DescentBB

Picked this off a slideshow of the U.S. military:

"A U.S. navy guard stands behind a machine gun onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln after it arrived in Hong Kong, December 24, 2004. Taiwan played down on Thursday remarks by a senior U.S. official who described the island as the biggest land mine in Sino-U.S. ties and said Washington was not required to come to Taiwan's defense if attacked by China. REUTERS/Kin Cheung "

Last I knew we had a binding aggreement to come to Taiwans aid if they are attacked by the Chi-Coms.

"What Moron said this:"

I bet a dollar it was a left/liberal/democrat.

Binding? There are agreements that the U.S. considers binding?

Before Uncle Sam comes knocking on your door

Joo spelled Prefect wrong.

He probably ran it through a spell check

Vander wrote:"What Moron said this:"

I bet a dollar it was a left/liberal/democrat.

Ya think?

O.K. I did a little digging:

"The remarks by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage have raised suspicions in Taiwan that Washington may be leaning toward Beijing in the dispute between the mainland and the island it claims as a renegade province."

http://tinyurl.com/648a5

Now I don't know if I should laugh or cry as Armitage sounds like my kind of guy:

http://tinyurl.com/54e28

I didn't spell anything wrong, I had always assumed he had "Perfect" and not "Prefect" without double checking his name.

fixed!

I have never claimed to be "perfect"

So does that make U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage a leftie liberal weenie??

Ford Prefect wrote:So does that make U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage a leftie liberal weenie??

I don't know but I hope everyone is listening to him because fighting China over there is a very big bad idea!

Will Robinson wrote:

Ford Prefect wrote:So does that make U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage a leftie liberal weenie??

I don't know but I hope everyone is listening to him because fighting China over there is a very big bad idea!

So we should just sit back and let China force Taiwan into accepting its opressive Communist Regime?

This is Japans problem. If they engage I wouldn't mind the U.S. being "with them." And only if China actually did Invade. No more preemptive ★■◆●. And no more wars where we do 90% of it alone. Especially against China. China is no Iraq, China isn't even Korea. They are in another league.

It would come to our soil.

On the plus side, China is edging farther towards Capitalism every day. Once the WW2 generation and their proteges are out of power, I wouldn't be surprised to see them follow the path that the USSR did.

Of course, that would be a victory for capitalism, but at the same time the greatest economic threat to the status quo we've seen in decades.

For the last fifty some years, the only reason china did not invade Taiwan is our assured response of military intervention. So for those of you who say we should do nothing now and advertise such a new policy to all the world, are you prepared to accept the responsibilty for the carnage that will ensue on Taiwan when China invades by force? Will you lament as you may have done over the Tinamen Square massacre? Remember another careless remark by a high govt. official that led Saddam to surmise america would do nothing if he invaded Kuwait.

Yes woodchip. It's our job to take Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and China (am I missing anyone?) down to make it a better world.

Do you ever think that one of the reasons the rest of the world does nothing: is because we try and do everything?

Why would they sacrifice their children when our conservative pow-wow party over here is shoving ours out the door? Like I said, right behind Japan and you will hear no complaint from me.

You have this 'American Cowboy' attitude of the world. But now it's more like Clint Eastwoods biggest fan then Clint himself, since you really arn't there making the sacrifices. Well, if you want those wars fought then by all means strap on an AK and have at it. And please take anyone who agrees with you. If you win, you would have my utmost respect.

But for gods sake leave the rest of America's youngsters alone.

It is so easy to be pro-war when you are not required to make any personal sacrifices. And its simply way too easy to guilt people into supporting a war when you know your life is not on the line.

Goober, did you actually read the intent of my reply or are you knee jerking again?

Did you read my post, or did you assume it was just antiwar hippy trash?

If china attacks: you think we should go in. I say we shouldn't unless we have real allies. Is that cold? Yes. But it is what needs to be done.

The world will never help if we are so eager to do all the work. I think if we advertised less involvement the rest of the world would be willing to advertise more.

