Haditha is the tip of the iceberg - Iraq atrocities continue

Faust, “Look it up (my)self”? I can't do that. I don't have the power to find what's not there. Sorry, your assertion is not something the “common retard” already knows unless he’s a schizophrenic whose source of info is the electrical outlet or his toaster. You can’t give a reference because your toaster lied to you.

BTW, I didn’t know Al Gore has a web site. I think I’ll go there and join you for awhile.

Atomic

You say , “Rich and Dubious . . . when known liars like Saddam or terrorists are the people you are defending it doesn't matter; there's little sympathy.” What's your basis for that accusation?

The tendency to make unsound leaps of logic is afoot here. Pointing out an evil in the US camp isn’t equivalent to defending the evildoers in the other camp. It would be better to correct than defend those who commit this logical (emotional) error so they can learn to think clearly. This thread is about the evil, the tip of the iceberg, in our camp. Dilute it if you must by pointing out the evil done by the bad guys (terrorists, Saddam, Shiites, Sunnis, insurgent babies). But remember, their evil doesn’t justify or lessen the wrongfulness of ours.

I haven't defended terrorists or Saddam. I defend nothing they do. Though I do understand why they use those tactics, as I'm sure you do as well. As to Saddam, I'd favor turning him over to the families of the people he has harmed and let them decide his fate. But first I wish he'd spill the beans about the relationships and dealings he's had with other complicit governments . . . names, dates, details.

[edit on 6/7/2006 by dubiousone]

Originally posted by dubiousone
Pawnplayer, it’s wearisome reading your childish reference to rich23 as “richboy”. You sound like a bully who likes to hide safely behind his keyboard. Rich23 has not said or even implied that he hates US troops. He hates the commission of atrocities. That’s clear. Why do you defend it?

Wrong. From the very first post of his hijacked thread, he called the Marines "babykillers".

That's where I drew the line on him ever since. He's biased, he's wrong, he distorted the whole subject on the alleged Haditha affair with a specific agenda against all US troops and circumvented the thread with his 8 pages of inexcusable spin. I read through his BS and called him on it but he choose to expound more rants against the US troops to no end.

I tried to get out of this thread but was forced to respond to his slam against me. I have personally known few Marine buddies myself and I strongly support the US troops, Army and Marine. Richboy took one nasty alleged Marine affair in Iraq and casted a blatant attack on all US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You know what? I tried to get him to notice on the atrocities with UN peacekeeping troops and explained the very reason why Marines are in a difficult situation when an Iraqi town full of insurgency's supporters and filled with IEDs used against the Marines but richboy choose to ignore MY points and suggested that it's all the Marines' faults anyway.

I cannot have a formal or rational discussion with someone who just branded US Marines as "babykillers" and get away with more inexcusable spins.

No more. I'm really outta here and I've enough of richboy's trivial rants. Don't bother replying.

Originally posted by rich23
According to the US version, they raided a house in which an AlQaeda suspect was, according to a tip-off, visiting. a firefight ensued and the house collapsed. Videotape evidence, on the other hand, supports the Iraqi police version which is that US forces entered the house and killed everyone inside including a 2 month old baby.

That word again? Babykillers.

From his first post in case richboy attempt to edit his first post and change the wording.

Just keeping you up to date....

US troops accused of more murders in Iraq

In the latest in a string of allegations against US forces, Juburi said 29 Iraqis were killed in May in separate incidents in the towns of Latifiyah and Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, and in the capital itself.

"On May 13, US forces launched an air assault on a civilian car in Latifiyah and killed six people," Juburi told reporters.

"On the same day US aircraft attacked the house of a civilian, Saadun Mohsen Hassan, and killed seven members of his family," he added.

Juburi said US forces carried out another air strike the next day on the house of Sheikh Yassin Saleh Shallal in Yusifiyah, "killing 13 people -- including women and children."

Three other Iraqis were killed in US raids in Baghdad, he said.

