Looks like the US Ambassador to Libya got exactly what he deserves.

Please check out my topic in the Education and Media forum explaining how Egypt's satellite TV was complicit in the killing of Chris Stevens US Ambassador to Libya and 3 other Americans.

Egypt's NileSat satellite TV inciting terrorism in North Africa and the Middle East

People who want to know about Chris Stevens should read a novel by Graham Greene called The Quiet American. All Americans should read that novel.

Chris Stevens was a fine civil servant and seemed to be a very nice guy whose heart was in the right place, a true believer in his country's ideals, a classic "Quiet American" overseas.

reply to post by milominderbinder


What do you think the french diplomats were in the 18th century, here in America?


You have the right to influence. That doesn't make you a cia agent.

Originally posted by marker3221

Originally posted by Nite_wing

Originally posted by lapi7

Originally posted by Nite_wing
If you feel that an American ambassador and his staff got what they deserved, then you are not fellow American of mine so don't pretend to be.

So then, your allegiance is to your country (good or bad) and not to the whole of humanity or the moral ideal of right and wrong...have I stated that correctly?

Yes. You stated that absolutely correctly.
There is a caveat. I believe we have done more for humanity than any other country at any time and I hope we can do more.

I don't believe that to be true. Certainly the US has contributed quite a bit to the modern age with technology and entertainment (I'll leave out the "liberation" of other nations). But if we were to say which nation or civilization best benefited humanity on a whole the US would be a few places down I'm afraid.

Top place could possibly be the Romans or the Greeks, followed by The British. But then again, the British just expanded on what the Romans developed really.

This is wildly off topic though, could be a good idea for a thread actually.

edit on 14-9-2012 by marker3221 because: (no reason given)

Isn't it amazing how that island conquered the world? From that island it was said "The sun never sets on the British Empire".

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

What do you think the french diplomats were in the 18th century, here in America?


You have the right to influence. That doesn't make you a cia agent.

edit on 15-9-2012 by Gorman91 because: (no reason given)

...and why wonder why we are so hated when we feel it is our inalienable right to destabilize large swaths of the globe.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

You have the right to influence.

Do you really think that way? So you'd have no problems with Chinese agents entering America & exerting influence to the detriment of America & the profit of China?

No problems at all?

After all they have a right to influence, right?

Or (more likely) you'd only consider it a right if its America doing the influencing?

I take it from your avatar that you're a Ron Paul supporter. Strange you think in such a way when American non-interference is a cornerstone of Paul's foreign policy and one of the platforms he ran on.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

You have the right to influence.

Do you really think that way? So you'd have no problems with Chinese agents entering America & exerting influence to the detriment of America & the profit of China?

No problems at all?

After all they have a right to influence, right?

Or (more likely) you'd only consider it a right if its America doing the influencing?

I take it from your avatar that you're a Ron Paul supporter. Strange you think in such a way when American non-interference is a cornerstone of Paul's foreign policy and one of the platforms he ran on.

reply to post by milominderbinder


We were hated for taking over countries and forcing our ways on them.

Now we are offering them a hand and they have the choice to take it.

That's why there are Muslims supporting the US these days...in mass.

reply to post by marker3221



lol. They already are. You certainly do not know the world you live in. Chinese men and women are here influencing our government's choices, and men and women are in china from the US influencing theirs. One of my friend's father is an adviser, of sorts, to Chinese policy to a few matters, namely Christians. At college there was a kid who essentially had a free pass to the school. His father had relations with the school and there was a lot of monetary and educational cooperation between them.

Like it or not, even now there are Chinese, German, English, French, Israeli, and Korean men in suits, in America, dictating policy and decision making right here in the US, and vice versa.

Oh, and support of Ron Paul's domestic policy does not mean I support his foreign policy. You want to be a disciple of men, be my guest. I'm independent and free of such cultural blood-brotherhood. I pick and choose. I'm more a fan of Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy. Indeed, most of the foreign policy of the late 1800s.

Out of 30 million people only 3 to 5,000 are causing the trouble. Connect the dots!

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

We were hated for taking over countries and forcing our ways on them.

Now we are offering them a hand and they have the choice to take it.

