Sam, I'm very disappointed in you. You just refuse to blame anyone but the United States for the trouble in the Middle East. Why didn't Afghanistan just hand him over, then?
There was a never a "before violence". Cooperation worked becuase, to not cooperate was to be excluded and possibly killed. Thus proving my point, thank you.
You're wasting your time, JD. She's obviously trolling, trying to incite as much foment as much anger as possible. Every thread she's visited tonight has devolved into this. I'm done with her. She's hopeless anyways...
Unfortunately, its what history tells us. http://www.isreview.org/issues/15/blood_for_oil.shtml Its against the Pashtun code of honor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali
So you really do believe that the US is responsible for the Middle East being at constant war with each other? Wow. OK, I'm out. You're obviously blind to the truth, Sam. I'm done with this thread.
Greatest threat to America: Home-grown stupidity. Poor people have no right to enter America illegally. Wealthy, intelligent people have no right to enter America illegally. Stupid Americans unwilling to leave are America's greatest threat.
I do not recall saying they did. I do recall sarcastically attempting to point out that the threat of "illegal immigrants" was overstated. Until we secure the borders and fix the immigration system we will have illegal immigrants entering our borders. For the most part these are desperate people who just want better lives. It is the U.S. Governments fault and big buisnesses fault that we HAVE an illegal immigration problem. The illegal immigrants are just doing the only thing they know to do to obtain a better life- blaming them is silly. If I lived in a Mexican shanty town you'd better bet that I'd try for a run across the border.
That makes no sense. If neither side is threatening violence, how can you say a war has been averted? There are plenty of examples of violence not being employed, despite the threat of it looming, as a result of diplomacy. There are also examples of people agreeing to remove threats of violence from the arena, in order to make negotiations easier. The US disarmament treaty with Canada, for example, remains perhaps the most valuable piece of diplomacy the US has ever executed - unless the Louisiana Purchase, made without serious threat of war on either side, outranks it. And there are a good many countries that have not gone to war as often as the US has, since WWII. In fact, no country has gone to war more often. The US bombs people because it can bomb well, and it does not use diplomacy much any more because its administrations have not been sophisticated enough to use a means requiring that kind of patient skill and subtlety. The US is run by people who think if you get 'em by the balls their hearts and minds will follow. Worse, it's run by people who think that if you've got 'em by the balls their hearts and minds have followed. And worst of all, it's run by people who regard all following of hearts and minds as proof of someone having been got by the balls. Fascism won some important victories in WWII, and among them was the inculcation into the US worldview of the perception that power grows only from the barrel of a gun. This would be OK (the US would be just an unpleasant backwater, rather than nice one to visit) if the US were not an empire, with worldwide interests to maintain - interests that cannot be maintained by violence, but require diplomacy. These interests are not going to be maintained, probably. The Canadians will gradually find other trading partners, and so will everyone else.
i seriously believe someone can give you rat poison and you will bash america till you run out of breath. what is it with you sam? i'm being serious here.
God, are you really this dense. People cooperated BECUASE of the threat of violence. In that case fail to cooperate and you were cast out of the group to fend for yourself.
I love it when people post links to obviously partisan sites as "proof" of their own worldview, too. (See Sam's link to "International Socialist Review").
Ice, the fact the US may have gone to war more often than any other nation since the close of WW2, a claim that needs to substantiated, does not necessarily mean those "wars" were wrongheaded or unnecessary. It also doesn't mean diplomacy wasn't attempted, either. If we take the case of Iraq, which every single thread on this site winds up discussing thanks to the obvious fondness of a few disgruntled members, diplomacy was attempted before the first Gulf War and this latest campaign. In both cases, Saddam refused to yield to international law and the threat of force. So an armed conflict began. How that "proves" the US is trigger-happy or has a fondness for "bombing" is beyond me.
