I most certainly do not agree with this comment but I don't think this should be moderated as troll.
Thechnically the poster is correct since Serbia did not attack NATO but Germany as part of NATO did wage war against the country to resolve the Kosovo crisis.
For some - as this poster - this was crossing the red line set out in our constitution. Although I think this is not the case in my opinion this viewpoint is valid enough to not deserve to be suppressed as troll.
Well, going through the article I can not find an answer to the question how many volunteers the armed forces attract each year. And I am too tired to google for it just now. But I find the fiscal argument that was made at the end of the linked article not terribly convincing. I would expect a draft to be highly selective in order to replenish the ranks with specialists (i.e. medical, MP, engineering) that are most hard to come by.
Well, I guess I should have been more specific: I am looking for a Iraq with an elected national government friendly towards the US i.e. an Iraq in which US soldiers are neither shot at nor told to leave the country.
Your point is well taken - yet, I still have to wonder how long on a purely voluntary basis the rate of loss of active duty soldiers can be sustained? What this come down to is can you for instance scale up to 10,000 volunteers per year? You seem to think so. I don't know the numbers but if you have a link I would very much appreciate it.
It's a good constitution isn't it? Article 26 does indeed prevent my country from participating in the Iraq war as well as attacking NK unprovoked but it does by no means imply that we do not have a large army or do not develop some sophisticated weaponry.
Iraq had to be dealt with eventually in this France and my country (Germany) were certainly in agreement. It was the timing, the manner and the bogus reasons given that made it impossible for both countries to go along with Bush's war.
After a truly sustainable and successful transformation of Afghanistan a Iraq war would have been a much better option. The justification should have been simply humanitarian: The Iraq sanction were killing millions of civilians in Iraq. With Saddam in power the sanction could not be removed. Hence Saddam had to be removed.
I strongly believe that the US could have led a unified world against Iraq on this basis. But this administration simply didn't have what it took to get there.
If you have to deal with them diplomatically it would have really helped if the president did not includ them into the axis of evil when giving a puplic speech. Not very diplomatic now, is it?
Actually at the end Saddam gave them full access (scroll down 2/3 of the page).
Unfortunatelly this was apparently not as widely reported in the US as in Europe. I remeber hearing this news on the radio in my car back in Germany.
The UN inspectors concluded that Iraq in all likelyhood did not have any more WMDs. So they did a very good job indeed since we now know that this was a correct assesment.
The fact that the US nevertheless invaded Iraq is what irked France and my country (Germany) and as good friends and allies the governments of both countries tried really hard to convince the Bush adminstration that another Iraq war given these facts was a very bad idea. Alas to no avail.
On top of the 1000 dead US soldiers 3840 were not able to return to duty within 72 hours.
And the trend is not good. The death toll has gone up by 18% since the hand-over of power to the token Iraki government
I'd be very interested to learn how long this rate can be sustained without a draft especially if another conflict draws more troops (i.e. an atack on Iran as predicted by many political analyist for a 2nd Bush term).
I am a foreigner living in the US and I could naturalize but even the remote chance of a draft in this country makes this a very unattractive option to me.
Including them into the axis of evil speech without any immediate miltary follow-up was very, very stupid.
It was then that NK became very uncooperative and demanded a treaty that spelled out that the US would not attack NK nor NK the US.
Bush denied such a treaty. Of course NK would then put all efforts into building nukes after wittnessing what happened to another prominent member of the "axis of evil club". Same goes for Iran.
Bush speech and follow up action pretty much advertised to them in no uncertain terms that they will be next. If you want to take somebody out you really shouldn't advertise it and then leave the other guy a lot of time to prepare for it and stock up on weapons. But then again mayben Bush just has a perverse sense of fairness.
Germany has an army. During the 2nd world war it was the backbone of NATO with over 500,000 soldiers permanently under arms. Germany still has a draft (I fortunatelly managed to escape it).
Japan on the other hand only has a scaled down "self defense force".
I suggest you better check you facts before you post.
