You're close. It's really about spreading democracy from the inside of an Islamic country in hopes it will eventually catch on as the preferred form of government in other Islamic countries. The tactic of "ignore them and they'll go away" has never worked in the past, starfish...why would it work now all of the sudden?
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George W. Bush
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"We want to establishment a secular, pro-west government that lets us use the country as a base to attack other countries like Iran and Syria"Firstly, if the American/English coalition wants co-operation from any nation, is it really clueless enough to believe it can solicit that by the mass murder of the citizens of that nation?! Thor advocates we ought to learn from history, perhaps in this instance England ought to learn from its own.But this is all acceptable, because they want to "attack other countries like Iran and Syria" And that is fine by you??!!"There is no other benefit for attacking Iraq" Really? I distinctly remember Bush and Blair waffling on about going in there to seize weapons of mass destruction. So you accept that your political leaders lied to you when they said they were hunting down those fictitious weapons, and that too is fine by you, apparently."We're certainly not there for democracy in of itself"You don’t say...
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I have never advocated the tactic of "ignore them and they'll go away" Thor; if we'd have ignored the Brits in the Republic they'd still fucking be here. I think it's pretty clear that the 'them' in this situation turned out to be the wrong 'them'. There were no weapons of mass, or any other kind of destruction confiscated from inside Iraq. The coalition’s attention would have been better directed where it belonged. Hussein, murdering fucker though he is, was not responsible for 9/11.We had an American soldier who served in Abu Grade (excuse me if I have misspelled that) tour our universities recently and tell us why he defected. His version of the reality inside that disgusting place might surprise you.
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Take a look at Syria, starfish. Then when you're finished, look again. While looking, understand that that is where Saddam was pumping his oil out of (under OPECs nose) to sell to other countries...where he brought in his illegal (according to UN sanctions) weapons...AND where he stashed his WMD at the beginning of the invasion. He had a convoy by land AND by air that has been documented as fact. There are also three known sites for the storage of the WMD that Syria now has control of...and has threatened Israel with in the not-to-distant past. You won't hear much about it in the media though...three guesses why, and the first two don't count. BUT...IF you REALLY want to find out a little about the truth, it is out there to be found.
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Are you telling me Thor, that if the US wanted to go into Syria they wouldn’t already be there? What you're saying is that the US went into Iraq, found no WMD, and then, surprise surprise, when they aren’t located, suddenly (conveniently, I’d say) they've been shunted to Syria? So answer this please: why didn’t the US follow the WMD to their source immediately, if they were so intent upon finding them? They were prepared to go halfway round the globe, what’s another few hundred miles? Why didn’t they go after them?Didn’t they see this as a matter of urgency? I mean Weapons of Mass Destruction would be liable to be used to mass destruct (as is their nature) at any moment, surely, especially given the Americans were so close, occupying a neighbouring country at that time? So why didn’t the Americans see the need to get to these abhorrent and genocidal weapons asap? And since they clearly didn’t, why didn’t we all get blown sky high??!!
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In reply to: Firstly, if the American/English coalition wants co-operation from any nation, is it really clueless enough to believe it can solicit that by the mass murder of the citizens of that nation?! Thor advocates we ought to learn from history, perhaps in this instance England ought to learn from its own. Invading countries to use it as a military base has been done successfully countless times. Learning from history can tell you that. Besides our standards of cooperation probably differ. The Iraqis dont have to like it. In reply to: But this is all acceptable, because they want to "attack other countries like Iran and Syria" And that is fine by you??!! Yes because I want us to attack other countries. I dont really care about Iraq in of itself. If we subjegated Iraq and then didnt attack other countries it would be a complete waste of time. In reply to: Really? I distinctly remember Bush and Blair waffling on about going in there to seize weapons of mass destruction. So you accept that your political leaders lied to you when they said they were hunting down those fictitious weapons, and that too is fine by you, apparently. No doubt about it. They lied. DId I say this was fine by me? Nope. However that wasnt the question at hand. From before the war I would say that I supported the war but not for the reasons given. Sicne then I have seen hope that Blair and Bush were genuinely lying (to think that they actualy believed what they were saying is quite worrying) and did infact take us to war for reasons I am happy with.and BTW Welsh, Scots and Ulster Soldiers are dieng in riaq in Afghanistan. Can we start using those handy, centuries old terms...Britain and British rather than England and English.
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In reply to: You're close. It's really about spreading democracy from the inside of an Islamic country in hopes it will eventually catch on as the preferred form of government in other Islamic countries. The tactic of "ignore them and they'll go away" has never worked in the past, starfish...why would it work now all of the sudden? I dont see much value in that. What would we get out of a democratic middle-east? Democrtic most certainly does not imply pro-west or secular or happy to let us use them as military base. Whats more Domino theory didnt give fruit in south-east asia with communism. We're going to have to invade more countries to change them, rather than just wait for the people to change themsleves. The people are quite concievably happy with the current regimes and thus we will have to topple the regimes ourselves.
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"Invading countries to use it as a military base has been done successfully countless times"Yes it has, mores the pity. The same was done with Dublin city for many many centuries; in fact it is still trying to fight off the stigma of being seen countrywide as 'a garrison town'. England had no need of that strategy however, in the case of subjugating Scotland and Wales, since, unfortunately for them, nature had already cursed them in seeing to it that they were adjoined to their oppressor. "Yes because I want us to attack other countries"Little wonder that you fly the 'british' flag so high, it suits your temperament. "From before the war I would say that I supported the war but not for the reasons given. Sicne then I have seen hope that Blair and Bush were genuinely lying... and did infact take us to war for reasons I am happy with"So you are clearly happy to be used as a political pawn. I wonder would the families of those murdered in the London bombings of last year be in agreement with you."Can we start using those handy, centuries old terms...Britain and British rather than England and English"No, we can't. I'll never use those terms as long as I live, nor did my parents, nor will my children, for reasons too lengthy to go into here. In any case, most of it would likely go over your head, since you seem to have no sense of the history that has passed between these two islands, nor even of the wrongdoing that has occurred on your own.To give you two very brief reasons why I will never use your desired terminology; the term 'the uk' in itself in a fallacy, since there is clearly nothing 'united' about a three and one quarter countries 'union' where one faction has struggled for independence for almost a thousand years. Where is your 'united kingdom' there?Also, separating England from Scotland and Wales is necessary because England does and always has made the political and economic decisions and Scotland and Wales are, by default, and unfortunately for them, dragged along like sheep. England raped half the known world in its day (which is thankfully past) and the only reason Scotland and Wales were ever of any importance to it was because England had too much arrogance not to be seen to crush the whole of the island on which it resided.Our parents raised us on our own history; clearly yours didn’t bother to do the same, more's the pity for you.
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It's really about spreading democracy from the inside of an Islamic country in hopes it will eventually catch on as the preferred form of government in other Islamic countries. Bush and Fox News certainly like to say that. We wanted peace and democracy, but we unfortunately didn't do what we needed to do (mainly, send enough ground troops) to accomplish the job. And now the U.S. is very unwelcome in Iraq. In a recent poll, the majority of Iraqis support the attacks on U.S. troops. They've lost patience with the instability and violence. The civilian death rate in Iraq is big and getting bigger. And a lot of the deaths are execution-style, done with power tools. This Fox News story discusses Senator John Warner's observations about Iraq. He says that Iraq is "drifting sideways. The situation is a mess, the government has been unable to assume control, foreign influences (like our tormentor Iran) have gained a strong foothold in Iraq's politics. It's a complete disaster._________________George Bush was interview by a German news outlet a few months ago, and he was asked what his most memorable moment as president was. He said it was when he caught a 7-1/2 pound largemouth bass on his private lake. (I couldn't find a Fox New reference for that story, but here it is in the Washington Post.) He had a chance to show himself as a statesman. Instead, he showed his true superficial colors. There was no agenda involved.
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"George Bush was interview by a German news outlet a few months ago, and he was asked what his most memorable moment as president was. He said it was when he caught a 7-1/2 pound largemouth bass on his private lake"If I knew nothing else about George Bush, this'd be about all I needed to know.
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As probably the least-working, most-vacationing president in U.S. history, it's just par for the course. Bush has no interest in the Great Issues. He's purely a political animal.
Bill Clinton was also a political animal, but at least he wasn't completly superficial in other areas.
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Clinton was well thought of in this country, I can tell you that. It might have been misplaced affection, I don’t doubt that. I don’t know enough about his administration to pontificate on the issue, but he had a big interest in Irish affairs and he gave us his time and presence; something Bush certainly never did.
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Clinton had some deep flaws, but I think affection toward him was well-placed, for a variety of reasons. For one, even though he was a state governor before running for president, he had more than a clue about world affairs. Bush had a huge training program before and while he was on the campaign trail, but all that cramming still left him with a superficial knowledge. Plus, is someone is not interested in a subject, he's unlikely to excel at it.Bush and his people seem to be oblivious to the damage that the hostilitily of the world toward the U.S. is doing to the country. To put it in terms Republicans understand, in the long run, it will have an adverse impact on the economy.
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In reply to:It's really about spreading democracy from the inside of an Islamic country in hopes it will eventually catch on as the preferred form of government in other Islamic countries.The West seems to be having trouble with dealing with democracy in Palestine.
