Islamists are far more oppresive than any dictators we supported during the Cold War.
Which is why Ron Paul wants you to stop backing them (Islamists).
One more question: English language Russian media is heavily promoting Dr. Paul as the "peace candidate." Why do you think they are doing this?
Because they like Islamists so much?
Open up a history book sometime, sweetheart.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
NeoCon:Ron Paul believes that "blowback" is the primary motivation behind the actions of nations.
No he doesn't. He has never said that. He's said that 'blowback' is the primary reason a few specific events happened, but he's never said anything like it being the "primary motivation behind the actions of nations", or even the primary motivation behind all of the actions of Middle Eastern nations.
Is there "blowback" from the Kuwaitis? Why not?
Why would there be? Military bases aren't really a big deal--they don't significantly affect the population. Things like supporting brutal dictators are what cause hatred and blowback, because the population is poor and oppressed because of our actions. The Kuwaiti people are fairly well off, so there's no reason for there to be blowback.
Is there "blowback" from the Kurds? Why not?
Not against us, because we deposed a government they hated. And the Iraq war didn't affect Kurdistan as much as the rest of Iraq, because the Kurds largely stayed out of sectarian violence that devasted most of the country. There has been plenty of Kurdish blowback against Turkey though, which is what Ron Paul and anyone else who understood blowback would expect as a response to Turkey's oppression of the Kurds.
Is the current Islamic violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria "blowback" for something America did? In Egypt, yes, according to the CIA's definition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_%28intelligence%29 Violence that happens as a result of the the collapse of a dictatorship we supported is a kind of blowback. Violence against Christians in Nigeria may not have anything to do with America, but that doesn't make it not blowback, it's just blowback from the decades old conflict between the Muslim and Christian parts of Nigeria, rather than blowback against America.
Is the current Islamic violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria "blowback" for something America did?
Talk to Iranian Americans, and ask if Iran was better under the Shah or Khomeni. I don't see what this choice has to do with American intervention in Iran. The real question to ask would be the Shah vs. Mossaddegh, the prime minister we overthrew to install the Shah in 1953. And it doesn't matter what Khomeini's motivations were--it's still blowback. Khomeini was only able to get in power because of popular support, which he could only get because he was overthrowing the dictator we installed. If we had stayed out of Iran in 1953, Khomeini would never have been able to install his government.
Talk to Iranian Americans, and ask if Iran was better under the Shah or Khomeni.
Oh really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_occupation_of_East_Timor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966 What Islamist government has done anything that bad?
What happens if we pull all our troops back from the world, and China starts eating up the pacific rim, Russia retakes the former Soviet satellites (now free people),
Nothing, because that won't happen--they've learned from our mistakes, and realize how stupid such imperialism would be. Russians remember not only our wars in the Middle East, but their own disasterous war in Afghanistan--do you think they want to repeat such experiences in Eastern Europe? The Chinese do have an interest in the rest of the world--but they've been investing in rather than conquering countries to achieve their goals, because it makes much more sense to act that way. They wouldn't even be able to afford imperialism--they've got a huge property bubble that could burst any time, and a demographic crisis coming up soon caused by their one child policy that'll probably bankrupt them as their population ages dramatically.
and Islam marches deeper into Africa and Europe?
How exactly do you think American intervention is going to stop the spread of religion? If anything, our interventions help spread radical Islam. Who do we overthrow? Not Saudi Arabia, the most fundamentalist Islamic regime in the region--they're our strong ally. Instead we overthrow Saddam's largely secular government. Next we overthrow Ghaddafi's secular regime and replace it with more fundamentalists. Now we're trying to overthrow Syria's secular regime and replace it with fundamentalists. It's almost as if the United States is deliberately trying to spread radical Islam to encourage anti-Western violence, which would serve as an excuse to start more wars and transfer more money to the elites those wars benefit.
tl;dr version: Ron Paul understands much more about the world than you (see video).
Why did Al Qaeda attack New You City, not Montreal? Do you believe the major problem is, "They hate us for our freedom," rather then the reason Osama bin Laden stated, which is because we have bases on their holy land and we support Israel? Its not about good guys vs. bad guys, but that they precieved our actions as bad. It doesn't make their actions good, but it is important to know why they did what they did to prevent future blowback.
Russian media is proably saying this because it is true. Our media says this also, but rather sees this as a dangerous foriegn policy.
