Obama's Proposed Space Weapon Ban 550
eldavojohn writes "Obama's proposed ban on space weapons is a complete 180 from George W. Bush's stance on them. Space.com looks at the two sides of the issue and quotes Michael Krepon explaining, 'The Bush administration rejected space diplomacy. We refused to negotiate on any subject that could limit US military options. We have a shift from an administration that was very dismissive of multilateral negotiations [as a whole], to an administration that is open to that possibility if it improves US national security.' You may recall discussing the necessity of space based weapons and Michael Krepon from 2005."
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the most part, agreements between one or two are effective (a bilateral agreement is like a contract), while agreements between many are simply meaningless gestures that only bind the honest.
Remember that governments aren't honest.
China supports this! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama: "Today I have signed an executive order banning all space weapons."
China: "Yay! We fully support this."
*China blows up all U.S. satellites*
Iran... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
While I agree with you, your analogy has a flaw. I do not believe that there are a lot of 'evil nations' out there just waiting to rob the US of everything they have or some such thing.
Most outside aggression the US faces today stems from past administrations' behaviour toward other nations. Right at this moment, the US cannot afford to let its guard down at all.
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
how many nations have space weapons? usa, china & russia, now my maths isn't that great but i count that as an agreement between the us and one or two other nations.
Re:Childish (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a naive view. American invervention in many countries has understandably stirred up a lot of discontent, but the problem of Islamic aggression has much deeper roots than US misdeeds. I'm from Finland, an obscure Nordic country with little foreign policy to speak of, and even I get hate. I have traveled throughout Muslim countries, and while local people have been extremely generous and hospitable to me as an individual, I've constantly heard them complain that Europe has not embraced Islam, that Europe has a culture they find odious, and that the West must be attacked both with force and subterfuge until it is brought to its knees. Even if the US tried hard to atone for its past, it wouldn't change much when so many hate the West just because of its cultural values. Bush might have been a dumbass, but comments along the lines of "They hate us because we are free" speak much truth.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask a rape victim how saying no to her attacker went over.
I wouldn't know the answer to that. The only person I've ever known who almost got raped ended the attempted attack with three shots from her .38 special. Don't tell any of the liberals though, they'd probably get upset that she didn't try to reason with him and/or call the police. She could have gotten hurt, don't you know?
Why we want to preserve the status quo in space (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Obama is pursuing a very rational course here. In short, the US does not want to start an anti-satellite arms race, because we're already so far ahead in the satellite race - why reset the game board to zero? A couple of points to consider:
1)In current US military doctrine, superior satellite coverage is a key "force multiplier" by providing C4ISTAR advantages (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). US military planners are particularly keen on these so-called "force multipliers" because they field a comparatively small force numerically.
2)The US has a huge interest in maintaining the status quo in space. The US has a strategic advantage in satellite coverage, and that advantage is currently very difficult to assault in a wartime, short-time-horizon scenario.
3)For the US, declaring "space" a "neutral zone" would basically mean that a whole bunch of military equipment that makes our soldiers fight better is legally considered off-limits
4)Compliance with a space weapons ban is comparatively easy to monitor, because deployment of anti-satellite technology requires testing.
So for the US, a space weapons ban is a no-brainer. The trick will be getting the Russians and the Chinese to sign on (at this point no one is suggesting a unilateral ban on space weapons and such a policy would obviously be inane from a national security standpoint.)
Stupid Stupid Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we all know that everyone else will uphold the same morals.
Sorry, but this is just political grandstanding for his base. If the does follow through he will simply gimp the US going forward
"Great idea!" (Score:3, Insightful)
says the ghost of Neville Chamberlain.
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I've been trying to figure out how to tell people that Obama is a man who happens to be black, and because of this hysteria, he has arguably been given far more trust than any president should be given.
There are plenty of arguments for why we should have space based weapons. If you read the right books, we need them to be prepared to repel alien visitations. Other opinions are equal to the notions of what would have happened if the US had decided that we don't need automatic weapons.
In the end, you will have them. The only question is how much damage are you willing to sustain before deciding to build them.
There is another angle. Space based weapons can be built using civilian space travel/exploration technology and the other way around. I don't think it's a case of having to pay twice as both programs can share development costs in various ways.
