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extoere
Joined: 23 Feb 2004
Posts: 543
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 Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:13 pm Post subject: Has America ... |
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Moonravvin' 'n rantin': Loos'n yer knickers, luv, 'n we'll have a bit 'o the ol' tumble now, won't we? Like a right proper caper atop a top loader on highs-speed spin, eh luv?
Ready, set ------ Rationalize!
Exenlightened Extoere |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| I rest my case. |
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waxwing
Joined: 29 Jun 2003
Posts: 719
Location: China
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:35 pm Post subject: Re: Has America ... |
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| extoere wrote: |
Waxxwing: Germany declared war on the U.S. after we declared war on Japan.
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Yes .. and in what way does that invalidate my accusation of hypocrisy? It supports it. |
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basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 952
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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CS
Thanks for your comment. I was actually not intending to go back to this thread at all but i had 10 minutes to kill.
In reply, the reason I opened the thread was because I thought there was some news item I had missed somewhere especially the words "worst case coming true".
As for why I thought it might develop into a sensible exchange of views, well there's more naivety on my part.
Just a final comment though, I came to the conclusion a few years ago that there was absolutely zippo that i cud do on a global scale about the mess our world has got itself into. the way i look at it is that as long as i can do my little piece for humanity and help others to get on, no matter how small it might be, i will try my best to do it. In fact, I realize now that I was not being asked to do anything more.
I used to get really down about rigged elections worldwide, bigwigs sticky their hands into state and corporate coffers and helping themselves at my and others' expenses, government and corporate kickbacks and the like and ALL the rest of the dishonesty, corruption and other types of madness going on. Ive realized that for my own sake, i had to shut off and let others do whatever they liked. What should I care. It might sound defeatest but frankly as long as my family and closest are happy and encouraged to do their little bit for humanity, i shrug my shoulders at the rest of it. Dont get me wrong, Im not completely disinterested in everything that goes on around me. I enjoy listening to others views on many personally-selected matters of international developments but i just refuse to get emtional about the nonsense going on anymore. In fact I spend more time being amused by the stupidity in our world and the people who are supposedly running it than anything else.
Let me tell you that since Ive learned to be more *ignorant* of many aspects of international and even uk national affairs and development, I seem to be enjoying a healthier (i mean at least emotionally and mentally) lifestyle. I refuse to allow the clowns of this world get me down anymore.
I have been branded irresponsible, self-centred and selfish for this way of thinking. Maybe, but its done me the world of good.
10 minute are up. gtg.
regards
basil |
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Communist Smurf
Joined: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 330
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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| basiltherat wrote: |
| I have been branded irresponsible, self-centred and selfish for this way of thinking. Maybe, but its done me the world of good. |
It seems a bit souring to me someone might brand you those things. Sometimes indifference is the best choice, particularly, when it comes to politics.
Good for you.
CS |
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extoere
Joined: 23 Feb 2004
Posts: 543
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:54 am Post subject: Has America Gone Crazy |
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Waxed: Never let a misreading of the facts interfere with your right to shoot off your mouth.
Basil: Jolly good for you! You might just be the sanest person on this site! Not to mention the happiest!
cheers,
extoere |
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amnesty
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 26
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:27 am Post subject: |
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We are under attack by Islamic terrorists, who are in all likelihood backed by many different governments (Saudi, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, PLO, and most likely China, Russia, France and Germany)....
You know, you might want to rephrase this. Unless of course, you have some very solid evidence that France and Germany have been engaging in state-sponsored terrorism against the USA.
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I don't think I need to rephrase this. I'm gonna let it stand. Here is my reasoning:
France and Germany joined with Russia, China and the Muslim world to block a final resolution in the UN authorizing regime change in Iraq. These same countries were the closest trade partners and political allies of Saddam Hussein for a long time. They were helping him evade the UN sanctions, were taking bribes from him (from money that should've gone for food and medicine for Iraqi people), were selling him materials to build WMDs, etc.
These same countries helped him build a nuclear reactor, and are now helping Iran do the same. France has hated the US ever since we liberated them from the Germans, and the Germans have hated us ever since we defeated the Soviets in the Cold War and allowed Germany to re-unite. They've made it clear that they hate the US and want us to fail in the world, foolishly imagining that that would somehow enhance their position in the world. The reality is that it would only help the enemies of all Westerners - the Islamists, the Chinese, and the Russians.
