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Our president bush has just had his face pushed into the mud by the US Supreme Court. The court ruled that Bush overstepped his authority in holding prisoners at the base in Cuba and trying them with Military tribunals. Even one of the judges he hand picked for the court went against him. His popularity is slipping, the fundamentalist who voted him into office are disappointed in him and the list just keeps growing. He is going to wind up being the most hatted president this country has ever had.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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Jedediah
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Likes it here |
Location: Made in NZ
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 170
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Going to?
E Te Atua tukuna mai ki au te Mauri tauki te tango i nga mea
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Jedediah
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Likes it here |
Location: Made in NZ
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 170
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No Message Body
E Te Atua tukuna mai ki au te Mauri tauki te tango i nga mea
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that and all the other prisons were holding them. The prisoners cannot be denied legal council and they cant be tried befor a military tribunal.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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Jedediah
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Likes it here |
Location: Made in NZ
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 170
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Ooops.
While we're on the subject. What the hey is the US doing with a military base in Cuba anyway? Haven't they been at war with them for, like, forever?
Is there any country in the world where the "Land of the Free" doesn't have an armed military presence?
Cheers
E Te Atua tukuna mai ki au te Mauri tauki te tango i nga mea
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Hato countries have an american presents because they ask for it. Saudi Arabia has it cause they ask for it. If a country doenst want us there all they have to do is say go. course there goes all the american money being spent there, Probably debt relief vast amounts of money the US is giving them. The US pays for the property for the base at Cuba. castro didnt have the guts or ability to invade so it sits there and we got a military base at his door step. He knows that to invade that base would be suicide.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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The US freed Cuba from Spain a long time back and that was one of the things the US did was to remain with a military presence in that area in the form of a Naval base. I think similar things are done by a lot of countries and most all of it dates back to the 1800's. I might ask you then, why do the British have a base on Bermuda? Oh and by the way, I didn't seem to find any of the Bermuda citizens being upset about it as they were actually proud of that heritage.
Ken
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Jedediah
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Likes it here |
Location: Made in NZ
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 170
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Sorry Brian. Usually i agree with you, but not this time. Did Iraq ask for an american military presence? Or afghanistan? Or Vietnam? The list goes on & on.
Don't get me wrong, i do like americans, generally, it's just their overbearing, bullying, militaristic governments that get up my nose.
Cheers
E Te Atua tukuna mai ki au te Mauri tauki te tango i nga mea
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When the war got started in viet Nam we were asked to help. If Im not mistaken we have no bases in Viet Nam. Afganistan, we drove out the Taliban. Our forces are there now at the reguest of the president of Afganistan. Iraq because we went to war against Sadam. Hopefully we will get our butts out of there. The Nato countries want us there because we build the military bases for them, and as allies we help defend them. I guarantee you that we would not be in any of those counrties if they wanted us out. Do you believe that the Chez Republic could defend themselves from invasion if we wernt there.
I agree that the US is overbearing, bulling, and militeristic. but who supplies these defensive weapons to our Allies? It damn sure aint the french. I agree that our foreign policy is a bit heavey handed. But given the chance everybody elses is too. The moto, look out for you own ass.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... as a matter of principle; what the rest of the world doesn't like is what the base has been used for. And that's why Bush's nose has been pushed out of joint in the Courts.
The ultimate question is: Do we believe in freedom and justice? Sure, Al-Q doesn't play by the rules. Does that mean we should sink to their level?
It's certainly true that most Islamic fundamentalists are of Middle Eastern appearance - but no rational process of logic entitles us to conclude that all those of Middle Eastern appearance are Islamic fundamentalists.
I don't trust the US military establishment. I don't trust the UK military establishment. All the evidence we have seen suggest that the prime purpose of courts-martial is to protect the backs of those establishments. I can live with massacres which are consequent upon the stresses imposed upon the guys in the front line; they are human, and inevitably there will be times when their ability to cope will be stretched beyond endurance. But that doesn't justify the Abu Ghraib atrocities, nor does it justify the fact that only junior ranks were punished. If an Officer cannot control those under his command, he is not fit to be an Officer.
Finally, I agree with Brian that our presence in Afghanistan is essential. The Taliban is one of the least attractive and most self-interested groups to emerge from Islam. They display a remarkable amalgam of brutality and stupidity, and in the interests of natural justice we must do what we can to eliminate them. Iraq is rather different; I have reservations about the justification for the invasion. I wish it had not happened - but it did - and I can see no moral justification for withdrawing and allowing Al-Q to take control - as they almost certainly would.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie wrote:
> The Taliban is one of the least attractive and most self-interested groups to emerge from Islam. They display a remarkable amalgam of brutality and stupidity, and in the interests of natural justice we must do what we can to eliminate them.
Taleban didn't exactly "emerge from Islam" - it is at least arguable that they were nurtured, groomed and extracted from Islam by the nature and conditions of the clandestine funding and arms that the USA supplied to rebels during the period of the illegal Soviet occupation. Solo warriors, with up-to-date weaponry, and no fear of capture or death, operating semi-independantly, were very much a feature of the groups the USA supported.
"As you sow, so shall you reap." The emergence of the Taleban is a prime example of why I believe that violence begets violence in a cycle of ferocity (which may be unpredicictable in exactly how and where it breaks out, but is *entirely* predictable that it *will* break out), and hence am a pacifist.
I do not buy into the argument that if we (at minimum) helped create the Taleban we must now realise our mistake and bomb the f*uck out of it, the livestock and farms and homes (and weddings) of its adherents, supporters, and the general population. I especially do not believe that we should render normal livelihood impossible, effectively facing people with the choice between farming opium poppies or starving to death. Such behaviour on our part only serves to fuel recruitment to ever-more-extremist organisations, like al-Quaida.
When I was in Afghanistan at the end of the 1970s, just before the Soviet invasion, it was a liberal society, with a high proportion of educated women (who, for example, were the majority of teachers), and a cynical attitude to both the USA and the USSR which recognised that neither or these provided aid without strings and sought to play one off against the other. While there was *some* up-to-date weaponry, the typical armament in the area around the Khyber pass was a seven-foot long gun dating from the 1870s which would originally have ben captured from the British!
Religious zealotry was not native to the area ... our presence has provided fertile soil for it to grow, and we should remove ourselves forthwith.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... particularly on the part of the USA, which has a record of pursuing such policies without regard to the long-term consequences.
But the fact remains that if we withdraw now, the clock will not turn back to the halcyon days you recall. The likelihood is that the country would collapse into full-scale civil war, and that the life of the average Afghan would be much worse than it is at present. There are no easy answers, but 'sorry, chaps; we dropped you in the crap but it's up to you to get out of it again' doesn't square with my personal view of moral responsibility.
NW - you will, I hope, appreciate that although I am attacking your proposition, I am in no way attacking you!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie, of course I know that!
I think we're seeing things over different timescales - I actually agree that life for those in the area may well get worse in the short-term if there is a withdrawal of interfering powers from Afghanistan, Iran, (etc).
But in the longer term, a stable society can in my view only arise if it is allowed to evolve at its own rate, in a way consistent with local cultural traditions. It is difficult enough for many societies to make the transistion to the "information age" - to do so while being (almost certainly unintentionally) unduely influenced by the Western Military, and by rapacious multinationals cashing in on re-building, is just not possible.
We shouldn't have gone in. We should get out now - *anything* we do will only store up fuel and oxygen for greater fires in future.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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