[OT] 9/11 Pentagon Strike

[jboweruk]

I did warn everyone it would get... erm... heated. I'm outta here to leave 'em to it.

[Ryanamur]

AeroJim wrote:
Ok, if we dont get involved the world flips out, i mean we keep our noses out of mid-east affairs and more mid-easterners die, please tell
me your kidding, the point of the UN is to help the world when in need (Mogadishu) and americans died there (under Clinton by the way
) and Phil, i have to disagree when you said the Talibans were not terrorists, because i very clearly remember seeing this image in
an afghani soccer stadium of women being hung and women being executed in the back of the heads by the taliban, i have a great book
which would let you know of the taliban rule which was a #1 bestseller for awhile it is an amazing book, let me find it quick for you, i really
recommend it, for everybody, i was moved by it, ill post the tiel when i find it, (not at my home pc right now)

Hi AeroJim,

Unfortunatelly, the West is caught in a Catch-22. You loose if you get involved and you loose if you don't get involved. By sidding with
Israel (which we, the West, had to do because of our indirect involvement in the holocaust - ie: the Jews complained when Hitler took
power, many of them fled Germany and tried to come to other countries but were turned back on the basis that 1- they were Jews and 2-
Hitler was no grounds to move out of Germany), we did alinienate the rest of the Arab world...

The point of the UN is to help the world when in need. However, the UN is a sham. You cannot have a body which prones equality
amongst nations and individuals and then have the Security Council which can veto everything based on the own interest of any of its
permanent members. If you look at ALL the UN resolutions presented during the Cold War, you find out that most of the important ones
were either vetoed by the West or the Warsaw pact countries. That trend continued after the Cold War but instead of block veto, it was
nation driven vetos. Then, we get into the question of funding. Rich countries around the world prevent the UN from moving ahead by not
funding it or using their funding as a leverage argument. For example, a few years ago, the World Health Organization brought to the
attention of the world that sugar consumption in kids was going to wreck havoc in our society. It brough to the table a recommendation to
cut sugar consumption by X% (sorry don't remember the exact number) over a certain period of time. This was shot down by the US after
they threatened to simply suspend all payments to the UN if it passed. I'm targetting the US here but they are not the only ones. The list
goes on and on and on. The UN had the potential to elevate humanity. However, just like the Société des Nations before it, it's doomed to
failure because countries (corporations and individuals) cannot accept to go against their own self interest. That's against human nature!

As far as the Talibans go. It all depends how you view politics. Personally, I viewed them as the rightful government of Afghanistan. I did
not like them, I did not support their actions, but, so long as the people of Afghanistan didn't choose to revolt against them, I considered
them the internal body of power. Whether I liked them or not. As for shooting people in the stadium, yes, it's discusting and I don't agree
with it. But who am I to tell them how to run their countries (ie what's best for them)? I expect them to not bud in and tell me how things
should be in Canada; it would be hypocritical of me to tell them what is good or bad for their country.

BTW: I'm extremely impressed with the respect and the tone this thread was able to maintain. These are not easy subjects to discuss
and can easily explode due to the sensitive and emotional nature of what we are taking about. Kudos to all of you!

[Sovek]

Ryanamur wrote:
As far as the Talibans go. It all depends how you view politics. Personally, I viewed them as the rightful government of Afghanistan. I did
not like them, I did not support their actions, but, so long as the people of Afghanistan didn't choose to revolt against them, I considered
them the internal body of power. Whether I liked them or not. As for shooting people in the stadium, yes, it's discusting and I don't agree
with it. But who am I to tell them how to run their countries (ie what's best for them)? I expect them to not bud in and tell me how things
should be in Canada; it would be hypocritical of me to tell them what is good or bad for their country.

BTW: I'm extremely impressed with the respect and the tone this thread was able to maintain. These are not easy subjects to discuss
and can easily explode due to the sensitive and emotional nature of what we are taking about. Kudos to all of you!

Alright, while agree with your view of the UN (as does any right winger here in america, as opposed to every left winger [and do I ever mean every])
I have do disagree with this one. If a goverment is engaging in human right suppresion, and abusing power we MUST act.

This is like saying "So what Hitler was killing jews, he is still the legitamte leader, we shouldnt get involved"

and if the population was WAY too afraid to revolt, they were terrorized into submission.

[Ryanamur]

Sovek wrote:

I have do disagree with this one. If a goverment is engaging in human right suppresion, and abusing power we MUST act.

