Lots of disinformation to correct. Sigh.Afghanistan? Brzezinzki claimed that he INCITED the invasion in the first place. Even if we accept his proud claim as braggartry, we nonetheless have to take the pretty-universal conclusion of scholars that the mujahideen DELAYED the Soviet withdrawal and thus contributed to more death. And even if we approve of supporting the mujahideen against the Soviets, it reeks of historical dishonesty to just write out of existence the next few decades where US-backed warlords and direct US bombing destroyed the country.
Well, Afghanistan actually started when a Russian-backed coup forced the King to leave. Slightly disingenuous, not greatly.
Scholars live in Ivory Towers’ Afghanistani’s do not. What did, eventually, force the Russians out of Afghanistan was the Mujehadin.
Wrong. (Incidentally, I fail to see where you got your evidence if you didn't get it from the conclusions of scholars, newspapers, experts and primary evidence. Oracular visions? Hemlock?) You are confusing the mujahadeen with general resistance to an imperial occupier. The anti-Russian resistance, like most resistances, was a complex thing. A tiny fraction, disproportionate only because of their loudness and extensive CIA Backing, were the foreign Islamists like Osama. Their terrorist actions not only against the Russian army but Russian civilians and Russia itself caused Russia to have both a propaganda reason to stay and a legitimate foe to actually battle. When the Russian Army DID withdraw, they stayed behind and destroyed the country.
Brzezinski's claim is that he and American intelligence had something to do with that string of events. That's not someone far from American power but a core planner. We can ignore what he says, but the fact that the CLAIM was proudly even publically made single-handedly undercuts our motives.
But so what? You're claiming that backing one ARGUABLY democratic force against our at-the-time primary rival singlehandedly compensates for, say, supporting Pinochet during the "first 9/11" as many call it (including former CIA agents like Chalmers Johnson - but I guess he lives in an Ivory Tower either, quite unlike apologists for empire, who always somehow live in a real world that oddly enough only has a few countries in it), which killed tens of thousands of people, and the rest of his brutal reign. Or Suharto. Or the Shah. Or Islam Karimov. Or the Generals. Or a long list of others that if you know ANY of the history at all you will have to admit exist. We don't applaud Russia for supporting the Vietnamese resistance (insofar as they did), even though the case is FAR more arguable, not least because we didn't trust their motives.
As to the “historical dishonesty (of) writ(ing) out of existence the next few decades where US-backed warlords and direct US bombing destroyed the country”; ¿What the Hell are you talking about? We LEFT Afghanistan. That, in a way, created the Taliban; If we’d supported some of those warlords, perhaps the Taliban wouldn’t have been able to get their footing, al Qaeda wouldn’t have been able to slide in under their legitimacy, and the “war on terror” would still be an Isreali/Hzbola conflict.
The disingenuity has now slid to blatant apologetic ignorance. Maniacs like the Northern Alliance, the opium dealers and Gulbeddin Hakmatyar were backed by US aid, extensive and at times their only lifeline. Even the Taliban, as it is well known, received diplomatic and financial entertainment. In fact, the Taliban owes its
existence to the United States. The chaos created by the mujahadeen running around and destroying the country allowed the Taliban to market themselves as peace and order!
Technically, "we" weren't really ever there, only our proxies. And we DID support those warlords which had the exact opposite effect of what you predict.
What is so laughable is that you honestly seem to believe that backing maniacs to kill worse maniacs is the best strategy against terror, instead of doing what even Eisenhower and his National Security Council recognized was the obvious solution: Stop our constant imperial assault on the Middle East.
Over the decades after we abandoned the Afghanistani people to their fate, the US launched a total of two missiles strikes against bin LADEN; Once in retaliation to the first World Trade Center, then after the African Embassy bombings; Both strikes, combined, killed less of bin LADEN’S acolytes than any one of the aforementioned bombings by themselves.
Of course, conveniently ignoring the US bombing in 2001, which had the quite plausible risk of killing millions of people (instead, it turned most of the country into a chaotic hellhole, the Taliban still running around undefeated, and only tens to hundreds of thousands dead - quite a sigh of relief, I can say with some actual sincerity).
