Americans Say World War III Likely Options

[Aeon]

Sometimes Yahoo has the most idiotic headlines on its homepage. I clicked on this one, expecting, I don't know, insight. Turned out to be more about how Japanese and Americans feel about one another. Oh, and whether or not the use of atomic weaponry at the end of WWII was justified .

Anyhow, "likely" isn't really the point for me. There IS a conflict, a global one, at the moment. Is it a war? Something more along the lines of guerilla warfare, perhaps? I would define "war" the old-fashioned way: battles, battlefields, battered flags, MASH personnel being noble. I don't see that happening anymore. If there will be a third world "war", my feeling is that it will be fought economically, with the Chinese being the possible victors.

What do you think?

[PalePhoenix]

Yawhore made a whole article out of that? Granted, they've never been my preferred news source, but this isn't "news." It's the same fear-infused pablum we Americans are spoon-fed constantly, of late. A sensational headline is what it is, a cheap ploy for attention. With fresh bombings in London and an under-the-radar renewal of the Patriot Act, I genuinely don't give a shit what Mr. Average American thinks about his impending doom.

We're all gonna die, m'kaay? Just take that as a given, get over it, and your remaining days won't be so neurotic, and you'll be far less of an irritant or danger to those around you. No stockpiling ammo or tins of chipped beef, pleeze.

Do I think WWIII is imminent? Depends on how far back you want me to stand when I make that assessment. In many cases, you could say it's already happening--though not in the obvious sense of ground troops, ballistic missiles, and feeling invasion-y. Economical undermining of the American farmers and tradesman by Asian countries (as instituted by American corporations), letting sub-Saharan Africa die from AIDS or kill itself off in the Sudan, and the fraudulent war in Iraq are all rather global signs of self-imposed apocalypse. If you want to see it that way.

Is an actual World War possible at this juncture? I say not. North Korea's saber rattling and Kimmy's Napoleon complex aside, saying you "have the bomb" and actually using it are an abyss apart. Referring to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is inappropriate. Such an egregious error cannot happen again, if only because it already has. Who is North Korea going to bomb, and why? There's no advantage to it, and they'd be annihilated within twenty minutes of attempting such a thing.

The worry, however exaggerated and slightly misplaced, is about Islamic fundamentalists. If al Qaeda had a nuclear missile, or detonated some other radiological device, they'd do so out of the blindness and egotism of their [version of that] faith. Allah akbar, and whatnot. They are all myopic, narrow-minded fools. The recent attacks at Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt should be proof enough of that.

Ultimately, "world war" isn't possible anymore, or it would require such a dramatic departure from modern tactics that even terrorists would have to shift targets. I wonder, sometimes, why no one has stopped to notice how "crippling the American satan" has always meant undermining financial icons. Even someone as psychotic as Osama bin Laden isn't stupid enough to bomb St. Peter's Basilica. All of North Korea knows another Communist state is at its doorstep...but it's one which will bitchslap them back into the Stone Age if they interfere with its progress.

Once upon a time, dear, a war of the worlds was less complicated. And Tom Cruise didn't have a starring role.

[Archemini]

I really don't think its imminent. 50-60 years perhaps but not within the next 20. I don't see anyone pulling that trigger..excuse the bad pun..anytime soon. Things work themselves out because no one wants to be the country that starts WWIII. Will it eventually happen? I say yes only because things such as war and world powers going down the shitter are circular and happen quite often.

It will happen, but not anytime soon.

[circle6]

The evolution of technology has changed the terms of war, just as it's changed economies, information gathering and distribution, and entertainment. War isn't simply the act of one goverment's army physically arming and crossing into another country's geographic border, anymore -- and a world war isn't likely to be two or more armies clashing on a single foreign battlefield. When a small band of dedicated fanatics can cause casualties anytime and anyplace with mobile phones, paint stripper, and plastic food containers, the image of soldiers with rifles shooting at each other across a farm field seems quaint. There are simply many more ways to kill people now.

Instead, what we face now and in the future are "wars" without end. Tit for tat. Payback for payback. Avengement and revenge in a climate of escalating mistrust and fear. The nuclear option still looms, but to those whose zeal for fighting (and dying) is fueled by ideals -- whether for religion convictions or for cherished paradigms like "freedom" and "liberty" -- does widespread, remote-control destruction seem necessary, or even "satisfying"?

[JeMagenotsen]

I wish that all wars would be fought economically, but I never see that happening. Sooner or later, bad feelings escalate and it's open warfare. Is a third world war coming? I pray that's it's not. There are too many nations with nuclear bombs and trigger-happy despots.

