So maybe the term WWIII is a little over the top, but it seems to me that the current situation both in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and in America is a kind of world war. The battles may seem to be somewhat dis-jointed when compared to the concept of global warfare evident in WWI & WWII-but the focal point of the battles settle on two common denominators: America & Islamic Extremism.

The Bush doctrine that you are either with us or agianst us seems to be dead on.  The world is picking sides and it seems that a show down on a greater scale is pending. Riots broke out in Lebannon, Egypt, and France. Eurpoe, who for the past 20 years has more or less prided itself on being opposed to American doctrine, is calling for our intervention to stop the Israeli military action. Countless talking heads seem to ooze sympathy on the airwaves for the Palestinans. Certain countries within the Middle East are spouting rehtoric that could lead to further conflict. Even our allies in the region are with us only when it suits their needs. Worse yet, they talk like they are with us, but their actions indicate otherwise.

[b]My theory is that the world is picking sides in these battles, and in effect, this amounts to WWIII by Proxy. Conflict will continue to escalate until we are engaged in a war, the likes of which we have never seen before. I think that this conflict is inevitable-meaning that it is bound to happen regardless of concessions, peace plans, peace accords, negotiations, resolutions, and the like. The only way to resolve this conflict in any meaningful way is through a DECISIVE MILITARY VICTORY that shows our enemies that if you mess with us, you will be destroyed. period. end of sentance. end of discussion.[/b]

The point of this topic is to see if my theory is worth anything or is way off base. I would appreciate your comments. Sound off!

I agree that we need to respond with our military might to those that oppose us,I just wish that the last Communist run 8 years of the Clinton circus did deplete our miltiary,it just makes it harder for us to do anything to our enemies.


[b]Come to take my guns......I'll give ya the bullets first!![/b][50]

BYU,
who do you see as our enemies ?  And I guess the flip side is who do you see as our friends ?

Despite the rehtoric by some on this board and elsewhere, I would say that Israel is our ally along with the UK, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, Kuwait , Canada, and on and on. There are definately more in this category than in the others.

As far as enemies go I would say the usual suspects are Iraq, Iran, Lybia, North Korea, China, Cuba and so on and so on.

The toss up countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, France, Mexico, Pakistan, Indoenesia, Jordan, Syria, UAE, Oman, and Russia.

If we do not stand by Israel it show that we are unprincipled, soft, and can be pushed around by sh*t bags half way around the world. The by proxy part of my topic is that Israel represents us in this fight and the Palestnians represent everyone else. I think that if we let Israel fall or cave in, we will be next, if we are not already.

Well said BYU,
We need to take care of our own interests, screw the rest of the world! Somalia, Haiti, The african nations whose populations are dying of aids, Let them starve or die of disease, less of them around to cause us trouble that way. The mid east, kick their ass & take their gas! We save the Kuaitis and they crap on us. We should have cut a deal for free crude before we saved their sorry asses. The Saudis, same deal, why do we allow ourselves to be raped by OPEC? All those pos would likely be speaking Russian if it weren't for us. Those French snobs, too bad they aren't having to speak German. What did we get for saving their tails twice? Little but a kick in the face every time they get the chance. You would think the tradjedy of 911 would have wakened everyone in the US, but no, you still have those worried about how well we are treating the Taliban detainees. If you didn't know it was true you wouldn't believe it! WE need to toughen up, get mean and take care of our own business!!

I do not think that we need to crap on the rest of the world, so to speak. We just need to remind them of who we are and what we will put up with. We are the biggest kid on the block and I think that the world has forgotten this. As a result more and more 'neutral' nations are ending up against us in world-wide conflicts and issues. I just think that it is time to crack some skulls and put the rest of the world back in its place before they take us off of the top of the hill.

