How do you feel about the fact that USA are constantly sending troops to countries thousand of miles away bombing,destroying cities,killing soldiers but also killing kids and women, using imaginary excuses like “weapons of mass destruction” or “we ll liberate the poor people”?
i am european and i would really like to learn your feelings on the subject
thanks
How do you feel about the U.S. toppling one of worst mass murderers of our times, under whom more than 300,000 people have disappeared, and who started wars against two of his neighbors that took hundreds of thousands of lives?
The originality of this post is astounding. Let me guess, you hate Bush too.
As for your question: I am completely apathetic to the situation. Wether they invade, leave them alone, invade then leave, or invade and stay forever; I dont care. The desert cares more about the ocean than I do about any of this.
Define constantly. I can only think of twelve wars we’ve fought - both Gulf Wars, Korea, Vietnam, both World Wars, Spanish-American, Civil, Mexican-American, 1812, and the Revolutionary.
Of those, I think only six were for selfish reasons (Gulf Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Spanish-American, Mexican-American) whereas both World Wars, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War were for the greater good.
1812 is halfway between the two.
“Constantly” may have been a bad choice( my vocabulary isnt the best aound) but my point is that the past 13 years USA took part in the bombings of Serbia,Iraq and also send soldiers to Afganhistan(probably spelled it wrong). I dont want to insult anyone i am just observing the facts and this question came up.
In that case, I agree with the Afghanistan conflict because (I believe… correct me if I am wrong) they were harboring Al Quaeda members and possibly even bin Laden and refused to turn them over in the wake of the terrorist attack on the WTC.
I disagree with the current war because there has been no proof of any of the things Bush has accused Hussein’s regime of, other than the murder of ethnic groups within the country which we have been conveniently ignoring for a decade or more to begin with. It is my personal opinion that he had a vendetta against the country and was trying every possible way he could to attack it.
Wasn’t Serbia a multinational operation? The other two were almost entirely unilateral so I can’t see Serbia being a wholly American issue.
Well, you are forgetting Grenada, Nicaragua, the Bay of Pigs (which didn’t involve US personnel, to be fair), Kosovo, the bombing of Libya, the regular incursions by US armed personnel into Colombia and Peru, the Spanish civil war (which was sort of part of WWII), and a few small engagements which we fought entirely by proxy- the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, for example.
The fact remains that the writer of the OP is a douche and is either too young or too ignorant to understand that the combination of WMD and liberation is an entirely new excuse for a war.
Serbia was a multinational operation of course. I am not saying that USA is always the “bad” guy or something like that.Some wars are quite justified and others arent(personally i dont believe in any form of violence as a solution), i just think that whenever there is a “war dilemma” the government chooses to go to war instead of cooling things down.
excuse my grammtical,spelling,etc errors but my english are in bad shape
First Iraq War (Desert Storm), where we led a coalition that ousted the Iraqi army from a neighboring country it had invaded? Pretty freaking proud.
Serbia, where we participated in a campaign to stop a genocidal tyrant and his murderous thugs? Pretty freaking proud.
Afghanistan, where we accomplished in months what the USSR couldn’t accomplish in years and provided a clear demonstration to the world what would happen if you facilitate an attack on the United States? Unbelievably freaking proud.
Second Iraq War where we stretched the truth to oust a dictator that didn’t learn his lesson fourteen years ago? Like we abused our power.
When I hear people from other countries ask us how we feel about our militant ways? I stop, for a second, and think “yeah. why do we do that? Why don’t they?” And the answer comes quickly: because we can and because they can’t afford to.
Don’t kid yourself. If Greece, or wherever you are from, had the money and the means, it would be imposing its will to get its way, too.
So, most of the time, I feel pretty good about America’s use of its military. Sometimes, I’d like to see more restraint.
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The fact remains that the writer of the OP is a douche and is either too young or too ignorant to understand that the combination of WMD and liberation is an entirely new excuse for a war.[/QUOTE]
I think that through insults and ironic comments you proove just that you are incapable of conversation.
