And I will defend your right to be offended while you're defending my right to be offended, as long as I can be offended by your being offended while defending it, and I can say what I damn well feel even if I have to further defend your right to be offended while defending my being offended.
If you'd RTNorwegianA, it says quite clearly that this is merely a suggestion by a panel at a cybercrime law enforcement agency, and has seemingly been universally panned by politicians, media, and the populace alike. What are you doing? How can you bring up facts here? How do you expect us to have a proper Slashdot discussion if you bring facts into the discussion?
Before you get your Slashdot panties in a twist and get offended, note, I'm a libertarian How can you be a libertarian, you must be crazy, damn you, now you've got all our Slashdot panties in a twist and getting offended!
Mi bedauras, mi ne scias la latinan. Mi kredas ke vi diras "Mi estas... el Romo" au ion similan (chu eble "Roma civitano"?). La ceteron mi tute ne komprenas.
Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Okay, I'll express the threats to your kids, that should be the most effective arrangement. I hope you have kids of, say, four to ten years of age. I can be real scary because I'm very large and have a very deep voice, and I'm a good actor. I'll be extremely threatening and ominous.
Your kids will be scared stiff over and over. What a pleasure! And I'll make a million in the process!
You won't know if I'm serious and willing to go through with the killing, so you'd better pay up. Just to be sure, I'll also talk to your young wife repeatedly. Maybe I'll casually carry something that looks like the hacked-off arm of a child. Stuff like that. In due time she should be very, very worried about her kids' lives. Or maybe I'll just talk about hacking their legs off or something, that might be more effective. What do you think?
I'll find some really effective things to say to her. And I'll be very, very convincing. I can make a very convincing sociopath.
Repeated phone calls all through the night might be a nice touch. I'll also shout threats outside your home at random times day and night, speaking slowly and ominously. Maybe I'll bring a megaphone. No restrictions, remember?
And if there's a trial -- for example if your kids mysteriously get hurt a few times before you finally come to your senses and pay me -- don't worry about trying to get any witnesses. I'll see to it that any witnesses you find get scared and get paid. They won't have any incentive at all to tell the truth, since lying in court is fully accepted.
No restrictions, remember?
Just in case somebody doesn't notice the irony and takes the above seriously, all of the above is irony and none of it is intended to be taken seriously. It's a completely fictitious illustration of the consequences of the parent post. I have no intentions whatsoever of threatening or hurting anyone.
Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech
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EU Bans Sock-Puppet Blogs
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· Score: 1, Redundant
Any sort of restriction, no matter how small, moves you from the category of having free speech to that of not having free speech. By your reasoning I have the right to threaten to kill you and your family unless you pay me a million dollars.
Going through with the killing would still be illegal (or would you change that too?). But the threat would be protected free speech, by your reasoning.
You're contradicting yourself:
[In Iraq] "Time" is the solution to those problems. Trust is earned over time by showing yourself worthy of trust. [...] [In Europe] It's true that Europe is unlikely to decide to go to war with the US in the near term. In the future, when Islam is the dominant culture of Europe, the motivating factors will change. You're saying that in Iraq the trend will go from mistrust to trust, whereas in Europe it will go the opposite way. In Iraq, where Islam predominates, you will earn trust over time. In Europe, because of Islam, you will unearn it over time.
Yeah right.
And I have yet to hear of a workable alternative plan. Of course you can't hear it when you refuse to listen.
You have yet to give a single concrete, specific criticism of what I've proposed. All you have given is vague generalities like "anachronistic nonsense" and irrelevant strawmen like "everyone who builds libraries is safe from attack".
Decades ago your nation did great, founding the UN to get countries to talk to each other, and using the Marshall plan to civilize Germany. Today you don't even understand what the UN is for. It's astonishing that your country has lost its grip so completely.
If we change our policies to keep the terrorists happy, then the terrorists are in control of our policies. Indeed. So why do you keep changing your policies in ways that keep the terrorists happy?
Do you think the terrorist networks are unhappy about terrorism running rampant in Iraq? Do you think they're unhappy about youngsters sacrificing their life every week for their causes? Unhappy about the enormous continuous publicity? Unhappy about misguided youngsters around the world feeling rapt admiration over bin Laden and Al Qaeda "defeating the US"?
You have allowed the terrorists to steer you policies in ways that are quite astonishing. Your entire country is all about terrorism. It's on the agenda all the time.
The terrorists want to spread fear. That's why they're called terror-ists. Your government, authorities and media seem obsessed with helping the terrorists spread the fear.
Europe has had plenty of terrorism. IRA, ETA, RAF, post-9/11 Madrid and London. Compared to the US we have taken it with a stiff upper lip, whereas you've re-arranged your entire society around your perpetual terrorism panic. I'll grant you that 9/11 was extreme, but that's no excuse for giving in to the terrorists the way you do.
Rewarding terrorists leads to more terrorism. Everyone knows this. Exactly. Precisely because of this, please stop rewarding them by letting your society be all about them, and by fostering their recruitment with ill-conceived war.
On the other hand, dead terrorists seldom repeat their attacks. On the contrary, dead terrorists have uncles, brothers and sons who become swayed by the death and decide to avenge their dead family member.
You can't break this chain of family bonds. Even if you nuked all of Iraq there would be plenty of people in other countries with family bonds to those killed. You'd have to nuke every place on the Earth including the US. You can't break those family bonds.
Fighting terrorism with war is like fighting the Hydra by cutting off its heads one by one. For every terrorist that you kill you tip the scales for two who decide to avenge him.
