The Doink
Real Name: Scott
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 20,335
Car: '09 OBXT, '02 WRX, '96 Miata
Class: PDX/TT-6
The way out is through
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Isolationism is suicide... the economy is global, you can't (and I don't think anyone is suggesting that we do) just pull out of the world like you could in 1930.
IMO, China is *not* our enemy. You're father and uncles fought the Chinese in the past because the US leaders of the time believed that if communism spread to any "free" counties, then it would domino and envelope the world. There were three incorrect assumptions, 1) that communism and capitalism can't co-exists (proven wrong by the *massive* success story that is Hong Kong), 2) that the domino effect was real (failures in Korea and Vietnam didn't make communism run rampant), and 3) that communism was a viable long-term economic system (empirical evidence shows that communism just doesn't work in a globally competitive economy).
Which brings us to modern China. Are they communists? Yep. But they have an increasingly free-market economy, brought on mostly by seeing how well Hong Kong did under British rule until the turn of the century. Remember the big "oh shit, what's China gonna do when they get HK back?"... well China made the right move, they let HK be, and even better for them, they adopted HK's free-market tilt. China saw the USSR collapse due to it's economy, and so they've gone the other route... they trade on the free market, and they're adopting free market methods internally. They've got the man power, and natural resources to be the next super power.
IMO, China will be our replacement as the next world super power. But for a while yet, they're going to need the US as an economic partner to make it happen. Like Austin said, they're not stupid enough to start a war that can't possibly profit them, when all they need to do is keep what their doing right now to become a super power. Hell, look at China's reaction to the North Korea situation... they were *far* more diplomatic than they would have been in the past. I get the feeling that China's ready and willing to step into a world leadership roll in the next 20-50 years, and they're looking at the DPRK like a retarded younger brother that can't stop shitting in his own pants and embarrassing China.
Wars are started under two situations: potential for profit, or nothing to lose. China and the US have nothing to profit from, and everything to lose if they were go go to war. IMO, China's not a threat, or an enemy.
The past is the past... we wouldn't bomb Japan over Pearl Harbor, why bomb China over Korea/Vietnam? I'd like to think that we've learned our lessons about those situations (though Iraq tells me we haven't... but we're not in Iraq over political policy, we're in Iraq over money).
And speaking of the Middle East... Joeyy's right... that's a situation where cruise missiles really probably would have been the right move. If we stop dicking around trying to shape policy over there, and instead every time they build something that threatens us, it blows up in the middle of the night, you gotta think they'd stop building threatening stuff and keep to themselves. Our failure in the Middle East has been because we have a policy of trying to make them act in a way that profits us... so we supported Israel, we played sides in Iran/Iraq, we played sides in USSR/Afghanistan, we bailed out Kuwait... of course those people hate us, we've got our dick in their mashed potatoes. And the *only* reason we did it, was because we were attempting to secure the oil we'd need to fight Russia (who is self-sufficient w/ regard to oil) during the Cold War. i.e. all the problems in the Middle East all stem from the same 3 bad assumptions we made in the 50s!
I forget my point... it's something like: China's not a threat, in fact they're the next super power, and we have tremendous opportunity to profit from working with them and strengthening economic ties over the next few decades. The Middle East is just a cluster fuck resulting from continued poor policy for profit bullshit, and frankly we should just walk away with an international "oops, my bad" apology. Then launch cruise missiles into their reactors to keep their nuclear programs more expensive than they can afford.
Oh, and while I'm solving all the worlds' problems... Israel needs to recognize Palestine and vise versa, define some fair boarders, and actually stop their pseudo-occupation bullshit settlements... open the roads and respect each other, and the suicide attacks will stop. Israel can make concessions without looking like they're caving to terrorist tactics. Really, terrorists exist only because they have no other options... if you give them options, and give them real hope for peace, the terrorists disappear. No one really wants to blow themselves to bits if they don't have to.
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Is you is, or is you ain't, my con-stit-u-ints?
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