>repeal the executive order banning assassination >and send a cia team over to put a bullet in his >head.
A rather fascinating concept. You (the US) take a dislike to somebody for whatever reason, and all of a sudden, you declare that murder/assassination is acceptable.
So what was your view then when President Kennedy was killed? (assuming there was a 'communist' connection, one could argue that the Russians, following your rationale, took out a US president they didn't like. You seem to think that this is OK?)
Please understand that I am not trying to provoke a flame war or any heated exchanges of anything. It's just that I, along with a big chunk of the rest of the world outside the USA, tend to think that the Yanks should either be honest about their reasons for involvement or just mind their own business.
In Kuwait, the reason was OIL and not anything else. After all, the US paid Egypt 14 billion (not million, billion!) dollars, one third of Egypt's then deficit, in order to get Egypt, a 'moderate _Arab_ nation', to come on side. I understand that Japan paid to the 'UN' (use ironic tone when reading 'UN') 15 billion dollars. I ask myself why does Japan care that much for Kuwait? Maybe Japan simply paid the heavies a bit of protection money that would guarantee it access to oil in the years to come. I'd like to think that everybody knows why the Kuwait war took place.
Ask yourself, why did the UN allow Malaysia and Indonesia to send weaponry to Bosnia. Why where there 10,000 Iranian fighetrs who didn't even speak the local language, fighting in Bosnia on behalf of the Bosnians? Why did Egypt ship weaponry to Bosnia? (Was the Muslim card being played here????)
The thing to remember is that the US went in to Bosnia, told everybody that the American public simply couldn't stand to watch such messy affairs; they wanted a simpler plot line, one where there was a bad guy, Slobodan Milocevic, and good guys, the poor old Bosnians, and later on those great chaps, the Croats.
Sadly for those who live in the Balkans, when the Yanks packed up their gear and went home, Bosnia didn't suddenly become a paradise of peace and neighbourly love. The Serbs, Croats and Bosnians still live along ethnic lines; the Bosnians now have better heavy armour than the Serbs, even before the bombing started; they are also better trained thanks to the Yanks. Add all of the above, stir well, wait another 5 years (if not less!!) and then the Bosnians may just take it upon themselves to get even. When that happens, there will be an awfull lot of people dying.
And all this because, evidently, the Yanks need to feel good about something, they fancy themselves as the 'cops' of the planet, so they decided to redraw Yugoslavia's map.
Now suddenly, Slobodan Milocevic is a bad guy. A terrible chap, really.
He has a bunch of armed terrorists within the internationally recognised borders of his country. His country is part of the UN. It is a sovereign state.
Said terrorists kill a few Serbian policemen. Other Serbian policemen look at this and say, 'steady on ol' boy, you can't do that', and then they go and get into a fight with a few terrorists and kill a few.
(repeat above paragraph a number of times).
Said terrorists 'suddenly' aquire more sophisticated weapons and start blowing up police stations. Serbian police say, 'pluck this, we are going to get the heavies into this; this is too heavy for us' and, voila, the Serbian army comes and blasts a few terrorists.
So far so good. Just transpose the above to the UK/IRA and something tells me you aren't going to suggest that the NATO should attack England.
Transpose the above to any other nation that has a bad terrorist problem and you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that NATO should go in and attack the goverment.
But, since this _is_ the Balkans, and Yugoslavia _was/is_ a friend of the Russians and NATO wants to 'clean up' the leftovers of the old Iron Curtain and this is the 50th anniversary of NATO and...... it sounded like a good idea to repeat the Gulf trick. - pick a bad guy, anyone will do - say the magic word: genocide - say 'We can't sit here and let those poor people suffer' - Tell the bad guy to keel over and die. - wait 5 seconds - tell the bad guy, too bad, he was too slow in capitulating - send in the 'allied', 'UN' (any pretence will do) troops - use lots of clever footage of clever weapons - show lots of graphs - claim high success rates (Gulf war, Tomahawk- Bush claimed over 85% hit rate; I understand US Goverment Audit (something or other) reduced that to something over 25%(!)) (I do not have exact figures) - time goes by...people die, oops, collateral damage - More time goes by... more people die, oops, collateral damage - shit! one american soldier is dead. Lets get out of here, these people actually shoot back.
---- End of litany.
I can put up with just about any snake-oil salesman trying to tell me that his product will cure all diseases known to man; make hair grow on bald men; make short, fat people look tall and slim etc etc etc. At the end of the day, his only crime is wasting my time.
But I cannot put up with crappy excuses by the Yanks, who in their a) lust for power b) need to divert attention c) outright stupidity d) goto a)
cause the death of thousands of people.
It amazes me that the UN/US is so concerned about the implementation of xyz, re Iraq, but doesn't give a flying fluck about Isreal/Palestine, Cyprus/Turkey, Indonesia/East Timor etc etc --- --- Enough, I am afraid passion got the better of me. At the end of the day, we, that is I, you and any others participating in this forum don't count. The best we can do, is try to make sure that the next lot of politicians are more aware of that fact that _we_ are more aware and less likely to put up with their flipant disregard for human life.
I surely hope so. (My apologies for the length of the post. But how could I keep it short, when every word counts in conveying a message as comlex and passionate as this?)