That's why there are Muslims supporting the US these days...in mass.

reply to post by marker3221

 

lol. They already are. You certainly do not know the world you live in. Chinese men and women are here influencing our government's choices, and men and women are in china from the US influencing theirs. One of my friend's father is an adviser, of sorts, to Chinese policy to a few matters, namely Christians. At college there was a kid who essentially had a free pass to the school. His father had relations with the school and there was a lot of monetary and educational cooperation between them.

Like it or not, even now there are Chinese, German, English, French, Israeli, and Korean men in suits, in America, dictating policy and decision making right here in the US, and vice versa.

Oh, and support of Ron Paul's domestic policy does not mean I support his foreign policy. You want to be a disciple of men, be my guest. I'm independent and free of such cultural blood-brotherhood. I pick and choose. I'm more a fan of Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy. Indeed, most of the foreign policy of the late 1800s.

Huh? "Chinese men and women influencing our government's choices" is a HELL OF A LOT DIFFERENT than Chinese spies covertly entering the country and playing a hand in starting a civil war and toppling our government.

reply to post by milominderbinder


The only difference is if he has a gun or not. Beyond that, they fundamentally act as peace-time spies.

We gather intel on Chinese policy, they gather intel on ours.

This knowledge is digested in order to identify weaknesses and strengths and analyze shifts of industry in war time, and even what groups to watch who might be prosecuted and, in turn, scapegoated as justifications of war.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

The only difference is if he has a gun or not. Beyond that, they fundamentally act as peace-time spies.

Correct....but that's a difference of about 50,000 dead Libyan civilians.

Remember how we all acted when a lousy 3,500 civilians died on 9-11? We started bombing entirely random countries who had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack in any way, shape or form, and killed a couple HUNDRED THOUSAND CIVILIANS.

...and we have the BALLS to bent out of shape that our "ambassador" who was ANYTHING BUT AN INNOCENT CIVILIAN gets killed when he plays a hand in killing 50,000 Libyans?

Yes...all countries gather intel on one another...and all countries attempt to negotiate favorable situations to their interests. But that is A BIG DIFFERENCE between that and racking up 50,000 corpses in a civil war.

Originally posted by WarminIndy

Originally posted by yourmaker

Originally posted by stonedogdiary
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

Seriously? Did you really just say that?

Opinions are opinions and I understand that. But with that opinion I'm thinking maybe we should send an angry mob to your house to burn it down and fire rockets at you and your family. Is that okay with you?

Did he help overthrow a foreign government though?

His opinion isn't the same as him actually acting out on it on the behalf of our governments.

He overthrew an Islamic government for another Islamic government. Which Islamic side should he have taken? Charlie Wilson raised millions of dollars in aid for the Taliban. Sylvester Stallone made a movie with the Taliban. Gee, I wonder now if that was a good idea for them to help topple the Russians. Islamic supporters need to realize that tomorrow, they will be dhimmis and going to be forced to be Muslim, or pay the jizyah tax, or be killed.

Stonedodgery, it's people like the OP who can't seem to understand that their freedom is gone tomorrow if they can't wake up to the fact that their freedom is worthless under Sharia law. How much clearer can we make it for people like the OP, their freedom is done away with, so they need to get used to it now.

That is one of the more incoherent posts I have ever seen. What exactly are you saying? That "Sharia Law" is bad? No sh^t....what the hell does that have to do with anything at all?

Q: "Which Islamic side should he have taken?"

A: Chris Stevens and the United States shouldn't have taken any Islamic side at all.

Consistently sticking our noses into the Middle East is what got us in all of this trouble in the first place. Remember...in the early 70's we called Ghadaffi a "freedom fighter" just like we called Bin Laden in the '80's. Are you seeing a pattern here? In 10 years the optimistically monikered "Arab Spring" will be rechristened as "The Great Arab Clusterf^ck".

Having ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT ALL will simply make the U.S. a convenient scapegoat for whatever the next religious kook decides to do in these countries and will only make the Islamic world hate us even more. Remember...you are dealing with populations that have A LOT of religious lunatics...so any successes will be attributed Allah...and any failures will be pinned on the most convenient scapegoat they can possibly find. No different than our own Christian fundamentalist lunatics in this country when inbred hill people attribute our economic collapse to Jesus being upset that we allow gay marriage or whatever.

reply to post by Gorman91

lol. They already are.

I doubt it. The kind of influence I was referring to is the very same this topic has been discussing & the very same that Mr Steven's exercised. Namely, arming & guiding a miltant group to overthrow the government of the day.