This is like saying "So what Hitler was killing jews, he is still the legitamte leader, we shouldnt get involved"

and if the population was WAY too afraid to revolt, they were terrorized into submission.

Yes, there are limits. Were was the genocide in Afghanistan? What the Talibans did was not a genocide. It was the established law and
they were only enforcing it. Like I said, I don't agree with the law but I respect the rights of others to govern themshelves.

I guess it all depends where you draw the line. Some people could argue that President Bush is a tyran and engages in human rights
suppression both in and outside of the US. Should he be removed because of it? To me, that's a decision that the US people must take
through the electoral process. Just like the Afghan people could have revolted against the Taliban. Not every society can be democratic
(unfortunately). Revolution is the people way to express their discontent and it always comes at some point. Would I prefer if every country
in the world took our approach to all issues. Yes, of course. But to me, that's negating one of the basis of our own society: we are
different and we expect others to respect our differences; so why can't we do the same for them?

Phil



Post Edited ( 09-30-05 17:59 )

[pagir]

I think there is a major difference between the war on Afghanistan and the war on Iraq.

The attacks on US was monitored from Afghanistan. Since the Talibans didn't act to "correct" the problem (they were part of it), I consider
the NATO has the legitimacy to act.

It's by far different in Iraq.

Pagir

[pegase]

The UN is way from beeing perfect or even simply good. Look the composition of the security council driven by permanent members:
These permanents member don't represent evenly cultures, regions or economies it is simply made of the countries having or
supposed to have significant military power. In simple words: the stronger rules... So no wonder why countries out of this club feel right to
simply tell "up your's" when they think they can maintain such position (see Iran; North Korea).
This organisation and composition was probably OK 50 years the go because it created a balance between all the countries able to
mess up the world. But today it is obviously obsolete.
For composition:
How does it come that countries like India or Brazil are not in the current permanents members ?

For the structure:
How can the majority of countries which are not permanent members accept to be "secondary citizens of the world" ?

But with all those defaults, the UN is the ONLY thing we could do so far to build an authority defining some internationals rules. So before
trashing it, we have to find and build something better... Respects of the UN rules is even more a duty (or should be) for the permanent
members.

I share Pagir's point of view in the comparizon between Agfghanistan and Iraq military interventions and today, I still don't see any positive
points from the Iraq intervention in matter of "War On Terrorism".
I wouldd like to believe that things are at least better for the Iraqi people now but how to compare life in brutal dictatorship to life in a
mess of bombs blasting randomly in the streets ? Where is the freedom xith such high risk level in daily life ?

BTW: I join Phil in my good impression haw we can all discuss and compare quite different opinions in a respectfull and friendly way

After all, may be our efforts to control properly our virtual planes in respect vor our virtual passengers help us to control properly ourselves
in respect for our Fsp pals

[AeroJim]

I agree with phil and pegasuse, though brad and a few others want to hide from this topic, i think it is a beautiful showing of how men can
harness their emotions w/o being bland liars.
But Phil, i think saying the taliban enforced their laws is like saying Stalin enforced his laws, (not as far as hitler cuz that was crazy and a
bad analogy, no offense) but i would compare him to Stalin, Stalin did not commit genocide, but did exile many political oponnents, but
not genocide, i believe stalin and the taliban are a good comparison, im sure their is a better one. Did anyone check out that book i
recommended>?

[Ryanamur]

Hi AeroJim,

Yes, they (Taliban and Stalin) are exactly the same. Both were at the head of totalitarian governments; both suppressed opponents and
both had opponents killed (or exiled or both in the case of Stalin). Nonetheless, both were the rightful government of their countries. What
you are saying is that they should not have been permitted to rule. That is for the people of their countries to decide, not for people from
other countries. I personnally don't agree with the internal policies and practices of either, but I recognized them as the leaders of their
respective country. The position you are taking goes against one of the first rules of international relations: one country should not
meddle in the internal affairs of another. Yes, it's broad and would preclude involvement in the case of a genocide. But the rule has
evolved somewhat to treat genocides as a crime against humanity and therefore justify the involvement of other countries (which I fully
support)

Now, what you are doing is extending your values to the values of others and, at the same time, forcing them to adopt your values. That
would be like the King of Jordan declaring that Bush should be assasinated because he does not follow Islamic law! It's ludicrus. People
are different we all know that. Yet, we all (as a society here, not individuals) refuse to accept the differences between our ways. Since the
dawn of man we have been cramming each others values down one anothers troat and that's cause war.

