[Zeronet]

Falcon X, don't bother, Top Gun is a anti-goverment hippie, who thinks Saddamn, a dictator who rules by fear, was unfairly treated after invading and pillaging a neighbouring country.

FYI, North Korea has over 1000 Artillary pieces and Surface to Surface missiles aimmed at Seoul, an Army of over 3 million people.

BUT

I disagree with your baseless comments about our Military. Thats nonsense frankly, Britians military is far from insignificant. France's military isnt 'that' far behind.

But i also disagree with Top Gun about the US posting troops over the world. Those troops are peacekeepers, i don't care what cynical view of the political system of the world you have, but thats really why they are there.

Cuba was blockaged, to stop several medium range missiles, armed with nuclear warheads being shipped to Cuba from Soviet Russia, in doing so, nuclear war was averted.

The Arguements are of course irrelevant, there will always be hippies. What i say will have no impact whatsoever, you'll most likey spend several quarters of an hour, searching for detailed information in which to reply with, or merely disagree with the basic foundations. Which i welcome, unlike in Iraq and North Korea, people are allowed to have different opinions and at the end of the day, im not going to be bothered by Top Gun calling me or right-wing bigot(though, your use of that description, partly led to my tongue in cheek reference), nor would i hope him to take me refering to him as a anti-goverment hippie in a deeply serious manner, in which he will spend several minutes being intensely angry at such a condesending use of language. , though the application of that smilie, probably looks condesending(which might actually be spelt incorrectly). Though i may be wasting my time, i am actually improving my typing skills, which is a good thing, i think.

[Falcon X]

When I was talking about "them"  I meant continental Europe.  Britain usually is far different from them.  You're military is very nice and it is always nice to have you around.  GO SAS!

[Solatar]

Originally posted by 01010
I have a (maybe) slightly controversial plan for world peace.

Get every single person on this planet in a centralised location. Have the hugest ****ing party where anything goes, drugs, sex, drugs, alcohol, drugs and sex.

Then just as it's starting to get too much, launch all the ****ing nukes and whatever survives inherits the planet.

Nihillism > everything.

One problem, together the US and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet 8 times. Together with the weapons of Europe and Asia, if we launched all te nuclear missiles on Earth, those who survived would inherite what Earth?

Sorry, just had to be a smartass.....

[01010]

Originally posted by IceFire


Too bad not everyone can agree on the exact meanings of drugs, sex, and how to drink alchohol....

Human beings do not have large differences of opinion.  Human beings have small differences of opinion that they wage war over.

If everyones there then they can group together and do whatever the hell they want.

Sadly we are a warlike species it seems, luckily for me I gave up caring about whatever the hell is going on a long time ago.

[Stryke 9]

The next person to make a post suggesting that hippies and pacifists are the same, or that one is invariably the other, I bite.

The US tolerates tons of dictators. The US is allied with tons of dictators. Hell, the US has set up a good number of 'em. That's not a reason to go to war.

Lots of countries invade their neighbors. Less so, nowadays, but that is also not a cause for international police action. Particularly when it was just a continuation of a war the US government had fully endorsed and funded, and as soon as the threat of a US attack because of the invasion popped up, the Iraqi army went home with its tail between its legs.

I don't like Saddam as a leader. Hell, nobody does. He uses some nasty, nasty tactics. However, that doesn't mean I fall for the ridiculous concept that, because he's a bloody dictator, the US needs to attack without provocation in an extended war that will kill anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and leave the same anarchic smoking crater that Afghanistan now is (By the way, yes, I'm fully aware that the US still has troops stationed there. It's not half of the aid we promised, and in fact all but a small part of the country has essentially gone back to what it was before the US invasion. And we haven't done jack about it, because we've lost interest. So ****ing compassionate, eh?). Forget Iraqis- we can safely assume you'd never hear about THOSE deaths, anyway. How about Israel? It's no secret Saddam has MDWs, no matter whether we'd like to see Bush prove it or not. And, if attacked, there's pretty much no question that Israel will get a good share of anthrax or Sarin. Hell, the death toll could run in the millions. And for what? To give the Iraqis whose homes we're bombing "freedom" in their shelled-out, now-impoverished state? To end one of dozens of violent dictatorships working to develop MDWs? To avenge the attempted assassination of Bush's daddy?

