Threat Assessment
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Monday, May 27, 2024 15:37
VIEWED: 2615
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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.
I find that to be a bit of a short-sighted statement - at least the part about "ever since Clinton took office." But that might just be my reading of it, combined with my take on American history of the last 50 years or so...
Wasn't Viet Nam ostensibly a "campaign to remove possible threats from the world", insofar as it was sold to us as the key part of the whole "domino theory" of a feared communist takeover? And what of our dirty little wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama? Were we *defending* them, or were we simply trying to remove leaders with whom we didn't agree politically?
As for future threats on the world stage, China has to be one of the biggest. North Korea and Iran are certainly capable of destabilizing their zones of influence, but those zones are comparatively tiny compared to China's zone of influence. And Iran and North Korea don't really have the capabilities to project their influence or will upon other nations within their own area, much less the world at large. As such, they're simply posturing, rattling their sabres and trying to get a seat at the big kids' table. Are they dangerous? Definitely. But also, only "locally"; the danger is pretty much confined to Iraq and Afghanistan (in Iran's case), and to South Korea, in North Korea's case. Kim Jong Il knows far better than to try to expand his territory into China or Russia, either of whom would roll over him before he could scream "human rights violation!".
India can't be overlooked as a major up-n-comer on the global stage, either. And with them come their "troubles" with Pakistan over the Khashmir region. THAT may be the one to really watch. For whatever reason, India and Pakistan seem to rabidly hate one another, and more than once they've been on the brink of putting command and control of tactical nuclear weapons into the hands of field commanders. If and when that happens, stand back. For about three thousand years, until the radioactivity levels subside a bit.
China IS a very real threat, because they've become a very real power - in large part because of the US. We worried about them becoming a legitimate military power, but they seem content to play lawyer's and banker's games with us, letting us get deeper and deeper into their pockets, until they feel the time is right. They view Taiwan as their "wayward province", and have vowed to have it back under their control, and when they feel the time is right, the US may be so far indebted to China that if we try to stop them, they can simply cripple our economy, either by calling in their debt, or by cutting off the flow of goods to the US - or by doing both.
We've maneuvered ourselves into a position not terribly dissimilar to where Japan was before Pearl Harbor. They needed materiél for their empire-building ambitions in China and the Pacific Rim, and the US was embargoing their oil and steel, trying to blockade them and cut them off economically in the hopes of stemming their growth and power. Japan, feeling backed into a corner, thought crippling the US was their only bet, and they further bet that they could then negotiate a settlement that was favorable to them. They were a li'l bit mistaken on that one...
Anyway, the US is on the verge of becoming China's "bitch" on the economic stage, and gone will be the days when we get to pick and choose who we buy from, who we sell to, and who we borrow from. When the US feels backed into a corner, what will we do? No tellin'.
So in that sense, the US might be one of the gravest threats to the US! :)
Of course, this could all be armchair quarterbacking - who ever knows what will happen the day after tomorrow? One tiny thing happening in the Palestinian settle
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This isn't going to be the most well-thought out answer for a variety of extraneous reasons, but here's my quick and dirty thoughts:
1. N. Korea is a legitimate problem. Kim Jong Il is a nut job, plain and simple. Unlike the President in Iran, Kim Jong Il isn't even remotely answerable to anyone in North Korea. I'm not going to pretend to understand the big issues happening in Korea, but a significant portion of them are probably socioeconomic in nature and probably aren't likely to be solved to anyone's satisfaction in the recent future given that many South Koreans "hate North Korea because it's full of poor farmers". That was a quote from some South Korean people I go to school and work with. It's fine to go to the Olympics together, but beyond that I get the impression that the two parts aren't all that friendly.
2. China. The governments of the world keep pandering to China just because there are 1.4 billion people there and it's a fabulous market and Asia is booming and blah blah blah. The Chinese government has already demonstrated that they have no qualms about illegally occupying a country (Tibet) on the flimsiest of reasons (it's historically part of China--that's lame. What about Vietnam?), committing gross human rights violations, concealing basic information from their citizens (Google censorship? They say f*** you to the Bush administration, but develop special filters for the Chinese market), and concealing relevant information from the rest of the world (SARS, Bird Flu, etc). The continual policy of appeasement can only end badly for all countries involved. Except possibly China.
3. The U.S. (and I'm going to assume other countries as well) wouldn't recognize a legitimate threat if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. Case in point: I'm a 21 year old white female and a U.S. citizen who spent 3 weeks backpacking in Ireland and London over winter break. What happened when I arrived in Chicago? I got my ass chewed by the Department of Homeland Security because they didn't believe my story. Apparently I'm a threat.
