U.S and East Asia
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-01-13/us-and-east-asia
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Tokyo today for talks with the Japanese Prime Minister and other top officials. On the agenda: North Korea and the threat that country’s nuclear program poses to the region. Earlier in the week, during his visit to China, Secretary Gates toured a Chinese strategic missile command center. The Chinese military staged a test of its stealth fighter jet - a move that to seemed to surprise Chinese government leaders. Still, Secretary Gates said progress had been made in the efforts to forge closer military ties with China: Please join us for a update on Gates’ mission and east Asian security issues.
Guests
David Shambaugh
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
Director, China Policy Program, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
His newest books: "China's Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation; American and European Relations with China" and
"The International Relations of Asia"
Michael Green
Japan chair and a senior adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies
associate professor of international relations,Georgetown University.
John Delury
senior fellow, Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations and professor, Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul
Comments
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Chinese mass manufacture and pending worldwide sale of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles, predator drones) is a far more significant step than their recent tests of stealth fighter bombers. It is not as if remote control technology were stolen from the United States. The far-flung capability of this technology is hardly contained in American hands. By deploying dirtier and dirtier weapons systems over time (plastic mines, cluster bombs, dime bombs,
remote assassination platforms) the USA has fostered a race to the chaotic military bottom. So much for the rules of engagement. One track by torture and another by impulsive technology, we have become our own worst enemy while enhancing defense contractor profitability. So now we are extorted into buying the countermeasures. Unsustainable indeed!
One member of your panel just mentioned that if the Secretary of State has said something (that North Korea will have a missile to attack the US within 5 years), it must be backed up with evidence, otherwise he wouldn't say it. Many of your listeners that remember Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement at the UN before the Iraq war might disagree.
North Korea must know that any follow up on their nuclear threat would mean
their own annihilation. China must also know this. Why encourage any threat
from North Korea, while at the same time worrying about the collapse of the Communist regime in North Korea? Cannot both the U.S. and china support
North Korea as a peaceful trading partner?
Dear Diane Ream
January 13, 2011
I was listening to your show yesterday about the Tucson tragedy. I expected a good discussion because your show normally is. This one I have to say was not up to your normal standards.
The discussion focused on the round capacity in a magazine a person should be allowed to own. That issue is irrelevant. I am a gun owner with a ccw license and past member of the NRA. In competition I fire several rounds per second. I reload on the fly so the rounds per second do not change during magazine change.
I enter organized competitions with 50 rounds loaded in two 15 round magazines and two 10 round magazines because that is what I happen to have. I am a mediocre shooter. Many other competitors shoot three times the number of rounds per seconds that I do with the same accuracy.
We need another shooting tragedy discussion. I suggest you lead the discussion in another direction. For example, you might recognize the belief that for many people the worst thing that could happen is they would personally take the life of another person for any reason. For others, personally taking the life of another person is ok if that is the last option to prevent or stop a tragedy.
These are both valuable and reasonable beliefs and/or positions. Both these positions need to be valued and respected. The strength and quality of our society depends on it.
People who choose to be proactive in the second belief can promote more and better trained security officers and/or be screened and trained themselves. However, in respect for the first belief we can do so in plain clothes and concealed weapons. We have better and more important things to do with our time than to be confronted with the threat of violence at every turn or event.
Perhaps your show will lead our politicians into more productive discussions and reasonable debates.
Sincerely,
Karl Blanding
rbkblanding@yahoo.com
Well stated Mr. Blanding, and reasonable in normal times. These are not normal times. The government estimation of unemployment at 9.4% when it is actually 22.5% illustrates the level of error in our disintegrating culture. The percentage of mentally imbalanced people easily recruited to violence by extreme rhetoric is also wildly low-balled. See the works of Adam Curtis (filmmaker) and Chris Hedges (former war correspondent ) to begin deducing why this is so. Many say we are at the same juncture that the USSR faced in 1990. Noam Chomsky has predicted that "the center cannot hold." I do not wish for mob violence. Controlling guns and gun manufacture would be an effective first step in heading it off.
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