So if I may rephrase, you are asking if I believe the US should act as World Policeman? I would need to attack that question on a case-by-case basis. I was not trying to make that point - my point was that Iran's treatment of various groups of people among its own populace was evidence that convinces me I am not ready to endorse greeting them as friends (speaking governmentally here, you understand, not meaning to paint all Iranian citizens with the same brush).

-- tommy1733

It's not necessary to treat them as friends. What's necessary is to talk to them and determine mutual interests geopolitically and go from there.

After all, we lived with the USSR's thousands of nukes aimed at us for how many years? Yet.....we still talked to them and made the most of what relations we had with them.

Come to think of it, there's another country that could start doing that also.

If any other country

Starts at cop on the beat

They're really only rouges

On Outlaw Street...

Did I get it right?

Kurstin Dunst as Marie.

Yowie.

http://www.martinbreton.com/cpg/albums/userpics/10001/marie-antoinette.png

I am as confused by your post as you were by mine. "Plenty on the left," means just what it says, as in "many on the left."

I am not aware that the phrase "on the left" is dismissive of anyone's ideas, or for that matter that the word "plenty" has any such meaning either. Contrary to the extreme positions you questioned me about, there is nothing I wrote that was dismissive of people's ideas or their right to voice them.

I simply made my case for a civil discussion, and I was clear that I thought both sides were guilty of temper tantrum style arguments: snark, sarcasm, name calling, etc. I am one of those who buys into that Obama thing about disagreeing without being disagreeable.

There are also plenty on blogs who make thoughtful comments that I think about for days. I consider some of the best to be those who disagree with me in a way that makes me check my thinking. No one is encouraged to rethink something when they are approached rudely, and without substance.

Finally to answer your question, you'd find me on the left, but I try not to allow my personal ideologies to plug my ears and strangle my brain.

There are certain rules to being taken seriously on American foreign policy.

And those rules are working out really well for us, aren't they? By certain rules, do you mean being wrong about everything as a rule?

Lets see...

Serious people said that the Iraq war would be a cakewalk. It wasn't true.

Serious people said that Saddam had those WMDs. It wasn't true.

Serious people got us involved in the lost war called Afghanistan.

What regional power gained the most from the Iraq debacle? Iran.

Seriousness sure pays dividends!

And now those same serious people are saber rattling at Iran.

I think my name was mentioned -

Does anybody want to talk to ME about how I really feel about all of this -

Yes? -

No? - and do you know there are some countries on earth where men still live together with sheep and they don't get punished for that and that the biggest secret of the Swiss is how the

Senn survive these long warm summers on the Alm and nobody even worries about it besides Woody Allen and perhaps Maureen and it would be without a question a sign of reconcillitation if heru would propose to tommy.

I'm not sure your reference to John Brennan is apropos.

You're probably right, given that Brennan, according to the AP "will instead take charge of counterterrorism on the National Security Council."

http://tinyurl.com/8mphs4

Ah, well. These battles are ongoing and I still think my point is valid. Were there not, as the AP describes it,

"a firestorm in liberal blogs that associate [Brennan] with the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies,"

he would've been CIA Director-in-waiting.

Onward and upward.

Just for the record:

Iraq was not a "cake walk."

It was a cow pie ride.

And EVERYBODY got taken on that one...

Apologizing isn't working? When all else fails....

Blame the NIE.

If the NIE is so wrong, then why do we have those 16 intel agencies in the first place?

If those intel agencies are so wrong on their estimates, then how can they protect us from the terrorists?

Shouldn't all the "NIE" is bogus apologists be more concerned with our compromised safety at home then with whatever Iran may or may not be doing? If the intelligence agencies that are supposed to protect us can't even produce a reliable intelligence estimate, then how is Jack Bauer supposed to protect us at home when all the king's horses and all the king's men can't even reliably tell if the Mullahs are developing nukes?

WashingtonDC is heavily invested in presenting Iran as being a "threat" to American interests in West Asia and in the Persian Gulf. Surely the Pentagon needs to keep Iran in the potential adversary role to promote/enable American Militarism in Persian Gulf and across West and South Asia.

Israel surely wants to keep Iran in the crosshairs of being a dire "threat" as well. WashingtonDC has for a long time given Israel a wide array of passes and cover for not in any sense being "legal" in having atomic weapons.That Iran is being meddled in and with by WashingtonDC is on the known record.That WashingtonDC is playing fast and loose with facts and knowable intelligence regarding Iran--not unlike what befell Iraq during 2002 going into early 2003. What is now falling on Gaza has WashingtonDC's fingerprints all over it and President Obama is going to have to declare his positions and viewpoints regarding Israeli Occupation and the abuse of this being so early on. If he displays murky clarity of moral and ethical vision or a shallow sense of human empathy over Gazan children in particular being made victims of Israeli brutal,wanton militarism it will be a big mark against him.

WashingtonDC surely is mixing American foreign affairs up with Israel in ways that will come back to haunt WashingtonDC.

One could hope Barack Obama may indeed take on and curb the Pentagon,take on American Global Militarism and become more even handed ,neutral and balanced regarding American foreign policy vis a vis Israel and Arab Palestine. AIPAC and the rabid Israeli Right and Zionists may not like it. Too damn bad.

The DC DEMs have since early 2007 disappointed plenty. One can hope by November 2010 and moreso by November 2012 President Barack Obama will have a record of decisions made and actions taken that will differ from past two years of DC DEMs waffle and wobble politics coming out of Congress.

The GOPers as an "excuse" for this dismal DC DEMs record in WashingtonDC has now been fully removed numerically.