Fire for Effect! MTS: "Man is motivated primarily by profit." Not around here. Here, man is motivated primarily by sex. But if all the women around you are wearing Burkas, I can understand you might have a different opinion. "All these wars that the US is involved in are not about anything but profit," Absurd. Our business leaders were AGAINST them! Demonstrate your claim with examples. At what point did trade with Vietnam/Korea/Iraq/Grenada exceed wartime expenses? American businesses have profitable relationships with Vietnam, and we LOST that one, so I disproved your thesis. "Communism to the US is just a made up enemy." Kruschev never said "we will bury you"??? Are you ignorant and just making this up as you go along? "When communism spread to Vietnam, it is a land so far away and it had nothing to do with the US" Are you from a primitive land where the BOAT has not yet been invented? Distance has never been a factor in US relations, political, economic, or cultural. We take in immigrants from everywhere. " but they decided that communsism was bad." It wasn't? 10 million Boat People were wrong? The Germans didn't really celebrate when the Wall came down? You uneducated ox, ask any Romanian who lived through the 70's and 80's how he felt when Ceaucescu died. "Well bad or not, it is Vietnam not US and Vietnam is nowhere near US. " So? We have boats. "Saddam was not a threat as we can all see now." Saddam supported terror. Despite your repeated false claims that "no nation can strike the US", 9-11 proved that they can. "There are no threats to the US." what happened on 9-11-01? "The US cannot be hit by any country." 9-11-01 "When the US goes to war, they can usually justify it anyway, because the US was created by God to "protect liberties" of all peoples in the world i.e. Vietnam, Korean." It was? That's a tall order, but OK, we'll try. Of course, we'll do so in the order of importance to us. " The hawks in the the Bush administration now have an extra excuse, going after "perceived threats." " Perceived? I perceived two buildings full of people burning and collapsing. "In a sum, the US can can go war with anyone even though no enemy can seriously park a fleet of carriers right along the US coastline." Now that would be an enemy we could actually fight efficiently! It would give the Navy something to do other than float around in billion dollar ships pushing buttons that launch missiles that could just as easily be fired from a freighter. Here is a way to test MTS's theory! If MTS is correct, the USA, to support its shipyards, will seek to create an enemy with a credible Naval threat! Are we doing so? "China is a threat to the US" They are? You ever see "death to America" parades in China? They are another power, with their own Agenda, but they have made no hostile moves. Chinese Madrassas training terrorists in hatred? " All in all, US chooses carefully who it attacks, it usually chooses weaker states." Technically, all states are weaker. We choose threatening states. Here's a test. Petition the leaders of whatever state you are from to openly support Al-Queda. When they do, watch for the American bombers to arrive. No, wait, you won't see them. LISTEN for the American bombs to arrive. You will note that they arrived AFTER and not BEFORE your government chose to support Al-Queda. Why is that? "If weapons are not used up, theyhave to be retired at some point or another. But the preferred way is to use them on someone." This is stupid. Preffered by who? YOU? "You ask me where I get this from, I shall give you the answer. It is simple. " Chewing Qat? "Making a product has a price tag. They can't just leave the hardware sitting there idle." Of course they can. TITANS. B-57's. B-36's. Whole classes of attack subs never saw action, and the current ones have only served as launch platforms. The M60A2 NEVER saw action. Redeye NEVER saw action. " The US today no longer has to gain land as it were. It is equally good to coerce other countries." Doesn't EVERY country pressure other countries? Do China, Kenya, and Argentina NOT try to steer international relations in directions favorable to them? Why should the USA not do so as well? "It seems as though you buy the American way of thinking." No, I odn't buy it. I rent it. "I suggest you just drop this discussion with me." I pass off your suggestion as a foolish one, coming from a very uneducated person who cannot distinguish between actual world events and his own fantasies, who cannot dispute any one of the examples I and others have used to disprove his ideas.

