Realities and Alternative to engagement

[Mil]

I have previously promised Olivier to put my version of action if I were the President of the United States on 9/11. I've written him a personal message but he insisted we discuss it publically so here it goes:



The right policy for the United States given all the political, military and economic power of the country is to take a very agressive approach. The nation should go on the offensive on each and every available front both externally and internally. The following strategem should be followed:

#1 Identify the enemy

#2 Identify allies, potential allies and non-cooperative regimes

#3 Given #1 and #2 identify the theatre of operations

#4 Given #2 identify ways to deal with non-cooperative regimes
a) Political Action
b) Military Action
c) Economic Action
d) Combination of a-d

#5 Identify political effects and constraints
a) Internal
b) External

#6 Identify and prioratize all the available methods for both internal and external use

#7 Identify economic limitations

#8 Identify political limitations
a) Internal
b) External

#9 Identify military limitations and domestic capabilities


Utilize all the means available given #1-#9 while maintaining the momentum both internally and externally within and outside the country. There comes in you Afganistan, Axis of Evil, War on Iraq, Democracy across the ME, unilateralism, sanctions against Syria, immense pressure on Israel and so on.

I am pretty sure that something like above was what the president came up with. If you, or the world, for a second thought that the US would not engage the Middle East on every possible front in an agressive manner it was if only a dillusion. I am pretty sure all the European governments have realized it. It was only the matter of choice of how to support the US given all the domestic and international limitations. I very sure that when the Bush administration was planning the war on Iraq it was very well aware of the world outcry, of the fact that France (given all the historical precedence) would refuse, of the political responsibility in-front of the American people, of the monetory burden and of the commitment ahead. No matter who would be the president on 9/11 Bush, Gore, Kerry or even Jaq Chiraq (if God forbid :) he was an American) the sequence of events would be very much the same if only different in the time-frame.

[Olivier]

Thank you, Mil

I have several objections. Let me start with that one : don't you think it's precisely that kind of "logical thinking" that got us (I mean "you" but you see what I mean) in Iraq?

[Oh Jerusalem]

Originally posted by Olivier
I have several objections. Let me start with that one : don't you think it's precisely that kind of "logical thinking" that got us (I mean "you" but you see what I mean) in Iraq?
Almost. What got us into the current mess is poor intelligence analysis and planning.

[Mil]

Posted by Olivier:

I have several objections. Let me start with that one : don't you think it's precisely that kind of "logical thinking" that got us (I mean "you" but you see what I mean) in Iraq?

Yes, that's exactly what got us into Iraq. I think the president did exactly the right thing - there was no alternative, really.

[Olivier]

Originally posted by Mil
Posted by Olivier:

I have several objections. Let me start with that one : don't you think it's precisely that kind of "logical thinking" that got us (I mean "you" but you see what I mean) in Iraq?

Yes, that's exactly what got us into Iraq. I think the president did exactly the right thing - there was no alternative, really. That's not humor - gosh


and is this clever way of thinking also going to help us find a way out, does it tell how you can get back things under control?

[Mil]

Posted by Olivier:


and is this clever way of thinking also going to help us find a way out, does it tell how you can get back things under control?


This is not a moral question it's a question of strategy. Your way out was to give more money - America"s way is to take a more agressive action. I think the difference is quite clear.


In 1939 the all powerfull Britain and France (both could have crushed Hitler in a month - Czechoslovakia alone could have crushed the Furher in 1938!!!) Europe thought it could accomodate Germany via political means thus avoiding military action. Now they apoligetically call it "appeasement" but in reality it was not - it was lack of interest in a freaking COMMITMENT.

There is no right way to politically accomodate the Middle East if not through force.

Money - they don't need money, they have oil.

Political pressure - Saddam would sit there till his death given all the oil. Such are the leaders in the ME. No Arab leader has volunterily left power in the last 30 years - at least not in my memory.

Military pressure - None there besides US and Britain flying occassional air-patrols.

Economic pressure - with all the oil they care less as long as they could afford their own security. The Arabs make over half a trillion dollars a year on oil!!! - in fact it is so much money that it could physically subsidise healthcare system of entire EU (new and old) for a year!!!!. Much of the revenues from these countries go into security internal and military. Saudi Arabia is considered one of the largest security spenders in the world after US, Russia, and China given the percentage of revenue and money-wise.

