Number one in a series: half baked political theory quiz.
Why would the U.S. ignore North Korea in light of the general agreement that they are making nuclear bombs (maybe around 6 by the summer is one estimate I heard,) and have missles capable of reaching the U.S.? Please answer in two words.
1) ay-rab fixation
2) f*ck california!
yellow peril
God knows (and speaks directly to the oval office).
C student
blame clinton
dry drunk
Sorry. All good answers, but not what we were looking for. Possibly I should have called it the half baked political conspiracy theory quiz. Or, in other words, what possible benefit could there be in the administrations apparent position of letting N. Korea build more nukes to load onto missles targeted at the U.S.?
Star wars (the Regan era boondoggle strikes back!)
Just a thought.
Doh!
I was working in the defense industry at the time, and personally flushed taxpayer money down the toilet, but only in small quantities.
Invigorated by Reagan's massive defense allocations, the military-industrial complex in that era was coming up with all sorts of ways to extend the arms race -- nuclear-tipped cruise missiles secreted inside ersatz beer trucks, massive rail systems in the Great Basin states for mobile ICBMs, anti-satellite missiles (which they wanted to test, thereby surrounding the planet in a fine layer of orbital shrapnel), and the mother of all boondoggles -- the strategic defense initiative.
.
Ah, the classics never die.
with all due respect, what a buncha crap.
how come y'all never use occam's razor? it's more like the reverse.
you don't NEED conspiracy theory to understand what's happening: north korea has called our bluff - successfully.
we are afraid to escalate because they're unpredictable - and very well might respond to, say, a limited strike on their reactor with, say, a hit on Seoul.
we will have to negotiate, and we will have to buy them off.
china and russia know this, and so they're not rushing to help (if they truly believed there might be a war they would probably get off their ass to stop it).
meanwhile the drive towards missile defense was well underway before this development in the crisis - remember, this was the rationale for our scrapping the ABM treaty, Bush's first big foreign policy move; it has been a pet project of rumsfeld's since he chaired a commission on it under clinton; and in general had a full head of steam -- even before ALL the funding requests were approved in the post-9/11 military bonanza/feeding frenzy (and also before the republican trifecta was completed in the fall of 2002)
so there's no credible reason to think missile defense proponents would endanger the US in order to get approval for their systems. they don't and didn't need to.
i gotta say that to be truly satisfying a conspiracy theory should fit the facts a little more
(reminiscent of the claim that the republicans sabotaged Wellstone's plane WHILE THEY WERE KICKING HIS ASS IN THE POLLS)
N. Korea called our bluff because we raised the stakes. So why did Bush raise the stakes? I think he's following one of Sharon's doctrines: escalation increases the power of the hawks, even if the escalation is itself a failure.
Tensions started escalating with N. Korea when Bush included it in the Axis of Evil. The administration had been touting (I'd say inflating) the danger of "rogue states" to justify the lucrative Star Wars franchise after the Cold War. Who said anything about a conspiracy?
Actually Jim called it the "half baked political conspiracy theory quiz," but he was just being modest.
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Why would the U.S. ignore North Korea in light of the general agreement that they are making nuclear bombs (maybe around 6 by the summer is one estimate I heard,) and have missles capable of reaching the U.S.? Please answer in two words.
- jim 3-10-2003 11:40 pm
1) ay-rab fixation
2) f*ck california!
- mark 3-10-2003 11:51 pm [add a comment]
yellow peril
- dave 3-10-2003 11:56 pm [add a comment]
God knows (and speaks directly to the oval office).
- bruno 3-11-2003 12:05 am [add a comment]
C student
- dave 3-11-2003 12:12 am [add a comment]
blame clinton
- mark 3-11-2003 12:22 am [add a comment]
dry drunk
- mark 3-11-2003 3:54 am [add a comment]
Sorry. All good answers, but not what we were looking for. Possibly I should have called it the half baked political conspiracy theory quiz. Or, in other words, what possible benefit could there be in the administrations apparent position of letting N. Korea build more nukes to load onto missles targeted at the U.S.?
Star wars (the Regan era boondoggle strikes back!)
Just a thought.
- jim 3-11-2003 5:44 pm [add a comment]
Doh!
I was working in the defense industry at the time, and personally flushed taxpayer money down the toilet, but only in small quantities.
Invigorated by Reagan's massive defense allocations, the military-industrial complex in that era was coming up with all sorts of ways to extend the arms race -- nuclear-tipped cruise missiles secreted inside ersatz beer trucks, massive rail systems in the Great Basin states for mobile ICBMs, anti-satellite missiles (which they wanted to test, thereby surrounding the planet in a fine layer of orbital shrapnel), and the mother of all boondoggles -- the strategic defense initiative.
.
Ah, the classics never die.
- mark 3-11-2003 10:14 pm [add a comment]
with all due respect, what a buncha crap.
how come y'all never use occam's razor? it's more like the reverse.
you don't NEED conspiracy theory to understand what's happening: north korea has called our bluff - successfully.
we are afraid to escalate because they're unpredictable - and very well might respond to, say, a limited strike on their reactor with, say, a hit on Seoul.
we will have to negotiate, and we will have to buy them off.
china and russia know this, and so they're not rushing to help (if they truly believed there might be a war they would probably get off their ass to stop it).
meanwhile the drive towards missile defense was well underway before this development in the crisis - remember, this was the rationale for our scrapping the ABM treaty, Bush's first big foreign policy move; it has been a pet project of rumsfeld's since he chaired a commission on it under clinton; and in general had a full head of steam -- even before ALL the funding requests were approved in the post-9/11 military bonanza/feeding frenzy (and also before the republican trifecta was completed in the fall of 2002)
so there's no credible reason to think missile defense proponents would endanger the US in order to get approval for their systems. they don't and didn't need to.
i gotta say that to be truly satisfying a conspiracy theory should fit the facts a little more
(reminiscent of the claim that the republicans sabotaged Wellstone's plane WHILE THEY WERE KICKING HIS ASS IN THE POLLS)
- big jimmy 3-25-2003 2:29 am [add a comment]
huh, kicking wellstones ass?
- dave 3-25-2003 6:25 am [add a comment]
ok, my bad. didn't realize there had been a surge. prior to that my recollection is that he was doing quite poorly for an incumbent.
- big jimmy 3-27-2003 10:45 am [add a comment]
N. Korea called our bluff because we raised the stakes. So why did Bush raise the stakes? I think he's following one of Sharon's doctrines: escalation increases the power of the hawks, even if the escalation is itself a failure.
- mark 3-25-2003 4:50 am [add a comment]
Tensions started escalating with N. Korea when Bush included it in the Axis of Evil. The administration had been touting (I'd say inflating) the danger of "rogue states" to justify the lucrative Star Wars franchise after the Cold War. Who said anything about a conspiracy?
- tom moody 3-25-2003 5:14 am [add a comment]
Exactly, what conspiricy? And wasn't one of Bush's campaign issues the need of a space based missle defense shield in order to curtail the N. Korea threat?
- steve 3-25-2003 5:46 am [add a comment]
Actually Jim called it the "half baked political conspiracy theory quiz," but he was just being modest.
- tom moody 3-25-2003 10:50 am [add a comment]