The regions of which you speak belong to another era...
They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare...
I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Thank you, that was largely how I understood things to be within the tribal regions as well.

I have troubles with calling the tribal regions not really part of Pakistan when it's pointed out how bad some of the boys there are, but later when an American drone kills some of those bad boys in that region it is a gross affront to Pakistan's national sovereignty. It's either part of Pakistan or it's not, and if it is part of Pakistan and America is supposed to mind it's business what is America expected to do when the bad boys from that tribal region keep killing Americans and more importantly and in even greater numbers the moderate Pakistani's who are the closest America has to true allies in the region.


Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family.

I'd argue that they never really bothered anyone because they'd largely been getting what they wanted. That's not the kind of problem that gets better just because you keep giving the extremists what they want. It leads to a situation where a guy like Osama can find enough friends to hide within a mile of the very Military Academy that Musharraf graduated from. I firmly do not accept that the 'war on terror' created the problem, it just forced it to be recognized and dealt with.

Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

Agreed on both counts. As far as America is concerned it's more cost effective to just reset the clock in Afghanistan every so often so the problems there are kept localized and not something that will bother them for another decade. It's a twisted game and I desperately want to see real solutions embraced that will see the moderate locals have a real chance at being the victors in the end instead of the perpetual victims.

Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

I'd say the Saudi's are even worse. They've spent billions of dollars in Pakistan's tribal regions setting up jihadi training camps and calling them 'schools'. Regrettably the male only students come out illiterate but well trained in extremist Wahhabi doctrines and guerrilla warfare. The Saudi 'charities' have spent more money on 'education' in these tribal areas than Pakistan's own government and have been doing since long, long before the 'war on terror' ever was recognized by the West or Pakistan. That building block of an internal war against Pakistan itself has been building for a long time and without the hard push Bush made I firmly believe that would still be official Pakistani policy. The situation would be worse and when ever the militants decided to start pushing it would have been far more unpleasant than what Pakistan has faced so far from those elements.

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

I would honestly love to take you up on that. My kids are a bit young but I do hope to make it over there someday. I too believe you guys are a great bunch in a bad situation, the road out of it though is just so long, difficult and nasty. I wish all of you there the best of luck and honestly spend a lot of time trying to understand what is happening there and what small part little old me can play.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^NetRunner:
@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.
It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.
And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.
Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.
I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...
And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.

The real trouble was the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The terrorists in Afghanistan were able to hurt us here, and many of our interests and allies abroad as well. The formal government of Afghanistan when asked to choose sides with or against these terrorists chose to back them. Outright war with them in that context doesn't seem particularly absurd, nor even aggressive. The argument for reactive self-defense is rather strong.
You may not recall because our media avoided covering or discussing it much then and since, but Pakistan's formal government was right on the fence as well which way they would side. They still have well represented parties within Pakistan more enraged over Bin Laden's death than Benazir Bhutto's, and it's not the method or origin that offends them, but the nature of those dead. Bhutto was a moderate muslim women who was a former Pakistani PM and front runner in the upcoming elections. Bin Laden however, was to some well represented political parties a muslim hero and political ally rather than opponent. Showing that America had the will to play it's hand very strongly against the militants and terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan I deem necessary to having encouraged Musharraf and the military leadership to at least pay lip service to siding as they have. Even now though, that may not have been enough. The militants are killing so many of our moderate Pakistani allies that there is a lot of momentum to accept a truce out of fear with them and who cares if America is still nominally at war with these militants.

And what is the root of this terrorism?


IMHO, human nature. The same human nature that led a bunch of majority privileged whites in America to form groups like the KKK. The same human nature that sees common hatred unifying groups of people throughout history, and often the it starts from greed or envy. I certainly wouldn't posit that the formation of things like the Westboro Baptists as being the result of their members being unfairly treated or wronged in the past, but rather their own vices and faults.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^NetRunner:
@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.
It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.
And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.
Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.
I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...
And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.

The real trouble was the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The terrorists in Afghanistan were able to hurt us here, and many of our interests and allies abroad as well. The formal government of Afghanistan when asked to choose sides with or against these terrorists chose to back them. Outright war with them in that context doesn't seem particularly absurd, nor even aggressive. The argument for reactive self-defense is rather strong.
You may not recall because our media avoided covering or discussing it much then and since, but Pakistan's formal government was right on the fence as well which way they would side. They still have well represented parties within Pakistan more enraged over Bin Laden's death than Benazir Bhutto's, and it's not the method or origin that offends them, but the nature of those dead. Bhutto was a moderate muslim women who was a former Pakistani PM and front runner in the upcoming elections. Bin Laden however, was to some well represented political parties a muslim hero and political ally rather than opponent. Showing that America had the will to play it's hand very strongly against the militants and terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan I deem necessary to having encouraged Musharraf and the military leadership to at least pay lip service to siding as they have. Even now though, that may not have been enough. The militants are killing so many of our moderate Pakistani allies that there is a lot of momentum to accept a truce out of fear with them and who cares if America is still nominally at war with these militants.


