Peace through strength

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Is the following a good philosophy by which to dictate a country's foriegn affairs?

[Vladd44]

Metatron,

Your speculation above fails to take into account many factors.

You attempt to marginalize US interference in Korea by saying the force is of inadequate size, but overlook the mere fact we have troops there shows that we have made ourselves a point of contention.

We don't have enough troops to adequately maintain order in Iraq, but I would hope you wouldn't attempt to say out presence there is then of no significance and has no impact on what happens in that country.

Perhaps you can point out to me where in the Muslim world the U.S. is forcing Christianity down someone's throat?

I don't see where the Platypus said anything about forcing the religion down people's throats.

BUT ...........

Our primary impact in most of these nations is providing the infrastructure and know how to allow them to exploit their oil wealth without which they would be among the poorest nations on earth.

Back to the previous point, We HAVE supported dictators in the region for decades at the expense of the people.

We HAVE supported dictators in the region for decades at the expense of the people. Our involvement in propping up regimes like the House of Saud, Saddam Hussein, The old Shah of Iran, Musharreff and many other wannabees in an effort to make sure our Supply of Oil was not jeopardized. That is exploitation of the people.

http://www.vladd44.com/images/rumsfeld_&_hussein1.jpg

What kind of "reasonable diplomacy" do you expect to have with people who crash airliners into buildings?

Last I checked,neither Iran, Syria, Iraq or N Korea did.

But while we are on the subject, what is the difference between using a missile which is designed with the intent to kill than using a Plane? Only thing I can think of is a missile is more efficient. But the use of one over the other has no bearing on legitimacy.

Our relentless support for Israel in their decimation of the Lebanese people is a perfect example of what makes people who have no hope fly planes into buildings. You cannot expect to pound away at someone for decades and not expect a reaction. Both the US and Israel will pay a heavy price for such a short sighted venture in the long run.

The United States must disarm all nuclear weapons.

Unilaterally???

How about the nations that have used Nukes against a civilian population in a time of war do so first. Oh wait, nevermind, thats the USA.

War is the failure of reasonable people on both sides. It is absurd to think that there are not reasonable people on both sides of an issue, but our methods of confrontation and threats only lends credence to those who would take the same hardline posture towards us.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Before I reply, you should know; in the half year since this thread formerly ended, my views have changed somewhat.

Perhaps you can point out to me where in the Muslim world the U.S. is forcing Christianity down someone's throat? Or perhaps the Muslim nation we are forcing to buy American consumer products at gun point?

What kind of "reasonable diplomacy" do you expect to have with people who crash airliners into buildings?

But what if little Joey is a religious fanatic that wants to KILL little Timmy and is okay with dying to make that happen?

Our support for Isreal is the prime factor putting us at odds with the Middle East. That, and the fact that we have attempted to intervene with just about every Muslim government affair involving oil (see: Iran/Iraq war).

We all know that radical Muslims hate adherants of every religion aside from their own. That leaves us to wonder; why isn't Al Quada bothering to fly planes into Vatican City? Bangalor? Madrid? Perhaps it is because Italy, India, and Spain stay on their side of the globe?

We are not a terrorist target because we are Christians. We are a terrorist target because we are Christians who topple conservative Islamic regimes at will and pay for Isreal's military.

As far as a fundamentalist Muslim is concerned, we are the front runners in a new age version of the crusades.

As for Iran, your supposition that the threat of the U.S. military as motive for nukes is far stronger. After all there is a far stronger U.S. military force in a neighboring country than exists in South Korea and that force was recently used in an offensive operation. So given that the motive is there, the next question is: If there was no significant U.S. military threat to Iran would it be logical to assume that Iran would have little interest in developing a nuclear capability?

In my opinion, the answer is no. Since the Iranian revolution, Iran has consistently displayed, primarily through support of external Shia groups like Hezbollah, the desire for two related goals: the spread of it's aggressive form of Shia fundamentalism through out the Middle East and local hegemony in the Persian Gulf region. A nuclear capability would allow Iran to easily cow any other nations in the area if they decided to "liberate" Shia areas in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Obviously, the nukes would also make U.S. and other Western democracies think twice before intervening. Such a move would not only allow them to strengthen Shia fundamentalism in the region but would give Iran a virtual hammerlock on world oil production especially given that the puny oil nations like Kuwait and Qatar would have to fall in line or be overwhelmed.

In the world of oil, there are five countries that matter: Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran.

As luck would have it, 3/5 of these nations (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) are unfriendly to the US, greatly hindering our oil supply.

In 2003, as gas prices were hitting all time highs, we oh so conveniently discovered "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, and toppled their unconvenient regime. Now that we've got them (somewhat) taken care of, take a look at the next highest oil supply in unfriendly hands. Sure enough, right on cue, US officials have recently been discussing an invasion of Iran.

Do you really think they see no threat from us?

