Screw the left wing, I love the USA!

Originally posted by dom
Ok, let's take a specific example then. Do you deny that the US were responsible for putting Pinochet in power, and then treated him like royalty for the 30 years of his rule, ignoring his human rights abuses?

How about a modern version. Columbia. Do you deny that the US are funding the government paramilitary forces responsible for nearly 65% of massacres in 2000? Do you deny that US attacks on drug crops occur almost exclusively in FARC controlled areas?

Keep those eyes shut astro, maybe the US will become a model of democracy if you don't see any of it's problems!

I have really no idea about either so they must be true. Would it even do any good to research it and give any evidence to the contrary? It never has. Hell, maybe it is true or at least some of it. So, the US cooperates with other governments? Isn't your point that the US should cooperate more with the world? I guess someone should have given you a call to see which you prefer they cooperate with.

I'm not arguing for an ideal democracy, I'm just speaking out for my right to exist and being this is the War on Terror forum , thats whats at stake for the US and being I'm apart of it and I want to keep living, you might find it difficult to argue me into accepting the genocide of my entire country.

I'm not arguing the US has no right to exist. I'm just saying that US *foreign policy* is a model of hypocrisy.

The reason that it's relevant is because US foreign policy is what's causing the terrorist threat that the US is currently facing. So really, I'm saying that if you want terrorists to go away, you have to change US foreign policy. But that's just my opinion.

It could be argued that these problems go back much further to the colonial days of Old Europe. If it wasn't for the outright rape of most of the world by Europe for the last 1000 years, then things may have been different.

You cannot blame the US for the instability of regions caused by European imperialism over the last millenia.

I would have agreed with you anytime in the 90s when we repeatedly took attack after attack and tried to appease the attackers. So, I agree the 9-11 attack was a result of bad us Foriegn Policy. You sold me on that one. Absolutly the reason 9-11 happened, the previous attacks went unanswered. But time will tell, and has. No attacks on US soil since 9-11. 2 years after finally somebody said, thats it, no more Mr. nice guy. No more begging for the right to be here.

So, we agree. I just didn't understand your argument very well. Terror the result of bad US policy? You bet, but at least we are correcting that although I think its kind of like closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out. Bin-Ladin should have been busted after the '93 attacks.

mad_scientist - Playing the blame game can go on for a long time. But the immediate points I'm talking about weren't just a reaction to previous problems. Chile didn't have to become a dictatorship, this wasn't pre-ordained because of the evil Spanish. Putting Pinochet in power was a *deliberate* policy of the US. The US could likewise have followed a *deliberate* policy of leaving the democratic government in power...

and astro - You're right in a way. Certainly the US left a very powerful threat to it's own domination, without doing anything much about it. In particular, coming up to 9/11 the intelligence forces were told to leave the Bin Ladens alone. That particular decision may have had serious repercussions. So yes, better intelligence work may have prevented that attack.

The exact way that terror is the result of bad US policy, is in the way that terrorists are funded by the US while a job needs doing, and then left alone or destroyed afterwards. It would be better to not fund those terrorists in the first place. For a relevant example take Bin Laden. The CIA trained him as a terrorist so that he'd blow up Russian tanks in Afghanistan. He got pissed off with the US, and now he's used those same skills to fly airliners into the WTC buildings. That's how US policy creates terror.

A more explicit example might be US funding of the Columbian government, huge funding, some of which goes to funding paramilitary organisations which carry out massacres against the peasant population. By providing the money, while ignoring the massacres, the US has added to an environment of terror.

If you really want a good read about this, try "Rogue States" by Naom Chomsky. I don't agree with everything he says, like Kosovo, but he makes some very interesting arguments against US foreign policy, which you won't read in the mainstream press.

US foreign policy is killing us. We aid the wrong people, blast the right ones. Ill support a govornment that moves towards US isolationism.

America did not get rich with hard work. America sat out WWII soaking up the riches whilst every other country went bankrupt fight the nazi scum.

How can you delude yourself.

Originally posted by John Nada
America did not get rich with hard work. America sat out WWII soaking up the riches whilst every other country went bankrupt fight the nazi scum.

How can you delude yourself.

We sat out the beginning of the war because it was not our fight, why do you people insist it was? We shipped arms to all paying nations and Britain(who was broke long before WW2, that's called business. Someone had to feed our soldiers and civilians you know, Americans aren't born with a life supply of meat and vegetables, cars, and personal wealth just so you know, we have to work and sell for ours as well. We stated our POLICY directly in WW2, Germany and Japan decided to violate that policy by sinking our convoy's and Pearl Harbor respectively, that forced us into a war that any historian will say was a lost cause for the Allies before we entered. Hitler all but had Russia on it's knees and was playing with Britain, he could have mounted a sea attack any time he choose, as he cared not for lost lives of his people. He would have just sent wave after wave of transports protected by the Luftwaffe and his navy until Britain ran out of resources. When the US came in, he realized he could not fight a three front war and downgraded his Russian front by pulling supplies out of the Russian area, which was a bad move in my opinion. Back to Britain, it was getting bombed everyday, had NO foothold in Europe, was broke as a nation, the airforce was damn near in shambles and they DID NOT NEED US? Give me a freaking break.

Where do you people get off on this crap?

Read history, don't invent it!

Yeah right.

In 50 years time kids will read history books about how terrorists attacked the WTC and the war on terrorism and the liberation of the Iraq nation began.

