"Big Brother" of the world

What does 'moral authority' have to do with 'foreign policy'?

 

Oooh, oooh, oooh, pick me, pick me, pick me!!


We'd have a better selection of dim sum.

 

The only way the US has military presence in 120 countries is if you're counting joint training exercises and stuff like that, in which case dozens of countries would also have a military presence inside the US.

Also, it is important to point out that our military presences throughout the world are at the invitation of the countries in question, and we do not interfere with their domestic politics (with the exception of Afghanistan).


Alex

 

Source?

 

If any of them want the job of policing the world, let them build up their military infrastructure and go for it for all that I care.

 

Of course, one would have to elude those pesky UN weapons inspectors, no?

 

Since when big, populous, powerful countries have to deal with UN weapons inspectors?

 

With any luck at all, you'll get stationed in one of about two dozen countries whose domestic politics we we piss on daily.

 

All phone calls, faxes and emails are recorded? Have you ever considered just how impossible it would be to do that? If all phone calls are recorded then why do police etc have to specially tap people's phones? sure they scan, listening out for certain things, but there's just so much information exchange going on it'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystick which has several needle-like objects in it.

You could sit there and send emails to various people saying about how you were going to asassinate the president tomorrow before going on a shooting rampage in a hospital, and also claim to be osama bin laden's pen-pal and how you had a house full of cocaine, and no FBI agents will come rushing to your house. They have to carefully target who they monitor, or they'd needs several million people to monitor everything.

 

I'm amazed that anyone took the original post in this thread seriously enough to respond in a serious way.

Everyone put on your aluminum foil hats so the government can't beam thoughts into your head.

 

Who, other than Afghanistan? We may exert influence but we don't rig their elections or choose their leaders for them.

(Edit: Yes, I'm aware we have done stuff like that in the past, I meant that we're generally not doing it now, other than in Afghanistan.)

Alex

 

> All phone calls, faxes and emails are recorded?
> Have you ever considered just how impossible it
> would be to do that?

Recording everything would be hard. Searching them in real time is more possible.

> If all phone calls are recorded then why do police
> etc have to specially tap people's phones?

Because they need a different level of proof to gain evidence that may one day be used in a court of law.

> They have to carefully target who they monitor,
> or they'd needs several million people to monitor
> everything.

No, just really big computers.

http://archive.aclu.org/echelonwatch/faq.html

 

Iraq, Pakistan, Panama, Grenada, Chile, etc....

 

We haven't done anything to Iraq yet, we've never interfered in Pakistan's domestic politics AFAIK (altho I could be wrong), and the others were in the 70s and 80s.


Alex

 

USA military Attache are probably in most countries. But a lot of countries have military attache's attached to their diplomatic staff.

 

I'm still requesting a source on this number. Unless, of course, a new rule has been invoked on the Politics forum where anyone can pull something out of their SS and pass it off as fact. If that's the new standard then, trust me, I have plenty of @ss-pulling statements I've been holding back on you all.

 

Re: Re: "Big Brother" of the world

I find it hard to believe you've been holding back on us, Ian.

 

But what if my country isn't big and powerful yet? I need to amass weapons of mass destruction to be big and powerful but it's really hard to do that with UN weapons inspectors lurking around.

If you know of a better way, please tell me.

 

> I'm still requesting a source on this number.

I don't know where they get the number, but I find many references to 140 and more nations from sources like AP or the CATO by just doing a simple internet search.

I searched the .gov and .mil sites, but it seems difficult to find any hard numbers there.

 

Then you're screwed. Germany, Russia, and China are big and powerful (to one extent or another), hence, they are not screwed. Even India and Pakistan are big and powerful enough to make nukes.

If you're not big and powerful, then you have no business of applying for the job as the world's policeman. And if you're a small guy trying to become the big guy, tough ##%@ing luck, because us big guys decided to create this thing called the 'UN' that, in theory, prevents you from becoming one of us.