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Why do americans tend to take any criticism of their governments actions as personal attacks? Saying that not everyone who's been killed by US military did deserve it, is somehow offensive to you?

Johannes wrote:US military

SpliFF wrote:Yay, the US gets to kill people who might actually deserve it for a change.

the US as in US as a nation. As opposed to US MILITARY, when you are talking about killing people and assigning responsiblity, better get the party responsible correct. Otherwise it would seem you are blaming the wrong person.

Spliff's post implicates the party responsible as the US as in the US as a whole. Where as you are clearly indicating the military.

smoth wrote:the US as in US as a nation. As opposed to US MILITARY, when you are talking about killing people and assigning responsiblity, better get the party responsible correct. Otherwise it would seem you are blaming the wrong person.

Spliff's post implicates the party responsible as the US as in the US as a whole. Where as you are clearly indicating the military.

The military acts on behalf of the state.

. . which acts on behalf of the corporations. have fun with that.

smoth wrote:. . which acts on behalf of the corporations. have fun with that.

These people don't actually blame all Americans. The Europeans (or others from working democracies) nagging about these sort of things know that a government (including military) is not the same as all the people in a nation. A large part of the population could actually oppose policies which are supported by a majority. So when someone makes remarks as above these are not aimed at *all* Americans. Although if you put it this way... I thought ┬┤you Americans┬┤ thought you had the greatest democracy in the world. Could you put thoughts on that in the same post as this remark?

PS.
The people of Egypt, Tunesia, Libya and more (in the present and in the past) decided to revolt when faced with a government that was out of their control..

I guess to explain the current american political climate is petty squabbling. To try and explain why it is fail and not a great democracy:

So say it is an election for some representative, be it senate or president.

You have two major "parties"

Republicans(Conservatives)
(rough characteristics)
- Religion public
- Morality defined in absolutes

Democrats(Liberals)
(rough characteristics)
- Religion private
- Morality defined by situation

So the parties spend the election playing on people's idiotic fears and issues. "Gay Mariage," "abortion," "religion in schools," "unions" They work the public into a frenzy. "I am not voting for obama, he is a muslim derpy derpy" "If I vote for obama he will support gay mariage, rage rage "

instead of worrying about the policies we have the entire election filled with idiotic shit like this.

Once a representative gets into office, they can do whatever they want. Which is usually to give kick backs and hook ups to campaign sponsors. Possibly cutting themselves a sweet deal(haliburton) and doing a few things for the public come election season to ensure a second term or try and save face.

We get to vote on shit like whether or not we want to open up x-spillway for fishing, then our senators can choose to piss all over it. Bills go into the house for voting and have all kinds of shit tacked onto it so that by the time it goes into use, it is not just a "lets stay out of other peoples shit" bill. It'll have the blood daimonds and somalia pirate fund added in or some equally stupid crap.

ALL THE WHILE the american people believe that the people in office represent them because they are "good ole boys" or "sensitive to world issues" or some other equally pretentious nonsense. We are given little play decisions to let people feel that we have any sway in this sandbox but in reality, we only get to vote on shit that doesn't matter. Like whether or not gays can marry.

P.S. anyone who says America has the greatest democracy is wrong. We are a republic.

Just yanking your chain.. :)

sorry, I thought you were asking a question.

No no, hence the I understand your confusion though.

IMSabbel wrote:

Regret wrote: Just because a prejudice is popular, does not mean it's neutral. Spliff's statement was offensive to anyone supportive of the USA in their recent military actions.

So "fascist warmonger" constitudes a protected minority now? Nice to hear, we have some neo-nazis over here that we could gladly deported into this forum here for their own protection.

Citizens of the US are a minority on this forum. Believing my nation is not a "facist warmongering" state is not prejudice. However, if I saw someone say something like "those towelheads deserved it", that would be equally prejudiced.

Like I say, you are prejudiced. Just because much of the world shares your prejudice (including me to some degree) doesn't make it valid or right. We're obligated not to moderate with our hearts, but with our heads.

It's prejudice only if you're uninformed about the subject.

smoth wrote: P.S. anyone who says America has the greatest democracy is wrong. We are a republic.

Democracy as a state of affairs is a relative concept - the margin can be drawn pretty far before we can start talking about other forms of power/kratos. Not to mention that democracy can be also pretty subjective matter depending on the subject's position on the power structure. What is a great or true democracy? Is it representative, parliamentary, direct, something between or something totally exclusive?

Anyway, speaking of the situation of Libya, the active intervention and the discourse followed, I find too much hypocricy and double standards to blindly take and accept it all without any criticism.

First of all, active intervention, that now seems to take the behalf of the rebels, is in my view not an peacekeeping operation anymore by any standards.

We must remember that Libya is a sovereign state by the recongnition of U.N, that with a legitimate government and authorities is protecting itself from the rebels, which on the contrary, is illegitimate, with no rule or representative - only thing I know so far, is that it's punch of fed up youngsters with guns. That means there is no two(or more) legitimate states conflicting each other, in other words, clearly a civil war has taken place, thus U.N Security council has no mandate to take so harsh actions.

Theres other, bigger reasons, ideological and political. One could easily say, that western world is at war against Libya.

According to Gaddafi, though the source can be indeed questioned, majority still loves him, and at least most of the people are neutral civilians. Trivial in some perspective: Libya is 'wellbeing' country relatively to other African/Middle-East countries. Human Develop index is high: 0.755 (53th), meaning that It's Africas best developed country after Mauritius and Seychelles. It has GDP $14,884 per capita (56th). Is all the wellbeing due to Gaddafi's politics or oil money? - Maybe not relevant - relevant question on the other hand is, could the people really be happy, even though it seems to be that modern democratic virtues like free-speech, free-press are lacking and numerous human rights are therefore being violated?

While other trivial fact good to be mentioned: In Libyas case unrests have been handled with pretty good care. Only couple thousands of dead, mainly from fighting sides, very few civilian casualties - reports from the borders tell that among refugees are very few injured. And in the matter of fact, no genocide has taken place.

So, Licho and Machete had pretty good points there. What makes Libyas case so specific that it allows this kind of intervention, while unrests violently supressed in other similar cases are being ignored. Why actions are taken place now, and not before?

Smoth has no reason to be upset by the criticism of bad U.S involving into this because it's false. European countries has been at the forefront of 'solving' this critically evolving conflict. Actually in fact, U.S has been pretty reluctant to take part, kindly waiting for the U.N's sanctification. Maybe because they have already involved couple other liberation fronts, that has appeared to be problematic enough to third one to be reconsidered again.

It's interesting that France has been the most eager to take action, maybe it fears the massive wave of refugees that the prolonged and escalated civil war could cause.

I really hope that U.N is doing right thing and right actions for the sake of Libyan people, but we should not rule out the possibility that this can lead to some serious problems aswell: Gaddafi may be tyrant for some, while hero and saviour for other.

from
http://www.libyaonline.com/business/pages.php?cid=311

I don't know how accurate it is, but notice the two top countries wanted no involvement with military action.

Is that suppose to be surprising?

lucky for the civilians, european countries will take the lead this time

@graph - graph is not suprising, check what his son did in germany. beating anyone he wanted, selling machine guns etc. and he is clean lol

Tbh I'm just suprised the UN actually agreed on something and took action... I wonder what the actual political intrests in this were (purely humanitarian? I doubt it), and what strings did France et al pull to get this done. Wikileaks go go go!

I don't think foreign meddling can be ruled out as the cause of the uprising. I'd even go as far as to say it's pretty likely. I know some of the rebels are turncoat army units but on the whole the rebels appear surprisingly well equipped and trained. I mean where does your average pissed off mob find so many AA cannons and heavy machine guns and people capable of operating them effectively? There is a pretty marked difference between the rioters in Egypt throwing stones and the rioters in Libya shooting down fighter jets and taking out tanks. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find the leaders of the attacks are actually SAS, Sandline or Blackwater mercenaries.

As others have noted the world is usually pretty content to sit back and send UN monitors into the middle of a genocide but this time the mood is distinctively regime change. I really have to wonder what we aren't being told and how long the UN has really been planning this thing.

+1 (what spliff said)

UN planning?humanitarian?France pulling strings in the UN?
Its just a few conditions aligning correctly...
First of all he is an asshole, second of all arab leaders are afraid of more uprisings so supporting him would not be wise atm...
He didnt have enough friends and its in the majorities interest to get him out of the way...
He might have also said "no" to the wrong people...

To call the UN, humanitarian or democraticly inspired or a body that cares about democratic values is silly...
This is just kadafi failing...

Gota wrote: He didnt have enough friends.

ye, except whole africa and biggest countries in the world like russia, france, germany, italy. he was most pro-european dictator in the world.