myata

Because that's what they used to do in their native countries. In addition to that, some wouldn't scorn at all at going on assistance as it gives lots (i.e., orders of magnitude) more than they used to making at home. For someone used to working their a... off for $30 monthly (with luck), a grand with no strings attached plus maybe access to subsidised housing would indeed appear like paradise on Earth. Should we run a global social assistance program courtesy of canadian taxpayer? And what about the cost of other social programs? How many pizza, seasonal agriculture, cleaning etc other unqualified jobs does it take to pay a surgeon or teachers' salary? I'm talking of course of uncontrolled (open doors) immigration. Qualified reasonably skilled (e.g. in the language, profession, trade) people should be welcome to build their lives here. The immigration system should do its best to ensure that those who come have reasonable chance to succeed. Someone has to work on creating reasonable conditions in their own countries. Or, you'll see whole world coming to Canada - in literal sense.

Yes I heard that story too (on CBC). What really puzzles me is that the thrust of the story was against dishonest immigration firms that promise something that does not exist. Right, except it's not the firms that issue visas, but our own government. And what does exist is inefficient overexpensive immigration system that will be clogged by this latest influx for years now.

Now this is going all the way back. And how do you know that its "having some success"? From deeply flawed "report" that does not stand grade 5 logic? From speeches by administration that has created this war? They can pull this off by brushing and polishing and massaging only until things turn real nasty. By that time, it'll be too late to react in any rational way. The downside of taking in unquestioning what you're fed.

Can't disagree that that's probably one of the more plausible real reasons for this war. Will it bring any positive results though? That's a totally different question. Not all problems (and very likely, only few) these days can be solved through purely military force.

Unless the cost of keeping troops thousands miles away and permanently under siege combined with slow bleeding will become unbearable or impractical to bear. At this point, there's too many unknowns. I'd say, it was definitely less than a smart move to get involved with that roulette. But, arrogance and that sense of mission on this Earth does it even to smarter people.

Not the same forces, different coiuntries, fighting different wars. Vietnam would be more reminiscent of the situation in Iraq.

That just won't be true, factually. Over and again, people start out from virtually nothing and achieve "affluent" or at least "comfortable" standard of living. And I'm not talking about Bills Gates. Each year thousands of immigrants come to this country with barely any money, often pure knowledge of language, and local customs, no connections, and so on. Great majority of them succeeds. Which should allow me to modify your next statement: to: "with hard effort and persistency, one can definitely expect positive results barring some unfortunate circumstances". Your school experience is simply unfortunate. Speaks to the general "unfairness" of life. Certainly. Just as the fact that certain (and quite significant) "measure" of capitalism is acceptable and even desirable by the socitiety so that it won't run into the opposite extreme (i.e. communism), which so far showed no smaller problems than its "unfettered" counterpart. Agreed, too. However, this compulsory system has obvious limits in how much of wealth can be contributed to assistance probrams without hurting foundations of economy (i.e the incentive principle). The moment average citizen finds out that working does not provide sufficient advantage to receiving assistance, the economy collapses. Obviously, with all the programs supported by it.

And who says they aren't compassionate enough? You see, it's a matter of perspective.

That was then and this is now. As a matter of fact, I'm with you on this one. At the time before the invasion, the coalition had every right to ask for, and expect a meaningful contribution from the rest of world. Perhaps, if they had more of such support, they'd be more willing to listen to the arguments against the war.

Maybe and maybe not. In some places, and not so far away - Northern Ireland e.g. - even hundreds of years of government by force failed to bring a lasting resolution to the conflict. It's a very uncertain proposition at best, given the success rate of colonial governments. And the cost of three or four decade occupation would be truly astronomical - in both human and financial terms. I'm not sure the US, in their current financial condition, would even be able to carry it. And is there anybody else in sight to pick up the slack? Wouldn't it have been much more efficient, not to mention helpful for the coalitions standing in the world, to contain Saddam for as long as needed (cost of which would not come close to that of the full blown occupation) till he was either gone by a natural cause or more likely toppled in a coup?

Or those less fortunate more willing to look for positive ways to improve their condition? Sure. The question is in the practical domain. How do we instill the same idea of fairness in both "givers" and "receivers"? Methods like taxation, forced redistribution of wealth, are inherently involuntary therefore unfair. Voluntary is bound to create conflict over and again (she wants to give less than needed; he wants to receive more than is available). Sadly I don't see any practical way out of this conundrum.

I doubt there's any point in repeating over and again the basic facts of history (like which nation did "Kuomingtan" belong to - or maybe you think they were some kind of aliens, by the sound of it?). In any case, it's not in the scope of this topic.

I'd agree with that (after all nearly everybody in this world is guilty of some sort of selfish behaviour that creates problems for others somewhere we don't see or care), except for America's quick and often insuffieciently (in my view) questioned preparedness to resort to violence, a "trigger happiness" of a sort. If it weren't for that, I would agree that, by and large, we're all on the the same footing.

I doubt that such a "skill set" actually exists or, in the least, is realistically possible to realize in practice. We are talking about the idea that a society can be changed into its virtual opposite, entirely by external force, and in very limited historic terms. That is a lunacy, utiopia, no more viable than communism. Life (whether human, animal, etc) simply does not work that way. In a society, usually, there're several groups viying for power - and the strongest one proves it's ability to govern by winning the competition. Even in democracies, it's basically the same, except the nature of the competition changes. The chance that a faction with totally unproven ablility to govern (otherwise it have shown some standing on its own), would very likely result in a failure - ecause of its unpreparedness to govern, jealosy of stronger factions, mistakes of foreigners to which it's now associated, and so on. The only time when such a strategy has a chance is when a country is totally devastated by some disaster and its internal groups are weakened to the extreme (not unlike the body's immune system need to be suppressed to let a transplant have a chance to succeed). This is of course what has happened after WWII. In most other situations, it's almost assured failure (Algeria, Vietnam & Cambodia, Chile - unless replacement of weak democracy with a strong dictatorship is seen as a success, and so on). Democratic process can be helped but I doubt very much that it can be "created".

Whatever the faults of this country, there's only one nation on this planet and at this time, that is an unquestionable leader in producing democratic rhethoric, by weight, volume or any parameter and whether such teachings were requested or not (but mostly the latter). Methinks it's that propensity to preach and profess that creates certain misunderstanding, and not practical cynicism or cynical practicism, whatever you want call it, per se. When British did their business at the time of empire, it was for the queen, empire and glory. With the US, same things are done, of course, for the universal good. Does it have something to do with its protestant origins, where things (especially, uglier ones) simply cannot be called by their proper names, but should be expressed in terms of piety and universal goodness?

I do support Israel as far as it can achieve peaceful existence with its neighbours in the mutually agreed borders. At issue of this topic, however is the principle to support of legitimate democratic processes. Not unquestionable support for something legitimacy of which is can be considered highly questionable.

If one doesn't comply with their own standard, which btw they never forget to preach to anybody and anything whether they want to hear it or not, there's only two logical possibilities: 1) an irresponsible babbler, not worth taking seriously; or 2) a cynical manipulator bent on extending their will through any means possible. Either one is hardly a respectable position.

No, it's not expectations of others, its the standard they themselves proclaim at every corner. If I didn't hear those preachings of Universal Good and so on at every occasion and without such, I'd be perfectly OK with everybody's right to look after their interests - in less violent ways, perhaps?

I suspected that the analysis would be very complex and so on, but it should be possible to at least shed some light on their way of thinking? Unless, of course, the analysis is much more simple. The US does not really care about "democracy" thing. What they always need is pawns and allies to advance their interests here and there. So when democracies behave in the way which is inconvenient, or does not align with their interests, the democratic fanfare goes silent. I hate to think that this is the real "principle" in their foreign policies, but it appears as one logical explanation. BTW I have no idea what this anti-war site is, do you?

