They keep trying to insult everyone's intelligence by coming up with the most dumbass explanations for what they do. Case in point, this recent NATO attack on Pakistan. I'm stunned that people buy it. It's the most powerful country in the world, they can do whatever they want. They should just do whatever they want and not even bother explaining. Coming up with BS explanations only infuriates people more.
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The day my government starts telling me the truth is when I'm really freaking out.
Come to think of it, my favorite one is the..."Hey guys, we killed Osama Bin Laden...except we burried him at sea out of respect for Islamic belief that bodies should burried within 24 hours...even though we didn't care about respecting any beliefs when we publicly executed Sadaam Hussein on TV....oh and we also didn't take any pictures of Bin Laden or any other proof...but trust us, we got him!"
LOL
Just FYI, we didn't publicly execute Hussein on TV. We turned Hussein over to the Iraqi government, and they decided to conduct a televised execution.
^I still lol to that explanation.
America is like hip-hop/rap music. I love it, but it gets really hard to defend sometimes.
How is NATO = USA?
Also, why would the USA attack a known Pakistani military post for no reason? It makes no sense to enrage a country that we still depend on for help in fighting the Taliban. I really don't think it is outside of the realm of possibility that NATO forces were mistakenly fired on and returned fire not knowing it was an active and under Paki controlled military base.
I find it hilarious that you can sit in your office in Toronto and think that you have some higher grasp of how and why the government does the things they do.
As far as your Bin Laden conspiracy theory; don't you think if they were lying the first thing the Taliban would do would be to send out a new video of Bin Laden with the next day's paper in front of him. That would, arguably, do more damage than 9/11 in completely destroying the credibility of damn near everyone in the upper echelons of the US government. But you're right, we're all sheep, thanks for showing me the light.
Lmao
Happy, there is no proof of them actually killing Bin Laden. Our government has told far bigger lies, case in point Gulf of Tonkin and WMDs in Iraq. Implying that anyone who is reticent to believe the government is crazy is comical. Can you name a single thing the government doesn't lie about? I was debating on of my socialist/idiot friends about SS. I told him that there is no trust fund. None of the money was saved. It was just another welfare program funded by just another confiscation. He responded to my claim by emailing me SS trust reports saying that social security had 10 TRILLION DOLLARS. Anyone with a brain would know that this sum is made up, but most people will just run with it. I asked him, if there is so much money in SS, why would checks have stopped being mailed out if the government shut down? This left him a little dumb-founded. The government obfuscates heavily everyday and is not to be trusted at all.
Happy, read about Fast and Furious. Where the DOJ gave a MONOPOLY for cocaine distribution to the Sinoloa Cartel. That's right, our government allowed a cartel ship cocaine in exchange for running guns into Mexico.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/63794030/News/Accused-Mexica…
I despise the government.
happy, I don't presume to know why the US does what it does, I just know when I smell bullshit. I'm not saying Bin Laden is alive. I think he died years ago and the US has known this but wanted to keep the boogeyman around so they could keep doing what they've been doing. When they decided to pull out, they made up this heroic story about killing him.
ANT, Who knows what the motive is. All you hear after the NATO attack is that this may put a hold on the US's plans to exit Afghanistan by 2014. Maybe this was the intent because the US decided it wasn't ready to leave after all.
You are right, who knows the motives. My whole point is that NATO fired on the base, not necessarily the USA. I've been trying to find an account that says it was only US assets that did this. I think people are a little too quick to blame the US for unchecked aggression.
I think the link being made is because Pakistan have now closed the two supply routes for supplies to be provided for American and British troops. And naturally the White House would be unhappy with that. The US didnt perpetrate the attack but they're involved in the aftermath.
China lending their support to Islamabad is also undoubtedly pissing off the US.
Since this actually became a serious discussion, here's the real answers.
A. Firing on Paki base: a lot of the outposts on the border are unmanned or semi-abandoned, and non-Paki groups routinely use them to their advantage. Remember that we're dealing with thousands of miles of not-fully-controlled territory...there's a LOT of room for error: US soldiers are only human, mistakes get made, get over it. A side note is this: I've got a family member in that hot zone and according to them, if there's any question about who's firing at you, kill them first and ask questions later. The Pakistanis have been playing both sides of the terrorism thing for FUCKING DECADES, so as you can imagine, no one in the US military gives a fuck if a few of the assholes get whacked incidentally. http://thewe.cc/thewei/images2/aljazeerah_inf_april2004_images/vbfnews1…
B. Saddam was a secular dictator and it legitmized the power of the new government to kill him. Long live the king, I kill the king, I am the king, long live the king. They bought him on TV in his underwear with a flashlight in his mouth to pop his tough guy image. Then, they turned him over to the Iraqi government for trial. They killed him, we just let due process take place. That's the logic, and yeah, the CIA kept on eye on everything to make sure it went according to plan.