[Gorgon]

I think that we are already embroiled in the third world war and have failed to notice simply because we have been "taught" about the previous two in particular ways, and exposed to so much of their respective imagery, including to that of the pissing contests of the Cold War, fought on Korean and Vietnamese soil (to name the most obvious battlegrounds), that "war" has taken on very definite connotations already referred to here on this thread in several ways, connotations that do not always seem to be evoked by the current sudden, scattered shatterings of lives over several different continents.

Things change, including why and how wars are fought. I simply see no possibility for any further full-on military warfare of the kind our ancestors were fighting not so very long ago. I do not at all allow for even the possibility of the use of nuclear weaponry at any point by any nation to whom they are available -- these have become tools of manipulation, rather than of destruction. On that, it seems most of us here seem to agree. We do not, however, all agree that what is now happening at regular intervals is indeed a world war; there is a whole wig of hairs to split here, I imagine....

Aeon wrote: "If there will be a third world 'war', my feeling is that it will be fought economically, with the Chinese being the possible victors." I do not disagree with that assessment, and although I think economic warfare has the potential to supplant military types of warfare, I see the world fighting itself with both the slow poisons of capitalism AND the "sudden, scattered shatterings" of various forms of religious fundamentalism and extremism.

And having just written that, I'm experiencing a sort of deja-vu: this shit has been going on for thousands of years, hasn't it? The ropey old cliche applies none-the-less: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Och -- I'm so tired of it all. I think I'll start baking my cake for Judgment Day now.

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[Archemini]

I tend to agree with circle6 on such a World War being a tit for tat "you bombed me I bomb you" type fight. I don't know if the nuclear option will be used anytime soon even in defense, like most countries intend them as.

An economic World War would result in us being embarrassed like never before. We simply cannot compete with China and it would likely spell the end of the United States as a world power.

[PalePhoenix]

Clearly, we do things so differently now.



(click pic for more)

Puts that bad hair day in perspective, doesn’t it.

Again, to restate the point: let’s imagine how some people – hell, a lot of people – would react if the government put posters like this in bus stops and public buildings today. People would shriek as if they were having burned skin peeled off with a straight-edge razor. They would be convinced that the transformation of America into a fascist state was finally complete. But this was FDR’s America. Just so we’re clear.

[Gorgon]

OK, eew. But when they start plastering these up, or ones similar, cross a national border, like, real quick, like Cerberus is on yer tits:



It reads, "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community of the people 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Comrade, that is your money, too. Read 'New People', the monthly magazine of the political-race office of the [it's close enough, now, innitt?] Nazi party."

[PalePhoenix]

Since we have LandoverBaptist in another thread, here's its evil[er] twin sister:

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/family.html

[ganymede]

Now the Indonesians are asking, "Why ME?" If anyone had better reason to believe the apocalypse was nigh, it's either these guys, or the folks in New Orleans. It's God's wrath, dont-cha know.

[Gemsa]

Last night my computer rebooted without warning or explanation. It came back up with everything normal seeming so I assumed it was one of those bastard windows updates. About an hour later I was using firefox and then it stopped responding to clocks. Outside of firefox, a mouseclick was recognized once per item, but no more. Using alt + ctrl + del results in the icon for the system monitor showing up in the tasktray, but nothing more. I could not interact. I rebooted it in safe mode and used system restore to take it to about 3 days back. (I haven't had any other day work so far and I've tried at least 10 different days.) I thought it had fixed it, and I left the computer running all night with no programs open. In the morning, I went to firefox and after about 10 minutes, everything locked again. Rebooted and tried internet explorer with the same result. I just now removed firefox 3.0 and then installed 3.5, but that didn't change anything. While downloading new nvidia drivers (I suspect that it's a graphical problem) the system locked again and I just now rebooted. I am very frustrated. Neither AVG nor SpyRemover find any viruses or other malware. They're both up to date. Part of what is bothering me is that there are no symptoms of viruses or malware outside of this. In some ways, that would almost be preferable. At the moment though, I am stuck, so please do what you can to help.

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[Frains]

Personally I never have 2 Anti-Virus programs installed at the same time. They seem to have a knack for totally screwing each other up. They like to detect each other as a virus signature and tend to blow each other up. ~Yiffy MSE


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[Agnusny]

My laptop got repaired and restored to factory settings from having a virus and now the headphones port isn't working. I plug in the earphones but the sound still comes through the speakers. How do I fix it? Running Windows Vista


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