And what is the root of this terrorism?

>> ^NetRunner:

@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.
It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.
And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.
Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.
I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...
And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.


The real trouble was the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The terrorists in Afghanistan were able to hurt us here, and many of our interests and allies abroad as well. The formal government of Afghanistan when asked to choose sides with or against these terrorists chose to back them. Outright war with them in that context doesn't seem particularly absurd, nor even aggressive. The argument for reactive self-defense is rather strong.

You may not recall because our media avoided covering or discussing it much then and since, but Pakistan's formal government was right on the fence as well which way they would side. They still have well represented parties within Pakistan more enraged over Bin Laden's death than Benazir Bhutto's, and it's not the method or origin that offends them, but the nature of those dead. Bhutto was a moderate muslim women who was a former Pakistani PM and front runner in the upcoming elections. Bin Laden however, was to some well represented political parties a muslim hero and political ally rather than opponent. Showing that America had the will to play it's hand very strongly against the militants and terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan I deem necessary to having encouraged Musharraf and the military leadership to at least pay lip service to siding as they have. Even now though, that may not have been enough. The militants are killing so many of our moderate Pakistani allies that there is a lot of momentum to accept a truce out of fear with them and who cares if America is still nominally at war with these militants.

So many emotions. Overall, I think this is the first time I've felt really disappointed with one of Jon's interviews. I know Jon's time is limited and it's tough to have background coming into every interview, but interviewing Musharraf is a crazy big deal right now. Some point form places I wanted Jon jumping in and instead he just took what Musharraf said at face value.

-Musharraf insists that any sympathy for Al Qaeda within the ISI and military is strictly limited to isolated low level dissenters, and in no way associated with higher up decision makers. Jon accepts this as though correct. Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, is on video declaring that all good Muslims should hope for the defeat of America and the victory of the Taliban. Elected members of Pakistan's Legislature from the JUI-F party spoke out insisting that the ISI and military MUST have known about Osama's location, and condemned the failure to protect him as the muslim hero that he was... The reality is that extremism reaches into the very highest ranks of Pakistan's power structures, and that Musharraf vehemently denies this demands the question be asked, why is he denying such an enormous problem exists?

-Musharraf denies that the ISI killed the journalist that was revealing their ties with Al Qaeda, and does it by stating that's not how the ISI would kill someone. Jon chuckles. Either Jon's balls are 10 times the size of mine, or he had forgotten he was sitting across from the man how spent very many years ordering those kinds of assassinations to be made by the ISI...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-19-2011/exclusive---pervez-musharraf-exclusive-interview-pt--2?xrs=share_copy

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-19-2011/exclusive---pervez-musharraf-exclusive-interview-pt--3?xrs=share_copy

"One could argue that Palin's selection as speaker for the Dinner Keynote Address for this event is quite a break from tradition. Palin joins speakers like Aamir Khan (2010), Pervez Musharraf (2009), Al Gore (2008), Benazir Bhutto (2007)." -http://indiareloaded.tv/article/sarah-palin-india

I hadn't appreciated until recently just how near a thing this all was.

Osama kills Northern Afghanistan's strongest leader, the one man that a US invasion could unite the country behind against the Taliban, and then 2 days later the WTC attacks come to force the Afghan war against the Taliban. At that time, both Musharraf, the Pakistani military and intelligence services where all closely working with the Taliban and had generally good relations. They were strategic allies against Pakistan's nemesis, India.

Osama was banking on Pakistan siding with the Taliban in the conflict, luckily for the world that bet fell short. If it had come out I guarantee the next step was provocations against India from within Pakistan to try and bring about WW3.

I've got to hand it to Michael Moore, just when you think he can't say or do anything dumber, he finds a way to go further.

If you want to find a meaningful documentary about the strategic importance of Afghanistan start by throwing out every last one that doesn't spend 90% of it's time on Pakistan. Why do all the idiot boy talking heads like Moore(and his equally stupid Republican counterparts) insist on acting like the greatest prize in the war is the desolate wastelands of Afghanistan itself? Here's a newsflash for everyone, American throne makers NEVER cared about control of the deserts of Afghanistan!