The only Arab countries that have some kind of a political life, including that of normal dissent, are the ones without OIL or OIL related facilities. I can only think of only one such country - Lebanon. You can also add Palestinians to the list as well. Neither have much to do with oil and for both the political life is that much more diversified then in all the other Arab states combined.

[Olivier]

Originally posted by Mil
This is not a moral question it's a question of strategy. Your way out was to give more money - America"s way is to take a more agressive action. I think the difference is quite clear. A bit reductionist.

I guess you would explain the european method is the same but you search and replace all you "identify" with "give money".

btw there are lots of "identify" and not much "action" in your plan

[Mil]

Identifying is the main thing in resolving the issue, any issue. Action is secondary. If you know exactly what to do and are set on doing it (staying the course) - your action would always be justified.

You are an engineer, I think me and you approach issues in exactly the same way.

[Olivier]

well I'm a pragmatic too and part of this fiasco is due to the failure of the "last mile", the one implementing the policies decided at a higher level on the theater of operations.

The american army is good at invading but just terrible at occupying. Remember lootings showed right at the beginning there was no control over the country.

[Mediocrates]

compared to what?

the museum heist was proven to be an inside job.
the so called anarchy was proven to be overblown.
..and so on..


Arent you the same guy who declared with absolute certainty that it would all result in thousands if not millions of casualities? weren't the radicals, who claimed there were no WMD, predicting that the entire region would wind up in a nuclear firefight? See the point is, rhetoric is rhetoric and facts are facts.


(Waiting to hear you blame it on some Jews........)

[Mediocrates]

Anyway, you've proposed no alternatives (since that's what the thread is about) all you've done is introduce yet another bashing thread. Once again you've pretty much wasted everyone's time.

[Mil]

Posted by Mediocrates:

compared to what?


I have the same question, compared to what?


I don't recall France engaging in any military action in general since 1956 and especially I don't recall any action where France, nor Britain, nor Latvia had to invade, occupy, and rebuild a country. The only OTHER country that did that was the USSR. I hope you are not comparing US to the USSR.


Europe could not even resolve the freaking YUGOSLAVIA!!!!! If the US would have taken your example I can only imagine the trouble we would be in. By the way why did America ever got itself involved in Yugoslavia? Olivier any remarks? Why didn't France do all the bombing and mediating and quiting the local nerves? WHY THE US?




I know the answer - I just want you to say it.

[Mil]

By the way, Olivier,

Previously you told me that Rumsfield, Bush, Chaney, Wolfovitz, and the other so-called "Neo-cons" are ideologists.

I am just wandering what is their exact ideology?

[Olivier]

Originally posted by Mil
I am just wandering what is their exact ideology? Right now, no and anyway I'm not sure they, themselves could.

[Olivier]

Originally posted by Mil
Posted by Mediocrates:


I don't recall France engaging in any military action in general since 1956 you must be joking, there are 4500 troops now in Ivory Coast and the country would be in full civil war otherwise.







Originally posted by Mil
Europe could not even resolve the freaking YUGOSLAVIA! As I said on another thread, france (and Europe) just absorbed the equivalent of three times the population of Iraq last saturday - including a former yugoslav republic -. And one more wave of integration (bulgaria, romania and another yugoslav republic: croatia) will take place and stabilize the balkans, definitely I hope. Turkey has also been positively affected but you do not even care to notice that.

I have come to understand you do not imagine anything more glorious than invading others countries. I disagree with that.


Military intervention was necessary to stop the war in the balkan (and if the US had not prevented NATO to intervene during so long many victims would have been spared. In theory NATO is a jointed US-european force to keep peace in europe, but the US just blocked an intervention that to single european nation could have done...)

Yes europeans have a smaller army than the US. I know your are proud with you big huge army with big huge weapons and amateur torturers, good for you.


anyway we are moving a bit out of topic.

[Oh Jerusalem]

Originally posted by Olivier
you must be joking, there are 4500 troops now in Ivory Coast and the country would be in full civil war otherwise.
Here's an old but fun article! :p

Yankees Come Here, The French Are So Passe (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A43041-2003Mar17&notFound=true)

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page C01

ABIDJAN

There's no moaning here about President Bush's plans to go to war in Iraq.

