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Iran simply isn't a geopolitical threat to the US. It is a waste of US time, lives and money to attempt to push around these desert states.
Iran controls a good chunk of the world's oil and gas reserves and much of the rest is in its neighborhood. Through its proxy terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Iran has destabilized the Middle East and brought endless conflict throughout the region. Iran has close alliances with Russia and China, who in turn use Iran as a proxy in their worldwide struggle with US power.
Iran's oil reserves are significant, but are only a small proportion of total Middle east reserves. And Iranian production has already peaked, which goes some way to explaining why these people feel that they need nuclear power and why they are so desperate to keep oil prices high.
All the more reason for the wetst to develop technologies that lessen our dependance on oil. Oil's sprinciple value is as an easily refined feedstock for transport fuels. If most of our transport switches to electric, the price of oil will decline, the incomes of these desert states will crash and they will no longer be able to fund their supposed weapons programme. Again, the solution needs to be technological rather than military.
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Iran simply isn't a geopolitical threat to the US. It is a waste of US time, lives and money to attempt to push around these desert states.
Iran controls a good chunk of the world's oil and gas reserves and much of the rest is in its neighborhood. Through its proxy terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Iran has destabilized the Middle East and brought endless conflict throughout the region. Iran has close alliances with Russia and China, who in turn use Iran as a proxy in their worldwide struggle with US power.
Iran's oil reserves are significant, but are only a small proportion of total Middle east reserves. And Iranian production has already peaked, which goes some way to explaining why these people feel that they need nuclear power and why they are so desperate to keep oil prices high.
If their that worried about their own supply, maybe they should stop selling it to China.
All the more reason for the wetst to develop technologies that lessen our dependance on oil. Oil's sprinciple value is as an easily refined feedstock for transport fuels. If most of our transport switches to electric, the price of oil will decline, the incomes of these desert states will crash and they will no longer be able to fund their supposed weapons programme. Again, the solution needs to be technological rather than military.
I repeat...
This is perhaps the biggest oil myth out there. If the west stops buying oil, the price will drop only to the point were developing countries can afford it, and the oil states will then take advantage of them. And they are a lot easier to influence socially, politically, religiously, ect than we are. Remember the Sudanese genocide is little more than Arab colonization of Africa.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Iran's oil reserves are significant, but are only a small proportion of total Middle east reserves. And Iranian production has already peaked, which goes some way to explaining why these people feel that they need nuclear power and why they are so desperate to keep oil prices high.
Iran has the second largest gas reserves, the third largest oil reserves and is the fourth largest oil producer in the world. This makes Iran important strategically and therefore geopolitically. Iran also has coal and hydroelectric power stations. They may wish to add some nuclear capacity but they sure don't need it, and they certainly don't need to develop the capability to enrich uranium. Iran is a theocratic dictatorship, one of the worst forms of government. Their concern is not the interests of the Iranian people, their concern is a religious agenda. Iran's government openly calls for the destruction of Israel, US and UK and western civilization. Hopefully the Iranians will be able to rid themselves of their ruthless Mullahs and become an open prosperous society.
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This is perhaps the biggest oil myth out there. If the west stops buying oil, the price will drop only to the point were developing countries can afford it, and the oil states will then take advantage of them. And they are a lot easier to influence socially, politically, religiously, ect than we are. Remember the Sudanese genocide is little more than Arab colonization of Africa.
Any technology that the wetst develops will be available on sale to the rest of the world. A drop in oil price reduces Arab power rather than enhances it.
You seem to be suggesting that the west should deploy its military to protect Christianity against Islam in the third world. Is that really a fight we want to pick? Is it not the responsibility of the Africans to defend themselves?
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This is perhaps the biggest oil myth out there. If the west stops buying oil, the price will drop only to the point were developing countries can afford it, and the oil states will then take advantage of them. And they are a lot easier to influence socially, politically, religiously, ect than we are. Remember the Sudanese genocide is little more than Arab colonization of Africa.
Any technology that the wetst develops will be available on sale to the rest of the world. A drop in oil price reduces Arab power rather than enhances it.
You seem to be suggesting that the west should deploy its military to protect Christianity against Islam in the third world. Is that really a fight we want to pick? Is it not the responsibility of the Africans to defend themselves?
