Russia Writes Off 90 Percent of North Korea Debt 234
jones_supa (887896) writes "In Russia, the State Duma (lower house) on Friday ratified a 2012 agreement to write off the bulk of North Korea's debt. It said the total debt stood at $10.96 billion as of Sept. 17, 2012. Russia sees this lucrative in advancing the plans to build a gas pipe and railroad through North to South Korea. The rest of the debt, $1.09 billion, would be redeemed during the next 20 years, to be paid in equal installments every six months. The outstanding debt owed by North Korea will be managed by Russia's state development bank, Vnesheconombank. Moscow has been trying to diversify its energy sales to Asia away from Europe, which, in its turn, wants to cut its dependence on oil and gas from the erstwhile Cold War foe. Russia's state-owned top natural producer Gazprom is dreaming shipping 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually through the Koreas. Russia has written off debts to a number of impoverished Soviet-era allies, including Cuba. North Korea's struggling communist economy is just 2 percent of the size of neighboring South's."
THROUGH North Korea?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia sees this lucrative in advancing the plans to build a gas pipe and railroad through North to South Korea
Seriously? Lay critical crucial infrastructure through North Korea to South Korea?
There's no way Pyongyang would manipulate those rails and pipes in a fit of political pique that seems to happen, oh, once every eight months. Absolutely now way.
Re:THROUGH North Korea?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:THROUGH North Korea?! (Score:5, Insightful)
north korea is the westboro baptist church of countries
they want to offend
like an internet troll, every negative reaction is positive reinforcement
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China and Russia are its traditional allies, and are treated very differently.
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Please. He doesn't need to hold them. He can levitate them with his mind after trying it for the first time.
No wait, North Koreans don't have an equivalent of Marvel...
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You are wrong on ALL accounts.
1. China is in fact allied with North Korea. Much of the "old guard" of Chinese party still remembers Korean war where Chinese were fighting on North's side. Additionally they have a lot of interest in both using North Korea as a suitable proxy for dirtiest clandestine business as well as a massive destabilizer for its regional geopolitical enemies like Japan and South Korea as well as US who has a lot of forces tied countering it. If these forces were freed, they would move to
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Use news instead of using gut feeling (Score:2)
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China has the US by the balls via debt
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." -- J. Paul Getty
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China has the US by the balls via debt
OM F***ing G. I know this is a popular theme on Slashdot, but please STOP. It is wrong, and stems from a serious misunderstanding about what it means to say that "the US owes China money."
Go to your local bank branch, or hop on E*Trade, and buy a $500 US Savings Bond. Congratulations, the US now owes you money! You just gave the US government $500, and they promise to pay you back that $500 in the future plus interest. US bonds and treasury bills are historically among the safest investments in the world, s
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China has the US by the balls via debt
OM F***ing G. I know this is a popular theme on Slashdot, but please STOP. It is wrong, and stems from a serious misunderstanding about what it means to say that "the US owes China money."
In addition, doesn't anyone bother to look up just how much of the U.S. "balls" China is holding? China holds just 6% of the U.S. Federal debt! ($1.1 trillion out of $17.6 trillion).
Ooh! Sc-a-r-r-y!
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They wouldn't want to offend Russia, because Russia would stop the flow of gas they're siphoning off.
You're making the mistake of presuming rational behavior.
Re:THROUGH North Korea?! (Score:5, Insightful)
To *be* bat-shit crazy, or to *appear* bat-shit crazy? Appearing insane can be an excellent military strategy, especially if you're in an extremely week tactical position such as North Korea is in. It makes your enemies extremely hesitant to provoke you because you may quite possibly engage in a completely disproportional and/or unexpected response. Of course keeping up the appearance requires that you do occasionally actually engage in insane behavior, but a sane commander using such tactics will be extremely canny in employing such behavior only when a studied analysis of the enemy suggests that he can get away with it with minimal real costs. The fact that North Korea is not only still standing, but has managed to repeatedly milk the western world for lucrative concessions despite the apparent insanity of its leaders, strongly suggests that that is the case.
