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| Thread: Wow, I never thought of it like this, |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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pluvious
Promising
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 23, 2001 08:49 AM |
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Mad mentioned some very angry or simply ignorant Americans who just want to strike back right away against those who did this. But from listening to talk shows and people I know this is certainly not what most people think is the right thing to do. We want justice (those most hurt by this may want vengence of course) and an appropriate response. Judging by Bush's latest comments it appears any retaliation will be well thought out.
Wow, there certainly are a lot of ungrateful countries out there. If the US wasn't around you would probably all be speaking standing in line for bread and speaking Russian right now.
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...Pluvious...
-The Storm Before the Calm-
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LichKing
Honorable
Known Hero
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posted September 23, 2001 08:57 AM |
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my turn
Quote:
.....Right now i think the mind set of most true blood americans is Shoot first ask questions later. I mean look at whats goin after the fact you got hate crimes happening everywhere store owners being killed or threatened becuase they look middle eastern. Lets get a grip people death brings more death which brings more death as phantom said. Whats worse it was targetted at a civilian area and the millitary(not the brightest idea the terrorists had cause now they got the ENTIRE population in an uproar).
I have to disagree with you there, Mad. Your statement implies that the American people are thoughtless and bloodthirsty. You couldn't be more incorrect.
I agree that we have more than our fair share of murderers, gang-bangers, criminals, etc. For every one of them, there are thousands of good, peaceful people here.
We're really no different than the rest of the world. Some of us worship, some choose not to believe in a god. We love our families and cherish our friends. We want our children to have better lives than we have. We place a very high value on freedom of choice and we respect other peoples' rights to that same freedom. We value life. We have criminals, we have racists, we have 'saints' and we have heroes......we have the same kinds of people here that you have in Canada. It's really unfair to us (or to anyone else, for that matter) to make a generalized statement like the one you just made.
Our government is not perfect, but whose is? If we were governed by bloodthirsty warmongers, don't you think the bombs would already be falling from the sky? Did we, as you suggested, shoot first and ask questions later?
I don't hate Muslims. I don't personally know anyone who does. I own a handgun and I know many, many people who also own firearms. Neither I nor the people I just mentioned have taken it upon ourselves to try to exact some measure of revenge upon anyone of middle eastern descent. Yes, there are some truly ignorant American citizens who have committed such acts, but their actions do not reflect the feelings of ALL Americans. In my mind they are no better than the terrorists who attacked our country.
What I do know is this: Something MUST be done. This act can not be allowed to go unpunished or it will surely happen again and most likely on a grander scale.
Am I advocating war? NO. I have seen war and have no desire to see it again. I have seen the dead, both military and civilian, strewn all over the ground. I've seen the buildings and the cars and trucks and military vehicles reduced to smoldering piles of rubble and the horrified, haunted expressions on the faces of the survivors. I don't want to see anything like that happen to ANYONE ever again, regardless of what nationality they belong to.
I come home from work each day and before I am even 3 steps inside my doorway I'm practically tackled by my children. They giggle and they squeal, they wrap their arms around me and they yell "Daddy!!!!! We missed you!!!" How many thousands of children in New York and Washington D.C. are never going to get to see their parents come home from work again? How many mothers and fathers will never see their sons or daughters again? How many husbands and wives were heartlessly, eternally separated by this hideous act?
If nothing is done about it, what will happen?
What if, God forbid, it happens in YOUR country the next time?
Think about it.
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arachnid
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 23, 2001 01:11 PM |
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Quote:
What if, God forbid, it happens in YOUR country the next time?
It did, people from lots of countries died.
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted September 23, 2001 03:56 PM |
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Quote:
And where was this goodwill when 500.000 (yes you can read 5 zeros) of people got killed in Rwanda ?
What I mean is I saw much more about new-york's dead in one week than i ever did for those african people, so this probably means today 2 people's lives are not equal depending on where these people live.
Just love the prevailing attitude around the world -- the US is expected to make everything perfect for everybody worldwide AND at the same time not interfere with anybody AND keep our culture from "invading" any other countries culture (excuse me, but if you don't want mcdonalds in your country, don't buy a freaking big mac)
As for Rwanda, of course we were going to be reluctant to go in, as I recall we had gotten pretty badly burned on Somalia not long before that. Especially because every time the US does suggest going in, whether it be Bosnia or Somalia or Rwanda, a bunch of countries complain about the US being meddlesome, and then if we don't go in, complain about the US being uncaring and then if we do go in - you guessed it, we're international bullies.
And of course you heard more about the world trade center bombing than you did about Rwanda, most of the US news organizations have their headquarters in New York, the reporters all probably had friends and family in the world trade center. Another common complaint is that Americans don't pay enough attention to world events, but when people say that, what they really mean is that Americans don't pay enough attention to their particular problems (and then don't come and solve all of their problems without interfering). I was talking to this guy from Bosnia once and he was having a snow fest about how Americans are so out of touch with the world and how they should know more about Bosnia. I asked him what he thought about the situation in Sri Lanka with the Tamil Tigers. He didn't know what I was talking about. Maybe Bosnians should pay more attention to world events, eh?
And yes, most americans are selfish, lazy and want nothing more than to watch their football games and drink beer - guess what, that statement applies to every nationality in the world. And yet somehow, it's bad when americans are, well, human, but everybody else is allowed to be. I've lived overseas most of my life and you don't know how many "Americans suck" lectures I've heard from people wearing Nikes and a Michael Jordan shirt. They generally boil down to "hating Americans is the cool thing to do."
