You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction

BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."

Comments

I know what you mean!!

[tester13]

I know exactly what you mean! Think about what we do here day in and day out. We talk about the incremental release of software as if it's the most important thing in the world.

We endlessly follow every possible civil liberties encroachment though /., mailing lists, Usenet, etc.

I read Slashdot compulsively. I also read Slate, Salon, and the NYT daily. Have I really learned anything important, or am I just wasting time? I tend to think more towards the later.

This is a timely topic in wake of the recent tragic events. I have been refreshing CNN and MSNBC's website obsessively searching for the latest (often wrongly reported) news.

OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.

more please

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody please post more links to stories about news addiction!

A suggestion

[Mike Schiraldi]

A comment i just sent to Rob Malda (after a short bit of praise for him and his team):

- Please consider making a "permanent" story -- or call it a forum. When i
want to post something about the tragedy, i'm forced to choose between three
options, none of which is great: I can submit a story, and odds are great
that you will have to reject it. I can post a comment to an old story, where
it will likely be missed since the story is off the front page and will
certainly be missed when the next update is posted. Or, i can wait for the
next update and hope i hit it early.

If you had one huge permanent story instead of lots of smaller ones, people
would sort by "Newest First" to get news, which is what they should do
instead of just waiting for the next story to be posted. It lets new +1 and
+2 comments have a chance regardless of how early they're posted.

Also, raising the maximum comment rating above 5, if technically feasable,
would really help in these stories, where dozens and dozens of comments are
rated at 5...

Jeremy Glick, from Dateline

[Mike Schiraldi]

The most powerful and moving coverage of Jeremy Glick's story, from Dateline NBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/629077.asp

Please read. Please mod up so people will see.

Morale

[gutier]

The piece is suggestive of something: instead of proudly being an American by being fully aware of all that is taking place, proudly be an American by doing something to help instead of sitting around watching TV.

Re:Suggestion

[eclectro]

OK. but there is always the radio

Re:News addiction?

[terri rolle]

piss poor journalism and bad taste in television

You misspelled "Fox News Channel".

You can go back to sleep now. Here's why:

[Wakko Warner]

Folks, this war is going to take a long time. This isn't gonna be over in days or weeks or months, and the resolution is not gonna be on tomorrow's news. Once we find out who these people are and who their superiors are and how everything works (CNN reports that one of the guys we picked up in St. Louis tonight on a train is telling the FBI a lot about that shit), we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either. The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with. (Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.) Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though. I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan (and I firmly believe we will.)

Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off. This isn't grade schoool and everything has a price in the real world. Freedom from the creeping tyranny of terrorism, though -- teaching those people that this is NOT the way to make friends and influence people -- requires some struggle and loss.

I am confident that, in the end, the good will far outweigh the bad in this thing. But it's going to take time.

- A.P.

Manufacturing Consent

[surfimp]

I've turned off my television and stopped visiting CNN.com and all the rest of the mainstream media outlets. I'm becoming extremely disturbed by the direction which they've been heading since rougly 20 minutes after the second plane hit, and (as I recall) even before the first WTC tower fell.

The talk is of reprisal, and how the United States is going to respond to the attacks. Granted, nothing can justify what has happened, and there is no rationalization for what was done. However, could we perhaps get a bit wider perspective or perhaps even some critical thought/discussion regarding what has happened from CNN?

Today there was a poll on CNN.com that makes my point perfectly: "If Afghanistan refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S. bomb Kabul?" 79% of respondents said yes, we should bomb Kabul.

Hello, my fellow citizens! The people of Afghanistan are currently living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban, having just come out of a long and very punishing war with the former Soviet Union. Not only has all the major infrastructure *already* been bombed, but the people are suffering tremendously as it currently stands.

Even more to the point, what could "we" possibly gain by bombing Kabul, which is a CITY full of CIVILIANS, after all? Does it make any difference whether it's a cruise missle or jetliner causing the explosion? Do you think the Taliban government, the only ones with access to food and equipment, will still be in Kabul when the bombs start to drop? Hardly--they'll be off in the hills with bin Laden, and the only people left to suffer the brunt of such an assault would be the civilian population.

The point I'm trying to make is that the mainstream media is so caught up in the idea that we could bomb Afghanistan that they've forgotten whether or not we should. After all, the only real way that we'll get bin Laden (or whomever is responsible for these crimes) out is by _going_in_after_them_. That will cost American and NATO lives. And, it can be aruged that it runs the high risk of polarizing other Muslim nations against what they could only perceive as an invasion by the West.
And if you've actually read anything about what bin Laden is trying to accomplish with his terrorist agenda, it's EXACTLY that--a world war between Islam and the West. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear bombs at their disposal.