If people are simply motivated by profit, how can communism be the savior of working man? Why am I not working in the private sector? If I'm not mistaken, a stated goal of a certain communist dictatorship was to dominate the world. Obviously we made communism our enemy to test the SNARK, the Little John, and Atomic Annie (for Sgt.O's amusement regarding his M60A2 comment, among other techno wonders the US developed)!

MTS is the sort of person who is apparently accustomed to making statements in opposition to the US and backing them up with emotional pleas rather than facts. If you will closely at his posts, you will see that when he makes a claim, it is followed immediately by an appeal rather than a statement of fact. He doesn’t suggest where you go to find any facts regarding his points, and sneers at my suggestions that perhaps some reading of history and documents relating events might explain thing. He in fact has claimed that the question of how the US came to have the world’s leading military is irrelevant to a discussion in which the fundamental question is 'Why does the US have a large military and what do we use it for?'. I quote: “Last thing, it is not important how the US came to be in this position that is not part of the debate.” The whole of the debate is not whether the US is powerful or active in world affairs, but why and to what end. By carefully isolating events from the context in which they take place, you can prove anything. (Anyone recall the story of the man who was found near the scene of more than two dozen fires, but never arrested for arson?) I suggest then that we are dealing with someone who is so brainwashed into a particular viewpoint, that absolutely nothing we could say or source we could cite would do anything to even cause him to question his position, much less change it. It’s really impossible to address all of MTS’s nonsense, but I do want to talk about his assertion that the US brought 9/11 upon us by virtue of being greedy profit minded adventurers. This claim is blatantly false for a variety of reasons. Most obviously, we have first person documentation by those who made the attack what there grounds for attacking was. They have said why they attacked the US. According to Osama Bin Ladin the primary reason why innocent civilians in an office building had to die is that US troops were occupying Saudi Arabian soil in violation of Islamic tradition. This is a matter of historical record! But, one has to ask, why were US troops in Saudi Arabia? And the answer is simple. They were asked to be there by the Saudi Arabian government, and where there at the approval and request of a bunch of Islamic countries that fought _with us_ when they felt there security was threatened by someone known to have persecuted and killed Moslems in large number – Saddam Hussein. American troops weren’t in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to conquer anyone; they were there because the people SA and Kuwait requested that they be there so that they might not be conquered. So the reason that the US was attacked was because it assisted in the defense of an Islamic nation. Go figure. One might respond that US is principally motivated by profit - all that oil. But if that were the case, the US would have conquered SA and slain its entire troublesomely quarrelsome and unproductive people and be done with it. (Most oil industry is run by foreign contractors anyway, and most of the labor is performed by immigrant Indonesians. Even the SA governments admits this is a problem in there state run newspapers regularly, so I feel safe bringing it up.) If the US was principally motivated by the desire to control the oil, we would have certainly gone to war with Saudi Arabia when they nationalized (read stole) all of the oil infrastructure in that country back in the ‘50’s. But we didn’t, nor are we trying to take it back now. A quick run down of wars and ‘foreign adventures’ that the US has been involved in during the last 30 years or so reveals a remarkable number of them were actions taken at the request of a persecuted Islamic people in order to protect them from an aggressor. A short list of these actions would include Lebanon, Somalia during the famine crisis, the Russian/Afghan war, the Bosnian war, the Kosovar war for independence, and alongside Kuwait/Saudi Arabia/Syria during GW I. In the majority of these cases, absolutely no profit or US interest was at stake. Iraq would have been happy to sell us oil. We do not have major Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, or Afghanistan as major trading partners now or then, and indeed there is nothing any of these countries had which in the slightest interested us. If the primary motivation of the US was to be a bully, then surely we would have sided with the Russians against Afghanistan, with Israel against Lebanon, with the Iraqis against Kuwait, with the Serbians against the Bosnians and the Kosovars, and with the Ethiopians against Somalia. But we didn’t. The US does not go to war with the weak. The US goes to war on the behalf of the weak against the strong. The US does not go to war with Islam. If that were true, then certainly would have supported the ‘Christian’ (major need for quotation marks here) Serbians in their drive to eliminate their Islamic enemies. What is true is that the accusations made against the US, regardless of