Of course the beauty of such a strategy is that your enemy can never be completely sure exactly how much is an act, and must moderate their own behavior in the face of that uncertainty. Would North Korea launch an all-out attack on our regional allies in response to some moderate provocation, knowing full well that they would be completely obliterated in response? Certainly not. Probably. We hope.
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came here to say this
that pipeline is going to be shut off once a year in march or april, until running capitalist dogs pay attention to the psychotic state and pay a ransom
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Against Russia's will? Unlikely. You have to remember, this isn't going to be just about the South Korea, and North Korea is completely dependent on China and Russia due to its isolation.
That and they really like hard currency they'll be getting as transit fees in the North Korea.
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Unlike the situation with Ukraine, the West might see that as an improvement. China, on the other hand, might disagree...
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N. Korea wouldn't last two days under war against Russia, that would be the end of chubby-spoiled boy's reign
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A power just wanting to raze the entire area, uncaring of fallout, could employ much more...effective tactics. The very fact that North Korea claims so much as part of its military just makes them that much more fair game. Russia could slaughter North Korea, it's just a matter of
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You also had the Red Army on North Korea's side.
Do remember that the NK's last six months on their own, and had pretty much lost their country (the US Army was approaching the northern border of NK with China), when the Chinese came in (and kept the war going another couple years).
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Sadly that describes the North Koreans and what they would be prepared to do tho their own country and people better than the Russians.
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You sure? The fourth largest army (North Korea, active personnel) wouldn't last more than two days against the fifth largest? Not to mention that NK's is by far the largest in the world in terms of reservists. I'm not saying that NK wouldn't be defeated eventually but you seem to think it would be a walk in the park. NK's official policy is "military first" and thus their military actually is very powerful even though the country - as a consequence of that very policy - is piss poor and there's a shortage of practically everything.
But how capable would those reservist truly be? Consider first of all the economic situation in NK: a significant portion of the population is going hungry, if not outright on the verge of starvation. I am sure they keep their active duty soldiers fed decently well, but in the case of a war most of the reservists called up would be physically capable of only limited combat duty. You also have to take into account the quality of the arms available to the reservists: chances are a lot of the reservists wou
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Re-learn the lesson that was the "Russian Steamroller" in WW2. Even an extremely large army that is poorly equipped will fare badly in battle. To play that game, you have to be willing to toss your people into the fire like coal and simply outlast the offensives until some other factor kicks in. Tha
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.
Which they knew the weather would provide eventually. Historians argue whether Russia needed an utter monster like Stalin to feed his people into a mincing machine to run out the clock or not.
Weather also killed a huge number of Americans and allies in the Korean war which still astonishes me today, the correct equipment was available but not supplied.
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Seriously? Lay critical crucial infrastructure through North Korea to South Korea?
There's no way Pyongyang would manipulate those rails and pipes in a fit of political pique that seems to happen, oh, once every eight months. Absolutely now way.
Hmm, is it just me or does Pyongyang sound like the name of a Russian speaking city to me...
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This is just Putin's latest dumb parlour trick to stir up trouble and poke the West in the eye. He's just acting out.
You are a textbook example of how propaganda works and affects people.
I really wish you would at least became aware of it, at some point.
You all miss the obvious reason NK agreed to this (Score:4, Funny)
Why would NK ever agree to do anything to help South Korea? They didn't care about paying bak the money anyway, so it's not that.
No, the real reason NK agreed to have a pipeline built through the country is they plan to insert NK frogmen spies into the pipeline to infiltrate the south. The beauty of the plan is, they cannot be spied upon the other way due to the pipe flow!
Masterful.
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(Hint: Step 2 is "defect to SK.")
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North Korea is not a communist state (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed the present day US is vastly closer to being an ideal free-market state than North Korea is to being anything that can be approximated as being close to actual communism.
WTF Slashdot? Somehow this got to +5. Seriously?
That's a mighty big assertion. Care to provide, like, any support? North Korea's economy is built on Juche [wikipedia.org], yes, but it is also heavily built on Communism [wikipedia.org] as well. While it varies from pure Marxist theory in that it has a hereditary dictatorship and not a (never yet achieved anywhere) proletarian rule, the absolute state control of the economy is certainly in line with Marxist theory. In fact, up until the 1980s the Chinese and North Korean systems were equall [historyorb.com]
Saving Face (Score:3)
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That said, getting debt paid off helps them make new debt and buy things from Russia or China...
