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- Herostratus, on 02/29/2008, -15/+105War is Peace...
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Drink Victory Gin - Worldviewsblog, on 02/29/2008, -17/+74The self-righteous emperor has no clothes and it ain't pretty.
- hoovcluck, on 02/29/2008, -4/+45We do not love peace. That is complete ***** shoveled out by the government. The fact is, we love violence. Video games, movies, music. Hell, the media is the biggest violence-whore out there. Look at the run up to the war in Iraq. The media was so ***** excited that they could hardly contain themselves while showing off their shiny new satellite video phones. CBS is now going to air MMA fights? Couple that with garbage that is CSI and Law and Order: Extreme Violent Incest Rape Unit and you have a culture that is obsessed with violence. Living in a utopia would be boring as hell.
- morningmatters, on 02/29/2008, -10/+39If Americans truly believe in Democracy then let the people decide for themselves. When you have a foreign government meddling internal politics of another government, the winners are the arms dealers/special interests and the losers will be the people of both nations.
- gevurah, on 02/29/2008, -14/+42More ad hominem attacks and anti-intellectualism please!
- likeyehokwhatev, on 02/29/2008, -8/+34people are dumb
- CheLives, on 02/29/2008, -4/+29This is no surprise... we were warned by Eisenhower and Kennedy. The military industrial complex has a firm grip on our country.
The question is, will we ever get it back?
We never heeded the warnings of these men:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces - WiseWeasel, on 02/29/2008, -4/+22You seem to be confused between hating America, and hating the policies of the current administration and legislative body... Pretty big difference.
- inactive, on 02/29/2008, -4/+21The problem is people keep applying logic when it comes to America.
- Jimbob200, on 02/29/2008, -5/+21You read between the lines of the last state of the union address, didn't you. Congratulations!
- Cryptocracy, on 08/17/2008, -2/+17why don't you go fight the war?
- masterm1nd, on 02/29/2008, -4/+19The reality that democrats have started MORE than 90% of America's wars?
- Hefelumpman, on 02/29/2008, -3/+17You weren't warmongers when you stopped the Nazis, though let it be said that the US did not join the war until late in 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. If the US was so intent on eradicating the Nazi regime, why didn't you join earlier, like when Germany invaded Poland in 1939?
Secondly - you've obviously not read the article and have no right to comment. The entire point of the article is to point out that the US has been involved in a large number of wars over the last 50 years, not that it's involved right now in the majority of conflicts around the world. I don't think anyone would complain if the US were to step into the Darfur crisis with as much fervour as they did with Iraq. - Hangly, on 02/29/2008, -2/+15A terrorist group kill a few dozen innocent people, so we kill half a million innocent people. That's ***** brilliant logic, that is.
- Gabberwok, on 02/29/2008, -4/+17If we were willing to spend as much on technology without the requirement that it be able to kill people, we probably could have come up with it sooner.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 02/29/2008, -3/+16So you're just policing the planet, eh?
Was the Vietnam war a "police action"? I guess I missed the memo where they made 'leaning too far left' a crime that mandated American intervention. Remind me to start voting Conservative.
How about when Reagan sold arms to Iran, and used the money to fund terrorists in central america? Did you deputize them or something, and just forget to tell the rest of us?
What about the time that you conducted an invasive full-body-cavity search of Panama, looking for the country's leader, Manuel Noriega. You killed 3000+ civilians in "Operation Just Cause" so that you could put him on trial for money laundering and cocaine trafficking in the US. Now Noriega did do some nasty things; after all, the CIA taught him a lot (Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Psyops), but as the article points out, that's how you seem to justify all of your wars.
How about a few decades earlier when you toppled the democratically elected government in Iran and installed the Shah instead? I can't even think of an appropriate analogy to the police for that one.
Yup, I feel a lot safer knowing the US is on the job. - scarab5, on 02/29/2008, -2/+13No that is what the bottom 10% get to do. They are our modern day gladiators...
- masterm1nd, on 02/29/2008, -4/+15Well then, you picked the right planet.
- chase001, on 02/29/2008, -3/+14No country has declared war on us since WWII yet the US has been involved in at least one military action at a time nonstop since the Korean War.
