Yeah, invade China. I won't take issue with your larger comment as I consider it to be flamebait.
But I want you to know that the U.S. runs an annual trade deficit with the Chinese of nigh, 100 billion US every year now. Seems to me that the Chinese are the ones who would have a problem selling the U.S. the fruits of their cheapo labor market. Read all about it here.
Without the opposition of the USA, the USSR would not have failed. The nuclear arms race drained the Soviet economy. That is what killed the USSR. I can't think of another avenue other than war that would have accomplished this. It also illustrated the incompetance of the Russian government ala the Chernobyl disaster.
By the way, did you know that Britain and USA supported the fascists that were the precursor to the Nazis?
In the US, this was a direct result of US policies of isolationism. In any case, if Europe had listened to President Wilson's Fourteen Points, WWII may not have happenned. The treaty of Versailles and all the burdens placed upon the German people were in direct contravention to the principles outlined by Wilson.
The NNPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) will be useless pretty soon.
The NNPT has been very effective and will continue to be only if someone is willing to back up the treaty. South Africa and Brazil/Argentina dismantled its nuclear weapons program in order to comply with the treaty. North Korea has been in repeated violation of the treaty and the US has worked with others in the region to address that issue. Japan will not develop nuclear weapons. It's constitution doesn't even allow troop deployment overseas, not to mention the fact that the US would launch a nuclear strike against anyone in the region who launched a nuclear strike against Japan. Iran appears to be close to violation of the treaty. The only other countries to develop nuclear weapons are non-signatories to the treaty (Israel, Pakistan, & India). Iran (maybe) but North Korea definitely has been in violation of the treaty for years. If the treaty is not enforced then it is worthless. Who else is going to do it besides the US? France? Please, not with the Gaullists in power. The UN? You mean the same UN that stood by in Rwanda (probably within earshot in cases) while the biggest genocide (the slaughter of the Tutsis) to occur since the Holocaust took place? The UN that went into Rwanda to stop the fighting and accomplished absolutely nothing! I will never support the UN ever again for what they did in Rwanda. Bunch of bureaucrats is all they are.
How long is Isreal going to rely on USA for? Isreal needs to develop relations with other countries or else it is not going to survive... I guess if oppressing the Palestinians is a good thing, then USA is doing something good.:(
The USA had damn well better defend Israel. It's our responsibility. Along with Europe, we're the ones that created that stupid state to begin with. It's our mess and we better fix it. Not to mention the fact that anti-semitism is alive and well my friend. Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians.... heck, middle eastern muslims in general would laugh all the way to the bank if they could hack off all the heads of the Jews in Israel. This is of course, an unfair generalization to many, but it's true that a large percentage of the region's population would asceed to the slaughter of the Israelites.
If anything, you may be liberatarian-right or liberatarian-conservative.
Oh please. I am a constitutional constructionist. I guess that's conservative from a historical standpoint but the US federal government has taken far too many powers from the states. Powers that are not enumerated in the Constitution. The Cold War isn't what I think of when I think about a bogus war. In my mind that is reserved for the Drug War. US citizens ought to be able to do what they like as long as they are not hurting anyone. Gun control is also something I'm averse to. Assualt weapons are fine to get rid of. Anything else is contrary to the second amendment. I support the right to choose. I believe the UN represents an unelected world governing body. I think corporate greed is out of control. The executives of Enron and their ilk ought to face the death penalty. Interestingly en
Do you really think the threat of a nuclear war is less? I personally think it is higher now. Anyway, this isn't relevant.
Irrelevant? The Cold War is precisely the reason the US became involved in so many countries over the last 50 years. The spectre of nuclear holocaust was the Enemy period. The defeat of the USSR has removed the threat of mutually assurred destruction which would have been a global calamity. Civilization as we know it would have ceased to exist. With the Start Treaties the US and Russia have effectively put an end to the nuclear arms race and seriously degraded the threat of nuclear proliferation. It is, and has been since the Cuban Missle Crisis of '62 been the primary motivator of US foreign policies throughout the world. I cannot comprehend how you think the world is a more dangerous place than it was before the fall of the Soviet Union. There are serious problems to be sure, but none as serious as the threat to world peace posed by the Cold War.
Did U.S. isolationism after World War I lead to World War II? I have never heard anyone say that before.
