Testing Chat V: The Final Mysterious Island: Miami Beach

[Bakustra]

ha ha. we got trolled with the canadian version of the onion or some such shit.

very funny

do you need some skin grafts for those burns

[RyanThunder]

Or, you know, would make it even worse in the long run?

Preventing people from gassing each other now is going to be worse in the long run, eh?

Would you be willing to personally go over there and blow up parts of the country to feel as if something sufficient is being done or is this strictly a theoretical self-righteousness

You're American, right? As long as you're spending trillions of dollars on your military you might as well do something useful with it.

[adr]

built-in mouse cursor reference for linux

http://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/appendix/b/


#define XC_trek 142

omg why am i still using an arrow??????

[Flagg]

Or, you know, would make it even worse in the long run?

Preventing people from gassing each other now is going to be worse in the long run, eh?

How will killing random Syrians stop them from gassing people? We're talking about a limited missile strike.

Would you be willing to personally go over there and blow up parts of the country to feel as if something sufficient is being done or is this strictly a theoretical self-righteousness

You're American, right? As long as you're spending trillions of dollars on your military you might as well do something useful with it.

How is killing brown people who don't make the decisions useful?

[Questor]

Thank you flagg.

[RyanThunder]

Who said anything about a missile strike? I'm talking full-bore invasion.

[Questor]

Are you volunteering? Because I'm sure that there's ways to get you over there.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Who said anything about a missile strike? I'm talking full-bore invasion.

Are you sure this is something that is going to help I mean.

What makes you think it will?

[Straha]

The first gulf war is pretty much as close to an unprovoked attack by a big bad man picking on a smaller weaker country for no solid reason as you can get

Ehhh, that's not really true...

What's missing in that telling of the story is the Iran-Iraq war. To make a long story very short, Iraq attacked Iran in 1980 at the behest of the major Arab powers in the Gulf, who were afraid of destabilization by the Iranian revolutionary regime. Iraq was succesful in the early stages of the war but eventually the war essentially stalemated. After that the Iraqi war was bankrolled by the Gulf Co-operation Council with very large 'loans' to the tune of forty billion dollars, with ten billion coming from Kuwait. The war eventually ended, after large damage to Iraqi cities and infrastructure, when the GCC blew the bottom out of the price of oil dropping the price to about $10 per barrel, which was just above where Saudi Arabia and Kuwait could make a profit but just below where Iran could make a profit. Iran and Iraq settled and life seemed ready to go on, except Kuwait then decided to call in its loans from Iraq. Iraq's economy was still in tatters and had no way to repay, and attempts to negotiate a settlement failed because Kuwait played hardball and Saddam felt like he was being stabbed in the back. So, Iraq invaded Kuwait (after getting what Saddam thought was tacit approval from the Americans.)

[Questor]

Thanks, Straha. I remembered something about loans, but couldn't remember the source, and something in the back of my head was saying "Stuart" so I wasn't willing to cite it.,

[zhaktronz]

The result of the Jeddah talks was an Iraqi demand for $10 billion to cover the lost revenues from Rumaila; the Kuwaiti response was to offer $9 billion


Kuwait agreed to write off 90% off the loan

[Straha]

Dude, did you just verbatim quote Wikipedia?

For shame.

Edit: And a sentence that's sourced to Osprey books? Really? I expect better of you.

[Straha]

More importantly, Kuwait wasn't the only problem. IIRC, the Jeddah talks offered aid towards the Iraqis but repudiation of the loans (or changing oil exporting conditions so that Iraq could actually rebuild its economy) was always off the table.

Moreover the real target wasn't Kuwait but Saudi Arabia. Saddam's rationale seems to be that by invading Kuwait he could bring Saudi Arabia to the bargaining table and force them to renegotiate the terms of their loans because Saudi Arabia was always the big bankroll. (Reports differ on how much money Saudi Arabia loaned, some say $20-30 billion, other reports say billions a month. I'm... agnostic as to the real number but it was surely substantial.)

[zhaktronz]

Posted from my phone so couldn't do any real research

In any case how is invading a sovereign nation to force another sovereign nation to negotiate on trade terms in any way acceptable?

[Straha]

Didn't say it was (and I think y'all know where I stand on these sorts of issues). My argument is merely that it wasn't 'unprovoked' because Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were engaging in economic warfare against the Iraqi nation/people that was proving quite ruinous.

[Flagg]

Who said anything about a missile strike? I'm talking full-bore invasion.

OH so you want another few hundred thousand dead Syrians to accomplish... Iraq? Because things are going so well there now, I mean.

[adr]

Thanks, Straha. I remembered something about loans, but couldn't remember the source, and something in the back of my head was saying "Stuart" so I wasn't willing to cite it.,

it was prolly me, i've talked about this before on this site. worse source than stuart lol

of course it is important to remember that understanding with the causes/reasons isn't the same as agreeing with the action, or even finding the reason valid at all, and similarly condemning the action shouldn't preclude remedying/sympathizing with the cause

[RyanThunder]

Who said anything about a missile strike? I'm talking full-bore invasion.

OH so you want another few hundred thousand dead Syrians to accomplish... Iraq? Because things are going so well there now, I mean.

you want another few hundred thousand dead Syrians to install some kind of theocracy or a secular dictatorship all so you can pretend you did the right thing by taking a hands-off approach

instead of getting involved properly and forcing them to actually talk to each other

[RyanThunder]

while sidelining the religious extremists from the rebel faction because nobody should care what they think anyway

[Infinity Biscuit]

I'll ask again, Ryan. What makes you think this would actually work out the way you think it will?

[Big Orangutan]

The pitfall with Iraq was the Western armies rolling in, amazingly ignorant about everything in Iraq, abruptly dismantled the Baathist state, and failing to fill in the power vacuum quickly/efficiently enough. It's been a while since I last read Fiasco.

[Bounty]

Maybe it's time to take the Syria stuff to its own thread?

[Flagg]

Who said anything about a missile strike? I'm talking full-bore invasion.

OH so you want another few hundred thousand dead Syrians to accomplish... Iraq? Because things are going so well there now, I mean.

you want another few hundred thousand dead Syrians to install some kind of theocracy or a secular dictatorship all so you can pretend you did the right thing by taking a hands-off approach

instead of getting involved properly and forcing them to actually talk to each other

Dude, if you want to go kill some goddamn ragheads, join the Canukistani forces and lobby your member of parliament. I don't want dead Americans and hundreds thousands more dead Syrians so we can "try to do it right this time". The sheer Hubris of thinking you can roll into any country and just SET THINGS RIGHT, while hilarious, is deeply disturbing and the kind of thought patterns best associated with neoconservatives and sociopaths. You know, "and" being if there's a difference.

[evilsoup]

while sidelining the religious extremists from the rebel faction because nobody should care what they think anyway

Wasn't that one of the things that led to Iraq and Afghanistan failing so badly?

[Kryten]

Isn't an american intervention likely to lead to full-scale Hezbollah intervention? Never mind the potential reaction from Iran...