EricF

OK, want to hear a "bigger-picture" type of analysis of this? Not to disregard what you're saying... But this is about the most cut-and-clear case of "war-weariness" I've read first-hand about the Iraq war. And I bet that increasing war-weariness makes us pull out of Iraq eventually, too. Why will war-weariness continue to increase? Because we're Americans. We grow impatient if it takes more than a minute for the guy at the drive-through to get us our food. Our society is based on instant gratification, blablabla, there are a million essays and short stories about that. So we went to Iraq for a number of reasons, none of which were strong enough to give the American people enough resolve to get beyond "OK, it's been a year, it's not over, what's the problem?" And now there's a backlash of people who think that it's taking too long and it's beyond their comfort zone of waiting. I'm not criticizing, just trying to analyze a little (because this seems to be a growing sentiment among the people I talk to). Anyway, just something to think about.

This is the first time I've been hungover since the Irish car bombs night... Holy crap. I woke up today with my button-down shirt halfway on, my socks on, my contacts in, and no pants or boxers. Tight work, Eric.

Hmm, I'll see if I can get any of the friends..

Another depressing night of working on the Vo' and pretending not to notice that my sister and her friends (girls) don't really notice me beyond pleasantries. The same girls who will be at the Orlando meet. So go buck wild... Blah.

I'm jacked up on 4 Starbucks espresso double shots... Does that count as drunk or hungover? I'm monkeyin wired.

This man has posted my life story... And to hell with that "reading between the lines" bullshit. You're on the phone and you tell the woman to be patient because at that very moment you are posting (well, this).... I have been drinking... Orange juice!!!111122233

11 beers and I don't feel adequately monkeyed up to be posting in here... Just watched Apocalypse Now, played flip cup with my sister and her friends, and listened to a few Johnny Cash CD's. Hooooooooooooooooooooller.

I took that on totally the wrong level.

It has been a long time since I actually laughed out loud at Volvospeed... Thank you.

Powell would rock, but he would never accept the nomination. Hillary won't get the nomination. Juliani might get the nomination. Jeb isn't bad, don't judge him by name, Ken As other Floridians have said, things have not been going so badly here.

Arnold will win and I will cheer.

What a can of worms. I wish we could have a structured debate in here one day (and I don't mean National Forensics League type debate)... Just something with guidelines set, key terms defined before arguing, etc. Would be interesting I don't kid myself though, that's not the material of internet forums.

A major problem in selling military involvement in Iraq was the two very different audiences it needed to be sold to. 1: The American population at large. I don't think a simple humanitarian agenda would have flown here. Especially not in the post-9/11 mindset, it just wasn't the main concern of Americans. 2: The rest of the world, who is extremely wary of everything the United States does as to its involvement abroad. Here, as you said, it may have worked. When confronted with this situation, it becomes clear who you want to focus your reasons on... To execute this war, American support is more or less needed, though the same can't be said for the rest of the world's support. Additionally, this administration is largely hegemonist in thinking. Hegemonists think (among many things) that acting unilaterally ain't no thang because no one else is powerful enough to say anything about it.

on a sunday afternoon... feelin, couldn't get away so soon. so what in the hell is going on in here?

Kim Jong-Il isn't retarded or completely insane, though it may seem so at times. He wouldn't have the power he does if such were the case... As far as I'm concerned, all nukes will do is make weak-spined nations of the world (ours included a lot of the time) more receptive to his requests for oil and food and such. If he does let it be known in one way or another that he has nukes and ICBM's of some sort, it's just an attempt to re-establish some international credibility. And, it will probably work, because he does an OK job of making people think he's just crazy enough to use them :)

me's had like a bunch of beers while barbecuing and a bunch while at a good friend's tripple kegger. just wanted to make a note of how cool (really) i am. give word to your mother.

Maybe we should talk to Charles about a politics/religion forum? This is what www.floridasportsman.com did when things started getting hot about the election, and OT over there is back to its glory days. They also have close to 40k members, too. It's just an easy way to clean things up IMO :)

I am the man... and all you bitches need to learn more about cars, and all that jazz. First time poster, long time listener... So like I've been drinking some beer but .. Nevermind, it's always good to drink beer.

All YOU bitches are soft. I'm on my 5th glass of wine (mr. backspace is my best friend), and things be floatin around, and yes, men drink wine. Fools. And on top of that, me's in a hurricane... what now? chaos, that's what. have fun.

