Official Inauguration Day Thread

[Trample the Elderly]

Originally Posted by 70Chip

If he can turn this economy around, they will repeal the 22nd? Ammendment and he will be President for life.

In terms of terrorism, it's a question of scale. If they bomb an embassy and kill tens of people, it won't sidetrack his administration. He will do a more vocal version of Clinton. If there is a large scale attack in this country, then he has a two-headed monster to deal with (economy and national security). My take is that Al-Quada has been weakened to the point that they cannot mount a large scale attack. Most of the other groups are Sunni and Sunnis only attack if they get the go ahead from some authority like Khameni in Iran or Nasralah, the Hesbollah Chief. I don't think they will percieve that it is in their interest to go on the offensive in the near future - at least not against the U.S. I think they will sit tight for now. If they were to attack an Obama led U.S., surely world opinion fron Beijing, to Moscow, to Western Europe, to the developing world would turn savagely against them. There is nothing in it for them in that regard.

The only thing that scares me is that $35 oil may drive the Iranians to create trouble in the usual places in order to drive up the price. A continual series of small scale actions might have this affect. Kidnappings, assasinations and the like.

I wouldn't count Al-Qaida out. 9-11 was done on a shoe string compared to the military operations of a Modern Nation. Obama isn't stupid. Neither was GWB. He just played his hand wrong.
Obama knows were not going to talk Pakistan out of giving up the Taliban. Pakistan has used their tribal proxies like the Taliban against the Soviets, the Chinese, and the Indians. They're using them now in a guerilla war for Kashmir.
From what I hear we've been trying to make a deal with the Taliban die hards through the Pakistani Intelligence to give up Al-Qaida, in return they'd be allowed into Karzai's government. This is the Petreaus model of pay them off and keep them close. He used this with our old Sunni allies to snuff out Al-Qaida in Iraq.

A lot of the Taliban have already returned to power in Afghanistan, so have the warlords, Communists, and drug runners. Obama can send in Mercs, special ops, and Predator drones just like GWB did. But Pakistan will never give up the Taliban die hards. It's not in they're interest. It's speculation what kind of operations the Pakistani Intelligence allow them to execute. Seeing that we haven't been attacked probably none against us. That isn't the case with India.

But I speculate that Obama will continue to try and get the Taliban to sell out Bin Laden and Al-Qaida. It would be a win win for both of them. We could declare the war on Bin Laden over and return home and the Taliban could move back into the cities and get back some political power. They'd probably just change their names like the Sunnis did. They can call themselves an awakening group but everyone one knows they're old Baathist.

I just don't understand this cult of personality that surrounds Obama. How people believe he can do a better job in Afghanistan than GWB did short of nuking the place is beyond me. How we create green jobs is beyond me? You can't run a modern industrial society with wind. I think Obama and the Democrats play the game much better than the Whigs. They're been talking about energy independence since the first Arab oil embargo? I see the children singing songs to him like they do for Kim Joung Il and it makes me mad and scares me a little. This guy is a politician not a diety.