America under siege?[just perris in a rant]

[Xie]

I was making a point that we donate and help more than any other country out there.

Donate != $ always.

 

[Sazar]

The situation in NYC, while no doubt disturbing, really can't be construed as being orchestrated by GW or the Repulican convention. That is REALLY living on the edge guys.

I agree, it really is a stretch to demonstrate that Bush or the GOp orchestrated the arrests. The NYPD has a lot of 'splainin to do because it sure as hell was not Rove in there editing the video, least not to my knowledge.

Also, I know alot of you LOVE to HATE GW, but lets open our minds a bit here, and maybe our a$$es will follow, huh? For instance...

I'll get to your points in a bit. The reason many people dislike Bush or his policies are because they are confrontational and for the most part, counter-productive. Couple that with his "my way or the highway" approach he has had where he routinely has to backtrack because his policy was fubar to begin with and his having to go with the moderate path many TRUE moderates (read the rabid liberal bastards who infest this country) suggest in the first place and you will see a reason for much displeasure.

Free elections after 30 years in Iraq.

Kudos on the elections and that is the truth. However what has been achieved before and after those elections? A massive PR activity such as the elections are great but how many people actually know what took place during those elections and how many people know of the strained relations between the shia and the kurds and the sunni's even now?

You cannot simply say "well they had elections, our job is done" or anything like that. An election does not accomplish anything unless there is something meaningful achieved from it.

Free elections in Afghanistan, for the first time ever.

Again, kudo's. But again, what has been achieved before and after? As with Iraq, actually more so, the elections are meaningless w/o something tangible to show for it. We don't hold elections for the sake of holding elections.

Saudi Arabia holds local elections, moving towards a female vote.

Saudi Arabia has held elections before and will hold elections again. As before there have been no tangible benefits.

There were plenty of liberal ME nations before such as Iran which have moved from democracy to theocracy or autocracy with the influx of conflicting idealogies (read the reds v/s freedom)

Syria ending a decades long occupation of Lebanon.

This was a result of the blowing up of a very popular and well respected politician, not as a result of US policy directly. It was similar to the ukrainian elections earlier in the sense that people power won out. There was undoubtedly influence from other quarters and the Iraqi invasion was an influence but not a direct result of the change of the policies.

Syria still has a presence in Lebanon btw.

Egypt announces plans to hold free, multi party elections, for the first time ever.

Free multi-party elections have been held since 76 or so. Observe over the next decade or so the number of parties and their names and their idealogies.

Palestinians hold a free election...without corruption.

Palestinians held a free elections before. As with Arafat, Abbas was expected to win on name recognition and did so. Free of corruption? I seriously doubt it. Have you seen a change in much of the agenda or the influence of power in the hierarchy?

Kuwaiti women protest for the right to vote, and get a proposal to parliament.

Again kudo's to them but what tangible benefit's have been seen? Right to vote does not automatically change the entire cultural setup which regards it as taboo or frowns down upon it. Also women's movements have been prevalent in many nations in the ME as have other suffrage movements. Why are their struggles not reported beforehand?

Many nations have been struggling for a long time to achieve universal suffrage, or suffrage of some kind. It is not a miraculous US policy that has brought this about. It has helped in many countries undoubtedly, but our policies have also hindered. Refer back to Iran for example.

Shall I go on???

Sure, because there is nothing concrete and tangible seen thus far.

I can go to a broken down and rotting building, construct a lovely facade but that will not change the fact that the inside is still crumbling. How does a lovely facade negate the fact that the thing that matters most, the thing of substance, is still absolutely sh!te?

Hey, don't get me wrong...we made mistakes. We all do. But you can't tell me GW had it all wrong. Not with those results. You can't.

Those results don't hold up to scrutiny, but I am with you in the sense that Bush cannot be blamed for everything.

His policy makers are equally to blame, ie Wolfowitz, Rice, Feith, Rumsfeld and Powell. Not everything they have done is wrong and should not be viewed as such. But every single success should not be construed as a success for the entire operation.

What always amazes me is the complete lack of understanding many people have to the concept of precedence. No offence but if you undertake an activity and it is blatantly incorrect, regardless of the results that activity will ALWAYS be incorrect. I applaud the positives but this does not change the fact that the administration was wrong and has as yet been completely beyond reproach and no one has yet to be held accountable other than some peons at the lower levels.

This does not yield much confidence in our judicial system of checks and balances.

 

[Un4gIvEn1]

*edit* - Oh and we cared so much about the attack diverted all forces from going after Bin Laden and instead went after a country that just happend to be a thorn in the Presidents fathers side. Two years later those responsible are still at large and are all but forgotten.

What we are doing is SOOOOO wrong... that's why you are all standing up against us, huh? Wait... tell me why you aren't? It's because you wanted to see that happen to, but you didn't want to be a part of it. So, why not come put us in our place? If there are so many that oppose us then why don't they stand together and come after us? Let's be honest here... The US gets things done. We have since the days of our birth (with maybe the exception of Vietnam). If we didn't go after terrorism we went after what we went after years ago on our own soil... Freedom. Freedom for slaves in the old days, and freedom for the middle eastern countries today. All in a days work

 

[Sazar]

$774,865,813.28 not bad, it isn't more than us though. Nice to see that your country has people who care and not a bunch of liberals .. and yes I just said that it must have not been liberals who donated

Exchange rate is 1.82 USD per pound.

Equates to $1.08 billion which is a couple of hundred million dollars more than what you say we donated.

Regarding liberals, I donated, my wife donated and our donations were matched by our company and my wife has been volunteering weekends at the local red cross chapter on weekends off as well.

Amusing or not, difference in idealogy does not make one of a different mindset a brain-dead monster.

 

[Sazar]

What we are doing is SOOOOO wrong... that's why you are all standing up against us, huh? Wait... tell me why you aren't? It's because you wanted to see that happen to, but you didn't want to be a part of it. So, why not come put us in our place? If there are so many that oppose us then why don't they stand together and come after us? Let's be honest here... The US gets things done. We have since the days of our birth (with maybe the exception of Vietnam). If we didn't go after terrorism we went after what we went after years ago on our own soil... Freedom. Freedom for slaves in the old days, and freedom for the middle eastern countries today. All in a days work

Convenient yes. But with our stated reasons for going in and invading a soverign nation? Not quite.

There will come a day when we will not be the most dominant nation in the world and I sure as hell am not going to be happy to see some goddamn hippies invade my country just because they think it needs fixing.

 

[RickyC]

fimchick

It's your type of attituded that gives Americans and America a bad name. If your showing this much hostility to America's closest ally in this war then you must be one sick SOB. Get your facts right. For a start, America did not win WW2, yes they helped but they most certainly did not win the war. Central command and tactics were firmly in the British camp. If America was on their own to fight WW2 do you think they would have won? The German war machine was like nothing the modern world had seen before, nobody could of stood up to them on their own. At the time American armed forces were nothing compaired to British forces. Even today, top American pilots get trained in Britain by the RAF, American special forces get trained by the SAS. See a pattern??? Secondly, America did not destroy Hitler, he destoyed himself and was betrayed by people around him. He committed suicide because the Russian armed forces were closing in on him, not allied forces. Getting onto Iraq, America is doing a great job there aren't they. American forces aren't trained to deal with insurgence the way British troops are, they've been dealing with it for four decades remember and have had to deal with terrorist threats for just as long.

I realize now that you probably learn all your history from war films made in America that turn Americans into heros and turn history on it's head.

You are a very sad little person.

 

[Xie]

What we are doing is SOOOOO wrong... that's why you are all standing up against us, huh? Wait... tell me why you aren't? It's because you wanted to see that happen to, but you didn't want to be a part of it. So, why not come put us in our place? If there are so many that oppose us then why don't they stand together and come after us? Let's be honest here... The US gets things done. We have since the days of our birth (with maybe the exception of Vietnam). If we didn't go after terrorism we went after what we went after years ago on our own soil... Freedom. Freedom for slaves in the old days, and freedom for the middle eastern countries today. All in a days work

Dude, no need to attack me. Incase you can't read I'm from NY. Yep the same state that was attacked on 9/11. I think that makes me American. I also believe thousands marched against the sleight of hand attacks on Iraq. I love my country but being American means you don't always have to believe or go along with what you feel isn't right.

Also I think more people would be all for the whole Iraq scandal if we were indeed going after terrorists. Instead we left them in Pakistan and hired drug lords to find them, if they cared to.

 

[Kr0m]

I am done with these threads ..

Welcome back.

It is so like Canada to run with their tails between their legs, and bitch and moan about how America sux while doing what they do to destroy it's very existence lol .. man what a joke country. Canada is nothing but a pawn in the world.

Right. Perfect example of your stereotypical arrogant... take some history lessons or even try google on Canada's participation in various wars & conflicts in history, then come back. I'm bashing the US government's dirty ways of getting itself into Iraq, and it's meddling. The US had it's own agenda for getting into the middle east and it wasn't all about "freeing" the Iraqi's which they brainwashed people into believing.

Why do you think these terrorist groups mainly despise/d JUST the USA? What's your reasoning to this? I mean, USA, Canada, the UK, Austrailia and other countries somewhat 'share' the same way of life that revolves around the all mighty dollar. Why is it that the USA becomes their main target? Ever think about that?

Notice that Canada didn't mind going into Afghanistan (regardless of what they're doing there, we're still there.) since the supposed real force behind the terrorist attacks were in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Your government's motives for wanting to get into Iraq was too "questionable" or "fishy" to get involved with.

They have no money, power, or resources for anything.

you might want to take a look at the US deficit before stating comments like that. If military = power, the you would be correct, we don't have it. :nervous: There isn't enough room in this world to have all the countries spend all their money on their military. Keep in mind that since 9/11 the Canadian government HAS increased spending towards their military. If we were such jerks, we could have closed our air space as well to all those passengers aboard the planes that couldn't get into the USA during 911.

Goes to show how much world news Johnny reads/sees/hears, Jean Chretien hasn't been Prime Minister for quite a while now. Get your head out of GWB's arse and come up for some air.

*Note* "Innocent until proven guilty" is no longer vaild, instead it's "Guilty until proven innocent".

**Note** After reading more of the posts that were done while I was typing this, why do I get the feeling I'm writing to 12 year olds with no idea of what's going on?

 

[j79zlr]

fimchick

It's your type of attituded that gives Americans and America a bad name. If your showing this much hostility to America's closest ally in this war then you must be one sick SOB. Get your facts right. For a start, America did not win WW2, yes they helped but they most certainly did not win the war. Central command and tactics were firmly in the British camp. If America was on their own to fight WW2 do you think they would have won? The German war machine was like nothing the modern world had seen before, nobody could of stood up to them on their own. At the time American armed forces were nothing compaired to British forces. Even today, top American pilots get trained in Britain by the RAF, American special forces get trained by the SAS. See a pattern??? Secondly, America did not destroy Hitler, he destoyed himself and was betrayed by people around him. He committed suicide because the Russian armed forces were closing in on him, not allied forces. Getting onto Iraq, America is doing a great job there aren't they. American forces aren't trained to deal with insurgence the way British troops are, they've been dealing with it for four decades remember and have had to deal with terrorist threats for just as long.

I realize now that you probably learn all your history from war films made in America that turn Americans into heros and turn history on it's head.

You are a very sad little person.

D-Day was the turning point in the war, which was the brainchild of Ike. He knew it was dangerous, he knew it might fail, but he also knew that it was the best shot of winning the war. The US did not win WWII, I know that, the allies did. But your comments about Hitler are wrong. Germany was surrounded, and Eisenhower did not push the US troops to finally take Hitler down, because he knew that they would not give up Berlin easily, and let the burden fall on the Russians. The British commander couldn't understand why, but Eisenhower valued his troops more than the icon of Berlin. WWII was basically won at the battle of the bulge.

 

[falconguard]

You forget, Stalingrad, or Moscow, Kiev The whole Crimea front...Germany was caught between two rocks, not one.

