Hiroshima, 60 years later...

[Gen.Vader]

hey vader, what happens when the "world police" who consists of all armed service people from the world,what if they attacked america? BOOM like half of the army is gone,back to protect america. point is that the nation under attack by the world police/oinvestigated by world police, thier forces are going to withdraw freo the force, and then thier allies would pull out and p[resto, we are back to america as head honcho "police"

also the UN, i agree has never been a world force, its just a place where we can all talk, and TRY to keep peace, which doesnt work.

good thing about UN is if you blow them off (hint hint AMERICA) you are frowned upon by the world.

i also cannot STAND the stupidity of people who discriminate against party like if your a liberal you must be this and that and vice versa!

i like having no party saves me alot of lawsuits

[Naja]

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I hate all the liberals out there, i for one support bush. Date: Sept. 11th everyone wants to invade Afghanistan, BUsh goes ahead and does it, what happens??? Instead of supporting the trooopwho are trying to make abetter world for everyone everyone says no its bad blah blah blah. I agree with you on one point though, the US shoudlnt be the world police. But we have to however, why? Cause all your weak a** countries couldnt even hack it! THere should be a world army, consisting of people from, umm let's see, All over the world! THat way when a situation arises the world army goes in and because it is consisted of people from every country things are settled without bias. The UN is supposed to work like this but we all know the UN is a joke. Just my opinion, love me for it, hate me for it. Thats just how i feel.

 

 

Huh? I know that there was some outcry against Afghanistan, but it was hardly everyone. It was a widely accepted invasion, even on the international front, and even *gasp!* a justifiable war, considering that the Taliban was sheltering bin Laden. Didn't make the war that effective, though, considering how a: terrorists don't present fixed targets, b: bin Laden et al are long gone, c: the mountainous terrain paired with the zealous nationalism of the Afghanis more or less completely guarantees that our occupation of Afghanistan will never be successful. Same thing happened to the British at the turn of the 20th century in Afghanistan, and...even Iraq.

 

Not to come off like a cynic, but do you call arming and training corrupt men like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega (to name a few) making the world a better place? Our troops have nothing to do with it, and have nothing to do with a more liberal-minded critique of our foreign policy - it's the policy-makers that we have grievances against; short-sighted, arrogant bastards that want pro-US puppet states to supply cheap resources, and that only make a stand about freedom, or dictatorships, or genocide, or *fill in the blank* whenever it serves their interests. Did Reagan care about genocide? Why was that administration a staunch ally of Saddam when he was gassing the Kurds in the 80's? Does Bush & company? Then where the hell is the action against the current genocide in Sudan? But they're such gallant champions of democracy! ...and they whole-heartedly support the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, and tried to rig the Iraqi election with the CIA. Like it or not, the fact of the matter is that our foreign policy ever since the Cold War has been nothing but the procurement of satellite states. That may have had some relevance back in that era, but in this, it's nothing short of pure hypocrisy and robbery.

 

"Support the troops" is a misleading farce - to support the troops means to care for their actual well-being, to serve their best interests. Yet what has this administration done? It's cut Veteran's Affairs by over a billion. It's haphazardly supplied inadequate amounts of infantry armor and vehicle plating for our frontline troops, it's the administration of a man who has never seen combat ever in his life, exclaiming "bring it on." Supporting the troops in no way means that you have to support the war...a corrupt war that has no purpose. A war against a country that - even admitted by the White House - had no ties to bin Laden and 9/11, and no WMDs. An occupation that is rapidly turning into an ethnic civil war that we simply will not be able to win. An occupation that, ironically, has made us less safe; fanatics like bin Laden are propagandizing our invasion, spinning it to confirm to millions of confused and terrified Muslims that America has declared war on Islam, and thus acquiring thousands more in recruits than they could ever have dreamed of. All because of that moronic and reckless invasion.

