I am curious, how did you get Panther installed on it?
I got Panther a while ago and tried to install it on my B&W G3 and even though it booted I was unable to convince the machine to finish the actual installation.
What I find more interesting is that this could mean more games for the Mac!
Now that would be sort of ironic if Microsoft would be helping Apple to get a foot on the ground with the one thing they truly lack behind right now: games.
More importantly, how would they fund such a force? Without the power to tax, maintaining a standing army is impossible. Currently the UN infastructure is paid for by donor nations as stipulated in its charter. As such, without a totally new charter, providing an enforcement unit over which the UN officals have full command is impossible.
Well, money is always an issue, but iif they manage to resolve the first two issues, money will be the least of their worries.
I've framed the origins of this conflict in this way because I believe it has several extremely relevent aspects to it. Namely - (1) Saddam's administration was classified as a belligerant by the US, (2) Saddam was believed to have and proported to have capacity to project covert force, (3) numerous allies presented "intelligence" that indicated that Saddam was actively seeking opportunity to exercise that capacity directly against the US, and (4) Saddam insistance on remaining non-compliant with weapons inspectors dilluted any hope that non-warhawk US administration members had of resolving this without bloodshed.
I would like to disagree here. On (2). I do not think that anybody outside of the US really believed he had the ability to project any military force outside of his direct area. Even IF he had some kinds of launching a ground assault, he had no air cover. With the US and all the other countries (not in the least Israel) having air superiority the chances for him to succed anywhere where pretty much nil. And even Saddam knew this.
(3) The "evidence" that was presented was rather laughable, and it actually begs the question on why those "Intelligence Services" doctored the documents. Taking a paper from the internet and presenting it as your own is something one may expect from a D Student in highschool, not from highly trained and paid analysts at an Intelligence Agency. The fact that Bush took them at "face value" without having checked them himself makes it pretty clear to me that there was a deliberate attempt of not wanting to see what might not be there.
(4) I am aware that the majority of the media in the US was spinning the story that Saddam was non compliant, but if you read the reports from the UN Weapons Inspectors it is very clear that Saddam did indeed comply with all their requirements.
I am also aware that one of the most famous spins is that Saddam kicked the Weapons Inspectors out in '98 when in fact the US told the then UN mission in not unclear terms to clear out because otherwise they may be caught in the crossfire.
It was different for the US. Bush-43 had just presided over the 9/11 crisis and the thought of being attacked again under his watch probably left him (or at least his advisors) in a panic. What is clear is that the US viewed Saddam as both a direct (active) and indirect (supportive) threat to national security.
If Bush and his security advisors truly believed that Saddam was supporting Al Quaida or any other similar organization they should better stop working in their fields. Saddams government was secular, there was no "state religion" and he clearly would not have supported someone like bin Ladin, out of the simple reason that he was one of their targets as well as he prevented the fundamental muslims from getting a foot on the ground in Iraq.
Bush-43 made the choice for War. Not the best choice, since I believe asassinating Saddam through a more lengthy and dedicated covert operation would have better achieved the goal of removing Saddam as an active belligerent, and had the added advantage of putting other such men bent on belligerency on notice. But Bush-43's choice is defensible.
Who did he put on notice? North Korea? The lesson he taught wannabe dictators is that you better DO get WMDs as quickly as possible, because if you have them the US won't touch you.
Actually as I understand it, most historians view the causal beginning of WWII as being attributed to the failure of Britian and France to respond to the violations of the Lacarno Pact and the Treaty of Versaille. Specificially though Hitler's seizure of Czech land (an autonomous region setup by the Treaty of Versaille), but also due to the British concession of their 3/5ths "commonwealth" fleet allowance which ensured Hitler's trajectory. But Hitler had to have his Lebensraum, and the later invasion of Poland was an extension of this goal originally initiated in Czech territory.
I was more referingn to the actual shooting starting, but yes, I would agree that Hitler was testing how far he could go before the victors of WWI would intervene, a more decisive response may just have stopped Hitler for a couple of years.
BTW, I also believe that the treaty of Versaille was in part the issue for Hitler being able to gain power, the fact that at the end of WWII the US decided to go with the Marshall plan instead of the Morgenthau plan.
