Another Abu Ghraib?

[USAFAUX2004]

There are those of us who are willing to actually do something to bring security to our people and freedom to the peoples of foreign nations.

Wait a sec I will try to get some rousing and patriotic music in the background while I try not to laugh and to be perfectly honest I am not likely to be overly influenced by a man who's sole understanding of the world more than likely comes from watching Fox news while polishing his gun collection.

[/quote]



Don't really agree with all of that but close (I polish my boots)

 

[Redneck]

Wait a sec I will try to get some rousing and patriotic music in the background while I try not to laugh and to be perfectly honest I am not likely to be overly influenced by a man who's sole understanding of the world more than likely comes from watching Fox news while polishing his gun collection.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade there partner, but if you start to make posts that have absolutely no purpose beyond insulting another poster (myself included) I'm going to have to start banning you.


I am curious though about how cynicism and an absolute willingness to believe anything negative you hear about the world is oddly more respectable than optimism and an unwillingness to believe that everyone in authority is an inhuman monster.

 

[MontyB]

I don't believe the leftist rhetoric about American causes for war all the time.
I believe that very often America intervenes to make life better for those who are less fortunate.
When people saw the starving people of Somalia. Who answered the call? The USA did. Everyone knew the horrors going on there but only one country had the guts to do anything about it. There was nothing to gain from the Somali operation other than the improvement of lives of Somalis
Just why did America actually go through the trouble of trying to make Afghanistan a better place for everyone and for the first time, even the women? The USA did. If it was just Taleban stuff they would have left right after smashing them to bits, no? Why waste money on those expensive projects to help Afghanistan help itself and to bring an end to the tribal conflicts there?

I know a lot of our countries contribute, but at the point of the spear it was the US.

Ok I will bite.
Whats Somalia like today?.
How about Lebanon?
Lets take a look at Afghanistan?

Not one of those nations is a thriving country infact in all of those nations the americans left about 20 minutes after photographers left.

So while it is commendable that that the US wanted to get involved actually doing something to completion and well would earn more respect.

 

[MontyB]

There are those of us who are willing to actually do something to bring security to our people and freedom to the peoples of foreign nations.

Wait a sec I will try to get some rousing and patriotic music in the background while I try not to laugh and to be perfectly honest I am not likely to be overly influenced by a man who's sole understanding of the world more than likely comes from watching Fox news while polishing his gun collection.

Don't really agree with all of that but close (I polish my boots)[/quote]

Hehe fair enough.

 

[Redneck]

Looks like I missed another memo (I really have to fire my secretary).
I thought we were still rebuilding in Afghanistan, silly me.

 

[USAFAUX2004]

And how the hell do you know I watch FOX?...Are you a...SPY!

 

[MontyB]

Wait a sec I will try to get some rousing and patriotic music in the background while I try not to laugh and to be perfectly honest I am not likely to be overly influenced by a man who's sole understanding of the world more than likely comes from watching Fox news while polishing his gun collection.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade there partner, but if you start to make posts that have absolutely no purpose beyond insulting another poster (myself included) I'm going to have to start banning you.


I am curious though about how cynicism and an absolute willingness to believe anything negative you hear about the world is oddly more respectable than optimism and an unwillingness to believe that everyone in authority is an inhuman monster.

Truthfully I really hate (and this is a generalisation) "rednecks" anywhere in the world my own country included, they are people in my view that will justify anything they or their paticular side does by ignoring everything else as exhibited in your previous arguments where you have not provided any counter arguments and just ignored anything that didnt fit your view.

Now I admit the only posts you will see from me are negative ones as usually I dont respond to posts I agree with and if that warrants a banning well be my guest I am sure neither of us will lose sleep over it.

 

[MontyB]

And how the h**l do you know I watch FOX?...Are you a...SPY!

Umm oddly enough no.
We just tend to accuse people of watching Fox as part of a general insult package, I figured most would have picked up on the deliberate mistake when I used the terms Fox and News together.

 

[Redneck]

Truthfully I really hate (and this is a generalisation) "rednecks" anywhere in the world my own country included, they are people in my view that will justify anything they or their paticular side does by ignoring everything else as exhibited in your previous arguments where you have not provided any counter arguments and just ignored anything that didnt fit your view.

Now I admit the only posts you will see from me are negative ones as usually I dont respond to posts I agree with and if that warrants a banning well be my guest I am sure neither of us will lose sleep over it.

By your own definition, you would be a redneck yourself (not that I'm trying to claim you :lol: ). I HAVE provided counters to your position on legitimate points (few as they were) and you yourself have ignored pretty near, no wait, all, of them.


