War with N. Korea?

[gnarly1]

 

<snip>

Er....what do we do about sporks...?

[TheMastersSon]

 

 

Actually, military spending was on the decline, until 9/11/01.

It was on the decline only from the massive bloating that occurred during WWII and subsequent buildups (Reagan, Bush etc). It's why government charts that show our country's annual military and defense spending typically go back only to 1960, or if you're lucky, 1940 or 1945. Our government doesn't want us to know or be reminded that our spending for these two items was drastically lower for the first 150+ years of our country's history (except for WWI). Here's an example of OMB gymnastics:

 

https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/0aeecd4c4d7b803b0434464b0a149726.gif

 

See the very left of the chart? Yeah, that. For our first century and a half.

Not really surprising. But then, the world has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since pre-WWI days.

That's the standard reaction and justification heard from many Americans, imo it's also close to pure hogwash. Human nature is and always has been to defend oneself against threats, and if you look at the CIA's chart for WMDs by country, the vast majority of the list is a direct result of and response to our own arsenals of these same weapons. We'll be straddled with this problem forever, as long as we insist it's possible to both produce/maintain the world's largest (by far) stockpiles of WMDs, and play global traffic cop for them. It's a definite lose situation long-term, because technology once learned or acquired is never unlearned and virtually never unacquired. Only one country in the world (South Africa) has ever given up their WMDs voluntarily, in over 70 years. Thus in absence of global bans eventually either all or something very close to all countries will have them. Edited October 23, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

 

 

 

Actually, military spending was on the decline, until 9/11/01.

It was on the decline only from the massive bloating that occurred during WWII and subsequent buildups (Reagan, Bush etc). It's why government charts that show our country's annual military and defense spending typically go back only to 1960, or if you're lucky, 1940 or 1945. Our government doesn't want us to know or be reminded that our spending for these two items was drastically lower for the first 150+ years of our country's history (except for WWI). Here's an example of OMB gymnastics:

 

https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/0aeecd4c4d7b803b0434464b0a149726.gif

 

See the very left of the chart? Yeah, that. For our first century and a half.

Not really surprising. But then, the world has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since pre-WWI days.

That's the standard reaction and justification heard from many Americans, imo it's also close to pure hogwash. Human nature is and always has been to defend oneself against threats, and if you look at the CIA's chart for WMDs by country, the vast majority of the list is a direct result of and response to our own arsenals of these same weapons. We'll be straddled with this problem forever, as long as we insist it's possible to both produce/maintain the world's largest (by far) stockpiles of WMDs, and play global traffic cop for them. It's a definite lose situation long-term, because technology once learned or acquired is never unlearned and virtually never unacquired. Only one country in the world (South Africa) has ever given up their WMDs voluntarily, in over 70 years. Thus in absence of global bans eventually either all or something very close to all countries will have them.

 

How is that hogwash? The world HAS changed. Various countries had ideologies that were directly opposed to ours. That still exists today. Some of it has morphed from political ideology differences, to more a struggle for control, still, essentially the same problem.

[TheMastersSon]

I'm not following your point. The last part of that doesn't jive with the first. Our country like every other in human history has had ideological enemies ever since its founding. IMO it's beyond absurd to believe our drastic increases in military spending since 1945 and the number/severity of our foreign relations problems since 1945 are mere coincidence. We didn't have problems (at least not perpetual ones like today) because we weren't spending countless billions every year interfering with the operations and self-rule of other countries. I know the analogy is ridiculous but imagine if France had marched in at the start of our Civil War and forcibly divided our country into two halves. The conflict would have remained stuck in amber for eternity, just as it has in Korea. From their perspective what they've had for the last half century is foreign occupation and interference by ideological enemies, backed up by potential WMD terror. Edited October 23, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

The world is far more connected than it was pre-WWI, or even pre-WWII. Basically, with the advent of the proliferation of air travel, the world shrank. Before that happened, a trip from one continent to another, would take weeks. Now, we do it in hours. We have world-wide instant communication as well. We also have military bases scattered throughout the world.... And then there is the 're-bordering' of the Ottoman empire after the world wars. The random drawing of borders done by folks that had no idea of what they were setting the world up for....