 

As for your world army? Technically, the UN is ideally supposed to serve as a "non-biased" peace-keeping forum and force, but you're right, it is weak. But not for the reason you specified, and in no way does this justify one country filling in the spot. Institutions like the UN are only effective at neutralizing worldwide conflicts when all countries - especially the most powerful ones - fully cooperate. Our neoconservative administrations since Reagan have backed out of and violated an unimaginable amount of international treaties concerning nuclear disarmament, global warming, genocide, napalm, and torture. Imagine what a joke an institution like that looks like if the most powerful country in the world can balk at it and simply continue what it's doing unabated. It's not soley the US's fault, as a lot of the bigger European countries sometimes creep around UN protocol, but we are the only member that has demonstrated such brazen disregard for international law. International law becomes a joke when one rogue country can continually defy it at its leisure, sort of like how a town's police force becomes viewed as a joke when the mob rules everything.

 

All this said, why do you think the majority of the world looks down on us? Our government parades freedom and self-determination, and yet jails hundreds of its own citizens without even charging them with a crime, and funds terrorists and contra thugs to usurp popularly-elected governments. And yet somehow most of us seem to think that people like bin Laden hate us because of our freedoms. That the whole world hates us because they are jealous of our power. It's our arrogance, my friend, our arrogance. And while I love my country and the ideals it was founded on, and strive to better it by getting educated and learning about the issues, at this point in time I am very ashamed to be an American because of men like Bush, and the people who voted for him.

 

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[Teradyn_pff]

Now hold on there Naja. Lets not talk about the parties here because if we go that direction, we get into the fact that the Democratic party has done more to attempt to dissarm the US than anyone.

 

I don't agree with our foreign policy as a whole, especially when it comes to these "peace keeping" missions as they are called. In my opinion, if we have an issue that is going to affect our economy (as the Iraq situation was listed as), we should either leave it alone or make our outright demands for whatever concessions we want and if they are not met, declare outright war on said country and invade, and take over.

 

Harsh? Yes, but that is the honest and most forward thing to do. People may not see the direction our world society is going but it is going down hill. This go out and help everybody attitude is false on the part of our politicians (Rep and Dem alike), and blatently stupid on the part of the populace that believes in it.

 

A country should only police their own territories. If we want to police some other country.. we need to make it our own territory. Plain and simple. What is being attempted now is to step in (in the name of fostering freedom) and change the regime to something that is more likely to trade freely with us. It is money and power, nothing else. All of the freedom and democracy stuff is political crap that is played up to make the whole thing seem like we are doing a good thing.

 

As for the original post, I fully support the use of the 2 bombs. Many points about the lives on both sides have been made well and the 2 bombs did not kill anywhere as many civilians as our conventional raids did. But they make good political targets because of their total effectiveness. The American lives those bombs saved are all that matter. We were at War with Japan and anyone that thinks that means only military casualties are fools. Most of the uniformed military of Japan were not even considering military duty when WWII started. They were civilians pressed into service, like so many of our military. Remember that the Japanese pilots who killed so many Americans in the Pearl Harbor sneak attack were just kids during the first world war. Keep that in mind when decrying civilian casualties. The men who fought and died in the Pacific on those islands were just as deserving of life as the civilians who were working to support the armies that were killing them.

 

Think on this, look at a cute little baby boy and see how innocent and sweet he is. Stalin, Hitler, Hussein were all cute little baby boys at one time. War is death and destruction, it is the last mediator when all others fail. Tell a family member that their son, brother, father, etc who died was a military casualty, but that the civilians supporting the ones who killed him are more tragic. See what they think about that

[Naja]

I wasn't talking about political parties, nor disarmament. Just foreign policy that is hypocritical and anti-democratic. Neoconservatives are the grand champions, but neoliberals like Clinton weren't exactly angels either, e.g. giving China - a despotic police state with a horrible human rights record - Most Favored Nation trading status, similar though lesser handouts to megacorporations, supporting the WTO, etc.

 

In my opinion, if we have an issue that is going to affect our economy (as the Iraq situation was listed as), we should either leave it alone or make our outright demands for whatever concessions we want and if they are not met, declare outright war on said country and invade, and take over.