Anyway, Germany and Japan will not "do anything about this" because there are still some countries around that are somewhat more conservative when it comes to war and do not like to start one. Last we did it was not a very pleasant experience. As long as NK does not attack another country we will not touch them - nuke or not nuke.
Of course Japan may decide to build its own nukes as detterent as well as SK.
I still fail to see the relevancy. Didn't Bush manage to skip Vietnam altogether? Not that I think that matters much either - rather seems to have been a smart thing to do IMHO.
Doesn't Kerry have any opinions on current issues that he can run on e.g. Iraq, patriot act, economy etc.?
I may add that to me as a German it is just utterly puzzling what seems to be politcally important to the US these days. Don't you have a current war to worry about? What is it with all these silly Vietnam rehashes?
Re:Close, but misses the mark
on
Vive La Loafing!
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
According to these numbers the above statement is wrong - although GDP is pretty much tied. Given that the unemployment rate is so much higher and the number of vacation days almost double this does however mean that the productivity per worker per hour of labor must be higher in Germany than in the US. I.e. German workers get much more done in one work hour so that they can afford more holidays as well as subsidize such a high unemployment rate.
Having worked both in Germany as well as the US I can attest that this difference is not theoretical at all. The German business climate is more focused with much less small talk in the office and meetings tend to be more productive and shorter.
An atlas never tells the whole story. I suggest you travel more. Or you can just surf to sites like this one. I especially want to bring the photo to your attention that has the caption "You can drive from the desert right into the sea."
Slashdot Mirror
I most certainly do not agree with this comment but I don't think this should be moderated as troll.
Thechnically the poster is correct since Serbia did not attack NATO but Germany as part of NATO did wage war against the country to resolve the Kosovo crisis.
For some - as this poster - this was crossing the red line set out in our constitution. Although I think this is not the case in my opinion this viewpoint is valid enough to not deserve to be suppressed as troll.
Yep, that's why I will stop posting comments when being dead tired. It meant to say "cold" not "2nd"
Well, going through the article I can not find an answer to the question how many volunteers the armed forces attract each year. And I am too tired to google for it just now. But I find the fiscal argument that was made at the end of the linked article not terribly convincing. I would expect a draft to be highly selective in order to replenish the ranks with specialists (i.e. medical, MP, engineering) that are most hard to come by.
Well, I guess I should have been more specific: I am looking for a Iraq with an elected national government friendly towards the US i.e. an Iraq in which US soldiers are neither shot at nor told to leave the country.
Why exactly? (Except for my stupid mistake of writing "2nd" instead of "cold").
I would think that correcting a post that misstates that my country doesn't have an army is very much on topic.
Your point is well taken - yet, I still have to wonder how long on a purely voluntary basis the rate of loss of active duty soldiers can be sustained? What this come down to is can you for instance scale up to 10,000 volunteers per year? You seem to think so. I don't know the numbers but if you have a link I would very much appreciate it.
It's a good constitution isn't it? Article 26 does indeed prevent my country from participating in the Iraq war as well as attacking NK unprovoked but it does by no means imply that we do not have a large army or do not develop some sophisticated weaponry.
Whow. Pointing out that nuking NK in a preemptive strikes is mass murder counts as flamebait here. Amazing.
I don't hate Bush. He seems to be nice enough fellow. But I do think he has bad speech writers and his foreign policy is lousy.
Ups. What wired brain fart let me write "2nd" instead of "cold"? Guess it's time to go to bed.
Iraq had to be dealt with eventually in this France and my country (Germany) were certainly in agreement. It was the timing, the manner and the bogus reasons given that made it impossible for both countries to go along with Bush's war.
After a truly sustainable and successful transformation of Afghanistan a Iraq war would have been a much better option. The justification should have been simply humanitarian: The Iraq sanction were killing millions of civilians in Iraq. With Saddam in power the sanction could not be removed. Hence Saddam had to be removed.
I strongly believe that the US could have led a unified world against Iraq on this basis. But this administration simply didn't have what it took to get there.
Thank you. Happy for every American slashdot reader who has not gone bloodthirsty crazy. Helps me to maintain my believe in humanity.
