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[antybaner]

So I think some of you noticed how the US decided to go and start bombarding the middle east countries. They said that they were "Freeing the country from the oppression of dictatorship"... Srsly? Wtf!? If you go into a country and start bombarding it and killing tons of civilians then isn't that sort of worst than dictatorship? And what was so wrong with the middle east? I see North Korea under a much greater oppression than, for instance, Syria or something. Why doesn't the US "intervene" in N.Korea?  

[Oddball]

I thought antymattar was banned?

[antybaner]

How is this relevant?

[Jasmine]

I imagine some governments fear the creation of an Islamic state, which looked likely in the 1990s. The military campaign over the past 10 years have probably set that back. I'm not saying that was an objective -- that's for readers to ponder.

North Korea's strategic value comes only through it's relationship with China. The US has no real qualms with China at the present time, even though they threaten the economic interests of the US. In the future, North Korea will be an excuse for the US to have qualms with China, which is why it's in their best interests to leave it alone at present.

[moi]

I imagine some governments fear the creation of an Islamic state, which looked likely in the 1990s.

WTF are you talking about? there have been islamic states since the 70s, also: saddam hussein and gadaffi were the best protection against islamic regimes that you could dream of. These wars are the best way to encourage militant islmaism.
one word: oil interests, fucking greedy shadowy assholes like donald rumsfeld are making a fortune out of this.

Also: I like how antymattar just doesn't stick to talking about videogames. this guy is hardcore.

[Jasmine]

WTF are you talking about? there have been islamic states since the 70s

What I mean is the political and economic structure associated with the installation of a new caliphate.

[Mikademus]

There has been a strong movement to create a pan-Islamic nation (or federation, callitwhatyawill) since the 1950's. It used to have strong and growing political and intellectual backing, f.i. with the Egypt 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, which is an alternative to the U.N. Declaration human rights that explicitly mentions "Muslim governments" and redefines freedom or religion as the duty of all Muslims to respect the religions and beliefs of non-Muslims.

What Jasmine might be referring to is that oil money, fanning intra-Islam factional and religious sub-grouping conflicts, and military actions have all worked to take focus away from and split this process. In its wake has been created a growing resentment and hatred toward the West in general and US in particular, but this passion is inchoate and seems to be working against a unified front by feeding regionalism and factionalism as much as outward-oriented hatred, which can be seen as indicating a successful long-term strategy.

[Jasmine]

Also read about the 'Seven Worlds Index'. It's basically an extension of the 'three worlds theory', that attempts to categorise nations. If you read between the lines with it you can gain some insight into the strategic landscape of the world:

1. Liberal Democracy
-- ally = you.

2. Communist and Post Communist
-- competition = too big to deal with directly

3. Newly Industrializing Countries
-- neutral high value = things you would like to claim so that your competition cannot.

4. Less Developed Countries
-- neutral low value = things both you and your competition could claim.

5. Marginal States
-- negative value = things you don't want to claim. Better to push a nation into this category than allow it to be claimed by your opponent.

6. Islamic World
-- third horse = growing threat to both (1) and (2).

7. Microstates
-- lottery bonus ball = valuable to their neighbour. Only valuable with their neighbour.

[Dragonmaw]

Antymatter, this isn't exactly the best thread to make for your return. Borderline flamebait. Perhaps you should go into feedback or devlogs and leave some feedback on people's projects.

[antybaner]

Antymatter, this isn't exactly the best thread to make for your return. Borderline flamebait. Perhaps you should go into feedback or devlogs and leave some feedback on people's projects.

Wow, I didn't get banned! Anyway, yeah. I thought about it but then again what can I say that hasn't been said? Fez is Awesome, I am unproductive(sometimes), cavestory is da pown.

Also read about the 'Seven Worlds Index'. It's basically an extension of the 'three worlds theory', that attempts to categorise nations. If you read between the lines with it you can gain some insight into the strategic landscape of the world:

1. Liberal Democracy
-- ally = you.

2. Communist and Post Communist
-- competition = too big to deal with directly

3. Newly Industrializing Countries
-- neutral high value = things you would like to claim so that your competition cannot.

4. Less Developed Countries
-- neutral low value = things both you and your competition could claim.

5. Marginal States
-- negative value = things you don't want to claim. Better to push a nation into this category than allow it to be claimed by your opponent.

6. Islamic World
-- third horse = growing threat to both (1) and (2).

7. Microstates
-- lottery bonus ball = valuable to their neighbour. Only valuable with their neighbour.

I hope you dont agree with that list. Do you have a link to where you got this cause I found a lot of flaws in the idea.

1- What about republics? My country is a republic. Democracy is easier to exploit.

2- What about large countries that are also democratic/republic/constitutional monarchy but are opposed to your actions(Sweden, Russia, Australia)

3- The thing about newly industrialized countries is that they are already owned by some other huge country. Its the only way they can become industrialized in the first place. It is rare to have them develop by themselves.

4- They are being exploited. I find it VERRY disturbing how many powerful countries have many week poor countries right next to them.(Russia - the southern Russian states. US - Haiti and mexico etc)

5- I dont know where you got this but if the people agree with this kind of knowledge then I am sorry. It just doesn't make sense how doing economic genocide is better than letting the country prosper and not be under your rule.

6- The least logical of the lot. How does it make a country a threat if it has a particular belief? I could say that every country could make a list of "threat" states that they were against due to their religion. Then I guaranty every country would have enemies.

7- You play too much civ 5.

[DavidCaruso]

There's no money to be made in North Korea and there isn't any huge strategic value at this point in invading the country and "freeing the people" by putting military there (except maybe against China, but they could have easily done that formally with Pakistan as well during the whole OBL death fiasco and they didn't as far as I know...though the "informal" drone strikes, etc. are still continuing.) I know someone's going to mention nukes and MAD so let me say in advance that it's very, very doubtful that any NK weapons have the range or size to make a dent in any US territory. Meanwhile US nukes can be delivered anywhere, anytime with a 99% guarantee.

one word: oil interests, fucking greedy shadowy assholes like donald rumsfeld are making a fortune out of this.

more like Dick Cheney amirite

[Paul Eres]

it's more that various corporate interests are paying rumsfeld and cheney (and, for that matter, obama) to continue the wars than that they themselves are making a fortune out of it; rumsfeld and cheney are not billionaires, they're just the tools of billionaires

anyway this subject/topic seems way too broad for cogent discussion. basically, yes, the US is endangering the people of the US and harming innocents by engaging in trying to maintain its collapsing empire. the collapse of an empire sometimes takes hundreds of years (as with the roman empire), and we're about in the middle of it; expect china, russia, and brazil to be the new superpowers after another hundred years or so; then the world will be a little more peaceful than it is now, because the ideal situation for the world is three superpowers rather than one or two (see: romance of the three kingdoms)

two superpowers is the worst situation (the US vs USSR was a period of many proxy wars), one superpower isn't much better (because they constantly try to keep new ones from arising, and overexpand and necessarily collapse due to lack of competition), three is best

[antybaner]

You're talking as if it was natural to "try and slow the collapse of asuperpower". Its like it would be acceptable to destroy nations in order to "preserve" your force. Its an atrocity!!!

[Paul Eres]

superorgansisms such as nations are not human beings, so they are under no obligations to act in humane ways, and never have. the moment you have a nation trying to act in a humane way (such as to avoid atrocities) is the moment that nation is conquered by another nation. it's not a good thing but it's how it works; nations care no more about killing people than you care about the bacteria you kill when you wash your hands

[moi]

Donald rumsfeld is like the worse person on earth.
He was an architect of the war on iraq. This guy has interest in oil industries (oil prices skyrocketed during the war), also he has interests in private weapon manufacturers and privite armies, he was the guy who insisted to have a maximum of private security companies on the ground in iraq, he also sold a defective vehicle to the US army, all that against many people's opinions.
Around the war there was  a flu epidemic, during which we learned that rumsfeld had a lot of shares in the company that manufactured the only vaccine against the flu!

but his history goes back way before the iraq war, he was already in place during vietnam, and he was saddam's best friend during the iran/iraq war.