It seems to me that most of the murderous regimes we (the US) have supported in the past were supported in the interest of preventing another World War (i.e. attempting to "win" the cold war by supporting rightist regimes against communist insurgents)
Of course stopping the Soviet Union from getting too much power was as a large bit of the US motivation. But the Soviet Union is no more. The US stands alone with the power to enforce their will over most nations. And the US still support and commit atrocities.
There's no risk of a "Communist revolution" in Turkey. The Kurdish people who get their villages blasted to rubbles are no Soviet agents. And still the US choose not to utter a word of protest. Still the US make big bucks selling weapons that are used for killing innocents.
The democratic government of Guatemala before 1954 was not a communist one. Though it favoured the poor people at the cost of US company United Fruit. And so the US had the government overthrown and installed a regime which would torment the people of Guatemala for decades with its death squads. With the direct participation of the CIA. That is profit at the cost of human lives.
You should also keep in mind that often the supposed "victims" of these oppressive, militaristic regimes are just as oppressive and militaristic in their own right (the guerillas, or insurgents, or rebels, or whatever, not the innocent civilians who inevitably end up getting killed by BOTH sides in such conflicts)
Exactly. And the people sent to the Gulags were all counter-revolutionaries threatening the peoples revolution, remember? Just mention something about "communist guerilla" to the CNN, and your death squads can work undisturbed. We must at all cost keep the commies out, even if that means supporting a dictator. (And often a dictator that manages to keep the people from complaining about their poverty and gladly working for big foreign companies exploiting their natural resources and cheap labour. And of course a dictator that spends a large part of the nations money at arms manufactured in the US)
To chalk up all of the US's interests to sheer economic greed is absurd though.
If is isn't greed, then what is it? Sheer evil? Ignorance? Unloading a bit of the huge amount of weaponry you have no room for? Greed seems pretty likely to me.
We GIVE more money in aid and support than we could ever GET from many of these countries.
Really? Go compare your the numbers for the US foreign aid (and please, do not include aid in the form of weapons) with some UN statistics of how much most third world countries are paying in interest for loans that have already been paid many times over. Loans that were spent on weapons to keep the people opressed and the economies 'open'. Also compare it with the profits of some US based multinational companies. And not to mention the profits from selling wheat to often starving nations. The US is not losing money over all this.
Oh, just for fun, stick into the comparison the money spent so far on bombing what's left of Jugoslavia in your peacekeeping attempts.
It seems to me that most of the murderous regimes we (the US) have supported in the past were supported in the interest of preventing another World War (i.e. attempting to "win" the cold war by supporting rightist regimes against communist insurgents)
Of course stopping the Soviet Union from getting too much power was as a large bit of the US motivation. But the Soviet Union is no more. The US stands alone with the power to enforce their will over most nations. And the US still support and commit atrocities.
There's no risk of a "Communist revolution" in Turkey. The Kurdish people who get their villages blasted to rubbles are no Soviet agents. And still the US choose not to utter a word of protest. Still the US make big bucks selling weapons that are used for killing innocents.
The democratic government of Guatemala before 1954 was not a communist one. Though it favoured the poor people at the cost of US company United Fruit. And so the US had the government overthrown and installed a regime which would torment the people of Guatemala for decades with its death squads. With the direct participation of the CIA. That is profit at the cost of human lives.
You should also keep in mind that often the supposed "victims" of these oppressive, militaristic regimes are just as oppressive and militaristic in their own right (the guerillas, or insurgents, or rebels, or whatever, not the innocent civilians who inevitably end up getting killed by BOTH sides in such conflicts)
Exactly. And the people sent to the Gulags were all counter-revolutionaries threatening the peoples revolution, remember? Just mention something about "communist guerilla" to the CNN, and your death squads can work undisturbed. We must at all cost keep the commies out, even if that means supporting a dictator. (And often a dictator that manages to keep the people from complaining about their poverty and gladly working for big foreign companies exploiting their natural resources and cheap labour. And of course a dictator that spends a large part of the nations money at arms manufactured in the US)
To chalk up all of the US's interests to sheer economic greed is absurd though.
If is isn't greed, then what is it? Sheer evil? Ignorance? Unloading a bit of the huge amount of weaponry you have no room for? Greed seems pretty likely to me.
We GIVE more money in aid and support than we could ever GET from many of these countries.
