It might give a signal that you care about the issue at least.
I think there are better ways to do that than by entering into a flawed treaty.
How exactly do you expect the marketplace to sort it out? It needs some sort of stimulus. Personally my favourite is simply to tax everything that pollutes in ratio to how polluting it is. That makes clean technology more profitable, and will allow the market to sort out the rest.
The marketplace was well on the way to sorting it out at $140/bbl oil. The economic crisis and subsequent drop in oil prices has likely set this process back -- but I don't buy that the marketplace can't provide a solution to this problem. Taxing carbon sources is a legitimate idea that I could support -- but you'd have to find a way to do it that wouldn't disadvantage the economy in the global marketplace.
but the fanboy in me wishes the change to the secondary hull hadn't been so pronounced
The fanboy in me wishes that they had stopped at "All Good Things...", and that Voyager and Enterprise had never happened.
Oh well. It can't possibly suck as much as the new Babylon 5 offering did.... Who would have thought that JMS would stomp all over his universe for a cheap vomit joke.
Hey, I'm all for moving to the alternatives. I just want to see it done in such a fashion as to actually be successful. Kyoto doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me. From my vantage point it looks like an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen.
Unless we are willing to scale back/abandon the concept of free trade all that I see happening is carbon intensive industries moving their operations offshore, resulting in zero carbon reduction. What other outcome do you envision if you make carbon hugely expensive in the developed world and nearly free in the developing world? Shared sacarfice won't happen -- China and India aren't likely to abandon their development because some Westerners are whining about the ice caps.
It would seem to me that we could be investing money into green technology and encouraging it's adoption without tying the hands of our existing industry and causing undo damage to our economy. Start the green revolution right here and let our existing industries adapt over time instead of driving them offshore. This will be better in the long run for both the environment and the economy than setting artificial targets that give the developing world a license to emit as much carbon as they desire.
As a religious mindset wasn't really the root cause here, I'm not sure the conflict relates to GP's comment.
Eh, my only intent was to show the stupidity of the GP's comment that "only Christians are that dumb". I think you'll find your fair share of stupidity among all religions -- indeed, among all peoples.
China wants our standard of living. The world simply cannot cope with 1.2 billion Chinese living at the current American/European standard of living.
I would disagree. Your statement is probably accurate with existing technology but I don't see why our standard of living would be unsustainable with greener/carbon neutral technology. We should certainly hope that this is the case -- because history doesn't have very many (any?) examples of rich countries willingly accepting a lower standard of living for the "greater good".
I agree Kyoto is a terrible (and quite possibly harmful) compromise. We do need some sort of international agreement, though. Hopefully Kyoto is a step towards something better.
So if you think it's a harmful compromise why should we ratify it? Wouldn't it be better to come up with something better? Or just invest the money into green technology and let the marketplace sort it out? As it stands I'd be concerned that all we'll wind up doing is shifting carbon-intensive production overseas -- so the emissions don't go down (they probably go up because of logistical considerations) and the economic impact winds up being negative. Hardly a winning formula to solve the climate crisis.
I wasn't aware that India and China were located in Africa. Those were the two nations I was primarily referring to -- something you might have known if you had bothered to read my post before posting your knee-jerk response.
These countries are printing million dollar notes because of absurd inflation and you are not allowing them to increase emssions?!
Did I say they can't increase emissions? All I said was that it seems counterproductive from an environmental and economic standpoint to shift the carbon burden to developing nations. That's exactly what will happen if we make it too expensive to produce carbon-intensive products in the developed World. I assume you are familiar with the concept of free trade and the probable ramifications of making carbon more expensive in one part of the World and cheaper in another?
Developing countries have no other choice than to use the cheapest energy source, period
And many times the cheapest energy source will turn out to be one with a lower carbon footprint. I recently saw a piece on the Newshour about a program in India that teaches people how to install and maintain solar power systems. Apparently the solar power systems are a cheaper way of providing power to remote villages than the traditional power grid backed by fossil fuels. This hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet but I'd say it sounds pretty promising in the long term.
you should be more circumspect in questioning other people's intelligence
Where did I question someone's intelligence? All I did was express my skepticism regarding the Kyoto protocol.
