[Nicko]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Where's it coming from?

Oil money that has been turned into crisp USD of course.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Where's it coming from?

I didn't think I'd have to answer that, but apparently I do. Too much of it is coming from U.S. Just think how much less they'd have to finance our destruction if American's actually gave ****.

[ebuddy]

So let me get this straight, we're giving money to Iran in order to fund and facilitate attacks against us?

Russia and China have some deals running with Iran also. Does this mean Iran will fund and facilitate attacks against them? I guess I don't understand how your points are supposed to relate to isolationism.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Nicko 

Oil money that has been turned into crisp USD of course.

Who isn't turning oil profits into their own currency??? Is profit illegal or something? Are "crisp USD" now a nefarious thing?

And how does any of this relate to isolationism being sound "foreign" policy in a world of jet-setting powers?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by KarlG 

I didn't think I'd have to answer that, but apparently I do. Too much of it is coming from U.S. Just think how much less they'd have to finance our destruction if American's actually gave ****.

How much money have we given to Iran?

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

How much money have we given to Iran?

If you'd pay attention, you'd have noticed that he said we gave money to Saudi Arabia, and that's what I was referring to.

[Nicko]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Who isn't turning oil profits into their own currency??? Is profit illegal or something? Are "crisp USD" now a nefarious thing?

And how does any of this relate to isolationism being sound "foreign" policy in a world of jet-setting powers?

Well I just meant that oil smuggling is a very profitable way for the terrorists, insurgents, (whatever you want to call them) to get funds to buy weapons.

As for isolationism, I don't see it happening. However, Bush continues to demonstrate he is not willing to negotiate much of anything to find novel solutions aside from unilaterally starting wars and occupations of foreign countries. Iran have demonstrated they have very skilled diplomats and have arguably stayed a few steps ahead of the Bush admin. Lets face it, whenever anything happens we already know what Bush is going to say, he no ideas left to try.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by Orion27 

Historically, Conservatives in the United States have taken the more isolationist world view. Neo-Conservatives have largely been blamed for the current US effort to transform the Middle East from societies ruled by oligarchs and ruthless dictators to budding constitutional democracies. In an article in today's New York Times , David Brooks talks about Moderate Arabs strident narrative about the Israeli Lobby controlling the American Government. It appears at a recent conference of "Moderate Arabs" co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and the American Enterprise Institute, "...... problems between America and the Arab world have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism or ideological extremism, they have to do with American policies toward Israel, and the forces controlling those policies."
The general theme was Israel was at the root of several issue in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Iraq, and the confrontation with Iran. The American view were the discord in the Middle East was largely due to "fundamentalism, extremism and autocracy and could not be blamed on Israel or the American, but it had much deeper roots."
Brooks went on to comment on there being nothing defensive or introspective about the Arab participants.
"In response to Bernard Lewis’s question, “What Went Wrong?” their answer seemed to be: Nothing’s wrong with us. What’s wrong with you?"
Brooks than intimated about a total American disengagement from the "cesspool" due partly because our inability to transform the region and Arabs unwillingness to change by clinging to "Zionist-centric mythology, which is as self-flattering as it is self-destructive".
If or when Americans disengage I believe there will be "new isolationism" with regard to American foreign policy with dangerous repercussions throughout the Middle East but Europe and Africa as well.

I remember a similar essay linked on this board long ago about Al Quaida's "fantasy ideology." At the time I commented that I thought it complemented Bush's fantasy ideology quite nicely.

The Zion-centric mythology strikes me in a very similar fashion. It makes me think about the neo-con's America-the-Virtuous mythology, a myth system wherein whatever promotes the interests of the moneyed elite in the United States is righteous, and that all who stand opposed to such an agenda are the enemies of "freedom."

To paraphrase Cormac McCarthy (congrats on the Pulitzer, my man), "In the heart of the [neocon] there is a great yearning for freedom, but only his own."

The United States has recently repudiated the Republicans for allowing themselves to be carried away with a self-indulgent and reckless philosophy that dissuades reasonable discourse and prevents its adherents from reaching middle ground with opponents. Democracy has worked for the U.S. The people have seen that the Republican ideologues who've been steering the ship weren't partaking in this great muddled mess of a world we call "reality," but were instead playing their own game by a set of rules that were virtually delusional in their disconnection from fact and rationality. God willing, these people will be repudiated further in 2008.

