.

a conventional war would in this setting mean that armies come, and they would make sure there are no civilian population in the areas they occupy that insurgents would be able to hide among. at least thats what i think would be the most 'sane' way to wage conventional war these days. and yes, if this continues, there will be wars between nations in the middle east, and if anyone wants to occupy any land down there and have any chance to keep it, will have to remove every single previous owner. the good old fashioned war for territory.

To me, the only possible way for there to be a conventional war in the Middle East would be for Iran to really piss someone off in such a way as to draw a military response.

possible, but still there are plenty of nations down there that probably would join the fray within 24 hours of the first open conflict.

I read the article you posted. It makes me reinforce my opinion that the US is vital to stay in Iraq. To maintain the balance of power.

perhaps, though with a war around them they might get out of the frying pan while the insurgents worry about neighboring countries. though america wouldnt really remove their military presence from the middle east anytime soon if they were to retreat from Iraq, they would just go to Saudia Arabia or something, wait for the next country to wrong anyone.

So kick them in the balls, geopolitically isolate them, financially isolate them, and militarily isolate them.

And if that doesn't work, go in and smack them.
I'm poking here to get some reaction.

erm, Hamas anyone? the financial isolation of them has really helped the Palestinian people finding peace. BZZZZ! wrong! observe the initial start of the financial isolation and the downward violent spiral in the middle east, and you should see a connection!

Palestinians doesn't dare to talk politics these days because they are afraid of impromptu watch posts by Fatah or Hamas, where political allegiance might be the difference of life and death. pretty close to how its in Iraq with Sunnis and Shiites.


oh yes, there will be "smacking". Although its a highly romantizised perspective of war, "smacking" that is. 4 years in Iraq and 6 years in Afganistan still hasnt changed that apparently? i wonder how the world would have looked if one used half the military budget of the US for diplomatic causes.

[narboza22]

a conventional war would in this setting mean that armies come, and they would make sure there are no civilian population in the areas they occupy that insurgents would be able to hide among. at least thats what i think would be the most 'sane' way to wage conventional war these days. and yes, if this continues, there will be wars between nations in the middle east, and if anyone wants to occupy any land down there and have any chance to keep it, will have to remove every single previous owner. the good old fashioned war for territory.

Isn't that what Israel did last year only to have half the world blow up at them for doing it? From what I've read, the Lebanese military is staying away from doing that. I fail to see how general war is going to break out anytime soon. Small little insurgent groups cannot take away territory from a country, and AFAIK, no Arab country is in a position to try and take land back from Israel.

possible, but still there are plenty of nations down there that probably would join the fray within 24 hours of the first open conflict.

Are you saying that if the US went to war with Iran, the rest of the Middle East would: A) Join Iran and fight the US, B) Join the US and fight Iran, or C) Just for the hell of it attack someone else entirely?

I don't see any of those three happening.

[duke_Qa]

Isn't that what Israel did last year only to have half the world blow up at them for doing it? From what I've read, the Lebanese military is staying away from doing that. I fail to see how general war is going to break out anytime soon. Small little insurgent groups cannot take away territory from a country, and AFAIK, no Arab country is in a position to try and take land back from Israel.

they focused on the Hezbollah military group, and the Lebanese military was smart enough to get out of the way. if the Lebanese military was to attack big-time the group that practically 40-50% of Lebanons population support, you can guess how that would work out.

the main reason that there is a bigger risk of general war these days is that there are so many conflicts that before were pretty isolated, now are getting intermingled into one big mess. once that happens you have to do something about all before one will go away. and once one of these conflicts players decide its time to do something drastic, it will have a domino effect on the other conflicts in the area. if the sunni/shiite conflicts in Iraq develop further, it will affect people in neighbouring countries within the same groups. if the Hamas and fatah start a proper civil war, people will care less about using violence to stop it.