In the case of North Korea, the U.S. has been in a static defensive position on the DMZ between the two Koreas for over fifty years. Furthermore, the U.S. forces there are not even close to adequate for offensive operations (and indeed, are probably not adequate for defense even with the South Korean arm forces in a sudden attack). So where is the grave new military threat from the U.S. that justifies their nukes? My personal opinion is that Kim Jong Il and company understand that their country is an economic basket case that cannot adequately feed their own people and therefore their options are:
1. change their economic system and risk losing power
or
2. establish a nuclear capability (along with IRBMs and eventually ICBMs) to blackmail their neighbors South Korea and Japan into economic concessions that will help keep them afloat and in power.

This may very well be a viable explanation.

Fortunately for N. Korea, they have no oil, making a future US invasion highly unlikely (unless perhaps if issues arise with Japan and S. Korea). Either way, better have nukes to be on the safe side.

And your response to Pearl Harbor would have been what exactly?

If I had it my way, the Japanese would never have had the chance to bomb Pearl Harbor. I would have invaded Japan/Germany the second they crossed their borders into China/Poland.

There is such thing as a justified war. The US just seems to have a hard time picking them.

For example, let's imagine for a second that I currently reside in the White House (God forbid). Where would I have the military? Uganda, for one. The LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) has been terrorizing the citizens of this country for decades; raiding homes, immobilizing what little infastructure Uganda has, and kidnapping thousands of children to serve as sex slaves. Sending a proper military force there would not only stave off the threat, but would be relatively risk free. Contrary to the situation of Iraq, we would have the backing of the Ugandan government and 99% of the citizens, which means relatively few troops would be needed. There would also be little threat of any backlash, as the LRA has virtually no extremist allies, nor the resources (or insanity) needed to present a threat to the US mainland.

Of course, this war will never happen, given it would not really benefit us (which is the top consideration in all US conflicts). Instead, we get Iraq. Oil tycoons and military contracters rejoice.

Hey, if you can convince all of the nations of the world to adopt neutrality simultaneously and figure out a way to keep them there, more power to you!

I think we are all ready heading that way, actually. Our savior: Globalization (see: Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention)

This is probably the prime reason India and Pakistan have yet to nuke the crap out of each other. It so happens that nations both involved in profitable supply chains no longer view each other as enemies, but assets. The best indicator towards this trend is the recent UN analysis depicting the years 2000-2006 as the most peaceful time period in all of human history. That is, the lowest ever percentage of the world population is currently tangled in conflict. Pretty uplifting, especially in the face of the Bush Administration's recent warmondering.

This concept offers great potential towards future international cooperation. Right now the best way to further foster peace lies in whether or not we can conform the conservative, xenophobic, and left-over communist regimes (Mid East, Latin America, N. Korea, ect.) towards a multi-national system of economy. I feel this will eventually come about, as these nations slowly realize that they must do this in order to stay afloat.

The United States must disarm all nuclear weapons.

Unilaterally???

Do you see it ever happening multilaterally? Someone's got to start the trend.

At the very least, we could certainly afford to lose a few.

Diplomacy without Strength = Appeasement

On this note, I have a question; just how much strength is enough?

400 billion dollars worth of it? Over four times the next highest military spender? Is that really necessary?

Of course, that's not even counting the amount spent in Iraq. Think 300 TRILLION is a bit over the top? The nation's uninsured children and dried up education facilities sure do.

[Metatron]

You attempt to marginalize US interference in Korea by saying the force is of inadequate size, but overlook the mere fact we have troops there shows that we have made ourselves a point of contention.

Ehh??? We are the point of contention?

1. Last I checked, we became involved when N. Korea launched a massive invasion of S.Korea resulting in UN forces (mainly US) intervening in the Korean War.

2. Technically the two Koreas are still in a state of war operating under a cease fire. The US forces are there under UN auspices and are there as a "trigger wire" force to convince the North of our commitment to defend the South from aggression.

3. In addition to recent efforts like test firing IRBM/ICBMs and working on nukes, the N.Koreans have displayed their peaceful intentions in the past by repeatedly attempting to build tunnel systems under the DMZ. The last of these (that we know about) which was discovered in 1990 was about a mile long and was designed to move a division of troops per hour under the DMZ.

4. N.Korea has large amounts of artillery, especially MRLs (Multiple Rocket Launcher) believed to be armed with chemical munitions within firing range of Seoul, capital and largest city of S. Korea. Here is an article from the Rand group on the subject if you care: http://www.rand.org/commentary/030703UPI.html

5. Our "contentious" presence has allowed a backward third world dictatorship to develop into a highly productive democracy. I score that one for the good guys.

We don't have enough troops to adequately maintain order in Iraq, but I would hope you wouldn't attempt to say out presence there is then of no significance and has no impact on what happens in that country.

I think there is a slight difference between a 150,000 man force actively conducting operations WITHIN Iraq and a 35,000 man force based in a defensive posture along the Korean DMZ for over 50 years.