Obama has made several statements that lead many of us to believe that he's not quite sure WTF he's doing. Nobody is perfect, but this 180 degree shift doesn't make sense unless he is just pushing the program underground or plying for political favor somewhere. Neither of those options speak well of him, and neither explanation bodes well for the security and safety of the citizens of the USA.
Those who criticize him for it are quite right to do so, not to mention they are within their constitutional rights to do so. We need to think critically and criticize where it is appropriate. Letting the executive branch run around wildly is what happened over the last 8 years. Time for that to stop. If that means Obama has to explain himself in detail and quite often, so be it. We need transparency and wisdom in the Whitehouse.
Saying that any criticism of Obama is racism is exactly the kind of thinking that Bush used: Any criticism of the Executive branch is unamerican. This, my friends, is what fascism looks like.
Re:Improving security by lowering defenses (Score:5, Insightful)
So the only way to be safe is to keep building bigger weapons? I don't suppose youve ever looked into the 50 year immediately following WWII? Whats that meme round here "those that don't understand the mistakes of history bound to repeat them".
Not only is heading towards a cold war situation generally a bad idea, but given the current economic situation America doesn't stand a chance. China has a manufacturing capability much greater than America and given how china virtually owns America, you cant even hit china with trade sanctions.
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama has made several statements that lead many of us to believe that he's not quite sure WTF he's doing
Here's [time.com] something that worries the hell out of me. Apparently we shouldn't be keeping our nuclear deterrent reliable and having any sort of assurance that the weapons actually work as designed.
Re:Why Not Space Weapons? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have more weapons on land, air, sea, even underwater than anyone else
...and you're still terrified.
How is arming yourselves even more going to solve the problem?
You have three potential threats:
1. Russia/China/etc: Have no interest in attacking the US, they have their own problems, they don't need yours.
2. Terrorism: The only successful counter to terrorism has been to make the underlying causes irrelevant.
3. Internal: Good luck with that...
On top of which there is a fourth real threat coming directly from the economic system that is collapsing around your ears and which is most certainly not going to be solved through wasting money on fantasy projects, isolationism, or "reds under beds" paranoia.
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
Give them they're fucking country back?
Give them security by removing Isreals atomic option?
Why is MAD an ok tactic for the west but banned in the middle east?
Re:Saves money, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Military "GNP" is akin to making lots of expensive goods and then putting them all on a bonfire.
Exactly. Orwell had a point about this in 1984. And since everybody in /. loves Orwell here it is:
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.
Prophet or not, the man has/had a point there, although it's not directly applicable to modern societies of course.
Re:Why we want to preserve the status quo in space (Score:2, Insightful)
Not as inane as it may look at the first glance, because politics play a huge role in modern wars. The only thing that matters in a war today is the question who started it. You want to go to war? You need a reason. You can't just go and invade some country.
Them using anti-sat technology against your "multiplyers" would be a really awesome reason. You didn't do anything harmful, after all, that's just surveillance sats to make sure everyone plays nice, right? And they went and sent up some surveillance killer sats. That's aggressive behaviour, they're the aggressors, you have every right to fight back.
Drop 'em bombs, boys!
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFA you linked:
Nuclear weapons have tended to prevent or contain conflicts between those nations that possess them. Today's nuclear nightmare tends to focus less on a doomsday exchange with similarly armed rival states than on the nightmare of "loose nukes" falling into the hands of terrorists unaligned with any state and therefore beyond the reach of deterrence. A new batch of nuclear weapons, unfortunately, isn't going to change that.
I know this is a bad analogy, but knives and bows/arrows are still a threat. All the saber rattling with Iran was not about "...terrorists unaligned with any state and therefore beyond the reach of deterrence." It's about a state that they worry is trying to achieve nuclear weapons capability. Kim Jong Il is not a loose terrorist. It's easy to argue that the original reason of MAD is still valid, and that the nuclear deterrents are still needed.
Take this thread altogether and it appears that Obama is working to disarm the USA altogether. Whatever it means I think 'we the people' are owed an explanation that makes sense. When it _looks_ like our defenses are coming down, and troops are being deployed on home soil I think it's high time to be worried; high time to be asking the Executive "WTF are you doing?"
Re:Saves money, too (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall, the US economy got a boost from reduction in arms spending post-Communism, in the Clinton era. I remember discussions in the UK before that on how Japan benefited commercially from not having a significant military, meaning that not only did they not have to pay for it out of taxes, but engineers who might be making missiles could work on things like better cars.
There was the talk of the peace dividend we'd see after "winning" the Cold War but it never materialized. We're spending more now than ever on the military.
To generalise wildly, countries with large military R&D spending and manufacturing tend not to be good at consumer products. Military "GNP" is akin to making lots of expensive goods and then putting them all on a bonfire.
There was a good little book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (I think) and the author said there was a rule of thumb that could be seen through the nation-state era -- exceed a certain percentage of GDP spent on the military and see yourself become marginalized. Anyone who has played Civilization immediately grasps the principle here. Your have x resource units per turn. Your economy will grow at a rate of y and your military power at a rate of z. Too much money spent on the military, you end up not having an economy that can support it, not to mention you'll be driving around with obsolete weapons while your opponents have modern kit. Too little money spent on the military and your thriving cities will be snapped up by your militant neighbors. And it doesn't help that the bastard computer cheats.
The rule of thumb the author came up with was 5%. Keep it at or below that, your economy will keep up a reasonable rate of growth. Exceed that and you risk hollowing yourself out. He calculated that the Soviets were spending something like a third of their GDP on the military. The result is that they had a first world military by some standards but a third world economy that simply could not support it. An analogy would be the freakish weight-lifters who have so much muscle mass that their hearts are struggling just as bad as if the guy was a 500lb tub of lard.
The whole problem with the military-industrial complex is that there's too damn much money to be made in producing weapons. Get enough weapons lying around, people are inclined to use them.
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
Dont forget the UN and every other country in the world that invaded Iraq with the US, not due to WMD's, but due to Saddam not allowing UN weapons inspectors in. Iraq was not a sovereign nation, it was part of a ceasefire agreement where they promised to allow weapons inspectors in, and when they refused, they were then subject to the consequences.
re: No, it's grandstanding because .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Realistically, it's still a promise any leader can make with no repercussions. (Technology still isn't advanced enough to make "space weapons" feasible.)
The things that we DO make use of in space are spy satellites, which don't really fall under the category of "weapons" - since they're passive devices.
And don't forget, just because a nation promises they're banning the USE of such devices doesn't mean they aren't still spending big R&D dollars on their development. Once a prototype emerges that really looks promising and affordable enough for the military to accept - you'll see a leader lift the ban.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
The Allies decided before the fall of Germany that they would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. If the Japanese were not yet willing to accept unconditional surrender after the first bomb, then the war wasn't over yet.
That's not to say that the second bomb was justified, but politically, the Allies were not going to accept anything less than unconditional surrender.
Re:Improving security by lowering defenses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree. I've been trying to figure out how to tell people that Obama is a man who happens to be black, and because of this hysteria, he has arguably been given far more trust than any president should be given.
I partially agree with you. I think that because of his charisma people want to believe what he says. I also think his actions have been far more scrutinised than previous presidents. I don't think the trust, but verify model is a bad model.
There are plenty of arguments for why we should have space based weapons. If you read the right books, we need them to be prepared to repel alien visitations. Other opinions are equal to the notions of what would have happened if the US had decided that we don't need automatic weapons.
In the end, you will have them. The only question is how much damage are you willing to sustain before deciding to build them.
Sorry, but space based weapons to repel aliens? I want to believe as much as the next /.er, but don't fool yourself. Normal Earth targets(humans) would be the goal of these weapons. They wouldn't stand a chance against any civilization who could travel here.
As for "automatic weapons," I see no reason why a spaced based warhead would be able to do any more damage than a "conventional" warhead now or in the future.
There is another angle. Space based weapons can be built using civilian space travel/exploration technology and the other way around. I don't think it's a case of having to pay twice as both programs can share development costs in various ways.