Where is there any discussion of these facts in the mainstream media? That is what I truly fear, more than anything else. The manufacturing of our consent to what amounts to acts of genocide against civilian populations--and that ultimately leads to only greater and greater violence.

Try: http://www.zmag.org

Re:Religion is to blame

[Skyshadow]

Of course, religion doesn't kill people. People kill people -- religion can just sometimes serve as a suitable excuse. Nationalism works pretty interchangibly well for this, as do items like feelings of racial superiority, etc.

We could go into all of this now, and I could explain why your "insights" are sadly shallow, but I suspect you're just trolling. Shame on you for doing so on the backs of 5000 innocent people.

However, on the off chance that your viewpoint actually is that shallow, may I suggest some basic reading: "The Battle for God" by Karen Armstrong. It's an excellent primer on the role of religion and root causes of fundementalism.

Re:You can go back to sleep now. Here's why:

[terri rolle]

CNN reports that one of the guys we picked up in St. Louis tonight on a train is telling the FBI a lot about that shit

Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.

we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.

The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.

The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.

I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.

Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.

Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.

Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.

Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.

I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan

I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.

U.S. government average killing: 100,000/year.

[Futurepower(tm)]

I'm feeling really uncomfortable with the lack of logic in valuing the lives of people, who happen by chance to have been born in the U.S., so much more highly than people who were born elsewhere.

The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and friends.

The average killing by the U.S. government in the last 30 years has been about 100,000 people per year.

The recent terrorism is, like all violence, reprehensible. I grieve for my country, and I grieve for the people lost. However, if 5,000 people have been killed in New York and Washington D.C., that is only 5% of the U.S. government's yearly average.

I grieve for those killed by the U.S. government, also.

The Bush Administration was requesting $343.2 billion for the Defense Department in Fiscal Year 2002. Now the budget will be much more.

Would it be too much to ask to spend 1% of that amount on an initiative to try to discover how the U.S. could live in the world without killing? I've tried to pull together some ideas about relating to other people in a non-violent but powerful way in an article called, "What should be the response to violence?"

This Slashdot story begins: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help."

Perhaps if this person had been aware of what his government was doing, he would have lost much more sleep. Knowing more will help.

Re:U.S. government average killing: 100,000/year.

[Zoop]

First, your numbers are so rough as to be meaningless. They also aren't accurate. And you conflate military and civilian casualties--or you are simply wildly misinformed.

Knowing more would help, yes:

The CIA trained Osama bin Laden.

False. Widely-spread untruth by terrorist sympathizers, but false.

Once again, intelligence agencies were useless.

By not training him? No.
By enabling the Afghani people to kick out Soviet invaders? Last time I looked, the Soviets withdrew.

George Bush had increased U.S. support for Israel.

He reduced support for both sides as tensions increased.

Violence is assumed. An NBC poll says 83% of Americans want military action.

Violence has been committed. However, you notice there was no reflexive bombing campaign.

Weapons indicate weakness, not power. The best protection is being truly powerful.

To you, yes. To most people around the world, sadly, no. Would it were so but it's not, and that determines the nature of the conflict. Study the history of terrorism in the 70's and early 80's.

The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer.

No, sometimes a part of the answer. Most of that time was spent in the Cold War, which by the way, did not finally become World War Three.

The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,300 years.

Finally, you got one right.

Violence is caused by mentally de-centered people.

No. There are reams of psychological research on this subject. Any arguments based on this premise are therefore wrong.

Does the U.S. really have a place in a dispute that began 3,100 years before the founding of the country?

They seem to think so. And much as I'd like to move the Jewish state to Florida, it won't happen. As long as you deal with reality, the U.S. is always asked to go into places we have no direct involvement. The alternative, isolationism, has not been successful and is also the coward's way out of not trying to influence the world to something better. The fact that we haven't been perfectly successful means we're still human.

The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries.

Most of which happened 30 years ago. We have a history of wearing powdered wigs, too.

There is in the U.S. very little attempt at understanding other cultures.

Yes. Like all things, that varies by individual, but then I've been called a fascist for suggesting we overturn the government educational system that creates it.

Under the stress of conflict, people show how they truly think.