With every kill you make terrorism grow larger.
Terrorists who spend their time desperately running ahead of the US military... These terrorists do not run away, desperately or otherwise. They suicide. They seek out death.
...are unlikely to be able to attack the US. On the contrary, they are fully willing to approach you wearing a bomb belt and die.
Terrorists with no base of operations are ineffective. How smart of you, then, to give them this huge base, the lawlessness of Iraq.
There's no evidence of terrorist recruitment "skyrocketing" either. No evidence? There are several suicide bombings a week in Iraq, killing several hundred Iraqi a week. Since the suicide bombers die in each attack, this means that there are new suicide bombers coming all the time. Several times a week yet another terrorist, each one fanatical enough to be willing to die.
How do they appear if recruitment hasn't skyrocketed?
It's just spin. Are you saying that the violence in Iraq isn't real? Where's your proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Complaints and hindsight, on the other hand, are simply worthless. It's not hindsight when it's known well in advance. It's not worthless when the issue is to get the US to stop promoting terrorism. Somehow we need to get you to stop promoting terrorism.
And if they're recruiting terrorists to go to Iraq to be killed by the armies there, then they're not coming to the US to blow up car bombs, are they? Iraq has become an extremely fertile breeding-ground for terrorism. So far only a little has spilled over the Iraqi borders, but it seems highly unlikely that that's the end of it. So far they are busy fighting each other, but it seems likely that sooner or later a fraction will appear that considers the West to be their main enemy.
Apparently the Madrid and London terrorist bombers were inspired by bin Laden and the Iraqi suicide bombers. If it can spread to modern places like Madrid and London, it seems very likely that it will spread elsewhere.
When I've worked as a replacement teacher here in Stockholm, Sweden, sometimes I've heard kids of immigrant origin express rapt admiration for how "bin Laden and Al Qaeda manage to defeat the United States", a few even discussing whether they would have the courage to do a suicide bombing.
You don't realize what a dangerous breeding-ground for terrorism you have set up with your ill-conceived Iraq adventure.
Summary: Focus on the easy problems. On the contrary, those are the difficult and time-consuming problems. The US "plan" deals with easy steps like military victory, elections, drafting a constitution and forming a government. Between those steps it's assumed that solutions to the difficult problems will appear magically out of nowhere. Trust for the US will appear magically, problems with insurgents, terrorists and mafia will somehow disappear, corruption will disappear, and so on. Those are the difficult problems. You don't have a plan for those problems.
Also, give money away to people for worthless anachronistic nonsense like libraries. Because everyone who builds libraries is safe from attack. Essentially you should get the cautiously friendly countries to develop situations and relationships somewhat similar to Europe's situation and relationship with you. Europe is extremely unlikely to suddenly go to war with you. You want other countries to become similarly unlikely to go to war. You can do this by establishing similar situations, relationships and reasons for not desiring conflicts.
Friendly relationship, cultural exchange, sharing of ideals, trade, stuff like that. Don't despise teachers and librarians. It's thanks to to people like them, and many others, that war between us is extremely unlikely.
We have trade and cultural exchanges between the US and Europe, and war is highly unlikely. If instead you chose to attack Europe with bombs and cannons, the relationship would be far less friendly and stable, to say the least.
You seem to think we want countries like Iran to be friends of the US. I said cautiously friendly countries. Unless I'm very mistaken Iran is very hostile.
You should get countries that like you to develop a deeper friendship with you, acquire modern democratic ideals and structures, and so on. Then their neighbors will see that the friendly countries do much better than them. This is inevitable, since modern democracy and capitalism are inherently vastly superior, compared to their backward systems. They'll want in on the fun. For that purpose they'll befriend you. Your influence spreads. Stability spreads.
More countries similar to Europe and the US, and in similar relationships. That would be a healthy development.
But mostly we want them to be unwilling or unable to attack us. War can solve the later if the former fails. You still haven't explained how skyrocketing terrorist recruitment makes them unwilling or unable to attack you.
Unlike Europe, the US doesn't have a fallback position. And therefore you promote skyrocketing terrorism to protect you.
Iraq was a terrorist-supporting regime with WMD programs. We were already at war with Iraq because they violated the terms of the cease-fire after the Kuwait war. It had been the official policy of the US to remove Saddam from power in Iraq since 1998. That's why.
Why not somewhere else? I guess we'll wait and see. North Korea has China's protection, so they're a difficult target. Iran has internal groups who might solve the problem without US military intervention, but they haven't done it yet.
Those countries are/were hostile toward the United States. Getting any kind of major influence in those countries would require war. As I said, war is an extremely expensive way to try to build something.
You need to stop looking for war.
You need to stop looking for countries that are hostile toward you. That's immensely inefficient. Getting a strongly hostile country such as those you listed to become friendly is far more difficult than getting a cautiously friendly country to become more friendly.
Also, getting a country with rudimentary democracy to become more democratic is far easier than getting a profoundly non-democratic country to become more democratic.
As I understand it, one major aim of the US is to spread democracy and stability. This would certainly be in the interest of the US.
For spreading democracy, the most important requirement is an enlightened populace. If you're serious about spreading democracy, you have to strive to spread such enlightenment. Spreading education, that is. Without that, people are likely to elect oppressive leaders.
For spreading stability, the most important requirement is a middle class that is sufficiently well off economically that they are strongly motivated to defend peace and order, and sufficiently large that they are everywhere. This way you have people everywhere defending stability. Also the lower class must be either sufficiently well off, or sufficiently hopeful about their future prospects, to not want unrest and revolution.
