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Subject: I hope that the American people ....
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How's about solitare! I'm going back to the Lightwave forum. Cheers Carnifex. You are right about judging people. I am prejudice in many senses. Against whites, blacks, and brown people. I am not ashamed of that. But this is more a strong personal feeling and one that I cannot deny. Because to do so would be to undermind who and what I really am. This may be something I need to work but for now, I could be unknowingly and guiltless finding comfort in my own anger. It is very possible and something I have yet to assess. But it gives me comfort and a sense or purpose that I never had while I was in the Military. Man do I wish I was in now. In such events it is easy to say the words on being open minded about everything and everyone, however in truth, how I really feel is entirely different. To thy own self be true. Comments that many will not like but I just can't and maybe one day I will get over it. .....but not today. Cheers everyone
Just wanted to add my little bit to the 'fray' so to speak and hopefully without badgering anyone in particular. The group that believes that military strikes are being scattered at random across the civillian dwellings of Afghanistan is way off since that is not the case at all. Sure, we all have a right to our own opinion...aren't you glad that SOMEONE had the patriotism to lay down their life in order for you to enjoy that luxury even just a tiny bit? The Taliban ARE terrorists plain and simple and they are the stoolies of Bin Laden who is really the leader of Afghanistan regardless of who's mug appears on the media. It's real easy to say "oh, I'd just send in some special force to go get him" without having an iota of information or knowlege needed to carry out that "plan". Just because you don't see it televised doesn't mean such plans aren't being undertaken and aren't already underway. One last touch of reality....we don't even know if Bin Laden is still alive and can't really count on anything the Taliban says since they have been dealing square with the world for about zero seconds.
Wave wave. ~L~ Edriver, I was asked what I would do, so I answered it. I don't remember saying that such a mission was not underway. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't...just basicly damned if I'm not a mindless flag waver that supports everything our government does. Fuck that. What I said was that was what I would do INSTEAD of dropping bombs on another country. I know that we're not indescriminately bombing the population - but somehow that doesn't make it any easier for me to stomach. I also love how, anytime someone expresses an opinion or points out that they have a right to do so, someone has to point out "isn't it great that someone fought for that right." Did I say that I didn't appreciate the freedoms that we have? The people that fought to protect them? I never said any such thing. The message that you give with that sort of phrase is simply "We have freedom of speech - but it's unpatriotic to use it." Fuck that too.
Damn, I arrived too late :( Buddha32, don't give up hope or change your earlier opinions under the pressure of others, I found them totally valid and your observations on Libya and the 'puppet' regimes of the middle-east are totally accurate. As the senseless violence goes on and bombs continue to fall on defenceless Afghanistan, more and more people from around the world are beginning to share the same views and opinions as you do. If only the others in this forum could open their eyes to your words Buddha32...
Buddha32 wrote: "I will admit that since you clearly have first hand experience that you are right and I was wrong about the state of individual liberties in Kuwait. I think that my point is still valid, however. We assisted the ousting of one oppressive dictatorship for an absolute monarchy that simply happened to be more friendly to us. And while the president spoke of "striking a blow for freedom" and other such rhetoric, the fact is that if it weren't for the oil involved, we wouldn't have been there at all." I am new here and will mostly lurk for a while, but I feel the need to correct the above dangerous revision of history. America did not oust a dictatorship for a monarchy in Kuwait. Kuwait, a member of the United Nations, was invaded. Iraq deleted it from the face of the Earth. The nations of the world put it back where it was. Yes it is an oil rich nation, so what. Kosovo has no riches to offer and we risked (still risk) our lives there. I feel it would have been a crime if the nations of the world had tried to install a democracy after kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait. We handed it back to the Kuwaitis for their self-determination - as it should be. I've been reading a lot of Arabian news websites of late and find it amazing the Americans are damned if we do and damned if we don't. ie. if we try to get engaged in a mideast country, we are accused of meddling. If we leave them alone, we are accused of neglecting the plight of their poor and downtrodden citizens. The cold war shaped much of their vision of us. Now is our chance to change that vision. I am sure they have felt like pawns in an east-west battle. They should feel lucky the USSR didn't prevail in the region. And by the way, Libya completely abandoned its state sponsoring of terrorist groups after the bombimg mentioned in this thread. Diplomacy works between governments, but warlords and their gangs only understand might. Finally, I like what I saw on "The West Wing" on Wednesday: al Qaeda is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity Peace
My only thought in all this is that, in our quest to defeat a terrorist, were not thinking like a terrorist. Consider: the United States announces that its coming over with all its military might to take bin Laden and put him before justice. Its tantamount to sitting at a poker table and telling everyone what cards you hold. So the attacks begin and we hear reports of this or that military installation being hit, and yet in all the confusion, bin Laden has most likely left the country since he had such advance warning. One can only hope that, amidst the noise and confusion, we are operating with quiet stealth as well to capture this man.