But so what? For every bombing you can argue that is proportionate to the crimes, I can argue ones that were colossally out of proportion. Both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killed far more people than 9/11, wars I'm sure you support. In North Korea, when the US had run out of legitimate targets to bomb it started hitting rice paddies and farms. Vietnam had no inciting action AT ALL and killed millions of people. The point was that those missile strikes did not stop the Osama network and in fact had no intent of doing so, so ANY lives lost during them was an unnecessary waste.
The terms offered were to leave Kuwait immediately, SADDAM refused to.
Yes, the terms were for Saddam to do exactly what the US has never done, say in Panama. The terms were for the US to win unconditionally. People who actually care about peace might be willing to support other options. Like the majority of the American people, to which Saddam's proposal was never reported. Saddam's proposal for negotiations was never taken up. Instead, his country was assaulted.
That’s funny enough, I’ll even let you tell me WHERE YOU GOT THAT.
I think you either made that up as you wrote, or went to moveon’s website.
Haha. Nice try, but MoveOn is hardly a clearinghouse for progressive information like that, except where it suits them.
How about, I dunno, the Wiki on the topic? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War .
"The third and largest phase of the air campaign targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons of mass destruction sites, weapons research facilities and naval forces. About one-third of the Coalition airpower was devoted to attacking Scuds, which were on trucks and therefore difficult to locate. In addition, it targeted facilities useful for both the military and civilians: electricity production facilities, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges. Electrical power facilities were destroyed across the country. At the end of the war, electricity production was at four percent of its pre-war levels. Bombs destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations and many sewage treatment plants. Some U.S. and British special forces teams had been covertly inserted into western Iraq to aid in the search and destruction of Scuds. However, the lack of adequate terrain for concealment hindered their operations, and many of them were killed or captured."
What do you THINK happens when you destroy dams, sewage treatment, and electricity? What would happen in Chicago if hospitals failed and toilets backed up? A health disaster.
I could, of course, go onto cite Chomsky, the New York Times, dozens of scholars, etc. but it's not worth my time if you don't know this basic and uncontroversial fact about the Gulf War.
Putting that aside, his invasion of Kuwait was largely greenlighted by US diplomats,
WE never told him it was ok. He decided that it was ok with us.
He decided that based on him asking us. We gave him one response at X time then bombed him, probably largely in order to finally break the will of the globe on the Palestinian issue and allow US-Israeli rejectionism to finally control the agenda.
But notice that even you implicitly concede that Saddam's ENTIRE AGENDA, his entire desire to make war, was based on HIS PERCEPTION that the US had approved the attack. This does not dampen at all your patriotic fervor. This is why I reject these arguments as full of shit: You make claims that you would immediately denounce in the case of virtually any other country. This also does not make you consider that the US could have acquired peace had it so desired, if Saddam was dancing to the US tune. In short, the fact that you conceded alone destroys your entire argument about US benevolence AND the entire justification for the Gulf War in one fell swoop.
his invasion DID overthrow a dictator,
Replacing one dictatorship with another is NOT a justifaction.
That's frankly, well, bizarre, since you seem to have no problem with the US overthrowing dictators and replacing them with other dictators or with direct imperial control. The hypocrisy is rank. It also deflates your presumption that the US always acts to spread democracy as well as peace, since its entire defense was of a corrupt and dictatorial regime.
Incidentally, as I hinted at, you might want to check out Kuwait after all the "help" we gave it. In substantial respects, its society is disintegrating. But its utility to American imperial efforts is done and therefore so is its media noteworthiness.
and again to argue that the US' history with Iraq and Kuwait is universally good is to ignore the decades of support for Saddam and the Ba'ath Party then the 2003 invasion.
True.[/quote]
All right, so in the "Bad" column for the US we can chalk up not only all the deaths of the Ba'ath's Party's beginning, the overthrow of a democracy, the poison gassing of the Kurds, Saddam's WMD threat to the world (which might be ongoing if the WMD material "we" suspected he might have despite all evidence was looted), but also complete dishonesty since we then invaded him using those very crimes as justifications decades later. But neither you nor Bush would ever say that we should be invaded by some alien force to punish US for having supported those actions. I wonder why we always get the exemption. Racism? Generic contempt for the planet? You decide!
