LordCraigus said:
Therumancer said:
Please note however that I do not advocate such things casually. North Korea's act marks them as being a major threat. Showing their abillity to fire WMD at an extreme range. They threaten Armageddon, they should be ready to receive it.
You do make some genuinely excellent points, and your idea of 'bomb every country that looks at us funny' would be perfectly sensible if it wasn't for this gosh darn morality thing that defines humanity and sets us apart from other animals. Even so, I believe the US (and indeed every country) is always looking out for itself first and the reasons and politics behind the decisions they make are far more complicated for me to try and understand fully. Governments aren't stupid and I don't see why the US and it's allies would use up resources and manpower in trying to reform Iraq without good reasoning behind it.
In the end I find myself looking at the pros and cons for such decisions and try to decide myself which is the more likely reasoning behind it, a few pros I can think of for Iraq being a) You'd need men on the ground to secure the precious oil in the region and b) War is business after all and a protracted operation such as the one in Iraq would provide a sustainable boost to the industry.
Despite how interesting it is to discuss I try to remain neutral on subjects like war, global politics and the like because, unless I'm explicitly told 'why' by the men who made the decisions, I can only speculate with the limited knowledge I have and will gain and making blanket statements and saying my opinions are fact is just foolish and ignorant, I'm not trying to say that's what you're doing I just felt the need to explain myself.
When it comes to morality the problem comes about when your the only one whose being moral and it's nothing but a disadvantage. I'm all for honor and rules, as long as both sides abide by the same codes of conduct. As soon as one group of people violates those agreements then anyone who does not do the same is at a definate disadvantage. I've often felt that the whole idea of honor and morality is to avoid the penelty of such systems ceasing the function due to the cost. The thing is that we're dealing with a world in which that cost is never arriving, and we're doing nothing but gimping ourselves.
In the final equasion everything comes down to resources, respect, and living space. There is a limited amount of space on the planet to deal with an ever-increasing population, and only so much in the way of resources. Thus people compete over these things. Every culture wants to see it's way of life validated by seeing others adapt their way of living and thinking in the final equasion as well. Every culture sees itself as living the "right" way.
In the end being an American I want to see America and it's allies dominate, have enough living space for it's population, and enough resources to guarantee our standard of living. Ultimatly this all comes at someone else's expense. In fact, if we were gone, all of those resources would simply be somewhere else and that group would be doing the same thing. We're no better or worse than anyone else in the global rat race, and the dominant power on the planet is always envied and disliked.
This will not change until we establish a global culture (whomever wins in the end), and obtain enough living space and resources (which requires a global culture to engage in things like space exploration effectively, and see those resources distributed free from cultural competition). For a lot of reasons both practical (I'm American) and objective (Americans are not ethnic bigots like other major cultures like the Chinese, and are probably the only culture that even theoretically could have all ethnicities living
together in one culture as equals... a whole differant discussion. Simply put mono-ethnic cultures are not a good thing for the future of our world. China for example is a situation where the nation, culture, and ethnicity are all the same thing, and there are few minorities if any and those that exist there are generally not exactly empowered).
THAT said, when it comes to North Korea we're dealing with a pretty black and white situation overall. We're dealing with a tiny more or less mono-ethnic nation convinced of it's own right to dominate (on the latter they are arguably no worse than anything else). They want these missles so they can basically force the rest of the world to do what they want. Basically "hey give us this, or we'll kill millions of people, and perhaps even set off a chain of events that will destroy the world".
The issue isn't the same as say Pakistan toting a Warhead around on a camel, it's a situation where they are demonstrating guidance systems sufficient to get one of those missles to the US, or arguably anywhere else they want it to land. That becomes a problem.
Thus it's not in our interests to let them succeed, or to take them out of the picture should they ever truely develop/test that technology.
That said, the reason why EVERYONE doesn't agree, is for the same reason everyone didn't agree about Iraq. It's a competition, and there is money to be made from these tiny third world nations. For example when we put sanctions on Iraq, that allowed nations like France to charge more money for needed goods since they weren't supposed to sell them. The back door trade hidden behind things like "the oil for food program" making those who were violating the sanctions insanely profitable.
The thing is though that just as we were surprised when we went into Iraq and caught France, we'd probably be surprised at who has been dealing with North Korea behind our backs.
Ultimatly we're pretty much the only group playing more or less fairly, and that's why it's a big deal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying America is saintly by any stretch of the imagination. It's mostly a matter of degrees. We're also paying a stiff price for not doing what is nessicary to stay on top, and frankly one of the things we need to do is make sure the world fears us, and realizes that yes, if we need to, we WILL use our military to full capacity.
North Korea is doing what it's doing largely because it doesn't believe the US will actually do anything to stop it. By not squashing them we ultimatly encourage the rest of the world to do the same thing. Arguably North Korea is behaving this way because they look at how we started this stupid police action in Iraq which did nothing, and how Iran is building nukes while we effectively say "stop, or we'll say stop again", and other nations simply use USA lead embargos as an excuse to increase their own trade.
All politics aside, we squish North Korea, the world will make a lot of noise, but in the end people are going to again have respect for America and realize that yes, we are going to do what is nessicary to protect our spot as king of the hill, and there is only so far we're going to allow ourselves to be pushed.
Going by responses I've received here, people seem to think for example that the US is weak and NEEDS military support from the rest of the world to do anything. The globe needs a remihnder that we do things like that for humanitarian reasons (to try and minimize the cost of human life through occupation and gradual adaption), not because we have no choice. In looking at the smouldering ruins of say North Korea the world will probably gain a newfound respect for what we have been trying to do, given the demonstration of the obvious alternative and less humanitarian methods to maintain the current global status quo.
Apologies about the length, and I probably didn't articulate all of that especially well.
I don't expect many people to nessicarly agree with me, as I've said before, I'm a militant and there just aren't that many Militant Americans at the moment, which from my perspective is part of the problem. >
The more militants you have, the more wary/respectful people are in relation to you, and the less likely it becomes that you actually have to cut those sentiments loose on people. Of course when the militants disappear effectively, things go to pot.
You can't speak softly and carry a big stick, without the big stick. The idea is that when speaking softly doesn't work, you wallop the crap out of whomever your dealing with. If you speak softly, and then speak softly some more, and then again ad-infinium, it doesn't work. Nobody respects a big stick gathering dust in a closet somewhere that has become only a hypothetical possibility. Especially if that closet is locked and your basically saying that if your soft speaking doesn't work, you'll get your key, unlock the closet, and begin dusting off your stick, so maybe you might wallop someone with it, assuming it hasn't rotted away.
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