No. They react more extremely than they normally would. Both to the good (Red Cross donations) and bad (bomb now). On sober reflection, they go back to donating less and not wanting indiscriminate conflict. You'll notice the government you condemn did not take the easy bomb them the first night and make ourselves feel better route.

Answers?

True power is not adversarial.

Check. But if you don't include some ability to threaten those who threaten you or others, things turn out badly. Try living in a place without police if you don't believe me.

Don't let personal anger be a problem.

Our government is doing better than our people here.

The average American cannot be held responsible for the violence of the U.S. government.

And you propose letting people who do so get away with it. Bringing them to justice in any form will require force.

The bottom line

...is that we live in a world, not a college classroom. It can be a harsh and brutal world sometimes. What's coming will not be good, but it will be less bad than the alternative. Study world history 1976-1980 for an abject lesson.

'Net better than TV

[fleener]

This event has made me realize that web-based news is more extensive and informative than anything coming from corporate media. There is a ton of information that escapes mention or gets scarce coverage on TV news, including tidbits such as:

• the CIA's training of Osama Bin Laden,
  
• the USA's funding of Afghanistan ($43 million this year),
  
• how oppressed Afghanistan's citizens are,
  
• the nature of Isreal's 30+ year military occupation of Palestine,
  
• the many incidents of hate being directed toward Arab-Americans by their hate-filled neighbors,
  
• the false alarms and racial profiling since the security crack-down,
  
• the inaccurate jumping-the-gun reporting of the TV networks,
  
• and that not all of America is blood-thirsty and calling for war.
  

parade of maudlin moments

[beanerspace]

Well, what did it for me is the press rolling out everyone who's suffering, and exploiting it for ratings. Husbands who've lost wives, mom's who've lost children. Certainly we have compassion for these people, but to spend a half hour filming their unthinkable grief ... the only thing worse is watching it. It's exploitation of the worst kind.

Excessive News Coverage == Win for Terrorism

[Masem]

Just like several other things like loss of civil liberties and increased security at places, extended news coverage is yet another victory for terrorism. It's very understandable that for few days from the incident for the major networks to be filled with news as the events break, but we're at the point were 1) we're very unlikely to find any new survivors, and 2) any investigation and future planning should be done without much public information as to maintain state secrecy. Thus, news coverage since Friday has been simply repeating the same events over and over and filling the screen with talking heads. In addition, the net equivalent seems to be happening at the major news sites; too many analysis, very little pro-active stories. And yet as the base article indicates, we're too much drawn to it. At least up to Friday, my productivity at work for the week and at home is way down since I feel like I'm continually checkign these sites, but as news is no longer flowing as fast as it did Weds, I think I'm over that bilge.

The longer that these news outlets contrinue to push this 24/7 news schedule, the longer it will take the rest of the american (and other countries as well) people to return to a sense of normalicy, which is what we ought to be striving for to show the terrorists that this attack did little to stiffle the American spirit. Sure, I'd expect to have soem expanded news coverage as events break, but we should be watching regular programming at this point. Particularly this weekend, as families have a chance for family time, it's important that the networks offer fare that the entire family can enjoy as opposed to more news coverage.

And yet another sign that terrorism has won a bit is the fact that several movies, TV shows, and video games are being pulled for the time being or revamped in the short term to accommodate the loss. In some cases, such as Anrold's new movie or FOX's "24" or the video game Majesty, this makes sense; events are too close to reality that pulling them for the short term just makes sense. I also being not holding the bulk of sports events this weekend is also a reasonable step (both emotionally and technically; how do you get all those people from one side of the country to other with air travel only just starting to get back to normal?) But then you also have cases where, for example, a new Tim Allen comedy in NYC is pulled since it simply involves the WTC, a new Jackie Chan movie being pulled and revamped completely despite the amount of footage already shot since Chan's character in it was a window washer for the WTC, C&C Red Alert 2 being pulled since it shows NYC on fire on the cover of the box, Microsoft immediately altering the next version of it's Flight Sim to remove the WTC from the NYC area (and in the UK, the flight sim being removed from shelves as it was claimed that the terrorists could have learned to fly from that), and numerous other examples which are more knee-jerk than thought out. Again, each of these knee-jerk actions are wins for terrorism, because that's the type of lifestyle that we've come to enjoy and expect, and now, at best for the short term, that's gone.

