US is going to war tomarrow... dang...
Sunday, March 16, 2003 by IPlural | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
opps
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Jafo
Reply #542 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:41 PM
Reply #542 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:41 PM
Karma, be careful now.....I still have those negatives...
grayhaze
Reply #543 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:42 PM
Reply #543 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:42 PM
It's comments like yours that really make me angry. Because I disagree with war, I'm both a hippy and a racist. There's logic for you... >
grayhaze
Reply #544 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:44 PM
Reply #544 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:44 PM
By the way bakerstreet, I didn't say the Internet didn't owe it's existence in part to the Military. I just disagreed that it was created by the Military. There's a difference.
Jafo
Reply #546 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:45 PM
Reply #546 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:45 PM
grayhaze, yes, many Australians are bemused by the US's overtly 'prominent' National Pride....not necessarily a bad thing, though we Aussies have a hard time even knowing the words to our anthem...and I'd wager if you discounted all our athletes there'd be bugger-all left who actually DID!....
Jafo
Reply #547 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:48 PM
Reply #547 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:48 PM
BTW, Karma....'Lord' is a masculine title....methinks you're having a gender crisis...
grayhaze
Reply #548 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:54 PM
Reply #548 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:54 PM
I don't think even our athletes know our anthem! 
The majority of people in the UK know about as much of the anthem as people outside the UK do. We know it starts with 'Rule Brittania...' lol
The majority of people in the UK know about as much of the anthem as people outside the UK do. We know it starts with 'Rule Brittania...'
lol
Frogboy
Reply #549 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:25 PM
Reply #549 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:25 PM
Thibaud: I have gone through great pains to try to be specific in my comments about the French: I am talking of their political class. As I have said elsewhere in this thread, the average Frenchman is as brave as anyone else IMO.
sig101
Reply #550 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:28 PM
Reply #550 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:28 PM
Grayhaze, ahem, I believe your national anthem is "God Save the Queen." (Of course, "King" when there is a king.)
"Rule Britannia" is notable, but I believe not the official national anthem.
"Rule Britannia" is notable, but I believe not the official national anthem.
grayhaze
Reply #551 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:31 PM
Reply #551 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:31 PM
I know sig101...
I've lost count of the number of times 'Rule Britannia' has been played in error at sporting events in other countries though. It always brings a smile to my face...
I've lost count of the number of times 'Rule Britannia' has been played in error at sporting events in other countries though. It always brings a smile to my face...
Frogboy
Reply #552 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:32 PM
Reply #552 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:32 PM
Incidentally, Grayhaze, do you not recognize the irony that you condemn me for being critical of the French while arguing that most Americans are just for the war out of blind patriotism? We're a bunch of mindless sheep but pointing out the fact that the French weren't even willing to fight for their own capital and that the first Axis allies Americans had to fight in Africa were French is somehow offensive to all French?
I mean really, I'm sorry but the fact is, the French barely resisted Nazi Germany. After appeasing it for a decade it then actively collaborated it. That doesn't mean that the average Frenchman didn't suffer, but the French POLITCAL culture has a very bad track record in being able to distinguish good and evil, threats from non-threats.
So I think with that in mind, I'll take the word of the US government's over France's. The US government, unlike that of France, has an actual track record of 1) recognizing threats to the world and 2) actually doing something about them.
I mean really, I'm sorry but the fact is, the French barely resisted Nazi Germany. After appeasing it for a decade it then actively collaborated it. That doesn't mean that the average Frenchman didn't suffer, but the French POLITCAL culture has a very bad track record in being able to distinguish good and evil, threats from non-threats.
So I think with that in mind, I'll take the word of the US government's over France's. The US government, unlike that of France, has an actual track record of 1) recognizing threats to the world and 2) actually doing something about them.
bakerstreet
Reply #553 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:40 PM
Reply #553 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:40 PM
greyhaze: if you can stand by and say that ending the suffering of Kurds and other dissenting ethic and religious groups in Iraq by force is wrong, and the same time if happened in Australia, or Belgium, or Austria you'd actually feel more inclined to aid forcefully, then yes, that is a racist or at least discriminatory ideal.
Immediate and decisive force is palatable to the world when the oppressed are Judeo-Christian, but not when they are of other races and religions. The holocaust seems to have taught us half a lesson. We had better apply that awful example to *all* peoples, or history will remember us as accomplices to it. The *hint* of ethnic cleansing should bring an immediate, un-opposable, forceful response. Instead, the world haggles over aid packages until the bodies are buried and it is time for a more glitzy war crimes tribunal.
Don't get me wrong, I don't tow the US line a vast majority of the time. I think these dictators were pampered during the cold war as pawns in a big chess match. Whether that was necessary or not is debatable, but the cold war is over, and now there is *no* excuse to tolerate it. I think the leadership in Pakistan is as bad or worse than Hussein, and I don't like my country dealing with them. I feel that what Israel is doing to Palestinians is wrong as well... with a capital *dubya*. I'm not crazy about my country supporting them any more than I am about France supporting Saddam ( which they do, with money, arms, and votes in the UN ). On the other hand the Palestinians are also ruled by a dictator, who is ruled himself by terrorists... No easy side to take there.
The cold war mess is going to be cleaned up, and I am afraid that lazy, racist nations will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the fray.
**
As for the internet, was a DoD mandate that formed the agency that ordered and funded the research. You might as well call the Eiffel Tower the "Workmen-who-built-the-Eiffel-Tower-Tower".
Immediate and decisive force is palatable to the world when the oppressed are Judeo-Christian, but not when they are of other races and religions. The holocaust seems to have taught us half a lesson. We had better apply that awful example to *all* peoples, or history will remember us as accomplices to it. The *hint* of ethnic cleansing should bring an immediate, un-opposable, forceful response. Instead, the world haggles over aid packages until the bodies are buried and it is time for a more glitzy war crimes tribunal.
Don't get me wrong, I don't tow the US line a vast majority of the time. I think these dictators were pampered during the cold war as pawns in a big chess match. Whether that was necessary or not is debatable, but the cold war is over, and now there is *no* excuse to tolerate it. I think the leadership in Pakistan is as bad or worse than Hussein, and I don't like my country dealing with them. I feel that what Israel is doing to Palestinians is wrong as well... with a capital *dubya*. I'm not crazy about my country supporting them any more than I am about France supporting Saddam ( which they do, with money, arms, and votes in the UN ). On the other hand the Palestinians are also ruled by a dictator, who is ruled himself by terrorists... No easy side to take there.
The cold war mess is going to be cleaned up, and I am afraid that lazy, racist nations will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the fray.
**
As for the internet, was a DoD mandate that formed the agency that ordered and funded the research. You might as well call the Eiffel Tower the "Workmen-who-built-the-Eiffel-Tower-Tower".
moshi
Reply #554 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:52 PM
Reply #554 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:52 PM
right now the Kurds are pretty autonom in northern Iraq (due to the no-fly zones). after the war it will be very interesting to see how the allies divide up the plunder. i saw report on Kurdistan yesterday and they prepared to fight against Turkey ...
grayhaze
Reply #555 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:07 PM
Reply #555 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:07 PM
Justify your war-lust any way you want bakerstreet. It doesn't make me any more of a racist. If anything, the fact that the US are far more likely to use military force in Iraq than they ever would in any of those other countries you mentioned makes a far better example of racism. They don't care about civilian casualties, just so long as they can get to Saddam and win another victory against the Middle East for good old Uncle Sam. I guarantee that policy would be different if it were anywhere else.
As I've already said, I'm not in any way religious. I don't look at two people of different faiths any differently. I don't let religion cloud my opinions of others. I also don't let skin colour or nationality factor into my opinions. I'm not saying I'm completely non-racist, as everyone has a little racism in them, but I don't let such things sway my opinion of needless bloodshed.
Ask yourself who the real racist is - the person who attacks another nation verbally and makes wild claims about their alliegences because that nation's government disagrees with their own, or the person who argues against war in favour of intelligent solutions which a so-called civilised world should be able to handle.
As I've already said, I'm not in any way religious. I don't look at two people of different faiths any differently. I don't let religion cloud my opinions of others. I also don't let skin colour or nationality factor into my opinions. I'm not saying I'm completely non-racist, as everyone has a little racism in them, but I don't let such things sway my opinion of needless bloodshed.
Ask yourself who the real racist is - the person who attacks another nation verbally and makes wild claims about their alliegences because that nation's government disagrees with their own, or the person who argues against war in favour of intelligent solutions which a so-called civilised world should be able to handle.
IPlural
Reply #556 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:31 PM
Reply #556 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:31 PM
Speaking of the Kurds, how come we let the Turkish Army into the Kurdish lands in northern Iraq?
IPlural
Reply #557 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:32 PM
Reply #557 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 8:32 PM
wait a second, racism?
ahhh, please explain?
I don't get it...
ahhh, please explain?
I don't get it...
JamMeister33
Reply #560 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 9:03 PM
Reply #560 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 9:03 PM
Bombs away, buh-bye Saddam and good riddance....!!!!!!!
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Reply #541 Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:39 PM
Sometimes patriotism can border on fanaticism, and that's when the lines start to blur.