My 2 cents worth.

With the Holomodor (Stalin’s Ukraine famine/genocide, millions perished), Chechan evictions, Polish (Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, etc.) OCCUPATIONS, etc. – ALL creating resentments decades later (as, for example, portrayed in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia,” when Lawrence’s Arabs massacre a Turkish troop train), and demanding a RUTHLESS dedication on the part of the Russians that can only be called “Stalinist,” the civilized and cultured Gorbachev just didn’t want to keep that level of violence and terror going.
Looking back, it really was a miracle that the restrained and peace-mongering Gorbachev came to power – three of his Hard-Line predecessors perished in a short time before his ascent… and Reagan, miraculously as well, survived an assassin’s bullet, had he died, it is highly unlikely that Bush-I & Gorbachev would have come to that INF treaty, without which Gorbachev could never have gone to his Politburo & military chiefs and sold them on “glasnost” & “perestroika,”….

I have a feeling that with 85000 jobs lost in December and more to be lost hereon, Americans will start migrating to Afghanistan in large numbers. We all know that that the soil & weather conditions are conducive for Poppy farming in Afghanistan.
Hence, the American army can now be joined by their brethren and together they can cultivate poppy. The pure heroin could then be exported worldwide just like Oil and gas. I hope some American diplomat is reading this so that they can use this idea.

Since they frame most world policies, clandestine drug trade can also be legitimate.

Thoughts please?? I am already feeling thrilled by this idea..

No I don’t watch fox (far from it). I point form because it simplifies the sequencing and progression of a complex argument. Anyway I doubt that anyone who watches Fox would know of of the exiledonline.com.

Re my Vietnam quagmire remark. Yes I realise most of the regimes were hardly communist but they, from Burma, Thailand to Philippines were heavily propped by the US.

What the US stopped was south east asia being under the spehere of influence of communist nations, at great cost of life and resources. I don’t agree with their actions or motivation however its obvious that the USSR would have hardly stopped (just in the same way the US didn’t).

Regarding the drug comments, yes the United States runs drugs. There is vast quantities of documentary evidence to show from to the Iran Contra affair, to Vietnam itself that the US was implicitly involved in the drug trade. The fact that Afghanstain is responsible for over 90% of the worlds heroin and yet the worlds most modern armies aren’t stopping that says much about the reality of the matter. Those drugs and the liquid cash they produce are critical for the running of the global economy. You could hardly hide $500b under your bed. Its got to keep flowing.

Regarding the use of oil I think your taking it a little personally. However the very fact that your typing on a plastic computer is indicative of your dependence on oil.

Sure you might not use it for heating or general house power however you’ll find that the vast majority of our food depends on a transport/logistic system that is completely dependant on oil. In turn the food factories require vast amounts of inorganic fertlisers to allow the earth grow food that has rendered the earth sterile from over use of fungicides and pesticides. The earth in most industrial farms is so sterile there it contains no functional bacteria or fungus (the little microbs that create organic soil for plants to munch on).

The problem with solar is that to move the rest of middle class to it that you would need access to rare earth metals (i.e. the stuff in your batteries and generators) to make it work. These, being implicit in the name, are rare to the extent that they have already peaked (i.e. read up on peak oil). Hence the vast conflicts in the Congo and Africa to grab the last cheap sources of rare earth minerals. Read a bit at http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html details much of the maths behind this.

I appreciate that you live in a hippy commune and believe you’re immune from the reality that everything, including bio-fuels, are all based, in way or another, on fossil fuels. No fossil fuels no mining for the minerals that get turned into solar panels and almost everything in your house. No fossil fuels equal no fuel to run the farmers tractor. No fossil fuels equal no servers to run the internet. Think of anything you do and try and preclude the use of oil from somewhere in the chain/life cycle.

“The Caspian sea oil pipeline” – how does this relate to Afghanistan? Is failing geography a new requirement to join your movement?”

Well then you haven’t heard of the Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline. yes it never went ahead but it was a seriously deal in the 90s that was considered as an alternate path for the delivery of fossil fuels. Much of what is happening in Afghanistan has much to do with oil.

