America is one of the most morally bankrupt organizations

im with weilder. american leaders are demoralised terrorist bastards

thay say they want to fix iraqs govt., look at theirs

-voting is continually rigged because of stupid laws and loopholes
-you have to pay for life saving operations yourself
-the rich are the only ones able to have any major say in the running of the country so the poor get pushed lower and lower
-petrol companies have so much say in the gevernment that it is nearly impoosible for alternative fuels to take over meannig that they invade other countries for this polluting fossil fuel

as for their weapons

-america trained osama bin laden and provided im with weapons
-all even remotely destructive weapons hussein had, he purchased from the US
-the US has enough nukes to destroy the earth 40 times over
-the US secretly develops biological weapons that are hundreds of times worse than any they claim iraq had

 

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The keyword is former here I would think

Unfortunately there is a small problem here. The US has no trouble supporting dictators that support the US regime. It doesn't really matter if these dictators commit genocide or not. Saddam aslo used to be a big buddy of the the US. He then did something that imbalanced the powerstatus in the middle east and the US and other dictatorial buddies of the US in the middle east didn't like that.
In the end the US only opposes dictators based on power decisions. It doesn't make any moral judgement. Could it be because the US government operates on similar principals as other dictatorships?

 

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No, this is no problem at all. As distasteful as dictatorship is, and as much as we believe in democracy, in the real world, where the stakes are often very high, we sometimes have to cooperate with dictatorships, e.g. China. It doesn't mean that we love them, it just means that the stakes are high. That in no way indicates that we want someone like Hussein to manufacture a stockpile of WMD. We don't want him to do that, because such weapons could be used against us down the road.

 

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You actually have to pay for your own medical care? Those fiends!!!

Yes, because Afghanistan had been invaded by the Soviets, and we were funding a rebel movement trying to force them to leave.

We spent decades in a doomsday arms race with the Soviet Union. We had little choice but to match their weapons development.

To some extent, this has been true since the dawn of time, however, in America, everyone has the right to vote, rich people frequently go to jail if they break the law, and there are few barriers preventing anyone with the brains and the gut from becoming wealthy no matter where they start out in life.

What rot. You wouldn't care to document any of this, would you?

 

as for number 2 in vslayer's "rot list", there is a very well documented case of why oil-based vehicles became popular in the first place.

The Rockefellers supported the passage of prohibition with an estimated $4 million dollars; the outlawing of alcohol made gasoline the only legal major fuel source for the booming car industry. This is after 'helping' to support the continuance of the alcohol tax in 1894.

How much money does Esso (Exxon/Mobil to us Americans) give to campains of legislators who support their agendas?
http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v4/alrtv4n5.asp
and who gets elected to office? the one who the people know about, more often than not. Who is more known? The canidate with ads on every TV station every day of the week.
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topraces.asp

 

Well, first of all, lets talk about the present, not the 19th century. The question is the character of America in the present and recent past.

The fact that those with money are able to influence the world, hardly shows that the US is unusually corrupt. This is pretty much the way of the world. We try to pass laws, such as the anti-trust laws, to prevent the worst abuses. There are probably sinister things going on outside the view of the general public. Of course, just because special interests make contributions, doesn't necessarily mean that they get what they want. I wouldn't be surprised if the oil interests were suppressing the development of synthetic fuels, but neither do I have evidence of it. I doubt that the US is singularly bad with respect to the ability of the wealthy to use their money to obtain special treatment.

But regarding item 2 on the rot list, there is also the assertion that we currently invade other countries to appropriate their oil, and I still would like to see some evidence specifically of this.

 

There is one important factor which seems to be blocking my arguments here - information often takes years to become public knowledge. Alot of these sorts of dealings are morally and legally questionable, and those involved go to extreem lengths to hide their activities.

Part of the reason we know so much about the private and underhanded dealing of those in power up to the 1970's is that those people are now dead, and people finally feel free to talk about the issues.

You cannot expect alot of this information to be currently available about current situations; you have to read between the lines. However, I'll bet dollars to dougnuts that the evidence you are looking for now will be readily available in 5-10 years, when people are less afraid of retaliation for telling.
The lack of hard facts doesn't let us off the hook in the area of double checking everything the government does, though - if the War for Oil theory is correct, at least in part, then it will be *very* hard to find hard evidence; circumstancial evidence should be plentiful, and is. By keeping the pressure on the administration, they will have to deal very carefully, and possibly even avoid certain actions which could undermine their secrecy.
If the War for Oil theory is wrong, then the administration will have nothing to fear, and will provide those quesitoning them with full disclosure of policy reasonings.
The missing 32 pages of the 9/11 commision report, and the secret energy commision meetings w/ Dick Cheney suggests otherwise, however.

And at this point, then, you have a choice to let the possibility slide because you don't have evidence, or to hammer away, in case there is some evidence to be had. I opt for the latter.

 

What a cheap excuse.

 

Name calling is the lowest form of debate.

 

Well, then, anyone who claims that we went into Iraq to steal their oil should make it clear that this is speculation without evidence. The reason why I don't spend a lot of time speculating about the motive for the invasion is that I had, for some time, wanted us to invade Iraq to preclude the possibility of an Iraqi WMD being used in a US city one day, and it seems to me that that reason provides more than enough justification for invasion. Even if, we invaded Iraq for an ignoble reason, which I do not believe is the case, then it only means that we did the right thing for the wrong reason.

 

i would have called you a shallow bastard if i had been name calling.

You claimed the US has to support dictatorships because there the stakes are really high in the reall world.

So the most powerful country is afraid suddenly. They must undermine democracies and reinstate dictatorships because the stakes in the real world are high. Because democracies are a threat to democracy.

Sounds like a very cheap argument to me.

 

I certainly never said that democracies are a threat to democracy. I said that there is a lot at stake in the real world, and that sometimes our best move is to cooperate to some extent with dictatorships. I presume, then, that you would like to see us break off all relations and trade with China?

Anyway, my main point was that we did not invade Iraq primarily to topple a dictator. That was a fringe benefit. We invaded Iraq because we believed that Hussein was probably still pursuing WMD, and that he had not destroyed all of the WMD that he had once owned, and that these weapons might be used against the free world sometime in the not too distant future.

An please try to restrain the personal insults. They contribute nothing to the discussion and usually say more about the person making them than about the person receiving them.

 

If you had some moral backbone.

Invade china then.

i didn't insult anyone. I just gave an example of an insult.

 

Well, I am hardly in charge of these things, but I believe that while we must always encourage democracy, we cannot practically refuse always to deal with dictatorships. The world is too complex a place with too much at stake. We ought to encourage the dictators we deal with to move towards democracy, although this is unlikely to be very effective.

You misunderstand my beliefs. I am not saying that no one may have WMD (although it would certainly be better if no one did). Most of the major powers pursue risk averse policies, and will probably not do anything really risky with their WMD. I am only saying that the worst of the worst dictators, who seem unstable and crazy enough to use their WMD should not be allowed to have them. A prime candidate for invasion would be a dictator who has developed WMD and seeks to acquire more, who has used them, who has tried to annex neighbors, and who has ties to terrorism.

 

The problem is more that the US government actively kills off democracies and puts dictatorships in their place.

The US would fit this description.

 

Sounds bad. When did we do that?

Wrong.

1. We are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship.
2. We used WMD only at the initial invention of the bomb and never again in the 60 years since then.
3. We certainly do not promote or support terrorism, which I define as the intentional targetting of non-combatants as the primary intended target of an attack.
4. We haven't tried to annex our neighbors in a very long time.

 

America has TWICE the amount of debt then EVERY SINGLE country in the world. 2 times!!!!!!!!!!

it if it did have morals (lol) then America would be broke anyway, either way they are either morally or financially broke

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Chile, Nicuragua, etc etc etc.




Wrong.

1. We are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship.
So?

2. We used WMD only at the initial invention of the bomb and never again in the 60 years since then.
You used it. Or would it be ok if Saddam used the nuke twice? Agent orange, Daisy cutters, carpet bombing


3. We certainly do not promote or support terrorism, which I define as the intentional targetting of non-combatants as the primary intended target of an attack.
You trained them. You trained the death squads in latin America interrogation techniques...sorry..I mean torture techniques.


4. We haven't tried to annex our neighbors in a very long time.
First you say you didn't, and now it is ok because you didn't in a long time.

 

Please provide a citation to the fact that we replaced a democracy with a dictatorship in any of these cases.

So, you implied that we were a dictatorship in this exchange:

Therefore, you were wrong, since we are a democratic republic and not a dictatorship.

The point is that neither the US nor most of the major powers presents a clear danger of using its WMD in a reckless way, which someone like Hussein did. No human can really be trusted with WMD, but a latter day Hitler like Hussein simply cannot be allowed to have them.

I don't believe that the US supports the practice of intentionally targetting non-combatants for attack. If you believe otherwise, please post a citation. My primary point, however, is that Hussein is very friendly with terrorist groups to whom he might give WMD. These terrorist groups might use those WMD to kill huge numbers of Americans or allies. I don't think that there is much risk of the US giving its WMD to a terrorist group. This is one factor in the determination that Hussein was not someone who ought could be allowed to amass WMD.

Where did I say that America has never tried to annex its neighbors? This is a complete fabrication on your part. Lots of things happend in the 19th and prior centuries. I am discussing America in the present era. No, I'm not saying it's okay. I'm saying that since this was something that Saddam Hussein seemed inclined to do, it is another factor in the determination that he was not someone who could be allowed to amass WMD.

 

everyone should take a basic course on South American history to really learn how much the US interferes with other countries, especially for their own personal gain.