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"Save the internet"
40hz:
- I would suggest that one answer could be what is in unconfirmed reports, that some H-U-G-E US military materials and capability movements into Israel and its offshore are in progress.
-IainB (January 06, 2012, 07:21 AM)
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Oh, I'm sure that has a lot more to do with it. ;D
My comment was more along the lines of a semi-joke. Especially since the current Mideast deployment is costing the US something like $1-billion every three days. So there's a major economic incentive to pull the military out of there as quickly as possible regardless.
8)
Renegade:
... a small and very un-American cabal of religious, political, and business interests to subvert almost everything this nation stands for ...
-40hz (January 06, 2012, 06:44 AM)
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+1
That's a key point.
While I'm not American -- I'm Canadian --- the same thing goes on in Canada in many ways.
NSFW analogyIf Ottawa can't taste Washington D.C.'s cock, it's because it's in Ottawa's ever-so-willing ass.
It's embarrassing to see how Ottawa parrots the same rhetoric you get out of Washington D.C. With much of the same style of legislation. This is nothing new. It's been that way for decades.
We recently saw the same kind of totalitarian attitude by various cities with police attacking Occupy protesters in Canada as we saw in the US. WTF? Canadian police? Attacking protesters? Huh? The same people that apologize to you when YOU bump into THEM on the street?
This disease in the US is infectious... The US is just patient zero.
IainB:
This disease in the US is infectious... The US is just patient zero.
-Renegade (January 06, 2012, 03:03 PM)
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Well, it might be Patient Zero in the Western democracies, and it might be infectious, but the non-Western non-democracies have already got a head start with their own form of totalitarian censorship - e.g., including China, Pakistan - and there have been some recent daft censorship proposals in the Indian democracy.
However, talking of "infectious", I think Iran has been able to demonstrate some innovative thought-leadership here: Iran Further Restricts Facebook and Twitter, Prepares Its Own Internet
Iran is testing a domestic Internet, a “Halal” network that will restrict citizens from penetrating foreign sites. Internet users this week reported delays in their network connections, which is believed to be connected to the new network’s trial run.
The Wall Street Journal says the domestic Internet replacement aims to restrict the influence of non-Islamic culture and western ideology. The network — technically an Intranet — should be ready to go live within a few weeks, Iranian media reported.
(There's more.)
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This arguably makes a lot of sense for any Islamic theocracy in the Caliphate. Is is entirely consistent with the Koran.
Any student who has understood and learned the Koran knows that Islam draws a clear distinction between the world of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the world of heresy (Dar al-Harb) - they are antithetical. Muslims (believers) are in the former, and all others (kafirs - unbelievers, infidels, skeptics) are in the latter.
By plugging Iran into a national CUG (Closed User Group) Intranet, the Iranians will be simply and effectively protecting themselves from infection by Dar al-Harb via the Internet, by quarantining the Internet. That infection includes Dar al-Harb concepts - e.g., including such as "freedom", or "democracy", both of which are obscene in the Islamic context of having submitted to Islam (the word of Allah).
Iran, in common with other Muslim nation members of the global Caliphate, is a theocracy, and if this quarantining of the Internet is what they want, then why shouldn't it be done? Western Dar al-Harb concepts and ideas have the potential to corrupt, or arguably actually already have corrupted some of the basic building blocks of these Islamic societies.
At least currently, and for a while, in America there still remains the democratic freedom to protest, argue and debate proposed US proscriptive, prohibitionist, or censoring measures - e.g., such as SOPA. If you think this is a valuable thing, then be grateful for it.
40hz:
I can't see Islamic nations retreating into their own separate virtual reality as accomplishing anything other than setting the stage for future wars. Look at what similar measures have done for North Korea. Created a paranoid and belligerent society blindly convinced of their superiority over the rest of the world. Especially now that they have nuclear weapons and feel justified in 'rattling the saber' at any who question or criticize them.
What I worry about is that their anger and fears will eventually reach the point where they become convinced (in the absence of any other viewpoint) of the necessity to do something that will prove to be extremely stupid.
Whereupon N.K. will step over the line from "potential" risk to "clear and present" threat.
At which point will only leave the question of whether North Korea's total destruction is to be carried out using a conventional or strategic class of weaponry.
I'd hope the Arab world isn't walking down that same risky path.
Renegade:
I can't see Islamic nations retreating into their own separate virtual reality as accomplishing anything other than setting the stage for future wars. Look at what similar measures have done for North Korea. Created a paranoid and belligerent society blindly convinced of their superiority over the rest of the world. Especially now that they have nuclear weapons and feel justified in 'rattling the saber' at any who question or criticize them.
What I worry about is that their anger and fears will eventually reach the point where they become convinced (in the absence of any other viewpoint) of the necessity to do something that will prove to be extremely stupid.
Whereupon N.K. will step over the line from "potential" risk to "clear and present" threat.
At which point will only leave the question of whether North Korea's total destruction is to be carried out using a conventional or strategic class of weaponry.
I'd hope the Arab world isn't walking down that same risky path.
-40hz (January 07, 2012, 08:33 AM)
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My belligerent peace-mongering -- likely to be offensive to some
The media paints a very scary picture, but I don't believe it's very accurate. It's just typical fear-mongering media hysteria.
NOBODY in South Korea is scared of the North. Nobody. I've never talked to anyone remotely worried about it. And yes, I've talked to several spooks about it too.
It's all a game to "get stuff".
North Korea will continue to play that game for as long as they can. They get what they want most of the time, and they get to keep power. The will not step over into "clear and present" threat. That's counter productive.
Pyong-yang is a controlled city. Entrance is restricted. Nothing you see in PY is remotely representative of the rest of the country.
Elsewhere, people live in abject poverty. Starvation is common. They're not concerned about much other than figuring out where their next meal comes from (and avoiding any potential party wrath).
North Korea has more than enough troops to completely destroy the US 8th army. I've had officers in the 8th army tell me, "We're just a speed bump for them." They would roll over Seoul before anyone could do anything. However, they can't keep it. And everyone knows it. So... they all dance along as NK leads.
Iran is only a threat in the same way that if you beat, torture, mistreat, and corner a dog, that dog will be dangerous as well. Whose fault is it? The dog's fault? Hardly. The US has committed the most vile sins imaginable in the Middle East, and still, somehow, it's all THEIR fault.
For the Arab world going down a risky path? It's more like a pack of cruel boys with a dog on a leash, yanking it, beating it, torturing it, and dragging it down a "risky path" because they did the same thing to it yesterday, and this morning when they went to beat it, it bit one of them. Now they'll "teach it a real lesson"... :-\
The Palatable Summary:
North Korea isn't remotely a threat. They just want free stuff.
The Arab world has been provoked for a long time. They're not going down a path -- they're being forced down it.
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