[quote]mstott25 wrote:
I guess the thing of it is…I really don’t give a fuck what the rest of the world thinks and I don’t think most Americans do. The liberal ones definitely do because they cry about it on tv every now and again.
Listen, I know I’m a sarcastic son of a bitch and I know that most of the time I just argue with Lixy so that he has to stay up later at night to study but I’m pretty convinced that you are never going to please everybody. It’s popular to hate america, that’s how Europe gets along, they blame everything on America.
Well pleasing the world is not going to help us out one bit so we really do need to look out for ourselves and just because we have the ability to wage wars and secure oil and maintain our lifestyles doesn’t mean everybody has to be haters.
Don’t hate the player, just hate the game. This is the game of evolution and sooner or later, America will be knocked off the top but I just don’t see that happening anytime soon especially if we have all of the oil and satellites. Maybe in a hundred years you guys can start hating China or Russia. [/quote]
I don’t suppose you see the irony in this type of statement given the way your country was founded?
Doing “what you can” to others as long as it improves your lifestyle is basically inviting others to hate and attack you. It’s asking for people to rise up and throw off the yoke that limits them and their countries.
It’s also morally reprehensible… not that anyone cares.
What gives? I never said anyone was stupid. I said you had no right to bomb and invade other people’s lands - unless it’s in self-defense. Resorting to ad-hominems of this level is just despicable.
[/quote]
But you do say these thing about America. You criticize our president, our politicians, our military, our citizens, and our soldiers. Listen even if my sarcasm is a little rough around the edges I hope you see my point. My point is that Americans don’t sit back and criticize the rest of the world.
When I studied Morroco that was one thing I was unaware of - their battle against illiteracy. I really don’t think the people of Morroco are stupid and I don’t think Americans are any better but my point is this: Americans are not sitting back criticizing other countries because of their different mistakes; we don’t criticize other countries just to make ourselves feel better.
It just seems like everybody wants to criticize America but it’s getting ridiculous. Let’s have some actual discussion, some viable options placed on the table. Getting everybody out of Iraq immediately is not a viable option. There are just as many articles being published stating information about the importance of staying in Iraq as there are liberal demands for immediate withdrawal.
What I’ve found more often is that in situations like this the truth is found somewhere in between. I don’t want an immediate withdrawal but I don’t want to keep making things worse either.
Another thing to take into consideration is that pleasing the global community is a recent phenomena.
In the history of mankind it just didn’t matter. Kingdoms, tribes, nations and kings have always aligned themselves with others in order to preserve their existing resources and strengthen their chances of survival. Nobody cared about being nice just for the sake of being nice.
Fascism, nazism, terrorism, and communism are not going to be defeated by being nice, they are defeated by war and war has it’s casualties.
In the end, America is acting according to her own interests first and the rest of the world’s second but that is no different than any other country. The reason Sweden can stay uninvolved is because Sweden is not a target. Muslims are not chanting death to Sweden every Friday you don’t see Palestinian kids watching cartoons about killing Swedes.
It’s easy for Sweden to stay uninvolved but we are not so arrogant to overlook the threats from these terrorists. It was the visigoths who finally wore Rome down, not another mighty empire.
I don’t suppose you see the irony in this type of statement given the way your country was founded?
Doing “what you can” to others as long as it improves your lifestyle is basically inviting others to hate and attack you. It’s asking for people to rise up and throw off the yoke that limits them and their countries.
It’s also morally reprehensible… not that anyone cares.[/quote]
This is the type of bullshit that is just ridiculous. We are not doing “what we can” to others so that we can improve our lifestyles. So let’s focus all of our efforts on making sure the whole entire world is happy with us and then when somebody does kick our ass and impose their will on us who will stand beside America?
That’s my fucking point, my point is that Canada will not bail us out of anything, neither will Europe, neither will Kuwait or Germany or Poland or Czechoslovakia or any other country we’ve helped in the past. We considered intelligence reports submitted by Canada just as much as other sources that Iraq had weapons of Mass Destruction.