The next requirement for stability is rule of law. Rule of law is also necessary for ownership and trade to function efficiently. To spread rule of law you need programs to stop corruption, education for lawyers, judges and law enforcement, and so on. (You do not need the bad example of prisoners held at Guantanamo without rule of law. That's an extremely destructive bad example if your aim is to spread ideas and principles of democracy and stability.)
Thus you need to look for friendly countries, and having found them you need to help them with education, libraries, news media, building wealth, making sure that the wealth is spread out sufficiently to avoid unrest, and so on. In the process you can spread American ideals, and spread lots of ideas and principles from the American way of life. A kind of benevolent cultural imperialism.
Consider the extremely large costs of the war on Iraq. Consider the stability and friendship that you could get by instead using those extremely large sums to improve education, provide libraries, spread American ideals, and so on, among people who are already cautiously friendly toward you. You could achieve a lot.
Look also at what I say about the possibilities of closely allied European-American collaboration in this comment.
saying "why not somewhere else besides Iraq" hardly shows that you care about "the innocent" in Iraq, does it? That's why your concern for them is unable to be believed. You criticize plans to help "the innocent". [...] Please stop pretending to be interested in "the innocent" people of Iraq.
I have only mentioned "the innocent" once. I mentioned them in passing, between parentheses, when I said that the sanctions against Saddam's Iraq were worthless and shameful because they affect
I might believe you cared about "the innocent" if you could bother to support any plan that isn't "just continue to allow Saddam to torture and kill them" The world is full of horrendous cruelties and suffering. Saddam wasn't the worst. Why pour all those billions in a place that was bound to explode and waste a large portion of your billions? Why not pour them somewhere where you would succeed in making a fundamental difference for the better? Those billions could have made a fantastic difference for the better if invested wisely in a more promising place, with a far greater chance of people discovering democracy and blessing America. And that influence could then spread, reaching far more people.
War is an extremely costly way to try to build something.
Sometimes things don't go exactly the way you wish they would. In wars, things never go exactly the way you wish they would. Of course. But when what you wish for is that a country more explosive than Yugoslavia, with many inhabitants considering bin Laden a hero, become peaceful and friendly, then you're wishing for the utterly impossible.
Apparently, some folks think an entire society should either be completely reformed to become like Belgium in 2 years Of course not. But war is an inadequate instrument when the country is ready to burst with deadly religious and ethnic enmity.
Note that before your war on Afghanistan, debaters everywhere were far more optimistic about the outcome of that war. With good reason. The situations in the two countries were dramatically different.
Or maybe it was kept "secret" because no one knew the future. For God's sake, everyone knew that Iraq was more explosive than former Yugoslavia. How could the Americans miss that, when it was totally obvious to Europe, Russia and many others? It's not a matter of pixie dust and knowing the future, it's a matter of observing the existing relations between the groups! Those are available facts!
Sadly, you Americans were blinded by a rally-around-the-flag frenzy. That nationalistic frenzy is your greatest vulnerability, it makes you ignore facts and truths.
The plan was/is: Hold elections, draft a constitution, hold elections, form an elected government. Establish an army and police force. Gradually turn over security and command over to the Iraqis. Leave off actively supporting them on a province-by-province basis until the Iraq government is strong enough to take over. Those are the easy parts. That's no plan for dealing with the difficult parts. The difficult parts are coping with the (pre-existing and well-known) hatreds and tensions that strive for civil war, the power vacuum that mafiosi and other destructive forces will inevitably try to take advantage of, and so on. Those were the problems that everyone was worried about and tried to bring to America's attention. But you were in your blind rally-around-the-flag frenzy.
Also, I forgot to note that you seem to believe in conspiracy theories. That's a first! Where's the conspiracy that I seem to believe in?
My opinion is that you're anti-American. Well in that case I suppose you're anti-European. How enlightening.
What's your definition of anti-American? Someone who disagrees with America?
The problem is that their pollution per person is extremely small, so nuking them is very inefficient. It requires lots and lots of nukes, and still you only get a very limited effect. Nuking Europe and the US is far more efficient, with just a few well-planned nukes you can reduce pollution enormously.
I don't know which is worse, your ignorance or your arrogance. Undoubtedly my arrogance, because I got it by contagion from a certain group of very arrogant Americans. From those Americans who believe that they have the right to invade any country with bombs and cannons, while those who are affected don't even have the right to express opinions about it. Those Americans who shove aside any critical opinion as "anti-American", which seems to mean "not worth considering". Those who seem to say "With sticks and stones I may break your bones, but you may not say a word."
Those Americans. The bullies.
I think the reason I react this way is that I'm still reeling from the arrogance with which the US shoved aside Europe's concerns about the Iraq war with the non-answer "Either you're with us or against us", and then went on to fuel terrorism and create horrendous instability right in our backyard.
I'm not only reeling from this, I'm also deeply worried. I wish I could shake the American people awake, and make them notice what their media and government are doing. I wish I could somehow get the US to stop counteracting their own interests and ours.
Cats aren't aloof, it just look that way if you interpret their body language as if it were human body language.
When a cat looks another cat or a person persistently in the eyes, this usually means "I don't trust you, I have to watch you in case you attack me." When they look aside, this expresses trust. When they turn their back, this shows great trust. "I put myself entirely at your mercy, I don't need to watch you at all."
When they look at you while narrowing their eyes, this also expresses trust, for the same reason. It has nothing to do with the cunning that some people see in it.
