Panama

1,970 Views | 54 Replies | Last: 3 hrs ago by Harrison Bergeron
quash
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What a ****ing loon
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat
Redbrickbear
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KaiBear
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Don't pretend to know enough about the current relationship between the Panama Canal Authority and China at this point to make any reasonable comment.

However the Canal remains vital to the strategic interests of the United States.

Would be foolish to relinquish our access to the canal without a fight.
whiterock
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KaiBear said:

Don't pretend to know enough about the current relationship between the Panama Canal Authority and China at this point to make any reasonable comment.

However the Canal remains vital to the strategic interests of the United States.

Would be foolish to relinquish our access to the canal without a fight.
and we won't.

China may own it, but they cannot defend it.
quash
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Because his hotel may be in tax trouble.

But yeah, it's probably because China is blocking access to Greenland or something
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat
sombear
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Redbrickbear said:


Mostly true, but the dirty little secret is that it happened under Trump b/c he didn't give a s _ _ _ and let China exert its influence. My employer and many others worked hard to get Trump to focus on this, but he flat refused.
Liteitup
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So what you guys are saying is that any treaty the US signed in the past is worthless if DJT disapproves?
boognish_bear
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KaiBear
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Liteitup said:

So what you guys are saying is that any treaty the US signed in the past is worthless if DJT disapproves?


Suspect not one American in a thousand currently understands why President elect Trump is so pissed off about the China-Panama Canal situation.

So maybe everyone should just relax until he actually gets inaugurated next month.

In the meantime our noble and completely unbiased legacy media will provide clear and concise explanations of the situation.
Robert Wilson
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Liteitup said:

So what you guys are saying is that any treaty the US signed in the past is worthless if DJT disapproves?
Treaty requires senate approval (2/3 I think). That said, if counter-party to the treaty had arguably breached it by, say, giving de facto control of the canal to China, I'd guess our State Department could take some level of action without having to go back through the entire Senate process, but eventually you'd need 2/3 Senate approval again to officially revoke the treaty.

That said, I have absolutely no idea what's going on down there.
boognish_bear
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KaiBear
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Trump is wrong on one point here…….

38,000 Americans did not die building the Canal.

The number was far lower but still horrible ……if memory serves me correctly it was less than 3000. The French lost at least12,000 men and the estimates of dead among Caribbean laborers vary wildly.


However on everything else Trump is dead on.

Rebuilding our economy starts with transportation costs and we cannot allow other countries to have a strangle hold on the management of the Canal.


Carter was an idiot to give it away.
boognish_bear
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The world is one big Monopoly board...Trump looking to gain ownership of Greenland



https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c791xy4pllqo

His comments prompted a sharp rebuke from Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Egede, who said: "We are not for sale and we will not be for sale."

"We must not lose our long struggle for freedom. However, we must continue to be open to co-operation and trade with the whole world, especially with our neighbours," he said.
quash
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boognish_bear said:




Switch US and canal and Panama with Russia and Crimea and Ukraine
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat
Redbrickbear
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KaiBear said:

Don't pretend to know enough about the current relationship between the Panama Canal Authority and China at this point to make any reasonable comment.

However the Canal remains vital to the strategic interests of the United States.

Would be foolish to relinquish our access to the canal without a fight.


Yea

You can even see on the map all the naval traffic going through the Panama Canal, Suez Canal, and straight of Malacca near Singapore

All 3 massive choke points for world commerce




boognish_bear
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whiterock
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boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......
fubar
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Ecuador can't defend the Galapagos.

The Galapagos can't defend the Galapagos.

The Galapagos can only be defended by the US.

Cowabunga! Let's goooooo ......
fubar
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And can we rename the islands William McKinley while we're at it?
whiterock
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fubar said:

Ecuador can't defend the Galapagos.

The Galapagos can't defend the Galapagos.

The Galapagos can only be defended by the US.

Cowabunga! Let's goooooo ......
The Galapagos is, like Greenland, an unsinkable aircraft carrier of comparable distance from US borders. The difference is this: Galapagos is astride the western approaches to the Panama Canal, while Greenland has a contiguous border with a Nato ally and is a wedge sitting astride lines of communication WITHIN Nato. Greenland also is an asset in bringing pressure to bear on Russia, while Galapagos poses no threat at all to any of our adversaries. Finally, Russia could not support a presence on Galapagos, but it could easily do so with essentially contiguous Greenland.

Advantage: Greenland.

The need FOR Greenland is negligible, but the need to deny to to Russia is immense.
If we can buy it, we should.
What we should not do is invade it, like Russia did in Ukraine, just because they thought they were entitled to do so because they needed it very badly indeed to.....deny it to Nato (which of course was not doing anything to add it).

Invading to seize & keep things one wants tends to be deleterious to good relationships within the world community.
fubar
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Neither has mentioned either needing or wanting our "help," but who cares about such?

Let's rename that big island TRUMPland. That'd be super cool.
whiterock
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fubar said:

Neither has mentioned either needing or wanting our "help," but who cares about such?

Let's rename that big island TRUMPland. That'd be super cool.
for once, we're not offering to help them. We're talking about doing something good for us, for a change. That is indeed super cool.
whiterock
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politics is fun again

KaiBear
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whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.
fubar
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KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.
Thank you.
Married A Horn
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As aggressive as Russia and China have been lately, I think the opposite is pretty stupid.
Redbrickbear
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KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.

