Category: News and Views
I have no words for this, except oh my god:
http://counterpunch.com/lindorff05242008.html
One sided much? Just remember different cultural norms require different responses. If a kid has an AK I'm going to shoot him before shoots me conventions be dammed. Just because you don't have child soldiers in England doesn't mean they don't exist other places.
What about the way they were treated, both in prison, and in Iraq?
A POW is a POW is a POW. *bang click click ... bang*
buck fush
that is all.
A bit of a dim witted response, wouldn't you say? Say what you want about Bush, but if a kid's got a gun and I've got one first, well you get it.
USA!
this does not surprise me in the least, considering that there are even more shocking sources for these kinds of news and news around other countries. you'd think that the CIA, the FBI and the NSA are all venevolent? you'd think that those fools, who claim to govern the "United" States of what is known as "north America" are doing good to the people by collecting taxes and constantly fingerprinting citizens' movements? and I cannot believe how people buy all this kinds of "bs"as "giving your freedom up to achieve peace and justice, in the fight of terrorism..." WAKE UP PEOPLE! the so called "TERRRORISM" has been a domestic practice, more so in the united States than elsewhere, for decades now! if you wanted freedom in the first place, there should not, and would not be a government established. Obviously, the constitution is about overthrown, and the future of what people call "this nation" is looking pretty ugly... apparently, those crazy and ridiculous shortcomings that are posted everywhere on the net and who some people (often highly missunderstood an taken as idiots) prove not to be so anymore, right? An example is how the constitution, which every school makes you believe it is perffect because it hasn't been changed in a long time, and which most people are so "proud" of, has been ignored, little by little. if you read carefully, it spells out the currency of the United States as being only gold coins (article I, section 10, first clause). What do we have now? hmm, dollar certificates (great depression starts)... to silver certificates (1970s).. to checks and credit cards... thus, where is all the gold that the United States was supposed to have? didn't the constitution explicitly forvid such things as paper money? yes, but keep in mind that the people who signed such article did so only for their current benefit; in other words, the constitution, due to its lack of updates, and mostly since it reemained silent on some areas, does not promise to rule generations other than the ones back when the country was first independent from England. If you study history (not at school or at a college) you'd be figuring out a more such things. Thanks to the original poster for that bit of information.
Let's have some context Simon. Can you now post videos of atrocities carried out by people representing other nations such as Iran, China, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Burma, Pakistan, India, Bangledesh, Nepal, and maybe even people representing groups like al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taleban, the LRA, the FARK, etc? Or does it only bother you when attrocities are carried out by people representing the United States of America?
i find some of the replies to this subject to be very amusing. I know I know, it is not entertaining to be reading about murdering and torturing of children, but none the less, the level of brain-washing exercised by the American government and mainstream media and the success of creating a generation of ignorance is so overwhelming. so, it is not the subject that entertains me, but the gullibility of some people is what makes me laugh. Those who are justifying American actions in Iraq forgot that America is the one who invaded Iraq, Iraq did not Invade America. Can't they think for a moment and imagine what they would do if the U.S. got invaded by another power? Would they justify the torture of American children by the armies of an invading power?
Well, to senior, the reason the U.S. is held to a different moral standard than all the countries you mentioned is their own "self imposed" status as the freeest, fairest and greatest nation on earth. If the student who has claimed to be the smartest in the class suddenly gets a C+ on the exam people would make fun of him/her for it endlessly whereas you expect that of someone who has made no such claims and scores consistent Ds. Falling of the moral high horse can hurt, certainly.
Actually this is a topic for a whole different board. I am really curious why Americans always feel that the only way they can be patriotic is to claim to be better than others, loving your country always involves claiming its superiority, usually in the face of a lot of evidence pointing otherwise (human development index, income per capita, infant mortality rate, crime rate, healthcare .. on studies in those fields U.S. has been ranking barely in the top 10 for some, way outside the top 20 for others).