- spyd3rweb, on 02/29/2008, -3/+14Peace doesn't make the Military contractors any money
- inactive, on 02/29/2008, -2/+12I believe in Liberal Democracy, not in Democracy itself. Fascism rose in Europe democratically. Almost every harmful ideology on the planet is, at its foundations, based on democracy.
- Daz3, on 02/29/2008, -7/+17An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. Diplomacy died with people like you who are more afraid about cave dwelling zealots that get idolized by your media into tyrants than you are about things far more likely to kill you and your family.
- cascadianow, on 02/29/2008, -2/+12Do a little research and tell me how we were 'defending' ourselves when we have continually overthrown countries democratically elected governments and installed dictators. Tell me how that's spreading democracy. Maybe we wouldn't have that problem with those 'muslim extremists' or Iran if we hadn't overthrown the democratically elected government of Iran in 1952 and installed the Shah. Or supported Osama bin Laden and Al Queda in the 80's (weapons, training etc) or supported Saddam Hussein? Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala? Mean anything to you? See a pattern?
- Larz0rz, on 02/29/2008, -1/+10"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room"
-Blaise Pascal - GhostyBoy, on 02/29/2008, -4/+13America should realize that it had a horrendous international reputation for war-mongering even before 9/11 when the country decided to use the event as it's golden ticket to invade whatever country they wanted.
- CrazedLeper, on 02/29/2008, -8/+17So true but this only scratches the surface. The very purpose of America is warfare. Remember the old saying "the sun never sets on the British Empire? It's an "old saying" because, by all accounts, Great Britain is not so "great" anymore. Once, there were British soldiers all around the world securing wealth for the Queen. But, predictably, the people revolted --and the will of the people cannot be resisted indefinitely. So did the Queen stop wanting an empire? No, she simply changed her methods. Democracy, the most corruptible form of government was installed so that the people may have their choice--or so they would think.
No one gets in the chair unless they have sufficient support (financial and otherwise), support that wealthy, influential people can provide at will. This is how we keep getting presidential candidates that always bow to the will of the machine, fan the flames of war and have a 50% chance of being related to the Queen (let's not make it too obvious).
Now whose soldiers do you see all around the world? The U.S. but people *think* of it differently; as friendly support or "democracy" or some other bull but the reality is that there is always a well armed force that yields to wealth and influence; two things the Queen has in abundance. Now you know: America is and always has been a lie. - doyoulikeworms, on 02/29/2008, -4/+13We stopped loving peace on December 23, 1913.
- chase001, on 02/29/2008, -2/+11Yes they are. The Military Industrial Complex and their lobby in Washington are not America.
- hurt911gen, on 02/29/2008, -0/+8Germany didn't attack us in WWII, either. We invaded them first.
- julianrod, on 02/29/2008, -0/+8Apparently you don't.
- CarStan, on 02/29/2008, -2/+10People are Soylent Green
- Daz3, on 02/29/2008, -2/+10@poser:
re: 9/11 tough *****. That is the exact kind of logic you are using except I can guarantee that you don't like the conclusions now. - WiseWeasel, on 02/29/2008, -8/+16Without even getting into a debate over the morality of policing the World and all of the death and suffering caused by this, how is the US going to keep up its military spending when China and other creditors stop lending us all this money (now lent to us in gold, so no more inflation to decrease the value of the debt)? At our current burn rate, we won't have much choice but to 'sit on our hands for a while' very shortly now... Given our available resources, do you think the Iraq War was a wise choice for this country, or are there other areas where those resources might have been used more effectively? What should our general goals as a country be in foreign military intervention? If it's to protect our long-term economic interests, then surely those resources could have been used more wisely.
I guess I don't see what your point is by observing that the US is involved in a relatively low number of current conflicts, as the degree of damage and loss caused in those conflicts might be wildly variable, and the US could still be causing a disproportionate amount of destruction, for a disproportionate economic and humanitarian cost, either high or low, so that metric alone doesn't tell us much.
What makes you think that our recent military actions have made the world a better place, to a degree that justifies the costs? Why should US voters and taxpayers support such behavior rather than seemingly more constructive foreign relations? - Hangly, on 02/29/2008, -3/+11http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast ...
