Ok...I'm asking seriously now...does it even occur to you that the United States has done anything wrong to these people? Why do you assume that anything about us they say is bad is a lie? I'n NOT supporting terrorism, but do you honestly think that the lengths to which these people hate America, to such an extent that they'd give their lives in the struggle against the U.S. , do you really think it's all based on madness or lies!?!? Isn't it possible that they might have some points, which to them might be less abstract...like, let's say, a dead family... In terms of Afghanistan's gratitude... 1) Our funding, while a great assistance, was very selective, and usually filtered through Pakistan..We gave 80% to one or 2 groups, while other rivaling groups got next to nothing...And the Afghans were quite aware that we were doing it to support our own interests, like the Communists did in Nam... 2) Bin Laden was originally pro-US, but when the Americans pulled promised support for the Afghan war it began a split...Later, Laden was opposed to having American troops in Saudi Arabia...He said that once they were allowed in, they would never leave, as it was a way to exert their own power over the oil resource rich area...The U.S., of course, protested that their only interests in Saudi Arabia were with regards to the immediate conflict, and would of course leave as soon as their objective was accomplished...The Americans pressured the Saudi Govt. to make Bin Laden unwelcome in his own country ( where he had previously been hailed as a hero for selling off large quantities of his wealty family's assets to fund the Afghan fight against the Soviet Union, a war in which he actually went and fought.) to which pressure they succumbed...Is it little surprise that, 10 years later, Laden is anti-American? Oh, and 10 years later...long after the Gulf War....the troops that Laden said wouldn't leave once allowed in...the troops the U.S. swore were only there for that immediate objective...the troops which caused the US to have Laden exiled from his homeland.....they're still there....
When the Americans rebelled against the British, they called the British "tyranny" because they were a foreign super-power excercising the right to rule in America merel because they had the power to do so...Americans were not enslaved, and the "tyrant" was the imposed government, not George III, who personally had little interest in America before the Revolution...Conditions here weren't terrible...In fact, only 1/3 of the Colonist wanted to rebel, 1/3 wanted to support the Crown, and 1/3 didn't care...What those who wanted to rebel were fighting for was that they, as the citizens of this land had the right to determine the government of this land, not some foreign superpower...So, by invading another country because we disagree with their government, because we have the ability to do so...we ARE BECOMING A TYRANT JUST BY THAT ACT ALONE. We are saying that we, the foreign superpower, shall determine your ( the citizens of their land) government....That IS tyranny...
so what are you saying? we deserved this? we shouldn't do anything? it was our fault that they couldn't find anyother means to solve their problems besides what happen on 9/11? we used our forces and soliders lives in kuwait and you don't think we deserved anything from it? you think laden was just going to go..oh here you go take this for your troubles...and he sure couldn't defend kuwait by himself could he? would you prefer sadam to have the oil instead of us? whose side are you on?
Severe Rockets Fan: Imagine a person stealing a CD player from a store. The owner of the store shoots them and their children. This, imo, is a crude allegory for the point JAG is trying to make. We made some mistakes. Other things we did could be easily misinterpreted. But the response was psychotically excessive.
God! So you decide that you're going closest toward what is right because you ( surprise surprise ) agree with your own bias...and based on that your might becomes right? Would it surprise you to know that most people agree with their own biases? Don't you think that Hitler thought he was doing what was right? Or Stalin? Or, well, basically every other super-power in the world's history? Thinking that you're right doesn't make you right, it just makes you think it...If everyone who thinks their right as the right to excercise their might over others, we're back in the Middle Ages...
In terms of Bin Laden, he never fought against Sadam, nor had any interest in Kuwait...Also, I doubt whether his life, or the lives of his countrymen would be drastically affected whether we have the oil or Sadam...He's a Saudi Arabian who fought against the Communists in Afghanistan.... In terms of us deserving this, I said that I agree with condemming this act as horrible, unforgivable, and atrocious...However, to then sweep away their MOTIVES for the attack under " insane " or "lies" is sophmoric and innacurate...I'm saying that these people didn't start hating us because we're nicer people with faster cars, there are real issues here...And while I oppose the forms their fight against us take, I can empathise with their desire to oppose us...If we don't revise our willingness to exploit lesser nations beacuse we're the BMOC, this kind of thing is going to continue... Oh, and while we were using our forces in a benevolent attempt to free the (oil rich) nation of Kuwait from the clutches of Sadaam Hussein, there were genocides going on in central africa (not oil rich). Interesting which we chose to fight for, and which we ignored...You can't expect gratitude for protecting our own interests...
