I'm not convinced yet but from my initial readings I think this maybe one of the first times I agree with something Biden has done. Wanted to hear your anti-intervention viewpoint to make sure I see a bigger picture.
Ponca Dan: Can You Provide your Opinion?
- Thread starter 2012Bearcat
- Start date
I'm not convinced yet but from my initial readings I think this maybe one of the first times I agree with something Biden has done. Wanted to hear your anti-intervention viewpoint to make sure I see a bigger picture.
I’ll have to think on this a bit.
1). Since Covid the Australian government has shown a propensity to be almost as brutally tyrannical against its own people as China. That’s a concern.
2). Obviously I prefer diplomacy over military chess.
3). China has shown no interest in advancing diplomacy in that region.
4). This is a big deal for Australia. They are physically more threatened by Chinese belligerence than America simply by proximity. They have been very cautious in their dealings with China up to now.
5). I would prefer the US to begin reducing its drive for empire and world dominance, but I know that’s not going to happen.
6). This is escalation of huge significance; I doubt it will make China back off, and they may feel a need to ratchet up their presence in the South China Sea.
7) Mutual Assured Destruction worked with the USSR for the most part. But the weapons of today are more potent 10-fold. This is a very dangerous game.
8). In short I don’t know what to think. I want us to be a nation of traders seeking peaceful relations with everyone, but after victory in WW2 our leaders have concluded we should take whatever action necessary to become an empire running the rest of the world. That’s the attitude that creates situations like our conflict with China. I don’t like it but there’s nothing I can do about it.
What is the US to do when another nation like China has obvious aspirations of world domination? You may not like it but the world needs a dominate nation that another nations can look to for leadership and in times of trouble. It is far better for the world for that nation to be the US rather than China for obvious reasons.
I disagree with you that the world “needs” one dominate nation, but there is no doubt that’s how the world operates at this point in human development. And that being the case I don’t want to see a tyrannical collectivist oligarchy like China to “be in charge.”
I think back to the old John Wayne/Jimmy Stewart movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The John Wayne character was the biggest, meanest, baddest ass around, someone even Liberty Valance didn’t mess around with. But he kept to himself and didn’t try and “lead” anybody. I would like to see the US be more like that.
U. S. nuclear subs can destroy the world in about 20 minutes. China has never won a major war. East Asian is the highest average IQ of the 4 family groups. European Caucasian number 2.
Who do poorer countries turn to when they need help from a natural disaster, invasion from another foreign power, economic help, humanitarian crisis, ETC, if there is no dominate country in the world? While I understand you may not see the need for a dominate power in the world the fact of the matter is one is needed for worldwide peace and stability. It is also imperative that world power is one of fairness and strives for good. What other nation out there has the economic power to come to the aid of some of these countries and has the built in restraints to do more good than bad other than the US?
Another glowing example of Bearcat's ability to make the simple even less complex. How I wish I had such skills.
Don’t think every country would agree with that, we’ve done some pretty shitty stuff.
Keep in mind that I am a kooky radical on issues like you present. I do not see it as a proper duty for a government of one country to extort money from its own citizens in order to bring aid or comfort to citizens of another country. In times of natural disaster or humanitarian crisis it falls upon the consciences of the citizens of a richer country to provide succor. Same holds true for military adventurism. Citizens of a rich country have no moral business in sacrificing the lives or well being of its own young men on behalf of another country. Those young men (or old men for that matter) who feel called upon to participate should do so on their own. Think of Hemingway’s *For Whom the Bell Tolls,* or Maugham’s *The Razor’s Edge.*
Having said that I fully recognize that mine is a kooky radical opinion shared by almost no one else. But I do believe, however, you have fallen victim to a narrative provided by our state apparatus. Much of the US foreign policy is aimed at obtaining and retaining as much power and control of other countries as possible. Our government has no qualms in causing pain to other governments and their citizens if they dare step out of the line the US insists they obey. Striving for fairness and good is way down the bucket list. It is ironic that countries like Australia have chaffed at the “second class status” in which the US has treated them in the past.
I admit and AGREE that China is much worse, and has potential to cause great harm to humanity. But let’s not fall into the error of thinking that US foreign policy is about “doing good, doing the right thing.”
Last edited:
Somehow Ponca Dan made me think of this tidbit. When NASA announced they were going to fully embrace the metric system of measure, 13 space agencies cheered, including Australia. I didn't know there were 13 space agencies besides NASA. NASA of course, is considered by most to be the big kahuna.
Sure some of our foreign policy is based on what amounts to legal bribery of our politicians by business but what happens if we do what you propose and completely disengage? China comes rolling in and takes over more of the world. I know you have good intentions but like most liberal policies they are naïve.
Yeah, you may be tight, no one knows how my naive intentions would play out. How could we know? They’ve never been tried. (Well, they were sorta tried the first 100 years of this country, and it went from one of the poorest nations on this planet to the richest, freest country in human history.) But you’re rught, we don’t know what would happen.
But what we DO know is the way it has played out the last hundred years, especially following WW2, when our leaders wanted to become an empire. And we have been involved in military conflict somewhere in the world ever since, including a Cold War with nuclear implications with the USSR, guerrilla warfare in Vietnam, utter chaos in the Middle East, a War on Poverty that is driving us into the very thing the war is supposed to prevent, a drug war that has turned millions of us into users, a trade war with our allies as well as our assumed enemies, and now conflict with over a billion Chinese.
What baffles me is the assumption by so many people that we are doing things right. My idea on how we should behave may be naive, but it isn’t suicidal.
We are about to find out how it plays out in Afghanistan.
