Threat Assessment
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Monday, May 27, 2024 15:37
VIEWED: 2615
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I think it's time we put these cards on the table. Finn's 'final solution' comment got me to thinking that we need to start discussing this sooner rather than later.
I get the point about a looney with a nuclear bomb blowing up the world, and how we have to let that not happen. But realistically, it's not going to happen just because there's someone out there who's not us. If there is not, and there is no competition of ideas, and no competing power on the Earth, the New World Order will squash the citizenry like bugs. Ants to be precise. So before we get to that eventuality, I want us to look at this all rationally.
And PLEASE: All partisan politics aside, this is for discussing the fate of the political map of the world, not abortion or gay marriage. Okay, that said:
Who represents a threat, to what or whom do they represent a threat and what do we do about it?
IRAN
In another thread I wrote a long and I thought quite logical defense of Iran, as a far-from-perfect but not-us society which was far closer to being a reasonable player in the world arena and not a lunatic. If Iran threatens Israel, that's political posturing, in fact the whole nuclear thing is political posturing, they want a bargaining chip because they're terrified of being invaded by the US according to the PNAC agenda.
I find the notion that Iran is a threat to anyone, let alone us, completely absurd. At best it's an extreme misinterpretation of muslim culture and persian ambitions, and at worst it's a total lie.
So, rationally, looking at Iran, first we need to know what motivates them. I think I have a reasonable bead on this:
1. They are completely surrounded by hostile nations with nuclear weapons.
2. The are truly concerned with the fact that their annihilation features prominantly in a set of published documents written by a man who is now Vice President and de facto commander in chief of the world's most formidable military machine.
3. They have serious economic issues they feel could be solved by consuming less oil domestically and selling that oil overseas instead.
A proper diplomatic solution to the problem needs to fairly address these concerns while not permitting a nuclear arsenal to fall into the hands of an islamic theocrat.
To be fair, I think we should also consider the effect of a war with Iran, which I think would be catastrophic.
Consider, before backing a military action against Iran, the following:
1. Iran has 2+1/2 times the population of Iraq, is even more strongly ethnically factional, and is on a substantially rougher terrain.
2. Such a war would most certainly claim at least one million lives. To not admit this would be totally naive.
3. China and possibly Russia may militarily back an Iranian resistance with arms on a lend-lease program.
4. World opinion towards the US would swing far more negatively than it is right now. This would not only cost us well over a trillion dollars in business, but would endanger all of our future missions.
5. The war itself would almost certainly cost one trillion dollars, as has Iraq in total related costs.
6. A dangerously unstable Iran in the aftermath of a failed conflict would be far more dangerous than a similarly destablized Iraq because of Iran's proximity to nuclear capable muslim nations. If that instability spread across borders the way Iraq's instability has spread to eastern Syria, and as is extremely common in warfare, we could have a situation of a destablized region of a nuclear-capable muslim nation falling into the hands of terrorists.
NORTH KOREA
I'm less familiar with the situation in NK, but it seems like a serious threat, in a way that Iran isn't. Furthermore, where the Iranian government, while eccentric, is not in anyway an anathema to the world continuing as it is, the govt. of NK is intollerable on the level that saddam hussein was, only with nukes.
Logically it seems to me that the govt. of NK has to be removed, or be pressured to undergo some sort of reform that renders it no longer a destabilizing
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Look at the change in your pocket; go ahead, look.
What do ya see?
A Canadian penny? A Canadian quarter?
Yep. Canada's the threat. They're starting slow and small, we'll be theirs before we know it! They already own our entertainment industry...
We must invade NOW!!!
Chrisisall of the Bi-Partisan Coalition To Assimilate Canada's Uniqueness Into Our Own Collective (BPCTACUIOOC)
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You know Chris, this was my ninth and final attempt to bait the supporter of either Clinton or Bush to talk, and the fact that they won't do it leads me to one conclusion: They have no ideological defense of their position. IOW, the are on the take, plain and simple, there's really nothing else to it. So, I'm gonna just give up, I'm sure there are better uses for my time.
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My two cents worth:
North Korea (DPRK): From what I gather (including an interview I saw somewhere with Bill Clinton), the issue is money. The previous Clinton agreement had basically boiled down to "We will give you money and oil, and you will not pursue weapons programs in return". I believe this is still more or less what the North koreans are looking for; essentially extortion money. The Bush administration has taken this off the table. As Clinton pointed out, the only resource or industry or anything they have to sell is weapons, including nuclear technology. So they are threatening to sell/advance these unless we broker a new deal. I personally believe Kim Jong Il (?) is fairly reasonable and western minded, but is backed into a corner with a starving country and no options. He has nuclear technology and some materials currently, but doesn't really want to sell them. He wants money from us. And in turn, we want to wait him out and see his government crumble. Reunification is probable, but Kim Jong Il doesn't want to be made obsolete, and will fight much of it. Now, what the best course of action is...
