How about the Russians and the Chinese are playing the US like a fiddle. How’s that Shanghai Cooperative Organization,that we aren’t allowed observer status of, doing?

How about the Russians are gonna try to wrest want they can for their vote but their interests ultimately line up with ours on this one, so it ain’t much of a problem.

In addition signing resource agreements around the world without the slightest regard for human rights. As well as achieving monopoly control over certain elements critical to high tech industry. And pushing to increase naval protection for stratigic resourses. Sometimes I get the feeling that China is fighting a war with us and we don’t know it.

I have thought that about China for the last 20 years.
We’re not paying enough attention to the situation.

Of course they are. China has always looked at the long-term gain rather than the short-term. And, since the death of Mao, have been ruled by pragmatists rather that ideologues.

I could say so much to that that some would take me for a Pat Buchannan clone.

Wait. I gotta rush off & get a barf bag.

Skeptical about any agreement reached with Russia which appears in western outlets because their agenda continues behind the Potemkin village of diplomacy.

Like this.

The Chinese have a totally different agenda, although somewhat interrelated. They also have the interesting ability to tell us to our faces what they’re really up to — we just aren’t paying attention in our Ameri-centric fashion.

Spencer – have you had dinner with any respectable Russkis?

Check that label and make sure it wasn’t made in China.

Alternatively, O & M are playing their own populations like fiddles.

Yep. Time for a preemptive invasion.

It makes me think that projection isn’t a quality of americans in general rather than just the right. Yeah, they are adopting capitalism and are changing thier ways. Rather than beguiling us with low labor costs, getting us to transfer all the technology they can and then cutting us loose.

Thanks for the link.

Juan Cole also had a snippet on why sanctions will fail which included, among other factors, swapping petroleum products with (drum roll) Russia & Iraq, so that Iran can get the refined gasoline it needs. Also (another drum roll), Iran’s gasoline production capability will double by 2012, thanks in part to Germany’s ABB Lummis, etc.

Let’s see, was there a response somewhere in there?

I don’t get it.
Why is it in Russia’s interest to sell out their customer for technology and fuel which they supply and control over a ridiculous proposition that they somehow are ‘enabling’ a nuclear threat by supplying NPT compliant Iran with limited fusion power generating capacity ?
Do you think that the nation which pulled the U.S.’ tail over nukes on missiles in Turkey with nukes on missiles in Cuba has suddenly forgotten what situational awareness of WMD entails and is enabling it?
Besides : it endangers future Russian reactor sales. Is U.S. bullshit that effective a tool ?

Great. Now let’s drop the other shoe

… and do what we should have done at the end of WWII, what we had done after all of our previous wars, and cut our military back down to its peacetime corporal’s guard strength. The reason we failed to follow this wise and traditional cuirse of action, was the Cold War. That reason is no longer operative. There is no longer any reason for us to keep large forces always on hand to defend Western Europe.

No other need for large forces always at hand has presented itself. If you tell me that we need large forces on hand to combat terrorism, you’re just helping me make my case by extending it to the nsight that, not only are military forces not needed unless we face a large military threat in being, they are a detriment, becuase they lure us into using military force where it can do nothng but harm. Armed forces, as opposed to police, have no role whatsoever to play in combating “terrorism”, except to invade and occupy countries that we imagine foster and protect this “terrorism”. This is a foolish rationale on its face, since acts of terrorism like 9/11 have nothing to do with the squad-level tactis that al Qaeda used its Afghan bases to train. Squad-level tactics are only useful against an occupying army, as part of a guerrilla campaign. But actually having US forces on the ground occupying Afghanistan provides real world, on-the-job, training in squad-level tactics that is so much better than what al Qaeda used to be able to offer before we invaded that country, that you’ld think al Qaeda was dictating US military policy.

Which they are, much as the SU and China used to back in Cold War days.

Let’s do something radically different, and have a military policy that actually serves our interests. Let’s cut the military to about 5% of its present strength.