And of course this doesn't even count the numbers of "targeted killings" by "men in police uniforms" (who rents these uniforms out, then? And the Toyota Land Cruisers they so often ride around in...?)

But I guess as the incidents referred to are mainly air assaults, it's ok. Just bad intelligence, or whoops, wrong target... you can't see the women and children in the car or house as you strafe it.

Oh wait - there's more. This iceberg thing is becoming quite the cliche...

The bloody iceberg's tip

What the occupation forces experience on the ground is a consequence of what their political masters decide in Washington and London. The indiscriminate harming of Iraqis has, in practice, been the modus operandi of US-led policy towards Iraq since 1990. There is a continuity between this bloody occupation and the indiscriminate 13 years of US-led sanctions that preceded it - which also killed thousands of Iraqis.

And now this: "US military hides many more Hadithas"

"There are many, many, many cases like Haditha that are still undercover and need to be highlighted in Iraq," Dr. Salam Ishmael, projects manager with the organisation Doctors for Iraq, and former chief of the junior doctors in Baghdad's Medical City Hospital told IPS.

In Haditha itself, he said, the U.S. military cut electricity and water to the entire city, attacked the hospital and burned the pharmacy.

"The hospital has been attacked three times. In November 2005 the hospital was occupied by the American and Iraqi Army for seven days, which is a severe breach of the Geneva Conventions," he said.

"In one of these attacks, the U.S. soldiers used live ammunition inside the hospital. They handcuffed all the doctors and destroyed the entire contents of the medical storage. It ended with the killing of one of the patients in his bed."

The Iraqi Red Crescent reported at the time that nearly 1,000 families had been forced to flee their homes in Haditha following the launch of the U.S.-led military operation.

This would be quite shocking if one didn't already know that the same kind of thing, and worse, had been done in Fallujah.


[edit on 7-6-2006 by rich23]

Wow.... this is some GREAT STUFF. I need you all to come to the RFT Dedicated Forum and POST some of this WISDOM and DEBATE there. We also have a thread that discusses this subject... but nothing as great as what is written here.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

GREAT JOB everyone!

Dave

Thanks Dave. I admire what you're doing and I wish you well. I saw a promo for Sir! No Sir! and liked what I saw a lot, and get the feeling there's a lot of suppressed history there which the film brings out.

I couldn't figure out which thread you meant (the link took me to the contents page of your forum) but maybe you could link from there to here? Frankly, I don't think I could face going through all this again on another thead!

Ahh, what the hell...

Originally posted by pawnplayer
Wrong. From the very first post of his hijacked thread, he called the Marines "babykillers".

Yes. Those Marines killed babies. There are the corpses, witness reports, and spent cartridge cases to prove it.

I did not, however, say that all Marines are the same. They are, though, in a situation in which they are being allowed and even encouraged to kill indiscriminately and there's plenty of evidence posted throughout this thread to support that contention.

That's where I drew the line on him ever since. He's biased, he's wrong, he distorted the whole subject on the alleged Haditha affair with a specific agenda against all US troops and circumvented the thread with his 8 pages of inexcusable spin. I read through his BS and called him on it but he choose to expound more rants against the US troops to no end.

I just kept making my case and marshalled more evidence to do so.

I tried to get out of this thread but was forced to respond to his slam against me. I have personally known few Marine buddies myself and I strongly support the US troops, Army and Marine. Richboy took one nasty alleged Marine affair in Iraq and casted a blatant attack on all US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not true. There's a lot more than the allegations. There are also many more cases than just Haditha. Wow, you don't even want to admit that Haditha happened, let alone that there are many more cases where that one came from. Take off the blinders.

You know what? I tried to get him to notice on the atrocities with UN peacekeeping troops

That's because it's not the point of this thread. Start your own thread about it. I don't have anything to say, except that UN peacekeepers at least have some sort of international mandate for what they're doing, and they're not usually supervising the asset-stripping of the occupied coutnry.

and explained the very reason why Marines are in a difficult situation when an Iraqi town full of insurgency's supporters and filled with IEDs used against the Marines but richboy choose to ignore MY points and suggested that it's all the Marines' faults anyway.