Whether it's the construction workers nursing warm beers inside the smoky open-air chicken grills or the women hunched for hours in the hair-braiding kiosks, Ivorians in this city once dubbed the Paris of West Africa are outspoken about their feelings on America.

"I am in love with the United States. They are right. The French are wrong," says Kofi Herve, a 30-year-old pharmacist who is wearing an American flag T-shirt under his white coat. "I want everything American. I want, how do you say, a bagel? I want a burger rather than a croque-monsieur."

While citizens of many countries are distressed, angry even over President Bush's drive to topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Ivorians are unfurling American flags instead of burning them.

That's because next to France, the United States looks good.

Americans may be upset lately with Jacques Chirac's refusal to back Bush's plans in Iraq. But their anger pales next to the unhappiness here. After decades of colonial rule and the French government's intervention in Ivory Coast's months-long civil war -- not to mention what locals here say are way too many French cheese shops -- Ivorians have just plain had it with the French.

"Au revoir, France, goodbye," protesters chanted when thousands flooded the streets of Abidjan in January to express their frustration with a French-brokered peace pact. They rallied at the American Embassy, mouthed the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" and smeared red, white and blue paint on their chests and faces.

American diplomats thought the feelings were a fluke -- faux adoration, if you will. They didn't even come out to talk to the protesters.

"All this American gaga will end," says a U.S. diplomat who asked not to be named. "They have French on their brains. They will come back to the French soon. They will forget about us."

While American culture has always been popular, Ivorians speak French and few know any English. Paris therefore has dominated the movie screens, magazines and music of this nation of 16 million.

But two months later, many Ivorians say they are behind America now more than ever. Posters showing Bush with a halo hang in the market. On the same posters are pictures of a devilish-looking Chirac hugging Osama bin Laden.

Ivorians are also posting pictures of famous black Americans like poet Maya Angelou and abolitionist Frederick Douglass on kiosks around the city and blasting Britney Spears from radios tuned to the Voice of America.

"We want France out and America in," says Charles Ble Goude, who is the government-backed leader of a student movement that supports President Laurent Gbagbo. He wore a hat with an emblem of the American flag sewn on and said he now prefers American beer to French wine. "We want someone new. Enough with the French. Let's learn some English."

"Who knows English?" he asked a crowd of protesters downtown recently.

Some of the resentment comes from the presence of 3,000 French troops separating the two sides in Ivory Coast's civil war, which has split the nation since an attempted coup on Sept. 19 sparked the fighting. The French also keep making statements and holding press conferences on the country's war -- from Paris.

A rebel group in the largely Muslim north, the Patriotic Movement of the Ivory Coast, was able to take over nearly half of the country. The largely Christian south remains under government control.

Each side accuses the French of favoring the other. The rebels claim they would have taken over the country by now if it weren't for the French troops. But those feelings haven't translated into pro-Americanism among the rebels because they largely feel the French-sponsored peace pact, which allows them to have several government posts, was fair.

In the south, though, where the rebels are called "terrorists" and patriotic marches have been encouraged, it's down with the French and power to the Americans. Some protesters felt so strongly about perceived injustice in the peace pact that they attempted to torch the French Embassy and attacked the city's international airport as French families attempted to flee.

But this anger has been festering for years. Many Ivorian intellectuals whisper what many consider an embarrassing truth: Their country, although officially independent since 1960, is still really a French colony.

Until the recent evacuations, there were 20,000 French nationals here. French companies own the airport, the ports and the country's cocoa industry, which is the largest in the world. French marionette shops and frilly French lingerie stores line the boulevards here. There is even a French-owned yogurt factory in Abidjan.

French poodles are imported and sold in pet stores. And croissants are made at the local patisseries, present in even the poorest neighborhoods.

"I'm just glad we haven't started wearing berets," says Zrango Rathurin, a 31-year-old Ivorian laborer sipping a latte with his friends, lamenting the French presence and praising America. "We feel a solidarity with Americans. The French are being unfair to them the same way they are being unfair to us."

"When was the last time Europe cared about Africa, anyway?" says Rathurin to cheers from his friends. "We can disagree with Europe. They messed us up to begin with."