This is okay to you? This is something you decide to concede as if it were unimportant, trivial that we were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths due to ONE action? Us backing some Islamist crazies makes up for it? The argument would come close to even MAKING GODDAMN SENSE if fighting Russian invasion had some necessary connection with backing dictators, but it doesn't. Backing Saddam had no justification, at any time, ever, and had no necessity linking it to anything remotely positive. So apologizing for it, as you are doing, is as gross as saying that the US has never done anything good. I am perfectly willing to admit that if you look across the centuries the US and its citizens have made positive contributions. Will you then stop making silly arguments like "Man, the US' empire is so good for the planet?"
Apparently we can overthrow dictators, but they can't.
SADDAM didn’t do it to overthrow a dictator; He did it to loot Kuwait. The difference is insurmountable.
We never did it to overthrow a dictator either, but to loot countries, install our own dictator, promote our agenda, prevent peace and democracy and economic development, allow a ripe climate for US investment, etc. But even if so, it's amazing that YOU make this argument that intent is important in our adjudication of actions. I agree with you so much that
I made the same damn argument. Because you are justifying AMERICAN IMPERIALISM by pointing ONLY to its good actions and NOT to its intents, which were clearly negative as even you obviously recognize based on your lack of willingness to argue positive intent. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so dishonest. It's also deeply problematic that you think that Saddam's overthrow of a dictator had NO positive or laudable impact, since you obviously fail to take that position for the US. The sliding scale of morality is the problem here.
It’s like one crook killing another crook to steal his wallet, versus a cop shooting a crook as he stabs his next victim; Who happens to be a crook.
A fantastic analogy. I just wish there was a global cop that could stop the head crook, indeed the global Mafia don: The United States.
Somalia? All evidence indicates that the US-backed warlords responsible for the crimes were not hindered whatsoever by the invasion. It was a photo op.
Ok, now you’re just playing devils advocate.
Really? Sorry, I guess that it's unimportant that the people of Somalia were only being used to give the US government some legitimacy in the region and that US assistance was minimal and in some ways made the problem worse. I also guess that, contrary to the BS you just spouted, intent doesn't matter.
Bosnia? The US' intervention there almost routinely made it worse. The best example was the bombing of Kosovo, which actually STARTED the ethnic cleansing and therefore could not have been to prevent it.
Amusing.
Mostly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSCEhttp://www.amazon.com/New-Military-Humanism-Lessons-Kosovo/dp/1567511767http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark"JEREMY SCAHILL: But now the U.S. is supporting a regime of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo where almost all minorities have been forced out, including almost every single Serb."
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/1/26/exclusive_democracy_now_confronts_wesley_clarkUnlike you, however, I will explain the data and not rely on Wikipedia to make arguments. The OSCE made a report regarding the Kosovo conflict. It, like ALL of the reports and timelines of the invasion, clearly establishes that there was back-and-forth fighting between Albanian terrorist groups (which even the CIA knew and openly argued were terrorist nutjobs) and the Serbian government. Apparently, the Serbs have no rights to defend their country from terrorism. The US bombing predictably caused the Serbs to begin the atrocities. EVERY timeline that includes the events concedes this fact,
even ones supportive of the war. The New Military Humanism goes through this evidence extensively, including citing Wesley Clark's easy-to-find arguments at the time that the invasion had NOTHING to do with ethnic cleansing (it couldn't since it hadn't begun by the time the US invaded, since the US invasion was the proximate cause) and everything to do with NATO credibility.
But so what? Assume you're correct. You're conveniently ignoring the numerous peace treaties and negotiations that the US scuttled and ignored that would have ended the conflict, or the massive toll to Serbian civilians of the air campaign, or the US backing terrorists, or the conclusion by Serbian democratic forces that the war was preventing the anti-Slobadan resistance from doing its job and was punishing most heavily the most anti-Milosevic regions, etc. All of which deflate the protestations of good will quite a bit.
India and Pakistan? Relatively trivial public aid compared to an outpouring of private aid that helped compensate for the fact that US-backed development made the disasters worse, for example by supporting shrimp farming and hotels instead of traditional mangroves.
The US isn’t a friend by any stretch of the imagination to India, they hate us there (though they get points for embarrassing the US Air Force in a mock war two years ago, with outdated Russian hand-me-downs at that).
Odd, since we've given them nuclear weapons and have extensive trade interactions with them. Oh, and our support of them as a counterweight to China during the Cold War. Notice that you didn't disprove that we support this kind of development, which is obvious because we do. So you instead argue a non sequitur: India hates us. So what? It could be possible that India hates us AND follows our development plans and modes by destroying coastal protections against hurricanes.
