From D.C. with Love ... a big "F*** you" to the U.N.

Remove all ads!

The UN is grossly inefficient and swamped under its own morass of dead weight. It has never succeeded at any military objective, nor stopped a war. It has bungled most humanitarian objectives. It is perpetually stalled from determining any effective change due to the special interests that divide it (yes, the US have some of those special interests). It appears in every way to be a senile, toothless, wheezing, impotent old wind bag.

I'm not saying scrap the entire operation, but it is BADLY in need of reform and some oversight. Bolton may indeed be brilliantly prophetic when he mused about "lopping off the top ten floors."

Better yet, move the entire operation to Vienna. Or Paris. Or Riyadh. Those buildings in NYC currently sit on the most expensive real estate in the world. Clear them out, let some developers have at it and send half the profits to starving third world nations (delivered via USAF, of course)...the UN could provide more aid in relocating itself than it ever did by resolution.

Tal, I understand you're point about the inherent "rudeness" in some of Bolton's remarks, but perhaps once on the inside he will find out that it is no laughing matter and become a strong and effective voice for reform. It would certainly be no benefit to the UN or anyone else to simply send another fawning fan-boy.

 

I had another thought -- what if Bolton is a red herring? A sacrificial nominee to satisfy the Democrats and still get most of his other nominees through.... Just a thought.

I still think the US needs to send in someone that is a catalyst for change. Either by leading the change or by getting other nations to step up and lead. Whoever can do that is fine with me.

From history, starting with WWI and continuing through today. By the way, I only know of one war the US initiated (a few skirmishes notwithstanding), I'm not sure where you get 'wars.' As far as our support for good causes around the world, I thought it was ridiculous that we needed to match or exceed everyone for the tsunami -- we had just finished cleaning the hurricane mess in Florida (with NO help from other nations). It's unfair that most of the world appears to believe the US should play the major role in EVERY charitable cause worldwide with absolutely NO reciprocity ... EVER. When the US has major disasters the world basic says 'that's your problem.' Granted, 911 was an exception to this -- but the only one I know of and there wasn't much monetary support from the rest of the world.

NonSequitur: It's been a good thing in every case I can think of.

 

What I don't understand is why the U.S. is considered a warmongering nation by many people from the rest of the world. This kind of builds off what T2B said, but in the 229 years that the U.S. has been around, I can think of TWO wars the U.S. have started. (I imagine the one that T2B failed to account for was the Civil War, although you can agrue that because the Confederacy broke away from the Union, that they were no long part of the U.S. - but they were still Americans, so I really think the number has to be increased to two.) But still, that averages out to about one a century, which isn't warmongering in my book.

 

I can think of a few more, like Nicaragua for instance which dared to democratically elect a party that wasn't wanted in D.C. Not exactly a fine hour.

But that's beside the point.

The bellicose U.S. rhetoric of the recent past and their silly war on Iraq are the two determining factors overriding the impression of America's overall history.

The Bush administrations agressive foreign policy greatly helped to reinform as widespread opinion what before much fewer people held.
The trampeling "Either you're with us or against us" and "we do what we want anyway" are major factors in forming that impression I presume.

And as for warmongering, if you read the blood & gore articles on National Review or Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal, that could get you the impression, too. Or just tune in on FOX from time to time.

 

Here I thought we were talking about corporate America for a moment; that would make more sense. Then I had this recurring dream that it was in the conservative warcry before they took over the American governemnt. Now that they ARE the government, we never hear such talk coming from them any longer, even though the same critism can be STILL leveled against it. But, it is now reserved for the UN. How typical. Any aging, large insititution is bound to have its share of dead weight.

But I really wanted to comment on the "warmongering" side of this debate. Ok, quick! Who said: "I am a WAR president." Let me start the timer for you...tick....tick...tick...ding, ding, ding. If you guessed our prez - YOU WIN! Your chance to prove yourself and join the 1st ID in Iraq awaits you. Enjoy yourself, good patroits. For the rest of you, enjoy these links.

http://www.digitalmediatree.com/onelap/?25776

Isn't he "cute" while talking on one of his favorite subjects?

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/2-11-04_war_president.htm

 

Instead of God, you could thank the US for that.

 

Think so? Two of my friends whom voted for Bush regularly make cracks about him. Hell, one of 'em pointed me to a website comparing Bush's face to photos of some chimps.

Interesting. I happen to think that idea's absurd. *shrug*

Probably not. But it'd still be my reaction.

Er...Chechnya? Tibet? India and Pakistan have clashed quite a few times...

