The Military

[Hildegard]

Well BW it would be great if there was no need for militaries in the world; but history, current circumstances and human nature just don't go together with that idea.....as long as there are man there will be wars, and as long as there are wars out there, logicly there will be a need for a military.....now you can talk how the latest US foreign policy is warmongering, but that's a completely other issue....

 

That is a blatant, outright lie. If you are referring to islamic terrorist groups, those groups target ALL of the West, regardless of their affiliation with the US. We are heretics to them, and their "Jihad" demands that we be converted or cleansed.

 

There have been numerous examples that prove this point, but I will give you one in particular.

 

You see, investigations on the 11/3 terrorist attacks in Madrid (by some Al-Qeda branch or another) revealed that the attacks had been planned long before Spain became involved in the Iraq war, and would have been carried out regardless of the government's stance.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, honestly, I doubt the credibility of those investigations.....Osama himself said once explaining why its members targeted UK and Spain, and how he and his organization has no reason to attack Sweden - his words...... And if Al Qaida wants to blow up all western countries regardless of their affiliation with the US, then why haven't they targeted let's say Island, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal....

I'll believe your statement once they strike those countries.....but I think Italy, Denmark or Poland are next to face a terrorist attack and we all know why, one seroius plot in Italy was already successfully dealt with, but nobody can say for sure the next one will.

[Lucius]

I don't agree with anything battlewookie says, but don't criticise his spelling. English isn't his first language.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was about to say that as well, do you really think that his first language is English Mothie?

 

Edit: Right, many english speakers does have terrible spelling, I agree.

Edited December 18, 2005 by Lucius

[Lucius]

I'll believe your statement once they strike those countries.....but I think Italy, Denmark or Poland are next to face a terrorist attack and we all know why, one seroius plot in Italy was already successfully dealt with, but nobody can say for sure the next one will.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Danish and Bosnian (I think) police uncovered a potential terrorcell, whom they claim was planning an attack somewhere in Europe.

[BattleCookiee]

For one thing, learn how to spell. 

 

And you're definitley misinformed/biased if you think we're there for colonization.  In fact, unless you've been living in a hole the past couple months (which it seems like) you'd know there were elections taking place down there.  Yup, democratic elections.  OMG!  It wasn't a puppet government installed by the U.S., was it?

 

Yeah, English isn't my native langauge. You might have noticed how I used both Irak and Iraq throughout this thread. And ofcourse there is the occassional typo that I don't notice for fixing....

 

And yes, I think you guys were. Like Europe in the past...

They just established some posts and then only keep the financial profit and give protection when needed... and even then, not always...

But I must agree that the "election" is a nice addition to our old European ways.

Also how alot of radical parties are not on the list, mainly US-supporting parties on there...

 

Well BW it would be great if there was no need for militaries in the world; but history, current circumstances and human nature just don't go together with that idea.....as long as there are man there will be wars, and as long as there are wars out there, logicly there will be a need for a military.....now you can talk how the latest US foreign policy is warmongering, but that's a completely other issue....

 

No, that last one is (and was) exactly where I am talking about. The only way to prevent conflicts is to have no militias to control, but since that does never happen we just have to keep the damage for warmongering countries like the US to a minimum.

[random evil guy]

actually, i have served. norway has mandetory millitary service and i spent a year in the air force. the army is an inefficient kindergarten for retards, defects and other losers who can't make it in the real world.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First of all, you ought to be in your corner still. I ain't let you out yet.

 

Second of all, the Norwegian military isn't what one conjures up when the words "combat prowess" are spoken. I have nothing against any of our allies, but you're going to have to do better than that. Why not just take Norway's economy and use it to explain that of the United States?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

actually. the norwegian(and all of the scandinavian) armed forces are considered to be very good. still, i fail to see how this is even relevant? the norwegian air force is very similar in both structure, equipment and 'mentality' to the us air force. i even spent some time with us forces in a joint nato winter excercise. the difference was negligible...

[kirottu]

actually. the norwegian(and all of the scandinavian) armed forces are considered to be very good.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

...Except those girly swedish troops.

[213374U]

Well, honestly, I doubt the credibility of those investigations.....Osama himself said once explaining why its members targeted UK and Spain, and how he and his organization has no reason to attack Sweden - his words...... And if Al Qaida wants to blow up all western countries regardless of their affiliation with the US, then why haven't they targeted let's say Island, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal....

