i think youre second conclusion has a good point !!

i think youre second conclusion has a good point !!

i think youre second conclusion has a good point !!

i think youre second conclusion has a good point !!

i think youre second conclusion has a good point !!

“we have been doing thet same thing in Afghanistan, a nation with no oil or other resources worth mentioning” — And didn’t care about untill some terrorists based there decided to crash some planes into buildings. The primary motive of the US was to eliminate that threat, and all the right to them. The change to democracy is a side effect and, knowing Afghan history, probably a temporary one.

So far all I heard from you is talk the talk. If you want to change the world, walk the walk as well before telling anyone else they should. Being supportive of your goverment to sending troops has _nothing_ in common with actualy going there and putting _your_ life on the line. And you really need to start admitting to the flaws in your own society and history before pointing any finger to anyone else.

My stanements about Europeans’ sense of being closed in had nothing to do with travel or movement, but were addressing personal feelings of possibility and opportunity.

I’m not trying to convince you or anyone else of the morality of ant actoins by the U.S. I simply siad, repeatedly, that certain regimes threaten their citizens, their neighbors, and can threaten any nation on the globe. I said they cannot be removed via internal revolt. Combine that with what I definitely feel is a moral obligation to allow everyone, everywhere, to choose their own government in democratic elections, and you see that modern totalitarian regimes pose a new challenge: How to lift the burden of opression and the threat to existing democracies when the people who are oppressed cannot rise in revolt? If you believe that democracy is the only acceptable government, that it should spread, and that modern totalitarian regimes cannot be destroyed without outside intervention of some nature, what would you do? Sacrifice the freedom of others for your own emotional well-being?

Nation’s, like people, operate in their own self-interest. But, to counter your lies about American motivatin in Iraq, we have been doing thet same thing in Afghanistan, a nation with no oil or other resources worth mentioning.

>> ” if you leave the stand-off long enough, both sides will see what jackasses they were and a new generation that forgot why it all began will start to talk.”

No, they won’t. People are people and will continue to behave the same way as long as they exist. If you expect your generation to prove me wrong, you’ll be disappointed. Every generation says the same thing.

You’ve consistenly refused to respond to my basic points, or to suggest viable alternatives to dealing with the specific issues raised beyond hoping for a utopian change in human nature. So long….

“Europeans see the world as closed, bordered, limited, etc., in which they have an obligation to find their place and stay there. Americans find that attitude fundamentally oppressive.” — Most Americans do not have a passport and never leave the country. Most Europeans live their lives in the country they are born, yes, and that country is in every case a smaller region than the US. But moving 400 miles in one country or moving 4000 miles and still being in the same country doesn’t mean any greater world view, no matter how you may feel. That argument is the same as Australians feeling close to nature, experts in outdoor living and wildernes survival, while the truth is that the most people have seen from the outback is the highway between cities and spend all but a few days of their lives on the coast. (or in London)

I can see where this view comes from in your case; like me, you have probably traveled a fair bit and met many Europeans in Europe who haven’t moved much in their life or seen much of the world. But that gives a distorted view and for me it is the same, but the other way around. The percentage of Americans who have traveled substantialy is probably about the same as those europeans who have ventured further than the standard package holiday on the Costa del Sol.

You will never convince anyone of the moral reasons of the US “freeing the people” so long as the countries you choose to do this in are very much in the economic interest of the US (or it’s leaders buddies) while others are left to rot.

“So long as the enemy exists, the potential threat is real.” — Yes, and if you leave the stand-off long enough, both sides will see what jackasses they were and a new generation that forgot why it all began will start to talk.

Ofcourse that is different in a situation than Iraq (or all those other countries the US doesn’t care about), but political presure was never really tried there either. “Food for oil” meant that what little food an medicine went in kept the leaders in good health and spirits, with enough energy to keep supressing the population. And all this time the population did nothing to try and persuade the leadership to step down, instead they cheered him on. If they aren’t willing to risk their lives for their own freedom, why should anyone else? And I am not talking about taking up arms, you are right, there is no way to overthrow them by violence. All they had to do is to stage mass protests in the eyes of the world. If Sadam didn’t step down and instead crushed their resistance, that would have been the signal for foreign help. And you probably wouldn’t have any of these terrorist attacks inside the country as you would have helped them get their freedom, not handed it on a plate. Nobody takes pride in things being handed to them on a plate. It’s illogical, but that’s exactly what people are.

Besides, the greatest problem Europeans have with recent US actions is how it was handled. Just like Bush’s “bring it on” isn’t going to win him many votes from the armed forces this year, he (and by association, your whole nation) didn’t score any points for “you are with us or against us” either.

“Saddam’s bribes to European politicians and European oil revenues” — If that is the case it seems the political systems of our two seperate world regions have more in common than you thought. As opposed to the US, Europe does rely a lot on Middle East oil. But that doesn’t mean that Bush’s Texan oil family and business partners don’t make good money out of the region as well. Some of it filter through to him in the name of “campaign contributions”. At least Europeans call a bribe by it’s name and I can assure you it is not as widespread as in the US; if it were, we would have the same draconian labour laws and tax cuts for the rich as you do.

So don’t lecture Europe on profiting from corrupt regimes, the US is equaly quilty of that.

You continue to build strawmen and to put words in my mouth.

>>”if someone threatens to attack you over behaviour you find perfectly normal, you have a choice: either keep doing what you were doing or weigh your options and possibly decide you can live without what you were doing and avoid conflict.”

It goes without saying that if you can defeat an opponent by giving up something trivial, that might be your best course of action. Presumab ly, trivial matters are not the issue. In any case, placating an enemy by giving up a triviality does not eliminate the enemy. So long as the enemy exists, the potential threat is real.

>>”If you feel it is your obligation to overthrow some totalitarian regimes…”

I did not say anyone has an “obligation” to overthorw totalitarian regimes. I said they pose a threat and need to be eliminated. Other ways exist to eliminate totalitarian regimes than the military “overthrow” you are suggesting.

One of the hypocrisies of opposition to U.S. action in Iraq is the failure of those opponents to do, or to suggest, or to have done or suggested, anything useful to eleminate the Saddam regime. If they felt they could not soil their pristine ethics by supporting the effort, why then did their rhetoric and behavior align them so strongly with anti-democratic forces?

>>”…until 250 years ago you were under european rule…”

Colonization began only 400 years ago. Europe has been a recognizable political and cultural entity since the Roman Empire, if not before. Europe carries with it a legacy of centuries of warfare, ethnic and class conflict, monarchy and autocracy, militarism, pograms and anti-Semitism, andfalse ideologies. The U.S. (and Canada) not encumbered by that baggage. Equally important, Europe lacks the edifying impact of an expanding frontier. The frontier shaped how Americans looks at the world. From my perspective, Europeans see the world as closed, bordered, limited, etc., in which they have an obligation to find their place and stay there. Americans find that attitude fundamentally oppressive.

>> “The reason there is no international structure to end these regimes because they would invlove, basicaly, dying…”

No, that is wrong. That structure does not exist because it would require sovereign states to relinquish their sovereign right to police their own affairs. In other words, it would require that the threat of force and the means of using that force be resident in a supra-national organization. The fact that the UN has no such force or authority to use it one reason for its weakness.

This has nothing to do with ordering people into combat. May are willing to do that, and many are willing to fight. Peace at any price is not a peace, because peace is not equal to a lack of violence.

The UN served its immediate purpose after 1945, but it has for some decades served only as a useful tool for the large powers to deploy or ignore as meets their needs, and propaganda tool for weak or totalitarian powers. It does serve deliver some beneifts in terms of health, etc., but even those efforts do little to alter the status quo of those it is trying to help.

Your closing paragraph parrots some of the usual ad hominem attacks on the U.S., and, as usual, fails to provide a viable alternative. Would you suggest the “peace” purchased at the price of more dead Iraqis and more years of Saddam’s regime is worth Saddam’s bribes to European politicians and European oil revenues? Are you suggesting that it is OK for the comfortable European status quo to reamin unchallenged, as it profits from Saddam, while Iraqis remain oppressed and tyrannized? Is the “peace” of, say, a citizen of Paris worth more than the freedom of an Iraqi?

Hold on, hold on, what attacker? The moment you are attacked, ofcourse you can use any force needed to defend yourself. But if someone threatens to attack you over behaviour you find perfectly normal, you have a choice: either keep doing what you were doing or weigh your options and possibly decide you can live without what you were doing and avoid conflict.

Enloop, are you in the army or otherwise put your life on the line to help these people under totalitarian rule? You seem to speak awefully easy about ordering people into these places. If you feel it is your obligation to overthrow some totalitarian regimes I suggest you get into politics, make it happen and then swap the suit for a uniform. Unless you are willing to do that yourself, get of your high horse of morality because you have no right to tell others what to do.

There’s a lot I could say about American political parties (or lack thereof), but let’s save that for some other time. And it never ceases to amuse me how you can say the histories are so different; untill 250 years ago you were under european rule and after that both continents developed at the same pace, abusing and killing people, at home and abroad, we didn’t like as much as each other!

The reason there is no international structure to end these regimes because they would invlove, basicaly, dying. Few want to do that and nobody wants to order others to.

Saying that the UN is broken means it was working once. It was and it is (well, it would if the US paid their contributions for a change), except the part about invading countries that pose no threat to others. The UN charter simply does not allow that. So all the bullshit propaganda Dubya was spreading about the UN not authorizing him to liberate Iraq, was just that, propaganda: “see, the world is against us”. All the while he knew perfectly well that with the “evidence” he had the other security council members (with the exception of lapdog UK) would vote against it, as evil as Iraq was to it’s citizens, it was no threat to other countries.