1) I have said, and will say again, that I don't agree with terrorism...I have often said that were I a Palestinian told to vacte my ancestrol home of hundreds of years because some organization somewhere else in the world has decided that another people have suffered a lot, and they used to live here before the Diaspora ( by the Romans!) so out you go, don't let the door hit you on your way out...well, I'm not sure what I would do then...Or if I were a Northern Irishman...And I also think that, were I an Israeli, surrounded by enemies in the home of my people, I'd fight like hell to survive, just like they are...but I digress...) However, yuor crude analogy is accurate only insofar as it applies to Bin Laden's personal experience...The overall experience of the Middle East is slightly more severe...We're talking civilian blood on U.S. hands...We're talking being the primary funders of the Israelis who were given their homeland, and the weapons they use to keep it...We're talking getting tribes ( like the Kurds) to rise up against Sadam, fight for "freedom", promise them military assistance and funding, and once we have protected our oil assets, abandoning them to Sadam's rath, without any of the arms we promised, or the aid...These aren't CD's...these are deaths..thousands upon thousands of deaths...so the better analogy is that somebody walks into your store, steals a cd, and shoots your sister, so you respond by shooting his mother...Personally, I'm against the death penalty, so both sides are wrong...in the analogy, AND in the reality...The difference is, we always discuss how and why the terrorists are wrong, whereas anytime our sins are raised, they are dismissed as lies, insane ravings, idealogical rantings, or stolen cd's...
good points! my ignorance of the subjects are well shown. except the last part, it sounds a little sarcastic when you say "interesting which we chose to fight for" do you think we should use our military powers to fight all injustices on this planet or our own interest? certainly there is a point to where we are "sticking our noses where they don't belong" or do you support the ol' US=world police force view?
I think we often stick our noses where they don't belong, and I think that in doing so we are coming dangerously close to becoming the kind of power we rebelled against in the first place. In an ideal world the world's most powerful nation could and should exert it's power to protect the weak from the strong, etc. However, in the real world, there are several problems with this... a) How do we determine where, whom, and when to help? No matter what standard you set, ultimately it'll come down to deciding right and wrong by our own standards, and as soon as we assume our standards should be the world's standard, and enforce that decision, we're tyrants... b) Even if we had a judicial divining rod to determine what was right and wrong in the world without bias, we haven't the manpower to correct all the problems...Then, as seen in Kuwait, our decisions on who to help and who to not help will come back to whichever one protects our own interest...I will say that, while it wasn't handled properly, the recent U.S. involvment in the Balkans did seem to be motivated from a strictly " What is the right thing to do?" perspective. However, in a nation with industrial giants (like Packard Bell) and special interest groups wielding innordinate power like the U.S., that kind of selfless action can't be counted on, and we'll usually end up exerting our power because we can to further our own interest...When you use your military for defense, you're being responsible...When you use it to destroy governments you don't agree with, or wade into local disputes on the side of the conflict which just so happens to represent your interests, you're becoming a tyrant... So, IF we can ACCURATELY determine who is responsible for a terrorist action, we can subject them to justice. As I'm against the death penalty, this opens up a whole new can of worms, but moving on...However, if we go ahead and attack an entire region or country because we suspect that some resident of that country was involved in a terrorist action based on the quick (and often innacurate) deductions of our intelligence community ( the same one who never saw this coming...) well, we're acting with complete disregard to the two basic tennants upon which the U.S. was founded....The right of a people to determine their own government without answering to a foreign super-power, and the right to be innocent until proven guilty... However, IF ( like in Libya, in the 80's) a nation declares that they support terrorist attacks against the U.S., and is proven to fund and train such terrorists, I believe we can take them at their word that a state of war exists between their nation and ours, and act swiftly and decisively to protect ourselves from our declared enemy....However, that is just not the case here...Every nation has come out in condemnation of this attack, and until we have PROOF (not intelligence) that they are lying, we can only go after the culprits themselves...If we attack any nation, we are being tyranical. As far as the cheering, it disgusts me too...But some of those people feel we're at war, and they've suffered their own casualties...We cheered when we bombed our enemies in WW2...there was dancing in the streets when we bombed Berlin the first time, because Hitler had said no bomb would ever fall on Berlin...The dancers managed to overlook the civilian casualties...So, I'm saying we've done it too, and both disgust me... Finally, even while we are pursuing the correct path here, I think we have to work to prevent this from happening again...There are two ways to do this, and both should be employed... 