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Thoughts?

Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:50 pm
by Jason

Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:46 pm
by Peijen
pff, you just like it because of this line
Globalization is Borg-like in its integration abilities: it remakes you more than you can ever remake it.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:43 am
by Peijen
But it's not going to be the United States alone, policing the whole world. It can't be. The only way that you can shrink the Gap and deal with these failed states and the humanitarian crises you're seeing is to bring together the assets and the energies and ideas from the Core as a whole: not just what the Americans can dream up, not even just what the Europeans can dream up, but the best innovations from an India, a China.
This is a good point, when Bush told everyone that only US and coalition companies will recieve any work contract in Iraq because it's "US money" it pissed off alot of people. The result? None of the big player is helping us. The best that happend was Russians write off their loan to Iraq, but most country don't usually expect those loans to be paid back anyway.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:51 am
by Peijen
I guess the biggest question is US willing take a backseat in decision making role? As a country we pretty much like to have our way, and as I have just discussed with my dad this afternoon, americans are not cunning and manipulative enough to get their way without pissing people off. Bush is a prime example of this. He believed he is doing the world a great service and is not willing to pretend to be polite and play world politics. In the end the rest of the world is giving us a cold shoulder and americans are starting to realize that we do need other nations help in this mess.

I would said alot of what he said in the interview are good ideas, but most likely they are not going to get done.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:43 pm
by Jason
I'm interested in this mostly because of the whole working in the defense sector. I would not have thought this interesting in the least a few years ago.

I agree with what you said about the US never taking a backseat in a decision making role (although I'm not sure how much longer that will last the way we keep burning bridges and with the development of china and india). I doubt this guy's political ideas will ever come to pass, but his other ideas are good. I like his thoughts on how the current army shouldn't be peacekeepers, but rather that they need to create a new type of force. They pretty much take people over here, give them survival training, teach them how to shoot, and send them over there to be police officers, run prisons, develop schools, rebuild infrastructure, etc. I know that NGOs help out, but you really need to have everyone over there who is rebuilding, capable of defending themselves.

I also like his metaphor about taming the west. People have to realize that in a state of chaos, people are going to die. Either through a scarcity of resources, or as there is fighting over control of the limited resources. There are different rulesets for different situations. You can't take a ruleset that presupposes order and relative calm and juxtapose it on top of an area in chaos. Whether that applies for moral rulesets as well, I'm not sure. It's possible, the whole greater good argument and all.

Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:03 am
by Dave
It's all about the Benjamins! wut!