[chilepepper]

I've been puzzled as to WHY the U.S. would want to take out Saddam. My perception has been that he is pretty weak.

This article changes all that... Saddam will be taken out as an object lesson to the Chinese, just as Gulf War #1 was an object lesson to the Russians.

China is great as a source of tents from WalMart, even as a source of motherboards and DVD drives. But they delude themselves if they think they can go one on one with our armed forces...

Buying or building aircraft carriers won't be enough...

[Stavka2]

Point is, short of a nuclear exchange, and if you think destroying the West Coast won't cripple America for half a centuary, you're wrong, China can defeat the US in any close proximity areas to it's borders...and that's where it will be fighting: Taiwan, Vietnam, Thialand, Siberia (hopefully not until Russia is good and ready), Korea or Mongolia. And what could the US do...kill 30 million Chinese and loose a million itself...and who would suffer more then? Hell, kill 500 million Chinese and loose 50 million Americans (the 10:1 battle losses of Korea when the US had unfettered air dominance)...and what would that do to America? See the math...not to good looking.