What I find of a bit ironic is that what happened to Iraq after the last Gulf War seems to be what Morgenthau suggested for Germany.
The UN has never been more than a convenient place for diplomates to address each other as a sitting body (everyone in a common place). When it was ostensibly under the League of Nations charter (as created after WWI), many wished to give it an enforcement capacity. It was this inate interferance in local sovereignty that spelled its downfall. And for the UN, ironically it is its lack of such capacity that renders it uncapable of dealing effectively with with security issues.
The idea behind the UN was to have a "gathering place" a "world townhall" if you like. A noble idea, problem is the more voices you have the harder it is to hear a single one.
The UN definetly needs a reform, starting with the security council which is not up to times anymore. Unfortunatly the ones who are prone to lose power in the council are also the ones who have to agree to the changes, and who likes to give up power?
I would say that if the reforms would happen that the UN would benefit greatlly from their own military force. The problem there only is that the question is: Where would you stage them? How would you make certain that they really only answer to the council?
I'm not sure why you insist on couching this in moral terms. Taking a moral position is nice, but when faced with imminant threat, it is often an afterthought.
Out of the same reason why I am against the death penalty: You can't take it back. If we do not act on morale grounds but rather on "gut feelings" then what differenciates us from animals?
A dog that bites people or is outwardly aggressive (for whatever reason, be it that it feels threated, be it that it's in it's character) is put down. Why should we allow an entire nation to act irrationally out of fear and then not hold them to morale standards?
It is (in this case the US) who claims to go the moral high ground by "freeing Iraq", yet their motivation is anything but morale, it is something that is at best motivated by fear and at worst out of greed and power hunger.
Am I correct in understanding your opinion to be that, one does not have the right to attack another country until one has been physically attacked?
Yes, one has to reserve the force as the last resort, and that means if there is sufficent evidence then one can prepare to defend onself, but the moment you attack first you lose any moral grouind you may have.
Look at the events of 9/11, this was a "first strike" scenario, when the US decided to go into Afghanistan
Germany pretended that the poles attacked Germany first, this gave them the "moral reason" to invade poland.
The reason the UN was created was to allow a "neutral" area to resolve any conflicts before it came to the firing of bullets.
One might argue that today the UN is not capabal anymore of actually providing this service (but one might also argue it worked rather well during the cold war).
Whatever the case of the UN may be. I do not believe that any country has the right to launch a pre-emptive war, because on a moral ground a pre-emtive war isn't anymore justified than an aggression war. In both cases I am sure the people who order the attack will claim moral superiority towards the world.
If nothing else, the delimma (even if it is not strictly realistic by itself) illustrates some of the decisions governments are forced to make when dealing with threat assessment.
Certainly, but morale is not something you can only have when it suits you. Or as someon said:
"If all you have is a hammer then all your problems start to look like a nail. Of course if you do not have a hammer you do not want any of your problems to look like a nail."
And always remember:
"War is the continuation of politics by different means."
von Clausewitz, and personally I think we should be very careful when we step to that measure.
How about I make my knowledge public together with the allies and challenge the other guy to "come clean".
BTW, it would be a rather strange thing for a neighbouring country to nuke you, as the fallout would hit them themselves (assuming right now that YOU don't have any weapons yourself.
A better example would be what would happen if you hear about an invasaion, again, diplomacy first.
Now, with terrorists it is a little bit of a different issue, but then they don't really "own" a country normally and invading another country on the basis that there MAY be terrorists is not right, now is it?
Actually you might want to visit europe again some time. You have to show a passport in your original port of entry, but after that you can pretty much move freely within the EU (Schengen Agreement).
The same deal was (to my understanding) cut between the US, Canada and Mexico and is (I think) part of NAFTA as well.
The fact that the US suddenly has the urge to absolutly control who enters the country from Canada and under what conditions reminds me a bit of trying to enter the formger GDR, and yes, I did that more than once.
Yeah I remember trying to get into the GDR. It took forever, the longest was around 5 hours, they took the car completly apart and confiscated some material they didn't think we should be allowed to 'bring in'.
But if you think getting INTO the US is tough, try getting OUT, last time I flew out of Dallas it took forever to go through all the security checks, check in in in Toronto was easy in comparision.
I would have seen this earlier if you would have posted while being logged in. It seems there is a certain paranoia in america these days when it comes to discuss policy publicly.
That is just one example. Need more? Just ask. As for your U.N. missions? You are kidding, right? Whom do you think is actually moving the majority of all that U.N. equipment around?
This is not about "moving stuff around" this is about reasons to go to war.
Yes, the majority of States do not have the air power required to move troops within hours around the planet, but most UN Missions aren't designed that way.
A lot of the business done by the UN in the last 10 years was not headed by the US forces but rather local ones. EXACTLY because those states don't want to have to rely on the US for their own well being.
Afghanistan is free today because of the U.S. military, not the U.N. The U.N. minus the U.S. is not much of a military force. But what do we know, you seem to believe otherwise.
I suggest you look a little bit closer to Afghanistan, "free" I wouldn't call it. Yes, Karzai is in Kabul, and that's pretty much were he's staying. Outside of Kabul warlords are calling the shots with some other cities "free" as well. The situation for the people in Afghanistan has not dramatically improved and in all likelyhood it won't.
If Afghanistan is any indication for Iraq then I hope you are willing to stick around for another 20 years or so.
I would love to know you and ask your opinion of Iraq 10 years from today. I bet you would not be so forthcoming with the viewpoint you have today. Just like the many liberals that talk today as if they were Cold Warriors during the 80's. History was not on their side and it will not be on yours.
Why? Because the USSR collapsed before the US did? it did so out of it's own accord not because the US was "outspending" them.
As for Iraq. The votes are still out on it. I think at best it has a 50/50 chance of becoming a stable nation, I still consider it more likely though that Iraq will split up in 3 regions in a bloddy civil war (with Turkey probably trying to annex norther Iraq / Kurdistan).
One has the right to defend oneself, but not by invading first.
If that makes any sense?
If we would not follow this simple rule then why bother with an "honest" war at all? In that case anybody could just construct a reason to go to war and claim moral superiority.
The other function of the armed forces is increasingly to provide training and logistics for native militaries, and to work as a formal security parter (within a coalition) in a given theatre. In this area the US does not have near the capacity that is needed. It needs to easily be doubled or tripled, and since it's a long process to train these type of people it needs to start now.
The US is doing this since it's existance more or less, there are plenty of people who know how to teach. School of the Americas is the most well known of these endavours, and if you look at their graduates, you'll see just how well it is going (yes, I am sarcastic here).
Still even more forces need to be trained for covert missions. For example, when the US recieved reports France that Saddams intelligence units were planning covert ops in the US, they should have done their own covert operation and assasinated Saddam. Instead they asked the UN to help, and when the UN did nothing, they invaded Iraq which led to far too much needless death.
THIS is one of those things we will clash for a very long time. I do not believe that the "preemptive" going to war or killing others is agreeable or just be allowed.
Any nation who acts that way is nothing else but terrorists themselves.
Not only is your premise false, but it undercuts the actions of most of Europe (France, Germany, UK, Denmark, etc) and a number of African countries which are projecting military force in places like Bosnia, the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan, DRC and a number of other smaller theatres. All of these situations are experiencing the projected force of a formally declared military. And the number of countries projecting force through less formal conduits is far larger.
I did exclude UN missions from my list.
As for the other countries who are waging war with each other: Yep, this happens every day, but the only country on this planet right now that has the ability to put it's forces anywhere on the planet is the US.
And currently the US is the only one who does so out of some dubious reasons and wants the world to believe them.
Actually, if you want to express this change in terms of a lack of the potential for 'total' warfare, you really have to look at the reductions after the end of the Cold War as being the real change. Both the scale and nature of the US-Soviet Proxy wars in the 60-80s demostrate them as far removed from the plethera of police actions you see today.
The point I was trying to get to was that there always were armed conflictes throughout the history. The situation for the world as a whole has not changed. Thus to argue that the US needs to build up a very strong military force in order to "contain" these events is pretty much a marketing gag by the Whitehouse.
It is not about farmers from 3rd world countries exporting their food to our shores but our subsidies (not only for growing but also transporting) make it CHEAPER for those countries to import food from us.
Not only does that put their farmers out of work, but it also makes them dependabale on us and our on oil based agrar businesses.
Actually I am wondering if it would have worked if the whole world would have switched to communism.