The plans I have seen include an import tax on goods coming into the US from countries that are not reducing emissions.
That seem to be a violation of our so-called "free trade" agreements though. If you can impose tariffs on foreign products merely because of a carbon footprint then why can't you impose tariffs on them to compensate for the cheaper labor or lack of environmental/worker regulations?
A true environmentalist SHOULD be skeptical about a body of law explicitly allowing developing nations to pollute. This is an incredibly stupid thing to do, because there is not in fact any real benefit to it. The simple truth is that it is more cost-effective to be "green" over any kind of reasonable time scale.
It also seems counterproductive from an economic standpoint. If we make carbon emissions expensive in the United States and Europe what's to stop companies from moving carbon-intensive parts of their operations to China and India? Then we lose twice -- we haven't brought emissions down any (in fact we probably brought them up due to the logistics of moving goods greater distances) and we've wiped out jobs and a tax base here at home.
I think we need a big investment into green technology but agreeing to mandated cuts in emissions while simultaneously agreeing to allow developing countries to increase emissions seems like an incredibly dumb idea to me. We are screwing ourselves environmentally and economically.
The USA has already signed [wikipedia.org] the protocol. It has to be ratified, though.
I'm a Democrat and think of myself as an environmentalist and even I'm skeptical about the value of the Kyoto Protocol. What's the point in the Western countries tanking our economies to bring down emissions if China is bringing dozens of new coal power plants online and adding millions of new vehicles to the road?
I would like to see progress made on green technology (which will translate into more jobs and economic recovery) so that we can bring emissions down and sell that technology to the rest of the World -- but why all of this focus on Kyoto when the protocol itself is inherently unfair to developed countries?
Muslims and Jews take matters into their own hands and fix their own problems.
Which explains why Israel has been at peace with her neighbors since her inception and the Middle East is one of the nicest places on Earth to call home......
No, but watching Fox News and no other news program does.
Why limit it to Fox? Watching any news program to the exclusion of others likely qualifies you as closed minded. I don't really think Keith Olbermann is any better in this regard than Bill O'Reilly.
Because any argument about the US in the Middle East always comes back to Israel
Afghanistan is in the Middle East?
If we didn't give them unilateral support on every level, the number of "crazies" who hate us would be much, much smaller.
Is that why Spain and the UK have also been bombed in recent years? I don't buy Israel as the sole excuse for people flying airplanes into our buildings. It's certainly a contributory factor in the "hearts and minds" struggle -- but Osama had a number of grievances that didn't relate to Israel as I recall (American troops in the holy land).
I'm not saying Israel should lay down and take it - what I am saying is when the news shows Israeli bulldozers plowing through civilian houses, or shows Israeli children encouraged to write "messages" to the Palestinians on rockets, it creates more enemies to the US
And when the news shows Hezbollah rockets landing in Israeli neighborhoods it creates more enemies to the Palestinian cause by hardening American and Israeli public opinion. I suspect we could go tit for tat on this issue until the cows come home -- but it probably wouldn't be very productive. Let me just say that I've often wondered why the Palestinians don't try a Gandhi/Dalai Lama approach. It would certainly win them more hearts and minds than blowing up pizzerias.
I am just not ready to say that the end always justifies the means.
I don't think they do either but I have the luxury of living in a country that hasn't been invaded three times in the last sixty years. I can't really say that I blame the Israeli's for having a siege mentality.
And I am really not sympathetic towards wars over who's invisible friend is better, or said that this land belongs to you, and only you. Just split the damn thing up already, and both sides agree to recognize each others right to exist
If only it was that simple. The Israeli's have agreed to virtually all of the demands of the Palestinians save the right of return -- and they still won't accept a peace agreement. Right of return is never going to happen -- it would be like the United States absorbing 200,000,000 new people -- so unless the Palestinians are willing to forgo this requirement then the prospects for peace would appear to be slim.
And often times "niceties to international law" can curry international support - which can lead to sanctions, embargoes, etc. that can have much more positive effects on the world outlook of your country
How are sanctions and embargoes going to stop suicide bombers? The West Bank and Gaza are already some of the poorest places on Earth -- making them more so is not going to stop the violence. Long term only an agreement between the two peoples will stop the violence -- in the short term the best option the Israeli's have is to do whatever it takes to protect their country and their people.
When both sides start acting like terrorists playing by no rules, both sides looking worse, and nobody comes out ahead.
I would tend to agree but I'm somewhat more pragmatic. If one side is playing by the rules and the other side isn't then which side do you think is going to win in the end?
Aren't the Telecom companies actually still making money? I'm somewhat skeptical to hear them crying about the recession until I see some quarterly results that don't show profits.
The supreme court has always allowed for jury nullification. They just also allowed that the government doesn't have to tell you about it or encourage it in anyway.
Jury nullification can't be taken away unless you also intend to take away the jury system -- but it's largely been neutered. Try telling the DA that you believe in jury nullification and see if you actually make it onto the jury in question.....
Communism's worst enemy was itself. All we needed to do was give it enough rope and time and wait for the inevitable.
A valid point, but we also needed enough military force to deter them from attempting to invade the Western World.
You are also forgetting the economic impact of 9/11. Making air travel scary was nice to them I am sure, but killing the value of the dollar, and taking "the greatest nation in the world" down a peg is was a much better goal. Remember, the goal of terrorists is not to kill people or bring down a building - it is to create terror. And if you have looked around at the post-9/11 US, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that they definitely succeeded in that respect.
I'm not forgetting about the economic impact of 9/11 -- just arguing that the overall threat from Communism was far greater than that from the "crazies" (as you aptly called them). The economic fallout from 9/11 was pretty bad but I'd suspect that it pales in comparison to the money that we've spent on the military since the end of WW2 -- money that might not have needed to be spent if the Soviet Union had honored her wartime agreements and allowed the people of Eastern Europe to determine their own fates.
I wouldn't say our mistake was withdrawing from that region, but by giving unquestioning support, and turning a blind eye to Israel on all of their shady activities
How did a conversation about Afghanistan and the CIA's arming of the Mujahideen shift into a discussion about Israel? I don't agree with all of Israel's "shady activities", but at least put them into context. Israel is a nation of seven million people surrounded by nations with much larger populations that refuse to acknowledge her right to exist. Most of her neighbors (save Jordan and Egypt) are still at war with her. She has been invaded no less than three times since her founding. Do you really think you'd be concerned with the niceties of international law if you were her Prime Minister?
Sometimes the communists turn out to be less of a threat in the long run than the other crazies we trained and armed
I don't know.... the communists had thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at our cities and millions of troops in Central Europe ready to march to the Atlantic. The crazies have managed to destroy a few buildings and make air travel as pleasant as a prostate exam. I would argue that the communists were the greater threat even with the benefit of hindsight regarding the crazies.
Our mistake was is withdrawing from that region of the World and leaving it to it's fate after the USSR lost interest. I still don't think it was a mistake to arm the Afghans to fight the Soviets -- dumping them after they had served their purpose was the mistake.
I guess I have nothing better to do at this particular moment in time.
Germany was working on nuclear weapons
Once again your "knowledge" of history proves to be highly entertaining. The German nuclear program never really got off the ground and was never taken seriously by the German leadership. Granted, the West didn't know this at the time, which led to Einstein's letter and the launch of the Manhattan Project.
USA had moral high ground waiting well into the game until it was clear who was going to win
Go look up the order of battle for US Armed Forces in 1939-1941 and figure out how you would have utilized those forces to stop Nazi Germany. Keep in mind that we had a smaller army than Portugal and our Air Force was nearly non-existent. It took years to build up a force that was large enough to intervene in Europe -- a process that FDR started right around the time that the war began. Even in 1941 the only branch of our military that was really ready for war was the US Navy -- and you'll note that the US Navy was already fighting the Germans months before Pearl Harbor and our formal entry into the war.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your pre-convinced notions though.
is that the US was apparently certain that it had the moral high ground
In certain cases we did have the moral high ground. Go read some history books about FDR and the objectives that he had in bringing the United States into WW2. Not only did he do everything within his power to protect the Western Democracies, he also did everything within his power to hasten the end of Colonialism. Read some books about Wilson and his Fourteen Points -- then tell me that the United States hasn't held the moral high ground.
- basically no difference except that the US was doing this to make money, not only to keep their own people in check.
I like the false equivalence here -- because the United States is interested in making money our actions are somehow worse than those of a regime that was interested in retaining territory and spreading it's ideology. If you were being objective you might be able to make the case that both sides were wrong -- but you go out of your way to dismiss the crimes of the USSR while condemning the United States. You could at least pretend to be looking at history objectively instead of looking for examples that reinforce your pre-convinced view of the world.
That was my position 7 years ago, it is still my position. Iraq had no WMDs that it could use against the US and that became clear especially when the US attacked that country. If I had WMDs and some maniacs attacked me, I would certainly use them.
Amazing how we can say that with full benefit of hindsight. At the time the war was started most western nations (including those that opposed the war) and the UN thought it likely that he had WMDs. You can argue about the merits of going to war based on that perceived threat (for the record, I opposed the war) but trying to say that we knew he had no WMDs is just factually incorrect.
The US has lost all of its credibility with the world after it attacked Iraq on the false pretenses. I bet that credibility is much more important to a country than to any individual.
Again, "false pretenses". Most intelligence agencies at the time believed that he did have those weapons. So I'm a little confused as to where you are getting the "false pretenses" from.
I get it when a country wants to push its interests around the world and if the country succeeds, well, good for them. What is ridiculous is that notion that such interests can be pushed while maintaining some sort of a notion that this country has superior morality.
Did I ever claim it wasn't ridiculous that we maintain the charade of superior morality while advancing our agenda? I've maintained all along that is what all Great Powers do. What I would dispute is that our actions fall within the same league as those of the USSR or other tyrannical regimes. You apparently seem to be of the impression that our actions are worse than theirs because we are doing it to "make money". Yeah, advancing commercial interests is really in the same league as the USSR conquering Eastern Europe.
Morality of pushing one's military agenda is not superior, while it might be a good tactic for a while, strategically speaking it is bound to become a problem in the long term. Iraq is just a proof of this.
Strategically speaking, Iraq isn't really that big of an event on the grand scale of history. We've fought longer wars against insurgencies before (the Indian Wars, the Philippine-American war) and are still around. In the grand scheme of things it's the struggles between nation-states that dominate the history books -- and in this arena I should think that you'd be rooting for the United States -- unless you'd rather see China or Russia as the global superpower.
You're missing the point. It was the CIA led initiatives that CREATED the terrorists in the first place. The fundamentalists were there before, but it took the US to actually organize them, train them, fund them and give them weapons and resources that they would never have received on their own.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm just living in the real world and looking at the situation as it exists now. Unless you have a Delorean that can do 88 mph I don't really see any other way of dealing with the situation.
Before the US got involved, they were tribal, fighting with rifles on horseback. Do you really think they were a threat to the US like that?
I don't think the Taliban ever was a direct threat to the US. It was the fact that they were willing to provide sanctuary to a global terrorist network that made them a threat to us.
Regarding those CIA initiatives, I could make the case that arming them wasn't a mistake -- it did after all inflict a horrible defeat on the USSR -- abandoning the region to it's fate after the USSR pulled out was where we went wrong. If we had remained engaged it's possible that a different regime would have emerged from the chaos -- one that wouldn't have been interested in blowing up statues and harboring terrorists.
This wasn't voluntary, it was done forcefully to support a military infrastructure that the West had a right to fear.
Indeed. Go read the papers from Operation Unthinkable for a better idea of exactly what the West was up against. If Stalin had decided to try and expand his empire the Allies would have had a hell of a time trying to stop him. I for one am glad that we developed a nuclear deterrent -- the alternative could very well have been a Third World War and tens of millions more deaths.
Don't think Stalin would have tried to expand his empire if he could have? Look at the Baltic States and the Winter War -- all the proof you need of his motivations even before Hitler attacked him.
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and then used the tried and true "print money day and night till inflation is under control".
Isn't that as likely to be successful as a heroin addict who keeps shooting up until his addiction is under control?
It might give a signal that you care about the issue at least.
I think there are better ways to do that than by entering into a flawed treaty.
How exactly do you expect the marketplace to sort it out? It needs some sort of stimulus. Personally my favourite is simply to tax everything that pollutes in ratio to how polluting it is. That makes clean technology more profitable, and will allow the market to sort out the rest.
