I'm sorry but you are simply wrong. America is rich largely because of it's slavery past which was cotton, which was textiles. It's why we grew so quickly and put ourselves in a place to overtake everyone after World War 2 when we literally had half the worlds wealth. There's plenty of economic history of this that you can research if you care to try.

The fear thing is pretty unique in America but not unique when you compare it to say a authoritarian society. Americans are a terrified people and it's easy to use it. You can look back at the first Gulf War when people were buying guys and camo and readying themselves in case Saddam came to attack the US. Which is insanity. In the Iraq War we were more terrified of Iraq than Kuwait and it's citizens were, and they had been attacked by them and were their closest neighbor. You can also see the fear today about taking peoples guns away, if we don't have guns we're all doomed, the government is coming or al qaeda is coming and we're all gonna die. Most of the rest of the world looks at us and laughs when we react all scared to nothing.

This cartoon pisses me off for one reason. It reminds me about the South Park guys bitching and moaning about how it was put in after Matts interview, so it looked to idiots like they had made it. Apparently that was enough for them to bitch and moan about it, I lost a lot of respect for Matt and Trea because of that.

Kuwait is a tiny country, and didn't have nearly the military that Iraq had because of US support of Iraq. Do you remember until he attacked Kuwait he was a big Ally, we loved him and supported him right through his greatest atrocities.

The Gulf War was just us rolling over them, it wasn't even a fight it was us flexing our muscles and a good sign to other countries not to step out of line. We then allowed Saddam to stay in power by letting him crush the resistance against him which was serious and would've most likely overthrown him. We imposed sanctions that were in the words of Dennis Halliday "Genocidal." And which when asked if killing 500,000 Iraqi children was ok Madeline Albright said "We think the price is worth it."

Iran isn't like Iraq at all, either before the Gulf War or Before the Iraq War. It's got a much more powerful and technological military. Also the US is simply not as powerful as it was. Remember the Gulf War was just after the Wall Fell, we were the worlds only super power. The Iraq War was against a basically helpless nation (even Kuwait wasn't afraid of them anymore), and we were stuck there for years, it was ridiculous how we fucked it up so amazingly. Russia in Chechnya is pissing themselves over how we fucked it up so badly. If David Petraeus could do what Putin did, he's probably be considered the greatest military man the US had ever seen.

I'm sorry but we cannot invade Iran like we did Iraq, simply because the world is changing too quickly. It's not going to happen, and if it does, you'll see a real uprising in the US. The OWS thing has more sympathy than people think, it's just bubbling under the surface. If it's given a huge cause the troops will have to be called back to the US to control the population.

Also contrary to popular belief Wars don't make money, they cost money. Preparing for War makes money, the Military Industrial complex wants to always be spending money Preparing for War and not having to fight one that would take significant resources, like getting bogged down in Iran.

I'm sorry but it's just nothing like the same thing going on. I don't think we're going to be invading Iran on the ground ever do to the change in the power system and the enemy.

No sir, empathy and tolerance go hand-in-hand, I'm not a fucking out-of-touch dinosaur- I ALSO recognize that racism is an issue that garners that gut-reaction simply from seeing the word typed or written on a page with certain types of peeps too distracted by ancillary clap-trap (pretentious, insincere, or empty verbiage) to have any effect whatsoever on the world of the "real", whatever one perceives that to be.

I see Colin Powell's talk of racism in the republican party as a complete non-issue as in, "Why should I give a fuck about this Uncle Tom, proverbial, "house-nigger" who acted anything like a general or statesman when he addressed the U.N. in a rambling justification for bankrupting the country into the Gulf War(s)-He should regret his actions under Bush and go fuck himself into obscurity and stay the fuck out of politics forever, kinna like Nixon when he bellied-up and bailed-out before impeachment, and was subsequently pardoned by that OTHER ineffectual tool, Gerald Ford.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/13/colin-powell-regrets-u-n-speech-justifying-the-iraq-invasion/

The fantasy world I speak of you refuse to consider though under your nose where it rests and obfuscates world view.