In Iceland, at least, we can proudly claim to love our nation, our culture and our country but we wouldn't dream of claiming it's better than anywhere else or that we are somehow above other nations, we just love our country and that's that, we strife to improve it and there are a lot of things to be improved.
The U.S. has some of the greatest people in the world and I am very fond of it (believe itor not), I'm saddened to see their reputation dragged through the mud by the cowboy administration, to see the arrogance of their foreign policy, breaches of international agreements and, worst of all, their refusal to co operate on environmental issues. I am hoping a new administration will bring changes in this area, I really do.
But, after this detour, well, I won't comment too much on the subject of this post, when you have wars you are bound to have attrocities, it's sad and we've seen it all before, we'll see it again.
Yes, and we invaded Iraq on a wim? Husseinhas gassed his own people, nearly wiped Kuwait off the map, created and kept weapons of mass distruction, committed countless acts of torture and violence on people indiscriminately and violated several U.N. sanctions. I really don't see why the U.S. is continually pointed at as the bad guy.
ok, the answer is simple. it is because the U.S. is the bad guy. 90 percent of the countries in the world commit acts of opression, torture and violence against their own people. Do you propose that we invade the entire world. Robert Mogabi is doing much worst against his own people. why doesn't the american military go and save the poor people Zimbabwe? The US has the largest stockpile of weapon's of mass destruction, did you forget that we are the only country who ever used a nuclear device against other people? did this cross your mind? and Iraq did not whipe Kuwait from the face of the earth, it is still there and thriving, however, Israel oblitarated the Palestinian society and erased Palestine from the face of the earth. What does the US do? only send billion of dollars in military and financial assistance to Israel. If you only thought for few minutes, may be you would have tried to post something more critical.
"ok, the answer is simple. it is because the U.S. is the bad guy. 90 percent of the countries in the world commit acts of opression, torture and violence
against their own people. Do you propose that we invade the entire world. Robert Mogabi is doing much worst against his own people. why doesn't the american
military go and save the poor people Zimbabwe?"
You mean we're not? The US has presence in Zimbabwe. Not three weeks ago, American aid for school children was apprehended. All the food intended for the kids was taken. So yes, I'm well aware of the atrocities that take place in parts of the world other than the Middle East. But you strike me as the type to not care about acts of this nature unless the US is committing them. I base that on how you first brought up the issue by pointing out our fault of not invading. We most certainly are doing our part to help the people.
"The US has the largest stockpile of weapon's of mass destruction,"
Good. We're probably gonna need it.
"did you forget that we are the only country
who ever used a nuclear device against other people? did this cross your mind?"
Oh, you mean on the Japanese in World War II? The ones who bombed Pearl Harbor, were responsible for the Baton Death March and performed unspeakable acts of torture on their prisoners of war? Yeah, I remember something about that. We dropped a big bomb on those folks. Went BOOOOOOM! Again, you only point out what the US did. There was a reason for it.
"and Iraq did not whipe Kuwait from the face of the earth, it is still there and thriving,"
And why do you suppose that is? I'll tell you why, since you feel it necessary to only point out the half of history that criminalizes America. It's because George H. W. Bush sent our boys in with the intentions of kicking some ass, possibly taking names while doing so. And that we did, sir. *smiles at the flag tacked to the wall*
"however," Israel oblitarated the Palestinian society and erased Palestine from the face of the earth. What does the US do? only send billion
of dollars in military and financial assistance to Israel."
Keeping in mind the defiset that the antiwar/antiBush people continually talk about, that "billion of dollar" shouldn't seem so trivial and meaningless. Israel's the size of ... what, San Bernadino California? *sigh* We do what we can.
"If you only thought for few minutes, may be you would have tried to post something more critical."
Oh, so since I disagree with you, I must not be thinking? That's a hell of a way to look at things, Professor. I'd hate to see what you do to your students gradewise when their opinions conflict with yours.
