so who then?

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

badbrains wrote:

MrSmith wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

or maybe we should use sanctions, since those work so well for North Korea and Cuba.

No No No, just keep bombing the shit out of them. They're arabs and Muslims. The world doesn't need them... :roll:

I wonder what your position would be if YOU were born Muslim or arab and had 9-11 almost everyday in your country.....But it's ok man, keep bombing them cuz they're dirty Arabs/muslims....what's the definition of terrorism again?????

you calling me a racist?

Flagg

South of Seattle wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

Our bombing of their military positions was much worse than the ethnic cleansing going on at that time. We should have just sat it out and pretended that we didn't see it, huh?

Like we're doing with Darfur right now.

Yep

Byrnzie

rebornFixer wrote:

I actually liked Slick Willy as well ... He didn't do anything earth-shattering, but he kept our neighbor to the south afloat and didn't make any terrible errors on an international scale.

Apart from bombing Iraq in his first week in office and overseeing 8 years of daily bombing raids and sanctions which killed an estimated 500,000 children.

Oh, and he was at the helm when Bosnia and Rwanda were being ravaged and millions slaughtered and chose to sit back and allow the slaughter to continue. In fact, he didn't just allow the slaughter in Bosnia to continue for 3 years, but he encouraged it by preventing the Bosnian Muslims from arming and defending themselves.

What a hero!

Your Mom Made Me Pancakes

So BYRNZIE,

Who IS your favorite American President?

My guess is your favorite leader is not American at all....

Does he pray East 5 times a day?

rebornFixer

Byrnzie wrote:

rebornFixer wrote:

I actually liked Slick Willy as well ... He didn't do anything earth-shattering, but he kept our neighbor to the south afloat and didn't make any terrible errors on an international scale.

Apart from bombing Iraq in his first week in office and overseeing 8 years of daily bombing raids and sanctions which killed an estimated 500,000 children.

Oh, and he was at the helm when Bosnia and Rwanda were being ravaged and millions slaughtered and chose to sit back and allow the slaughter to continue. In fact, he didn't just allow the slaughter in Bosnia to continue for 3 years, but he encouraged it by preventing the Bosnian Muslims from arming and defending themselves.

What a hero!

I never said he was a hero. Its all relative. And as you are so fond of evoking the concept of international law, let's also note that the sanctions on Iraq were UN-imposed, not the unilateral product of American decision-making, and that the entire world stood by while genocide occured in Rwanda, even though there were UN officials on the ground there. This isn't all on Willy. People are always going on about how terrible colonialism was and African self-determination, but they want to have their cake and eat it too by arguing that its up to the US and other Western powers to prevent those people from slaughtering each other. Why didn't the African decision-makers and UN peacekeepers do something about Rwanda?

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

i was wondering. is it possible to be in such a powerful position and not make a decision that kills people? i bet its incredibly difficult to make any decision, even minor ones, that doesnt cause at least a few deaths. Even Ghandi killed people with his decisions who would have lived had he made a different one.

maybe the only true sign of a good president is one who kills the fewest amount of people.

but fuck, there are nearly 9 billion of us. its kinda hard not to kill someone.

mikepegg44

Godfather. wrote:

with all this bush and obama bashing who do you guy's think did a good job as president...in our time and why, I liked Clinton (Slick Willy) I remember the economy being better with him in for 2 terms.

Godfather.

all of them do both good and bad things. i would say in recent years it was Clinton for me. Seemed to me he learned that in order to be a president you need to remember you don't just govern those that voted for you. Having the republican controlled congress helped him get that pretty quickly. He had a tough go and was a bit of a sleeze, but I thought he did a good job of managing the country.

Pepe Silvia

mikepegg44 wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

with all this bush and obama bashing who do you guy's think did a good job as president...in our time and why, I liked Clinton (Slick Willy) I remember the economy being better with him in for 2 terms.

Godfather.

all of them do both good and bad things. i would say in recent years it was Clinton for me. Seemed to me he learned that in order to be a president you need to remember you don't just govern those that voted for you. Having the republican controlled congress helped him get that pretty quickly. He had a tough go and was a bit of a sleeze, but I thought he did a good job of managing the country.

except his actions helped cause the economic crisis we are in now and allowed banks and hedge funds and all those people to merge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%8 ... Bliley_Act


oh and i forget what he called it but he allowed the timber industry to go onto federally protected land and wildlife preserves and cut down whatever tree the timber industry felt would be a fire hazard and naturally a lot of sequoias and old growth forest were targeted

mikepegg44

Pepe Silvia wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

with all this bush and obama bashing who do you guy's think did a good job as president...in our time and why, I liked Clinton (Slick Willy) I remember the economy being better with him in for 2 terms.