By your reasoning, we are not allies with France and give them no aid and support and have no control over its economy because their people hate us. Or Germany. Or all of Europe. Or all of Latin America. Or....
Or, hell, LEBANON. A poll showed that while 61% of Lebanese didn't want Syrian intervention,
69% didn't want US invasion. We're more hated, IN LEBANON, than Syria. You seem to think this is some weird global panic against us. I think it's a quite rational response.
Them embarassing the US Air Force has no small relation to the fact that the US military is not designed to fight serious adversaries but to waste money and therefore act as a non-competitive subsidy to private industry as well as protect US imperial interests with massive force against civilians. So your support of US empire is even funnier since it actually prevents us from being safe and trades off with a COMPETENT military.
Either way, jobs is jobs, and the US will import shrimp- ¿Mangroves? Not so much.
And, of course, their poverty has nothing to do with us, no sirree. Nor does the fact that our economic decisions violate their own ecological best interest cast ANY aspersions on unrestrained market capitalism.
To which I can offer the following counter-examples: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, Greece, Italy, Grenada, Libya, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the backing of Nazis by US intelligence after the war, etc. etc.
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Grenada: In and out, 6 months or less.
Libya, Iraq, and Iran: We backed one team or another, only to get a knife in our backs.
At this point, you're just lying. To quote the Wiki:
"The Contras is a generic term for various terrorist groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Their campaign continued through the eighties despite fully democratic elections in 1984 resulting in 2/3rds of voters backing the Sandinistas with 3/4 of the total electorate voting. Because the 1984 election was viewed internationally as a sham, the 1990 election was monitored by international observers and resulted in a landslide defeat for the Sandinistas and the election of the outspoken anti Sandinista candidate Violeta Chamorro by a 14.4% margin [1]
The term Contra is short for the Spanish term contrarevolucionario, in English "counter-revolutionaries", and was used in distinction to their opponents nickname, the Compas, short for compañeros ("comrades"). A more commonly used term for distinguishing
The Contras were initially organized, with US and Argentine support, by supporters of the overthrown Somoza regime who had served in his notorious National Guard. Over time the Contras came to include a number of other groups, each one essentially independent. Different groups of Contras had different aims and little ideological unity."
In short, we supported the Contras for AT LEAST 5 YEARS. Not "six months".
Ditto for El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, where we supported the people committing the atrocities for most of the Reagan years if not substantially before. And I'm only talking about the 80s at this point. US crucifixion of Nicaragua through Somoza continued for years, and we also continued to crucify them in the 90s and even now.
You barely even spoke about Iran, where we backed the Shah for decades, or Iraq, where we backed the Ba'ath and Saddam for even longer. I know, I suppose I should break these into categories. For example, Nicaragua would include "Backing Somoza, creating the contras, being censured by the highest legal authorities of the world, destroying the economy, forcing US-friendly election results through force and fraud up until the 1990s". I suppose I can let you off the hook for not knowing what we did to those countries in particular since we did so many things for so long.
Notice how YOU DIDN'T ARGUE AGAINST THE EXISTENCE OF ANY OF THESE ATROCITIES. You didn't say they didn't happen, you didn't say we didn't support, facilitate and cause them, you didn't justify them, you just said that they didn't last very long. So by your reasoning, killing tens of thousands of people is BETTER if you do it quickly and therefore destroy the society that much more rapidly.
I can't wait for you to say that we were only in Vietnam for six months. (Vietnam, of course, having killed MILLIONS of people and thus single-handedly ruining your argument about the US being so great). Apparently, if you only bomb, murder and ethnically cleanse innocent people for half a year, you get off scot free and get ice cream!
Incidentally, you don't seem to think that there's some consistent reason that the US continues to get shanked by the people it supports. I think that when you lie with maniacs you shouldn't be surprised when you wake up with a knife in your back. One of the many good reasons not to lie with maniacs.
Greece, Italy, and the rest of Europe: ¿Do they complain? With the exception of France, NO. ¿Why? Because German isn’t their primary language now.
Actually, ALL of Europe was against the war. By even larger margins than Germany or France. Meaning you also have contempt for democracy.
By the way, Greece and Italy DO in fact complain. People still remember what we did to them. People still remember how we betrayed the partisans and backed the fascists. (And, of course, when people don't agree with us, it doesn't matter because they're German now, hahaahah! Racist AND funny!)
