Malaysian 777 Plane Crashes in Ukraine

ChasenSFO said:
An airliner shot out of the sky in cruise on an airway flown by members of this forum, 298 innocent people suffered what must have been a horribly traumatic death leaving behind scores of children, parents, siblings, friends and coworkers, the world is scrambling to find out what happened, and mean while, here we have a 20 page thread about isolationism and Israel. Great. Stay classy JC.
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I'd say that nothing is more classy than talking about serious topics that need to be discussed. What do you want? Thirty pages of "godspeed," and "rest in peace?"
 
JordanD said:
Not that I'm saying we should be totally isolationist, but I can't help but feel like a ton of our problems would be solved if we stopped playing world police, or not even going that far, the dad that's constantly turning around and saying "Don't make me turn this car around!" when the kids misbehave.

We catch crap every time we do get involved in something, and if we don't get involved all we hear is "why isn't the U.S. doing something?!" Unfortunately it's probably too late for us to throw our hands up and say "everyone's on their own", and the rest of the world knows that.
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I think non-interventionism is the better choice here :)
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I'd say that nothing is more classy than talking about serious topics that need to be discussed. What do you want? Thirty pages of "godspeed," and "rest in peace?"
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I think we'd be essentially trampling on the graves of the victims if we didn't have at least one somber moment of silence, followed by a dirge, followed by a reading of "High Flight".
 
Gavrilo Princip strikes from beyond the grave again. Between he and the Romans we're all doomed to eternal strife.

Spin to your heart's content and run to your geopolitical experts for advice as needed.
 
Somewhat human nature.

When there's a big story on a 24 hour new cycle on cable television, it's 5% fact, 15% opinion 80% "And now, the Kardashian Connection" I really haven't seen a way to avoid it and I'm just as guilty as the next guy! :)
 
chrisreedrules said:
Well... To begin to understand American military actions post DUBYA DUBYA DEUCE you have to understand the world stage that was left to the US... A reasonable estimate of World War II's cost to the world was about fifty million dead (military and civilian deaths combined). Europe had torn itself to shreds in this war, and nations were devastated. In contrast, the United States lost around half a million military dead and had almost no civilian casualties. At the end of the war, the American industrial plant was much stronger than before the war; the United States was the only combatant nation for which that was the case. No American cities were bombed (excepting Pearl Harbor), no U.S. territory was occupied (except two small islands in the Aleutians), and the United States suffered less than 1 percent of the war's casualties.

For that price, the United States emerged from World War II not only controlling the North Atlantic but ruling all of the world's oceans. It also occupied Western Europe, shaping the destinies of countries like France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and indeed Great Britain itself. The United States simultaneously conquered and occupied Japan, almost as an afterthought to the European campaigns.

US control of the sea meant that the United States was able not only to engage in but to define global maritime trade. It could make the rules, or at least block anyone else's rules, by denying other nations entry to the world's trade routes. In general, the United States shaped the international trading system more subtly, by using access to the vast American market as a lever to shape the behavior of other nations. It was not surprising, then, that in addition to its natural endowments, the United States became enormously prosperous from its sea power and that the Soviet Union couldn't possibly compete, being landlocked.

If we view the beginning of the twenty-first century as the dawn of the American Age (superseding the European Age), we see that it began with a group of Muslims seeking to re-create the Caliphate—the great Islamic empire that once ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Inevitably, they had to strike at the United States in an attempt to draw the world's primary power into war, trying to demonstrate its weakness in order to trigger an Islamic uprising. The United States responded by invading the Islamic world. But its goal wasn't victory. It wasn't even clear what victory would mean. Its goal was simply to disrupt the Islamic world and set it against itself, so that an Islamic empire could not emerge. The United States doesn't need to win wars. It needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can't build up sufficient strength to challenge it.

People talk about “the long war,” and the idea that the United States and Muslims will be fighting for a century. As is usually the case, what appears permanent is only a passing phase. Consider the twenty-year perspective. Conflict may continue, but the strategic challenge to American power is coming to an end. Al Qaeda has failed in its goals. The United States has succeeded, not so much in winning the war as in preventing the Islamists from winning, and, from a geopolitical perspective, that is good enough. The twenty-first century has begun with an American success that on the surface looks like not only a defeat but a deep political and moral embarrassment.
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This is plagiarized from George Friedman.
 
Derg said:
Somewhat human nature.

When there's a big story on a 24 hour new cycle on cable television, it's 5% fact, 15% opinion 80% "And now, the Kardashian Connection" I really haven't seen a way to avoid it and I'm just as guilty as the next guy! :)
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No doubt. But I'm with you: Instead of going off on a discussion of geopolitics, it needs to be realized that this isn't just some obscure accident that's happened on the other side of the world. A civilian jet being shot down over continental Europe on a heavily-trafficked route (flown by many of us personally) is just as bad as the same thing happening on J65 to PHX. It's scary, hits very close to home, and discussing Israel/isolationism/whatever the hell these people are talking about in this thread is completely unimportant.
 
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