The New World Order is happening, it's the mechanism of disinformation, obfuscation, world economic manipulation, etc, that has you right where you don't want to be, a willing slave, complicit in the breakdown of human societies worldwide. Welcome to the Matrix Wendy, enjoy your preoccupation with guns, racism, and voting booths


Oh, and for the record once again, I am apolitical and believe the parties democrat and republican interchangeable, and the equally meaningless terminology of political discourse in light of the fistfuck being perpetrated on all nations of the world, a complete and pathetic distraction.
The goddamn whore of Babylon wants your mind, money, and muscle and you're standing in line to be first on the train, in my , "fantastic" world of illusion.

1 more comment have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

>> ^MichaelL:

Gulf War vet with two black belts?
Hmmm...
Tactically, you don't keep your hands down by your waist when an agitated aggressor is nose to nose with you. Had the thug swung first he would have tagged the homeowner. Within a couple of feet of each other, the first person to swing will catch the other -- it's not possible to see the attack and react within the fraction of a second you have to defend yourself.


Nah he's fine.

Gulf War vet with two black belts?
Hmmm...
Tactically, you don't keep your hands down by your waist when an agitated aggressor is nose to nose with you. Had the thug swung first he would have tagged the homeowner. Within a couple of feet of each other, the first person to swing will catch the other -- it's not possible to see the attack and react within the fraction of a second you have to defend yourself.

>> ^TheFreak:

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.


My dad waited to get his wisdom teeth out, and they became impacted and then infected. He woke up one day with his jaw swollen out on one side and had to have an emergency extraction. He only found one doctor that would do it. They numbed him, but he was in too much pain for it to dull it out. Then the doctor straddled his chest and stuck a big steel bar with a crook into his mouth and hammered on the end of that with him watching and aware the whole time. Hit until he broke his tooth into a couple pieces and pulled them out. After he told me that, as soon as my dentist mentioned on needing to get my wisdom teeth out I was like "Do it but knock me out!"

that sounds quite medieval.>> ^TheFreak:

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world. Indoctrinated Democrats have no problem with bossing other countries around and getting our way, we just have to be nicer about it and do it carefully so that we at least LOOK like we're good. Whereas the indoctrinated Republicans believe we are "Special" and should not only do it but do it with complete disregard for what ANY else thinks or says.
This is just a theory based on what I've seen from what our presidents do. Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault.
I mean look at Bush and Obama...Bush locked up people indefinitely and said they deserved it and he does it because they're they enemy. Obama doesn't bother he just assassinates them. If Bush assassinated more like Obama he'd come out and take full credit and say it was AWESOME that he was doing it...Obama not so much, more hand wringing and deflection.
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well. It's just a theory but I like it.


Wow Yogi, we agree on something .

I think your view is pretty much bang on. The only difference between Dem. and Rep. presidents is the reasons they give for acting purely in their own self interests(which very often coincides with making decisions that are in America's self interests).

Where I disagree with Ron Paul's conclusion is about what the answer to all this should be. I don't for a second believe Ron Paul would be any different than all those before him. Instead of selfish wars he'd maybe follow the course of selfish isolationism. Take the recent example in Libya. America had two selfish options, go in or don't. Not going in would mean keeping the President's hands clean and money in America's pocket, and Ron Paul insists that what he'd have done. It also would have meant leaving thousands of Libyan civilians to Gaddafi's death squads. It would mean a Libya still ruled today by Gaddafi, with a newly subdued and less numerous population.

I don't see a clearly white/black obvious ethical choice in most geopolitical decisions, it's always messy. The Iraqi's that hate America the most(the Sadrists) don't hate them for all the things that America did to them, but for America's failures to act. The hate America for it's failure to push into Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In lieu of that they want revenge on the Sunnis. They want to commit their own eviction of all Sunni's from Iraq, or in it's stead to kill them for what Saddam had done with their aid. Was America wrong to stick around in Iraq after evicting Saddam and trying to stand in the middle, stopping a civil war driven by revenge against the Sunnis?