Now any further off-topic posts will be deleted and any further personal attacks on myself or any other poster on these forums will result in something that apparently neither of us will lose sleep over.

 

[chewie_nz]

Well, not all of us have the luxury of being a peaceful place like New Zealand. Surrounded by miles and miles of sea with nothing worth taking once taken.
Life can get ugly where a lot of us others live.

like our isolation has kept us away from conflict;

the boer war, gallipoli, the western front, north africa, europe, the pacific,
korea (!!) SE asia, east timor, yugoslavia, afghanistan, iraq.

I take it for some reason you are incapable of reading any of the 5 links I posted first off or do you think that by not reading them your denials will be valid?.

I see no point in your responses at all if all you plan to do hide behind denial and ignorance.

No, I failed to find any proof in your sources that the events at Abu Ghraib were symptomatic of the overall behavior/policy of the United States government or military (since that appears to be clearly what you are insinuating).

i think what this comes back to is the way the US position is portrayed to it's citizens;
if you are constantly on the side of justice, how can anything anybody does defending freedom possibly be wrong?

Until a viable alternative has been suggested and as long as they keep my country safe, I could care less about these supposed travesties.

and this is why bad things will keep happening to the states, the US is so focused INWARDS that the don't see the reasons attacks like 9/11 happen. do you know why osama attacked the world trade center?

 

[Redneck]

Off topic posts have been removed.


Do YOU know why he did?

Actually I do know why, irrational hatred and bigotry.
And the reason "bad things" will NOT keep happening to the States is that we are reacting to those factors that allowed them to happen the first time, and in such a way as to prevent them from happening again. Regardless of WHY the terrorists are terrorists, what they did was WRONG. It seems obvious, but apparently some folks are missing this point. Just to throw out a little scenario here, say a criminal murders another person because that person wore a Rams jersey and the criminal was a Packer fan, would it make sense to focus on ridding the world of jerseys because they were the "cause" of the victim's death, or to focus on apprehending and punishing the man who had committed the crime itself?

Personally, I refuse to believe that Big Macs and Pepsi are legitimate reasons for mass murder, but then again I'm just a redneck.

 

[chewie_nz]

Off topic posts have been removed.


Do YOU know why he did?

Actually I do know why, irrational hatred and bigotry.
And the reason "bad things" will NOT keep happening to the States is that we are reacting to those factors that allowed them to happen the first time, and in such a way as to prevent them from happening again. Regardless of WHY the terrorists are terrorists, what they did was WRONG. It seems obvious, but apparently some folks are missing this point. Just to throw out a little scenario here, say a criminal murders another person because that person wore a Rams jersey and the criminal was a Packer fan, would it make sense to focus on ridding the world of jerseys because they were the "cause" of the victim's death, or to focus on apprehending and punishing the man who had committed the crime itself?

Personally, I refuse to believe that Big Macs and Pepsi are legitimate reasons for mass murder, but then again I'm just a redneck.

the reason the attack(s) on the WTC happened were because of his anger at US troops being stationed in saudi arabia (the holy land) during the first gulf war. he was trained by the US so i don't think that "irrational hate and bigotry" didn't come into it. from his point of view ( as someone who was used by the US as a tool against the russians, and then saw his own land defiled by "infidels) i don't think his hate is irrational at all

the reason i bring this point up is thus;

if you don't understand why a particular action occured, you are doomed to repeating the circumstances leading up to it.

so, what of all the people that have been held at abu graib without charge, interogated etc and were innocent? are they going to make any distinction between their american liberators and saddams secret police? and in that case, whats stopping him getting his own back with an RPG?

or even worse; he broods about his treatment by the US, raises his children to hate the US untill the decide to avenge their father etc etc.

 

[Redneck]

So how exactly do you figure that the attacks were the actions of a rational man? That the murder of thousands of civilians can be justified, logically, by a perceived "defilement?"

And we are not "doomed to repeating" anything, we have and are adjusting and reacting to the situation to prevent the set of circumstances that allowed the attacks to take place from ever occurring again, and whether or not you or the rest of the world agrees with how we do this makes no difference to my support for these measures. I can guarantee you that the day will never come when I value the opinion of a New Zealander/Rwandan/Antarctican over any part of the safety and security of my own people. I'm sorry if this appears too "inward" of a view.

 

[MontyB]

if you don't understand why a particular action occured, you are doomed to repeating the circumstances leading up to it.

so, what of all the people that have been held at abu graib without charge, interogated etc and were innocent? are they going to make any distinction between their american liberators and saddams secret police? and in that case, whats stopping him getting his own back with an RPG?

And this is where the problem lies, we are arguing from two opposed points of view:
One says that if you continually demonstrate force and destroy those who oppose you the problem will be solved and the other says that if you solve the reasons people dislike you there will be no problems.

