So what are you saying exactly? That when there’s a regime like Saddam Hussein’s in power we should oppose it? That America should have a policy of regime change in places like Iraq? I don’t seem to recall you making that point in 2003.
Or is this an example of the principle that whatever America does, it’s 100% wrong? And if America did the exact opposite, that would also be 100% wrong.
We support them when we think they are useful. The form of government is none of our business. We can complain about mistreated citizens in other countries when we quit mistreating ours.
There are about 60 dictatorship, monarchy type governments in the world. Do you have a list in order of the ones we should invade in the pretense of making them better. So far we go after the ones with resources we want.
I was never for going into Iraq. I am as close to a pacifist as you can find. I was creamed by board members because the war wagons were rolling. Your memory is faulty.
I have not supported a military action since WW2. I was too young to have an opinion then. I have been against every invasion we have launched since I was old enough to follow. I was a war protester in Vietnam.
All I’m saying is offering a counterpoint to the argument a country like China is very very bad because they help keep regimes like the Kims in power. Well, so do we in other corners of the world. It can’t be evil of them and OK of us, can it ? If the US systematically opposed, boycotted or refused to have anything to do with countries holding downright sketchy human rights records, then the exceptionalist argument would hold water. But you don’t, so it doesn’t. That’s all.
It’s neither right nor wrong - as I said before, it’s just how every nation carries it. What’s “wrong” is pretending you’re better than all the rest. You’re not simply the best (naa naaa naaa naaa…), and the constant chest thumping gets grating.
No we fought limited wars there because in Korea and Vietnam we didn’t want the war to expand and in Afghanistan and Iraq because we are nation building.
While the Iraqi government can hold its own as seen in the last two years, the US is not leaving Iraq: we will have military bases there like other countries we liberated such as Korea, Germany, and Japan.
The US has been more selfless. It has given tremendous amounts of aid and helped many people around the world. To say there is no moral difference between China and the US is to say you have no real sense of morality.
I mean the well known fact that a majority of black families do not have two parents and that is why many of our statistics regards to say education for example are being dragged down.
Much like how we supported Stalin against Hitler. Sometimes you need to support the lesser evil.
Because we genocide our citizens. :rolleyes: And does that mean as the great sensei Pat Buchanan argues we shouldn’t have complained about Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot.
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Even Korea which was an unprovoked imperialist war by the Stalinistsz/
The decline of the United States would be welcomed by the Vietnamese, and by other countries we bullied in the past. I would like for it to become obvious that the Social Democracies of Western Europe and the British Commonwealth have higher standards of living than the United States. This would make the dominance of the Republican Party and the corporate elite less assured.
Nevertheless, the American nation is dangerous and frightening. If the standard of living for most Americans keeps going down, and if other countries, especially in the third world, challenge our will with impunity I can imagine the rise of a man on horseback who would promise to restore our past glory.
I can also imagine the breakup of the United States into smaller units. If the United States falls, it will not fall peacefully the way the Soviet Union did. :eek:
The USA will not break up.
Nothing I’ve said qualifies as chest thumping. I’ve repeatedly acknowledged that the United States has its faults. The problem is that some posters refuse to admit the United States also has its virtues.
If China wants to rise to a dominant position like the one the United States occupied for so much time, some fundamental things will probably have to change. The massive economic boon they’ve been experiencing has been steadily widening the gap between the very rich and the dirt poor, and it’s not hard to guess which group outnumbers the other. Something’s got to give.
I’m not sure I’m in favor of any nation being “number 1,” a characterization which seems antiquated and anyway overly simplistic. The rich get richer in China but corruption runs unimaginably deep there and at nearly every level, which to my mind says that they’re building a house of cards, and pissing a lot of people off in the process. I thought the whole globalization thing was supposed to encourage cooperation, and maybe a shift in this hierarchical paradigm. Could be wrong though, I’m no expert in these matters. I just think that, the way things are going, it seems less likely that China is going to dominate the world but more likely that they’re going to start a fight, or sow the seeds of another revolution.
Or maybe I’m just being romantic. I’m no good at making predictions.
I wanna make a point as an aside, however, that even though I am an American, I object to people talking about how “we” or “they” did something, as in “the countries we’ve been bullying.” I never took part in any bullying, and I won’t be held responsible for stupid shit the leaders of my country has done. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but you wouldn’t believe how many Canadians love to rail at me about all the wars I started.
Boy, if you think foreign aid is selfless and not just another racket, I’ve got a nice bridge to sell to you.
A lot of people are taking rankings too seriously. If you have more power, you have larger spheres of influence. If you are #1, your sphere is the biggest. But that does not mean the end of the world on the day someone slightly surpasses you. For instance, the current options for the US regarding Tibet or Georgia are either a nuclear holocaust or accepting the current status quo.