France and Germany support the terrorist nations in their war with Israel and the US. They always vote for them in the UN, against Israel and the US. France uses every opportunity to obstruct the US and cripple Nato. These 2 countries have a long history of violent anti-Semitism, which is currently seeing an upsurge. They have politicians who publicly refer to Israel as "that shitty little country", etc. They also have huge Muslim populations in their own countries, which they imagine they can appease by adopting a strong anti-Israel and anti-US posture.
The terrorists have not threatened or targeted France or Germany, and many of the 9/11 suicide bombers had been living and training in these countries.
If France and Germany really just disagreed with invading Iraq, they could've simply refused to participate in the Coalition, instead of what they did - actively and vehemently oppose the US with every fiber of their being. They've clearly crossed the line - they are not just critical friends at this point - they are enemies.
So I really don't think it's a stretch to imagine that they are covertly and actively helping the terrorists to attack the US. |
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lajzar
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Posts: 647
Location: Saitama-ken, Japan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:08 am Post subject: |
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[quote="amnesty"]
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We are under attack by Islamic terrorists, who are in all likelihood backed by many different governments (Saudi, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, PLO, and most likely China, Russia, France and Germany)....
You know, you might want to rephrase this. Unless of course, you have some very solid evidence that France and Germany have been engaging in state-sponsored terrorism against the USA.
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I don't think I need to rephrase this. I'm gonna let it stand. Here is my reasoning:
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France and Germany joined with Russia, China and the Muslim world to block a final resolution in the UN authorizing regime change in Iraq.
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Ok. Might be worth noting that this blocked resolution never actually got voted on, so it is stretching the truth to call it blocked.
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These same countries were the closest trade partners and political allies of Saddam Hussein for a long time.
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SO? Nothing teh USA wasn't guilty of. The main exhibit in teh case for Saddam having WMDs is US receipts after all 
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They were helping him evade the UN sanctions, were taking bribes from him
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Cite?
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(from money that should've gone for food and medicine for Iraqi people), were selling him materials to build WMDs, etc.
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Seeing as no shred of a WMD has been found, it is a bit rich to say they were selling WMD components. Of course, under US sanctions, writing pencils were sanctioned because they contained lead (or graphite), which is a WMD component apparently. 
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These same countries helped him build a nuclear reactor,
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Only France, and that was destroyed by Israel shortly before the USA stopped selling WMDs to Iraq. there was no further followup afaik.
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and are now helping Iran do the same. France has hated the US ever since we liberated them from the Germans,
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Actually, that has more to do with Suez. France does have a specific reason, it isn't irrational hatred.
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and the Germans have hated us ever since we defeated the Soviets in the Cold War and allowed Germany to re-unite. They've made it clear that they hate the US and want us to fail in the world, foolishly imagining that that would somehow enhance their position in the world. The reality is that it would only help the enemies of all Westerners - the Islamists, the Chinese, and the Russians.
France and Germany support the terrorist nations in their war with Israel and the US. They always vote for them in the UN,
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So now voting against the USA is considered actively engaged in terrorism? War is Peace.
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against Israel and the US. France uses every opportunity to obstruct the US and cripple Nato. These 2 countries have a long history of violent anti-Semitism, which is currently seeing an upsurge. They have politicians who publicly refer to Israel as "that *beep* little country", etc.
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Now this one about the beep country I'd really like a cite for, I'd be outraged if it's true.
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They also have huge Muslim populations in their own countries, which they imagine they can appease by adopting a strong anti-Israel and anti-US posture.
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Has it occurred to you that many of Israel's policies wrt Palestinians now are identical to many of South Africa's policies wrt to blacks back a couple of decades ago? perhaps teh USA is guilty of a little hypocrisy here.
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The terrorists have not threatened or targeted France or Germany, and many of the 9/11 suicide bombers had been living and training in these countries.
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All the 9/11 bombers did their final training in the USA. If France and Germany have not been targetted by these terrorists, perhaps it is because France and Germany are not at war with these terrorists.
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If France and Germany really just disagreed with invading Iraq, they could've simply refused to participate in the Coalition, instead of what they did - actively and vehemently oppose the US with every fiber of their being. They've clearly crossed the line - they are not just critical friends at this point - they are enemies.
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I always considered it the responsibility of a good friend to stop me when I am about to do something stupid.
I had a friend who was very drunk once and tried to pick a fight with 4 nightclub bouncers. When i stopped him, he tried to fight with me because I was working against him. He thanked me when he sobered up.
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So I really don't think it's a stretch to imagine that they are covertly and actively helping the terrorists to attack the US. |
Interesting deduction, and full of paranoid delusions. Freud would have loved to have had you on his couch.
(edited to fix quoting)
Last edited by lajzar on Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:11 am; edited 2 times in total |
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amnesty
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 26
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:09 am Post subject: |
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Louis wrote:
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WE WERE ATTACKED FIRST. Have you already forgotten 9/11? Do you imagine it was all a part of "Bush's lie", orchestrated from Hollywood? We are under attack by Islamic terrorists, who are in all likelihood backed by many different governments (Saudi, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, PLO, and most likely China, Russia, France and Germany).
So why not attack France, then? "In all likelihood" is not a reason to invade a country.
We can't attack everyone at once. France is already paying a price, in lost tourism and export dollars. And they will continue to pay a price in the future.
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9/11 wasn't the first of it - they've been attacking us for years, and we've been trying to ignore it, sticking our heads in the sand like you want us to continue doing. The problem is, this approach doesn't work - they just keep getting bolder. Do you imagine 9/11 was some freak event that'll never happen again? You don't think our enemies are doing all they can to top that attack with many more, much worse attacks using biological, chemical, or radiological weapons?
Iraq didn't have these. The UN inspectors did not find any evidence of such weapons before the US invasion forced their premature departure.
Nonsense. Everyone (Clinton, Kerry, Kofi Annan, the French, Germans, Russians, etc.) agreed just before the war that Saddam had NOT accounted for all the weapons he was KNOWN to have had at the end of the first Gulf War and was supposed to have destroyed (with documentation to prove it) and that he was clearly playing games with the UN inspectors. He had the duty under international law to destroy all his weapons and prove it. He didn't. Instead he gave the US and UK the big "finger" while paying off the rest of the world to support him in the UN.
The fact that we still haven't found many WMDs (and we HAVE found some) hardly proves that he didn't still have them. Otherwise why did he keep fucking around with the inspectors? Most likely he gave them to Syria just before the war started.
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You say Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11. So what? Germany wasn't responsible for Pearl Harbor. Should we not have fought Germany?
Yep, in 1939, like everyone else. Wouldn't this have been a "pre-emptive" move that you seem to approve of?
I'd say even earlier than 1939 - Japan invaded China in 1931, and Hitler came to power in '33 and immediately started breaking treaties by rearming, reoccupying the Ruhr, etc. As late as 1938 the idiot Chamberlain handed Hitler Czechoslavakia and imagined that he had bought "peace in our time". Fucking idiot, right? All you had to do was read Mein Kampf, written back in the 1920's, to know Hitler's intention was to conquer most of Europe! Just like now - all you have to do is read the fucking Koran and Hadiths to understand what the Islamists want: jihad & sharia - world conquest and forced conversion to Islam & worldwide submission to Islamic law.
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Saddam laughed and danced when he heard about 9/11, and is on record as praising the terrorists who did it. If he wasn't involved somehow, you can bet he would've been if there was something he could contribute. He has been a major trouble maker in the Middle East for decades - it's long past due that we took him out.
Saddam wasn't causing any trouble at all recently. The sanctions on Iraq turned it into a poor country, which was really quite impotent at the time of the invasion.
The sanctions on Iraq were supposed to ensure that Saddam could only sell enough oil to provide proper food and medical care to all Iraqis and not have money left over to get more weapons or start another war. Saddam got around this by simply witholding food and medicine from large segments of the population - starving and killing anyone who was opposed to him. With that money, he bribed world leaders to gain their support, bought materials to build WMDs, and build himself more and more palaces. No matter how many anti-aircraft guns the US and UK bombed in the Iraqi no-fly zones during the 90's - Saddam always had money to buy more. Plus he gave the world every reason to believe that he still had large quantities of WMDs and was planning to use them again. So he was hardly impotent - he was a major trouble maker.
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We needed to get rid of Saddam for so many reasons:
1) to prevent him from continuing to develop WMD's and passing them to terrorists or using them to start yet another war in the Middle East
There were no WMDs!
(already discussed above).
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2) to set an example to other governments that you can't openly defy us for decades and get away with it
What a great reason to get people killed.
HE was killing people, OK? Something like 10,000 people were dying every year under Saddam due to starvation, lack of medicine, torture or murder. And if we let people walk all over us, then more and more shitty little dictators will become emboldened to do the same, and will lead to MORE people getting killed in the future. If we had taken out Hitler in 1935, it would've been far less costly in human life than it ended up being because we let him push us around for so long.
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3) to punish him for attempted murder of a US president
Which incident are you referring to here?
Saddam tried to assasinate President Bush, his wife and some of his children when they visited Kuwait after the first Gulf War.
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4) to liberate the Iraqi people from HELL under his sadistic regime and the starvation, torture and murder he subjected them to
Valid point, but how many other countries are in similar conditions, and what has the US done to help them?
The US can't help EVERYONE. We don't have the resources. Clearly this was not the only reason to take out Saddam, but it was certainly a good one, no? The main reasons were that he was a fucking trouble-maker who continually threatened Middle East peace and thus the entire world economy (dependent on Mideast oil), and because we feared he would give WMDs to terrorists.
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5) to hopefully build a stable, prosperous, friendly, democratic, pro-western regime right in the middle of the Middle East - right between Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia - 3 of the biggest trouble makers.
How do you propose to do this? Brainwashing? Force? Let's face it, this is a very unlikely goal, and the current post-war violence reflects that.
I agree it's turning out to be more difficult than many had hoped, but it's certainly doable. The media make this war out to be a total fiasco, but in fact it's been very cheap so far compared to almost any previous war, and it simply had to be done.
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Look what we did with Japan and Germany after WWII. Was that a bad thing? Wouldn't it have been even better if we had pre-emptively invaded Japan and Germany in the mid-1930's when their intentions were clear and they were much weaker? How many lives could've been saved?
You're forgetting the mindset of the era. WWI was a very recent memory, and nobody, Americans included, was very keen on the idea of starting up another war. Although Germany's actions at the League of Nations and in Europe can be seen as foreshadowing, at the time there was no way of telling what it would turn into.
Oh yes there was! Hitler wrote a book, Mein Kampf, in which he spelled out very plainly what he wanted to do!
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What would have happened during the Cold War if the US "pre-emptively" attacked the USSR? Would that have saved lives, or rather have caused a bloodbath of gigantic proportions, in order to avoid a war that never happened?
What do you mean, "never happened"? What do you call the Korean war, the Vietnam war, and many other wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, etc.? These were all parts of the Cold War, and could've been easily avoided by simply nuking Moscow in 1946, when it was apparent that Stalin was going to be a *beep*, and before he got nuclear bombs. Kill a few to save many. I'd do it any day.
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The way I see it, we're already way too late in responding to the Muslim challenge. We should've helped the Shah of Iran completely crush the Islamist revolt and kill every one of those hateful old Ayatollahs. We let them take over, and things have been getting rapidly worse ever since!
Right. Let's take out more countries' leaders on a hunch. We'll see how the international community reacts to that, and if the residents of said countries appreciate the gesture. As I see it, this would just raise anti-US sentiments.
By "international community" you mean France, Germany, Russia, China and the Muslim world, right? As far as I'm concerned, they can all go to hell. Besides, these countries already hate the US as much as is possible, and there's nothing we can do about that short of going bankrupt and disbanding our military and becoming a has-been power like France or Spain, and we don't intend to do that any time soon. So get used to us.
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lajzar
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Posts: 647
Location: Saitama-ken, Japan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:35 am Post subject: |
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| amnesty wrote: |
By "international community" you mean France, Germany, Russia, China and the Muslim world, right? As far as I'm concerned, they can all go to hell. Besides, these countries already hate the US as much as is possible, and there's nothing we can do about that short of going bankrupt and disbanding our military and becoming a has-been power like France or Spain, and we don't intend to do that any time soon. So get used to us.
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The ironic thing is, by keeping up this level of military activity and maintaining the current domestic economic policies, a has-been power is exactly what the USA will become. |
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amnesty
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 26
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:57 am Post subject: |
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[/quote]Now this one about the beep country I'd really like a cite for, I'd be outraged if it's true.
These same countries were the closest trade partners and political allies of Saddam Hussein for a long time.
SO? Nothing teh USA wasn't guilty of. The main exhibit in teh case for Saddam having WMDs is US receipts after all
[quote]
The US supplied Saddam with weapons for self-defense against Islamic Iran because it didn't want Iran taking over the entire Gulf oil supply. The US didn't authorize Saddam to threaten Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc. with those weapons.
Since France and Germany have been and continue to be under our military protection, it seems fair enough to expect them to follow our lead in important foreign policy matters that impact on our collective security. Instead, Germany and France were apparently selling Saddam weapons even after the UN sanctions were in effect. And they were UN sanctions, not US sanctions.