Our primary impact in most of these nations is providing the infrastructure and know how to allow them to exploit their oil wealth without which they would be among the poorest nations on earth.

We HAVE supported dictators in the region for decades at the expense of the people. Our involvement in propping up regimes like the House of Saud, Saddam Hussein, The old Shah of Iran, Musharreff and many other wannabees in an effort to make sure our Supply of Oil was not jeopardized. That is exploitation of the people.

If your contention is that we tend to prefer the dictators who work with us over the would be dictators that hate us, I'd say you were right. You talk about "exploitation of the people" as if there were active democratic movements in these nations that we are helping to suppress. The reality in these countries is reflected by Iran where the dictatorship of the Shah was replaced by the dictatorship of the ayatollahs. The primary alternative in many of these countries is Islamic fundamentalist movements that would be actively opposed to the US.

As for the oil issue, of course we are involved. The Persian Gulf region possesses an enormous amount of the world's oil reserves. Oil is the lifeblood of industry not only in the US but also every other industrialized nation. Long term disruption of oil flows from this region would have terrible economic consequences for all of these industrial nations. So if a certain amount of real politick is necessary to maintain the status quo in such a strategic location then that's the price we will have to pay until we get off our butts and develop adequate alternative energy sources.

Our relentless support for Israel in their decimation of the Lebanese people is a perfect example of what makes people who have no hope fly planes into buildings. You cannot expect to pound away at someone for decades and not expect a reaction. Both the US and Israel will pay a heavy price for such a short sighted venture in the long run.

Let me get this straight. The Israelis, who have been in an almost perpetual state of war against Arab nations and/or terrorist groups who seek to wipe it off the face of the earth since 1948, are the bad guys and those warm and cuddly peaceniks the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah are the good guys? The same Israelis who offered to form a Palestinian State initially on 73% of the West Bank (expanding eventually to 90%) and 100% of the Gaza Strip in 2000 but were instead met with the Second Intifada? The same Israelis who unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 (a presence originally required to fend off attacks by the PLO) and were rewarded by the infiltration of the former buffer zone by Hezbollah along with the accompanying katushka rocket attacks? The same Israelis who unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and have been met with near constant terror attacks by Hamas ever since? Give me a break!

The United States must disarm all nuclear weapons.

Unilaterally???

How about the nations that have used Nukes against a civilian population in a time of war do so first. Oh wait, nevermind, thats the USA.

And as horrible as it sounds, it's a good thing the US did. Most casualty estimates of Operation Downfall, the proposed invasion plan of Japan, had American deaths at somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 with a probable five to ten million Japanese deaths due to the Kamikazi style fanaticism expected upon invasion of their homeland.

[Vladd44]

Ehh??? We are the point of contention?

We are A point of contention.What else would you call placing troops on another countries border? Only way it gets more contentious than that is to actually cross the border and occupy.

I think there is a slight difference between a 150,000 man force actively conducting operations WITHIN Iraq and a 35,000 man force based in a defensive posture along the Korean DMZ for over 50 years.

My point isn't about whether we should have gone into S Korea or not, nor we should/should not be in Korea. What I was bringing up was that you attempted to posture as if an American Presence in N Korea is not confrontational or a stance of aggression simply because the number of Americans there was not an adequate amount to actually protect SK or to invade NK.

I brought up Iraq to point out that not having enough troops is not an issue, Our inadequate number of boots in Iraq cannot be taken as marginal or insignificant, so why attempt to imply that our Troops in SK are then marginalized and of no significance.

If your contention is that we tend to prefer the dictators who work with us over the would be dictators that hate us, I'd say you were right.

No. My point was that we have been complicit, and continue to be in supporting Dictators and repressive regimes when it suits our own interest. Our support for Democratically elected Governments in the region has not has such support. Hamas, whether we like them or not was a democratically elected group. And our "support" of Lebanon's Democracy leaves something to be desired as well.

You talk about "exploitation of the people" as if there were active democratic movements in these nations that we are helping to suppress.

I hardly think the "Gold Standard" of whether the USA should be supporting a regime or not is if you see what you consider an adequate effort by an internal force in the direction of Democracy. We are talking about people we should not EVER be in bed with.

We have placed ourselves in a position of being beholden to these individuals because of our irresponsible energy policies. But it doesn't make it acceptable or smart. Many times it has been our actions (or those of our buddy Israel) that have helped bring popular support for the "radicalism" you bemoan.

We have been playing the role of interfering cousin in the region for a long time. Doing so, we have given great credibility to viewpoints that are not positive towards us.

If I were a slave, I would hate the man having dinner with my captor just as much as I would hate the master.

So if a certain amount of real politick is necessary to maintain the status quo in such a strategic location then that's the price we will have to pay until we get off our butts and develop adequate alternative energy sources.

I knew there was something we could agree on.