Really? Go compare your the numbers for the US foreign aid (and please, do not include aid in the form of weapons) with some UN statistics of how much most third world countries are paying in interest for loans that have already been paid many times over. Loans that were spent on weapons to keep the people opressed and the economies 'open'. Also compare it with the profits of some US based multinational companies. And not to mention the profits from selling wheat to often starving nations. The US is not losing money over all this.
Oh, just for fun, stick into the comparison the money spent so far on bombing what's left of Jugoslavia in your peacekeeping attempts.
I agree wholeheartedly that the US government regulations on crypto and general export are absurd
So far we agree.
But just because our government has some absurd regulations that you (and I) don't like, does not make us a terrorist supporting nation like Iran
No, but actively supporting the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians does make the US a terrorist nation. (Ok, not really terrorism, just the same result in a much larger scale)
This is simply NOT akin to attacking the Serbs, who are committing genocide and forced emigration on the Albanian people
Pretty much like the NATO member Turkey, one of the largest importer of US made arms? Turkey has for decades committed exactly the same thing which is now happening in Kosovo. More than one million Kurds has been forced to flee for their lives.
The fact is, some civilian targets have been mistakenly hit, which is unavoidable but unfortunate in a military operation of this scale.
As it was unfortunate when Vietnamese children just happened to be killed by napalm, or shredder bombs tottaly ineffective against military targets?
The US government, say what you will about it, has no personal grudge against innocent civilians in Serbia or elsewhere.
This i beleive. But I am also convinced no US government has ever cared the slightest if their actions caused the deaths of thousands of civilians.
GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS: the US is not an Imperialist power.
If overthrowing democratic governments, bombing innocents to pieces and supporting murderous regimes with weapons and money to ensure your own econominc gain isn't imperialistic, please, tell me what imerialism is.
[we are looking out for] the interests of innocent civilians
Sure you are. The US had nothing to say in protest when thousands of "communists" were murdered in Indonesia. The US, in fact, where providing them with arms. The US kept on selling arms to the Indonesian dictators when they invaded East Timor and wiped out a third of the East Timorese population. Of course the US government had the best interest of the Timorese in mind!
And of course you are considered with the well being of the average Colombian worker, where unionists get killed by the hundreds every week by the paramilitaries trained and armed with the direct support of the United States of America, The Land of the Free. Yeah, right!
Slashdot Mirror
Don't hate the media, become the media.
Of course stopping the Soviet Union from getting too much power was as a large bit of the US motivation. But the Soviet Union is no more. The US stands alone with the power to enforce their will over most nations. And the US still support and commit atrocities.
There's no risk of a "Communist revolution" in Turkey. The Kurdish people who get their villages blasted to rubbles are no Soviet agents. And still the US choose not to utter a word of protest. Still the US make big bucks selling weapons that are used for killing innocents.
The democratic government of Guatemala before 1954 was not a communist one. Though it favoured the poor people at the cost of US company United Fruit. And so the US had the government overthrown and installed a regime which would torment the people of Guatemala for decades with its death squads. With the direct participation of the CIA. That is profit at the cost of human lives.
You should also keep in mind that often the supposed "victims" of these oppressive, militaristic regimes are just as oppressive and militaristic in their own right (the guerillas, or insurgents, or rebels, or whatever, not the innocent civilians who inevitably end up getting killed by BOTH sides in such conflicts)
Exactly. And the people sent to the Gulags were all counter-revolutionaries threatening the peoples revolution, remember? Just mention something about "communist guerilla" to the CNN, and your death squads can work undisturbed. We must at all cost keep the commies out, even if that means supporting a dictator. (And often a dictator that manages to keep the people from complaining about their poverty and gladly working for big foreign companies exploiting their natural resources and cheap labour. And of course a dictator that spends a large part of the nations money at arms manufactured in the US)
To chalk up all of the US's interests to sheer economic greed is absurd though.
If is isn't greed, then what is it? Sheer evil? Ignorance? Unloading a bit of the huge amount of weaponry you have no room for? Greed seems pretty likely to me.
We GIVE more money in aid and support than we could ever GET from many of these countries.
Really? Go compare your the numbers for the US foreign aid (and please, do not include aid in the form of weapons) with some UN statistics of how much most third world countries are paying in interest for loans that have already been paid many times over. Loans that were spent on weapons to keep the people opressed and the economies 'open'. Also compare it with the profits of some US based multinational companies. And not to mention the profits from selling wheat to often starving nations. The US is not losing money over all this.
