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Post by Dottie »

[QUOTE=fable]And as much can be said of Russia/Soviet Union and China; and if we go back to a period when several European nations were world powers, it holds just as true for every one of them. As I wrote earlier, I think the record for toppling foreign governments really goes to Great Britain in the 19th century, but there's no easy way to count all the tribal nations that the Roman Empire destroyed. Suffice to say, the US is only one of the latest culprits on the world stage to abuse its economic-military power, and not the worst. [/QUOTE]

I don't think anyone disagrees with this. What I would like to know is everyones comments on what I percieved to be Sytzes main point: Would a shrub born and bread in for example France have more difficulties to make the changes in civil rights due to international pressure, or do you think the dealings on the international scene would play out basically the same? If you think it would be the same for France, Is there any nation in witch the international community would interfere because of internal policy changes similar to what dubbya have made?
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Post by Magrus »

[QUOTE=Dottie]I don't think anyone disagrees with this. What I would like to know is everyones comments on what I percieved to be Sytzes main point: Would a shrub born and bread in for example France have more difficulties to make the changes in civil rights due to international pressure, or do you think the dealings on the international scene would play out basically the same? If you think it would be the same for France, Is there any nation in witch the international community would interfere because of internal policy changes similar to what dubbya have made?[/QUOTE]

Are we going by the country as is? Or are we saying theoretically putting the US and France on even ground in terms of military and economic power and simply going by the attitude and government setup of the two?
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Post by Dottie »

[QUOTE=Magrus]Are we going by the country as is? Or are we saying theoretically putting the US and France on even ground in terms of military and economic power and simply going by the attitude and government setup of the two?[/QUOTE]

I'm not discussing the colonial ambitions of any nation here, but rather the changes in internal policies, and what international reaction they would get. So go by country as is.
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Post by Magrus »

Well, without knowing too much about any government but my own I can't say a whole lot. However, the U.S., by location and power alone is an entirely different situation from just about any other country in the world. France doesn't hold anywhere near the sway my country does, not in military or economic corner's. Those two alone do volumes for the political aspect of dealing with other countries.

If France were acting the way the US government has been acting lately, I'm fairly certain it would be a lot different. Neighboring European nations could drastically effect it's situation in the world. If they didn't like what was going on, they could close off a lot of options for trade and economic things. The act of say, Britain shutting down their tunnel between the two countries and barring tourism between the two countries could end up with a large impact on the economy. Granted, it would be both of them, but, if the countries around France did that, a good portion of their business would flop I'm guessing.

Not only that, it's far easier to back France into a corner so to speak than the US. If I'm not mistaken, France is roughly the size of NY. They simply don't have the manpower to throw their weight around the world like we do. On the other side, they wouldn't have that same power to withstand a group of countries telling them to back down "or else". This would leave that type of response far more likely than with the US I'm thinking. If 5 EU nations put their foot down and said 'stop', France would be extremely hard pressed to say 'make me'. The US could do that and watch the other countries wring their hands and worry about the consequences and chuckle.

The US could call in troops from just 3 or 4 states, outfit them, and send them off and hold down just about any 1 or 2 countries in Europe I'm guessing if it came to a military struggle. Vice versa, France might be able to hold down 1 or 2 states here with everything it's got, and where would that leave them? Surrounded and outnumbered by the surrounding states here in America.

No, I think if it had been any of the nations besides the US, possibly excepting Russia and China, things would be quite different from how they are now. I think things would have been shut down some time ago if it had been say, France, or Germany or some other EU country.
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Post by fable »

[QUOTE=Dottie]I don't think anyone disagrees with this. What I would like to know is everyones comments on what I percieved to be Sytzes main point: Would a shrub born and bread in for example France have more difficulties to make the changes in civil rights due to international pressure, or do you think the dealings on the international scene would play out basically the same? If you think it would be the same for France, Is there any nation in witch the international community would interfere because of internal policy changes similar to what dubbya have made?[/QUOTE]

This presupposes a lot of "ifs" at the same time, but let's look back: did the international community interfere when Hitler's Germany made its first conquests, taking land that wasn't its own? No, that didn't occur. Did the international community interfere when Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia had their abortive revolutions in the 1950s and 1969? Did the world community object when France, Britain, and in lesser respects the Netherlands, Belgium, etc, carved up and destroyed the African continent in the 19th century? Did a very elaborate constitution (in the Weimer Republic) prevent the rise of Hitler, which was achieved completely through lawful means? I think it's safe to say that whenever and wherever international military hegemonies exist, other nations remain publically silent, unless the hegemonies begin treading directly on one another's toes. So the US/Iraq invasion is hardly alone in this respect. Russia and China know better than to interfere, anymore than the US has done little besides making occasional noises at Russia over the bloodbath that is Chechnya, or the recolonization of Tibet.
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Post by Dottie »

I'm not talking about millitary might or colonialism here, but rather changes in internal policies.

While I agree that throughout history the internation reactions are very passive I also think about more recent events as the rise of Jeorg Heider (sp?) in Austria. In that case the reaction from other European contries where quite significant.
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Post by fable »

[QUOTE=Dottie]I'm not talking about millitary might or colonialism here, but rather changes in internal policies.

While I agree that throughout history the internation reactions are very passive I also think about more recent events as the rise of Jeorg Heider (sp?) in Austria. In that case the reaction from other European contries where quite significant.[/QUOTE]

But that's because Heider represented, from the start, a far-right party, outspoken and well-known for its views. By contrast, Bush represented a party that until recently was right-of-center for US politics, but had worked as well as any other with other nations. Bush also made a big point in his first faux election of being a moderate. (It was one of his more blatant lies, as any check of his record as Texas governor or even campaign rhetoric for the presidential nomination would have shown; but most Americans pay no more attention to fact-checking than anybody else, anywhere else.) So there was no anticipation that this was going to be in fact not a Republican administration at all, but a Neo-Con one. Had the world known it was getting a completely unethical politician who wanted to run the nation from the far-right, I think the international outcry would have been extreme. And frankly, I doubt Bush would have been elected.
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Post by Silur »

[QUOTE=Magrus]The whole system needs to be torn apart, restructured and those in power stripped of their positions.[/QUOTE]

Something not very likely to happen in *any* state, democratic or otherwise. Those in power will remain in power. The Russian government is adamant proof of this, since it is largely composed of former Communist politicians, high-ranking USSR government officials and of course headed by a former KGB director.

As for the reactions of bordering countries it Europe, have a look at when France restarted their nuclear weapons testing in Mururoa. The other European governments complained a little, but France went through with it anyway and at the political level very little happened. The French economy got hit rather hard by the European public's voluntary boycott of French products, but it wasn't until the effect finally trickled down to the individual level that the president started loosing popularity in France.
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Post by Magrus »

Something not very likely to happen in *any* state, democratic or otherwise. Those in power will remain in power.
Oh, I'm quite aware that the chances of that happening are roughly along the lines of me sprouting wings and a big fuzzy tail in the next 20 minutes. :rolleyes: Not many people tend to pay attention to whats good for the country and do anything about it but whine. Not that the people in charge would listen to voters at this point any longer. They've instituted laws to shut down any opposition already. They could thumb their noses at the public and decide to stay in office and what could the people do?

No country wants to be involved in a war, or bring out negative relations with another country. Yet, the scenario I pointed out in my above post could be a 'what if' if things went to hell. It's very true though, over history, countries haven't done anything until they themselves feel threatened. It's one of those "not affecting me, not my business" type attitudes. :rolleyes:
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Post by CM »

fable wrote:I would probably disagree with you about "Americanization," if I knew what this meant. Since you're such an expert on what constitutes American govenment, law and history, why don't you tell me. :D ;)
Well its nice to see my knowledge on the matter is consider above par of what is normally discussed here ;)
I'd have to absolutely disagree with this.so-called "honesty." Bush has been the most dishonest US president we've had. His administration has engaged in more cover-ups than Nixon ever dreamed of, and has advanced an agenda while completely misrepresenting the facts to a public that has confused the appearance of honesty with the thing, itself. Even the Reagan administration spoke more to the point than Bush. Unless you truly know the background and history in depth of previous US administrations, I don't think you have any business casting wholesale and inaccurate aspersions like this.
He may have been dishonest on the domestic scene. But when one speaks of hegemony is always in relation to the multilateral scenerio and not the domestic one. Lets not get onto a tangent as i have never mentoned the domestic situation.

Internationally he has made clear what his intentions were and gone after it. He said in 2000 he would go after Saddam and he did. He did not fiddle around, he made everything he said clear internationally from day one. He does not abide by International rules and norms. The same can be said for all US presidents. Under clinton a pakistani national was extradited to the US because he shot 2 CIA operatives outside langely in the early 90s. He had links with the Pakistani military. The US conducted a military operation in pakistan with pakistani military forces and took him out with out express permission of the govt. Additionally there was no extradition treaty so it was contrary to international law and norms.

I find it interesting that you question my knowledge of the history and background of the US administrations because i disagree with you. Internationally the US has always been cajoling, bullying and bribing nations into doing what the US wants. Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan are perfect examples of this. The 2 billion dollar aid package since the time of Sadat is a real life example.
And as much can be said of Russia/Soviet Union and China; and if we go back to a period when several European nations were world powers, it holds just as true for every one of them. As I wrote earlier, I think the record for toppling foreign governments really goes to Great Britain in the 19th century, but there's no easy way to count all the tribal nations that the Roman Empire destroyed.
Fable lets compare apples and apples. Russia and China were and are not large democracies with a very large educated population. The US has been a democracy for "200 plus years". It has a system of checks and balances it is the world's defender of human rights, liberty and justice for all. That is the image the US govt likes to see itself in and that is the image most americans see the US as. That is nothing but a smoke screen. The US is the only democracy on the planet that has attacked more countries in the current century. Communist dictatorships do not compare to the extreme use of the US military.

Additionally even if other hegemonic powers have done it, it does not make it right. The US govts have always protrayed themselves internationally as the saviours of humanity and the protectors of human rights yet they truly are not. Albrights comments that the death of 500,000 iraqi children due to the sanctions was acceptible to achieve the desired political affects left a bad taste in the worlds mouth, but business as usual continued in the US.
Suffice to say, the US is only one of the latest culprits on the world stage to abuse its economic-military power, and not the worst. What Russia has done in Chechnya is far, far worse on a scale of sheer, premeditated brutality and horrific destruction than what Bush has achieved in Iraq. But Iraq has played out on the world stage; Russia has drawn a curtain around its doings since the first terrible stories came out. Does this mean you don't think Russia has done anything worth censuring? Or that the imprisonment of more than 10% of a nation's population, the rounding up of women arbitrarily to serve as "comfort units" for the army, and the random seizure of all property should be considered international war crimes?
It may be the only one of the latest culprits but it has been doing so for the past 50 years. I am surprised you compare the US govt to that of the Soviet Union. I mean the atrocities commited in Vietnam are just as bad as those in Chechnya. The US govt naplamed villages and people. The US govt used daisy cutters with DU in Iraq. The after effects of the DU can still be seen today but nobody covers it. I personally only look at the last 50 years as it is easier to gauge. So far in the past 60 years (since 1945) the US has done the most damage to the world than any other country. Nuking 2 cities. Using chemical weapons on civilians. The list goes on and US govts before Bush okayed these tactics and methods.

The US govt has since the end of the world war II considered itself the new "ruler" of the world and they have violated every single international law they felt like to do so. This is not new to the Bush administration. It is a continuation of the past 60 years. The only thing the Bush administration is at fault for is that they are very open and honest about what they want to do and they do it. While others hide behind false excuses and proxies. Bush has used the might of the US to do it openly.
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Post by Craig »

Jumping in at the deep end but.....

What is the patriot act? Same for subpoenas.

Sorry to not have followed the discussion, but these seems interesting at possibly important, I think something like this might have just (well recently) been discussed in english parliment....
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Post by CM »

On the "Americanization" of the Middle East Brookings has this excellent paper here: http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fe ... 040510.htm

The EU and the US do not agree on the US proposed plans and ideas. The US proposes social and cultural changes which are not in line with the islamic world. This whole initiative is to transform Islamic society not just politically but culturally and socially.

For a more biased view point there is this article from the MEIB here: http://www.meib.org/articles/0407_me2.htm

And for googling other links and articles you can find them here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Gr ... Initiative

CEIP and Al Jazeera have interesting articles as well which can be found in the above google link.
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Post by Cuchulain82 »

Fas, I disagree with some of what you said. However, I have a question for you- in the Middle East, there has been much resistance to "modern" Western ideas (human rights, modern technology, etc.). Do you think this is because the hasn't been a Renaissance (ie- a seperation of religion from the political and intellectual realms) in Muslim history?
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Post by CM »

Cuch i am happy people disagree with me, because i have stated many times on GB before, i do not hold the monopoly on muslim or islamic thought. I post my views and do so honestly :p I would personally like to hear your views on this matter, so if you have the time please do comment.

As for a Renaissance i personally see no need for it. The problem is that Islamic law is not adhered to in muslim society. I will give you 2 small examples. On matters of inheritence in Islam, the wife gets half. (I will get WR to confirm all of this), and the daugthers i believe get 1/3. And the sons divide up the rest or what is left. The mother and daughter are to get priority. They don't get it now. They basically get screwed.

Second example is on demcracy. The first 4 leaders of the Islamic world after the Holy Prophet were chosen by a direct vote (a la switzerland). Afterwards for nearly 30 years after that it was all democracy. But as the Islamic empire expanded we had kinship introduced to ensure control and continuty. The king system is not part of ISlamic society. The Holy Prophet forbade that his family should be worshipped. He said they were normal and they would not gain power unless elected into it.

Additionally for 1200 years the Islamic world was the bastion of human rights and discovery. During the inquisition, the jews fled to the Islamic world and practiced religion openly. The current regimes do not reflect islam or its laws. They reflect personal greed and stupidity.
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Post by Magrus »

A bit off-topic, but sounds like Christianity in a nutshell to me Fas. I've yet to see any religion with an organized group basis stay "pure" to it's "roots". :rolleyes:

@craig

subpoenas:
A writ requiring appearance in court to give testimony.

The Patriot Act, I don't have a whole lot of information on. My take on it though, in essence, an act the in some ways, bypasses the rights granted by the US Constition, US laws, the US system of Checks and Balances by ignoring the Judicial Branch. This is all done to allow the Executive Branch to dig out any and all information they feel is necessary on anyone they view as a threat, in secret, and without the need of a warrant like is required by law, or an explination, and making it legal to pressure those involved to keep silent about what is going on. All of this in the name of "finding terrorists and keeping the homeland safe", but in reality, to ensure those in power have no dissent in the country and no powerful figures emerging to lead the masses in a campaign of shouting the truth and bringing them down from their positions of power.
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Post by fable »

He may have been dishonest on the domestic scene. But when one speaks of hegemony is always in relation to the multilateral scenerio and not the domestic one. Internationally he has made clear what his intentions were and gone after it. He said in 2000 he would go after Saddam and he did. He did not fiddle around, he made everything he said clear internationally from day one. He does not abide by International rules and norms. The same can be said for all US presidents.

First, you can't arbitrarily split domestic from international "honesty," and claim a particular person is honest if they make remarks aimed at the world that are forthright, but lie endlessly, repeatedly, to roughly 300,000,000 people at home. It doesn't work that way. Second, you've taken a single comment of Bush's out of context. Bush has uttered many lies on the international stage. And he has also maintained publically, internationally, that he abides by international legal standards--a lie, in itself.

Third, it will always be possible to find upon looking at any nation, that it has not abided by internationally understood standards in some instances, so let's not be naive and claim the US is alone in this, or that Shrub is typical of the US. We are really talking about a continuum, in which Bush is far to one side, further than any other US administration has ever been in terms of breaking international treaties. Many US presidents, such as Carter, never broke any international treaties, though quite a few, like Clinton and Bush Sr, fudged often on the technical details--much as rulers do in every single country, including yours, every day.

I find it interesting that you question my knowledge of the history and background of the US administrations because i disagree with you. Internationally the US has always been cajoling, bullying and bribing nations into doing what the US wants. Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan are perfect examples of this. The 2 billion dollar aid package since the time of Sadat is a real life example.

I don't question your knowledge of US history because you disagree with me. I question it because your remarks, just like the one above ("the US has always been cajoling, bullying and bribing nations into doing what the US wants...") is woefully inaccurate. If you did know US history, you'd know that the US is an international chameleon and has been many things at many times, and you wouldn't utter things like this. My feelings don't enter into the matter. Personally, Fas, I like you quite a bit, and would hope to meet you sometime. :) But factually, you're offbase, both in your sweeping statements about US international policy, and in the way you regard the US at its most belligerent as somehow atypical and worse than other international bullies who have acted and are acting in a similar manner.

