Chris Campbell wrote:
Well, yes. But where do you suppose China would get one, given the
democracy movement and the entrenched Communist party (which is very
much against the idea of regents and such)?
No idea. You never really see that type of crazy coming.
Exactly. Divine reasoning might work with radical Muslims, but it
won't work with the bulk of the Muslim population and it won't work at
all with Americans or Chinese.
Sure it would. We've got enough retards in this country who think Bush
is right simply because he's god-fearun'. Fundamentalist Christians are
as afraid of the modern world and of loss of their influence as the
radical Muslims are. Whether they have the balls to do something about
it or not is another matter.
Indians are right out. So it's certainly plausible for terror cells,
but not so much for superpower conflict.
Pride might work, but good luck getting the bulk of America to go to
war as a point of pride. The current administration's tried that
approach with Iraq, and it just isn't working.
Legitimate pride could do it. I mean if, say, Iran or Russia said they
were tired of us and threatened us. Or all our allies. And we were the
only ones who could stop that from happening. Hell, I'd sign up for
that if I was young enough.
No it wasn't. It was a dinky little Middle-East conflict, nothing
more. We're talking superpowers here, don't forget.
We had the U.S. and the U.K. and the French (and others) on one side vs.
the 4th largest army in the world (at the time). No, Iraq was no
superpower but you were talking about there be no good reasons to go to
war in any large scale sense, right? That was a large scale war. It
was a "world" war in the basic sense of having many major countries in
the world participating. I mean WWII was a world war even though it
never hit this continent (America).
I can't see it. The hawks have failed miserably in the U.S., and China
has never had the interest. I guess something could happen in Russia,
but I think it's more likely the EU will gobble up former Russian
states before we see a resurgence of something like the Soviet empire.
Ya, and a lot of those former Soviet countries want in on our way of
life. I could see Russia threatening something if the right psycho got
into power, trying to stop all those former Soviet states from leaving.
Low low odds, of course.
And you say "but we don't know what will happen!" And that's true, but
what we do know is that technological innovation is making war less
and less palatable even for the greedy. The demagogues who used to run
countries and start wars are now running corporations, and *that's*
the battlefield of the future -- boardrooms and courtrooms. Tanks and
such are nothing more than anachronisms.
We'll still have terrorists and police conflicts and the like, but
that's it. Too much money to be lost in anything bigger than that.
Not if you have countries like Iran and Syria and the like choosing to
side with the terrorists in principle vs. having us tell them how to act
(Pride). Or a runaway genocide somewhere in Africa that must be stopped
and politics won't stop it, sanctions won't stop it, and a few
helicopter loads of Rangers won't stop it. Then you have a "we're
serious" invasion roll in, slap the shit out of them, reshuffle the deck
of assholes running that country. Maybe successful. But the invasion
would be sanctioned by the U.N. and it would hurt. No simple police action.
But always for a reason. If you look at WWI and WWII you can see the
warning signs all over the place. Same with every European conflict
before that, and the U.S. Civil War, and on and on and on. None of it
was a particular surprise to people at the time. But now...the signs
just aren't there. We have small stuff, sure, but that's it. The big
superpowers are all too buddy-buddy on the global stage to really
start a fight.
True. Even when they act mad nobody buys it. Now. You just need one
or two leadership changes, though.
Tech is the reason for this. Now the leaders of countries can
communicate instantly, and they do. Misunderstandings are resolved
before they can spiral out of control, the media tells everyone
everything that's going on as soon as it happens (which makes
obfuscation difficult), and governments are so convoluted that madmen
can't call the shots just because they're in power (Bush tried that,
but it didn't work out for him). End result? There's so much inertia
to overcome when it comes to doing anything significant that you have
to really, really want it before you can make it happen. And we don't.
Simple as that.
True. This whole terrorist/new nuclear players deal is the wild card,
though. Too early to tell. All you need is Israel pissed off enough to
make its move and the retaliation of the Middle East to force our hand.
And look what's happened; the international community is royally
pissed at us, the Republicans have fallen apart, the public put
Democrats in Congress even though they still don't have a recognizable
party platform, and Bush is treading water until next year's
elections, trying desperately to find something positive to mark his
presidency. No one's even suggested the notion of invading Iran,
despite the fact that it's more of a threat to us now than Iraq ever
was. It just isn't worth the trouble.
Oh, many people have suggested invading Iran. It isn't worth the
trouble *now* because it's physically impossible. Thanks to military
downsizing we can't really fight a two-front war like the Pentagon has
always insisted we be able to do (for good reason). So we have almost
all our assets committed to Iraq (for no good reason, all our fault) so
if Iran does something very threatening and stupid, stupid enough for us
to react to, we will have to either ignore it and let them get away with
it or pull out of Iraq to deal with it. Lose-lose, that one. Thanks, Bush.
And that's all due to one pissant little country in the Middle-East.
Can you imagine what would happen if a future administration tried to
manufacture a war with China? The lot of them would be Impeached
quicker than you can spit.
Agreed. And Iraq may have made that possible. To which I guess that's
one small positive from this whole debacle.
Africa's just screwed. The Middle East will be a problem for ages, but
I don't think it will escalate simply because everyone there is so
darn good at burning bridges. Israel has no friends outside of the
U.S., and no one outside of the region is willing to stick their necks
out no matter how bad the violence gets (and it's gotten pretty grim;
if we haven't gotten involved by now, we probably won't unless we have
ironclad proof someone has a nuke in play).
All true. I have a couple friends I work with from South Africa and the
stories they tell me, of what their country used to be like compared to
now and how bad Africa has gotten in general, just chills my blood.
Alfred.
--
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"Success is not no violence."
- President Bush, on trying to find a way to be able to claim future
progress and success in Iraq without having to achieve the
complete victory he used to state as the only acceptable goal.
Alfred Urrutia - Digital Domain - 310.314.2800 x2267 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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