(continued from previous post, which apparantly spilled the buffer) The Euro’s didn’t protest us intervening in Bosnia or Kosovo. Quite the contrary, the protested us not intervening despite the fact that it was their problem, in their backyard, and not ours. We only intervened when it became clearly that the Euro’s would stand around wringing their hands while genocide took place. But heaven forbid we actually use our power on our own behalf without their permission – even defend ourselves! For some reason, everything I say is apparently ‘US Propaganda’ to MTS. I have no idea what he means. I live in a nation with independent media that makes it living (whichever political party its behind) telling Americans how corrupt and evil its government is. I live in a nation where it’s illegal to have school children pledge allegiance to a flag which is the symbol of that nation. I don’t live in a nation with state owned media outlets – such as France, China, Saudi Arabia, or just about anywhere else in the world. I don’t live in a nation were failing to pledge allegiance to the ruler of that nation is not only mandatory but punishable by death if you don’t – like say Iraq or the DPRK. I hold opinions which aren’t particularly popular in the US. It’s much more popular to whine about how evil the US is. Clearly MTS doesn’t live in the US or anywhere else, and I’m guessing wherever he lives the government actually does control what information he is allowed to here. Based on his opinions, I’d guess MTS holds with the latest Euro-Fascist propaganda with its inverted logic. If you want to see what abuse of political power and bullying is like, you don’t have to go much farther than Frances control of the EU regulations on trade. Anyone from Spain, Italy, Poland, or England could tell you about that in detail, so you don’t have to take it from me. At its heart, the ‘conspiracy theory’ that every US action is motivated by increasing its grip over the world’s economic systems is not a new theory only the last time it became really popular in Europe it wasn’t ‘the US government’ that was secretly behind all the evil in the world. The last time this theory became popular in Europe it was ‘a secret cabal of Jewish bankers’ that secretly manipulated World events for nefarious ends. This is the same logic – or lack of logic – that made Mien Kemp such a hit, and which on this side of the pond sparked such travesties as the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. Finally, MTS makes the assertion that there is no true Democracy in this world, because he says that either you agree with the US goals or else we bomb you. This would come as big surprise to the various democracies that don’t agree with us, as well as most the people in the US who disagree with their government and have never been bombed. But what is really ridiculous is that to agree with the US you have to have a Democracy and a Capitalist system, so what MTS is really saying is that either you have some form of democracy and some form of Capitalist or mixed Capitalist economy, or else you live in a dictatorship and therefore in opposition to the US goals of democracy and capitalism. And to that extent, I agree. But you then can’t whine that the reason democracy doesn’t exist is that you have to agree with the US. Lots of countries actively resist US interests, sometimes quite hostilely, and still maintain normal relations with us. Sometime those of you that think the US responds to any hostility towards it with military force should read “The Japan that Can Say ‘No’” if you can find an illegal English translation. Take a good gander at Japanese or European trade regulations sometimes and tell me those are ‘friendly’ or that any of those nations are ‘lackeys’. None of your opinions have any facts behind them, MTS.

MSNBC has an unusually informative article taken from the Washington Post detailing Korea's covert weapons traffic. http://www.msnbc.com/news/952697.asp?0cl=c3 I think it is safe to say that that is why the US is not anxious to find a negotiated solution to the problem involving North Korea, and is instead focusing on building a regional alliance. All the peices of paper in the world won't stop that sort of behavior from continuing. But I don't think it follows that we are looking for a military solution any time soon either. Conflict in North Korea to easily spills over into South Korea. I'd like to add that I still think that there is potential for a regime collapse, a period of internal violence and then a unification. The sunshine policy did give quite a few North Koreans a glimpse of what had been stolen from them prior to the DPRK realizing that such information would ultimately destroy thier regime and them shutting it down. But most importantly, despite all the time that has passed between the separation, both Korea's still identify themselves as Koreans and with a larger sense of ethnic and national identity. Of course, I could be looking at the problem with all too European eyes.

