Presidential address on Irag

[mellowyellow]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

thanks for the correction Skeeter, 12yrs is more<br />time than they should have ever gotten IMO.<br />and as for the money issue, when they start<br />pumping oil at full capacity, they will pump<br />something like 40 mil. gal/day. that should pay<br />for some rebuilding too I think.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

samagee,<br /><br />I for one am not too concerened about China for several reasons:<br /><br />1) They are reforming albeit slowly. But you have to understand the asian mindset: 50 years is considered near term. They are very patient, forward looking people with centuries of retained history.<br /><br />2) In general, they are very well educated - they are not stupid people. They act almost exclusively based on reason and intellect and almost never on emotion. They are not idealoques. They are very pragmatic people by in large.<br /><br />3) They are heavily dependent on the US economically and growing more so each day. The heavy foreign investment in China and their manufacturing exports are having a major impact on the quality life there. They don't want to screw that up w/o a really solid reason. <br /><br />4) China has all it can do to manage and administrate a nation as large as theirs. They have almost no bandwidth for foreign mis adventures<br /><br />5) There are some really old scores right there in Asia that would be focused upon long before the started playing around in the Middle East. <br /><br />I am optimistic about China. Will the sell arms to just about anybody? Sure they will. They are poor by in large and need the cash. However, they are in general wise, patient, calculating people. Things are getting better because of their relationship with the US and they don't want to do anything to screw that up unless their is a really good reason for it.<br /><br />If you want a sense of what I think the future of China is look to Singapore (which is run by Chineese)<br /><br />I base this on time spent there and lots of long conversations with what you might call future leaders of the area.

 

[samagee]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Raplh,<br /><br />I understand those things about China. I also respect them. I spend a good deal of time studying martial arts. Yet at the same time, they have a lot of "research" going on there on how to hack into American computer systems.<br /><br />I read a CNN news report yesterday, or the day before, about them being the ones buying weapons from Russia. Also, they have upgraded their Nuclear class subs. It went on to say that they have been uping their defense spending by about $17 Bil per year. I think that was the numbers it gave. The weapons they have really been building up are SAM sites. What are those used for? Also, it went on to talk about their longer range missles that are in production.<br /><br />That doesn't look like a country which is poor. There are also many "pirated" items which comes into the market from China. A few years back there was talk in the news for a bit about the US and China butting heads because of this. It passed from media attention fairly quickly. I see evidence of these things when I go to computer shows. You see the popular game titles going really cheap with no boxing or manuals. Ever wonder where they come from?<br /><br />All I am saying is that we need to start looking at what is really going on. I personally don't care what they want to be, as long as it's peaceful with the neighbors. However, when someone is building up an arsenal, and configuring defenses according to how I delt with my enemies over the past decade. I have to wonder why.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

$17B for a country that size is a drop in the bucket. Look, our troops in Iraq cost $1B a week.<br /><br />SAMs are purely defensive and don't forget they border the fractured USSR and North Korea. They have Pakistan and India right there too.<br /><br />If you see the Japaneese get nervous then get nervous. The Chineese "owe" the Japaneese some payback for the mass attrocities in WWII - like I said, asians are patient and don't forget.<br /><br />Asians also don't have the same concept of intellectual property as we do in the West. They don't see anything wrong with copying.

 

[samagee]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Ralph,<br /><br />What I am trying to say I guess is this. Look at all the things the middle easterners have done in the US. What are they known for? Owners and operators of things like, convience stores, taxi cabs, and dollar stores. They themselves are poor, or live off very little of what they are bringing in. Now don't get me wrong. There are probably some that are legit. However, it would appear to me that the bulk of the money could be going for things back home. Also, I don't know of any mass production factories in the middle east that could supply their dollar stores. China has them though.<br /><br />So who is to say that we aren't funding these nuts in an indirect fashion?<br /><br />I may just be overly paranoid again. Time for some more meds I guess, and I am getting off track of this thread.<br /><br />I just wanted to give some examples of why we have to watch what the others are doing. I don't think we have to be everyones friend though. An acquaintence that may be a business partner at times, but not bosum bodies.<br /><br />The middle east is filled with religious fanatics that are raised for a violent life. I don't see us being able to live peacefully with someone that thinks we should be dead.<br /><br />I feel that we are right to be in Iraq, just as someone mentioned earlier. Iraq violated the surrender conditions of the last fight. They had to be brought in line, or we would just be dancing around all the time. I don't know about anyone else, but progress can not be goten when you are always haveing to go back and fix something that you thought was already taken care of. That is exactly what we were doing with that idiot Sadam. If he was so innocent, then why was he giving the inspectors such a hard time? If he was done fighting, then why wasn't his doors wide open? If you had countries like the US and others breathing down your neck, would you act like that? I would be all "YES SIR, RIGHT AWAY SIR". Unless of course I was up to something shady. Like trying to get a hold of a large bargaining chip.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

The middle east is filled with religious fanatics that are raised for a violent life. I don't see us being able to live peacefully with someone that thinks we should be dead.

That's the key right there. Couple that with all the money they have from the black gold and you have what we have right now, WWIII