CHINA: Personally I see them as the biggest real threat to the US. This is due to the Taiwan stand-off, their recent increases in military spending, the amount of public debt financed by them, and their portion of the trade deficit. I foresee them retaking Taiwan and telling us to back off as they do it. Then we have an option: back our promise to protect Taiwan and have the financial shirt stripped off our back just as we are going into a REALLY big war, or sit back and let them. Probably the latter.
CHINA and INDIA: Let's not forget that the real threat is economic, and a strong economy of the future comes from education. Simply put, the reason we won't be a superpower in forty years is because they will pass us. I just read China is building 800 univeristies in the next few years, each capable of 20,000-35,000 students. D'oh!
"It's a cow."
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Sorry, Dreamtrove, I didn't realize this was bait for a trap. *Puts down peanut butter sandwich* I'll just be going then...
"It's a cow."
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
All partisan politics aside
You say this, but then you say this:
Quote:
bait the supporter of either Clinton or Bush to talk
Which seems to me like you want to start a partisan catfight in this thread. If a Bush supporter comes in (which we all know I'm surely not), will you just play pile-on? Or is it if a Clinton supporter comes in first he/she gets the treatment? I think that's why no one wants to play in the thread, it's got nothing to do with defending a position (especially since you haven't really given an argument with a position to side one way or the other).
Besides, unless you're talking about Hillary - who is not Pres yet, and probably will never be - I see no reason why you even bring up Clinton's name in the same sentence as Bush. As I tell everyone that jumps on the "But Clinton," the man is no longer President, and has not been for enough time that the ability to use him as a defense of Bush has long passed.
------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.
Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.
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Sick Dude
Quote:
I personally believe Kim Jong Il (?) is fairly reasonable and western minded, but is backed into a corner with a starving country and no options.
I disagree. This is a man who made posters to drum up popular support for nuking America, literally, and who has launched test missiles against Japan.
I think money is only part of it, he also wants power. He would never agree to a NK/SK merger that did not involve the communist NK govt. getting 1/2 of the control. SK will never let that happen.
I would like to think that diplomacy is possible here, but I can't see that any part of the NK power structure would be at all acceptable in SK. NK's best hope is to become a low wage labor outsourcing destination for SK.
But that in itself is actually a pretty good thing to be, esp. compared to what they are right now, which is a dictatorship on an economic par with Burkina Faso, and well well below much of subsaharan Africa.
CHINA
I agree is a much greater threat, but then again, where does an 800 pound gorilla sit?
Quote:
I foresee them retaking Taiwan and telling us to back off as they do it.
They already have.
Economic threats are a separate issue. The goal of the neocon agenda is to remove the possibility of getting nuked. I know this because they said it lots of times over the last 30 years. I just don't think it's a realitic one towards that end, but at the moment I want to try to focus on real military threats. Of which, China is certainly one. They've already taken out two of our major pacific allies and we haven't even raised a hand.
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Follow the bouncing ball...
http://www.korea-dpr.com/media/kfahymn.swf
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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7%,
That's not partisan. Bush is a republican, Clinton is a democrat, together they both support an aggressive military stance to wipe out govts. which propose a threat.
I see a non-partisan dispute going on here, on the forum, which is probably going on all over. But no one is talking about it in an honest manner, everyone's turning it into a partisan political debate which it's not.
The fact is: We are engaged in an aggress military campaign to remove possible threats from the world, and have been ever since Clinton took office. Defending Kuwait was defending, it wasn't a regime change mission, but the wars of Clinton, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia and Iraq, all had that goal, as do the wars of Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The debate is: A) Is this a goal we should be focused on B) Is this the best way to go about it C) Who are the threats, D) In what way are they threats E) What *is* the best way of dealing with them.
I suspect the supporters of the aggressive Bush/Clinton stance are afraid of the debate because they have dodged it perpetually. They prefer instead to hide behind spin which ranges from wild exaggeration to unadulterated lies. This makes me suspect that either their position is far weaker than they have let on, or that they have no argument at all.
In their absence, we might as well debate it without them.
Also:
In my world, Clinton is *still* president. I think PN lives here too. Hillary will probably be president, but in any event, Clinton will be helping to set the agenda.
What I mean by Bush/Clinton is a group of people who include Cheney, the PNAC neocons, the Lieberman democrats, in short, Team Evil.
I'm not looking to pick a fight, I'm looking, as I have been for three months now, to get people who support this agenda to come out and say "I support this agenda and here's why" rather than hiding behind lies. If they can do this, then we will be able to analyze whether neocon philosophy has any merit, and if we can't possibly work together on some of the goals.
If they don't, which they haven't because neocons seem to want to run the show all by themselves with no compromise, justification or debate, then I will be left with the feeling I have now, which we all who are not on Team Bush or Team Clinton which is that they're either evil, horribly corrupt, criminal, incompetent, idiotic or just blind ideologues without a real clear vision.
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