Are you saying that if the US went to war with Iran, the rest of the Middle East would: A) Join Iran and fight the US, B) Join the US and fight Iran, or C) Just for the hell of it attack someone else entirely?

people have plenty of grudges down there to find a excuse to attack someone. if there is an open conflict between the US and Iran, some countries are bound to join Iran and some are bound to join the US side. sunni vs Shia, fundamentalist vs moderates, have not's vs have's...
it doesnt need to start with an nation's army though, small groups and small situations escalates these things. its what is happening these days.

Edited by duke_Qa, 13 June 2007 - 01:01 PM.

[narboza22]

All of the little conflicts are separate. Syria and Iran are not going to go to war with Israel for the Palestinian cause, at least not as long as they retain the least bit of sanity. The entire western world would come down on them, and it would be a battle that they could not win. And then Hamas and Fatah are too busy fighting to care about Iraqi insurgents, and vice versa.

[MSpencer]

Are you saying that if the US went to war with Iran, the rest of the Middle East would: A) Join Iran and fight the US, B) Join the US and fight Iran, or C) Just for the hell of it attack someone else entirely?

Just one thing Duke left out, the last thing here mentioned, C, is certainly true. When wars begin, other nations take it as their cue to settle old disputes and issues. When World War II started, many little satellite conflicts were brought up to the major belligerents, especially land disputes and such, and when wars began to heat up, other wars were spawned, most evident in the Italian wars with the entire Mediterranean and the Finnish Winter War. When wars occur, they reduce regional stability and invite other conflicts.

[duke_Qa]

All of the little conflicts are separate. Syria and Iran are not going to go to war with Israel for the Palestinian cause, at least not as long as they retain the least bit of sanity. The entire western world would come down on them, and it would be a battle that they could not win. And then Hamas and Fatah are too busy fighting to care about Iraqi insurgents, and vice versa.

they were definitely very separate a few years ago, but today we see that these things are gradually blending together into one big melting pot of discontent. if there are enough little conflicts, the bad blood will start to flow into your boots, and the conflicts grow like water-lilies in these pools of blood.

thinking that they will get stand down without a winner in this situation is like thinking that Iraq will turn into a peaceful paradise as safe as any proper western country the next 30 years. its a downward spiral and it is getting worse by the day with the policies we are supporting in the middle east.



::rant::
personally i observe our political apathy to what happens in the middle east as a subconscious reaction to the worst-case alternative. lack of oil, the fall of our economic control to other superstates like China and Russia.

there is a lack of resources on this planet, and we(10%) want our 90% cut of those resources to keep on being ours. we are subconsciously praying for a holocaust of the lower-class humans on this globe in my eyes, so that we don't have to worry about sharing the resources that we enjoy so much. if the middle east was to fall into chaos, it would only be the beginning of the end of an era.

it would be the sign of the "last-drop wars". we've been blessed the last 40 years with plenty of oil and energy, but we are closing in on the last drops, and those drops will be very valuable. hell, if you can mass produce machines that turns organic material into oil in a short amount of time(they exist as far as i know), you can probably recycle dead bodies by the millions and sell the oil.

hell, lets do a prudent calculation of that. an average third world citizen would be around 50 kilos(women and children are lighter than men), dunno if the oil-production out of organic material needs alot of water, but lets assume that you don't need it so thats proximately 15-20 kilos of pure mass per person. say 50% of that can be turned into usable oil, we got around 7-10 litres of bio-oil out of a human. a barrel has room for 208 litres, so thats proximately 21-25 people per barrel. lets assume that in the future that the prizes has gone up a bit more than just 65$ dollar per barrel, lets say around 120$, its been close into 100$ before i believe. 120$ divided on 25 gives you 5$ per body. for someone who lives in countries where you are lucky to get paid a quarter every day, thats 20 days of pay per body!

and here we would be driving around inhaling these dead people, just because we don't feel like walking to the store. "damn, the gas is expensive these days, i could barely afford to fill up one corpse. anyway, have to get the children from kindergarden now, see you later!"

edit: heres some nice pictures:




::/rant::

Edited by duke_Qa, 13 June 2007 - 05:17 PM.