Again, if the Chinese were to do this to your country I very much doubt you would be sitting back & saying they have a right to do so.

reply to post by marker3221

I doubt it. The kind of influence I was referring to is the very same this topic has been discussing & the very same that Mr Steven's exercised. Namely, arming & guiding a miltant group to overthrow the government of the day.

The difficult part for me, is that I haven't seen anything to support this. And, "He must have been CIA, and in other places the CIA has armed rebel groups, so he must have been arming and guiding the rebels."

Back in 2011, the government was pointing out that his job was diplomatic and limited to preparing to be the US reprsentative to the new Libyan government, if one was formed.

Could you clarify for me, please.

Oh, and for the other posters, we try to have ambassadors to all countries. Some we can't manage to place, but we try to have some diplomatic presence with everybody.

Further, the CIA agents in an embassy are not usually the ambassador, they have separate, disguised positions. (Although it doesn't take long for everybody to figure out who those working under official cover are.)

reply to post by milominderbinder


If you are influencing a country, you will in most cases have blood on your hands.

Are you going to sit there and say those things and causally forget the millions of slaves in China starving and dying to make your shoes and computers?

You buy those things. Blood is on your hands too.

Hell right now you're giving thousands lung cancer by typing and demanding energy from coal power plants.

reply to post by marker3221


Honestly if the Chinese started buying and donating rifles to American militias, I would call them my friends.

They know our history and culture. By giving our people guns, they are telling me that they are not interested in invading, and want to help us defend ourselves.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

If you are influencing a country, you will in most cases have blood on your hands.

Are you going to sit there and say those things and causally forget the millions of slaves in China starving and dying to make your shoes and computers?

You buy those things. Blood is on your hands too.

Hell right now you're giving thousands lung cancer by typing and demanding energy from coal power plants.

edit on 15-9-2012 by Gorman91 because: (no reason given)

That is a positively ridiculous argument. If we apply strict Kantian Absolutism to moral theory then yes...everything is "immoral". That's probably why there is not a single civilization on planet Earth that follows this doctrine of morality in their laws or customs. The sum total of human civilization is based upon not only cultural and legal concepts of "right" and "wrong"...but also DEGREES OF "right" and "wrong".

This is why parking tickets cannot result in the death penalty like First Degree Murder despite the salient and material fact that both are a violation of law. Instead we acknowledge that SOME things might be "wrong" under certain circumstances...but might be OK under others.

If you really want to say that utilizing electricity carries with it the same degree of "wrongness" as helping to start a civil war in which 50,000 civilians die to overthrow THE SAFEST, MOST STABLE, AND MOST PROSPEROUS GOVERNMENT ON THE ENTIRE CONTINENT OF AFRICA...be my guest. Although, please understand that many of us think you sound like a lunatic.

Likewise, while I tend to favor electronics companies who strive to improve working conditions in Asia...working long days for sh^tty pay isn't really on a par with creating an entire pro football stadium worth of corpses in a region whose BIGGEST problem is internal political strife.

A bartender isn't responsible for making sure that no one becomes an alcoholic...but it takes a special kind of prick to show up at an AA meeting to hand out free bottles of Jack Daniels. Most (sane) people would say that the latter behavior should be viewed as being "wrong" as it is somewhat predatory in nature.

Granted...Libya still had lots and lots of problems...It was a LOOONG way from being a utopian society. However...if we are so eager to overthrow governments to "help the people"...wouldn't it make sense to help out the people in pretty much any other country in Africa first? Why start with the one that is functioning the most responsibly? Again that's not a reflection of how great Libya was under Ghadaffi...it's a reflection of what an utter humanitarian sh^thole Africa is.

Originally posted by milominderbinder

Remember how we all acted when a lousy 3,500 civilians died on 9-11?

Based on your post about 3500 "lousy" civilians who died on 9-11, I can only imagine you celebrated.
The rest of us cried but you justify it.
We attempt not to kill civilians when the cowardly terrorists hide among them. They purposely targated civilians.
There is a difference, even if you can't see it.

reply to post by milominderbinder


No! this is not a good thread. this should have been taken down days ago. The only thing this type of "USA deserves this BS" does is divide and ignite more HATE on ATS and the world. The last thing we need on this site is more hate and sensationalism. ATS is getting worse than the MSM.