Here's what they did care about, the stability and reliability of the government of Pakistan and it's nuclear arsenal. That's the game. Before the war, Al-Qaeda and it's Taliban jihadist allies were spread from Islamabad to Kabul, with strong ties and connections to the governments all along the way. After 9/11, America's highest policy makers decided that Pakistan's official fence sitting between support for those that bombed New York and those that died there was no longer acceptable. Musharraf was given an ultimatum, them or us, and he was given an example of the consequences of siding with them when the Taliban chose them. Since then, Pakistan has been waging an internal war against the Taliban militants rather than openly supporting them. Their war is a direct mirror of the war in Afghanistan against the same opponents.

I'd absolutely love to see Moore try and explain why we should apologize for fighting the same forces responsible for killing the first and only elected female head of a Muslim state. I'm sure her widow, now leading Pakistan, would be so glad to receive a delegation of Moore and his film crew there to apologize to him for our solidarity with the cause his wife died for. Disgusting.

Ben Stein is no debater, he should stick to acting and game shows. Paul has a Jew chief economic advisor (Peter Schiff) who coincidentally also made Stein look ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

Paul was also inspired by the Jewish economist Murray Rothbard. To say he hates Jewish people is retarded. I think Paul has seen enough evidence to suggest that Israel has undermined our ability to make sovereign decisions on some matters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWLBhgTQ46o

I have come to agree that each country should really only be concerned about defending itself. We do for Israel what Israel needs to do for itself. No country is another country's sacrificial lamb. It's not the obligation of an American soldier to die so that an Iraqi or Israeli doesn't. At some point we have to accept that our meddling in foreign governments is easy propaganda for radical groups. It's clearly hypocritical that we endorse democracy while propping up dictators like Hussein and Musharraf.

>> ^RedSky:


I have to agree on your first point, PEPFAR did a lot of good, and it's probably the most common thing people put forward when asked "what did Bush do right?" Still, the point Olbermann makes about not funding groups who promote condom use goes to show how petty Bush can be, even when he's doing something that's working out well.

The Muslim theocracy in Lebanon is referring to the elections Bush pushed for that resulted in a big, legitimizing win for Hezbollah -- something Bush's own advisers had predicted. You can argue that maybe other courses of action might have had the same outcome or worse, but you can't argue that giving Hezbollah legitimate influence over a country's government is anything but a lost battle in this "war on terror" he's so fond of.

As for the Mumbai bombings, and Benazir Bhutto's assasination, they're outgrowths of a policy towards Pakistan that involved simply trusting Musharraf, and giving him buckets of aid with little to no accountability. Instead, all we ever hear is "Pakistan is on our side, Iraq is the main battlefront on the War on Terror." Looking for bin Laden in Waziristan is off the table.

You have a point about North Korea being a global failing, but they were trending towards dismantling their nuclear program during Clinton's diplomatic efforts. Bush stormed in with his "we don't talk to bad guys" policy, dismantled the talks, and North Korea responded by reverting to their old ways. They were left unchecked (again, Iraq was to be our main/only focus) until they were able to build a nuclear weapon.

As for the one-sided nature of Olbermann, there's not much to argue there other than to say "they started it first." Are Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly some sort of multifaceted objective political commentary? I don't want MSNBC to become the left's Fox News, but I think the media environment can tolerate one Olbermann, and many Maddow-like personalities, for there to at least be two sides doing the whole spin-as-news shtick.

If it were me, I'd love for the media to give believably objective reporting of current events, facts, and history, but all of the outlets that try to do so are either a) struggling to "prove" their objectivity by trying to show that both parties have equal responsibility for all failures or b) are flagged by people as being left-leaning because objectively speaking, Republicans haven't gotten anything right in quite a while.

We'll see how long people keep accusing, say, PBS or the NYT of being "liberal" now that Democrats are in power. I suspect even HuffPo and TPM will get credit for doing fact-based reporting, now that Democrats are in the driver's seat. After all, the "liberal" press loves to attack authority, no matter who they are. "Conservative" press will keep doing what it's been doing; smear Democrats at all times, praise conservative Republicans at all times, and frame all failures as a direct outgrowth of failure to adhere to conservative principles, or failure to pursue them drastically enough.

Other countries' socialist policies, like in say, the whole of Europe, do quite well compared to us.

