Slashdot Mirror
Weapons in Space
SWG_Eddie submits this story about the U.S. military beginning the militarization of space. We've done a few previous stories on this, such as this one. Putting weapons in earth orbit is not forbidden by any treaty or law.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Humans are naturally antagonistic. Violence is our nature.
Well, that's true of Americans. But just because it's true of you, doesn't mean it's true everywhere in the world.
I know I'm going to get slated for saying this, but in many countries in Europe the people are not violent by nature. Nor are Canadians. Or Australians or Kiwi's.
(1912) U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua and occupy the country almost continuously until 1933,
(1954) The CIA engineers the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala; 30 years of military dictatorship, repression, and violence follow,
(1961) The U.S. attempts to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban government at the Bay of Pigs,
(1965) Johnson sends 22,000 troops to the Dominican Republic to combat the constitutional forces trying to regain power,
(1981) The Reagan Administration begins the contra war against Nicaraguan civilians,
(1983) The U.S. invades Grenada to overthrow a popular government,
(1989) The U.S. invades Panama to arrest accused drug dealer Manual Noriega.
And that's just in its own continent. Funnily enough, the US also invaded two of those countries on your list, only first. Go figure.
I am getting annoyed about people who (still) believe in the "clash of civilisations" where the poor (undemocratic) countries are going to fight the "civilised" world.
Poor deluded European. So longing for the time when your country's opinion(s) mattered.
I find this currious, and as an example of an use of this, can be seen in an incident, where a couple of Danish soldiers killed two civilians in Iraq. They payed compensation to the families and started a trial, but I haven't heard such trials from the socalled civilised US Army (maybe they are hiding it, but why would they do that?).
Try using Google once in a while. We regularly pay out money to Iraqis who have had property damaged or destroyed, or loved ones hurt or killed, when it's determined to be an accident and a US soldier is at fault.
What I am really asking is, is there no direct democratic control of the armies in the US?
You're joking, right? Civilian control of the military is one of the cornerstones of our armed forces. It's a tradition we inherited from the British. The commander-in-chief of the military is the President, and all of the highest ranking people are civilians, various cabinet secretaries and such. As another posted pointed out, those secretaries are approved by the Senate, so the President can't just appoint anyone whom he wants. Compare this with a country like Denmark (since you mentioned it), where you have an actual King ruling over the people and controlling the military. Yeah, that's progressive!
Probably I am too stupid to understand the USA.
No, just ignorant. If you really want to know what the US is about, ignore all the Eurotrash on Slashdot and other places badmouthing us, and try asking Joe Sixpack American what he thinks of the rest of the world. We've got a very different outlook on things than Europeans do, except for the radical left, which noone over here pays much attention to, except during election years.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.