We already send endless aid over there to dictators. The last time we tried to intervene in something, they got great fodder for a movie (Blackhawk Down)

Africa deserves none of our attention, or anyones. They need to deal with thier own corruption.

I am sick of having to feed despots countries. Why should we help them? Why? Seriously? How can we benefit, they will only backstab us for the next muzzy holyman to come along.

We send food and monetary aid, and it goes right into the government coffers, and not to the people swatting flies off themselves.

My solution. Pork rations for muslim African countries, then they might start supporting themselves, instead of cursing their lifeline.

And yet, here we are in the Middle East, which shares all of the problems that you mentioned above. We have been embroiled in numerous 'Blackhawk Down' style incidents and have fought a series of needless wars along with several fruitless nation building endeavors. We send billions in financial and military aid into the Middle East to boot. Why deal with these dictators? Is the Karzai regime any less corrupt than the ones we see in Africa?

Yes sir, why?

I see no reason, America needs help too. The billions spent could feed our poor, rather than ostrasizing them for being poor, and not helping them out of poverty.

But the impoverished do not provide oil, and do nothing for the stock market...soooooo....

When???????
Soopaman, don't you mean "on the occasions when some French people pissed on allied graves it made you upset, when they did graffiti all over them you got a bit angry and when they smashed them up you got really mad"...or were you just unaware of it?

Is that the Husseni who was chosen and appointed by the British as a religious/political leader despite being of a different sect than most of the locals and very politicly opposed to "official" British policy?
A strange and complicated tale of double talk and double dealing in a sort of colonial but not colonial affair of european power brokering and meddling in the middle east.
Or did you mean look but only sort of glance briefly at the surface of one aspect from one angle?

And oil pipeline and a stepping stone to Iraq.

oh, and a large helping of face saving.

Now on the subject of the qu'ran burning:
We should not be there it's time to go...especially when every little mistake we make gets reactions like this. However, Just because it was a mistake doesn't mean we don't have to apologize. Don't listen to the republicans who are running for office and will say ANYTHING they can to throw mud at Obama. They'll yammer on an on if they think they can get votes out of it. I just saw Neut on CNN, and he was in full on Obama attack/ buzzword mode saying thing like "Obama supports "infanticide"..." and "apologizing is a sign of weakness" and that makes me laugh. Were the USA we spend a mind boggling amount on defense, and are very powerful because of it. We don't have to be the muscly loud guy at the bar, we don't have anything to prove. We can be polite, but still be the guy nobody wants to mess with. To go even farther into this, I feel that this whole: "why should we apologize" is another political ploy IMO. It's to make the religious right happy, ignoring the whole idea set forth by JESUS saying "turn the other cheek" and taking an express train to spite muslim ville. Neut's whole argument of "well churches were burned in Muslim places" (paraphrasing) is farce. Since when do two wrongs make a right? It's okay to do anything to anybody so long as somebody has done it to us first? I guess japan has the green light to nuke everybody then....

My answer is unaware.

We will be there when we are done winning hearts and minds amongst the unwashed savages who just 20 years ago, stopped defacating in thier drinking water..


Do you prefer bombs, nukes, or a feel good hearts and minds operation, though the latter requires massive American lives, and 10 years worth of funding to mercenary corps, and munitions factories. (while social programs are cut at home)

War is a game to those who start it...But a reality to the rest.

Just ask my brother, oh wait, you can't...

But it's ok, someone got wealthy from it.

Yea they at least know where the toilets are, but not how to use them...

Link
(note you will need to correct the **** in the URL, the first letter is S :O: )

You should read some of the official reports:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ima...patibility.pdf

Start on Pg 41. :doh: The quotes from the troops in the field start around Pg 63 :o


http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ima...patibility.pdf

Aah it's completely new to me that Uncle Joes Troops (after all they were part of the Allied Troops) spread out democracy in the European Countries they "liberated".
Otherwise your statement also indicates the French and the Dutch did not had Democratic Governments and weren't Democratic Nations before beeing invaded by German Troops in 1940?

Is such nonsense nowadays teached in US Schools? :nope:

I specific did not mention any nations "liberated" by our Soviet "Allies".

I personally prefer the term Co-Belligerent or COMINTERN forces when referring to the Soviets. I think Frenemy is the 'hip' term to use.

Although it should be noted after the fall of the USSR most/all the countries "liberated" by Soviet forces in the war became democratic. (except for Belarus which was not even a country then.) The US and its NATO allies played no small part in causing the collapse of that Empire. So when any totalitarian force is removed from power by "Western" powers democracies spring up (slowly some times but they do)... except in the ME.

Kongo, perhaps you should also note the whole pile of non ME countries that didn't transform to democracies, you could even go on about the pile of dictators western allies installed or supported in "liberated" countries, you don't even have to go into the "allies that were dictatorships" sector.



I thought you might be, however it was mentioned on the first page of this topic.

Actually if i remember well.. Roosevelt's philosophy was anti colonial and as a part of a dealing with the allies it was decided that all colonies liberated should have a right to self determination in post war era.
In some places it had to take longer than in others but it was decided that British and French would have to give up their colonies.
It was partly humanitarian philosophy and partly economical one where Roosevelt thought that more overall wealth would come from free trade rather than simple exploitation of others.
ME had no cultural basis for democracy to exist and some dictators had been the only viable option and while others had been very popular as well.
Lets take non ME example.. Cuba...Castro was a popular dictator but still dictator ..oh well...he did not deal with USA but this belongs to cold war struggle.

Strange choice.
Cuba declared war on the axis so was a member of the allies and wasn't occupied by the axis or liberated from them.
Though their 1930s dictator who later became their 1950s dictator did say he wanted the allies to attack the Spanish dictator as well as the German and Italian ones.

Just a guy with curiously different image but still dictator:haha:

@TLAM thank you for posting the links.
It strikes me as its hitting on the problems to avoid which the military had already clearly identified before the invasion of Afghanistan..... which raises the question of what the bloody hell are the military playing at?

disclaimer...I was not in the Stan man so I don't know nuffin bout nuffin and had better shut the heck up as I don't walk that funny way which is clearly a requirement for saying anything.

Some historical backgrounds on this particular point.

So, in 1939, there was a dictatorship in :

- Poland (leader : Colonel Beck)
- Latvia (leader : Ulmanis)
- Lithuania (leader : Smetona)
- Hungary (leader : Admiral Horthy)
- Romania (leader : King Carol II, then General Antonescu)
- Slovakia (leader : Jozef Tiso)
- Bulgaria (leader : Tsar Boris III)
- Greece (leader : Colonel Metaxas)

In 1944, USSR "liberated":

- Poland (already "liberated" in 1939, remember Katyn)
- Latvia (already "liberated" in 1940, with a large deportation of people to Siberia)
- Lithuania (already "liberated" in 1940, same "liberation" than in Latvia)
- Hungary
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Bulgaria

.... and gave to these "fascist" countries a "deserved" "democracy". At least, its Bolshevik version !

But Stalin failed with Greece (out of his "liberation" area, even if communist ELAS tried to conquer power with the same intention).