"we do what we can" seems a rather crippled attempt at many things. The so called "war in Vietnam" was done because the United States tried to make things in the surface to look like they were the nicest things that could ever happen. Of course the United States should not believe it is above other countries. Such idiotic way of thinking leads to disasters like the ones in the past, like the ones occurring right now, and the ones that will occur in the future if mentality is not changed. The united States sees a problem within another country and wants to stick its nose as far as it can. Sometimes people would like issues to be resolved among themselves by the way. We would usually call on people when we would need help. It is kind of funny,t hat the United States claims to "erradicate and prevail" over terrorism in Colombia, though the only thing the media has brought to the attention of the public is that Bush has broadcasted a message urging the Uninted States to support the militias... he then threatens the congress by saying that a message would be broadcasted around the world about the United States (which has been done since perhaps the 50s) degrading the "oh so beloved land of the free' reputation. I am thankful none of this sort of invassions are happening in Colombia. Weapons of mass destruction have indeed been a big part of the united sates. The problem here is that the more power, the more control the government wants over its people. We'll probably need weapons of mass destruction? So what, we can kill the whole world and no one can get away with it? weapons of mass destruction... are already in place. The terrible music on the "charts", the media, the new education systems, the distortion and alteration of the economy, ETC ETC. Maybe if you study history outside the confines of high school and prentice hall books will you ever be able to dig deeper into other areas or research. Every countries has weaknesses and the united Sates does more so for crediting itself as the capital of the world. For a start you can look at leaked documents and the electronic frountier foundation site. If there was no money, and favors were used as reciprocating for products and government was not in place, such stupid trouble and wasting of attentoin and time would never exist.
I'm sorry, but the above sounds like the mindless ramblings and wanderings of your run-of-the-mill anarchist. That's just what I'm getting out of it.
And yes, America is the top dog. Anyone with any illusions about that is dreaming, alright? We have our issues, no doubt about it. But the fact remains we are the world's largest democracy, we have a well equipped military with only China as a possible match for strength, we are the most civil (make no mistake. We take prisoners of war and treat them like kings while other countries cut off their heads and film it to be released to the American public), we are the ones the world calls upon to help with the very conflicts we're constantly bashed for. We stuck our noses into the conflict in the Middle East because we were attacked. And I love how you completely disregard what I said about always having a reason for military action. "Oh, The US did this, America did that! Horrible country full of fascist pigs!" Yeah yeah yeah. I'm sorry, but if I am attacked, I will retaliate, as will the US. And it did.
Aggression is not justifiable simply because other nations act that way.
No weapons of masss destruction were found. The United Nations had already decommissioned them. The United Nations while sanctioning the first gulfg war and Kuwait invasion did not sanction the second gulf war and Iraq invation. Britain and the US therefore acted illegally and simply invaded Iraq. Speaking out about violations of human rights by our governments and military does not indicate we condone the behaviour of Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Stalin or any other meglamaniac. it means we value our freedom of speech but do not value nationalistic war mongering.
I'm sorry, but the above sounds like the mindless ramblings and wanderings of your run-of-the-mill anarchist. That's just what I'm getting out of it.
For one, here we go with classifications and groups and categorizing people... can you give me a phylum, a class and a genotype?
And yes, America is the top dog. Anyone with any illusions about that is dreaming, alright? We have our issues, no doubt about it. But the fact remains
we are the world's largest democracy, we have a well equipped military with only China as a possible match for strength, we are the most civil (make no
mistake.
Oops, missmatched parenthesis huh? oh right... worlds largest democracy... with a few frauds and cheatings on the voice of the people... if you read, there will be sources that recently confirm some kind of tampering with votes and the like. Obviously all sorts of stuff will happen when you have the worlds largest democracy (if you want to call that a democracy anymore). Politics do things on THEIR favor and not the favor of the people. Look too at the internet and the so debated piracy. The RIAA (from the same United States) is claiming copyright infringement everywhere, charging thousands and thousands of dollars, without even gathering evidence. Whats worse is the way the money is used... here we go again with it.