 

Now...I could be misunderstanding that quote. But it sounded awfully a lot like colonialism, to me. If that's the case, then...wow. Congratulations on the 19th century thinking, minus the White Man's Burden. Look at a starving, disease-ridden place like Africa and tell me that those dictatorships, genocides, and civil wars weren't at least influenced by Europeans coming in, pitting ethnic faction against ethnic faction, drawing arbitrary map boundaries, and stealing their resources. If you're willing to accept the "might makes right" argument, then I'd wonder how long you would maintain it if it were your country that was invaded and taken over, and coerced for another country's hunger for resources.

[Gen.Vader]

white mans burden.....if you are meaning the big south slavery thing that is just plain stupid. everyone moans because we did a bad thing that had happened for more thaan 4000 years! every race black,yellow,red and white has been enslaved for periods of time and it wasnt a good thing to do but we shouldnt be burdened by what our founding fathers did. i dislike people that are all anti cocasion because we enslaved them 200 years ago,it was just a nasty and horrible way mankind evolved to what it is today.

[Naja]

No, White Man's Burden was a popular pro-colonialism philosophy at that time, coined by the author Rudyard Kipling (the dude who wrote The Jungle Book). Has nothing to do with our American slavery.

 

Basically, the White Man's Burden is the belief that "those people" are so hopelessly backwards that it's our (European) duty to go into their lands to govern them, convert them to our religion, and modernize them to our technologies. Many people believed it at the time, because it was essentially a benevolent rationale for merciless conquest and exploitation.

[Gen.Vader]

sorry bout the mix up, that juast stood out to me

its like WOT but 200-300 years prior.

[Ghostly_Substance]

Quote from an anime and I find this true and should apply to any current nation on this planet.

 

" 'Insert nations name' shouldn't attack other nations. It doesn't allow other nations to be attacked by other nations. Nor do nations meddle in the fights of other nations"

 

I know what you might be thinking that I might be pulling this out and just using it blindly and just dreaming but that is one way to keep a war down.

 

Also I keep on saying that war is part of human nature and not from the media. Look at our history, we keep on fighting like mad and we barely had peace in our human life time on earth. All we do is fight and fight and cant keep quiet and all we do is piss one person which in turn ticks off the person who started it and we get a brawl (Evidence: School with bullies). Well war can be avoided but its just us having the urge to have wars like the people in the world who have the urge to have sex. Proof ? Look at all the damn wars we're causing and you'll see the damn proof. Right now I want to smack something but i'm keeping my anger in.

 

Also look at the people joining the military (example: Marcus) just for a job or to also make themselves "tought guys". Well if my memory surves me correctly I believe your military property and he'll be forced to fight on the battlefield once the soilder count goes down. Also people joining just because they hear the fake meaning of "peace" and "freedom".

 

Revenge: We all want revenge sometimes and some people think more of a violent ways then others.

 

 

So basicly what I mean is we just love to fight and we might look peaceful inside. Well lately some people on the planet are just plain old cowards for whatever reason (maybe brought up that way ?)

[Gen.Vader]

what we need is a dictatorship, or at least 1 ruling supreme force/body of people.

i know you all are saying what about freedom and all this other junk. well freedom isnt rweally about doing whatever you pleasse, it is about responsibly making good desicions that put a positive spin in your communities and nations. But if we had a ruling body liek a world senate, all the people could be represented and yet controlled by 1 force. (hint hint *cough*rome*ciough* now who fights against a force that rules peacefully and works for the safety and improvement of our species? no one really, because why would you disrupt peace if you have nothing to gain? even if we had 20% of mankind to a military force, that would be a billion guys, enough to quell any rebellion.

me and my utpian ideas might never surface but at least its good to dream!