There are plenty of good ways to get rid of Saddam. War is not one of them. And yet, the government's already set a date. Forget Hussein, I think we know who the real mass murderer is.

[01010]

Originally posted by Hades


One problem, together the US and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet 8 times. Together with the weapons of Europe and Asia, if we launched all te nuclear missiles on Earth, those who survived would inherite what Earth?

Sorry, just had to be a smartass.....

Cockroaches would survive apparently. As long as I'm out the picture I don't think I'd mind too much.

They'd inherit a barren wasteland admittedly, but y'know, I can't see it being all that bad. Comparitively at least.

[Alikchi]

For starters, Bush is a hypocrite. He rejects the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and then tries to enforce it on Iraq. Would he allow IAEA inspectors in to check on our WMDs? I think not!

Right now, as we speak, the US is profiting from billions of dollars worth of oil that it controls from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. If Iraq were all of a sudden allowed to trade its oil, the price of oil would go down, thus reducing American profits. You can now see why the cost of a few missiles and bombs is worth it, not to mention 2 million dead and 22 million starving.

Hell, I'm only American cause my parents ****ed here..

[vyper]

Originally posted by Falcon X
GO SAS!

One of my top three reasons for loving this country.

[Liberator]

But you see, we are not and never were any better than them. They are not any worse than us either, and no actions that we or they carry out will make either of us any better than the other. There was nothing inherently wrong with 9/11, which was certainly as justified an act of military action as anything else in history, so we are not fighting them because they are evil people (they are not), but simply because they are opposing us. As I said, it is our terrorists against their terrorists; the victor of the conflict will be the best terrorist, and lesser terrorists will be wiped out. That is simply the way the world works.

What the?!?  Tell me when innocent civilians, guilty of doing nothing but going about their lives the same as the day before becomes a viable MILITARY target?  When we(the USA) take a military action it is and will be against a MILITARY target.  

By Military, I mean an organized fighting force dedicated to doing another group harm.  

Al-Quaeda = Military.  

Two 96 story towers full of accountants and secrataries = Civilian.

Could someone please tell me why being the prosperous nation on the planet makes it okay for others to take whatever action they see fit against us and prevents us from acting in retaliation?

[Ace]

Human beings of the world, unite!

[01010]

Originally posted by Ace
Human beings of the world, unite!

It's party time

[Stryke 9]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki=civilian

It's not just soldiers who die in a war. And much of the middle east has been more or less in a state of permanent civil war since the US helped to **** it up during the Cold War. The WTC assault was a message- the deaths were collateral damage, not the intent. The symbol of the WTC and the Pentagon in flames were what those who hijacked the planes and their bosses wanted Americans to see, to wake 'em up and make 'em realize that their old crimes were gonna come back to bite them in the ass, and that we couldn't do that **** to other countries any more. You think they could have just politely mailed a signed petition to Bush? It was the only way they could really succeed in a meaningful way in shaking the country's sense of invulnerability and making it aware that it's part of the ****ing planet, too.

And technically, all the Afghan villages we carpet-bombed and killed next to every last person in were civilian, too. War is hell, it's not a civilized, tea-sippingly chivalrous thing. It's mass murder between two consenting parties and a large third nonconsenting victim of the civilian masses.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by CP5670
For me less individuality is always better, but it actually goes the other way; eastern cultures definitely place more emphasis on the group rather than the individual (e.g. this was/is the case in India, where my parents are from, but the culture is very rapidly becoming "americanized"). This is actually one of the things I dislike about western society, but I can see why it is necessary to have things work correctly with the current political and technological conditions today. I certainly do agree with you on the hardship thing though, simply because it tends to create a persistent drive to succeed in people, but that will always be absent in a richer first-world society. Actually, one thing that was good about 9/11 is that it hardened the society and woke up people to the harsh reality of the world.