Who cares? If Americans want image, they watch Aggasi. The PDRK wants to sell Nuclesr weapons to people that want to use them against the USA. That will lead to a Nuclear war against several nations if it happens. The Mistake you and others are making is that you think President Bush will hang around waiting for Evidence. No, he will apply the Montfort solution to the problem. Look up Count Montefort and the heretics. BTW, I have asked many times but never been given an answer as to why the USA should give a rats a$$ about what other countries think about us. Are we in an election? Machiavelli was correct when he said it was better for a ruler to be feared then liked. Once EVERY government on this planet represents ALL it's Citizens and is accountable to them, that will change. Untill then (about 2075) geo-politics will operate under the logic of Machiavelli. T.( Death to Tyrants)

Who cares? If Americans want image, they watch Aggasi. The PDRK wants to sell Nuclesr weapons to people that want to use them against the USA. That will lead to a Nuclear war against several nations if it happens. The Mistake you and others are making is that you think President Bush will hang around waiting for Evidence. No, he will apply the Montfort solution to the problem. Look up Count Montefort and the heretics. BTW, I have asked many times but never been given an answer as to why the USA should give a rats a$$ about what other countries think about us. Are we in an election? Machiavelli was correct when he said it was better for a ruler to be feared then liked. Once EVERY government on this planet represents ALL it's Citizens and is accountable to them, that will change. Untill then (about 2075) geo-politics will operate under the logic of Machiavelli. T.( Death to Tyrants)

If they could, they would. Just like Tibet. Only the ROK is NOT Tibet. And China is a Paper Tiger. They are totally clueless as to what it takes to be a world power. Read Mahan if you want to know what it takes to control a planet who's surface area is 74% water. And the last fight the Chinese had that I know of was against Vietnam. They got spanked. You havn't addressed the issue of the Chinese army and it's purpose either. I'm not sure that the PLA could take the PDRK. It would cost them as many casaulties as it cost to stop the US in the first stage of the Korean War( that's right, this is the same War, there is a truce now, not a peace. Legally the USA can restart the fighting after 24 hrs notice, so Bush doesn't even need congressional authority, it is still there from the start of this war. It will remain there untill the war is finished by a treaty. That is why Bush declared the Iraq fight over. He was trying to avoid the 90 days issue of the war powers act), 300,000 to 500,000. And the USA IS the source of most of what is good in the world. It is almost imposible to examine history over the last 200 years without finding American fingerprints. Without the USA China would still be ruled by Japan. Communist China only happened because Truman was a coward. And I don't think that the ROK's would have the slightest problems asorbing the DRPK. Give them jobs and something to eat, drink and screw and most people will be happy. Socialism murdered over 200 million humans in the 20th century. It will be stamped out for good during the 21st. The Government of China will fall about 2010. The Olympics will see to that. The Fools that run China have swallowed the bait. In a few years they will hauled into the boat. T.

Evidence that anyone can post Anything on the web. If you locate an old dictionary ( pre 1970's) you will find facism defined as a form of socialism, where the states means of production is privatly owned, but the production is controlled by the state. In modern , orwellian terms, it would be called "Capitalistic Socialism". I Know, I know. Socialism was defined as a form of government where a single party controls the state. This was from the mid 19th century when the word was first coined until the 1970's when the socialists went underground and became 'liberals'. Marx's 2nd biggest mistake was in thinking that socialism leads to communism, when it leads to Tryanny. T.

Menstrual Tension Syndrom? Me Terminally Stoopid? Makes Terminators Shiver? More Then Stubborn? I need some help here, or would that be a piling on penalty? T.