As for fears of American cultural dominance, such things don't seem to bother people who have been eating Yoplait alongside local dishes of boiled yam and cassava.

"We are really for America. I mean, we have always loved American movies and music. And now there is that, um, how do you say, J. Lo, singer?," says Noel Yao, international editor of the government newspaper, Fraternite Matin in Abidjan.

He raises his eyebrows, shrugs and grins. "After America takes over Iraq, they can come and help us out for a while."


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Mil]

Posted by Olivier:

Right now, no and anyway I'm not sure they, themselves could.


But you said..... !!!!! Anyways, I'll just drop it. Apparently they are ideologists with no ideology.

[Mil]

Posted by Olivier:


you must be joking, there are 4500 troops now in Ivory Coast and the country would be in full civil war otherwise.

OH!!!!!!!!! That's huge.


As I said on another thread, france (and Europe) just absorbed the equivalent of three times the population of Iraq last saturday - including a former yugoslav republic -. And one more wave of integration (bulgaria, romania and another yugoslav republic: croatia) will take place and stabilize the balkans, definitely I hope. Turkey has also been positively affected but you do not even care to notice that.


What does that have with ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia?


I have come to understand you do not imagine anything more glorious than invading others countries. I disagree with that.


Ah???????? I think France invaded Ivory Coast. I think France finds it glorious re-invading its former colonies. What you think?



Military intervention was necessary to stop the war in the balkan

The Russians and the Greeks certainly did not think so.


(and if the US had not prevented NATO to intervene during so long many victims would have been spared.


Ah???????? So its American fault that Europe did not resolve Yugoslavia? Right?


In theory NATO is a jointed US-european force to keep peace in europe, but the US just blocked an intervention that to single european nation could have done...)


In theory without the US there is no NATO. Apparently most of the military compaigning was done by the US while the Europeans could not even mobolize effectively.

But on the general note - if US would not interfere they would still be killing each other out there.


Yes europeans have a smaller army than the US. I know your are proud with you big huge army with big huge weapons and amateur torturers, good for you.


The major difference between Europe and USA is that America can also make serious political commitments and decisions. Even if Europe would have decided for an independent military intervention in the Balkans they would never COMMIT.


anyway we are moving a bit out of topic.


No we are not. I finally start to understand your particular interpretation of events:


1. The war in Iraq was started by ideological "Neo-cons" in Washington; who apparently have no ideology

2. These Washington "Neo-cons" find nothing more glorious than invading others countries.

3. Instead of invading Iraq its better to use the new EU model and somehow subsidise Arab countries for the greater good of the region

4. Apparently America does not use its full political arsenal to find a common dialogue with Arab dictators - like Europe does with no apparent results (these dictators are still in power).


Anything I forgot? By the way I am suprised you still did not say that the invasion of Iraq is about oil.

[Mediocrates]

No it's on topic - to them failure and lying about it is their grand strategy. Kill the black people no one notices or cares about and it gives you the moral highground to pick at everyone else.


What is the French plan for disengagement from Equitorial West Africa again? Oh yeah, nothing. Thanks for playing.

Ask him about the French army in the C.A.R. protecting rebels who launch genocidal attacks into Congo in exchange for mineral rights.

[Mil]

Posted by Mediocrates:

No it's on topic - to them failure and lying about it is their grand strategy. Kill the black people no one notices or cares about and it gives you the moral highground to pick at everyone else.


Common, Med, you know the response: "If only there would be oil in Sudan......"

[Mediocrates]

The CAR and Congo have something better than oil; expensive and rare minerals including, gallium, germanium, polonium (used for nuclear triggers) and 'conflict' diamonds that aparently pass through French hands in violation of international law. There is BTW oil in Congo as well but after decades of French backed genocidal war that's claimed about 3 million lives the oil deposits remain largely unexplored.

[Mil]

How are French/Libyan relations going?


Libya death sentence for medics


Experts backed the medics' defence that poor hygiene was to blame
Libya has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting some 400 children with HIV.
Prosecutors demanded the death penalty, claiming the accused gave patients HIV in a bid to find an Aids cure.

The medics, who worked at a children's hospital in the city of Benghazi, were arrested five years ago.