To see Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman when asked 9on MTP) about Brazil's energy independent policy simply say that "Brazil is a good rolemodel" was incredible. There was a time that WE were the innovator blazing the path, yet on one of the most important issues facing us over the last 30 years the best we can say is Brazil is a good rolemodel? pffft.

The Israelis, who have been in an almost perpetual state of war against Arab nations and/or terrorist groups who seek to wipe it off the face of the earth since 1948, are the bad guys and those warm and cuddly peaceniks the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah are the good guys?

I must confess that I think it was ignorant to ever have an Israel in this region. I am sure we could have relocated the wailing wall to Florida.

For me it is not so black and white. There are no good guys, rarely are they. Simply because I dislike the idea of a Zionist state in the region does not imply that I condone or support the actions of anyone else.

But I will say this, if there was an occupying force where I lived I would be VERY hostile. And I wouldn't stop being hostile to them after they left, they would be my enemy for the duration of my life.

[Metatron]

Ehh??? We are the point of contention?

We are A point of contention.What else would you call placing troops on another countries border? Only way it gets more contentious than that is to actually cross the border and occupy.

I think there is a slight difference between a 150,000 man force actively conducting operations WITHIN Iraq and a 35,000 man force based in a defensive posture along the Korean DMZ for over 50 years.

My point isn't about whether we should have gone into S Korea or not, nor we should/should not be in Korea. What I was bringing up was that you attempted to posture as if an American Presence in N Korea is not confrontational or a stance of aggression simply because the number of Americans there was not an adequate amount to actually protect SK or to invade NK.

I brought up Iraq to point out that not having enough troops is not an issue, Our inadequate number of boots in Iraq cannot be taken as marginal or insignificant, so why attempt to imply that our Troops in SK are then marginalized and of no significance.

Very well, US forces are A point of contention. However, we are hardly in a "stance of aggression". We've been sitting there like bumps on a log for more than fifty years. We are the check on their aggressive stance not the other way around. S. Korea and our relatively meager forces would be idiots to launch an invasion of the North given that Seoul is effectively held hostage by the aforementioned chemical munition equipped artillery.
Their motivation for nukes is not that they're suddenly scared of us after fifty years of sitting around the DMZ. It's because they want to bully their neighbors into regime saving concessions.

If your contention is that we tend to prefer the dictators who work with us over the would be dictators that hate us, I'd say you were right.

No. My point was that we have been complicit, and continue to be in supporting Dictators and repressive regimes when it suits our own interest.

If there are no reasonable alternatives, of course.

Our support for Democratically elected Governments in the region has not has such support. Hamas, whether we like them or not was a democratically elected group. And our "support" of Lebanon's Democracy leaves something to be desired as well.

You expected maybe that Israel and by extension the US would instantly warm up to a democratically elected group that sends explosive laden suicide bombers and katushka rockets into Israel? If Hamas had stopped the attacks and stuck to the bread and butter needs of the Palestinians, recognition and possibly even economic aid could have been possible.

As for Lebanon, the US was actually rather supportive of the Cedar Revolution and helped organize the international pressure which compelled the Syrians to leave. However, Lebanon has not only utterly failed to control the southern parts of their country, allowing Hezbollah to create a de facto state there, but also has Hezbollah as a partner in the current government. So when Hezbollah makes a habit of firing katushka rockets at Israel and, more recently, kidnapping Israeli soldiers, Lebanon bears some responsibility for these actions. Nonetheless, I think Israel would be more than happy to have a cooperative relationship with Lebanon if Hezbollah could be removed from the equation and likewise I imagine a fair amount of US economic aid would be forthcoming to Lebanon if the situation can be stabilized.

You talk about "exploitation of the people" as if there were active democratic movements in these nations that we are helping to suppress.

I hardly think the "Gold Standard" of whether the USA should be supporting a regime or not is if you see what you consider an adequate effort by an internal force in the direction of Democracy. We are talking about people we should not EVER be in bed with.

If the alternatives are Wahhabist whackjobs like the Taliban or their buddies Al Qaeda then I guess I'll just have to stomach the House of Saud or the Emir of Kuwait. If you can point out where all of these burgeoning democratic movements are in these countries maybe I'll change my mind.

So if a certain amount of real politick is necessary to maintain the status quo in such a strategic location then that's the price we will have to pay until we get off our butts and develop adequate alternative energy sources.

I knew there was something we could agree on.

To see Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman when asked 9on MTP) about Brazil's energy independent policy simply say that "Brazil is a good rolemodel" was incredible. There was a time that WE were the innovator blazing the path, yet on one of the most important issues facing us over the last 30 years the best we can say is Brazil is a good rolemodel? pffft.

I think this is something we can agree on. I would like nothing better than if the US could be out of the Middle East. As you say, we support a lot of dubious characters in order to make sure the oil does not stop. One silver lining to all of this $70 a barrel oil is that it makes alternatives like Canadian oil shale, natural gas, or coal gasification economically viable if the oil prices stick somewhere near this level. All of these resources can be found in abundance in North America.

