Is America Altruistic?

[nova_satori]

Jealousy. What a simple answer to such a complex answer. if only it was so easy.

[SirRiff]

Anti-Americanism is driven and fueled by envy, spite and basically a lack of the talent to survive and compete in the modern world which is led by America.

have you looked at some of the studies and polls to come out about american knowledge recently?

i cited one several times showing that the large sections of young americans couldnt find Israel, Iraq, Afganistan, and many other well known global hotspots on an unmarked map, not to mention oceans.

then you have this great poll recently saying that near 70% of americans believe saddam was "likely" involved in 9/11, which of course comes straight from Bushs mouth.

truly truly pathetic.

sorry, but Canada, or the EU, or Asia for that matter dont envy the US. thats just another fictional excuse like the 9/11-saddam link that people use in times of stress to make themselves feel better.

SirRiff

[nova_satori]

Let's have some fun with polls and pollers from across the world.

Has bush lied about WMD?

Americans' informed, don't make me laugh

Idiot Americans have no idea about China's strength

Alright, I'm with the right-wing here. Once.

Ties to corporate scandals? I think so!

Majority of these voters are non-americans

Pro-bush? hardly.

International pollers are far more intelligent

More Bush bashing!

[Black Dog]

When you state, as you did, that corporate interests drove our actions in Iraq, you are repeating Marxist drivel - even if you have never read Marx.

So dismissive. Yet the evidence is there for all to see. Contracts awarded without competition to th elikes of Cheney's former company Halliburton, corporate criminal World Com, G.O.P intimates in Betchel...the list goes on.

Corporate Invasion.

U.S. interventionism has long been driven by domestic business interests. That may run contrary to the version of history peddled in America, but it's right there in front of you. I can only chalk your reluctance to even consider the possibility that America's motives may be anything but pure as simple cognitive dissonance.

The terrorist attacks on America have absolutely nothing to do with Panama or Chile. This is what Ned is trying (in vain, I suspect) to pound into your skulls.

America isn't suffering terrorist attack because it failed to contribute enough money to the outside world, or because it sent troops into Panama, backed South Vietnam or Chiang Kai-shek, or because it didn't send enough food when people were starving in Bangladesh.

One cannot draw a direct connection between terrorist attacks of 9-11 and U.S. actions in, say, Chile, but there is a common thread between them nonetheless. That thread is U.S realpolitik in foreign matters. Panama is a good example. Like Osama bin Laden, Manuel Noreiga was a CIA creation that happened to slip his leash. Ditto Saddam Hussein (the original Ba'athist coup was CIA-backed and, as everyone knows by now, Sadddam was an American client right up till the invasion of Kuwait.) By examining these events in a historical context, we can see how U.S. foreign policy can create monsters that often turn on their masters. While OBL's list of grievences with the west may stretch back to the time of Saladin, a historical analysis demonstrates how U.S. foreign policy as practiced over the past century and a half can give rise to terrorists and so-called "rouge states". This is not, as some would wish to paint it, "blaming the victim" but simply establishing a historical context that is generally lacking in today's discourse.

[SirRiff]

Manuel Noreiga was a CIA creation that happened to slip his leash.

OMG i completely forgot about Panama.

man, tehre are SO many secret CIA blackops going on its hard to remember them.

the average person doesnt have a clue how many people have died in US supported wars for some vauge concept of security.

if you wanted to achieve real security, they could have stayed in afganistan and fought the warlords. by now it would be fairly rebuilt.

i dont know why people cant take in the string of illegal violent secret wars the US has led with brutal allies, for extreme political reasons, and at the expense of millions, and hold them to a higher level of conduct when they go attack iraq under false pretense and misusing the fear of 9/11.

when world opinions goes against them (as it is) americans will suffer in the long term.

SirRiff

[FastNed]

Watch my lips and listen carefully - world opinion and a buck will buy you a cup of coffee!

Quote all the headlines from the liberal media - make a wish list of all the Indymedia Leftist tirades - chant your anti-American mantra until you are blue in the face but remember this:

We could care less!"