While turning their back, they observe you with their very acute hearing and their good sense of smell.
So, this has nothing to do with aloofness. However they are independent. When a cat shows you affection you have somehow earned it. A dog is submissively affectionate because it has no other choice. Although I like dogs, and have known many dogs that I've liked, in the long run I find them too submissive, their submissiveness too compulsive. I want to see independence and freedom, I want to see a cat.
dogs have owners, cats have carers. We don't have that saying here in Sweden. We do say that nobody owns a cat.
Indeed one reason that I prefer cats is that dogs have owners. They are so submissive that they unconditionally turn themselves into possessions. Their affection is wonderful in many ways, but for me it's too unconditional.
Cats have carers? My two cats don't need me to do anything to care for them except once a day pour food and water and clean their litter box. It takes two or three minutes a day. Sure they want and appreciate getting much more attention, but it's not an absolute necessity, in a pinch they can do without it. Giving a dog so little attention would be downright cruel.
Once I had to leave my cats alone in my apartment for four days, coming home only very briefly to feed them. Though it was clear that they missed me, they had no problem at all. A dog would feel despair and grief.
Heh, what a long answer, looks like your comment pushed a button or something.
I do not accept as true your premise that the Iraq war is an embarrassment.
With terrorists killing hundreds of people every week, you don't consider that an embarrassment? With kidnappings and extortion rampant, on an industrial scale, financing terrorism and mafia on a huge scale? With a huge brain drain because those who can are fleeing the country? With no functioning police and justice? You don't consider this an embarrassment?
that was hardly predominate in the European press.
It was certainly predominant in the press that I read. The problems of unbridgeable chasms of rivalry and enmity among Islamic sects and ethnic groups was discussed quite a lot. The idea that the US had a solution to these problems seemed very strange.
But Europe is extremely diverse, maybe we read different papers.
Note that if you base your statements on US media reports about the European media, I get the impression that the US media often present European fringe radicals as if they were mainstream, thus giving a very weird picture of European opinions. For instance, many Americans seem to believe that Europeans hate them, something I certainly can't see in the mainstream, such feelings are considered extreme and weird.
Certain European governments opposed the war for the sake of valuable contracts they had made with the ruling regime.
Quite possible, but that would then be an argument for those governments, hardly for the press. The only times I can recall seeing that factor discussed in the press was when discussing the motives of some governments.
They were also sour on a non-leftist government in the US
On the contrary, the respect for the democracy in the US was at an all-time high, what with the sympathy after 9/11 making many people re-think their political stance. In fact the US had a tremendous chance to get an enormous cultural and political influence, it really had an unprecedented level of sympathy and respect. I, and many with me, were deeply distressed to see this great chance botched, because Europe and the US really ought to be close allies, seeing how we have common democratic ideals. We should not try to be identical, far from it, we should be different and complement each other, but still we should be very close allies. It was terribly unfortunate that this great opportunity was lost.
One simple example of the many things we could do together would be that Europe could say to recalcitrant countries "The US is itching to go to war, but as their allies we think we can hold them off, but only if you can offer enough in return. We understand your difficulties but the US doesn't, they'll demand something really substantial from you. Let's see if we can find something that will appease the US." Sometimes good-guy bad-guy games can get you very far, but such things were never tested. Lots of possibilities open up when you're very close allies and yet are very different and have very different opinions. We really should work together to exploit such possibilities, in common efforts to spread democracy, stability and economic well-being.
Too many thought it better to demonize the US government than to engage the substantive issues.
On the contrary, as I said you had tons of sympathy and respect, and many people were re-thinking their political stance quite radically.
I certainly can't recall any demonizing of the US government (except on the fringe of course). However people did get very perplexed at Bush's "Either you're with us or you're against us". What kind of argument is that? We have a tradition of debating and discussing until a solution is found. Bush's stance was perceived as extremely impolite, and also very strange, and certainly no answer to our concerns.
In debates with Americans, when we expressed our worries about the inevitable consequences of a war on Iraq, you Americans interpreted this as "anti-Americanism", this strange American excuse for g
but "the whole world" didn't have any plan to solve any problem. And they still don't. Maybe we should let sanctions work. The sanctions were worthless and shameful (they affected mostly the innocent), but that doesn't mean the war was an improvement on the sanctions. Getting terrorist recruitment to skyrocket is not an improvement. You're trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. That is not an improvement.
who devised a plan and acted on it, Yeah, your plan to fuel the fire with gasoline. Better than doing nothing, sure. A huge explosion is better than a fire. Yeah right. So impressive. See how dramatically your gasoline explodes. Devised a plan and acted on it indeed.
unlike the rest of the world (except Britian, Korea, Poland, Austrailia, and a whole host of other countries who were with "the Americans" -- not part of "the whole world" I guess). They were aware of the problems but assumed that the US had some plan. In fact most debaters, both pro and con, assumed that the US had some plan for post-war Iraq, presumably kept secret for strategic reasons. One side had faith in the skills and strengths of the United States, and therefore counted on some magically workable plan being revealed after the invasion. The other side felt that a successful plan was an utter impossibility. Thus "the whole world" was well aware of these problems, only the faith in the US varied. The major exception was the people of the United States, who seemed blissfully unaware of all the dangers, responding to every attempt at debate with lame outcries of "Either you're with us or you're against us" and "How can you support Saddam". It was quite impossible to get Americans to debate the huge risks of skyrocketing terrorism etc. We only got those irrelevant outcries in response.