Do a google search. It's all over the web. Or go here for a factual account of US policies in the intervening years between WWI and WWII. Or investigate the death of the League of Nations and the role it played in the development of WWII. This econopolitical battle you are talking about is secondary to the importance of feelings of disillusionment and hopelessness engendered in the aftermath of WWI. That is crux of the matter.
Another issue with your post is you seem to think it's easy peasy to get rid of nuclear weapons. I can't even respond to that. It's taken decades of negotiations with the Russians to back down to our current levels of armament. You can't just throw a switch and nuclear weapons disappear.
BEGIN RANT The economy of the USA in the late 1800s being the world leader had more to do with slavery (free labor) and the slaughter of my people (Native Americans) aka Western Expansion than anything else. Please do not compare genocide and slavery to imperialism. Genocide and slavery are clearly worse. END RANT
As far as that list of countries I gave you, military aid is certainly a big deal. End military aid to Columbia and Pakistan and there would likely be chaos in both countries. China via Tiawan gets a ton of American investment, not to mention Most Favored Nation trading status and huge surplus of trade with us. Remove that and China is reeling. Russia gets so much governmental assistance from the US government and US companies that it is ridiculous. Witness the recent crisis regarding the ruble with the detention of the wealthiest man in russia. The stock market tanked the ruble the next day. The announcement of suspension of trade with russia would ruin their conversion to capitalism and revive the Cold War. (See previously for my emphasis of the importance of it's end.) North Korea is already starving millions of it's own people under US and international sanctions. Iran, well, I guess I can see your point there. But they get a ton of money from russia and if russia were economically isolated, iran would feel it big time. Israel would be isolated from their biggest protector. All I'm trying to do is illustrate the effects that a policy of US isolationism would have on the world. Strict isolationism. It's a ridiculous policy to have in the era of global trade and communication. The USA has very little choice but to be a major player on the world stage. Personally, I don't believe we should have gone into Iraq. I also believe Bush is a moron. I think that Chirac is a moron. I think Shroeder is a moron. I like Tony Blair. Ariel Sharon is a moron. Yasser Arafat is a terrorist. The Ayatollah Khameni and Kim Jong Il are morons too. I am not a leftist, centrist, or right-wing. I am an individual and a libertarian first and foremost. And I can't think of anything else to say right now.
Incidentally, this is a very intelligent conversation, hadn't had one of these before on Slashdot. Anyway back to the conversation....
Check that story. You never really gave it back. USA still has troops there (if I'm not mistaken) and Panama has little control over the actual canal.
I know for a fact that there are no longer any US military installations in Panama. There may still be troops there. This story:
CNN Article About Canal Handover indicates that there are no longer any troops there. I think it likely that there are a few troops in country but not enough to justify any charges of imperialist goals in Panama. As for why we invaded Panama, I don't know enough of the history of our involvement there to really say. I do find it quite unlikely that we dispatched oh 24,000 troops or so there just to secure General Noreiga.
If you adhere to that principle, you don't value life! It is ok as long as you accomplish the mission right? What would the countless victims say? Can you really go up to the dead in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, etc and say that they deserved to die? What if you were one of them? Would you be content with the outcome? You sound just like the Stalinists you fought: tragic but it was the greater good. When did utilitarianism support tragedies?
To quote John Stuart Mill from Utilitarianism (1863), "The creed which accepts, as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as the tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Now, I believe that principle effect of the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War was that the world is now a few feet father away from the brink of global thermonuclear war. It is tragic that many lives were lost in the process but it was for the greater good. Utilitarians don't support tragedy, they support the greatest good for the greatest number of people. You can even make utilitarian arguments for the rightness of capital punishment. I don't swing that way but the point is that utilitarianism is not a very objective standard and I guess that's why you took some shots at me in the above blockquote.
It appears that you are in favor of isolationist (your word non-interventionist) governmental principles. Out debate then appears to be heading to one of history's greatest questions. Did U.S. isolationism after World War I lead to World War II? This is a hard question. Personally, I tend to favor a more isolationist government than the one we're currently stuck with. However, I find it hard to ignore the many cogent arguments that I have read that have pointed towards US isolationist policies as being a major cause of World War II. It makes me wonder what would happen today if we pulled out of all the places we are currently in. Would World War III be just around the corner?
I guess, in the context of the aftermath of previous incarnations of US isolationist policies, I don't understand the charge that the US is an imperialist nation. It seems to me that the issue is much more complicated than that. If I had my way, the US would not be involved with many of the countries we are involved with throughout the world. Slap economic sanctions on just about everybody (Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Columbia, Iran, North Korea and the rest) and turn our backs on them. But where would we be? None of these countries deserves that. Their economies would be ruined and many people would die. For me, it all comes back to a Bart Simpson quote, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't."
Well if you consider the UN charter a treaty that the US has agreed to, then you look at that charter, especially where it says "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members" and "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
And I think this is exactly why the USA has such an enormous problem paying UN dues and why it was only when facing the loss of it's vote in the General Assembly that it started to pay some of what it owes. Language such as this is stupid and Americans will not be bound by the decisions of some world government. For the people and by the people, baby. And that's the way it's gonna stay. Or there would be a civil war unrivaled in the history of the world. Think about the consequences of pushing the USA towards that. I don't think the reprecussions would only be felt here.
Ok, so you are obviously misinformed. I sort of agree with your belief in the dominance of hedonistic impulses in foreign affairs. But I think you are entirely ignorant of the continum that spans hedonism and utilitarian philosophy. I would argue that while Germany, France and Canada and the rest of the socialists are far more utilitarian than the USofA, I think we are closer in our beliefs than we the media would make it appear. First a bit of history, I am unaware of another more prominent piece of hedonistic governmental literature than the USA Declaration of Independence. It trumpets the "right to the pursuit of happiness" for crying out loud. No other governmental historical document is so clearly hedonistic and since one of the tenets of the strength of our republic is adherence to the wishes of the founding fathers of this country, it seems quite right that the USA is clearly a more individualistic and hedonistic society than the rest of the socialist majority of the world.
Look, the most important war to ever be fought since WWII, was the Cold War. American forces provided protection to the rest of Europe for decades following the collapse of Nazi Germany. American strength allowed these countries to rebuild in the aftermath of that horrible period. And with the support of NATO, America eventually forced the USSR to capitulate which is, to my mind, the most successful foreign policy endeavor since the 1940s. If the price for the defeat of the USSR was the creation of Saddam and the rest of those petty criminals, then I say it is tragic but "was for the greater good" of all our allies. Thus, evincing my point that the USA is not the hedonistic country you would like to paint it as and is far more utilitarian than you would like to admit.
BTW, Britian is still a major military power. As evidenced by their smashing of Argentina in the Falklands war of the early 80s. And America is so far from being defenseless and imperialistic that it is ridiculous. America's ground forces may be spread around the globe but it matters not. American military power is rooted in their dominance of the sea and air (and space). Those forces are much more mobile than our monolithic Army that you seem to think is so important. And second of all, US forces are where they are (all over the world) because they had to be to check the russian menace, iraqi aggresion in the 90s yada yada yada. If we're so imperialistic why did we just relinquish control of the Panama Canal to Panama? Cause we're shizophrenic? I think not. When was the last time a state was admittedly to the Union? That's right, 1959. We're just gobbling territories up all over the place, aren't we?
The actions of Bush and his cohorts in the Whitehouse are absolutely disgusting.
Actually, the most disgusting actions are those committed by these terrorists. Bush may be a moron but locking these guys up and throwing away the key is sheer brilliance. BTW, in order to be governed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights you must be considered HUMAN. Humanity is not, I repeat not, a biological quality conferred to all members of the species homo sapiens. Humanity is a moral judgement that every single one of use must make . You can evaluate the "human quality" 7 million ways till Sunday but you will NEVER find any absolute answers and as such, the "Universal" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ought to be removed.
Information networks are designed to be fault-tolerant (famously but erroneously attributed to a desire to withstand nuclear attacks)
That is incorrect. Paul Baran's work at RAND in the early 1960s led to the invention of "packet switching" networks because of the need to ensure that the military's command and control systems could survive a nuclear attack or other catastrophe. Donald Davies also came up with the idea of packet switched networks independantly in england at about the same time.
As a member of the (arguably) most oppressed people on earth (Native Americans), please do your self a favor and drop the sanctimonious bullcrap. I don't act like this even though my heritage might suggest that I be more self-righteous about my people. Give it up already!
Egyptians never ruled the earth, the closest anyone ever came to that was Alexander the Great (a Greek and student of Aristotle who was a student of Plato). And the greatest (as in most thought provoking) historical artifact is not the pyramids, it is the Great Wall, created by the Chinese.
*Sheesh* Please get off your soap box already.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, invade China. I won't take issue with your larger comment as I consider it to be flamebait.
