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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: bentway who wrote (162550)	5/19/2005 2:24:17 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Yes of course. Comparing America to Rome is not particularly new...and the British are not far behind. Did you see the Blair quotes I posted on how Britain has nothing to apologize for its colonial past and how the purpose of the military is to "project force"? Unfortunately the cost of empire is too high for the world and for the empire itself. That's why all empires have fallen. Those who relied on military might fell even faster and harder than the rest. Primarily the issues facing the empires is this: the system is inherently unstable both externally and internally; externally because obviously others will not want to be subjugated. And internally because the elite will not want to get their own hands dirty doing the messy business of subjugation (how many senators' sons are serving in Iraq now?). As time goes by, this will bring massive discontent. Perhaps those who support empire building should watch the Star Wars saga. Secondly, the age of empires is long gone. Empires are so much more vulnerable than other institutes. If it wasn't so sad I would have been on the floor laughing after reading the reports on fanciful ideas about weaponization of space. All technical issues aside, who cares? Suppose those fancy laser weapons are in space already. So what? US could be on its knees if the world simply refuses to finance its debt. What would Bush do then with his Deathstar? Bring back the slavery? Empires worked for short periods of time when they could militarily stay a step ahead of their subjects (use Calvary to kill horseless Indians; use guns to kill gunless Indian riders, use machine gun to kill them when they gained guns, ...) but that cycle is over. Nobody needs a cruise missile to fight America anymore. Road side improvised bombs will do just fine. And a 60 year old technology used on Hiroshima is just as scary as the latest zillion megaton nuke from DoE. The real scam is in taking taxes from the poor and giving them to the defence contractors (and to a lesser degree other government contractors). And this con game will go on so long as various organizations get to buy the best politicians money can buy. If Enron wanted to influence energy policy, why did it not just vote for a supportive candidate like the rest of us rather than making massive campaign contributions? This is the real problem.

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