I think I started to get tangential towards the end. Oops.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Wasn't Viet Nam ostensibly a "campaign to remove possible threats from the world", insofar as it was sold to us as the key part of the whole "domino theory" of a feared communist takeover?
That's the reasoning behind the war as far as I've ever learned. I know this guy that has some theory about the war being an attempt by the U.S. to depress the Asian economy, but it didn't make any sense to me.
What's interesting is the U.S. helped eliminate the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 because the U.S. government didn't think the war could be won with his leadership.
Obviously his death helped us immensely.
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
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.
This is one of those situations where being in the State Dept would be useful. Based on what I currently know, I'm assuming he does these actions as a kind of tantrum, looking for international attention. This would be consistent with the administration's policy of ignoring him (although I do not typically agree with Bush!). I agree with your assessment of the chances of a Korean reunion.
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They already have.
I realize they now 'control' Taiwan, but I meant in the final military invasion/no dissension/absolute control sense.
"It's a cow."
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Kwicko, I agree with your post. I do not see US military intervention as something limited to the Clinton and Bush admins. There have been constant little actions going way, way back.
I remember hearing Bush say during the 2000 election debates that he would not have sent troops into any of the countries Clinton did except for Iraq/Kuwait. He disagreed with Bosnia, Serbia, Somalia (duh), etc, and felt we should have a basically isolationist stance on foreign policy. Clinton did a lot of policing and UN Peacekeeping, whereas Bush doesn't (remember Liberia?).
"It's a cow."
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While I am against the democrat wars japan-korea-vietnam, at least korea and vietnam were actually about protecting countries from an invading force, China. Anyone who thinks that the local maoist rebellions in both countries, or in Nepal and Bhutan right now, or in Cambodia, are 'independent indiginous uprisings of the common man' weren't paying any attention to the geographicl movements of people and arms. This is all Chinese expansionism and should be stopped.
My objection to the democratic approach is that it's costly in terms of lives and also doesn't work. You can't stop a expansionist juggernaut by engaging it in active combat in the areas in which it's expanding. You have to pre-empt the expasion by building a strong defense in the potential take over targets. This is what enabled us to hold on to the asian allies we have in asia.
I agree that China is a threat, wejust need a solution which will work.
Also, I agree that the US is a threat to the US. Particularly, since I define the US as a combination of:
The Constitution + The ideas of the founding fathers + the Business interests of America + the physical land of America + The sum total of the people of America, their lives, their freedom, and their well being.
... the I think it's safe to say that Bush/Clinton is the greatest threat to America.
While we're on stateless threats, I want to nominate Bin Laden and co., but a little down there on the list. More than Iran/Syria, less than China/Bush ... maybe somewhere around North korea.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
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.
Wow.
I was interested in this discussion until I read this. I hope whoever you were trying to bait (nine times already?) read this and got discouraged too. Whether they are right or wrong about anything else, they'd be able to legitimately wag their finger at you for this. (Thanks Steven Colbert!)
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Wow.
I was interested in this discussion until I read this. I hope whoever you were trying to bait (nine times already?) read this and got discouraged too. Whether they are right or wrong about anything else, they'd be able to legitimately wag their finger at you for this. (Thanks Steven Colbert!)
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
I'm stunned and amazed.
Should I feel sorry about posting that? No, of course not. Because I used the word 'bait' it's somehow a trap now? Jesus ff^&king Christ your spin machine is amazing.
I keep trying to think of words to describe it, but "Pure evil" is what comes to mind.
So, my question, which I've posted a dozen times with no response has been to all those people out there who support this expansionist campaign "invade and conquer Afghanistan" "invade and conquer Iraq" "invade and conquer Iran" "invade and conquer Syria" This isn't an exansionist campain???????????!!!!!!!!!!????????????????
Expansionist campaign which has killed in excess of 2 million innocent men women and children, these people who did it with a song in their heart, who joke about it, to get them to even talk about why they did it?
* oh no that would be TRAUMATIZING *
I'm speechless. To say that they're cowards, that you are a coward, doesn't even begin to cover it. These people feel their divine spin needs to be protected that they can endlessly lie and never have to try to explain to anyone why they did it, it simply boggles the mind.
You're worse then Bin Laden. Oh, is that alarming? Not just worse, Much Much worse. Bin Laden is still very wrong, but not only did he tell us why he did it, he didn't kill anywhere near as many people.
