Well we don't have to play lip service, but yes, sending troops isn't a cut and dry issue.

Though we've been speaking hostile against Iran since what, even before the 1970's?

As for Russia, I can understand the idea that we don't want to cause tensions between us and them. That didn't stop us arming the Afghani rebels in the 1980's. And that was during the cold war.

I'm clearly saying go in there guns ablazin' and use the Bush II attitude, but I think we're being overly cautious, overly reserved.

Yes. It's a dicey situation. But we know all the powers at play here, and we also know Russia really only cares two shits for Iran out of a long lasting oil relationship and former sympathetic ties of anti US sentiment. Throw them some gifts and they won't care. Everybody has a price.

kerry bush was like that

Say you want about Bush II.

I definitely applaud his efforts for surrounding himself with people smarter than him, to make the best decisions he could for the country.

Sadly it didn't work out as well as it should. But he at least did a good job of assembling people around him.

russia poop-putnim is going to be much different, though large oil contracts are essentially what drives the world at this point (still sigh).
i just dont subscribe to the warhawk mentality

also, romney just brought up a great point about south america
stop the foolish war on drugs and investing in those countries make sense and energy is cheap as hell and we can tell the middle east to take a hike

rice, powell, thompson

Commiting to troops isn't automatically being a warhawk, but I can see how some will make that connection. I'm definitely clearly just automatically gungho about
sending our youth to die for God and Country.

im just saying its 90% all oil-based (the world geopolitical stage). think of how much it takes to operate america for one day, and that our reserves are worth like 90(?) days. oil is everything, and green energy is the answer. im clearly advocating pissing away money but i am saying its as important as nasa ever was. as soon as we liberate our energy concerns away from oil and oil becomes just another resource for making plastics.

/pipe dream

I agree with the people he had around him. I just disagree with the way he handled decisions with the information he was given.

edit: overall. He made some good decisions, and he made some turrible ones.

im just saying its 90% all oil-based (the world geopolitical stage). think of how much it takes to operate america for one day, and that our reserves are worth like 90(?) days. oil is everything, and green energy is the answer. im clearly advocating pissing away money but i am saying its as important as nasa ever was. as soon as we liberate our energy concerns away from oil and oil becomes just another resource for making plastics.

/pipe dream

Our actual reserves are like 20-30 years (that's including Alaska, currently by and large untapped)

IF you count shale deposits, like 100+ years. We're over-consuming fat fucks to be honest.

Oh, and go back and read the poop on pg 1 about FDR, let me know if you disagree.

he let chickenhawks dictate policy for 8 years. i dont find this beneficial to anything other that establishing increased oil security/dependency.

i was clearly referring to whats in the ground. i was trying to illustrate how precarious energy is to the day to day running of a country.

Powell wasn't one of them, neither was Condi. They gave him far better possibilities than he went with. that's the problem. I think he had a vision for what needed to be done, and any options given to him that weren't in line with that he wouldn't go for.

i was clearly referring to whats in the ground. i was trying to illustrate how precarious energy is to the day to day running of a country.

My point is we can be energy independent, basically this year. We'd just rather use the rest of the worlds resources, and as a result at times that leaves us in precarious situations.

My point is we can be energy independent, basically this year. We'd just rather use the rest of the worlds resources, and as a result at times that leaves us in precarious situations.

no, we cant. it would take 5+ years just to build the infrastructure (as is average of new drilling sites and assuming its new sites) and it totally ignores the fact that tar sands are about as inefficient of oil source as we consider in todays technology.

i have no problem with eating the worlds shit and using their reserves first, and lets help them increase their speed of consumption so we can be the only player in town.
but this will take bullets, and lives, and pretending it wont is wrong.

that's blatantly false. We could ramp up production today with a minimal impact on current infrastructure. Now 100% independent would take a few years (3-5 iirc, which is at the tail end in line with your poop). But we can drastically reduce our independence almost immediately, and have the untapped reserves that we could do that now, work on green now, and be done with oil period long before we come close to run out.

Also without that noose hanging over our head we wouldn't be held subject to what amounts to energy blackmail.

such a touching story baraq

We're 4 years closer to a nuclear Iran. We're also 30 years away from a Mars landing.

Same 30 years we were 30 years ago, same 4 years they were 4 years ago. Making nuclear weapons isn't exactly a simple thing.

Though, we should probably learn from our past mistakes (N.Korea). Far to dismissive in that regard and hey, guess what, they got nukes, and then Japan, hell even China wtfbombed all over the place.

Thankfully Kim and co are so crazy him getting nukes caused the rest of the region to pretty much get involved.

It's sort of hilarious how an insane dictator can have nukes and is working on icbm capabilities and he's still thought of as a joke.