US versus China for world position

Congratulations to Germany for a fine World Cup! :-)

The Economist summed it up pretty well: Russia had to get a deal done, and the Chinese got a favorable terms as a result. They’re hardly staunch allies, just global powers that share some, but not all agendas. I’m happy for the Chinese people that the country will burn less coal as a result.

@M36:

Speaking of Korea though, it is true that South Korea is an immensely prosperous nation, while North Korea languishes in poverty. South Korea became “Americanized” and now places that where once rice patties and dusty mountain roads are prosperous metropolises. ( I know this because my sister is serving in Korea with the Army engineers) Without our intervention, South Korea would have been conquered, and would be no better off than North Korea is under the heel of communism. The Korean conflict was one of our more noble military ventures.

Sure, military means money.  S. Vietnam had a huge jump in economy when we were there that mostly collapsed after we left.  It would happen no matter where we go.

However, the state of Korea today has less to do with them being dirty communists, and more with the disintegration of the USSR and a horrible famine during the 90’s.  They simply could not support themselves because their primary trading partner disappeared and was unable to supply what they needed, only to be subjected to a series of disastrous floods and drought.  Of course, it’s not helped by their military-oriented economic policy, but we do similar and still sustain ourselves (but we’ve got the goods).

But we took a number of casualties in Korea, was it worth that sacrifice of American lives? As a Marine I believe we are all expendable to accomplish our mission, but the call is yours. How many of us will you sacrifice to accomplish the objective? You should be willing to sacrifice all of us. That kind of resolve no longer exists in America.

Tough to say.  As an elite group of fighters, I wouldn’t send Marines in frivolously.  When it comes to Korea, we are exactly where we were after WW2 (except no skirmishes and such).  So did it do any good?  I guess so, primarily economically.  Are your lives worth promoting the economy of another country?  Are anyone’s?  Especially when that country actually competes with our own?

But here’s the thing: we installed an unpopular dictator in S. Korea that resigned.  A military coup followed that was just was tyrannical and ruthless.  It really goes unnoticed because the economy surged and we “saved” them from communism.  But I don’t think we accomplished all that much.

I’m not sure when or where you guys should be deployed.  Hopefully never, but that’s a pipe dream.

@Jennifer:

Interesting.  That’s in order on the list under the map, I presume?

I’d have expected New York to be in the top 5.  Illinois I figured would have been much lower.

Yea I also thought New York would be at a much higher position too.  I wasn’t surprised to see my home state California to be at the top.  Stuff there is pretty expensive.  :-(

How far away is your tomorrow?  Cause the landfills of yesterday are the homes of today!

Yes its on my top 5 movie list post!

This was broadcast on Soviet television in the late 70’s and the effort spared no expense for extras because they used actual Soviet soldiers and the budget was basically unlimited. The portrayal all the Germans and Soviets is extremely good. The sets are very realistic and the battles consist of perhaps 10,000 or more soldiers, plus hundreds of tanks ( the germans are mostly tiger 1’s and some decent mockups of elephant and panther).

all the battlefield combat scenes are panoramic which is IMO the only way to film a war movie. You can literally see the 10,000 soldiers.

5 movies were presented

Stalingrad ( 2 parts)
Kursk
Operation Bagration
Assault of Berlin

however no english subtitles of this exist. My girlfriend has to translate for me ( shes from Odessa). You wont find any copies of this with english either. I have tried for many years to do this but to no avail. I own all these movies and they are amoung my favorite of all time.

It will cost you at least 100 bucks for the set of movies, unless you rent them from a russian video store and make copies.

I’d like my turkey samich with BACON, a li’l Miracle Whip, a lotta Grey Poupon, lettuce, tomato 'n onion.

Gotta have the BACON to kiss any terrorists I meet. (Heh-heh!) :evil:

P_Bear
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