Ron Paul believes that "blowback" is the primary motivation behind the actions of nations. "Blowback" is a real thing, of course, and a natural consequence of any large nation's foreign policy efforts, but it is only a sliver of motivation in the conduct of nations. To support Ron Paul, you have to believe he is right that "blowback" is the DOMINANT reality in the policy of Middle Eastern nations, which it is not, and never has been.
That's just idiotic. Here is a hard baseline number of Iraqis killed as a result of the US occupation and colonization of Iraq. This number does not reflect the probable deaths in Iraq (which are likely 10 times that lowball number)... it's simply the number that no one, not even George Bush himself, can refute based on journalistic evidence.
You can't kill a number of people large enough to populate a moderate metropolis and not expect "blowback". Each and every individual killed has parents, children, siblings, spouses, cousins, grandparents, close friends and other associates - dozens of people are affected by each and every death. It is the people left behind who form the pressure cooker in which vengeance stews and eventually explodes.
The CIA and senior defense officials have stated on multiple occasions on the public record that American policy in the Middle East prior to 9/11 was the primary motivation of the 9/11 attackers. All the mistakes we were making in the Middle East before 9/11 have been amplified a hundred-fold.
"Blowback" is a natural response to great nations anytime.
Bullshit. That's like the school bully saying he got sucker punched by the nerd he beats up every day after school because of his "greatness."
To put it simply: if there was blowback from freedom loving people, we would be the villains. But since it is "blowback" from fiends and monsters, they are the villains. Actually, the world is a bit more complex than that, but if you're looking for the bad guys, turn your eyes away from freedom loving people to the oppressors and religious madmen.
Indeed. That is an incredibly accurate and well-nuanced picture of the state of geopolitics in 2012.
Is the current Islamic violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria "blowback" for something America did? Or is it driven by a religious ideology?
You and I really don't know what it is driven by. Appearances alone do not establish cause and effect, particularly in human affairs.
Anti-Imperialism is just a mask for Islamic domination.
Yes, I've been brainwashed by the radio waves emanating from the Kabaa and I'm a mindless apologist for violence committed in the name of Allah
Either that or I just hate imperialism.
Dr. Paul also holds the incredible belief that The Golden Rule foreign policy will turn ideological monsters into friends.
No, it will turn them into indifferents. Indifferent to us, at least. See, we don't actually live in the DC Comics universe (this may be surprising to you, so don't freak out, OK?). There are no super-heroes. There are no super-villains. Evil people are all motivated by about the same things that anyone else is motivated... more money, more women, more prestige, etc. And regardless of the color of their skin or the manner of their phoney-baloney religiosity, they all share one uniting attribute: a sociopathic lack of empathy and basic moral decency.
Of course, this description is just as applicable to your average cabinet-level bureaucrat in any supposedly enlightened, developed nation as it is to a machete-wielding al-Shabaab fighter.
What happens if we pull all our troops back from the world, and China starts eating up the pacific rim, Russia retakes the former Soviet satellites (now free people), and Islam marches deeper into Africa and Europe? What if they don't want to be friends?
Who cares? It doesn't matter. Let them control whatever territory they like. They can enslave the rest of the world to their heart's content and they still won't have a fraction of the wealth and power that we will have if we return to honoring the principles that used to be core values of our culture: diligence, property rights, true equality under the law (meaning the government itself is subject to the law), free exchange, entrepreneurialism and true capitalism (instead of crony capitalism that keeps the profits and makes the taxpayers eat the losses), and so on. Free men are immeasurably more productive than slaves. That's the true point of the story of the 300 Spartans. Free people have something to live for, something worth defending. Slaves are just mindless automatons, hardly worth 1000-to-1 whether on the battlefield or in the marketplace. Clayton -
Blowback does not drive all the actions in the middle east, but unintended consequences that result in violence against us are blowback. They wouldn't attack us if we weren't there. Iran has tried to, but couldn't gather the support.
NeoCon:Ron Paul believes that "blowback" is the primary motivation behind the actions of nations. "Blowback" is a real thing, of course, and a natural consequence of any large nation's foreign policy efforts, but it is only a sliver of motivation in the conduct of nations. To support Ron Paul, you have to believe he is right that "blowback" is the DOMINANT reality in the policy of Middle Eastern nations, which it is not, and never has been.