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| France does have a specific reason, it isn't irrational hatred. |
Yeah? I'd be interested to hear your explanation of why France hates the US so much. I'm not sure I get it.
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| So now voting against the USA is considered actively engaged in terrorism? War is Peace. |
Don't exaggerate or misquote me - I never said that merely voting against the US amounts to terrorism. What I'm saying is that this is one more bit of evidence that supports the idea that these countries hate the US and are likely supporting the terrorists.
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Has it occurred to you that many of Israel's policies wrt Palestinians now are identical to many of South Africa's policies wrt to blacks back a couple of decades ago? perhaps teh USA is guilty of a little hypocrisy here.
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Well, I don't agree with how the US and UK messed up South Africa, handing it to a bunch of racist commies, so that example isn't going to work with me. That country has been getting worse and worse ever since the change of government, with the productive people fleeing and the rest growing more restless - it's just a matter of time before they follow Mugabe's policies. You'll see.
Israel is a whole other subject, but let me just say a few things: Arab Muslims have more than 20 countries of their own - mostly huge, mostly full of oil, and most of them conquered from other peoples. The Jews have just one homeland in the world - little tiny Israel, which they returned to after the worst attempt at genocide in history. The UN partitioned British Palestine 50:50 - half for the Arabs, half for the Jews. The Jews accepted, the Arabs never have. The Arabs instead launced war after war on Israel, with the stated objective of "killing all the Jews". Each time they lost, Israel took a little more of their ancestral homeland and kept it. Seems fair enough to me. There is no difference between the Arabs living in "Palestine" and those living in Jordan, Lebanon or Syria - same people, same religion, same language, even same ACCENT. Israel offered citizenship to the Palestinian Arabs - those that accepted live better than most Arabs in the world. Those that refuse to live in peace should just go live in another Arab country and get on with their lives, as should the rest of the Muslim world. Israel isn't the cause of their misery - their own hatred and backwardness is. These are both caused by their irrational, hateful religion, Islam. Enough said for now.
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| If France and Germany have not been targetted by these terrorists, perhaps it is because France and Germany are not at war with these terrorists. |
Or maybe it's because they've come to their own agreements with them: "leave us alone, and we'll help you any way we can to defeat the Jews and Americans, whom we hate just as much as you do".
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I always considered it the responsibility of a good friend to stop me when I am about to do something stupid.
I had a friend who was very drunk once and tried to pick a fight with 4 nightclub bouncers. When i stopped him, he tried to fight with me because I was working against him. He thanked me when he sobered up.
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Well, I agree with this point and with your example (you are a good friend indeed!), but this example is a poor analogy. The US can definitely beat the terrorists. We are not in danger of losing the Islamic terror war (of which Iraq is just one front), except if our so-called friends all betray us and support the enemy.
Let me see if I can make a better analogy for you. Say you're a big guy with a lot of little friends. They became your friends because there used to be a big bully who threatened them, but he became very sick about 15 years ago, and now they're not so sure they really need you anymore. But now there are some real loser punks who come around now and then and throw rocks at you. They call you a bully and threaten to kill you, even though you're not doing anything to them except stand up for a particularly pitiful and nerdy kid who they love to beat up on. These punks will never engage you in a fair and proper fight, because they know they'll lose. In fact, many of them pretend to be friends by daylight, but at nighttime they put on masks and come *beep* with you. One day, after being hit by a particularly large rock, you decide enough is enough and you go after a couple of your most persistent harrassers. You're about to pound the daylights out of them, and most of your friends offer token support, but they're small and weak, and frankly, they're afraid of the punks and not sure if you can prevail. Fair enough. But SOME of your friends, two of the bigger ones, say "wait a minute - if you do that, what they say will really be true - you'll be a bully, and we're not gonna support you". And you're like "HUH? What the hell is going on here?", and then you start to realize that a) they also have some strange need to beat up on the nerdy weak kid that you like to protect, and b) that they seem to envy you and want to take your place as the "big guy", even though it's completely irrational and physically impossible. Yet for some strange reason, they seem to take the side of the punks while offering a non-sensical explanation (that YOU are the bully if you defend yourself). |
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Lanza-Armonia
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 525
Location: London, UK. Soon to be in Hamburg, Germany
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:20 am Post subject: |
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.....reporting for duty..... "Kerry"
Nuff sed... |
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lajzar
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Posts: 647
Location: Saitama-ken, Japan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:50 am Post subject: |
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Now this one about the beep country I'd really like a cite for, I'd be outraged if it's true.