Attached Link: http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/09/gen.aid.agencies/index.html
That doesn't just bite into and swallow the propaganda with a big smile:
Every day? For over a decade? That's a lot of countries. Do even you believe your own baseless propaganda? Name one teeny little country that has been invaded and deleted from the face of the earth since Kuwait. Name any country that has been invaded and deleted from the face of the earth since the gulf war. You seem to get your information from your imagination. What country name will you now fabricate in response?
Apparently Woody Tobias has no understanding of what an expression is. The only point I was making is that if Kuwait was not filthy rich with oil, we wouldn't have cared about the fact that Iraq invaded. Sorry to have to spell it out. Okay, I'm done everyone. You're all right and I'm wrong. America is perfect and infallible. Our leaders always tell the truth, even Clinton and Nixon. We have never comitted a single atrocity. And by dropping bombs on the citizens of Afghanistan, we're saving them. Praise you all, I finally see the light!
Is Buddha32 now shanpoo? I'm new here and don't know all the players. But they sound one in the same. I am very familiar with expressions. Expressions convey something meaningful in a concise manner, like don't throw the baby out with the bath water. "teeny little countries get invaded every day" is not an expression. It is complete disinformation that has no basis in fact. And when challenged to back up such a wild claim with proof nothing is offered. The paragraph that starts with, "Okay, I'm done everyone." is a classic response from a person who tried acting like an authority on politics, history and current events and eventually realized that they were factually ill prepared for the debate. People's emotions are running high. I can understand and respect that, but I am disagreeing with and trying to debate baseless accusations and distortions of historical events. If you want to scold Americans go right ahead. More power to ya, but it would better help your cause if you stuck to attacking our real evils instead of ones you've simply concocted from whole cloth. peace
No, I did not become shanpoo, I just forgot to log her off and me in... now everyone will be pissed at her too. Another thing about an expression is that it is not meant to be taken literally. No one in his/her right mind would really "throw the baby out with the bath water" would they? Of course not. So warning someone not to do so is a moot point. Of course I didn't mean literally that small countries are invaded on a daily basis. I really didn't think I would have to point that out, but apparently some people need special assistance. What I was using metaphor to illustrate is that countries in many parts of the world, most notably those known as "third world" countries and those that occupy the area known as the middle east are often the sites of war, turmoil, and, yes, invasion. The United States does not concern itself with all of these wars, aggressions, and skirmishes. Many of the times that we do get involved we get spoon fed a lot of moral rhetoric by our leaders. This was extremely prevelant in the case of the Gulf War. And I still firmly believe that the "naked aggression" of Hussein's Iraq would have been ignored had it not been for the Kuwaiti oil that we stood to lose. I hope you got it that time, because I am not going to try and explain the concepts of metaphor, similie, and figures of speech anymore. So please stop picking apart the details and understand the point I am making. I could care less whether you agree with it or not. The message's theme was not that "teeny countries get invaded every day." It was the aforementioned "selective involvement" of the US in this particular case. Sheesh. And I mean it this time, I'm done.