If you have to deal with them diplomatically it would have really helped if the president did not includ them into the axis of evil when giving a puplic speech. Not very diplomatic now, is it?
Please let me know as soon as Iraq becomes as democracy with a government friendly towards the US. Can't wait to see it happen.
Actually at the end Saddam gave them full access (scroll down 2/3 of the page).
Unfortunatelly this was apparently not as widely reported in the US as in Europe. I remeber hearing this news on the radio in my car back in Germany.
The UN inspectors concluded that Iraq in all likelyhood did not have any more WMDs. So they did a very good job indeed since we now know that this was a correct assesment.
The fact that the US nevertheless invaded Iraq is what irked France and my country (Germany) and as good friends and allies the governments of both countries tried really hard to convince the Bush adminstration that another Iraq war given these facts was a very bad idea. Alas to no avail.
On top of the 1000 dead US soldiers 3840 were not able to return to duty within 72 hours.
And the trend is not good. The death toll has gone up by 18% since the hand-over of power to the token Iraki government
I'd be very interested to learn how long this rate can be sustained without a draft especially if another conflict draws more troops (i.e. an atack on Iran as predicted by many political analyist for a 2nd Bush term).
I am a foreigner living in the US and I could naturalize but even the remote chance of a draft in this country makes this a very unattractive option to me.
Including them into the axis of evil speech without any immediate miltary follow-up was very, very stupid.
It was then that NK became very uncooperative and demanded a treaty that spelled out that the US would not attack NK nor NK the US.
Bush denied such a treaty. Of course NK would then put all efforts into building nukes after wittnessing what happened to another prominent member of the "axis of evil club". Same goes for Iran.
Bush speech and follow up action pretty much advertised to them in no uncertain terms that they will be next. If you want to take somebody out you really shouldn't advertise it and then leave the other guy a lot of time to prepare for it and stock up on weapons. But then again mayben Bush just has a perverse sense of fairness.
Germany has an army. During the 2nd world war it was the backbone of NATO with over 500,000 soldiers permanently under arms. Germany still has a draft (I fortunatelly managed to escape it).
Japan on the other hand only has a scaled down "self defense force".
I suggest you better check you facts before you post.
Anyway, Germany and Japan will not "do anything about this" because there are still some countries around that are somewhat more conservative when it comes to war and do not like to start one. Last we did it was not a very pleasant experience. As long as NK does not attack another country we will not touch them - nuke or not nuke.
Of course Japan may decide to build its own nukes as detterent as well as SK.
Memo to you: This equates to mass murder. NK did as of now not attack your country.
I still fail to see the relevancy. Didn't Bush manage to skip Vietnam altogether? Not that I think that matters much either - rather seems to have been a smart thing to do IMHO.
Doesn't Kerry have any opinions on current issues that he can run on e.g. Iraq, patriot act, economy etc.?
Your point being? I can not remember an election in Germany in my lifetime (I am 33) were WII played any role.
Some pre-war arguments against the war:
1
2
3
This is just a short sample of some of the thoughts I had when this ill conceived war started.
Then again it was easier for somebody to see this when not solely exposed to the US media.
Clip can be found here
I may add that to me as a German it is just utterly puzzling what seems to be politcally important to the US these days. Don't you have a current war to worry about? What is it with all these silly Vietnam rehashes?
According to these numbers the above statement is wrong - although GDP is pretty much tied. Given that the unemployment rate is so much higher and the number of vacation days almost double this does however mean that the productivity per worker per hour of labor must be higher in Germany than in the US. I.e. German workers get much more done in one work hour so that they can afford more holidays as well as subsidize such a high unemployment rate.
Having worked both in Germany as well as the US I can attest that this difference is not theoretical at all. The German business climate is more focused with much less small talk in the office and meetings tend to be more productive and shorter.
(What worries me much more comparing Germany to the US is that the infant mortality is so much higher in the latter. In that category even Cuba outperforms the number one superpower of the world.)
An atlas never tells the whole story. I suggest you travel more. Or you can just surf to sites like this one. I especially want to bring the photo to your attention that has the caption "You can drive from the desert right into the sea."