Quote:
Originally posted by Colin@Sep 16 2003, 12:39 PM
Why do you think, though, that we "are sitting on the edge of a World War"?
Seems to me that we're quite a bit further from such a war on the ol' "Path to War" flowchart than we were during any point from the end of WW II until the end of the Cold War.
Strange bedfellows. Well, the world wars were certainly that. FDR and Stalin?
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I am working off of 3 hours sleep, so I am no where near coherent today as I was yesterday... So I tried to slip by you...
But you aren't gonna allow that are you... Noooooooo....
Well Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssssseeeeeeeee Me....
Ok....
When Bin Laden-AlQueda attacked the WTC they clearly, imho, had in mind getting WWIII started... They figured that the U.S. would come back hard (which they did) and the Moslem world would perceive it as an attack against Islam (which partially happened) and a domino effect would occur drawing the west into a full outright war with the Islam world (which did not occur).
But, they did get stuff teetering a bit on the edge.....
Then, in October 2002, they did the bombing in Bali which was aimed (again imho) at getting Indonesia's (and nearby countries, P.I. and SE Asia) Moslem population stirred up... They were possibly trying to get Australia to go into Indonesia...
Now, we have gone into Iraq which had the effect of partially alienating some of our allies (France and Germany) and again to many in the Moslem world appears to be an attack by the west against Islam....
We are also at the same time warning Iran off with a lot of the same style of rhetoric that we used prior to going into Iraq.
So, the Moslem world is unsettled with it's relationship with the west at this point....
Meanwhile, in Russia we have continuing attacks by Moslem agitators from Chechnya... Which does not leave a real good relationship between Russia and it's Moslem residents........
So, all over the world we have the possibility that the next action against a Moslem population by the West or Russia is seen as a continuation of an ongoing attack against Islam.... Basically, a situation that could explode at any point....
Pakistan is a predominantly Moslem nation that definitely has Nukes.... Iran is a Moslem nation that may or may not have Nukes... Some of the various territories that made up the USSR have large Moslem populations and may have access to nukes.
Now, lets see what else is going on in the world.
North Korea is making a whole lot of gestures indicating that they definitely have nukes and furthermore that they are not afraid to use them. China is staying pretty quiet, playing the moderate between the West and North Korea.
Meanwhile in the Middle East, the Israel-Palestinian situation is in a steady state of deterioration.
Now let's throw in an incident.... Say there was an assasination attempt by the NPA while Bush is in PI.....
The reaction from the U.S. would probably be pretty quick to jump right into P.I.... and hunt down the Communist New Peoples Army.... Unfortunately, this would also bring us into close contact with the various Moslem groups also fighting with the Phillipine Government.... The NPA would most probably be being supplied by North Korea... The Moslem fighters garner their support from Indonesia's Moslem population and various groups such as those that comprise AlQueda....
The U.S. gets into it with both these groups.... North Korea escalates support of the NPA and we go after North Korea.... China comes in to support North Korea....
At this point we are preoccupied all over the place....
Perfect time for the various Arab states to decide it's time to take out Israel (another Nuclear country)...
etc etc etc............
Don't know what Russia would be doing during this time except trying to keep it's own Moslem population in check... They would also be very interested in what was going on in the Middle East... and let's not forget that Pakistan and India might decide at that point that it is time to settle Kashmir once and for all....
anyway, thats just one possible version...
catalyst could be Israel deciding to take out Arafat........
anything that makes it look to the Moslm world that they are being further attacked by the West could lead the way.....
Not trying to be gloom and doom about it...