The War Against Terror is TWAT--at least that's what I like to call it. Especially since that's what it means. All you have to do to see how NOT a threat Al Qeada is to America is by looking at how many people die every year to terrorists. Including the terrorists themselves, the number is in the very low thousands and is only that high because of Iraq and 911 averaging the numbers higher. Cars, cancer and AIDS kill infinitely more people than terrorists could ever hope to.
That said, the world does have at least one potential threat out there. That's China. Even though they don't have a whole lot of money, they're worse than us in simply printing more when they run out--actually, they simply recalculate the value of their currency every so often. Their money is called the yuan, though it's also called the Renminbi--I have no idea why they have two names for it.
China also has a whole mess of people. More than one billion people to be more exact and according to [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/|the CIA Fact Book]'s [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html|page on China], 71% of their population is between the age of 15 and 64. That's a lot of people who could be "recruited" into the military. Combine this aspect with the fact that they are a growing nation--both population-wise and technology-wise--and you've got a recipe for the first real threat to face America since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As China grows, they're going to want more oil. Everyone knows how expensive oil is these days and it's pretty obvious that oil isn't going to be getting any cheaper/plentiful in the coming years. China is already using more and more every year. How long will it be before China and America both reach for the same oil source as we do.
Won't that be embarrassing!
It'll also be life threatening.
Now think about how [http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060216-015853-7367r.htm|this February 16, 2006 article] from WashingtonTimes.com is reporting on their nuke activities. Yes, the Washington Times is a total right-wing rag that no doubt wants to monger some fear more than it wants to report the truth, but the thing is, China really does seem to be the only place left where we can find a real threat to America.
Hell--they're even Commies, still and despite the fact that there is literally no money in Communism, they've managed to survive, anyway. That spells serious potential for a threat, to me.
Yet we're all scared of Iran who I've heard won't have nukes for another 5-10 years. I wish I had a source--but I think I heard it on the most recent [http://motherjones.com/radio/index.html|podcast] ([http://progressive.playstream.com/motherjones/progressive/mojo_radio_021206.mp3|download the exact episode here]). So, once again, we're wasting time dealing with more imaginary threats as opposed to dealing with countries that might actually be a real threat one day, like China.
(No, I didn't forget about NoKo. But I'm not sure I trust the intel on them--come on, they don't have electricity to 90% of their country--how could they build a nuke??)
Not to sound like a broken record, but you have to admit, this all looks like what Ike said back in the day--it's all a scam to keep the Military-Industrial Complex going. Hell, Bush won't be in the White House forever (we hope) and when he's done there, he'll probably have a nice, cushy job waiting for him on the board of Carlyle or if he wants to be REALLY predictable, Haliburton.
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