Slashdot Mirror

Yes, it is a coincidence. The England-Ireland conflict began, when both sides were still a mixture Catholics/Pagans, centuries before establishment of the Church of England.

Cromwell's anti-Catholicism laws date to 17th century — half a millennium after the early armed invasions of England's armies into Ireland.

Nothing to do with religion whatsoever...

You got it.

WSJ reports:

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

But not if it's STUXNET or FLAME, right?

Similarly, the media would have us believe that if a country in the Middle East refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, invaded neighboring countries, ignored condemnation from the UN Security Council of its actions, and repressed its people into poverty and apartheid, while also developing a nuclear weapons program, that the USG should intervene militarily to take out its nuclear program and probably impose new leadership.

But not if it's Israel, right?

But, it's OK, because Iran has such an aggressive history that it's worth the US getting into a war with Russia over. In fact, if the USG needs to kill half a million Iranian children to impose its will, that's just breaking a few eggs, right?

After all, there is no higher concern that the US Petrodollar, right?

The fellow who wrote the Declaration of Independence and our third President described the appropriate role of the United States in the world as:

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

But whose interests does that serve, really?

By golly you are right darn it! So we better kill some of those Tibet protesters, since after all China is at war with Tibet and their protesters!

Damm those Tibeteans that terrorized the Chinese and kicked them out:

http://www.historyguy.com/tibet_china_wars_conflicts.html

1911-1913--Tibetan Uprising --During the anti-Manchu Chinese Revolution, Tibetans revolt and force out the Manchu Chinese garrison. The surviving Chinese troops evacuate Tibet by way of British India.

I am not saying that I like the guy who was pinged off! Not at all. What I am saying is that people like him should be brought to trial and made to answer for his crimes! By pinging him off the Chinese have just gotten rights to ping off whoever disagrees with them. Not a good precedent...

GWI never really was completed. Iraq fired at planes enforcing the no-fly zone many times before GWII.
http://www.historyguy.com/no-fly_zone_war.html

WMDs were found in Iraq, "although not of a militarily significant capability" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Why invade Iran? There are other options.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

Someone needs to be in the mideast to oppose the Iran theocracy. Replacing a secular dictator with a pro-US secular democracy would be nice long term, if it works out that way...

Some later historians, such as Howard Zinn, cite the Philippine-American War as an example of American imperialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_W ar/
During the war 4,324 American soldiers died, only 1,000-1,500 of which were due to actual combat; the remainder died of disease. 2,818 were wounded. ... Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 with 16,000 actually counted, while civilian deaths numbered between 250,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos.
http://www.historyguy.com/PhilipineAmericanwar.htm l/
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is _4_51/ai_56640457/

----------------
Russia? Central Asia? Pardon Moi, but the remainders of Russian Hegemony are not asian, they are central european see,
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?i sbn=0521864038/

-------------

Catholic nations are hardly "christian" for the Protestant US.

_____________

US Imperial power? See http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis734/webguid es/milbase.htm/
U.S. European Command, in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany, is responsible for 13 million square miles in 89 countries and territories. This area of responsibility begins at the North Cape of Norway and extends through the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, through most of Europe and parts of the Middle East, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The Command's mission is to support and advance US interests and policies throughout the region and to provide combat ready land, maritime, and air forces to Allied Command Europe or to US Unified Commands.

Point out another country holding military bases covering 13 mega-miles in Europe, alone. You can't and there isn't any other country with the US power as demonstrated by our basing. Iraq has a base under construction that is larger than the Vatican - because we want control over Oil.... nothing else.

Sadam Hussein has less than 30 days to live - my question: does "W" have a fetish in the killing of people? Think back to the execution of Carla Fay Tucker - where "W" mocked her plea for mercy.

I think "W" is one sick puppy. Tell me you don't agree.

"He murdered so many they may never find all the mass graves"

Just so you know one of the bigger sources of mass graves in Iraq came right after the Iraqis were thrown out of Kuwait. The first Bush administration encouraged the Shia in the South and the Kurds in the North in to open revolt because they wanted them to overthrow Saddam so they didn't have to do the dirty work. When the Shia and Kurds did revolt, the U.S. for whatever reason turned its back on them, and Saddam slaughtered them. Thats what goverments do to people in open revolt against them, the U.S.included (remember the Civil War it killed more Americans than any other war by far). If the U.S had at least provided a no fly zone during this period and kept Saddam's helicopter gunships on the ground they might have had a chance.

Fact is Iraq is an artificial abomination of a country created by the British empire. There has been a civil war, either hot or cold, there for the last century. Here is a list. Lots of people get killed in civil wars, they are nasty, bloody affairs. The Sunni were in the dominant position through most of it so the Kurds and Shias took the worst of it but the Shia's and Kurds have done their shar eof killing too. Now the Sunni's are on the losing end so they are the ones in open insurrection, the Shia are on top and rushing to a Taliban style Islamic state, the Kurds are waiting for America to leave at which point they create a Kurdish state.

Only way you are likely to have peace in Iraq is to partition it in 3 and evenly divide the oil fields. But that would compell mass migrations and Turkey will never stand for an independent Kurdistan. You see the Turks have faced a Kurdish insurrection most of the last century just as bad as Iraq has, they brutally suppressed it to, just like Saddam. Only reason we differentiate Iraq from Turkey is American propaganda has chosen to emphasize Saddam's treatment of the Kurd's and ignore how Turkey has treated them. The Kurd's have been in open revolt against both trying to get an independent homeland so they've bombed and shot their fair share of Iraqis and Turks too. Again when you have a civil war going on people get killed.