 

^^ V

[Naja]

I'm kinda at odds with your definition of freedom. Are you saying that one person or one small group of people should determine what is "good" for everyone else? According to your definition, the Taliban were champions of freedom. Who defines what responsibility and good decisions are, anyway? Take an Evangelical Christian, a Muslim, an Atheist, a Republican, Democrat, a conservative, a liberal, and put them in the same room with the question of what responsibility and goodness are. What exactly are the chances of anything close to a unanimous answer on anything? To me, freedom in a civil society is best defined, in the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, "the right to my opinion ends at my neighbor's nose." Freedom in a democracy is your right to your thoughts and ideas despite what the majority may think of them, and your right to freedom of action, so long as those actions you do do not adversely affect others. Freedom on the global scale, like for a country, is what's called self-determination - a country has the right to choose what it can and cannot do, how it can handle its resources, what sort of government to serve its people, etc, and the freedom to operate under these rights without a more powerful country telling it what to do; assuming again, that these actions do not adversely affect its population or the population of another country (i.e. no genocide, no wars of conquest, etc). The important thing in realizing how these concepts - freedom, democracy, wrong, right - are agreed upon values by means of consensus, is the necessity of no one party acquiring too much power. The old adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely is notoriously relevant, in this day and age.

 

And one supreme governmental body with no seperation of powers has no chance of becoming corrupt? That's the problem with over-centralized power - if you've got a legendarily good leader, like Charlamagne, Augustus, or whoever, then a lot gets done with no hassle. But more often than not, you've either got a dipshit or a power-hungry tyrant that's attracted to power for its own sake, and then you're in a world 'o trouble.

 

Ah well. I'm just full of shit. You can take me with a grain of some serious salt.

[Gen.Vader]

i was going for a big brother example,and for corruption you could imply rules that the peace could not last if it was taken away. or we could do away with religion as well i wasnt trying to do a freedom thread, just a way we could stop wars...*sigh* i should post at night, then i rant..

[Teradyn_pff]

Freedom on the global scale, like for a country, is what's called self-determination - a country has the right to choose what it can and cannot do, how it can handle its resources, what sort of government to serve its people, etc, and the freedom to operate under these rights without a more powerful country telling it what to do; assuming again, that these actions do not adversely affect its population or the population of another country (i.e. no genocide, no wars of conquest, etc).

 

Well, hold on there. You can not say that a country has freedom of self-determination with strings. If a country is operating in a very inhumanistic manner but not outside of its borders then its freedom of self-determination is still intact. The minute someone steps in and says "You can't do that" because it goes against some other country's beliefs, that freedom is taken away. So now we get into a situation where an outside body is stepping in saying you can't do that in your own backyard. This is the point I was trying to make earlier. No country has the right to step in and tell another country what to do. What the US is doing in Iraq for example can be seen as a good thing by some because we are supposedly helping their human rights issues, installing a Democratic government, etc. Truth is, we are doing the same thing that the British did with the African areas but on a more sneaky level. A Democratic society in a very Oil rich country who owes its existence to the US is a powerful resource, right? What I was saying was that I can not stand the Hypocracy. If they are doing the job so poorly in their own country to the point where we need to get involved, we should make them a state in our country and they would be governed, share the same benefits and rights, and share the same obligations etc that any other state in the US does. Otherwise leave them the heck alone.

 

The truth is that if the US went over to Iraq and conquered it and annexed it, the rest of the world would see the shift in Power in terms of Oil (not anything to do with another country taking over another one) and object strongly. Maybe even decide to take up arms to prevent this. Then you get world war III. So what do we do? We work in a sneaky way around to get what we want anyway and proclaim it as an act of mercy, saving these people from themselves and installing a system of government designed to "help them" (read: hook us up with a nice oil source). I strongly object to this as it is dishonorable, sneaky, low, dishonest, etc. Our society as a world is deteriorating rapidly because what is a society where there are no boundaries, no values, no honor?