I think you're exactly right. Why is Germany a civilized, productive society and one of our allies now?  because the nazis were totally defeated.  why is japan a civilized society? total defeat of the emperor.  why is turkey a civilized ally?  total defeat of the ottomans.

the radical arabs have, off and on, been attempting to take the civilized world by force since about 800 AD or so.  They've never been defeated.  Imagine a world where Iraq and Iran are civilized, productive nations that respect the rights of individuals.  That day will come.  Once they have been decisively defeated.  I predict that once we bring Iraq down, we are going to see serious changes in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.  Might need to kick some butt in Africa but I believe we will prevail.

Close, but a little earlier:  since the beginning of islam.  Battle of Tours (at Poitters), 732 AD:  Charles Martel (grandfather of Charlemagne) halted the islamic advance and prevented them from invading France.  Yes, FRANCE.  What the hell were islamic armies doing in france only 100 years after islam was invented?  They had already killed their way across north africa and up across the straights and through spain in only 100 years.  These bastards have been a problem since muhammad.  For some reason our public schools and universities always forget about 732AD.  Certainly it was a more important battle than Hastings in 1066 but it is never mentioned.  They are too busy trying to make us feel sorry about the crusades (which happened several centuries after Tours).

this is WWIV damn it.
WWIII was the cold war fought by words and proxies across asia and africa

I would say that your topic is going to be right on, until Weapons of Mass Destruction are used in scale. CBR???  Rush Limbaugh stated on his web site that the Israeli war is different the the US war.  I knew that would be coming sooner or later. After Sharon issued his proclamation concerning the Israeli's war on Terror. People on the news are going out of their way to minimize the conflict in the Middle east. I think they are accurate as of yet. I don't know how long it will stay that way.  But it seems that the US is taking the RIGHT TAC for this one as well.  Keep it marginal until it blows up big time.  That will I think make sure we don't enter into the fray until it is absolutely necessary.  Right now Israel does not need the US's help.  They can take care of themselves.



hahahah,  Maybe at the end of all this shite we will have a better world.

IMHO, this conflict with the Muslims is a sideshow for what we are going to face with China.

I can see your point. I am just saying that the current conflict is of the same nature, but evolved to a newer, more sinister level. The consequences and sides in the cold war were, for the most part, easily identifiable. Now the battlegrounds and the doctrine is extemely fluid/dynamic. Threat identification and neutralization is difficult due to intelligence, financial, political, and global reaction factors. Clear steps towards the end goal are difficult to delineate, and in some cases even more difficult to accomplish using current doctrine and tactics. Allies vary from issue to issue and from conflict to conflict. I would venture to say that the end goal of the conflict, from our side at least, has not been clearly determined. Certainly they have said that they want to wipe out terrorism, but that is equivalent to saying that you want to destroy Christianity-meaning that it is hard to wipe out a closely held system of beliefs and their manifestations. Certainly you can engage nations, groups, armies, factions and the like, but when you get down to it you cannot wipe away ideas. You can destroy and rebuild a nation-we did it with Germany. Did we actually destroy Nazism-certainly it is not functional, but it still exists. It is still there poking society in the side from time to time. Nazism was just another manifestation of hate that the world has witnessed time and time again. The current sinister ideal is the newest embodiement of hate-it just happens to be cloaked in many lands around the world, and woven into a major religion. The result of this change is that we are faced with a far more difficult task to manage. I am certain that we can destroy this threat, I just wonder how in the hell we are going to do it.

We can't defeat it totally. All you can do is contain it. Keep it from leaving the Middle East. Keep any truly dangerous crap from getting into the middle east.  It will take longer then 2 years to kill them all and before you know it the 12 year olds have become 14 years old and take up arms anew.  The soviets stayed in Afghanistan for so long the kids 5 years old the day they invaded were fighting them by the time they left.  That is a situation you don't want. I don't know how we are going to do it without a major major escalation in offense.

Hahahah, Oh shit we are in trouble..
WE COULD ALWAYS USE THE SLIP UP PLAN


   Things will look better when Saddam is gone. Then if we can keep a lid on the rest of the Middle East we may have ourselves a small victory.