But we all know that's BS. The Bush Administration staged Sept 11 to gain a foothold in Iraq and rob their oil, and do the zionist faction in Israel a favour.
However, you will never read this in a history book because people would rather accept the lie they are told than realise they will have to bring down their own government. You cowards just aren't up to the fight (I know alot of you are but...).

Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read.

Originally posted by John Nada
Yeah right.

In 50 years time kids will read history books about how terrorists attacked the WTC and the war on terrorism and the liberation of the Iraq nation began.

But we all know that's BS. The Bush Administration staged Sept 11 to gain a foothold in Iraq and rob their oil, and do the zionist faction in Israel a favour.
However, you will never read this in a history book because people would rather accept the lie they are told than realise they will have to bring down their own government. You cowards just aren't up to the fight (I know alot of you are but...).

Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read.

Hey pal, stop sucking on the bulbs, it's obviously killed more than enough brain cells. The next step is vegetation, do yourself a favor.

Well mad, He did bring up something that is hardly ever mentioned.

Like, why were warnings from other countries ignored about a possible attack on U.S. soil?

Why did Bush remain in that classroom for 20 minutes after he heard the first plane struck the tower?

Why was there no air response deployed when the planes were discovered to be hijacked.

Anyone remember the Bush quote after the 9/11 attacks? "Lucky me--I hit the trifecta."

Now that we have stomped thousands of innocent Iraqi's into a bloodly pulp, where are them darn WMD's?

Anyone see this little Rumsfeld quote?
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, May 14, 2003

So we handed Iraq their a$$ on a silver platter for WMD's, I mean Liberation, I mean...

How much you want to bet that Saddam's name will become as scarcely mentioned as Bin Laden's name did?

There are just too many oddities and hypocrisies to be believable. (Not that I give a damn about Clinton but) If Clinton had done anything like this he would have been crucified in that blue dress by the right wingers. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.




[Edited on 28-5-2003 by Thorfinn Skullsplitter]

>ahem

WW1 was a bloody mess. A total bloody mess. The US part in it was not overly significant, so it's not like the US bailed out the UK. The US just brought a close to the conflict that little bit earlier.

WW2 was a war that should never have happened. A war that was founded in poverty and the disgraceful treatment of Germany post-WW1. Really, the window for stopping Hitler was small, and the problem was that France/GB realised that their treatment of Germany at Versailles had been poor. Therefore they gave Hitler leeway hoping that he'd be happy with that. Instead they unleashed a monster. By the time of the German invasion of Czeckoslovakia it was too late to stop Hitler. In '38 the British military forces were in a poor state, in fact, they were in a poor state in '36. The window for beheading the monster was probably open between 33 and 36.

That all said, I think the US can honestly say that it's had bad parents in this respect. But certainly, I'd hope that most European governments have learned some lessons. The issue I think, is that us Europeans want to see that the US have also learned those lessons, when really, the US only gained from both World Wars. Certainly, in our enlightened age where information flows so freely, I hope governments can learn that they have to act within moral boundaries, but so far I see no sign of it (I guess it is early days).

Well, Dom, there lies the problem: the US, the people, didnt gain from both conflicts.

Both conflicts left us as last man standing. They cost us the isolationism that once fostered and preoetcted us. Because we became international players, we suddenly were faced with a new, confusing, and frightening world full of conflicts and ideals we didnt understand. Because of it all, the FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, ect, all became new entities in our once bordelrine-anarchic govornment. We may have come out better finacially and militarily, but as a nation, it cost us our soul and identity. We are now a superpower, which isnt a good thing. We see in history what happens to superpowers.

The US hasnt learned the lessons of its parents because we are an adolecent nation. We werent even created when many of these current problems in the world were starting, like the stumbling teen, weve awoken to a very confused world, with little wisdom or guidance to deal with, and have been given the big gun to police with. Like a kid who grows up tp fast, we grew up to fast as well, and are behaving like adolecents who think they knwo everything. What we need is quiet time alone, away from the world, to grow up, sit back, and observe, but im afraid we will not be givien that time, and will be riding the one track rail to foolish destruction.

I think the people did gain. Certainly, the standard of US life in the 50s compared to US life in the 30s was considerably better (if the history books don't lie), not sure the same was true in many countries.

I don't think the US were so naive about foreign policy issues coming up to WW1/2. Cuba was originally invaded in 1898 wasn't it? Mexico was invaded before that (with the appropriation of California if I remember). And then we have the sorry history of ethnic cleansing for 100's of years before (started by the Brits, but carried on with some enthusiasm by the US). And Panama was taken from Columbia in the 19th century wasn't it? Filipines was early 20th?

The US shouldn't become isolationist, but it should start acting like a responsible adult.

well said.

Originally posted by dom
WW1 was a bloody mess. A total bloody mess. The US part in it was not overly significant, so it's not like the US bailed out the UK. The US just brought a close to the conflict that little bit earlier.

Actually the US made a huge difference with it's 2 million man contribution. WW1 would never have been won otherwise, it would have dragged on and on.
The Brits and the French weren't superior in anyway to the German army.

whenever you think, I will laugh

Originally posted by elitelongbow
whenever you think, I will laugh

Pretty much wraps you up as useless in the debates we have going on in here, but thanks for the help m'kay

--the wiz

I'm pleasantly surprised to say that, for once, I totally agree with Shining Wizard.