Americans, get out your draft cards

[David]

I wouldn't mind your Scadinavian socialism which is a bit more efficient than Italy's, Pirog, if you could just transplant it to a more temperate climate like Italy or Greece... Climate is important to me in some ways more than politics...

I definitely want to visit Sweden though... as many countries as possible actually. I have to go to Greece, France, Germany, Norway, England, and Ireland at least, since I have ancestors in all of those places

The overall plan is to live in Italy and travel around Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and maybe far east asia for more special vacations... but I'm getting ahead of myself... first I need to finish my associates in art here in America, learn Italian, and study Architecture in Italy. I'll come visit some time Pirog.

Hey this sounds kind of grandiose, but its what I want to do... and as long as I don't have kids I can find away to achieve these plans fairly efficiently hehe.

Lenseth, Machiavelli is venerated by many in Italy... in some respects Italy is lawless despite and also because of all of its laws... It has been estimated that 1/3 or more of Italy's economy is under the table to evade taxes. Illegal hotels and buildings are all over Italy which essentially don't exist in terms of the Italian Bureacracy knowing about them. In Italy, it is common to pay for even houses by cash and not creditcards or through mortgages. Whereas here in the states, many might get suspicious of large sums of cash to buy things with no paperwork, in Italy you can get huge discounts for not leaving a paper trail in your business dealings... since taxes are so high. No smoking signs and traffic signals are thought more as suggestions than law-enforcing tools... Not to the Carbinerei of course... but to the people.

[Psycho Pixie]

I dont care what the government is like in each country. I want to visit europe. as a whole. each country I want to see history and stuff you know?

Of course I also want to vist The Chec(spelling?) republic, my dads side of the family is from .... Poland and Checoslavakia... yes my spelling sucks beyond compare, i cant even spell countries where I have ancestors from. I may not even have the current name of said countries correct.

*sighs* somewhere in my DNA there really is blonde. it just doesnt show physically.

Psycho Pixie

[Pirog]

David>

Yeah, Berlusconi and his methods to maintain monopoly over the Italian media is really a huge scandal. It found it disgusting that he was allowed to represent all of Europe...

If you come to Sweden during the summer the climate is very tolerable...but during the rest of the year it's awful

It is good that you want to see much of the world. It is a goal I have to.
I hope my cultural studies will allow me to visit countries in Africa and Asia further on.

My best journey so far was to the Dominican Republic.
It really is a paradise there, although the population is very poor...

Psycho Pixie>

The capitol of the Czech Republic, Prague, is a very beautiful city. I have never been to a place with such an interesting mix of history and modern things like huge dance clubs etc.
But it feels kind of lawless sometimes...

[Mavsfan911]

Don't know if this is off topic or not...
That Paul Johnson guy in Iraq was beheaded also...

[rklenseth]

It was Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. And yes, it is horrible especially since Paul Johnson was very much liked in the Muslim community. I think Al-Queda picked the wrong guy to kill this time.

[Mavsfan911]

This time?
They picked the wrong guy to behead last time, also...
You can't pick the "right guy" to behead...
It's just sick...

[Pirog]

It's effective though...

[ephiroll]

It's only effective for p*ssing people off. The only thing Johnson's death is going to do is turn more people against the group that did it, because like Richard said, Johnson was well liked and respected amoung Muslims. Plus another innocent death just further shows how pathetic the group is anyway, they're like a schoolyard bully picking on people that can't fight back, they don't even have the sense not to do it to someone who was helping a muslim country. It is like that bomb that blew up in front of the army recruiting center in Iraq a week or so ago that killed and wounded more then 100 Iraqis, how stupid can you be to kill the people you're sopposidly representing? Just goes to show that these groups don't represent any legitament government nor are they trying to do anything other then cause chaos and confusion, they're actions have been saying this for months now.

[Pirog]

I think that is a naive conclusion.

Killing people standing in line in front of the army recruitment center is an effective way to discourage people from joining the USA-allied Iraqi army.

It also sends a message to them that the pro-Saddam or anti-American groups in Iraq sees those people as traitors and enemies to the Iraqi society they want to form.