This appears to be a strawman of Ron Paul's position. AFAIK, he uses a similar definition to this one provided by Wikipedia: "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government [i.e. the government that undertook the covert operation]". If anything, Ron Paul doesn't seem to limit his definition of "blowback" to the unintended consequences of only covert operations - he also includes overt operations, such as the US and allied military invasion of Iraq.
I also don't think that Ron Paul has ever claimed that blowback - as defined above - is the "dominant reality" in the policy of Middle Eastern nations. What he has claimed is that numerous US government interventions in Middle Eastern nations have resulted in blowback. Not all of the blowback - maybe not even a majority of it - was conducted by foreign governments per se. Ron Paul and myself both fail to see how that's relevant. The blowback has occurred nonetheless.
NeoCon:"Blowback" is a natural response to great nations anytime. To put it simply: if there was blowback from freedom loving people, we would be the villains. But since it is "blowback" from fiends and monsters, they are the villains. Actually, the world is a bit more complex than that, but if you're looking for the bad guys, turn your eyes away from freedom loving people to the oppressors and religious madmen.
What do you mean by "great nations"? Do you mean "large nations"? Do you mean "powerful nations"? Or do you mean "really good nations"?
Your characterization of blowback as only coming from "fiends and monsters" begs the question: what makes those people "fiends and monsters"? If you're declaring people who commit acts of blowback as "fiends and monsters" by definition, then please come out and say so. However, you can't then logically appeal to the more commonly accepted meaning of "fiends and monsters", as that would entail an equivocation.
NeoCon:Question: Is there "blowback" from the Kuwaitis? Why not? We have large bases there. Is there "blowback" from the Kurds? Why not? We have "occupied" their land, have we not? Is the current Islamic violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria "blowback" for something America did? Or is it driven by a religious ideology?
As you yourself just said, the world is more complex than that. A non-zero probability ("it can happen") is not the same as a probability of one ("it will happen"). You could also ask why there was no blowback from the Kurds when Saddam Hussein's regime was murdering them en masse with the tacit support of the US government. Did Ron Paul ever claim that violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria is blowback for something the US government did?
NeoCon:Paul is so narrowly focused on a few hundred terrorists that he completely misses the big issues...ideology (Islamo-fascism), national interests, and thuggish leaders. Islamists are far more oppresive than any dictators we supported during the Cold War. Talk to Iranian Americans, and ask if Iran was better under the Shah or Khomeni. Paul would profit by reading the Ayatollah Khomeini's book Islamic Government. The Iranian Revolution was not "blowback," it was ideologically driven, and far more brutal than the Shah ever was. Anti-Imperialism is just a mask for Islamic domination.
Both the Wikipedia definition and the slightly different definition that Ron Paul seems to use in no way imply that blowback can never be ideologically driven. Indeed, what do you think is not (or cannot be) ideologically driven?
NeoCon:Dr. Paul also holds the incredible belief that The Golden Rule foreign policy will turn ideological monsters into friends. What happens if we pull all our troops back from the world, and China starts eating up the pacific rim, Russia retakes the former Soviet satellites (now free people), and Islam marches deeper into Africa and Europe? What if they don't want to be friends?
Are you implicitly arguing here that, if "we" pull all "our" troops back from the world, that China will "start eating up the pacific rim", that Russia will retake the fomer Soviet satellites, and that "Islam" will march deeper into Africa and Europe? If so, can you please support these assertions?
By what I surmise is your reasoning, the US should've been taken over by the British Empire when the latter was at its zenith, but that didn't happen. Why not?
NeoCon:One more question: English language Russian media is heavily promoting Dr. Paul as the "peace candidate." Why do you think they are doing this?
Do you intend this as a rhetorical question? If not, then I'd say that, while I'm not sure, it certainly seems possible to me that the Russian government is, in fact, interested in peace.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
While I think Russia Today is kind of a propaganda network, they coincidentally are promoting a lot of the right things. I think there are a lot of business interests that Russia may happen to have. But this is a smear tactic to say that, because they are biased, they stand to gain at your expense. Their interests may be legitimate in and of themselves.
NeoCon: Talk to Iranian Americans, and ask if Iran was better under the Shah or Khomeni.
From family experience- no life was not better under the Shah. He was as brutal as you can get. Life was better for American political scientists that like to experiment with peoples lives under the time of the Shah sure.