Ultimately, it's each individual's responsibility to refuse to commit illegal acts of war. Being a good German was no excuse. Neither should being a good American be.

No more. I'm really outta here and I've enough of richboy's trivial rants. Don't bother replying.

Losing your temper is so often the precusor to losing an argument. I don't have much sympathy, frankly, nor do I consider what I'm doing to be 'spin'. Quite the opposite, in fact: I'm trying to counter the effects of spin which disguise the true scale of what's happening in Iraq.

Originally posted by rich23
Yes. Those Marines killed babies. There are the corpses, witness reports, and spent cartridge cases to prove it.

I did not, however, say that all Marines are the same. They are, though, in a situation in which they are being allowed and even encouraged to kill indiscriminately and there's plenty of evidence posted throughout this thread to support that contention.

That is because you have never been a soldier yourself and have no idea what is like being a soldier in a difficult situation. You have absolutely no appreciation of what is going through a soldier's mind when he/she comes to deal with some dangerous situations and how to respond to that. Marines are trained to respond with extreme prejudice when threatened and to kill when necessary, ask questions later and let the dusts settle down.

Originally posted by rich23 I just kept making my case and marshalled more evidence to do so.

No, you're just expounding the allegations to the point of creating a false impression of the situation(s) because:
1- You've NEVER been to Haditha and have no idea what is it like there.
2- You've NEVER been a Marine or have NEVER been with a Marine unit in Haditha, therefore you have no appreciation or understanding of what is it like being with them there, facing death and IED attacks for just doing patrolling and pacification jobs.
3- You're spinning a leftist interpretation of the allegations based on your criticism with the Bush administration and its role in Iraq, with no apparent appreciation of positive roles of the American troops in Iraq.
4- Your case is BIASED and SKEWED in order to demonstrate a tired, old run-of-the-mill bash toward the Bush Administration and never mind the positive things the USA have done for the Iraqis at all.
5- You support the murderous insurgents in Iraq based on your so-called "sympathy" factor with resistance to occupation. There is no occupation in Iraq as of now as everything is already shifting to Iraqis' controls now.

Originally posted by rich23 Not true. There's a lot more than the allegations. There are also many more cases than just Haditha. Wow, you don't even want to admit that Haditha happened, let alone that there are many more cases where that one came from. Take off the blinders.

You know, it's interesting you're talking "blinders" while I'm looking at yours. See my comment about your willful ignorance of the UN peacekeeping atrocities. Atrocities in Iraq would not have happen if the Sunni Iraqis would just quit fighting, attacking and bombing everyone in Iraq. Maybe you hadn't realize that bad blood is thicker and run deeper than water in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Make you think, huh?

Originally posted by rich23 Ultimately, it's each individual's responsibility to refuse to commit illegal acts of war. Being a good German was no excuse. Neither should being a good American be.

In the Marines, a Marine work in a cohesive unit of fighting men, not an unit of free-thinking individuals. If you don't wanted to participate in so-called "illegal acts" of war, then don't join the military. Then again, you wouldn't fit in anyway. !

Originally posted by rich23 Losing your temper is so often the precusor to losing an argument. I don't have much sympathy, frankly, nor do I consider what I'm doing to be 'spin'. Quite the opposite, in fact: I'm trying to counter the effects of spin which disguise t

You lost all credibility with me when you called the Marines "babykillers". I don't mind you start a thread criticizing the alleged actions of the Marines in Haditha and spin your way around with your ONE-SIDED "interpretation" of the case with no apparent understanding and appreciation of the Marines' role in Iraq so far. You blew it when you casted the Marines as "babykillers".

By the way, God bless the US Marine Corps!

[edit on 6/8/2006 by pawnplayer]

It's the same tired non-points... so who shot those children? Ronald McDonald? And it's fine with you that the Marines did it because those naughty Iraqis kept planting IEDs and stressed out the poor soldiers. International law, and opinion, not that you care, would see it differently - more like a bully who gets his ass handed to him on a plate running to teacher to complain. I'm just trying to put this in a way you'll understand.

