A Perfect Time to Leave the Middle East, by Robert Gore

Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 5 months ago to Government
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The US must immediately get off this madly careening merry-go-round. Oil in the low $40s per barrel, natural gas at $2.25 per MMBtu, and both in oversupply on world markets make a mockery of the notion that the US must be in the Middle East to secure petroleum supplies. The oil exporting nations, including Middle Eastern exporters, need the world’s largest oil consumer far more than the US needs any of them. War is expensive. Those nations that become further embroiled in Middle East conflict will find their needs for revenue ever more pressing. Oil has always been a fig leaf for the US’s military-industrial-intelligence complex, which lusts for perpetual and lucrative Middle Eastern tension and war. The rest of us have nothing to gain from it and everything to lose.

"Taking the battle to the terrorists will make us safer at home," was one of the rationales offered for intervention by the US in the Middle East. Paris is the latest reminder of its deadly fatuousness; France has been in the Middle East longer than the US. Has the US government’s intervention made us safer? The start of a serious debate about coming home will show that it has made at least some of us wiser.

This is an excerpt. Please click the link above for the full article.

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  • Posted by tdechaine 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Wake up and see the enemy! Totalitarian Islam is at war with us; we'd better fight back appropriately before they become more emboldened.
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  • Posted by tdechaine 9 years, 5 months ago
    Who's saying we need to be in the ME for oil?
    You don't seem to understand the war we are in.
    We are fighting the war wrongly; we need to destroy evil, not merely "intervene" or "contain" it. Yes, "coming home" is probably better than fighting wrongly, but not if we fight to win.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would like to agree with you. Iran's leaders, have declared our death. ISIS has declared our death. We should believe them as they believe themselves.Perhaps if we had taken your advice 20 years ago, but, as of now, my concern is for America. 911 wasn't the end of the infiltration and plot against the USA. Withdrawal as illustrated by Obama's actions, did nothing to ameliorate the situation, except to have the radical jihadists move in to fill the "vacuum." We have stepped into a nest of vipers. It is likely we shouldn't have. But unlike the Barbary Pirates, or the sheiks of pre WW2 , who didn't have thw wherewithal to cross the Atlantic, these versions of 21st century oil rich Muslims can strike at us within and without and we'd be fools to stick our heads in the sand and hope that if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone.
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  • Posted by samrigel 9 years, 5 months ago
    Yes it is possibly time to leave the Middle East. But in all seriousness it makes no difference whether we (USA) or any other country is there. The Middle East has been shaped by Islam. All of those free people when they go elsewhere in significant numbers turn the area into a 7th Century hell hole. And we don't need a Minority Report memo to anticipate Islamic evil. The world has 1400 years of History in that region and regions close by to understand. We just need to remember that history.
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    well, we weren't successful at keeping him out-so where is the big plan and do you trust the govt to do it right as you argue for it? let's see-0 terrorists caught by TSA since 2003. over 400 TSA agents arrested. hmmm
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  • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "we anticipate the evil". it should not have been phrased as a question.
    since 0 is an admitted muslim he will try to get as many as possible state side and while he is in office we will not experience a paris type of event. when he is out of office all hell will break loose. for now he will concentrate on gun control and will orchestrate more random shootings.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Doesn't Pakistan count as the Middle East? (Israel really being in the Near East)
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm not sure I understand your point. My point was that they pretty much left us alone when we left them alone. Keep in mind, even with the Barbary pirates, we were in their territory, not ours. You go looking for trouble, you'll find it, and the US certainly went looking for trouble in the Middle East after WWII. We found it, and those who like fulfilling Einstein's definition of insanity think we should keep intervening. The next iterations could well be World War III and nuclear war. My modest proposal is to try something different to perhaps avoid those outcomes.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And how many times did we have to "beat the snot" out of Muslims between the Barbary pirates affair and World War II, which just coincidentally was a period when the US had almost no involvement in the Middle East?
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  • Posted by blackswan 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What we have here is a failure to communicate. Many of you are thinking that if we just leave the Muslims alone, they will play in their sandbox and leave everyone else alone. If you've studied any history, especially for the last 1400 years, you know that's BS. In fact, the US had to deal with them over 200 years ago, on the shores of Tripoli (sound familiar?). Just as we had to beat the snot out of the Nazis and Japan, so we must do the same for outfits like ISIS, or we'll have them on our doorstep. We're in it now, and running away will not make them go away and leave us alone (if it were only possible). We MUST beat their asses at least as thoroughly as we beat Germany and Japan, with the same level of ruthlessness. Only then can we leave, and not have to worry about them for a generation or two. I hate to burst your balloon, but that's the long and short of it.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is true.