I lowballed it. The study actually said 640,000 people, and that was in 2006. - Culyt, on 02/29/2008, -1/+9MANDATORY 1984 QUOTE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt - felman87, on 02/29/2008, -5/+13I forget, which party wants to spend more on war and which wants to spend more at home for schools, infrastructure, etc?
- grungegbunny, on 02/29/2008, -4/+12Get a clue. There is a BIG difference between an extremist group and a country.
- EatingPie, on 02/29/2008, -13/+20Some of the things on the list counted as wars were not at all -- nor even "conflicts" when America was involved. Let me just take Haiti, since I followed that pretty closely.
Jon Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a Coup in the late '90s. Because he had US support, he came to America and camped in front of the White House steps for months before Clinton agreed on action. We were going to invade Haiti and replace Aristide because he was the rightfully elected leader.
HOWEVER, Jimmy Carter requested the opportunity to go to Haiti and negotiate with the current leaders. Clinton allowed this, but would not delay military action at all. Carter stayed in Haiti knowing the U.S. forces were mobilized to invade. He put himself in harms way negotiating for the Coup leaders to step down and relinquish power back to Aristide. Literally, the planes were in the air to bomb specific targets in preparation for ground forces, and Carter was there. He finally hammered out an agreement, and sent a message back to the US. The Coup leaders agreed to step down to allow a peaceful transition back to Aristide.
When the US ground forces landed, they were quoted as saying, "Instead of an invading force, we were welcomed as a police force to help a peaceful transition."
Carter's deal kept us from going to war. And our military was welcomed into the country. But, indeed, it was a close call. And, sadly, Aristide's record wasn't so hot afterward. But we did not go to war with Haiti, nor did we invade the country. We negotiated a peaceful turnover of power, and actually helped it happen.
-Pie - case42tlc, on 02/29/2008, -1/+8If you don't count the American revolution, America has exactly 1 righteous war in our history, and it's the only one the redneck retards want to talk about.....
- masterm1nd, on 02/29/2008, -5/+12Excellent argument. You win todays irony challenge.
- JDenigma, on 02/29/2008, -2/+9"Democratic Nations never go to total war with Democratic Nations."
Actually, those who make that claim are making a gross oversimplification when they assume that. It is also a fallacy to assume that wars are fought only over factors that would be pertinent to only despots. Wars have been fought for a myriad of reasons by any and all forms of government over things like territory, resources, religion, revenge, save people from genocide, arrogance of moral superiority by empires seeking world hegemony to shape the worlds peons into their own perverted image...and whatever other factor I may be leaving out right now. The form of government does not matter. It is government itself and its very nature that has that demon seed that can provoke a war. The arrogance of moral superiority for world hegemony is what drove the British empire after all and is what is driving the American empire of today.
It is amazing to me to see you and others in this thread try to rationalize America's wars by sugar coating it with something beneficial that supposedly came out of it and it being for the good of the rest of the world. That same arrogance and piousness is so much like what ran through the rationale of the hoity toity Brits in the crusade to expand their empire. You're just using the ends to justify the means and any supposed good that comes out of some of these wars are greatly outweighed by both the short term and long term effects of the ripples in the pond caused by these wars.
As for your Persian Gulf claim, that is disputable and all those comparisons of Saddam to Hitler were way over the top. I'm sick of people constantly trumpeting the Hitler card as being the slogan and image we use to characterize every little thing and person we don't like. People utter Hitler in Pavlovian dog fashion as if that's all they know from history. To make that claim about Saddam and how he was going to become that powerful sounds a bit absurd anyway. Besides, who was it after all that was responsible for Saddams rise to power? Oh yeah, and we aided him too in his conflict with Iran. We're such hypocrites. Then our ambassador April Glaspie sent him mixed messages
http://whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html
Here's an interesting link dealing with that claim that democracies don't fight democracies as is often claimed.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2002/isept/11_d ... (our supposed help of the Iraqis the first go round)
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/PeaceToTheWorld.ht ...
http://www.truthaboutwar.org/hb1.shtml
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/IsWarNecessary.htm - masterm1nd, on 02/29/2008, -5/+12Or the bias that I'm being buried?
