THE IRAQ WAR IS OFFICIALLY OVER.

post=152812
^ Yeah, what geodude said. Canada has miles and miles of cold, hellish nothing that would be a nightmare to invade, but that's only after the cities...where mostly everyone in Canada lives. I mean Ottawa for example is right there in relation to US territory.

I mean if the US seriously wanted to invade Canada we'd only need to march on Quebec and Ontario and call it a day, mission accomplished, Canada annexed, party over. I mean WTF do we want with say, Nunavut?

probably the oil, uranium and diamonds of northern Canada. (fun fact: Saskatchewan is the world's #1 producer of uranium.)

Anywho, kaemf, you forgot to list the proliferation of military robotics. ...though whether that is a good thing is still up for debate.

I wasn't joking about going up against a Mountie, btw. Those guys are badass.

Now I must go watch Canadian Bacon.

post=152785
Kaempfer

The US is now allied with: Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is fucked. They are going to be mired in trying to recover from a string of natural disasters for the next long, long time. This means that he majority of both the population and the geography is the Islamic Middle East is actually on our side; this is a good thing, obviously, especially when tied in with my point above. This also means that the Middle East is cut in half, with the US having extreme influence on everything on both sides and right down the middle.

Iraq is country that is actually capable of being a country (unlike Afghanistan, which will never be more than a bunch of tribal warlords shooting at each other with whatever antiquated weaponry they can scrounge), which means that they will some day be able to be a decent place if they get their shit together. As "stable" as the dictatorship of Hussein was it still meant that Iraq could never be a nice place to be. Now it can be. It's unlikely, but the chance is there.

You failed to note that we shifted the balance of power in Iraq from its minority Sunni population to its majority Shiite population. The only other Muslim country in the Middle East with a majority Shiite population and Shiite dominated government is -- you guessed it -- Iran. The two are now developing very close economic and cultural ties after decades of mutual hatred. Thanks, irony.

Afghanistan was actually a relatively stable country in the 20th century until the Soviet invasion in the 1970's. It successfully played the U.S. and U.S.S.R. governments against each other to compete for infrastructure projects and economic development until the Soviets decided if you can't join them, beat them. It's actually kind of heart breaking to see how far Afghanistan (and Iran for that matter) have regressed culturally in the last forty years. Of course, we didn't help matters by essentially enabling the Taliban to take over Afghanistan (or supporting a despot in Iran).

Also, Pakistan's government has been relatively helpful during the “War on Terror” if for no other reason than Bush threatened to bomb them back to the stone age if they did not comply. Other than a brief spat in the 1990's when India and Pakistan decided to have dueling nuke tests, the U.S. and Pakistan have maintained fairly positive relations. Despite being officially an Islamic state, it is decidedly more secular than many of the “allies” you mentioned previously (excluding Turkey).

I think you have confused our alliances of necessity with many Middle Eastern governments (who we have nothing in common with other than our mutual contempt for Shiite Iran or Saddam's Iraq after he attacked Kuwait) with actually having the support of the civilian populations that they represent. I can assure you that is not the case.

Oh, and INVADE CANADA. I am not sure anyone would notice. It's fair play -- you bastards have been attacking us with Nickelback for about a decade now.

You are so right, Mr. Anderson. Leading scholars have noted that the impact from the Justin Bieber attacks have been far more negative than any military operation or foreign policy agenda that the United States has executed during the last sixty years.

At least you apologized for Brian Adams. :P

post=154972
we may take away 95% of human troops but we will replace them with a 9 trillion dollar death star with a big gaping hole that if you throw a shoe in it will explode

the heck you talkin about?

err pretty much anyone who as occupied anywhere (all-encompassing) has an overseas base there

Another waste money project by G.W. Bush, but at last now it already scaled back. Afghanistan is more necessary war but too bad Iraq war made Afghanistan forgotten and made Taliban manage to steal momentum .