The European Intrusion --an article (rant)

[[b]]

Militarily, the US is quite capable of fighting the war against terrorism alone. Whether our leaders have the moral courage to do so is quite another matter.

I agree with both of these statements. While our army seems to be more a broadsword then the scalpel needed to quickly and efficiently bring down a terrorist cell we are learning and adapting to this newer way of warfare.

If other countries feel that this is a US problem then I hope our leaders do find the moral courage to fight this one on our own. We should withdraw from NATO and the UN, tell the rest of the world to bugger off, and if somebody should decide to mess with us, we'll land some troops and thump 'em in the head.

Some would say that the terrorist attack was brought on by ourselves. That these countries are tired of the US opinion that we are the "leaders of the free world" and everybody should do what we do. Well, maybe we did and maybe they're right.

Thankfully for those countries we do try to be leaders and we do try to get the help, assistance, and approval of our allies for any actions we take. If we didn't, we could of turned that area of the world into a giant radioactive glass factory long ago.

 

[Luis G]

Originally posted by Ardsgaine
The terrorists don't hate us because of our foreign policy or any particular thing we've done overseas...

Wrong, they do.

 

[Justintime]

Originally posted by Luis G


Wrong, they do.

ditto

 

[Ponch]

Originally posted by Ardsgaine
The terrorists don't hate us because of our foreign policy or any particular thing we've done overseas

are you blind or what ?

 

[ris]

what they said ^

 

[Leslie]

^ yep

 

[ris]

sorry guys but the 'we'll sort the world out the us way and if people don't like it then we'll bash them good too' won't help either.

terrorism sucks big goats but it's not just islamic fundamentalists peddling it and it's not just against the us and its mates. this is a truly global problem and one that needs a truly global solution.

 

[Jeslek]

K, there were NATO troops in the gulf war.

Recent stories, the US asked Pakistan support in order to invade Afghanistan. Also, british, french, canadians and don't know how many other countries sent troops to Afghanistan to support a "US-only" conflict.

A couple of things to note here. The first is that this is not a US-only conflict, but the other nations, except maybe Canada and Britain, are too cowardly to recognize the thread and do something about it.

The reason the United States asked other countries for support is, well, quite simply to be polite. Politer than just bombing the living shit out of everything and not informing the world what we are doing, and also this way nations can't readily complain about they themselves helped with.

You could show at least a little gratitude to those that sent troops to fight your cause.

They didn't do much, did they?

If you don't want their armys, fine, fight alone, and don't ask for international support, which was the reason of this thread (the EU not being cooperative with the US).

I think that while we can ask for international support, we should not count on it. Actually, what I think we should do something similar to this:

1) Withdraw from NATO. Now that NATO has Russian Federation as a member, the entire organization is obsolete. They were full of shit anyways. Without the United States, NATO will not have any military force to back any of its decitions.

2) Withdraw from the UN. I don't give a shit what the UN (aka Third World Reich) decides. They are full of shit. In the United States, the Congress is made up of two houses. One is representation based on sovereinty of the states (Senate, 2 senators per state), and one is based on representation based on population (514 representatives in total).

The UN has only 1 member per nation, even though China has 1.2 billion people and some obscure unknown country has 100. And both have an equal voice. That gives a tremendous amount of leverage to the third world countries.

I'm tired of that shit. I'm tired of third world countries bitching about the US, EU, Japan (the G-8 in general). If they can't fix their own problems, I don't want to fix it for them. It is none of my business.

3) Do what must be done. Bomb the living daylight out of anyone in our way. Just make a statement to the world what we are doing, why, and fuck their responses. If they want to join they are welcome to, but else they can shut up. Or, they can declare war if they want to. Whatever.

4) I do support Israel. Bomb the Palestinians to never-never land. Get them out of Israel. It is not their country.

 

[[b]]

Originally posted by ris
sorry guys but the 'we'll sort the world out the us way and if people don't like it then we'll bash them good too' won't help either.

If that was in response to what I said here...

If other countries feel that this is a US problem then I hope our leaders do find the moral courage to fight this one on our own. We should withdraw from NATO and the UN, tell the rest of the world to bugger off, and if somebody should decide to mess with us, we'll land some troops and thump 'em in the head.

...that's not how I meant it. I'm not saying we should sort out the world the US way and bash those that would prevent it. I'm saying that the US should just stay out of the way, and if somebody tries to take advantage of us because of that, then we thump 'em in the head.

I agree that we got attacked because of our foreign policy. Hell, we trained these people. Now the dog is mean and it's biting back.

That doesn't mean that what they did was right, or by any means ok. But they did what they felt they had to do, and damn if the world didn't stop and take notice. The question is, what to do now?

I feel that we are justified in going over there to make sure this doesn't happen again. But then we should clear out and stay out.

No more giving weapons or training or money to help out other countries civil wars. We end up getting shot with our own guns.

Instead of worrying about everybody else's government America's could use some liposuction and a face lift. It's 200 years old. The basic principles are sound, but the dream's been warped.

