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Strange comments here. It saddens me that the US lost a drone like this. Maybe not everyone is American here, but the technology in this vehicle will be in Chin

by 3327 12y ago

Strange comments here. It saddens me that the US lost a drone like this. Maybe not everyone is American here, but the technology in this vehicle will be in China's hands Russia's hands etc. The whole world will miss the old world order some day. By that I mean today's world order. the US will some day will not be able to police the world for one reason or another. Then the world will realize how valuable what the US stood for despite its shortcomings.

us0r 12y ago
" but the technology in this vehicle will be in China's hands Russia's hands etc." While I don't think it is necessarily a good thing they have this technology, when has either been threatening to the US (recently)? I get Russia blames everything on America and they aren't exactly friendly to Americans when traveling there (yet there sure are a lot us there) but as actual military threats - I've either completely missed the story or it doesn't exist. Personally, I'm more worried about the determined Pakistani dad who lost his wife and children in one of our adventures which completely missed the target.
- lancewiggs 12y ago
  >Personally, I'm more worried about the determined Pakistani dad who lost his wife and children in one of our adventures which completely missed the target. I'm concerned about undereducated radicalised individuals from any country. No country is free of these, even Scandinavian ones. The question is how many are created, what sort of access to weapons they have and what sort of support system is in place to make sure they don't implement their plans. I note that the answer to any those three questions is not "more guns".
Zigurd 12y ago
If we were not messing with Iran for what might be relatively unimportant reasons, the drone would not have been lost, and Iran might not be so tight with Russia. Drones are a tempting way to "do something" when doing nothing, or doing less, might be wiser.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  It seems that dictators generally need to make enemies out of the world's democracies. This is so the populations don't start to get ideas about why their junta's steal so much money and they don't have any freedom. "Democracy and freedom are just lies -- the westerners are degenerates which tolerate homosexuality, etc." So if Iran couldn't antagonize the West for what you consider "relatively unimportant reasons" (e.g. being one of the world's worst terror supporters), they would just try harder. And still be tight with other juntas which also fear democratic influences of their slav... population.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    Iran is roughly four times the population and GDP of Iraq. Beyond the sanctions already in place, what are we going to do to Iran? Invade?
    - BugBrother 12y ago
      It is not relevant to my point to just say that an invasion of Iran would be expensive. (But you know that, I think.)
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        It is not just 'expensive', it is in-feasible. Not that that will stop the US from trying if they ever feel like it. Look at the mess in Iraq, then multiply by 5 or so (Iran + a new civil war in Iraq). You could very well end up with a much worse situation than there is today, loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and a very large chunk of the world with a strong motivation to hate everything and anything the West stands for. Very Bad Idea.
        BugBrother 12y ago
        Again -- I didn't discuss or even think about US' military (or other) options for Iran. That is a totally different discussion to what I wrote about. (I don't have enough information to have an opinion. E.g. something like the bombing of Serbia's infrastructure would be cheap and really bad for Iran, afaik. For a good answer you probably need to ask the military in "relevant" countries.) And again, for the third time -- this has nothing to do with my point, so you guys can vote this comment down too now, since you obviously just can't give a relevant counter argument. 1/2 :-)
meric 12y ago