But I want you to know that the U.S. runs an annual trade deficit with the Chinese of nigh, 100 billion US every year now. Seems to me that the Chinese are the ones who would have a problem selling the U.S. the fruits of their cheapo labor market. Read all about it here.
USA's actions had very little impact on USSR.
:(
.... heck, middle eastern muslims in general would laugh all the way to the bank if they could hack off all the heads of the Jews in Israel. This is of course, an unfair generalization to many, but it's true that a large percentage of the region's population would asceed to the slaughter of the Israelites.
Without the opposition of the USA, the USSR would not have failed. The nuclear arms race drained the Soviet economy. That is what killed the USSR. I can't think of another avenue other than war that would have accomplished this. It also illustrated the incompetance of the Russian government ala the Chernobyl disaster.
By the way, did you know that Britain and USA supported the fascists that were the precursor to the Nazis?
In the US, this was a direct result of US policies of isolationism. In any case, if Europe had listened to President Wilson's Fourteen Points, WWII may not have happenned. The treaty of Versailles and all the burdens placed upon the German people were in direct contravention to the principles outlined by Wilson.
The NNPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) will be useless pretty soon.
The NNPT has been very effective and will continue to be only if someone is willing to back up the treaty. South Africa and Brazil/Argentina dismantled its nuclear weapons program in order to comply with the treaty. North Korea has been in repeated violation of the treaty and the US has worked with others in the region to address that issue. Japan will not develop nuclear weapons. It's constitution doesn't even allow troop deployment overseas, not to mention the fact that the US would launch a nuclear strike against anyone in the region who launched a nuclear strike against Japan. Iran appears to be close to violation of the treaty. The only other countries to develop nuclear weapons are non-signatories to the treaty (Israel, Pakistan, & India). Iran (maybe) but North Korea definitely has been in violation of the treaty for years. If the treaty is not enforced then it is worthless. Who else is going to do it besides the US? France? Please, not with the Gaullists in power. The UN? You mean the same UN that stood by in Rwanda (probably within earshot in cases) while the biggest genocide (the slaughter of the Tutsis) to occur since the Holocaust took place? The UN that went into Rwanda to stop the fighting and accomplished absolutely nothing! I will never support the UN ever again for what they did in Rwanda. Bunch of bureaucrats is all they are.
How long is Isreal going to rely on USA for? Isreal needs to develop relations with other countries or else it is not going to survive... I guess if oppressing the Palestinians is a good thing, then USA is doing something good.
The USA had damn well better defend Israel. It's our responsibility. Along with Europe, we're the ones that created that stupid state to begin with. It's our mess and we better fix it. Not to mention the fact that anti-semitism is alive and well my friend. Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians
If anything, you may be liberatarian-right or liberatarian-conservative.
Oh please. I am a constitutional constructionist. I guess that's conservative from a historical standpoint but the US federal government has taken far too many powers from the states. Powers that are not enumerated in the Constitution. The Cold War isn't what I think of when I think about a bogus war. In my mind that is reserved for the Drug War. US citizens ought to be able to do what they like as long as they are not hurting anyone. Gun control is also something I'm averse to. Assualt weapons are fine to get rid of. Anything else is contrary to the second amendment. I support the right to choose. I believe the UN represents an unelected world governing body. I think corporate greed is out of control. The executives of Enron and their ilk ought to face the death penalty. Interestingly en
Do you really think the threat of a nuclear war is less? I personally think it is higher now. Anyway, this isn't relevant.
Irrelevant? The Cold War is precisely the reason the US became involved in so many countries over the last 50 years. The spectre of nuclear holocaust was the Enemy period. The defeat of the USSR has removed the threat of mutually assurred destruction which would have been a global calamity. Civilization as we know it would have ceased to exist. With the Start Treaties the US and Russia have effectively put an end to the nuclear arms race and seriously degraded the threat of nuclear proliferation. It is, and has been since the Cuban Missle Crisis of '62 been the primary motivator of US foreign policies throughout the world. I cannot comprehend how you think the world is a more dangerous place than it was before the fall of the Soviet Union. There are serious problems to be sure, but none as serious as the threat to world peace posed by the Cold War.
Did U.S. isolationism after World War I lead to World War II? I have never heard anyone say that before.
Do a google search. It's all over the web. Or go here for a factual account of US policies in the intervening years between WWI and WWII. Or investigate the death of the League of Nations and the role it played in the development of WWII. This econopolitical battle you are talking about is secondary to the importance of feelings of disillusionment and hopelessness engendered in the aftermath of WWI. That is crux of the matter.
