d4dev
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Posts posted by d4dev
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The US will certainly not be able to retain it's current supremacy (and belligerence) in world affairs much longer. The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are rapidly developing economies, and even now, they don't like the US much. In about 50 years from now, the world will be a much safer and democratic place than it is now.
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Why should they be expelled from Tibet? And the question seems ambigious. Do you mean that:
1) China should retain control of Tibet, but should not settle Han Chinese people there or
2) That China should cease occupation of Tibet altogether?
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What makes you feel that Hamas is a terrorist organization? Because the US and Israel say so?
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True. It seems like the Spanish people were opposed, but OK with Aznar's policy until it did not directly affect them. (No wonder they were opposed to the war, they might have had apprehensions about the terrorists striking them.) But after the terrorists proved them right, there was no way they could still keep Aznar in power.
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I do know that people want to come to the US in droves from the third world. Evidently, the US is not as bad as he portrays. Myself, if something was bad enough to have book after book written about it to tell people how bad it was, I certainly wouldn't want to be part of it. Same with the third world people who line up for blocks in front of US embasies around the world wanting to go there.
KK, it is absolutely wrong to assume that just because people from the third world immigrate to the west, they agree with the US' policies or that they even care two hoots about the US. They come to the west only so that they can have a better standard of living and make big bucks. If you don't believe me, ask any immigrant you know why he comes to Canada or the US.
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I look at this way: I may not like my options. I may not agree with any of the candidates. However, if I don't vote, I know there's probably someone out there with whom I violently disagree who'll be using their vote. So if my one vote cancels out one vote for, say, Stephen harper, I'll be satisfied.
Agreed. But what if I don't disagree violently with anyone?
Finally, if you don't like your options on voting day, why not work to get someone in who you can support?That's idealistic, but not possible. I have much better things to do than go around campaigning for someone who I know is not going to win.
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Voting is only one element of a healthy democratic society anyway.
Actually voting/not voting. Even if I don't vote, I'm expressing a clear choice, since I may not support the views of any of the candidates standing for elections.
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Do you think that the USSR or the UK could have even stopped Hitler, let alone defeated him, without US aid?
And what makes you think that the US could have won the war without the USSR or UK? I know that Americans have an enormously inflated ego, but let's be honest about this.
Yeah, you know, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot, Ho Ci Minh, they're really all America's fault. They were all just nice guys who'd love to trade with Canada and respect human rights, until the evil USA turned them all against us.
None of them invaded/imposed sanctions against any capitalist countries the way the US did to communist countries. And at least they did not engage in doublespeak on the scale that Americans did. Claiming to be a 'champion of democracy', the US even overthrew democratically elected communist governments in Latin American countries. As I said, Americans are the biggest hypocrites ever.
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Actually, by those terms the USA is far surpassed by the USSR, Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, all of whom were sworn enemies of the USA, and all of whom America spent blood, money and materiel fighting, in order that people like you can be free to whine about the country that has saved your liberty.
Do you think that the Allies included the US alone? Read a bit about WW2 before making such statements.
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Prior to the Russian Revolution there were no communist countries. Now, Viet Nam, North Korea, China, and many many more places on earth have been taken over with the former USSRs help. Their agenda was to 'bury the west.'
That's totally absurd logic. That's like saying that prior to the French/American revolution, there were no democratic countries, and now, since most of the world is democratic, the French/Americans must have helped them.
Their agenda was then probably to bury communism.
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dv4dev, do you mean that the US provoked the World Trade Center planes? Then you blame Clinton?
Bush responded to these planes.
Everyone, please. Let's get this absolutely straight.
We can argue about Bush's response but he didn't start this.
Yes, I do mean that the US provoked the World Trade Center bombings. US foreign policy, over the past century has been extremely self-centered, unjust and geared to meddle in affairs which do not concern them in the least. I have, some time back, posted a history of the US' interventions and military conflicts in the past century. It has been the most aggresively hegemonic superpower that the world has ever seen after Great Britian.
As they say, you reap as you sow.
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Try reading a paper once in awhile.
Good article. But your original statement was:
Is that why foriegn insurgents are bombing Iraqis? Is that why Iraqis are forming vilante groups to fight terrorists that arfe operating in the country?which makes it seem that all Iraqis are victims of Al-qaeda (the organization that your article mentions is responsible for those attacks.) and Iraqis don't have any hand in the resistance whatever. Now, does that mean that all the attacks that have been carried out against the US forces in the past year have been the work of Al-Qaeda? Seems very unlikely. It is more likely that the majority of the attacks have been carried out by dissatisfied Iraqis, and some minor ones by the Al-Qaeda.
As for all the stuff you wanted me to do, sorry Sergent Major, you are wrong.That's just your opinion. You never proved me wrong.
And any other target to instill fear, chaos and dispair. I suppose that all the Mosques they bombed had pro US markings on them? The people in the markets are wearing Stars and Stripes? Tell me, how do they know that they are killing people that are for or agains the US?I don't know which mosques they bombed or why. However, crimes as those are not always committed against the people who actually did bad things to you. They are symbols of the enemy, and that is why they become targets. To give you an example, after 9/11, numerous hate crimes were committed against Muslims in the US. Were those Muslims responsible for 9/11? No. But they were symbols of Arab terrorism (and this is by no means a way to justify their crimes.)
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KK, let us clarify a few things here.
Is that why foriegn insurgents are bombing Iraqis?Which foreign insurgents are you talking about?
Is that why Iraqis are forming vilante groups to fight terrorists that arfe operating in the country?Vigilante groups, eh? Well, let me tell you something. First of all, please give links to those statements that you just throw away without any backing. Second, if you have the links, read it carefully and seee if it mentions anywhere that the Americans are arming the Iraqis to fight the terrorists.
Third, the article may not mention it, but the vigilante groups that you are talking about may just be some common Iraqis that are being paid by the Americans to keep order.
Is that why Terrorists bomb Indonesians, Turks, Fellow Arabs, fellow Iraqis, UN workers and on and on and on.Terrorists bomb anyone who they see as a traitor/or any other US' puppeys for that matter. So it's no wonder that Osama Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, the US' prime ally in the middle east. Cause they see (correctly) the saudi regime as rulers only in name, which depends on Washington for it's survival. (incidently the US keeps silent about 'democracy and freedom' for the Saudis)
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X69
I do have a solution but the US doesn't what to try it. First remove all western military equipment & personnel from the Mideast, take it back home, mind your own business, send a monthly cheque for your oil bill to Iraq & let them do what they want. Then they will have no reason to attack you after that. Other than that, there are no other feasible solutions.
Jim
Completely agree with you. It is the US' insistence on projecting it's hegemony over the world that makes it the target of terrorist attacks. 'Live and let live', it's as simple as that. But the policymakers in Washington don't seem to understand that.
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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...l=1038394944443
Excellent article by Noam Chomsky.
Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if we were to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour terrorists as terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and complicates U.S. proclaimed principles.
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Excellent piece, BD!
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Why is it that almost every thread deviates from the topic after a few replies to a debate about capitalism/communism?
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Global nuclear disarmament monitored by an international, multilateral body.
Exactly. Disarmament must be universal, it cannot just be applied to select countries.
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What should the US do about Pakistan?
Sanctions?? Whatever it does, it shouldn't show double standards.
Should the US bring down the President and gamble that the fanatics of the ISI will not take power?Did the US worry about that when it took down Saddam or when it helped take down Salvador Allende?
It appears that the US has knowledge of all "known" Pakistan Nukes and has forced adoption of Command and Control measures to insure that they can not be used without release from the Presidents Office. Is this sufficient or should these weapons be seized under threat of nuclear attack?The US does not have the authority to seize WMD's of any other country. It can move a motion, however, in the UN to ask Pakistan to submit to IAEA inspections.
The Pakistan situation illustrates the danger of Islamic Nuclear weaponry; can Iran and others be allowed to progress this far?Why do we call it 'Islamic weaponry?' Do we call the US' nukes Christian weaponry, Israel's nukes Jew weaponry or India's as Hindu weaponry?
Some hard choices must be made - what are your thoughts?Sanctions. And a UN mandate to ask Pakistan to give up it's WMDs.
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There are far fewer poor in capitalist nations than in other systems, and their standard of living and wealth are far higher.
If you are comparing the capitalist system with a communist system, you may or may not be right. I'm not sure about the levels of poverty in a communist country, compared to that in a capitalist country. but if you compare the number of poor people in a capitalist vis a vis those in a socialist country, I disagree. Do you think that Canada or Denmark or Norway have more people living under the poverty line than the US? I think you are wrong there.
The key difference is that a poor person in the USA is free to improve their lot and there are countless "rags to riches" stories to prove it.I've heard this argument many times. However, those 'countless' stories that you are talking about, what percentage of the people living below the poverty line is that? 0.5%, 1%? Not more than that. Then how can you justify a whole economic system on that basis?
On the other hand, a poor person (i.e. pretty much everybody) in a "socialist paradise" has no freedom and therefore cannot hope for anything better.Which socialist country are you talking about here?
This is why socialism produces so much disenchantment and apathy. People do not like being given a lousy standard of living and then being told there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, so they can just live with it and be good proletarians. That's why they get upset and have a tendency to overthrow and destroy socialist regimes, whereas capitalist ones remain politically stable for centuries.You know what, first let's agree on the definition of 'socialist'.
And, btw, if you are referring to communist governments, which communist government was overthrown by it's own people? (If you're talking about the USSR, please read the book, 'At the highest Levels' by Strobe Talbott)
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Canada free rides off the US military, US technology and health sectors and its drug industry
What exactly do you mean by 'free rides?' Could you be more specific?
The US has the 2nd highest living standards in the world - Canada falling to about 15thLiving standards cannot be an accurate measure of a country's overall prosperity. The US has high living standards because it has enormously rich business tycoons like Bill Gates and Hollywod filmstars, whose worth, if added up will probably be equal to the GDP of all the African nations put together. Just the other day I read somewhere that the worth of corporations like Microsoft and Sony is more than the entire GDP of some countries.
However, that makes only the top layer of society in the US immensely rich, whereas the bottomost layer lives in abject poverty. Thus, when you take the average standard of living, it turns out to be comparitively high.
In the case of Canada, the majority of the people have the same, fairly comfortable standard of living. There are neither super rich people nor extreme poverty as in some parts of the US.
Canada, therefore trys much more to reduce the rich-poor gap as much as possible, unlike the US, which seeks to widen it.
Canada has the 2nd lowest military spend in NATO and if you normalise military spend Canada would be running 3.5 % deficits.Obviously. What do you expect? Canada spends more on healthcare and welfare programmes, it doesn't just go around the world like the US, fighting meaningless wars which have no connection to the american people whatsoever.
Cdn tax rates are 30 % above US rates.Yup. How else do you finance welfare and healthcare and other pro-people programmes? We certainly don't want to 'emulate' the US in this regard, do we?
Cdn wage rates are in general for most professions quite a bit lower than US rates [see brain drain].Canada has a smaller economy, what do you expect? That's an absolute non-issue. Which country in the world has wages as high as those in the US?
Cdn social liberalism is creating a European styled culture of egotistical self actualisers devoid of responsibility, morality and full of pious post modern nonsense centred on the belief that 'nothing matters.
That's just an illogical opinion from a conceited american. what kind of reply do you expect?
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Capitalism promotes independence.
I wish you could tell that to the people who live life on the streets, or the poor, or those who have to make a choice between paying their rent and feeding their children. I'm sure they would relish their independence very much.
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Let's remember not to post entire articles in the forums.
I'm sorry. I had provided the link, so I thought it was ok.
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It's the same old thing the Americans have been doing in South and Latin America for the past century. I don't think they will ever stop 'championing the cause of freedom and democracy' as they call it.
World Power
in The Rest of the World
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That is true. However, alliances between countries are based on mutual benefit. I don't see any benefit for the emerging economies in forming a strong alliance wit the US.
For eg, in 1998, when the then Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov visited India, he suggested a Russia-China-India alliance. Although that suggestion was not implemented at that time, it sure is not dead.
Further, it is very difficult for countries to which the US has been openly hostile in the past to ally with it. The US has been hostile to all the BRIC countries in the past. In contrast, the US was never openly hostile to Europe before WW II.
Therefore, there is very little chance that the BRIC countries will forge alliances with the US. Instead, they are in a better position to forge an alliance whithin themselves.
I don't view that as a failure for the US. Doesn't the US claim to stand for these very values? I only meant that as the world becomes multi-polar, the US will be forced to reconsider it's unilateral global policy decisions.