 

Yes, we are our own worst enemy, and our very actions perpetuate our problems, not reduce them. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. We stick our noses into places they don't belong, with no understanding of the people we are trying to 'help', which causes more grief, and requires even more military strength. That process has only accelerated since roughly 2003....... our government wanted 'a friendly, stable, middle east', so, they went about shuffling things in what the thought was what the people there wanted........ not realizing that the culture there is RADICALLY different from ours, and all of their guesses about 'what they wanted', were wrong. They just do not seem to be able to grasp that they have no clue what they are doing...... They assigned emotions/motivations to a people they have no understanding of, and so, everything they do just makes things worse. Having first a war-mongering president, followed by an inept one, sure didn't help us either.

 

Unfortunately, the new guy, whilst stating he wanted to change all that, once elected, got talked right back into it, so, here we go for a few more years, continuing all the same mistakes.

 

I blame the multinationals, and the military-industrial complex. The more conflict there is in the world the more money the latter makes. The more we interfere with other governments, the more places are opened up for the former to exploit. They try and tell us that a 'global economy' and 'free trade' are good for america...... and it is, for a tiny segment of the population. For the other 99% of us, it simply means a quickly declining standard of living. Trouble is, its that 1% that makes the rules, and defines policy, so, while they prosper, the rest of us suffer. It can't last that way though. We are rapidly approaching the tipping point, and all hell is going to break loose.

[Harbringe]

This is just fascinating , its people who have escaped from North Korea. It was made in the spring but what they talk about really gives you a good idea of what the people of North Korea are going through and what they think about what is going on. The statement that surprised me was when one of them said "many think a war would be better , when your starving to death what does it matter if you die in a war". Makes you think twice about what it is your dealing with when it comes to the North Korean regime. What these people talk about is extremely pertinent to what we are discussing and what is currently going on.

 

[TheMastersSon]

Lobbing missiles into residential neighborhoods is not the way to prevent terrorism. Imposing economic sanctions on our ideological enemies, waiting a decade or two for a sizable chunk of their populations to die from starvation and lack of medical care etc (estimates start at 600,000 just in Iraq over 12 years), and then invading them militarily is not what prevents terrorism, and imo even though it may be effective it's an abjectly immoral foreign policy. It's legal mass murder imo and according to articles it's what NK believes it's up against: no future with the sanctions, perpetually starved and with no way to remove the sanctions (other than voluntary resignation of their regime, which simply never happens in military/totalitarian dictatorships, especially ones with inherited leaders), for quite a few in NK there might as well be no future at all.

What absolutely floors me is that apparently nobody in our country has learned anything from our Vietnam experience. After 57,000 U.S. deaths and more bomb tonnage than was dropped during all of WWII, we finally left and they simply (and rather peacefully btw) transitioned to a commonly supported government. It's not the form of government we choose for ourselves, but it's their choice and problem now, not ours, as it always should have been. The exact same eventuality would have occurred had we not wasted a single human life or dollar in that country. My point is that the same is true for ANY country, so it's also true in Korea: we aren't preventing anything by interfering with their self-rule, we're merely postponing it, so the obvious (and only imo) solution (short of yet more military intervention, as if a half century of it isn't enough) is for all occupying forces to leave and let the Korean people determine their own government and future. Their two choices like every other country are to work it out or fight if working doesn't work. It was our choice too 150 years ago. Ask Jong-un whether he'd rather rule the south or destroy it and see what he says. As far as foreign countries are concerned there's no reason for him not to rule, as long as he poses no risk to his neighbors or other ideological enemies, and his justification for this risk and his threats would be eliminated, as should his WMD program(s) if he comes to the bargaining table. Again relating back to Vietnam, they passed market reforms in 1986 and we've formally recognized them since 1995 without issue. Last I heard they were the second fastest growing economy on Earth. That's primarily due to the combination of a lack of recognition of individual human and civil rights (like China) and the West's willingness to reward it (like China).

Edited October 24, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[Aurielius]

 

 

The facts are correct whether it's unbiased..well I'll leave that up to the viewer.

There is of course a difference between the US winning the conflict and the probable catastrophic consequences for the civilians living on the peninsula.

[TheMastersSon]

A red flag for anything is when it claims to be unbiased. Thanks and RIP to Roger Ailes for that permanent lesson.

Edited October 24, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

There weren't any terrorists in Iraq until AFTER we invaded. Saddam didn't want anything to do with them.