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I think that a big problem with the 2004 Presidential Election was that a weak candidate was put up against Bush. People didn't want to vote for an ok-ish candidate and they didn't want to re-elect that gobshite. When given the choice between being led by a weak man or a stupid man, it kinda makes you lose faith in democracy. If Hillary Clinton runs in 2008 then you'll probably find a much larger turnout in the polls.Altho as an Irishman, I don't exactly have great experience with presidential elections. Our current president, Mary McAleese, is serving her second term because nobody could get the necessary support to run against her.
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People didn't want to vote for an ok-ish candidate and they didn't want to re-elect that gobshite.Most people were fairly strongly for or against Bush. The people to whom you refer were the relatively small segment of swing voters.n1SP> It seems like we are having trouble with democracy here at home.Given our experience with electronic voting machines, and state partisans supervising elections, we seem to be have really big problems with democracy in the U.S. Some of our elections would not pass muster had they been observed by outsiders.I> The West seems to be having trouble with dealing with democracy in Palestine. Yes, for example. Much to the dismay of the West, democratic elections are bringing to power religious fundamentalists in the Middle East. Democracy gets one cycle, and it's done.
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In reply to: Much to the dismay of the West, democratic elections are bringing to power religious fundamentalists in the Middle East. Dismay of the West? Why? They're doing exactly what the US did in 2000 and maintained in 2004.
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In reply to:Much to the dismay of the West, democratic elections are bringing to power religious fundamentalists in the Middle East. Democracy gets one cycle, and it's done.It's not clear that the Palestinian government will cancel elections or create a one-party state, though of course it's possible. (Hamas strikes me as more nationalist than fundamentalist.) But when a pro-Western nation sets up a one-party state, such as Singapore, there are no protests. Nor when Algeria cancelled elections because an Islamic party won.
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Nor when Algeria cancelled elections because an Islamic party won. Exactly! France seemed to be OK with the old dictatorship remaining in power, rather than having an Islamic government in place. The violence that followed was breathtakingly brutal, although it has been matched in Iraq.When it comes to right-wing dictatorships friendly to American business interests, the U.S. has been quiet and coperative. The fact that some of those dictatorships have been terribly brutal toward their citizens didn't make a difference. Most Americans are completely ignorant of that, and most everything happening outside the nation's borders, and the fact that its goverment is concerned about democracy only when it's convenient.
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You have no right to dictate my nationhood to me like that. Do I tell you that you arent Irish? No I dont. You may not like my poltiical beliefs but you've taken that post a whole step further. I dont know if you can comprehend how insulting that is, to be told my nation effectively doesnt exist. What gives you the right to do that?
The fact of the matter is I DO have a sense of history and that reinforces my sense of both my Welshness and my Britishness. I have my parents to thank for this, who did ensure I was educated in British and Welsh history. You are aware I'm Welsh right?
Your comments about England, Scotland, and Wales really are such rubbish and show no understanding of British history or the current British political situation.
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Also, separating England from Scotland and Wales is necessary because England does and always has made the political and economic decisions and Scotland and Wales are, by default, and unfortunately for them, dragged along like sheep.
The extent to which that isnt true is quite spectacular. Do you really want me to evaluate on why?
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To give you two very brief reasons why I will never use your desired terminology; the term 'the uk' in itself in a fallacy, since there is clearly nothing 'united' about a three and one quarter countries 'union' where one faction has struggled for independence for almost a thousand years. Where is your 'united kingdom' there?
Mmm the union hasnt even been around for a thousand years so that cant be true. And I suppose the Scots and Welsh were struggling for independance when they went ahead and created the union (thats right, its a Welsh and Scottish creation). Do you want me to evaluate?
Your comments are an insult to me as a Welshman, and to every Wlaian and Scot and Ulsterman who has lived and died for this country, to make it great and free. Its also an insult to the many fellow Irishmen who over the centuries were not raped and killed by Englishmen. Many were raped and killed by Scots, and Walians. England, Wales and Scotland have shared in glories and in sin, and your use of the word England is to exempt my ancestors of their crimes while to lump all the blame (and the glories, of which there are many) onto the English. Thats pathetic. I can evaluate if you like? I've gone through these rounds a hundread times before and have done my research. So you want to hear it? You want to hear about all the evil shit Wales and Scotland has done without Englands help, or with Englishmen standing side by side as eqauls? Or when Walians and Scotsmen were giving the orders from the very top to the Englishmen to do evil shit (often to your Ireland)? You want to hear about how the union was created? About what Wales and Scotland have done in the past 300 years of history? Cos I'm well aware of what we've done, good and bad.
