Wow… you have bought the whole rhetoric… now Saddam is worse than Hitler and Stalin ! Saddam is very small fish… except for those who really think (ignorantly) he is related to 9/11. Talk about BS absorption to the max. You (USA) gave Saddam to Iraq too… whilst the Hitler and Stalin where homegrown mostly.
Getting rid of dictators is nice and fine... its how and why you do it that makes the thing scary.Yes, in general women are not able to lower their niveau that far …
Slight hijack, do you want to tell us why you name yourself after a bomb?
Here’s an interesting report that answers that question and many other objections raised in this thread to minding international opinion.
According to the State Dept and the Defense Dept, the answer to your question about why intl opinion matters is that it makes it much easier for the US to achieve our policy objectives, (re among other things national security).
It’s a very interesting report that deals with most everything heretofore discussed in this thread. It’s been paid for with American tax dollars, so try to get our money’s worth out of it.
Isn’t it natural that somebody wants being liked?
I mean, that’s like saying, I want being liked by my friends because then I can achieve my goals, e.g. I am safer.
That’s a strange point of view.
Pusuing a potential threat vigorously at the expense of an imminent threat? That teach 'em: become an imminent threat right away.
Interesting report to read SimonX. Some people do not seem to understand that the USA has no other choice but to learn to live with the rest of the world whether they like it or not. The thought that the USA can go around just killing those who it does not like is stupid (and immoral). Those who propose such things, when their policies only make things worse, then they propose retreating back from any outside engagement and being isolationsit. . which also makes things worse. No country in history has succeded in isolation and any country which is seriously considering this path is well on its way to the deep end. If a country thinks the rest of the world is nuts and the best thing is to be separate from them, there is something seriously wrong with that country. Just look at China in the 60s-70s and North Korea today. If the USA were to retreat to withing itself, then the economy would go to hell and America would become a thirld world country. Engagement and trade and paceful living is the only way. By engaging with other countries you gain the possibility of influencing what they do.
The idea that America can impose its will on the rest of the world by military force is just ludicrous. No way that can happen. America’s main strength was not so much military as political. It had plenty of allies and knew how to be a leader. Primus inter pares. The recent policies of this government are destroying that and are therefore weakening America’s position in the world.
Americans want to be liked. It’s a national tendency. I’m stereotyping, of course, but the general nature of the best is to want to be friendly to other people.
Plus, it has something to do with our percieved status as a younger nation… we’re not, really, at least as far as government is concerned… and general family ties. In rough order, I’d say we want to be liked most by ‘family’. Daddy UK, li’l Brother Canada, and Cousin Australia. After that comes the historical seats of education and learning and culture, like France (Sometimes), Spain, Italy, Greece. (We have a unique envy-friendship-hate relationship with France. We want to be friends, then we say something, then they get all… french. Then we hate them but want to want to be friends again. It’s close to the traditional relationship between England and France, with some addition of oversized puppy dog that gets stepped on.) Then there’s business partners like Germany and Japan and China, where we don’t really have any cultural ties… though we do to all of them, honestly. We want hard earned respect and firm commitment there. Then there’s Russia, where we like the people and the country, but the leadership sucks. And I’m serious about that, even during the cold war, I believe there was no great hatred for the russian people.
Then there’s the other countries, that we’re older than. We want to help them, but we keep doing damn fool things. Go fig.
Beast, not best. Nature of the beast.
Not at all, I have previously stated in another thread that it is wise to know ones enemy, if one is to defeat them. It would be foolhardy not to know ones enemy. The more one knows about the enemy, the easier it is to kill/defeat/eliminate them.
As far as their reasons/justifications go, well I have read about those too, and I don’t find them valid at all. It is merely propaganda and lies for simple minded/naive people and other terrorist supporters, and it is certainly a waste of time to take those ridiculous demands with any degree of seriousness.
snippet from the murderer’s training manual:
**The main mission for which the Military Organization is responsible is:
The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime. Other missions consist of the following:
So basically their plan is to destroy all of us , and take over the world ,while they proceed to install barbaric, religiously fanatical regimes in various countries. I don’t fantasize about walking around beating women with sticks, so this plan doesn’t sound all that appealing to me.
