BTW, originally 'Palestine' (it was never a country, mind you) included what is now Jordan.
How does this work? If it was not a country then how could it contain Jordan? What was it - a f**king continent? This is all a rather pointless argument as Isreal was not a state 60 years ago but no-one in the west would argue that it should not exist now. However, there was British Palestine which was a defined territory in which the Palestinians lived. Your argument is like arguing that Zimbabwe or Ghana have no right to exist as nations because they weren't proper independant countries 60 years ago.
Interesting that most Americans have the same misconceptions about Arafat - his charter includes provision for an Isreali state and he agreed to the Oslo accord that included an Isreali state. The Isrealis then broke the Oslo accord by continuing to build settlements. Interestingly Sharon has stated on several occasions that there will never be a Palestine but I don't see you criticising him for that.
And for an American to claim that the EU is not interested in peace in the middle East is a joke - who do you think tried to keep negotiations going between Isreal and Palestine whilst being shat on by Bush?
Patronising, arrogant and stupid - a great combination made popular by the current US administration.
My point again is that claiming that Muslims are all a danger due to OBL is like claiming all white, male Christians are a danger because of McVeigh. It is prejudice and ignorance that produces a view like, somethings you obviously have a great deal of.
It was an allied liberation, I'm not saying that it would have been possible without the US. Likewise it would not have been possible without the UK (or the Russians) either. Without the Brits keeping the Western front going and destroying the Luftwaffe all of Europe (probably including Russia) would have been speaking German and we would have had a facist world hyperpower. Do you think the US would have stood against Europe and Russia combined?
No - read my post. I was talking about the shoe bomber, not OBL. My point being that you can't judge a vast number of people on the actions of a tiny minority. That is prejudice, something that is rife in the US at the moment, but is being passed off as patriotism.
Although the relationship between the vast majority of Christian to McVeigh and the vast majority of Muslims to OBL is exactly the same in that there isn't one.
Have a look at some of the analysis of the recent peace deal brokered between Isreal and the Palestinians. If you look into Sharon's responses (particularly the 14 points the Isreal wants revised) it becomes clear that this Isreal is just interested in delaying tactics whereas the Palestinians have unconditionally accepted the deal. If you had a more balanced press in the US you would see understand the situation a bit better - Arafat has been trying to negotiate for the last couple of years through the EU, Isreal has blocked every attempt.
Btw, I believe Sharon was a member of the Stern gang who (amongst other attrocities) were responsible for blowing up the King David hotel killing scores of people including women and children and also for planning terrorist attacks on the UK in the 50s.
The crusaders do have nuclear weapons and GPS to guide them in.
Interesting that none of you morons has any knowledge of the multitude of peaceful Islamic communtities around the world. I guess you could blame that on lack of any positive information in the US though - Islam seems to be the new communism, a bogeyman that you can all hate and blame for everything that goes wrong whilst making no effort to understand it.
Fundamentalist Muslims aspire to be like Mohammad, a waring, raping, murdering "prophet".
Considering that Mohammed's teach preach peace and understanding I am confused as to where this comes from. Unless of course you have been reading the Fox News version of the Koran, rather than the original.
You show a remarkable lack of understanding of the Chechen war.
Chechnia is a country in which the overwhelming majority wish to split from Russia. Russia doesn't want that, hence the war. The fact that the Chechens are muslim has very little to do with it.
I would also disagree with Islam being the greatest threat to civilisation at the moment, I would rate right wing Christianity and neo-conservatism as being a far higher risk - not because thay are any more extreme but because of the WMDs they control.
I didn't know you could get the Daily Mail in the US - there is no other source of news that would paint such a hysterical and unfounded view of the EU.
I'm not denying Saddam is gone and I'm not even denying that the Iraqis may have the ability to creat a government that represents them. What I am denying is that this was all done either to defend the west against WMD or that is was done to save the Iraqis. American business is doing very well out of this, American companies are the only ones who can tender for the contracts even when it is not in Iraq's best interest.
These are the facts. The shrill outcrys AGAINST this only show the true motives of the speakers - anything America does is bad./I.
Quick point, only one of your statements is fact, the other is in the future and cannot therefore be fact. Second point - hysterically accusing people of anti-Americanism does not make a coherent or logical argument...
