[Kosh]

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/24/ap4052736.html



No wonder why morale is so low over there........

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

[karajorma]

SHhhhhhhh. Why would the American government care that people are selling weapons to be used against American troops? That's not anything important at all. Making it look like Iraq is working well is far more important.

[Nuke]

im sure somone will panic when they find a ded us soldier pumped full of m-16 rounds, of course they will claim it as friendly fire

[Roanoke]

Reporting corruption and the mis-appropiation of public money, to the discredit of the war effort, obviously isn't patriotic. 

[Fearless Leader]

"huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over"

I would like to be in solitary for a while, and I like most kinds of music, and I know interrogators, they aren't that intimidating if you know what they are trying to do.

It looks like most of these problems resulted from people going outside their chain of command. or just going to the wrong people.

[Kosh]

It looks like most of these problems resulted from people going outside their chain of command. or just going to the wrong people.

So jailing them for blowing the whistle about corperate fraud to the fbi justifies this?

[colecampbell666]

I can't tell, was the guy an Iraqi or an American?

[Herra Tohtori]

I can't tell, was the guy an Iraqi or an American?

And that should make a difference - how exactly?

Adapting Shakespeare; "There's something rotten in the State of the Union."

...Damn, I'd love to see the next president of the US use that in their State of the Union speech... it would be completely true as well.

[TrashMan]

And American wonder why most ppl in the world think they are dumb....

[Herra Tohtori]

This is not dumbness, it's malice in my opinion and has nothing to do with perception of American people's intelligence or knowledge levels.

I'm quite certain that average American is just as dumb as everyone else in the planet, but since the schooling system there is in average frankly inferior to, say, Finnish one, the level of knowledge about outside world may be lower in average American, and correspondingly the level of ignorance might be somewhat higher. At any rate, that's no reason to harbour antipathy against American people. I've met only one American person (talked to, interacted with) and she was a normal smart thinking and even knowledgeable person.

It's the adminstration's policies that are clearly really really stupid or even more worryingly, intentionally so. At the very best it's a high-level showdown of incompetence, at the worst it's malicious effort to instabilize world situation for economic gain for few from the human suffering of millions. And that's what causes me to loathe the way US has been dealing their foreign "policy" lately. Either option sucks, and everyone in the adminstration being thick as a brick doesn't feel very likely, so I concur to it being intentonal, and frankly it appalls me.

[Nuke]

thats the problem with democracy, the intellectuals or those of principal dont go for the power, the power hungry do.

[Kosh]

This is not dumbness, it's malice in my opinion and has nothing to do with perception of American people's intelligence or knowledge levels.

I'm quite certain that average American is just as dumb as everyone else in the planet, but since the schooling system there is in average frankly inferior to, say, Finnish one, the level of knowledge about outside world may be lower in average American, and correspondingly the level of ignorance might be somewhat higher. At any rate, that's no reason to harbour antipathy against American people. I've met only one American person (talked to, interacted with) and she was a normal smart thinking and even knowledgeable person.

It's the adminstration's policies that are clearly really really stupid or even more worryingly, intentionally so. At the very best it's a high-level showdown of incompetence, at the worst it's malicious effort to instabilize world situation for economic gain for few from the human suffering of millions. And that's what causes me to loathe the way US has been dealing their foreign "policy" lately. Either option sucks, and everyone in the adminstration being thick as a brick doesn't feel very likely, so I concur to it being intentonal, and frankly it appalls me.

Unfortunately, as the US is a democracy the people who support Bush do so because they agree with his policies, which makes them just as responsible. Don't forget, this crap has been going on for a while and it actually helped Bush get re-elected.

[Fearless Leader]

It looks like most of these problems resulted from people going outside their chain of command. or just going to the wrong people.

So jailing them for blowing the whistle about corperate fraud to the fbi justifies this?

Going outside your CoC is a big freaking deal.
The sort of thing she reported is the CIA's job, and the fact that she went to the FBI showed that she didnt know what she was doing in the first place.

I feel bad for her. Its a clear example of good motivation, but a bad choice.

As far as the civilians, yeah they are crookid as hell.

[Herra Tohtori]

Unfortunately, as the US is a democracy the people who support Bush do so because they agree with his policies, which makes them just as responsible. Don't forget, this crap has been going on for a while and it actually helped Bush get re-elected.

Yep, but that's mainly because roughly half of the people are more stupid than average. And the presidential election system in US is retarded - if a direct election would be used, Bush wouldn't have been elected in the first place.

Besides, I cannot actually blame people for wanting to believe what their leaders tell them. They were lied when the war in Iraq was being started, and they have been repeatedly lied since then, and perhaps there is a hope that they are becoming disillusioned to it, because apparently it is becoming more and more clear to US populace that Bush as a president was a mistake... albeit the fact that it could also be argued that bush-bashing is just popular and the pack-minded people just jump into the train.

The reason why it's so easy for average person to believe Bush (or authority) is because he (or his speech-makers) are very skilled in using the "holy trinity of values" (home, religion and patriotism) against the people who have those values. Even though closer inspection reveals that the attack to Iraq actually has nothing to do with protecting the US of A or it's people, it's easy to believe that it does if the president says so.

It's the same thing with "would someone think of children"... if you disagree with the person who uses that as support for their argument, the general opinion easily is against you even though the argument supported would have nothing to do with children's welfare in actual reality.


As to by-passing the chain of command, what the hell are those people supposed to do when the chain of command immediately above them quite obviously condones to the illegal practices? If I would encounter stuff like this I would definitely inform the highest authority I could reach about it. Assumed I would decide to tell about it and not just backpedal swiftly away from the business in hand and leave them to their own devices.

In military, chain of command is of more importance. For civilians, not so much.

[Fearless Leader]

And what if someone told you that the reasons given for invading Iraq were valid?

[Herra Tohtori]

I've been told that a number of times.

None have managed to convince me.

What would be needed to convince me is conclusive evidence that there really were substantial WMD programme(s) going on in Iraq as was claimed by US government, since that was the claimed main reason for taking military action. None such evidence has been found, and in fact there's evidence that the US government knew that there were no WMD programmes of any real threat or importance, based on their own intel reports, but chose not to mention said reports while convincing the senate/congress and the people that the war was necessary.

Should some credible* evidence surface, I would have to re-evaluate my assessment of the situation.


*credibility in this case would be some independent information source. The US has lost most of their credibility in my eyes regarding WMD's in Iraq, so I don't really take all news from there with face value.


Liberating Iraq from Saddam's clutches is, in itself, somewhat more acceptable but the problem is that it was not the main reason given for the operation. One could argue that if it was the main reason, the war would have been fought years ago if Saddam was so intolerable. Thus, it is rather clear to me that this reason was just given to gain some brownie points in the world's eyes. Not to mention that in general, military action to replace an "unsuitable" leader of a sovereign country is somewhat frowned upon.

[Kosh]

And what if someone told you that the reasons given for invading Iraq were valid?

We've already had a whole lot of people connected to the Bush administration tell us it was valid for several years now. The proper responce would be to demand proof, which had been done for many years, and we are still waiting for that proof.

[Fearless Leader]

I cant give valid proof, ask me in 27 years

[karajorma]

So until then surely we should go on what the balance of evidence seems to show then? That there were no valid reasons.

[NGTM-1R]

I cant give valid proof, ask me in 27 years

For some reason I recall a quote of Eisenhower's. Not on proof, but on whether it succeeded. "The success of this occuption can only be judged forty years from now. If the Germans have a stable, prosperous democracy then, we will have succeeded."

So it is with Iraq.