Buddha32 wrote: "Another thing about an expression is that it is not meant to be taken literally. No one in his/her right mind would really "throw the baby out with the bath water" would they?" I just have to laugh at this. Expressions contain meanings that point to a truth. They are comparisons to a tried and true concept. Your statement that teeny countries get invaded every day can only point to a lie. for you to now call it an expression and then preach to me what an expression is just plain funny. I don't mean to be heartless but you have no facts to back up your wild claim that America stands idly by while non-oil producing countries get envaded on a regular basis. Name one. Buddha32 wrote: "What I was using metaphor to illustrate is that countries in many parts of the world, most notably those known as "third world" countries and those that occupy the area known as the middle east are often the sites of war, turmoil, and, yes, invasion. The United States does not concern itself with all of these wars, aggressions, and skirmishes." Your desperate rationale fails to take into account that I wasn't talking about the Kuwaiti people rising up and overthrowing their government or engaging in civil war. If that had happened, as has occured elsewhere, America would not have responded with our own blood, oil or no oil. But this WAS an invasion which if left to stand would have meant that a country had disappeared. That is what I originally said and that is what is still supported by the facts -- not just figures of speech. You still can't site real-life examples to back your claim that countries other than Kuwait have been deleted from the face of the earth by invasion. It is no wonder you deal in vagueries because the facts don't support you. Buddha32 wrote: "The message's theme was not that "teeny countries get invaded every day." It was the aforementioned "selective involvement" of the US in this particular case." You took a quote of mine and responded directly to it with an absurd assertion that teeny countries get invaded every day. I challenge you again to name a country that has been removed from the map that America has failed to defend. You can't. I guess we know why you are done. At least I know now that, by your own admission, what you say isn't necessarily what you mean. That will help greatly when reading your future dubious assertions. peace
Small little piece of info overlooked: Kuwait is a member of the United Nations. Countries that do NOT abide by the laws set down by the UN don't get the protection the members of the UN because they aren't a member. Kuwait had oil, too, and therefore had alot more interests to protect and joined the UN probably for that reason. Iraq claims that hundreds of years ago Kuwait was part of Iraq and Saddam Hussein decided centuries later to go and "take it back". If someone steals your land it's usually an understandable practice to deal with it right away and not centuries later after anyone who had anything to do with it is long dead.
Sadly, Edriver, thats not the case anymore. One can see several land claims in the courts even now, based on ill-written and ill-meant treaties from centuries ago. In some respects, its quite understandable; in others, it makes little sense beyond sheer avarice. And sometimes it feels quite like litigation for the simple enjoyment of being in court. Mr. Orwell was quite right; we have all gone quietly mad.
[[Iraq claims that hundreds of years ago Kuwait was part of Iraq and Saddam Hussein decided centuries later to go and "take it back". ]] Exactly what the Israelis did to the people whose families had been living in what is now Israel for the last 2,000 years. "Oh, you've got a deed that goes all the way back to before the Ottoman Empire and your family has been living in this house for over 1,000 years? Too bad, your deed was not issued by the state of Israel so it's not valid. Get out!" Don't say they didn't - because they DID. ****** (Where did I put those asbestos garments?)
You are absolutely right Allen9. And before that, the Saracens kicked out the Jews after they had called it home for thousands of years. And the Jews wiped out its former inhabitants, the Canaanites. And so on, and so on. People have been killing people over land for so long that we cant even remember where it all began. I have little faith that we will ever gain enough wisdom to stop. I fear that the only solution we will come up with is the annihilation of the human race. I tire of this whole debate. I think Ill shut up now.
edriver wrote: "Small little piece of info overlooked: Kuwait is a member of the United Nations. Countries that do NOT abide by the laws set down by the UN don't get the protection the members of the UN because they aren't a member. Kuwait had oil, too, and therefore had alot more interests to protect and joined the UN probably for that reason." I pointed this out when I first jumped into this discussion up at number 64. It still doesn't address my point that no nation I know of (UN member or otherwise) has been made to dissappeared from the face of the earth since America has been a super power. Kuwait was to be no more after Iraq invaded. Whether or not it had oil or was a UN member, it would have set an unacceptable precedent for all other countries to allow Kuwait to vanish. Domestic revolutions and civil wars in a country, UN member or not, are something America and the UN tries to mediate and help reconcile, but the kind of naked agression carried out by Iraq forced America (the strongest nation) and the UN to act and act in a big way.
Actually, even now, Indonesia has been called on the UN carpet for invading and pretty well obliterating the countries of East Timor, the Republik Maluku, and Acheh. Further, while it has not completely taken it, Turkey has commandeered one-third of the island of Cyprus and hopes to take it completely. These were just as nakedly agressive as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, but I daresay that because of their tiny size, hardly anyone noticed or cared. The issue of Indonesia has been before the UN Security Council for almost two decades, with no resolution in sight because Indonesia "claims" it will grant Timor (and Timor only) independence if a "special referendum" says this is what the Timor people want. That referendum has been stalled several times as Indonesia continues to move more Javanese into Timor in an attempt to influence the outcome. For all intents and purposes, Timor, like the other two, does not exist as a nation. Neither, it seems, does the departure of the Turks from Cyprus seem likely. At the risk of being forced to don my asbestos suit, perhaps someone can say where the line is drawn that makes one invasion offensive and another simply an annoyance? As much as we wish to pretend otherwise, we do indeed pick and choose what we will stand and what we will not. Germany's extermination of the Jews in the late 30s was considered an "internal affair" by the US (Remember the boatload of Jews that was turned back from New York harbour out of fear our taking them in would offend Hitler?); it wasnt until the invasions of Poland and France that the US took note of what was going on and decided to act. Thats not a slam, my friends, its a simple fact of history. East Timor and its tiny little sisters are simply too small and too unimportant for the big powers to notice, much less care about. Even now, in Afghanistan, were seeing a small example of bad decisions coming home to roost: the rightful king of Afghanistan, perceived to be supported by the Russians, was thrown out by forces supported by the US, as it was in conflict with the then-Soviet Union. However, the US failed to anticipate that the forces it was supporting would turn on it. I make no judgment call about the moral rightness or wrongness of those actions, but I believe we must accept some responsibility for their being there in the first place as we procede to clean up the mess we, in some small part, created.
VirtualSite, the operative line in your statement is, "For all intents and purposes" The governemnts of Timor, Maluku, Acheh, and Cyprus still exist, the regimes might be puppets of a victorious foe, but they still exist. For that matter the USSR overran most of East Europe and took control, but they left to those country's inhabitants their nationalities. However Kuwait was to become Iraq, never to be Kuwait again. Kuwati nationals abroad would have had no country left to come home to. I never claimed there were no wars or naked agressions in the world. Wars between nations, no matter what their sizes, are too numerous for America to militarily choose sides and shed blood. But as I said before, if a country is left to disappear, its citizens de-nationalized, it sets an unacceptable precedent for the UN members and the rest of the world. The UN had to act for Kuwait, oil or no oil, tiny or big.
Actually, Maliku and Acheh no longer exist at all. Timor exists only as a subsidy of Indonesia, in the same way that the former Republic of Texas is now a state. Cyprus exists, but only in the most shallow of forms. The other three are not even puppet regimes: they simply are not there as countries.
Actually Acheh and Maluku around 1949, at a time when the UN had little influence in the world and superpower was not a word, were caught up in a transfer of territories between The Netherlands and the United States of Indonesia and have been seeking independence since. This is a longstanding insurrection, something we can only guess might be taking place today in "Southern" Iraq if our generation had let Saddam's invasion stand. I dare say your example does not carry similarities to what happened to the soveriegn nation of Kuwait. Aiding insurrection in colonies that were annexed at a time when the UN was little more than a neat idea finally starting to gel and the US & Europe were trying to get NATO off the ground, does not bolster Buddha32's blame the heartless, oil-greedy American superpower coalition first argument. If this is the closest example to be proffered, then it is clear that what happened to Kuwait is not some "everyday" occurrence that America regularly lets happen around the world if oil or riches are not at stake. This is after all the idea that Buddha32 was trying to convey, and it is just not true.
That would be all well and good, except that Indonesia has been pressured by the UN for twenty years to release all three countries from its domination, and it has adamantly refused. Whether or not it is "appropriate" for the US to get involved is, Im afraid, simply academic. Indonesia has been told to release them, and it has chosen not to. And no one seems to care all that much. Anyway, be all this as it may. It doesnt take much to realize that we do indeed pick and choose what we wish to get involved in, which was, after all, Buddhas original point. Whatever the criteria may be, there still exists this line that demarks what is or isnt worth our involvement. And it makes sense that there should be one: we cant be everywhere, after all.
Of course we pick and choose our fights. I too said this long ago. But the point I made, which Buddha32 immediately attacked without facts, is still being danced around. Indonesia has had those countries for fifty years. If we were to try to build a coalition in our generation to attack Indonesia -- or even unilaterally -- with the intention of driving back an anexation that took place before most of our soldiers were even born, we would be the powerful aggressor bad guy practicing naked aggression crossing borders and invading a soverign country. At the momment there are many civil wars and fights for independence WITHIN countries that in order for us to get involved with we would have to cross long standing borders. Iraq crossed long standing borders. We did not attack Iraq. We fought their soldiers back from a land they invaded during our lifetime. It was only later in the discussion that Buddha32 suddenly decided to call his line "teeny little countries get invaded every day" an expression and alter his stance to include internal conflicts and insurrections. I will say this yet again for it to be danced around: Buddha32 tried to make it sound like what happend to Kuwait regularly occurs all the time to teeny countries with no oil while we turn a blind eye. It hasn't in our generation, and the facts, as you have helped to show, do not back his claim.