- faskippy, on 02/29/2008, -1/+8Fighting for war is like screwing for virginity.
- Vodka2389, on 02/29/2008, -5/+12Seems like it was all going downhill after WWII for the US. Before that it was all about independence, emancipation, manifest destiny... those were good times.
- kaelyiesta, on 02/29/2008, -1/+8Do some research on early US imperialism, particularly in south america. We had some shameful history long before the 1950s and upwards.
- iruel, on 02/29/2008, -0/+7@p0s3r:
what makes America the unconditional "good guy"? you have to remember that there are two sides to this war and that maybe both believe they are the "good guy". - iruel, on 02/29/2008, -2/+9@p0s3r
"...Those bombs helped end it and saved countless more lives."
I really struggle with that way of thinking. sure it seems logical to drop some bombs to end the war and stop people from dying, but then i ask "is there any reason sufficient for justifying the slaughter of those people?"
Lets say that someone got that idea about america and said to themselves "these guys are the greatest war mongering country in the world, if we would wipe them out then that would end the killing and fear" we would probably call them a terrorist. but what does that make America then?
(i apologize for any bad grammar, spelling, or poor use of punctuation) - omegaredIX, on 02/29/2008, -0/+6The US was the worlds leading oil producer during and after WW2. Hubbard came along and said hey guys guess what this nation is going to have its peak oil production in 1970. Everyone called him a crack nutjub. 1970 comes along and guess what. US Oil production peaks. What government did we over throw in the 70's? The US does not have a cheap supply of oil then we are screwed because we have built our economy, military, transportation systems, food, medicine, industries, banking, computer, microchips, nano-chips, all off the hope that oil will always be A. Cheap and B. Easily accessible. Google the image US military bases worldwide all the red indicates where our troops our. Just built a new base in Romania too. Also look up a Neo-Conservative persuasion by Irving Kristol the "'godfather'' of Neo-conservatism. Their main mission statement is strong and steady economic growth. The only way a country can have that economic growth according to them is being friendly to the US or democratic. Our own state-department even said hey guys GLOBAL oil production will peak 1990-2010. Cheney has even said that the middle is ''where the prize is.'' When Bush said that invading Iraq was a matter of national security he was not lying. Look at what 103 dollars a barrel is doing to our country right now. Not good at all. Think if Iran or Iraq got a little crazy and oil shot up to 150$-200$ a barrel range. What that would do to the US economy wow. We would not be in good shape at all. So the US MUST control those oil fields or else their economy will face severe and dire consequences. That is the cold hard truth. Does America want out of the middle east? Only way that will happen is Americans, or any other human being, develop a technology that can A. Meet our current consumption needs. B. Future consumption needs. C. And be as cheap and readily available as oil. The only two things on the planet more readily available than oil? Sun and wind. If we can develop some AMAZING, and i really mean AMAZING because its going to have to be, Solar and Wind technologies that can help us kick that habit then America should be ok. But Can we? Will we?
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 02/29/2008, -1/+7Come up to Canada! I know that any country must look kind of backwards compared to the United States of America (even if those silly UN boys put us and a handfull of other countries ahead of you in terms of standard of living (whats up with that?)), but give us a chance. We got running water last week, and we're all set to get our first AM Radio station next year. Next up - Horseless Carriages.
Gosh, the United States of America sure looks swell. But I guess it would for someone who's used to living in a country that isn't the United States of America.
PS: Is it true that you folks really have things that make light without fire? How does *that* work? - wootup, on 02/29/2008, -3/+9"A little known fact is days before the US decided to step in, Saddam was amassing his troops along the Saudi border."
That is pro-war American government propaganda that has been debunked time and again, the Russian government even provided satellite photos from the Saudi-Iraqi border at the time that proved there was no Iraqi buildup. By the time Operation Desert Storm started, most of the elite Republican Guard units had left Kuwait.
Besides, Saddam would have little reason to press on to Saudi Arabia and all but guarantee a reprisal from the United States, not that conquering Saudi Arabia would be particularly easy for him anyways. He only ordered his army to roll Kuwait because the US ambassador to Iraq at the time insinuated that the United States wouldn't mind if he did. -
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