Obama has made several statements that lead many of us to believe that he's not quite sure WTF he's doing. Nobody is perfect, but this 180 degree shift doesn't make sense unless he is just pushing the program underground or plying for political favor somewhere. Neither of those options speak well of him, and neither explanation bodes well for the security and safety of the citizens of the USA.
I'd say the opposite. Spend the "space money" on civilian projects instead of useless "space weapons".
Those who criticize him for it are quite right to do so, not to mention they are within their constitutional rights to do so. We need to think critically and criticize where it is appropriate. Letting the executive branch run around wildly is what happened over the last 8 years. Time for that to stop. If that means Obama has to explain himself in detail and quite often, so be it. We need transparency and wisdom in the Whitehouse.
Saying that any criticism of Obama is racism is exactly the kind of thinking that Bush used: Any criticism of the Executive branch is unamerican. This, my friends, is what fascism looks like.
I haven't heard anyone from this administration imply that criticism of his policies is racist. If you can point me to a quote I would like to see if that will be the tone of this administration. If you can't I'm going to assume you're building a strawman and inventing repression to explain why people aren't listening to you.
Someone let the Soviets, er Russians know (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole space weapons ban was a farce when it was signed, why would that be any different now?
Aside from the FOBS system developed in 1966 and deployed in 1968 (the Space Weapons treaty was signed in 1967, I believe):
"...Nor were the anti-space-weapons treaty advocates anywhere to be seen in the face of other Russian orbital weapons: hardware built to go into space and operate there, not just merely fly up and down on earth-launched vertical sorties. The Russians built an orbital anti-satellite system that apologists pooh-poohed as "unreliable". The Russians put an air-to-air cannon on a manned spacecraft in order to kill astronauts who got too close--not a peep from the "weapons-free space" crowd. In 1987 the USSR launched the 80-ton Skif-DM, what was to be the first in a series of "space battle stations" to carry a 1-megawatt carbon-dioxide laser into orbit for anti-missile and anti-satellite tests, while preparing the Kaskad cruisers to be armed with space-to-space missiles tested on Progress missions--no objections ever recorded from keep-space-free-of-weapons advocates."
(http://www.thespacereview.com/article/744/1)
To suggest that space will NOT be a field of conflict is naive to the degree of the papal ban on crossbows in the middle ages, or the early calls to prevent the arming of aircraft. To claim unilaterally that the US *won't* do it will eventually be seen as the 21st century equivalent of "not reading other gentlemen's mail".
Pollyannas don't do geopolitics very well.
The Iranian satellite (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... You missed a news report - Iran launched a satellite of its own a few days ago.
Made possible by Russian technology. Read up on the history of Iranian satellite technology - they used Russian launch pads until last year.
Which actually brings up another good point - a nonproliferation agreement has the positive secondary effects of preventing technology transfer to potential rogue states. Again, nonproliferation only works to the extend that compliance is verifiable - which, with ASW, is possible at the testing phase. Note that the Iranians had to do dummy launches, which we detected, for a full year before getting a satellite into orbit. This wasn't some sudden bootstrap of Iranian technology that caught us flatfooted, though you wouldn't know it from reading the sensationalistic press reports.
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a responsible way?
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of arguments for why we should have space based weapons.
True, but you only need one argument: They're awesome. [mahq.net]
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Improving security by lowering defenses (Score:2, Insightful)
While you're at it take a look at the 10 years leading up to WWII. Walking around with their flies open didn't work out too well for France and Great Britain did it?
Look diplomacy should be the first line, absolutely, and the second line too if that's possible... but the weapons should be there as well as a deterrent from letting diplomacy break down. Hell, if nothing else be grateful that nuclear weapons kept the cold war from becoming WWIII. Do you really think something like the cuban missile crisis wouldn't have happened just cause no bombs existed? No the Soviet Union would have started a troop build up there instead of a missile build up. Better yet imagine if we had far fewer Nukes than the USSR at the time because we had agreed to disarmament while they secretly built up.
And the UN? How are UN inspections going to work in space? Hmm?
I'm all for diplomacy... I'm not for sticking my head in shark's mouth and saying "let's be friends." That's just stupidity.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
How is proposing to abide by existing space treaties banning space based weapons "disarm the USA altogether". Obama isn't some hippy Dove. He wants to pull out of Iraq, and beef up the USA military presence in Afghanistan. Diplomancy isn't surrendering. Obama has made it clear that he will fight when it makes sense, but make diplomacy a higher priority.