Beheading westerners is also an effective way to instill fear in people they don't want in the region. Don't forget Somalia...a single mutilated corpse dragged thru the streets made the whole US army pack up and leave.

[ephiroll]

Maybe, maybe not, but it shows that the groups causing trouble are the minority and don't represent what the people on the whole want, therefore the groups causing the trouble are no better then common thugs. Plus they didn't actually accomplish a single thing, none of their demands were met, and they merely caused the Saudi's (who are very POed about Johnson's death) to quickly find and kill those responsible, so the end result is a net gain of nothing, and probly closer to the negative because it turned even more muslims against their activity. These groups are assuming that the whole muslim world feels as they do, and obviously they don't, otherwise Saudi Arabia wouldn't have been so quick to kill the men responsible, so quick even that they irked some US military leaders who preferred a capture to a death.

And Somalia was much different from the current activity in Iraq. Somalia was a peacekeeping/policeing mission, we never intended to pursue full scale hostilities so therefore didn't push the issue and decided to cut our loses. Which if could be done over again we probly wouldn't pull out, doing so merry showed the people who did it that they could affect us with such actions (there's nothing really unusuall about these types of actions against soldiers, the only reason Somalia was such a big deal is because it was broadcast all over the world and was more embarassing to the US then anything else). I seriously doubt the US army will let that happen again, now instead of making us doubt ourselves, such actions merry make us more resolved to get the people responsible.

6 days till the handover of power to the interim government, so in about 6 months we'll have a better picture of what is going to happen, I see little point in discussing the subject very much til the end of the year.

[Pirog]

It made quite a big impact when the pictures of the mutilated mercenaries where shown from Iraq...

By the way, how do you feel about the fact that you are using mercenaries?

[Queen Ehlana]

I know this is a bit late, but referring to the bill: I don't fucking think so... I'm leaving the U.S. either when I finish high school or when I finish college. If I make it into Oxford, it'll be the former. Besides, how can they possibly propose to ruin the lives of millions of the people in this country by doing something so unnecessary? It's not like having millions more people in the military will make a big difference as to our protection. Life is too short to be wasted on the military, for those who have other goals, and besides, we should be worrying about making life better for those starving people in the third world.

[ephiroll]

@Pirog:

I dont' know much about the mercs being used currently, but I do know that it's common practice and most if not all governments have used them at one time or other in every war.

@ Queen Ehlana

There is no draft, that is just an internet rumour, and we should be feeding the starving people in the US before we worry about starving people in other countries.

[Pirog]

I dont' know much about the mercs being used currently, but I do know that it's common practice and most if not all governments have used them at one time or other in every war.

Actually, I think it is quite uncommon for western countries.
The good things with using mercs is that their losses doesn't show up in statistics and your government doesn't have to take responsibility for questionable actions made from them.

There is no need at all for mercs regarding to military power.

There is no draft, that is just an internet rumour, and we should be feeding the starving people in the US before we worry about starving people in other countries.

That sentence becomes very ironic when read with critical eyes...

[jeslange]

For the record, the introduction of two related bills for a draft is not a rumor. They exist and have been read twice.

"Reading" a bill basically means the idea is subtly being presented, in an effort to test the waters to learn who in office might be initial supporters/opposers. It doesn't mean anything is being voted on/implemented.

The U.S. gov has already learned that the population is vehemently unsupportive of drafting and of wars in which drafts are implemented. Even officials who are supportive of current U.S. military activity are highly unlikely to risk political suicide on such a gauranteed hot topic.

The gov puts alot of money into "modern recruiting." Modern recruiting includes, among other things, creating video games that will increase the desires of young people to enlist in the military. SOCOM Navy Seals and America's Army are two examples. SOCOM has a 20-ish? minute long propoganda documentary on the disc. America's Army is a free online realtime strategy game, and each game room is staffed with a member of the U.S. military who communicates with the players.

In summary, there are a handful of politicians who are pushing for a draft, but there is slim chance that they will find much support, due to risk of public backlash and modern use of creative recruiting techniques.

I apologize if this wasn't very well stated. I've been driving for 10 hrs