Actually that comes right down to the founding principles of the Republican Party, of which I am a member, namely the Abolition of Slavery. The Sudan is one of those places in the World where slavery still exists, you have white Arabs enslaving black Africans, and you'd have us just turn our back on them as Abraham Lincoln's political opponent suggested? I think we have a moral obligation to fight slavery in Africa, particulary due to our specific history regarding that subject. I find slavery repugnant, and Sudan's threatening to whip that teacher from your country 40 times for the harmless act of allowing children to name a teddy bear "Mohammad" is an injustice and harks back to those days of slavery back in my nation's South. American's fought a war over the abolition of slavery and 600,000 Americans died to get rid of it. Before the Civil War, we've tried compromise, the Missouri Compromise, but it didn't work over the long term, we just kept on retuirning to the Issue of Slavery and it got to the point where we could not ignore it any longer.
I don't see any reason why we should have business as usual with a slave state, or why we shouldn't change its government if it has access to valuable resources such as oil. Shouldn't that resouece be the property of the people of Sudan rather than to just their "masters"? Just as we didn't continue to buy cotton from slave plantations, is the Sudan andits oil all that different? Sudan is now a Slave State, why shouldn't we abolish slavery there like we did in our own south?
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This is perhaps the biggest oil myth out there. If the west stops buying oil, the price will drop only to the point were developing countries can afford it, and the oil states will then take advantage of them. And they are a lot easier to influence socially, politically, religiously, ect than we are. Remember the Sudanese genocide is little more than Arab colonization of Africa.
Any technology that the wetst develops will be available on sale to the rest of the world. A drop in oil price reduces Arab power rather than enhances it.
You seem to be suggesting that the west should deploy its military to protect Christianity against Islam in the third world. Is that really a fight we want to pick? Is it not the responsibility of the Africans to defend themselves?
Actually that comes right down to the founding principles of the Republican Party, of which I am a member, namely the Abolition of Slavery. The Sudan is one of those places in the World where slavery still exists, you have white Arabs enslaving black Africans, and you'd have us just turn our back on them as Abraham Lincoln's political opponent suggested? I think we have a moral obligation to fight slavery in Africa, particulary due to our specific history regarding that subject. I find slavery repugnant, and Sudan's threatening to whip that teacher from your country 40 times for the harmless act of allowing children to name a teddy bear "Mohammad" is an injustice and harks back to those days of slavery back in my nation's South. American's fought a war over the abolition of slavery and 600,000 Americans died to get rid of it. Before the Civil War, we've tried compromise, the Missouri Compromise, but it didn't work over the long term, we just kept on retuirning to the Issue of Slavery and it got to the point where we could not ignore it any longer.
I don't see any reason why we should have business as usual with a slave state, or why we shouldn't change its government if it has access to valuable resources such as oil. Shouldn't that resouece be the property of the people of Sudan rather than to just their "masters"? Just as we didn't continue to buy cotton from slave plantations, is the Sudan andits oil all that different? Sudan is now a Slave State, why shouldn't we abolish slavery there like we did in our own south?
But it is not our fight. Policing the world to the extent that you suggest means devoting resources to the military on a scale that we cannot possibly maintain for more than a little while longer.
We need to take care of our people first and foremost. They are the ones that vote for us, the ones that we have an electoral mandate for and the ones that would have to lay down their lives defending Sudan. I simply do not see why they should be expected to sacrifice their lives and their cash for a fight that does not concern them.
The 21st centuru is going to be a time when the US is desperately short of resources and money, with a sliding economy and sliding geopolitical dominance in the face of India and china. Maintaining dominance means first and foremost investing in new technologies that can be used to grow the economy. Every dollar that is spent defending far away desert states which do not concern you is a dollar that you won't be able to invest in Fusion research, or the space programme or advanced rail systems or genetic engineering....etc.
The idea of trying to control the world by military force reminds me of the last days of the British empire. By the early 1900s, it was obvious that Germany and the US would eclipsed the UK economically. The response of Britain was unparralled military expenditure, attempting to control the world through force of arms, in order to make up for lost economic influence. This actually hastened Britain's decline by sucking up resources that could have been invested in new technologies and new consumer products.
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The idea of trying to control the world by military force reminds me of the last days of the British empire. By the early 1900s, it was obvious that Germany and the US would eclipsed the UK economically. The response of Britain was unparralled military expenditure, attempting to control the world through force of arms, in order to make up for lost economic influence. This actually hastened Britain's decline by sucking up resources that could have been invested in new technologies and new consumer products.
Nice point.