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you there - Individuality is something I cherish very much in human nature, and the so-called "holy grail" is not a group mentality but rather a company of individuals who can work together.  I beleive in the group as much as you do, although my methods are inherently more difficult to succeed with.

Well, that "soul-snuffing aura" is an integral part of any culture; it is just that the western one is currently the dominant one that seems to promote economic growth better than the others, so it is slowly and subtly gaining momentum in other parts of the world and thus taking over. That day will certainly come about at some point, and I can see both advantages and disadvantages to it for the civilization as a whole, but there is really no way to stop its progress.

I'd devote my life to stopping the progress of such a monster.

But you see, we are not and never were any better than them. They are not any worse than us either, and no actions that we or they carry out will make either of us any better than the other. There was nothing inherently wrong with 9/11, which was certainly as justified an act of military action as anything else in history, so we are not fighting them because they are evil people (they are not), but simply because they are opposing us. As I said, it is our terrorists against their terrorists; the victor of the conflict will be the best terrorist, and lesser terrorists will be wiped out. That is simply the way the world works.

I wasnt saying we were.  I've certainly never resorted to terror tactics, although many of the things I see today make me wish I had.   To use a cliche - there's only one weapon, which at the end of the day is compassion.

As for the oil thing, it is a rather silly argument either way; supposing it was true, the western corporations would be the ones to grab the spoils and thus we would be benefit in the end (although we don't like the corporations, the reality is that we are alive and prospering because of them).

I wouldnt call todays suicide rate prospering.  Its just a simple case of the privelaged few treading on heads to get where they are.  In a world where science all but removes the need to place value on material possessions the continuing material/commercial culture is morally inexcusable.  But then again morals are the least of your concerns (no, that wasn't a personal jab).

 Although there are reasons to think otherwise on their motive; for example, if they are after the oil, it would be much more sensible to attack Saudi Arabia instead on some pretext (and as you have surely seen, they are good at making something up), which has far more oil, a fraction of the military might and probably just as much connection to the enemy terrorist bands.

It would, but since saudi arabia are our "friends" it makes much more sense to attack iraq (which also happens to be bang next to Kuwait...) and since they already have an excuse.  As I said before, i dont think military action will solve anything except publicity.  What it will do is topple a remarkably anti-western dictatorship.  

Exactly. Also remember, as I have said before here, everyone naturally gangs up on the top dog because of its position. Therefore, it is in the interests of the French and German governments to catalyze another 9/11 so that they will have a better chance at being the top power themselves in the future. They need to ensure that the US does not become too powerful, so obviously they want to prevent them from going into Iraq so that they can keep the US in check for a little while.

I wouldnt call that a bad thing - it's always struck me as rather hilarious that a nation dedicated to globilisation has proven so against it by having the largest free-standing army in the world and being so tight on immigration....but you can nitpick for hours.

My beef is and always has been the base structure of the way we live lives today, one cannot deny that it wrecks as many lives as it engenders - hows that for "progress".  We're doing well  but we're not doing well enough.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by heretic
[size=10]ALL OF YUO SUCK AT THE INTERWEB.[/size]

idiot.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Ace
Human beings of the world, unite!

im finding it seriously hard to beleive many people are fully "human" considering their points of view....

[Stryke 9]

What, you think you're any better?

Deep down, humans are violent, petty, stubborn, and selfish. If you can't appreciate these traits as part of the greater whole, and can't accept that the good and bad qualities of mankind, as in everything, are largely inseparable, you can't legitimately like humans.

[01010]

Hmm, I'm not feeling the vibe for the mass extermination party.

Damn, though I was onto something too. Ah well. Happy Birthday to me at least.

Woo.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by StrykeIX
And much of the middle east has been more or less in a state of permanent civil war since the US helped to **** it up during the Cold War.

It goes back a lot further than the Cold War.  I suggest you take a look at what was going on there in the first half of the century.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by wEvil


idiot.

I think that was the point...

[Stryke 9]

Shrike: I consider it fair to still blame a country for something it did 20 years ago and never even had the common decency to try to make a token effort to make up for. The same does not apply to 70-100 years, since generally everyone alive and fully conscious at that time is now dead, and there are now other people.