" He ATTACKED A NEIGHBORING COUNTRY"

Hate to point this out to you but the U.S. and Britain have invaded all kinds of countries neighboring and on the other side of the world. The U.S. has sent marines in to countries in to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America every few years for the last 150+ years. Panama was the most recent and I'd be hard pressed to tell you what real justification the U.S. had for that invasion and regime change, other than Noriega had fallen out of favor after years of being on the CIA payroll.

I'm inclined to agreee with you the Saddam should have been taken down after he was driven out of Kuwait but to come back more than 10 years later was insane.

"Utilities coming back online, jobs, women aren't stoned to death for showing their face...."

Utilities in Iraq are a shambles stop kidding yourself or anyone else. Blackouts in Baghdad were just increase from 4 planned hours of blackout up to 10 unpredictable hours this week. The water and sewage systems are just as bad as the electical grid. Sabotage is obviously the main problem, but its also to dangeorus for any reconstruction to take place so the infrastructure collapsed during the sanction era, was damaged by the war and especially the looting that followed, and its getting worse not better since.

Reports I've seen indicate Basra, the Shia heartland, has in fact turned in to a Taliban style fundementalist Islamic state. I heard the constitution the Shia and Kurds are writting is in fact going to be heavily based on Islamic law. The U.S. resists it but the fact is Iraq's majority is overwhelmingly devout Shia Muslim and its going end up an Islamic state, with stoning and beheading because that is Islamic law.

Whatever else

My friend, I have seen a free country, a country where two right-winged political parties do not dominate the political spectrum and national tickets, where peoples rights are preserved and social classes have been all but eliminated, a country where soft-money and corporate sponsorships are not permitted to "buy" elections. The U.S. is no longer a free country and it's high time something is done about it.

A free country does not allow the government to pass laws that provide for the silent imprisonment and execution of its citizens, citizens who haven't even been convicted of a crime. A free country does not allow its private sector and capitalists to dictate domestic and foreign policy in their favor and to the disadvantage of the majority. A free country does not encourage the widening of gaps between social classes by promoting the elite and trampling and stifling the poor. A free country does not make its will dominate another sovereign country, regardless of their political system and certainly does not invade it without clear justification. A free country allows its citizens to hold its leaders accountable for their actions, actions that have caused the deaths of hundreds of your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters and countless civilians overseas.

In 2003 we suddenly find that the guy's a threat and has to be taken out RIGHT NOW. I'm still not clear on what exacly changed.


Hello! This is 1991 calling. Feel free to use references to the Gulf War, AKA Operation Desert Storm.

Teddy Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize is like Idi Amin winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But of course, Filipinos were "darkies", and thus didn't really count as people back in that imperial era.

Hmm.... does this mean that George W. Bush qualifies for a Nobel Peace Prize too, for his excellence in bringing peace to Afghanistan and Iraq?!

A company can not just barge into another country and demand their wants and rules be met

safety Sorry No. Go down and have a look at the 'murder' columns, shows a value of deaths per 100k. US ends up w/ double digits with countries like the USSR, Latvia & Brazil - Drastically higher than sub 2 values of star performers like Canada, Belgium, Greece and Japan..

freedom Sorry No. Have a look at the Corruption Index (Scroll to Table 1), American Imperialism (and here), McArthyism.. I wont bother with the links: DMCA, Marijuana Prohibition, Prostitution, Collusive Monopolies (RIAA/MPAA), The Cuban Embargo, Kent State Massacre, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra Affair, Watergate, Assassinations of John/Bobby Kennedy & MLK, Invasion of Granada, The War on Drugs, Internet Censorship in Schools/Libraries, Consumerism, Work holism, Invasion of Dominican Republic, Gulf War, Systemic Racism (weak gay rights)... etc etc

quality of life Sorry No. Canada has the highest Standard of Living on the planet - 7 years running...

I went to Chicago for NewYears eve to visit some friends. On the way home we heard a news reporter 'lead out of a story' by saying "...and after all; we are the richest and most powerful people in the world." What I began to think is that Americans have begun to treat their 'democracy' (*ahem*) like a Religion. There is no debate. They have enjoyed a very good 150 years - and like all successful civilizations; it will eventually end. If America didnt have such a large piece of 'virgin' North America to exploit for natural resources, and did host a World War (or two) Im betting the world would be a very different place. The 'success' of America dosnt prove the 'rightness' of Capitalism - so get that out of your head. America's 'success' is not success at all! (See adbusters.org about consumerism and mindlessness). America would do itself a favour and learn a little collective humility. Surely the last election has taught you something...

The system has been horribly corrupt by politicians and business people 'on the take'. Their is no longer anyone in Washington who intends to lead Americans. To help America lead and become better global citizens - and try their best to help set a good example - and take examples from those who are already doing good. No person on this planet should be without the rights described in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the US Constitution (or similar documents written or yet-to-be written). Like it or not this is a Global Village and we should be working together for the good of us all.

I refuse to become cynical and jadded. People will respond that this is 'The Real World' - to that I suggest people decide what we are choosing to make this 'Real World' become? Like it or not our collective action/inaction everyday sets the course for the future. We need to stop the 'present' America from setting the course that it is now (and using arms/propaganda to force others into capitulating). (I wont bother with the globalization/imperialist/enslavement/end-of-the-p lanet scenario that is our current future).

Please American PEOPLE do something about your government.