Another issue with your post is you seem to think it's easy peasy to get rid of nuclear weapons. I can't even respond to that. It's taken decades of negotiations with the Russians to back down to our current levels of armament. You can't just throw a switch and nuclear weapons disappear.
BEGIN RANT The economy of the USA in the late 1800s being the world leader had more to do with slavery (free labor) and the slaughter of my people (Native Americans) aka Western Expansion than anything else. Please do not compare genocide and slavery to imperialism. Genocide and slavery are clearly worse. END RANT
As far as that list of countries I gave you, military aid is certainly a big deal. End military aid to Columbia and Pakistan and there would likely be chaos in both countries. China via Tiawan gets a ton of American investment, not to mention Most Favored Nation trading status and huge surplus of trade with us. Remove that and China is reeling. Russia gets so much governmental assistance from the US government and US companies that it is ridiculous. Witness the recent crisis regarding the ruble with the detention of the wealthiest man in russia. The stock market tanked the ruble the next day. The announcement of suspension of trade with russia would ruin their conversion to capitalism and revive the Cold War. (See previously for my emphasis of the importance of it's end.) North Korea is already starving millions of it's own people under US and international sanctions. Iran, well, I guess I can see your point there. But they get a ton of money from russia and if russia were economically isolated, iran would feel it big time. Israel would be isolated from their biggest protector. All I'm trying to do is illustrate the effects that a policy of US isolationism would have on the world. Strict isolationism. It's a ridiculous policy to have in the era of global trade and communication. The USA has very little choice but to be a major player on the world stage. Personally, I don't believe we should have gone into Iraq. I also believe Bush is a moron. I think that Chirac is a moron. I think Shroeder is a moron. I like Tony Blair. Ariel Sharon is a moron. Yasser Arafat is a terrorist. The Ayatollah Khameni and Kim Jong Il are morons too. I am not a leftist, centrist, or right-wing. I am an individual and a libertarian first and foremost. And I can't think of anything else to say right now.
Incidentally, this is a very intelligent conversation, hadn't had one of these before on Slashdot. Anyway back to the conversation ....
Check that story. You never really gave it back. USA still has troops there (if I'm not mistaken) and Panama has little control over the actual canal.
I know for a fact that there are no longer any US military installations in Panama. There may still be troops there. This story: CNN Article About Canal Handover indicates that there are no longer any troops there. I think it likely that there are a few troops in country but not enough to justify any charges of imperialist goals in Panama. As for why we invaded Panama, I don't know enough of the history of our involvement there to really say. I do find it quite unlikely that we dispatched oh 24,000 troops or so there just to secure General Noreiga.
If you adhere to that principle, you don't value life! It is ok as long as you accomplish the mission right? What would the countless victims say? Can you really go up to the dead in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, etc and say that they deserved to die? What if you were one of them? Would you be content with the outcome? You sound just like the Stalinists you fought: tragic but it was the greater good. When did utilitarianism support tragedies?
To quote John Stuart Mill from Utilitarianism (1863), "The creed which accepts, as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as the tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Now, I believe that principle effect of the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War was that the world is now a few feet father away from the brink of global thermonuclear war. It is tragic that many lives were lost in the process but it was for the greater good. Utilitarians don't support tragedy, they support the greatest good for the greatest number of people. You can even make utilitarian arguments for the rightness of capital punishment. I don't swing that way but the point is that utilitarianism is not a very objective standard and I guess that's why you took some shots at me in the above blockquote.
It appears that you are in favor of isolationist (your word non-interventionist) governmental principles. Out debate then appears to be heading to one of history's greatest questions. Did U.S. isolationism after World War I lead to World War II? This is a hard question. Personally, I tend to favor a more isolationist government than the one we're currently stuck with. However, I find it hard to ignore the many cogent arguments that I have read that have pointed towards US isolationist policies as being a major cause of World War II. It makes me wonder what would happen today if we pulled out of all the places we are currently in. Would World War III be just around the corner?
I guess, in the context of the aftermath of previous incarnations of US isolationist policies, I don't understand the charge that the US is an imperialist nation. It seems to me that the issue is much more complicated than that. If I had my way, the US would not be involved with many of the countries we are involved with throughout the world. Slap economic sanctions on just about everybody (Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Columbia, Iran, North Korea and the rest) and turn our backs on them. But where would we be? None of these countries deserves that. Their economies would be ruined and many people would die. For me, it all comes back to a Bart Simpson quote, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't."