The progress may have been slower, but overall proabably more even than it is today.
The advantage of the capitalistic system (or what we make of it) is that it allows extremely fast growth for a minority of people (think about it, between Europe and North America there is maybe what? 1.2 billion people, Chine and india each have that many people).
Because (so far) it has worked for us does not guarantee that it is sustainable for the whole world, and quite frankly some indicators seem to show that we will most likely eat ourselves to death in the long run.... "Capitalism" simply can't live with moderation.
If we want to keep our quality of life we have to learn to adjust as well, but so far the gravy train is still rolling and I personally think we won't adapt until it may be too late.
You are trying to utilize a security v. disarmament paradigm in a world that needs security right now. Disarmament only works if it is unilateral, and unfortunately we live in a world that has North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as entities willing to pursue their goals outside of the realm of diplomacy and economic leverage.
Okay, I just spent 5 minutes laughin. you can't be serious, can you?
The only country right now I see projecting force outside of it's own borders under strange ideas is actually the US, the sabel ratteling that is done by the other countries is (so far) just that. And heck, if the situation would be reverse, so would be the US.
Welcome to the year 2005! Limited war and police action is the name of the game, and the U.S. military is frequently the only regional security vendor in many world markets.
Welcome to the world since the end of WorldWar II, where all those small little conflicts happened constantly.
And before that we had those little colonial wars et al... Nothing new to see here.
You won't see anything but an increase in military funding in the next 10 years, and that's a good thing. Globalization needs strong security controls and safeguards. The U.S. military through its operating centers around the world provides that. The size, scope and nature of the U.S. military is changing. Because the U.S. needs them, the World needs them, and you need them.
Contrary to popular american believe the rest of the world does not need an ueber Babysitter to take care of their business, actually, the rest of the world can manage just fine on it's own. Thanks for asking though.
Just because they're first doesn't mean that they will succed (though granted, they have quite a bit of money to throw at this adventure).
Look at Apple and the Newton. I loved my newton, I kept it until it literally fell apart (the concrete floor might have had something to do with that) and still they got trumped by Palm and Palm by PocketPC.
So, just because they're out there already with something like this doesn't mean they are going to succed.
On the other hand, the download film market seems to be picking up, with Sony announcing today that they will be starting their own movie download service and all, and who knows, Apple may just have a player ready to go, but holding back for other reasons (lack of content? Battery life?)
MMMh, I never really got "nagged" by QT, but then that's maybe me.
As for the UI rules: I take it you complain about QT and iTunes on Windows? Yes, it looks a bit odd, but I can't really see how iTunes could have been achieved with the Microsoft Widgets. Not that I use a Windows PC anyways.
I do think that Apples are currently the nicest computers on the market, having said that.
I can't really see where the problem with Quicktime is? Installing another Media Player takes two steps, download, drop into the Application folder, be done.
You want to remove Quicktime? Same thing.
But yes, not everything Apple does is "okay". Companies by default are "evil".
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, directX will make things a lot easier, but I think the biggest issue right now is that most programmers aren't really used to the G5.
Let's wait and see, I think it may help.
I am curious, how did you get Panther installed on it?
I got Panther a while ago and tried to install it on my B&W G3 and even though it booted I was unable to convince the machine to finish the actual installation.
What I find more interesting is that this could mean more games for the Mac!
Now that would be sort of ironic if Microsoft would be helping Apple to get a foot on the ground with the one thing they truly lack behind right now: games.
I agree 100%. I loved it, it was / is one of the nicest controllers I had in my hands so far.
:(
I am not a fan of the S controller, and apparantly Microsoft STILL makes the original one somewhere, but I don't seem to be able to find it
I have two controllers and I hope dearly that they don't break.
Well, money is always an issue, but iif they manage to resolve the first two issues, money will be the least of their worries.
I would like to disagree here. On (2). I do not think that anybody outside of the US really believed he had the ability to project any military force outside of his direct area. Even IF he had some kinds of launching a ground assault, he had no air cover. With the US and all the other countries (not in the least Israel) having air superiority the chances for him to succed anywhere where pretty much nil. And even Saddam knew this.