I think the funniest line of your post is

If you don't wanted to participate in so-called "illegal acts" of war, then don't join the military. Then again, you wouldn't fit in anyway.

In which you admit that it's ok to be a war criminal. And you're right, I wouldn't fit in, because I can think for myself. This sentence makes your need for a comforting authority above all utterly clear.

I think Wilhelm Reich was right: there are a lot of people out there who, for complex psychological reasons, need a big strong leader to tell them what to do, and need it so badly that they'll impose their vision of same on whoever's in place - even on a dim sad-sack like Bush.

And all that "God bless the Marines" stuff - I'm sure it gives you as much comfort as "Allah akhbar" does to the suicide bombers, and it looks equally intelligent in a "my God can kick your god's ass" kind of way.

No, we just don't get the same propaganda you do. And don't think I'm alone in my opinions: Britons begin to turn away from alliance with America

Moreover, more than three fifths of British voters (62 per cent) believe that “if Gordon Brown takes over as Prime Minister, he should be much less close to President Bush than Tony Blair has been”. Significantly, this is the view of 65 per cent of Labour voters.

More and more people outside the US can see the credibility gap between its actions and its rhetoric. You, it seems, cannot, and have to resort to infantile name-calling rather than make any actual points. Ho hum.

Originally posted by rich23
No, we just don't get the same propaganda you do. And don't think I'm alone in my opinions: Britons begin to turn away from alliance with America

I would say we get attacked with some fairly hefty amounts of propaganda in this country, too, Rich23. I mean, we're in Iraq and Afghanistan right along side America, right?

Originally posted by rich23
More and more people outside the US can see the credibility gap between its actions and its rhetoric.

Agreed, but I don't think we should take too much of the focus away from ourselves. Our Government are just as full of it as their American equivalent.

I absolutely agree. We get different propaganda, for example that surrounding the murder of Dr. David Kelly.

If you look, that's why I said, "we get different propaganda" in the earlier post. We do, however, get some quite pro-US stuff: we are being encouraged to see Iran and Venezuela as threats. There was a Channel 4 piece on Chavez a little while ago that quite shocked me with its bias.

But I do think that more stuff slips through here, particularly about the occupation of Iraq, though there is insufficient consideration of the legality of the whole enterprise. And we certainly don't get the kind of hideous slant that Fox and CNN put on things. When I was living in the US I was just gobsmacked by the gung-ho jingoism. A guy I knew from Poland commented on the run-up to the Iraq war by saying it was just like the kind of propaganda Russia would put out when they were getting ready to do something.

I think the propaganda over here is a little less blatant - and hence more insidious.

Originally posted by dubiousone
Dilute it if you must by pointing out the evil done by the bad guys (terrorists, Saddam, Shiites, Sunnis, insurgent babies). But remember, their evil doesn’t justify or lessen the wrongfulness of ours.

I haven't defended terrorists or Saddam. I defend nothing they do. Though I do understand why they use those tactics, as I'm sure you do as well. As to Saddam, I'd favor turning him over to the families of the people he has harmed and let them decide his fate. But first I wish he'd spill the beans about the relationships and dealings he's had with other complicit governments . . . names, dates, details.

[edit on 6/7/2006 by dubiousone]

Ah the difficulties of posting short paragraphs on message boards to explain points.

After going back through the posts, I would agree with you...you have not openly "rah-rah'd" for Saddam or the militants. I apologize.

I think my words should say the "perception" that you are defending the militants or Saddam will not garner sympathy. My simple point is that some people don't care if you or Rich's point is logical, some people won't care...they hear "bad US" and "militants are persecuted" and off goes a switch. The best way to keep that switch on to help prove your points, is to sympathize with people's disgust for terrorist tactics (as I said shipping bomb making material through the Canadian border is wrong). Now you may want to say "hey they want to blow something up because some people in the Middle East feel threatened by the US", but if you gloss over people's deep fears and focus post after post on "bad US, bad Europe", then you will never convince them...they will attack you or ignore you.