[narboza22]

What are you talking about

[duke_Qa]

just a minor digression through a rant.

but those pictures are quite relevant. look at that fricking bar on oil reserves in the middle east, its like twice as big as the rest of the world total. chaos in the middle east makes it easier to get control over these vital resources for the next 40 years(the prophecised amount of time the oil will last), and we arent the only superpowers who wants that. thats probably the problem here.

it might sound quite conspiratory but the middle east is like America was right after Columbus found it: land to be colonized and used, even though there already were/are people there. today with modern logistics we don't really need to live where the resources are to use them, but it damn well helps to have power over it.

media makes inaction the only way for this to happen. if it wasn't the morally wrong thing to do for freedom-loving people, we would probably have done it properly a long time ago. the best way to get it now is to make sure the people down there meet the wall when they plead for help. enough conflict will erase borders, enough deaths will remove any rights of heritage.

Edited by duke_Qa, 13 June 2007 - 07:24 PM.

[duke_Qa]

double-post, but i guess my rant is a bit to uncomfortable/insane for people to dare to reply

http://www.cnn.com/2...gaza/index.html

A fight to death in Gaza

basically, Hamas rips Fatah military presence in Gaza out by the roots, causing chaos and widespread trouble for everyone living there. there is lack of food and people are too scared of getting caught in crossfire to go out of their houses to get supplies.

we on the other hand, stand idly by and twiddle our thumbs. the hope that a economic isolation of the palestinians would weaken Hamas has given Hamas the opportunity to wipe out the only political opposition there is in Gaza. the same thing might even happen in the West Bank, and then there would be only Hamas to cooperate with. how would that work out?

Edited by duke_Qa, 14 June 2007 - 02:40 PM.

[Hostile]

http://forums.revora...showtopic=32601

Did I not already predict this some time back and everyone thought I was crazy.

What are you gonna do? Invade? Hamas is winning, Lebanon is fighting for it's existance, Syria is gearing up for war with Israel, Hezbollah is rearming, Iran is funding there and funding the Taliban.

http://www.liveleak....=797_1180490779

Maybe it's time people start agreeing with me. They're gearing up for fucking full scale war dude. I've been following this for at least a year now.

It is what it appears to be. Nobody here can sit there and tell me otherwise. There's gonna be a fucking war soon. Probably this summer or fall. It's gonna be a "map altering" war.

And if things don't go smoothly as wars go, it's going be a world war. If some nations on some sides start losing, then some nations will begin to alter that. Dragging more nations into the conflict.

(EDIT) http://www.guardian....2085192,00.html
Here's a great read. This really says it like it is.

[duke_Qa]

I've never really denied the fact that things are going downhill, but i believe that I've been hoping for a bit more of an diplomatic solution that the west has not shown any initiative to start on.

also, here is a quote from the very same topic:

you must understand that the entire middle east is one mixed bag of troubles. you can't look at one part without looking at the other ones.

the downward spiral in the middle east is consistent with our economic isolation of the Palestinians. just found a very fine quote on the topic by my foreign minister( which quoted an article from BBC):


"Where there is no hope, extremism takes over"


our isolation of Hamas has caused loss of hope for peace, and now there is only room for extremism. the pity is that i believe that the western world with the US and Israel in charge knows that this is exactly what would happen if they kept it up long enough. another quote from the same article:

"The norwegian assessment is that this shouldnt come as any surprise to the world society. moderate powers in both Hamas and Fatah have tried, but since their coalition government has not been given room or a chance it won't help."

Edited by duke_Qa, 14 June 2007 - 05:30 PM.

[Athgar]

I dont really see people calling you crazy for what you said Hostile. Just because you're an american, a christian or a capitalist it doesn't mean i cant agree with you on something.

Yeah Palestine is pretty much a civil war right now, but who can blame them? We've crashed their economy, and Israel oppreses them. They are not really in an ideal situation to create a stable democracy.

And yeah, there will probably be a showdown in the region soon. But again i think it is inevitable, if you look at all the frustrations and minor strugles...