As for the Brazilian model, they are achieving energy independence through a two prong strategy: offshore oil drilling and ethanol conversion. Certainly the US could help itself by exploiting the offshore oil drilling opportunities available as well as oil fields in Alaska but these are currently being blocked by environmental protests. The ethanol solution is possible but more challenging here because corn based ethanol is apparently not as efficient as the sugar cane ethanol used by Brazil. Once the energy inputs into the corn/ethanol system are taken into account it is still debated whether this is economically viable without massive government subsidies.

The Israelis, who have been in an almost perpetual state of war against Arab nations and/or terrorist groups who seek to wipe it off the face of the earth since 1948, are the bad guys and those warm and cuddly peaceniks the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah are the good guys?

I must confess that I think it was ignorant to ever have an Israel in this region. I am sure we could have relocated the wailing wall to Florida.

For me it is not so black and white. There are no good guys, rarely are they. Simply because I dislike the idea of a Zionist state in the region does not imply that I condone or support the actions of anyone else.

But I will say this, if there was an occupying force where I lived I would be VERY hostile. And I wouldn't stop being hostile to them after they left, they would be my enemy for the duration of my life.

To some degree I agree that Britain's Balfour Declaration and the manner in which Israel was formed as a nation helped to create the problems we see today. But we have to deal with the realities on the ground in the present which are that Israel is a sovereign nation with the right to defend itself from people who would like to kill them.

Some progress has been made in more recent years. While I would not classify Egypt and Jordan as Israel's friends, they do nonetheless have peace treaties together and have refrained from killing each other for several decades. If Hezbollah could ever be removed from the equation, a similar treaty could be made with Lebanon and if Hamas would take it's responsibilities as a government seriously and hold off on the terror attacks, perhaps a land for peace accommodation similar to what was on the bargaining table in 2000 could be revived. But simply allowing Israel to be bludgeoned at will by Hezbollah and Hamas is not a viable solution.

[Metatron]

We all know that radical Muslims hate adherants of every religion aside from their own. That leaves us to wonder; why isn't Al Quada bothering to fly planes into Vatican City? Bangalor? Madrid? Perhaps it is because Italy, India, and Spain stay on their side of the globe?

Vatican? Your right, best of my knowledge nobody's tried to blowup St. Peters.

Bangalor? Maybe not, but radical Muslims haven't been shy about other areas in India. In India car and railway bombings seem to be the happening thing.

1993 Mumbai 257 dead
1993 Calcutta 60 dead
2003 Mumbai 52 dead
2005 New Delhi 59 dead
2006 Mumbai 207 dead

Madrid? Your kidding, right?

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004, which killed 192 people and wounded 2,050.

We are not a terrorist target because we are Christians. We are a terrorist target because we are Christians who topple conservative Islamic regimes at will and pay for Isreal's military.

Hmmm.... like Indonesia? (Bali bombings 2002 and 2005)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Bali_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Bali_bombings

Philippines? http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articled ... icleid=566

Canada? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13150516/

As for Iran, your supposition that the threat of the U.S. military as motive for nukes is far stronger. After all there is a far stronger U.S. military force in a neighboring country than exists in South Korea and that force was recently used in an offensive operation. So given that the motive is there, the next question is: If there was no significant U.S. military threat to Iran would it be logical to assume that Iran would have little interest in developing a nuclear capability?

In my opinion, the answer is no. Since the Iranian revolution, Iran has consistently displayed, primarily through support of external Shia groups like Hezbollah, the desire for two related goals: the spread of it's aggressive form of Shia fundamentalism through out the Middle East and local hegemony in the Persian Gulf region. A nuclear capability would allow Iran to easily cow any other nations in the area if they decided to "liberate" Shia areas in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Obviously, the nukes would also make U.S. and other Western democracies think twice before intervening. Such a move would not only allow them to strengthen Shia fundamentalism in the region but would give Iran a virtual hammerlock on world oil production especially given that the puny oil nations like Kuwait and Qatar would have to fall in line or be overwhelmed.

In the world of oil, there are five countries that matter: Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran.

As luck would have it, 3/5 of these nations (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) are unfriendly to the US, greatly hindering our oil supply.

In 2003, as gas prices were hitting all time highs, we oh so conveniently discovered "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, and toppled their unconvenient regime. Now that we've got them (somewhat) taken care of, take a look at the next highest oil supply in unfriendly hands. Sure enough, right on cue, US officials have recently been discussing an invasion of Iran.

Do you really think they see no threat from us?

1. To be fair to the Bush administration, just about every other intelligence service (even the French!) agreed with the CIA's assessment that Iraq had WMD. Heck, it turned out that most of Saddam's own generals thought he had chemical munitions and fully expected to have them released to them prior to the US/British invasion. There's a whole lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on concerning this issue.

