Total Members Voted: 9
Fortook: If you spend much time trying to have intelligent discussions with and try to reason with BlueWarrior, you will very quickly have the urge to He's a war monger, and probably so from spending too much time playing violent video games. Granted, he has made a few good points in this thread, seems to have the ability to read news stories and likes the people in northern Iraq. The Kurds in Northern Iraq got majorly shafted by Saddam and almost completely exterminated so it is good that they are now living without constant fear of getting gassed.The Hussein regime was bad news for pretty much everybody in that area of the world, including Saddam himself with the way it worked out for him, his family and cohorts in the end. Bummer for them, but luckily that is what typically ends up happening eventually to evil, greedy and violent people. Was it worth the $$ spent and lives lost to try to help bring peace to the middle east and encourage the governments and populations of people in the area to behave in more civilized, less violent ways? I don't have an answer to that question. Maybe in a few decades or centuries historians might have some good facts/information/news to publish and write about regarding that area of the world. A boy can hope and dream!! Political leaders and military forces from all around what is called the western world and other more evolved countries/areas have been trying to intervene diplomatically and otherwise with force to try and figure out how to create some semblance of peace, civility and to provide and establish basic daily living conditions (daily needs: housing, food, plumbing, medical care, etc.) for the populations of people in the region for well over a few hundred years without success. Without looking up a historical reference, if I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure the violence, strife, hatred, killing, far from humanitarian behavior activities, sectarian violence due to biases and other prejudiced fueled and other uncivilized behaviors have been going on in the region for thousands of years. Nobody has been able to fix it no matter which approaches they have attempted. It's up to the people and leaders of those areas to work it out. I've got a few simple ideas about how to pave the way to make those areas less violent and the inhabitants being able to live decent lives daily.#1: Affordable housing with air conditioning. If I had to live in and walk around in sometimes up to 130°F temperatures in the desert just to find something to eat each day while the leaders are building lavish palaces and having fun shooting people and blowing things up I'd be pretty pissed off too. #2: [Related to #1] Leaders, use some of that $$ you get from selling the oil you keep pumping out of the earth below you to fund idea #1. If you do that you won't miss a dime and will still have plenty of $$ for everything you desire.#3: Better infrastructure, use some of the oil $$ revenue to improve that stuff, you've got plenty of land to develop things on. Dubai, Saudi Arabia and a few other places are doing a good job of that on small plots of land in the area. #4: Education. Build more schools, colleges, etc. and educate the populations with stuff beyond stupid regime designed propaganda. Better educated people tend to behave more civilly, rationally and less violently. #5: Westernized countries, stop selling weapons, artillery, ammunition and military warfare gear to unstable countries in the region. #6: Just chill, be cool, and stop loving the AKs, RPGs and other weapons so much. Keep them out of the hands of the young uneducated, possibly brainwashed kids.My main view about what to do about the situations now from a USA/Western Country perspective is containment. Make sure no crazies with bombs or whatever weapons to kill get out of the countries/get over here or into other countries to use or detonate them, don't sell them/let them have any more weaponry, and then just let them work it out among themselves for now. My short form principle: More education, less weapons/artillery for killing and violence. Educated people tend to behave and interact with others in much more civilized, less violent ways. Maybe NATO or whoever else should drop-ship a bunch of books/instruction manuals along with some MREs into the bad regions. /end_rantPS: Blue, RE: your post on the previous page where you criticized me. You are the one that is confused, not me. I'm happy that you at least cut down the pirate talk for now. Maybe where you live people use aye instead of I, it sounds like local Caribbean Islands slang, but it is bad English to use on an American law school discussion forum, especially when you are talking about and wanting to have discussion about USA politics/policies/actions/elections/etc. .
I already miss talk like a pirate day .Chuck, I like some of you approach and its is definitely better than killing people, but they aren't like us. Middle Eastern problems need to be solved with Middle Eastern means. They aren't like us, as much as we think they should be and as perfect as we think we are. Kill your air conditioners. Man, do I hate, hate AC.
Hmmm. We may have found a major point of contention between our differing points of view: I not only trust them to govern themselves, but to do so responsibly. If they do not do so responsibly, it is not my place to force them to be like me- to me, its a respect issue. I don't necessarily think we are better than them. To me the question is: why would I? I wouldn't have supported the crusades either and the modern middle eastern invasions are way to similar- just replace the word "Christianity" with "Democracy" and everything else meshes. Too creepy an historical similarity for me. Blue, you seem to feel the opposite: it is our responsibility to force them to behave responsibly, as a matter of decency, regardless off the cost or disrespect. To "help" them by making them like us.
^^ exactly, you seem to want them to behave like us- with our values and our perspective. Saying you know better than them who rules them? Not that its directly relevant, but you argument would hold more weight if: 1) the majority of the population asked the US to invade, 2) the majority, not one small group that wants a regime change, but most people want us there or 3) the majority, over %50 of the population, not less than %10 do not want the US to leave.As it turned out, other than a few minority groups who were being abused, no one wanted the US to invade, over through the government or stay after the conquest was complete. Not even mention why we should be pissed about it- THE GOVERNMENT LIED TO US and killed 100,000s of people in the process.
Are you writing about dictators and regimes or people? Because aye think that regimes are the problem...not the people. Aye trust people to govern themselves but regimes like the one in north korea are not people governing themselves.See the difference?We have Not close ties with n. korea so diplomacy would have no human rights commentary on the treatment of their people. And 0 influence over their people directly or indirectly. We have ties with china so diplomacy often has human rights issues wind in with it's business and political discourse...and human rights issues become cultural/media advertisement. Even human behavior becomes a part of scrutiny by another culture. Didn't the chinese government send out the signal to cut down on public spitting during the 2007 olympics ? Although the initiative was executed by the chinese, doubtful there wasn't some western influence at play..There is also a universal concern for women's rights which bombards governments in which we have business and political ties..we chastise their lack of concern and continue dealing until a dictatorship cracks ...or a regime cracks or crosses the line...the gassing of people should be a clue to a regime crossing the line...yet while progress is made On women's rights issues and basic human rights it's a long way to go...nations of the world are intertwined on many levels in diplomatic and business dealings...we can't help rub off a little of our chinese brothers and sisters...we also can't help rubbing off on those who got rid of ali, mubarak, and quadafi---/we helped with getting the last mentioned.\The west rubs off on the middle east and we influence them one way or another...it happens not through force but an idea that they want the regime gone and a different quality of life...aye don ' t care...call it enculturation; call it diplomatic intercourse...but eventually we all have to stop the habit of spitting in public places...and every now and then until it is a perfect world---some dictators will step down---some will hang--then someone will set themselves on fire to make a point about police cruelty in tunisia. and some people think a revolution is born...at this point they are doing it utilizing their own methods..so aye think we are in agreement on that.Quote from: fortook on February 26, 2012, 11:59:46 AMHmmm. We may have found a major point of contention between our differing points of view: I not only trust them to govern themselves, but to do so responsibly. If they do not do so responsibly, it is not my place to force them to be like me- to me, its a respect issue. I don't necessarily think we are better than them. To me the question is: why would I? I wouldn't have supported the crusades either and the modern middle eastern invasions are way to similar- just replace the word "Christianity" with "Democracy" and everything else meshes. Too creepy an historical similarity for me. Blue, you seem to feel the opposite: it is our responsibility to force them to behave responsibly, as a matter of decency, regardless off the cost or disrespect. To "help" them by making them like us.
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