Do something?

No, I feel nothing like it. Before we invaded Iraq, there was a whole culture of hype and you couldn't turn on TV without hearing about the impending threat. Now it just merits a "meh" from anything but news networks.

Just a handful of posts ago, you were coming down on me for not condemning Gitmo along with throwing women on their husbands pyres. Now you're "not putting anything on the same level."

The presence of skeletons in our closet should not blind us to the barbaric acts of others or shame us from calling the perpetrators barbarians. No civilized person or group of persons persists in decapitating prisoners and attempting to kill civilians who don't agree with them. If you want me to stop saying they fancy the stone-age, fine, can we agree on uncivilized? Or barbaric...without attempting to castigate OUR culture for our much publicized, admitted and agreed upon occasional failings? I guess what I'm trying to say is, can we agree a cigar is a cigar, without saying "but a cigarette is just as bad" every time someone mentions a cigar? I realize I'm mixing metaphors, but it's about as plain as I can say it.

Isn't that rather harsh language considering the atrocities we've committed?

In all seriousness, are you trying to say that it's ALL (or mostly) repressive governments, and not uncivilized citizens?

What I heard about France in the media was how stupid our government was behaving towards them. I recognize FOX is a joke, and don't watch it for anything more than Prison Break, House, and 24, so I didn't get to see serious people acting like morons. Maybe I need to watch more biased television...try and live up to this image y'all have in your heads of me.

Well, they have no freedom of the press to speak of, they imprison journalists, aethists don't have human rights under law, women are considered guilty if they're raped, they're required to cover their heads at all times, can be fined for wearing too tight a coat, the government doesn't ban torture during imprisonment, and they're quite public about their desire to exterminate every Israeli man, woman, and child...

Sure, they've got the vote, and women can go to school...as long as their coat isn't too tight and their hair is hidden, and they don't try to access the wrong site on the internet. Maybe not stone-age, but the government there harbors some seriously disturbed and dare I say backwards institutions.


I have a confession to make. I've watched FOX news before...maybe 15 minutes of it while flipping through channels in the past 5 years. What shall my penance be?

I don't watch that FOX news dreck, and I wouldn't know Pete Doherty if he broke into my house. I listen to public radio (extremely liberal) and watch ABC and CBS news, both of which are not exactly bastions of right-wing thinking. And that's just the TV and radio media I take in...

You'll get no argument from me that the media and governments stage scenes for public consumption.

What exactly are we arguing about here? I agree with 85% of everything you guys say, except I'm willing to uncivilized behavior uncivilized behavior and I don't support radical regime change everywhere there IS uncivilized behavior. My hand to God, I never thought I'd see myself arguing against DC'ers who thought using US troops to change the human rights situation in the middle east was a GOOD thing.

Guns from the weapons markets over there where a guy can buy an AK47 and a decent Hi-Power for 2 chickens would be a start. You'll notice the Afghans drove the Russians out, even though they were occasionally reduced to using pre-WW1 bolt-action rifles.

Off topic, do you mind if I save this quote and use it at a later date? It's not every day I run across a quote in which a DC'er implies that civilians using privately owned firearms against a tyrannical government might just possibly be a good thing. But I digress... Let's not have that argument AGAIN...

I'll agree they did it out of self-interest. But do you think they would've done it at all if we hadn't have been a viable national power? I don't think so. They backed the winning team, not just any team standing up to England. They knew if we won, the English would hurt, and it took some convincing, but we managed to convince them that we could be the winning team.

Adrian

Adrian, thanks for answer!

Regarding Iraq/Iran culture, I think thats not a reason to attack a country. Its their culture and it will change with time and maybe for 100 years it will change in something better than USA culture.

You cant change that with war, you can only make it wors. You cant change it with sanctions, etc... There are tons of other better ways to do it, but the world and US dont want it. Because they are not interested in that, they want oil, presence in middle east, etc.

"Bombing for peace is like *ucking for viriginity!"? That sentence is what world faced one morning in Belgrade, during NATO bombing of Kosovo and Serbia.