Yes, at least according to the President, we're in a National Emergancy, so I expect some parts of our lives to be distrupted. But it is much more important to show that the American resolve and spirit cannot be broken as easily as it was, and thus, we must strive to get back to normalacy in our lives, and unfortunately, the constant barrage of news is not helping.

Why News addiction?

[Veteran]

Because knowledge is power.

People do understand that fact on some level; learning about something does give them information to act upon.

Here is some information which has not been reported in the general news: guess who the commander-in-chief of the Afghan military is.

I'll type the article in in part since it is on an extremely slow server even without the slashdot effect.

"MOSCOW, Aug 30 (UPI) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the appointment of Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, the official RIA Novosti news agency reported."

I am not setting this up as a link because for some reason the Slashdot editor (in Netscape) insists on putting a space in the number 216037, and I can't get the link to work. If you wish to see the original - copy and paste the address into your browser and delete the space.

http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=216 03 7

Several comments:

• Note the date on the story: almost 2 weeks before the trade center attack.
  
• I first saw the link on www.drudgereport.com
  
• Appointing someone as your commander-in-chief qualifies as somewhat more than harboring - don't you think?
  
• The original source of the report was Pakistan's 'Nation daily'.
  
• The story - like everything you read - might be false. But since it predates the current furor - I tend to believe it. Chances are -before the crisis - the UPI wouldn't have published it without checking sources
  

Umm, maye you should think

[N8F8]

Could it be possile that the military doesn't pick it's targets baed on CNN polls?

Re:Umm, maye you should think

[_xeno_]

Could it be possile that the military doesn't pick it's targets ba[s]ed on CNN polls?

Yeah, but it's quite possible that Commander in Chief George W. Bush might. Don't forget, ultimately, the military gets their orders from Congress and the President.

Basically, Congress has to give permission for the President to use military force (which I believe has already happened), and once that has happened, the President is in basically complete control over the direction the military compaign goes. Which means that it's quite possible that the politicians will decide that bombing Kabul is the best choice of action to please the people.

Which would be a very bad thing indeed; although if we're all lucky, Bush's advisors will direct him in a less severe course of action.

Oops, the URL should be:

[dgroskind]

A Terrorist Profile Emerges That Confounds the Experts.

It's Simple, Really...

[s390]

countries either harbor and condone terrorists, or they don't - they expel them, or better, arrest and extradite or imprison them (as in... forever). This was likely the point made clear to Pakistan in the last few days - all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.

Saudi Arabia is going to have to rethink it's internal denial. Egypt is going to need to temper it's internal repression of fundamentalist idiots and move toward better intelligence gathering and sharing with the West. Even Israel will need to do a better job of discriminating between its local political opponents and the dangerous terrorists with over-reaching international agendas. I wish them all wisdom and good fortune, as they will need both.

The Taliban has seemingly made their choice. With Omar's mealy-mouthed sidewinding and impotent defiance of human rights for innocent civilians either inside or outside their borders, they've as much as sealed their fate to burn in the fires of implacable war and then burn again in the eternal fires of Hell for their complicity with such inhuman evil. No Paradise awaits those dupes of a twisted Islamic vision, just everlasting anguish of damnation.

By the way, Islam is a religion much like Christianity, Judaism, and others: it counsels peace and goodwill. Only hotheaded fanatics pervert it to their paranoiac schemes toward power. Unfortunately, there are more Islamic hotheads with dreams of Paradise than can be allowed to live in this world.

Pakistan was likely presented with "an offer it couldn't refuse" and chose, however reluctantly, to stand with the forces of justice. They will close their border with Afghanistan, cut off its fuel supplies, provide bases for a multinational force to remove the Taliban and terrorists, and allow multinational military overflights during this war. Pakistan's choices were exactly two: either you are with us, or you're against us. I'm sure it was just this... clear.

And there will be a war over this. No one kills 5,000 innocent civilians without being hunted to the very ends of the earth and brought to a very stern account. Osama Bin Ladin (I spit on your very name and wish you an excruciating death worse than a shit-eating pig's, you mutant whelp of diseased fornicating dogs), say your prayers - you'll be meeting Allah sooner rather than later, and I think you'll be dismayed with His plans for your eternity.

My experience.

[Telek]

I know exactly what you mean.