That's democracy. That's the ultimate Check on power and on the potential for an entire nation to be dragged along with a few ideologues into insanity.

Now, back to the Middle East. No democracy. So irrational philosophies abound, they are given reign. The leaders of the Middle East are captured by this Israel-centered madness--not unlike the madness of preemptive war and American hegemony that has dictated our foreign policy for too long--but there are no checks on its range, on its destructive--no, corrosive power.

Cess pool? Yes. I can see why it could be called that. From a reasonable person's standpoint, the intransigence of the culture of this region seems corrupt and stagnant. The entire country of Iran becomes angry because the Persians are depicted so terribly in 300. It's a movie about a comic book about a battle that took place over two thousand years ago and yet they regard it as a national insult. If Iran made a movie depicting Thomas Jefferson as lustful slave-molesting devil-worshipper, and it was popular, would we care? The wanks on Fox News would raise hell. Those people possessed by the same fantasy ideologies would complain. But the people...the people would move on. Democracy and the splintering of power has that effect. People are empowered and so they don't go squandering their power, wasting their outrage quite so fanatically.

Where am I going with all this? Yes, there is a divide, a gap, a whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Maybe a new isolationism is exactly what we need. Maybe, just maybe, that's what the city on the hill can offer the world just now, this one simple lesson from the seemingly irredeemable zeitgeist of American popular culture: Just relax and enjoy yourselves, for ****'s sake.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by KarlG 

If you'd pay attention, you'd have noticed that he said we gave money to Saudi Arabia, and that's what I was referring to.

Uh-oh.

Originally Posted by Sky Captain

Not to mention all the monetary aid from Saudi.
And probably training and material from Iran.

Where did he say we've given money to Saudi Arabia? If you'd been paying attention not only to the post you've quoted, but your response to it; you'd realize that he didn't say anything of the sort, you did.

See, what happened here is you got called to the carpet for parroting some meaningless partisan talking point about how Saudi Arabia is using our money to fund and facilitate attacks against us. Enter country name here __________. It doesn't matter. We conduct transactions on mutual interests with just about every country in the world and they with us. This does not make their acts of aggression somehow less nefarious nor does it necessitate their funding and facilitating attacks against us. Buying oil is not evil. You use it right? You need it. The US government is ensuring you have a wealth of it to continue using. It is something all developed nations use a lot of. It makes no sense to respond to someone else's indictment against other countries to say; "well, we bought such and such from them..." in some fashionable, predictably partisan exercise of self-loathing.

Shall we use up the last of our strategic reserve or just eliminate the internal-combustion engine tomorrow? Neither?

Well then, what the hell does any of this have to do with isolationism being sound "foreign" policy? Assuming that's your point of course, I'm still trying to figure out if you had one.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Nicko 

Well I just meant that oil smuggling is a very profitable way for the terrorists, insurgents, (whatever you want to call them) to get funds to buy weapons.

Every country in the world uses funds to buy weapons. Again, I'm trying to find a point behind even mentioning this. Is your point that we should stop buying any oil from the Middle East? Should we stop using oil entirely? Should we address the criminal actions of those countries who use oil profits to commit terror? What?

As for isolationism, I don't see it happening. However, Bush continues to demonstrate he is not willing to negotiate much of anything to find novel solutions aside from unilaterally starting wars and occupations of foreign countries.

Since when is a coalition comprised of some 30+ countries unilateral??? What "unilateral" body authored 13 Resolutions threatening serious consequences for non-compliance over 12 years?

What novel solutions are you referring to? Are they solutions that will maintain our quality of life and usage? Are they solutions that allow us to continue developing at the same rate as the other non-isolationist countries of whom we face in the coming decade? Are they really solutions at all or does this argument really having nothing to do with global instability?

Iran have demonstrated they have very skilled diplomats and have arguably stayed a few steps ahead of the Bush admin. Lets face it, whenever anything happens we already know what Bush is going to say, he no ideas left to try.

I've not been pleased with the Bush Administration's PR. Is this incompetence the result of lacking isolationism or are you just saying the same things over and over too?

I wonder though how far ahead Ahmadinejad is from his own people. I have a hunch we'll figure out soon enough. Not unlike what is now happening with increasing regularity in Russia, people are calling for reform. They're echoing the same sentiment as the "Bush Administration".

So... if a tree falls in the forest and you're not there to hear it, does it still make a sound?