The marketplace was well on the way to sorting it out at $140/bbl oil. The economic crisis and subsequent drop in oil prices has likely set this process back -- but I don't buy that the marketplace can't provide a solution to this problem. Taxing carbon sources is a legitimate idea that I could support -- but you'd have to find a way to do it that wouldn't disadvantage the economy in the global marketplace.
I'm personally expected Star Trek: The Phantom Menace.
If Nemesis is any indication it won't be nearly that "good" :(
but the fanboy in me wishes the change to the secondary hull hadn't been so pronounced
The fanboy in me wishes that they had stopped at "All Good Things...", and that Voyager and Enterprise had never happened.
Oh well. It can't possibly suck as much as the new Babylon 5 offering did.... Who would have thought that JMS would stomp all over his universe for a cheap vomit joke.
Our aircraft carriers and subs are all run by kids.
Umm, I think you mean manned by kids. There aren't a whole lot of O-5s and O-6s in their 20s in the US military......
Hey, I'm all for moving to the alternatives. I just want to see it done in such a fashion as to actually be successful. Kyoto doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me. From my vantage point it looks like an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen.
Unless we are willing to scale back/abandon the concept of free trade all that I see happening is carbon intensive industries moving their operations offshore, resulting in zero carbon reduction. What other outcome do you envision if you make carbon hugely expensive in the developed world and nearly free in the developing world? Shared sacarfice won't happen -- China and India aren't likely to abandon their development because some Westerners are whining about the ice caps.
It would seem to me that we could be investing money into green technology and encouraging it's adoption without tying the hands of our existing industry and causing undo damage to our economy. Start the green revolution right here and let our existing industries adapt over time instead of driving them offshore. This will be better in the long run for both the environment and the economy than setting artificial targets that give the developing world a license to emit as much carbon as they desire.
As a religious mindset wasn't really the root cause here, I'm not sure the conflict relates to GP's comment.
Eh, my only intent was to show the stupidity of the GP's comment that "only Christians are that dumb". I think you'll find your fair share of stupidity among all religions -- indeed, among all peoples.
China wants our standard of living. The world simply cannot cope with 1.2 billion Chinese living at the current American/European standard of living.
I would disagree. Your statement is probably accurate with existing technology but I don't see why our standard of living would be unsustainable with greener/carbon neutral technology. We should certainly hope that this is the case -- because history doesn't have very many (any?) examples of rich countries willingly accepting a lower standard of living for the "greater good".
I agree Kyoto is a terrible (and quite possibly harmful) compromise. We do need some sort of international agreement, though. Hopefully Kyoto is a step towards something better.
So if you think it's a harmful compromise why should we ratify it? Wouldn't it be better to come up with something better? Or just invest the money into green technology and let the marketplace sort it out? As it stands I'd be concerned that all we'll wind up doing is shifting carbon-intensive production overseas -- so the emissions don't go down (they probably go up because of logistical considerations) and the economic impact winds up being negative. Hardly a winning formula to solve the climate crisis.
Take a look at any 'developing nation' in Africa
I wasn't aware that India and China were located in Africa. Those were the two nations I was primarily referring to -- something you might have known if you had bothered to read my post before posting your knee-jerk response.
These countries are printing million dollar notes because of absurd inflation and you are not allowing them to increase emssions?!
Did I say they can't increase emissions? All I said was that it seems counterproductive from an environmental and economic standpoint to shift the carbon burden to developing nations. That's exactly what will happen if we make it too expensive to produce carbon-intensive products in the developed World. I assume you are familiar with the concept of free trade and the probable ramifications of making carbon more expensive in one part of the World and cheaper in another?
Developing countries have no other choice than to use the cheapest energy source, period
And many times the cheapest energy source will turn out to be one with a lower carbon footprint. I recently saw a piece on the Newshour about a program in India that teaches people how to install and maintain solar power systems. Apparently the solar power systems are a cheaper way of providing power to remote villages than the traditional power grid backed by fossil fuels. This hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet but I'd say it sounds pretty promising in the long term.
you should be more circumspect in questioning other people's intelligence
Where did I question someone's intelligence? All I did was express my skepticism regarding the Kyoto protocol.
