North Korea threatens to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier. Could they?

[Churchmouse]

14 minutes ago, Running Gator said:

Well, since you have looked so honestly, please list the countries that have been bigger bullies over the last 40ish years than the US.

You don't get my point. My point is that the US did what needed to be done, when it had to be done, while the rest of the world stood by and applauded us for expending our wealth and blood, while they thanked their lucky stars that they weren't the ones who had to step up. 

You seem to think it was bullying, to be the strong arm when I think we were the least self centered of those countries who knew something needed to be done and one of the very few with the gumption to go through with what was needed. Certainly we fell from the grace that some have thought we should have obtained in our dealings, but I haven't really seen these idealistic people do anything but look down their noses and thought they could do better, while not putting any effort in proving those theories.

[Running Gator]

2 minutes ago, Churchmouse said:

You don't get my point. My point is that the US did what needed to be done, when it had to be done, while the rest of the world stood by and applauded us for expending our wealth and blood, while they thanked their lucky stars that they weren't the ones who had to step up. 

You seem to think it was bullying, to be the strong arm when I think we were the least self centered of those countries who knew something needed to be done and one of the very few with the gumption to go through with what was needed. Certainly we fell from the grace that some have thought we should have obtained in our dealings, but I haven't really seen these idealistic people do anything but look down their noses and thought they could do better, while not putting any effort in proving those theories.

I look around and see a lot of things that happened that did not need to be done.  Perhaps you do not. 

[Churchmouse]

1 minute ago, Running Gator said:

I look around and see a lot of things that happened that did not need to be done.  Perhaps you do not. 

We can only see as far as what our perception can fathom. What lies underneath may be much scarier than that which is seen, but it might just explain and even justify the actions we do see.

[Running Gator]

3 minutes ago, Churchmouse said:

We can only see as far as what our perception can fathom. What lies underneath may be much scarier than that which is seen, but it might just explain and even justify the actions we do see.

Well, unless you are buying into the nephilim theory, there is no justification for our invasion of Iraq and the squandering of 4000 plus US service members lives and 1 trillion dollars and counting.  And none of your zen like post will change that fact.

[Churchmouse]

Just now, Running Gator said:

Well, unless you are buying into the nephilim theory, there is no justification for our invasion of Iraq and the squandering of 4000 plus US service members lives and 1 trillion dollars and counting.  And none of your zen like post will change that fact.

I am not aware of anything other than what I am aware of and even that could be wrong, since I am and never have been the bearer of the complete story of Iraq. I know by the information that I have that it was one of the biggest mistakes our country has ever made sense Vietnam, but as I've stated. That comes from the information that I have.

As far as this Nephilim thing you have brought up, I don't know anything about that, so I will mark it up as unnecessary snarkiness.

[Running Gator]

24 minutes ago, Churchmouse said:

I am not aware of anything other than what I am aware of and even that could be wrong, since I am and never have been the bearer of the complete story of Iraq. I know by the information that I have that it was one of the biggest mistakes our country has ever made sense Vietnam, but as I've stated. That comes from the information that I have.

As far as this Nephilim thing you have brought up, I don't know anything about that, so I will mark it up as unnecessary snarkiness.

It was given as a reason why we went into Iraq, to obtain the body of one (or more) Nephilims

[Churchmouse]

9 minutes ago, Running Gator said:

It was given as a reason why we went into Iraq, to obtain the body of one (or more) Nephilims

Good Grief. That's just flipping insane. Sorry for my comment about the snarkiness.

[Steve_S]

5 hours ago, Running Gator said:

Take an honest look at the actions of the US and the actions of the rest of the world over the last 40 years and tell me who is the bigger bully than the US.  

I don't know if I'd call a lot of what the US has done bullying insofar as if you go back an actual 40 years, a lot of that was more geared towards trying to keep communism from blowing up. Whether or not you agree with the actions taken to do that (and I don't in a lot of cases), I don't think the reasoning is bad on a larger scale. One could say the same thing about europe in the 40s and 50s - The US could've totally pulled out of Europe in 46 and it's almost certain that a very large part of what never became part of the eastern bloc would've been conquered. Staying there in the way we did was certainly interventionist, but it was not necessarily bad policy, even if we did step on toes on more than one occasion. I think that modern interventionism has its roots in the matriculation of that ideology. It is very difficult to get out of a mindset, even when the time for the mindset has well passed.

