Welders and machinists needed in Syria....

Date 03-02-2013 04:10 Edited 03-02-2013 20:12

I almost hate to say it but considering Assads stance on the political landscape......WHY the Hell or we not supplying at least small arms to these folks....ok your worried about the future...just make small shipments and limit the numbers till we see how it shakes out......work for American workers and FREEDOM for them....seems like a win win to me....maybe I am just too simple minded to make huge political decisions like this....thats why I have the power to vote at my desecration eh?> This is probably the closest we have been to making a REAL impact in the middle east and we are sitting on our hands because recent experience has taught us "its complicated" really??? We screwed the Russians during the cold war with arms to Afgan liberation army folks....wow they remembered us and still are real allies to us to this day with the cluster**** going on in afgannyland. Jeez we screwed the pooch in Egypt, did terrible with the Palestinians recently ...Thanks a lot George Bush...great idea that blew up in your face. BUT at least he rolled the dice and took a big gamble.....we are not gonna see any positive results by being P****YS and playing footsie with hard line foreign policy. These folks in Syria are sick to death of living under the boot of a terrorist state that is a boil on the ass off the world landscape....they are tired of being oppressed and they ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!! I have no sympathy for those in the muslim world that just act like sheep and take whatever comes there way....but if they are willing to change things for themselves I say by gosh they deserve whatever help I can give them.

FREE SYRIA :evil:

EDIT: we don't have to roll tanks into these hell holes and get mired up in big mess. If the locals are willing to play tag with lead and grenade slingshots then just give em a little help to LEVEL the playing field. Let them sort their own problem out....one of our biggest mistakes is we go in and Assume we can knock somebody down and these folks are going to automatically become a bunch of slurpee carrying, American Idol watching US citizens behind another border. You don't come in and expect a change of culture like that...never gonna happen....at best we can hope they will say "your good people and we are good people, I got your back if you got mine" and go from there. I worked with a guy from Iraq, and another from Egypt many years ago...they were extremely grateful to be out of there. They were good men and talking to them there were plenty more like them that just wanted out until it became a more humane place to live.

I will stop ranting...jeez I am starting to blog or something. Just an opinion and that's all.

By Cumminsguy71 (*****)

Date 03-02-2013 18:43

Don't worry, Washington has their heads up their backsides over this sequestration but be assured we are sending them $60 million in "non military aid"....hmmm, suuuuurrrrrreeee....

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 03-02-2013 19:50

pallet of MRE's that mysteriously weighs 2000lbs hahahahahaha

By devo

Date 03-04-2013 14:52

Yikes...it seems nothing can be posted to the OTB&G without a political rant :razz:

Did you see the dropweight catapult these guys concocted? neat stuff

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 03-09-2013 05:50

It is Ok Devo I did not knock it off the chain. I like your post it is Awesome! :grin:

By 803056

Date 03-25-2013 20:55 Edited 03-26-2013 16:50

How many Syrians does it take to lunch a hand-grenade?

According to the photograph of the sling-shot: 9

The trouble with helping anyone in the Middle East is you have to ask yourself if the person you are helping is any better than their adversary.

Personally, I would think hard and long before lifting a finger to help any of them. I lean toward the philosophy of letting them sort it out among themselves.

Is the situation in Iraq any better today than it was under Saddam Hussein? No.

Is the situation in Afghanistan any better today than it was before we went in? Only while we are there to enforce “freedom”. I venture to say it is going to revert to what it was as soon as we leave. We could have saved a lot of American lives and billions of dollar had we simply walked away a few years ago and return every few years thereafter to knock out the government de jour down again.

Cool pics.

Al

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 03-26-2013 00:16 Edited 03-26-2013 00:32

Al your right but then again it seems there is not a straightforward answer to any of it. I subscribe to let em deal with their own problems philosophy mostly myself. I always had the caveat though; to receive help first you stand up to your own problems in your own backyard...when your willing to shed your blood to stop a problem at least then I know your serious about it. The severely ironic part is we spend billions in those desert oilfields and thousands of much more precious lives. War Crimes (what a stupid pairing of words) and all kinds of atrocities have been going on in Africa for many, many years....countless numbers slaughtered/butchered....when is the last time you seen a evening news piece on any of that for more then 20 secs in the last 20 years? Much less any kind of serious intervention from here. Just a couple of times and that was more a political maneuver then anything humanitarian. As far as Iraq goes I would not say "Is the situation in Iraq any better today than it was under Saddam Hussein? No." I would just say that it has changed radically....still huge problems but they are much different ones. I know some folks who lived under Hussein's boot heel that managed to come over here....the stuff they told me is pretty bad, much much worse then what you get on the idiot box. However I am sure you ask any soldier that has been there recently or otherwise and they probably say "pretty bad". That whole scenario is the "debate" over "arming" the "rebels" in Syria...who will be holding that weapon a month from now and who are they gonna be pointing it at. That is where a whole lot of folks smarter? then me have some tough choices to make. I am glad I do not make foreign policy or wrestled with any of those decisions for real.

Regards
Tommy

By 803056

Date 03-26-2013 17:49 Edited 03-26-2013 17:57

I make a poor politician, so on the subject of the Middle East it is enough to say I wouldn't give one drop of my blood for any of them. It is a matter of philosophy. Their philosophy is so different than mine; I cannot fathom how they think.

I went to college with several people from the Middle East, they simply baffled me. So, I say leave the Middle East to themselves, they like it that way, I like it that way. We had no problem with them before we discovered oil and decided we wanted it. They did just fine without the Europeans and the Americans. They have been fighting for the last three thousand years and I don't see that there is a ground swell of public support to force a fundamental change in philosophy once we leave. From my vantage point it still looks like one “tribe” against another. They will continue to stone their women, deny their women the right to be schooled, kill their daughters that have been raped to save the family’s honor, and lop off the heads of infidels with little regard to what faction is in office. No, their way of thinking is too foreign to me to willingly offer my son’s life, my nephew’s life, or even someone else’s son’s life to impose change on a society that isn’t ready to change.

I don't claim to be right; I just do not see the advantage of turning out one despot that will be replaced by one that is worse. Will our interdiction reduce the amount of bloodshed or will it make it worse? Will our interdiction change their philosophy? Would we be helping them so we can advance our self-interest or would we help them for purely humanitarian reasons? Somehow I am sure the politicians look at the situation and calculate “What’s in it for me?”

Sorry, I haven’t lost any sleep over the events over there. Do I agree with the policies and philosophies of the current governments in the Middle East? No. Does that mean I have an obligation to send money, weapons, or people to help every rebel faction throwing stones or hand grenades that may ultimately be worse than the one that is currently in power? Before we start handing out weapons, money, and blood, we better understand how the rebels think, what they plan to do, and whether their countries will be better off if the old government is deposed and replaced.

I remember we supported the Taliban when they ousted the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Hell, we supported Bin Laden with money and arms. Look how good that turned out. How many people have been killed by us and the Taliban in our efforts to protect the people from the Taliban? As Americans, we don’t have a stellar history of backing the “best” government. We usually support the “government” that offers us the most favorable business deal with little regard for the “people” being governed. Consider for a moment the immense pressure we have put on the Chinese government to make life more favorable for the peasants of that country. I think it is safe to say the pressure applied by our government, starting with "Tricky Dickie Nixon," has been minimal at best as long as our corporations have a steady supply of inexpensive goods.

Sorry, I don’t have the answers the world’s problems.

Best regards - Al