2. Having said that, I believe that the attack on Iraq was a strategic blunder that has unnecessarily tied up men and resources that could have been better used elsewhere as well as antagonizing possible allies. The containment policy in use since the 91 war would have sufficed to check Saddam's ambitions.

3. Is there actually evidence that we are contemplating an invasion of Iran? Airstrikes and Special Forces operations to take out Iran's nuke processing capabilities, sure. But I would like to think that no one with more than two working neurons would initiate a US invasion of Iran while are forces are tied up in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our other overseas deployments like Korea.

4. We didn't start threatening military action against Iran until the whole nuke incident started up.

And your response to Pearl Harbor would have been what exactly?

If I had it my way, the Japanese would never have had the chance to bomb Pearl Harbor. I would have invaded Japan/Germany the second they crossed their borders into China/Poland.

There is such thing as a justified war. The US just seems to have a hard time picking them.

For example, let's imagine for a second that I currently reside in the White House (God forbid). Where would I have the military? Uganda, for one. The LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) has been terrorizing the citizens of this country for decades; raiding homes, immobilizing what little infastructure Uganda has, and kidnapping thousands of children to serve as sex slaves. Sending a proper military force there would not only stave off the threat, but would be relatively risk free. Contrary to the situation of Iraq, we would have the backing of the Ugandan government and 99% of the citizens, which means relatively few troops would be needed. There would also be little threat of any backlash, as the LRA has virtually no extremist allies, nor the resources (or insanity) needed to present a threat to the US mainland.

Of course, this war will never happen, given it would not really benefit us (which is the top consideration in all US conflicts). Instead, we get Iraq. Oil tycoons and military contracters rejoice.

1. Aside from Iraq, what other unjustified wars have we fought?

2. Your proposing that the US intervene all across the planet in various civil wars? You think our military is spread thin now. What criteria do we use to decide which rebel group is sufficiently bad to fight? And what if it's the rebel group that seems to be the good guys by our estimation? Do we overthrow the existing government to help out the good guys? Should our own national interest play any part in the decision of whether to deploy our men in harm's way?

Hey, if you can convince all of the nations of the world to adopt neutrality simultaneously and figure out a way to keep them there, more power to you!

I think we are all ready heading that way, actually. Our savior: Globalization (see: Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention)

This is probably the prime reason India and Pakistan have yet to nuke the crap out of each other. It so happens that nations both involved in profitable supply chains no longer view each other as enemies, but assets. The best indicator towards this trend is the recent UN analysis depicting the years 2000-2006 as the most peaceful time period in all of human history. That is, the lowest ever percentage of the world population is currently tangled in conflict. Pretty uplifting, especially in the face of the Bush Administration's recent warmondering.

This concept offers great potential towards future international cooperation. Right now the best way to further foster peace lies in whether or not we can conform the conservative, xenophobic, and left-over communist regimes (Mid East, Latin America, N. Korea, ect.) towards a multi-national system of economy. I feel this will eventually come about, as these nations slowly realize that they must do this in order to stay afloat.

1. While I hope you turn out to be correct about economic interdependence keeping the Indian sub-continent from erupting in flames, I still see a lot of problems between India and Pakistan. Border incidents in Kashmir are almost an everyday occurrence and a lot of the Muslim terrorist actions in India are supported by groups based in Pakistan (see Mumbai 2006 bombing above). India and Pakistan seem to be evolving into their own smaller scale version of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) which will hopefully stave off nuke war the way the US/USSR MAD did.

2. I have some hopes for globalization as well. I kind of look on China as an interesting test case. China is certainly the number one contender for the next Great Power. As they become economically stronger, they will also become militarily stronger. A future Cold War scenario with the US and China staring each other down armed to the teeth is unfortunately a real possibility. However, as you stated above, globalization may be our saviour.

I find it interesting all of the handwringing about our trade deficit with China and how much of their money is parked in US bonds. While there are some obvious things to consider economically speaking, I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I figure that any country that owns hundreds of billions of dollars of our bonds and gets tens of billions of dollars in sales from us each month has remarkably little incentive to want to do us harm! They would be cutting their own throat economically. This sort of interdependence writ large is probably mankind's best chance to survive and hopefully prosper.

3. Unfortunalely, I see the rise of aggressive Islamic fundamentalism as one of the major countertrends to globalization. There rejection of Western style economics and culture, their desire to impose Sharia law even within secular cultures, and the aggressive tactics of Wahhabit zealots will severely complicate the efforts to integrate the Muslim world into the global framework.

The United States must disarm all nuclear weapons.

Unilaterally???

Do you see it ever happening multilaterally? Someone's got to start the trend.

At the very least, we could certainly afford to lose a few.

Since (hopefully) we no longer require MAD now that the USSR is no more, I'd be okay with slimming down to a smaller, more up to date nuke force. Quality over quantity, so to speak. Beyond that, however, nuke disarmament would have to multi-lateral and verifiable to work.

Diplomacy without Strength = Appeasement

On this note, I have a question; just how much strength is enough?