Canada was just as convinced that Iraq had WMDs as we were but their policy was to wait it out. Why not blame yourselves for contributing to this? America is not going to sit back for another attack to take place on our soil. We made a mistake but Saddam wasn’t exactly working with us. He had been violating restrictions the UN had placed on him which was supposed to have resulted in military action as well.
Why did the UN place sanctions on a country if they were not going to uphold them? Why did every major intelligence agency point to Saddam having weapons of mass destruction?
[quote]lixy wrote:
vladsmicer wrote:
You spend your entire existence on this board linking, posting, and finding ways to critisize a country you’ve never been to
I’ve been to the US alright. I’m just not in a hurry to return there under present circumstances. (Patriot act and all…)
yet can’t spend a minute to research Iran’s interventionist policy and actions in the middle east?
You mean like arming Hezbollah? The group that drove T’sahal out of Lebanon? In that case, yes. They intervene alright. However, they evidently don’t invade other countries and bomb them to oblivion. If you got evidence to the contrary, do share.[/quote]
vladsmicer, never trust Lixy when he makes claims about his travel. I doubt he’s been to the US. Ask him about his trip to Sudan. He claimed to be going there this summer “to see for myself what is going on”.
Take his posts with a (huge) grain of salt. Most likely scenario is that he is - like so many of his ilk in Sweden - living off welfare, with little if any means for serious world travel.
This thread is like walking down the street, seeing a pile of dogshit lying on the sidewalk, and then having an argument with it. Your time would be better spent masturbating or drinking beer or both.
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
This thread is like walking down the street, seeing a pile of dogshit lying on the sidewalk, and then having an argument with it. Your time would be better spent masturbating or drinking beer or both.[/quote]
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
This thread is like walking down the street, seeing a pile of dogshit lying on the sidewalk, and then having an argument with it. Your time would be better spent masturbating or drinking beer or both.[/quote]
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
That’s my fucking point, my point is that Canada will not bail us out of anything, neither will Europe, neither will Kuwait or Germany or Poland or Czechoslovakia or any other country we’ve helped in the past. We considered intelligence reports submitted by Canada just as much as other sources that Iraq had weapons of Mass Destruction.
[/quote]
I don’t suppose you have anything realistic you can point to that suggests Canada believed Iraq had WMD’s?
Anyway, contrary to your opinion, Canada has been involved in most of the important wars. If you look real carefully you might see that we are losing people these days in Afghanistan… and sad though that is I think most of us realize that in that case it was an appropriate war.
It took a type of courage or our Prime Minister (at the time) to decline to participate in the Iraq war. History has proven him to be a wiser man than some others. I am sure however, that if and when things come to a serious shove with a real enemy Canada will, as ever, put up a tremendous amount of resources given her size.
The percentage of people actively involved in the war effort for WWI and/or WWII (I can’t remember now) was staggering.
What more could you ask of her? You underestimate and insult your allies. It’s a dumb thing to do. Excuse me, I think I’ll go get some freedom fries for lunch.
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
But you do say these thing about America. You criticize our president, our politicians, our military, our citizens, and our soldiers. [/quote]
I criticize your president for starting an unnecessary war that made the Iraqis miserable, the M.E. explosive, and the whole world unsafe. It’s pure speculation, but I doubt we would have had the Madrid and London bombings if it wasn’t for Iraq.
I don’t criticize Americans because I know most of them are as pissed off about the war as I am. For heaven’s sake, they voted en masse to protest the war. I don’t hold them responsible. It’s not like they much do about it at this point. The cards have been dealt quite some time ago, and all you’re left with is an illusion of choice.
Your soldiers I don’t blame either. I know a lot of them would rather see the madness stop (there’s overwhelming data and polls to support this), and I know how some soldiers signed in for all the right reasons. Mikeyali claims that he went to Iraq with the idea of liberating the people there from the dictatorship.
It’s a noble cause, but there’s more to the 2003 invasion than just that. The common soldier, at least the one that uses her brain once in a while, knows that she got caught in an imperialist adventure. The ones who abandoned reason for blind patriotism are not the majority.
So, no I don’t criticize your soldiers. Neither do I criticize the brave and fine generals and officers who resigned in protest.
