My Ex-Wife is Japanese. Her and her new husband really enjoy the house I bought in Las Vegas. But that's another story. I taught her English so well everyone thought she was third generation born in America.

so what went wrong

He taught her English so well that she understood his bullshit for what it was?....:P

When I read your response RADAR I really really wanted you to dispel the myth....I always think people jump to readily into the trap of defining all Asian women as culturally submissive and Vietnamese or Philipino (sp) women in particular as mail order brides chosen by Men whose own chauvinism has reached such a level that they are out of step with modern western values like gender equality.

I have a friend who is distance dating a Philipino woman he met through his work as techsupport for Servers serving Asia. ..Now I will admit I took the right royal piss out of him when he told me he was flying out to the philipines to meet up with his new lady. ....But I really was just teasing because my friend is a lovely guy who hasnt got a chauvinist bone in his body ( well....except for one but I think thats all guys..:D ..) He's already been married once and has a delightful daughter His Phillipino girlfriend is also a divorcee with children. I have seen the photos of her and him together on holiday and they make a good couple. She doesnt look like the submissive type and knowing my friend as I do I dont think he'd have been drawn to her if she was.....

So...I was really hoping to see this stereotype debunked ....but then every damn paragraph of RADAR's post just read like my idea of the stereotypically chauvinist male drawn to Asian women because they "know how to look after their men properly".....Damn

Really Radar, I do wish you the best. However, I agree with DanaC that you shouldn't make cultural assumptions. If you do try to treat her with the submissive asian woman stereotype, well, I have three words for you. Loreena Bobbit & Ginsu.

Anyway, that being said, can someone explain how a thread I started on the draft ended up discussing Radar's nuptials?

DanaC, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but it's a distinct trend I have noticed.

Richlevy is right y'know....we really have allowed this thread to wander across the road and get run over by an oncoming truck *grins*.
So....to take it back to the draft for a moment.

In the light of recent events in Faluja and in light of the public outrage over incidents involving Iraqi prisoners ......do we think it is likely that a draft will be attempted? and How would the American public respond?

My opinion is that if we decide we cannot walk away from Iraq, which even Kerry agrees on, and the handover does not go smoothly, we may decide to commit a major force of 250K+ to quell unrest, bringing back more armor.

If that happens, and we do not get more international involvement, which will probably be withheld as long as Bush is president, then in my opinion we move up to a %50 or more chance of reinstating a draft.

The only way we could cover any large comittment in Iraq with our own troops without a general draft would be to have an 'internal draft', extending terms of service, issuing callbacks to veterans, etc.

BTW, here is an interesting New York Times article on the current makeup of the military on a politicians web site.

The Draft = Slavery. It says the government has a greater claim on our lives than we do for ourselves. It says the government OWNS us. A purely volunteer military makes sure the government doesn't go rushing into wars that aren't supported by thier bosses (The American People) and makes sure they don't START wars.

The only way a draft would come about is if:

A) there was again a unified social attitude of the American public - the type that existed in the 30s-50s and in decreasing levels from 9/12/2001 - 2/1/2004*

B) there was a national crisis (or *perceived* crisis) that encouraged this unified attitude to become some sort of national service, which would solve or appear to solve the crisis.

If, for example, a nuclear device were set off in downtown Philadelphia, the response of the public would be 9/12/2001 *magnified*. It would demand a level of seriousness that most people hadn't experienced before. And a unified response.

*In my opinion, the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" benchmarks the end of the post 9/11 spirit and the complete return to paying rabid attention to completely silly things.

You forget that we are in a 'war on terror'. The new draft would come in under the 9/11 banner that the administration has been using as a blank check for the past 2 years.

neo-Conservatives would want it because they would see it as a tool for an even stronger American hegemony.

Liberals might want it because they would have some faint hope of an egalitarian military where rich kids would have to take the same risks as poor and middle class kids.

I would be interesting how the military would deal with gays and women since attitudes have changed since Vietnam and there are more women in uniform and on the front lines. Also, they will need to address gay military service since the idea of giving an entire group a ticket out might not sit well with gay detractors. Hence they would try for a national service model to address these groups, not to mention conscientious objecters.



Of course, if national service does come about, there would probably be some homeland civilian component, and the rich kids would end up delivering Meals on Wheels in their Porsches while the rest are pounding sand.

It doesn't matter that we are in a war on terror, because most people don't perceive it to be a war any longer, which is why more people are putting "irony quotes" around the words "war on terror".

Without that perception, the idea of a draft will be politically unacceptable and unviable, believe me.

It will if there is another major attack, and whether there will be is an interesting question. My feeling is that the capabilites Al Queda would need to pull something of S11 scale off simply don't exist anymore, the but there will be more and more small attacks, maybe in the US, maybe not.

19 guys armed with boxcutters, willing to die for their cause, and just smart enough to be students for a few months and to understand a few instructions from the boss.

I don't know, that I admit, but I bet those raw materials are available in any extremist mosque in Saudi Arabia.

Fake passports, flight training, intelligence gathering.

The biggest problem is keeping your profile low enough. When you start dealing with 5+ people keeping the chatter to nill without leaving any traces gets hard.