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Re: Re: Re: First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by vicfar
Let me explain: we have plenty of people and countries who hate us, and this has increased enormously in the last 5 years, but we have no enemy who really threaten us whom we can hit militarily. Name one - I cannot think of any.
Iraq has taught us that there is a loose anti-American network of terrorists who operates everywhere in the Middle East, regardless of whether governments are sympathetic to them.
There is no reasonable way to deal with them other than secure the cooperation of these governments and gather intelligence on the terrorists. Destroying entire countries has not worked, and is simply adding fuel to the fire. The terrorist networks have been emboldened by our Iraq fiasco, by the Abu Ghraib disaster and the other scandals in Afghan, where our soldiers torture, rape and murder civilians.
Even if one is a ruthless bastard like Bush, and has no qualms killing ragheads, it is a strategy that is clearly counterproductive. What the hell is a first strike? Against whom? We are used to fighting nation states, and we keep doing it even when, clearly, there are no nation states who threaten us.
But just wait a few years. The US used to be liked by "exclusion". The world was polarized and everyone hated Russia, ergo sympathized with the US. With Russia no longer evil, all that is left is a stupid gorilla pounding his chest and hitting randomly in every direction, trying to re-express his moronic superiority.
In any case, what happens when there is only one ruthless tyrant in the world is that the world polarizes against it. Even Europeans, who loved us in the 80s, despise us and are drawing a permanent line within the West. This is what I mean when I say we have no friends - part of this is natural (everyone hates a bully), part of it is self-induced - by the idiotic criminals who run our country.
Vittorio
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Jun 26 '05
7:09 pm PDT
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Re: Re: First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by thewasp
I know the dictionary definition of a socialist, and I don't think Tony Blair qualifies, so it's possible vicfar doesn't either. Perhaps you could elaborate on your definition in your own contribution to this write-off. Was Woodrow Wilson a socialist? Should we abolish the Federal Reserve because it gives an Objectivist socialist powers over the economy? How about the 40-hour workweek, is that socialist?
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Jun 26 '05
7:50 am PDT
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Re: First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by thewasp
If you mean to assert that the US truly has NO enemies, it undermines your argument that we have no friends, either. Perhaps you could develop this theme some more in your own contribution to the write-off.
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Jun 26 '05
7:48 am PDT
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Re: Re: First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by vicfar
You say:
I think it would have been fairer had you clarified that you are an Italian socialist whose views are anathema to Americans.
No, I am not a socialist - I simply do not like the type of Corporatism that America has become, and my views are not anathema to all Americans, only to people like you.
Now, to answer your question, there are other countries that like and side with the USA. Here's one: AUSTRALIA...
A pretty short list for a country who claims to stand for freedom and democracy, but in reality has spread quite other things in the world.
BTW, I am a veteran of both Gulf Wars and am heading back to Iraq in September.
Good luck to you.
Finally, I would hope that you would never forget that it was the USA that liberated the land of your birth from Fascist tyranny and along with Britain did much to save what was left of Europe.
That is not quite true. The Allies, as you well know, liberated Europe. Americans were among them. Are you not a team player? Indeed, it is really sad that Americans, after defeating Nazism and Fascism, were the heroes of the free world. The fact that they are so universally despised, even in Europe, must reflect on something they did after that, don't you think?
Or is it just lack of gratitude?
We are the guarantors of freedom in the world
This is just American mythology. If you had the ability to read and comprehend what is going on, you would not express such nonsense. Nowadays we excel mostly at organized violence.
Since you find them so offensive, why not try living in one of the sh*thole nations ... where the many have been forced to suffer to enrich an elite few?
That sounds like the US under Bush! And I am trying to live here, after all...Luckily, I have met many Americans who are open minded, concerned about this state of affairs, and on the whole much better representatives of this great nation than you are.
Vittorio
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Jun 25 '05
8:49 pm PDT
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Re: First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
I just read your profile and now, have a better idea of why you wrote your comment here. While I detest the sanctimonious and self-serving rant that you level at the way we in the USA do things, I think it would have been fairer had you clarified that you are an Italian socialist whose views are anathema to Americans.
Now, to answer your question, there are other countries that like and side with the USA. Here's one: AUSTRALIA, they've stood by our side in every war we've fought in during the 20th century. In the 1960s, they dumped the Pound Sterling as their currency to adopt the AUS $, pegging its value permanently to our own.
Regardless of your continental viewpoint, the Brits do like the USA and most Americans. They may not like Bush, but then again, I don't care much for their socialist PM, Tony Blair.
I also strongly dislike Chirac and Shroeder, but that doesn't mean I hate all Frenchmen or Germans.
BTW, I am a veteran of both Gulf Wars and am heading back to Iraq in September. I think I should add that I had great respect for the Italian troops I met and served alongside in Iraq. I also think they were better representatives of the best that Italy has to offer than you are.
Finally, I would hope that you would never forget that it was the USA that liberated the land of your birth from Fascist tyranny and along with Britain did much to save what was left of Europe. We are the guarantors of freedom in the world and I happen to like and enjoy the fruits of western capitalism. Since you find them so offensive, why not try living in one of the sh*thole nations that have been raped and plundered by 'socialists' where the many have been forced to suffer to enrich an elite few?
Guess that doesn't fit in with your view of yourself, does it, Vittorio?
Paul Connors
aka colonialpara
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Jun 25 '05
12:56 pm PDT
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First strike? (Reply to this comment)
by vicfar
You say:
... the present Administration and I along with it are willing to consider striking the enemy first. To kill fifty thousand is worth it if it saves the better part of fifty million.
Where is the enemy? There seems to be a fierce determination on the part of the Administration to identify some enemies, now that the Russians are no longer evil. The reason is mostly to keep the defense industry prosperous.
We have in a sense been a victim of the success of our ideas. We have so many friends now that to stand up for all of them is inevitably to step on someone's toes.
You must be joking. Other than Israel and temporarily the UK, the US has no friends in the world. Please name another one who does not side with us out of fear or passing opportunism.
Do you have any idea how widespread the cheering would be if we were hit by a nuclear device?
To be honest, I have no idea what the point of your essay is.
Vittorio
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Jun 24 '05
9:19 pm PDT
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To the extent I suggested. . . (Reply to this comment)
by thewasp
that there was a free election in the Soviet Union in 1985, I humbly apologize to you and every other survivor of the Soviet system. My point, however, was that rather than an unknown, the Politburo would have picked the most hard-line man available had it believed war with the United States to be imminent. That much, I stand by. However, I would commend Dusko Doder's "Shadows and Whispers: Power Politics Inside the Kremlin from Brezhnev to Gorbachev" to anyone who would like to know more about why Gorbachev was selected. I myself will spend this evening re-reading it.
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Jun 24 '05
4:08 pm PDT
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Just a bit inaccurate. (Reply to this comment)
by verbatima
". Had the U. S. been so superior in conventional arms that the Russians seriously believed we would charge into Eastern Europe, would they ever have chosen Gorbachev to lead them?"
First of all, the Russians did not choose Gorbachev. I know this first-hand because I lived there. Gorbachev was an unknown (and a relatively young one, too) when he came to power. No one knows why the five or six people in the world's biggest chunk of geography who actually had power over it promoted him, but it was most likely a compromise in some internal power struggle. Other factors also played a role in Perestroika, such as: (1) Gorbachev did not initially plan to reconstruct the USSR, and even when he began his reforms, he did not intend for the totalitarian Communist regime to end, but merely to allow some transparency and a very limited market economy; (2) Gorbachev's policies suprised others in the USSR government, as he had never previously identified himself as a reformer; and (3) by the time Gorbachev came to power, the Soviet powerhouse had been weakened by internal struggle, economic problems, and corruption, which is the reason why no one stopped Gorbachev and also why Gorbachev's reforms got so far out of his own control. There was no transparency in Soviet politics; it cannot be analyzed with American standards.
Regards,
V.
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Jun 24 '05
1:29 pm PDT
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