 

[Perris Calderon]

all this discussion;

I would like to know;

does anyone on the right wonder why oh why the "police" that are responsible for what happened for this abortion of our constitution aren't being fired for what they did to these innocent patriots of America?

and then do those of you on the right want to know why these "police" aren't prosecuted for their lies to arrest innocent people and then their lies under oath?

????????

????????

well???????????

(thank goodness for video, even I believed the right winged wealthy owned spin machine whe it said these people were arrested for good cause)

so tell me again....

those of you people that think the entire affair wasn't orchestrated by the right winged neo nazi movement;

do you think these people need to be brought to justice or don't you?

simple question

 

[j79zlr]

Maybe because the NYTimes is again trying to blow something out of proportion, as usual?

 

[Perris Calderon]

that's the ticket then j79, this is all out of proportion...now I understand.

[edit]

the right winged wealthy owned media has brainwashed too many, this is for sure...it has been very effecitive indeed

if a story is bad and about a republican, the story is either "out of proportion" or "liberal media".

this is where we are today

 

[Kr0m]

Video is a useful source of evidence, but not an easy one to manage, because of the difficulties in finding a fleeting image in hundreds of hours of tape. Moreover, many of the tapes lack index and time markings, so cuts in the tape are not immediately apparent.

That was a problem in the case of Mr. Dunlop, who learned that his tape had been altered only after Ms. Clancy found another version of the same tape. Mr. Dunlop had been accused of pushing his bicycle into a line of police officers on the Lower East Side and of resisting arrest, but the deleted parts of the tape show him calmly approaching the police line, and later submitting to arrest without apparent incident.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney, Barbara Thompson, said the material had been cut by a technician in the prosecutor's office. "It was our mistake," she said. "The assistant district attorney wanted to include that portion" because she initially believed that it supported the charges against Mr. Dunlop. Later, however, the arresting officer, who does not appear on the video, was no longer sure of the specifics in the complaint against Mr. Dunlop.

buh.

 

[Un4gIvEn1]

OK, I'm gonna be real honest here. I hadn't read perris' original news post until just noww. I was mearly reacting to some of the BS he and others were saying. NOWHERE in that news story do I get the feeling that it was the government trying to force any president on anyone. Because it was a republican thing you assume that. If they were black you would automatically assume it was race related. If it was Jews you would assume it was religion related. Maybe it was just a bunch of power hungry police officers?

 

[j79zlr]

or police just doing their job, and the NY Times trying to spin it into more bad press about Republicans, which is what they do.

 

[Un4gIvEn1]

well, I would have to assume if the courts found a lot of these people not guilty due to video evidence then maybe they just got a little out of control. Or, maybe they saw a threat in the moment and took care of it. Maybe they asked the people to do something and some of them refused in a non-violent way. If they are asked to move, stop doing something or whatever and they refuse then don't the police have the right to force that upon them?

 

[Perris Calderon]

or police just doing their job, and the NY Times trying to spin it into more bad press about Republicans, which is what they do.

this is histerical

so you make my point...you think this is a policemans job since he was a republican....so you are as I thought happy with this behavior, they were just "doing their job"

and you think any critisism of a republican is of course "left wing media exagerating a story"

and this my friends is where we are today.

you and those like yourself think the police are "doing their job" when they arrest innocent people because they dissagree with the president...great...he is a republican after all...I see what you're getting at.

and then these police that are "doing their job" lie though sworn to tell the truth under oath... so they can make believe the arrest was justified

then they change the story when they find out there's a tape...this is "doing their job" if it's a republican these "police" are protecting...I get it.

and then these "police" are kept in this "police force"...this is what you think is fine?

exactly what country do you think you live in j79?

and you think the video is an exageration?...I get it...the new york times exagerated the tapes and lied about the dissmissals

oh...wait...maybe it was those "liberal judges" that exagerated the video and forced the dissmissal...that's the ticket...or those liberal prosecutors that dropped the charges...that must be it then

sad and right winged media brainwashing is an understatement here.

