Four more years?

[Ricochet]

wtf? Do you know who is leading the NATO forces in Afghanistan? Do you know how many Canadian troops are in Afghanistan right now, or how many have died there this year? Typical American. Unlike most here, but doing your best to earn your global reputation.

Ah, there's Mr. Canada.

Well, it sure isn't Canadian troops leading the way in Afghanistan! Here again, where are you getting your news? Typical Canadian. Here is some news for you (taken from your own CBC): http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/051220/w122072.html

I'm glad I'm keeping our global reputation alive and well. Besides, regardless of our "bad" global reputation (like that really matters)...who do you think 99% of the NATO countries (especially Canada) would call first if they needed help militarily? Yeah, the good olé US of A and face it your military wouldn't be able to stop California if Arnold decided to invade.

 

[Ricochet]

I don't think I ever made the comment that we should just up and leave Iraq. My personal opinion is that we stuck there under the " You break it you bought it" principle. We made the mess now we have to at least make an effort at cleaning it up. The problem with that is - what happens if they never can clean up their own mess? Was South Vietname ever able to reach the point where they could defend themselves against the North independent of massive US aid? Would Israel be able to defend themselves without the massive US aid we send them ( on the order of $500 per Israeli citizen per year - as I have stated here before and the recent Kennedy School of Govt report also states). Or how about Europe - US military provided the real backbone of NATO for years. That is why we are still stuck there. How about Japan - again another country not able to defend itself militarily without the involvement of the US.

How many countries around the world are we going to turn into whining welfare mothers sucking off the teat of the US taxpayer?

I haven't forgotten any of the US resolutions - the point once again is that the US seemed to be the only who really cared about the resolutions. The UN did not care. The French did not care. The Russians did not care. The rest of the Arab states did not care.

I say this partly with tongue in cheek - but we should have just kept supporting Saddam and told everybody else to go screw themselves - he would have kept Iran in check - if Bin Laden and Wahabbi Islam got out of line we could have given him the go ahead to invade Saudi Arabia. If anybody in the area got out of line we could have just sicked Saddam on them.

Again I will bring up the founding fathers - they warned the country explicity about getting involved with the affairs of foreign countries. We keep doing it and now we are stuck doing it. Have you ever been involved in a bad situation at work or with your family? - one of those he said - she said type of things? Ever made the mistake of trying to stick up for one of the parties involved even when you knew the situation was really screwed up? Ever gotten badly burned in the end? After the whole thing was over did you think to yourself - the next time I will just keep my mouth shut and stay out of it - there was nothing there that really involved me?

We are in one of those situations in a worldwide scale. Unfortunately we are sucked into the middle of this big pile of shit and there is not easy way out now. My only hope is that by some miracle we get a new generation of political leaders who somehow reverse this mess and get the US back on the right track - the danger is that this thing keeps getting worse and worse to the point where the US begins to really suffer. Don't forget - we have lost most of our industrial manufacturing capacity, we have a huge deficit, massive illegal immigration, etc. etc. Things aren't all coming up roses for the US at the moment - last thing we need is for the Iraq thing to get even worse - and it could.

You know, I actually agree with a lot of that. I wonder what the world be like if we pulled all global charity and security and let them fight it out amongst themselves, and poured all those funds back into national security, our country and our deficit. Not a bad concept...a return to isolationism, but unfortunately with the current global terrorism problem & economy what it is...it is not feasible or prudent.

 

[beds]

I'm still waiting for some clarification on why the hawkish Georgian thinks Afghanistan is not a war zone. I just pulled something from 2005 that said there was... "a fatality rate of 1.6 per 1,000 soldiers, compared with 0.9 per 1,000 in Iraq". But, I guess Iraq's not a war zone either.

Let's see what Mr. Canada says

Okay, if you are referring to me as "Mr. Canada", well, it's been a long time since I pumped iron, but if you really want some photos, maybe I'll get Doc to post some more revealing ones of me in the WLR Talk to him nice and maybe he'll let you in, Ricochet!

Finally, my Canadian satellite provider gives me:
Fox news (how can that be, they aren't allowed in Canada?!)
CNN
BBC World News
Bloomberg
MSNBC
Ethnic programming for:
Cantonese
Greek
Punjabi
Hindi
Latin America

NO Al-Jazeera!