The reason Paris didn't get twatted like London, Coventry or Warsaw
Actually it was because it was widely agreed amongst both side that it was such a beautiful city that more care should be taken, as was also the case with Rome.
Can we also rephrase this typical crap to state "when the Allies came to liberate France", remember of the 4 beaches in D-day, the Brits took two, the other nations of the commonwealth took one and the American's took one. That is not a US liberation...
You judge an entire set of people because of the actions of one of them?
Timothy McVeigh was a Christian, Jewish extremists blew up the King David hotel, Hindu fundamentalists have killed thousands in India, Hitler was a Christian, Saddam Hussein was secular, Catholics and Protestants in NI spent years killing each other. Any religion has it's fair share of psychos - it's not just limited to Islam, they just happen to be an easy target because they look diferent and have diferent customs...
Who do you think was making the most money off of the Iraq oil-for-food program?
The oil-for-food programme was a UN run initiative that US companies had as much right to particpate in as the French. However, Elf won the business fair and square. Are you suggesting that competing with an American company is wrong?
Do you think they were more interested in oil-money than ending a threat?
There was no threat to the west from Iraq and it now seems that there were no WMD. Maybe (like almost everyone outside the US) they did not believe the "evidence", after all it did look very amateur and tenuous. Using an ethical argument to attempt justify the replacement of French and Russian oil companies with American ones through an invasion is not a good position...
About as much as Sharon - both are the elected leaders of their "state". Both were once terrorists.
Of course that is where the similarity ends, now Arafat seems to be interested in peace but has no power to do anything about it, whereas Sharon has plenty of power but no interest in peace.
Of course that is why the news is full of anecdotal evidence of how the US government uses espionage to pass confidential information to US companies but no-one mentions it the going the way you claim. That suggests one of two things:
1) The European intelligence agencies are much better at it and don't get caught 2)It doesn't happen...
Actually, the consensus did go our way. The governments of France, Germany, and Russia opposed us because they had sweet arms and oil deals with Saddam and didn't want to lose their investments. But most everyone else was on our side in this.
In which international community did the consensus go the way of the US? It didn't happen on Earth.
As for the sweet deals that Frane, Germany and Russia had with Iraq, they were all pretty paltry and the deals their oil companies had with Iraq were perfectly legal under the UN oil for aid programme. The US seemingly was a bit jealous of being beaten in fair competition for this (as Exxon was not well represented) and so presents this as collaboration. Interestingly no-one defedning US policy on this ever mentions Haliburton's negotiations with Iraq in the late 90s that were not linked to aid for oil and were illegal.
At any rate, nations *should* run roughshod over international organizations.br> I hope that I never live in a world were the use of force and extortion is seen as more acceptable than consensus building and compromise. Interesting as well that acting in self interest is fine for the US but not for anyone else...
Of course, with all those evil muslims in France they will have Sharia law before they know it.
And they are all anti-Semetic as well, where as the wonderful US declared war on Germany as soon as it found out what was going on in the death camps, accepted all Jews fleeing Europe, and the Bush family made no money at all from the Nazis.
Sorry, got a bit confused there after watching some Hollywood version of WW2. In fact Germany declared war on the US (as there was popular support from you wonderful freedom loving people to fight Hitler), the US turned back huge numbers of Jews for the first few years of the war and Grandpa Bush made a fortune banking for the Nazis.
So before you criticise the French learn something about your own history.
And contrary to popular belief in the US, muslims are not any more an evil bunch of fundamentalists than Christians or Jews (just look to far right loons in the US or nutters in settlements for examples) are. I personally am proud that we have a diverse population in the UK and that we have virtually no religious extremism in the population as a whole and especially none in our government.
I can't believe you mentioned the Rumsfeld picture. What a dope. Cripes, we have million of photos of clinton and arafat, what does that tell us?
That Rumsfeld is prepared to do business with the devil to make a buck and that Clinton was interested in the peace process in the Middle East?
Small point: Outside of Chile, most of those regimes were very Communist and very anti-US. The areas where the U.S. played a direct role like Panama, Costa Rica and, before the Communists, El Salvador, tended to have better track records than the Communist regimes that tended to spring up.