Yes you are right the US soldiers have no right to kill indiscriminately. And my point is that soldiers don't do a good job being "police", who are trained to know when to and when not to shoot in civilian situations. The soldiers are being used as the "wrong tool". They are young kids that get shot at and think "f-it" I'm not going back in a box...bang bang. A police force is what is needed, with a backing of the military when situations turn into large scale fights. Infatry didn't kill Zarqawi...police work did, with special forces, informants, and reward money.

What I will very quickly disagree with you is your quick prosecution of spotter-radio operator-commander-bomber all being criminals. "Intent" was totatlly left out...is anyone aware that there are innocents in a building, did anyone "intentionally" want to proceed with moving up the chain of command to have them killed? Your branching tree of blame will fall upon all of us if "intent" is ignored. God himself/herself will come to blame for creating the universe and allowing us to commit crimes. I would fear you would end up setting a precedent where one side would fear to fire one bullet because they would be seen as criminal...meanwhile the other not as ethical side, mows them down with bullets and are allowed to spread their unethical culture.

I think Rich has some valid points (as long as he stays away from that damn Information Clearinghouse link...that's my personal opinion). You may see "dilution" while I see a possibility, where bringing up the other side and then tying in what crimes the US is doing, as a great service to eliminate wrongdoings. This is Rich's baby to promote and he wasn't being Fair and Balanced (ha...had to say it, I actually don't watch Fox much). When I hear only one side of the story, I know there is a political agenda being pushed and not the truth. Rich has some truth to reveal I hate to see it get lost in political noise.

If I start reading too much "bad US, evil troops" then I will challenge someone's obvious political agenda. I just want the truth.

the way i see it is that it dont matter which countries soldiers were involved, it shouldnt come down to everyone slating the US army. At end of day innocent people were murdered in what i see as cold blood, this is a war crime and should be treated as such, regardless to whom was involved.

yes our armys(both uk and US) are there to do a very difficult job, but like all jobs there MUST be guidlines and punishments when those are crossed. Put it this way if we were in iraqs shoes right now we would be calling for justice.

It shouldnt come down to the whole army being responsible, these individuals commited murder and justice should be allowed to be served, end of story.

just my 1p worth

Atomic - thank you for your reasoned post.

You seem to think I have a political agenda. What does that mean? I'm a private citizen with no ties to any political organisation whatsoever. BUT I do have a point of view.

Until around the year 2000, I was pretty apolitical. Bad things happened, and I didn't really understand the world. When Saddam was allegedly (I say allegedly not because I want to defend him but because the waters around that incident have been, for me, effectively muddied) gassing the Kurds, I thought, hell, how can they let him get away with this? Then the Gulf War happened, and I thought, what's up with this, what the hell's going on here?

Then in 2000 I watched, like a horrible, slo-mo car crash, the tragedy of East Timor unfold. Again. At around the same time I started reading Chomsky, then a few other people like Howard Zinn. Chomsky, in his writing on East Timor, provided a framework that allowed me to understand what was going on, and went to pretty convincing original sources to do so. I've never considered myself to be either left or right wing, but it does seem to me that corporations now wield the power in this world and that unfettered capitalism benefits only a tiny minority of people. Is this a political agenda or a point of view?

I also found that I was able to make specific predictions using the model that I was forming, and these turned out to be reasonably accurate. That seems to me to be a reasonable test of a model.

I also have certain beliefs. Killing people is wrong; invading other countries to control their resources and asset-strip their economies is wrong; and "humanitarian intervention" is a myth. This last belief has a historical rather than an ethical foundation.

I also find jingoism extremely distasteful. I grew up in a country where it was dying out, but there were still some people (and still are) who were hyper-patriots. I am no automatic respecter of authority. I can still remember as a child thinking (the equivalent of) "wtf?" when people stood and toasted the Queen at Christmas. The whole pomp and ritual surrounding POTUS, and the transformation of Bush from oaf into "father of the nation", provoke similar incredulity, coupled, I fear, with some derision. And as soon as people start mouthing patriotic platitudes like "go USA", "God Bless America", or their British equivalents, I find myself saying, "they've just stopped thinking, then".