There is no "Get home free Card" for killing Americans. You can run but you can't hide, we will never forgive and never forget.

On 9.11 all other agendas ceased. They are of no import. Those who elected to sneak into our home and kill our women and children are learning a lesson in the "Law of the Jungle." They do p1ss poorly at that as in everything else. And when forced to descend to that level, Americans exceed at that as they do in just about everything else.

Chant your mantras and inanities - we'll just pat you in the head as we go by on our serious business.

[Black Dog]

Quote all the headlines from the liberal media - make a wish list of all the Indymedia Leftist tirades - chant your anti-American mantra until you are blue in the face but remember this:

We could care less!"

There is no "Get home free Card" for killing Americans. You can run but you can't hide, we will never forgive and never forget.

On 9.11 all other agendas ceased. They are of no import. Those who elected to sneak into our home and kill our women and children are learning a lesson in the "Law of the Jungle." They do p1ss poorly at that as in everything else. And when forced to descend to that level, Americans exceed at that as they do in just about everything else.

Chant your mantras and inanities - we'll just pat you in the head as we go by on our serious business.

The mantras and inanities I'll leave to you (seriously: you've repeated the same stock phrases- "we will never forgive and never forget", etc- so many times that I've lost count. Time to get a new schitck.)

Your Toby Keith-nationalism and complete ignorance of intelligent discourse indicates you are totally unable to justify your country's course of action on a rational level and must therefore resort to Stone Age "eye for an eye" sentiments and macho posturing. Which is easy for you, I suppose, since you're not the one hunkered down in some foreign desert. All that bluster may make you feel like a tough guy, but it certainly doesn't lend any credibility to your position. Put another way: by crouching the debate in terms of a life or death, total war struggle between the U.S.A and a nebulous "other", you provide a justification for additional strikes against the U.S. population.

Not that it matters to you. Just fall in line behind that flag and don't ask questions: just swear fealty to fatherla..oops, "homeland" and send someone else's sons to die so that you can feel good about yourself.

[Hugo]

I do not understand why these leftists believe that proxy wars are somehow backing their arguments. Perhaps I haven't made myself clear before, I will try again.

America did not fight proxy wars in order to be evil and kill people. Every US President was not a mad, cackling, psychotic Marvel-comic-villain just itching for some people in some far-off land to get bombed or gassed at taxpayer's expense.

Since 1945, America has actually been at war. This is called the Cold War, and lasted until about 1989. The fact was that Soviet Communism was bent upon expanding it's influence wherever possible, by coups, insurrection or simple invasion. See Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Tito, the Middle East, China, the Pacific Rim, Africa, Cuba and Latin America, and so forth.

Contrary to what some leftists think, the USSR was not a great place to live. It was truly an Evil Empire, that sent political dissidents to gulags or simply shot them, that completely suppressed all religious belief and free expression, that conscripted its youth (for two years), and perhaps 30% of it's GDP, into its vast and offensively-natured armed forces at the total expense of consumer comfort.

When I say, comfort, I don't mean Chryslers and Playstations, I mean a 6-child-family having more than 2 rooms in their house and hot water more than a few hours a day despite the fact that both parents work like slaves in the local factory, inhaling asbestos and other carcinogens all day. American welfare claimants have it better than the average working Soviet family did.

To anyone who doubts this, look at how hard the resistance movements in the former Soviet countries fought and how desperately movements like Solidarity wanted to end the Soviet way of life and become more like America. The Soviet Union and its satellites completely sacrificed the interests and well-being of its citizens, often plunging them into disease and poverty inadvertently when it did not actively persecute and kill them, in order to pursue the interests of the state bureaucracy.

America felt that if Communism was allowed to run rampant, these forces of oppression, brutality and inhumanity would march all over the Earth, and they probably would have. So therefore, if fighting a few wars and backing a few dictators was necessary, so be it. If we back the Shah, we remove freedom in Iran. If we don't, we might well be removing freedom throughout the world. The costs of winning the Cold War might be high, but the cost of losing it would have been far, far greater, not just for Americans but for humanity.

[SirRiff]

There is no "Get home free Card" for killing Americans. You can run but you can't hide, we will never forgive and never forget.

it....it...well.... it almost sounds like you think america can do this alone...my...what a strange opinion.

look at whats happening in iraq, look at the intelligence sharing needed to secure US interets abroad, look at the world reaction when the US acts alone.

its obvious even the US cant do it alone, and the arrogent attitude shown by american leaders and its citizens, that somehow the other civilized nations of the earth dont know of suffering and fear and have no role in global security is insulting.

wait till iraq gets really bad, afganistan falls back into chaos, then we will see how fun going it alone is.

[FastNed]

Hello Black dog, you said:

send someone else's sons to die so that you can feel good about yourself

This Forum has never been a place to speak about our personal lives, it's just not that kind of Forum.

Nevertheless, I will say this much: I do regret that I am now a member of the Over The Hill Gang and too old to contribute directly in our War against these fanatics. More years ago than I like to remember, at age 17, I enlisted. I learned things I wish no young person would ever have to learn, and somehow by the grace of God survived. I wish we had a better world where no other American youth would ever have to risk their life as I once did to preserve America. But every other generation or two, there is a challenge to America and now, as then, the youth of America - the real America, not that projected by leftist media types - responds to the call as did the generations before them.

May it always be so. May we continue to pass that vision of America, that vision of a land of the free down to the waiting hands of a new generation. So long as we do, America will prevail.

[nova_satori]

FastNed: Do you know how many senators' and congressmens' childrens are in the military?

(hint, the number is double digit, do you know how many senators and congressmen there are?)

[Nuclear]

100+457=557

Bet that taught you that in your Ivy League High School, Nova!

[KrustyKidd]

Hello Black dog, you said:

QUOTE

send someone else's sons to die so that you can feel good about yourself

This Forum has never been a place to speak about our personal lives, it's just not that kind of Forum.

Nevertheless, I will say this much: I do regret that I am now a member of the Over The Hill Gang and too old to contribute directly in our War against these fanatics. More years ago than I like to remember, at age 17, I enlisted. I learned things I wish no young person would ever have to learn, and somehow by the grace of God survived. I wish we had a better world where no other American youth would ever have to risk their life as I once did to preserve America. But every other generation or two, there is a challenge to America and now, as then, the youth of America - the real America, not that projected by leftist media types - responds to the call as did the generations before them.

May it always be so. May we continue to pass that vision of America, that vision of a land of the free down to the waiting hands of a new generation. So long as we do, America will prevail.

When I was in the Airborne a few of our guys were tired of the same old same old and enlisted in the Foreign Legion. A couple of them turned themselves in to the embassy in London England. They told us that the Legion was infested with queers and alcoholics lol. One of my Sergeants back in the eighties served in Nam as a Canadian with the US. There was something like a couple thousand of them he said. I wonder as well what I would do if I were in my twenties and believed what I do now. Freeing a people, safeguarding democracy, adventure, pay and knowing you were there.

Ahhh, USA bad, I'd wear my "Saddam Rocks" sandwichboard in downtown TO instead. More chicks.

[nova_satori]

Nuclear, what a GREAT insult!

LOL. Try again.

I bet they didn't teach you superstrings, fold theory, quntum mechanics, Calculus BC, Physics C at your school.

lol.

[FastNed]

Obviously, Nova, good manners were neglected at yours.

[Nuclear]

Nuclear, what a GREAT insult!

LOL. Try again.

I bet they didn't teach you superstrings, fold theory, quntum mechanics, Calculus BC, Physics C at your school.

lol.

I apologize for the rude insult, was meant more joking that to be mean.

I did take calculus in HS but not much of the others because the degrees I have are in music and business.

[nova_satori]

Obviously, Nova, good manners were neglected at yours.

I am simply returning the same joke-favor extened to me.