Meh>
Just about every post has something like this in it. You have to seperate the citizens from the goverment. I am actually closer to your opnions on these issues than you think. You just always include Americans are all bad in every post
I don't bundle all Americans together.
Sure, I speak of Americans in general terms, but I have pointed out in many other topics that I'm not refering to ALL Americans.
But fact is that many Americans support the war in Iraq, and that makes them party responsible for what happens.
That it the way of democracies. The government works as an extention of the people, so if you vote a war crazed president to power you have to take responisibility for it. But that is not saying that Americans in general feel like your government does. In most cases I would believe that the peoples attitude is based on poor education and little knowledge about the situation in the world.
Is not arrogant to have no solution and just point fingers?
First of all, I offered a solution.
And secondly I don't believe in the argument that you can't critizise bad decisions if you haven't got a better solution at hand.
See now that is more balanced. You pointed at the goverments involved and put america and Europe on equal footing. You tend to forget to do that. ALOT!
Well, I'm sorry for missing that sometimes.
But I hope you didn't find that good just because I also put blame on Europe. In many cases I do think that the American government is behaving worse than their European counterparts, probably because Europe has a longer history of interfering wrongly in other countries business and has started to see that it is not a working solution.
But I am not so blind by pacifism not to conceed that Saddam would have kept going after Kuwait or that a decade of sanctions had abolsutely no effect. Intervening in a country that takes over another and invering in a country that had ten years to get off the sanctions becuase of invasion is not pushing western values.
But that is a very different issue.
After the Kuwait war USA had valid resons for removing Saddam from power. They chose to not act then, and because of that the international laws no longer accept an invasion of Iraw, since that is now considered an offensive war.
My biggest issue about the Iraq war isn't about Iraq in itself. (although I do believe that it will only cause an internal conflict with civil wars for the coming decades) My biggest issue is that your government is disregarding international laws in a way that makes them hollow.
And that is a VERY dangerous situation.
If the west were pushing western values would we have invaded Iran instead? They are like the capital of "screw the west and the horse it came in on".
If the threats on Iran fails to work I think there will be a war further on. At least if your government is run by people with similar views as Bush.
The situation in Iraq wasn't even over before your government started pointing fingers at Libya, Iran and other countries.
To scare them into accepting your terms is better than waging war, but I still don't think it is a good way to conduct foreign politics.
Iran is a case where non-intervention is working. But Iran is different in two important ways. They did not invade another country and they are not CURRENTLY exporting terrorism or taking hostages. And now with a more sensible Iraq they can focus on other things.
Well, here we need to get things straight.
The war in Iraq was not triggered by Saddam attacking another country.
USA is the agressor in this war. What happened a decade ago doesn't have any effect. (I know your government has tried to force the argument that it does, but the rest of the world hasn't bough it.)
Secondly, there has been no proof that Saddam Hussein was behind any of the recent terror attacks.
But your solution involves changing the past. So yeah it was good advice BEFORE but now that the advice was ignored GET OFF IT. In the future it is still good advice but belaboring the point only reverses the intent of your advice.
You have a point, but I believe it is based on the thought that the situation in Iraq will now be solved.
I don't share that view, especially since more and more people in Iraq seem to turn against the American presence in their country.
Since the situation was so delicate it was very important to remove Saddam Hussein from power with a coalition with large support from a majority from the rest of the world. There was no such hurry to attack him. Bush had personal resons for attacking Iraq.
North Korea. Two generations of miserable conditions where the technology could provide otherwise. Intervention needed? Only if they gain the ability to launch nukes. They care nothing of their own people and are much more likely to use them after some cocaine party than say India or Pakistan would even consider using on each other.
That argument to some point proves my view.
You have no real interest in removing dictators from power. It is only if they threaten you that you are willing to make an effort.
It is the same with Iraq. The weapons of mass destructions and the mobile labs your government talked about before going in (their most vital reason for attacking), is nowhere in sight.
If there was not a second Iraq intervention then maybe a bomb would not have gone off in Spain. But if there was not an intervention then sanctions might have just as well been replealed and let Saddam start killing in other nations again.
In what way was the bombs in Spain linked to Iraq?
And who can be sure that Saddam would try to invade other countries.
I certainly think he wouldn't dare. Not because he didn't want to, but because he knew that such invasions would be impossible to win.
If there was not a first Iraq intervention then there wouldn;'t have been a world trade center issue. But there would be an Iraq that streched from Turkey to the emriates and from Libya to Pakistan. Would it be western. Yes. Becuase Saddam and his family were nothing if not a bunch of cocaine addicted desposts. EU and USA may be bad but these people were worse.
To some extent I agree.
I don't believe that Saddam would be able to control such a huge area, but he may have tried.
But as I have pointed out earlier, the situation was very different then.
Since Iraq was the agressors USA had international law on their side in dealing with the matter. They should have removed him from power then.
EU and USA may be bad but these people were worse.
Yes, I totally agree with you. Saddam Hussein is a horrible person (also his sons etc.), and he deserves whatever is coming to him.
But just as we civilians can't take the law into our own hands and gun down horrible neighbours, countries can't make such decisions when not supported by international laws.
What you keep calling blindness, arrogance, and patriotism is just reality. You cannot change the past. What is the solution for the present?
As with the situation in Israel/Palestine it may have gotten so bad that it is almost impossible to find a solution.
Waging war on everyone that hates USA and Europe could never work.
The west needs to start respecting values that we can't understand, and that people may want to live their lives differently from us.
The money now being spent on wars could be used for writing off old debts to third world countries and to help them without actually gaining anything but their future friendship.
I know it sounds like an utopian dream, but so far neither Europe or USA has tried actually meeting them on equal terms and reaching out a hand in friendship.
We in the west are still exploiting the people in the third world countries in a horrible way, and until that stops we will never be liked or accepted by them.
You are the "child" crying about spilt milk still. Help clean. Either way quit crying.
I can't do much more then discuss these things in theory.
I'm not in a position to change anything, even if I would like to.
But by speaking with others, and learning about the situation, I can perhaps change at least one persons view from bombing the enemies to submission into helping them and making them allies and friends.
Who knows...
Nitefyre>
But you are not even discussing anymore.
Your whole effort is just spent on trying to ridicule and annoy me.
I feel that you are very immature, and sadly I have sometimes let myself be dragged down to your level.
Since you won't tell me your age I draw the conclusion that you are probably quite young. If I'm wrong you are welcome to correct me.
A common thing with young people, and perhaps Americans more than most others (because you live in a very large country) is that you have very little experience about the rest of the world.
I'm still young myself, but I have visited most Europeans countries, and spent time in ,for example, the Dominican Republic and other places where you meet very poor people personally.
And that is very different from just reading about it in the paper or see it on TV.
When I was younger I had pretty much the same view on things that you have now. I don't know you, so this is just a guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if you have quite wealthy parents and perhaps live in an area where you don't spend much time with people who are not as lucky in life.