Because that's how we roll.
Osama, on the other hand, was a religious leader and had no actual territory to control. That's why I never bought the bullshit about him working with Saddam: anyone who thinks this is a fucking retard, KISS MY WHITE ASS. Killing him made him a martyr and dumping him into the ocean is the only way of preventing his grave from becomming a shrine and thus a nexus/rallying point for extremists. The dumping in the ocean part is acually grabbing for straws out of the holy books, and isn't really required...it just serves our purpose.
Simplify it this way: Saddam was tried and hanged by his own people as a head of state, Osama was simply terminated as a nuisance by US. I DO share your suspicion, and would not be shocked if Bin Laden was actually rotting in a secret prison somewhere...people understimate exactly how far that network goes.
No offence to Canada or Europe, but the US has been handling your light work for decades. When you're ready to get your hands dirty again, FEEL FREE TO HELP AT ANY TIME as opposed to sitting back and critizing the fact that the US doesn't get it perfect all the time. Sending a dozen water trucks and a few contingents of reservists to guard the water trucks doesn't mean you have any skin in the game...or any real say. You don't like how we do shit, you go out and do better.
....and this is coming from a fairly liberal guy.
What a pile of bullshit. The fact that the US tends to lead the charge for action would suggest to me that they have a action plan. If that plan fails, the blame ought to be placed on those accountable.
And FYI, there are British troops posted everywhere US troops are, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.
The reason the explanation for dumping his body in the sea doesn't work is that Osama and his followers are hardcore Wahhabis, who detest the idea of shrines. In fact, one of their main targets tend to be shrines, and they detest Shias because of how much reverence they have for shrines. There is a wealth of literature and discussion about Wahhabism in the counterterrorism community, which means that they know it's a bullshit excuse to say they dumped his body to avoid creating a shrine. And, as you mentioned, it didn't need to be dumped right away anyway, according to Islamic law.
Does no one remember how the US shaved Saddam's sons' beards and kept their corpses out on display for a week? Since when did we care about respecting religious tradition?
Again, I'm not condemning/condoning it, that's just how it is. In reality, we simply do what works.
As for the other stuff: yeah, not the best move. You'd think DOD / State would have a feasable story lined up in advance for the occaison, they have all sorts of wacky contingency planning for other shit. Truth be told, it's entirely possible the body slid out the door when they hit a crosswind and they lost it, and the story was a gloss: shit happens man.
NATO have been given an out. I dont see why they can't offer an apology for the attack and allow the supply routes to be reopened.
UFO, You're predicating you argument on the assumption that what the US is doing is necessary or 'good'. I think this is completely false, for which reason I'm not saying I don't like how you do shit like this, I'm saying that I don't like that you do shit like this. The lack of regard for non American life is what myself, and the rest of the world have a problem with. Your whole statement that "no one in the US military gives a fuck if a few of the [pakistani] assholes get whacked" is exactly the problem. The US has not declared war on Pakistan, so they better care if those "assholes" get killed. Everytime a US solder dies, there are memorials with videos of the loved ones the guy left behind. Just remember that those 24 pakistani "assholes" also had families that didn't love them any less than your family loves you.
Also, I don't buy for a second that they were fired on first.
Insurgency being from the Taliban not the Pakistani military.
I'm not getting into it with you because the last time I did I ended up with 100+ shits and my ratio has yet to recover. I'd throw one back at you but if not doing so puts this to rest, then so be it.
Right. I'm sure that the US Ground Force Commander, unable to read a map and unaware he was near the border, decided to begin a firefight with the Pakistani Army (who was asleep in their barracks, peacefully napping) and then use the VERY loose rules on close air strikes and target identification in Afghanistan to bomb them. Repeatedly.
After all, Pakistan has been an honest broker and trustworthy partner in that theater. I could never imagine that they would fire on US Forces, for any reason.
The USA does what is in the USA's best interest. I don't know why we continue to try and make it seem like we care about anyone but us. I sure as hell don't pay Federal taxes to benefit other countries.
Pakistan was a strategic ally, never a friend. The country is inches away from falling into chaos. The military cannot control its own boarders and this is an issue for the USA.
the problem is that everyone wants to think that the world we live in is the same that Winnie the Pooh inhabits...The USA should care about its own well-being...
the countries that criticise the USA for only caring for itself, are always dictatorships with no regards to their own people...blaming someone else for your problems is easier than blaming yourself
The US tries very hard to sell other countries on the idea that it's in their best interest to follow our lead because in most cases it is. When the US is just grabbing selfishly, or playing power politics for it's own sake, or fucks up on some rather important details...then yeah, give 'em hell for it, they should know better. More important than short term material wealth or military dominance (these come and go) is moral authority, and I do firmly believe that for the most part that the US contributes more than they take, even if it's not perfect all the time.
Uhhhh ok....................
A) I didn't throw Monkey Shit at you UFO
B) WTF is with all the hostility?
C) If that's how you're gonna be, fuck you right back
I'm also just stressed out, I HATE end of month close...fucking people leave everything for the last minute, my shit's been done for days. Not your fault, I acknowledge this.
+1 for at least not starting a shit storm.
fair enough, apology accepted.
Yes, because Pakistan has never been involved in anything that would be considered an act of war on the USA.....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119044917045765750601652073…
"U.S. officials say they are looking for evidence that directly links elements of Pakistan's powerful spy agency to this week's assault on the U.S. Embassy and coalition headquarters in Kabul"
Yup - that must mean they did it! After all, if the US is suspicious of something, then it must be true! How did that WMD suspicion in Iraq work out by the way?
Also, as difficult as it may be to believe, Pakistanis by nature aren't any less intelligent than Americans. Why the hell would they fire at a NATO helicopter? Forget for a second whether or not they wanted to...they would be smart enough to know that they would get killed (which they don't want since not everyone is a crazy jihadi suicide bomber the way American media likes everyone to believe), and given the crazy chance that they succeeded in bringing it down, what would that accomplish? Reprisals from the trigger happy US? They wouldn't want that either.
On the other hand, western forces are notorious for being extremely trigger happy (case in point, gunning down those iraqi Reuters journalists in the video titled 'Collateral Murder') and like UFO pointed out, they have a shoot now ask questions later philosophy.
So I'm guessing they just saw a bunch of people near the border, and decided to kill them. And their thought process was: "if they're the enemy, great, if not, who gives a shit, pakistani lives are worthless anyway"
Clearly you're so confident in this statement because you've surveyed the practices of all the armed groups on earth, right? I would contend that the US military has some of the best fire discipline in the world, certainly when compared to non-"western" forces. The case you cite wasn't a problem of being too "trigger happy".
You're clearly angry about US foreign policy, but you're painting with a broad brush.
I believe that the US should have gotten out of Afghanistan years ago, certainly now that OBL is gone. However, the escalating situation is making that more difficult.
I would be interested in hearing your perspective on what role the US should play in the world. You've criticized current practices, but haven't presented any alternatives.
Maybe militants fired at the NATO forces, the NATO forces responded and the Paki's thought they were being fired on and then one thing lead to another.
Plain fact is none of us know what went on. To make it seem like the US is always the aggressor and the one in the wrong here is to simply be as blind as those who always stand up for the US and make it seem as if they can do no wrong.
I am sure there was confusion and wrong doing on both parts. War is hectic and shit happens. With that being said, Pakistan has been playing both sides for a while. This is understandable since the US realizes some countries have to say one thing and do another to placate their citizens, but when you walk the line things can become dangerous quickly.
As far as that bullshit propaganda video "collateral murder", nothing wrong was done there. People who hate the USA will see what they want, but the pilots saw guys running through the streets with what looked like a RPG. They called into command, got authorization and fired. The second the threat was neutralized they stopped firing. US forces rushed to the scene, realized there were civilians there and proceeded to rush them to US medical facilities.
Also, please post a link where it confirms that US forces were the only ones who did this. It mentions NATO in every article I read. Link to the source where it confirms that US soldiers don't value Pakistani lives or randomly kill Paki's for fun.
You post an article and then go on a rant about US forces this and condemning US military left and right. For all you know it could of been a European lead mission or joint strike with the USA.
While I agree that NATO is a joke, there are enough NATO troops in Afghanistan to reasonably say that it could of been a joint mission that fired on the base.
http://www.isaf.nato.int/troop-numbers-and-contributions/index.php
All I am saying is that to 100% blame and implicate the US in this is unfair until we know additional details.
Also keep in mind that some of the NATO troops (a very small percent) as well as the local guides they use may or may not have varying personal / national / tribal inklings that they act on. I do know that while US soldiers (and most NATO, I can't help but bust on them) are very, VERY professional but sometimes individuals just do their own thing. It's not a policy, it's just people / factions taking advantage of the situation.
A good example is the local Iraqi troops that our soldiers work side by side with: if they decide to shoot an insurgent in the head after a raid because they don't want to be bothered with paperwork or a trial, there's really nothing anyone can do.
I think Pakistan hates us and if they had the ability to stand up to us they would. The possibility that OBL was in Pakistan, in a mansion, in a large city, next to a military base and no one knew about it is complete BS. The fact that those facts were released is why I think OBL is dead. I think the cover up lies in what Pakistan did. I think that they sheltered him for protection and because they hate the U.S. I wish Wikileaks had come out this year, so the government wouldn't be as protective as it is now- so we could see what really happened.
On that note, I believe the confusion theory. In a hot zone, in the middle of fucking nowhere, in the mountains I think they could easily get confused.
I love how people are adding credence to our presence there by arguing who dropped the bombs. Does it matter? Why not ask, why is the USA in a position to drop a bomb on the Pakistani border in the first place? What is there to gain in that shit hole? Our war on the world is just going to result in blow-back.
crazy has just entered the building
Up-repped you on some of your more salient posts, UFO.
I know this was news a long time ago, but were the Seals that were shot down not too long after OBL's death part of team 6? or different Seals?
Also part of Seal Team 6, if I recall correctly.
Jimage,
I'm confident in my statement because US troops have killed at least 10 civilians for every 'insurgent'. It seems that either they're really trigger happy, or as MMBinNC says "confused" a lot, or they just generally suck at their jobs. In either case, it's unacceptable considering people's lives are in the balance.
Also, my perspective on the role the US should play is to mind its own business and not try to police the whole world. They should defend their borders without concocting excuses to invade and exploit other countries.
"the best part of war is the raping and pillaging" - 2 US troops in full uniform I overheard in Buffalo at a bar. While I know that this attitude isn't present in all or even the majority of troops, it is certainly significant and probably explains the excessive devastation caused by the two wars.
As an easy example, just look at the difference between the 1979 Soviet invastion of MENA or the Nazi incursions into Egypt and you can see one very striking difference: those empires were simply exploiting the resources and raping the hell out of the areas they conquered while the US is overseeing a broader transformation in addition to the resources it extracts. We also PAY for those resources: either with developement, money, weapons, influence, democracy, or some other currency. Not everything goes according to plan, and not everything is completely altruistic, but overall the motivation is good: and it's made a HUGE difference. The world has become a much less savage place over the course of the last century, largely due to the US's influence.
Also keep in mind that a lot of the cases that sound 'morally justified' are really disingenuous ploys put forward by America's comptetitors, ideological hacks, and a variety of other pathological sources.
As for the soldiers joking around: American soldiers are BY FAR the best around in terms of effectiveness and professionalism. A few guys blowing off steam and bullshitting in a bar can't possibly compare to what other armies in history have done. When we talk war crimes, we have what...a dozen or so actual cases by US soldiers in the last decade? In the big picture, they're not even a full percentage. Compare to regimens like Pol pot, the mongols (0.5% percent of humanity is related to Ghengis Kahn) and English 'prima nocta' doctrine a few centuries ago. I'm NOT saying the US is perfect, and I'm the first to blast them for real mistakes, but perfection IS the goal...meanwhile other nations (China, Iran, etc...) are pretty indulgent with their violence / human rights abuse. Civilians are affected in every war, but while others have made it the GOAL to kill civilians, the US really isn't focused on that...but it will happen. That's war, it sucks, but what can you do?
Agree with most of what you said except for one thing.
America has NEVER been isolationist. We fucked around with Mexico and played both sides of the Napoleanic Wars politically to get most of our territory today, and most of our economy was entirely dependent on being an export nation to Europe up until the early 20th century.
What's changed is how visible our foreign policy has been since WWI bc after that we became #1 in the world. We do have strong isolationist tendences within the population which are acted on at certain points in our history, but it's a complete myth that we were isolationist in the entire pre-WWI period.
1) Please show the stats where US troops kill civilians 10-1.
2) So you overhear 2 troops at a bar and this is your data point.
Get fucking real.What is with this amateur hour bullshit.
1) Happily, I'll do some digging and update tomorrow. But suppose I do (and I will) find the stats, what does that mean for you?
2) Buddy you're the amateur if you're naive enough to believe that the sentiment I described is shared only by those two people. Ever take a course on basic statistics? Assume a distribution of troops who have this attitude vs those who don't. Now what is the probability that the assumed distribution is correct if my only data point is a sample from the subset of troops who do have this attitude?
Let me ask it more simply, what percentage of troops do YOU think have this attitude? If you say anything less than 10% then you are completely blinded by your patriotism (which, I must admit I do admire in a way).
Sorry pal, I am not going to guess on how many troops make inappropriate comments. And you are right, statistics never lie.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
I did your homework for you. If you start looking at the numbers you will see large amounts killed by Iraqi terrorist bombings and small numbers killed by US troop actions.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/warlogs/
109K deaths since 2003.
"The Iraq War Logs released by WikiLeaks on 22 October 2010, contain 54,910 records compiled by the United States military whose numerical fields register 109,032 violent deaths between January 2004 and December 2009. These casualty records contain four categories of casualties, ‘Civilian’ (66,081 deaths), ‘Host Nation’ (15,196 deaths),‘Enemy’ (23,984 deaths), and ‘Friendly’ (3,771 deaths). "
Here is the effect of suicide bombing
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/lancet-2011/
12K civilian deaths
30.6K civilian injuries
This is only bombings. It does not count other terrorist attacks.
To misrepresent your data as if the US military is wholesale murdering civilians is completely incorrect. These death tolls you mention include civilians dead since the invasion. Many of them are deaths at the hands of their own people, not US forces.
Post some data to refute and I will look at it. Until then stop condemning US troops with made up information.
MBP, I disagree with everything you've said thus far, except the isolationism issue. I wish we'd pull all out troops out of wherever they are and line'em up on the US borders. Could you imagine the shit show that would happen all over the globe after we did that? Hell, I'd watch smiling with a cold beer in my hand.
Oh, by the way, it's VERY hard troops to get permission to fire. I know this because my brother, step brother and several friends have/are in war zones right now.
Way to cherry pick data from some heavily criticized website that is often referred to as the "Iraq Western Media Body Count". IBC relies almost exlusively on American media sources, who naturally have an incentive to severely underestimate civilian death counts so as to avoid negative PR. A lot of studies that don't have the same American bias have estimated that IBC underestimates by a factor of up to 10. But to give you some concrete stats, please have a read through the following research paper, which FYI only covers 2003 - 2006:
http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
Highlights:
Excess Deaths from violent causes: 601,027
95% CI: 426, 369 - 793,663
31% of these civilian deaths are attributed to US forces.
Here's a quote:
"Our best estimate is the 654,965 persons have died as a consequence of the conflict. Of these, 601,027 have died from violence.While the actual value may be somewhat higher or lower than this number, the precision of these results is adequate to conclude that loss of life in this conflict has been substantial. This is far greater than reported by various media accounts and morgue tallies. This is not surprising, as reporting of events from incomplete sources cannot, in any statistically meaningful way, be converted into national death rates. Other than Bosnia, we are unable to find any major historical instances where passive surveillance methods (such as morgue and media reports) identify more than 20% of the deaths which were found through population-based survey methods."
So there you have it, IBC according to this study is only reporting at most 20% of total fatalities due to their methodology.
So now that I've posted my data to refute your ridiculous stats, I'll continue to:
A) Condemn the soldiers that are intentionally responsible for the horror and devastation B) Condemn the generals that are giving the troops the orders that are resulting in so many civilian deaths C) Condemn the corrupt government that fabricated an excuse to invade Iraq in the first place and D) Genuinely pity the honest and idealistic troops that honestly believe they are doing good work
Let's position the conversation this way: are the Iraqis better or worse off now or when Saddam ran things? Feel free to parse this out in the short, medium, and long term.
I'm curious what you think.
I will look at what you posted in due time. I question why you didn't post this right away, but only after I posted information to refute your unsubstantiated posts.
Also, my source incorporates wikileaks as well as other sources. It is rather cleanly laid out. I will look at yours and report back. Either way, you mention 31% of the casualties in your study being attributed to US forces. Less than 1/3 of the deaths are the military's fault.
Isn't this thread about Iraq/Pakistan? I'm confused why you're bringing Iraq body counts into this at all.
After glancing the MIT study, it seems that between 14%-21% of deaths were attributed to coalition forces, depending on the time period.
There have been numerous studies of Iraqi deaths done, and the conclusions vary widely.
But why is this relevant to the current discussion?
ANT, in answer to your question - the reason I didn't post this right away was because I wanted to give you a much more comprehensive body of information to go through all in one shot. I decided to give you the tip of the iceburg as a response to your posted stats.
Regarding the 31%, please note that these 31% of fatalities (i.e. over 200K) are a result of American bullets. It doesn't even include the 13% from airstrikes so US forces are responsible for almost half. The rest of them are due to the war, which was initiatied by the US. The other fatalities would not have occured if the US never invaded in the first place. That is the whole point of the paper. These 600K violent deaths are in excess of the normal historical violent death levels in Iraq. Also, the almost 300K civilian deaths due to American forces in just 3 years goes a long way toward proving my 10-1 civilian kill rate that I mentioned earlier, which got this whole debate started in the first place.
