Besides, think of the economic benefit from rebuilding and restructuring all those countries. I would support given american companies prime access to the contracts.
Lastly, the world has lost the stomach for effective warfare, because it is not pretty or humane, the roman legions, who were extremely effective at pacifying conquered provinces would do so by a process of decimation, literally to kill one out of every ten males, not only did that reduce the numbers of people who could resist the roman administration, but it scared the bejesus out of the rest of them. In the end the majority felt, life under the romans was better than assured destruction.
If you dont play ball, first you get trade sanctions, if that doesnt work, we oust your ass.
The only problem with this is people don't take kindly to having their pain in the ass ousted (merge the ideas from these to sayings: when you stopping getting your ass kicked on basis, you start to miss it... and he may be a mean SOB, but he's OUR mean SOB). Who do you put in their place? Do you just occupy the country until a suitable Ghandi rises from the masses to bring fourth the masses?
We should apply this policy to our enemies and our allies alike, tell countries like Saudi Arabia to clean up their act and move toward democracy and civil rights, obviously our "allies" should be given more of a chance to improve their situation before military force is used, but I would want to see evidence each year of significant progress towards reform.
Lovely sentiment. Tragically, it has been suggested that we don't have the manpower to adequately control Iraq (and keep our defenses up, while not having a draft)... what happens when/if the Caos from your plan begins to spread, and grow exponentially? We can't bring a force to bare that rises that fast... no within one generation anyway.
Honestly, I think that if American foreign policy reflected our supposed national values, rather than our cowardice, selfishness, greed and laziness, that we would be far less hated in the world around us, even though we would be stepping on a whole lot more toes.
I think that is correct... Conditional on the following:
IF we had not had the cold war to keep us in check, and compell us to lose face by installing our SOBs all over the world for the sake of expediency, and IF we'd had the stomach to keep the forces we'd had during WWII in place, and IF we didn't have economic forces beholden to the bottom line, and not the best path.
Lastly, the world has lost the stomach for effective warfare, because it is not pretty or humane,
I think that it was the coldwar that forged our distaste for such things. We began to believe our own propaganda we used to distinguish ourselves from the Soviets.
What I wouldn't give to have Humphry Bogart as president...
1) Do a marshall type plan, build a democracy, take ten years and do it right.
2) We have plenty of manpower to control Iraq, sure maybe we need to remove troops from places like Japan and Germany to balance things out. Secondly I am talking about a 50 year plan, stabilize Iraq, get it on the right road where our troops arent needed, atleast in the same numbers, and pick the next worst hostile dictatorship to invade. Everyone else can just get trade sanctioned to death. Sure such broad trade sanctions will hurt our economy some, but if we give american companies prefer access to Iraq and the like it will help balance it out.
3) So we lost face, and were stupid fucks for forty some years, does that mean we should continue be dumbasses. Look, the american powerhouse has an unprecedent ability to spread democracy and peace throughout the world, personally in my perspective, doing so is the only way to keep us from collapsing in on ourselves as we are doing now.
4) I would agree, but we need to grow a pair of balls and realize that lots of ugly things need doing, better to get em done and done correctly than waste our energies trying to make ugly things pretty for right now.
5) yeah bogie for president would be pretty sweet. But I would settle for someone who could actually lead with a little bit of guts and integrity.
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cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-12 04:03 pm (UTC)Lastly, the world has lost the stomach for effective warfare, because it is not pretty or humane, the roman legions, who were extremely effective at pacifying conquered provinces would do so by a process of decimation, literally to kill one out of every ten males, not only did that reduce the numbers of people who could resist the roman administration, but it scared the bejesus out of the rest of them. In the end the majority felt, life under the romans was better than assured destruction.
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-12 04:41 pm (UTC)The only problem with this is people don't take kindly to having their pain in the ass ousted (merge the ideas from these to sayings: when you stopping getting your ass kicked on basis, you start to miss it... and he may be a mean SOB, but he's OUR mean SOB). Who do you put in their place? Do you just occupy the country until a suitable Ghandi rises from the masses to bring fourth the masses?
We should apply this policy to our enemies and our allies alike, tell countries like Saudi Arabia to clean up their act and move toward democracy and civil rights, obviously our "allies" should be given more of a chance to improve their situation before military force is used, but I would want to see evidence each year of significant progress towards reform.
Lovely sentiment. Tragically, it has been suggested that we don't have the manpower to adequately control Iraq (and keep our defenses up, while not having a draft)... what happens when/if the Caos from your plan begins to spread, and grow exponentially? We can't bring a force to bare that rises that fast... no within one generation anyway.
Honestly, I think that if American foreign policy reflected our supposed national values, rather than our cowardice, selfishness, greed and laziness, that we would be far less hated in the world around us, even though we would be stepping on a whole lot more toes.
I think that is correct... Conditional on the following:
IF we had not had the cold war to keep us in check, and compell us to lose face by installing our SOBs all over the world for the sake of expediency, and IF we'd had the stomach to keep the forces we'd had during WWII in place, and IF we didn't have economic forces beholden to the bottom line, and not the best path.
Lastly, the world has lost the stomach for effective warfare, because it is not pretty or humane,
I think that it was the coldwar that forged our distaste for such things. We began to believe our own propaganda we used to distinguish ourselves from the Soviets.
What I wouldn't give to have Humphry Bogart as president...
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-12 06:57 pm (UTC)2) We have plenty of manpower to control Iraq, sure maybe we need to remove troops from places like Japan and Germany to balance things out. Secondly I am talking about a 50 year plan, stabilize Iraq, get it on the right road where our troops arent needed, atleast in the same numbers, and pick the next worst hostile dictatorship to invade. Everyone else can just get trade sanctioned to death. Sure such broad trade sanctions will hurt our economy some, but if we give american companies prefer access to Iraq and the like it will help balance it out.
3) So we lost face, and were stupid fucks for forty some years, does that mean we should continue be dumbasses. Look, the american powerhouse has an unprecedent ability to spread democracy and peace throughout the world, personally in my perspective, doing so is the only way to keep us from collapsing in on ourselves as we are doing now.
4) I would agree, but we need to grow a pair of balls and realize that lots of ugly things need doing, better to get em done and done correctly than waste our energies trying to make ugly things pretty for right now.
5) yeah bogie for president would be pretty sweet. But I would settle for someone who could actually lead with a little bit of guts and integrity.
the joy of a childish pipe dream
Re: cont... (Fragging email char limit)
Date: 2004-05-12 09:42 pm (UTC)marshal type/50 year plan for democracy/eternal world peace:
1) lay down the law by the barrel of a gun.
2) ????
3) everyone loves us!
Perhaps I've been reading too much /. lately.