[Ghostly_Substance]

Religion is also a factor. I'll give an example just dont get ticked off at me since its a real life example. A arab female wearing a face mask or clothing and wont let the driver license person take a picture of her face. She said its part of religion but you cant get a drivers license unless you get your face pictured. For these reason we also fight since one person believes in one thing and another believes in another. Btw I am so damn confused at why the hell are you so pissed off at a female showing her face. OMG shes showing her face, omg the worlds going to end. Now that will tick someone off and a war starts. Romans tried conquering different religions and there was one set religion and also the people could practice their religion but some/most disagreed with the Romans and rioted in some cases.

 

Dictatorship will work if the leader is respected and knows what hes doing. Look at Stalin, he killed millions of people and made them slaves but he made a poor country into a industrial country. When he died people cried because he was evil and created a business country. Some/most people hate him because their families have been killed but the bad made the good. Look at the war state of America, they're rich as hech and spending it all on military so they can get more money. Canada is peaceful and its rich enough to keep enough people alive.

 

One more thing, there will always be wars when human and religion intermix and its hard to live as a whole. Look at America and the Indians or Canada and the Natives. Canada or America or Europe and North America or North america and Europe with Middle east and asians. We can live together but we hate each other for religion matters and because we're all different. I always here people bash Russia and communist countries.

[Naja]

Well, that's true, Teradyn, the Iraq war is a good example of those "strings." However, as a constitutional law student, I've learned that a lot of our freedoms are not absolute, for the sake of flexibility. Protected speech, for example, does not cover speech that has a clear and present danger of incitement or of large-scale violence, child pornography (yes, pornography is classified as speech), and libel/defamation, to name a few.

 

The same goes for countries. It's a very tricky balance to attain, obviously, that no one of us really knows. If you say that every country has absolute self-determination within their borders, then some very horrible things like genocide could occur and there would be nothing that more civilized, concerned countries could do about it. On the other hand, if you add strong strings and say - sort of like my country's foreign policy guys - that it is the duty of all democratic countries to "democratize" all dictatorial countries, and to stop ethnic killing, etc, then you have opened the door to a lot of sneaky loop holes, like you've mentioned. After all, *sarcasm* we're fighting in Iraq because they were living under a dictator who gassed his own people (even though those people were gassed a little under 20 years ago and that same dictator enjoyed our full support while he was doing it).

[Gen.Vader]

Religion is also a factor. I'll give an example just dont get ticked off at me since its a real life example. A arab female wearing a face mask or clothing and wont let the driver license person take a picture of her face. She said its part of religion but you cant get a drivers license unless you get your face pictured. For these reason we also fight since one person believes in one thing and another believes in another. Btw I am so damn confused at why the hell are you so pissed off at a female showing her face. OMG shes showing her face, omg the worlds going to end. Now that will tick someone off and a war starts. Romans tried conquering different religions and there was one set religion and also the people could practice their religion but some/most disagreed with the Romans and rioted in some cases.

 

Dictatorship will work if the leader is respected and knows what hes doing. Look at Stalin, he killed millions of people and made them slaves but he made a poor country into a industrial country. When he died people cried because he was evil and created a business country. Some/most people hate him because their families have been killed but the bad made the good. Look at the war state of America, they're rich as hech and spending it all on military so they can get more money. Canada is peaceful and its rich enough to keep enough people alive.

 

One more thing, there will always be wars when human and religion intermix and its hard to live as a whole. Look at America and the Indians or Canada and the Natives. Canada or America or Europe and North America or North america and Europe with Middle east and asians. We can live together but we hate each other for religion matters and because we're all different. I always here people bash Russia and communist countries.

stalin was a crazy, yet cunning bastid....his propanganda techiques fooled many people for decades,and to see how far he could go heres an example

he has his picture taken wuith his closest advisors at the begging of his reign, but when they went against him he obliterated them, thier past and lives. he went over and digitally erased those people who he had stood with for a picture...if it wasnt for his nukes he would have prolly gone the same way as saddam

[Ghostly_Substance]

When I watched the documentory they mentioned no nukes that he used to threaten and he was dead. Maybe Puttin or someone else im not thinking about ? Stalin might of been violent and got rid of his competition but people went to his funeral as I said to thank him for making Russia an industrial country and now I donno how it is.