400 billion dollars worth of it? Over four times the next highest military spender? Is that really necessary?

How much strength do we need? Tough to say. Depends on which of our current military priorities you wish to eliminate.

1. Power projection and forward deployment, i.e. the ability to assist and/or protect allies and deal with threats around the world.

2. Related to 1. is the naval power to protect sea lanes from interruptions of world trade.

3. The ability to fight a two front war.

4. Nuclear deterrence

5. Ability to defend US territory.

Obviously, the ability to do all of these things costs incredible amounts of money. 1. through 3. rely on a lot of large ticket items like aircraft carriers, long range bombers, foreign military bases, and basically the Marine corp. Severely cut back or eliminate 4. and you can cut back on expensive ICBMs, early warning detection technology, nuke submarines like the Trident, etc. I imagine that if you went the isolationist route and Severely cut back on 1. - 4. you could cut anywhere between half to three-fourths of the military budget, but I have serious doubts about that being in our best interest.

I do think some paring could be done. For example, with the Cold War over, it's not real obvious why we still need such a large military presence in Europe. There doesn't appear to be anyone left to fight there. However, I personally think the ability of America to project power is still important and that, unfortunately, is expensive.

Of course, that's not even counting the amount spent in Iraq. Think 300 TRILLION is a bit over the top? The nation's uninsured children and dried up education facilities sure do.

Err.... you might want to take a closer look at your cost clock thingy. The amount that the Iraq war is estimated to cost is 300 billion dollars not trillion. I think the whole worlds economic output is less than a tenth of that.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

The Middle East is the most conservative, xenophobic, intolerant region on Earth. Logically, coexisting on the same planet with them is best achieved by leaving them well enough alone. Yet mysteriously, the Muslim heartland has consistantly been the West's favorite foreign market for interference and warmongering.

It just so happens that there is a giant slew of nations who would be more than happy to be on the recieving end of our meddling (notably Africa and South Asia). And yet, for the past twenty years fundamentalist Muslim societies have been our sole target.

You'd think we might have had ample time to see how change-resistant, unstable, and downright psycotic they are. And yet, we are still surprised when they continue to run into crowded areas with bombs straped to their chest.

History shows quite well that most Muslims don't actually mind Christians who stay on their side of the border. This realization of this is our only hope in winning this "war on terrorism".

Do you really think this is solely about religion? Allow me to demonstrate:

Vatican? Your right, best of my knowledge nobody's tried to blowup St. Peters.

Ever wondered why? I mean, it seems like such a perfect terrorist target.

Perhaps it is the Catholic clergy's unilateral opposition towards the Iraq War?

The Holy See took a firm stance against the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. Pope John Paul II's special envoy, Po Cardinal Laghi, was sent by the Church to talk with George W. Bush to express opposition to the war on Iraq. The Catholic Church said that it was up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy. According to the Church, the Iraq war, and indeed most modern wars, did not satisfy the just war requirements set by St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians. (Wikipedia, "Government's positions pre-2003 Iraq War)

Philippines? http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articled ... icleid=566

The Phillipines formerly had forces in Iraq.

Canada? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13150516/

As does Canada.

Madrid? Your kidding, right?

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004, which killed 192 people and wounded 2,050.

You're right, I totally forgot about that.

But what I also forgot is that it makes sense that they would bomb Madrid. Spain supported the Iraq war as well.




Al Qaeda curiously only seems to bomb pro-Isreal countries constantly embroiled in Middle East affairs. In fact take a look at this Al Qauda timeline:
http://www.maroc.nl/nieuws/forums/show.php?pg=timeline

Their terrorism has been focused almost exclusively on the United States; the one country who has been consistently pulling strings in the Middle East since at least the late 70's.

Even more telling is this tidbit: on April 15, 2004, bin Laden circulated a tape around Europe offering a truce if it "stops attacking Muslims and withdraws all its troops from Muslim countries."

Are you still unsure of their true agenda? This is hardly a holy war on their part. Peace in the Middle East will only be achieved by non-aggression on our part.

(By the way, the conflicts you mentioned in India and Indonesia have little to do with the middle east, but are local conflicts that have been raging for centuries. However, in favor of my argument none-the-less, much of the violence is due to aggressive Christian evangelicism. When will we learn? Leave the Muslims alone.)

3. Unfortunalely, I see the rise of aggressive Islamic fundamentalism as one of the major countertrends to globalization. There rejection of Western style economics and culture, their desire to impose Sharia law even within secular cultures, and the aggressive tactics of Wahhabit zealots will severely complicate the efforts to integrate the Muslim world into the global framework.

While my current solution is non-intervention in Islamic society, you are right, in the long term fundie Muslims will need to conform to a globalist society- for all our sake's. Once again, I feel this will happen in time. However, there is no use trying to conform a society who CLEARLY refuses to cooperate. For the time being our attention will be best focused somewhere else.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

3. Is there actually evidence that we are contemplating an invasion of Iran? Airstrikes and Special Forces operations to take out Iran's nuke processing capabilities, sure. But I would like to think that no one with more than two working neurons would initiate a US invasion of Iran while are forces are tied up in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our other overseas deployments like Korea.