 

[Ricochet]

I'm still waiting for some clarification on why the hawkish Georgian thinks Afghanistan is not a war zone. I just pulled something from 2005 that said there was... "a fatality rate of 1.6 per 1,000 soldiers, compared with 0.9 per 1,000 in Iraq". But, I guess Iraq's not a war zone either.



Okay, if you are referring to me as "Mr. Canada", well, it's been a long time since I pumped iron, but if you really want some photos, maybe I'll get Doc to post some more revealing ones of me in the WLR Talk to him nice and maybe he'll let you in, Ricochet!

Finally, my Canadian satellite provider gives me:
Fox news (how can that be, they aren't allowed in Canada?!)
CNN
BBC World News
Bloomberg
MSNBC
Ethnic programming for:
Cantonese
Greek
Punjabi
Hindi
Latin America

NO Al-Jazeera!

Yeah yeah, FoxNews is there now and I already said al-Jazeera isn't. Well, put it this way...99% of the war (doom & gloom) coverage we get here is related to Iraq.

That's OK you can keep you Mr. Canada photos. :nosee: LOL

BTW, here is some war zone coverage in Afghanistan: http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/20060328/hz_afghanistan_0306/blogs3301

 

[jdwilson44]

Realistically, what do you see as the best source for this miracle to happen? Do we have any such politicians in position to win over the electorate?

Please note I said "miracle" - I should have further stated that I don't really believe in miracles myself.

Maybe we don't need somebody to win over the electorate - I think there are people out there who could or would fix this problem if the electorate would give them a chance - since we live in a democracy in the end this is our own fault. It is the electorate that needs to get educated and stop listening to the BS that emanates from Washington and the people who inhabit it. If the people demanded a certain course of action somebody might come forward.

We had an example of this recently here in MA (of all places) - there was a proposal in the legislature to extend in state tuition rates to illegal immigrants. At first the bill appeared very likely to pass - most of the representatives said they were going to vote for it - the word got out and the taxpayers started making their voices heard - and the bill went down to a pretty clear-cut defeat.

 

[jdwilson44]

You know, I actually agree with a lot of that. I wonder what the world be like if we pulled all global charity and security and let them fight it out amongst themselves, and poured all those funds back into national security, our country and our deficit. Not a bad concept...a return to isolationism, but unfortunately with the current global terrorism problem & economy what it is...it is not feasible or prudent.

Now you are starting to get it - with one caveat - why is it if we refuse to go in and fix everybody's ****ups it is called isolationism? I am a good part of the way thru Pat Buchanan's book " A Republic - Not an Empire" and he makes the point that whenever anybody talks about getting the US out of the UN - not getting "involved" in world affairs, etc. they are labeled "isolationist" as a smear tactic. The more appropriate way of describing this should be "self interest". The US never really was isolationist during it's history - during the 19th century though we pretty much stayed out of wars that were not really our problem.

I personally think that the "global terrorism" is somewhat overblown and the "global economy" is also something that we need to take a long hard look at to see if it is really helping the US. The US has never been isolationist on trade - if you know the Marine Corps hymn you know the "shores of Tripoli" which refers to US Marines fighting the Barbary Pirates because they were attacking American shipping. The war of 1812 was fought partially because the British Navy was attacking US shipping and forcing (they called it impressing) American sailors to serve on Royal Navy ships. The US has always been a seafaring - trading nation. The difference now is that that trading seems a lot more one way - whatever is the cheapest gets precedence and screw the long term interests of the country as a whole.

Why did France, Germany, the rest of the Mideast, etc. refuse to participate in the invasion of Iraq? Because they were looking after their own self interest - so went in all high on morals and the spread of democracy and this is where we have ended up.

It's not isolationism - it's self interest.

 

[jdwilson44]

Here is a person who spells out what the founding fathers thought of foreign entanglements - and the kicker is he is Chinese descent, father was a high ranking Taiwanese diplomat - and he now works in Taiwan, and still thinks the US should not get involved in any Taiwan-China problems:

http://www.antiwar.com/chu/?articleid=207