I live in the real world, and you look carefully at my posts, you’d realize that I take special consideration to avoid generalizations. The only point I try to make is this: Violence should always be the last resort. I don’t care who’s doing it, or who they’re doing it to, it’s WRONG.
If my country invaded Canada, Mexico or the US, will you not condemn that?
I don’t criticize your country. I criticize its foreign policy. There is a world of difference between the two.
[quote]It just seems like everybody wants to criticize America but it’s getting ridiculous. Let’s have some actual discussion, some viable options placed on the table. Getting everybody out of Iraq immediately is not a viable option. There are just as many articles being published stating information about the importance of staying in Iraq as there are liberal demands for immediate withdrawal.
What I’ve found more often is that in situations like this the truth is found somewhere in between. I don’t want an immediate withdrawal but I don’t want to keep making things worse either.[/quote]
Iraq wasn’t pretty pre-2003. But now, it turned into a hellhole.
To be perfectly clear, I never said that I know what the truth. It’s a complicated situation, and the world’s best analysts could spend ages discussing it and still not compromise. However, Bush started a war based on false pretense (WMD, Al-Qaeda link…) and never apologized for it.
Hundreds of thousands corpses latter, he’s still beating the war drums but the motives have changed.
To fix this, you need to take a step back, do some introspection (i.e: hold people accountable for the countless deaths), then, if you can prove that the Iraqi people want you patrolling their lands (something highly improbable) then you won’t hear a peep from me or anybody else for that matter. A referendum (with international observers) is the only way to go.
[quote]Another thing to take into consideration is that pleasing the global community is a recent phenomena.
In the history of mankind it just didn’t matter. Kingdoms, tribes, nations and kings have always aligned themselves with others in order to preserve their existing resources and strengthen their chances of survival. Nobody cared about being nice just for the sake of being nice. [/quote]
Yeah, well, a century and a half ago, you still didn’t consider black people as full citizens. Heck, half a century ago, they still couldn’t ride in the front of a bus. And very few people cared…
What separates us from the dark ages, is our moral standards. That is the reason you find aggressing people on the streets reprehensible.
Attacking a defenseless country that didn’t do anything to you, is similar to Prof. X walking topless in the street and beating the hell out of every kids elderly, and skinny person he meets. It doesn’t matter whether that this was common place in prehistoric times. What matters is that we stick to the principles that distinguish the civilized from the barbarians.
And don’t give us the “survival” line. Nobody is gonna try to fuck with the mightiest army the world’s ever seen.
Nonsense. Fueling terrorism is not in America’s interest. It is in the interest of a tiny minority to wage wars and keep the people scared. You have to look up the figures this war is costing American taxpayers.
We’re talking hundreds of Billions of Dollars and counting. I won’t go into the damage your foreign policy is doing to your image because it’s subjective.
Well, there’s a reason nobody’s chanting death to Sweden you know…
The threat from terrorism is real, nobody’s denying that. But you’re blowing it out of proportion. Don’t get me wrong, 9/11 was a horrendous event, but chances of that happening are very slim.
I was meters away from one of the 2003 attacks on Casablanca that left 45 dead. I was taking a cab in front of the hotel who’s lobby got blown out. You didn’t see me advocate military action against anyone though.
The terrorist’s aim is to instill permanent fear in people. It seems that they won.
And you have no idea what you’re talking about, when you say that Rome fell because of the Visigoths,
[quote]lixy wrote:
Big_Boss wrote:
Lixy,I truly doubt who or what you claim to be.
From member of a terrorist cell associated with Al-Qaeda (HH actually suggested I am in Afghanistan; hedo keeps insisting I am from the M.E.) to college kid in the US who likes hugging trees, I heard it all before. So please, spare us…[/quote]
First of all…who is “us”? There is only you…and maybe two others who seem to cling to your balls here lately. So PLEASE spare us.
WOW…I bet the majority here understood exactly where I was coming from:
Lixy,when are you going to get over yourself and realize that your blanket statements against the US show your own uneducated ignorance? Here lies America…it’s States…and its individuals. You don’t know the life of an “average” American…and it is not represented by L.A.,N.Y.,or D.C.