We were all astonished when we found that the US, with all its skills and might, not only lacked a plan that would fail, but didn't have any plan at all. We're still reeling from that shock.
It's not the first time that the US has made disastrous mistakes that have raised tension and unrest in the world. Now many of us are hoping that at some point you'll finally notice your embarrassment and see what's happening, so that you'll stop making these mistakes. We don't want skyrocketing terrorism and other tensions created by the US.
Etc. Your post is pure history revisionism. You're a good advocate for global warming. Made up facts, "everyone knows" nonsense to exert social pressure on people to agree with you, condescension of ordinary people, fearmongering, and anti-Americanism -- you've got it all in there. You're being extremely vague here. For a fruitful discussion you need to be much more specific.
For example, this label "anti-Americanism" that some of you Americans love throwing around. It seems to imply that everyone ought to agree with everything your government does, or else he's "anti-American". Well, the world doesn't work that way. Everyone has opinions. The freedom to have opinions and express them is one of the most basic fundamentals of democracy and the democratic mindset. When you Americans throw around that "anti-American" label, you show yourselves as lacking this fundamental democratic mindset.
If you take upon yourselves the right to send terrorist recruitment skyrocketing, you can't whine and complain every time those who are affected express an opinion about it.
Mass genocide of all developing countries humans then use that now vacant land to plant the trees. Your idea has merit, but it would be far, far more efficient to kill the rich, as we spew out orders of magnitude more pollution per capita than the poor.
global warming fear mongers Don't despise the Americans who believe in the propaganda from their government and media, like the parent. They are in the same situation as they were in the months before the Iraq war. Before the Iraq war the whole world knew about and debated the inevitable catastrophic chaos in Iraq, the skyrocketing terrorist recruitment, the extreme difficulties in preventing civil war when pulling out, the lack of exit strategy, and so on. This was considered obvious practically everywhere in the world. The only major exception was the Americans, who were grossly duped by their government and their media, which were constantly lying to their people.
Remember that the Americans still remain subjected to the same skillfully honed propaganda machinery.
One could argue that in the modern age of the Internet there is no excuse for being so gullible. Especially in the case of the Americans -- they have many of the world's papers and editorials available a mouseclick away in their own language!
Unfortunately, the Americans prefer TV. And seeing through propaganda isn't easy when it surrounds you all the time. So don't despise them.
One difference compared to the Iraq war is that with global warming the catastrophe will be on a far larger scale. This means that the embarrassment will be far, far greater than the embarrassment over Iraq.
Actually in a way you joke is insightful. Bringing a couple of cats would be a great idea. In the long run cats have a strong soothing influence on people.
Slashdot Mirror
And I will defend your right to be offended while you're defending my right to be offended, as long as I can be offended by your being offended while defending it, and I can say what I damn well feel even if I have to further defend your right to be offended while defending my being offended.
Come on, Slashdotters, curb your impulses! This law must be enacted! Won't anyone think of the fjords?
Mi bedauras, mi ne scias la latinan. Mi kredas ke vi diras "Mi estas ... el Romo" au ion similan (chu eble "Roma civitano"?). La ceteron mi tute ne komprenas.
Okay, I'll express the threats to your kids, that should be the most effective arrangement. I hope you have kids of, say, four to ten years of age. I can be real scary because I'm very large and have a very deep voice, and I'm a good actor. I'll be extremely threatening and ominous.
Your kids will be scared stiff over and over. What a pleasure! And I'll make a million in the process!
You won't know if I'm serious and willing to go through with the killing, so you'd better pay up. Just to be sure, I'll also talk to your young wife repeatedly. Maybe I'll casually carry something that looks like the hacked-off arm of a child. Stuff like that. In due time she should be very, very worried about her kids' lives. Or maybe I'll just talk about hacking their legs off or something, that might be more effective. What do you think?
I'll find some really effective things to say to her. And I'll be very, very convincing. I can make a very convincing sociopath.
Repeated phone calls all through the night might be a nice touch. I'll also shout threats outside your home at random times day and night, speaking slowly and ominously. Maybe I'll bring a megaphone. No restrictions, remember?
And if there's a trial -- for example if your kids mysteriously get hurt a few times before you finally come to your senses and pay me -- don't worry about trying to get any witnesses. I'll see to it that any witnesses you find get scared and get paid. They won't have any incentive at all to tell the truth, since lying in court is fully accepted.
No restrictions, remember?
Just in case somebody doesn't notice the irony and takes the above seriously, all of the above is irony and none of it is intended to be taken seriously. It's a completely fictitious illustration of the consequences of the parent post. I have no intentions whatsoever of threatening or hurting anyone.
Going through with the killing would still be illegal (or would you change that too?). But the threat would be protected free speech, by your reasoning.
[...]
[In Europe] It's true that Europe is unlikely to decide to go to war with the US in the near term. In the future, when Islam is the dominant culture of Europe, the motivating factors will change. You're saying that in Iraq the trend will go from mistrust to trust, whereas in Europe it will go the opposite way. In Iraq, where Islam predominates, you will earn trust over time. In Europe, because of Islam, you will unearn it over time.
Yeah right. And I have yet to hear of a workable alternative plan. Of course you can't hear it when you refuse to listen.
You have yet to give a single concrete, specific criticism of what I've proposed. All you have given is vague generalities like "anachronistic nonsense" and irrelevant strawmen like "everyone who builds libraries is safe from attack".