Yes, I too sure would like to think that we wouldn't be stupid enough to embroil ourselves in another quagmire.

However, rest assured; if it is a stupid idea, someone in this administration has thought of it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... e_next_war
Condoleezza Rice believes USA may invade Iran because of its salami tactics


More intervention! Yes, because it has worked out so well for everyone in the past...

[Metatron]

The Middle East is the most conservative, xenophobic, intolerant region on Earth. Logically, coexisting on the same planet with them is best achieved by leaving them well enough alone.

No argument here.

Yet mysteriously, the Muslim heartland has consistantly been the West's favorite foreign market for interference and warmongering.

Let me clear up the mystery, it's spelled: O I L

If it wasn't for oil would be about as interested in Iraq or Saudi Arabia as we are with Chad or Mongolia.

It just so happens that there is a giant slew of nations who would be more than happy to be on the recieving end of our meddling (notably Africa and South Asia). And yet, for the past twenty years fundamentalist Muslim societies have been our sole target.

I'm not so sure that Africans or South Asians (India, Sri Lanka?) would be all that thrilled if we "meddled" there either. Most of the African nations are artificial constructs based on arbitrary lines drawn on some colonialist map that do not take into account historical tribal boundaries. As a result many of these countries have endemic civil war that really amount to big tribal rumbles. These are aggravated more by religion where, for example, you have Muslim and animistic tribes duking it out in both the Sudan and Chad and you have Christian and Muslim tribal conflicts in Nigeria. US intervention would basically be about picking winners and losers among tribes in a country.

As far as South Asia, I suppose you could get involved in Sri Lanka and try to decide if the Tamil Tigers are terrorists or freedom fighters. Or perhaps intervene in Myanmar to kick out the authoritarian thugs that run this country. In all the places you would run into some of the same tribalism issues that also infect the Middle East.

You'd think we might have had ample time to see how change-resistant, unstable, and downright psycotic they are. And yet, we are still surprised when they continue to run into crowded areas with bombs straped to their chest.

History shows quite well that most Muslims don't actually mind Christians who stay on their side of the border. This realization of this is our only hope in winning this "war on terrorism".

Okay, granted that it might be better if the Muslim nations were in some sort of giant quarantine, what is the solution to:

1. A significant amount of our energy needs are derived from Mid-East oil and we provide most of the technology and know how to make this happen. If the flow of oil is disrupted by the actions of some nation in the Persian Gulf (most likely Iran) we would be in a world of hurt if we could not intervene to clear the sea lanes for oil tankers, etc. Likewise, if western oil companies are not present much of their production and maintenance will be degraded, again leading to disruptions. While I hope that alternative solutions like Canadian tar sands or coal gasification will help eventually, realistically it would be several decades to wean ourselves off Mid-East oil even if we go full bore toward alternatives. I don't see how we can not be there.

2. How do we deal with the large wave of Muslim immigration (especially in Europe)? The western nations have no means to separate themselves from Muslims because they are already significant minorities in many of these countries. Perhaps if we were somehow able to extract ourselves from the Mid-East, these immigrants would have less motivation to engage in terror attacks, but the nations will still have to deal with a minority culture that will choose the dictates of Sharia over the laws and rules of conduct of the host nation. This is bound to lead to conflict, Mid-East or no Mid-East. So as concerns your statement about Christians staying on our side of the border, I say too late, they are already across OUR borders.

Do you really think this is solely about religion?

Nope, tribalism is at least as important.

[Metatron]

3. Is there actually evidence that we are contemplating an invasion of Iran? Airstrikes and Special Forces operations to take out Iran's nuke processing capabilities, sure. But I would like to think that no one with more than two working neurons would initiate a US invasion of Iran while are forces are tied up in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our other overseas deployments like Korea.

Yes, I too sure would like to think that we wouldn't be stupid enough to embroil ourselves in another quagmire.

However, rest assured; if it is a stupid idea, someone in this administration has thought of it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... e_next_war
Condoleezza Rice believes USA may invade Iran because of its salami tactics


More intervention! Yes, because it has worked out so well for everyone in the past...

Well, I'll say that if the Rolling Stone story is true, it paints a pretty disturbing picture. It's amazing to think that these little political cabals can have this much influence on policy. It's also interesting how easy it is for these cabals to be manipulated by foreign interests. Ghobanifar was especially a blast from the past. I remember him from the Iran-Contra days. It's amazing to me that he would still have credibility in someone's eyes after that fiasco.

Just as an aside, I don't know if I would quote from Pravda as a credible source. While the article you quoted was fine, a reader who proceeds to poke around on the site will find some rather interesting stories that either biased or, in some cases, rather tasteless.