I'm sure they thank the US for sponsoring (generally) facist revolutions to remove the communists that led to civil wars in those countries as well. After all, we can't have a communist state suceed can we?
And the next time you want to make a point, avoid reactionary, demagogic, ANSWER-sponsored tripe that sounds trite on the handout, but lacks factual basis or grounding in reality.
Are Americans vacinated against spotting their own hypocrisy at birth or does the constant rewriting of history by Hollywood cloud their ability to reason based on fact rather than patriotic fervour?
You mean those that disagree with American foreign policy, point out American political hypocrisy and supply fact that does not fit your narrow "America is the best" view?
Most of the rest of the world has had it up to our necks with these ridiculous accusations of being anti-American every time we discuss politics, especially with regard to the invasion of Iraq and the situation in Isreal and Palestine. American politicians are behaving abominably, they are now gunning for Schroeder because he had the temerity to disagree with Bush, they slander France for not backing their invasion and then have the cheek to suggest that France, Russia etc. give up on Iraq's debt when the US has been blocking third world debt relief for years. They accuse others of acting in self interest at the same time as they state that they will act in their own self interest and defend it as the correct course of action.
How do you expect other countries to respond to the hypocritical c**p coming out of the Whitehouse?
I don't think that anyone outside of Japan, or Italy and the UK has rolled out true 3g networks.
I imagine that you are talking about 2.5g services which are claimed as 3g by many operators.
Incidently the upgrade path from CDMA is to CDMA2000 with a bandwidth of 144kbs vs. the 384kps-2mps of UMTS. UMTS is definately the superior 3g technology and only one company has rolled it out so far and we definately have not rolled it out in the states. I would like to see Sprint or Verizon offer the peer to peer mobile video that we offer.
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BTW, originally 'Palestine' (it was never a country, mind you) included what is now Jordan.
How does this work? If it was not a country then how could it contain Jordan? What was it - a f**king continent? This is all a rather pointless argument as Isreal was not a state 60 years ago but no-one in the west would argue that it should not exist now. However, there was British Palestine which was a defined territory in which the Palestinians lived. Your argument is like arguing that Zimbabwe or Ghana have no right to exist as nations because they weren't proper independant countries 60 years ago.
Interesting that most Americans have the same misconceptions about Arafat - his charter includes provision for an Isreali state and he agreed to the Oslo accord that included an Isreali state. The Isrealis then broke the Oslo accord by continuing to build settlements. Interestingly Sharon has stated on several occasions that there will never be a Palestine but I don't see you criticising him for that.
And for an American to claim that the EU is not interested in peace in the middle East is a joke - who do you think tried to keep negotiations going between Isreal and Palestine whilst being shat on by Bush?
Patronising, arrogant and stupid - a great combination made popular by the current US administration.
My point again is that claiming that Muslims are all a danger due to OBL is like claiming all white, male Christians are a danger because of McVeigh. It is prejudice and ignorance that produces a view like, somethings you obviously have a great deal of.
No - again read my post.
It was an allied liberation, I'm not saying that it would have been possible without the US. Likewise it would not have been possible without the UK (or the Russians) either. Without the Brits keeping the Western front going and destroying the Luftwaffe all of Europe (probably including Russia) would have been speaking German and we would have had a facist world hyperpower. Do you think the US would have stood against Europe and Russia combined?
No - read my post. I was talking about the shoe bomber, not OBL. My point being that you can't judge a vast number of people on the actions of a tiny minority. That is prejudice, something that is rife in the US at the moment, but is being passed off as patriotism.
Although the relationship between the vast majority of Christian to McVeigh and the vast majority of Muslims to OBL is exactly the same in that there isn't one.
Absolutely nothing at all.
Have a look at some of the analysis of the recent peace deal brokered between Isreal and the Palestinians. If you look into Sharon's responses (particularly the 14 points the Isreal wants revised) it becomes clear that this Isreal is just interested in delaying tactics whereas the Palestinians have unconditionally accepted the deal. If you had a more balanced press in the US you would see understand the situation a bit better - Arafat has been trying to negotiate for the last couple of years through the EU, Isreal has blocked every attempt.