 

I wasn't referring to any particular case, I just think Australia's a little too hot for action sometimes. Of course, I could throw that at just about any nation, and sometimes it's necessary to whip out the weapons and go in sooner rather than later, so I'm agreed with you on that, T2.

However, I don't think it can be viewed as "virtuous intervention" all the time - we almost never go in without something tangible to gain from it.

 

You may find this hard to believe, but a large portion of voters for AGAINST someone rather than for the opponent. I think the vast majority of anti-Kerry people (for whatever reason, I personally wanted McCain) are just tired of the CONSTANT anti-American and anti-Bush drivel. There comes a point where even good natured humor -- funny the first dozen or so times -- just becomes annoying. I can think of many examples from middle and high school where a joke/teasing was taken to extreme, and there are times the rhetoric on these boards are just like that harassment from high school. It just gets old.

Your dismissal of Chechnya and other 'border skirmishes' is astounding. Under that logic the US could annex Mexico or Canada and it would be okay.

I disagree on Afganistan -- when the government decided to protect Bin Laden et al., they essentially did decide to go to war with America. And the UN agreed.

This IS an interesting viewpoint. First of all, the US is a deterrent for Russia and India -- I'm not going out of a limb for China (although the ecomonic loss may be a deterrent). China has done that before, the world still decries Tibet -- I would not put the overthrow of the Dalai Lama on the same scale as removing Saddam from power. I doubt the Dalai Lama ever tried to commit genocide and he certainly wasn't a threat to neighboring nations.

I DO believe Iraq is better off without Saddam. Unfortunately, the US was not ready for the total collapse of the infrastructure of Iraq (we should have been).

Anything can be taken out of context and made to look bad:

"I'm in charge until the Vice President returns."
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
"I didn't know it was that time of the month already."

(edit: grammar and spelling)

 

I did not misread your post -- I quoted you, not the other member. I was also responding to issues YOU brought up (even though I realized they were off-topic, just following the administrator's lead there).

A long standing dispute makes no difference in the political realm. Those disputes are rapidly becoming less valid to the UN and the world (as the ICC has pointed out). Centuries old disputes do not give any right for genocide or ethic cleansing.

One thing I think many of the members here do not understand -- these centuries old disputes are also a part of American culture. We have a lot of refugees from these disputes and their political views have helped shape this country. Europe tends to blow off these emotions and loyalties because 'how young' the US is. That's just pompous and every bit as arrogant as the attitudes Americans are accused of every day in these posts.

Nearly everyone in America has family ties to other parts of the world. These ties are quite strong for many of us.

 

Ack! Away for a little while and see what happens? OK, first of all, I do not consider the Nicaraguan situation a war. From that point of view, we have also had wars in Panama, Greneda, Bosnia, Somalia, and a little further back, even the Phillipines (and not the WWII rendition) and Peutro freaking Rico. They are minor military scirmishes involving a tiny percentage of the total U.S. military. I consider a war when a significant portion of a given country's military are mobilized and being used in action. If something like Nicaragua is going to be consider a U.S. war (and I'm not debating that it may be considered a war from a Nicaraguan perspective) then Israel and many middle eastern countries have been involved in hundreds of wars in just the past century. Heck, Israel must get involved in a war about once per month by that logic. Not every military conflict constitutes a war.

Secondly, I strongly disagree that anyone could say that the U.S. started the war in Afghanistan. I mean puh-lease. Yes, bin Laden was Saudi Arabian by birth, but he lived in Afghanistan for years, with full knowledge by the ruling Taliban, who (at least tacitly) approved of his being there and doing what he was doing. The U.S. certainly didn't have any Afghanistan agenda or any plans to attack until people started flying planes into buildings. Then, after that happened, if the Afghanis decided to hand bin Laden over, a U.S. counter-attack may have been avoided. Instead, they stupidly protected him and brought a war down upon themselves. I am not putting the war in Afghanistan at the feet of the U.S.

Here's a list of what I consider significant wars in the history of the U.S. (and upon reveiwing the list, yeah, it's actually three):

1. Revolutionary war - um, OK, I'll put this one on the U.S. Certainly provoked, but the U.S. did pretty much start this war when they declared their independence.

2. War of 1812 - This one is on the British. It's sometimes referred to as "second war of Independence".

3. Civil War - U.S. again, obviously

4. WWI - I can't see how this could possibly be blamed on the U.S.

5. WWII - ditto WWI

6. Korea War - USSR was the aggressor

7. Vietnam War - USSR again the agressor

8. Gulf War - Iraq invaded Kuwait

9. Afghanistan War - planes fly into WTC and Pentagon

10. Iraq War (or Gulf War II if you prefer, although since non-sanctioned by the U.N., I don't think that's a fair assessment, and yeah, the U.S. started this.

OK, so that's 10 major military conflicts (meaning we average a major milirary conflict about once every 23 years - pretty much every generation) and only 3 (#1, #3, and #10) started by the U.S.

EDIT Spelling and added "Somalia" in first paragraph.

 

This has nothing to do with "high-school jokes". What's happening to this country is no laughing matter. I, for one, happen to love this country and I have contempt for what George is doing to it at the moment. He should have been impeached a long time ago for his antics, but that's another matter. Some of us will just concede that the Bushies have the power, so they will continue to abuse it until the American people wake up and either throw them in jail or out of office - or both - for what they have been doing. I'm not a conservative, but I'm with you on McCain. Hopefully, some sense of decency and honesty can be restored to this government before all the worm holes that the Bushies have eaten into it, cause the whole thing to collapse.

 

Okay, I'll repeat my quote VERBATIM again:

With this quote you minimized 'border disputes' like Tibet, Chechnya and the Afganistan invasion of the Soviet Union. Not to mention minimizing the attempted genocide of the Kurds by Iraq and the holocaust -- I don't agree with minimizing such events and putting them lower on the scale than displacing a despot like Saddam is just ridiculous.

I also disagree with:

We were never best buddies. There was a truce of convenience when Iran was giving us so many problems (an applicable quote 'the enemy of my enemy...'). However, there was this incident called the USS STARK (I'm not yelling here, ship names are capitalized). Two exocet cruise missiles fired into an 'ally' ship killing 37 people on board. In spite of what may have been printed about the incident, it was an intentional act and I think we should have destroyed Suddam then and there. There is long standing animosity between America and Iraq -- instead of making that 'okay' in the eyes of the world, as you suggest, it actually made it look like we were gunning for him (which I believe we were, but I'm okay with that).

Aldeth: I disagree with putting the Revolutionary War on our heads -- I would place the fault on Britain (they fired the first shots...).

 

What follows is off topic:

Some Revolutionary historians have described it as a civil war, which started among Englishmen. This is only an estimate, but it is thought that 1/3 of the people were for the war, 1/3 were against it, and 1/3 could have cared less. King George and Lord North often referred to the revolutionaries as "that small, disloyal, group of radicals" who were imposing their will on the majority of loyal Englishmen living in the colonies. It's still a miracle that the whole thing came off the way it did. That "small group of radicals" were exceptional men to have accomplished as much as they did.

 

Yes, that's why I conceded it was provoked. But again, that lone New England skirmish would not a war make. As I stated, it has to be a significant mobilization of a nation's forces to constitute a war, and had the Declaration of Independence not been signed, I do not think a full-blown war would have erupted.

Of course, this is all merely my personal opinion. Sometimes firing the first shot is the pivotal event. The "there's no turning back now" event that sparks an all-out war, but sometimes not. Take 9/11 for example. Flying planes into buildings definitely crossed the "there's no turning back now" line as far as I'm concerned, as I think most people would agree.

On the other hand, there were literally months between those first shots being fired and a major battle in the war. Heck, the first shots were fired BEFORE the Declaration was even written.

 

What you are saying is quite correct, because in the colonies, there was no nation to speak of. The nation was not created until the Declaration was signed, and on July 4th, 1776, even then the document was signed by only two men (the actual vote on the resolution was a few days before).

Still a little off topic:

In the summer of 1775, after Lexington and Concord, there was more than just a skirmish, but sizable action around the city of Boston, where General Thomas Gage had been surrounded by local militia, which had been forming into a force from around the local countryside since late April (that could be considered a sizable mobilization). The colony of Massachusetts was at war before the nation was officially formed in 1776.

This makes sense, because the Revolution was really born and concieved there. Radical groups, such as the Sons of Liberty, did more to insigate open hostility than any other force, including the Court of King George.


In fact, the roots of the Revolution began with colonial hostility and resentment towards Parliament, and not the Crown. It was Ben Franklin himself who traveled to England, hoping to undermine the charter of the Penn family, and place the colony of PA under the authority of the Crown. How's that for irony? Only later did King George come to symbolize the "tyranny of English rule" in the Revolutionary rhetoric, mostly as the result of Virginia's "whig" influences. But King George certainly bears as much of the blame as any in the final results of the Revolution.

[ March 11, 2005, 21:41: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]