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[somedude210]

with the iraq and afghanistan conflicts, the israel-lebenon conflict that threatens to include iran, syria, and the western world and that crazy guy in NK. there are now reports that ethopian troops have entered somalia. of course the only people that will care about this is the UN, (kinda like that whole Rwanda thing) but just once, wouldnt it be nice if the governments that we voted for actually...oh i dont know, help out african nations instead of letting them blow the crap out of each other. didnt Rwanda and Somalia (92) teach us something that even if we do get the crap beaten out of us, we should still help them.

sounds like the summer is really shaping up... :

[An Apple Beatle]

It will unless a true conscious collective can stop it. When the world loses the fear of God, make them fear war. Sad but it seems true.

[somedude210]

mmm but then again it may turn out to be like that mel gibson movie where we fight over materials such as oil than over god(s).

[Joost]

It would be a much more peaceful world without organized religion and without George W. Bush, who has been adding fuel to every fire he could find ever since he came into office.

[Kevin]

My two cents worth:

On the positive side, North America, Europe, Russia and China are now so immeshed (?) economicaly that war between them is now most unlikely.
The only threats from the middle east are Syria (who are militarily and politicaly weak) and Iran, who would get their arse kicked in any serious fight. (and the Isrealis would probably do it for us) NK are a worry, but I can't see any conflict with them escalating beyond a local scrap (they have no friends).
Almost all of Africa's conflicts are ethnic based. It took Europe 100 years and two huge wars (and 100 million dead) to go from the transition from emperial rule to ethnicaly homogenous  nation states at peace with each other.  Africa will probably have to go through the same pain.
Relax guys. The world always seems on the brink of imminent disaster. It's how we like it.

[Kevin]

It would be a much more peaceful world without organized religion and without George W. Bush, who has been adding fuel to every fire he could find ever since he came into office.

Sorry - but I think blaming religion is a cop out, and is an attempt to hide what for many is the real horrible truth. Almost all human conflict is ethnic based, with one group attempting to enslave, remove or eliminate the other. The "horrible truth" is that as societies we humans don't like people who are different, and we will fight when threatened.

[Joost]

Iran, who would get their arse kicked in any serious fight.

Don't underestimate Iran... Sure the USA can easily kick Iran's ass, but things will get ugly if they do. Unlike what some American media and politicians want people to believe, Saddam and Al Qaida never cared for each other. Iran on the other hand is led by radical Muslims. Touch them and the consequences won't be pretty.

My two cents.

[Kevin]

Don't underestimate Iran... Sure the USA can easily kick Iran's ass, but things will get ugly if they do. Unlike what some American media and politicians want people to believe, Saddam and Al Qaida never cared for each other. Iran on the other hand is led by radical Muslims. Touch them and the consequences won't be pretty.

My two cents.

Agreed. And current events do seem to be playing into their hands - the situations in Iraq and Lebannon are much to their advantage.
Iran does or soon will have WOMD's, and has pretentions of being a local superpower. It does support "terrorism". As some journalist put it - America fought the wrong war.

[somedude210]

maybe we can sell fox news to iran, they love radicals over there so bill o'reily should be well liked there

[somedude210]

...all we can say is give peace a chance...but does anyone listen? does anyone out there care that they send thousands to their deaths for petty differences? why...why are humans just so goddamn brutal. jews, muslims, christians, they all worship similar if not the same god. why is humanity so stupid...

[Kevin]

...all we can say is give peace a chance...but does anyone listen? does anyone out there care that they send thousands to their deaths for petty differences? why...why are humans just so goddamn brutal. jews, muslims, christians, they all worship similar if not the same god. why is humanity so stupid...

Please don't keep laying this at religions door. The biggest killers of modern times - Mao, Stalin, Hitler et al did not kill their millions in the name of any god.
All animals fight to ensure the survival of their gene pool. If they didn't life would probably cease to exist. Want someone to blame - sweet Mother Nature's your man.

[Kevin]

Please don't keep laying this at religions door. The biggest killers of modern times - Mao, Stalin, Hitler et al did not kill their millions in the name of any god.
All animals fight to ensure the survival of their gene pool. If they didn't life would probably cease to exist. Want someone to blame - sweet Mother Nature's your man.

I will concede though, that a belief in god does give a group a rationale to declare themselves "special" and "chosen", therefore validating their  actions.
example - the ethnic cleansing (some would say genocide) inflicted on native americans last century. Though the driving force was economics, being chosen by god to civilise the world was the rationale. But without that belief in superiority there probably wouldn't have been civilisation as we know it (with all the benefits that come with it.) It's a real double-edged sword.

[RICKENBACKER325]

Don't underestimate Iran... Sure the USA can easily kick Iran's ass, but things will get ugly if they do. Unlike what some American media and politicians want people to believe, Saddam and Al Qaida never cared for each other. Iran on the other hand is led by radical Muslims. Touch them and the consequences won't be pretty.