Finally, if you won't come out and explain yourselves (even the Nazis did that) and wont EVEN engage in a debate about the subject of what your agenda might be and why you might have done some of these things, then we will have to attribute motives to you. I'm sure we'll be more than fair.
Here's a sample of what I think some of the motives of this conflict are:
1. Power. I think the main motive was to assemble not-US controlled, but specifically them-controlled, Mid East power block that controlled the world's oil supply to hold the world hostage to their agenda.
2. Money. I think they intended to steal not only the Iraqi oil but to use the situation to justify the allocation of a large amount of budgetary supplementals and obscond with those funds. I think people like you who defend, or rather, don't defend, because you're afraid to even try, but stand by your Bush/Clinton, here, on this forum, are in some way receiving some of that blood money. I'm pretty close to certain of it.
3. More Power. They intend to use the situation of war to assert extreme executive power, which is just another way of saying to replace America, and the world, with a dictatorship of them.
4. Fun. I think that a lot of this is literally the killing of the little people for good not so clean old time Nazi fun. Listening to the soldiers talk about tortutring "playing with" the Iraqis is like listening to a kid tell you about pulling wings off of flies. They really truly think, Bush really truly thinks, that the Iraqis are not human, that they're a subrace talked about in the bible, caananites or whatever, that need to be looked after, while they serve you. I think that even the testing of unmanned drones against civilian populations is about fun. It's all a great big video game, to listen to some of the people who leveled Fallujah talk.
Thanks, Anthony, you've tipped me off to the real true threat in this country. Forget the rest of it, the real threat is you. People who think they're above discussing with the little subhumans liek us here why you killed millions of innocent people for fun and profit and why you plan to do a great deal more of the same.
If there were an argument, which it's painfully obvious that there is not, now from the lack of a response other than one to rididu
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Kwicko, Sickdude,
I didn't mean to suggest that it is. But American intervention is different then this kind of imperialism. Prior to Bush/Clinton, We didn't all out invade extant countries at peace to overthrow the recognized governments of those countries. Possible except of Panama, which I disagree with that decision, but was like 4,000 troops.
Prior to Clinton, near as I can tell, all large scale US military operations were efforts to defend a nation allied to us against an aggressive occupying or invading force. This is what all nations are suppose to do, help defend their allies from aggressors. The one exception is the invasion of Japan. There is a difference between defending China or the pacific against Japan and invading it. I think that Germany is a slightly different case because, a) it wasn't our idea to invade Germany, and b) Germany had not kept Germany an isolated unit but had claimed everything was Germany and moved lots of people from other countries into Germany as prisoners, so there would be no way to resolve the conflict without invading Germany.
But largely, the US policy has been one of defense of our allies, like Kuwait. Occassionally we have run small regime change operations, which we shouldn't, but those don't have millions of casualties. What we have here is something categorically different.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:Quote:
I'm stunned and amazed.
Should I feel sorry about posting that? No, of course not. Because I used the word 'bait' it's somehow a trap now? Jesus ff^&king Christ your spin machine is amazing.
I keep trying to think of words to describe it, but "Pure evil" is what comes to mind.
* oh no that would be TRAUMATIZING *
I'm speechless. To say that they're cowards, that you are a coward, doesn't even begin to cover it. These people feel their divine spin needs to be protected that they can endlessly lie and never have to try to explain to anyone why they did it, it simply boggles the mind.
You're worse then Bin Laden. Oh, is that alarming? Not just worse, Much Much worse. Bin Laden is still very wrong, but not only did he tell us why he did it, he didn't kill anywhere near as many people.
Finally, if you won't come out and explain yourselves (even the Nazis did that) and wont EVEN engage in a debate about the subject of what your agenda might be and why you might have done some of these things, then we will have to attribute motives to you. I'm sure we'll be more than fair.
Thanks, Anthony, you've tipped me off to the real true threat in this country. Forget the rest of it, the real threat is you. People who think they're above discussing with the little subhumans liek us here why you killed millions of innocent people for fun and profit and why you plan to do a great deal more of the same.
Wow. You're like... nuts. I'm a coward, I'm evil, and I'm worse than Bin Laden. All because I think your idea to 'bait' people into a discussion where they can get slammed is disingenuous.
You know what, dude? You want to talk about why the war is/isn't a good idea, you post something like, "I want to discuss with the supporters of the war why I don't share their point of view."
But geeze, you don't even know my politics and I'm a coward, I'm evil, and I'm worse than Bin Laden. Apparently, this is for the sin of thinking your debate tactics are wrong.
You're nucking futs, and anyone who reads the above should really think twice about having a discourse with you.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
(Edited to add an end-quote)
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