Terrorist attack in Paris

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Bars wrote:

There is no place for moral in politics.

And therin lies the problem. Too many people agree with that.

In the end, all the power in the world doesnt amount to jack shit. Life is all about raising ALL of mankind up. About benefiting everyone. About making the person next to you in line smile.

If we spent half of what we spend on our military to instead just make ourself indispensable through research and developement on technology that benefits everyone, we would achieve more towards peace than a ten-fold increased in military spending. We should be the example others follow.

This is not to say we should eliminate our military, im very much aware of its necessity.

Dont you dare call me naive. I see things all to clearly. You can be both strong and benevolent. What im talking about goes far beyond just the military, it should be our highest priority in ALL relations to work towards mutual benefits.

Furthmore, i should at least mention that our societal systems must be changed to reduce competion. Cooperation is the key towards any peace.

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Bars wrote:

About the other suppositions: I watched a video of a lecture on international policy, in Washington, where a US diplomat or foreign relations expert flat out said it, and it's obviously in US's interest if they want to maintain their position as world hegemon (which they want) for as long as possible.

I can certainly believe that. I think I was referring to the idea of the US being opposed to European unification. The opposition to Russia is still a leftover from the decades of mistrust of the cold war. If the US truly wants to influence Russia, our leaders will have to work together more closely on issues of common ground and not hold those issues hostage to everything else we disagree on.

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Bars wrote:

The Ukrainian crisis was also a part of that purpose (not saying Russia is innocent here by any means, but the US also had an active role).

The US practically invited Russia to do as it pleased when Bush did nothing when Russia invaded Georgia.

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Bars wrote:

Standing and waiting works in the short term, but spending as much as the rest of the world combined for the military in the long run without having an easily identifiable threat (real or perceived one) to point the finger at? Not happening. ).

The motto of the Strategic Air Command is appropriate here - "Peace through Strength"
Like the disproportionate funding of the United Nations, a lot of the "policing" of the world has been 'allowed' to fall on US shoulders. Maintaining the strength necessary to deter global aggression will never be cheap.

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Bars wrote:

The terrorists filled nicely the gap left after the fall of the USSR.)

There are some defensive holes in military equipment that the terrorists made clear. The portion of the budget that will address that (terrorism( is very small compared to updating the strategic warfare capability.

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Bars wrote:

You are operating from the assumption that there is no corruption and everything is done in all fairness. If you believe the guys who get salaries in the area of hundreds of thousands, but award contracts in the billions, don't profit from said contracts, I don't know what to say. ).

There have been and will be corruption - I've no doubt of that. The figure I cited was using a standardized inefficiency ratio for government spending vs. keeping the money in circulation in the general economy. Generally speaking, it's a seven fold loss when you take a tax dollar out. That isn't to say we don't have things that need to be done at the government level.

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Bars wrote:

The entire US military budget is an enormously inflated balloon. One point half billion for a bomber? Over one hundred million for a fighter? Tens of thousands per bomb or rocket? I don't think so. ).

I'd agree that the price per usage is getting out of hand, but the option to do nothing and let the force degrade is an recipe for disaster. The f35 boondoggle is three fold. Part 1 is similar to the B-1 bomber in which Congressional delay and wrangling doubled the cost of the plane. Part 2 is that the development costs of the F35 also encompass the development costs for several other platforms. The price of the f-35 would drop quite a bit and the price of the F22 jump up quite a bit if the development costs were allocated correctly. Part 3 is that someone in the 80s had the not so brilliant idea that the way to save money was to standardize everything across the US military forces. Thus the F35 is an aircraft built to meet a wide range of needs, which could be done much more effectively and cheaply had 3 separate aircraft been built. The costs of the bombers is astronomical -but when you consider that they need to be able to bring nuclear weapons back to ground without the enemy being able to shoot them down and acquire them, the price is far cheaper than a single lost nuke would be.

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Bars wrote:

It starts with the US idly sitting by and not doing a thing. They have experienced some problems with guerilla warfare in difficult to access, mountainous and thickly forested terrain in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but in Syria? Flat as a mirror, not a single cloud above to impede satellite surveillance and drones? ).

A large portion of the money spent for Syria's weaponry was devoted to Anti-Aircraft emplacements. They are all over the place and many of them are mobile. They have numerous modern radars and missiles (courtesy of Russia and China). Russia's recent shadowing of US planes and drones wasn't to show that they had the capability, it was to remind the US that should they try to interfere, Russia would intercept them. Satellites are predictable, and many assets can be hidden until the satellite has passed. Air superiority is one of the primary objectives to establish in a war zone. In this case, it is all about locations of operating bases for the aircraft.

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Bars wrote:

The only way for ISIS to conquer such a vast territory is for the US to allow it. ).

You'll find no real disagreement from me on that. There are factions of the US leadership that are certain we are not doing what we can and should be doing to stop ISIS and prevent them from growing. Hopefully this terrible attack will give them the political mandate to take the necessary actions.

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Bars wrote:

Uprooting a subversive terrorist network hiding among the local populace is difficult. Blasting a military group conquering territories in completely open grounds is laughably easy. They don't need to send a single soldier there, just park the friendly nearby carrier and blast them with drones and missiles. After all, they are putting the drones to good use in Pakistan and elsewhere, stopping ISIS would be just a walk in the park, or a flight in the desert in this instance. ).

Unless the US' wise (sarcasm) leadership actually pulled the carrier out of the Persian gulf (leaving the area unprotected for the first time since 2007).

Hopefully, France invokes Article 5 of the NATO treaty and ISIS can be dealt with the way it should have been long ago.

