New $50k Robot Truck Could Save US Lives in War Zones...if... If Congress allocates funds to companies to manufacture them and send them where needed. http://www.trn1.com/wattenburg-news It's only a matter of time before they are purchased, IMHO, so why not do it sooner rather than later? Current IED resistant vehicles cost $1,000,000 each and are still vulnerable to enemy IED blasts, leaving men wounded and dead. Why not help prevent so much loss of blood and treasure and get these trucks where they will make a difference?
While I agree that these would save live, those lives wouldn't need saving if we didn't have the troops in the Middle East.
Can you imagine the shixstorm we'd be left to clean up, just to protect our own interests, should we take a non interventionist stance and leave these hotspots to the bad guys who'd love us to leave the sandbox to them to decide its future. Take WWII, for example. If we had stood strong against Japan in 1931 when they were starting their conquest of much of Asia do you really think we'd have been attacked at Pearl Harbor and been plunged into a much costlier and deadly war? If we, or ANYBODY, had stood up to Hitler's aggression in Europe do you really think 50 million people would have died and cost the USA BILLIONS of dollars (in 1940's dollars!)? Our interventions overseas is done in OUR interests. A stitch in time saves nine. Or, we could do it your way and let history repeat itself. As bad as you think our foreign policy is today, just know that it can very easily be much worse. Worse? Yeah, today there are nukes and chemical and biological weapons that could make your idea for a sound foreign policy seem stupidly nearsighted.
Spare me the propaganda. What is audaciously near sighted is your implied claim that intervention in the affairs of foreign nations is always a good thing. Making policy on the basis of "Gosh 10 years from now this country might be a threat so we should attack them now" is lunacy in general with the possible exception of nuclear proliferation. Neocon nutters such as Cheney and Wolfowitz concocted a retarded doctrine "pre-emptive force based on a percieved threat" but even these guys would likely shy away from nonsence such as (hmmm this country is building some military equipment and patroling the pacific). In 1931 we were not the world power we are now. The markets had crashed and we were in the first phases of the Great Depression. Had we taken our 3 aircraft carriers and a few old battleships and inexperienced crews over to Japan we likely would have gotten our butts handed to us by the battle hardened Japanese war machine. There is a big difference between them coming to us and us going over to fight them. There is a huge advantage to the defender and this advantage was even more so due to the technological limitations of 1931. http://www.pacificwar.org.au/USJapNavAir.html Here is what the Japanese were fielding against the Chinese in 1932 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Battle_January_28_Incident
A few assorted factoids do not an argument make. I never said intervention always works in our favor, but how can doing nothing in the face of blatant military aggression by the forces of tyranny ever be good for our own Democracy?
Facts often do make a good argument. Denial of reality certainly does not make a good argument. In far too many cases we are the forces of tyranny involved in blatant military aggression. This does not seem to affect our Democracy so I cant see how ignoring the tyranny of others would have any effect.
That's your intellectual blindness on display for the amusement of our readers. You say you can't see how ignoring Germany or Japan's aggression and tyranny would have any effect? Stop embarrassing yourself.
We did ignore Germany until the agression was directly against us from Japan. Thinking that WWII is the same as Iraq or some othere regional coflict that is not directed against us is foolish.
Oh, giftedone, please tell us if you think we suffered fewer deaths and saved more money by waiting to be attacked.
Definately we suffered fewer deaths. The Russians did most of the heavy lifting in that regard. The US was making money off both sides in the initial phases of the war and getting involved later probably saved us some money. Regardless, WWII has little to do with small scale regional conflicts.
You have little to do with rational thinking. I'm torn between rescuing you from your "giftedness" and just leaving you here to enjoy your "giftedness" alone for fear someone might see me wallowing around with you and think I enjoy operating at your level of ignorance.
I just wish you would provide something other than Ad Hom. Normally when one accuses someone of ignorance they state what the error is. That is unless the person making the claim of ignorance is ignorant of the fact that they should substantiate the claim of ignorance. Go figure.