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Why is this "News For Nerds" (Score:2)
Do you know where Vladivostok is? Russia not need Korea to ship gas.
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Most of this kind of news was run by the US gov around the world but not for US domestic consumption.
The limits on this kind of gov backed PR, spin within the US ie the Smith-Mundt Act are now lifted.
The sock puppets and public diplomacy types will be flooding US news sites with this kind of material as stories and then shaping comments.
https://www.federalregister.go... [federalregister.gov]
Sign of the Apocalypse (Score:2)
10 posts in and no "In Soviet Russia..." joke?
Beta must be causing more damage than I thought...
One this is for sure. (Score:2, Interesting)
Russia as a nation is 11 billion dollars poorer, and the communist party members that stole the money in the first place are 11 billion dollars richer.
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Maybe the Russians are just writing off their losses? I've got no idea about the terms of the loan, but if someone owed me a ridiculous amount of money that I knew would never be paid back, I'd settle for 10% of it and a commitment to a payment plan.
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That's Russian tradition of providing a loan to their allies and then write it off in a few years. A price of alliance, or at least a hefty bonus. USSR did the same.
Re:Will this effect markets? (Score:5, Insightful)
In long term, massively. South Korea will get much cheaper gas, and it might have a stabilizing effect and North Korea will likely be even more closely tied to South through the financial benefits of the functioning pipeline, such as transit fees.
The main problem is that North Korea may start behaving like Ukraine with the gas, stealing it from the pipeline and even using it as a weapon against South Korea. But potential of getting gas pipeline in South Korea will likely far outweigh the cons.
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Umm, do you think Putin will sit back while NK messes with his pipeline? I suspect that if NK went that route, something mysterious will happen to Kim Jong-un.
Re:Will this effect markets? (Score:4, Funny)
Russians don't do mysterious (Score:2)
Re:yep (Score:5, Interesting)
Assassinating North Korean leadership would be fairly easy for US today if it wanted to do it.
The reason it's not been done is the fact that sudden power vacuum would cause a collapse of North Korean state, and North Koreans have proven to be extremely difficult to acclimate to South Korean society, where they would massively flood to.
Believe it or not, the biggest proponent of keeping the current leadership in power is South Korea. They are the ones who would take by far the biggest hit from North's collapse. They advocate long term assimilation policy instead, where North Korean leadership is slowly made more and more dependent on South's money until eventually they have to open their own country enough for cultural exchange to start to happen, demolishing the power base.
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You seem to view situation as absolute rather than relative. As in relative to what would happen in event of North's collapse. Instead, you apparently think that if North were to collapse, it would just vanish with no negatives involved.
Do they enjoy the current North? Of course not. Is it much better than collapsed North on their border? Of course. North's collapse would cause at least a temporary collapse of social and economic order in the South due to influx of refugees from the North in such an event.
S
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In long term, massively. South Korea will get much cheaper gas, and it might have a stabilizing effect and North Korea will likely be even more closely tied to South through the financial benefits of the functioning pipeline, such as transit fees.
The main problem is that North Korea may start behaving like Ukraine with the gas, stealing it from the pipeline and even using it as a weapon against South Korea. But potential of getting gas pipeline in South Korea will likely far outweigh the cons.
Two questions:
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i guarantee that at the slightest perceived provocation NK will shut off the gas. KIS is even more of a petulant child than KJI was.
Well... we'll see it easy for North Korea to be outraged over "the slightest perceived provocation" when they have nothing to loose.
Maybe if we give them something to loose, they think twice before deciding to give it up...
It's not like the impoverishing measures currently in place has much effect.
The only places we've recently seen the population rise and demand democracy is in the middle east, wealth, internet, computer, etc. is required to facilitate this..
Right now, most North Koreans are probably
I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're a poor enough nation to notice it.
...which in turn gives them enough elbow-room to become a bit more belligerent, which in turn de-stabilizes the region. This in turn causes the US and Japan to have to spend their time doing something about it (China couldn't really give a frig, to be honest).
Speculative end result? Putin can take the rest of the Ukraine and any of the other former Soviet states with less attention being paid to it.
Re:I don't think so (Score:4)
It's $11 Billion. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not really. Not on a Global scale...
It's .5% of Russia's GDP. Sounds like a lot to me.
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Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
Roughly 10% ahead of Canada and losing ground rapidly.
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
It's $11 Billion. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not really. Not on a Global scale. It might help stabilize North Korea a bit though. They're a poor enough nation to notice it.
To put it in perspective, that's 1/4 of the B-2 program cost, 1/6 of the F-22 program cost, 1/77 of the (projected) F-35 program cost, 1/545 the cost of the Iraq + Afghanistan wars, 1/39 of Exxon's market cap, or 1/7 Bill Gate's net worth.
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*affect
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No. The markets already exist so there is no need to implement [ku.edu] them.
Re:Journalistic Style (Score:4, Interesting)
[Unfortunately?] No. Though I can't think of any post soviet ally that has actually benefitted or gotten ahead from having debt written off. It also occurs to me that many of those states with debt were basically given the debt - Russia gave them things like gas and lumber at particularly low rates but didn't take payment or only took partial payment. So once the debt built up they'd use it as sort of a threat to not go against them. Case in point: Ukraine just got a huge gas bill from Russia http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c211... [ft.com] .
Re:How could this be? (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to North Korea, Cuba is a beacon of democracy and human rights. They're just a banana republic that pissed off the wrong people.
Re:How could this be? (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that most of the people they pissed off are long dead, and half of Cuba now lives in Miami.
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For some reason, the grudge lives on. It wasn't that great a pissing off either, just your average banana republic tactics.
Re:How could this be? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about Korea, but some nation of obese tv-lovin' asshats decided to embargo international trade in...farm machinery, food, medicine and other important things. "Ya, let's starve the shit outta their children. That'll teach 'em good."
Did you know that most of the "evil commies" of yesteryear are dead and gone? The US believes that making sure children starve and die is okay foreign policy. That's just fucked up.
That doesn't really explain it (Score:2)
So the US won't trade with them. Ok, but while the US is a large nation, it isn't the be-all, end-all. Canada, the EU, China, Russia, they are all perfectly ok to trade with Cuba. So Cuba has access to most of the world for trade goods. Yet, they still have an extremely low standard of living.
Sorry, but the US boogeyman thing doesn't play, not in this day and age. Cuba has a large responsibility for the problems in Cuba.
Re:That doesn't really explain it (Score:5, Informative)
That's not the enlightened view. Everything that goes wrong is always someone else's fault. It's the #1 Truth of progressive thinking. Poor people are poor because someone else made them poor. If socialist policies don't fix everything, it's because someone else interfered. If all the someone elses could just be burned or imprisoned or gassed or reeducated, society's problems could finally be solved and progressive paradise would be achieved.
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Strawmen are so easy to burn.
No, just no (Score:2)
If socialist policies don't fix everything, we'll try again. And again. We'll pay attention to what we did right, and what we did wrong. We'll do better. We'll make progress. That's why we're called 'progressives'.
What we will _not_ do is stick our heads in the sand and pretend some mythical 'invisible hand' is going to make it all better. Name me one complex problem that was made better by doing nothing about it?
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Can't believe some idiots are marking you "informative." Cuba ranks near the bottom of the Democracy Index. Try that socialism sucks argument again when a social democracy is failing so miserably.
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Have you never heard of the Helms-Burton Act which penalizes any company that deals with Cuba including the executives never being able to travel to the USA. This basically means every company has a choice, do business with the USA or do business with Cuba and guess which is more profitable or even possible (Canadian planes often fly over US territory and despite international law, America has these extra-national no-fly lists and can veto passengers)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Uhhhh... no (Score:2)
Go to Canada some time, one of the US's closest allies. You'll find that you can travel to Cuba freely, buy Cuban goods (cigars being the most prominently advertised as being of Cuban origin) and so on.
The US is the only country that clings to an embargo and it is purely a face-saving maneuver, not wanting to admit it was a bad idea and hasn't worked to unseat Castro.
However for all that, Cuba is still poor... So sorry, you can't blame the big, bad 'ole US for this. Their policy is not helpful, but it isn't
Re:How could this be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Compare Cuba to Domincan Republic. Both are quite similar except for the politics - Dominican Republic had an US sponsored coup and is very much capitalist because of that. Still Cuba has a higher GDP and a higher HDI. Or take Jamaica. A capitalist constitutional monarchy and a commonwealth realm with close ties to the Brits. Still, same here, Cuba has a higher GDP and a higher HDI.
Funny thing though. North Korea used to have a milder form of government than South Korea and the people were also better off - up to the early 1970ies. Then the former went downwards, while the latter shot upwards.
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Except that from 1970 to 2008 (years for which data is available), per capita GDP of the Dominican Republic went from 50% of Cuba's to 87% of Cuba's. The HDI has improved more as well.
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Rather... I am impressed as to how well Putin is acting in Russia's best interests. I can't say the same for Obama.
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Rather... I am impressed as to how well Putin is acting in Russia's best interests...
Is it in Russia's best interest to become isolated as an international pariah and have its economy shrink?
Re:I'm liking how Russia is standing up these days (Score:5, Insightful)
Is in American's best interest to become an international pariah and for the average American income to fall?
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America certainly has it's issues but Putin seems determined to turn Russia into a nuclear armed banana republic. Look at this list. [wikipedia.org] Russia, styling itself a great power, has impoverished its people to a state worse than Croatia and 56 other countries. Not far ahead of Botswana. Amazing power, that.
Re:I'm liking how Russia is standing up these days (Score:4, Insightful)
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And the US is not an ruled by an oligarchy?" http://www.scribd.com/doc/2184... [scribd.com]
If you care to read the news it was Russia that was providing financial support to Ukraine, and when a pro-Russia government was democratically elected the United States overthrew the elected government through a coup and the use of US mercenaries.
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You must be joking right? Powerful armies can and have been defeated many times. Remember the USA and Vietnam?
On the other hand, I believe Russia has the [military] hardware to deliver serious havoc on the US should America take the unwise route.
What would the USA's most powerful president have done in the circumstances anyway?
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You must be joking right?
Joking about what? Did you actually *read* the post you're bitching about?
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OP writing And that a vastly superior military (that would be the US military) means nothing when headed by a weakling. pretty much indicates that he doesn't see the US being a threat to Russia.
Besides, the two cardinal rules of would-be military invaders are:
(1) Do not invade the Chinese mainland.
(2) Do not invade Russia.
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Besides, the two cardinal rules of would-be military invaders are: (1) Do not invade the Chinese mainland. (2) Do not invade Russia.
In other words, never get involved in a land war in Asia.
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never get involved in a land war in Asia.
That movie quote popped instantly to mind, but had read the specific quote about the mainland long before I watched the movie. Plus, European Russia isn't... Asia, and you invade it either.
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Invading Syria would have worked as well as invading Afghanistan and Iraq did....
Everyone's all PO'ed at Obama for using diplomacy instead of War.
It's diplomacy that has Iran giving up their enriched uranium. It's (accidental) diplomacy that got Syria to give up their chemical weapons. Diplomacy works. War? Afghanistan and Iraq aren't going too well for us. There's no infrastructure, no democracy, tons of opium, and the Taliban are stronger now than they used to be.
There are other measures of strength
In search of a King? (Score:2)
While a "strong" President will go to extreme lengths to get what they want personally
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That weakling got Osama, has Iran giving up it's highly enriched Uranium to lift the sanctions, and cut a deal that got Syria to give up their chemical weapons. There are other measures of strength than blowing shit up. Diplomacy works.
Now, as a dirty lib, I do believe he is a weak president on the homefront. Dude hasn't even TRIED to fulfill his campaign promises and keeps trying to cut deals with the Republicans who clearly aren't going to give him squadoo even though he gives them 90% of what they want
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Fundamentally, you seem to believe that Iran and Syria have, in fact, given up their WMD's (poison gas in the one case, enriched uranium in the other).
So, do you have any actual evidence that this is true?
Without international inspections (which neither country has allowed), it's not like there is any way to know for sure whether all the poison gas manufacturies (in the one case) have been revealed, much less shutdown. Ditto the enriched uranium (in the other case).
