Empire of the Iguanadons

Two Iranian warships are set to transit the Suez Canal in the next couple of days in a move that can only be seen as a hostile gesture toward Israel. This would be the first time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that Iran has sent ships through the canal of any type. The two ships, the Alvand and the Kharq, are said to be bound for Syria for "training purposes". Israel has already publicly condemned the crossing as a threat and is not the least bit happy about it. Who could blame them really, with Iran routinely threatening to wipe them off the map. There is no assurances from Egypt at all that these vessels have been properly searched for contraband such as nuclear weapons, other than a hollow statement from Canal operations that the ships will be checked for "illegal" cargo.

This couldn't be a more transparent provocation on Iran's part. No doubt these vessels are filled with weapons and supplies for Hezbollah and Iran is simply testing the waters on Egypt's new military rule to see what they can get away with. It's things like this that should raise red flags and have people seriously discussing securing the Suez Canal under international control. Or better yet, under US military control.

The media of course seems to have all but glossed this story over except for a short article on Fox News. Preferring instead to dwell on the US veto of yet another Security Council resolution to slap Israel in the face over settling their own sovereign territory.

One day soon, Israel will wake up and realize Obama is not their friend and they will have to act on their own to preserve their own interests. When that day comes, for whatever it's worth, I'm with them on it as are the majority of Americans.
.........................
RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

I suppose that people haven't really changed much (actually, as a whole people have become much more peaceful and tolerant, in the western world at least, but still).

Overall, people are people. Human nature in general change very little over the span of time, but some change does still happen eventually. We may have become much more peaceful and tolerant in parts of the world and in many facets, but I'll bet we've got some issues that we get nearly as intolerant and violent about that folks back then didn't even have as considerations. For example, who back then even considered abortion to be an issue, or even an option, per se? Look how badly we wanted to tear at each other's throats over the issue here amongst friends when it got brought up.

UN have voted for a no fly zone over Libya.

10 votes for. None against. 5 absentations.

Yes, yes they have. However in Lybia's case I don't really see there being much point in us getting that involved. The Arab League has an air force of their own, I say let them deal with it. Lybia poses no direct threat to the US regardless of who wins control of the country so we don't really have much need to send our guys in.

It'd be good for the USA's public image if they did though, but I can sertainly see why you guys aren't particuarly interested.

The problem is that with these muslim countries, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

If we don't deploy to enforce a no-fly zone, they'll claim they hate us because we refused to help the rebels.

If we do deploy to enforce it, then they'll claim we're the evil bastards out to impose ourselves on their way of life.

So since they'll despise us either way, we should determine for ourselves if there's anything to gain by doing this. Qadaffi killing all the rebels ultimately means nothing to us. Killing Qaddafi ultimately means nothing to us. So exactly how is getting involved helpful? Lybia isn't pointing nukes at us or running around telling anyone who will listen that he's developing them.

The cynic in me says fight on the side of whoever will give us cheaper oil.

Well, to be fair, all the Arab nations want to get rid of Qaddafi (and because they are a bunch of pussies they ask you to do it for them) and I think has more than demonstrated himself to be an insane and evil dictator with mass murdering and oppresive intentions.

Also, you are actually coming to the aid of an Arab group who are clearly organised enough to run a country to some degree rather than just coming in and removing a government and then trying to set up one out of nothing.

Of course, there will be Lybians who support Qaddafi who will hate you for this and there will be other Arabs that hate you as well, though I suspect they will be well and truly in the minority.

But then, its your countries military and your countries choice.

As for your cynic though, maybe the rebels will be grateful if you help them win and give you some discount oil...

The only problem is, it's been widely reported that while Qadaffi hates the rebels and they hate him, both sides hate us and the rest of the western world even more and would be just as likely to turn their collective forces on us instead of each other. I don't know about you, but I certainly would rather avoid that. So would those 8 British military guys the rebels kidnapped and are now holding for ransom.

At least with how things are now, you're fairly safe to assume that as long as they're killing each other they're not trying to kill us. Provided we don't give them something of ours to shoot at.

With Iraq, we had a genuine security concern and HAD to act, regardless of what your leftist media lied about and told you. Therefore once we accomplished deposing Saddam, we had no choice but to remain there and see to the orderly transition back to sovereignty. Shit like that takes time. Just ask the Germans.

Erm... They freed those British about 2 weeks ago now.

Good. It might have been nice then if our media had told us this. Just keep in mind, the rebels knew who those guys were and why they had come and they tried to hold them for ransom anyway. Should tell you something of why we ought to just stay out of it without a pressing security concern.

Exactly. Every cop will tell you there's very few entanglements you can get yourself into worse than a domestic dispute because no matter what you do you're hated for it by everyone involved on both sides. It's truly a no-win situation for the one intervening to try to help.


Actually, I read about their release on AP over a week ago, and it appears that even Fox covered the story back on the 6th. I'm thinking that, as busy as I've been the last week or two where I haven't had time for blogs/forums for days at a stretch, you seem to have missed even the news media for most of this month.. or at least the parts that weren't over-hyping the craziness in Japan..

Well. Shit's on. France of all places is bombing Libya. Who would have thought?

Its about time they stopped waving around that goddamned white flag!