Indie, uh?
I don’t understand the confusion about the Bush administration’s policy in Asia (and the [British accent] Indian subcontinent).
We’re surrounding China with nukes. North Korea can have them, fine. But they’re friends with China. Hm. Well, hey, now our friend, India, has a lot more of ’em, too. And you know what China? See our other friend, Pakistan. We don’t give a fuck what Pakistan does. And they’re like, right next door to you, too, bitch.
And, insofar as I’m willing to overlook the failure to control nuclear proliferation and all its senseless costs and risks, I actually agree somewhat with this policy. Bush-Cheney: woo!
We’re surrounding China with nukes. North Korea can have them, fine. But they’re friends with China. Hm. Well, hey, now our friend, India, has a lot more of ’em, too. And you know what China? See our other friend, Pakistan. We don’t give a fuck what Pakistan does. And they’re like, right next door to you, too, bitch.
And, insofar as I’m willing to overlook the failure to control nuclear proliferation and all its senseless costs and risks, I actually agree somewhat with this policy. Bush-Cheney: woo!
posted by Stanley at 20:21
23 Comments:
Ohhhh man.
oh man oh man. (insert emoticon here)
Oh yeah? Tell us more...
the title of this one made me laugh
I just think it's hard to agree with anything a pair of tweedle dee/dumbs does when it come to nukes.
Nukes suck. NoKorea just threatened to shoot one our way, this afternoon, in fact. And I wouldn't say China's all gung ho (Chinese anyone??) on NoKorea. Them's crazy bastards. Or Onelungho, whatever his name is, is for sure crazy. China just wants a nice open market for it's uber cheap labor. Tees anyone?
Why are all of our times weird? Is Charlottesville in another dimesion?
Nevermind.
Charlottesville is in the post-apocalyptic future. All our faces are way melted.
By nucelar cocailine solutions
And it's pronounced NOO-kyuh-ler!
i don't think that i understand at all what your confusion is. us foreign policy has been coercing china, taiwan, japan, s.korea, and two other countries that i can't remember right now to convince n.korea or rather kim yung (sp. unclear) to disarm, stop etc.... for several years now. last new year, he had a misile fired in our direction. should i say our cabinet was not impressed? hummm. the growing economy of china is, to the us government, an impending threat to its present hegemonic powers (remember that they had A LOT more people than we do). also. our cabinet is not so excited about pakistans'nuclear power, neither is india as pakistan has threatened to nuke india ....kashmir....islam, hinduism. damn british and their great ideas! just separate them, they'll be fine!! segregation is certainly not a path to the reconciliation of diversity within a state. didn't work in israel either, won't work in irak either. ahh mee.
so anyway. what's your confusion?
postructurize it: great question and analysis.
I couldn't agree more about the rising threat of China. In fact, if you asked me to name a government whose actions trouble me more than the US, China comes to mind almost immediately.
The mentioned "confusion" was something of a straw-man ploy. News analysts and other political commentators, I think, miss the forest for the trees on our Asia policy. They get all caught up on one issue---why are we supporting an authoritarian ruler in Pakistan? why are we allowing greater nuclear freedom to India? why don't we seem to care that North Korea has admitted to having nukes?
The answer's obvious: China. We're setting up the chessboard for the global headbutting contest that's going to really get going in about 20-30 years.
The whole "confusion" ploy was really just me attributing confusion to people I perceive as confused.
Clear as mud?
To clarify further: the Bushies have gotten flack for their policies in India, Pakistan, and North Korea. I was trying to point out that, on the question of Asia, this criticism is misguided, or at least it misses the larger point of why they're doing what they're doing.
well. i'm not concerned at all, in as far as feeling worried. let it be. let china be the new hegemony...whatever. flack. not really. i don't see how any one country has more right over another to possess functioning nuclear weapons. kants' democratic theory will NEVER happen. because there's no way that all states will ever trust one another to disarm all at once, or there would always be doubts about covert organizationsl..and eventually there would be. so. who cares who has a nuclear bomb or not. who's gonna friekin use it?! this planet is a bit too small for nuclear weapons. i think of nukes like much like i think of national debt. it's -mostly- a conceptual force within the power struggle. am i making any sense? or am i too far away?
also. i don't think it's gonna take 20-30 years. but who knows.
I disagree about Kant. It's possible that we achieve a genuinely peaceful world democratic order. Or at least, I have to be able to believe that in order to get out of bed each morning.
I agree about nukes being mostly conceptual. Once both sides have enough nukes to annihilate each other, you have what's called in IR, "Mutually Assured Destruction" or simply, MAD. Rosy thoughts!
20-30 years for the shit to really hit the fan. The warm-up headbutts are already starting, which is what my post was intended to point out.
i still think the title is funny
Thanks, Ryan. Really solid posting and commenting. Now, if we could just hear more from Ryan...
I hear he's preparing the best. post. ever.
Yep, set your expectations high people. Ryan's next post will blow your (collective) mind!
Oh gosh. oh man. oh golly.
First: I will give into purely immature posting etiquette and say, "anytime Ryan actually picks his fingers up and types a complete though is impressive (the title is amusing.)
Two, Second, Segunda, Doe, blahdidblah: I don't think it's possible to achieve a peaceful democratic world order until we eliminate all the assholes (aka Bushies, in the US) from that order. Also, I don't know about this whole headbutt setup thing. Who wants to go to war, or cold war, with China? First, they have more resources than anyone, save Indie Uh, could ever imagine. I would argue that Russia does, but we're not dealing with the Soviets anymore. They lack the unifying control that that would ever asist them with some sort of stand-off with China. And Indie Uh, well, they just love a Western lifestyle too much. And honestly, I think the majority of Chinese still living in China want that financial power over other countries in Asia.
As far as rights to possess nukes, well, we pretty much blew that years ago. If you can build it, you got it. If you have anything worth while (oil, water, gold) to offer a nuclear power, well, you got it too. But when it comes to the big nuclear powers (excepting NoKorea because I really believe that Kim Jung illy-Il is nutty) whether you're capitalist, communist, islamic...people want comfort. They are not going to risk turing their entire comfort zone into a nuclear wasteland simply for a point. Or a dollar. It's authoritarian states who have one-man leadership that everyone needs to worry about. It's not China or Iran. It's North Korea or these one-man dictatorships in Africa who have oil diamonds to trade for weapons of mass distruction, that we all need to worry about.
They consistently demonstrate that they don't give two shits about humanity. (and please inform me of other countries that do this too) People live in concentration camps in North Korea. Geonocide/mass slaughter, happens ever day in Africa. One could argue that in the Middle East, specifically, Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites are murdering each other becuause of religion, and if you want to twist it that way, call it genocide. But it's not. It's political. it's not racial. It's like Pakistan would never nuke India beacause they are the same people and there's too much to lose. India/China would never nuke China/India because there's too much to lose. Look how money they can make if they live peacefully. And the US can't afford to nuke anyone because we are broke and cynical.
So the whole nuke discussion is just scare tactics. If Usama bin Laden's crusade had been ideological, NYC would have been a nuclear wasteland after Sept. 11. But it's not. And I don't believe that he never had the opportunity to aquire them. In fact, he might have them. But this war is not about right and wrong or good and evil, it's about power and politics. And the US goverment further back than Bush, has, in my opinion, been playing us like we're idiots. Because we are obsessed with oil, cars and Israel.
blarrrgh!!!
I have a few points to make on the discussion so far:
(i) China does matter.
Regardless of our fears about Osama or oil or nukes, China will be the most important global player within the next 50 years (probably sooner rather than later). The point of my post was this: China matters; that's why the US is doing what we're doing in Asia, love it or hate it. Getting caught up in the petty debate about NoKo or Indie-Uh without paying attention to the larger framework of Asian politics is a mistake.
(ii) Terrorism is really less of a threat than it has been portrayed to be.
There are bad people with money and bombs, and they hate us and everything we stand for. We should go after them with every resource possible, within the rule of law. But they're disorganized, they lack resources (sort of, comparatively), and they're not going to be around (in this same form) 50 years from now.
Unfortunately, this argument is not easy to make. It makes liberals look soft on terror.
(iii) Ryan is awesome.
Objectively speaking, this statement rings true.
I'm not sure I'd call that debate "petty." Diplomacy with self-proclaimed nuclear powers couldn't possibly be petty. And I don't think discussing those smaller issues (which aren't irrelevant/petty) demonstrates a failure to see the larger Asian political framework. That's what creates the larger framework - all those smaller issues. And criticizing the Bush administration's Asian policy by discussing/harping on the "other" issues is not misguided or missing the larger point. There are other ways to frame policy than the ones the Bush administration has choosen to use. I would agree that China plays a huge role in shaping American policy in Asia. But I wouldn't say that China has more to do with, say, our policy in Pakistan than Iran or Afganistan do. Or India. China is a threat and it will always play into US policy. But so is NoKo, and it too will always play into the larger policy. I mean who knows? No one really knows what goes on behind closed doors. Personally I think the whole chessboard setup thing is giving the Bush administration way too much credit since it could't even come up with a solid game plan for invading a small country like Iraq. But then maybe that was the gameplan. Maybe we should give Bush some credit here. Maybe the whole point of our Asian policy is to surround China with as many nuclear powers as possible. But that's reckless and it's our duty and the media's duty to criticize those actions so that the next generation of leaders in this country doesn't fall into that same reliance on nuclear scare tactics. And maybe no one is going to use their nuclear bombs so it's fine to threaten each other with them and encourage buildups all along China's border. But it's not okay. And that larger Asian policy (which should be commented on more often by the media, true) and all the petty policies attached to it, warrant harsh criticism from anyone who gives a damn about the future of humanity.
Yes, yes, and yes. We don't disagree, Anneth. But I have been kind of dense.
I would revise this post as follows:
Lots of people pay attention to Bush's policy direction in NoKo, India, Pakistan, and China. But why don't more people tie these policies together? Is the Bush administration purposefully surrounding China with sources of potential future instability? What is our China policy, really?
If we are surrounding China with nukes on purpose, that's crafty but also quite stupid and dangerous. But what else can we do?
i like poop
ryan. i like poop too. anneth and stanley are no longer making any sense, only you.
also. ouch. so the state of africa and north korea don't give two shits about humanity because of the decision of a few, and i would assume the same goes with the united states then. and thus, we should fear them all? i don't think this is fair for all of the unrepresented individuals living within these states. also. what is there to fear? i fear geting out of bed more than the existence of nukes, per se.
i give humanity shit. i mean. i give shit. no. that's not true....but maybe if you ask nicely....
and by the way, the world is perfect as it is. and it will continue to be this perfect so long as it 'is'.
I haven't yet firmed up my position on poop. We shall call this my Pending Poop Position.
I have suspicions about any government, but especially tyrannical objectively undemocratic (the US is undemocratic in some ways, but I think can agree that China and NoKo are measurably more undemocratic) governments.
I'm not afraid of China and NoKo. I'm suspicions about what their intentions are in the long term. I think China aspires to be a world superpower, with potential empirical aspirations. Avoiding this result is advisable, methinks.
NoKo's leader (Kim Jong Il) is just batshit insane. And when he dies, it's unclear what's gonna happen and who'll be left holding the nuclear trigger. I think this uncertaintly is expected by the US foreign-policy makers, and I think we want it to happen (to be a nuisance to China).
i guess i already think that there is an tyrannical and objectively undemocratic superpower that is pushing everyone around...
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