 

[Grandmaster]

LMFAOWRODTHWTROME!!!! Man that is soo funny, LOL! LOL! LOL! .. I am sorry, The only thing Canada helps with is the roadblock to do anything, they are the biggest "Whining" country in the world. It is so like Canada to run with their tails between their legs, and bitch and moan about how America sux while doing what they do to destroy it's very existence lol .. man what a joke country. Canada is nothing but a pawn in the world. They have no money, power, or resources for anything.

Oh I forgot: All Hail Chretian ! The biggest loser Prime minister in the world

No for the rest of the country. There are so many countries out their who hate us. The thing that is funny is this: These countries who hate are the first ones to call us when they are in trouble. WE ARE ALWAYS THE FIRST TO HELP WHEN IT IS NEEDED ! Take a look at the Tsunami Relief, America donated over 800 million, that is 800 MILLION DOLLARS to it. How much did the other countries donate ?? I know it is Americas fault that happen, we some how made a invisible missile go into the ocean at the exact coordinate and explode causing the whole thing. (It must have been another one of those things we are trying to do for oil, man that blasted oil, it is the root of all this. I tell you if it wasn't for that America wouldn't be making it rain in the amazon, or snow on the artic. heck if we didn't need the oil so bad we would let the icebergs in the Arctic ocean melt and cause the ocean front property in Arizona you all dream of. Dang that oil).

We are always helping anyone anytime we can. Yet we always get stabbed in the back by those we help. I find it an insult and a joke that these countries would do this. All know if it wasn't for "America" 80 to 90% of the world would DIE, Canada being the first. We are the ones who keep that country going. If anything, instead of them running with their tails between their legs, they should be kissing our butts.

I will note that it is not all Canadians that are like that. I know people from Canada, they are some of the nicest people I know. It is the bad few who ruin it for everyone.

This is fun, break down the pest. Support the best is what I always say ...

Well done another idiotic post...let me break down your post for you to make it easier for you to understand.

They have no money, power, or resources for anything.

Let's see, remember the California blackouts? We supply you guys the electricity when you can't produce it for yourselves. We also supply you guys with oil. We have plenty of resources, get your head out of your ass.

Our economy is on par with the United States, and I'd consider it in better condition. I think you forgot about your huge deficit, your mounting debt, the falling dollor, etc.

Canada has great natural resources, a skilled labor force, and plenty of capital Canada and therefore enjoys solid economic prospects. Solid fiscal management by the Liberal government has produced a long-term budget surplus which is substantially reducing the national debt...

We rank very highly (and above the US) in terms of living standards according to many studies around the world.

Oh I forgot: All Hail Chretian ! The biggest loser Prime minister in the world

You make fun of our ex-PM, don't even get me started on Bush dude.

First of all its Chretien, secondly he hasn't been in power for almost a year now. Paul Martin is the PM now btw

I didn't particularly like Chretien either, but that's because I wasn't around in Canada for most of his term. I like Paul Martin however.

Take a look at the Tsunami Relief, America donated over 800 million, that is 800 MILLION DOLLARS to it. How much did the other countries donate ??

It's a great donation, no doubt. However if you take in to consideration the US donation per capita, Canada surpasses the States by far. With a population of about 30 million people we've pledged 350 million dollars.

All know if it wasn't for "America" 80 to 90% of the world would DIE, Canada being the first. We are the ones who keep that country going. If anything, instead of them running with their tails between their legs, they should be kissing our butts.

That claim is the most ludicrous. We are your biggest trade partner. If we go down, you are surely going to feel the negative effects of that. We provide you with electricity and oil. Both of our countries heavily depend on each other.

All in all, great attempt to further your idiotic rhetoric, but you just made yourself look like more of an ass that before. I don't usually post in these threads, but hey your comment was so high on the bull**** meter it just made me.

 

[Xie]

I think one our (US) biggest downfalls is the large percentage of our population that believe that the US could "stand alone". They have no idea how much we depend on the rest of the world. This "we are better then you all, bow down before us as we are the mighty US" is one day going to put us in a very bad situtation I believe. </rant>