[/quote]
That guy should definitely be made to resign. However, I note that Israel calls it "anti-semitic". As usual, it is impossibel to be anti-Israel without being labelled with the anti-semitic brush. Israel has been using "anti-semitic" labelling as a way of drawing sympathy for years, relying on historical recollection of the holocaust. Certainly there are cases where people are deliberating Judaism, but Israeli politicians refuse to allow people to criticise Israel without labelling it as a criticism of Judaism itself.
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...Since France and Germany have been and continue to be under our military protection, it seems fair enough to expect them to follow our lead in important foreign policy matters that impact on our collective security...
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Whereas those countries probably see it as reasonable to follow the US lead on collective security as it relates to the countries against whom the alliance was formed.
If A and B have a defensive alliance against C, it does not follow that if A declares war against D that B should also declare war against D. The alliance (NATO) was defensive in nature, not offensive.
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| France does have a specific reason, it isn't irrational hatred. |
Yeah? I'd be interested to hear your explanation of why France hates the US so much. I'm not sure I get it.
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As I noted in my last post which you so conveniently snipped, the Suez crisis is the reason.
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| So now voting against the USA is considered actively engaged in terrorism? War is Peace. |
Don't exaggerate or misquote me - I never said that merely voting against the US amounts to terrorism. What I'm saying is that this is one more bit of evidence that supports the idea that these countries hate the US and are likely supporting the terrorists.
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Nonetheless, if they had voted with the US, I suspect you wouldn't now be accusing them of supplying arms and equipment to the enemy.
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| If France and Germany have not been targetted by these terrorists, perhaps it is because France and Germany are not at war with these terrorists. |
Or maybe it's because they've come to their own agreements with them: "leave us alone, and we'll help you any way we can to defeat the Jews and Americans, whom we hate just as much as you do".
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That is a right-wing conspiracy theory and you know it.
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I always considered it the responsibility of a good friend to stop me when I am about to do something stupid.
I had a friend who was very drunk once and tried to pick a fight with 4 nightclub bouncers. When i stopped him, he tried to fight with me because I was working against him. He thanked me when he sobered up.
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Well, I agree with this point and with your example (you are a good friend indeed!), but this example is a poor analogy. The US can definitely beat the terrorists. We are not in danger of losing the Islamic terror war (of which Iraq is just one front), except if our so-called friends all betray us and support the enemy.
Let me see if I can make a better analogy for you. Say you're a big guy with a lot of little friends. They became your friends because there used to be a big bully who threatened them, but he became very sick about 15 years ago, and now they're not so sure they really need you anymore. But now there are some real loser punks who come around now and then and throw rocks at you. They call you a bully and threaten to kill you, even though you're not doing anything to them except stand up for a particularly pitiful and nerdy kid who they love to beat up on...
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Stop right there, because this is where your analogy is flawed. This particularly nerdy kid of yours is in fact one of the strongest military nations in the world, and certainly the strongest in the region, second only to US forces in the region. The analogy is more like a bunch of punks ganging up against a really buff but arrogant* surfer dude.
*Zionist terrorists (yes, I mean that literally) had been agitating for a Jewish homeland in the Near East throughout the first half of the 20th century. So the terroism that Israel is suffering today is only different in that the Zionist terrorists of former years did not purposely engage in suicide missions. |
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Bindair Dundat
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 1123
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:55 pm Post subject: Re: Dead all ready? |
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| Lyov wrote: |
My God how this debate came and went. Now I realize that opions are wildly divergant on this subject but I say nothing without backing and I will present now.
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Ridiculouser and ridiculouser. You can find "support' for ANY hare-brained notion on the internet, usually in less than one second.
BD |
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Teacher in Rome
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 1286
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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Amnesty wrote
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If France and Germany really just disagreed with invading Iraq, they could've simply refused to participate in the Coalition, instead of what they did - actively and vehemently oppose the US with every fiber of their being. They've clearly crossed the line - they are not just critical friends at this point - they are enemies.
So I really don't think it's a stretch to imagine that they are covertly and actively helping the terrorists to attack the US. |
This sounds like lunatic conspiracy theory to me. Just because France and Germany don't agree with the US, then they are somehow helping terrorists attack the US? Not everything in the world centres around the US, and not every country agrees with the US. That doesn't make them enemies. it means they have a difference of opinion. If you remember, before the US took a decision to invade Iraq, there was a lot of international debate surrounding the legality of such an invasion. A fair number of countries were opposed to invasion on those grounds. |
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