Bulgaria's government, which had been lobbying for their release, condemned the "unfair and absurd" verdicts.


Packed court

The Libyan court found the six health workers guilty of having caused the death of 40 children and of infecting almost 400 others with HIV.

Another Bulgarian, Dr Zdravko Georgiev, was initially reported to have received the death penalty but has in fact been given a four-year sentence and may be released soon, Bulgaria's ambassador to Libya said.

Nine Libyans who worked at the same hospital were acquitted.

Inside it was packed to capacity, with 15 foreign diplomats among those attending the session which was the culmination of a trial stopped and started several times over the years.

At one point, the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, had accused the health workers of acting on orders from the CIA and the Israeli secret service, Mossad.

Libya later rowed back on this allegation.

The medics had always protested their innocence and said they had been tortured by the police, with daily beatings, sexual assault and electric shocks.

They called expert witnesses, including one of the team which discovered the Aids virus, who said this was an epidemic caused by poor hygiene at the hospital, not by any international conspiracy.

Relatives celebrate

Western diplomats say the prosecutions arose because the authorities simply needed someone to blame for a tragedy which caused outrage in Libya.


Gaddafi's Libya has not executed anyone in nine years
With Col Gaddafi recently moving to improve Libya's international standing, Bulgaria had hoped the court would be lenient.

"I'm shocked by the verdicts...We're not going to accept them," said Bulgarian Justice Minister Anton Stankov.

The government in Sofia is calling for a strong reaction from the international community.

The European Union has already voiced its extreme concern.

Bulgaria's parliamentary speaker, Ognyan Gerdzhikov, said he was confident the death sentences would not be carried out.

"I expect Gaddafi to act like a humanist to win certain political credit, which he needs from public opinion," he told Bulgarian radio.

But relatives of the infected children were celebrating.

"The verdict is fair. What they did is a crime against humanity. They planted a bomb inside our children," Ramdane Ali Mohamed, whose sister died of Aids, told Reuters.

[Mediocrates]

Europe won't do anything. Qaddafy is the EU's darling. He's angling for EU membership and Europe doesn't want to do anything to anger him. Expect the EU to say and do nothing about this.

[Mil]

Somehow this topic stopped. I guess we don't share a compatible ideology. :)

[Olivier]

Originally posted by Mil
Somehow this topic stopped. The two of you have been talking out of topic together for quite a while. If you want to drop the subject, drop the subject .

[Mil]

Olivier you stopped responding; the discussion veered into who is better. Lets re-engage:

1. Did you think America would not involve itself on full scale in the Middle East?

2. Did you think America would not deal with all parties somehow connected to radicalization of the region for political purposes?

[David_in_NYC]

Originally posted by Olivier
Thank you, Mil

I have several objections. Let me start with that one : don't you think it's precisely that kind of "logical thinking" that got us (I mean "you" but you see what I mean) in Iraq?

No, what got us into Iraq is a lack of testicles on the part of Bush Sr., Clinton, the UN, and various other Gulf War I coalition members.

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Mil
Olivier you stopped responding; the discussion veered into who is better. Lets re-engage:

1. Did you think America would not involve itself on full scale in the Middle East?

2. Did you think America would not deal with all parties somehow connected to radicalization of the region for political purposes?



I doubt seriously any rational person would say "did not think.." I think the real crux is "I don't want you to...." Clearly all nations have at their disposal a finite number of tools in the toolbox. France and Europa generally have two: Trade and so called diplomacy.

The Trade tool is mostly one of dealing with whomever, whenever for whatever makes the people at home happy. It also serves to keep the costs of government down (for example did you know that for all their "Let's wipe the Jews off the map talk, the French are scheduled to purchase IAI Rafael fightplanes for deployment on their French aircraft carriers).

But in order to trade with the Islamic states you have do whatever it is you do with backwards, powermad, corrupt, paranoid countries in general. You have to appease them and stroke them and whisper the same sweet lies any whore tells. Which is fine; be we're all sick of them portraying whoredom as a virtue. It's not, it's just whoredom.