I'll believe your statement once they strike those countries.....but I think Italy, Denmark or Poland are next to face a terrorist attack and we all know why, one seroius plot in Italy was already successfully dealt with, but nobody can say for sure the next one will.

Well, Hilde. You believe what you want. I'm just pointing out what the investigators found. There were no political reasons to bend the evidence or misinterpret the results in a malicious way, as these results actually prove the theses of the former government, which lost the election 3 days later due to these attacks. If at all, they would have reasons to imply the opposite, as the risk of becoming a target for terrorists due to the involvement in Iraq was one of the pillars that sustained the present government's (back then Opposition) campaign.

 

And as for why they don't hit elsewhere, well, perhaps they can't. It takes a lot of time, resources and planning to do something like that, and fortunately, it's not something easily accomplished.

Edited December 18, 2005 by 213374U

[alanschu]

And those sanctions were given about 2/3 months after Saddam was gone, and the US seized control of Irak...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

Bzzzt. Wrong answer Hans. Would you like to try Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?

 

 

The U.N. Sanctions on Iraq were imposed in 1991.

[BattleCookiee]

They already pointed me to that like 8 pages ago...

 

Anyway, enough for today...

[alanschu]

Indeed, it is impossible to stop that. But if every soldier just stops acting like a "slave" and develops a free mind and will, things will begin to improve alot...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Man, you're full of it.

 

Tell you what. Walk into work tomorrow and inform your boss that you're not filing the TPS reports because you have a free mind and will, and are not a slave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Uh, you do know that there's a new procedure for filing the TPS reports right? Did you get the memo? I'll send you another one.

[alanschu]

They already pointed me to that like 8 pages ago...

 

Anyway, enough for today...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Was still reading the thread.

 

When you make a boondoggle like that though, it sort of brings into question your understanding of exactly what's going on in Iraq though. Hard to take you seriously.

 

 

Also interesting that you criticize others for looking only through "US-coloured" glasses, then continue to post "references" from a single source. When you can start corroborating evidence, it tends to strengthen your argument. When you use a single reference, that has an agenda which supports your claims, your arguments tend to lose weight.

 

 

Back to the topic, don't know if anyone else heard and can confirm this, but my roommate mentioned that there are political parties running in the Iraq elections that have it in their mandate to remove U.S. forces. I also remember seeing something about an Islamic fundamentalist political party running. It was also a day that saw the least amount resistance fighting, with insurgent groups stating that they will not attack polling stations. There was also such a turnout that they ended up keeping the polls open for an extra hour just to get the people in.

 

I don't know, but it doesn't exactly sound like things are as bad over there as many seem to be making it out to be. Unless the liberal media in Canada is unabashedly pro-US wearing their "US-colored" glasses.

 

 

To be honest Battlewookie, it sounds like you've been brainwashed just as badly as the soldiers you criticize.

[tarna]

I don't agree with anything battlewookie says, but don't criticise his spelling. English isn't his first language.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was about to say that as well, do you really think that his first language is English Mothie?

 

Edit: Right, many english speakers does have terrible spelling, I agree.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've noticed that Battlewookie does better at writing in English than many of those born to it. That's probably what caused the confusion. He writes it too well to be a foreigner.

 

You guys are doing well BTW. 11 pages of arguement and no flaming. Nice.

[Judge Hades]

I can fix that if you want? *tee hee*

[tarna]

I can fix that if you want?  *tee hee*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Get back to working on your blog you!

[Azarkon]

The US could really care less whether there was a democratic government in Iraq so long as said government supported US interests. We are not the liberators of the world; if we were, we'd have gone after much worse dictatorships in Africa. Moreover, we have overthrown numerous democratic governments during the Cold War when they were not to our liking, and in some sense the current chain of events is a direct legacy of those times.

 

The truth of the intent is, then, two-fold. One, if we left without doing *something* to the system we cast down, we'd be leaving Iraq in a power vacuum into which much bloodshed and anarchy would simply result in another dictatorship hostile to US interests and US world image ("this is what happens when the US invades...")

 

The second reason is that democracies, especially those ran by US-backed candidates, are often the most vulnerable to capitalist penetration. The US does not need to rule Iraq through military occupation if Iraq became a pro-US democracy - at this point, the US could automatically get from Iraq what it's after - ie oil - through economic tactics. The only worry for the US, of course, is that one of those fundamentalist clerics will come to power *through* democracy, at which point the US would've "liberated" Iraq only to be kicked out by the people's will.

