General rant

[grinninfoole]

The news continues to disgust me.

First off, we have a handicapped child tortured to death by religious extremists:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3181637.stm
That something like this happens here in the USA fills me with despair for our sanity as a society. Nut jobs like these folks are just a few steps removed from that dumbfuck judge in Alabama (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3175421.stm) are a blight on our nation and display a gift for being wrong on every issue so consistent that they must be divinely inspired.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, our soldiers continue to die as peace, prosperity and orderly democracy fail to magically appear. I notice that even as the attacks continue, they're no longer being fobbed off exclusively on 'Baathist loyalists', but also onto 'foreign terrorists.' Since the Baath party wasn't really about ideology, but about Hussein's Al-Tikriti clan holding on to power, I really don't see why there'd be too many willing to keep fighting and dying for such an obviously lost cause. (I don't know how much acceptance the US really has in Iraq, but I'm sure that Hussein and his crowd will never be allowed back in power.) So, if the attackers aren't foreign terrorists, then we have to ask what is really going on and what we are really do there, and our warlords won't permit that. Besides, this way, it's all linked into our war on terror, so they can keep using the same old justification.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3182157.stm

Moreover, this pig's ear of a war is making the US financial situation all the more dire. I don't know which pisses me off more: the fatuous nonsense that the war was necessary and would be over quickly, or that tax cuts are all that's needed to fix our economy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3182339.stm

Our nation is heading for a hard fall. Soon. I don't look foward to it. Between corporate greed and religious fanaticism lies our doom.

Comments

There is a lot of bad and ridiculous news today, it seems...

[filthyassistant.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3181605.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3174963.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3181489.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3181443.stm

Re: There is a lot of bad and ridiculous news today, it seems...

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I can't believe someone's trying to do a study measuring someone's sense of humor. How do you set the necessary limits around a phenomenon that's all about transcending limits?

And don't mock the Romans too loudly for their fashion sense--the divine Julius might hear you.

[girl-in-reverse.livejournal.com]

and so long as there is any danger of china taking over once the u.s. is knocked down a few pegs, i will always be employed!

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

China will be the world's big super-power within thirty years, so I expect you'll get busier and busier.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

In that case, I expect Russia experts and those who study the Indian subcontinent to be in high demand, as neither India nor Russia will be willing to sit down and let China be the world's superpower.

Look at some of the people in China's neighborhood: Russia, India, the Philipines Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan. All of them aren't too fond of China. Two of them have security guarentees from the US, and one of them is moving into a quasi alliance with the US.

China has two allies: Pakistan and North Korea. Both of which aren't exactly much help, and aren't reliable.

The only worry with regard to China is that they'll think they are a lot more powerful than they are, and end up forcing a confrontation over an issue where their neighbors won't back down.

Of course, there's also the chance that we'll see an EU-China alliance. In which case all sorts of wierd things can happen.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

There's more to this than current geo-politics. China has the world's largest population and an economy that is growing to match it. Our military power is based on our wealth, which is dribbling away, and a lot of it is going to China (viz our huge and growing trade deficit with China). India may well turn out to be China's great rival; I doubt Russia will have much to say in the matter.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, if you really want to see what China could be like, compare it to Taiwan.

GDP per capita in China is $4,400. It's $18k in Taiwan. (Source is CIA World Factbook.)

If China had Taiwan's GDP per capita, China's total GDP would be around $18 trillion, compared to $10.4 trillion for the US.

I find it interesting that most Americans tend to think of China as a rich country because of it's overall GDP. Their GDP per capita is comparable to the Philipines, which is not exactly rich.

Yes, they have population..but so does India. Any superpower style actions by China are likely to irritate its neighbors..who have more population and greater wealth. It's unlikely they'll act in combination..unless, of course, China acts against them.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I think there will be no superpower of the 21st century. We in the US are still coasting off the demise of the FSU, and we're starting to hurt in terms of what we're willing to do vs what we're trying to do. Since USSR, inc went into recievership, we've taken on open-ended commitments in the Balkans, kept one in Korea, acquired one in Iraq (where, theoretically at least, we've decided to end the commitment, but where the execution of the plan hasn't been great), and still maintained a presence in Western Europe that was designed to keep the USSR at bay.

Even with all that, we're not putting too much effort out. The amount of GDP devoted to military effort, even after recent hikes, is less than 5%. When we really put out an effort in WWII, it was close to 50%.

The country is not willing to throw much more effort into military matters than it is now. And the military is straining to meet the commitments that have been entered into. Plus, we've gotten to the point of diminishing returns. If you get too powerful, people naturally fear you'll abuse that power, justifiably or not.

Now that Iraq has been taken off the table, the threats to US security are minimal: North Korea is about it, and if we really wanted to, we could toss them out of power in a short period of time. No one else can act agaisnt the US without getting their neighbors in the act.

Traditionally, US security has rested on the fact that no one power in preeminent in Eurasia. That broke down in the 1940s, and we departed from our traditional policy because we had no choice.

I look at Eurasia nowadays, and I just don't see why we shouldn't go back to our traditional policy once we've got some stable local political order in Iraq. Which should not, IMHO, take more than 5 years. (We don't need to repeat Bosnia, where the UN will stop 'supervising' thing any year now..it's been almost ten years there.)