"Then the world will realize how valuable what the US stood for despite its shortcomings." The West, maybe. Not if you're living in a Middle Eastern country, with oppressive rulers kept in power by US funds, forcing the country to sell its oil resources cheaply. Not if you're living in Eastern Ukraine, where the US toppled an elected government to install a government that is hostile to your people. http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-million-russians-in-ukraine/ http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-milli... You could pretty much tell her attitude to them by the way she suggested the 8 million ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine should be nuked. Not if you're living in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79 All countries where the U.S. has sought to destroy domestic, independent, public institutions if and when they arise. If you're living in an African country where the U.S. has previously tried to destabilize your government, and where China instead have offered to build infrastructure for your country, you might not be so sad that the US has lost a drone, which it was probably using for spying purposes. If the world was Panem, then U.S. is the Capitol, and its closest allies are the Capitol's adjacent districts. Of course, you're probably from the U.S., if not, then probably, U.K or Australia, or N.Z. Of course you'd have something to lose if the US will some day not be able to police the world. EDIT: What's the downvote for? A lack of citations?
- xi 12y ago
  > EDIT: What's the downvote for? A lack of citations? Maybe because of them? The article about Timoshenko is written by a serious antisemitic nutjob.
  - user9756 12y ago
    Could you please quote the antisemitic parts?
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      It mentions the Jewish lobby and how congress is eager to receive their funds in two places, but I find it hard to equate that with 'anti-semitic nutjob'. The Jewish lobby is real enough that they warrant their own wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Stat...
enraged_camel 12y ago
I used to think this way, but I no longer do. In the book 1984 -- which has far more similarities to today's reality than I am comfortable with -- the Oceanians are utterly and completely convinced that their side is the good side. Throughout the book there are various hints that this is in fact not the case. But the Oceanian government's control on information, combined with people's cognitive dissonance, prevents the truth from being realized. And the few who do realize it are imprisoned, tortured and converted (or killed). What would today's world be like if China and/or Russia were the dominant power? The answer is that no one knows. No one can know. It's like asking, "what would the world be like if Hitler had won?" That alternate universe was created so long ago that it is simply not possible to conceive of. It is silly to look at today's China and Russia and conclude that they would continue their current practices and ideologies after becoming dominant world-powers, since said practices and ideologies are very likely what is preventing that from happening. It is also possible that there will be a reversal of roles, with them becoming "good" and the USA becoming a tyrannical, fascist state. I'd say there is a scary amount of indication that the latter is very likely, actually.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  You are allowed to write that in the Western world. Some people in USA and other countries live good lives by writing conspiracy theories about their own countries. Try to do something similar in China or a similar autocratic state. It might be a problem to write that in Russia today, too. :-( And hopefully, China will change. I've seen arguments that to get beyond a certain GNP/Capita, countries have to democratize (unless they have lots of oil, of course). (What scares me, is the possibility with AI and language understanding -- to have a 1984 control state with a working free economy; future history as a foot trampling a face...)
  - tedks 12y ago
    You're allowed to write it, sure. But if you try to distribute it, it'll be deleted off of people's kindles, and they'll be added to the NSA watchlist. We have a control state with a mostly-working "free" economy.
zik 12y ago
As a non-American I see it differently - the US illegally flew an aircraft in another country's sovereign airspace, spying on them. I don't want anyone doing this over my country (Australia) - but no matter which country it's done to it's illegal and wrong.
- mpyne 12y ago
  Actually it was, in this case, probably at a standoff distance and hijacked remotely by Iran (perhaps by local GPS jamming) which, as a reminder, borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. There's no good reason to send a drone into Iranian airspace in the first place when you have things like NRO's Keyhole satellites to get imagery for you; even if there was a bigger upside, Iran actually has a good set of military radars so a political situation could easily be expected (not to mention something worse, like this).
