We need another furum for posts like this. One that I won’t feel the need to open up.
First keep your nose out of my anus, thank you very much. An unhealthy interest in others’ poop seems to be the cornerstone of unnerving peoples’ personalities around here.
Second, I haven’t been ignoring the news, so much as anticipating the contents of the articles.
[ul]
[li]“Bush Fucks Up”–at home[/li][li]“Bush Fucks Up”–abroad[/li][li]“Bush Becomes Multicultural”–fucks up for Kwanzaa.[/li][li]“Bush Cites Need For Sensitivity To The Handicapped”–Bush fucks up in Braille.[/li][/ul]
Other people have commented on NK, but this tidbit caught my eye…
Please define “work” in this context. The foreign policy issues surrounding Afghanistan and Cuba are so different in nature, the likelyhood of any measure - let alone a nuclear strike - “working” on both is pretty small.
As regards Afghanistan, nuclear strikes aren’t a cost-effective way of dealing with a power structure consisting of loosely organized groups of warlords scrambling for control of poppy fields, which is what we’re up against.
Whereas the basic challenge regarding Cuba seems to be to attempt to dismantle an anti-US government and keep the voting bloc of exile Cubans in Florida happy. While a strategic bombardment could obviously make Castro’s control of Cuba - ehm - evaporate, it would be sure to piss off the Cubans in Cuba as well as the Cubans in Florida, neatly making the issue harder to resolve in two different ways.
And what makes you think that the rest of us are interested in your opinions about these 2 people–irrelevent to the OP–supposedly think?
The actual President has caused enough actual harm. Yet all his supporters can do is ascribe absurd motives to his opponents.
<shrug> Cold War takes time, but having it go hot is rarely a good idea.
Strawmen aside (and those were big enough to constitute a fire hazard); As far as I can tell, the only person who seems to approve of mushroom clouds in this thread is the writer of the OP.
This whole post is a whoosh, right?
This. China in particular.
If Russia nuked Mexico, I doubt the US would stand idly by.
ETA: I love the way huge acts of murderous violence with untold consequences are seen as “easy fixes” - unless of course the OP is a whoosh (can’t remember if The Controvert is a neocon wingnut or not).
Well, it would make Pyongyang a little brighter.
no, my post wasn’t a whoosh. It was an attempt to say something serious through satire. (I guess it didn’t work. Sorry.)
What I meant was to poke fun at the OP for his glib,unfounded assumption that Bush will use nukes, just because he’s a lame duck, with no concern for the consequences. This is similar to the glib,unfounded assumptions of Michael Moore, C.Sheehan, and half the people at moveon.org that Bush is a total idiot, who cares nothing about what is good for the country, and would use nukes easily.
I really do believe that they believed Bush was going to launch nukes on inauguration day. I really do believe that M Moore saw himself as the only thing that could save America. I was being satirical when I say that they want to see millions of dead babies. Sorry if I was misunderstood. But I am only partly satirical when I say that I detect a sense that they are disappointed by not being welcomed as America’s saviors.(And that they would not be too upset if America suffers more defeats, just so that they can say “I told you so”, “I’m not responsible for it”. In other words, I’m blaming them for having the same attitude that the OP attributes to Bush)
It is legitimate to debate whether Bush’s policies are a good idea. But it is not legitimate to assume that Bush, Rumsfeld, Condi, and the joint chiefs of staff are all idiots, who aren’t even attempting to do what is good for America.
I get into arguments on other boards with people who cheer the idea of nuking anyone who isn’t American, apparently quite seriously. Unless someone makes it clear that they don’t actually believe what they are saying, I assume that they DO mean what they are saying; there’s no position so stupid or monstrous that you can’t find people who support it.
Well, it seems to fit the facts. If he hasn’t used nukes, it’s because he doesn’t see any advantage in doing so yet; morality is not a consideration to him, nor is the welfare of the country, or the world.
Idiots, yes-men, and monsters, all of them. It is not illegitimate to call them that when that is what they appear to be.
I say we nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be su…oh, wait.
The sad fact about North Korea is that they’re only a danger to North Koreans. It’s a mistake to think that any military intervention will help the situation at all – that’s the canard that got us into the Iraq mess. Either the situation will fix itself…or it won’t. There’s not a lot we can do about it.
Really? A president could pardon himself?
I’d heard people say both yes and no to that. It doesn’t matter; the next President, whichever party they are, will pardon him if necessary. With some speech about “national unity” and “healing”, and avoiding the phrase that describes the heart of the matter : “above the law”.
They’re not idiots, but neither are they competent; and their apparent vision of “what is good for America” is so far at odds with the interests of almost all Americans (and the wider world) except for the elite that it makes no practical difference from intentional evil. It is said you should never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence, but in this Administration we actually seem to be dealing with both in synergy.
That said, I do not believe W is evil or stupid enough to order a nuclear strike on Pyongyang, Tehran, or anywhere else.
Der Trihs, you have a rather unrefined notion of people’s motivations.
Actually, I think NK matters to the 200,000 prisoners of North Korean labour camps where a five year term is close to a death sentence, or the two million North Korean civilians who starved to death in the 1990’s and those who will starve if North Korea has another famine under Kim Jong-Il’s regime, or the sex slaves, or to Christians in North Korea who face execution in a variety of nasty ways, or patients at North Korean hospitals who aren’t given anesthetics, or the families on whom chemical weapons are tested, or… you get the point. North Korea will probably get ignored as much as possible, simply because nobody wants Seoul to get nuked, but it’s an important place, and the problems there must be dealt with.
ETA: You can see why nuking North Korea would be counterproductive: we’d kill everybody for whom the North Korean government actually matters!
Actually, I had to do some research on North Korea last year, and I was quite shocked at how openly various members of the US government hate Kim Jong-Il and his regime. I can’t find a cite offhand, but I recall quotes from Bush and Sen. Brownback, saying “I hate the regime” in about that many words. As much as the Axis of Evil was a ridiculous notion that damaged America’s foreign relations for the next several years, I suspect that North Korea’s inclusion on that Axis had much more to do with our government’s hatred for their government than any particular political considerations.
Why “must”? That’s the kind of thinking that got us into Iraq (or at least helped the Admin sell us the war). There are tyrannies all over the world; we cannot destroy them all and we should not try.
I disagree, partly. I doubt we can destroy them all barring some psychotic scorched earth nuke-em-all strategy, but we should try to do so. The mistake is trying to do so at all costs, and generally with brute force. There’s no point in replacing a tyranny with one as bad or worse, or with chaos and destruction leading to a new tyrant or semipermanent anarchy. And direct military force will often hurt and kill more people than it saves.
Fundamental human rights? Responsibilities of all nations? UN? Anything ring a bell here? Yeah, we have a responsibility to act, or at least to give a shit, if for no other reason then because we are humans. I didn’t say we “must” invade, simply that we “must” respond.
BTW, I think Iraq had more to do with some fake WMD’s and a generally inability of our administration and of the United Nations to deal with the serious issues of human rights in an effective manner than with an American response to atrocities gone wrong. Of course, you already knew that; at least, I’ve never heard you argue the notion that the US invaded human rights.
BTW, the brutality of the North Korean regime is currently far beyond that of any other regime. There are “tyrannies all over the world”, but it’s disingenuous at best to compare them to North Korea. Also note that most brutal regimes around the world do have to face various actions from the international community – the US has made a serious effort to improve the situation in Darfur, for example.
Leaving aside the fact that Bush couldn’t simply order such a strike…have you ever actually looked at a map?
:dubious:
Sure…we could simply nuke every country we don’t like (we going to move our troops out of Afghanistan BEFORE we nuke the place btw? I’m guessing not…Evil Bush™ would probably like it better that way).
I’m sure South Korea, China and Japan would all just laugh lightly and hand wave it all away. Well, in the fantasy world where Bush COULD simply order a nuclear strike by fiat of course. In the real universe the rest of us (well, SOME of the rest of us) have to occupy things are a tad different.
-XT