ok, now pornodoggy:
first of all, i wasn't being condescending but if you took it that way then fuck you anyway
and really, would you say that the average american public school graduate is equally as well-educated as you? i've read your posts; i'd say not. what would you say?
"your "history-lite" lesson about the early-20th-century was hardly necessary"
then why did you ask? when someone says "Could you please enlighten me as to what some of the signs of the so-called decline that began at the turn of the 20th century were?" i get the impression they don't already know the answer. if you do then why waste my time?
"I am not prepared to take the leap off into comparing our actions in Iraq to our actions in the Phillipines (even if there are certain TACTICAL comparisons that can be made)."
ok, so they are doing the exact same thing, but they're not? i'm sure you're familiar with PNAC and it's plan for using iraq as the forward deployment bases for further military adventures in the middle east. more similarities than differences i'd say.
"Your description of World War I as a war in which we had no interest is (to be polite) questionable as well. Those were, after all, American ships the Germans were sinking with unrestricted submarine warfare."
yes, and those ships being sunk were passenger ocean liners filled with military supplies headed to england. if you aren't aware of this i'm thinking your public education failed you here.
i keep making the mistake of posting here and giving people the impression that i give a fuck. i used to care, but then i found out that most of what i'd been taught was a scam. once i began to educate myself and saw that there was nothing new under the sun i lost my anger and became a dispassionate observer of the human folly.
the only reason i bother to say anything at all is the offhand chance someone reads one of my posts and concludes the perpetual american "patting themselves on the back" and starts to learn and prepare for a future drastically different than the one they're selling on tv.
"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity." albert einstein