Indonesia put in its "claim" in 1978 to East Timor, not fifty years ago. The other two were from roughly the same time, I believe, although I think Acheh was formally annexed slightly afterwards (Ill check that and make sure). I post that only to set the historical record accurately, according to the information I found on the web about the situation. Nevertheless, Buddhas statement does have some small grain of truth to it. There must be a score or so of countries the size of walnuts that appear and disappear on a regular basis; theyre simply too small to register on the radar, as it were. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, I found myself wondering one night how the world media, had it existed then as it does now, would have viewed Jackson's "Manifest Destiny" speech and the imperial assumption of the western half of the North American continent. They really arent that different, you know. We saw land that we wanted, and we quite simply moved in and took over, without much regard for the people already living there. We, of course, viewed this as a good thing: it gave us access to almost unlimited natural resources, land, countless new harbours for trade. So Im curious: what makes our "manifest destiny" good and Iraqs expansion bad? What makes one countrys conquest by force historically acceptable and anothers not?
[[We saw land that we wanted, and we quite simply moved in and took over, without much regard for the people already living there. We, of course, viewed this as a good thing: it gave us access to almost unlimited natural resources, land, countless new harbours for trade.]] And the European invaders & their descendants spent well over 100 years trying to systematically exterminate the original inhabitants from whom the whole damn country was stolen, literally at gun-point. In fact, every single act that falls under the definition of 'genocide' has been practiced against the First Nations people and our civilization has constantly worked to maintain the pretense that this was a basically 'uninhabited' land - never mind the over 500 Nations of people who were already here or the estimated 50-60 million of them who died in the first century after Columbus started the Invasion. But hey, we're ALWAYS the 'good guys'. mmmmmm-hmmmmmmm......
I got my facts straight about Maluku and Acheh: 1949. "There must be a score or so of countries the size of walnuts that appear and disappear on a regular basis"?? Where, somewhere deep in the Amazon? If what you now assert were true someone could name them. The borders of the world are all mapped. There are no secret, uncharted territories of the globe where countries rise and fall unnoticed. And "we" didn't take over North and South America. Our long dead predecesors did. Of course what happened then is inexcusable as seen through our more advanced lens of hindsight, but putting those things back is impossible. They made Manifest Destiny happen. To guilt those living today for their actions plays right into the hands of the "blame America first" faction. Besides, two wrongs don't make a right. Are Americans supposed to accept a crime commited today simply because people centuries ago got away with it? I (and Buddha32) have been discussing what is happening in our lifetime, in our global environment, during our watch. An armed invasion of a neighboring country is not something that happens "on a regular basis."
Im not blaming anyone, Woody. Rest assured that I have no intention of evoking that tired phrase "white man's guilt". I simply find it interesting that we refuse to look at our own past with anything but rose-colored lenses. Any attempt to correct this narrow vision of our past is viewed as "revisionist", as if we cannot even consider the possibility that, perhaps, we might have erred a bit as well in our settlement of the West. To delegate it to the sidelines as "not being within our lifetime" simply compounds the error, in my humble opinion. What is that line about learning from the past so as not to repeat it? Insofar as the countries the size of walnuts, I suggest you take a look at Africa's somewhat chequered history over the past fifty years -- countries that declare their independence one day, only to be swallowed by their larger neighbors the next. No, I cannot give you specific names, but rest assured that it does happen. Insofar as Maluku and Acheh, forgive me, but Id like to check that out. It doesnt completely jive with what I found on the net. Its possible I misread (at my age, I believe I'm entitled, on occasion), and if so I will stand corrected. Finally, your rather intruiging statement: Are Americans supposed to accept a crime commited today simply because people centuries ago got away with it? To be frank, I dont know. We base so much on our past: our sense of independence, of adventurism, of the strength of the individual. Today, those traits have all but disappeared from our societal landscape. Yet we revere what we were, and our Manifest Destiny is indeed part of that were. Today, of course, we do view it as Monday morning quarterbacks; nevertheless it is part of what makes us Americans, and we must accept the responsibility for our past if we ever hope to learn from it. Just my $0.025, tax included.
Hi, VirtualSite. I was not attempting to relagate America's historic atrocities to the sidelines. But if we are now supposed to hesitate in the face of an invader like Iraq simply because our ancestors were once invaders, we should relinquish our superpower status and get used to watching as "teeny countries get invaded every day" for real. We have learned from our past. That is why America isn't expanding its borders anymore, as Iraq tried to do. I would also like to point out that if you and Buddha32 (and most others?) can't actual name any countries in Africa that are allegedly being "swallowed up by their neighbors," that might explain why America doesn't get involved in their conflicts in the way she got involved with Kuwait. peace
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Yaaawwwwwnnnn. Anybody for some cards?