Originally Posted by Jimbuna (Post 2767277)

I really don't understand the importance of allowing Turkey to remain in NATO.

Whatever next....EU membership?

Originally Posted by Jimbuna (Post 2767277)

I really don't understand the importance of allowing Turkey to remain in NATO.

Whatever next....EU membership?

Originally Posted by Jimbuna (Post 2767277)

I really don't understand the importance of allowing Turkey to remain in NATO.

Whatever next....EU membership?

Originally Posted by Paul Moser-Napa Register

Blame is a dish best served piping hot, and everybody seems to have something to bring to the Afghanistan Withdrawal Pot Luck and Political Lynching.
Generally acknowledged to be as extraordinarily messy as our 20-year sojourn there, America’s final exit from Afghanistan desperately needs a fall guy, a culprit, a perp guilty of the crime. We don’t want to blame a group, large or small, because that doesn’t make as satisfying a meal.
So let’s make it about Joe Biden. Let’s title the indictment, “We absolutely needed to leave, but not in this chaotic way.” After all, the departure was so disorganized, so rushed and panicky — it just wasn’t right. What we should have done is: (you are invited to fill in the blank). Whatever suggestions you chose, I would submit that you probably missed the inescapable ingredient in this road-apple hoagie.
The truth is: our messy exit was just the logical extension of a massive, 20-year-long institutional failure, on every level of government. The truth is: the heart of the disaster was the absolute refusal of four presidents, our military, our intel and diplomatic agencies, to publicly acknowledge the lethal, self-congratulatory, delusional hubris of believing the puppet Afghan government was real.
To everyone who is now chomping at the bit, saying “But, but, but,” I would ask this question: Which president would have executed a better exit than Biden, once you factor in the shocking speed with which the “Afghan Security Forces” dissolved — or even joined — the Taliban fighters, when the minimum of 12 or 18 months that experts estimated the Afghan government would last, melted away? This was the catastrophic miscalculation that made the rout inevitable; it was a long-term, equal opportunity combination of idealism and cynical, calculated political strategizing.
Take Dubya’s approach, for example. In 2007, four years after he essentially ignored the Afghanistan conflict in favor of an even more foolish military adventure in Iraq, he gave a speech in which he said our work in Afghanistan was to “establish a stable, moderate, and democratic state that respects the rights of its citizens.” He said, “…our work is bringing freedom.”
Today, such statements about a hugely backward, theocratic collection of warlike tribes are not a case of rose-colored glasses, but more like LSD kicking in.
As did Dubya’s, Obama’s treatment of the Afghan question sidestepped the issue of not just whether the Afghan forces were capable of defending their own government, but whether they even believed there was something to defend. After his troop surge in 201l, followed by a decision to withdraw all U.S. troops by 2014, he settled on leaving about 10,000 troops there. This was presumably not because he had terrific faith in the Afghans’ willingness/ability to defend themselves. And how about the former “president?” Which of his contradictory, opportunistic statements should we believe? The best answer is “none,” since lying and pandering has always been his MO. Though he insisted in 2017 that we would “fight to win,” by 2019 the self-described brilliant “dealmaker” had inked an agreement with the Taliban that simultaneously shut out the Afghan government (a huge morale-builder for Afghans, absolutely, in case they harbored any shred of confidence in their own government) and freed 5,000 terrorists from prison, while the Taliban would forbid any anti-American terrorist activity inside Afghanistan —with zero mechanisms in place to verify that. The former “president” ultimately drew troop levels down to about 3,500. Not really perfect conditions for the mid-2021 U.S. withdrawal that was also part of the agreement. Such genius. So next in line is Biden, who in deciding to actually get out of Afghanistan comes face to face with the fallout from 20 years of group-think and delusional policy. There was never a free and democratic Afghanistan. The Afghan Security Forces were, like the government, a creature born of and maintained by American money and little else. What kind of patriotism could we expect in a country where citizens have only the vaguest sense of nationhood? Where leaders are famously corrupt, and the economy relies heavily on the freaking opium poppy?
Biden’s determination to face the thankless task of leaving Afghanistan stripped bare all these illusions and made him the sacrificial animal in a dark ritual intended to absolve our previous leaders and their administrations of the guilt arising from willfully blind service to the mirage of a serious Afghan government.
But look on the bright side. If you’re an American who appreciates the gun-toting theocracy that Afghanistan promises to become, there’s a budding example of just such a government right here at home. Where corrupt evangelical leaders flourish, where anybody can carry a concealed weapon anywhere, and government control of women is now just a few short steps from the burka. It’s Texas! Come on down!:yeah:

Originally Posted by the statute

Part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) makes it unlawful to acquire, operate, or receive income from an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. Geared toward ongoing organized criminal activities, the underlying tenet of RICO is to prove and prohibit a pattern of crimes conducted through an “enterprise,” which the statute defines as “any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.”
Under RICO, it is a crime for an individual to belong to an “enterprise” that is involved in a pattern of racketeering, even if the racketeering was committed by other members.

Originally Posted by IKE's retirement speech

As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.[2]
A draft of the farewell address, showing handwritten edits.
Despite his military background and being the only general to be elected president in the 20th century, he warned the nation with regard to the corrupting influence of what he describes as the "military-industrial complex".
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
He also expressed his concomitant concern for corruption of the scientific process as part of this centralization of funding in the Federal government, and vice versa:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
...
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite...