Next Country Attacked by USA?

Black Swan

After the USA ends its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what country do you believe will be next attacked by them?

What political and public claims will the US government use to justify the attack before Congress, their voters, and world media?

Some have claimed that there was a hidden agenda (OIL) for the US attack on Iraq, aside from their publicly proclaimed reasons, including (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda connections, or bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. If you suspect that the next US attack will have a hidden agenda, what will it be?

biko

I think Iran (pretty safe bet imo). It's seems to me USA is on a roll with the whole War on (Oil/Muslims) Terror and will want to continue while there is still some support for it at home. Iran has oil and USA is the biggest importer so it seems logical.

kev9100

Magnus wrote: »

I think Iran (pretty safe bet imo).

Obama will never attack Iran (Thank God). Howver, if the Republicans win the Presidency in 2012 all bets are off.

Manic Moran

kev9100 wrote: »

Obama will never attack Iran (Thank God).

What makes you so sure? Has there ever been a US President proven to be unwilling to use Teddy's "Big Stick"? Maybe Carter, but do you think O's going to be quite that successful a President?

NTM

Stella777

Yemen

karma_

Manic Moran wrote: »

What makes you so sure? Has there ever been a US President proven to be unwilling to use Teddy's "Big Stick"? Maybe Carter, but do you think O's going to be quite that successful a President?

NTM

Because the US don't like attacking anyone who might have a fighting chance of beating them. They misjudged Vietnam and look what happened there and eventually they will realise they have zero chance of achieving anything in Afghanistan and have to leave just as every other invading army in history has learned, tail tucked firmly between their legs while trumpeting a magnificent victory.

I doubt very much that Iran would be as easy rolled as Iraq, they seem to be a far more professional bunch and are much better equipped.

SLUSK

It will be a very insignificant country in the middle of nowhere with quite alot of natural resources.

FlutterinBantam

Pitcairn island??

InTheTrees

Time for a change of pace.

South America has been getting pretty uppety lately. Hugo Chavez is getting possessive with his oil and evo morales wants to control the batteries that will power our electric cars. And Brazil is being too damn friendly with both of them.

So my bet is for an invaision of Venezuala.

Overheal

How long till Mexico collapses?

BluePlanet

Venezuela, there oil there too you know.

Red Hand

Manic Moran wrote: »

What makes you so sure? Has there ever been a US President proven to be unwilling to use Teddy's "Big Stick"? Maybe Carter, but do you think O's going to be quite that successful a President?

NTM

You have to pick your fights. Attacking someone who may have weapons of mass destruction is not a good idea. You should only attack those who do not have weapons of mass destruction. North Korea will never be attacked by the USA for eg.

I would put money on a South American country. One country in particular comes to mind.

Black Swan

Jeremiah 33 3 wrote: »

I would put money on a South American country. One country in particular comes to mind.

• Country: Starts with a V?
• Political/public reason for attack: War on drugs? (like Panama back when?) Attack on US embassy for a pretext? Maybe also toss in the Monroe Doctrine, and threats to a stable SA?
• Hidden agenda: OIL? Also challenge OPEC price fixing?

BluePlanet

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

• Country: Starts with a V?
• Political/public reason for attack: War on drugs? (like Panama back when?) Attack on US embassy for a pretext? Maybe also toss in the Monroe Doctrine, and threats to a stable SA?
• Hidden agenda: OIL? Also challenge OPEC price fixing?

They might just start out using Columbia as proxies.
They already have been given a number of military bases there.
Eventually tho, they may have to get involved directly. They'll probably use the "Threats against his Neighbours" and a "Stable SA" as a pretext.
But it may be beneficial to let it appear that they are sticking the boot in, just cause they don't like Chavez.
USA are bullies afterall, and they could make a nice example of Chavez as a warning to the rest of the region.
International opinion be damned.

Can't see the "war on drugs" sticking this time.

Nodin

Overheal wrote: »

How long till Mexico collapses?

Funny enough I was reading how they were imbedding FBI or somesuch with Mexican agencies only the other day....Given the level of corruption down there, I'd personally request Afghanistan as a safer alternative.

Edit
Under the new arrangement, U.S. law enforcement officers, most likely from an agency such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, would work alongside recent graduates of the new Mexican federal police academy who were trained by FBI and DEA advisers as part of the U.S. aid package.

Red Hand

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

• Country: Starts with a V?
• Political/public reason for attack: War on drugs? (like Panama back when?) Attack on US embassy for a pretext? Maybe also toss in the Monroe Doctrine, and threats to a stable SA?
• Hidden agenda: OIL? Also challenge OPEC price fixing?

Well, Bluey, looks like you're a mind reader.:pac: Though Venezuala is probably easier to bring down using subterfuge rather than a military attack.

There is alot of money at stake when it comes to the US army. Contractors, technology firms, biotech...you need an excuse for it's existence.

Black Swan

Jeremiah 33 3 wrote: »

There is alot of money at stake when it comes to the US army. Contractors, technology firms, biotech...you need an excuse for it's existence.

Jeremiah!!!! You are making me remember the US History class I was forced to take as a part of the general education requirement for a 4-year degree in the USA... BIG YAWN! Who was it that coined the term "military industrial complex?" Former general over the WWII expeditionary forces and former US president Ike Eisenhower? "Play it again Sam Ike."

Red Hand

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Jeremiah!!!! You are making me remember the US History class I was forced to take as a part of the general education requirement for a 4-year degree in the USA... BIG YAWN! Who was it that coined the term "military industrial complex?" Former general over the WWII expeditionary forces and former US president Ike Eisenhower? "Play it again Sam Ike."

Vvvvveering a little off topic, but you make money from wars that drag a little and require a large human input in terms of materials and man-power...Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

A nation that possesses and uses small scale nuclear devices in it's wars is going to win vvvvery quickly imo. Conventional warfare gives employment to people, fosters patriotism (good for when the big bad taxes come round) and all the military industrialists get a healthy profit.

Black Swan

Jeremiah 33 3 wrote: »

and all the military industrialists get a healthy profit.

How about the corporations that come in to clean up the mess and rebuild like the one that Dick Cheney was once CEO? A multi-billion dollar Iraq contract that did not go out to bid? Now, until that happened, I thought all major government contracts were subject to the competitive bidding process? And don't tell me that Cheney's former corporation was the only one capable of doing the work, cause I can give you a list of major corporations that frequently compete with Hal****ton that could have done it, but did not have Cheney as their former CEO before becoming VP.

So what do we call the corporations that come in after the US military has blasted a country to bits? The post-military industrial complex? (Slide over Ike... methinks we've just coined a term).

Let's see... thus far posters have suggested that Iran, Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, or some out of the way country with natural resources will be the next USA target?

Oh, I spelled it Hal****ton cause it's not ladylike to swear.

LostinKildare

Are you familiar with War Is a Racket? It's a speech and pamphlet written in the 1930s by Major Gen. SD Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, about how US business profits from war.

From Wikipedia:

In War Is A Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidised by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering.
.....

It contains this key summary:
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

In another often cited quote from the book Butler says:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

The book is also interesting historically as Butler points out in 1935 that the US is engaging in military war games in the Pacific that are bound to provoke the Japanese.

PDF of the whole document here: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Black Swan

LostinKildare wrote: »

Are you familiar with War Is a Racket?

No, but thanks for sharing. What did pop into my mind when you said this was the film The Lords of War, about arms dealers and how they make a profit collecting and selling what the US military (and others) leave behind in a war zone. M-16 are not counted but rather sold by the ton? Makes me wonder how much of the film was fiction v fact?

Any other countries to be targeted next by the USA besides the ones mentioned?

whynotwhycanti

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

So what do we call the corporations that come in after the US military has blasted a country to bits? .

I prefer the good old term, war profiteers.

LostinKildare

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Any other countries to be targeted next by the USA besides the ones mentioned?

Somewhere in Orwell’s “disputed area”:

Between the frontiers of the superstates, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within about a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly populated regions, and of the northern ice cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment.

Just saw Nineteen Eighty-Four again last week on tv (the 1984 version with John Hurt and Richard Burton, amazing). God it’s never seemed so relevant ---- the perpetual war, propaganda machine, deliberate impoverishment of the proletariat, voiding of rights, surveillance of the citizenry, torture in Room 101 (though I believe we use insects rather than rats). When the Christian Right manages to outlaw orgasm then we’ll know it’s all come to pass!

The Bored One

Jeremiah 33 3 wrote: »

Vvvvveering a little off topic, but you make money from wars that drag a little and require a large human input in terms of materials and man-power...Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

A nation that possesses and uses small scale nuclear devices in it's wars is going to win vvvvery quickly imo. Conventional warfare gives employment to people, fosters patriotism (good for when the big bad taxes come round) and all the military industrialists get a healthy profit.

Just in relation to this, conventional warfare is still a necessity because the nuclear option may be off the cards. And frequently is. An army still has to be able to hold territory and control it, not just threaten if from a distance.

In regards to the main topic, Im not sure America's next move will be any large scale offensive. I'd says its more likely they're try to stablise the countries around any potentially hostile targets. So long as they have hostile nations side by side, its too easy for insurgents and threats to slip across borders. On the other hand if they close all possible escape routes, desperate last stands are far more likely by the insurgents there. Which is not an option where a country has nuclear capability. So I would figure more a combination of Aid, Diplomacy and Special Forces in dealing with border countries.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan border on Iran, and the American military can't afford combat with Iran while those two areas are unstable. It would cause too much risk for those areas to rise up again.
Im not familiar enough with alot of the countries there for a proper analysis, but it would make sense to me if they can create a tunnel of non-hostile or allied space between Israel and Iraq. Hell for all I know thats what's there now, my expertise is somewhat lacking.

But I'd say American assistance or influence on the situation in Israel is a possiblity, as it would help them for overall stabilisation of the region.

Black Swan

The Bored One wrote: »

But I'd say American assistance or influence on the situation in Israel is a possiblity, as it would help them for overall stabilisation of the region.

What? To use Israel as a war proxy against Iran? Or to contain the parts of Israel that tend to be expansionist; e.g., settlements on West Bank? Not sure what you mean by your statement.

The Bored One

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

What? To use Israel as a war proxy against Iran? Or to contain the parts of Israel that tend to be expansionist; e.g., settlements on West Bank? Not sure what you mean by your statement.

More assistance in resolving the conflict with Palestine. Im not predicting any specific form of assistance, ie whether it would be diplomatic or military. i'd just say that once Iraq and Afghanistan are less of a focus, that American attention will come round to Israel more thoroughly. Simply because having that conflict resolved insures that America's main ally in that region of the world is not distracted.
Sorry if I seem a bit vague.

Black Swan

The Bored One wrote: »

More assistance in resolving the conflict with Palestine. Im not predicting any specific form of assistance, ie whether it would be diplomatic or military.

US military intervention in what remains of Palestine could be an option? I would think that would not result in stabilization of the region; rather, a largely Christian USA military would been seen as a Crusader in the Holy Land, drawing many non-conventional military groups to attack them, and for these irregular groups to be well funded by the surrounding predominantly Islamic countries?

The Bored One

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

US military intervention in what remains of Palestine could be an option? I would think that would not result in stabilization of the region; rather, a largely Christian USA military would been seen as a Crusader in the Holy Land, drawing many non-conventional military groups to attack them, and for these irregular groups to be well funded by the surrounding predominantly Islamic countries?

Thats why I said I don't know what form it would take, I don't view it as too wsie myself. But I can see diplomatic means being pretty thoroughly emphasized over the next while. Im not arguing that it will make any difference, just that I'd say that an attempt is likely, and that it may become a major focus of American foreign policy for the next while. I personally don't think its wise for them to take any overt military action in the Middle East for the next while, till Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable.
So I think diplomatic means will be focused on to stabilize the region, and Israel especially.

BluePlanet

The Bored One wrote: »

I'd says its more likely they're try to stablise the countries around any potentially hostile targets. So long as they have hostile nations side by side, its too easy for insurgents and threats to slip across borders. On the other hand if they close all possible escape routes, desperate last stands are far more likely by the insurgents there. Which is not an option where a country has nuclear capability. So I would figure more a combination of Aid, Diplomacy and Special Forces in dealing with border countries.