The plans I have seen include an import tax on goods coming into the US from countries that are not reducing emissions.
That seem to be a violation of our so-called "free trade" agreements though. If you can impose tariffs on foreign products merely because of a carbon footprint then why can't you impose tariffs on them to compensate for the cheaper labor or lack of environmental/worker regulations?
A true environmentalist SHOULD be skeptical about a body of law explicitly allowing developing nations to pollute. This is an incredibly stupid thing to do, because there is not in fact any real benefit to it. The simple truth is that it is more cost-effective to be "green" over any kind of reasonable time scale.
It also seems counterproductive from an economic standpoint. If we make carbon emissions expensive in the United States and Europe what's to stop companies from moving carbon-intensive parts of their operations to China and India? Then we lose twice -- we haven't brought emissions down any (in fact we probably brought them up due to the logistics of moving goods greater distances) and we've wiped out jobs and a tax base here at home.
I think we need a big investment into green technology but agreeing to mandated cuts in emissions while simultaneously agreeing to allow developing countries to increase emissions seems like an incredibly dumb idea to me. We are screwing ourselves environmentally and economically.
The USA has already signed [wikipedia.org] the protocol. It has to be ratified, though.
I'm a Democrat and think of myself as an environmentalist and even I'm skeptical about the value of the Kyoto Protocol. What's the point in the Western countries tanking our economies to bring down emissions if China is bringing dozens of new coal power plants online and adding millions of new vehicles to the road?
I would like to see progress made on green technology (which will translate into more jobs and economic recovery) so that we can bring emissions down and sell that technology to the rest of the World -- but why all of this focus on Kyoto when the protocol itself is inherently unfair to developed countries?
Muslims and Jews take matters into their own hands and fix their own problems.
Which explains why Israel has been at peace with her neighbors since her inception and the Middle East is one of the nicest places on Earth to call home......
No, but watching Fox News and no other news program does.
Why limit it to Fox? Watching any news program to the exclusion of others likely qualifies you as closed minded. I don't really think Keith Olbermann is any better in this regard than Bill O'Reilly.
Because any argument about the US in the Middle East always comes back to Israel
Afghanistan is in the Middle East?
If we didn't give them unilateral support on every level, the number of "crazies" who hate us would be much, much smaller.
Is that why Spain and the UK have also been bombed in recent years? I don't buy Israel as the sole excuse for people flying airplanes into our buildings. It's certainly a contributory factor in the "hearts and minds" struggle -- but Osama had a number of grievances that didn't relate to Israel as I recall (American troops in the holy land).
I'm not saying Israel should lay down and take it - what I am saying is when the news shows Israeli bulldozers plowing through civilian houses, or shows Israeli children encouraged to write "messages" to the Palestinians on rockets, it creates more enemies to the US
And when the news shows Hezbollah rockets landing in Israeli neighborhoods it creates more enemies to the Palestinian cause by hardening American and Israeli public opinion. I suspect we could go tit for tat on this issue until the cows come home -- but it probably wouldn't be very productive. Let me just say that I've often wondered why the Palestinians don't try a Gandhi/Dalai Lama approach. It would certainly win them more hearts and minds than blowing up pizzerias.
I am just not ready to say that the end always justifies the means.
I don't think they do either but I have the luxury of living in a country that hasn't been invaded three times in the last sixty years. I can't really say that I blame the Israeli's for having a siege mentality.
And I am really not sympathetic towards wars over who's invisible friend is better, or said that this land belongs to you, and only you. Just split the damn thing up already, and both sides agree to recognize each others right to exist
If only it was that simple. The Israeli's have agreed to virtually all of the demands of the Palestinians save the right of return -- and they still won't accept a peace agreement. Right of return is never going to happen -- it would be like the United States absorbing 200,000,000 new people -- so unless the Palestinians are willing to forgo this requirement then the prospects for peace would appear to be slim.
And often times "niceties to international law" can curry international support - which can lead to sanctions, embargoes, etc. that can have much more positive effects on the world outlook of your country
How are sanctions and embargoes going to stop suicide bombers? The West Bank and Gaza are already some of the poorest places on Earth -- making them more so is not going to stop the violence. Long term only an agreement between the two peoples will stop the violence -- in the short term the best option the Israeli's have is to do whatever it takes to protect their country and their people.