(3) The "evidence" that was presented was rather laughable, and it actually begs the question on why those "Intelligence Services" doctored the documents. Taking a paper from the internet and presenting it as your own is something one may expect from a D Student in highschool, not from highly trained and paid analysts at an Intelligence Agency. The fact that Bush took them at "face value" without having checked them himself makes it pretty clear to me that there was a deliberate attempt of not wanting to see what might not be there.
(4) I am aware that the majority of the media in the US was spinning the story that Saddam was non compliant, but if you read the reports from the UN Weapons Inspectors it is very clear that Saddam did indeed comply with all their requirements.
I am also aware that one of the most famous spins is that Saddam kicked the Weapons Inspectors out in '98 when in fact the US told the then UN mission in not unclear terms to clear out because otherwise they may be caught in the crossfire.
If Bush and his security advisors truly believed that Saddam was supporting Al Quaida or any other similar organization they should better stop working in their fields. Saddams government was secular, there was no "state religion" and he clearly would not have supported someone like bin Ladin, out of the simple reason that he was one of their targets as well as he prevented the fundamental muslims from getting a foot on the ground in Iraq.
Who did he put on notice? North Korea? The lesson he taught wannabe dictators is that you better DO get WMDs as quickly as possible, because if you have them the US won't touch you.
North Korea is
I was more referingn to the actual shooting starting, but yes, I would agree that Hitler was testing how far he could go before the victors of WWI would intervene, a more decisive response may just have stopped Hitler for a couple of years.
BTW, I also believe that the treaty of Versaille was in part the issue for Hitler being able to gain power, the fact that at the end of WWII the US decided to go with the Marshall plan instead of the Morgenthau plan.
What I find of a bit ironic is that what happened to Iraq after the last Gulf War seems to be what Morgenthau suggested for Germany.
The idea behind the UN was to have a "gathering place" a "world townhall" if you like. A noble idea, problem is the more voices you have the harder it is to hear a single one.
The UN definetly needs a reform, starting with the security council which is not up to times anymore. Unfortunatly the ones who are prone to lose power in the council are also the ones who have to agree to the changes, and who likes to give up power?
I would say that if the reforms would happen that the UN would benefit greatlly from their own military force. The problem there only is that the question is: Where would you stage them? How would you make certain that they really only answer to the council?
Out of the same reason why I am against the death penalty: You can't take it back. If we do not act on morale grounds but rather on "gut feelings" then what differenciates us from animals?
A dog that bites people or is outwardly aggressive (for whatever reason, be it that it feels threated, be it that it's in it's character) is put down. Why should we allow an entire nation to act irrationally out of fear and then not hold them to morale standards?
It is (in this case the US) who claims to go the moral high ground by "freeing Iraq", yet their motivation is anything but morale, it is something that is at best motivated by fear and at worst out of greed and power hunger.
Yes, one has to reserve the force as the last resort, and that means if there is sufficent evidence then one can prepare to defend onself, but the moment you attack first you lose any moral grouind you may have.
Look at the events of 9/11, this was a "first strike" scenario, when the US decided to go into Afghanistan
Germany pretended that the poles attacked Germany first, this gave them the "moral reason" to invade poland.
The reason the UN was created was to allow a "neutral" area to resolve any conflicts before it came to the firing of bullets.
One might argue that today the UN is not capabal anymore of actually providing this service (but one might also argue it worked rather well during the cold war).
Whatever the case of the UN may be. I do not believe that any country has the right to launch a pre-emptive war, because on a moral ground a pre-emtive war isn't anymore justified than an aggression war. In both cases I am sure the people who order the attack will claim moral superiority towards the world.
Certainly, but morale is not something you can only have when it suits you. Or as someon said:
"If all you have is a hammer then all your problems start to look like a nail. Of course if you do not have a hammer you do not want any of your problems to look like a nail."
And always remember:
"War is the continuation of politics by different means."
von Clausewitz, and personally I think we should be very careful when we step to that measure.
How about I make my knowledge public together with the allies and challenge the other guy to "come clean".
BTW, it would be a rather strange thing for a neighbouring country to nuke you, as the fallout would hit them themselves (assuming right now that YOU don't have any weapons yourself.
A better example would be what would happen if you hear about an invasaion, again, diplomacy first.
Now, with terrorists it is a little bit of a different issue, but then they don't really "own" a country normally and invading another country on the basis that there MAY be terrorists is not right, now is it?