The other tool is diplomacy. But not in the traditional simple way we're taught in school in Field-Trip-to-the-UN-101. Its more insidious than that. The point of transnational bodies, NGOs and so called international war is that they are in and of themselves weapons but other means. That is why they exist: they are modes of significant power. For years France has played its SC seat on the UN as a major aspect of its foreign policy. The entire forum of hte UN is viewed as the most critical aspect of French/EU attempts to circumvent American/British/Russian political power and it uses its votes, its influence, its proclamations to push that power forward. International law is no less a weapon of international conflict than any other tool from trade wars to covert ops to embargoes and so on. It is not, and I cannot stress this enough, it is not in any way meant to help or protect or support all those filthy poor warring countries that make up most of the membership. They are poker chips. Why else do you think that one of the things you might see with EU consolidation; Unified and Collapsed representation in the UN - never happens. Why is it that the EU is represented by TWO votes on the SC with a close ally in Russia for a third? Why is it for example that no matter how many EU memberstates there are, there is still some bizarre notion of unique national representation in those transnational confederacies that are supposed to erase the differences among nations?

Because it's not about the UN (or any other) charter. It's not about 'peacekeeping' or famine or public health or any of it. That is just window dressing for the high school classes. What it is about is power, how it is wielded and what benefits it derives. We used to quote Clausewitz: "War is diplomacy by other means". But in the modern age we've really got it backwards: "International Law is war by any means".

[Mil]

Posted by Mediocrates:


France and Europa generally have two: Trade and so called diplomacy.

I tend to agree with you. It generally explains the general European policy of non-commitment.


The Trade tool is mostly one of dealing with whomever, whenever for whatever makes the people at home happy.


It is also a huge weakness given that other parties can openly dictate European policies; as exactly what the Arabs did for quite a while till Russia opened up its oil fields. America also dictates its policies to Europe though these are not malicious and or blunt in nature. I very much understand the European frustration at the matter, however, US is not the Arab world and most of the time its policies brought prosperity and peace rather then dispair or political deadlocks. I think this explains European mad rush to unionize under a single flag to somehow change this political status quo (or political irrelevance/dependence) that they have been sitting in since 1945.


The other tool is diplomacy. But not in the traditional simple way we're taught in school in Field-Trip-to-the-UN-101. Its more insidious than that. The point of transnational bodies, NGOs and so called international war is that they are in and of themselves weapons but other means. That is why they exist: they are modes of significant power.


These are modes of significant power only if other governments allow these to be as such. The Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein would care less. Only the Western Democracies are truely commited to the binding principles; which of course includes the US.


For years France has played its SC seat on the UN as a major aspect of its foreign policy.


Actually I don't even know why France got this sit in the first place or why it still retains it. I would rather give it to Japan or Germany.


The entire forum of hte UN is viewed as the most critical aspect of French/EU attempts to circumvent American/British/Russian political power and it uses its votes, its influence, its proclamations to push that power forward.


Yeah, but UN is mostly non-binding. They can scream and yell as much as they want to.

Because it's not about the UN (or any other) charter. It's not about 'peacekeeping' or famine or public health or any of it. That is just window dressing for the high school classes. What it is about is power, how it is wielded and what benefits it derives. We used to quote Clausewitz: "War is diplomacy by other means". But in the modern age we've really got it backwards: "International Law is war by any means".

I wouldn't be so scritical. My real wish is for Europe to achieve a combined critical mass and to finally establish one more powerful and committed Democratic and liberalized entity. As much as we disagree right now about Iraq the goals of Western Europe and North America are the same. However, the US is alone not because the EU disagrees with US but because EU is afraid to compromise its current status quo. Currently Europe is divided on the matters of economics/politics/diplomacy and other to whatever you mentioned above and to organize a common support base, especially for France and Germany, is simply a bad practical move given all that is involved.

As I generally communicate with many Europeans, including on this forum, from what I understand their opposition to the war with Iraq does not deal with removing Saddam or declaring war on the ME, or some humanist values of any sort but..... Their main problem is that it is the United States that is calling the shots. They look at the US as this large giant who does whatever it wants without really appreciating the opinion base of the rest of Europe and of course based on all the political/diplomatic/economic factors mentioned above. It does not mean that if those planes did not strike Eifel Tower or the Backingham palace or the Bundestag the popular outcry in Europe would not be any less different from what happened in US post 9/11 and their governments would not respond in force all the same to whatever is happening in the ME. Their problem is with America and not the principle.