[Naja]

I never bought that whole "ends justifying the means" crap. I don't care how industrialized Stalin made Russia. He did it with the blood of tens of millions of his own people on his hands. And for what? The Soviet economy was flimsy, innefficient, and over-centralized, anyway; look at how their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the 1970s totally crippled them, how vulnerable it revealed their infrastructure to be.

 

I disagree that he would have gone the way of Saddam, if he didn't have hydrogen bombs, though. Iraq is a little bigger than the state of Texas, with flat, predictable terrain, and a population that generally disliked their leader. Stalinist Russia at its zenith covered a territory half the surface of the moon, with varied and random terrain, and a population that - through propaganda, a Stalinist cult of personality, and all those who were suspected "counterrevolutionaries" being shot or sent to gulags - revered their leadership. Saddam was easy to take out because the American military is the currently most high-tech, heavy-hitting conventional force on earth; Saddam's force had rotted over the 10+ years in which Iraq was under sanctions to a rusty, broken down parody of an army. A 'Blitzkrieg,' "Shock and Awe" type campaign, that worked so well at taking out the already-warn-out Iraqi forces, would prove futile at taking out Soviet Russia. Look at how well Russia has resisted foreign invaders in the past: Napolean, Hitler, the "White" Russian (Tsarist loyalist) allies from Europe and America. *shrugs* Irrelevant hair-splitting.

[Ghostly_Substance]

As I said and please note my wording that even though Stalin did extremely bad things. He still made the good happen from a poor defenceless Russia to a well armed Russia or well armed enough to fend off the enemy even if the Russians soilders got killed more. They were so desperate to defend their front lines that the Russians rolled out their tanks without paint and straight to the field to crush the Nazi's. Yes I know I know Stalin is bad but would you at least try and think about what i'm trying to say ?!

 

Ya so Russia failed to take over Iraq since they're economy was collapsing. War and Stalin not finishing up his plan does that and the economy was new so theres not much you can do. Btw Russian's are fighting for their lives so they wont give up Russian's got closer to Germany then the allies and they used their new economy to crush Germany. Well now they're rebuilding or trying to.

[Gen.Vader]

what i meant by him going the way of saddam was if he didnt have nukes we would have overpowered them with ours. then boomo presto he is in our custody and get be a snug as a bug in a rug with saddam i have to give him credit, calling the winter gods to beat back the germans in the 2nd world war

[Teradyn_pff]

Naja, I think we agree for the most part. But I am a hardline cynic i guess. I think that the United States needs to take care of our own problems before we worry about fixing others'. Truth of the matter is, this has more to do with the OIL than any human rights issue as you pointed out. It just makes me sick to see the hypocracy of it all. We as a country have no right to interfere with any other country unless they request it, and I don't think Sadaam asked for our help there. Our constitution lists our rights and rules as citizens of the nation that that constitution governs, it does not apply to any other country unlike what alot of people seem to think. Mark my words, maybe not in our lifetime, but well before 3000 all of this goodie goodie fantasy people believe in will be knocked to the wayside and the raw caveman-day rules will be reestablished. The United States is like those college students all over the world that always seem to be ready to rally a cause, demonstrate, hold idealistic beliefs. Too young and stupid to come to true grips with reality as it exists. Those idealists eventually grow up and you don't see them active like they were, there are more real issues to deal with and sometimes life just sucks. America will have that happen, but the trouble is that it is a very large country, and any depression or rage that results from coming to terms with reality will probably be very unpleasant, possibly catastrophic. Imagine a suicidal teenager that could take the whole world with it with just a single push of a button.

[Naja]

Yeah, the prospect is daunting, indeed. Thankfully though, if our current leadership maintains the same ideology (and spending habits) for long enough, we'll be bankrupt before Armegeddon comes in. Then it will come down to the Chinese and you Europeans to rule the world...we'll have enough trouble emerging from our own 3rd World Hellhole.