We take prisoners of war and treat them like kings while other countries cut off their heads and film it to be released to the American public),
we are the ones the world calls upon to help with the very conflicts we're constantly bashed for.
First of all, iraq never called you,neither did vietnam.. and who knows how many other countries. Besides, I haven't heard of the iraq war in the "news" for a LONG while, other than deaths after deaths of the Americans. The people living in iraq are also important, though I of course acept the extreme case of individualism. And of course now we find that as an excuse... to say that the economy is degradating, gas prizes are increasing, ETC ETC.
We stuck our noses into the conflict in the Middle East
because we were attacked. And I love how you completely disregard what I said about always having a reason for military action. "Oh, The US did this, America
did that! Horrible country full of fascist pigs!" Yeah yeah yeah. I'm sorry, but if I am attacked, I will retaliate, as will the US. And it did.
So first of all these people were going after someone named osama... yeah right, and somehow they ended up on Iraq... besides, haven't you noticed that the police and the FBI is somewhat reluctant to give more information about 911? Was Osama ever captured? I don't htink so either. The world in itself needs more transparency, especially if you are a democracy. You, the same people, elected other people, and put your trust on these people. Then how come is it so hard to obtain "certain kinds" of "information?"... at this point what i have to say is.. "god bless America", 'cause they really need it.
I like the demagogical views of scott. I truly find them entertaining. First he tried to moralise for the nuclear attack on Japan, telling us it is ok to kill half a million Japanese civilians because their country attacked us and killed 2400 of our soldiers. then he tried to tell us that we treat prisoners of war like kings, for this reason we put them in the most beautiful place in Cuba, in Guantanamo bay to avoid any civil supervision over or giving any information about the most modern techniques of torture. He forgot to say that the Abu Grayb scandle was a chinese conspiracy to muddle our reputation. Then he tells us that we are so good because we did not follow the example of al-Qaeda who cut off the heads of few western prisoners, confusing al-Qaedah with other nations. He also thinks we are the world largest democracy, of course larger than India. yeah right.
besides... there was a document which obviously was legitimate (the uantanamo bay manual for 2004). This appeared on wikipedia, this appeared on whired news, it was all over the place, like hotcakes. Well guess what... either this was very convincing or very "sensitive", and of course whoever was responsible for the reportage of such document did a darn good job, because it was confirmed that some of the IPS making comments to lead people into the gitmo's website were from anonymous internet cafes, from a few officials, i guess to obscure their identities. Regardless, this gave insight on how these prisoners are treated. Several officials and people attempted to take most sites down, and the controversy was so big that it seemed that the only remedy was to advertise the guantanamo bay website so that the people didn't get the "wrong information." Look at immigrants. And before you tell me that they are a bunch of "do nothing fools who utilize and deplete all the resources of this wonderful place", I URGE you to think again, 'cause i am going to differ greatly. For one, immigrants have a very lengthy process, which can last for decades. For one, they have to be in such a "terrible" situation on their home country that in plain english, they have to suck up to the United States to be able to stay. not only that but while they are in the legal process for immmigrating, they have to pay taxes, they ahve to pay every single thing that most citizens either are exempt from because of social security income or insurance, they ahve to pay immigration fees, they have to pay a lawyer to get representation in court. Of course this just shows a vast amount of unwillingness to htink outside the box and be a bit more educated in part of the attacker of these posts. I never said I believed on conspiracy theories, because they are of course not proven. It is necessary though to grasp a few things and sometimes these things help connect the dots. On the leaked documents part... (and don't even get me started), simply put it this way. The hypocrisy of the government to make presidential speeches and a few other works available on the public domain earned them quite a few strains. For one, the United states has freedom of information (cough cough), and freedom of speech. The simple act of restricting such freedom by taking websites down or blocking pages is a direct violation of your beloved first amendment (which you'll know from your government class which you apparently failed). Secondly, if we have freedom of speech and freedom of information, then why is it so hard to know what's goign on in Iraq? There is no single site sponsored by the government that tells you what goes on at the Guantanamo bay, or inside the white house, or