People interpret the Constitution and the Bill of Rights like they were chapters of the bible. Our legal system is based more on how to get around laws then enforcing them. If an earthquake hits halfway around the globe we can ship off millions of dollars and tons of food, yet our older population can barely survive off social security and children starve in the streets.

Instead of taking an active part in the government we let others vote for us, and then we let the officials somebody else put into office make decisions for us. I for one do vote, but only 50% or so of registered voters actually do. And how many unregistered potential voters are there? How sad that will ask the world to follow in our footsteps and not leave a better trail to follow.

I've heard people say (even in threads on this board) that we should just give up because situations won't change for a long time, or there's nothing we can do about it. You might as well say there is no use putting gas in your car because it's just gonna get used up anyway. People are the fuel a democratic government thrives on. If you don't put any gas in the car, or worse, you put in bad gas, you can't expect it go anywhere or work well when it gets to where it's going.

 

[ris]

i apologise for any misinterpretation made. i really think that the war on terrorism is going to take a really long time, it will be a drawn out, cautious affair that will require diplomacy and military strength. ultimately, as here in northern ireland, deals must be done, people must feel listened to and their ideas respected.

the uk went down the miltary route there and it went very bad, but with years of careful talks and agreements [even with terrorist organisations, something i have reservations about] we now have a tenuous peace that looks like lasting.

i'd like to believe that a country like the usa could just retreat from international politics and keep out of things like many of you seem to want. i don't think it will happen though as your country is so important and the global community is vital to how the world progresses.

change might have to come from all sides.

i hope the uk can stop dealing in arms abroad too, we don't seem to care what governments have them and what they do with them [killing civillians etc]. wouldn't be so bad by the labour government elected here agreed to stop it and haven't (

 

[[b]]

Hey Ris,

No apologies needed here.

I hope for everybody's sake that this new war isn't a long, drawn out affair. We'll see. It's already been more than nine months since this all began and doesn't show much in the way of being over.

You're right though, I very much doubt the US could just drop off the face of the planet. But it would sure be nice to start edging back and working on our own problems.

Change will have to come from all sides.

I guess the movies are right. It's gonna take WWIII or an alien invasion to give the human race something to come together over. (Like being human isn't enough *sigh*)

 

[MitchSchaft]

The UN and NATO is the biggest piece of crap we could ever be involved with. Pretty soon our country will be just as bad as Europe. We already make laws that ignore the Constitution.

 

[Jeslek]

It saddens me to see the form our government is taking today. The original intent was a very, very small federal government to coin money, keep an army, and bind the States together. States have their own governments and should rightly rule themselves.

However, today's government is big and clumsy. So many departments I can't name them all. And we have a Federal Reserve, which is quite possibly the most horrible thing that has happened to this country.

The Constitution was meant to keep the States together, shared by a basic law and common sense. Federal laws should be virtually non-existant.

We could eliminate the federal tax by eliminating the Federal Reserve, killing just about 80% of the departments, and killing a lot of federal regulations.

Some regulation is needed, but it should be up to the Sovereign States, NOT THE FUCKING FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

The States should then repay the debts, and combined with withdrawing from NATO, UN, and just about the rest of the world, we could live in peace and prosperity.

Our form of government is probably the best out there. Locke, Jackson, Hamilton, etc., designed this system as an improvement over the archaic Parliamentary system which was, and still is, very unfair. Ministers all vote together over things they have no clue about. If a measure pass, for example, to add a 10 cent tax on imported peanuts, WTF does the Minister of Housing and Urban Development know about voting on that? Where is the respresentation based on population? The monarch has the power to dissolve the government at any time, WTF is up with that? It just DONT WORK. And in Canada it is now so bad that the Senate is obsolete, the ONLY counter measure against the House.

 

[Justintime]

yea yea, America is the best ok? HAPPY? for fucks sake all you do is whine and grope, oh we got this better than you, oh we're the top of everthing, mess with us and get stomped, oh everythings better here, life is better here etc.. look, i am HAPPY with the way i live ok? i don't give a flying fuck about the flaws YOU see if i am HAPPY it works for ME, k?

 

[ris]

nothing the world can possibly be better than the usa. i wish i lived there. it's so equal and fair. they know what's right for everyone else, and can't be wrong because their country is perfect.

* please note, only those from countries with a sense of irony will get this *

 

[MitchSchaft]

What, no rational argument against?

 

[Leslie]

can't argue with perfection

ris,

 

[Luis G]

 

[outside looking in]

Originally posted by Justintime
yea yea, America is the best ok? HAPPY? for fucks sake all you do is whine and grope, oh we got this better than you, oh we're the top of everthing, mess with us and get stomped, oh everythings better here, life is better here etc.. look, i am HAPPY with the way i live ok? i don't give a flying fuck about the flaws YOU see if i am HAPPY it works for ME, k?

You know, that's exactly how I feel sometimes on discussion forums when a long string of "what's wrong with the US" from the European crowd gets started. (replace US with EU)

I've been to Europe, and most of the people there are happy. I enjoyed it. Most of the people here are happy, and the European visitors seem to enjoy their time here as well.

 

[Guest]

fuck terrorists