kathy and Zimbler0:
Re: “ where would Britain bed bench heroid you read De's post? Just wondering what you thought of it....and wondering what HE thought of it, too.”
I assume you're referring to my article, "Trump, Gorbachev and the fall of the American empire"?
I thought it was a pretty good piece, actually. Remember, it was published by the 'Asia Times,' and might therefore have a considerably different attitude toward the United States than we are used to seeing in our own publications. The author, clearly, isn't our biggest fan - but why should he be? He's not an American. He repeatedly refers to our "illegal wars" and speaks of our "insidious hold over the world."
Okay, that's opinion. His facts and reasoning were pretty good, I think. I agree that "these are the declining days of the last empire standing." I've said as much on this forum, many times.
Decreasing aid to foreign countries and expecting them to pay for their own defense is, indeed, going to lessen the extent to which they kowtow to our whims. "The stick loses power as the carrot vanishes." Yup.
Many of the points made were interesting. For instance, the claim that illegal aliens are enticed into the country so that they can fight in our wars and gain citizenship. That's something you don't read here too often. I don't agree with it, but it's true that we do that and I could see how the rest of the world might therefore conclude that we actually want the illegal aliens.
I did catch one factual error, the claim that the US has "the biggest nuclear arsenal on the planet." if you check Wikipedia, you'll see that the US has under 7000 nuclear bombs, and Russia has under 8000. But that's nitpicking. It doesn't detract from my general appreciation of the article.
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
| 