And which colonial power might that be Tal in the case of the Muslims. The real point of it all is that if they want to live this way then we should stop interferring with them. You will see that they will quickly stop killing each other and even if they don't it isn't our business. No there are certain people who want to stir up trouble and sell them arms. You hardly hear any news out of Afghanistan today and what do you hear from Libya? This thing between the shiia and the sunni isn't an argument about God, it is about who should lead Islam back in the dark ages. Sorry the dark ages still exist in the middle east

The British, the Germans, and then the US ruled Iran and installed their leaders and that does include Saddam in Iraq. The European and US fingerprints are all over the middle east.

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Originally Posted by talaniman

The British, the Germans, and then the US ruled Iran and installed their leaders and that does include Saddam in Iraq. The European and US fingerprints are all over the middle east.

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Yes Tal for centuries the europeans of all persuasions interfered in Africa and the middle east and it is the US who fostered a war between Iran and Iraq, playing both sides, who are responsible for the current debacle. You are the successors to the great game but you have never learned subtle. The Muslims aren't shouting at the British or the French when they declare their enmity and you are doing it again with China, making an enemy where no enemy exists

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Yes Tal for centuries the europeans of all persuasions interfered in Africa and the middle east and it is the US who fostered a war between Iran and Iraq, playing both sides, who are responsible for the current debacle. You are the successors to the great game but you have never learned subtle. The Muslims aren't shouting at the British or the French when they declare their enmity and you are doing it again with China, making an enemy where no enemy exists

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So sayeth the little dog to the big dog, from the relative safety of their own porch!

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you are doing it again with China, making an enemy where no enemy exists

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more nonsense . The Chinese are on the verge of destroying the international order established after WWII ,and the precedence of freedom of navigation . It wont be an issue to you until you start having to pay tribute to use the navigation lanes . Then you'll cry out "where is the US Navy " ?

We did not start the Iran Iraq war . Not even close . Saddam Hussein started it . He thought that he could exploit the chaos of the Iranian Revolution . He miscalculated . We did not play both sides . We got involved when the Iranians started to target international trade through the Gulf . Then the US Navy came to the rescue to insure the freedom of navigation ...

Strange sense of history Tom; you deposed the ruler of Iran and installed the Shah, a person favourable to you, when he was deposed by popular uprising you supported saddam in his war and then sold the Iranians arms to use against saddam. If saddam had not been a client state you wouldn;t have cared two hoots about the gulf. If the Chinese destroy your international order that may not be a bad thing but you may find if you pick a fight with the chinese it will do more damage to you than it does to them. We won't pay tribute because those aren't our ships but if they want our minerals and gas they will look favourably our way. You see, we are not blind, we know you once again look greedily at our markets, but given what's going on at home you should be looking to your own because you have allowed the chinese to become your supplier of choice. Where do you think your electronics come from? your clothes? but you sell them more than they sell you so stop the trade and you loose both ways

Tal you little dog big dog analogy suits your barking at China you will keep pushing until you invent another Gulf of Tonkin incident

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If saddam had not been a client state you wouldn;t have cared two hoots about the gulf.

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you talk of me having a strange sense of history ? Now if you said 'if the world energy supply wasn't an issue' then you would be right . We wouldn't care and would only play lip service to the gross human rights conditions in countries where Islam plays a part in the law. However ,you see what the people you claim are medival do with their leverage ,and with modern weapons.

As far as Iran goes ;the Shah was already there during the Mosaddegh term . Mosaddegh was using "emergency powers " to take power away from the Shah. He also disolved the Parliment . In other words ,a typical 3rd world "one vote ,one time" democracy .
That alone did not tip the scales . However ,he relied heavily on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party as his base of power and was stearing the country into the Soviet sphere .
Yes the Ayatollahs used the coup as a pretext for stirring up the mob in 1979. In truth had Mosaddegh not been over thrown ,the clerics would've rose up against him much earlier than 1979. He was certainly not steering the country in a direction they approved .

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We won't pay tribute because those aren't our ships

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of course you will either directly or indirectly . $$ Billions of commerce pass through the sea lanes they are making claim to . No they have no right to make such claims just because they dredge coral reefs in some other nation's waters . Thank God that the rest of Australia understands the significance.
http://news.yahoo.com/japan-join-u-a...081619681.html

You are too smart to not understand the broader implications of this sea land grab. It is no different than what the Russians are doing .

Tom there is a vast difference between the Crimea and eastern Ukraine and the Spratley Islands. No one was interested in the damn things until China displayed an interest. Obviously China is building an air base, how's Diego Garcia going by the way. It seems big nations like airfields in strange places.

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from Wikipeada Various political parties in India repeatedly called for the military base to be dismantled, as they saw the United States naval presence in Diego Garcia as a hindrance to peace in the Indian Ocean.

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Does any of this sound familiar?

^[ I see you spruking up China's sinster motives, the american line at the moment, but perhaps they are ensuring that the sea lanes remain open to China in the face of your pivot to asia. Cause and effect Tom, grand standing by your president may have caused this

grand standing by your

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president may have caused this

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The Chinese began flexing their muscles long before the emperor's reign began . And it's not just the Spratleys . It's also the Senkaku Isles,Scarborough Schoals , the Natunas ;Paracels ,disputes in the Gulf of Tonkin ,and disputes with EVERY other nation that is adjacent to their bogus cow tongue 9 dash line .But of course the Chinese are right and Japan ,Taiwan ,Philippines ,Vietnam ,Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia , Malaysia ,and all the other island nations in the region are wrong in your view . No this isn't Russia grabbing Crimea. This is as blatant as Saddam Hussein deciding the Kuwait belongs to Iraq. Both had to invent a historical justification for their territorial grab.
Do you like the territorial guarantee of the LOST. Would you like to have other nations come to your aid when they decided that their territorial claim extends to the Coral Sea ? Would you like for them to do to the Great Barrier Reef what they are doing to the coral beds in the South China sea as they dredge to create their great wall of sand ?
Attachment 47462

Look Tom like you I see that some of China's claims are ridiculous but nations need to settle disputes without big brother stirring the pot. Australia has possessions that others might well think should be theirs. Christmas Island, the Cocos Islands, Ashmore Island come to mind as do islands in the Torres Strait.