[Vader89]

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I hate all the liberals out there, i for one support bush. Date: Sept. 11th everyone wants to invade Afghanistan, BUsh goes ahead and does it, what happens??? Instead of supporting the trooopwho are trying to make abetter world for everyone everyone says no its bad blah blah blah. I agree with you on one point though, the US shoudlnt be the world police. But we have to however, why? Cause all your weak a** countries couldnt even hack it! THere should be a world army, consisting of people from, umm let's see, All over the world! THat way when a situation arises the world army goes in and because it is consisted of people from every country things are settled without bias. The UN is supposed to work like this but we all know the UN is a joke. Just my opinion, love me for it, hate me for it. Thats just how i feel.

 

 

Huh? I know that there was some outcry against Afghanistan, but it was hardly everyone. It was a widely accepted invasion, even on the international front, and even *gasp!* a justifiable war, considering that the Taliban was sheltering bin Laden. Didn't make the war that effective, though, considering how a: terrorists don't present fixed targets, b: bin Laden et al are long gone, c: the mountainous terrain paired with the zealous nationalism of the Afghanis more or less completely guarantees that our occupation of Afghanistan will never be successful. Same thing happened to the British at the turn of the 20th century in Afghanistan, and...even Iraq.

 

Not to come off like a cynic, but do you call arming and training corrupt men like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega (to name a few) making the world a better place? Our troops have nothing to do with it, and have nothing to do with a more liberal-minded critique of our foreign policy - it's the policy-makers that we have grievances against; short-sighted, arrogant bastards that want pro-US puppet states to supply cheap resources, and that only make a stand about freedom, or dictatorships, or genocide, or *fill in the blank* whenever it serves their interests. Did Reagan care about genocide? Why was that administration a staunch ally of Saddam when he was gassing the Kurds in the 80's? Does Bush & company? Then where the hell is the action against the current genocide in Sudan? But they're such gallant champions of democracy! ...and they whole-heartedly support the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, and tried to rig the Iraqi election with the CIA. Like it or not, the fact of the matter is that our foreign policy ever since the Cold War has been nothing but the procurement of satellite states. That may have had some relevance back in that era, but in this, it's nothing short of pure hypocrisy and robbery.

 

"Support the troops" is a misleading farce - to support the troops means to care for their actual well-being, to serve their best interests. Yet what has this administration done? It's cut Veteran's Affairs by over a billion. It's haphazardly supplied inadequate amounts of infantry armor and vehicle plating for our frontline troops, it's the administration of a man who has never seen combat ever in his life, exclaiming "bring it on." Supporting the troops in no way means that you have to support the war...a corrupt war that has no purpose. A war against a country that - even admitted by the White House - had no ties to bin Laden and 9/11, and no WMDs. An occupation that is rapidly turning into an ethnic civil war that we simply will not be able to win. An occupation that, ironically, has made us less safe; fanatics like bin Laden are propagandizing our invasion, spinning it to confirm to millions of confused and terrified Muslims that America has declared war on Islam, and thus acquiring thousands more in recruits than they could ever have dreamed of. All because of that moronic and reckless invasion.

 

As for your world army? Technically, the UN is ideally supposed to serve as a "non-biased" peace-keeping forum and force, but you're right, it is weak. But not for the reason you specified, and in no way does this justify one country filling in the spot. Institutions like the UN are only effective at neutralizing worldwide conflicts when all countries - especially the most powerful ones - fully cooperate. Our neoconservative administrations since Reagan have backed out of and violated an unimaginable amount of international treaties concerning nuclear disarmament, global warming, genocide, napalm, and torture. Imagine what a joke an institution like that looks like if the most powerful country in the world can balk at it and simply continue what it's doing unabated. It's not soley the US's fault, as a lot of the bigger European countries sometimes creep around UN protocol, but we are the only member that has demonstrated such brazen disregard for international law. International law becomes a joke when one rogue country can continually defy it at its leisure, sort of like how a town's police force becomes viewed as a joke when the mob rules everything.