Decades ago your nation did great, founding the UN to get countries to talk to each other, and using the Marshall plan to civilize Germany. Today you don't even understand what the UN is for. It's astonishing that your country has lost its grip so completely.
Do you think the terrorist networks are unhappy about terrorism running rampant in Iraq? Do you think they're unhappy about youngsters sacrificing their life every week for their causes? Unhappy about the enormous continuous publicity? Unhappy about misguided youngsters around the world feeling rapt admiration over bin Laden and Al Qaeda "defeating the US"?
You have allowed the terrorists to steer you policies in ways that are quite astonishing. Your entire country is all about terrorism. It's on the agenda all the time.
The terrorists want to spread fear. That's why they're called terror-ists. Your government, authorities and media seem obsessed with helping the terrorists spread the fear.
Europe has had plenty of terrorism. IRA, ETA, RAF, post-9/11 Madrid and London. Compared to the US we have taken it with a stiff upper lip, whereas you've re-arranged your entire society around your perpetual terrorism panic. I'll grant you that 9/11 was extreme, but that's no excuse for giving in to the terrorists the way you do. Rewarding terrorists leads to more terrorism. Everyone knows this. Exactly. Precisely because of this, please stop rewarding them by letting your society be all about them, and by fostering their recruitment with ill-conceived war. On the other hand, dead terrorists seldom repeat their attacks. On the contrary, dead terrorists have uncles, brothers and sons who become swayed by the death and decide to avenge their dead family member.
You can't break this chain of family bonds. Even if you nuked all of Iraq there would be plenty of people in other countries with family bonds to those killed. You'd have to nuke every place on the Earth including the US. You can't break those family bonds.
Fighting terrorism with war is like fighting the Hydra by cutting off its heads one by one. For every terrorist that you kill you tip the scales for two who decide to avenge him.
With every kill you make terrorism grow larger. Terrorists who spend their time desperately running ahead of the US military... These terrorists do not run away, desperately or otherwise. They suicide. They seek out death.
...are unlikely to be able to attack the US. On the contrary, they are fully willing to approach you wearing a bomb belt and die. Terrorists with no base of operations are ineffective. How smart of you, then, to give them this huge base, the lawlessness of Iraq.How do they appear if recruitment hasn't skyrocketed? It's just spin. Are you saying that the violence in Iraq isn't real? Where's your proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Complaints and hindsight, on the other hand, are simply worthless. It's not hindsight when it's known well in advance. It's not worthless when the issue is to get the US to stop promoting terrorism. Somehow we need to get you to stop promoting terrorism. And if they're recruiting terrorists to go to Iraq to be killed by the armies there, then they're not coming to the US to blow up car bombs, are they? Iraq has become an extremely fertile breeding-ground for terrorism. So far only a little has spilled over the Iraqi borders, but it seems highly unlikely that that's the end of it. So far they are busy fighting each other, but it seems likely that sooner or later a fraction will appear that considers the West to be their main enemy.
Apparently the Madrid and London terrorist bombers were inspired by bin Laden and the Iraqi suicide bombers. If it can spread to modern places like Madrid and London, it seems very likely that it will spread elsewhere.
When I've worked as a replacement teacher here in Stockholm, Sweden, sometimes I've heard kids of immigrant origin express rapt admiration for how "bin Laden and Al Qaeda manage to defeat the United States", a few even discussing whether they would have the courage to do a suicide bombing.
You don't realize what a dangerous breeding-ground for terrorism you have set up with your ill-conceived Iraq adventure.
Friendly relationship, cultural exchange, sharing of ideals, trade, stuff like that. Don't despise teachers and librarians. It's thanks to to people like them, and many others, that war between us is extremely unlikely.
We have trade and cultural exchanges between the US and Europe, and war is highly unlikely. If instead you chose to attack Europe with bombs and cannons, the relationship would be far less friendly and stable, to say the least. You seem to think we want countries like Iran to be friends of the US. I said cautiously friendly countries. Unless I'm very mistaken Iran is very hostile.
You should get countries that like you to develop a deeper friendship with you, acquire modern democratic ideals and structures, and so on. Then their neighbors will see that the friendly countries do much better than them. This is inevitable, since modern democracy and capitalism are inherently vastly superior, compared to their backward systems. They'll want in on the fun. For that purpose they'll befriend you. Your influence spreads. Stability spreads.
More countries similar to Europe and the US, and in similar relationships. That would be a healthy development. But mostly we want them to be unwilling or unable to attack us. War can solve the later if the former fails. You still haven't explained how skyrocketing terrorist recruitment makes them unwilling or unable to attack you. Unlike Europe, the US doesn't have a fallback position. And therefore you promote skyrocketing terrorism to protect you.
Iraq was a terrorist-supporting regime with WMD programs. We were already at war with Iraq because they violated the terms of the cease-fire after the Kuwait war. It had been the official policy of the US to remove Saddam from power in Iraq since 1998. That's why.
Why not somewhere else? I guess we'll wait and see. North Korea has China's protection, so they're a difficult target. Iran has internal groups who might solve the problem without US military intervention, but they haven't done it yet.
Those countries are/were hostile toward the United States. Getting any kind of major influence in those countries would require war. As I said, war is an extremely expensive way to try to build something.
You need to stop looking for war.
You need to stop looking for countries that are hostile toward you. That's immensely inefficient. Getting a strongly hostile country such as those you listed to become friendly is far more difficult than getting a cautiously friendly country to become more friendly.
Also, getting a country with rudimentary democracy to become more democratic is far easier than getting a profoundly non-democratic country to become more democratic.