Btw, I believe Sharon was a member of the Stern gang who (amongst other attrocities) were responsible for blowing up the King David hotel killing scores of people including women and children and also for planning terrorist attacks on the UK in the 50s.
The crusaders do have nuclear weapons and GPS to guide them in.
Interesting that none of you morons has any knowledge of the multitude of peaceful Islamic communtities around the world. I guess you could blame that on lack of any positive information in the US though - Islam seems to be the new communism, a bogeyman that you can all hate and blame for everything that goes wrong whilst making no effort to understand it.
Fundamentalist Muslims aspire to be like Mohammad, a waring, raping, murdering "prophet".
Considering that Mohammed's teach preach peace and understanding I am confused as to where this comes from. Unless of course you have been reading the Fox News version of the Koran, rather than the original.
Well he does have morning prayers every day and goes to church. I think that kinda nails it...
You show a remarkable lack of understanding of the Chechen war.
Chechnia is a country in which the overwhelming majority wish to split from Russia. Russia doesn't want that, hence the war. The fact that the Chechens are muslim has very little to do with it.
I would also disagree with Islam being the greatest threat to civilisation at the moment, I would rate right wing Christianity and neo-conservatism as being a far higher risk - not because thay are any more extreme but because of the WMDs they control.
I didn't know you could get the Daily Mail in the US - there is no other source of news that would paint such a hysterical and unfounded view of the EU.
Please point out which veto you are referring to.
I'm not denying Saddam is gone and I'm not even denying that the Iraqis may have the ability to creat a government that represents them. What I am denying is that this was all done either to defend the west against WMD or that is was done to save the Iraqis. American business is doing very well out of this, American companies are the only ones who can tender for the contracts even when it is not in Iraq's best interest.
These are the facts. The shrill outcrys AGAINST this only show the true motives of the speakers - anything America does is bad./I. Quick point, only one of your statements is fact, the other is in the future and cannot therefore be fact. Second point - hysterically accusing people of anti-Americanism does not make a coherent or logical argument...
The reason Paris didn't get twatted like London, Coventry or Warsaw
Actually it was because it was widely agreed amongst both side that it was such a beautiful city that more care should be taken, as was also the case with Rome.
Can we also rephrase this typical crap to state "when the Allies came to liberate France", remember of the 4 beaches in D-day, the Brits took two, the other nations of the commonwealth took one and the American's took one. That is not a US liberation...
Explain what?
You judge an entire set of people because of the actions of one of them?
Timothy McVeigh was a Christian, Jewish extremists blew up the King David hotel, Hindu fundamentalists have killed thousands in India, Hitler was a Christian, Saddam Hussein was secular, Catholics and Protestants in NI spent years killing each other. Any religion has it's fair share of psychos - it's not just limited to Islam, they just happen to be an easy target because they look diferent and have diferent customs...
Who do you think was making the most money off of the Iraq oil-for-food program?
The oil-for-food programme was a UN run initiative that US companies had as much right to particpate in as the French. However, Elf won the business fair and square. Are you suggesting that competing with an American company is wrong?
Do you think they were more interested in oil-money than ending a threat?
There was no threat to the west from Iraq and it now seems that there were no WMD. Maybe (like almost everyone outside the US) they did not believe the "evidence", after all it did look very amateur and tenuous. Using an ethical argument to attempt justify the replacement of French and Russian oil companies with American ones through an invasion is not a good position...
About as much as Sharon - both are the elected leaders of their "state". Both were once terrorists.
Of course that is where the similarity ends, now Arafat seems to be interested in peace but has no power to do anything about it, whereas Sharon has plenty of power but no interest in peace.
Interesting bit of b**lshit.
Of course that is why the news is full of anecdotal evidence of how the US government uses espionage to pass confidential information to US companies but no-one mentions it the going the way you claim. That suggests one of two things:
1) The European intelligence agencies are much better at it and don't get caught
2)It doesn't happen...
Actually, the consensus did go our way. The governments of France, Germany, and Russia opposed us because they had sweet arms and oil deals with Saddam and didn't want to lose their investments. But most everyone else was on our side in this.