Don't get me wrong. I like my country fine (although I'm not happy about its utterly supine relationship with the Sole Superpower) but I'm certainly not "my country right or wrong". I'm utterly with those people who think that dissent is the soul of real patriotism, especially in this day and age, when we are surrounded by so much that is fake and propagandistic.

Now, perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're trying to say, but to me, having a political agenda means that I'm working for a particular group or am in thrall to a particular ideology. Neither of these applies to me.

Whatever some posters may think, I do have sympathy for the soldiers in Iraq. But that sympathy is pretty limited, compared to the people whose country it is in the first place. And I do think that historically the US is far from a force for good in this world, and I have lots of data to back up that assertion.

This thread was started, first, to highlight the case of Haditha and its cover-up, but then also to suggest that not only was Haditha one case of many, it was also going to be the token case that gets prosecuted so that all the other incidents can slip by un-noticed. Was My Lai the only massacre in Vietnam? I haven't researched this, but somehow I doubt it. It was, however, the one in which the domestic perceptions of the war there were changed irrevocably. If more people in the US had the chance to see the consequences of the war in terms of human suffering, it would be harder for the elites (hate using that word, but can't think of a better one) to continue it.

It is also my belief (founded, again, on plenty of information) that, as Brigadier-General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, put it in his wonderful book, "War is a Racket". I don't think we have to look any further than Halliburton, KBR, and the Carlyle Group to see that this is still the case, as it was when Butler waw writing, 70 years ago.

I also think it's rather important that these issues are highlighted at a time when the US is thinking seriously about going into Iran. As Steve Colbert's interview with William Kristol showed, the PNAC people still have power, and they're still pretty keen on getting into Iran. I've been watching developments over the Iran thing for a couple of years now, and if the pattern of the past holds true, any negotiations between the US and Iran will involve the US continuously trying to back the Iranians into a corner and trying (using deception, spying, arm-twisting, the works) to show that "Iran isn't serious" and that they "pose a threat". Ultimately, there may even be some kind of managed incident to provoke a war. It's not like this hasn't happened before.

The intelligence about Iraq was manipulated from the top, and provoked shock-waves through the Pentagon and the CIA as the career intelligence people realised that their commitment to the integrity of their data and analysis was out the window. Just as there was the forgery of the yellowcake documents, so we've had a whole laptop appearing under highly suspicious circumstances, with equally suspicious data. Iran is after nuclear weapons technology! And there could be another smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud! It's just another fraud designed to make people scared so it looks like "we" (oh, I think my country will get dragged into this one, they've already sacked a foreign secretary who ruled it out) can go in.

But I guess my point is that the US, from my point of view, cannot be trusted, unless it's to aggressively pursue its own interests at the expense of pretty much everyone else on the planet. Small, tiny example: when the Irish government didn't want Shannon airport to be used as a staging post for ferrying men and materiel to Iraq, the US threatened to "flush their economy down the toilet".

This kind of attitude makes few friends.

Well spoken Rich. Megalomania never cared about friends or moral obligations. Far short of being the source of good in the world. What a joke . Human nature for you.

Originally posted by rich23
It's the same tired non-points... so who shot those children? Ronald McDonald? And it's fine with you that the Marines did it because those naughty Iraqis kept planting IEDs and stressed out the poor soldiers. International law, and opinion, not that you care, would see it differently - more like a bully who gets his ass handed to him on a plate running to teacher to complain. I'm just trying to put this in a way you'll understand.

Nope. I already understood the whole reasons of the Iraq war but you wouldn't feel comfortable about them, going against your own short-sighted conventional wisdom. You're entitled to spin your biased interpretation of the war and all its moral, social and political impacts.

