What we have known for the longest while in the Middle East. What we have been warning against for the longest while is now being documented by no other than Mr. Hersh! The funniest part is that a maggot like Tigger will come out and blame Fath Al Islam, a group supported by the US, on us in an attempt to advance his agenda. SHUT THE HELL UP TIGGER http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/ And here is the article; http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh
Even if the strategy is sound - which I am not capable of evaluating - this seems to be a gross violation of his duties. If true I hope Bush and Cheney rot in jail.
mate, how could it be sound? leading by example... imagine your kids were to see you paying a thug to kill your boss or a judge or another thug whatever because they got in your way or represent a threat to you etc but you can't afford the risk of going to jail if you get caught taking care of this yourself... what do you think is going to happen in their minds... forget about the world we are trying to create, the rule of law, due process etc... all smokes and mirrors... the lesson will be: there are no rules except this: "don't get caught"... if the best of us start behaving like that as a matter of policy, where are we headed? the irony is, if the US/OAS/CIA/the militaro-industrial complex etc had refrained from employing such terrorist / cold "business" logic type tactics to physically eliminate opposition all around the Middle-East since the 1940s at least, they would still have the respect of the rest of the world, terrorist networks wouldn't have the support they enjoy and would be tons less powerful as a result, etc etc... anyway... i know i am flogging dead horses here... we are where we are... but its never too late to do the right thing....
I was not talking about the ethics of it - for those I said he should rot in jail. the question is whether it is good to fund your enemies enemy so they keep each other "occupied" given what is going on right now.
I was not talking about the ethics of it - for those I said he should rot in jail. the question is whether it is strategically useful to fund your enemies enemy so they keep each other "occupied".
This was the American policy in the Middle East all along jem. As I said before, the Taliban fundamentalists were called heroic Jihadies. Now let me ask you a question jem. If the US admin is willing to advance the interest of Israel by funding the enemy (Al Qaeda) of Israel's arch enemy (Hizbullah); would you find it hard for the Americans to use the same tactics to cause "Fetna" in Iraq by pegging Sunnis against Shea in Iraq?? And if so, what means do you think they will use to achieve that??
it can't be... i trust you would be familiar with realist type theories of international relations and would have read your Machiavel, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu etc... those treatises are full of such smart tactical recipes... but this is not about funding a small opposition party to create dissent in the opposite camp and win an election... its about funding people who will stop at absolutely nothing and resort to physical elimination first wherever achievable, because such is the phase of the conflict and such are the methods used by their enemies... therefore funding them as a dirty tactical move and if you don't get caught by neither your friends, nor your enemies who end up being annihilated, yes, you will get away with an advantage, but there will still be a moral cost of using extreme survival win-or-die type tactics when other non-lethal means were available, and this "cost" will play itself out over time amongst your loved ones, people who surround you, in ways you can't predict, but as a strategy? no way... your guaranteed you WILL get caught, now or later... the long term "side" effects are simply overwhelming... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence) what lots of people do not realize is that a lot of what is happening today is mostly a "side" effect of US foreign policy / dirty games in the region over the last 60 years... in other words, "the ends justify the means" is not true of all means...
funding an enemy, because they are an enemy of another enemy isnt always wrong - it can work but it's definately playing with matches, and assures you're going to get burned sooner or later - only question is, how bad? Ron Paul is right - in the big picture, we need to quit f-cking with the middle east, if we want our problems to end because we keep reacting to the enemy's reaction to our previous reaction
So basically we want the shias in Iraq to suppress the sunnis there but not get too close to the shias in Iran,and we want the sunnis in Lebanon to suppress the shias there, as long as they don't cooperate with al qaeda. We want the saudis to fund sunni militias, only not in Iraq and not al qaeda. Everyone wants the Israelis to bomb the Iranians, because everyone already hates the Israelis. I'm shocked that such a simple plan hasn't worked better.