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Firstly, both the US and Germany economies had surpassed Great Britain by 1900, but not the Empire's. Second, it was the crippling cost of the First World War that consumed its resources. There was no attempt or desire to "control the world through force of arms" only to protect its trade and Empire. The enormous costs and casualties of WW1 led to the slow dismantling of the Empire - Ireland, Iraq, Egypt, Canada. The subsequent devastating Second World War hastened the process with most colonies gone soon afterwards.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Also Antius assumes that I advocate a broad assault on all the world's trouble spots all at once! I never said anything of the sort. Fortunately since 1900, the undemocratic world has gotten smaller. Far be it from being in a period of decline we are ascendent. Sudan called attention to itself with this whole "teddy bear naming" controversy, and it involved a westerner. Sure we can't solve every country's problems, but when those problems start affecting our citizens, then we must pay attention to those countries and give them more than their fair share of our attention, not that they will necessarily like it. I believe this is called the American century for a reason, we have some responsibility to shape the world in a positive direction, continuing where the British Empire left off.
People who compare the United States Influence to the Roman Empire often like to compare it to that Empire's decline, but there also was a period when that Empire was ascendent, nobody likes to compare us to that Roman Empire. Whenever they compare us with something they always seem to prefer to compare us with something in decline, as if that's going to make them feel better.
One thing I don't dispute though, the United States of America is one of history's Great Civilizations, right up there with the Greek, and the Romans, and they had an outsided influence on those periods just like we do today. That part of the World we call Western Civilization, was in part shaped by the United States of America. Probably without the USA, there would be no European Union as we now know it. The USA was at the forefront of pushing many of the liberal values that many of todays liberals now expouse, the problem however is that among those liberal values is the one that states the United States of America is nothing special, that its just another nation of the World, or that it creates more problems than it solves.
There are predators out there, nations that would just love to tear Western Civilization apart, they seek to build Empires at the expense of those freedoms and liberties that we enjoy, predators such as Iran, Russia, the Islamo-facists, various dictators such as Hugo Chavez and Castro, but they are weak unless we give them strength, especially those among us that always sympathize with the underdog, no matter who he is. Today some of those underdogs are Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and of course those people running Sudan. Our time of prominence and influence won't last forever, and that is why I believe that we as a country should attempt to build some sort of legacy for ourselves, a set of Western Democratic values that will last beyond us. One particular project might be an attempt to push Democracy on China, I mean after all it is private businesses and individual initiative that is making China powerful today, not its ruling communists. I figure one of these days China is just going to shrug off or get rid of their communist rulers, they have a parasitic relationship with the Chinese people anyway, taxing their incomes and pursuing some dogma originated by some German in the 19th century named Karl Marx, that has little to do with Chinese culture or interests, Communism has not worked, and it was Chinese refusal to take communism seriously and in spite of that dogma that China has prospered.
My point is, when China pushes ahead, I hope that we've managed to push China in a democratic capitalistic direction so it can take over as leader of the Free World, but short of that there is always India.
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This is perhaps the biggest oil myth out there. If the west stops buying oil, the price will drop only to the point were developing countries can afford it, and the oil states will then take advantage of them. And they are a lot easier to influence socially, politically, religiously, ect than we are. Remember the Sudanese genocide is little more than Arab colonization of Africa.
Any technology that the wetst develops will be available on sale to the rest of the world. A drop in oil price reduces Arab power rather than enhances it.
This is a technology that will challenge the economies of the West to proliferate. It will be a good long time before third world economies can join the club. Were do you think they will go in the mean time?
You seem to be suggesting that the west should deploy its military to protect Christianity against Islam in the third world. Is that really a fight we want to pick? Is it not the responsibility of the Africans to defend themselves?
Was it not the responsibility of the British government to defend its people from the Germans? Is this really a game you want to play?
Don't you realize that by reducing the equation to one of predators and prey, we become just as barbaric.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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But when the Africans can't defend themselves...
Antius, you are obviously one of those 'as long as it doesn't happen to me' people. Anything can happen to other people as long as you don't get affected. You make me sick. Go to Iran. See what it's like.
If we have the power to stop a dictator killing their people, if we wield the power to stop slavery, and we don't use it, the blood is partly on our hands.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Who will speak out for you when they come for you, eh?
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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But when the Africans can't defend themselves...