“Ever heard of Shaghai Cooperation Organization? US has no influence in Central Asia. America is allowed to lease a base for no more than a year, at a huge price tag. The lease has to be renewed every year. So if US Corporations play naughty, base goes bye-bye next year. And US Corporate property gets nationalized. The SCO countries will defend each other in the event of a US attack. South East Asia wasn’t unified, Central Asia is. I think this graph represents respect towards the US rather well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_Nations_General_Assembly_vote_on_resolution_A63L.2.PNG“.

Yes i’ve heard of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. However I think you’ll find that USCENTCOM (US Central command responsible for Central Asia) will polity disagree that they have no assets nor power in Central Asia. Hell these days B-52, B-2 and B-1 can fly non-stop around the world (in-flight fuelling), bomb targets in the middle east and land back in the mid-west of the US.

That said yes you’ll find publicly issues over US base leases and such but in practice you’ll find that the US is extremely flexible.

For example the supply chain for the Afghan war currently starts in Pakistan (all part of USCENTCOM). Presently hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions, food, and fuel are trucked and flown in from Pakistan. In the 90s when Serbia was being bombed missions were being flown out of Turkey (as was the case with Iraq, Desert Storm).

Regarding your other comments I totally agree. I believe Gill Scot Heron says it much more elegantly in “B-Movie”.

The disconnect however is always with the US. On one hand you have a wonderful society and yet on the other you have third-world infrastructure, poverty that should shame all humans, slavery/racism that is ignored and a emotional psyche of a 10 year old. Yet you can still fight wars any where on the planet, at any time. It would seem at the cost of everything dearest the average US citzen is happy to have a kick ass military.

And India is not superpower material and will never be in the same league as Russia and China.

Well i have lived in 7 countries in my life and traveled to many others and your just wrong, american music is out there and way more prevalent than British stuff. Not that i am saying british music is bad, but just not as worldwide. And now i’m not talking about pop/rock, which i’m asssuming you love.
As far as your attitude, well i’m used to it, i was just asking a question. Of course i expect you to be rude and petty. Its all you got. And yes i know what envy means you prick, you had it written all over your post.

“Hollywood is more important than our Marines and Navy” Yeah dude, we send in tom cruise, bruce willis, and the like to fight wars. You didn’t know american idol is actually auditions for special forces. Where are you from, dumbshitville? Hollywood can survive without the US, so in that respect Hollywood could be its own sovreign country, brilliant! Will Ferrel for prez.

“lack of imagination” Yeah thats what your post had, that and a complete lack of any intelligence.

You know i was just trying to have an honest and open converstation, but leave it to you to turn it into and argument and scowls. It’s lonely at the top and i do expect people to be angry and be haters. So either deal with it or fuck i don’t care what you do, hate us, love us, put up with us, doesn’t really matter. Dude

“Am I wrong?”

You are.

America isn’t impressive at all in music (by which I assume pops/rock) if you consider Brits. Their country is nowhere near as influential or resource-rich as America anymore, yet their success in that department is pretty much comparable to that of America.

And English was already the international language when America truly became the super power. Lucky.

American movies, yeah, that’s the most important thing about America. Hollywood was always even more important than US Navy and Marines combined. But then America != Hollywood. Not anymore anyway. Hollywood is Hollywood, something that even transcends the US. You may not believe it, but Hollywood can survive without the US.

“Everyone knows what’s going on in our country” – well, you are a tad exaggerating there, but in any event, that’s certainly not because they “envy” you.

This “envy” stuff to which a certain type of Americans for some reason cling is almost pathological, and I suppose purely psychological: just the other side of a certain type of complex. Or total lack of imagination.

It’s not “envy.” You probably don’t even know the definition of the word. Sure, many may “envy” those who have good jobs in the US, and that completely depends on the US economy, so if it goes down, those “jobs” will go down with it.

That’s all everybody else has been saying, dude.

Have to admit you have some valid comments there without a doubt. I won’t even beging to start a discussion on those subjects.
I don’t know where your from and it does not really matter to me, just a point of fact quickly i do not live nor work in the US, although i work for a US company.
Ok now and i am not arguing i really wanna know your opinion and hell everyones, if all thats true, how are we still the most influential and powerful country on the earth if we are in such bad shape? Why is it, if we are so hated and so stupid and looked down upon, that every country i travel to i see american movies, fashions, hear american music and see heavy western influences and everyone knows whats going on in our country. Explain this to me please. Maybe its not us but humanity that has the faults? Please i want to know. For all of our faults we still have the basic principles that cannot be denied and i feel that the rest of the world, secretly or openly, envys us. Am i wrong?

Now for all the people who sit on their high horse and talk about what they think they know here, have any of you lived worked among the afghan people??? If so that number is very very low. Well i have and yes there is some bad things going on, its a freaking war in case some of you forgot that. I have seen the improvements in infrastructure, schools, housing, roads, and quality of life for a lot of afghans. They are(for the most part) good people who just want a better life who deos’nt?

As for the dumb fuck who said we (American’s) have always had the appettite to kill brown people, get your head out of fox news and get with it moron, most of us, at least the ones with free thinking brains don’t wanna kill anyone. We wanna protect our interests and help people across the world. Now sometimes its just not pretty to acheive those goals and well thats the world we live in its not all roses and lollipops, i’ve seen awful things here, death, destruction hell kids with their arms blowm off from american bombs. Like i said its war but ideally we are trying to do whats right,and yes along with whats in our best intrests.
So argue all you want people it only fules the fire of hate. In the end you gotta do what you have to and strive to do the right thing. Which granted the US has not always done,but fuckin a we try! Any other country wanna step up and fill our shoes? I doubt it. Good luck to us all

Nope – Blowing trillions on building and re-building the largest target in the world for rocket and mortar fire is at best funny.

So net wealth destruction on both sides somehow, by virtue of the magical multiplicator, produces domestic bliss. Just as the printing of greenbacks does. Got it. So why do living standards stagnate or drop again?

And to think all those dumb Chinese and Europeans invest in infrastructure…

The bombing of brown people would put a myriad Americans back to work and make them happy because they would be serving their country. Americans wouldn’t give a shit about what they’d be doing in a moral or ethical sense, cause “it’s a job, dude,” and that’s all that matters to these peasants. I would argue that instead of two active wars, why not 5 or 6? We don’t have to even really occupy these shitholes, pounding them is good enough for our jobs.

Exactly! And all the gooks have to do is to sell their dollar reserves / no longer finance the US trade deficit. They can wreck the US economy with a keystroke. And Brezinski, Kissinger & Associates would sell tacos to DC tourists.

Not for long though:

You See, when WallMart runs out of Chinese manufactured shit for the ‘merikans to bloat themselves with we will see thousands of desperate A-Merican fatties and stupid security goons killing each other for scraps – haitian style.

I would soo love it! Imagine them go!!

The first reason for collapse was the free speech and nationalism that were unleashed by Gorbachev’s reforms. The second reason is for the Soviet leadership simply did not have the guts to crack down on those centrifugal forces.

Gorbachev simply did not understand the force of nationalism that could be unleashed with free speech, and once it was unleashed he and the people around him had no guts to put an end to it by sending some troops to crack down on the rebel republics.

Now if you are going to bullshit and say that Iraq has moved from the Middle East to Central Asia, then there really is no counter-argument, other than to say that you are a moron who knows nothing about georgraphy.

As for the base in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve already addressed this: “America is allowed to lease a base for no more than a year, at a huge price tag. The lease has to be renewed every year. So if US Corporations play naughty, base goes bye-bye next year. And US Corporate property gets nationalized. The SCO countries will defend each other in the event of a US attack.” Reading is wonderful, you should try it sometime Concerned Citizen.

The Color Revolutions? They played right into the hands of Russia. With the Color Revolutions the US discredited its image as a bringer of Democracy, because if an election was to be held today, Saakashvili and Yushenko would lose so badly, that Obama routing McCain would look like a close race by comparison. As for Kyrgyzstan, it’s leader is doing everything Russia wants; if you noticed the “Russian protest” against the US base, you would see that the “protestors” couldn’t keep a straight face. “Silly Yanquis, paying triple the rate, only to get kicked out in a year, unless they behave, and than we’ll get Kyrgyzstan to triple the price again.”

@51: Israel is more of a pain in the ass, than an ally. Columbia cannot even deal with FARK, and the base deal has been heavily criticized by other Latin American countries. Egypt? What’s Egypt’s war record? They can barely keep the Muslim Brotherhood in check. Pakistan? You mean the people who have Al Qaeda to the North and India to the East? Pakistan, like Israel, is more of a pain in the ass than an ally. Chile and Jordan? That’s the best you can do? With the countries you presented, it’s pretty damn clear who is going to be doing most of the fighting.

And your Imperialist Stats are impressive. But that takes money. As you have addmitted, the US is responsible for a fourth of the World’s GDP and a half of the World’s military expenditure, (roughly rounded off). That means US is overpaying to keep its Empire. You cannot use a widget to produce both guns and butter, you can produce either guns or butter. In other words, money spent on empire-building cannot be spent at home.

So let me give you some stats on how America is doing at home: Half of America’s schools are failing. There’s an unstoppable flow of immigrants coming in, that don’t want to learn Ingles (English). For those that do, the price for learning Ingles (English) is too high. The US has 40 million people living in poverty, out of 300 million. The US has so much jail population, that rehabilitation programs no longer function. In other words, in jail criminals become hardened and wiser criminals, and are then released.

A single earthquake can destroy California’s infrastucture that will take at least two weeks to repair, immobilizing the entire state. California is issuing IOUs, because no one will even lend money to California. Look what a single hurricane, Katrina, did to New Orleans!

Most Americans are overweight. The military is begining to let in recruits that cannot properly fight due to low IQ or low physical capabilities. Criminals are recruited to join the army.

Here are some more statistics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzIlCHWd7I

50% of Americans cannot read well enough to find a single fact of evidence in a short publication. I’ve got a feeling that includes Concerned Citizen. 61 percent of Americans believe that Genesis is LITERALLY TRUE!!! (Not that it’s true, but the timeline was used metaphorically, but that it’s literally true!) 50% of high seniors think Soddom and Gomorrah were married. 11% of young Americans cannot find the US on the map of the World. 69% couldn’t find England.

20% of Americans believe the Sun orbits the Earth. 51% of all professional engineers in the US are foreign born, as are 45% of all professional computer scientists. Only 1 in 4 Americans could name one of the five freedoms list in the First Amendment. One in five thought that one of the freedoms was “the right to own a pet”.

So while you speak of those fancy carrier groups, keep in mind that you’re sacrificing America’s education, healthcare and well being for them and that countries with an uneducated population, especially empires with an uneducated population, easily collapse: see Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires for the most recent examples. And remember, empires don’t get conquered, they fall apart from within….

The United States still uses 1/4 percent of the world’s energy alone, produces 25 to 30 percent of the world’s GDP, and is the third largest country by both geographical size and population. Oh, and it’s military spending is larger than the next twenty countries combined.

Think about that. If you’re in America you should be proud. You’re literally living in a modern-day Roman Empire. You–yes you, American citizens–are the taxpayers and supporters of this magnificent democratic empire that will be spoken about long after you are gone. You support our ten carrier groups that project our power across the globe. You help maintain our strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal of 10,00 active, inactive and reserved weapons. Hell, thanks to you in 2008 we exported 2/3 of all foreign arms.

It almost makes you want to cry and such awesome power. The beauty of our strength is not so much fighting, nor conquering, but training indigenous forces to project power on their own, in which they either rightly or falsly believe they are protecting themselves while simultaneously securing our interests. While Afganistan and Iraq are two recent exceptions, take a a good look around the world and you’ll see we’re still utilizing this proven model in numerous countries such as Columbia, Israel, Chile, Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan just to name a few of our allies.