Swinefeld,

I understand a bit about science, and I'm not sure that oil can ever be replaced. If that's true, then the world will be reduced to a fight for whoever can keep their country comfortable for the longest period of time. Unless there's an ocean of oil out there, things will one day get pretty desperate.

You're intellectualizing war a bit too much there. The goal is to win and make your enemies do your will with the least amount of cost to you and yours.

The best war would involve the use of remote control robots controlled by soldiers on the other side of the world. Having people get killed and mutilated makes them not want to fight. If that occurs, as it has in the US, then the people have little interest in defending their civilization and its values.

This is the reason why the military is developing robots.

I am intellectualizing a bit too much? Hmmm, thanks. You are quite correct about the goal of a war, but when two enemies are evenly matched because of technology, geography, numbers of soldiers, or other factors then the price will be high and I think price should be if not felt directly it should be clearily understood.

As to the robots, when we first started to use the flying robots, UAV's like the Global Hawk, the Predator, in combat one of the people on the Today show suggested that this might bring the war to places in this country where the pilots are located. That the bases where the robots are controled are legitimate targets of war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle

No, a war is best fought against people who are inferiorly matched against you. You avoid an even or superior opponent.




Grab a copy.

"Know your enemy as yourself and you will always be victorious."

I have read "The Art of War". Of course you wage war when you have the advantage. While we may have had advantages over Saddam's army we lost those advanatages once it was defeated. Now I would say we are evenly matched with an enemy in Iraq. While we have advantages in technology, or "war machines" as Mr. Sun would say, the enemy has advantages in terrain and numbers. Also our army is disadvantaged in accepting duties for which armies are not the best resource.

According to you that's a good thing.

There are other ways to fight the war, but we refuse to do them. Thus, America is a "general" who didn't understand his own personality, and that leads to disaster.

No the calculation was that members of the Bush admisnistration have different definition of "us" and "them" then you and me. They don't really value regular American citizens lives all that much. Cheney's ties Haliburton, Bush's ties to defense contractor industries and to the Saudi Royal family out of sheer greed twisted their perception of national interest. Their willingness to demand/buy into faulty intelligence about WMD basically boils down to a complicated case of self-denial in the interest of selling the idea that basically a system of cronyism and graft was justified as "patriotism".

The reason we invaded Iraq was based on the ammount of money friends of the Bush administration could make on "reconstruction contracts". That's the "why", though no doubt some of the administration got so wrapped up in the spin the worked up to justify this war for cold calculated greed that some of them started to believe it after a while. The self-delusion then led to a series of monumental strategic blunders which then compounded upon themselves.

Still the most important thing to remember about this war is that each every dead American soldier is to Cheney and Co. an acceptable dispensible resource toward their ultimate goal - their own personal accumulation of massive wealth - nothing more , nothing less.

The reason we invaded Iraq was so a select group of contractors could get rich "rebuilding" Iraq - but their greed led them to completely miscalculate the instability of the situation.

Anyhoo back to the tragic situation in Burma.

__________________
A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

Enough already about those stupid people in Burma! Don't you people know that innocent pigeons are being shot right here in PA. Your priorities are all screwed up, you barbarians.

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The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

Hubert Humphrey