Interventionism

[gator]

What are your views on Interventionism?

Although I don’t agree with him on other issues I tend to subscribe to the Ron Paul school of thought on this issue; the US would be better off minding its own business instead of fighting other countries wars for them. Even Donald Trump was saying this the other night in an interview.

I think that it is much better for an American to keep his or her money than to have a politician, influenced by a foreign lobby, take the money and give it to the foreign country, don’t you? This idea of paid off politicians articulating the security of a foreign country as somehow being vital to the security of the US has caused us a lot of trouble, don’t you think?

In another thread recently I discussed my views on South Korea. They should at least be paying us to protect them rather than us giving it away for free. The same way with most of the Far East countries. Talk about a sweetheart deal but Japan gets our protection for nothing.

It is really funny with Taiwan. We borrow money from the Chinese to pay for the military that protects Taiwan from the Chinese. How dumb is that?

We have pissed off a billion friggin Muslims by interfering in Middle East politics. For instance, why is it that Saudi Arabia has all this oil money but yet we guarantee their security for nothing when we get most of our imported oil from non Middle East countries? Why do we protect other rich Middle East countries? Is it because it is really in our best interest or is it because they have a strong lobby?

I know the hive mindset of CU is a little more Neoconish than my traditional Conservative views but I am interested in hearing how reasonable people justify interventionism at a time when we are going broke.

[Constitutionally Speaking]

I have no problem if it is in OUR national interests. If it is merely to "fight someone else's war" then no.

[Molon Labe]

This is why I lol, when people try to tell me we should be afraid of any other nations military. We could easily spend less than half of this and still be the most formidible nation in the world. They have no pot to piss in.

[malloc]

I tend to agree with him in many cases, however each instance of intervention should be taken on a case on by case basis, and weighed against the national interests of the Country, and the Congress, not the President, should be the one to pull the trigger on the affair. All too often this does not happen, and the United States knee jerks it's way into getting involved in the affairs of foreign powers without a debate discussing our end of the deal ever taking place.

For instance, if North Korea gets uppity with South Korea, we should intervene. The South Korean Army isn't the Army that was overrun in the 1950's. The United States would spend very little keeping the North out of the South Korean peninsula with South Korean forces doing much of the fighting. Remember North Korea is a population of poor and starving masses, while South Korea is a pro-capitalism, unconditional ally of the U.S., with a thriving economy, which grants us unlimited force projection in that theater of the globe. China is the next biggest boy on the block, and I don't believe they would touch a Korean conflict with a 10 foot pole in this day and age. Even though China is the second biggest boy on the block, their economy is still a fraction of the size of the U.S., and they are trying to grow and modernize, and they are doing so by catering to the U.S. economy and U.S. technology. China needs the U.S. as a trading partner just as much as the U.S. needs China as a banker and exporter.

As far as having 700 military bases in 104 of the 109 or so recognized nations around the globe, that's a bit ridiculous. As far as gifting a missile defense system to Europe? Come on, that's ridiculous. Should we sell them one? Absolutely, that's what capitalists do. Should we tax our people to provide one for Europe? No way.

As far as the Middle East concerned, so long as our economy remains fossil fuel based, and that's not changing any time soon, stability in the Middle East is vital for our national interests. We should be moving towards tapping our own natural resources to reduce our dependence on the Middle East, and our policies of the last two decades have done everything but stabilize the Middle East. We need to be involved in Middle Eastern affairs because that's in our national interest. However, our involvement thus far has done as much harm as it has done good, so maybe the nature of our involvement needs to change. Perhaps we should be using more trade leverage and less force leverage.

[NJCardFan]

The Cold War is over so there is no need for us to have armies in Europe. They all have their own military and is they should need us and they ask, we can help. Japan as well. They don't need our military there. Korea is another story. But where our military is needed is along our own southern border. Things are getting quite dicey on the border and I do believe that having our military strung from Texas to California will keep those cartels from doing something stupid. Mexico doesn't seem to have the stomach to deal with it but we sure as hell better before we start seeing El Paso looking like Juarez.

This is why I lol, when people try to tell me we should be afraid of any other nations military. We could easily spend less than half of this and still be the most formidible nation in the world. They have no pot to piss in.

I once heard that the 3rd largest fleet of airplanes is sitting unused in the Arizona desert. Is this true?

[malloc]

I once heard that the 3rd largest fleet of airplanes is sitting unused in the Arizona desert. Is this true?

I'm not sure. We have MCAS Yuma, which is 3 attack squadrons, a logistics squadron and an air control squadron, and I know they actually use their birds down there. Then there is Luke AFB, which I think is a main training hub for the AF, but outside of the E club, I'm not entirely sure what they do over there. However, I do see them flying, so if they have idle planes over there I've never seen them. The Marines also have a detachment at Ft. Huachuca which is a Military Intelligence school, at least as far as I know, so I don't think they have planes over there. If there is a large fleet of planes down here somewhere, I haven't seen them.

[John Marston]

Right with ya gator. I don't support America playing policeman with the rest of the world. If there is a verifiable threat to our national security, then start launching the missles. But other than that, I will never support military action against a foreign nation

[djones520]

This is why I lol, when people try to tell me we should be afraid of any other nations military. We could easily spend less than half of this and still be the most formidible nation in the world. They have no pot to piss in.

China's spending has increased by more then 20% since that graph was created. Roughly $65 billion now.

And $65 billion will go a hell of a lot further in China then it will in the US.

[gator]

I have no problem if it is in OUR national interests. If it is merely to "fight someone else's war" then no.

The problem CS is how the politicians spin the rhetoric on it being America’s interest.

For instance, according to Clinton and his minions it was vital to America’s intrest that we kill Christians in Bosnia in order to protect Muslims.

Before a President sends money or troops to a foreign land then he pretty well has mastered the spin of it being vital to America. There are numerous examples and they usually fall apart upon scrutiny. For instance, just look at how Bush got screwed up with trying to explain why it was vital to America to remove Saddam from power.

[patriot45]

I read somewhere that if we just deployed our carrier groups around the world on a rotating basis we could basicaly conquer the world if we so wanted.
So I am with you on this, pull out of every place and put our assets in carriers and subs.