So the US does not really have a World dominance, never had and never will. I seriously doubt China will either. The idea that being #1 gives you an automatic say in the affirs of, say, Cuba, is a dangerous delusion.
And what would you have had Obama cut, Social Security or Medicare/Medicade?
Of all the programs to cut, the space program generated the least whinging by both sides.
I would rather cut the tax reductions for the rich and gotten back the space program. Maybe even figured out some way to restrict outsourcing … make companies with business interests in the US maintain a percentage of their customer service functions actually in the US? [I have had more issues with CS call centers outsourced from the language barrier POV than not. Sorry, US and India are 2 cultures separated by a common language with a lack of common cultural and slang references :(]
Bush is to blame for the current problems at NASA, rather than Obama. Obama actually increased the NASA budget. The problem was that Bush decided to say “MARS, BITCHES!” as a PR move, but never gave NASA the funding. Everyone knew from the start that what they were mandated to do would never come to fruition, yet they were still required to work on it. Years and billions were wasted funding projects that everyone knew would never actually launch.
Obama came into a difficult situation, with a half-assed Constellation program that independent auditors deemed impractical and salvaging it would’ve required significant changes and big budget increases. The Mars thing was never going to happen.
So NASA has a bigger budget and it’s going into more practical scientific applications - which is better for the immediate gain of human knowledge, but worse in terms of inspirational value. Hopefully some of the private sector designs turn out to be practical.
Stalin killed more people than Hitler.
Uh, I’m pretty sure the Vietnamese would be the last people on Earth who will appreciate China’s growing dominance – the military part of this dominance, at least.
I agree entirely with your larger point…it’s just that you picked a bad example in this one case.
Nice post.
“Africans are asking whether China is making their lunch or eating it”
“Once feted as saviours in much of Africa, Chinese have come to be viewed with mixed feelings—especially in smaller countries where China’s weight is felt all the more. To blame, in part, are poor business practices imported alongside goods and services. Chinese construction work can be slapdash and buildings erected by mainland firms have on occasion fallen apart. A hospital in Luanda, the capital of Angola, was opened with great fanfare but cracks appeared in the walls within a few months and it soon closed. The Chinese-built road from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, to Chirundu, 130km (81 miles) to the south-east, was quickly swept away by rains.”
“Local sensitivities are routinely ignored at home, and so abroad. Sinopec, an oil firm, has explored in a Gabonese national park. Another state oil company has created lakes of spilled crude in Sudan.”
“At Chinese-run mines in Zambia’s copper belt they must work for two years before they get safety helmets. Ventilation below ground is poor and deadly accidents occur almost daily. To avoid censure, Chinese managers bribe union bosses and take them on “study tours” to massage parlours in China. Obstructionist shop stewards are sacked and workers who assemble in groups are violently dispersed. When cases end up in court, witnesses are intimidated.”
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Even Korea which was an unprovoked imperialist war by the Stalinistsz/
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Vietnam was a limited war? That’s crazy. We had 60,000 deaths.
Out vaunted military leaders kept claiming from day one that we just needed a few more troops. Then a few more. Then expanding the war. Then bombing would win. Well how about more bombing? We stayed there at the urging of the military who kept insisting the next escalation was going to win. We bought it over and over. Then after we had to run, the military could never admit they screwed the whole thing up. There had to be some other reason a backwards military could defeat the best army in the world.
After it has been repeated a few times. I would hope we learned a lesson. But people
like you will never get it. The military can never admit it. we have the best war machine ever put together and can not beat a third world country. it can’t be the troops or the generals fault. It must be those hippies.
Are there other facts you consider crazy, too? Vietnam was never an all-out war for the U.S. We would try to control things by taking pieces of real estate then stopping. We could have leveled the country, but we fought with great restraint. It wasn’t the military who failed, it was the people back in Washington, sending soldiers over there with a leash on them.
Uh, the backwards military you referred to was willing to do what it took to win? They were willing to kill whoever needed to be killed and then some. You weren’t even with how high the body count was. It wasn’t the military, it was the politicians who handcuffed them.
The military made an assessment of what they needed to win. They got it. When it was not enough, they asked for more and got more and more, year after year. The generals kept saying this will do it. Then when it failed they wanted more. They got it and the results stayed the same. This kept up for a decade.
The military was not willing to admit they failed, so they pretended their hands were tied. Much of what they were allowed to do was kept secret. It was never enough.
After the war, they again would not admit they screwed it up. They told the same BS story over and over until they convinced a lot of people. But we failed because they failed. They screwed it up miserably.