That's very true, and the answer is making sure that people get the correct information, unbiased reporting etc... if people talk about the issues then you'd hope that word gets around. I think that the Bush Administration is trying to patch things up with the rest of the world right now, knowing it's pissed a lot of people off... but there's the public face of politics and always hidden agendas... so as long as people remember then they don't get hoodwinked. We got an election in May and I remember thatTB was the one that took us into Iraq.
Ok, things are not good in North Korea. Not only does the country starve large parts of it's own population, but also does they control large amounts of "weapons of mass destruction". Bush jr. should have invaded North Korea, and not Iraq. Don't get me wrong, someday in the very far future, long after the troops have left Iraq will be better off without Saddam. North Korea should have been the target, you can't declear war on a nation with nukes.
You know... If we just dropped the bomb on any country that was developing the bomb, countries would stop developing the bomb. (aren't you all glad I'n not in charge)
A nuke is a nuke- no matter where the hell it is. Its like giving a loaded gun to a child, they are little, so who gives a damn what they will do with it, right?
He's just being honest. It's called anti-american these days to spell out the truth. Frankly, I'd prefer it to be anti-american only if we told lies.
You can call it what you want, I'm just voicing my opinion. BTW have you seen the AdSense ads for this thread? God Loves You How to know that God loves you and World Peace Discount new & used items. Affil search for world peace now! The creativity of AdWords advertisers never ceases to amaze me. Back on-topic...
Does anyone else find these pre-emptive invasions a little odd? And more to the point destabilizing. Does anyone feel any safer for prodding countries with firm belief systems with a stick? Surely the fair way of doing things is to wait until some country we don't like invades someone else and then go and kick ass. There is plenty of opportunity. There was Germany invading Poland in WW2. They thought they had a good motive, we disagreed and kicked butt. We had a little war over here with the Argentines who thought they had a good motive of reclaiming their islands. We kicked butt. I guess the reason don't kick the invader's butt any more is the country that does most of the invading these days is just too damm big and powerful.
Well, nuclear weapons will end all of that. Hopefully a better species will rise from the ashes before El Sol throws the towl in. Maybe they'll find one of our cities or fortresses underground and turn it into a playground or something...
*Bush* doesn't, The United States does, and we do because we are the most powerful nation in the world, whether or not you like it, and we can be trusted to only use them when it is completely necessary.
Your nation has proven to be reliable and trustworthy or hasn't it? What has North Korea ever done to the world to be threatened like this? So they have issues with their neighbour. Lots of nations have. You might call yourself the most powerful nation but it's also the most hated nation and the most aggressive nation. I still see no reason why the US can have them and other countries can't.
You can see where the North Koreans are coming from. With Iraq, the Americans asked Mad Sad whether he had weapons of mass destruction. He said no, he hadn't. The Americans insisted that he had and threatened to invade unless they could go in and look for them. He let them in, they couldn't find any, so decided to invade anyway. The the next country in the axis of evil list is going to learn from this. They're going so say yes we have got weapons of mass destruction and if you invade us we'll use them. What else can they say to try to stop themselves getting invaded.
North Korea is a very weird country; insular, totalitarian, no freedom of press or information, poor record on human rights, many people starving... that's a country ruled by people with a very warped sense of reallity. Put that together with posession of nuclear weapons and what have you got? Anyway, mention of North Korea having trouble with neighbours is completely irrelevant. During the cold war Britain was not neighbour to any one of the 'Soviet Bloc' countries and yet was still alays under potential threat of attack.
>>>and we can be trusted to only use them when it is completely necessary<<< That trust has already been voided...think back to Japan...the war was relatively over, yet they still rushed in before the end so they could drop the big one's. Well said Void. Is Iraq a better place now than before ?.......I don't think so......it will take decades to recover. And not one sign of a WMD. Now it's Iran's turn .