Taiwan and South Korea:  yeah they're our buddies I guess
Kuwait:  Riding the hate Israel and America bad bandwagon.  We help them from being invaded and then they snub us.  Sure they're probably doing it to appease the other Arab countries and their people but its still not nice.
Germany and Spain:  I had no idea these two were friendly toward us to where they'd help us out.  Why are they?  And what have they done?  Or are they just supporting us in what we do?  Just curious...haven't payed attention to every thing going on so there are holes here and there on what is going on over there.
UK:  Yeah, seems like whatever we do their at our side.
Canada:  Jokes aside (US and Canuck rivalries and all) they help out when needed.  But I still kind of feel its only because the UK is involved (still subjects to England).  By the way are the Aussies over in Afghanistan as well?
Japan:  Might not be able to help militarily but they have other things that are just as good.
Turkey:  Been told by some that they're more friendly to the US than Israel is.  Nice to know.



As for the other countries.  Well France comes to mind.  What can I say about France?  Nothing good so I suppose I'll just leave it at that...



Ok, I have nothing against going back to being isolationists.  In fact I think a lot of good can come of it.  But dropping our support to Israel would be unethical.  So thats where our proxy I suppose goes to their side.  Odds are the next day Israel would be no more.  And although I don't 100% believe that we'd be next on the list of who to go after after they fall...I feel that we'd have more things to worry about than planes crashing into buildings.

Yeah, but I'm kind of curious to see what will happen after he's gone.  If I recall correctly the same faction trying to get rid of Saddam is the same faction that wanted to get rid of the Taliban.  Now that might not seem like a problem, but they aren't on friendly terms with Turkey.

Its probably being worried over nothing but knowing the area, who knows.  But yeah, getting rid of Saddam will be a good thing.  [beer]

Isolationism means that someone else will be the big kid on the block-not a good idea. Besides, there is no practical way to be isolated in the current world economy. We need to either be at the top of the heap or take our ball and go home (meaning that we need to let someone/something else win). The ONLY choice is to be at the top of the heap. The alternative is a slow and painful downward spiral into the history books.

What we need is Alexander Stone(See The Omega Code or Megiddo movies...)or whatever his real name turns out to be.

A "Man Of Peace" to show us the way out of this path of destruction we are traveling down.  To help us "take the next step in human evolution".

Not to worry, he is coming.

[img]http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/sadness.gif[/img]

Maybe isolationism isn't the word I should be using.  I'm just saying we shouldn't be involved in every little problem that happens in the world.  Giving aid to a slew of countries does little good to help the countries.

I wonder what will be said when we get zapped again by terrorists now that GWB has given Arafat some breathing room.

Israel will not be out of the woods until they wup somebody's ass real good-and I do not mean a war that lasts a week or less. I mean they need to beat the living hell out of the next nation that attempts to mess with them. While we may be driving cars with glow-in-the-dark gas for awhile, in the long run hostile nations will think twice before messing around. If the PALs get a nation or protection it will only lend credibility to the doctrine of terrorism for victory.

We seem to be in the same pinch. We never actually beat the living hell out of anyone anymore. The last good but woopin we gave was maybe in Lybia & maybe in Panama. WWII was the last real decisive victory that told the world that if you F*CK with us-you will pay dearly for it. I think that this likely had something to do with our economic growth that followed for the next generation or so. The next go round we need to forget what the world has to say about us and our actions and put the entire world on notice as we obliterate the poor sucker who wanted to get a piece of the US of A.

Coming soon to the Middle-East: IRAQ, the glass parking lot!

I agree.  Iraq needs to be a smear on the US boot.  And I personally don't care what happens to the Palestinians.  I feel sorry for the ones that are caught in the middle that are innocent but its time for us (the United States) to release Israel's leash and let them do what needs to be done.  These people need to realize that just because we don't try to conquer the world that we aren't some weak little girl.
USS Cole, the two embasies, the first attack on the World Trade Center, we did hardly anything in retaliation...finally the gloves are off.

Its interesting, heard on the radio that there are actually Palestinians in Israels military.  Not important but never heard that before today.