Jimage, Please read all the posts and you'll see how the conversation progressed to where it is. It is tangentially relevant to the original debate because it sheds light on how inefficiently the US troops have been targeting their enemy.
MBP - The results are completely different in Afghanistan. You are making a mistake by applying the Iraq experience to everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack 5k deaths right there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein%27s_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_Iraq
The 1988 Anfal campaign, during which as many as 182,000 Iraqi Kurds disappeared. Most of the men were separated from their families and were executed in deserts in the west and southwest of Iraq. The remains of some of their wives and children have also been found in mass graves.
Now now, lets not make it out to seem like Iraq was fun and games. Also, I have two sources that place deaths around 100K. You have one that says 600K. How about we agree that the number might be somewhere in the middle.
Why the hell are we all crying over spilled milk?
if we as a country stopped sticking our noses up other countries' asses, we wouldn't even need to debate any of this shit.
^^^agreed
MBP is an Islamic extremist. Probably Pakistani or Arab. He has made his disdain for the United States clear.
fuck em.
seriously... fuck em. It's a zero sum game - there is never gonna be a utopia. might as well be on the winning side.
also, why is it always Canadians starting forums like this on every site? the fuck?
Yo MBP, I fixed this for you to make it more realistic. You can just go ahead and thank me later!
;)
heister, That's an incredible callous remark. It's not exactly spilled milk, but rather spilled blood that people are crying over. A whole lot of spilled blood. According to your logic, why do Americans still cry over the spilled milk that was 9/11?
JamesHetfield, I'm an agnostic, but keep the guesses coming, douchebag...
@Nouveau Richie LOL
cold pizza, fuck who exactly? fuck the innocent people who died at the hands of the US? do you realize that this is the exact same attitude terrorists and extremists in the middle east have about killing Americans? It's not okay coming from them, and its not okay coming from you. Except its more dangerous coming from Americans because the US is by far the most powerful country in the world.
Maybe it's not a pretty picture, but the fact is we're looking out for number 1. That's us. Not much has changed throughout history in regards to human nature. Our motives are just a bit more concealed (which is what the first post talks about.) But then again, why do you expect it to change?
I think you are the one who is naive, not the american public. they just rather look the other way, in order to keep their high living standards. and who wouldn't? it's very difficult to take away the standard of living of a people.
And don't tell me that other countries have higher standards of living, but don't go to war. they don't go to war, and do the things that need to be done, because we do it for them...
In my opinion, patriotism shouldn't mean blindly defending your country, or even looking the other way when they commit atrocities. Patriotism is wanting the best for your country and making sure it continues to stay great. Often times that means condemning wrong actions to ensure they don't happen again and tarnish the reputation of the country.
The US was the single greatest country in the world in the very recent past. The last two governments have severely tarnished that reputation. Ultimately, Americans don't need to care because right now they hold the biggest stick, but it's naive and short sighted to think that the opinion of the rest of the world doesn't matter. And my opinions are far more popular throughout the rest of the world (even Europe) than the opposing opinions in this thread. Something to think about.
Jimage, I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that the results of Iraq can't be used in my argument. Is the approach in Afghanistan fundamentally different than the one in Iraq? Are the troops there more careful? Do they respect life more?
Then what about the results from the Korean War or World War II?
Afghanistan is dramatically different than Iraq, both in terms of combat style/intensity and geography. If you want to make a point about "trigger happy" soldiers in Afghanistan, then you would need to look at the KIA figures from there. I think the numbers do not support your argument.
The Iraq War is over. Afghanistan is ongoing and deserves to be the focus of this discussion.
The difference is that the Korean War or WW2 took place in a different era and under a different leadership. It's natural that they would have a vastly different strategy and approach. Afghanistan and Iraq occured simultaneously under the same overall leadership with the same overall stock of soldiers and troops. I find it hard to believe that there was some sort of self selection or filtering process whereby the "better" (in all senses of the word) soldiers went to Afghanistan instead of Iraq.
p.s. I love how JamesHetfield gets a SB for pretty much accusing me of being a terrorist just because I have a different opinion.
Maybe you don't realize this but most of the world's governments are working towards the same ends and have to play a public shell game to keep thier own idiot populations on board.
check it out: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/12/01/pakistan-gave-go-ahead-o…
I suspect that this entire conversation has become irrelevant.
MBP, you might be agnostic now, but I am damn sure you have Islamic roots. Where else can that intense hate for the United States come from?
And what's with all these fucking Canadians coming here and bashing the United States. We should really call up the Boy Scouts and have them invade Canada and annex it to the United States. All the Canadian provinces can become new states and boy do I want to Alberta and oil sands to become American. (I heard Alberta is like the Texas of Canada, and they are more like Americans than Canadians anyway.) One exception: I don't want Quebec! They can become the new Canada.
[quote=JamesHetfield]We should really call up the Boy Scouts and have them invade Canada and annex it to the United States.[quote]
lol...
Question... anybody feel free to answer: assuming no outside resistance, how long do you think it would take for the US to take over Canada?
Less time than Iraq.
The ironic thing that MBP fails to acknowledge is that no one one earth would every dream of fucking with Canada solely because of the United States. Same goes for Europe. You bitch about the methods while living under the very blanket of freedom that we provide.
Canada / EU ...you don't like our way of busting skulls to keep order, you find someone else to handle this shit or try doing it yourselves. We'll sell you the guns and throw in a free set of brass knuckles.
Well done. I've always wanted to use this sentence in an argument.
So what? Is Canada or Europe a part of the United States?
And then question the manner in which we provide it. I would rather you just say 'Thank you' and be on your way or I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.
Directed at MBP
JamesHetfield, Wrong again, I don't have, nor have I ever had, any hatred for the US. There is a not so subtle difference between hating a country and it's people vs. hating a country's foreign policy and actions. For me, it's the latter. I don't wish the US or it's people any harm (many of my relatives are American) and strongly condemn all acts of violence that have been committed against Americans. Due to which it isn't hypocritical for me to condemn the US's acts of aggression and violence toward other countries.
I sincerely hope the US returns to it's former glory.
happy, The irony you pointed out isn't lost on me. Canada's close link with the US is exactly why the degradation of America's reputation is so worrying to me.
UFO, You keep chanting the same mantra again and again. It's not that Canadians or Europeans have a problem with how Americans butt into other peoples business. It's that they butt into other people's business. I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this basic assumption. Where you believe the US is acting mainly altruisticly and so their mistakes should be forgiven, I believe that the US is acting selfishly, and so their mistakes should not be forgiven. The disagreement is axiomatic, so I don't think we can resolve it by debating. For that reason, I'll happily bow out and apologize to those I've offended.
History very strongly indicates that the world will quickly descend into the chaos of warring factions and petty empires again.
Eventually, the UN will emerge as a REAL world government (people hate when I say this) but for the forseeable future, things will stay the way they are. You call it a mantra, but I do sincerely believe that the US is trying and largely succeeding to do the right thing. As for mistakes, stupidity, and greed...yeah, no one's perfect and I'm plenty critical of fuckups and have pissed off a lot of people but I'm not here to humor anyone.
Americans broadly fall into two mainstream political camps: A) total loyalty and B) loyal but also critical ...and everything in between. Both camps are have their place, and sometimes people just hate on the gov't for their own personal reasons projected onto idiotic and misinformed ideologies, but the simple truth is that the human race has seen more transformation over the course of the last century than all of history combined...and my perception is that the US is largely leading the way in many of the positive features of those changes.
If we can't agree on that, then there's not much to talk about.
What is this former glory people are talking about? We invade shit every decade. Also, where in this world are people just killing it while Americans are suffering? Europe is an utter mess. The Middle East is in upheaval. China is slowing down. Where oh where is this utopia people keep referring to or comparing us to?
Glad to know we have 8-10% unemployment and the sky is falling.
Since it's relevant: as for the Americans who take the Adam Corolla approach of "shut the fuck up and do what you're told", well, I agree that they need to keep in mind that every person is capable of coming to the conclusion of "FUCK YOU, I'm going to work against you because I just don't like you." But not all Americans are like this, and if America truly wasn't what it tried to be, its influence could be dismantled literally overnight by a rebellious world. There are people who, beyond believing, ARE getting ahead by doing the right thing.
MBP, your statement as to what the US should do, i.e. not mess with other people’s business is rather naive. Resources are limited, nations compete for resources, and the US butts into other people’s business because it is strong and can compete effectively for these resources. The US also knows that if it doesn’t keep the growth of its competitors in check by preemptive actions, whether they include military strikes or other forms of prevention, these now weak countries will come one day knocking on its door and demanding their share of the pie. It is human nature to always want more and as soon as a country is strong, it will do whatever in its power to get more of the pie.
Of course the US acts selfishly. People are selfish and so are the nations they constitute. But it’s rather hypocritical for countries that were doing the same thing when they could to condemn the US for looking out for its interests. England never invaded anyone and its well-being now is not in large part due to exploiting its colonies, right? And Spain and Portugal never plundered South America. Germany never went to war with anyone and France and Italy didn’t have colonies. And none of the EU countries were part of the coalition that attacked Lybia a while ago, so they are really as peaceful as sheep.
The countries that whine about the behavior of the US are the ones that are currently weak and their anger is understandable – they do not have the power to command others around as much as they want to. Weak people do not like those who are stronger and the same holds true for the behavior of nations as aggregations of people. And the whiners will always find a way to rationalize their attitude – i.e. they’ll say that they are for freedom, justice, fairness, but as soon as they become powerful, they start acting however they please and although they condemned the same behavior before, they now rationalize it with patriotism and morality. This is nothing new, this is history.
And the question in the title of your thread is also naive. Whatever their motives, most people like to think of themselves as good human beings who do the right thing. If the government were to not use freedom and democracy, but money and power in its rhetoric, that would directly clash with the self-image that people in the nation want to build for themselves and result in much higher outrage than you currently see. That would in turn cause the government to lose the support of the nation to someone who can make people feel good about themselves.
The bottom line is, if you don’t like that the US is using its power to its advantage, too bad for you. It won’t stop so you might as well face reality and live with it. If another nation becomes the dominant power, we will see the same behavior. That’s what happened throughout history and will most likely continue to happen as human psychology doesn’t change in a matter of a few thousand years. Grumbling is futile.
N.R.G, I can summarize your whole post with three words: Might is right.
Agreed.
i'd like to point out that canada is one of the few countries in the world that beat us to a draw in a war (war of 1812 with some help from their limey friends). they even burnt our fucking white house down, those hoser fucks!! yes it was payback for us torching some canadian city (forgot which one) and we actually did invade them first, technically speaking, but if you think I forget those maple syrup slurping motherfuckers you better think again. your tar sands are lookin purty fine and if crude goes past 140/bbl you are going to have a lot of marines camping out in ottawa.
It's painfully obvious you aren't American :D
Seriously though, what's the difference between this and any other entity in power at any time? Until it gets 'corrected' you just need to exploit the rules in your favor.
Europe is safe. Britain only became a target because it insisted on helping the US in their ventures into other countries. There's no history of any terrorist threat to the UK other then incidents involving the IRA, who have largely dispersed in recent years. So count Europe safe. I'm not considering internal acts of extreme violence such as Brevik in Norway.
Its ignorant to believe that Europe would only be safe because of the US. Like eokpar says, acts of violence of this nature fester because of some need to take revenge for being wronged. Rightly or wrongly, the US leads the charge for policing the world and therefore often faces the brunt of criticism.
The long and short of it is this:
The USA isn't going to withdraw to its borders anytime soon. Everyone, including us, stands too much to gain for that to happen. Realize that in most cases, the US is willingly engaged by the majority of nations we interact with...we're not quite as unilaterally powerful as you say for us to wield the influence that we do.
Without the current system, the world will devolve into petty regional power struggles and brutal empires. We're also the only nation in history to actively build a system to replace ourselves on the international stage: do you think that the UN's rise this past century is an accident?
The core of America's influence is the way of life that we ourselves live and open up to willing peoples: anyone who says the source of America's power is the military is mistaken, the military only protects it in certain places. Our civilization offers the best possible developement out of all realistically viable scenarios at this point in history. We're not perfect, and there's plenty of debate here about the finer points of this, and trust me: our government does plenty of things that piss me off. However, even the worst case, fake numbers of the US's supposed 'atrocities' don't even place in the same bracket of REAL, CLEARLY DOCUMENTED, UNDISPUTED atrocities committed by other powerful nations in history.
I'm not sure what verson of reality you're living in, but the US has overseen and/or been the source of more developement this last century than every other nation and period of history combined...and it all came at minimal intentional humanitarian cost. If you're seriously interested in learning something, there is no shortage of resources to pull data from. If all you're doing is indulging in some pathalogical condemnation of the US for whatever reason, you're not fooling anyone and I do not have time for further apologetics
Couple of quick points:
I think the point people were making is that although you comment that the US is not as powerful as you say but yet they insist on being the leader of the free world. I understand why the case is but the point people are making is that they ought to accept responsibility when things fuck up. And in the terms of influence, I think going to war in Iraq kinda answers that question, when they decided to ignore the legality issue and the UN's wishes.
I think you need a history lesson if you think that the UN was led and owes its influence solely to the US.
But I agree generally on your other points.
I certainly am not condemning the US for whatever issues I can find on a simple search of world news at the moment. I know people who are like that and I like to think I push in them in a direction to get some information, know what they are talking about before making comment but nobody is perfect. Rather then being on the defensive (in general not solely you UFO), accept the flaws and move on.
God knows England has its flaws, starting at the top.
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