The bottom line is that human might be the most intelligent animal on the planet but we seem to forget that we are still animals no matter
how glorified we might think we are.

Phil

[pagir]

The Stalin's purges and forced famine made over 10 000 000 casualties. In modern international law, it was certainly crimes against
humanity.

But the international law vary with the power of the country. You can't deal with bigger and powerful countries the way you deal with small
countries... So even if Stalin was alive today I'm sure nobody could do something...

Pagr

[Ryanamur]

pagir wrote:
The Stalin's purges and forced famine made over 10 000 000 casualties. In modern international law, it was certainly crimes against
humanity.

But the international law vary with the power of the country. You can't deal with bigger and powerful countries the way you deal with small
countries... So even if Stalin was alive today I'm sure nobody could do something...

Pagr

Your right, he certainly isn't a Saint. Another fun one to include in this list would be Mao.

Now, if we want to go after all that perform crimes against humanity. We should round up most Western leaders and the Pope for
refusing to divert the ressources necessary to deal with the AIDS crisis in Africa.

[pegase]

It is certainly difficult to answer the question at what point a government or regime is "universally" nasty and thus must be ousted.

But I am affraid that unfortunately this question has NOTHING to do with the real reasons of the conflicts, current or history

Off course, Sovek, Hitler's genocide angains Jews was a legitime cause to attack him but...
Unfortunately, it simply never was the cause:

Hitler PUBLISHED in full black on white words his agenda against jewds in Mein Kampf, nobody took care about this "phoney". He got
the
power from legitimate election, still nobody care. He started annexions, the anschluss and first jew persecutions, still nobody care.

The first international reaction came in 1939 with the invasion of Poland 6 YEARS after his accession on power in 1933..

It took 2 more years to USA to join the war in reaction to Pearl Harbour.

The USA involvment was really what saved our a$$, I can't imagine under what crap situation would be Europe still today if decision
would have been left between Hitler/Staline. So I would be the last one to undermine what we owe to the USA.

However it was not the result of spontaneous decision to free the world or stop a Genocide. Simply after Pearl Harbour, no other choice
was left.

Closer in time: Saddam Hussein got big help and indulgence from ALL occidental countries as he was considered to be the "counter
weight" to Iran's fundamentalist agenda. In these times nothing was too "nice" for him: sophisticated weapons, nuclear plants, chemical
an biologic stuff.. He got all what he wanted from us as it was supposed to be used against Iran. Until he went some "bridges" too far
invading Kuweit. We pulled him out of Kuweit but let him stillruling Iraq and abandoned Kurds and Shiites to his massive killling.

Something similar in Afganistan, nobody cared about fundamentalists as long as their action was against USSR.When USSR colapsed,
the US foreign politic choose rather to help the Talibans which where considered to be more "stable" and easy to handle than Massoud's
insurgents.

For this and others reasons I don't think that any war was ever triggered by the defense of human right.

Either
1) You go at war because you feel stronger than your opponent and expect to get more than what you have.
2) Either you don't go at war but rather war come's to you and there is no choice left.

It can be sometimes a mix of both reasons but my feeling (I can off course be totally wrong) is:
Intervention in Afghanistan was mainly related to the reason N° 2
--------------------Iraq ------------------------------------------------------ N° 1

I am affraid that the day when a military intervention will REALLY be to enforce freedom against submission, life over death, rights over
strength (supposing it would be possible) is still very very far.

Look the UN, look the TPI (I don't know the English call for Tribunal Pénal internationnal)
All countries want to rule them.
But none would accept to be ruled by them.

Still a long way to go and I am no that sure we really walk on a good direction....

As you wrote SavAs

I look toward the future knowing the world in which I live as an adult of 35 years of age, is a far different world than it was when I
was a child.

And this feeling is even more strong for a 50 yo guy.

If my nephews ask me something like :

What did you do with the world you came in to change it into the world you leave to us ??

I don't have any other answer in sight than "OOPS ! Sorry..."

Earth is absolute paradise... seen from a plane.

[firefry98]

I side with Brad in that I'm staying out of this mess...



Post Edited ( 10-04-05 17:27 )

[AeroJim]

we're barely arguin, so relax, if you read the posts nobody is getting out of hand.