what is going on with the new copyright enforcement bill. Yet again, we make other things available. This is of course NOT trying to defamate the government in any way. Just htink about it. This is in other words, lack of transparency, which means that things are either kept from you or the information is changed. Apparently some of the sites I had mentioned above did good work, because they have been asked to be taken down by courts, governments and the like. But guess what, whether you like it or not, that is not going to happen because of the free speech law. Besides, the internet is all over the world not just the United States, but of course the uNited states has tried to impress all of us by its desperate attempts to take over the world. The key point here though is that corruption is whats affecting all of us. The scary part is that you don't even care. Besides that though, I can leave you with this: Bush math or logic has never seaced to amuse me. So much missmatched facts, crippled with sugarcoatting and less than a sentence on current events. Think about it, dear little old Bush makes himself NOT look honorable. He comes in and presents himself like this regular, straight-up talking guy. You are a president, you are supposed to be more suiting to your charge and not look like this random regular guy who is at the white house, 'cause someone entering the whitehouse with that kind of presentation is one of these things that just "ain't gonna happen". It just doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Even the same contradictions and faults that you see on your beloved fox news (change the O for a U please?) seem to tell me something. So, even if I didn't go as far as to read all of what i am talking about, I would still be able to figure out these kinds of things. i am sick of seeing how many people believe everything they see on tv... tv is NOT the real world! That's ok though, I guess people from Latin America are hard to understand, and indeed are "aliens" (as labelled by law) and listen to some kind of music that should be outlawed in the United States, when it is really present all over Florida and most of California, and lets not forget that some of it was created in New York. The more I write, the thicker a skull gets.. anyway, my point is not to "retaliate" or anything, but just to leave some crytical thinking out there. This world is not so wonderful or "perfect" anymore.
All I'm gonna say is:
I am sick of the whole brainwashing deal! Now, I love this country...but the government is fucking everything up...gunking up the works.
You know why? It's the republicans, that's why.
They have the money and the power and they're driving us down the drain.
true margorp. The republicans are truly hypocritical and sleezy. They spend over a trillion dollars of our tax money in bail outs for the wealthy, yet call obama a socialist, for saying in the context of lowering taxes for the middle class, we need to spread the wealth around. To the sleezy republicans it is ok to spread the money around upward to benifit the thieves in the big banks and big corporations with a trillion dollars bail out, but to spread the money around downward to help the middle class is socialism. I am not a fan of obama, in fact his position on Palestineian rights a subject dear to me is even worse than John Mcbush, but deep in my heart i feel he will be better for Americaa and for world peace. In addition, he respects the american voters by addressing issues of importance to them, unlike the republicans who are trying to demonise their opponents or scare the american public as the Palan Mcbush are consistently doing.
indeed, thank you for pointing out this truth to the community.
The prevailing rules are unspoken, but they nonetheless dominate our lives in nearly every way.
See it for anything, except for what it really is.
Say anything you like about it but never, ever, speak the truth.
There are many ways to avoid getting to the truth. Doing battle is a very popular way. First, see it for anything except what it is, then pick a fight. Artificially create two sides in the argument then be incendiary and blame others for the non-truth. People can't resist jumping into any lame brained argument and so they do. You've then got an entire group of people at each other's throats, exchanging insults and blame, tossing out arguments and curse words, and for all of the tremendous energy that gets expended, there is literally no risk at any time that common sense will prevail allowing all involved
to clue into the real issues.
We've become a very "take sides" population, much to our collective shame and failure. We hear some false notion floating by and immediately decide what side we're on. It's just too much fun to hunker down on your spot and defend it with all you've got. It's just too intoxicating to generate as much ill will and intolerance towards those who disagree with you as you possibly can, because hating others is fun. It makes you feel superior and self righteous and that must mean you're absolutely entitled to act like a total jerk to others.
Intolerance, ignorance, arrogance and violence are all hairs on the same ugly wart. Where on earth did we get the idea that this is something to boast about?