And I do not doubt they did. Yet they've been able to stand on their own, by and large. Anyways, it does not answer the main question, about America's very selective approach to advancing the democracy in the world. In some places, they are ready to bomb and burn against all odds (Vietnam, Iraq); in others, like Taiwan, with already established and functioning democracy, even a few words of, not even encouragement, simply acknowledgement of democratic principle, is not appropriate. Go figure.

Couldn't be said any better. As long as there're individuals, there will be conflict - of desires, actions, ideas, etc. That's be nature of this world - where I'm wrong, you may be right, thus helping the survival of the species. Even when we delegate an issue to somebody else for a judgement, it's not because it's guaranteed infallible and absolute fairness. No, it's only a convention, compromise we're willing to accept to avoid potentially worse outcome. So, no, life will never be "fair" as long as there's at least one individual who believes otherwise. Of course, there's also a possibility that some unquestionable supreme authority will decide on the fairness of all things, once and for all. Unfortunately, in the real examples where such authorities have existed, they almost invariably demonstrated far more atrociuos behaviour than we see around us in our imperfect adversarial and error prone system.

So, democratic referendum on UN membership in a democratic state what has existed, on its own, without generous hand outs and interventions, for some 60 years, is wrong (Reuters story)? Separation of Kosovo, equally opposed by Serbia and some UNSC members, which never existed as a country, is right? Then, separation of some fringe areas in the new nations of the former Soviet Union, also based on their own local referendums, is wrong again? Can anybody see the logic in this? Other than, of course, the obvious, might makes right. There goes moral leadership and human rights championship of the world. P.S> no I'm not an idealist and understand the challenges of dealing with the worlds greatest aspiring power. However, we're talking about democratic will of people - the holy grail of US's recent quest on this planet, for which cities were bombed and countless people have perished. What happened? Why all of a sudden, even a muffled statement to the extent that e.g. "it's not helpful for stability in the region but it's within democratic power of people to exercise their choice", is so hard to come by?

So to round it up in your own words, those who tend to believe in "personal choice and responsibility" do somehow achieve "comfortable-to-affluent" background? And, to take to the other extreme, those who don't, may find themselves struggling, in the material aspect at least? Isn't it that obvious link between the effort and result? Is it "fair" to be able to obtain something freely, for which someone else has to work hard, day after day? And if that something (material wealth to be exact) were to become available freely to everybody, would they work hard, day after day, to create it? Really, there's only two logical choices: 1) wealth is available in endless amounts without any effort (i.e. manna falling from the sky); or 2) someone has to work to create it. While "left wing" is still working on #1, we're stuck with the alternative. It also has two main flavours: voluntary work for incentive (aka "capitalism"): no work, little wealth; or involuntary work under duress (slavery, communism). Pick your choice. Don't take me that there should be no place for compassion and assistance in our society. It's just that these must be and are voluntary, based on consent of those who create wealth to share it with less fortunate. The alternative would be slavery, whether traditional or "left wing" communism.

Well, inclusion of September numbers in the document looks very promising (as a casualty reducing strategy). Given that it's still September, the 12th to be exact as of today (as opposed to when the data were actually collected - 1st?). Other than that "reduction", the signs of "tailing off" aren't so very obvious. <added> BTW, everywhere in this report September numbers are cited on par with any other month of the year, forgetting perhaps? to make any explicit statement that the month is far from being over (or maybe just leaving the Sept. stats out, for that same reason - oh no, most of "tailing off" effect would disappear?). One has to be smart enough to stumble on that single line that tells you that the data are as of Sep 9 - which still doesn't appear even a bit plausible given the fact that the original post with the link is dated Sep.10th and Iraq is such a huge country - how long did it take them to get the election polls in? These publicity tricks a la T. Blair's infamous 45 minute missile attack threat make me think that maybe this is the same kind of trush. Not because I know anything about university, just on the merits of their "handling" of information.

And US administration of course is a known world champion of impartiality and truth. "WMD in Iraq" "Al-Kaeda in Iraq" NB: before invasion. Now it's certainly there "Axis of Evil" And so on (please continue)