Slashdot Mirror
>repeal the executive order banning assassination >and send a cia team over to put a bullet in his >head.
A rather fascinating concept. You (the US) take a dislike to somebody for whatever reason, and all of a sudden, you declare that murder/assassination is acceptable.
So what was your view then when President Kennedy was killed? (assuming there was a 'communist' connection, one could argue that the Russians, following your rationale, took out a US president they didn't like. You seem to think that this is OK?)
Please understand that I am not trying to provoke a flame war or any heated exchanges of anything. It's just that I, along with a big chunk of the rest of the world outside the USA, tend to think that the Yanks should either be honest about their reasons for involvement or just mind their own business.
In Kuwait, the reason was OIL and not anything else. After all, the US paid Egypt 14 billion (not million, billion!) dollars, one third of Egypt's then deficit, in order to get Egypt, a 'moderate _Arab_ nation', to come on side. I understand that Japan paid to the 'UN' (use ironic tone when reading 'UN') 15 billion dollars. I ask myself why does Japan care that much for Kuwait? Maybe Japan simply paid the heavies a bit of protection money that would guarantee it access to oil in the years to come.
I'd like to think that everybody knows why the Kuwait war took place.
Ask yourself, why did the UN allow Malaysia and Indonesia to send weaponry to Bosnia. Why where there 10,000 Iranian fighetrs who didn't even speak the local language, fighting in Bosnia on behalf of the Bosnians? Why did Egypt ship weaponry to Bosnia? (Was the Muslim card being played here????)
The thing to remember is that the US went in to Bosnia, told everybody that the American public simply couldn't stand to watch such messy affairs; they wanted a simpler plot line, one where there was a bad guy, Slobodan Milocevic, and good guys, the poor old Bosnians, and later on those great chaps, the Croats.
Sadly for those who live in the Balkans, when the Yanks packed up their gear and went home, Bosnia didn't suddenly become a paradise of peace and neighbourly love. The Serbs, Croats and Bosnians still live along ethnic lines; the Bosnians now have better heavy armour than the Serbs, even before the bombing started; they are also better trained thanks to the Yanks. Add all of the above, stir well, wait another 5 years (if not less!!) and then the Bosnians may just take it upon themselves to get even. When that happens, there will be an awfull lot of people dying.
And all this because, evidently, the Yanks need to feel good about something, they fancy themselves as the 'cops' of the planet, so they decided to redraw Yugoslavia's map.
Now suddenly, Slobodan Milocevic is a bad guy. A terrible chap, really.
He has a bunch of armed terrorists within the internationally recognised borders of his country. His country is part of the UN. It is a sovereign state.
Said terrorists kill a few Serbian policemen.
Other Serbian policemen look at this and say, 'steady on ol' boy, you can't do that', and then they go and get into a fight with a few terrorists and kill a few.
(repeat above paragraph a number of times).
Said terrorists 'suddenly' aquire more sophisticated weapons and start blowing up police stations. Serbian police say, 'pluck this, we are going to get the heavies into this; this is too heavy for us' and, voila, the Serbian army comes and blasts a few terrorists.
So far so good. Just transpose the above to the UK/IRA and something tells me you aren't going to suggest that the NATO should attack England.
Transpose the above to any other nation that has a bad terrorist problem and you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that NATO should go in and attack the goverment.
But, since this _is_ the Balkans, and Yugoslavia _was/is_ a friend of the Russians and NATO wants to 'clean up' the leftovers of the old Iron Curtain and this is the 50th anniversary of NATO and...... it sounded like a good idea to repeat the Gulf trick.
- pick a bad guy, anyone will do
- say the magic word: genocide
- say 'We can't sit here and let those poor people suffer'
- Tell the bad guy to keel over and die.
- wait 5 seconds
- tell the bad guy, too bad, he was too slow in capitulating
- send in the 'allied', 'UN' (any pretence will do) troops
- use lots of clever footage of clever weapons
- show lots of graphs
- claim high success rates (Gulf war, Tomahawk- Bush claimed over 85% hit rate; I understand US Goverment Audit (something or other) reduced that to something over 25%(!)) (I do not have exact figures)
- time goes by...people die, oops, collateral damage
- More time goes by... more people die, oops, collateral damage
- shit! one american soldier is dead. Lets get out of here, these people actually shoot back.
----
End of litany.
I can put up with just about any snake-oil salesman trying to tell me that his product will cure all diseases known to man; make hair grow on bald men; make short, fat people look tall and slim etc etc etc.
At the end of the day, his only crime is wasting my time.
But I cannot put up with crappy excuses by the Yanks, who in their
a) lust for power
b) need to divert attention
c) outright stupidity
d) goto a)
cause the death of thousands of people.
It amazes me that the UN/US is so concerned about the implementation of xyz, re Iraq, but doesn't give a flying fluck about Isreal/Palestine, Cyprus/Turkey, Indonesia/East Timor etc etc
---
---
Enough, I am afraid passion got the better of me.
At the end of the day, we, that is I, you and any others participating in this forum don't count.
The best we can do, is try to make sure that the next lot of politicians are more aware of that fact that _we_ are more aware and less likely to put up with their flipant disregard for human life.
I surely hope so.
(My apologies for the length of the post. But how could I keep it short, when every word counts in conveying a message as comlex and passionate as this?)