Frontline Tonight 2/20/03

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: What about from Chinas Shenzou mission? China does not want to 'cede' space to the United States and has been actively and vigorously pursuing a space program. With satelites you are opening up a whole new world of weapons strike possibilities and getting into the realm of scifi almost. A Chinese presence in space could be seen as a threat to the lone superpower. EDIT> Ok thats going off on a wierd tangent.. but the whole Prevent another superpower.. i think that is the way it is. Once you are on top.. you want to stay there.

It is a wierd tangent. Telling another nation where it can and cannot go in space is as silly as the Pope drawing a line dividing the unexplored world in half and giving it to Spain and Portugal.

You can bet your ass that if we got to Mars first we'll plant a big honkin Old Glory on the surface and claim the planet as US property. If you're interested in this whole space law issue, then Montreal's McGill University has a wonderful program - check out its website for good info.

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by Rokenn: Aren't pretzels from France, and one of those tried to kill 43...

You may think this is funny, but I know there was and IS a pretzel conspiracy! [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[Djinn Raffo]

Could you go a little deeper and talk about what you know of Mission Creep please.

I surfed it a bit and found some interesting stuff. Seems like the militarization of civilian life. Or the civilian side getting into the military side.

[Ronn_Bman]

Mission creep refers to any part of a mission that extends beyond the initial mission parameters.

US involvement in Vietnam is one of the best examples of mission creep available. The involvement of US troops was never part of the original mission. The mission just kept "creeping" on and on...

[ 02-21-2003, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[Night Stalker]

Also, UN "peace keeping" missions are notorious for mission creep. Since the missions are rarely well defined, with no end objective usually, the "mission" ends up dragging on until the "peace keepers" get tired of being killed and the mission is scrapped. Somalia rings a bell.

[Djinn Raffo]

ok thanks guys.

Yes it would seem like peacekeeping missions would be the perfect opportunity for this sort of thing to occur.

And after Iraq..? What are the mission objectives after Saddam has been toppled? What are the plans? Didn't Hamid Karzai, the Afghan pres, used to work for Chevron? If the next leader of Iraq is a former oil employee.. well it would just be to much to believe. I have heard about a group of exiled Iraqis have been mentioned, but don't know that much about them.

[Timber Loftis]

Djinn, I think micro-managing Iraq post regime change is disastrous for all parties involved.

But, the way I mean mission creep, in keeping with what Night Stalker and others said, is that:
first, US sought Osama and Al Queda
then, US defined terrorist-supporting nations as enemies
then, Bush identified axis of evil

The number of nations and places we are inadvertantly promising to go butt-kicking is growing. It's a mission creep disease of the first mission, which was "Get Al Queda."