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SkyCore wrote:

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Bars wrote:

There is no place for moral in politics.

And therin lies the problem. Too many people agree with that.

In the end, all the power in the world doesnt amount to jack shit. Life is all about raising ALL of mankind up. About benefiting everyone. About making the person next to you in line smile.

I'd agree 100% with this. If the most impoverished nations were raised up to first world standards, the birth rates would go down, education, productivity and life spans would go up. Their ability to spend (and thus generate a larger world economy) would go up, and their improved economies would give them the ability to form their own secure national police forces and defenses. There would be few, if any dark gritty hiding holes for terrorists in such a world. There would be far fewer unemployed and frustrated people for the radicals to recruit.

The problems with immigration would mostly vanish as people didn't need to flee violence or poverty. The overall levels of happiness would reduce crime (to what degree I can't say, but it would help).

@DalaiLama: thanks for the detailed answers. There was a lot of food for fought. I also hope you saw my edit in which I added a final paragraph to clarify my personal standing on the matter.

@SkyCore: I'm not saying I like how the world is - just pointing out how I think it is currently. Actually, 'there is no place for moral in politics' were the first words of my lecturer on political science years ago. It was just one course, not saying I'm an expert by any means.

About the world currently: I think it's pretty fucked up. I also agree we need to go towards globalization and global cooperation if we want to address some pressing issues which affect the entire Earth and simply can't be addressed at the level of national governments. Let's hope we'll find the strength and wisdom to achieve that... Although I currently see very little of either in the world's leaders.

^It seems a bit retarded that a system that's based on exponential growth in a limited world has been maintained as long as it has.

If people can't even pierce that maintained and constructed illusion, it seems unreasonable to expect a change for the better any time soon. Let alone on a global scale.

I dream of such a thing. And i use the word dream, sensibly.



Peace,

-Boem-

Couldn't agree more.

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End_Of_The_World_Is_2016 wrote:

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Einkil wrote:

But he never clarified what the Distorted view is and as such applies to the thread as a whole. He also never clarified what his qualification for a distorted view is
so without a qualifier it muset be assumed he means the discussion as a whole is distorted. As such what I said still applies.

Are you saying that whenever extreme events occur in this world, there aren't dozens of people waiting to say stuff they've bottled up during the boring part of their lives? Are you saying everyone has something insightful to say on the matter, is that what you're saying? If not, then you agree with him, and misunderstood him.

I'm saying that everyone should be listened to and not discredited for having dissenting opinions. Instead disect their argument and counter with your own. Dismissive statements are just as harmful as distorted statements. They are two sides of the same coin.

Just remember, even vultures sometimes say insightful things.

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Bars wrote:

I can see you're crass enough to accuse unidentified posters in retardation, which makes it safely vague and diffuse while insinuating everyone in the discussion is a retard, and not providing any further explanation. You can't go lower than that, so why not go ahead and jump in the politics too?

In what way is it crass to say that the majority of the people are prone to unload premature geopolitics? If people weren't so ignorant and oblivious to geopolitics, this world would have been a better place decades ago. The leaders, in every country, is the result of the people being woefully ignorant as a majority. That is not crass, Bars. That's just facts. Can you honestly imagine a world that actually has the majority intelligent, acute and mentally competent? If you can, then you do not understand how this world works as much as you'd like to think. People will fail as a majority, as molecules and atoms fail as a majority -- another example would be the sperm and the egg. This is not inaccuracy, this is chemistry.

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Einkil wrote:

I'm saying that everyone should be listened to and not discredited for having dissenting opinions. Instead disect their argument and counter with your own. Dismissive statements are just as harmful as distorted statements. They are two sides of the same coin.

Just remember, even vultures sometimes say insightful things.

I'm personally fine with dealing with dissenting responses. This would be why I bothered to discuss with you in your satire. Though I may be fine with it, it does not make their responses any less dissenting, let alone "crass". And when it comes to the big picture, their backwash of geopolitical hyperbole was never designed to be accentuated by factual premises 99% of the time. Generally, most individuals do not understand their own country even, but continue to state what is best for other countries solely based on their own lack of comprehension and adherence to their own standards.

the sweep across Iraq and eventually into Syria was private corps gobbling up assets left behind (purposefully) from the war in Iraq (gobbling new arms being sent to fight assad in Syria). the groups were funded by private people buying oil, artifacts, other national treasures being plundered. isis was/is to cover the tracks, and known to bite even the worst of baits. America's official response of destroying supply lines, destroying depots of the gathered American assets was a good one. America is also honing in on the private persons funding the initial operations. We already have tagged several very wealthy business men (who happen to be very far right wing) in the US for buying artifacts and oil from 'isis'.

There are deeper currents at play here, and some very powerful people have been snubbed in their positions of power.

And to the point of destabilization in the middle east, the world runs on oil, the world needed people that would sell oil for currency and not bend the world over the barrel, aka ussr. The benefit has been world wide, the R&D that came from strong infrastructures like America and western Europe, Japan have fundamentally changed the world and standard of living for the vast majority for the better. The next step is to advance beyond the need for oil, and then we wont need the people with the oil to trade with the world.

Perhaps the Universe created the dinosaurs knowing that one day the long process of oil manifesting upon their deaths would be the finality to all humanity.

Before the surface, there was O & I [wholeness & ego].
Below the surface, there was oil.
On the surface, there was soil.
Walking on it, the people were spoiled.
Deep inside them, a force spiraled [wholeness & ego were replaced with ego & Ra].

I'm not sure where that came from. Ignore that. I know I put it in bold, just try to ignore it.