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That sounds a lot less plausible than that they captured it over their own territory. You're essentially implying the Iranians can jam local GPS, then capture US drones at will and pilot them to their own territory during the first attempt without the US being able to do much about it. That's not a realistic picture. Much more likely that they set up a bunch of jammers/transmitters over their own territory and waited for a drone to get within the trap, then to bring it down while jamming the US control signals and GPS at the same time. After all, if they could control them that well then the best use they would have of this tech would be to embarrass the United States by sending US drones into high value targets abroad. That would do a lot more damage. If there are no good reasons to send drones into Iranian airspace because of Keyholes and so on then those reasons apply just as strongly to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. Clearly there are reasons to deploy drones and some of those reasons might apply to Iran.
    - mpyne 12y ago
      > You're essentially implying the Iranians can jam local GPS. Wait, do you think this is difficult? This is old hat, especially if Iran were able to engage the Chinese. Either way, that's only one possibility, you could also probably simply overpower the UAV's receiver with your own command stream if you could figure out the protocol (and if it was unencrypted). This isn't to say it's impossible the UAV was over Iran but that would indicate a low opinion of Iranian skill, which is not the opinion held in the U.S. military at this point.
jzwinck 12y ago
1926: "It saddens me that Britain has lost control of its colonies. Maybe not everyone is British here, but the resources in these colonies will no longer benefit the Crown. The whole world will miss the nineteenth century world order some day." The world will move on, as it always has. Today's politics and militaries will be as obsolete in a few hundred years as this drone will be in a decade. You know who misses the old world order? Whoever was in power back then. Even after their entire population has been renewed by death and birth, broken empires are nostalgic. Those they policed, however, mostly enjoy their museums.
- growupkids 12y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't follow. You're comparing 19th century imperial Britain with 21st century America? A country headed by an African American, progressive pro-international community President?
  - alrs 12y ago
    I see your Obama and raise you Disraeli. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli
beloch 12y ago
The U.S. has dominated the UN to the point where the UN is no longer credible. The U.S. staunchly promoted the authority of the Hague over everyone else while simultaneously denying its jurisdiction over U.S. corporations and citizens. The U.S. sat idly by while it's own corporations triggered famines and genocide, all to make a buck. The U.S. actively deposed unfriendly democracies and propped up friendly despots. The U.S. even failed to meet it's obligations in trade treaties, making any country who has signed a free trade treaty with the U.S. look foolish for allowing themselves to be made less "equal" than the U.S. is. If China supplants the U.S. as the world's preeminent superpower only a small percentage of the world's populations will really notice. Ask yourselves this: If the U.S. was such a great brother to the world, why is that world so eager to deal with "the dreaded communist enemy"? China and Russia are both countries with dubious records in many respects, but the U.S. has behaved badly enough that the devil the world knows is no more appealing than the devils they do not know. Russia and China are probably torturing their prisoners, just as the U.S. is, but are they eavesdropping on every single conversation of entire nations? Are they trying to reforge the internet so that their corporations can make a few more bucks? Are they pressuring other nations to enact draconian anti-piracy laws that stifle innovation? I'm not anti-American. The U.S. has explored more of space than any other nation. The U.S. is the world's longest surviving democracy, even if that democracy has been perverted into a plutocracy. Despite how the country is run and the dubious quality of its own students, the U.S.'s post-secondary academic institutions are still second to none, largely because they attract the world's best and brightest. However, the notion that U.S. control of the world is a fundamentally good thing is ridiculous, and it's past time even americans dropped it. Quite frankly, americans have squandered the gifts of their forefathers and desperately need to earn their place in the world again. The U.S. simply has not been a beacon to the world for a good long time.
