The U.S millitary planned to attack the United States to provoke a war with Cuba

[Holy John]

Originally posted by Lemonite:
I will say this about history and what not.. as I have written this before, but Man is the only animal that does not learn from its mistakes, Wars happen over and over again for teh same reasons, but there never is, and most likely never will be a solution, And going back through history, mankind in general, has made the same errors, and they have caused teh same problems now that they did three hundred years ago.. except a musket was drawn.. powdered.. packed.. aimed.. then aimed again to account for the wind.. then aimed again to account for teh bent barrel, then fired, whereas, now people just pull a nine or an AK and fire freely...

My comment could be translated as : "Remember history not to repeat the same errors". I don't think anyone, whatever their ideas are, are silly enough to repeat over and over the same errors. Well... even if it happens a lot.

I used to be an "extremist pacifist", but now, I'm not angelic no more. I know wars will always happen, but we should do everything to prevent that.


------------------
United Nations : www.un.org - UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) : www.unicef.org
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) : <A HREF="http://www.unesco.org

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?Je</A> suis le dernier homme. Contre tous, je me d?fendrai...?
"I am the last man. Against all, I shall defend myself..."
- 'Rhinoc?ros', Ionesco

 

[sv]

Sulawesigirl, if you say so then I guess that Saddam Hussein and the USSR were just tyring to make weaponized anthrax so they could make a vaccine against them. Very strong argument.

In determining which country makes it for offensive use, and which makes it to cure the world of anthrax, I presume you use precedent - in other words, clearly most of us agree that Saddam and the USSR proved themselves over time to be malignant, at least somewhat offensive powers.

The problem is that you assume the U.S. is not the exact same thing, contrary to all available evidence. Who used nuclear weapons to attack civilians in 1945? Who used napalm, agent orange, and other chemical warfare agents to hideously disfigure and murder the Vietnamese in the late 1960s? The U.S. has bombed over 40 countries over the last 150 years, nearly always to defend our "business interests", i.e. our right to take others' natural resources and make their people starve.

And whose Anthrax is it that's killing Americans now?

 

[sulawesigirl4]

Originally posted by sv:
Sulawesigirl, if you say so then I guess that Saddam Hussein and the USSR were just tyring to make weaponized anthrax so they could make a vaccine against them. Very strong argument.

Sarcasm duly noted. Please also note that I was not attempting to make an iron-clad case, I was merely posing one possibility out of many in answer to your question.

 

[speedracer]

Originally posted by sv:
Sulawesigirl, if you say so then I guess that Saddam Hussein and the USSR were just tyring to make weaponized anthrax so they could make a vaccine against them. Very strong argument.

In determining which country makes it for offensive use, and which makes it to cure the world of anthrax, I presume you use precedent - in other words, clearly most of us agree that Saddam and the USSR proved themselves over time to be malignant, at least somewhat offensive powers.

The problem is that you assume the U.S. is not the exact same thing, contrary to all available evidence.

Eh, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Saddam Hussein is a nutcase, and that that makes him an order of magnitude more dangerous than any other head of state.

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by speedracer:

Oh, and Dr. Gonzo--learn to spell, dammit. "Guarantee" and "juvenile" and "vigilance" are all misspelled in your post. The atrocities you have committed against the English language are outrageous.

i t hought the free your mind section of the exam was only marked for structure. damnit.

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against smileys

 

[sv]

Sulawesigirl, please note that the sarcasm is directed at the argument, not at you. I'm sorry if it appears any other way. No disrespect intended - though I strongly feel that history does not support your viewpoint in this case.

Speedracer, I can't see that there's any question that the most dangerous head of state in the world is the U.S. President. He has nuclear weapons (and his country has used them), he has chemical weapons (and his country has used them), and to boot he has weaponized anthrax (for medicinal purposes, of course). He is influenced by all kinds of war-hawks and oil-hungry maniacs that will do anything to get what they want, and he's not shy about using bombs. He's not interested in treaties and multilateralism except when he needs diplomatic cover to bomb someone.

Saddam is bad, no question. But the danger he poses to the planet pales in comparison to other, stronger heads of state. And any comparison with U.S. heads of state is ludicrous - the U.S. killed 3 million Vietnamese and made the most arable land in the world into a desert. And the U.S. can do it again, at will. Saddam has killed many, but not that many, and he simply doesn't have the reach.

 

[TylerDurden]

Pretty chilling no matter who thought of it or how long ago it was.

I see there was 'token U2 content' in the article as well. Good work kids.

 

[speedracer]

Originally posted by sv:

Speedracer, I can't see that there's any question that the most dangerous head of state in the world is the U.S. President. He has nuclear weapons (and his country has used them), he has chemical weapons (and his country has used them), and to boot he has weaponized anthrax (for medicinal purposes, of course). He is influenced by all kinds of war-hawks and oil-hungry maniacs that will do anything to get what they want, and he's not shy about using bombs. He's not interested in treaties and multilateralism except when he needs diplomatic cover to bomb someone.

Saddam is bad, no question. But the danger he poses to the planet pales in comparison to other, stronger heads of state. And any comparison with U.S. heads of state is ludicrous - the U.S. killed 3 million Vietnamese and made the most arable land in the world into a desert. And the U.S. can do it again, at will. Saddam has killed many, but not that many, and he simply doesn't have the reach.

I don't see why I need to defend the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when there are plenty of respectable historians to do that, so I won't.

The Vietnam War is not so easy to defend. I will simply offer the (somewhat simple) veiw that the war was motivated by the US's immense fear that Communism was a program of worldwide domination headed by the Kremlin. (I wholly reject the notion, championed by Noam Chomsky, that Communism was a straw man set up by the US government to justify US military aggression around the globe.) And I think 3 million is a rough estimate of the total Vietnamese casualties during the war, not all of which can be blamed on the US.

There are also various US interventions into third world countries that were designed to maintain favorable business climates (i.e. force governments to keep supplying US businesses with cheap labor).

So the US has done some lousy things in the past, but for most of them there is some semblance of a legitimate motive.

As for Iraq, can you offer me an explanation of why Saddam Hussein should use mustard gas against Kurds in Northern Iraq? Can you also justify your assertion that Saddam does not currently have the capabilities to wipe out large populations?


[This message has been edited by speedracer (edited 12-17-2001).]

 

[Holy John]

Speaking of Irak, where is Cuba in the past 3 replies ?

------------------
United Nations : www.un.org - UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) : www.unicef.org
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) : <A HREF="http://www.unesco.org

?Je" TARGET=_blank>www.unesco.org

?Je</A> suis le dernier homme. Contre tous, je me d?fendrai...?
"I am the last man. Against all, I shall defend myself..."
- 'Rhinoc?ros', Ionesco

 

[sv]

Hi Speedracer: On the point that Saddam is the lowest of lowlifes, we have no argument. That he would use (and probably has used) chemical weapons - no argument. But the comment we were referring to was whether he is "the most dangerous head of state". Both Saddam and the U.S. have used chemical weapons to liquidate large numbers of people. The U.S. has killed many more than Saddam, even by U.S. estimates. The U.S. clearly has a much greater ability to deliver any form of weapons (nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional) it wherever it wants, whenever it wants. Saddam is to some degree constrained by the international community and the U.N.; the U.S. President has no such limitations and has made it clear that he will do whatever he wants. And that's just the direct military action component. If we also consider the financial, infrastructural, and diplomatic aid the U.S. President provides to all kinds of rogues around the world, now THAT'S dangerous.

So I conclude that the U.S. President is much more dangerous than Saddam.

And while the corporate-owned U.S. mass media is currently willing to speak about past crimes and call them "cold war" crimes, the fact is that the U.S. business community and government currently pursue exactly the same imperialistic, destructive, and human-rights-abusive policies now.

To take very simple examples, I would ask what right Chevron has to fly soldiers into Nigerian villages to massacre peasants who object to their lands being usurped for oil development? That occurs now. Or why is it that the U.S. continues to advocate "Plan Columbia", which essentially funnels 1 billion dollars to the "security apparatus" of one of the most brutal governments in history (apparently 16,000 kidnappings/year, primarily by government supported death squads). That happens now. Or if the U.S. is so concerned about Saddam's treatment of the Kurds, then why does the U.S. make Turkey one of its biggest beneficiaries when Turkey pursues the Kurds far more aggressively and continuously than Saddam?

The point of talking about the past is to remind people of what's happening in the present, so at least some of the destruction and loss of life can be prevented. These brutal regimes would have no chance of surviving if the funds, arms, and diplomatic cover provided by the U.S. were withdrawn.

 

[alreadygone]

Can anyone say "grain of salt"?

I'll wait for the tv-movie. Or, wait, wasn't this an episode of the x-files? Or was it that movie with Kevin Costner? Loada shite, that movie were.

Why get yer dander up over relative ancient history? Sula, when you find that wonderful gub'ment, let me know, I'm moving with you.

*goes back to sleep*

--
To sleep, perchance to dream...

 

[speedracer]

sv, my main point is this: I think that Saddam Hussein is currently the only head of state with the ability, inclination AND motivation to use weapons of mass destruction. (Actually, it's probably more likely that he'd give such weapons to independent terrorists to use, but so what.) I think this outweighs whatever acts of aggression the US is involved in.

Also, I think that most of the time it's more accurate to say that "the US provides military and economic support to nations that happen to engage in terrorist acts" instead of saying "the US supports terrorist acts in other nations". Of course this is bad and the US should do something about it, but this is different from saying that the US is actually going in and killing all these people.

[This message has been edited by speedracer (edited 12-17-2001).]