Well if you consider the UN charter a treaty that the US has agreed to, then you look at that charter, especially where it says "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members" and "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
And I think this is exactly why the USA has such an enormous problem paying UN dues and why it was only when facing the loss of it's vote in the General Assembly that it started to pay some of what it owes. Language such as this is stupid and Americans will not be bound by the decisions of some world government. For the people and by the people, baby. And that's the way it's gonna stay. Or there would be a civil war unrivaled in the history of the world. Think about the consequences of pushing the USA towards that. I don't think the reprecussions would only be felt here.
Ok, so you are obviously misinformed. I sort of agree with your belief in the dominance of hedonistic impulses in foreign affairs. But I think you are entirely ignorant of the continum that spans hedonism and utilitarian philosophy. I would argue that while Germany, France and Canada and the rest of the socialists are far more utilitarian than the USofA, I think we are closer in our beliefs than we the media would make it appear. First a bit of history, I am unaware of another more prominent piece of hedonistic governmental literature than the USA Declaration of Independence. It trumpets the "right to the pursuit of happiness" for crying out loud. No other governmental historical document is so clearly hedonistic and since one of the tenets of the strength of our republic is adherence to the wishes of the founding fathers of this country, it seems quite right that the USA is clearly a more individualistic and hedonistic society than the rest of the socialist majority of the world.
Look, the most important war to ever be fought since WWII, was the Cold War. American forces provided protection to the rest of Europe for decades following the collapse of Nazi Germany. American strength allowed these countries to rebuild in the aftermath of that horrible period. And with the support of NATO, America eventually forced the USSR to capitulate which is, to my mind, the most successful foreign policy endeavor since the 1940s. If the price for the defeat of the USSR was the creation of Saddam and the rest of those petty criminals, then I say it is tragic but "was for the greater good" of all our allies. Thus, evincing my point that the USA is not the hedonistic country you would like to paint it as and is far more utilitarian than you would like to admit.
BTW, Britian is still a major military power. As evidenced by their smashing of Argentina in the Falklands war of the early 80s. And America is so far from being defenseless and imperialistic that it is ridiculous. America's ground forces may be spread around the globe but it matters not. American military power is rooted in their dominance of the sea and air (and space). Those forces are much more mobile than our monolithic Army that you seem to think is so important. And second of all, US forces are where they are (all over the world) because they had to be to check the russian menace, iraqi aggresion in the 90s yada yada yada. If we're so imperialistic why did we just relinquish control of the Panama Canal to Panama? Cause we're shizophrenic? I think not. When was the last time a state was admittedly to the Union? That's right, 1959. We're just gobbling territories up all over the place, aren't we?
Doh posted anonymously. Stupid hotmail.
The actions of Bush and his cohorts in the Whitehouse are absolutely disgusting.
Actually, the most disgusting actions are those committed by these terrorists. Bush may be a moron but locking these guys up and throwing away the key is sheer brilliance. BTW, in order to be governed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights you must be considered HUMAN. Humanity is not, I repeat not, a biological quality conferred to all members of the species homo sapiens. Humanity is a moral judgement that every single one of use must make . You can evaluate the "human quality" 7 million ways till Sunday but you will NEVER find any absolute answers and as such, the "Universal" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ought to be removed.
QED
This is nothing anyone with any sort of experience with the two systems doesn't already know. You're preaching to the choir here.
Information networks are designed to be fault-tolerant (famously but erroneously attributed to a desire to withstand nuclear attacks)
.sigs
That is incorrect. Paul Baran's work at RAND in the early 1960s led to the invention of "packet switching" networks because of the need to ensure that the military's command and control systems could survive a nuclear attack or other catastrophe. Donald Davies also came up with the idea of packet switched networks independantly in england at about the same time.
I hate
As a member of the (arguably) most oppressed people on earth (Native Americans), please do your self a favor and drop the sanctimonious bullcrap. I don't act like this even though my heritage might suggest that I be more self-righteous about my people. Give it up already! Egyptians never ruled the earth, the closest anyone ever came to that was Alexander the Great (a Greek and student of Aristotle who was a student of Plato). And the greatest (as in most thought provoking) historical artifact is not the pyramids, it is the Great Wall, created by the Chinese. *Sheesh* Please get off your soap box already.