Obama is pragmatic enough to change course if other nations activities in space were an actual threat.
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Saves money, too (Score:2, Insightful)
But we're not really confronting Russia any more. Sure, they are a concern, but they aren't THE concern. 2 dozen Islamic run nations that aren't particularly friendly, because their religion dictates that they should be at war with non-Muslims.
They've been at this for 1300 years, controlled all of Spain, and sacked Rome once and threatened it on another occasion despite the efforts of many Christian countries. Their primary objective is to see the entire world turned into Muslims, so they can institute Muslim style social laws in every country in the world, which prohibits converting to being non-Muslim. It's not known if they will force conversion, or allow Christians, Jews, etc to stay non-Muslim. Because of low birth rates, much of Europe has high amounts of Muslim immigration. Eventually, the Muslims will be on par with Non-Muslims population wise. The Muslims will then dictate either a peaceful gradual implementation of their rules, or if they choose not to wait, they will do so by revolution. Eventually, they will begin to do this in other places (Russia, US, China, Japan, India), and if they get their way, in 500 years, their will probably only be Islam, with various levels of observance and minor differences in belief.
Christianity has been fighting this war for 1300 years. Secularists need to recognize this threat, and realize that Christianity is on the side freedom of religion, and Muslims are not, and if you don't choose to side with Christians against the Muslim threat, then we will all lose.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
This is key, it doesn't take more than one location to hide bio weapons.
Probably going to get hit with the modstick for this one, but thats because the people who continue to support the war until the job is done are/were at work. /sarcasm
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
And look at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising... where barricaded Jews starting with a handful of rifles and pistols made asses of the Nazis for months.
You know, it never fails to amaze me how people can demand that "only the government should have guns".
First, there's plenty of evidence (see Nazi Germany) that governments often do very bad things to their populations, and that having no means to resist them just makes the government's job easier. You may still wind up dead resisting, but at least you will have died standing up for yourself instead of dying like cattle at the slaughter. Peaceful non-resistance against violence only works when those committting the violence have a conscience and a moral code against doing it. Otherwise, you just wind up dead like those cows.
Second, there's usually the implication that personal protection (particularly the use of force for it) is the government's responsibility. Legally speaking, the courts have consistently ruled otherwise--law enforcement has no obligation to protect individuals.
As a whole, I see this denial of responsibility, and the desire to foist it off on someone else, to be a form of cowardice. The same people who will deny any responsibility to protect themselves, or who refuse to do so with force because it's "bad" and they "don't want to hurt anyone" (or some other "moral" objection) seem to have no problem asking--nay, demanding--that somebody else, whom the demander has probably never met, risk his life and put his ass on the line to protect the demander's life and ass, using the same force that the demander refuses to use himself.
If you're going to be a damn pacifist, live what you preach. Don't use force to defend yourself. Back down any time someone confronts you and makes any kind of physical threat. And don't sit there demanding that someone else use force on your behalf and do things that you refuse to do for yourself.
Re:Childish (Score:1, Insightful)
Starting a war because someone did not give access promptly to one site for inspection sounds rather harsh, doesn't it? That sounds more like a rationale and not like a reason.
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
One, most space tech is what arm-control folks call 'dual-use.' Meaning, of course, that the technology can be easily converted to military use.
Two, arms-control requires verification. So, since (as TFA says) verification of potential space weapons is fraught with difficulties, this could depress advancements in commercial and exploration technology by raising the bar for entry into the sector.
Three, definitions of what constitutes space weapons has, for whatever reason, been difficult for the major space powers to hammer out. Thus, if a space weapon ban is enacted with vague language, many commercial interests will be scared off by that uncertainty.
Re:Saves money, too (Score:3, Insightful)
Japan didn't spend money on the military because they weren't allowed to. It worked out for them because they basically got a free military from the US.
The US has to spend money on a military, and lots of it. No other country will seriously come to our aid in the event of actual war. We have a HUGE area to protect. I'm all for trimming the fat, but if you think our military budget can be slashed without putting the US at serious immediate risk, you're incredibly naive.