My two cents.

Indeed. If george w numbnuts had kept his damned a$$ out of there al queerda was not a problem. Hussein had all of that in check. The minute this moron went in and took out the regime in place he destabilized the country allowing the borders to be flooded over with all the radical militants that could walk, drive, or crawl in. I guess when someone has want you want  (oil) bad enough you'll do whatever you want to get it and to hell with what everybody else says or wants. As far a Iran goes, Isreal has the best intellignce in the middle east. They know when someone in a another country farts. If they wanted to they could easily turn the rest of  middle east into an ashtray. However North Korea is a threat, just beacuse of the tendancy to be allied with communist countries like that little ol' place over there called China. With the tendancy that bush has for p*ssing people off (Russia especially)) Isreal is really the only country we are allied with in that part of the world. This is a powder keg that could blow at any time. Scary indeed!

[Kevin]

^ Do you not think though that with China's booming economy, a misbehaving NK destabalizing the region is more of a liability to them? Commie buddies or not, I can't see China risking it all for them. What would they gain? Money talks.
Taiwan is sticky though.

[RICKENBACKER325]

Nk is not a threat to China. North korea is like a child that misbehaves only as long as the parent allows. If you get too far out of line dad(China) will smack you back into line. kim jung mentally ill knows China could squash him with either nukes or conventional war methods in a bout two minutes, he's not about to go toe to toe with them. That booming economy in China makes them a much bigger threat due to there increasing need for more oil and that makes them more apt to want in on the fracas in the middle east. They'll want their share of the petroleum pie. That's why I think China's interest's are not on NK but on the mid-east. When push comes to shove NK will fall in line with China. I however agree about Taiwan. That could get really stupid, really fast. Only time will tell.

[Kevin]

^should have nuked them in '50 when we had the chance.

[somedude210]

well the problem facing the US now, besides war weariness, is that our military is trained to be able to fight 2 1/2 wars. that means that we have one war in Iraq and 1/2 in afghanistan, so we're really going to stretch our forces thin if war erupts all over the middle east or with NK. not to mention, our population will go nuts that we not only didnt pull out of iraq but we went into another war.

china, yes their city's are flourishing but they still have a large chunk of the country in poverty and living in farms. their economy may be boosted but they still have a sense of turmoil in there.

[RICKENBACKER325]

well the problem facing the US now, besides war weariness, is that our military is trained to be able to fight 2 1/2 wars. that means that we have one war in Iraq and 1/2 in afghanistan, so we're really going to stretch our forces thin if war erupts all over the middle east or with NK. not to mention, our population will go nuts that we not only didnt pull out of iraq but we went into another war.

china, yes their city's are flourishing but they still have a large chunk of the country in poverty and living in farms. their economy may be boosted but they still have a sense of turmoil in there.

Remember when "dubya" was first elected/stole the election. He said we were not going to spead our force's all over the world and we were not going to be a nation builder. He most certainly did not care to keep that campaign promise, seeing he had a hard-on for Iraq immediately after getting in office. Anyway Matt, there may still be a lot of poverty in China, but their industries are growing requiring more oil and oil based products. If you don't believe me check the lables next time you go to Wal-Mart or any other retail store. The made in China lables are on most everything. Here's an intersting thought, I went to buy my son a new baseball glove this year, and found out only one company still produce's their gloves here in the states, the Nokona co. in Texas. But they started this year their import line and guess where they are made, yep, China. The Wilson co. the Official glove of major league baseball makes their gloves in .......anybody?....... that's right China. This only one example and there is not enough space for more. So the poverty lines are quickly diminishing in China, and with out any EPA guidelines to follow they can use hazardous materials and spray whatever they want without the repecussions and fines that we have here. I won't even mention the labor cost's between here and over there. Sooner or later they'll leave the farm and move to the better living conditions in the cities. It happened here in the states from the 1930's thru the early 1960's.

[RICKENBACKER325]

^should have nuked them in '50 when we had the chance.

If MacAurthur had his way that's what would have happened. But President Truman hated him and so the political General Eisenhower was installed and nothing good came of it. Hind sight is, indeed, 20/20

Yep, it's the beginning of the end. If anyone wants me to go into detail, I'm happy to do so, but I've not got the energy, and you probably don't want to hear it--yet. On that note, all I can say is George Dubya's War on Terror hasn't done anything except to group the Muslims, start a Civil War,  and now we have the U.S., Iraq, Iran doing business as Lebanon, Lebanon itself, Somalia, Syria, Jordan, North Korea, and tomorrow the list will be bigger. And sooner or later, the U.S. will have to get involved with those f***nuts who don't care because they are fighting for "God" and some virgins. Live every day like it's your last, say Frank, because, sooner or later, it will be.