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Mad_Unicorn
Famous Hero
I am a mean person shame on me
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posted September 23, 2001 04:49 PM |
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hehe figured i would get flamed
I am not gonna get into which country is better blah blah cus thats really besides the point. Yes USA has helped many countries and yes many countries are ungratefull to them. What most forget no matter who you help somebody will be angry with you for helping. Anyone one who wants a war thrust upon any country is very ignorant. Wanna know who commited a hate crime here on long island?.. a 5 year college stupid with honors always said to be very calm and cool and intelligent but he lost his father... which will make most people go a little or alot batty and he killed a pakistan run store owner with home made napalm. He is goin to jail because he was rash... everybody can be rash and from what i see with attitudes of my neighbors is very patriotic which is good but its blind... "lets get those pakistan bastards" was a comment i heard and was very saddened. I just hope and "pray" that America thinks long and hard before doing anything since there will be reprecusions for whatever is done.
I guess i never heard of spacing my paragraphs oh well time to squint 
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Mad_Unicorn
Famous Hero
I am a mean person shame on me
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posted September 24, 2001 12:31 PM |
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I always like a good debate :)
N/T 
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Maxym
Known Hero
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posted September 26, 2001 02:52 AM |
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Amen Bort
I was going to post a similar reply to yours but you said it all. That is exactly how American influence in the world is percieved.
I don't think anyone should look for excuses in past American foreign policy for what happened. Acts of terrorism are inexcusable. We can explain their origin in those terms but that is it. But since America is a superpower and by either action or inaction it will generate resentment around the world. But i think it still should weigh carefully consequences of its future actions. There has been so many mistakes of policy analysts and advisors coming back to haunt America. Osama bin Laden being the most recent example.
But that is not the reason to stop interfering in worlds affairs. I would rather have a world in which a dominant superpower meddlles and makes mistakes then one in wich it stands back and middleweight bullies like Iraq get to run around wreaking havoc and terrorizing their neighbours because of US's nonintervention policy. Its good to know that there is someone out there to help you even when a cynic would say that you have to have an oil supply for that to happen. I would say it's enough to have public opinion polls on your side.
I think that US is handling this in exemplary manner, and they have my support.
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Shae_Trielle
Honorable
Famous Hero
of Heroes
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posted September 27, 2001 02:11 AM |
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I'll keep this plain and simple
America wants war against terrorism. To eradicate it from the ends of the world.
Muslim extremists want a holy jihad against America and to kill it's supporters, Jews and Christians.
I really hate to label, but should the term muslim extremist be exchanged for 'terrorist'?
I know an Afghan family who live around where I do. They are the nicest people I have met in a long time. They do not deserve to be attacked by America. That will be breaking a nutshell with a sledgehammer and will only bring America more infamy in the Middle East. I sure hope George Bush uses more covert methods to bring an end to terrorism.
Shae
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Defreni
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 27, 2001 01:19 PM |
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Aloha Maxym, nice to see u again. As always u have an extremely good point.
Ive been following this thread from the very beginning, but actually been a little afraid of posting a reply. Probably because my first instinct was to tell everybody how very much mistaking the initial piece of Journalism Deth8 quoted is.
This is not because the US isnt a great country, and as Maxym I will rather have a superpower that meddles then one who stand back and watch. But it is rather the fact that the journalist have to say how great the US is compared to all other countries that makes my blood boil. This is absolutely unnecessary, as it is rather simple to praise a person or a country without having to say how bad another person or country is.
As to Dargon`s post, yeah the US gives billions in aid etc. but alot of times those money is only given out in a way that says we help this or these countries to help ourselves.
Take the Marshall-plan for instance, the main motivating factor for that was to keep western-Europe out of the communist grasp. In both Italy and France the Communist party stood extremely strong after the first election after ww2, offcourse Marshall himself also wanted to help the Europeans, but to get the bill through Congress he had to play on the anti-communist factor.
As for humanitarian aid today the same doctrin is more or less used by the US. This is not because there are fewer great and good ppl in the US, but a strong semi-isolationistic group is making it hard for the US government to give help without "good" reason to 3. world countries. One example of this is the billions of dollars the US owes the United Nation in membership fee.
The reason I bring this up is because the US in my opinion have a minority who is extremely good at making noise, this noise echoes in the rest of the world, and sadly it gives us the impression that all Americans are like that.
I didnt realise how great most americans are untill I got internetacces and began to speak with them for myself.
U may say this is my problem, as for not being good enough or enlihted enough to see through this veil, but I must admit that most of the US citizens I have meet both here in Europe, and when I travelled in the South-east Asia agreed with my opinion regarding US foreign policy.
As for Rwanda, well the US wasnt the worst crook there, that was clearly France, and qua France the EU, which Im a part off. Ppl who blame the US for not intervening there should take a good long look at us Europeans before they blame the US, because that was our responsibility which we didnt live up to.
Hmmm this became a rather long post, for those of u who had the patience to read it all, I hope u understand that this wasnt an anti-US post at all. I simply want to stress my opinion that the world isnt black and white. The US is both great, full of doublestandards, full of mistakes and great again, just like most other countries.
And the best thing Bush jr. have done during this entire crisis was when he visited a Mosque (Aint sure how its spelled) I have deep respect for that, and Im very happy that the US government is stressing that this is a war against terrorism, not a war against Islam.
Defreni
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Mad_Unicorn
Famous Hero
I am a mean person shame on me
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posted September 27, 2001 08:00 PM |
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you tell it def :)
I always enjoy readin long posts with facts def must be a old man
btw one thing US's mistakes and problems are more noticable becuase it is a super power that meddles
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