h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to Yahoo News, Iran's Defense Minister warned that they might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Is this different from the Bush Doctrine justifying preemptive wars? Can this policy be wrong for Iran but right for the US, UK, Poland and Tonga and Micronesia, etc?

only in so far as Iran does not have overwhelming military and technological power. (I'm talking about waging war here, not peace).
Every sovereign nation has the right to prtect its interests. But they should also weight the consequences. Sudan and Korea would probably be quite happy.

In my opinion, pre-emptive war (the Bush doctrine) can *never* be right, but in this case, it is undertstandable.

As long as it is clear Iran is only attacking the US and the US don't somehow draw the coalition into it.



We don't need to be drawn into conflict with the locals,unless they themselves ask for help, around the world, we don't have an empire anymore.

Well I somehow doubt that Iran's leaders would be foolish enough to start a war with the USA. I think it's a bit of grandstanding. Talking big, but not doing enough to make themselves the target of a pre-emtive strike.
If Iran did start a war then the USA's allies wouldn't really be able to justify leaving the war to the USA alone, as much as the cost and logistics and stretching of another war would be difficult to bare...

We don't have an empire anymore, or the thing we have is not something that we call an empire anymore? How many wars need to be launched on distant soil and how many military bases around the world does one nation need to have before it's considered an empire?

Interesting. You think the UK is/has an empire, just not a very powerful or influencial one?
We don't dictate policy in subjugated lands. Unless you are of the opinion that the English subjugated the rest of the UK.

You must be thinking of the British there stelf.

alec.

Eh?

I'm from the States, so when I said "we", I meant the US. Sorry for the confusion. But take into consideration the way that the WTO or IMF influences policies in many lands by threatening "austerity" programs. Or take the massive amounts of foreign aid that the US gives or takes away to bribe into joining the "Coalition of the Willing" (sic), or to pressure them on UN votes, etc.

Not sure how much of influence the UK has on things, or whether the WTO or IMF could be linked to one nation or another. But I'd take a wild guess that there aren't a lot of Argentinians or Zimbabweans in positions of power at IMF or WTO, dictating economic policy that shapes those countries.

There might not be any Brooklyn-born viceroy sitting in Warsaw or Okinawa, issuing commands about which citizens must disappear. But there are unelected oligarchs sitting in board rooms in the states or anywhere, exercising more control than some nations do, erecting barriers to democracy less directly but maybe more effectively than traditional empire.

If it acts like an empire and quacks like an empire and accomplishes the same kind of things an empire would, why not call it an empire?

Ah. Not used to USians freely admiting to having/having had an empire...

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Empire by stealth... Very clever, and very, very bad.

"Empire by stealth..."

Oi, don't balme me!

No, I doubt that they started out with a cunning plan to be an empire by stealth, but when they saw they had an oppertunity to do it, they took it.

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Yes, that's exactly how I see it.

If there was a country, who in the past had overthrown a few regimes and bombed some countries, that started to get really powerful. Well, I´d also want to perhaps attack them and reduce their power while I still had the chance. Though I can´t see Iran on their own having that much of a chance.

We have two unresolved debacles going on in Afganistan and Iraq already. I think it would be a nice idea to at least wrap one up before the US moves onto another with Iran - or is complete destabilisation of the Middle East the idea here?
What about North Korea? Oh, no. I forgot. They have real nuclear toys they can throw back dont they. Cant see the US having a go there because they could and in all liklihood would start nuking things in retalliation - like Japan for starters.

Personally I hate the whole Lets do the same as US thing. Would be great if all of europe and other parts of the world stood up to the US. Though i wouldn't like the ensuing violence.


I wonder how these opinions are going to affect my application to join the RN?




Now anyone reading this thread without context of the current guise of how it is described by the US and the rest of western media (i don't know about any other media). Would they liken this situtation to anyother that has been seen in history?

I think we are starting to see the beginning of the end for American global supremacy anyway. Nobody, however powerful they are can go round the world starting mutliple wars just because they do not like this regime or that dictator. Sooner or later you run out of men and materials, not to mention cash to feed the war machine.
Nobody likes Terrorism, but the methods the US are employing are heavy handed blunt instruments that are not doing the job. Witness one former clerics son holding the might of the US off in Najaf for example.
All these actions are doing is alienating America further - Europe is lukewarm at best and the majority of the muslim and Palestinian worlds positevely loathe the US for the one sided approach in Israel. They even now support further building in the West bank, which was supposed to be handed back.
Eventually I predict that the aliied support the US has will fade away as the number of wars increases. The UK alone simply does not have the capacity to stretch any further, no matter how much Tony Blair would like to be seen as on a par with Bush. This will leave the US alone in its fighting, and eventually US public opinion itself will not bear that and demand the troops come home.
The US will turn inward and barracade itself in, in all likelihood leaving the world a far more dangerous place than it was before all this adventuring began.
The whole idea of fighting terrorism is still a noble one, but terribly misguided when you consider the way they are doing it. A fully armed nuclear Aircraft Carrier is no match for a lone suicide bomber who does not give a jot about dying for his cause. New tactics are required for that kind of war, George...........

The reason North Korea isn't going to be challenged by the USA is because they can't win that war by bombing from the air. That would have to send in huge number of ground troops into a kind of terrain that "The Best Equiped Army In The World" isn't eally equiped/trained for and kill hundreds of thousands of Koreans, the North Korean goverment has popular support with the people. The USA is hated there and for once the USians actually realize they are hated by the civilians there and that civilians there would put up resistance.

Stealth, I like this term "USians" you keep using. More accurate than the usual "Americans" which should rightly describe all people from North, South and Central America. We could say "Yanks" but the rebs would refuse that term.

How does one pronounce "USians?"