From the oppositions point of view the anti-force side see the tactic as self defeating ie the worse you treat people the worse they will become where as the pro-force group see anything else as a sign of weakness which bolsters those you fight.

Both arguments have some merit but neither will conceed to the other.

 

[chewie_nz]

So how exactly do you figure that the attacks were the actions of a rational man? That the murder of thousands of civilians can be justified, logically, by a perceived "defilement?"

And we are not "doomed to repeating" anything, we have and are adjusting and reacting to the situation to prevent the set of circumstances that allowed the attacks to take place from ever occurring again, and whether or not you or the rest of the world agrees with how we do this makes no difference to my support for these measures. I can guarantee you that the day will never come when I value the opinion of a New Zealander/Rwandan/Antarctican over any part of the safety and security of my own people. I'm sorry if this appears too "inward" of a view.

just some advice here;

big breath now and take two steps back.
you can close your eyes and block your ears as much as you want but you can never win the war on terrorism with tanks. how ever much you want to.

i feel i may have to expand on my comment about the "inwardness" of the US world view...but for me to do that you need to tone down the agressivness in you posts and answer a few questions;

in the last major network news show; how much time was allocated to;

local news ( city or small region)
state news
national news
international news
sport
weather

here in NZ it is usually (barring a big story)

5 minutes regional
5 minutes national
15 minutes international
10 minutes sport
5 minute weather

my line of thinking is that because the US is such a big & diverse country it is very easy to be inwardly focused, so that when something like 9/11 happens, there is a genuine feeling of "WHERE did that come from? why does he hate us" when really the answer is in the last 25 years worth of international news (soviets in afghanistan, the gulf war, the taliban)

also because such focus is given to whats going on INSIDE the US it is just so easy to just write off what other global citizens think...even to the stage of turning on your own people who hold an alternative point of few.
too often the reaction i hear is not "oh they just have a different opinion and their own reasons for it" but rather "they're wrong"

once again it comes back to the "with us or against us" statement. i may not be with the US on it's current course of action....but neither am i against the US as a whole

 

[Redneck]

you can close your eyes and block your ears as much as you want but you can never win the war on terrorism with tanks. how ever much you want to.

You might want to pay attention to your own advice there partner.

Again, just because you say something is true does not make it so. I'd say that we're doing a pretty good job fighting the terrorists using our current methods, spin it any way you want, but two NATIONS (sorry, just seems that a couple of you all are overlooking this, yes, entire NATIONS of people) have been freed from brutally oppressive and murderous regimes by those "tanks" that apparently don't actually work, and the leader of the most successful terrorist organization in history has been rendered virtually ineffective by our use of force, combined with our use of diplomacy in gaining allies nobody thought we could in our war on terror (Pakistan for example). And again, these terrorists do not just have a "different opinion," they are in fact wrong, and I cannot for the life of me fathom how you cannot accept that. Regardless of why they feel the way they do, what they did and are doing is plain and simply wrong, and they must be stopped.

I do not know what your position on moral relativism is, but just from what I have seen in your posts here it would appear that you at least in part support this philosophy. I do not. If that is the center to our disagreement, then I do not see either side yielding on it. I believe that there is such a thing as good and such a thing as evil, and that what I or any other consider to be evil cannot be simply brushed aside as being simply cultural or ideological differences of opinion. Some things (including mass murder) are indisbutably wrong, and the motivation of the perpetrator, and how abused he may feel, does not matter in how wrong it is.

 

[chewie_nz]

yes i agree with you that there is good and evil...but there is also another undeniable truth...for every action the is an equal and oppisite reaction.
tanks do not stop terrorism...i don't see how a tank can stop someone from blowing up a plane...or himself. a tank CAn however create more terror...

yes afghanistan is finally free. it is without a doubt the best thing to come out of this whole sorry mess.
iraq is also free, but that little adventure has been sullied by the "damn the torpedoes" attitude of the US administration.

can you please respond to the rest of my prevous point below?

i feel i may have to expand on my comment about the "inwardness" of the US world view...but for me to do that you need to tone down the agressivness in your posts and answer a few questions;

in the last major network news show; how much time was allocated to;

local news ( city or small region)
state news
national news
international news
sport
weather

here in NZ it is usually (barring a big story)

5 minutes regional
5 minutes national
15 minutes international
10 minutes sport
5 minute weather

my line of thinking is that because the US is such a big & diverse country it is very easy to be inwardly focused, so that when something like 9/11 happens, there is a genuine feeling of "WHERE did that come from? why does he hate us" when really the answer is in the last 25 years worth of international news (soviets in afghanistan, the gulf war, the taliban)

also because such focus is given to whats going on INSIDE the US it is just so easy to just write off what other global citizens think...even to the stage of turning on your own people who hold an alternative point of few.
too often the reaction i hear is not "oh they just have a different opinion and their own reasons for it" but rather "they're wrong"

once again it comes back to the "with us or against us" statement. i may not be with the US on it's current course of action....but neither am i against the US as a whole