 

Now, democratic institutions *could* be one of the beneficial legacies of the US invasion of Iraq, but that does not justify US invasion. You can, perhaps, forcibly engineer the world to be a better place - but at what cost? Physical imperialism failed because people realized that the imperialists did not have their subjects' best interests at heart, even if imperialism had its benefits (ie industrialization of third world sectors). It seems to me that the US breed of imperialism is the same but in a much more subtle way. On one hand, we do not actively exploit those who we conquer for their resources (at least, not legally; I do recall that when we first went into Iraq oil contracts were drafted to finance the war but soon realized to be null and void due to international law). On the other, we do - through forcing them to adopt our mode of government and economic system, after which our superiority in said areas would clearly make us the dominant leader of world politics.

 

I wonder, however, whether this tactic will really benefit the US in the long run. After all, economic domination presumes that our economy will always be the best in the world, and democractic institutions presume that democracies will be pro-US. But what will happen when another country, such as China, which is not a direct ally of the US and won't be even if full democracy were implemented, exceeds us? In the coming years, I think we will witness the drama of such a situation play out on the global scale of real politks. Whether the US is truly a champion of ideological systems or a self-serving nation that hides behind ideological masks will be measured by how it reacts to those who stand to usurp the superpower throne.

 

Though of course, there is always the chance that, as some economists have argued, that the US and China (whose destinies are increasingly interwined by their economic interdependencies) form a bilateral hegemony that exploits everyone else. To this end, the future imagined by C&C Generals of US-China vs. NLA may not be very far off :cool:

Edited December 19, 2005 by Azarkon

[Cantousent]

All nations work for their own self interest. If they don't, they fall under the influence or control of more active nations.

 

If you are destined to fall under the control of one nation or another, you're better off with the United States. No other nation has wielded so much power with so much restraint in the history of the world. No other nation has held so much relative power with so much overwhelming restraint as the United States.

 

I'm a great admirer of the United Kingdom, our older cousin. It sought to keep markets open while preventing European Hegemony. It was smart to do so. Would it have been any different if they had planned for failure by assuming that they would face a sharp decline after the catastrophe of World War I/II?

 

Sure, nothing worldly endures. All things are fleeting and someday our country will face a world in which US power is on the decline. Fair enough. In the meantime, we should do everything in our power to ensure our long-term interests. To do otherwise is foolish.

 

I look at these statements and shake my head. Look at Battlewookies ridiculous comments. ...And I've always been on good terms with BW. I just can't see how he really believes in these fringe conspiracy theories.

 

You know, Christian extremist draw a lot of anger from folks around here. That

[Commissar]

actually. the norwegian(and all of the scandinavian) armed forces are considered to be very good. still, i fail to see how this is even relevant? the norwegian air force is very similar in both structure, equipment and 'mentality' to the us air force. i even spent some time with us forces in a joint nato winter excercise. the difference was negligible...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So let me get this straight. You did a forced year in Norway's premiere coffee-drinking club, and now you're convinced that gives you firsthand knowledge of how the US military works, and what kind of people it has in it? You have consistently overlooked the fact that every last one of our guys is a volunteer, as opposed to a system that required conscription due to the lack of intestinal fortitude amongst the native population. Similar mentalities? Yeah, right. You know how rare it is to find a guy who's in or been in that's willing to call everyone else in the service a moron over here? The vast majority of our guys have a little thing called pride in their jobs - though I'll have to remember I'm talking to a Scandinavian here, so maybe this isn't the path to take. Hades was bitching many moons ago about how he hated the military, and I asked him if he'd seen a few too many captain's masts. That's what we figure about a guy with an attitude like yours; he couldn't hack it and got his ass punted.

 

You don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about, so pretty please, with a cherry on top, shut your mouth and let the grown-ups talk.

[kirottu]

You have consistently overlooked the fact that every last one of our guys is a volunteer, as opposed to a system that required conscription due to the lack of intestinal fortitude amongst the native population.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Umm... Scandinavian countries have conscription system, because of amount of people living in each country. Finland has 5 million people and to keep believable army force conscription is needed. And since every one in scandinavian countries has a choice to take civil service instead of army service when that time comes, you can say that they are as good volunteers as those who serve in US troops.

[Azarkon]

That's just typical US exceptionalism, Eldar. Your argument, which rests on the basis of the US being more progressive and liberal than the rest of the world, is valid only insofar as the US served as the basis for progressivism in the last, oh, ~50-60 years. Other nations have served in that position for much longer, and no doubt will in the future.

 

US progressivism has reached its end. At the moment, the US still benefits from a legacy of liberal values, but its direction has reversed. For the last decade or so the US has actually taken steps backwards in terms of legal, social, and political progressivism (what with more censorship, more state control, the actual controversy of teaching science in schools, etc.) As many have noticed, America has become decadent, absorbed in its own *intrinsic* exceptionalism, which by defintion is without regard to self-improvement. And so you no longer hear of great social movements in the US. You no longer see universities being the champions of the dispossessed. You no longer get great presidents who push the nation and the world forward towards a brighter future. All you have are charlatans who ride upon reactionary values, whose only goal is to maintain the status quo. All you have are opportunists whose drive in life is self-interest, whose deep cynicism towards humanity has come to pervade the entirety of society. This is not enlightened self-interest we're talking about: this is the postmodernist sense of despair.

 

How can you be the champion of the world when you have become nothing more than a preserver of the present state? The US is at the top of the world - that much is true - but what good is it doing there? All nations operate in their self-interests, and the self-interest of the US - of any dominant empire - is inevitably that of preserving what it has. Ever since the end of the Cold War the US has been like a great corporation lacking viable competition, slowly becoming the antithesis, rather than the proponent, of change and progress. Where are the great US leaders with a sense of self-improvement? Where are the great US thinkers (who are listened to) demanding for societal change? All we have today are people who revel in the glory of the US present, who defend US priviledge by reiterating traditional values. These are not your saviors, folks. These are the same kinds of people that capture the imagination of civilizations at the beginning of their downturns.

 

If the West has taught humanity anything, it is that we must always strive to be better than ourselves. The West came to power through movements that subjected European society to a deep scrutiny, at which point it realized the decadency inherent in its systems and moved to change them. What is the Scientific Revolution, after all, if not the realization that things can be done better than they are? What is democracy, if not the result of a progressive social liberalism? These are the very foundations of the West's rise to power, without which what we call the "West" would be nothing more than a collection of feudal states much less advanced socially, culturally, and technologically than the likes of China, India, and even the Middle-East. The world had much to learn from the West, in this respect. Too bad the cost of that education was Western imperialism.

 

The decline of the West began the moment its powers were utilized in the exploitation of other societies. Its doom was sealed when those societies rebelled. So it is that the progressivism of Western values would be identified with the carnage of colonial policy, and the rest of the world, horrified, turned elsewhere - to Communism - and inwards - to nationalism - for its salvation. To be sure, the former was a failure, but the latter remains, and represents the world today: nations, many born as a result of Western imperialism, divided and each serving its self-interest, adopting the benefits of Western ideas without the fundamental impetus that drove those ideas into being: the belief in progress. Well, not entirely true. Most nations these days believe in *economic* and *technological* progress, but social progress, which the West might have once represented, was fundamentally tainted by European and American hypocrisy during the age of imperialism.

 

Thus, if social progressivism was once the West's gift to the world, the time during which the West could have imparted humanity with that gift has passed. The entirety of Europe no longer stands as symbols of change - they are decadent, reactionary, and their populations are disappearing (after all, what have they to live for? Children are born to societies that believe in a better future, not to individuals concerned only with their self-interest). Their time is over, and the time of the US is fading. The future lies with the reactionaries: the fundamentalists in the US, the Islamic pragmatists of the Middle-East, the conservative-capitalists of China, etc. For these are the people who have adapted to the ideas of Western economic and technological progressivism without the belief in social change. And it will be long, I fear, before that aspect is again revived in the world.

 

A few more contentions:

 

I'm a great admirer of the United Kingdom, our older cousin. It sought to keep markets open while preventing European Hegemony. It was smart to do so. Would it have been any different if they had planned for failure by assuming that they would face a sharp decline after the catastrophe of World War I/II?

 

The UK had no intention of preventing European Hegemony. If it could've maintained its empire, it would have. However, the UK saw at the end of WW II that it was impossible to maintain its colonies. Unlike certain other Imperialists, the UK realized the inevitability of its empire's collapse and moved to mitigate this fact by a form of economic and cultural imperialism, which is much more subtle and not nearly as effective, as the UK's decline has attested to. Nevertheless, the US took up some of that slack, and the UK benefits as a close associate.

 

If Islamic extremism or Chinese capitalistic-communism carry the day, Western Europe won't be the inheritor of Western Democracy. To borrow another phrase, it will inherit only the wind.

 

If demographic changes are of any indication, Europe will inherit practical-Islam, the US will have as its majority Christian conservatives (whose ethnicity depends on how hard the US cracks down on immigration), and the Chinese will dominate Asia until the rise of India. As far as ideologies go, though, I tend to think that the world will become united under the great banner of capitalist (and perhaps corporate) self-interest. No matter whether you're American, European, Chinese, or even Muslim, that seems to be the prevalent flavor of our days.

 

In the end, it's only technology that's become more advanced, and even then we're not sure whether advancement means better or worse. Living standards have rose because we're now more capable of producing resources and maintaining biological survival, but at what costs to the environment? What if science was no more than the siphoning of our future for the benefit of our present - what if for every gain in living standard today, our children suffer all the more when they inherit the world? Still, the belief in scientific progress is a potentially good legacy of Western imperialism. Everything else is questionable, and in some sense modern society can be summed up as such: scientific progress, social stagnancy.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Azarkon

[Blank]

The US could really care less whether there was a democratic government in Iraq so long as said government supported US interests.  We are not the liberators of the world; if we were, we'd have gone after much worse dictatorships in Africa.  Moreover, we have overthrown numerous democratic governments during the Cold War when they were not to our liking, and in some sense the current chain of events is a direct legacy of those times.

i think the interests of the US in making Iraq have a democratic government was to ensure the US's safety, since Bush believes that a democratic nation won't go into war unprovoked.

 

The truth of the intent is, then, two-fold.  One, if we left without doing *something* to the system we cast down, we'd be leaving Iraq in a power vacuum into which much bloodshed and anarchy would simply result in another dictatorship hostile to US interests and US world image ("this is what happens when the US invades...")

i think that it's good to fill the power vacuum. are you just taking note that this is what happened? or are you critiscizing it?

 

The second reason is that democracies, especially those ran by US-backed candidates, are often the most vulnerable to capitalist penetration.  The US does not need to rule Iraq through military occupation if Iraq became a pro-US democracy - at this point, the US could automatically get from Iraq what it's after - ie oil - through economic tactics.  The only worry for the US, of course, is that one of those fundamentalist clerics will come to power *through* democracy, at which point the US would've "liberated" Iraq only to be kicked out by the people's will. 

you obviously are grounded in your opinion that the US had extreme ulterior motives in making Iraq a democracy. the things you are saying sound more like conspiracy theories than actual reasons.

 

Why would it be bad that Iraq would do buisness with the US if they appreciate what the US did for them? Would the US really be worried that the fundamentalist clerics come to power by the system and then kick out the US? why would they be worried about that? it isn't as though the US is depending on Iraq like it is some power socket that unconnected would stop the US's functions. You are making it sound like the US is severely dependent upon Iraq liking them afterward, and i am here to say that they aren't.

 

Now, democratic institutions *could* be one of the beneficial legacies of the US invasion of Iraq, but that does not justify US invasion.

I agree with you totally on this one. it very well *could* be one of the beneficial legacies, but i doesn't justify them at all. However, i don't think anybody but you thought that the US was trying to justify themselves by noting this possible benefit.

 

The US's justification for war can only come from the fact that Bush and Friends acted seriously upon intelligence that was presented to them (whether they knew how sketchy it was or not is the real issue, but if they were sincere about it, then please hear me out...). and role-play in their shoes for a second. What if the intelligence was absolutely true, it might not be, but what if even a part of it was ture? dang, if they didn't do anything, then critics would never stop criticizing the decision if something bad happened, like what they do now for the decision that was made. The U.N. Sanctions on Iraq were imposed in 1991, and Iraq repeatedly violated them. repeatedly. and the UN continued trying to reason with words when that obviously wasn't working, so Bush backed up his words by showing that it was unnacceptable. to me, it seems like Saddam with his power-trip and all was in character by not submitting to the UN sanctions. why would he let his people see that others can push him around and tell him what to do?

Though of course, there is always the chance that, as some economists have argued, that the US and China (whose destinies are increasingly interwined by their economic interdependencies) form a bilateral hegemony that exploits everyone else.  To this end, the future imagined by C&C Generals of US-China vs. NLA may not be very far off  :cool:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

that does seem possible to me too. it'll be very interesting to see a major decline of the US as a superpower though, if i am still alive to see it.

 

Post Script: it always seems like people are unhappy that Saddam is out of power, e.g. some left-wing anti-warrers. i am disturbed by this, because taking note of all that Saddam has done to his people, i think that alone is enough of a reason to try and take him out of power. this also means that i would want to take out many other sick people in ruling positions, but what is bad about taking them out? they would only compound the damage they are creating if they are left there.

 

my opinion doesn't seem valid to very many other people, but i just can't stand blatant injustice. this, among other reasons, is mainly why i don't lead a nation of my own, because nobody would follow these types of ideas.

[Commissar]

You have consistently overlooked the fact that every last one of our guys is a volunteer, as opposed to a system that required conscription due to the lack of intestinal fortitude amongst the native population.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Umm... Scandinavian countries have conscription system, because of amount of people living in each country. Finland has 5 million people and to keep believable army force conscription is needed. And since every one in scandinavian countries has a choice to take civil service instead of army service when that time comes, you can say that they are as good volunteers as those who serve in US troops.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's the point of that, exactly? Name any conflict that Scandinavia gets involved in which the US is not going to fight for the region. The majority of European defense planning is based around the idea that the evil United States will be doing all of the heavy lifting, so why bother with the pretense of a national military?

[Calax]

Just going to point out two things...

One: Bush admitted he went into Iraq on horrible intelligence... but he refused to pull out because we were already there... (sounds like an excuse a guy makes after making his gf preg...)

 

Two: All countries will have detractors and proponents. America right now seems to have a very Sith outlook on the world (if your not with me your against me). And thus the detractors of america are instantly labeled terrorists. I find it funny we label entire Nations as terrorists because they don't agree with what we are doing or becasue they don't want to become democratic. also America has recently allowed the NSA to start wiretaps on all international calls WITHOUT a warrent of any kind from a court. They went soley on executive order. Right now they are debating the legality of this (I would think that it would breach the right to privacy under any and all circumstances. but that's just me.). The only good thing I can see coming out of that is Impeachment of our "beloved" republican yahoo.

 

And yes all Nations will act upon self interest and trying to achieve cultural and military dominence. I think the reason America has become so agressive is because we feel the urge to keep ourselves as the dominant culture.

[Blank]

You have consistently overlooked the fact that every last one of our guys is a volunteer, as opposed to a system that required conscription due to the lack of intestinal fortitude amongst the native population.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Umm... Scandinavian countries have conscription system, because of amount of people living in each country. Finland has 5 million people and to keep a believable army force conscription is needed. And since every one in scandinavian countries has a choice to take civil service instead of army service when that time comes, you can say that they are as good volunteers as those who serve in US troops.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

you can say the guys who chose the civil service instead of army service are as good as US volunteer troops... but i am guessing more of the people over there choose army service? especially since it would make you look victimized and your families who hate war wouldn't judge you as much then.

 

(in the last two sentences i am generalising very badly, please have an easy time refuting me about them, its my gift to you i just wanted to have the idea out there)

[Azarkon]

Calax: And really, we're going about the wrong way to achieve that dominance.

 

It's clear, from both history and human relationships, that those who rule through force are eventually overthrown. Instead of trying to keep others from becoming as good as you, strive to become better than yourself: that is the key to being a progressive and respected leader. No one is going to listen to a US billions of dollars in debt presided over by a dumbass of a president. I know that if I were China or any other rising power I'd certainly not want to follow US example in either politics or economy, because the US simply isn't a shining example of the future.

 

But perhaps that is, in some sense, impossible in the economic arena. Resources are limited, and a nation's dominance has always come at the expense of other nations. Modern society has made that more apparent than ever. Here then, the US must concede to maintaining the status quo, as ALL dominant empires must, because when you're at the top, the only way to stay there may just be to keep others down.

 

That doesn't mean, though, that the US cannot lead in other areas through example, and so it's very much a pity that American society has become reactionary rather than progressive.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Azarkon

[Blank]

Just going to point out two things...

One: Bush admitted he went into Iraq on horrible intelligence... but he refused to pull out because we were already there... (sounds like an excuse a guy makes after making his gf preg...)

but this thing in Iraq should've been resolved a decade ago with Bush's dadda in office. they kind of left the power vacuum and we saw what happened.

 

EDIT: i looked at Wikipedia to get some general backround about this, and i know its not the most accurate site, but here is a quote anyway-

 

"In a foreign policy move that would later be questioned, President Bush achieved his stated objectives of liberating Kuwait and forcing Iraqi withdrawal, then ordered a cessation of combat operations

Edited December 19, 2005 by Blank