except the pyjamas ...

Please Non-Americans and anti-americans please understand Vietnam better. Communism was and is a REAL threat (as is globalized out of control capitalism). We had our hands tied in vietnam. If we were allowed to go all out, Vietnam would be a moon right now. We were controlled. and we lost more soldiers becuase of it. Please understand logistics before you post on the Americans disscussion. Thank you.
However I am not a proponent of vietnam or any war. A steady state economy would reduce most need for war.
I want America to become nuetral once again and pull back.
half of our military are some of the best warriors in the world. Semper FI! I would say Half are just there for the welfare. That is a rough observation being in for 4.5 years.
However as is war will eventually lead to bancrupcty. Living off rsources collected in war will never last. History proves.
Notice I do not troll in Europes discussion and discuss your scumbag histories and present day treachery.

1) Indeed, Britain was 3,000 miles away, but that doesn't change the fact that they had the largest and strongest navy and army in the world at the time. I'm not even sure that we had an official army or navy before the war began, and we still won. Don't hold me on that, though.

2) If we had gone all out on North Vietnam, we would have won. Simple. We were trying to force them into peace talks, and they didn't want peace. If we were in a straight-up war against them, we would have won and not had as many losses as we did.

3) That is nonsense. It has taken the Iraqi insurgents 3 years to kill over 2,000 US troops. Compared to other wars we have fought, that is nothing. We've killed how many insurgents now? Thousands? Not to mention the terrorist leaders we have captured. We're winning.

4) Nah, we have a large fleet of cargo planes to take care of that, after we get through mopping up all the insurgents.

I totally agree. Last time I checked Iraq was a stable reliable democracy which strictly separated religion and politics, a partner for the west, a beacon for democracy full of law obeying citizens -- Congratulations, mission accomplished!

Well alright, it's just I think as events transpire wise leaders would react to them and know when to push forward and when to tactically withdraw

The US relies on it's power and forces it's will so it remains to be seen if this plays out according to plan. There's no guarantee it will especially when the plan isn't going well so far

I don't know about anyone else but I ain't anti-america or hate america just think the forces in their politics suck and actually are screwing america

Big empires have fallen before and there's nothing special about the US that makes it immune from this... all I see is an image being projected of great power that's inconsistent with the reality that it's in debt to the rest of the world. If it's so great you should be lending money to the rest of us

Martin

mortifiedpenguin wrote:
"America is not going to just "break apart." We are the strongest power in the world. Nothing stops us. We have the largest military. We have the largest economy. We survive everything. Back in the war for independence, the British had pretty much every advantage against us, and we still kicked their asses. Several times. We always win in the end."



Time will tell.

Lets make a few things clear. America pre-1965 and America post 1965..TWO drastic different realities.Everything has changed...Nations with expensive energy or hardly avalible energy esp. multi-cultural nations have never held together in history! Did you know of the 100 or so conflicts worldwide over 80 are internal ethic-religious conflicts? Just wait when the dollar is history..its coming to the USA as sure as history points out. The witter of the article I posted on page one feels that America will break apart into 5-10 regions. I feel it will totally break apart into well over 30-100 regions..But initially 5-10.
On the point..What do you mortifiedpenguin think America is going to WIN come post peak oil? What is America going to Win when its dollar is hyper inflated? What will it win when soldiers will no longer drill because they receive a watered down paycheck. "I was a former pay admin for the US Army...when the dollar goes American Army will denigrates" What will America WIN come Suberibia collapse.."read Kunster" ? What will America win with over 35 million Mexicans who will then be competitors post peak oil? How about the other 40 or so million non-whites? What will Happen when the US government cant payout welfare, free medical, free housing and heat to the poor? If you think America will come out winning your going to be in for a BIG surprise.
From an Evolian point if view, history has
four cycles: (he makes it clear
that this is not his point of view but Traditions point of view, see
Plato and Aristotle, and nearly all Traditional cultures the world
over) Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. The last cycle is when the lowest
order in the pre-industrial cycle, the bourgeoisie or third estate,
takes over and this already happened with capitalism and the rise of
liberal democracy (a system designed to allow the money-men and
merchants to control society.). After industrialism, a fourth estate
of proletarian workers was created. This class was obviously below the
bourgeoisie and in the final phase of the iron age, that is the
apocalypse, the proletarians take over. Following this, Eastern Europe
is ripe for a return to the Golden Age but the West will be walking the
line. Will the West go into a deeper illusion about the brotherhood of
man post-peak oil and further turn international Communist? Or will it
also complete the cycle of the birth, decay, death and rebirth of
civilization? The cause of the decay and death being the fall of the
leaders (their spiritual emptiness) and the rise of the lower orders of
men (materialism). Only when we again respect the natural hierarchical
order of things will we return to the golden age, a spiritual age
instead of a material age. Equality is our enemy!

Having roots or relative in US, Canada, Western and Eastern Europe I hope I can be a bit impartial as I am not drooling over the downfall of USA like what happened to soviet empire.