[Hostile]

Then let's talk deeper about the issue. The world was financing the Palestinian government prior to Hamas coming to power. Hamas was voted in. But they are well known terrorist organisation with a well documented history of killing people.

See you can't logically continue to bankroll a nation led by a group deemed terrorists. So sure we economically cut them off. What else would you do?

About Israel oppressing them. I suppose they do, they sorta just quarentined the area. It's a mess of sorts. I don't really believe the other arab nations really care all that much, TBH, about the Palestinians. I suppose if they did, Saudi Arabia, and United Emirates would be rebuilding the infrastructure and such.

But they're not really. Palestinians have become more of a tool to rally around than an issue that will be fixed. Saudi Arabia alone could finance the rebuilding of Gaza and West Bank. But now you can't do that without financing Hamas.

Not that they would do it even if Hamas didn't win the election. I think the arab love for Palestine is a farce. It's a big fat giant lie. IMO it appears Hamas, like Hezbollah did by abducting the Israeli troops, are creating a situation that is vague but provocative, enticing a war with Israel and the US.

Backed by new rumblings with Syria, backed by incursions by Iran and the influx of war materials from all sides. I'm sure the US and Israel are doing the same by the US supplying Lebanon and moving carriers fleets to the Persian Gulf.

Question is, what will be the final straw that breaks the camels back? (no pun intended) What will the Russians do? They have vital interests in the area as well with oil being an issue. What will China do to insure stability in the region without giving up rights to those same oil producing places.

IMO, it's time for Europe (NATO) to start getting off its ass and start raising an army. If things get ugly NATO needs to help out the US. We are all part of an alliance. America learned from WWII you can't remain neutral when lines are being formed. Inevitably Europe will have to be more proactive militarily in the future.

See "He who controls the Spice controls the Guild" ~Dune

[duke_Qa]

what you are basically saying is that we should prepare for a war that could, and hopefully, can be stopped with diplomacy.

if we create a large-scale war in the middle east, we will have its blood on its hands for millenia. the arabs will antagonize for as long as they exist.

[Paladin58]

The problem is, it can't be stopped with deplomacy. With holy wars, there is no diplomacy. See: The Crusades. The whole thing is also fueled by the fact that there are sects of Islam waiting to blow each other to smithereens, and with the blind faith in religion over there, it's worse than the Japanese from WW2. Even if we can get the nations to stop fighting each other, there are still righteous clerics, warlords, and disputes of whether Mohammed wanted to spread Islam to the entire world to consider. After the political war begins, then the holy war, the real one, not this "jihad against the US!" crap right now, will soon follow suit. It will be as much to blame on Mohammed 1200 years ago as it will to blame ourselves.

[duke_Qa]

to claim that mohammed planned this situation 1200 years ago is like saying that Moses planned the Holocaust on the jews when he went out into the desert.

blaming religion is what makes crusades in the first place. blame the people and the cultures, not the straw-men/straw-ideologies. and our culture is just as much if not more to blame because of our power, to the instability in the region.

Edited by duke_Qa, 15 June 2007 - 07:12 PM.

[Hostile]

That was a good reply nab.

I'm all about diplomacy, as long as it's backed up by brute force. Do you think the Soviets would have been as diplomatic with us if it's weren't for mutually assured distruction?

My thoughts are, as a right wing person, is that we should begin to show force, a mobilization of about 2 million troops to show we're serious. And as we do that we put the focus on diplomacy to avoid a western invasion of Syria, Palistine, Lebanon, and Iran.

If they want a holy war, by all that's holy, let's give them one. See we don't actually have to invade them, we have to create the perception that we've had enough and are drawing up plans to, in the case "diplomacy fails"

War sucks, I agree it's the last course of action needed. But it's about time the US and NATO began to draw up plans to invade the region. Doesn't mean we have to, it means we need to show unity of policy. A policy that resolves itself, if need be. Without the big stick to back it up, diplomacy is useless.

The issue is, the western powers (Europe) are on holidays right now and can't quite be bothered at the moment, please leave a message. See if this issue is not resolved at some level soon, we'll be settling this issue in Europe rather than the middle east.