Actually, this is causation without correlation. If you go to Europe, living situations are deteriorating. Their massive amounts of welfare have created a situation in which immigrants are coming not for opportunity, but to be subsidized by programs they haven't paid into their whole lives like existing citizens. Sound familiar? Our programs are being strained by the same problem. I won't deny that they've made better decisions with their socialist powers over the past twenty years. If you want to make this an argument about whose dictator is doing a better job at emulating the market, then certainly Europe wins. France, for example, gets 80% of their energy from nuclear power and is the largest energy exporter in Europe. I'm jealous. That's what the market would have chosen. Our dictators, however, have been blocking it for thirty years due to the influence of the radical environmentalist lobby. Our government-directed economy has also pumped billions of forcibly appropriated money into agri-business bio-fuels like ethanol. It reduced the supply of food because it became more profitable after all the subsidies to grow corn for ethanol than some other crop for food. And it takes almost as much energy to create as it produces. Negative net result, that money would have been better off staying in the hands of people who really couldn't afford to have it taken away. We realize this now, but it never needed to happen. Any product that wouldn't be able to compete on the market without being funded with stolen money isn't worth a damn. So why did we think a bill could do something the market couldn't? All subsidies are retarded, they have collusive anti-competitive redistribution written all over them, and that's exactly what we got despite election year promises that it would give us miracles.

In fact, imagine if a stranger comes to your house and says "Hi, I'd like to take some of your money from your paycheck every week because I think I can spend it better than you can on products and services for your life. You look pretty busy, irresponsible, and unintelligent." Would you give it to them? Why would you do that? That's essentially socialism in a nutshell. People spending other people's money on the claim they can do so with greater thrift than the person that earned it.

Another thing that we do different than Europe is maintain a gigantic military empire. Of course their socialist programs are better, they don't have a military industrial complex sucking trillions of dollars away from them. It's really not necessary in the nuclear age. No nuclear power has ever been invaded domestically. Because it's a losing proposition. If you win the ground war, they have nothing to lose so they launch them. But we're idiots over here, we have this manchausen syndrome where our CIA creates problems that eventually blow back in our face, at which point we can launch all out invasions under the pretense of self-defense. This might include installing the Shah in Iran. Or giving bioweapons to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Or arming afghani warriors to fight the Soviets. Or paying off Musharraf in Pakistan to be a puppet. Terrorist propaganda becomes effective because of this shit.

Nowhere else in the world has a more libertarian system than us, as near as I can tell, and it handicaps us.

Price fixing interest rates = socialist
Bailout out bankruptcy with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Allowing one industry to loan out money they don't have, at interest = socialist
Subsidizing one company and not another = socialist
Taxing one company and not another = socialist
Nationalizing private industry to be financed with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Directing industry and research with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Declaring lending standards discriminatory to low income people and forcing banks to remove them via the Community Reinvestment Act = socialist
Issuing a non-market determined or constitutional money, banning competing currencies, and taxing dollar debasement gains on gold as if it were income = socialist
Blocking nuclear power for 30 years = socialist
Blocking domestic oil drilling for 20 years = socialist


Actually no, they would just need to get enough market power, and apply it ruthlessly to stomp out competition wherever it rises.

Bullshit, no one but the government has endless streams of capital to buy up anything and everything. Only government monopolies are self-sustaining, because they're the only monopolies financed with forcibly appropriated money.

In your version of the world, AMD shouldn't exist. Aptera Motors shouldn't exist. Right? I mean, giant corporations a thousand times their size existed before they even entered the market. They should have been bought out. Oh, wait, what's that? Not all companies are publicly traded.

The reality is, in order for a MARKET monopoly (note: in an environment where they don't have access to government specific powers like inflation and subsidization) to stay that way is to continue to offering the best product at the best price. Because then there's no window, no opportunity for someone else to come in and eat into that marketshare. If a company is delivering crap or overcharging, however, that immediately opens a window for someone else to come in. That's how AMD got so large, Intel was doing exactly that with netburst architecture. Even with a monopoly position, competition was waiting in the wings.

Suppose Microsoft took XP off the market and put Windows 3.1 on the shelf? Do you think they wouldn't go bankrupt? Do you think a competitor wouldn't arise to take their place? Because they're an all-powerful monopoly, right? They don't have to deliver shit, they can just buy Macintosh and anyone else while they pay thousands of programmers to create a product that doesn't sell.

Doh. Someone doesn't understand basic market principles.