 

[A Can of Man]

South Korea is a thriving country.
So are a heck of a lot of Western European countries.
That aside, at least they try. The killing in the former Yugoslavia has stopped and that is a success too. The only place where the US actually got the backing it asked for... because it was a situation where the Europeans should have been able to deal it themselves, but were unable to.
America can only do so much. Eventually it's up to the local citizens to make their country great.
Somalia ended in disaster because of the "let's not get involved" group screaming too loudly.
Afghanistan is still a struggle in process. To think that a country can be turned around in a matter of 4 years is pure fantasy. It's much harder if it's Afghanistan where there is a long history of tribal violence. But now women can go to hospital, women can actually recieve medical education so they can treat their female patients. They have a lot more rights than under the Taleban and maybe this doesn't mean squat to you but it means a lot to a lot of other people.

But you know what? It's far better to have tried than to have just sat back and watched it happen, knowing you could have done *something* about it, but simply didn't because you didn't care for it and the only thing you did to "help" was send sacks or rice that would be intercepted by militia anyways, and sit in the city square wearing strange clothing, singing "tribal" music just because it was good for your soul.

America is still in Afghanistan. Americans are still in Yugoslavia.

Your final sentence is a conflicting sentence. You blame America for being involved and say that they just piss people off, then you say that it'd be nice if they could complete what they started. They ask for help and support and we don't give it. How do you expect them to succeed at every time around?

Ok I will bite.
Whats Somalia like today?.
How about Lebanon?
Lets take a look at Afghanistan?

Not one of those nations is a thriving country infact in all of those nations the americans left about 20 minutes after photographers left.

So while it is commendable that that the US wanted to get involved actually doing something to completion and well would earn more respect.

 

[MontyB]

That aside, at least they try. The killing in the former Yugoslavia has stopped and that is a success too. The only place where the US actually got the backing it asked for... because it was a situation where the Europeans should have been able to deal it themselves, but were unable to.

There is no doubt that currently the US is one of the few countries that can get involved in things militarily but I have no doubt that will change in time as the EU becomes stronger (I suspect things wont change militarily for them until NATO id disposed of though).

Your final sentence is a conflicting sentence. You blame America for being involved and say that they just piss people off, then you say that it'd be nice if they could complete what they started. They ask for help and support and we don't give it. How do you expect them to succeed at every time around?

Dont misinterpret my opposition to the Iraq fiasco as a completely anti-american approach I fully support the Afghan and Yugoslav actions but the fact is they have not finished a single task and then whatever goodwill they had generated was pissed up against the wall with the Iraqi invasion.

Surely you can see that something somewhere has gone drastically wrong when 4 years ago after Sept 11 the world would have supported any action the US wanted to carry out in reprisal for those attacks and yet if they were repeated tomorrow it would more than likely put it down to a "well you reap what you sew scenario".

 

[Corocotta]

The problem is that you think that US beguins wars to give freedom to other countries and that is just a lie. ALL war are relationed in one way or another with economic interest or religious problems.

You went to Irak just to control that part of the midle east that is full of oil. Concerning to Afganistan: California-based Unocal Corporation had dropped previous plans for an Afghan pipeline deal in 1998, after it had become evident that the Taliban leadership were too unstable and unreasonable to make the idea feasible. But in the latter days of the Afghan war, although Unocal had officially lost its appetite for Caspian oil and moved on to focus on business in other parts of the world, reviving the idea made sense. Seizing the moment in anticipation of a new stable, safe and unified Afghanistan, Karzai signed a memorandum of understanding with its neighbors Turkmenistan and Pakistan in order to begin the process of calling for bids to construct a pipeline. The Kazakhs,

Turkmen and other Central Asian republics would finally get their oil and gas to sea and on to market, the United States would enjoy cheaper gasoline and the Afghan people would benefit from construction jobs and transit fees. From the horrors of war would emerge a significant player in the lucrative world of international fossil fuel exploitation.

If you do not see this you live in Wonderland.There are many places in the world where people is suffering and US does not move a finger.

Why can not you see all the evidence that we had pointed you??? IS every body in US blind? You do not have objetive news?? Do you have a censorship regime or what??

So how exactly do you figure that the attacks were the actions of a rational man? That the murder of thousands of civilians can be justified, logically, by a perceived "defilement?"

Yes, just like you did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki