an interesting read from Aljazeera.net - American Hiroshima

i admit supplying aid to starving countries will get the US admired, especially if they gave a bit more. its common that many in the states believe they give a high percentage then all countries, but they are way down on that list. but i admire the art of giving in the first place.

all i was suggesting was that the US could do with changing some feactures of its foreign policy. no nations foreign policy is correct but this thread was about the US.

we can go on like this giving examples of good and bad foreign policy, you give aid, i give iraq or economics. i will conclude my beliefs because people get too angry on this so-called open minded site; i believe the US had a good message apart from economically, but has lost all its respect with the way it conducts its actions abroad. acting like terrorists will not prevent terrorism. its a contradiction. yes the US does give aid, but not as much as they should and not too all the places that actually need it. it doesn't help that they do ot sign up to the ICC or any other agreement that may mean they have to work with other nations for the good of the world such as on environmental grounds
peacex

 

Indeed. And you have a slight role reversal there - the Taliban was helping Al-Qaeda. The Taliban being armed, of course, by America.

I also wouldn't bring up crimes against ethinic minorites, considering America's track record - Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, etc... (I can name dozens if you'd like).

And I wouldn't act like your humanitarian aid was at all altruistic - it was an effort to cut down on poppy fields (and hence heroin). 5,000 dead seems trite compared to your track record.

It's debatable whether your civilians "deserved" 9/11, but its pure fact that you brought it upon yourselves. And are bringing more.

 

How is this myth? In an effort to curb Soviet Expansionism, you, along with the UK and Saudi Arabia, armed the Taliban. These arms didn't go away after the war was over.

And of course the world doesn't respect your aid to Afghanistan... The destruction of poppy fields (which the aid was conditional upon) is starving the local population.

 

You are a funny guy spooner. You're one of those types who, upon finding out that every fact they used to back their claim is wrong, will refuse to change their view since the facts never mattered anyway.

The Taliban didn't come into existance until several years after the Soviets had left Afghanistan. Therefore it is completely illogical to claim that the US and UK funded them to curb Soviet expansionism. People typically say this because they don't know the difference between the Taliban and the Mujahadeen, which the US and UK did support via the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. Anyway, don't feel bad, lots of anti war/communist types tell me the incorrect version of the history, thinking smugly that they are clever and know the real deal because they aren't brainwashed by "the media". Wonder where you learned it.

The aid was not conditional on destruction of poppy fields. I'm not sure if you just assumed this because it would be convenient if it were true. I do find it funny though - being told that "the world does not respect your aid" (do you speak for the world, spooner? That's quite a responsibility) and having such an absurd statement based on a complete and utter lie - that the aid was conditional on poppy eradication, which it wasn't. Again, promoting and justifying hatred of America based on lies - fun, isn't it? Sure is.

Wrong on both counts. I already spoke about your inability to distinguish the Taliban and the Mujahadeen, so I'll leave that. But as for AQ helping the Taliban, well I would think arranging the assassination of Ahmed Shah Masood would count as assistance. Not to mention more ordinary military support against the Northern Alliance.

We've already gone over the poppy field lie. I'd also have to wonder about someone who thinks 5,000 civilians murdered "seems trite". It doesn't seem trite to me.

I don't consider it debatable at all whether those civilians deserved to be murdered on 9/11. Perhaps you'd like to make the case - maybe start a new thread? More to the point, did the UN "bring it upon themselves" to get truck bombed because they let East Timor become free? Did the citizens of Bali "bring it on themselves"?

I know its fun to go on the internet and play revolutionary, but you are basically making excuses and rationalisations for mass murderers, for people who take pride in torture and the execution of innocents, from journalists to aid workers.

 

i have debated the war lovers before in the politics forum and won (you'll be glad to know). these characters that love the war so much they refuse to fight in it. unfortunately america decided to bomb the crap out of everyone it disagreed with, osama and others yet to come will be americas legacy to the world. the wind has blown north, east and south, now it turns west. how hard it blows and for how long depends on america alone.

 

You've chosen to ignore the fact that the Saudi government -- certainly no paragon of democracy by any means (especally as far as women are concerned) -- ASKED the U.S. to send troops to defend it from what the Saudis believed was a threat by Saddam Hussein to send his army into the Muslim holy land following his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam blamed both the Saudis and Kuwait for undercutting Iraq's oil revenues by flooding the world oil market in the late 1980s (Not surprisingly, when George Bush, Sr. was in the White House) and creating a glut that sent oil prices plunging. That nearly broke the back of OPEC -- and sent Americans on a wild buying binge for those gas-guzzling SUVs.

Whether Saddam actually planned to invade the Muslim holy land -- Lest we forget, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia -- remains a matter of dispute, since Saddam had to have known that practically the entire Muslim world would have retaliated if he did. So instead he invaded tiny Kuwait, thinking -- wrongly, it turned out -- that the senior Bush would do nothing about it.

I'm not a Republican and I'm certainly no fan of Bush -- either Senior or Junior. But I do have to give the senior Bush credit for going to the international community FIRST and building a grand coalition against Iraq -- the largest such alliance since World War II -- BEFORE going to war.

I also have to give the senior Bush credit for not going beyond the U.N. mandate by marching into Baghdad when he could have easily have done it. Lest we forget, the U.S. had a half-million troops and a vast naval armada in the Persian Gulf region at the time of the first Gulf War -- nearly five times the 135,000 U.S. troops the strategy-challenged junior Bush has in Iraq now.

--Skeeter