When I saw the first news I headed over to all the news sites that I could find (I found out shortly after the first crash) and I was engrossed. My first reaction was one of "woah!" and I just wanted to follow everything that was happening, almost on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. Figuring that a building could not possibly stand up after being hit by a plane, I headed over to here (love that site) to find out everything that I could about how those buildings were built. I was glued to the screen for a good 2 hours, until a thought stuck me. I was looking at one of the images, and said "man, that looks so fake" and caught myself thinking (one of those 1/2 second back-of-your-mind thoughts) "they should have done a better job on the CG of that one"...

BAM!

Then it hit me. Almost all of the images looked like something out of a movie. I had been so desensitized that, upon seeing these images, my mind just assumed that they were fake. It did not want to accept the idea that they were real, so it was neat to want to see all about it that I could find.

Man was I disgusted with myself when I figured that one out.

Flame me down if you want, but I know that I wasn't the only one who thought that way. Once it sunk in that this was real, and those falling bodies out of the windows were real people, and after the first tower collapsed knowing that for the same reason the second one would collapse, and looking at it and knowing that there wasn't shit that I could do, and knowing that the people outside and the firefighters knew the same thing, man. That was a shock. I tried to donate but the stupid amazon form wouldn't accept my postal code, so I went and gave blood instead. I was half of the mind to go down there to see if there was anything that I could do to help (I was about a 5 hour drive away, I'm 1.5hr from the US border in Toronto) but when the borders were closed, and I came to my senses, I realized how entirely useless I was.

I just hope that some good does come out of this. I stopped watching the news after about 4 hours because I was disgusted at the media trying to grandstand with every little bit of information that they had, and watching the rumours go from the first emergance, and hearing them spread from newsteam to newsteam like a bad game of broken telephone, I knew that I had to stop.

Ack. May the passing of the deceased pave the way for a new era of peace and harmony amongst all beings on the earth. I would hate to know that all of this happened and the result was nothing more than a little revenge. Lets hope that this anti-terrorism coilition will stand tall over time and help to eliminate this uglyness.

Re:Religion is to blame

[warpeightbot]

religion can just sometimes serve as a suitable excuse.

Both for some suicidal maniacs to crash aircraft into the sides of buildings, and for xenophobic maniacs like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson to blame the crashes on people whose only crime is to insist that they be allowed to live according to the dictates of their own conscience, not harming anyone else.

Skyshadow's implication here is spot-on. Fundamentalism in any form is dangerous... the arrogance that comes from believing that your way of life is so much superior than mine that it gives you the right to impose it on me often turns deadly. I don't suggest for a moment that we should launch a pre-emptive strike on those two gentlemen's persons.... but bombing the bejeezus out of their credibility is something every sane American should do every chance they get.

Let'em talk... but make sure they're the poster children for the Fool of the Month Club.

Ars Technica

[FFFish]

Best Thread Ever is posted at Ars Technica.

For those of you wishing some sense of closure, perhaps the Ars Technica thread will assist. It contains dozens upon dozens of photographs of people around the world memorializing the tragedy.

It is touching. And in between the pictures, the words of support and gratefulness will move you.

If there is a single positive outcome to this terrible event, it is that over a billion people have realized the important truth: we are all one people, united in humanity because we are all human.

Together, we could create a utopia. Divided, we create terror, pain, and tragedy.

Let our next thoughts, next decisions, next actions lead us toward a better world.

forget CNN

[hugg]

Knowing more *will* help, insofar as making you more informed then the rest of the spoon-fed populace, and maybe able to enlighten a few other people with your knowledge. But don't watch CNN or any of the mainstream networks that are geared toward angry, emotional soccer moms. This is not yet a time for mourning, it's a time to educate ourselves, make the right decisions, and preserve the stability of our nation.

Research the history of the conflict, get to know all sides of the story, get to know the people we will eventually be fighting. Something as simple as going to the "world trade center attack" category on Yahoo! and surfing around is a good start.

Ponder the incredible ripple effect an attack would have on the rest of the world, and how difficult are the decisions we face. There are a million variables in the diplomatic equation in this crisis -- I hope Joshua is working on the problem full-time.

It's definitely not simple!

[robinjo]

all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.

My country stayed neutral during the cold war. My country has participated in peace keeping for ages and hosted conferences where nations have brought closer to each other.

I can't find the words to describe how sad and disappointed I am to hear how USA demands my country to give up on our neutrality and choose side. It's absolutely revolting how the strongest country in the world forces countries to look at the world in black or white.

Based on a poll 29% of US citizens do not support bombing. Is USA going to make these people "bear the concequences?" Or is US going to respect their right to free speech and own opinions? If so, why does US prohibit this right from peaceloving countries?