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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (109198)	9/21/2007 9:56:15 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

>If we withdraw from Vietnam, what is to prevent the Commies from taking Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore? < I don't know how much of an INTERNAL communist presence those countries had at the time (I was a too young). "If" the threat was mostly an external one, then I think.... Any external force would have second thoughts about invasion because of the threat of the US getting involved and because the effort would be huge. In any event, we remained engaged in the region which is exactly what got us in trouble in the Middle East to begin with (even when we weren't fighting). >Turkey is a major power in the Islamic World and it is fairly civilized and secular. < Everything I have been reading recently suggests that the more radical elements in Turkey have been increasing their power (semi-democratically). >India, a nuclear power with a huge army, would not like a Pakistan run by radicals.< I agree. I am very worried about an eventual war between India and Pakistan as soon the general gets assassinated by the radicals and they attempt to take over. If we aren't there to get involved, India (and perhaps Israel) will have to because of the nukes. India at war is not good for us either. >China and Russia will support a rational, peaceful Iran, but not an Iran that is trying to eat up the Islamic world. And Iran desperately needs their support. Egypt is a strong, responsible Islamic country that would not like to see a rival, Shiite superpower on their border.< These things are all true. I don't think Iran is going to do anything aggressive across borders. It will operate in much the same way the US impacts politics in other countries (financial support, covert operations etc...) >Saddam was very weak. Why didn't Iran take it while he was still in power? < Because the US had bases all over the place and would have bombed the shit out of them. I think the major concern in all these places, (including Africa) is not an external military coming in and taking over. It's an internal move to turn a reasonably friendly government (one that we are probably helping prop up) into one that is unfriendly to the west. Pretty much every time there is an election of any sort in one these places, our side loses. Then we don't like democracy much anymore. ;-) That suggests to me that if we were to withdraw, the domino effect would in fact have some teeth this time. It's our presence and interference that keeps things in line. What I think needs to happen is that the democracies maneuver themselves into a position that they don't care about middle east oil anymore. Then who gives a rats ass how they live. If they all radicalize, we can blow the shit out of them if they attempt anything aggressive externally. To be honest though, I don't consider all of Europe as a very long term part of the democracies. As far as I am concerned parts of Europe are already probably lost. It may not happen in my lifetime, but on their current course they are doomed to decades of conflict.