As I understand it, one major aim of the US is to spread democracy and stability. This would certainly be in the interest of the US.
For spreading democracy, the most important requirement is an enlightened populace. If you're serious about spreading democracy, you have to strive to spread such enlightenment. Spreading education, that is. Without that, people are likely to elect oppressive leaders.
For spreading stability, the most important requirement is a middle class that is sufficiently well off economically that they are strongly motivated to defend peace and order, and sufficiently large that they are everywhere. This way you have people everywhere defending stability. Also the lower class must be either sufficiently well off, or sufficiently hopeful about their future prospects, to not want unrest and revolution.
The next requirement for stability is rule of law. Rule of law is also necessary for ownership and trade to function efficiently. To spread rule of law you need programs to stop corruption, education for lawyers, judges and law enforcement, and so on. (You do not need the bad example of prisoners held at Guantanamo without rule of law. That's an extremely destructive bad example if your aim is to spread ideas and principles of democracy and stability.)
Thus you need to look for friendly countries, and having found them you need to help them with education, libraries, news media, building wealth, making sure that the wealth is spread out sufficiently to avoid unrest, and so on. In the process you can spread American ideals, and spread lots of ideas and principles from the American way of life. A kind of benevolent cultural imperialism.
Consider the extremely large costs of the war on Iraq. Consider the stability and friendship that you could get by instead using those extremely large sums to improve education, provide libraries, spread American ideals, and so on, among people who are already cautiously friendly toward you. You could achieve a lot.
Look also at what I say about the possibilities of closely allied European-American collaboration in this comment.
[From your other comment]
saying "why not somewhere else besides Iraq" hardly shows that you care about "the innocent" in Iraq, does it? That's why your concern for them is unable to be believed. You criticize plans to help "the innocent". [...] Please stop pretending to be interested in "the innocent" people of Iraq.
I have only mentioned "the innocent" once. I mentioned them in passing, between parentheses, when I said that the sanctions against Saddam's Iraq were worthless and shameful because they affect
War is an extremely costly way to try to build something. Sometimes things don't go exactly the way you wish they would. In wars, things never go exactly the way you wish they would. Of course. But when what you wish for is that a country more explosive than Yugoslavia, with many inhabitants considering bin Laden a hero, become peaceful and friendly, then you're wishing for the utterly impossible. Apparently, some folks think an entire society should either be completely reformed to become like Belgium in 2 years Of course not. But war is an inadequate instrument when the country is ready to burst with deadly religious and ethnic enmity.
Note that before your war on Afghanistan, debaters everywhere were far more optimistic about the outcome of that war. With good reason. The situations in the two countries were dramatically different. Or maybe it was kept "secret" because no one knew the future. For God's sake, everyone knew that Iraq was more explosive than former Yugoslavia. How could the Americans miss that, when it was totally obvious to Europe, Russia and many others? It's not a matter of pixie dust and knowing the future, it's a matter of observing the existing relations between the groups! Those are available facts!
Sadly, you Americans were blinded by a rally-around-the-flag frenzy. That nationalistic frenzy is your greatest vulnerability, it makes you ignore facts and truths. The plan was/is: Hold elections, draft a constitution, hold elections, form an elected government. Establish an army and police force. Gradually turn over security and command over to the Iraqis. Leave off actively supporting them on a province-by-province basis until the Iraq government is strong enough to take over. Those are the easy parts. That's no plan for dealing with the difficult parts. The difficult parts are coping with the (pre-existing and well-known) hatreds and tensions that strive for civil war, the power vacuum that mafiosi and other destructive forces will inevitably try to take advantage of, and so on. Those were the problems that everyone was worried about and tried to bring to America's attention. But you were in your blind rally-around-the-flag frenzy. Also, I forgot to note that you seem to believe in conspiracy theories. That's a first! Where's the conspiracy that I seem to believe in? My opinion is that you're anti-American. Well in that case I suppose you're anti-European. How enlightening.
What's your definition of anti-American? Someone who disagrees with America?
The problem is that their pollution per person is extremely small, so nuking them is very inefficient. It requires lots and lots of nukes, and still you only get a very limited effect. Nuking Europe and the US is far more efficient, with just a few well-planned nukes you can reduce pollution enormously.
Those Americans. The bullies.
I think the reason I react this way is that I'm still reeling from the arrogance with which the US shoved aside Europe's concerns about the Iraq war with the non-answer "Either you're with us or against us", and then went on to fuel terrorism and create horrendous instability right in our backyard.
I'm not only reeling from this, I'm also deeply worried. I wish I could shake the American people awake, and make them notice what their media and government are doing. I wish I could somehow get the US to stop counteracting their own interests and ours.
When a cat looks another cat or a person persistently in the eyes, this usually means "I don't trust you, I have to watch you in case you attack me." When they look aside, this expresses trust. When they turn their back, this shows great trust. "I put myself entirely at your mercy, I don't need to watch you at all."
When they look at you while narrowing their eyes, this also expresses trust, for the same reason. It has nothing to do with the cunning that some people see in it.
While turning their back, they observe you with their very acute hearing and their good sense of smell.
So, this has nothing to do with aloofness. However they are independent. When a cat shows you affection you have somehow earned it. A dog is submissively affectionate because it has no other choice. Although I like dogs, and have known many dogs that I've liked, in the long run I find them too submissive, their submissiveness too compulsive. I want to see independence and freedom, I want to see a cat. dogs have owners, cats have carers. We don't have that saying here in Sweden. We do say that nobody owns a cat.