I never said we should attack Iran. I've been arguing against that from the beginning. My whole stance has always been that no matter how screwed up their culture is, it's not our job to change it and whatever we do will only engender more hatred.

Adrian

I think it will not take long anymore or we can reverse the questions...

Should Iran attack the US?
Who is more a threat,
1) the US for Iran (and middle east/world)
2) Iran for US (and rest of world?)?

I'll go for the first one

you can replace Iran with North-Korea (and Asia) and in 5 years time you can replace Iran with Russia and East-Europe.


EDIT: And anybody who (dares to) say that Iran should be attacked for their culture is a ****ing racist.

(if any country is dangerous for their 'culture' - then see above)

US is bigger threat to Iran than Iran to US. Fact!
No one should attack no one! Lets try that!

man, cut down on the dope! it's really not good for you!

we both thank Roy, you for the last few years, me for the 3 coming years.....

But I'm serious I see the US as a bigger threat for Europe (and middle east & asia, australie, so rest of the world) then any other country. Not directly though

Eventually there will be a big terrorist attack on Germany, Holland, Denmark, Australie, whatever and whoever?
Why? There wouldn't be any threat for that if the US wouldn't be a threat to those countries thereselves. For the so called reason to make the world a safer place.
Yeah, do you still believe that??
Do you believe the people in Iraq (incl the 6 million people who ran away from it) are better of now then they were with Saddam?
Do you believe WE are ALL better of since the 90's (it didn't stat at 11/9)?

I know it's impossible but the US should be under strict control by some big (world) organisation. As a European I'm more afraid of what the US will do next than any terrorist or any other country will do next.

Long story short Adrian... We can agree terrorists and the ones supporting them are uncivilized and barbarian. But I can't agree when you classify a whole people uncivilized because of some barbarians among that people. Especially when, in Iraq for example, that most terrorists in Iraq are mercenaries from other countries.

If I mentionned Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib it wasn't to say it's as bad as or worse then this or that, but to show you that it's very easy to pick the worse aspects of a culture or country or civilization and judge it just with that in mind. That's what I found arogant and ignorant in your post I originally replied to.

Not all, even the worse regimes in History have had their willing supporters, but mostly yes.

And again, one's is never too careful of propaganda and/or disinformation.

For example, the whole of the western countries people believe the Iranian president has said "Israel must be wiped out from the map", when in fact, you can check this, he said "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time". I don't know in your mind, but in mine, as intolerant as it still is, it doesn't have the same meaning and impact at all.
When asked how the regime should "vanish", Ahmadinejad replied "just like the Soviet Union regime vanished". As you can see that is far from saying "We'll wipe them out with our first operational nuke."

But we never hear that on our news channels do we? Because we always get one side only of a very complex history.

It's not you Adrian. It's not just FOX either. It's this system we're in in which the media, powerful coorporations and governments have very close links. Where the media are not looking for truths but for sensations, where politics aew not about running a country anymore but just popularity management (officially going with the flow) and where coorporations are the real deciders for whom the word "people" has been replaced by "stock holders". On top of that cake, CEOs of these coorporations often own a few media and are close friends, if not family, with top class politicians...


Ponrauil

and yet so many people don't understand the hatred from the middle east towards the US

I understand it tho, most Americans have the exact same thought about Muslims then Hitler had about Jews, it's scary

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/2742..._herleven.html

The USA, the land of the free!!
Yeah right

Brilliant. I love it. Michael Moore documentary-making at its best. Poll a tiny group of people, eliminate all answers that don't support your opinion, and then goad on the crazies (or the plants...it IS a comedy show, they probably do rig interviews). I saw between 10 and 15 people polled, and they kept coming back and re-questioning the same 2 or 3 multiple times, just to get more outrageous answers.

If you think that dreck passes for fact or even a decent opinion poll, you're out of your head. Don't insult my country based on a rigged, tampered-with, comedy show straw poll.

Now, if you come back with an honest-to-God scientific study conducted in a professional manner, for a legitimate source, that details the majority of Americans think Muslims should be computer-chipped and given ID badges, then I'LL insult my country. Until then, anyone who believes this is on the level of those "Freedom-fries" morons.

Adrian