- adventured 12y ago
  Which US corporations triggered genocide and famines, and in which countries?
  - beloch 12y ago
    For an example of famine, look up Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Ethiopia: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari... For genocide, try looking up the 1954 Guatemala coup, in which case the CIA got involved directly at the behest of Coca-Cola and the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita).
curiousDog 12y ago
I really, really hope such a day doesn't come. @GsElevator put it well the other day, "If it weren't for America we'd all be eating Bratwurst for dinner"
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Borscht maybe, bratwurst very unlikely.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Or perhaps a more likely scenario - most of in Western Europe wouldn't be eating anything for dinner as we would never have existed. "Reasoning": - Without an Allied landing, the Soviets would probably have "liberated" all territories occupied by the Nazis - The UK would probably still be free - but an even more important base for operations against the Soviets than it was in reality - The US would have felt even more threatened by the Soviets than they did - A nuclear "Sunday Punch" first strike against the Soviets and all of their occupied territories would have become even more likely (and SAC showed no discrimation in who they would bomb until well into the 60s - the original versions of the SIOP involved bombing everyone who was 'socialist' even if they weren't allies of the Soviets and there was only one plan). - The UK would have been utterly destroyed by Soviet weapons - but that seems to have been a part of pretty much all Cold War scenarios... :-| [NB The Soviets on the English Channel is part of the scenario for Charlie Stross's novella "Missile Gap"]
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Yes, that could have happened. Or maybe the Soviets would have found trying to keep all of Western Europe except for the UK under their boot a lot harder than it looked like from the beginning and they would have ended up in an Afghanistan like situation a lot earlier. The problem with alternate realities is that no matter how intellectually interesting thinking about them might be we'll never know because we only have this one. So, bratwurst, borscht or nothing, it's all just fantasy. One thing is for sure, and common to all those scenarios, in that world anything between the UK and mother Russia would have been in for one hell of a ride.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
Empires come and go. The US empire, like any other empire before them will be replaced by something else. Of course you are American, by the mere fact of being born there your have privileges over people born in the rest of the world. For example, any time you have problems you print money,money that thanks to petrodollars and US military the rest of the world have to buy by force. You export inflation to the rest of the world. So instead of you suffering for your own abuses, you make suffer the rest of the world. Every new QE(Quantitative Easing) makes people from Egypt go from 30% of the population not being able to buy the basics to 70% and so on. The rest of the world is not happy, and of course they plan to replace the petrodollar as soon as they can, to replace the "Exorbitant Privilege". Of course as an American you believe this is fantastic, but put yourself into someone else in the world skin just for 5 minutes or so. People that work much harder than Americans but live way worse, people that speak at least two languages(most Americans barely speak one), engineers, physics PhDs, whatever, and you will start seeing another picture.
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  Note that the dollar as reserve currency means the the rest of the world is exporting unemployment to the US via currency operations. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/07/an_exorbitant_burden http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/07/an_exorbita... has a good analysis of the situation there. The US would be much better off economically if USD were not the world's reserve currency. In particular, we wouldn't need the QE business at all if we weren't having China's and Germany's unemployment forced on us. Of course it's simpler to latch on to the phrase "Exorbitant Privilege" and hate the US than it is to try to analyze all the pieces of what's going on.
supergirl 12y ago
You should add sarcasm tags otherwise we'll think your serious.