Also, it seems to me that the vast majority of major technological achievements throughout man's history came about due to war, preparing for war, or the general need to survive in a competitive environment with limited resources.
We wouldn't have Tang if it weren't for the cold war.
Astronauts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
History doesn't really back your views. When in history have nations ever managed to live in complete peace without a balance of power? What nation in history hasn't sought the greatest diplomatic advantage? The only reason countries that lack military options cry to the UN is because it gives them a diplomatic advantage. If those same countries had military supremacy you'd be hearing the very same leaders talking about the need to go it alone.
Look - I'm a big fan of the US taking a less active role in running every other country on the planet. I think that every dollar spent on the gulf war should be added as a tariff to oil imports. Then those who opposed the war don't have to pay a dime for it if they either avoid driving or buy certified non-middle-east gas. It would also help to reduce dependence on oil from the nations that seem to require an invasion every decade or two, and the oil barons will be lobbying less for invasions if they know their products will rise in price every time an invasion is launched. The US should be getting out of the intervention business.
However, the US absolutely should maintain a position of military supremacy. All those nations that get along just fine without big armies do so only because the country that is spending all that money on the military is a nice one. Sure, Europeans might like to hate the US, but they certainly would rather see US flags on aircraft carriers than Chinese ones (or the old Soviet ones). I trust the US government politicians about as far as I can throw them, but I don't see any better options around. For its part the US needs to do a better job of being a nice world policeman, and it wouldn't hurt if other nations realized that the US taxpayers are doing quite a bit to deter conflict in all those other nations that take the lack of a need to have an army for granted.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Insightful)
How many rape victims do you know spend 500 billion+ [wikipedia.org] on defense??
But you're right, I'll feel so much better when we have missles in the sky pointed at the entire fucking planet.
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
I suppose if we're all lambs, then it doesn't matter. But if just one wolf exists, then no, owning a weapon does not automatically make someone a "narrow minded, violent brute".
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
I have traveled throughout Muslim countries, and while local people have been extremely generous and hospitable to me as an individual, I've constantly heard them complain that Europe has not embraced Islam, that Europe has a culture they find odious, and that the West must be attacked both with force and subterfuge until it is brought to its knees.
Do listen to what people in 'Europe and the West' say about Muslims and Islam? I constantly hear people say that their culture is backwards and ignorant, and that the only thing that will solve the problems in the middle east is for them to embrace Christiantity and our way of life... well... that or a 'nuke from orbit'.
How is that any different from what they say about us?
Or is the only difference that they have 'zealot terrorist organizations seeking to cause us harm'? I suppose that's a difference... we only have state sanctioned organizations seeking to alternately exploit them for resources and that only cause them harm if they don't fall in line.
Even if the US tried hard to atone for its past, it wouldn't change much when so many hate the West just because of its cultural values.
It would change everything.
Bush might have been a dumbass, but comments along the lines of "They hate us because we are free" speak much truth.
Bush might have been a dumbass, but comments along the lines of "They hate us because we are free" speak much truth.
That's just idiocy. They don't "hate us because we are free". They disagree with us on religious issues. They hate us because we exploit them and interfere with them, and they (perhaps rightly) see our relative wealth as a direct result of that exploitation and interference.
And extremists use the religious differences to fan that hatred into self-damaging levels of action.
But if we didn't interfere and exploit them, sure, the religious disagreement wouldn't go away, but it would settle down to the same level of agreeability that all relgious factions reach when you have mutual respect.
Re:Why we want to preserve the status quo in space (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. They hate us because we are the haves and they are the have-nots. They hate us because we don't do anything to help them out. Their hatred has little to do with freedom and little to do with religion and everything to do with poverty.
If you keep a group of people in poverty, make it difficult for them to get an education, give them very little opportunity to pull themselves out, you make them ripe to be manipulated. Religion is a great manipulator. "God says the reason you can't feed your family is because the USA keeps screwing with us. Take them down and our lives will be better."
Give people an education, give them hope that they can make their lives better and the problem goes away. It's harder to get leverage on someone that has something to lose.