I have to agree with Genghis on this one. 40 years ago my father told me, in the hight of the cold war, he didn't fear the USSR militarily. He felt they were trying to beat us down economically what with their massive military budget. They tried and failed. I feel the same is true with China. "Creeping Capitalism" will prevail and bring about their downfall as well.

Gooberman wrote:The world will never help if we are so eager to do all the work. I think if we advertised less involvement the rest of the world would be willing to advertise more.

You can't be serious right? Did the last century of events not teach you anything Goob? I don't mean to sound harsh, I understand where you are coming from but lets be realistic here. It hasn't quite worked out that way in years passed. Why would now be any different?

There is a reason why the US always has to be involved. Sadly that does require the loss of lives sometimes and yes I can say that here in my chair. That doesn't make me any less sympathetic because I'm here in the states.

We'll just have to see how events unfold over there.

It is pretty tough to be so intertwined with the international economies of most of the countries of the world and not get involved in their politics. Remember that without international trade the U.S. could not exist in the form you enjoy now. Imagine if all the goods you bought were made only in the U.S. not to mention energy resources limited to only those from within your own borders. What happens in Taiwan will have some effect on the lives of the average U.S. citizen and cost many U.S. corporations big money.
That being said, the role of self appointed "World Cop" is difficult to fill without criticism of every move from the rest of the world. I think the U.S. is trying to find a mechanism that will do the job they want done but with more multinational participation. The UN is obviously not fulfilling that role to the satisfaction of the current administration and you can expect a lot of trial balloons in the next few years as the U.S. tries to find a replacement.
A real conspiracy theorist would suspect that a crisis in Taiwan would be an excellent catalyst for discrediting the UN and establishing a more acceptable replacement. But I'm not that cynical.

Genghis wrote:I wouldn't be surprised to see them follow the path that the USSR did.

If anything, I think China learned from the USSR that a relatively immediate switch to capitalism isn't the greatest plan in the world when everyone is used to communism. It's something you have to ween people over to. By not doing it immediately, whether it's conscious or not, they're probably saving themselves from the unfortunate end result of what Russia is today.

Granted, between their stupid attempts to censor everything and tries to control birth gender, one wonders if the Chinese government has any real "plan" for capitalism or if things are merely happy accidents.

And on Woodchip's "point" that we're supposed to just single-handedly fight off China if they invade Taiwan, Goob is completely right. Our military is stretched as it is. This is something, much like the whole North Korea debacle, best left in the hands of Japan, South Korea. You know, the domestic superpowers. If they need our help, only then should we consider stepping in.

Sure playing "world cop" is happy and fine... as long as you're not the one on the battlefield. I think the armchair commanders of this board tend to forget that and rather enjoy their rose-colored "It's good versus evil and we're Superman!" take on the world.

Kyouryuu wrote: And on Woodchip's "point" that we're supposed to just single-handedly fight off China if they invade Taiwan, Goob is completely right. Our military is stretched as it is. This is something, much like the whole North Korea debacle, best left in the hands of Japan, South Korea. You know, the domestic superpowers. If they need our help, only then should we consider stepping in.

Sure playing "world cop" is happy and fine... as long as you're not the one on the battlefield. I think the armchair commanders of this board tend to forget that and rather enjoy their rose-colored "It's good versus evil and we're Superman!" take on the world.

Seems like I'm not getting thru. Remember in the original Godfather where Vito is talking to the drug dealer and tells him he doesn't want to deal in drugs and then Sonny butts in and says he thinks it would be good for the family? Because of what Sonny said Vito gets shot.
Same here with Taiwan. Americas implied threat that we'll aid Taiwan if China gets frisky is what kept China from doing anything. China won't do anything as long as they think we will come to Taiwans aid. Aid in this scenario would be air and navy power to help keep china from getting troops across the straights. Take away the implied threat and watch a couple hundred thousand Taiwanese die.

