#1: Doubt it. We've had a worse economy (think the great depression), and we've fought larger wars (think the world wars). People who whine about Iraq usually conveniently forget about our history.
Frankly, the war in Iraq boils down to whether Saddam was really dangerous or not, and how we handled Iraq after Saddam was defeated. Most of the other things people talk about is, IMHO, a red herring.
#2: Not likely. We may have our military all over the place, but when is the last time we've really added more territory to our nation? When is the last time we've added a new state to the Union? We have a lot of military power outside the USA, but we don't own a lot of land. We're still only 50 states. This whole "we're the next empire" thing just sounds like a bad analogy.
Besides, the next president could very well reverse a lot of Bush's decisions. I know the democrats especially want to distance themselves as far as possible from the war in Iraq.
A national debt is not necessarily a bad thing.
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Despite my response to #1, I'd still prefer to turn that around and run in the green. I really don't see the point of having a lot of debt.
Does the government pay interest or fees from our debt? I know that's usually the worst part of going into debt: It just becomes a large downward spiral as the debt increases itself.
A lot of people don't realize that just because the government can get into debt without issues doesn't mean it's safe for the average person to get into debt.
(lots of stuff by DrathKar)
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And? One problem I have with this type of reasoning is that you're taking a few scattered facts and making a sweeping generalization with them. It's the "logic" of the conspiracy theorist, which isn't logical at all. Nearly all books on logic I have list this as "hasty generalization" or something similar.
Sorry, but a list of facts by themselves means zip, zero, nada. If you can't tie them together directly, you have a very flimsy hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many facts you throw around - what matters is how you connect them.
There is also the ethical considerations of using combatants which cannot disobey an unlawful order such as killing of wounded, civilians etc.
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Yeah, this could be an issue. I don't think the army is moving towards a totally autonomous military. Humans still need to control the vehicles, even if it is remote rather than direct.