    However, the nature of the Persians VS the Greeks seems somehow more rational, if rationality can be applied to war. In order to understand the difference between then and now would require me to hit the history books. I've got too many other things to do and not enough time to do them. But you make a good point.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We sell them arms. Israel can take care of itself. Let's not forget it's the only country in the Middle East with nuclear arms (that we know about).
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  • Posted by rbunce 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I believe that Mideast madness was around far longer than Islam... Ask the Greeks about the Persians.
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  • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    good question. 0 will of course say we need more muslims here. 0 needs his more members of his mosk.
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  • Posted by bbuckeye 9 years, 5 months ago
    There is something missing in this article. One of the reasons that the terrorists hate us is due to our support of Israel. Do we abandon them?
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 5 months ago
    Yes, the Middle East is madness. It has been ever since Islam took hold, which is the religion of madness. Forgive me, but I don't see how withdrawing will help anything. It wont stop the infiltration of an insane religion which combines the Hun and the Mystic, justifying any and all atrocities. The infiltration continues throughout Europe and has a strong foothold in America. Eventually we will be battling it within our shores whether we like it or not and what the motivations are. If Islam is to be conquered, starting where it started and is the strongest is not a bad tactic. Killing the radicals could ostensibly be for the benefit of the Middle East but I cannot see how it is of no benefit to America. The radicals within Islam are not going to stop. Not by appeasement, not by nation building, and not by anything other than complete annihilation, or at the very least, the closest that it's possible to come to it. They are relentless. Just ask Israel.
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    so if we get out, and are not at war, does that mean we can still keep free people out of our country?
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 5 months ago
    I agree. Out of the middle east. They are caught up in their regional religious nonsense and they should fight it out amongst themselves without us taking one side or the other. Both sides seem to hold allah as their spiritual leader anyway- so its their battle.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago
    Why leave now? The left would just have to go start another one somewhere else in order to keep control and float another economic crisis. Tongue firmly planted in cheek but keep in mind basic math. 1999 gas under a dollar a gallon. It went up to near $5 some places. Then dropped with the opening of the West Texas bonanza. Now it's down to $2.00 a gallon and everyone thinks it's wonderful. But it's still double what it was 15 years ago. Not quite your one dollar is not worth seventy cents. and it takes three 1999 dollars to buy a gallon of gas. thanks to the government sponsored housing bust, the ethanol scam, the rise in the price of food world wide, the bankruptcy of 2008, your buying power is soooooo screwed. No problem we'll just foist it off on the elderly and the retired with zero cost of living adjustments. Worked so well they are doing it again....care to guess what your retirement wil be worth fifteen years from now? Oh jass mon and de cost of de medicines mon. Dumb asses.
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  • Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 5 months ago
    Again, the US middle east war-lover policy is straight out of the “Dictator’s Handbook.” An enlightening read. From the perspective of doing “the right thing,” the policies of imperialism and intervention are wrong. BUT, from the perspective of those in power, the policy is ideal. Politicians and arms manufacturers love war. They don’t fight or pay for the wars, but profit. When the cronycaptialists make money, they donate to all Big Government Party campaigns. Who wins is not as important making sure whoever wins owes big time to the “essentials” who got them into (and keep them) in office. I get a kick out of the conservatives emailing saying to send Obama a message he is wrong. From Obama point of view, he is doing everything very well. I doubt ten million letters will change his actions.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The whole area is interwoven between the two major and 78 minor divisions of Islam. What's ironic in the case of Iraq is the ten or so reasons given to enter and topple the fascist regime of a mass murdering genocidal maniac were suddenly pared down to 'no nukes.' a reduction of 9 and 2/3rds disappeared but not one vote in Congress to pull out cited that reduction it was all yellow cake this and that. Would the Kosovo invasion which had zero stated reasons until it was well underway have been subjected to such scrutiny. But then what the hell ...it's only cannon fodder and the baby factories are running full tilt. Plenty more where they came from. Where was all the concern when the War Powers Act was being complied with.and where was the Democrat sponsored War Powers Act when Obama decided to invade Afghanistan and Syria?

    And you wonder why the military finds the left despicable from Rino all the way over to Bernie.

    Ahhh welll....With the left it's always one more war, one more .....one more.... one more.....don't expect any changes....from the Rino to Progressives coalition. It's how they pays the bills - after skimming it top bottom front rear, before and after.

    Has nothing to do with minor shit like genocide and everything to do with the economic well being of government officials and their bank accounts.
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