I think most nations (with the possible exception of some dictatorship/commie/euro nations) are doing whatever they can to stop terrorism. It's just that the US does so much more than these guys, that they are never really seen in the spotlight. You hear about all these soldiers of different nationalities in Iraq--they got there by the intervention of their governments. It's just that the Americans are expected, by virtue of their constituting over 70% of the troops numerically, to handle everything big that comes up and thus get the spotlight.

With Taiwan, I would say stay out of it unless the Taiwanese ask for our support. We have troops in enough countries right now--to go into one more is the last thing we need.

woodchip wrote:Seems like I'm not getting thru.

Probably because I filter the rhetoric of armchair generals who use the Godfather as a model for world diplomacy. You give me faith that Republicans will never learn from our mistakes in Iraq ("What mistakes?" Exactly).

Believe it or not, there are some other big countries in this world. Even if you consider the US as the one sole superpower (a thought shared by many international affairs scholars), Japan, South Korea, and China are superpowers in a regional context.

If China decided to do something bad to Taiwan, it would be devastating for the region. The tenuous relationship would devolve into utter instability. Most assuredly, the Koreans and the Japanese would try to douse it the best they could. So too would the Taiwanese. Let them.

China is a nation of more than one billion people. You don't mess with them unless it's an absolute last resort, not yet another pre-emptive strike against "terror." If you're going to challenge them, it's suicide to not go in with a very strong alliance of nations. Can the gung ho attitude. Think before you decide to spill American blood on foreign soil.

If Iraq has tought us and the world anything, it is that we might be a superpower, but we are not "all powerful". If China invaded Taiwan politics aside I don't think the important question would be "Should we defend Taiwan?" it would be "Can we sucessfully defend Taiwan?" I don't think we can in our current state.

I think from a military standpoint we are more prepared to fight an invading force. I mean the invasion of Iraq and defeating Sadamns army was, as far as wars go, easy.

Its ocupying a country that doesn't want us there that is difficult.

It's for deterrent effect only. I believe the hope is that internal forces will open up China so that eventually it will be the little fish that ends up eating the big fish. A conventional war would never conquer China and everyone knows that. However the unconventional threat is what keeps China hesitant. If China called our bluff I don't believe we would follow through with an unconventional counter-attack. Taiwan, whether it realizes it or not, is pretty much on it's own in a fight. It would happen too quickly. The other large deterrent is that China wants Taiwan intact due to Taiwan's economic strength. If Taiwan were to have a *poison pill* policy if attacked, it makes it much less attractive to China to do so. So, in a twist, it would probably be a more effective deterrent to threaten to attack Taiwan ourselves first (after evacuation, of course) if China tried to forcefully take it over, thereby depriving China of it's prize.

So, in a twist, it would probably be a more effective deterrent to threaten to attack Taiwan ourselves first (after evacuation, of course) if China tried to forcefully take it over, thereby depriving China of it's prize.

You get a better brand of smokable for Christmas than usual Bash?
Population of Taiwan=22.6 million http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5- ... ce/ch3.htm Evacuation to where? Of whom?
Are you actually positing a nuclear attack on Taiwan as a scorched earth policy? Do you think there would be no environmental effects to the rest of the world?
I guess it is just one of those Internet Forum ideas that looked better when typed out in a hurry.

On second thought, let's threaten to nuke Canada if China invades Taiwan. Oh hell, why wait...

Note to self: DO NOT employ satirical irony around Frod again unless liberally peppered with emoticons.

Better just not do, I have no faith that you can do anything liberally.

Blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
All that hockey hualbaloo
And that b**ch Ann Murray too



Now there's at tune I can really get behind.

i have sex to ann murray and kenny g tunes... i don't move much in the dental office.

kill china!

TheCops wrote:i have sex to ann murray and kenny g tunes......

I always knew you were sick

Just in case there really is someone who thinks the U.S. does not pull it's weight and more in disaster relief. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4141499.stm
Marines from Japan, an aircraft carrier full of helicopters...as always the U.S. steps up to the bar and goes to work.