Maybe it's just me but here's what I know. If you stop listening, you stop learning anything. If you stop learning, you will never understand. If you think you know it all, you don't know the half of it.
It's much too easy for the engineers of public perception to rig and ignite mutual contempt bonfires, and heaven knows, we've got a whole lot of those blazing all over the place these days. The main anchoring bonfire is the right vs. the left. The right literally reviles the left, and the left truly loathes the right. Only there really is no such thing as left and right. These are terms without definition, they could mean anything, and so in truth they don't mean anything at all. There is no right and left, there's only right and wrong, and you don't need to be a card carrying member of anything to participate in discerning those things. The whole left/right paradigm is a great big fake out, a perfect and enduring distraction that is eternally stoked and fired up to keep the entire country from getting to the truth. We have to get past this big fat lie, else we'll stay pointlessly suspended in it for ever. We deserve better. We can do better.
We have to get to the truth to get at what's really the cause of our imperfect world. The fact is that the real cause of all our common woes are people who don't want the truth getting around. Because of that, truth is a very rare commodity out there.
The truth is the greatest enemy in the world to liars. Liars can't exist in an atmosphere of openness and truth. Truth immediately shuts them down, in a powerful, humiliating way. Truth is such a powerful weapon it really surprises me how many of us are perfectly happy with pretending it doesn't exist. We prefer to do battle over supplied false divisions of opinion, based on incomplete, imperfect knowledge and understanding of the subject, perfectly content to settle for only the surface level information catapulted out here by the media which we absolutely believe is the whole story. It's just pitiful.
We are a people so bored, so cabin fevered, so starved for meaning and substance that we'll grab for anything at all that comes down the pike, and mount
it like a dime store mechanical pony ride. We all want our turn on the ride, we all have our dimes ready, we all want to feel like we're alive for a moment now and then. All we've been granted is the pointless exercise of taking sides, so that's what we do, and we do it with all our might. In fact, dragging the truth into the picture would deprive us of our little piece of the action, and so we have no real desire to know the truth. We've actually come to
enjoy the lies and believe the games mean something.
Lies and games are the defining characteristics of how our government does business, and since it's all we've ever known, it's what feels normal to us. We've learned to hate and reject the truth as much as they do. We're conditioned to support everything but the truth, to see everything but the point, to hear anything but the whole story. We're not affecting the workings of the government. We're usually just chasing our own tails around and around in circles, like dogs, courteously distracting ourselves with pointless activity to let them continue to perpetrate their private agendas at our expense, unencumbered. No wonder they feel no compulsion to be accountable to the public. No wonder they disdain us and consider us irrelevant idiots. We kind of act like we are. Both irrelevant, and idiots. We're caged and controlled down to our opinions, and we're just sure we're free. Boy oh boy, have we had a job done on us.
The general public has very definitely been conditioned to be the guard dogs of the elite, and we are used as such, led by establishment ordained and owned lavishly paid mass media wind up toys. We're our own worst enemy. There is nothing wrong with asking questions of those who have all of the money and all of the power and are using it all but entirely out of our eyesight and earshot. But tell much of the deeply conditioned public that, and they'll be down your throat, telling you to leave if you don't like it here. They can't even see their own complicity in the crimes being perpetrated against them. They've taken their sides, and those sides are never what they obviously should be: their own.
Post seventeen is the last post I saw before insults, veiled though they were, began to fly. And before that, I think everyone made it pretty clear what side they were on. So I must know. What exactly defines someone's own "side", if not the political party they share the most views with? And what is this "truth" that is coninually dangled in front of me? Regarding the war, I mean. We could all go back and forth for days and still be nowhere nearer to showing each other anything. The RIAA, the FBI and all of those other oficial sounding acronyms have nothing to do with the topic at hand. I have made all of my views known, but have only been contradicted and insulted. Someone, please explain. What is it about defending ourselves is so disgusting?
the "side" is whatever reflects the majorities system of values. The "truth" is the democratic way!
Stomp out the republic!
lol