From: jcliu@four-lab4.Berkeley.EDU (James C. Liu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: NASA and the Japanese Space Program
Date: 12 Jan 1993 23:27:26 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: four-lab4.berkeley.edu

In article <justin.726872800@mik.uky.edu> justin@nx30.mik.uky.edu 
(justin sullivan) writes:

  >The world does not need a fleet of billion-dollar bombers to defend
  >democracy. You might need them to go stuff democracy and the American
  >way down someone's throat (which is precisely why we have such a ridiculous
  >arsenal in the first place),

So you debate whether US democracy is better than say, Saddam Hussein's?
Next time some other far off place in the world has a foreign policy
problem, I'd really love to see the US not lift a finger...but other
nations tend not to give a hoot.  Example: Somalia.  Japan thinks giving
$15 Million every couple of months is going to good causes.  But without
the mega buck FMC troop carriers, superior fire power, etc, do you think
we'd be able to minimize our own casualties and that of civilians and
still be able to deliver the food?

Example 2:  Iraq.  Everybody's blaming the US for the go ahead to invade
Kuwait.  The US is damned if it gets involved and damned if it doesn't.
But without the Giga buck fighters, missiles, etc, do you think you'd
have seen Iraqi civilians out at the noon market everyday live on CNN?
Again, the US technology in weapons helped protect US troops and Iraqi 
civilians.

I always wondered how isolationists merged their international economics
with the need for extended foreign policy.  I'm starting to think that
they don't.  

  >The US should stop defending everyone else. It's not worth the time to
  >spend money that we don't have. Contrary to what they teach you in school,
  >the world does not revolve around America. The Japanese and Europeans
  >don't seem to be doing too badly without our forceful interventions.

I couldn't agree with you more.  But the US did that and WW1 and WW2
brought the US back in.  The cold war vs. the ex-Soviets saw a repeat US
entry into Japan and Western Europe.  And now in the Middle East..do you
think Germany, France, or Japan could get Israel to even sit down with
the Palestinians?  Not.  I wish the US could lay off and just keep to
itself, but the economies of the world are too interwined with our own.
Ever wonder to yourself how an extra $200 Billion in oil costs would
affect Japan?  and what it do to our economy, that Canada's, Europe's,
etc.?  You don't have to wonder because thanks to America, the
flow of oil out of the MidEast is secure.

For many domestic Americans who've only studied the injustices of
America trying to 'stuff it's democracy' down other nations' throats,
they just don't realize how many people in those nations would just
love to have America step in.  The prophet is never recognized by his
own people.

Jaa, James
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