by 3327 12y ago

us0r 12y ago

" but the technology in this vehicle will be in China's hands Russia's hands etc." While I don't think it is necessarily a good thing they have this technology, when has either been threatening to the US (recently)? I get Russia blames everything on America and they aren't exactly friendly to Americans when traveling there (yet there sure are a lot us there) but as actual military threats - I've either completely missed the story or it doesn't exist. Personally, I'm more worried about the determined Pakistani dad who lost his wife and children in one of our adventures which completely missed the target.

lancewiggs 12y ago
>Personally, I'm more worried about the determined Pakistani dad who lost his wife and children in one of our adventures which completely missed the target. I'm concerned about undereducated radicalised individuals from any country. No country is free of these, even Scandinavian ones. The question is how many are created, what sort of access to weapons they have and what sort of support system is in place to make sure they don't implement their plans. I note that the answer to any those three questions is not "more guns".

Zigurd 12y ago

If we were not messing with Iran for what might be relatively unimportant reasons, the drone would not have been lost, and Iran might not be so tight with Russia. Drones are a tempting way to "do something" when doing nothing, or doing less, might be wiser.

BugBrother 12y ago
It seems that dictators generally need to make enemies out of the world's democracies. This is so the populations don't start to get ideas about why their junta's steal so much money and they don't have any freedom. "Democracy and freedom are just lies -- the westerners are degenerates which tolerate homosexuality, etc." So if Iran couldn't antagonize the West for what you consider "relatively unimportant reasons" (e.g. being one of the world's worst terror supporters), they would just try harder. And still be tight with other juntas which also fear democratic influences of their slav... population.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  Iran is roughly four times the population and GDP of Iraq. Beyond the sanctions already in place, what are we going to do to Iran? Invade?
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    It is not relevant to my point to just say that an invasion of Iran would be expensive. (But you know that, I think.)
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      It is not just 'expensive', it is in-feasible. Not that that will stop the US from trying if they ever feel like it. Look at the mess in Iraq, then multiply by 5 or so (Iran + a new civil war in Iraq). You could very well end up with a much worse situation than there is today, loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and a very large chunk of the world with a strong motivation to hate everything and anything the West stands for. Very Bad Idea.
      - BugBrother 12y ago
        Again -- I didn't discuss or even think about US' military (or other) options for Iran. That is a totally different discussion to what I wrote about. (I don't have enough information to have an opinion. E.g. something like the bombing of Serbia's infrastructure would be cheap and really bad for Iran, afaik. For a good answer you probably need to ask the military in "relevant" countries.) And again, for the third time -- this has nothing to do with my point, so you guys can vote this comment down too now, since you obviously just can't give a relevant counter argument. 1/2 :-)

meric 12y ago

"Then the world will realize how valuable what the US stood for despite its shortcomings." The West, maybe. Not if you're living in a Middle Eastern country, with oppressive rulers kept in power by US funds, forcing the country to sell its oil resources cheaply. Not if you're living in Eastern Ukraine, where the US toppled an elected government to install a government that is hostile to your people. http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-million-russians-in-ukraine/ http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-milli... You could pretty much tell her attitude to them by the way she suggested the 8 million ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine should be nuked. Not if you're living in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79 All countries where the U.S. has sought to destroy domestic, independent, public institutions if and when they arise. If you're living in an African country where the U.S. has previously tried to destabilize your government, and where China instead have offered to build infrastructure for your country, you might not be so sad that the US has lost a drone, which it was probably using for spying purposes. If the world was Panem, then U.S. is the Capitol, and its closest allies are the Capitol's adjacent districts. Of course, you're probably from the U.S., if not, then probably, U.K or Australia, or N.Z. Of course you'd have something to lose if the US will some day not be able to police the world. EDIT: What's the downvote for? A lack of citations?

xi 12y ago
> EDIT: What's the downvote for? A lack of citations? Maybe because of them? The article about Timoshenko is written by a serious antisemitic nutjob.
- user9756 12y ago
  Could you please quote the antisemitic parts?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It mentions the Jewish lobby and how congress is eager to receive their funds in two places, but I find it hard to equate that with 'anti-semitic nutjob'. The Jewish lobby is real enough that they warrant their own wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Stat...

enraged_camel 12y ago

I used to think this way, but I no longer do. In the book 1984 -- which has far more similarities to today's reality than I am comfortable with -- the Oceanians are utterly and completely convinced that their side is the good side. Throughout the book there are various hints that this is in fact not the case. But the Oceanian government's control on information, combined with people's cognitive dissonance, prevents the truth from being realized. And the few who do realize it are imprisoned, tortured and converted (or killed). What would today's world be like if China and/or Russia were the dominant power? The answer is that no one knows. No one can know. It's like asking, "what would the world be like if Hitler had won?" That alternate universe was created so long ago that it is simply not possible to conceive of. It is silly to look at today's China and Russia and conclude that they would continue their current practices and ideologies after becoming dominant world-powers, since said practices and ideologies are very likely what is preventing that from happening. It is also possible that there will be a reversal of roles, with them becoming "good" and the USA becoming a tyrannical, fascist state. I'd say there is a scary amount of indication that the latter is very likely, actually.

