Offworld, For the sake of simplicity, I deleted a lot your comments to make this an easier read. Re: our alliance with Saudi, and our backing of other countries
Our alliance with Saudi Arabia started with Franklin Roosevelt. He felt whoever has the strongest alliance would eventually be the world's economic superpower, and he was right. But he also put us at the mercy of a region that is unstable, and a culture that is unreliable and for the most part hates our culture. Regarding Osama Bin Laden, he did not build the Taliban. He built Al Qaeda. The Taliban only gave Al Qaeda refuge because they were pissed at Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher for pleading to the UN council regarding the Taliban's treatment of women. The Taliban didn't necessarily like Bin Laden, but they rather saw him as a bartering element. The Taliban wanted the UN and USA off their backs. So they allowed Bin Laden to stay. It didn't end up working out to well for them in the long run. You also claimed that USA built the Taliban. I'm not trying to win an argument here, but rather communicate & inform, since I had no choice but to learn a lot of this over the last 4 years. USA helped support the 'Mujahedeen', but we didn't 'build' them. They were already together and built to fight the Soviets, we just armed them with anti-aircraft weapons. After the Soviet occupation, the Mujahedeen became very corrupt and that's when the Taliban were formed. USA had nothing to do with it. > Just like Kansas. Perhaps you are not aware of this, but numerous people > have been killed for seeking medical care in America, and recently a > doctor was murdered in Kansas for practicing medicine. Yes, there are some dipshits in America. Percentage wise, I doubt it's nearly as bad as the rest of the countries i've been to (not including Europe). I would have to read the news and check the internet to find names of people killed for such things. In some countries i've been to, I could walk into any village and talk to a village elder and hear plenty of stories about local militias committing atrocities towards civilians. It is becoming a lot less common in the middle eastern countries that are moving towards being a 1st world country, which i'm glad for. But it's common in the 2nd/3rd world countries in the middle east. Besides, in America, it's usually a nut case or psychopath that commits some of these ridiculous murders. In some of the Middle Eastern countries where this occurs, it is implied policy. > <<I've heard from someone overseas now that they tried to blame > civilian casualties on American aircraft bombings somewhere out west, > problem is they were killed by Chinese grenades, which no NATO forces > carry at all. They will kill civilians to make it look like us.>> > Yes, American forces can drop bombs on houses and kill rebels and spare > the women and children in there. They have smart bombs. This is obviously sarcasm, but still there seems to be no acknowledgement that Taliban are killing their own civilians 'INTENTIONALLY', whereas if civilians are killed by Americans it is due to a firefight breaking out in the midst of civilians. There seems to be this thought going around in the minds of 'Michael Moore' type people that want to believe that Soldiers and Marines are intentionally killing women and children. What they fail to understand is the luring of US forces into villages and towns with the intention of civilian casualties taking place. Also, don't get me wrong, there have been a few cases of us making big mistakes in the past. But I have been in the presence of some of the most ignorant redneck type Marines out there, and I can assure you that not even the most ignorant US soldier/Marine has any desire to kill women or children in another country. > << It's often times their best chance of victory. >> > > There is no victory in these wars. There never was, and there never will > be. No-one will be victorious or claim victory. This Bush/Cheney debacle > will drag on for 30 years (unless there is some massive change in world > consciousness that completely re-arranges matter itself. Yes there is victory, but not for us. The Taliban may be able to claim victory after this is all over. Al Qaeda is still recovering from being hit hard during the Bush/Cheney period, but they'll rebound. I have argued this with many soldiers and Marines that we are going to lose this war, most likely. Iraq is negotiable whether we won or not, and for now leans towards losing unless the Iraq Army becomes fully established. We are losing in Afghanistan now, and the troop surge Obama approved of will not solve the problem. America had little or no idea what they were getting into when this whole thing started. The US armed forces are simply not willing to go the same distance that our declared enemies are willing to go. If our economy was kicking ass right now, we'd stand a chance. We have played right into Bin Laden's trap. He wanted us to get over-committed in war to the point where our economy goes to shit. It worked. What's next, I have no idea. > <<I also remember a village about 30-40 miles from where I was based > that a 15 year old boy was hung to death for carrying American > currency.>> > > The accusations about the practices of SOME American soldiers in Iraq > and elsewhere are just as brutal and more widespread. That doesn't mean > everywhere American soldiers go are like that does it? or that that is > representative of the whole US military? There is a rather big difference between Taliban and US soldiers. For the Taliban, such actions are allowed and often encouraged if done for the right reason (in their minds). In America, if someone is caught doing something like that, they will spend the rest of their life in an orange jump suit, regardless of any reason. In other words, it's Taliban policy to allow such things, and US policy against it. Also, the 'some' American soldiers being more brutal, or more widespread isn't really true. It just gets 100 times the amount of publicity when it does happen, and it's not anywhere close to being as brutal as things i've seen or heard of (chopping off heads, arms, ligaments, public hangings etc...), it's usually a gunshot in the wrong direction from someone who's nervous behind the gun. > Yes, you are right, they are not safe places. If only America had not > ignored world opinion and international law and sent Iraq back to the > stone age, and if only they had let the international community focus on > Afghanistan, then the world would be a better place. >Unfortuantely it will take decades to mend the mess that Bush/Cheney made. We're on the same page regarding Iraq....well sort of. I personally feel that Bush felt he was doing the right thing. Bush was too stupid to have a truly evil plan. Now Cheney on the other hand I don't necessarily trust. It did turn out that Saddam wanted us to believe he had WMD's, and he thought Bush would do the same thing Clinton did (he was obviously wrong). I don't know for sure, but I believe Cheney wanted to go to war to find out, and he advised Bush in this way. Colin Powell was supposedly skeptical, but jumped on board in the end. I don't however see Iraq as a black/white situation. People in Iraq hated Saddam for a reason, and from all the villagers I spoke to, I understand why. So i'm glad to see the Baath Party and Fadayeen Party removed. However, I see an inconsistency in policy here. If it's our policy to remove corrupt dictators, why Saddam? There are much worse in this world than Saddam, especially in Africa and some places in South America. So IMO, it was either ignorance or ulterior motive that took us to Iraq. Last but not least, I remember somewhere in your comments about women being allowed freedoms very easily in many Middle Eastern countries. This is true, especially in Jordan and UAE (United Arab Emirates) which are very Americanized countries. I remember going to a mall in UAE, and some women wore the traditional conservative dress that covers everything but their eyes, while others dressed just like American women. I consider this a very good sign that their region is evolving. I've also heard that Iran is very similar. But what many people don't know is that there are still fundamental groups out there in these countries that are trying to reverse this trend. And these groups are not small, like the KKK in America. They are rather vast and have a very powerful influence on government in that region. I could go on for a while, but to be short.....there are groups out there who feel they should declare war against this trend. Some of these groups keep the war close to home, while other groups see Europe and USA as the enemy and try to bring the war to them. I'm sure you're aware of the problems that England, Denmark, and Australia are having with some of these groups. The answer to the problem is unknown at this time (well, some people know an answer, but it'll get yours and my country in hot water with the UN); USA, Britain, Australia and Denmark are all caught between a rock and a hard place. We can't sit around and do nothing about the problem, but at the same time anything we do will be percieved as inhumane or politically incorrect. Respectfully seekliberation