To be technical a state would have to vote to secede like Vermont for example. There were a lot of centrifugal forces around in the 90s like in Italy and Yugoslavia with obviously different outcomes. The USA is really nowadays more divided into inner city, suburbs and the like nto just old regional divides. People of all races and classes have moved to the postal code where people think like they do so regionalism is less of a big deal. Mixed racial marriage has quadrupled among gen-x ers and younger so that is not so much of a problem as with the older guys. multilingualism is typical in lots of places like pakistan or African countries with single central governments and this will likely spread in USA particularly in Southwest and Florida. Lots of people in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Africa speak several languages. In the US lots more immigrants are now keeping their old language due to satellite TV, etc than before. However generally the cultural disintegration of all those interest groups and languages disappears when people see a certain ideal or way of life threatened like after 911. In France the Moslems from North Africa will never be integrated into the French mainstream, probably same in Holland, Denmark, Germany, etc. Where a dominant culture exists with completely different values people are kept out of the system. Most of the terrorists come from European moslems due to their feeling of alienation from the big culture. In USA there are so many different types of people that everyone feels relatively equal due to the fact that no other group dominates completely as when English did pre Civil War era("whites" whether greek, Irish, German, English,Jewish or Japanese, Chinese) except blacks and poorer hispanics and Indians.

the trend to Post code regionalism will revert to standard regionalim after a generation or so of expensive or nonexistent cheap travel which has allowed the current stuation to come about but a total breakup won't happen until a very long time if at all. A Continental market with a central govt. has too many advantages to every region to want to secede completely(See Quebec-I have lots of relatives there and in Ontario). Trend could give back some states or regional rights as has always swung back and forth between central govt. and regional rights in history in most countries. Total disintegration is more like in Rome after 1000 years of development. The whole world would be in chaos if it were happening in USA so nobody would have reason to gloat.

[quote]That is nonsense. It has taken the Iraqi insurgents 3 years to kill over 2,000 US troops. Compared to other wars we have fought, that is nothing. We've killed how many insurgents now? Thousands? Not to mention the terrorist leaders we have captured. We're winning[quote]

Whoever is behind the Iraqi insurgency doesn't care about body counts. War is not a football game where we can point to a scoreboard and say, we've killed 20,000 of yours and you've only killed 2,500 of ours, so we win. They know that eventually, we will leave whether it's just in time for the 2008 elections or 2020 elections. I came across an article which explained how the mujaheddin defeated the Soviets in a similar scenario by bankrupting them: it cost the USSR several thousand dollars for every kill they inflicted while it cost Bin Laden and friends about a hundred for each kill they inflicted. The same thing is happening in Iraq today: consider how expensive each kill we inflict is (training, weapons, getting equipment over there, etc), while the insurgents are killing our soldiers with homemade contraptions costing about $150 per kill. We'll run out of money long before they run out of men willing to die for their homes and families.

No, I don't think America is going to win in the end, but I also don't think it's going to lose. I think it's going to survive. It will be a future of troubling times, but humanity will make it. If the dollar collapses, we'll think of something new. Like Germany, back when they suffered hyperinflation. That's the way humanity has always survived. They adapt to the situation.

What will happen when "the US government cant payout welfare, free medical, free housing and heat to the poor?" Some of the poor are going to die off. Simple. Some will live, some will die. Just the way it is.

Another thing, I'm getting sick of people bringing up quotes from Plato, Aristotle and other ancient scholars to prove their point. And the book 1984. Good god. I realize that there are many intelligent people here, but you don't have to use famous quotes from old people to prove your damn point. Not all of us want to read a bunch of boring stuff about the history of governments and economies.

Did I say that? You do realize we are not done in Iraq yet, right? That's why I said we are WINNING. Jesus Christ.

Yep, I think just about everybody that knows anything about Iraq knows it's not done yet. The question is, will it ever be done? I mean, with a successful result.

That depends what the real objective of "Operation Iraqi Liberation" is. Its obviously not bringing democracy and peace to the region. Lets see, what could it be ...

We will be winning once Iraq's oil output increases beyond 2mbpd, returning to and surpassing the 2.5 mbpd pumped before the occupation. We will be winning once production sharing agreements deliver multi-billion dollar profits to our corporations, as intended by the politicians and executives on the energy task force. We will be winning once we stem the tide of an ever-growing insurgency, bent on the destruction of infrastructure in the middle east and revenge upon foreign occupiers, American or otherwise.

But these eventualities won't come true. Our geopolitical strategy in the greater middle east will fail, as surely as other overreaching resource wars have failed. Energy supply strains will worsen, prompting higher oil prices at home and abroad, market volatility, more violence in the middle east and a Lyndon Johnson-esque refusal to acknowledge the reality of the situation. All the while, our troops will gradually retreat into the relative safety our super bases, enjoying Burger King and McDonalds from within while Iraqi fiefdoms, gangs and coalitions battle for control of the streets.

In short, we won't win, and we can't win.

Keymaster