Kudos to Bush
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Sunday, March 26, 2006 02:14
VIEWED: 2704
PAGE 3 of 4
Hero,
I used to believe that we had superior combat value per man, but since I've seen it in action, though not up close, I'm not overwhelmingly impressed. A creative guerilla campaign is a decent match for a better equipped and better trained regimental force. That our nation exists is a testiment to this fact.
Secondly, I said "a missile defense system" not specifically the soviet ABM. I think, ideally, a missile defense system could be designed to take out all airborne offensives with certainly or near certainty of success. Furthermore, a decent air defense system would by necessity have to deflect the attack back on the attacker. If it did not, failure would be an invitation to try again, but if it did so, the cost of failure would prevent future attempts to breach the barrier.
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Chris,
Because a small elite special forces unit wouldn't be able to steal the oil, or assemble a mid east union. Also, it might fix the problem, thus ending a reign of terror, by removing an enemy which the American people fear. No. I don't have a tinfoil hat, and yes, I actually do believe this.
Hero,
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They have their economic successes because we have agreed to defend them.
I'm not impressed with our defense of Taiwan and Hong Kong against the only enemy they have had since WWII.
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Make no mistake. The US military commitments in the Gulf have checked would-be agressors like Iran, the Soviet Union, and Iraq. Just check out the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for a practical example.
Iran is not an aggressive expansionist power, that's not even remotely the case. Iraq, under Saddam Hussein was. The Soviet Union was, and we failed to be a check to that. I think you're giving credit where almost none is due. Here's a list of what we protected: South Korea, I'm sure their very happy. Kuwait, I'm sure they are too.
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In Korea, American military power has secured the independence of a favorite ally and trading partner for over fifty years from a hostile and aggressive North Korean regime (read about the Korean War and then tell me you honostly think the North would have held off if we hadn't stayed to make it so).
Not arguing this. Or to put it another way, I really agree. But if you really believed this, why would you support Bush?
Bush has not only pulled troops our of S. Korea, but he turned a blind eye to N. Korea's nuclear program. S. Korea sticks by us because we're the only ally it's got capable of stopping N.K. aka China. But we're not sticking by them half as well as we should. Myself, I'd be happy to impeach Bush over his Korea policy, if he had done nothing else wrong.
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US power has kept a constantly beligerant and threatening China from conquering another democratic American ally and trading partner, Taiwan (even now China continues its military buildup opposite Taiwan).
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In Japan both communist China and the former Soviet Union had post WW2 cravings for video games and anime (the Russians still own a disputed portion of Japanese territory and China would love some WW2 payback).
This is apropo of what exactly?
We not only didn't defend Japan against the USSR, we were the ones attacking Japan. Sure, we occupied it for a while, but it isn't like Japan needs us to defend them, or ever did.
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And you forget to mention Europe where American military presense has secured the longest period of sustained peace in European history, including stopping cold a cycle of conflicts that was growing in both size, world reach, and destructive potential.
This seems quite doubtful. Has there really been no peace longer than 44 years in the history of Europe? Also, bear in mind there were several minor conflicts throughout that time, But from the megadeath to megadeath, genocide to genocide. I think the cold war kept the balance, it was the absense of te soviet union, and with the presence of the united states, that war finally did break out in europe, and bear in mind, it was US forces who were running guns *into* that yugoslav conflict. And doing so in cooperation with Iran.
I'm just playing devils advocate here, but I think the picture you've painted is not the world in which we live.
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In North America our neighbors don't invade us, not because we all love each other, but because we are the strongest and have been since about 1845 and they know that they exist at our whim and thank God we are a generous and merciful people and good neighbor to them.
This is absurd. I mean, if this were true, we would invade them, following Neitzsche's rule. The fact is, we get along fine with Canada and Mexico, our allies. We're not just lucky, we're skillfull, we made allies of our neighbors. Yay us.
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weak willed European powers and the Iraqi-funded interantional peace movement).
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Reaverman
Just in case your post was intended to refute mine, which it was worded in such a way:
Switzerland isn't in Asia.
Furthermore, Joss makes fun of the swiss army. I think he might have a point. Swiss neutrality was always far more of a ruse than a reality, they bribed people off. Having a standing army of your entire population doesn't do a lot of good without an arsenal to match. But I haven't really looked into it.
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
This is absurd. I mean, if this were true, we would invade them, following Neitzsche's rule. The fact is, we get along fine with Canada and Mexico, our allies. We're not just lucky, we're skillfull, we made allies of our neighbors. Yay us.
We did invade them. Both of them. In one case we invaded, conquered and annexed nearly half our southern neighbor's territory. Then we stopped, we were not stopped, we just stopped. Because it turns out we're nice fellows who only want peace, liberty and justice. We never conquered Canada because back when we were in the conquer'n mood the British would have whu'pd our asses if we'd tried it. By the time there was military parity we were all friends. But MExico and all the little islands...they were ours for the taking.