 

All this said, why do you think the majority of the world looks down on us? Our government parades freedom and self-determination, and yet jails hundreds of its own citizens without even charging them with a crime, and funds terrorists and contra thugs to usurp popularly-elected governments. And yet somehow most of us seem to think that people like bin Laden hate us because of our freedoms. That the whole world hates us because they are jealous of our power. It's our arrogance, my friend, our arrogance. And while I love my country and the ideals it was founded on, and strive to better it by getting educated and learning about the issues, at this point in time I am very ashamed to be an American because of men like Bush, and the people who voted for him.

 

Directionless rant ending in 3...2...1...

 

Wow where do i begin? Well Kerry was a real great choice wasnt he then? THe man serves in Vietnam and comes back and testafies against his fellow soldiers to save his own skin. He had a picture taken of him holding the shotgun he was trying to outlaw just to attempt to get the Sportsmens vote. He was a wuss who would cower in fear to anyhting that would drop his support. Bush has kept on and persisted he will finish what he started. And you ought to see a Psychologist to treat those Conspiracy Theories of yours! The UN like i have said before is a JOKE! The US does too much we shouldnt do anything anymore! All get are complaints, complaints, complaints. Next time a madman commits mass genocide we'll just say "Ok then, slaughter them, who cares?" What would have happened in WWII if the US didnt get involved? What about if we hadent interfered with Hussein, you know him testing chemical weapons on his own people? Next time we'll just stay out of it and let people die, why not? And i was not implying that just the UN was weak i was implying that much of the world is weak. There are only 2 superpwers left in the world: The US and Russia. Whens the last time you saw Russia helping out anybody? The point is that the world and its problems should not have to fall on our shoulders.

[Ghostly_Substance]

1) Neither Kerrie Or Bush is a good vote but you had to vote for someone.

 

2) UN is weak because of currupted leaders and politics. It had more use in the past and still does but now its just us arguing about pointless things.

 

3) Well sorry to say but Canada, Russia, France, British could have delt with the Nazis. Before you sterotype French surrendered because they didn't want to be slaughtered by the strongest force in that time. Well Europe would have been owned mostly by Canadians and Russian's nowadays or maybe Canada would have pulled out and we would be possibly fighting Russia now. America might just be researching like mad if they haven't joined. Well the Japs might of invaded with their modern Samurai and they surely owned Russia but with more of Canada an Russia's help could have won either way. Canada had the third largest navy in the world. First was American, Second was British.

[Foshjedi2004]

1) Neither Kerrie Or Bush is a good vote but you had to vote for someone.

 

VOTE TIKI MONKEY!!! You Know it makes sense!!!

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/Foshjedi2004/VoteTiki.jpg

[Vader89]

Naja, I think we agree for the most part. But I am a hardline cynic i guess. I think that the United States needs to take care of our own problems before we worry about fixing others'. Truth of the matter is, this has more to do with the OIL than any human rights issue as you pointed out. It just makes me sick to see the hypocracy of it all. We as a country have no right to interfere with any other country unless they request it, and I don't think Sadaam asked for our help there. Our constitution lists our rights and rules as citizens of the nation that that constitution governs, it does not apply to any other country unlike what alot of people seem to think. Mark my words, maybe not in our lifetime, but well before 3000 all of this goodie goodie fantasy people believe in will be knocked to the wayside and the raw caveman-day rules will be reestablished. The United States is like those college students all over the world that always seem to be ready to rally a cause, demonstrate, hold idealistic beliefs. Too young and stupid to come to true grips with reality as it exists. Those idealists eventually grow up and you don't see them active like they were, there are more real issues to deal with and sometimes life just sucks. America will have that happen, but the trouble is that it is a very large country, and any depression or rage that results from coming to terms with reality will probably be very unpleasant, possibly catastrophic. Imagine a suicidal teenager that could take the whole world with it with just a single push of a button.

 

our Foreign Policy states that the US has the right to interfere with any situation like Iraq. Things have been like that since the Roosevelt Corrallary. If there is a madman committing genocide we should interfere, dont you think?