Oh, just for fun, stick into the comparison the money spent so far on bombing what's left of Jugoslavia in your peacekeeping attempts.
Of course stopping the Soviet Union from getting too much power was as a large bit of the US motivation. But the Soviet Union is no more. The US stands alone with the power to enforce their will over most nations. And the US still support and commit atrocities.
There's no risk of a "Communist revolution" in Turkey. The Kurdish people who get their villages blasted to rubbles are no Soviet agents. And still the US choose not to utter a word of protest. Still the US make big bucks selling weapons that are used for killing innocents.
The democratic government of Guatemala before 1954 was not a communist one. Though it favoured the poor people at the cost of US company United Fruit. And so the US had the government overthrown and installed a regime which would torment the people of Guatemala for decades with its death squads. With the direct participation of the CIA. That is profit at the cost of human lives.
You should also keep in mind that often the supposed "victims" of these oppressive, militaristic regimes are just as oppressive and militaristic in their own right (the guerillas, or insurgents, or rebels, or whatever, not the innocent civilians who inevitably end up getting killed by BOTH sides in such conflicts)
Exactly. And the people sent to the Gulags were all counter-revolutionaries threatening the peoples revolution, remember? Just mention something about "communist guerilla" to the CNN, and your death squads can work undisturbed. We must at all cost keep the commies out, even if that means supporting a dictator. (And often a dictator that manages to keep the people from complaining about their poverty and gladly working for big foreign companies exploiting their natural resources and cheap labour. And of course a dictator that spends a large part of the nations money at arms manufactured in the US)
To chalk up all of the US's interests to sheer economic greed is absurd though.
If is isn't greed, then what is it? Sheer evil? Ignorance? Unloading a bit of the huge amount of weaponry you have no room for? Greed seems pretty likely to me.
We GIVE more money in aid and support than we could ever GET from many of these countries.
Really? Go compare your the numbers for the US foreign aid (and please, do not include aid in the form of weapons) with some UN statistics of how much most third world countries are paying in interest for loans that have already been paid many times over. Loans that were spent on weapons to keep the people opressed and the economies 'open'. Also compare it with the profits of some US based multinational companies. And not to mention the profits from selling wheat to often starving nations. The US is not losing money over all this.
Oh, just for fun, stick into the comparison the money spent so far on bombing what's left of Jugoslavia in your peacekeeping attempts.
So far we agree.
But just because our government has some absurd regulations that you (and I) don't like, does not make us a terrorist supporting nation like Iran
No, but actively supporting the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians does make the US a terrorist nation. (Ok, not really terrorism, just the same result in a much larger scale)
This is simply NOT akin to attacking the Serbs, who are committing genocide and forced emigration on the Albanian people
Pretty much like the NATO member Turkey, one of the largest importer of US made arms? Turkey has for decades committed exactly the same thing which is now happening in Kosovo. More than one million Kurds has been forced to flee for their lives.
The fact is, some civilian targets have been mistakenly hit, which is unavoidable but unfortunate in a military operation of this scale.
As it was unfortunate when Vietnamese children just happened to be killed by napalm, or shredder bombs tottaly ineffective against military targets?
The US government, say what you will about it, has no personal grudge against innocent civilians in Serbia or elsewhere.
This i beleive. But I am also convinced no US government has ever cared the slightest if their actions caused the deaths of thousands of civilians.
GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS: the US is not an Imperialist power.
If overthrowing democratic governments, bombing innocents to pieces and supporting murderous regimes with weapons and money to ensure your own econominc gain isn't imperialistic, please, tell me what imerialism is.
[we are looking out for] the interests of innocent civilians
Sure you are. The US had nothing to say in protest when thousands of "communists" were murdered in Indonesia. The US, in fact, where providing them with arms. The US kept on selling arms to the Indonesian dictators when they invaded East Timor and wiped out a third of the East Timorese population. Of course the US government had the best interest of the Timorese in mind!
And of course you are considered with the well being of the average Colombian worker, where unionists get killed by the hundreds every week by the paramilitaries trained and armed with the direct support of the United States of America, The Land of the Free. Yeah, right!
I gotta go puke.
How come I did not read the word 'stability' even once in the article?
It's the EU that has passed this law. Half of the European countries isn't in the union. :)
(And barely half of the countries in it follow their laws