The latest practical consequence of the unhappy times we live in (NASA NTRS offline)

I worked in Japan for 5 years.
We were given "cultural awareness" training before going over.
One of the interesting facts was that Japan (and most Asian countries, I was told) do not have laws prohibiting industrial espionage.

To their mind, if you want to keep something hidden, don't allow your competitors to come in the front door. If you let them see it how can you imagine they will not remember and use any facts to their benefit.

We have been an open society so long we forget there are intelligent industrious competitors out there. Who don't have a cultural restriction to taking everything they can find.

It is not just Asians. Some of our Middle East allies are equally interested, and aggressive.

Of course if we really wanted to preserve our technology we wouldn't educate so many foreign grad students.

So many comments could be discussed in this thread.

 

You're oversimplifying to the point of not making any real point. No one in this government is busy conjuring up China as our new arch-enemy, and drumming up support for a war against them. If nothing else, keep in mind the trade between our countries, which neither side wants to jeapordise.

And as a matter of fact, the US didn't 'conjure up Islamics' as an enemy in the 90's, either. Islamic terrorism was very real during that period, and hardly limited to attacks on Americans:

Nor did they slack off during the next ten years:

I could post a list for the years since, but I think I've made my point... Islamic terrorism is real, not some American-invented hobgoblin to justify military spending. And it impacts countries worldwide, especially Muslim countries.

 

Troy, all terrorism are atrociously real, whatever from extremist or states. Yes there is also a state terrorism ask the Chilean (about 30000 dead) and Argentinians more than 30000 dead and missing) what they do think about the years of the military dictatorships, who acted with the financial help, the technical counseling and the blessing of the USA. Ask all the victims of state violence, there are millions from everywhere on earth..

The Islamic extremism is very present (a sad reality and everybody had his share of dead and wounded) but I meant that some politicians (USA, UK and even Aznar from Spain) had taken the occasion of the terrorism and the legitimate horror of the people, for manipulating the opinion -as did Goebbels in other times- and cover acts whose true goals have the foul smell of very private corporate profits.

The pretext of the invasion of Irak was a bunch of lies as appears now clearly. The promoters of this war used mainly the pretext of the fight against the terrorism, and the operation was made just in a short time after 09/11/2001 in the heat of the public indignation...The enemy was designed. Goebbels tactics.

Let's make the balance of this war 10 years after;
-Irak had a big part of its infrastructure destroyed, and part is not rebuilt. The health system is always down.
-4500 American soldiers are dead, thousands are wounded and incapacitated.
-About 26000 soldiers from Irak are dead and several thousands are incapacitated.
-110000 to 600000 (yes! some have made this estimation with the collateral effects) civilian from Irak are dead, tens of thousands are incapacitated. Curiously it's impossible to get official reliable ciphers from the USA. Millions were and are ruined and in poverty.
-The cost of this war is estimated between 2 to 3 trillions of dollars. Some say up to almost 4 trillions.
Questions;
-Has this war helped the defense of the "free" world and the USA? No
-Has this war helped to fight Islamic terrorism? No
-Is Irak free, democratic and prosperous? No, the country is on the verge of a civil war and this war gave foot to the Iran in Irak, exacerbating the religious problem. The economic situation is far from good.
-Do you feel yourself more sure about terrorism? I doubt.
-Who is going to pay the 3 trillion bill? you and me. Directly in taxes, indirectly by recession by default of investment. Maybe by a general financial collapse.
-Has the USA insured an exclusive source of oil for the future? far from sure.
-Has the USA won some esteem of the rest of the world in this adventure? I'll leave you the answer but I have some doubts.
-Have some corporations and individuals of the oil industry and the military industrial complex very close to the administration of the epoch made a lot of money at the expense of the taxpayer? Yes billions of USD in fact. It's even public.

It's the very illustration of the prophecy made by Eisenhower about the military industrial complex directing the USA policy. Read the discourse, it has been written with carefully weighted words.

Ask yourself these questions as citizen and moral human being;
-Was the Patriot Act and the subsequent restriction of freedom truly necessary? Had this really helped? Do you think that the Patriot bill will be revoked in better times?
-Was it necessary to involve religion? and create an anti-Muslim faith movement?
-Was it necessary to fall into the moral shame of illegal detention and torture (Guantanamo)? Was not to fall at the same level as the terrorists? Had this given objective good results?

War against terrorism is a war of intelligence (in the 2 meanings of the word) not simply battle field military operations. The Mexican government has made the same mistake with the drugs problem; use of brute force instead of intelligence. Brute force serves on battefields against armies, not against "ghost" enemies. Morality: after 6 years, 60000 dead, 10000 disappeared, 12 strong cartels instead of 3 and a flourishing traffic. Billions spent while 48% of the Mexicans are in poverty. No one positive result.

The opinion is beginning to be prepared about about the Chinese in a similar way of propaganda. As the "muslim" war is not going brilliantly, the apparel will need a new enemy. Iran and North Korea do not seem not enough mediatic and are geopolitically too dangerous for the moment.

The shutdown of the NASA site is the also the illustration of a default of intelligence (always in the 2 meanings of the word). Was it necessary to appear to be as stupid as a bag of rocks, and give pretext of laughs for anybody having some feeble lights in geopolitics?

 

Is http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov down for the same reason?

The http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/ is still up

 

Paranoia is used to control the voter. There must always be an enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeland_Security_Advisory_System

Remember RED ALERT... ORANGE ALERT and how the administration used these terms to instill fear and gain support for their misguided actions.

Now its the Chinese threat. Perhaps a new colour code system will follow.

 

That's as silly as the Emergency Broadcast System test that runs across the TV every month "this is a monthly test of the National Emergency Broadcast System."

 

Didn't NASA "lose" the original footage of the moon landing ? They have form with being careless with the filing system !

 

Every two years for the house representative and six years for senators.

That is an understatement.!

 

I agree that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and carried out under false pretenses, and the post-invasion occupation so poorly planned and executed that it created more problems than it solved. That's what happens when ideology hooks up with ignorance..... as they did in the Bush administration.

But that's a far cry from saying our government conjured up a communist Soviet Union or Islamic terrorists. Although we could discuss the particulars of what was done endlessly, those were genuine threats that needed to be dealt with -- not just imaginary hobgoblins used to scare the American public and keep them in line.

And where are you and Michael getting the notion that our government has now chosen China as the next designated enemy, and is dishonestly scaremongering about it as an excuse to boost military spending? I haven't seen it.....

 

We don't have any threat from China, nor we try anything military against China. They are our partner in economy, and we have beef we them in that respect.
A lot of people are fed with wrong assumptions, misguided because they read to much website and blogs against the US without checking the facts, or if they do, they check the facts on more horrendous news media.

 

Don't know Daniel... The net is full of articles like these:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/19/retired-military-officers-call-curbing-chinas-powe/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/us-china-hawks-idUSBRE90G00C20130117
http://japandailypress.com/chinese-...a-about-siding-with-japan-in-disputes-2221975

But then you can also find some completely different indicators, like:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2077693,00.html
http://defensetech.org/2011/05/19/pla-chinese-military-doesnt-compare-to-u-s-military/

Go figure who's right, who's wrong and will the future bring...

 

OK, a couple of retired military officers from Japan and the US said that China's military power needs to be curbed.

A Chinese officer got rude in front of some Japanese officers about islands both countries claim.

And another Chinese officer popping off about the Chinese/Japanese island dispute....

Many Chinese women are having babies in the US, so their children will be American citizens. But that means they become foreigners in China, which doesn't recognize dual citizenship.

And finally, a Chinese officer commenting that his country's military isn't strong enough to go head-to-head with the American military. At least for now.....

 

I don't see anything in the news to back up assertions that the US government has decided the 'war against the Muslims' isn't going well, so it's decided to make China the new Enemy....

I think that's a simplistic and paranoid view of reality. Not to mention a rather insulting one, at least to Americans.

 

The "war against muslims " only requires proper intelligence and police work.

This Crusade cant justify the trillions of dollars needed from the taxpayer for Military hardware like aircraft carriers, space based weapons, fighter jets, nuclear subs............... These toys need a big enemy...China is big.

 

Rather than bloat out the boat design database, it would probably be best to start a topic on one of the many dedicated political forums for the grand political debates.

Here is a list of other forums where political topics would be welcome:
https://www.google.com/search?q=politics forum
And here is a list of other forums where religious topics would be welcome:
https://www.google.com/search?q=religion forum