Ron Paul and Chomsky are generally agreed on minding our own business is the only ethical choice. It's hard to make that argument for Libya. It's impossible to make that argument for Rwanda. There are situations in our world were the ethical choice IS to go to war and stop something even more evil than war inherently is. What Ron Paul and Chomsky understand though is that no matter how grave the evil you oppose, your actions will create people who hate you for interfering. War makes it inevitable that your own forces will commit crimes against innocents, and their families will hate you. Ron and Chomsky conclude that means never get involved, I call that cowardice and insist there are situations that demand paying that price and coming to the aid of our fellow man when faced with terrible evils like genocide. In theory, every signatory nation to the convention on genocide agrees with me on this point too.

>> ^criticalthud:

i'd honestly really like to see a first person shooter where you play the nazis, or the iraq'is, or the japenese.
Yeah, playing the Iraqi troops during the first Gulf war would be a blast, mission one: surrender, mission two: surrender again, mission three: get blown up while fleeing Kuwait on the highway of death.

>> ^obscenesimian:

Yes yes. Kurds, hmmmmmm let me think
oh yes they were abused by turks throughout history but most notably during the the 1890's 1920's 1930's and on up to the 70's and 80's. Ironically, Kurds also were one of the primary agents used by the Turks in the deportations and massacre Armenians before and during world war 1.
Those Kurds.
Who were also abused by Saddam. All part of a long chain of ethnic cleansing, genocide and nationalist violence caused in a large part by religion and creed as well as tribal identity throughout the balkans and the ottoman empire and what became the palestinian mandate.
Which Hitchens thought we should wade into because science and atheism will put right through warfare that which religion and warfare could not put right.
Hitchens got so much so wrong so many times, but he sounded soooo good doing it.
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^spoco2:
>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.

His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.



Or more simply, Saddam was so horrific and brutal a monster that Iraqis and the region as a whole are better off for his removal.

Yes yes. Kurds, hmmmmmm let me think

oh yes they were abused by turks throughout history but most notably during the the 1890's 1920's 1930's and on up to the 70's and 80's. Ironically, Kurds also were one of the primary agents used by the Turks in the deportations and massacre Armenians before and during world war 1.

Those Kurds.

Who were also abused by Saddam. All part of a long chain of ethnic cleansing, genocide and nationalist violence caused in a large part by religion and creed as well as tribal identity throughout the balkans and the ottoman empire and what became the palestinian mandate.

Which Hitchens thought we should wade into because science and atheism will put right through warfare that which religion and warfare could not put right.

Hitchens got so much so wrong so many times, but he sounded soooo good doing it.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^spoco2:
>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.

His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.

>> ^spoco2:

>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.


His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

We're debating why we were attacked by a handful of radical folks
Pht - I can answer that in one word. Isreal. Next?
...whether or not our military engagement, specifically since WWII, has been productive in any measurable way...
Productive to who and in what way?
You see - to a leftist - your question is unanswerable. Like Ron Paul, leftists view any military intervention by the United States as unproductive. By their very natures it is literally impossible to supply a leftist with any response that they will find satisfactory. Leftists come from a particular philosophy and perspective that disallows the word 'productive' to be used in the same sentence as 'American military engagement'. Heck to this day there are leftists who even question whether the US should have gotten involved in WW1 or WW2 or not.
Other people with other perspectives are not quite so closed-minded about whether or not a military action was 'productive' or not because they allow other definitions of 'productive' to be satisfied. But to a Proglibdyte, ANY US military action is viewed as unproductive.

Bollocks. I'm a socialist and I firmly believe that not only was America right to get involved in WW2, it was right to get involved in Libya recently.

Typical "rightist" attitude. You can't see any nuance or context. The left opposed Americas intervention in Vietnam, in Iraq and guess what? They turned out to be fucking right. Hell, I don't even remember that much left wing opposition to gulf war 1, other than the likes of Bill Hicks pointing out the ridiculous position you were in was largely of your own making.

As for "American exceptionalism", the USA had some grand ideals, and should be commended for that. But the reason it occupies the place it does in the world today is down to geology (it was rich in natural resources) and geography (America has never had a strong belligerent neighbour). So really, more down to good luck than good management.