Robert Rodriguez left the DGA and thus the studio can in all likelyhood not hire him....
Don't forget, Hollywood is a Union Shop.
Lest that I try to hang myself on the metal detector ;)
The even bigger irony is that you can now travel without a passport between most European countries. Go figure.
Actually you might want to visit europe again some time. You have to show a passport in your original port of entry, but after that you can pretty much move freely within the EU (Schengen Agreement).
The same deal was (to my understanding) cut between the US, Canada and Mexico and is (I think) part of NAFTA as well.
The fact that the US suddenly has the urge to absolutly control who enters the country from Canada and under what conditions reminds me a bit of trying to enter the formger GDR, and yes, I did that more than once.
Yeah I remember trying to get into the GDR. It took forever, the longest was around 5 hours, they took the car completly apart and confiscated some material they didn't think we should be allowed to 'bring in'.
But if you think getting INTO the US is tough, try getting OUT, last time I flew out of Dallas it took forever to go through all the security checks, check in in in Toronto was easy in comparision.
Or that they took flying lessons in the US and actually got issued new visas AFTER they flew the planes in the WTC.
I lived there for a while, right now I am living just north of it, so I do have some idea on what is going on there.
I would have seen this earlier if you would have posted while being logged in. It seems there is a certain paranoia in america these days when it comes to discuss policy publicly.
That is just one example. Need more? Just ask. As for your U.N. missions? You are kidding, right? Whom do you think is actually moving the majority of all that U.N. equipment around?
This is not about "moving stuff around" this is about reasons to go to war.
Yes, the majority of States do not have the air power required to move troops within hours around the planet, but most UN Missions aren't designed that way.
A lot of the business done by the UN in the last 10 years was not headed by the US forces but rather local ones. EXACTLY because those states don't want to have to rely on the US for their own well being.
Afghanistan is free today because of the U.S. military, not the U.N. The U.N. minus the U.S. is not much of a military force. But what do we know, you seem to believe otherwise.
I suggest you look a little bit closer to Afghanistan, "free" I wouldn't call it. Yes, Karzai is in Kabul, and that's pretty much were he's staying. Outside of Kabul warlords are calling the shots with some other cities "free" as well. The situation for the people in Afghanistan has not dramatically improved and in all likelyhood it won't.
If Afghanistan is any indication for Iraq then I hope you are willing to stick around for another 20 years or so.
I would love to know you and ask your opinion of Iraq 10 years from today. I bet you would not be so forthcoming with the viewpoint you have today. Just like the many liberals that talk today as if they were Cold Warriors during the 80's. History was not on their side and it will not be on yours.
Why? Because the USSR collapsed before the US did? it did so out of it's own accord not because the US was "outspending" them.
As for Iraq. The votes are still out on it. I think at best it has a 50/50 chance of becoming a stable nation, I still consider it more likely though that Iraq will split up in 3 regions in a bloddy civil war (with Turkey probably trying to annex norther Iraq / Kurdistan).
One has the right to defend oneself, but not by invading first.
If that makes any sense?
If we would not follow this simple rule then why bother with an "honest" war at all? In that case anybody could just construct a reason to go to war and claim moral superiority.
The other function of the armed forces is increasingly to provide training and logistics for native militaries, and to work as a formal security parter (within a coalition) in a given theatre. In this area the US does not have near the capacity that is needed. It needs to easily be doubled or tripled, and since it's a long process to train these type of people it needs to start now.
The US is doing this since it's existance more or less, there are plenty of people who know how to teach. School of the Americas is the most well known of these endavours, and if you look at their graduates, you'll see just how well it is going (yes, I am sarcastic here).
Still even more forces need to be trained for covert missions. For example, when the US recieved reports France that Saddams intelligence units were planning covert ops in the US, they should have done their own covert operation and assasinated Saddam. Instead they asked the UN to help, and when the UN did nothing, they invaded Iraq which led to far too much needless death.
THIS is one of those things we will clash for a very long time. I do not believe that the "preemptive" going to war or killing others is agreeable or just be allowed.
Any nation who acts that way is nothing else but terrorists themselves.
