Reply to Neo's post about Federalism

Well, since Trout believes the Republicans and Americans are going to the execution scafford first, they don't have to worry about "what to do after we are gone". They know what is going to happen. Their choice is to make sure they stay in power long enough to get the action while it lasts, before the inevitable doom descends upon the US and the West.

They want to get enough power and resources, to bribe the Islamic Jihad into getting "favorable slave status". They not worried about what happens after the US Marines are gone, they already know what they are going to do.

In the meantime, if Democrats get in power, expect gun confiscations and accussations that Republicans are in league with Islamic Jihadists for attempting to obstruct gun legislation.

Get rid of Al Sadr, Neo, and you won't have to worry about Iran. Get rid of Al Sadr and use nuclear weapons to terrorize the Badr Brigade. I wrote about the various different factions concerning local politics, that I found in the book "The Shia Revival".

It was curious to know that the Badr Brigade, the Shia religious faction with the Iran supplied militia, allied with Iran only because the US left them to hang. Nothing like a war to cement blood bonding, I'd say.

Al Sadr is just your regular socialist. His power is amongst the downtrodden. Execute Al Sadr and send in American units to reconstruct his cities, and his faction won't be a problem. Sistani is already on our side more or less, so all you have left are the Shia who allied with Iran because the US ditched them when Saddam was on their arse.

You'd have to demonstrate, again, that you are more mean and more ruthless than Iran. That you offer more rewards and harsher punishments for any Shia that sides with Iran instead of with the US.

That is, if you want to break the Shia away from Iran. If you are a compassionate conservative like Bush, then playing hardball might not be your cup of tea.

I know what would satisfy troutsky. And Bush can do it, Bush can please all the Europeans, Arabs, Democrats, and Jacksonians all at once. All Bush has to do is to slaughter his enemies as Truman did, shut up all dissent with internment camps as FDR did, get into power for 4 terms like FDR accomplished, and basically be a uniter and not a divider.

If he can't do that, at least he can pile the bodies of our enemies sky high. Demonstrations of power always silence the critics, with shock and awe, if not with respect and fear.

When you are killing everyone that stands in your path, and people are flocking to your banner. Not a lot of people are going to be yelling in your face that you are wrong.

They certainly don't yell in the Islamic Jihad's faces, people like troutsky, and for good reason!

Power commands respect. Demonstrate power to the Democrats, and they will yield as they did after 9/11 when Bush harnessed the power of 300 million Americans through his office. But you got to keep doing it, this isn't a one time deal.

VDH made the comment that when America is winning, Syria and Iran huddles together in fear and silence. But when America is losing, everyone is going after us as if we are a newly cracking carcass for the jackals.

So don't look like you're losing. If Bush can't find enough terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq to kill off and line the streets of Baghdad with, then he can surely execute some of the useless blokes gaining fat at GitMo. It's great PR, and those terroist corpses would be serving a righteous purpose, which is bolstering public support for the war. Or maybe he can slice a few pieces out of Iran and Syria and Pakistan, and get some jihadists to come to town there.

Even a bad offensive plan, like the Iraq invasion, would be better than the "Nothing" that Bush is doing right now. Bush is paying so much attention to the Democrat traitors that he spends all his time worrying about Iraq. Come on, get real, go start a war somewhere else for christ sakes. The more you listen to the Democrats, the more complaints you will hear about how you need to be less multilateral with North Korea.

All these limitations Neo has described, puts chains upon our options. Instead of operating within those limitations, why don't you just break those chains and get out of this rut you are stuck in?

None of that requires 20/20 vision to see that you ain't going anywhere in today's world.

Iraq's a story that hasn't been set into stone yet. It's in an unknown quantum state. You are not supposed to "know" which state something is in, until you look.

You are the one affecting which state it is in, so you control the future. Whatever you do now, makes a certain future more or less real.

People in the future will look back to today, as either the French Revolution or the American Revolution. It depends entirely upon what people do now. It doesn't depend upon people proving themselves right with hindsight. We all know that that doesn't matter. Well, except that one group.

Neither the Sunnis nor the Shia have any absolute rights to anything. So it might be a wise policy to play them off against each other, in order to get what is best for both done. You threaten the Badr Brigade, with arms support to the Sunnis, if the Shia don't cut their ties with Iran. You threaten, in negotiations, the Sunnis by saying you'll allow Al Sadr and the Badr Brigade to purge the Sunnis if the Sunnis continue trying to claim the glory days. The Kurds will be with us regardless, so they are the constant we can count on, even if we lose both Baghdad and the Shia zones.

Sistani knows this type of diplomacy well. I'm sure he has in the past told the US, that if they didn't like Sistani's policies, all they had to do was look at the alternative in Al Sadr. It's a great way to convince people to do what you want.