One of my favorites from the roaring 20's was the rate war. Slash your prices to nearly nothing, and let your company lose a lot of money, on the premise that the smaller company will go bankrupt before you do.

Actually, large businesses with lots of workers have far more overhead and are much more inefficiently run. That's why most businesses today are small businesses. My mother owns an advertising business for wedding directories with no one but herself employed. A local newspaper owned by the Gannett company recently created a staff of twenty people to try and compete with her. They lasted two years before the magazine ended the operation. It was costing way more money than it was bringing in, and the so-called greedy megagiant slashed it.

Nuttery, Ron Paul is the only politician who believes in the law? Seriously, that's what you're saying? He's probably the only Republican who believes in the law being supreme, but there's more than a few Democrats who believe in the supremacy of law (including some joker with a law degree from Harvard running for President...).

Supreme law is the constitution doofus. It's the law that came before all other laws, it's the laws against government to prevent them from becoming a tyrannical, collusive nuthouse like all other governments before it by assessing which powers, which enablements, it shouldn't have under any circumstances. And inflation was one of them. But after a couple hundred years, people became complacent, arrogant, and ignorant, like yourself, and politicians found that they could ignore it with impunity. There was no longer a bunch of gun-toting, tea-hating radicals ready to hang them on the nearest tree when they broke it. There was nothing but the opposing party. But that party loves to spend, too. So they compromise by allowing the other to break it so long as they get to break it in another way. Remember how the bailout failed and then got passed? They put some extra pork in there to get the votes they needed. Rum and arrowheads...

http://www.greenfaucet.com/economy/porky-the-bailout-bill/19680

Welcome to our country, and the socialist enablements that make this spending possible.

No, but he can still bribe the politicians to look the other way on violation of rights. They do it now, and I'm not sure why it would change, just because the companies have more money to spend (according to your theory).

The bottom line here is that attacking Democrats as being socialist is a huge fucking straw man. We like the free market, and we want it to work.

No, you don't, You don't even know what it is.

Most investment banks are now crying out to be regulated in the wake of this credit crisis, and given that they bribed the government into deregulating them in the first place, that should tell you something.

They're not crying to be regulated, they're crying to be bailed out after being regulated. What do you think regulation is exactly? Do you realize that the fundamental way in which banks operate is fraudulent? How do you regulate that? How do you oversee to make sure fraud is being conducted in the best way possible?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking#Money_creation

This is the type of nonsense I hear from the republicrat camp. Regulation, the buzzword of the day. It's meaningless. To "regulate" the bank runs this system was causing, the Federal Reserve was created to backstop bankruptcy. Yes, failure, that free market pinnacle that makes private business suffer and fear consequences for risk and imprudent policy. Or how about the FDIC, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INSURANCE on deposits. Don't worry, now you don't have to fear about losing your deposit on this scam industry. We've regulated it with the FDIC. OOPS, THE FEAR OF LOSING ONE'S DEPOSIT WAS WHAT DETERRED PEOPLE FROM GIVING IT TO HIGHLY LEVERAGED INVESTMENT BANKS OFFERING ABNORMAL YIELDS, CAUSING THAT BUSINESS MODEL TO GROW, CAUSING OTHER BANKS TO FOLLOW SUIT IN ORDER TO COMPETE.

The problem is regulation on fraudulent activity that should have never been allowed. It slowly but surely eliminated basic deterrents and self-regulating principles by backstopping risk and rewarding bad behavior.

Yeah, it's a complete distortion to say that McCain was referring to modern day Pakistan as a failed state. He wasn't.

What McCain said was "I don't think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state."

Now, that could still be BS claim. I honestly don't know. Wikipedia has relatively little about the 1999 coup that put Musharraf in power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Pakistani_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

^ Two things: first, I disagree with your prediction about Obama's diplomacy (and I'll leave it at that).

Second, do you think he would invade Pakistan for purposes of regime change, or simply follow through with his now-famous debate comment: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will." (substituting in whoever becomes President of Pakistan now)

I'd protest the former, and reluctantly support the latter.

>> ^Irishman:
"America's CIA Versus Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf"
http://www.daily.pk/politics/3
7-politicalnews/6298-americas-cia-versus-pakistans-president-pervez-musharraf.html
"Musharraf: CIA has paid Pakistan millions"
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/musharraf_cia_h.html



And if Musharraf is in the CIA's pocket, then explain where A Q Khan is today? Oh yeah, he's in Pakistan under 'house arrest', and the CIA is not allowed to speak with him. My only point though is that global politics aren't nearly so 'simple'.