But so what if they don't complain? Does that make it right? Does that make undermining Italian democracy, threatening it with the Sixth Fleet, backing Nazis and fascists before and after the war and destroying Greek democracy okay? Where, in short, do you actually BELIEVE any of the crap you argue?
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: It is useful to review the preamble; The Invasion of the Aleutian Islands by the Japanese showed that the Japanese would not surrender easily.
So that makes it okay?
I knew including this would make this argument come up, so here's the Cliff Notes: Japan had already offered a surrender that included the retention of the Emperor as the sole condition before the US bombed Hiroshima. It had completely surrendered by Nagasaki. Its horrendous and unnecessary bombing of Tokyo had already destroyed the will of the leadership to continue fighting. Since the US allowed them to keep the Emperor, both bombings were unnecessary. Planning at the time, quite openly, was trying to draw the outlines of the post-WWII world order. This involved plans, luckily not fully implemented, to back Nazis and therefore extend the war against Russia. More importantly, it included giving NO territory to the Russians. Thus, the intent of the bombing was NOT to mitigate civilian harm but to decisively humiliate and frighten the Russians, and the action of the bombing was unnecessary and immoral.
Dresden and Hamburg also didn't draw your attention.
The kind of think that even brings this argument forward is the same kind of thinking that would accuse the US of “war crimes” had they NOT dropped the bomb. *shrug*
Operation Paperclip: An American project to bring former Nazi scientists to the United States after World War II, particularly those involved in the development of the V-2 rocket, including Wernher Von Braun. [/i]This was despite the fact that U.S law explicitly prohibited former Nazi officials from immigrating into America.[/i]
Yes, they did- The Russian’s had their own version. Indeed, a NAZI should be tried and hung; However, ONCE THE UNITED STATES MADE A DEAL WITH AN OPERATION PAPERCLIP ‘CANDIDATE’, IT SHOULD BE HONORED OUTRIGHT.
Wait, what? So, because we made a deal with a Nazi, we should honor our promise? I suppose that it's fine that we made a deal with the Nazi in the first place. The amazing thing about this is that you seem to think we should keep our promises to Nazis, but not honor our commitments under Geneva, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the UN Charter, etc. Apparently law to protect human beings and create peace is bad but deals with Nazis are fine.
I notice you focus, as most people do, on the missile program. Not the backing of anti-partisan thugs who butchered and brutalized innocent Europeans and Russians. Or people like Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon. Or the fact that the Argentinians among others used these former Nazis to guide their death squads. Missiles for some reason seem so much nicer than all of this.
Suppose some people are too fast to attribute war crimes to the US. You have yet to attribute A SINGLE CRIME to the US. You have thus far excused dozens of wars, terrorist actions, overthrowing of democracies, sabotaging and blocking of elections, ethnic cleansing, genocide (like Suharto's killing of 300,000 innocent people in his US-backed rise to power), bombings, the backing of Nazis, the murder of millions through the sanctions regime, the undermining of international law, all for NO REASON whatsoever. I'd rather be too fast to attribute war crimes to the US than never do it even when the rubric by every definition obviously fits. That's because I'm concerned about justice and peace. What are your concerns?
I apologize for the caps, but I can not emphasis the point any more; ¿If we reneged on those deals, no matter how disgusting they are, why should anyone trust us in the future?
True enough. I guess no one would give us a break for changing our mind about supporting Nazis. Never mind that THAT DOESN'T JUSTIFY MAKING THE DEALS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Nor never mind that we DAILY prove how untrustworthy we are by constantly flouting agreements and treaties we signed in good faith, which incidentally would be an impeachable offense since that is the highest law of the land. Nor does it excuse anything the US empire has ever done. Nor does it explain why the US decided to take advantage of those monster's "services" instead of just sending them to a nice chalet somewhere. Nor does it explain why Wehrner von Braun was put to work on creating weapons of war rather than, say, aviation. In short, your response doesn't actually ANSWER ANY DAMN QUESTIONS that such backing raises.
Somewhere, a Chippawa mother is laughing her ass off at some white man arguing for agreeing to treaties, contracts and agreements.