NeoCon:The Iranian Revolution was not "blowback," it was ideologically driven, and far more brutal than the Shah ever was.
It absolutely was a consequence of the Shah's dictatorship. And no it was not more brutal than the Shah and never will be. You're just making things up you have no personal experience with iran or Islam and are only able to regurgitate the beliefs that you were fed that help you feel better about the United States government as the "good guy". There's just as much oppression and madmen here as there is in Iran- go and visit the country, you're imagining some fantasy-land Mordor and I really don't know why. Its as if promoting western style of dress is supposed to be the only indication of freedom for some people- how arrogant can you get.
Let me ask you a question. Why do you believe the world to be a childish story book where there are good guys and bad guys? And why do you identify so dearly with the US government as if their actions rub off on you? They don't. If they do something bad- that doesn't make you a bad person- so don't take it to heart so easy that people are getting angry at US foreign policy.
And if you're going to call certain regimes oppressive- why not start with the one that has the highest incarceration rate and prison population in the entire world? That's a whole lot of people being oppressed.
The only reason China and Russia might be "ideological monsters" at this point is because the United States ideology seems to be "We control everything or you die"
Why does it have to be either the shah or the mullahs? How about somebody better than both? It was installing Reza Pahlavi and standing by him as he cracked down on opposition destroying secular alternatives to himself that ultimately made it into a binary choice between him and Khomeini.
Russia Today is kind of a propaganda network
This.
The OP's confusion arises from the failure to realize that there is no "Russia" or "America". There are Russians and Americans. There is the Russian government and its propaganda arm (Russian media) and there is the American government and its propaganda arm (US media). If you're an American and you want to know about the dirty secrets of the American government, you won't find it by consulting the American media. But just like the American media is more than happy to report on and expose the evil tyrants who rule countries that the American government does not yet control, so the Russian media is happy to report on the tyrannical acts of the American government whether acting on its own or through its puppets in countries it controls.
Modern super-governments are the biggest mafias around. When you open your eyes and see the truth, the world of politics will become so simple as to be almost transparent. It's like breaking out of the Matrix... the only thing that surprises you anymore is how you could have ever been so blind to it all.
Clayton -
Well Clayton, you did me a favor with your use of the word "colonization" about the Iraq war. Now I see it is all Kool-aid and I don't need spend a lot of time here. Also, your silly answer to my question about Russia's support for Ron Paul shows you can't think outside a Paulista box. The answer is obvious. And finally, your comment: "I say let them control whatever territory they like. They can enslave the rest of the world to their heart's content..." reveals the moral compass Paul has taught you to embrace. I, for one, could never go there. I'll overlook your Hollywood view of the Spartans. But I will leave you with this: Ron Paul did say we should try to be friends with Iran, not neutral. When asked on "Fox News Sunday" what he would do to deter Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, the good Doctors insightful alternative was "maybe offering friendship to them." Brilliant. That's the kind of off-the-cuff stuff he says all the time. He also completely took the Palestinian/ terrorist side when Israel struck Gaza to find stop their missile launches. He even stooped so low as to call Gaza a "concentration camp" set up by Israel. Not neutral.
NeoCon, I certainly hope that you're not engaging in groupthink and writing off this entire forum because of what a single individual has written.
The terrorist side? Isn't it more terroristic to hold a population captive and subject them to starvation, destruction of their homes, displacement, regular white phosphorus gassings, and random killings? Because that's what the Israelis do.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Autolykos: NeoCon, I certainly hope that you're not engaging in groupthink and writing off this entire forum because of what a single individual has written.
The tactic NeoCon is using is the old "cherry pick a few things you can sink your teeth into and ignore the rest." It relies on the opposition being willing to attack the new content so that the substantive stuff gets buried down the memory hole. I'm always surprised how well it works.
Why anarchy fails
Does it look to you like I fell for it? My intention was to call him out on the very behavior you just described.
You usually go for the jugular. This was a little tame subtle.
I guess because I was making an insinuation instead of an accusation? :P
And finally, your comment: "I say let them control whatever territory they like. They can enslave the rest of the world to their heart's content..." reveals the moral compass Paul has taught you to embrace.
First of all, if you're going to put quotes around what I said, try actually quoting me instead of rephrasing it in your own words.
Second, perhaps you're in the habit of debating mental midgets who are incapable of stringing together more than 10 or 12 words into a single thought. The thesis of those sentences is clearly not that I welcome slavery so long as it is not me who's the victim. Of course I empathize with those who are enslaved (hey, I happen to be a tax/inflation-slave so I know how bad it sucks!). But if you had read the next sentence, you would have understood that my point is that no matter what the Old World Elites do in terms of enslaving and colonizing people, they will lose out to those who choose to follow the path of liberty.
The comic-book crap about how we need some Mr. Liberty Superhero or else the Old World Elites are going to enslave us yet again is just a bunch of crap, probably coming out of the Vatican because they seem to have a real affinity for this Cosmic Good versus Cosmic Evil crap. We don't need a Moses of Liberty. We don't need a Jesus of Liberty. We don't even need a Ron Paul, though he's definitely nice to have around. All we need is to change people's minds that freedom is in their best interest and is their birthright and the rest follows automatically.
Perhaps America isn't "colonizing" Iraq in the sense that individuals are moving there to set up shop a la North America in the late 16th century. However, you cannot argue that United States does occupy other countries. Colonization isn't in vogue nowadays on the national scene.
Wiki:
A Greek force of approximately 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the summer of 480 BC. The Persian army, alleged by the ancient sources to have numbered over one million but today considered to have been much smaller (various figures are given by scholars ranging between about 100,000 and 300,000),[7][8] arrived at the pass in late August or early September. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held off the Persians for seven days in total (including three of battle), before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands.
"300 Spartans" = However many Greek warriors fought at Thermopolye who were vastly outnumbered. I guess Clayton can speak for himself, but this is what I took the meaning to be.
America is employing the Roman strategy. We invade (or infiltrate with intelligence agents, which is the same thing), we conquer or overthrow the sitting ruler, then we play a game called "Who's the Most Loyal Lapdog Traitor?" and then we stage "democratic elections" to install our chosen puppet. To make sure the puppet keeps marching to orders, we keep a few dozen thousand heavily-armed Marines and US Soldiers on hand until we've established a network of control that can be managed on a more hands-off basis. Then, with great fanfare, we withdraw and grant our new, de facto province its "autonomy".
No Autolykos, I don't think you fell for it, and I agree that he is also a collectivist. I was more just piggybacking on your comment.
Well I would like to admit that I was wrong and that in all honesty I didn't have an answer to the points that were brought up in this thread. That I didn't admit that because of my pride has been nagging me in the back of my mind ever since. I have many more questions but I'll just leave it at that for now.
Was there anything in particular that led you to change your mind?
Insincerity, if I was to pick any one thing. His name is NeoCon, you don't think he is trolling...?
Admitting that he was letting pride get to him doesn't really come off as trolling.
Is there "blowback" from the Kuwaitis? Why not? We have large bases there. Is there "blowback" from the Kurds? Why not? We have "occupied" their land, have we not? Is the current Islamic violence against Christians in Egypt or Nigeria "blowback" for something America did? Or is it driven by a religious ideology?
You might wanna go back and look at which major superpower was urging Saddam to invade Kuwait. Then, look at which exact same superpower denegrated Saddam for follwing the suggestions after NATO decided that they disapproved. The royalty and secularism of Kuwait is why there is no "blowback" (which is an all encompassing term. It took the Iranians 26 to get back at the US for the 1954 coup).
The Kurds do not have a State. Part of our fomentation of Iranian/Syrian/Turkish/Iraqi conflict has been to get the Kurds territory.
As you can see, the U.S. forms it foreign policy along ethnic and religious divisions. Condie Rice had to apologize for this map after she help reveal it IN TURKEY. hhahaha idiot neocons. The other major "changes" are Baluchistan and the Af/Pak border (getting rid of that dirty border of Pak/China), bulkanizing Iraq (Shia/Sunni), and in bulkanizing S. Arabia (Those military bases and support for dicatatorships don't fly around Mecca just like GWB and Ron Paul both said). Look at Kuwait in there, all unimportant and not even colored. Like Israel.
Notice Israel is in it's proper 1967 borders. Because they are an occupying force in WB and Gaza and the U.S. army intelligence (thx 4 this map go to them) knows this and sees them as a geostrategic liability. We stand up for them as a counter weight to Russia's Iranian proxy state...not that complicated. No ideology involved. Just a logical extension of the Cold War proxy war mentality.