And stop apologizing for your grammar. The ability of other people to fluently write and speak more than one language is a constant source of amazement to us.
The US does pursue diplomatic solutions without violence. China and the US have been poking at each other for decades over Taiwan. No war yet. And when the Chinese pilot clipped the wing of our reconnaisance plane and they took their time returning it and the crew: no war.
North Korea: still there. Heck, there was even progress on easing the tension. And will be again. Someday.
When Canada won the gold in Olympic curling and inclicted us with an epidemic of Roots berets: no one got shot.
Those are just examples. We don’t always resort to violence.
In my opinion, one of the hardest things for other countries, including Canada, to understand about the US is that we honestly believe we don’t like war, even though we are very good at it. We believe that the world should live in peace, neighbors should not fear neighbors and that, somehow, no one should go hungry.
I apologise for calling you a douche. That was inappropriate outside the Pit.
I’m at a loss to figure out exactly why employing irony proves my inability to converse, though. I’d always been under the impression that irony displayed one’s grasp of the art of conversation. I may have been misinformed.
That is exactly what you said. You said the the USA is CONSTANTLY “sending troops”, CONSTANTLY bombing, CONSTANTLY killing. Claiming that you used “constantly” because English is not your first language sounds like a very convenient cop-out after having been called out on the blatantly insulting tone of your original post.
The tone of your post - and use of loaded phrasing (“using imaginary excuses”, “‘we ll liberate the poor people’”) - sure makes it look like you’re really more interested in displaying your disdain for the US than in learning our feelings on the subject.
That said, I think the US struggles with defining our “role” in world affairs. As the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world, and as a republic originally founded by mutts and rejects, we feel a responsibility to “make things right” where and when we can. As responsible member of the world community, we also feel an obligation not to intrude and not to bully. It’s a constant internal debate we engage in, over here, and we swing between isolationism and adventurism in the course of our discussion.
At any particular time in our history, we are probably too far in one direction or the other. Over the course of time, I think it evens out, and the good that we do intentionally outweighs the evil we commit inadvertently.
I say this understanding full well that, if you’re on the receiving end of our power, the smoothing effect of history is scant consolation to you. . .
There are three different kinds of wars we fight, and they differ in their goodness/badness.
War to defend US interests. And, although “interests” can be very vague and applied to absolutely everything, I specifically mean wars in which we retaliate against attacks on our own people/allies: WWI, WWII, Korea, Afghanistan, Gulf I.
War to prevent genocide. This might come off a bit superpowerish, but the fact that we ARE the world’s largest military power places a heavy responsibility on us. We’ve never really gotten over the fact that we quietly let the Nazis slaughter so many Jews, Gypsies, et al. So we’ve actually tried to intervene more quickly in cases of genocide than we might have before–i.e., Serbia (which was a multinat. effort, of course). Incidentally, how do you, as a European, feel about this, and your responsibility to stop such atrocities? It may be unfair, but a lot of us feel that, even more than our own inactive leaders in WWII, the rest of Europe bears a heavy burden for not working harder to stop the Nazi genocide. Of course, the sad fact is that we don’t intervene often ENOUGH. We didn’t step in in Rwanda, and we didn’t step in in East Timor. For all the European fears of too much U.S. military intervention, there are cases where our own disinterest (rooted in racism, quite frankly) kept us from helping to stem horrible slaughters.
War to advance US political agenda. Granted, all wars advance politics. But I’m talking specifically about things like Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Gulf II, and any number of quiet US-sponsored military coups. These are deplorable, IMO, and counter to everything our country stands for.
I wasn’t forgetting them… I was only addressing the declared wars of America, not all of its military incursions. The reasons being that the OP specifically refers to wars in the title of this thread and that, while not ignorant, I can’t claim to know much about Grenada, Nicarauga, etc so I left them out so that I wouldn’t post about something I knew little about.