Egypt, Arab Spring and mass protests again

madpeople · Post by **madpeople** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:40 pm

Camaro wrote:QUOTE (Camaro @ Nov 23 2011, 02:55 PM) By your logic we should be invading China right now to stave off the gross humanitarian issues they have there, but we don't. How about Africa? There are tons of gross inhuman injustices going on there, but no first world country gives a flying fig.

In Libya the majority of people wanted outside intervention, asked for it and had already started an uprising. That's different to arbitrarily attacking a country to get regime change - it's like saying "ok" if you own a tow truck and your neighbour asks you to take their broken car to the scrap heap vs deciding to take your neighbours car to the scrap heap because it's broken without talking to your neighbour. In you take the same action in both scenarios, but in one of those scenarios you're the nice helpful guy, the other you're not.

Also, attacking china would be a bit of a bad idea, even if it would be a nice thing to free Tibet. Probably better to try politics first, but china will probably ignore you because they own all your USD.

Kopperhead · Post by **Kopperhead** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:46 pm

Dylan Ratigan ranting

War toys producing companies will have a say into this, we all know right now the US is unbeatable in the battlefield, from WWII onwards has been, $#@!, US military expenses are HALF OF THE WHOLE WORLD ONES.

Probably you will think this vid has nothing to see with the matter at hand, it does, it's really pointing at the root of it in my perception.

NightRychune · Post by **NightRychune** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:49 pm

a lot of the stuff you guys are talking about is relevant to the concepts of responsibility to protect, sovereignty, et cetera

there was a pretty big internets debate about all of that in late august/through most of september sparked by this particular article. a few cursory google searches on that august-september time period about sovereignty/r2p/international relations theory/etc will probably get you more than enough different points of view and general information on the subject

Broodwich · Post by **Broodwich** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:44 pm

while its nice to see that the arab league is attempting to govern themselves and take out syria, i rather think its because of self preservation so they dont have the same happen to them rather than any moral grounds. I'm sure nuke could elaborate

edit: I think its a pretty good idea to stay the $#@! out since none of them like us anyway

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:11 pm

Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ Nov 23 2011, 11:44 PM) while its nice to see that the arab league is attempting to govern themselves and take out syria, i rather think its because of self preservation so they dont have the same happen to them rather than any moral grounds. I'm sure nuke could elaborate

+1

Sundance_ · Post by **Sundance_** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:39 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Nov 23 2011, 09:05 AM) Reducing the nuclear deterrent to a ~500 warhead level would also solve a large part of the budget deficit, and still make sure nobody messes with you.

Ain't gonna happen...

Just one Ohio class boomer holds 14 Trident IIs, with 5 warheads each according to the latest Strategic Offensive Treaty. (Used to be like 8-12 warheads) And there are 14 Ohios.

There's your ~500 warheads right there... just in the Ohio-class subs.

Camaro · Post by **Camaro** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:12 am

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Nov 23 2011, 05:05 AM) Reducing the nuclear deterrent to a ~500 warhead level would also solve a large part of the budget deficit, and still make sure nobody messes with you.

Oh yes, that clearly will solve all our financial woes.

No, what we need done is to CLOSE ALL 900 of our foreign bases. Bring all our troops home. Cut expenditures on weapons meant for massive scale global warfare (which there hasn't been any of for a while), and rebuild our entitlements.

We should cut foreign aid on principle too. No point in sending corrupt governments money so they can use it against their citizenry instead of the supposed humanitarian reasons we sent it.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:00 pm

You don't think the massive nuclear armament is a huge drain on the economy Camaro? I'm surprised.

NightRychune · Post by **NightRychune** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:00 pm

well, the united states is already planning to scale back/scrap COIN and refocus military efforts on strategic influence/naval area control in the southeast pacific

the new post in australia for marines is just one more step in that direction

Camaro · Post by **Camaro** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:13 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Nov 24 2011, 05:00 AM) You don't think the massive nuclear armament is a huge drain on the economy Camaro? I'm surprised.

The money used in maintaining our nuclear arsenal is a pittance compared to what I propose we cut or restructure. So no I don't feel like it is a huge drain on our economy.

Of course we don't need all of the nukes we currently have, but since we have no place to actually retire our nuclear material to, it is cheaper just to keep them maintained. Eventually, i suppose, we can use them for fuel in our nuke plants, but that will take a while.

The ONLY nuclear deterrent we really need is our submarines. They are neigh unhittable and undetectable. Having land and air-based nuclear bomb delivery is redundant and relatively easy to hit by foreign nations and serves no real purpose.