But EVEN IF everything above was true, so what? Not every action the Roman Empire, or the Nazis, or the Soviets, or any other empire we revile did was universally bad. That doesn't excuse the crimes. You can't excuse murder by pointing to another time when you DIDN'T murder. It's staggering that people even try to make this argument. Wrong is wrong, no matter the balance of actions of those who commit it.
The only thing “staggering” about that comment is to try to blackwash everything the US has done, by whitewashing everything everyone ELSE has done.
You, Officer BREK, are a properly sworn, deputized Police Officer in the City of Orange. You watch, from a block away, a shooting take place; You approach, mindful of the fact that the shooter may well have an accomplice, till you see a man, lying on the ground, clearly shot and saying he’s been shot by the guy you did see.
¿Well, is it true or isn’t it? It’s just as well possible that the guy on the ground is the real suspect.
You, MR BREK, expect the officer in the analogy to be able to make that instantaneous decision, without all the fact or with, and do the absolutely right thing each and every time; The real world never works that way.
The US- And even more so, the EU- Should have bombed the Serbs into the stone age. We didn’t.
Actually, we shouldn't have bombed Serbs. And the EU didn't even EXIST at the time, but I guess that doesn't stop them from having made mistakes.
Your analogy relies on me being a good cop with good intentions. Let me give you a counter-example: You are a mercenary hired to shoot up a schoolyard. Do you a) bitch and moan when people call you a murderer, complaining that no one understands how hard it is to be the guy with the gun or b) not do it?
The US is not some good cop that occasionally makes a bad error. It is an empire. An empire with its own intentions, its own plans, and its own desires. It is an empire that has ALWAYS, not once, not a few times, but always made the decision to amplify violence, block democracy, expand US corporate influence and create what Nixon called a "Grand Area" under US control. Its good actions are done in service of this goal as are its bad actions. Like all other empires. But we get the excuse that, hey, it sure is hard to be on top. (But that's never a reason to stop being on top. Only a reason to shoot brown people.)
No, even the US has done bad things to get our own ends, and more than once that ends was selfish; But not in at least 50 years has anything the US done been wholly selfish. Partly, sure, and bad, often.
But that doesn't mean that we should oppose anything it did, no sirree. Because it sure is hard to predict that when you bomb people, people die.
.
¿How many time has the US bombed Harare? ¿How about New Delhi? ¿Algiers? ¿Buenos Aires? ¿Canberra? ¿Minsk? ¿Sarajevo? ¿Ottawa? ¿San Jose? ¿Dili? ¿Athens? ¿Tehran? ¿Vientiane? ¿Mexico City? ¿Bucharest? ¿Moscow? ¿Dakar? ¿Freetown? ¿Pretoria/Cape Town/Bloemfontein? ¿Madrid? ¿Damascus? ¿Montevideo? ¿Vatican City? ¿Hanoi?
I guess all Americans, they just pull the trigger, and damn the consequences. (The US never actually bombed Hanoi; We did bomb nearby, however, we never penetrated inside of city limits.)
(at you, and I don’t mind saying so).
Either way, Hasbro caused 9/11.[/quote]
So the Nazis were okay because THEY didn't bomb "New Delhi? ¿Algiers? ¿Buenos Aires? ¿Canberra? ¿Ottawa? ¿San Jose? ¿Dili? ¿Athens? ¿Tehran? ¿Vientiane? ¿Mexico City? ¿Dakar? ¿Freetown? ¿Pretoria/Cape Town/Bloemfontein? ¿Madrid? ¿Damascus? ¿Montevideo? ¿Vatican City?"
Incidentally, we DID bomb Hanoi. Weird.
Notice how YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION. I asked you to give me a reasoning why US actions are justifiable. One reason. One moral standard that could be consistently applied. You gave me a list of people we didn't bomb. Yay! Let's make that our maxim. I will murder you in cold blood. I will defend myself not only by saying that you were an out-and-out Nazi but also by pointing to a list of billions of people I didn't kill. I will get off every time. Hell, Ray is starting to look pretty good with some fava beans and a nice chianti. And Clean? Well, I'm sure we ALL could imagine several hilarious deaths for him. George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and Bush the I are all good candidates too. Man, I like this maxim.
The laughing is mutual. It is, of course, made that much more hilarious that you're laughing when you're arguing that we murder people and that's hunky dorey. The thing that's not so funny is that you don't believe a damn word you're saying but you sign your tax bills anyways.