I don't think things are so simple vis-a-vis bullies versus not bullies. One could call the US interventionist and overstepping of its bounds, sure, but I think that relativity matters. We talk about north korea a lot, about their rhetoric, etc. They very rarely actually act on their rhetoric. Give them a military and resource glut like the US has though, different story. The same goes for most tin-pot dictatorship type places. It is not so much a lack of will to conquer and pillage, but a lack of means in most of those cases. The US, post wwII, had the means to basically *take* anything it wanted, even the soviet union, as there was a period where nobody else had nuclear weapons and we did. Very, very few powerful nations (i don't think any), historically, would've sat on their haunches having developed that sort of strategic advantage and done virtually nothing with it.

One could make the same argument now. The US may get in the business of others too often and may go to far in other ways as well (call it bullying if you must, but i don't view it that way). The US right now has the ability to take basically anything it wants from anyone it wants to take it from, and that has not been used at all. For a global power on the scale of the US, I personally take that as a victory. You can argue that "war hawks" are wrong, but most of the ones I have met do view the nations that they want dealt with as a legitimate threat. It is hard for me to fault someone who actually believes a nation is a threat for wanting to preempt them, even if i disagree with them that the nation is a threat.

[Running Gator]

7 hours ago, Steve_S said:

I don't know if I'd call a lot of what the US has done bullying insofar as if you go back an actual 40 years, a lot of that was more geared towards trying to keep communism from blowing up. Whether or not you agree with the actions taken to do that (and I don't in a lot of cases), I don't think the reasoning is bad on a larger scale. One could say the same thing about europe in the 40s and 50s - The US could've totally pulled out of Europe in 46 and it's almost certain that a very large part of what never became part of the eastern bloc would've been conquered. Staying there in the way we did was certainly interventionist, but it was not necessarily bad policy, even if we did step on toes on more than one occasion. I think that modern interventionism has its roots in the matriculation of that ideology. It is very difficult to get out of a mindset, even when the time for the mindset has well passed.

I don't think things are so simple vis-a-vis bullies versus not bullies. One could call the US interventionist and overstepping of its bounds, sure, but I think that relativity matters. We talk about north korea a lot, about their rhetoric, etc. They very rarely actually act on their rhetoric. Give them a military and resource glut like the US has though, different story. The same goes for most tin-pot dictatorship type places. It is not so much a lack of will to conquer and pillage, but a lack of means in most of those cases. The US, post wwII, had the means to basically *take* anything it wanted, even the soviet union, as there was a period where nobody else had nuclear weapons and we did. Very, very few powerful nations (i don't think any), historically, would've sat on their haunches having developed that sort of strategic advantage and done virtually nothing with it.

One could make the same argument now. The US may get in the business of others too often and may go to far in other ways as well (call it bullying if you must, but i don't view it that way). The US right now has the ability to take basically anything it wants from anyone it wants to take it from, and that has not been used at all. For a global power on the scale of the US, I personally take that as a victory. You can argue that "war hawks" are wrong, but most of the ones I have met do view the nations that they want dealt with as a legitimate threat. It is hard for me to fault someone who actually believes a nation is a threat for wanting to preempt them, even if i disagree with them that the nation is a threat.

It is true that we do not take countries, we just break them and then leave.  I think that has more to do with strategy than goodwill.  There are two things that made it possible for the US to become a world power so quickly and so emphatically.   Those are abundant, abundant natural resources and isolation.  Any attempt to take over and occupy another country takes away the advantage of isolation.

The only resources that we do not ever seem to have enough of is oil, and that is why we have been kneed deep in the Middle East for the last 5 decades. 

I actually do not believe the US any longer has the ability to take basically anything it wants from anyone it wants to take it from.  Such actions could cause the teaming up of Russia and China, which would not go well for the US.

[Steve_S]

3 hours ago, Running Gator said:

The only resources that we do not ever seem to have enough of is oil, and that is why we have been kneed deep in the Middle East for the last 5 decades. 

I agree that this was true in the past. However, as of now the US has more recoverable oil than either russia or saudia arabia (260+ barrels on the last estimate). Note, this is at current levels of technology and includes shale exploitation, which is more expensive, but not prohibitively so any longer. Shale exploitation in the US caused the oil market to nearly collapse in the past few years. As technology advances, the amount of recoverable oil in the US will increase drastically, as there is probably over a trillion barrels here in currently unrecoverable shale.