When both sides start acting like terrorists playing by no rules, both sides looking worse, and nobody comes out ahead.
I would tend to agree but I'm somewhat more pragmatic. If one side is playing by the rules and the other side isn't then which side do you think is going to win in the end?
Welcome to the recession. Please enjoy your stay.
Aren't the Telecom companies actually still making money? I'm somewhat skeptical to hear them crying about the recession until I see some quarterly results that don't show profits.
I'm not sure if you've noticed election trends over the past 100 years, but the voting patterns of rural vs. urban areas have been very divergent.
So voting Republican is all it takes to qualify someone as "close-minded" in your opinion? The irony keeps getting better.....
The supreme court has always allowed for jury nullification. They just also allowed that the government doesn't have to tell you about it or encourage it in anyway.
Jury nullification can't be taken away unless you also intend to take away the jury system -- but it's largely been neutered. Try telling the DA that you believe in jury nullification and see if you actually make it onto the jury in question.....
Communism's worst enemy was itself. All we needed to do was give it enough rope and time and wait for the inevitable.
A valid point, but we also needed enough military force to deter them from attempting to invade the Western World.
You are also forgetting the economic impact of 9/11. Making air travel scary was nice to them I am sure, but killing the value of the dollar, and taking "the greatest nation in the world" down a peg is was a much better goal. Remember, the goal of terrorists is not to kill people or bring down a building - it is to create terror. And if you have looked around at the post-9/11 US, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that they definitely succeeded in that respect.
I'm not forgetting about the economic impact of 9/11 -- just arguing that the overall threat from Communism was far greater than that from the "crazies" (as you aptly called them). The economic fallout from 9/11 was pretty bad but I'd suspect that it pales in comparison to the money that we've spent on the military since the end of WW2 -- money that might not have needed to be spent if the Soviet Union had honored her wartime agreements and allowed the people of Eastern Europe to determine their own fates.
I wouldn't say our mistake was withdrawing from that region, but by giving unquestioning support, and turning a blind eye to Israel on all of their shady activities
How did a conversation about Afghanistan and the CIA's arming of the Mujahideen shift into a discussion about Israel? I don't agree with all of Israel's "shady activities", but at least put them into context. Israel is a nation of seven million people surrounded by nations with much larger populations that refuse to acknowledge her right to exist. Most of her neighbors (save Jordan and Egypt) are still at war with her. She has been invaded no less than three times since her founding. Do you really think you'd be concerned with the niceties of international law if you were her Prime Minister?
Sometimes the communists turn out to be less of a threat in the long run than the other crazies we trained and armed
I don't know.... the communists had thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at our cities and millions of troops in Central Europe ready to march to the Atlantic. The crazies have managed to destroy a few buildings and make air travel as pleasant as a prostate exam. I would argue that the communists were the greater threat even with the benefit of hindsight regarding the crazies.
Our mistake was is withdrawing from that region of the World and leaving it to it's fate after the USSR lost interest. I still don't think it was a mistake to arm the Afghans to fight the Soviets -- dumping them after they had served their purpose was the mistake.
Didn't you promised to 'stop wasting time' on me?
I guess I have nothing better to do at this particular moment in time.
Germany was working on nuclear weapons
Once again your "knowledge" of history proves to be highly entertaining. The German nuclear program never really got off the ground and was never taken seriously by the German leadership. Granted, the West didn't know this at the time, which led to Einstein's letter and the launch of the Manhattan Project.
USA had moral high ground waiting well into the game until it was clear who was going to win
Go look up the order of battle for US Armed Forces in 1939-1941 and figure out how you would have utilized those forces to stop Nazi Germany. Keep in mind that we had a smaller army than Portugal and our Air Force was nearly non-existent. It took years to build up a force that was large enough to intervene in Europe -- a process that FDR started right around the time that the war began. Even in 1941 the only branch of our military that was really ready for war was the US Navy -- and you'll note that the US Navy was already fighting the Germans months before Pearl Harbor and our formal entry into the war.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your pre-convinced notions though.
is that the US was apparently certain that it had the moral high ground
In certain cases we did have the moral high ground. Go read some history books about FDR and the objectives that he had in bringing the United States into WW2. Not only did he do everything within his power to protect the Western Democracies, he also did everything within his power to hasten the end of Colonialism. Read some books about Wilson and his Fourteen Points -- then tell me that the United States hasn't held the moral high ground.