Originally posted by rich23
In which you admit that it's ok to be a war criminal. And you're right, I wouldn't fit in, because I can think for myself. This sentence makes your need for a comforting authority above all utterly clear.

*sigh* There is a thing called "choice". You know that word, "choice"? Do you understand the meaning of "choice"? Do I needed to teach and enlighten you on it? Point being said, you either have a choice of being a short-sighted, free-thinking individual sitting in the comfort of the armchair in a cozy room or joining the military.

A soldier don't get to pick what mission or combat operation of his/her liking after joining the military. A soldier does what he/she is commanded to do so, after all the training, skill-building and military indoctrination to help them to prepare for such non-combat or combat operations, even in peacetime. No one wanted to say, "Sir, can I go to guard our country's embassy in Switzerland?" in front of your unit about to ship to the Congo on a dangerous peacekeeping mission.

Originally posted by rich23
I think Wilhelm Reich was right: there are a lot of people out there who, for complex psychological reasons, need a big strong leader to tell them what to do, and need it so badly that they'll impose their vision of same on whoever's in place - even on a dim sad-sack like Bush.

Maybe so. They could be brighter and braver than you are.

Originally posted by rich23
And all that "God bless the Marines" stuff - I'm sure it gives you as much comfort as "Allah akhbar" does to the suicide bombers, and it looks equally intelligent in a "my God can kick your god's ass" kind of way.

You know what's your problem? You have no appreciation of the military. Don't get started on the "sympathy" factor B.S, richboy. I appreciate and support what the Marines are going through in Iraq and Afghanistan under difficult conditions. You just started a thread calling Marines "babykillers".

Originally posted by rich23
Then in 2000 I watched, like a horrible, slo-mo car crash, the tragedy of East Timor unfold. Again. At around the same time I started reading Chomsky, then a few other people like Howard Zinn. Chomsky, in his writing on East Timor, provided a framework that allowed me to understand what was going on, and went to pretty convincing original sources to do so.

No wonder where you get your bias from. Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. I don't consider these leftists any credible while being American. It's a joke. Both men are privately aligned with the elite that favors one world government/one world system.

Originally posted by rich23
I also find jingoism extremely distasteful. I grew up in a country where it was dying out, but there were still some people (and still are) who were hyper-patriots. I am no automatic respecter of authority. I can still remember as a child thinking (the equivalent of) "wtf?" when people stood and toasted the Queen at Christmas. The whole pomp and ritual surrounding POTUS, and the transformation of Bush from oaf into "father of the nation", provoke similar incredulity, coupled, I fear, with some derision. And as soon as people start mouthing patriotic platitudes like "go USA", "God Bless America", or their British equivalents, I find myself saying, "they've just stopped thinking, then".

There is nothing wrong with nationalism and jingoism. I think you favor internationalism and wanted to do away with all the nationalist aspects in your country because they seem to frighten you.

Originally posted by rich23
Whatever some posters may think, I do have sympathy for the soldiers in Iraq. But that sympathy is pretty limited, compared to the people whose country it is in the first place. And I do think that historically the US is far from a force for good in this world, and I have lots of data to back up that assertion.

Sympathy? BALONEY. I still think the US is a potent force for the greater good in the planet. Unfortunately, people like you just wanted to virulently bash and slam the USA down to their level as to make it less than a force for good in the world. People like Zinn and Chomsky who have made their privately acrimonious intellectual attacks on the USA under the guise of free speech encouraged others to do likewise, like yours, for example.

It is fairly obvious you are not comfortable with the fact that the United States is presided by Bush or being driven by the neo-cons under the PNAC goals. You are also uncomfortable with the USA being the sole superpower and being the force for the greater good. Know what? TOO BAD. Spinelessness is a sad trait to live with, huh? You're afraid of national and jingoist sentiments in your country or mine. SO WHAT?! If you don't like that, move to Iran or North Korea. You get the ideas once you move to either country.

I would forgive you for being a "free-thinker" but not for being so damn one-sided!

[edit on 6/10/2006 by pawnplayer]