There is really nothing else to understand about these loonies. Sorry, but I’m not going to waste my time in listening to any excuses for their ilk. Wiping them off of the face of the earth is the only reasonable and intelligent solution. And this is pretty much what is happening anyhow, we are hunting them down like dogs, and dealing with them.
I get the idea behind your negative statement, but what in the world is a nieveau ?
I don’t communicate in any silly, insignificant foreign languages, which I have zero use for.
:o
The nieveau in my post should be niveau of course, not that it makes any difference I suppose.
Niveau means “level.”
You are bragging about your ignorance? Oh well, your loss.
“niveau” is French for “level”. It seems flonks got his languages mixed up.
Daisy Cutter, the terrorists are a miniscule fraction of the Muslims around the world. By antagonising and confronting all Muslims you are just making more terrorists. By engaging them and exchanging views you will lead to a better understanding and peaceful coexistence. The chances that the USA can destroy Muslim culture are the same as the chances that Muslim culture can destroy the USA: exactly zero. The western world has no other remedy but to learn to live with Muslims and the better it knows how to do this the fewer Muslims which will become terrorists.
Hail Ants
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying that basically it’s right for the U.S. to impose its view of how a country should be run on some other folks. To you , this makes sense because the U.S. model provides more rights, liberties, and conveneinces to a nation’s citizenry.
Yet, you seem to be rabidly opposed to an Islamic style government being imposed on you. Don’t you see a little cognitive dissonance there? How is it okay for your side to impose anything on any one?
Please bear in mind that I am not suggesting that the U.S. shouldn’t do whatever it takes to protect itself from aggression. If you are attacked, you have every right to find your attackers and unload the unholiest of hells on them. But where do you get the right to be the hegemonic know-it-all? Is it simply because “you can” or is there some actual logic to imposing your will on others when you claim it to be wrong when they do as such to you?
No, not really. Your country couldn’t stand for, and to this day can’t stand, the idea of communism expanding on the earth. So now it’s communism and Islamism. What’s it going to be tomorrow? Communism, Islamism, and veganism?
At what point are the people outside of America’s borders not forced to live by the U.S. rules?
Unparalleled? Unparalleled in comparison to what? The rest of Iraq which had been under crippling sanctions whereas the Kurdish north wasn’t? Isn’t that a bit of a fabricated proof? Look, I choke the shit out of this region, but not this region, and we have…viola! The region that wasn’t being choked is doing better!
Yeah, well, the rest of Iraq, including the Kurdish north was doing better prior to the first gulf war.
Which perhaps only adds merit to the notion that the occupation should be kept as short as possible and that those dumb Middle Easterners can figure their ass from a hole in the ground if given the chance.
I might be wrong, but actually I think it was.
Oh, so I didn’t know know the meaning of some french word which I had never heard of before, yes I must be the king of all ignoramouses.
Never had any french at school, thank god.
I am fluent in several foreign languages, but french is not one of them that I care to learn.
Some people on here didn’t even know the meaning of “daisy cutter”, an english word, and yet people throw out the “you are ignorant” staple to describe me, when refusing to partake in interperting insignificant langauges. 
Nobody has picked on your not knowing a French word but this
is bragging about your ignorance and I do not think it is anything to be proud of.
Daisy Cutter, I hardly called you ignorant, nor would I expect everyone posting here to be fluent in French. However, even if you don’t speak French, it’s not a very helpful attitude to brag about how useless foreign languages are, whether you are talking about Arabic, French, or Martian. And I would hardly call French an “insignificant” language, considering how many people speak it and that it is one of the official U.N. languages. Although for all I know, you probably think the U.N. is a waste of space, too.
It is insignificant in terms of this debate, which is taking place in English.
Am I ignorant also, if some Swahilian shows up and starts posting in their native tongue ?