The average American already knows we are not truly united as a country and that we are not perfect. Should people truly pay for the sins of their fathers?
Do you agree with everything your government does? Ahem Can you truly voice your opinion about your government? Do you agree with everything a person of Islamic faith does? The answer is NO…so you hate our foreign policy…so what? I do,too.I voice how I feel about our government.
Me as well as millions of Americans feel like we are being “raped” by our government everyday. I am at one of the biggest Army stations in all the country…and meet and know soldiers that feel the same way. They didn’t expect to be blindfolded and sent to “war.”
AHEM But don’t sit there and try to make us as a country a bunch of whoremongers…I know "WHERE DID I STATE THAT?"is your response. Like I said in an earlier post addressed to you…“you’re dissappointed in us” which is fine…I’m dissappointed in you because the world is full of people like you…smart but ignorant.
Maybe you decided you didn’t understand my post because it didn’t give you the hard-on you desperately seek with your posts.
Vroom…you said it best…“If you look at your own hands you will see that they too are bloodstained.” or something like that. Thats maybe the most intelligent post I’ve seen of yours…and thats not a compliment.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I don’t suppose you have anything realistic you can point to that suggests Canada believed Iraq had WMD’s?
[/quote]
Can you find anything realistic that Canada said Iraq didn’t have WMD’s? I didn’t mean to imply that Canada was as gung ho as the US or Britian but most countries felt it was likely Saddam had WMD’s. Canada played their cards right, they waited it out which in hindsight was the better decision. But the only reason we know Iraq didn’t have WMD’s is because we invaded them. My point was that the US did not want to wait it out. I’m pretty sure that Canada did express some concern over their being WMDs but wanting to go through a more thorough process before war.
[quote]
Anyway, contrary to your opinion, Canada has been involved in most of the important wars. If you look real carefully you might see that we are losing people these days in Afghanistan… and sad though that is I think most of us realize that in that case it was an appropriate war.[/quote]
When did I say anything about Canada not engaging in wars? I asked if Canada would bail out the US. Would they? Could they? I wasn’t criticizing Canada or saying anything derogatory about their military history so I don’t know why you felt you needed to defend them.
[quote]
It took a type of courage or our Prime Minister (at the time) to decline to participate in the Iraq war. History has proven him to be a wiser man than some others. I am sure however, that if and when things come to a serious shove with a real enemy Canada will, as ever, put up a tremendous amount of resources given her size.[/quote]
I agree 100%. I have served with Canadian soldiers and they were by far some of the most impressive soldiers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Your PM had balls to say no to Iraq. I’m not sure why you are mentioning this though.
[quote]
The percentage of people actively involved in the war effort for WWI and/or WWII (I can’t remember now) was staggering.
What more could you ask of her? You underestimate and insult your allies. It’s a dumb thing to do. Excuse me, I think I’ll go get some freedom fries for lunch.[/quote]
I’m confused. I was talking about America taking a preemptive role against Iraq. I was asking if any of the countries that we helped liberate or assist in the past would have the ability to fight our wars for us. I don’t think America has the luxury to sit back and wait like other countries. Is that insulting to our allies?
And you have no idea what you’re talking about, when you say that Rome fell because of the Visigoths,
Lixy…uh…are you serious?
Now go crawl in the corner and rock yourself to sleep tonight for looking so stupid so publicly. This is a prime example of how you try to talk so expertly on subjects you know absolutely nothing about.
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
I’m pretty sure that Canada did express some concern over their being WMDs but wanting to go through a more thorough process before war. [/quote]
More thorough process? You mean like actually having evidence before engaging on a killing spree?
Well, you actually told Vroom to “blame Canada for actually contributing to this”. That was total BS and I deem Vroom’s reaction more than appropriate.
Could you please explain what you mean by not having the “luxury” to not intervene militarily?
You can’t invoke preemptive action in this case. I could understand (not condone, just understand) if you were you a little country that needed to launch the first strike in order to get a head start over some lurking Goliath. But your military might ensures that no country on Earth will ever have the audacity to attack you.