Look Clete ,we have defense treaties with most of the major nations on the other side of the disputes .You say they have to settle them themselves ,but they do not have the power to impose their will like China does. China has the power and is using it for unprecedented territorial grabs . We have the power to make the Gulf of Mexico an American lake too. But we wouldn't .

The Chinese see it as extending their defensive zone true . But more important to them is the resources under the water ;and control of one of the most important sea lanes on the planet . So because of that it is not merely a matter of local territorial disputes. The Chinese have imposed their defensive zones already on commercial ocean and air fleets . They have gone so far as to challenge the USN . The USN has defended the principle of open seas since the days of Jefferson . We will not stop now .

Look Tom these nations have to stand up for themselves, China might have a large army but generally it's forces are weak and what they are doing is bluff. Thoses nervious nellies in Japan have a large defense force and the ability to force the issue, so do Taiwan if it comes to the point. You want open seas, sail back and forth between Malaysia and Japan drop into Vietnamise ports. No one wants a shooting war but gunboat diplomacy is something they understand and so do you after all you use it all the time.

This is much more about your ego than freedom of the seas

It's not about our ego when the Chinese can tell us to leave the area ,and believe they have the right to do so. If the Chinese can block free passage of resources through the South China Sea and the East China Sea ,then they have a huge hammer to wield on Japan ,S Korea , Phillipines and all the other nations in the region. The Japanese can create in short order a defense force necessary to challenge it .But why would you want the Japanese to rearm to that extent ? It is the Chinese that risk turning this into a shooting war ;not us . So stop the bs about the US ego. You are on the wrong side of this .

ps . The blue lines on the map I provided is the exclusive zones according to LOST. The Chinese are participants of the UN and therefore part of the LOST; which took effect in 1994 . The red line is the territorial zones of other nations they are encroaching according to LOST .

EGO? China is weak? Tell me again why Australia is playing with us in this military exercise? Is that EGO too?

Tal there are sicophants in every government, we have them too. Wall to wall yankeephiles. We have an alliance with you and therefore we carry out military exercises with you, you also carry out military exercises with other nations and these sometimes upset certain people. Recently one of your sicophants announced his plans to make Australia a B2 base, you can be assured there were two countries not happy about that. We do not have military intent to engage China, not so sure about you. I wonder where you will stand when we find it necessary to keep the waterways open that pass through Indonesian waters

Tom, I can read maps just as well as you can, but apparently you fail to see that the USA does not appear on that map. You have a problem with the japanese rearming but they have an aircraft carrier they call a destroyer and we can bet what it is meant to destroy. We must not get in the middle of centuries old disputes. There is a lot of unsettled business between Japan and China and I have no doubt that will lead to war one day as it has in the past. I don't doubt the japanese have nuclear capability, they would be foolish to be relying solely on your umbrella, even if that capability is only on paper

So the chinese told you to POQ, not the first time and won't be the last, next time you send a spy plane file a flight plan. Point is; you have satellites, you don't need spy planes, you were just being provocative and some low level chinese called you on it

http://www.news.com.au/world/the-war...-1227371823129

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next time you send a spy plane file a flight plan

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<<rimshot >> that's funny ! They have no right to challenge us over international air space . If they don't like it they can pound their wall of sand .

You should be glad, Clete, we came from across the water to help you bark at China who is intent on controlling so much of the ocean that so many depend on economically.

In this you proved you can get off the porch and run with the right big dog.

We don't need to bark at China, nor do we need the big dog to bark at China. Look at this through the lens of history, the Chinese are doing what they always do when they feel threatened, They are building a wall. Admittantly this wall is a little further from Beijing than usual but a wall never the less, all their walls of sand crumble in time. The only people who are threatened are you because you see some of your influence reduced. We moved to bring the Chinese in from the cold before you did and have cordial relations with them. You on the other hand feel you must tell them what to do and where they can do it by barking at them. When one dog starts barking all the dogs start barking. They are just emulating you

http://www.smh.com.au/national/china...27-ghaxa8.html

It seems our yankeephiles are yielding to your view however barking and dog whistling are not what is needed. What China is demonstrating is if you want something go and get it and if you feel you must defend the Phillipines after withdrawing your base then go and do that, blockade the island. You made the soviets withdraw from Cuba, make the Chinese withdraw from Spratly

No worries Clete, I realize you are doing the best you can with what you have, and that's okay, but thank the stars your government takes a wider view of the world.

You don't have to pray to the Chinese because they need your dirt though.

Pray to the Chinese, don't you mean prey on the Chinese. We have a good balance of trade with the Chinese. They like our iron ore, our coal, our gas, our wine and lots of other stuff, we like their tourists, their students, they are not loud and offensive and disrespecting of our laws. We might even have a FTA with them which is likely to benefit us more than the FTA we have with you which doesn't benefit us at all.

You see everything through the lens of an amerocentric lens, if you aren't in the centre you don't like it. Your pivot to asia was a recent idea but we recognised the need to pivot to asia twenty years ago. Suddenly you have realised that things have been going on that might get in your way and you don't like it. I hope you are not going to do as you did in the forties and goad the asians into a war