Ah, the conundrum of trying to aid a totalitarian country's population... Give them aid and it will either not get past the gov't officials, or the state-run media will portray the situation as being the result of heroic efforts of the government acting abroad for the good of their nation, and there you have another possible swell of nationalism... Yet, cut them off, and the state media can play with that stance as you said, and try to villainize the world and create more nationalism. Also, you'll get the same military threats that they have always delivered (though they don't have much credit anymore with the world community), and I would suspect that these threats become much more difficult to dismiss once they have nuclear connotations. I feel and it is my hunch that China is the key to this issue... Get China to seriously consider sponsoring or leading, or at the very least endorsing a UN-led invasion into N Korea, and this issue will crumble. Still though, I don't feel anything should be done until we have reached some sort of semi-closure in Iraq and have most of our resources therein back. We could easily overrun N Korea militarily (not like Iraq at all of course), and it should be something of a cake walk with full UN military support (though that seems to be a mythical term), despite the size of N Korea's armed forces.

Eh, these discussions should go without calling the president Shrub or Shrubby or anything :-P Give it a few months until our assets are less absorbed into Middle Eastern conflict, after the Iraqi election, though I would suspect it a few months after the election that we see any large troop withdrawals. That said, I'm sure the president is none too happy with Kim about this episode, it really puts him in a bad bind right before elections. So I would really expect for him to downplay any significance that this event has, if it does indeed end up having some. Although it does bode well for Kerry, as he could probably come into office and make a cake walk to the UN and get some real support for doing something about this, and all the Democrats in the country could be like "Oh, oh, I told you so! We could have done this for Iraq but look at your stupid president!" And all the Republicans could be like "Shut up! You're so STUPID!" Not a good thing for the bi-partisan divide in this country right now, but maybe Mr. President can sweep it under the rug until someone has an idea of what to do about it....

It is not a terribly likely scenario, but there are a few variables that could influence them either way... Who knows, maybe the neo-cons will think of this and start giving covert incentives to the Chinese. It just seems like a possible step towards further integration into the rest of the developed world, which is what China's been yearning for since before we opened trade relations with them. Ah well, nothing will probably come of this, but it would be quite the international relations case to study if something did...

Very nice post Another possible avenue to explore would be Chinese militarized conflict with N Korea as an eventuality, in which case we would be more than willing to support them, along with South Korea... That would be quite the interesting situation. China sees North Korea trying to flex its muscles at them and gets uncomfortable, and sees that they would have little to no negative ramifications if they were to annex North Korea (aside from the resources it would take to do so, which would inevitably be recovered, factor in the burden-sharing that would inevitably occur, esp. in light of the U.S. designation of N Korea as part of the axis of evil, etc). China feels more comfortable as the regional hegemon, US-China relations possibly grow even stronger (possibly not though, as a power vacuum in N Korea would leave US-backed S Korea and China kind of grappling [civilly, we would hope] for control over what would then be uncontrolled), and South Korea can sigh a sigh of relief (depending on what happens with the territory after Kim Jong-Il is gone). Complications to this scenario are largely in what happens after Kim Jong-Il would be removed... And how interested China would be in getting UN-US support. Would they want the burden shared badly enough to give up the rights to N Korea as a new territory (instead likely as an independent democratic republic, or united with S Korea)? If they would reject offers of Western support to maintain their own determination as to what to do with N Korea after the fact, then they would see their already pretty low soft power take another blow... Whereas if they accepted the support or acted through the UN (again, with the possibility of N Korea as an independent Democratic Republic), their soft power would jump dramatically, and they would be much more "in" as far as the international community crowds are concerned. The benefits of either arrangement are clear, as are the drawbacks... So, are the Chinese pragmatic and aggressive (and risky?) enough to make something of this? They surely realize that if they did something here that essentially no one in the world would object... Even if they did and rejected our support, we'd secretly be rooting for them. Just the 4:15 am ponderings of one International Relations student who likes theory and gets into this sort of thing way too easily...

Giving Kim Jong-Il a test drive? Who knows... I think China's too focused on their economic standing to risk any sort of military aggression or terribly questionable allegiance (supporting N Korea or aiding them militarily in such a bold way would really just be their way of shooting themselves in the foot economically). Will be interesting to see what kinda drama comes of this, if any :huh: