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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (52347)	8/17/2004 9:23:53 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

<<The United States needed Chavez to win because his victory was the greatest guarantor of stability,>> At least the US foreign office learned form Brazil's Lula. <<and the United States does not have enough forces available to intervene in Venezuela should chaos break out. The lack of sufficient troops is now shaping U.S. policy.>> Which is good. Diplomacy, in the absence of power to intervene. <<Washington is rooting for political opponents because it has no real capacity for intervention should instability result.>> Which is what all the countries of this world do.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (52347)	8/26/2004 2:00:31 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hang in there, help is on the way, courtesy of Rumsfeld's strategic initiative, and if his boss is chucked out, Kerry will no doubt have different ideas, and if that fails to work, we go to Plan C ... in any and all cases, do not worry That's my problem with Kerry (other than his flagrant elitist persona).. He doesn't have any other plans that don't include kowtowing for support from "allies" who's governments are the primary reason we're in Iraq to begin with.. Afterall, they did their upmost to circumvent both the sanctions as well as enforcement of UN binding resolutions.. Secondly.. Kerry has already given the impression that "retreat before complete" is acceptable. We went into this country here for more than just WMDs. We went in for the purpose of upholding international law and the UN as an effective organization for preserving global political order. We also went in to overthrow Saddam and attempt to establish Iraq as some form of viable democracy, or at least to commence the process. But most of all, IMO, we went to Iraq in order to deny it to those Islamic extremist forces, both Shiite and Salafist/Sunni who would seek to control it and its immense oil resources and strategic location. There were increasing levels of terrorist activities taking place in Iraq in the years prior to the war.. The IIS was engaged in attempts to thwart it.. Both Syria and Iran have maintained a close relationship and both sought the downfall of Saddam.. IMO, Iraq was within several years of being torn asunder anyway.. As for Stratfor's article, they make a valid point that I have made previously on SI.. The US needs to increase the number of "slots" it has available for combat arms soldiers. Some of those slots are coming from other services as they downsize (Navy, Air Force), with those slots being applied to the Army.. But it's still not going to be enough.. We need to increase the "tooth to tail" ratio.. And we also need to increase our Human Intelligence capabilities drastically, as well as how the information they collect is disseminated and analysed. And it might just require a drastic overhaul of the "system".. Wars are good for that kind of massive makeover to bring organizations up to newer times. Hawk