- basically no difference except that the US was doing this to make money, not only to keep their own people in check.
I like the false equivalence here -- because the United States is interested in making money our actions are somehow worse than those of a regime that was interested in retaining territory and spreading it's ideology. If you were being objective you might be able to make the case that both sides were wrong -- but you go out of your way to dismiss the crimes of the USSR while condemning the United States. You could at least pretend to be looking at history objectively instead of looking for examples that reinforce your pre-convinced view of the world.
That was my position 7 years ago, it is still my position. Iraq had no WMDs that it could use against the US and that became clear especially when the US attacked that country. If I had WMDs and some maniacs attacked me, I would certainly use them.
Amazing how we can say that with full benefit of hindsight. At the time the war was started most western nations (including those that opposed the war) and the UN thought it likely that he had WMDs. You can argue about the merits of going to war based on that perceived threat (for the record, I opposed the war) but trying to say that we knew he had no WMDs is just factually incorrect.
The US has lost all of its credibility with the world after it attacked Iraq on the false pretenses. I bet that credibility is much more important to a country than to any individual.
Again, "false pretenses". Most intelligence agencies at the time believed that he did have those weapons. So I'm a little confused as to where you are getting the "false pretenses" from.
I get it when a country wants to push its interests around the world and if the country succeeds, well, good for them. What is ridiculous is that notion that such interests can be pushed while maintaining some sort of a notion that this country has superior morality.
Did I ever claim it wasn't ridiculous that we maintain the charade of superior morality while advancing our agenda? I've maintained all along that is what all Great Powers do. What I would dispute is that our actions fall within the same league as those of the USSR or other tyrannical regimes. You apparently seem to be of the impression that our actions are worse than theirs because we are doing it to "make money". Yeah, advancing commercial interests is really in the same league as the USSR conquering Eastern Europe.
Morality of pushing one's military agenda is not superior, while it might be a good tactic for a while, strategically speaking it is bound to become a problem in the long term. Iraq is just a proof of this.
Strategically speaking, Iraq isn't really that big of an event on the grand scale of history. We've fought longer wars against insurgencies before (the Indian Wars, the Philippine-American war) and are still around. In the grand scheme of things it's the struggles between nation-states that dominate the history books -- and in this arena I should think that you'd be rooting for the United States -- unless you'd rather see China or Russia as the global superpower.
You're missing the point. It was the CIA led initiatives that CREATED the terrorists in the first place. The fundamentalists were there before, but it took the US to actually organize them, train them, fund them and give them weapons and resources that they would never have received on their own.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm just living in the real world and looking at the situation as it exists now. Unless you have a Delorean that can do 88 mph I don't really see any other way of dealing with the situation.
Before the US got involved, they were tribal, fighting with rifles on horseback. Do you really think they were a threat to the US like that?
I don't think the Taliban ever was a direct threat to the US. It was the fact that they were willing to provide sanctuary to a global terrorist network that made them a threat to us.
Regarding those CIA initiatives, I could make the case that arming them wasn't a mistake -- it did after all inflict a horrible defeat on the USSR -- abandoning the region to it's fate after the USSR pulled out was where we went wrong. If we had remained engaged it's possible that a different regime would have emerged from the chaos -- one that wouldn't have been interested in blowing up statues and harboring terrorists.
This wasn't voluntary, it was done forcefully to support a military infrastructure that the West had a right to fear.
Indeed. Go read the papers from Operation Unthinkable for a better idea of exactly what the West was up against. If Stalin had decided to try and expand his empire the Allies would have had a hell of a time trying to stop him. I for one am glad that we developed a nuclear deterrent -- the alternative could very well have been a Third World War and tens of millions more deaths.
Don't think Stalin would have tried to expand his empire if he could have? Look at the Baltic States and the Winter War -- all the proof you need of his motivations even before Hitler attacked him.