US military power has dictated the course of North American history for better then 200 years, European history for the last 100 and world history for the last 60 or so. The rise of American influence has allowed prosperity, liberty, democracy, and peace to flourish. Peace especially.
There has been less war in the last half century then at any time in recorded history. The reason is America's pledge to defend to the death a variety of allies. No would-be tyrant moves without first considering how the US will respond. Thats because they have seen with Hitler, the Soviet Empire, and Saddam...among others, the price of failure levied by a free world to which all peoples have a God given right to belong.
I'm not claiming perfection in American culture or policy...just 'more perfect' then anything that has come before and as it was designed to function from day one, line one.
H
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Quote:Oh.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Because a small elite special forces unit wouldn't be able to steal the oil, or assemble a mid east union. Also, it might fix the problem, thus ending a reign of terror, by removing an enemy which the American people fear.
I thought it might just be because we couldn't really do it.
I guess a real solution to our international problems would pose an even greater threat to the status-quo that I'm aware of....
Chrisisall
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Originally posted by Hero:
[easily one of the dumbest arguments I've seen on this board]
I'm not arguing that America has, overall, been a positive influence in the 20th century, with the exception of Japan, and questionable conflicts in Vietname, and now Iraq. But the rest of this argument is rediculous.
The US History in the 18th and 19th centuries has less to do with our relationships today than the political doctrines of the USSR have to do with our current public policy.
But this was my personal favorite:
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There has been less war in the last half century then at any time in recorded history.
This one boggled my mind. With the world in an almost constant state of genocidal war, in at least one spot or another, and often more - this is your supreme peace?
I'd hate to think what you thought the world was like before!
Seriously, wars of the distant past were mostly minor affairs. Massive warfare has risen only a few times. In the ancient babylonian era, the Roman era, the crusades, the inquisition and recently. Major european wars of the middle ages had casualty figures in the thousands and sometimes tens of thousands. Many other conflicts had hundreds or fewer deaths. The millions of deaths types of wars went on only a few notable times pior to WWI. After WWI and WWII the world almost instantly spiraled into endless war.
The Korean conflict was one of many Chinese expansion conflicts claiming in excess of 10 million lives.
The collapse of colonial Africa flung an entire continent into almost constant guerilla warfare claiming tens of millions of lives.
Constant Soviet-US cold waring led to enless revolutions and may have aided in the massive death squad slaughter of millions in latin america.
In just the past fifteen years alone, in Europe, over a million people have been genocidally slaughtered, over ten million in Africa, over a million in our own conflicts in Iraq (Clinton included) and millions more total when you add all the conflicts in wartorn countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, Indonesia, Haiti, and undoubtedly countless other conflicts I'm neglecting at the moment.
So, we've never had it so good? We've never had it so bad!
In short, I think you're post is just factually innaccurate, and maybe before you make such sweeping generalizations you should bone up a little on the global situation.
Did you know in the past 15 years one country has had a genocide as-bad-as or worse-than the holocaust in terms of sheer number killed?
I'll open this up to anyone, who can tell me the name of this country?
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Originally posted by dreamtrove
I'll open this up to anyone, who can tell me the name of this country?
How about which countries had troops on the ground there ?, yelling for help when they had indications of what was coming... and then what two countries blocked any chance of that help being sent ?
Then those troops were stuck in the middle of that mess with no hope of helping at all.....
" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "
The Killers
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
...., but on the scale of zero to 100, where Andrew jackson is a zero and eisenhower is 100, ....
ummm, I don't grok. What's your beef with Andrew Jackson?
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Seriously, wars of the distant past were mostly minor affairs.
Wow. Tell that to the dead. Or even the proportionatly dead for comparison.
Up until 1945 you couldn't live a generation in peace in Europe. The wars fought by them (and to a lesser extent with very notable exceptions by non-Euopeans) for thousands of years have little in common save that each generation of warfare was larger, more destructive, and involved more of the outside world then the ones that came before. Entire nations, entire peoples swept away into fires of war.
In 1945 those wars reached the height of their potential power. For fifty years the next great war loomed and threatened an end to human existance. Why did it not come? Every other time in history of Europe the war has come. The answer to why this one did not was the unprecedented commitment of American military might to the defense of our European allies.
I do not deny that wars still rage. But they are now the lamented exception, not the inevitable tide.
And yes, a million people have dies in a matter of some 15 years in a particular nation. But such a statistic cannot be compared with the casualty figures, both civilian and military of even the lesser of the two last great wars.
The real problem we face today is not the low intensity conflicts around the world. The real problem is this reemergence of old European thinking that is dividing Western Europe and American interests. Standing with America made this a more peaceful and democratic world. Standing alone Europe invites a return of other old ideas...like war.
H
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Originally posted by Veteran:
ummm, I don't grok. What's your beef with Andrew Jackson?
Hmm...could be the indian thing, the bank thing, the nullification thing, or the censure thing.
I just never cared for the Florida thing...but that was before he was elected.
H
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