BugBrother 12y ago
You are allowed to write that in the Western world. Some people in USA and other countries live good lives by writing conspiracy theories about their own countries. Try to do something similar in China or a similar autocratic state. It might be a problem to write that in Russia today, too. :-( And hopefully, China will change. I've seen arguments that to get beyond a certain GNP/Capita, countries have to democratize (unless they have lots of oil, of course). (What scares me, is the possibility with AI and language understanding -- to have a 1984 control state with a working free economy; future history as a foot trampling a face...)
- tedks 12y ago
  You're allowed to write it, sure. But if you try to distribute it, it'll be deleted off of people's kindles, and they'll be added to the NSA watchlist. We have a control state with a mostly-working "free" economy.

zik 12y ago

As a non-American I see it differently - the US illegally flew an aircraft in another country's sovereign airspace, spying on them. I don't want anyone doing this over my country (Australia) - but no matter which country it's done to it's illegal and wrong.

mpyne 12y ago
Actually it was, in this case, probably at a standoff distance and hijacked remotely by Iran (perhaps by local GPS jamming) which, as a reminder, borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. There's no good reason to send a drone into Iranian airspace in the first place when you have things like NRO's Keyhole satellites to get imagery for you; even if there was a bigger upside, Iran actually has a good set of military radars so a political situation could easily be expected (not to mention something worse, like this).
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That sounds a lot less plausible than that they captured it over their own territory. You're essentially implying the Iranians can jam local GPS, then capture US drones at will and pilot them to their own territory during the first attempt without the US being able to do much about it. That's not a realistic picture. Much more likely that they set up a bunch of jammers/transmitters over their own territory and waited for a drone to get within the trap, then to bring it down while jamming the US control signals and GPS at the same time. After all, if they could control them that well then the best use they would have of this tech would be to embarrass the United States by sending US drones into high value targets abroad. That would do a lot more damage. If there are no good reasons to send drones into Iranian airspace because of Keyholes and so on then those reasons apply just as strongly to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. Clearly there are reasons to deploy drones and some of those reasons might apply to Iran.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    > You're essentially implying the Iranians can jam local GPS. Wait, do you think this is difficult? This is old hat, especially if Iran were able to engage the Chinese. Either way, that's only one possibility, you could also probably simply overpower the UAV's receiver with your own command stream if you could figure out the protocol (and if it was unencrypted). This isn't to say it's impossible the UAV was over Iran but that would indicate a low opinion of Iranian skill, which is not the opinion held in the U.S. military at this point.

jzwinck 12y ago

1926: "It saddens me that Britain has lost control of its colonies. Maybe not everyone is British here, but the resources in these colonies will no longer benefit the Crown. The whole world will miss the nineteenth century world order some day." The world will move on, as it always has. Today's politics and militaries will be as obsolete in a few hundred years as this drone will be in a decade. You know who misses the old world order? Whoever was in power back then. Even after their entire population has been renewed by death and birth, broken empires are nostalgic. Those they policed, however, mostly enjoy their museums.

growupkids 12y ago
I'm sorry, I don't follow. You're comparing 19th century imperial Britain with 21st century America? A country headed by an African American, progressive pro-international community President?
- alrs 12y ago
  I see your Obama and raise you Disraeli. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli

beloch 12y ago

The U.S. has dominated the UN to the point where the UN is no longer credible. The U.S. staunchly promoted the authority of the Hague over everyone else while simultaneously denying its jurisdiction over U.S. corporations and citizens. The U.S. sat idly by while it's own corporations triggered famines and genocide, all to make a buck. The U.S. actively deposed unfriendly democracies and propped up friendly despots. The U.S. even failed to meet it's obligations in trade treaties, making any country who has signed a free trade treaty with the U.S. look foolish for allowing themselves to be made less "equal" than the U.S. is. If China supplants the U.S. as the world's preeminent superpower only a small percentage of the world's populations will really notice. Ask yourselves this: If the U.S. was such a great brother to the world, why is that world so eager to deal with "the dreaded communist enemy"? China and Russia are both countries with dubious records in many respects, but the U.S. has behaved badly enough that the devil the world knows is no more appealing than the devils they do not know. Russia and China are probably torturing their prisoners, just as the U.S. is, but are they eavesdropping on every single conversation of entire nations? Are they trying to reforge the internet so that their corporations can make a few more bucks? Are they pressuring other nations to enact draconian anti-piracy laws that stifle innovation? I'm not anti-American. The U.S. has explored more of space than any other nation. The U.S. is the world's longest surviving democracy, even if that democracy has been perverted into a plutocracy. Despite how the country is run and the dubious quality of its own students, the U.S.'s post-secondary academic institutions are still second to none, largely because they attract the world's best and brightest. However, the notion that U.S. control of the world is a fundamentally good thing is ridiculous, and it's past time even americans dropped it. Quite frankly, americans have squandered the gifts of their forefathers and desperately need to earn their place in the world again. The U.S. simply has not been a beacon to the world for a good long time.