That's pie in the sky stuff.

The Bored One wrote: »

Im not familiar enough with alot of the countries there for a proper analysis, but it would make sense to me if they can create a tunnel of non-hostile or allied space between Israel and Iraq. Hell for all I know thats what's there now, my expertise is somewhat lacking.

Oh you mean put the boot in Syria and install a US puppet regime that is friendly towards expansionist Israel?
Can't see that happening tbh.
In fact, the leader of Syria- Assad just had a nice friendly meeting with Hezbollah and Ahmadinajad.

The Bored One

BluePlanet wrote: »

That's pie in the sky stuff.

Oh you mean put the boot in Syria and install a US puppet regime that is friendly towards expansionist Israel?
Can't see that happening tbh.
In fact, the leader of Syria- Assad just had a nice friendly meeting with Hezbollah and Ahmadinajad.

Heh as I said my expertise is somewhat lacking

With regards the pie in the sky element, Im really not sure they can proceed with further overt military action there. Too many problems regarding public opinion, and multifront wars.
Thats why I figure they're more likely to take a different approach.
As for South America, I could see potential military action there once they know they won't have to go running back to stop fires in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Black Swan

The Bored One wrote: »

So I think diplomatic means will be focused on to stabilize the region, and Israel especially.

Historically speaking, I am not optimistic that a diplomatic solution will be found that will satisfy all the warring parties in their dispute over the Holy Land. After all, they have been happily fighting there for thousands of years, and I doubt that the Obama administration, be it one or two terms in office (or any that replaces his administration after 2012 or 2016) will make any real lasting difference. I still see the irony of all the optimism associated with awarding Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin Nobel Peace Prizes in 1994.

Manic Moran

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

M-16 are not counted but rather sold by the ton?

If you're collecting the metal for scrap steel value, then yes. When being sold as an arms deal from the government, by individual number.

NTM

The Bored One

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Historically speaking, I am not optimistic that a diplomatic solution will be found that will satisfy all the warring parties in their dispute over the Holy Land. After all, they have been happily fighting there for thousands of years, and I doubt that the Obama administration, be it one or two terms in office (or any that replaces his administration after 2012 or 2016) will make any real lasting difference. I still see the irony of all the optimism associated with awarding Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin Nobel Peace Prizes in 1994.

Heh as previous, Im not saying they actually will make any difference. Just that they will likely focus on it. And personally I believe their will always be some form of connection over that region, its very nature of being a holy place to differing factions encourages that.
However if America leaves Afghanistan then Obama's adminstration will need some way to deal with the tangled mess that public opinion will make of that action. Attempting to secure peace in another middle eastern country might be considered a worthwhile objective regardless of how feasible it is.

Amerika

Talk Radio!
http://radio.barackobama.com/

Black Swan

But who, where, when, and why will the USA go to war? They will be at war with another country after Afghanistan and Iraq (perhaps after a short pause), which says a lot about their culture, economic interests, and political policies, no matter which party is in office?

monosharp

Iran - Unlikely, the USA could not possibly beat Iran without using more explosives per square mile then are available to Michael Bay for an average movie. Huge Army + Huge reserve force + Paramilitaries + Huge geographic area.

North Korea - Same as above but much less likely. North Korea doesn't have a military, North Korea is a military. Coupled with the brainwashing dedication of their people, this just wouldn't be possible. You'd have to kill the majority of the population to have any sort of control. That and the very high likelihood that they have nuclear capabilities. Oh yeah and thats not even mentioning China who simply wouldn't allow it to happen.

I think somewhere in South America is the winner.

CFlower

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

What? To use Israel as a war proxy against Iran? Or to contain the parts of Israel that tend to be expansionist; e.g., settlements on West Bank? Not sure what you mean by your statement.

The US is already attacking Iran though its proxies in jundallah - they killed a bus load of Iranian soldiers recently, and film themselves decapitating people.
Their leader Rigi spilled the beans last week. The US also use the MEK party to set bombs off it Iran. Some would consider they are already at war.