Indeed one reason that I prefer cats is that dogs have owners. They are so submissive that they unconditionally turn themselves into possessions. Their affection is wonderful in many ways, but for me it's too unconditional.
Cats have carers? My two cats don't need me to do anything to care for them except once a day pour food and water and clean their litter box. It takes two or three minutes a day. Sure they want and appreciate getting much more attention, but it's not an absolute necessity, in a pinch they can do without it. Giving a dog so little attention would be downright cruel.
Once I had to leave my cats alone in my apartment for four days, coming home only very briefly to feed them. Though it was clear that they missed me, they had no problem at all. A dog would feel despair and grief.
Heh, what a long answer, looks like your comment pushed a button or something.
I do not accept as true your premise that the Iraq war is an embarrassment.
With terrorists killing hundreds of people every week, you don't consider that an embarrassment? With kidnappings and extortion rampant, on an industrial scale, financing terrorism and mafia on a huge scale? With a huge brain drain because those who can are fleeing the country? With no functioning police and justice? You don't consider this an embarrassment?
that was hardly predominate in the European press.
It was certainly predominant in the press that I read. The problems of unbridgeable chasms of rivalry and enmity among Islamic sects and ethnic groups was discussed quite a lot. The idea that the US had a solution to these problems seemed very strange.
But Europe is extremely diverse, maybe we read different papers.
Note that if you base your statements on US media reports about the European media, I get the impression that the US media often present European fringe radicals as if they were mainstream, thus giving a very weird picture of European opinions. For instance, many Americans seem to believe that Europeans hate them, something I certainly can't see in the mainstream, such feelings are considered extreme and weird.
Certain European governments opposed the war for the sake of valuable contracts they had made with the ruling regime.
Quite possible, but that would then be an argument for those governments, hardly for the press. The only times I can recall seeing that factor discussed in the press was when discussing the motives of some governments.
They were also sour on a non-leftist government in the US
On the contrary, the respect for the democracy in the US was at an all-time high, what with the sympathy after 9/11 making many people re-think their political stance. In fact the US had a tremendous chance to get an enormous cultural and political influence, it really had an unprecedented level of sympathy and respect. I, and many with me, were deeply distressed to see this great chance botched, because Europe and the US really ought to be close allies, seeing how we have common democratic ideals. We should not try to be identical, far from it, we should be different and complement each other, but still we should be very close allies. It was terribly unfortunate that this great opportunity was lost.
One simple example of the many things we could do together would be that Europe could say to recalcitrant countries "The US is itching to go to war, but as their allies we think we can hold them off, but only if you can offer enough in return. We understand your difficulties but the US doesn't, they'll demand something really substantial from you. Let's see if we can find something that will appease the US." Sometimes good-guy bad-guy games can get you very far, but such things were never tested. Lots of possibilities open up when you're very close allies and yet are very different and have very different opinions. We really should work together to exploit such possibilities, in common efforts to spread democracy, stability and economic well-being.
Too many thought it better to demonize the US government than to engage the substantive issues.
On the contrary, as I said you had tons of sympathy and respect, and many people were re-thinking their political stance quite radically.
I certainly can't recall any demonizing of the US government (except on the fringe of course). However people did get very perplexed at Bush's "Either you're with us or you're against us". What kind of argument is that? We have a tradition of debating and discussing until a solution is found. Bush's stance was perceived as extremely impolite, and also very strange, and certainly no answer to our concerns.
In debates with Americans, when we expressed our worries about the inevitable consequences of a war on Iraq, you Americans interpreted this as "anti-Americanism", this strange American excuse for g
We were all astonished when we found that the US, with all its skills and might, not only lacked a plan that would fail, but didn't have any plan at all. We're still reeling from that shock.
It's not the first time that the US has made disastrous mistakes that have raised tension and unrest in the world. Now many of us are hoping that at some point you'll finally notice your embarrassment and see what's happening, so that you'll stop making these mistakes. We don't want skyrocketing terrorism and other tensions created by the US. Etc. Your post is pure history revisionism. You're a good advocate for global warming. Made up facts, "everyone knows" nonsense to exert social pressure on people to agree with you, condescension of ordinary people, fearmongering, and anti-Americanism -- you've got it all in there. You're being extremely vague here. For a fruitful discussion you need to be much more specific.
For example, this label "anti-Americanism" that some of you Americans love throwing around. It seems to imply that everyone ought to agree with everything your government does, or else he's "anti-American". Well, the world doesn't work that way. Everyone has opinions. The freedom to have opinions and express them is one of the most basic fundamentals of democracy and the democratic mindset. When you Americans throw around that "anti-American" label, you show yourselves as lacking this fundamental democratic mindset.
If you take upon yourselves the right to send terrorist recruitment skyrocketing, you can't whine and complain every time those who are affected express an opinion about it.
Remember that the Americans still remain subjected to the same skillfully honed propaganda machinery.
One could argue that in the modern age of the Internet there is no excuse for being so gullible. Especially in the case of the Americans -- they have many of the world's papers and editorials available a mouseclick away in their own language!
Unfortunately, the Americans prefer TV. And seeing through propaganda isn't easy when it surrounds you all the time. So don't despise them.
One difference compared to the Iraq war is that with global warming the catastrophe will be on a far larger scale. This means that the embarrassment will be far, far greater than the embarrassment over Iraq.
Actually in a way you joke is insightful. Bringing a couple of cats would be a great idea. In the long run cats have a strong soothing influence on people.