Ideology is only for domestic "media politics." Ron Paul is trying to show people "realpolitik." This is how we get what we want. It has nothing to do with Jesus, Thomas, or Nietzche.
ideology (Islamo-fascism), national interests, and thuggish leaders.
If not for "islamo" I wouldn't know you were not talking about the U.S. "Islamo-Facsicm" coined by Michael Savage, is a media politics term. Rhetorically intentioned to impact religious animosity and foment emotional disconnect. It is in opposition to the U.S/EU "corporate facsism." So, I don't think it has much weight.
You haven't read much about the Cold War have you? 1954 Iran, Virtually any South/Central American country, Pakistan and Afghanistan is where the U.S. created the mujahidin. You might recognize "mujahidin" except today we spell it "al Qaeda." It is the same thing, owned and operated by the CIA, at the geostrategic advice of Z. Brzezinski.
Hint for the Republicans out there, the Reagan Doctrine, came from Jimmy Carter's administration. Reagan simply got caught, so we call it "The Reagan Doctrine."
Paul would profit by reading the Ayatollah Khomeini's book Islamic Government. The Iranian Revolution was not "blowback," it was ideologically driven, and far more brutal than the Shah ever was. Anti-Imperialism is just a mask for Islamic domination.
Again, you are mixing Iranian domestic "medai politics" with the U.S. grand strategy (realpolitik). We manipulate domestic politics through religious polarization. It happens there the same way it happens here. There religious fanatics are the ones who want power, we spread a word as the bird in their ear, and they will rule with an iron fist knowing that they have the support of the land of liberty. See what I did there?
Dr. Paul also holds the incredible belief that The Golden Rule foreign policy will turn ideological monsters into friends. What happens if we pull all our troops back from the world, and China starts eating up the pacific rim, Russia retakes the former Soviet satellites (now free people), and Islam marches deeper into Africa and Europe? What if they don't want to be friends?
I've posted many times on the long term Russian/Chinese geopolitical threat. They are our real long term enemies. We have bee bulkanizaing the middle east/central Asia and slowly building the Chinese economy with our capital resources. It is all in anticipation of pulling U.S. military out (or an all out war).
Russia/Iran/Syria/Lebanon and China/Pakistan/Saudi Arabia
Pakistan and S. Arabia are 50% of Iranian hostility, the other 50% being Israel and the U.S. The Wahabbi Salafist Sunnis took over Pakistan and murdered virtually every Shia cleric in the country. Pakistan is allowed to have nuclear weapons with U.S. support even though they have not signed the NPT JUST LIKE ISRAEL. Pakistan has a nuclear umbrella agreement with S. Arabia.......(huge implications) and Pakistan is in an offical alliance with China.
Contrast that wit Russia, the number one oil and natural gas exporter, and their alliances with Iran and Syria. All of Iran's enemies will act if they are sent into a crisis.
Anything pops off and the Russians and the Chinese will have a tough time preventing their "ideologically driven" proxy states from attacking each other. It will be complete chaos and that is what the U.S. wants.
We have spent 40 years building the Chinese economy to compete with the Russians. China and Europe are dependent on that middle east energy for production. Destroying those oil fields and transport lines will push Europe and China into (a) war with Russia or (b) into Russias hands.
The U.S. Kony campaign is likely a way to galvanize possible U.S. military action in Africa. Africom (U.S. African Central Command) has done much research into Chinese energy exploration in Africa. China expects warlord resistance before they expect the U.S. to be a problem, but the U.S. is going to use those warlords...
Here, I'm sure your suspisicion is correct. The Russian best interest is an isolated (go ahead call it 'nonintervention...ey.') U.S. Adam Kokesh even said himself that the Russians promoting Paul in the U.S. is similar to the U.S. helping rebels in Libya, the exception being that Russia isn't selling us guns, they are selling us media time.
You might wanna go back and look at which major superpower was urging Saddam to invade Kuwait.
Wow, you're actually one of the few people that ever bring that up. Kudos.
Thanks, my grandpa always brings it up, haha. He's an anarachist too. We have the best memories. You might wanna read this: http://books.google.com/books/about/Secret_state_silent_press.html?id=cyPgRLszTGsC
I'm surprised it is published by my university. They've got some good ammo against the State here.