Not only is your premise false, but it undercuts the actions of most of Europe (France, Germany, UK, Denmark, etc) and a number of African countries which are projecting military force in places like Bosnia, the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan, DRC and a number of other smaller theatres. All of these situations are experiencing the projected force of a formally declared military. And the number of countries projecting force through less formal conduits is far larger.
I did exclude UN missions from my list.
As for the other countries who are waging war with each other: Yep, this happens every day, but the only country on this planet right now that has the ability to put it's forces anywhere on the planet is the US.
And currently the US is the only one who does so out of some dubious reasons and wants the world to believe them.
Actually, if you want to express this change in terms of a lack of the potential for 'total' warfare, you really have to look at the reductions after the end of the Cold War as being the real change. Both the scale and nature of the US-Soviet Proxy wars in the 60-80s demostrate them as far removed from the plethera of police actions you see today.
The point I was trying to get to was that there always were armed conflictes throughout the history. The situation for the world as a whole has not changed. Thus to argue that the US needs to build up a very strong military force in order to "contain" these events is pretty much a marketing gag by the Whitehouse.
Actually because of this they are wrong.
It is not about farmers from 3rd world countries exporting their food to our shores but our subsidies (not only for growing but also transporting) make it CHEAPER for those countries to import food from us.
Not only does that put their farmers out of work, but it also makes them dependabale on us and our on oil based agrar businesses.
Actually I am wondering if it would have worked if the whole world would have switched to communism.
The progress may have been slower, but overall proabably more even than it is today.
The advantage of the capitalistic system (or what we make of it) is that it allows extremely fast growth for a minority of people (think about it, between Europe and North America there is maybe what? 1.2 billion people, Chine and india each have that many people).
Because (so far) it has worked for us does not guarantee that it is sustainable for the whole world, and quite frankly some indicators seem to show that we will most likely eat ourselves to death in the long run.... "Capitalism" simply can't live with moderation.
If we want to keep our quality of life we have to learn to adjust as well, but so far the gravy train is still rolling and I personally think we won't adapt until it may be too late.
You are trying to utilize a security v. disarmament paradigm in a world that needs security right now. Disarmament only works if it is unilateral, and unfortunately we live in a world that has North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as entities willing to pursue their goals outside of the realm of diplomacy and economic leverage.
Okay, I just spent 5 minutes laughin. you can't be serious, can you?
The only country right now I see projecting force outside of it's own borders under strange ideas is actually the US, the sabel ratteling that is done by the other countries is (so far) just that. And heck, if the situation would be reverse, so would be the US.
Welcome to the year 2005! Limited war and police action is the name of the game, and the U.S. military is frequently the only regional security vendor in many world markets.
Welcome to the world since the end of WorldWar II, where all those small little conflicts happened constantly.
And before that we had those little colonial wars et al... Nothing new to see here.
You won't see anything but an increase in military funding in the next 10 years, and that's a good thing. Globalization needs strong security controls and safeguards. The U.S. military through its operating centers around the world provides that. The size, scope and nature of the U.S. military is changing. Because the U.S. needs them, the World needs them, and you need them.
Contrary to popular american believe the rest of the world does not need an ueber Babysitter to take care of their business, actually, the rest of the world can manage just fine on it's own. Thanks for asking though.
Just because they're first doesn't mean that they will succed (though granted, they have quite a bit of money to throw at this adventure).
Look at Apple and the Newton. I loved my newton, I kept it until it literally fell apart (the concrete floor might have had something to do with that) and still they got trumped by Palm and Palm by PocketPC.
So, just because they're out there already with something like this doesn't mean they are going to succed.
On the other hand, the download film market seems to be picking up, with Sony announcing today that they will be starting their own movie download service and all, and who knows, Apple may just have a player ready to go, but holding back for other reasons (lack of content? Battery life?)
MMMh, I never really got "nagged" by QT, but then that's maybe me.
As for the UI rules: I take it you complain about QT and iTunes on Windows? Yes, it looks a bit odd, but I can't really see how iTunes could have been achieved with the Microsoft Widgets. Not that I use a Windows PC anyways.
Well,
I do think that Apples are currently the nicest computers on the market, having said that.
I can't really see where the problem with Quicktime is? Installing another Media Player takes two steps, download, drop into the Application folder, be done.
You want to remove Quicktime? Same thing.
But yes, not everything Apple does is "okay". Companies by default are "evil".