adventured 12y ago
Which US corporations triggered genocide and famines, and in which countries?
- beloch 12y ago
  For an example of famine, look up Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Ethiopia: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari... For genocide, try looking up the 1954 Guatemala coup, in which case the CIA got involved directly at the behest of Coca-Cola and the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita).

curiousDog 12y ago

I really, really hope such a day doesn't come. @GsElevator put it well the other day, "If it weren't for America we'd all be eating Bratwurst for dinner"

jacquesm 12y ago
Borscht maybe, bratwurst very unlikely.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Or perhaps a more likely scenario - most of in Western Europe wouldn't be eating anything for dinner as we would never have existed. "Reasoning": - Without an Allied landing, the Soviets would probably have "liberated" all territories occupied by the Nazis - The UK would probably still be free - but an even more important base for operations against the Soviets than it was in reality - The US would have felt even more threatened by the Soviets than they did - A nuclear "Sunday Punch" first strike against the Soviets and all of their occupied territories would have become even more likely (and SAC showed no discrimation in who they would bomb until well into the 60s - the original versions of the SIOP involved bombing everyone who was 'socialist' even if they weren't allies of the Soviets and there was only one plan). - The UK would have been utterly destroyed by Soviet weapons - but that seems to have been a part of pretty much all Cold War scenarios... :-| [NB The Soviets on the English Channel is part of the scenario for Charlie Stross's novella "Missile Gap"]
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Yes, that could have happened. Or maybe the Soviets would have found trying to keep all of Western Europe except for the UK under their boot a lot harder than it looked like from the beginning and they would have ended up in an Afghanistan like situation a lot earlier. The problem with alternate realities is that no matter how intellectually interesting thinking about them might be we'll never know because we only have this one. So, bratwurst, borscht or nothing, it's all just fantasy. One thing is for sure, and common to all those scenarios, in that world anything between the UK and mother Russia would have been in for one hell of a ride.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

Empires come and go. The US empire, like any other empire before them will be replaced by something else. Of course you are American, by the mere fact of being born there your have privileges over people born in the rest of the world. For example, any time you have problems you print money,money that thanks to petrodollars and US military the rest of the world have to buy by force. You export inflation to the rest of the world. So instead of you suffering for your own abuses, you make suffer the rest of the world. Every new QE(Quantitative Easing) makes people from Egypt go from 30% of the population not being able to buy the basics to 70% and so on. The rest of the world is not happy, and of course they plan to replace the petrodollar as soon as they can, to replace the "Exorbitant Privilege". Of course as an American you believe this is fantastic, but put yourself into someone else in the world skin just for 5 minutes or so. People that work much harder than Americans but live way worse, people that speak at least two languages(most Americans barely speak one), engineers, physics PhDs, whatever, and you will start seeing another picture.

bzbarsky 12y ago
Note that the dollar as reserve currency means the the rest of the world is exporting unemployment to the US via currency operations. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/07/an_exorbitant_burden http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/07/an_exorbita... has a good analysis of the situation there. The US would be much better off economically if USD were not the world's reserve currency. In particular, we wouldn't need the QE business at all if we weren't having China's and Germany's unemployment forced on us. Of course it's simpler to latch on to the phrase "Exorbitant Privilege" and hate the US than it is to try to analyze all the pieces of what's going on.

supergirl 12y ago

You should add sarcasm tags otherwise we'll think your serious.