And then there's Ukraine.
Next week, O
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/world/middleeast/syria.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/world/middleeast/syria.html?_r=0
"Syria’s ability to produce chemical weapons has been destroyed and its remaining toxic armaments secured, weapons inspectors said Thursday, as President Bashar al-Assad has offered unexpectedly robust cooperation".
Yes, I have evidence that this is true. That's because I listen to evidence before coming up with my opinion, instead of forming my opinion and then looki
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That weakling got Osama, has Iran giving up it's highly enriched Uranium to lift the sanctions, and cut a deal that got Syria to give up their chemical weapons. There are other measures of strength than blowing shit up. Diplomacy works.
Now, as a dirty lib, I do believe he is a weak president on the homefront. Dude hasn't even TRIED to fulfill his campaign promises and keeps trying to cut deals with the Republicans who clearly aren't going to give him squadoo even though he gives them 90% of what they wanted anyway. Sigh....
If you're going to hate on Obama, hate on him for real reasons. His foreign policy had strengthened us, not weakened us. Bush is the one that took us from having the whole world supporting us to having everyone revile us. Again....
Seriously? Are you that naive?
1. The US Military and Intelligence Services got Osama. All Obama did was say: "OK" and a day later "I gave the order to kill Osama..."
2. Do you really think that Iran doesn't have other sites that inspectors have not yet found? Also, they can still make more because they didn't give up the capability!
3. Do you really think that Syria gave up all its chemical weapons?
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... and ultimately foreign policy is based on military power. Nobody takes us seriously.
I wonder why. Do you respect the father who beats his child?
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Really? Name one.
Re:I'm liking how Russia is standing up these days (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, PLEASE tell us all how the Arab Spring was Obama's fault... And Fuck Israel.
Nobody takes us seriously because we started two wars over bad intelligence. No one takes us seriously because we talk about democracy and freedom and then invade countries that don't do what we say. Nobody takes us seriously because we've overthrown democratically elected governments. No one takes us seriously because we're a f'in joke.... We're a child with a giant stick running around hitting other children
It's weird, but plenty of countries are taken seriously without waving their military around. Japan's taken seriously, and they don't even have a military to speak of! We wield enough economic and cultural power that we shouldn't even have to use our military. And strangely enough, when we DO use diplomacy and sanctions, stuff gets done.
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The Cheney administration was probably the best thing that could have happened to the foes of America.
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Not being USA-ian...statements that have come out publicly against Obama are not only personally offensive but are against the State: i.e. Treasonous
Agreed, you're clearly not a USA-ian. We don't respect authority, here. And we don't really respect people who suggest that we should respect authority. So, go kiss your king's ...ring. Ya, know, I've lost a lot of respect for my country in the last decade-and-a-half, but thanks for reminding me why this is still the place for me and my treasonous attitudes.
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Obama was on Seal Team Six? I didn't know that. He was working with the CIA to track down Bin Laden in Pakistan, before he was President?...
When Obama became President, no one in the CIA was tracking down bin Laden in Pakistan. In 2005 George W. Bush shut down the CIA unit tasked with tracking bin Laden (code named Alec Station and established in 1996 by Bill Clinton). "C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden" [nytimes.com].
It took an executive action by Obama to recreate an intelligence unit to pick up the hunt, and then a tough call to send the SEAL team in when the intelligence about bin Laden's presence was still uncertain. A weaker man would
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Is the US vastly superior?
Globalfirepower rank them about the same, though they include a lot of factors, but shouldn't all those be included?
Sure the US have twice as many people and earn more money (but it's much more unevenly spread and less end up in the government coffins) and spend more money on the military (then again I don't know whatever Russia pay them and if so I guess they pay less and that more production may be government owned or at least be bought for cheaper.)
US seem to have bigger navy an
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Is the US vastly superior?
Globalfirepower rank them about the same, though they include a lot of factors, but shouldn't all those be included?
I would take the "Globalfirepower" rankings a tad more seriously if they revealed the model they used to combine and weight all those factors, and if they weren't a "link farm" site that lists itself as being "for entertainment only" and the people running it weren't completely anonymous. There is no reason to attach any credibility to the ranking scores they offer.