You’re correct about the current world we live in. I went to war to help our economic trading partners whose economies affected our own. Kuwait’s occupation did not directly affect us and despite the peaceful embargo threats, Saddam continued to assert his claim of rightful conquest. It was also our military stance after the ceasefire that prevented Saddam’s expansion and the embargoes embittered the Iraqis against us when we finally decided to dethrone him. History does not only consist of WW2 as an example. the same thing has been happening for millenia. Tibet and Kosovo are polar opposites of bellicose decisions. Rome fell from internal dissension and civil war when those energies could have been better spent keeping the borders secure in offensive actions. The problems we face now have always plagued empires. We just happen to be lucky enough to be somewhat isolated an our economic empire is falling apart due to our society’s inability to adapt to the fact that the world is changing.
We have to protect that empire and a soft and weak military will cause that economic empire to be taken advantage of. You can use post war Germany and Japan as examples of weak military and economic growth but remember that their economies were heavily subsidized by our military might protecting their trade from others who would take it from them. I’ll just mention the Ukraine for a contemporary example and you can research the history, both economically and politically and come to your own conclusion.
My New Signature
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What do you think of my new signature? It was said on July 20, 2001 to a BBC interviewer and then quoted in the Jerusalem Post.
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Disturbing, although nothing new. Several years ago the New York Times Saturday edition had a spread with much the same in much greater detail with pictures, etc.
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@cystic:
Disturbing, although nothing new. Several years ago the New York Times Saturday edition had a spread with much the same in much greater detail with pictures, etc.
I’m not sure what to think of the New York Times, especially after the whole thing they did with Tuvia Grossman, which I think was very disgusting and shows how the media can easily manipulate pictures and facts.
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@cystic:
Disturbing, although nothing new. Several years ago the New York Times Saturday edition had a spread with much the same in much greater detail with pictures, etc.
I’m not sure what to think of the New York Times, especially after the whole thing they did with Tuvia Grossman, which I think was very disgusting and shows how the media can easily manipulate pictures and facts.
well, they did back up your quote to a significant degree. Maybe they were manipulating something then . . . .
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I like to think that they’ve learned from that incident. From what I’ve heard, they have been pretty good since but other papers still twist images. The Globe and Mail is a good example. They once had an article about Palestinians who were shot by Israeli forces at the Western Wall and their handprints of blood were left there. They had a photo of the handprints. These handprints were very neat for people who had just been shot. It looked like someone stamped them on the Western Wall, as opposed to someone putting their hands there and then falling to the floor, dragigng their whole hand down to the bottom and ruining the bottom of the handprint.
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I try to look forward instead of backward.