Antius, you are obviously one of those 'as long as it doesn't happen to me' people. Anything can happen to other people as long as you don't get affected. You make me sick. Go to Iran. See what it's like.
If we have the power to stop a dictator killing their people, if we wield the power to stop slavery, and we don't use it, the blood is partly on our hands.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.Who will speak out for you when they come for you, eh?
No. I simply don't think that policing the world will be succesful or in US/Western interests and I don't think the cost in money and lives justifies the end.
Do you seriously believe that the Iranian people want the US to invade their country and enforce 'regime change' upon them? They will resent the intrusion and will resent the US for having attacked them. Many Iranians and Americans will die in the process and the end result, likely as not, will not be pleasing or at all what you had intended or hoped for. Invade the Iranians if you think that US national security is seriously threatened, but do not kid yourself that you are actibg in their best interests.
I do not believe that attempting to police the world against every country that elects/is inflicted with an undemocratic regime will be (a) effective and (b) in US/UK/Western interests. In all cases, many native peoples (and US soldiers) end up dying, the US/West generally fails to achieve the sort of compliant pro-western and democratic solution that it had intended and a wave of anti-western resentment remains for decades afterwards.
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Where do you get the idea they won't like being free of their dictator? The Iraqis were pleased. So were the Afganistanis. I know you're going to respond with 'they didn't really want it' but life has improved dramatically form them.
Invade Sudan! Free its people!
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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The greatest threat to the West today is not Islamofascists, or Latin American Neo-Communists, but the attitude that all the things that make us prosperous and free are some sort of fluke, and not the answer. Is freedom not what every man seeks? I say no, because everyone in power in any dictatorship that has ever existed had freedom at the expense of others.
Are the Sudanese really any different from us? Or have they just not known any different?
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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No. I simply don't think that policing the world will be succesful or in US/Western interests and I don't think the cost in money and lives justifies the end.
Do you seriously believe that the Iranian people want the US to invade their country and enforce 'regime change' upon them? They will resent the intrusion and will resent the US for having attacked them. Many Iranians and Americans will die in the process and the end result, likely as not, will not be pleasing or at all what you had intended or hoped for. Invade the Iranians if you think that US national security is seriously threatened, but do not kid yourself that you are actibg in their best interests.
If the Iranians don't put up a fight, the transition will be easy. If they do put up a fight, then they are our enemy, and I really don't care how they feel.
Many Germans fought for Hitler, "Duh", and many of those same Germans enjoyed the freedom we gave them later.
Many Japanese committed suicide when American Soldiers invaded to avoid capture, and most of their Japanese relatives enjoyed a prosperous post war Japan afterwards.
Your right, I have a genuine lack of understanding of people who fight for tyranny and their oppressors. I do think that individual German citizens are better off for their country having lost World War II than having won, especially those Germans who happen to be Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Cripples, and Homosexuals. Also that Germans get to choose their own government rather than being subject to the whims of their rulers, thanks to US Soldiers that they fought, is a big plus for them.
For the same reason, I think the Japanese now feel more prosperous under their present government that they choose, than under their Imperial Military regime they fought tooth and nail with fanatacism for.
Some people in non-western cultures are truly strange. I do think we are better off for them having converted forcibly to democracies and they do not now hate us. Although George W. Bush is unpopular in Germany due to the negative biased press covereage he usually gets thanks to the biased western media, which is controlled by liberals. We literally have our own media go tell the rest of the world that we are "really bad" whenever we go to help people, and some of this unfortunately sticks.
We have our own domestic media telling the world, "We've come to exploit you!", "We want you oil!", "Come kill out soldiers, they are here to terrorise you in the dark of night!" and some Iraqis, Afganis, and Iranians believe what our own media tells them, and the resulting violence costs some US soldiers their lives, thanks to CNN, MSNBC, CBS, the New York Times and their ilk!
I do not believe that attempting to police the world against every country that elects/is inflicted with an undemocratic regime will be (a) effective and (b) in US/UK/Western interests. In all cases, many native peoples (and US soldiers) end up dying, the US/West generally fails to achieve the sort of compliant pro-western and democratic solution that it had intended and a wave of anti-western resentment remains for decades afterwards.
That is a bogus strawman argument. We have never said we would try to tackle every enemy we've had on a broad front all at once, that is one of the reasons we are not now in Iran, but the troubles in Iraq are simmering down now, the Iraqis will soon be able to police themselves and their will be opportunities for "assisted" regime change in Iran in the near future.
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