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
That’s my fucking point, my point is that Canada will not bail us out of anything, neither will Europe, neither will Kuwait or Germany or Poland or Czechoslovakia or any other country we’ve helped in the past. We considered intelligence reports submitted by Canada just as much as other sources that Iraq had weapons of Mass Destruction.[/quote]
Want to know why? Because we as Canadians give a shit about you as much as you give a shit about us. Its a two way street.
[quote]
Canada was just as convinced that Iraq had WMDs as we were but their policy was to wait it out. Why not blame yourselves for contributing to this?[/quote]
Canada did no send thousands of troops to storm Baghdad over 60 days. And if the intelligence reports that Canadians did were somehow wrong, then your government should have done an independent assessment anyways. But instead it was all lies and fabricated evidence. Nice job.
[quote]
America is not going to sit back for another attack to take place on our soil.[/quote]
The attacks were by Afghanis. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan.
Iraq is a separate country. Bin Laden was not in Iraq.
Iraq posed no threat because there were no real weapons.
9/11 was a messed up day. Why the hell were the planes not intercepted when leaving the normal flight path and flying very close to buildings? Terrible security.
[quote]
We made a mistake but Saddam wasn’t exactly working with us. He had been violating restrictions the UN had placed on him which was supposed to have resulted in military action as well.[/quote]
Like you guys give a shit about what the UN thinks. Only if it agrees with you, otherwise ‘fuck em’.
Well, you guys sold some to him awhile ago. But as far as ‘intelligence’… that’s a joke. Nothing was found. Not even anything remotely resembling WMDs except for some rusted piles of scrap that looked like rockets. Some ‘intelligence’ gathered. Gimme a break.
Now go crawl in the corner and rock yourself to sleep tonight for looking so stupid so publicly. This is a prime example of how you try to talk so expertly on subjects you know absolutely nothing about. [/quote]
Shhh…the sack was a consequence of the empire falling apart, not the cause.
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
vroom wrote:
Can you find anything realistic that Canada said Iraq didn’t have WMD’s? I didn’t mean to imply that Canada was as gung ho as the US or Britian but most countries felt it was likely Saddam had WMD’s. Canada played their cards right, they waited it out which in hindsight was the better decision. But the only reason we know Iraq didn’t have WMD’s is because we invaded them. My point was that the US did not want to wait it out. I’m pretty sure that Canada did express some concern over their being WMDs but wanting to go through a more thorough process before war.
[/quote]
The way you can tell that not a lot of countries were convinced about WMD’s is that many countries were unwilling to participate in the Iraq coalition though some of them did participate in Afghanistan.
As for the rest, obviously I interpreted your post differently than it was intended… never mind.
[quote]mstott25 wrote:
When did I say anything about Canada not engaging in wars? I asked if Canada would bail out the US. Would they? Could they? I wasn’t criticizing Canada or saying anything derogatory about their military history so I don’t know why you felt you needed to defend them.[/quote]
He felt the need to defend because a huge portion of our population died when defending against some Imperialistic lunatics during the Second and first World Wars. Probably a bigger portion than you guys because canadians used obsolete equipment to ‘fight’ (more like survive and take down a few if you’re lucky).
And Canada probably would not defend you. We and the rest of the World do not like Empires. Other countries including our own want to keep our sovereignty and not have a ‘big brother’ dictating and taking over everything.
If its a good cause, Canada will help out. Look at our record. Helped out in the honorable wars.
Yes. Disregarding your Allies is not a wise thing to do.
Its like you go out with your buds. They are your friends (Allies). Now let’s say you’re at a bar and you see some drunk guy who looks like he wants to beat the shit out of you. Your friends say ‘dude, chill out you don’t even know he’s looking this way, let’s wait and see.’ But you go ahead and get in a fight.
Your friends don’t help out cause you did a very stupid thing, and they don’t want to be seen with you. Embarrassing. Now everybody thinks you’re the biggest asshole because you beat the crap out of some old drunk guy. Turns out he wasn’t looking at you after all.