In which international community did the consensus go the way of the US? It didn't happen on Earth.
As for the sweet deals that Frane, Germany and Russia had with Iraq, they were all pretty paltry and the deals their oil companies had with Iraq were perfectly legal under the UN oil for aid programme. The US seemingly was a bit jealous of being beaten in fair competition for this (as Exxon was not well represented) and so presents this as collaboration. Interestingly no-one defedning US policy on this ever mentions Haliburton's negotiations with Iraq in the late 90s that were not linked to aid for oil and were illegal. At any rate, nations *should* run roughshod over international organizations.br>
I hope that I never live in a world were the use of force and extortion is seen as more acceptable than consensus building and compromise. Interesting as well that acting in self interest is fine for the US but not for anyone else...
I don't believe a word of it - we all know that the US has the world's best trained soldiers. I mean it must be true as they tell us it so often...
Like the CNN quote, wonder if I can get a transcript from CNN.
Which account of the First World War have you been reading?
Obviously one that does not bother with historical accuracy...
What happened to win-win negotiation?
Of course, with all those evil muslims in France they will have Sharia law before they know it.
And they are all anti-Semetic as well, where as the wonderful US declared war on Germany as soon as it found out what was going on in the death camps, accepted all Jews fleeing Europe, and the Bush family made no money at all from the Nazis.
Sorry, got a bit confused there after watching some Hollywood version of WW2. In fact Germany declared war on the US (as there was popular support from you wonderful freedom loving people to fight Hitler), the US turned back huge numbers of Jews for the first few years of the war and Grandpa Bush made a fortune banking for the Nazis.
So before you criticise the French learn something about your own history.
And contrary to popular belief in the US, muslims are not any more an evil bunch of fundamentalists than Christians or Jews (just look to far right loons in the US or nutters in settlements for examples) are. I personally am proud that we have a diverse population in the UK and that we have virtually no religious extremism in the population as a whole and especially none in our government.
Can the US say that? France could....
I can't believe you mentioned the Rumsfeld picture. What a dope. Cripes, we have million of photos of clinton and arafat, what does that tell us?
That Rumsfeld is prepared to do business with the devil to make a buck and that Clinton was interested in the peace process in the Middle East?
Small point: Outside of Chile, most of those regimes were very Communist and very anti-US. The areas where the U.S. played a direct role like Panama, Costa Rica and, before the Communists, El Salvador, tended to have better track records than the Communist regimes that tended to spring up.
I'm sure they thank the US for sponsoring (generally) facist revolutions to remove the communists that led to civil wars in those countries as well. After all, we can't have a communist state suceed can we?
And the next time you want to make a point, avoid reactionary, demagogic, ANSWER-sponsored tripe that sounds trite on the handout, but lacks factual basis or grounding in reality.
Are Americans vacinated against spotting their own hypocrisy at birth or does the constant rewriting of history by Hollywood cloud their ability to reason based on fact rather than patriotic fervour?
The reactionary hate-America crowd?
You mean those that disagree with American foreign policy, point out American political hypocrisy and supply fact that does not fit your narrow "America is the best" view?
Most of the rest of the world has had it up to our necks with these ridiculous accusations of being anti-American every time we discuss politics, especially with regard to the invasion of Iraq and the situation in Isreal and Palestine. American politicians are behaving abominably, they are now gunning for Schroeder because he had the temerity to disagree with Bush, they slander France for not backing their invasion and then have the cheek to suggest that France, Russia etc. give up on Iraq's debt when the US has been blocking third world debt relief for years. They accuse others of acting in self interest at the same time as they state that they will act in their own self interest and defend it as the correct course of action.
How do you expect other countries to respond to the hypocritical c**p coming out of the Whitehouse?
I don't think that anyone outside of Japan, or Italy and the UK has rolled out true 3g networks.
I imagine that you are talking about 2.5g services which are claimed as 3g by many operators.
Incidently the upgrade path from CDMA is to CDMA2000 with a bandwidth of 144kbs vs. the 384kps-2mps of UMTS. UMTS is definately the superior 3g technology and only one company has rolled it out so far and we definately have not rolled it out in the states. I would like to see Sprint or Verizon offer the peer to peer mobile video that we offer.