LeftExchange
WHO would annex Sweden????? by
Steve, As you said, "let’s get some stuff right"!
We think, are sure, we know who the terrorists are, (the only ones we can be definite about are the dead hijackers), and we all know who the Talibans are, the guys who pray and wear turbans. But!!! Can US troops, (or the bombers) distinguish a Taliban from a harmless civilian? Can they with any accuracy shoot the bad guy and leave the innocent in peace?
1) The original statement from Eric was: "(We are the only)......who has used chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons against our foes as military strategy/ gov't policy." That "and" is pretty important and I would say it makes Eric’s claim correct. As for chemical weapons the only case I know apart from Germany’s use of mustard gas in WWI and US's use in Vietnam of "agent so and so" is when Saddam Hussein used gas against Iran with the help of chemicals that had been supplied from US. (US kept up the supplies even when knowing how it was used). And (biowar) ... there seems to be a strong case for maintaining the US army in some instances having used blankets that spread disease to fight the native Indians.
2) Your statement is NOT disputing a fact, but arguing against views I even have NOT presented. Stirring rhetorics and flaming appeals but lacking in facts. I wrote 10/15 as follows:
Because the Jews were persecuted 50 years ago doesn’t give them the right to use excessive violence. You might as well argue that a murderer had a right to shoot off his victim’s head because others violated him as a child!
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Steve: "How wrong was it for the Nazi hunters to kidnap and finally bring to justice the men who had tortured the Jews in Europe? Are you saying that no fight is worth fighting? That no values are worth defending?"
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Your last "what if" is, even for a hypothetical scenario, too far out. IF Sweden ever would be occupied by foreign forces the probability for those being American would be the greatest, especially if large sources of oil would exist in the country. Furthermore the Taliban and Bin Laden have NOT to my knowledge "annexed" US, UK or any country outside the one US and Pakistan helped them to, so the comparison is out in the blue.
May I remind you that up to 9/11 US had no quarrel with Afghanistan’s leaders even if we all for a long time have known of their barbarism!!
According to prize-winning journalist John Pilger a US diplomat said, ( the time Unocal was negotiating with the Talibans on building a pipeline), "...the Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did". Then he explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with that", he said.
Double standards of morality or what?
IF those terrorists, let’s be honest they are still suspected and not convicted, would be (in all probability) hiding someplace on Berkeley campus would you be in favor of carpet bombing that university on that suspicion (or even near certainty)? Would you accept an American being killed without proper lawful proceedings?
Double standards of morality or what?
As Pilger says, If US truly wanted to exterminate known terrorists the Marines and Rangers would be storming the beaches of Florida where more CIA-funded terrorists and ex-Latin American dictators and torturers are given refuge than anywhere else on earth.
Personally I can NOT see Americans, or other westerners for that matter, as belonging to a superior race that has special demands on humanity while certain others can be killed in pursuit of even the most pressing criminal case.
And.... I’m still waiting to hear what facts I have wrong.....
(pls note: facts, not imagined or real opinions)
Keep your wits sharp and your sword blunt!
Jerre Skog
www.skog.de
November 7, 2001
UK "knew" who a lot of the IRA terrorists were and the area they stayed. Should RAF have bombed South Armagh or Belfast based on such knowledge? If you think not, then I cannot see how you can be so in favor of the present "war".
And this fellow Rumsford?? Do you by any chance mean Donald Rumsfeld, US Sec of def, who has advocated US world hegemony with the help of sophisticated weapons in space?? I think you are right here. That fellow probably wouldn’t trust anybody. A lot of us don’t trust him much either!
"Who backs and sell weapons to Israel even though Israel refuses to comply with UN resolution 242 and other?"
I will beg forgiveness for slightly unclear wording here, but don’t think it implies that you "shouldn’t help" or Jews don’t have the right to participate in democracy according to citizenship.
The point is: Should Israel follow UN resolutions or not? In my view, YES!
One can also note that the masses of lethal hardware you have supplied to Israel haven’t made them one bit safer.
a) Not much even if a bit illegal. In fact a clever method that US might have used for this "war"! Would certainly save some lives and produce less new terrorists.
b) No, I don’t say that. I’m just not letting out the caveman in me unnecessarily.
c) Of course there are values worth defending! Why do you think I’m sitting by this machine trying to get you to understand that exactly those values are happily abandoned by US in this understandable but mad rush for revenge? How about joining me in defending the values of freedom, democracy and justice by advocating them to be applied without discrimination????
I have mentioned so many different examples that it would surprise even me if I hadn’t goofed in some instances!
Jerre