In a small defense the imperialist distractions of territories close to us (that could offer real economic benefit to the American people) are more understandable than the neo-con and liberal imperialist distractions far overseas in crap holes like Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Syria

Places that offer little to any benefit for the average American or advance our true security concerns

Controlling the Panama Canal (and its revenue) is more important to us than Afghanistan

Controlling Greenland (proven mineral wealth and close to our borders) is more important to us than Syria


[The Greenland subsoil contains a variety of valuable minerals, rare earth metals, precious metals, precious stones, coal, graphite and uranium]

[As the Arctic ice continues to melt due to global warming, Greenland's mineral and energy resources including iron ore, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, rare earth elements, uranium and oil are becoming more accessible. The political establishment in Greenland has made natural resource extraction a central part of its plans to become economically self-sufficient]
whiterock
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KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.
Greenland is only a distraction if Russia invades it, in which case we will be fighting there to kick them out.

Why not just be there in the first place?
What's the distraction in exploiting mineral wealth?
(Greenland has 10% of the word's fresh water.)

Greenland exists.
Someone is going to control it.
Denmark is a perfectly acceptable choice, as long as they can defend it.

your mind is preternaturally narrow on foreign policy. Yabbering about buying Greenland is a great way to incentivize Denmark to either manage it better or monetize it by letting someone else with bigger britches manage it.

Nature abhors a vacuum.
So do authoritarian regimes.....
whiterock
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Redbrickbear said:

KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.

In a small defense the imperialist distractions of territories close to us (that could offer real economic benefit to the American people) are more understandable than the neo-con and liberal imperialist distractions far overseas in crap holes like Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Syria

Places that offer little to any benefit for the average American or advance our true security concerns

Controlling the Panama Canal (and its revenue) is more important to us than Afghanistan

Controlling Greenland (proven mineral wealth and close to our borders) is more important to us than Syria


[The Greenland subsoil contains a variety of valuable minerals, rare earth metals, precious metals, precious stones, coal, graphite and uranium]

[As the Arctic ice continues to melt due to global warming, Greenland's mineral and energy resources including iron ore, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, rare earth elements, uranium and oil are becoming more accessible. The political establishment in Greenland has made natural resource extraction a central part of its plans to become economically self-sufficient]
Good priorities = Greenland and Panama are indeed more important to us than the other places you mentioned. To that, we should also add that we are/were not trying to control/own Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Syria. We were/are trying to prevent powers hostile to us from doing so, which of course is prudent action. That we stayed to long or spent more than we needed to to achieve what we need to achieve does not undermine the fundamental interest in the action itself.

Panama and Greenland are of obvious benefit to us. If there is a pathway to get them back, peacefully and legally, we should do it (because if others threaten them, we will have to go to war to stop those threats).



Redbrickbear
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KaiBear
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whiterock said:

KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.
Greenland is only a distraction if Russia invades it, in which case we will be fighting there to kick them out.

Why not just be there in the first place?
What's the distraction in exploiting mineral wealth?
(Greenland has 10% of the word's fresh water.)

Greenland exists.
Someone is going to control it.
Denmark is a perfectly acceptable choice, as long as they can defend it.

your mind is preternaturally narrow on foreign policy. Yabbering about buying Greenland is a great way to incentivize Denmark to either manage it better or monetize it by letting someone else with bigger britches manage it.

Nature abhors a vacuum.
So do authoritarian regimes.....


Imperialism has brought nothing but trouble for the United Stares.

Yet some folks never learn.

Especially those who remain insulated from the risk of getting shot.
whiterock
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KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

KaiBear said:

whiterock said:

boognish_bear said:


Denmark can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can't defend Greenland.
Greenland can only be defended by the USA.

So why shouldn't we own it?


That's the rationale......


Stupid rational.

The US doesn't need more imperialistic distractions.
Greenland is only a distraction if Russia invades it, in which case we will be fighting there to kick them out.

Why not just be there in the first place?
What's the distraction in exploiting mineral wealth?
(Greenland has 10% of the word's fresh water.)

Greenland exists.
Someone is going to control it.
Denmark is a perfectly acceptable choice, as long as they can defend it.

your mind is preternaturally narrow on foreign policy. Yabbering about buying Greenland is a great way to incentivize Denmark to either manage it better or monetize it by letting someone else with bigger britches manage it.

Nature abhors a vacuum.
So do authoritarian regimes.....


Imperialism has brought nothing but trouble for the United Stares.

Yet some folks never learn.

Especially those who remain insulated from the risk of getting shot.
except that we've never engaged in imperialism. The only colonies we had we got in a war Spain started that hand nothing to do with territorial footprint. And 50 years later, we were out of the colony business. We either make 'em a state or cut 'em loose. If we were in the empire business, everyone in Mexico would be speaking English and Trudeau would be the 23rd Governor of Canada instead of his current job.

The Louisiana Purchase and Seward's Folly worked out OK. Cash payments. No wars started or anything.
Why would purchasing Greenland and/or Panama be any different?
Wouldn't it be more moral to buy them than have to send our armies in to take them away from an adversary?

Have you noticed that since this issue stirred up, Denmark has announced plans to increase defense spending on Greenland? (.....do you think that might have been the goal all along....?)
whiterock
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Realitybites
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Russia isn't going to invade Greenland.

Wake up.
historian
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“Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!”
Psalm 119:36
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