If you're so dillusional that you cannot see all of the times the U.S. has come in and saved the day, I feel sorry for you. The youth of America don't really think about it either, since the last time we waited too long to do something was the 1940's. Back then, Japan had not done anything to deserve it either- until they snuck attack Pearl Harbor (are you that dim-witted?) If we didn't have nukes in the 40's, a lot of Americans would have died defending our country. I cannot call your response stupidity, simply because I fear you just don't know anything about the history of the situation. You do realize they attacked and killed thousands of our people, correct? Ignorance of the facts is generally not an excuse when statements like yours are brought into a public forum, but atleast read up on why we bombed Japan before posting such rubbish. Even Anthony probably thinks we did the right thing in bombing Japan. The only difference between then and now is that our government takes a proactive approach to stopping these threats before it can become a reality. T0PS- the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, love or hate us- we are.
But you have to agree this 'policy' is grossly abused and has been used erroneously (Iraq/Afghanistan) and then these actions are exploited in a disgusting way. Lucrative oil pipes, lucrative deals etc. all rewarded to these bastard corporate giants who suck up as many dollars as they can from an already ailing country. A lot of non-Americans wouldn't have had a problem with their attitude if there wasn't so much selfishness involved in these operations. After not accomplishing their goals twice in a row (not finding Bin Laden / not erasing his Terror network plus not finding WMD's in Iraq) they don't have the right IMO to pull off the same bull shit in yet another country. Fact is, your country (I'm not saying Blair can either) can not be trusted anymore, it lost it's credibility in judgement of world affairs. Especially now they have no right interfering with other countries who have not attacked them. You probably are indeed but only because you don't allow other countries to achieve the same status. With your 300 million people or so you are far from the biggest country, I don't think your economy is the largest of it's kind either. All this adds up to there being no fundamental/principle right for the US to be the sole country that pulls the strings.
I do know the history of the situation and I'm not here to argue, just a couple of points though, the war with Japan was basically over when they decided to drop the bombs. It didn't need to happen.....it was a show of strength to Russia and the rest of the world. It wasn't necessary, if they had been used a few months earlier then I might have agreed with you. When England was on the ropes the US didn't respond, the only reason the US entered the war was because Japan as you say, snuck attacked Pearl Harbour. However that's not what we are discussing...we are talking about the reason why it is okay for the US to have nuclear weapons and the rest of the world to not have them and I was responding to the fact that you said, >>>and we can be trusted to only use them when it is completely necessary.<<< The other point I want to make is that outside the US the press reports are a lot different, I'm not saying they are doctored but the view of the world that those in the US get is different from other countries. Note I live in Australia and we like England are the USAs staunchest allies but we do get a lot more open coverage of world events than you guys do.
Waging an air/nuclear war on japan was very beneficial to us, but if you only know the devastation caused by the firebombing of major civilian centers...not to mention the nukes, which caused far fewer causalties. The air campaign in Japan was one of the fastest civilian slaughter campaigns in History. Cities the size of Los Angelos were reduced to 34% as the mostly wooden structures went up in flames. MacNamera was quoted to say, that if the war had gone to the other side, he and his colleagues would surely have been tried as war criminals. S, don't you see that most of the time we're looking out for our own interests? We're not like superman. We only fly to the rescue if the chick is hot and willing or some idiot dares to snub his nose at us. Kind of like a drunk superman, with little regard for law...Granted that's how just about every major world player is, just don't decieve yourself and think anything different.
I see a lot of trash talking within this thread on how the USA won WW2, well the bombs put an end to Japan's part in it, but the USA DID NOT defeat Germany, the Russians did. Next the main issue is NOT North Korea, it is China and Russia who are both against the USA and are both sending weapons into Iraq and Russia is the supplier to Iran's Nuclear program. You guys need to wake up a bit here and face reality, the EU is a larger force than the USA on the world stage, the USA is begging NATO to go into Iraq and they WILL NOT. So the USA is NOT the world power that some of you think we are. There is an old military term MAD (mutually assured destruction) that still is true today. We can shoot our NUKES at China and Russia and they can shoot theirs at us, there is no WINNING in that and only God Almighty can save you in that day.