Fable lets compare apples and apples. Russia and China were and are not large democracies with a very large educated population. The US has been a democracy for "200 plus years". It has a system of checks and balances it is the world's defender of human rights, liberty and justice for all. That is the image the US govt likes to see itself in and that is the image most americans see the US as. That is nothing but a smoke screen. The US is the only democracy on the planet that has attacked more countries in the current century. Communist dictatorships do not compare to the extreme use of the US military.

Even if I were to agree that the US is a democracy--which I certainly do not--it has not, even by your standards, always been so ("for 200 plus years"). Most federal government officials were chosen, not elected, for quite some time in US history. The president, for example, was "elected" by a group of 40 or so men until the 1830s. Members of the senate, one of the two legislative chambers, were chosen by state legislatures, not elected by the public, until 1913. There were salary requirements that voters had to show before being allowed to cast ballots for many years; and of course, half the nation, women, were not allowed to vote until the 20th century.

And no one is arguing that the US remotely lives up to the image it likes to project, anymore than the UK does, or Pakistan does, or Saudi Arabia does, or France does. Or have you done a quantitative an analysis of, say, France and the US, to show that the US is more hypocritical? And why can't Communist nations be considered alongside so-called democracies in a consideration of bullying tactics employed against other nations? A bully is a bully. You can't simply write off the horrific offenses of Russia or China because they never claimed to be wonderful saviors of humanity. Hypocrisy is nasty, but so is harsh brutality, divorced of any hypocrisy whatsoever. A person beaten to death doesn't care whether the person who has done the deed claimed to be their savior or just grinned savagely.

This kind of US bashing is frankly getting tiresome, and serves no point, as I see it. If you're going to create arbitrary rules that China and Russia are automatically excluded from the discussion, why continue this?

It may be the only one of the latest culprits but it has been doing so for the past 50 years. I am surprised you compare the US govt to that of the Soviet Union. I mean the atrocities commited in Vietnam are just as bad as those in Chechnya.

Read up on Chechnya. There were atrocities committed in Vietnam, and they're documented, but they were the exception, on both sides of an acknowledged war. (And don't tell me "the war was unjust and an atrocity in itself." Hell, I protested it at the time, and got the beatings to prove it. We're not discussing the justice of a given war, but the actions of the armed forces within that war.) Chechnya is a record of endless atrocities committed on a largely supine populace, not in a war at all, but being treated as a combination free whorehouse and treasure trove by the Russian army. I think you may have the resources to discover this, for yourself. The results should shock you, for I know you are a moral person.

I'm cutting out the rest of what you wrote, since it seems to serve no purpose except to bash the US, without regard to any other nation's conduct, at any time. It is woefully inaccurate--really, the US deliberately violated every international law it wanted to?--and you're clearly losing all perspective, as well historical insight, when you do this.

Fas, don't your rage blind you to the differences between ideals and international RealPolitik. If you're looking for nations that go around ignoring international human rights, I think you'll find China and Russia just as easily fit that description currently; not to mention dozens of smaller countries, like Zimbabwe, or North Korea, where the annual production of hypocritical BS and vicious behavior equals the worst of the big guys in substance if not scale. I loathe the current US administration and I've tolerated very few of its predecessors, but stop focusing on it, alone, and making excuses for places like China and Russia.
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Post by winter rose »

[QUOTE=CM]Cuch

As for a Renaissance i personally see no need for it. The problem is that Islamic law is not adhered to in muslim society. I will give you 2 small examples. On matters of inheritence in Islam, the wife gets half. (I will get WR to confirm all of this), and the daugthers i believe get 1/3. And the sons divide up the rest or what is left. The mother and daughter are to get priority. They don't get it now. They basically get screwed.
[/QUOTE]

You are right - here are the details.

The degree of kinship between the receiver (man or woman) and the deceased. The closer the relation, the greater the share given regardless of the heir’s gender.

The position of the inheriting generation in the chronological sequence of generations. The younger generations usually receive larger share than the older ones regardless of gender. For instance, the daughter of a deceased man receives a bigger share than his mother does, and the daughter of a deceased woman receives a bigger share than her father does even if the daughter is an infant.

Women receive half of men’s share in four cases only.

In many cases, women receive the same share of inheritance as men.



Btw Cuch since this is a rather off topic reply, and so will be the one about your comments, shall we open another thread. About Islams golden age? I would like to comment further on that.
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Post by Cuchulain82 »

[QUOTE=CM]Cuch i am happy people disagree with me, because i have stated many times on GB before, i do not hold the monopoly on muslim or islamic thought. I post my views and do so honestly :p I would personally like to hear your views on this matter, so if you have the time please do comment.[/quote]
I think that you are accurate in what you say, but that it doesn't convey the whole truth. The US has a done some awful things internationally, but has also done some astounding things- ie: supporting the entire international currency system (at a considerable cost) for 50 years. The truth is that the US has been *nods to fable* a chameleon internationally. IMO, the single biggest problem with US foreign policy is the utter and complete lack of consistancy. Sometimes it seems to me as if we almost don't have any policy and just make it up as we go.

As for honesty, I think that you and fable are talking about extremes but could probably meet in the middle. From what I can tell, GWB is honest about his intentions and is willing to do anything, including acting dishonestly, to achieve those intentions. Take, for example, the Iraq War. Remember Colin Powell shaking the vial of WMD powder at the UN GA meeting? That was dishonesty that was engineered to accomplish a very honest goal- GWB's blatant desire to attack Iraq. I saw Howard Dean speak about this once, and he said that the Bush administration is the kind of administration that has a theory they really like, and when they find facts that conflict with the theory, they throw away the facts and keep the theory.

Attacking Iraq, while that is probably good for another thread, was a huge sham, imo. Tom Friedman says that the biggest problem with GWB is that he is using pre-9/11 rationale in a post-9/11 world, and I agree.

[quote="CM]As for a Renaissance i personally see no need for it. <snip> Additionally for 1200 years the Islamic world was the bastion of human rights and discovery. During the inquisition"]
I asked because I think that Islam is overdue for a Renaissance. The Muslim world was the leader of the intellectual world for 1200 years, but that was 700 years ago, and much of the same curriculim is being still taught in places today. Oxford and Cambridge were the Christian madrasas of the west 700 years ago, but now they are the leading centers of learning in the world. I don't see that kind of change in the Muslim world yet. As near as I can tell, scholarly learning hasn't had a good decade in the Middle East for the past 700 years- this isn't to say anything about Muslims, just that their legacy of learning and enlightement has not progressed since it's peak centuries ago. Indeed, all this fundamentalism makes me wonder if there is actually regression...

@fable

I don't think that Fas has blind rage or tremendously anti-US sentiments- he does live here, after all. I just think that he is from a part of the world that the US has done a lot of lousy things to.
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Post by fable »

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]As for honesty, I think that you and fable are talking about extremes but could probably meet in the middle. From what I can tell, GWB is honest about his intentions and is willing to do anything, including acting dishonestly, to achieve those intentions.[/quote]

But that in no way differs from what I'm saying--Cuch, reread my post. :rolleyes: If you have questions, ask. I'm not advocating an extreme, but only suggesting that the history of the US be known and correctly perceived in context, and that the current record of the US be sensibly viewed alongside the current records of other nations. Saying China and Russia aren't hypocritical (certainly a dubious claim) and therefore haven't international record, historically or at present, as bad as the US, just doesn't make good logic. Where's the extreme, in that?

@fable
I don't think that Fas has blind rage or tremendously anti-US sentiments- he does live here, after all. I just think that he is from a part of the world that the US has done a lot of lousy things to.


He lives here, now. I guess that makes him an expert on US history? He's from "a part of the world that the US had done a lot of lousy things to." No! :eek: ;) Come on. I'm aware of the history of the US and Pakistani relations, and I know how the latter has been treated as a client state with its dictators supported by the US. Give me a break. I've defended several of Fas' positions over the last several years, and we disagreed upon other matters. You don't have to mediate between us.

"Communist dictatorships do not compare to the extreme use of the US military." "The US govt has since the end of the world war II considered itself the new "ruler" of the world and they have violated every single international law they felt like to do so." I think these, and other remarks are part of a rage at US policies over the last several decades. They express an emotional point of view, but are contradicted by the facts. Or possibly you agree with Fas, and know that Stalin never did deliberately remove all the food stores from the Ukraine in 1932, to create a "false famine" that killed 6 million people? ;) Oh, I could give you a list of the crimes of Stalin that would make the history of the US since WWII seem like a bunch of paladins. And it's anything but.
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Post by winter rose »

[QUOTE=fable]

He lives here, now. I guess that makes him an expert on US history? [/QUOTE]

Im a teacher. Originally from elsewhere, but I can be an expert on the US history nonetheless, so can anyone else for that matter. :)
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