Godfather.

all of them do both good and bad things. i would say in recent years it was Clinton for me. Seemed to me he learned that in order to be a president you need to remember you don't just govern those that voted for you. Having the republican controlled congress helped him get that pretty quickly. He had a tough go and was a bit of a sleeze, but I thought he did a good job of managing the country.

except his actions helped cause the economic crisis we are in now and allowed banks and hedge funds and all those people to merge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%8 ... Bliley_Act


oh and i forget what he called it but he allowed the timber industry to go onto federally protected land and wildlife preserves and cut down whatever tree the timber industry felt would be a fire hazard and naturally a lot of sequoias and old growth forest were targeted

Like I said, they all do good and bad, the current crisis was not caused by one person or one thing. I am not going to come on here and say he was perfect, but he did more for budget balancing and debt reduction than most presidents. To me he was pretty centrist and that is an important aspect of what is needed to be a good leader. No president has not done things they regret or that turned out to have unforseen consequences that weren't good.

Byrnzie

rebornFixer wrote:

I never said he was a hero. Its all relative. And as you are so fond of evoking the concept of international law, let's also note that the sanctions on Iraq were UN-imposed, not the unilateral product of American decision-making, and that the entire world stood by while genocide occured in Rwanda, even though there were UN officials on the ground there. This isn't all on Willy. People are always going on about how terrible colonialism was and African self-determination, but they want to have their cake and eat it too by arguing that its up to the US and other Western powers to prevent those people from slaughtering each other. Why didn't the African decision-makers and UN peacekeepers do something about Rwanda?

It's not relative at all.

As for the sanctions on Iraq being U.N imposed, do you also think that both Iraq wars were waged by the U.N, or were they sought and waged primarily by the U.S?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
'A non-express goal of the sanctions held by some was the removal of Saddam Hussein. It was openly stated in the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, expressing a sense of the U.S. Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton,[12] that U.S. policy was to "replace that regime" in Iraq,[13] to force Hussein from power, an outcome not referenced in the resolutions. And in 1991, Paul Lewis wrote in the New York Times: "Ever since the trade embargo was imposed on Aug. 6, after the invasion of Kuwait, the United States has argued against any premature relaxation in the belief that by making life uncomfortable for the Iraqi people it will eventually encourage them to remove President Saddam Hussein from power."[14] The economic sanctions failed to topple Saddam, and may have helped further entrench his rule.'

rebornFixer wrote:

Why didn't the African decision-makers and UN peacekeepers do something about Rwanda?

The African decision makers appealed to the U.N to intervene but the U.N - hindered by the U.S, France, and Britain - hand their hands tied.
The U.N peacekeepers wanted to do something about it but were ordered not to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_th ... ted_States
'In the US, President Bill Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright repeatedly refused to take action.[11] US government documents declassfied in 2004 indicate the Clinton administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994, but buried the information to justify its inaction. Senior US officials privately used the word genocide within 16 days of the start of the killings, but chose not to do so publicly because Clinton had already decided not to intervene. Intelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president had been told of a planned "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" before the slaughter reached its peak.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Ge ... rican_role
A National Security Archive report points out five ways in which decisions made by the U.S. government contributed to the slow U.S. and worldwide response to the genocide:

1. The U.S. lobbied the U.N. for a total withdrawal of U.N. (UNAMIR) forces in Rwanda in April 1994;
2. Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term "genocide" until May 21, and even then, U.S. officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public;
3. Bureaucratic infighting slowed the U.S. response to the genocide in general;
4. The U.S. refused to jam extremist radio broadcasts inciting the killing, citing costs and concern with international law;
5. U.S. officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, and actually spoke with those leaders to urge an end to the violence but did not follow up with concrete action.

Byrnzie

MrSmith wrote:

i was wondering. is it possible to be in such a powerful position and not make a decision that kills people? i bet its incredibly difficult to make any decision, even minor ones, that doesnt cause at least a few deaths. Even Ghandi killed people with his decisions who would have lived had he made a different one.

maybe the only true sign of a good president is one who kills the fewest amount of people.

but fuck, there are nearly 9 billion of us. its kinda hard not to kill someone.

When was the last time Sweden waged a war on anyone? Or Spain, or Italy, or Finland, or Norway, or China, or Japan?

Byrnzie

Your Mom Is Sleeping Over wrote:

So BYRNZIE,

Who IS your favorite American President?

My guess is your favorite leader is not American at all....

Does he pray East 5 times a day?

I don't have a favourite American President.

Who's my favourite leader today? I quite like Hugo Chavez. He seems to be about the most honest and charismatic leader I can think of.

mikepegg44

Byrnzie wrote:

Your Mom Is Sleeping Over wrote:

So BYRNZIE,

Who IS your favorite American President?

My guess is your favorite leader is not American at all....

Does he pray East 5 times a day?

I don't have a favourite American President.

Who's my favourite leader today? I quite like Hugo Chavez. He seems to be about the most honest and charismatic leader I can think of.

How can you not have a favorite US president? You seem to be an expert in the US government and all its dealings, how can you not, at the very least, have one you don't dislike as much as the others?

byrnzie wrote:

The U.S. refused to jam extremist radio broadcasts inciting the killing, citing costs and concern with international law;

do the hutus have any responsibility in what happened or should we just blame britian, france, and the US?
infringing on another country is ok with you now, I thought meddling in other country's affairs was wrong...Do you have any idea what the shit storm would happen if we were in other countries right now blocking radio broadcasts we deem extreme?

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

Byrnzie wrote:

MrSmith wrote:

i was wondering. is it possible to be in such a powerful position and not make a decision that kills people? i bet its incredibly difficult to make any decision, even minor ones, that doesnt cause at least a few deaths. Even Ghandi killed people with his decisions who would have lived had he made a different one.

maybe the only true sign of a good president is one who kills the fewest amount of people.

but fuck, there are nearly 9 billion of us. its kinda hard not to kill someone.

When was the last time Sweden waged a war on anyone? Or Spain, or Italy, or Finland, or Norway, or China, or Japan?

most of those countries are allied to us and rely on our military. the Bosnia thing is a prime example. do you think Sweden or Norway could get away with a tiny military without the US? not a chance.

Byrnzie

MrSmith wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

MrSmith wrote:

i was wondering. is it possible to be in such a powerful position and not make a decision that kills people? i bet its incredibly difficult to make any decision, even minor ones, that doesnt cause at least a few deaths. Even Ghandi killed people with his decisions who would have lived had he made a different one.

maybe the only true sign of a good president is one who kills the fewest amount of people.

but fuck, there are nearly 9 billion of us. its kinda hard not to kill someone.

When was the last time Sweden waged a war on anyone? Or Spain, or Italy, or Finland, or Norway, or China, or Japan?

most of those countries are allied to us and rely on our military. the Bosnia thing is a prime example. do you think Sweden or Norway could get away with a tiny military without the US? not a chance.

Team America, right? The saviours of the world?

You don't think European nations have strong armies?

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

Byrnzie wrote:

MrSmith wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

When was the last time Sweden waged a war on anyone? Or Spain, or Italy, or Finland, or Norway, or China, or Japan?

most of those countries are allied to us and rely on our military. the Bosnia thing is a prime example. do you think Sweden or Norway could get away with a tiny military without the US? not a chance.

Team America, right? The saviours of the world?

You don't think European nations have strong armies?

no it just is what it is. the US benefits from it as much as anyone. if the US remained isolationist, Europe, especially central Europe would be far more militaristic than it is today. or they would be speaking Russian.

Byrnzie

mikepegg44 wrote:

infringing on another country is ok with you now, I thought meddling in other country's affairs was wrong...Do you have any idea what the shit storm would happen if we were in other countries right now blocking radio broadcasts we deem extreme?

Because the Wests role in the Rwandan genocide all boils to the issue of not blocking the radio broadcasts, right?
As for Bosnia, the U.S ordered that the Bosnian Muslims not be allowed to arm themselves. They were then left to be slaughtered. The U.S assisted in the Bosnian genocide.
As for Rwanda, the U.N troops there could have intervened but were ordered not to. Although that's o.k with you because meddling in other countries is deemed extreme, right? Except when it comes to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the Occupiued Palestinian territories, e.t.c.

Byrnzie

MrSmith wrote:

most of those countries are allied to us and rely on our military. the Bosnia thing is a prime example.

How is the Bosnia thing a prime example? The West, including the U.S, left them to be slaughtered. You tied the U.N's hands behind their backs just as you, and Britain, did in the case of Rwanda.

U.S intereference in post WWII world affairs has been nothing but self-serving and detrimental to those countries involved.

Byrnzie

MrSmith wrote:

no it just is what it is. the US benefits from it as much as anyone. if the US remained isolationist, Europe, especially central Europe would be far more militaristic than it is today. or they would be speaking Russian.

I think you're confusing the standard, blinkered view of the U.S's role in WWII with post war Europe.

Europeans would be much better off on their own, free of U.S interefernce and militirism. I'd prefer to see a united Europe - or European Federation. I think it would put an end to U.S unilaterilism and untamed U.S aggression in the world.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

Byrnzie wrote:

MrSmith wrote:

no it just is what it is. the US benefits from it as much as anyone. if the US remained isolationist, Europe, especially central Europe would be far more militaristic than it is today. or they would be speaking Russian.

I think you're confusing the standard, blinkered view of the U.S's role in WWII with post war Europe.

Europeans would be much better off on their own, free of U.S interefernce and militirism. I'd prefer to see a united Europe - or European Federation. I think it would put an end to U.S unilaterilism and untamed U.S aggression in the world.

http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/ma ... europe.png