eljefe: Yes, the US economy is the biggest and arguably the most important in the world, but don't think that the US 'disappearing' would cause everyone else to fall. Its not that simple. Everything is tied together. If China, or some other major 'producing' nation were to fall or impose some kind of strong sanction or economic reform, it would have an equally devastating effect on the equilibrium. The US is very dependent on these other countries to provide a cheap labour and manufacturing pool for the production of goods and services. You simply can not produce anything efficiently in the united states anymore due to the extremely high labour costs. Many of the heavy manufacturing industries which prop up the world economy (remembering that the 'real' money in the world is derived from the selling of goods, not services) simply cannot exist in the United States, and the few that do are heavily subsidised by the government.

Look at what happened at the recent world trade summit in Mexico. A group of 'unimportant' nations banded together and made demands on the 'major' western nations. They could do this because of the collective role they play in the production area of the economy. The united states is effectively an exchange. They design goods, have them made elsewhere, import them, then sell them onwards. Have a look around your house and tell me how many 'thing; you can find which are Made in USA...


This new 'war' is completely different to any conflict which has gone before. Its not army vs army. Is army vs people. The reason terrorism or this insurgent war in Iraq is so effective is, as Starfisher says, because the 'enemy' uses the exact methods which cannot be countered socially. The 'weakness' of the modern developed country is not militarily, it is in lifestyle and ideals. Saddam was able to hold Iraq in check because he had tools at his disposal which were extremely effective in discouraging such actions. The united states cannot use these effective tools due to social and political reasons (torture, death squads, secrete police etc). Is a really messed up situation...

The US economy effects the World Economy but not to a massive extent.

I agree with Simon that this war is much different then others because not only the fact the tools to stop it arent exactly available but because the enemy is the people we have to help to win. US Soldiers dont know whether that buisness man walking up to their checkpoint is just on his way to work or if his breifcase is full of C-4 to kill them.

The real problem is that the US doesnt have a firm plan for rebuilding Iraq since Bush is so clueless as to not have set the plan up proir to the invasion. Here we are almost a year later and little to no progress has been made on rebuilding, only Sadr City is truly "safe" and it's under UK control and being run totally different. I dont think the US will succeed here but pulling out would only give rise to another terrorist regime in the nation and be more harmful because of America's fear to topple the regime, fearing another great failure in full vieew of the world.

I think that Bush sees his failure but refuses to correct it. He has setup another whole new body to rebuild only to have it almost fail as well. The Iraq council is having assassination attempts against it every day and all the US can do is take the losses and throw in a replacement trooper or councilman.

The only real boone to us is that we have managed to free the Iraqi people and restore some of the benefits they had before the war, such as power and water but the Iraqis still question our reasons for being there since the first thing we defended was the oil refineries on the Gulf instead of the Iraqi's historical museums that housed priceless artifacts hundreds to thousands of years old.