1) Increase intelligence funding and latitude. We have enough enemies as is to occupy us for a while... 2) Examine the complaints of these arguments of these enemies rather than dismiss them. Find the truths amid the propaganda, and learn from it. 3)In terms of Israel, I honestly don't know...It's a situation where both sides aren't wrong...Israel WAS formed out of international guilt and influence without consideration of the people it was going to essentially disenfranchise. It was wrong, and we acted like Metternech in Vienna, re-writing maps to suit our interests without knowing or caring about the lives of those under our pen...However, now that Israel IS a nation, they deserve to survive, and we helped create the problem...The fact that the Palestinians often resort to terrorism is understandable, if not agreeable, if you consider their options... This decision was imposed upon them by the combined superpowers of the world, against whom they could not compete. The newly established nation of Israel was given arms and training against whom the Palestinians couldn't fight a conventional war...And, prior to their use of terrorism, their complaints and plight went entirely ignored by the world that had done this to them... So they have fought back with the only weapons availble to them...what else could they do? What else would you or I do? I don't know that I could ever commit violence like that, but I sure can't dismiss the possibilty if I were living their lives..I mean, when the early Americans fought guerilla style against the redcoats, it was considered immoral, cowardly,dishonorable, etc. etc...The conventions of the day were breached because the Americans couldn't survive the accepted way... So I don't have a magic solution for the Middle East....but I know that dismissing their complaints against us isn't the answer....neither is carving up the middle east...
I think we should let this go w/o repercussions. After all, the Israelis and Palestenians are at war, and it's our fault for tryig to negotiate stability between them.
You're absolutely right...That is the complaint against us, that we're too interested in peace...Yep, you've got it...When they call us " imperialist!" it's not a reference to us using military might to protect our financial interests in THEIR region at the cost of THEIR lives, it's actually refering to our constantly popping up offering to mediate the best settlement, our interests be damned! Oh, and when they cry about us bombing their civilians in an attempt to put a leader of THEIR nation in power who would better sere OUR interests, what they are really complaining about is our tendancy to support the best leader for the country, be he communist, capitalist, whatever, so long as he has his nation's best interests at heart..I mean, our record in Central America, South America, and Africa is replete with supporting benevolent leaders whatever their political affiliation in the face of warlords and tyrants who just happen to claim to be capitalistic, and who would have given our major industries mineral rights at a reduced rate if only we weren't so damn morally aware... And when those tribes and peoples ( Kurds, Anti-Castro Cubans, Mujjah-Haddin) claim that we incite them to fight our...er...their enemies, to join us in our struggle for freedom, and we promise to give them military and financial support, only to abandon them to the fates we brought them to without our promised assistance because we've already secured our assets, or the political climate at home has changed, or our leader has had second thoughts...well, what they're really arguing against is our constant need to stay in the fight long after our interests have been protected or enhanced, just because we're Americans, and our word is our word... Look, again, condemn the act...Today's atrocity was unforgivable, and the individuals involved should meet justice...But don't dismiss their reasons for hating us with some sort of international martyr complex...
Sorry, but this is too much. The Soviet Union INVADED Afghanistan and replaced the government with a puppet version subservient to Soviet wishes. The CIA trained the Mujahadeen to fight for their own country. They did not train Bin Laden and his ilk to attack civilian targets, nor to fight outside of that conflict. The fact that you would try to blame the US for Bin Laden becoming and international terrorist is despicable and complete revisionism.
Oh right, so they should terrorize us because we didn't support ALL the groups equally. That makes sense. Well gee, do you think they're still there because we like to waste the money? Do you think they are still there because we use them to strong arm the Saudis? OR could they still be there because Saddam was not removed as they originally assumed would happen, and because he continues to be a threat in the region? And the picture you paint of Bin Laden is laughable. Why would the US want Bin Laden out of Saudi Arabia? Well, maybe its because he was supprting radical factions that wanted to bring down the Saudi government. Maybe it was because he had already started to turn on the West and had become involved in an international terrorist network.
Hmmm...was it tyranny to invade Germany and Japan? I don't think so. We disagreed on how countries should function in the world, we had conflict, we were stronger, we took over their countries and rebuild their governments in our image. Is that tyranny? Uh, NO. No doubt the US has made some moral mistakes, but what country hasn't. And I think most of you are taking your examples out of context. For example, the US didn't just prop up dictators in LA for no reason. There was a competing Superpower that was ALSO rolling through the third world planting dictatorships. Was the US backed dictator in Nicaragua a nice guy. No, he was a b*stard. Were the Sandinistas nice guys? No, they were bastards too. Geopolitics are NOT BLACK AND WHITE. So many naive people believe you can make an easy standard that would sort out all the bad things that happen with our foreign policy. It is a mass oversimplification of the way the world works. Wake up. There are usually MANY FACTIONS in any one dispute. Not some people in white hats and some people in black hats.
Don't be so harsh. Donwloading software as a means of making sure it's good enough to fork hard earned cash over is common practice among more people than you can believe. The game is good enough to be bought, no doubt about it. I just took it for a test drive to make sure of that. And i do really think that games cost too much. That is why i usually download stuff before buying. Look at crap like Force Commander for instance. Make no mistake, when I decide to really play the game, I will buy it. And btw, patches really are overrated. A couple of days after a patch is released, cracked versions are all over the net. The only way of actually making sure people buy a product is with a serial server based protection like the one in Diablo II, as the game is so bloody good no one in their right mind would stick with a copy being unable to enjoy the multiplayer. I realiase there's a fine line, but no one is going to refund me around here if a buy crap. And i'm sure you one there's plenty of junk being released these days.
And if we internalize all the blame ourselves, the perpetrators of this act walk. How about a little responsibility for the people who actually flew the ****ing planes into the buildings? Has the US done things that contribute to anti-American feelings in the world? YES. Absolutely. You can't deny it. But just as you ask for everyone on the board to put the terrorists feelings in context, you avoid putting US actions in context. BAD DOUBLE STANDARD. And you forget that the US has done a lot of GOOD things in a lot of regions on the planet.
More revisionism. Great. Why can't we expect gratitude for protecting our own interests? Consider: I am walking down the street and see you get cornered by a mugger. Its in my interest to help. The more people that help the less muggers will be out cornering people. This mugger at least may move off my block. When the mugger runs off as I approach are you going to say 'hey **** you buddy, you were just protecting your own interests anyway?' I sure hope not. And the situation in central africa (I'm assuming Rwanda is what you are talking about) is completely different. In the Gulf there was a clear enemy, the Iraqi (fourth largest) army. In Rwanda who do you side with? Just like in Somalia, the US would have went in with no clear group in the wrong, only different factions vying for control. Just like Somalia we probably would have taken a beating because there were no clear bad guys/good guys.
I think your definition of what makes a tyrant leaves a lot to be desired. If we had intervened and stopped Pol Pot from killing millions of Cambodians would that have been tyrranical? By your definition yes. If we had intervened in Germany and stopped Hitler from killing the Jews, would that have been tyrannical? By your definition yes. If we intervened ANYWHERE by your definition we would be committing a tyrannical act. Seems to me your cultural relativism is a little silly and certainly out of place in world politics. WHY should we be hesitant to impose our values if we think they are better? Because people have their own values? Well, so do rapists, mass murderers, dictators, ritual sacrificers, satan worshippers, and many others that we would not stand by and WATCH as they did what 'they felt is right.' You might think this is a red herring but the question is NOT do we try to impose our values on someone else, because that happens whether you intend it to or not. The question is HOW MUCH do you push your value system on others.
