The Politics Thread - Read the First Post

[littlesplinters]

Still waiting for them to show us them weapons of mass desstruction Bush keeps harping on about!!!



Woke up this morning to the words 'weapons of mass destruction' and

'Syria' being linked, this is getting very scary, is Bush going to march into another Arab country playing the 'weapons of mass destruction' card? Even scarier is the fact that the only weapons of mass destruction we definately know are in the middle east are those in Israel!Go figure?

[tommo]

Oh weapons of mass destruction will indeed be found, I'm sure. Even if someone has to put them there.

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

[darkmagicwillow]

I agree, Ruth. Bush and Blair have too much invested in Iraq to not find weapons of mass destruction, and I think Powell's presentation of forged evidence to the UN proves that they'll fabricate what they don't find.



Bush has said that he won't invade Syria, and I hope he's smart enough to be telling the truth about that. Yes, the US would annhilate Syria's military, but the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are already too much of a commitment. The hard part is just beginning, as both the British (1840's) and the Soviets (1980's) discovered in Afghanistan. It's easy to win the war, but as I said in an earlier post, the difficult and most important part is the peace.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Kieli]

Quote:

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In battle you do what you have to do to survive and get home.

---

But that's not really the point, is it? The point is, she could not follow an order to kill someone, anyone for any reason especially not the spurious reasons given by the American govt. There are many soldiers that are in war that come home that have never fired a weapon. So that whole "you do what you have to do to get home" logic is mighty thin IMHO. People say war is necessary. I don't think that is true in the slightest. War happens when leaders get a little too much a taste for power and want things done now and when they say so. Apparently diplomacy is for us pinko, leftist liberal bleeding hearts who think that ALL life is precious



Interesting how that POV (that all us leftist, commie pinko liberals are weak-minded) only works until it's our own troops being caught, tortured and killed. Then we scream "HEY! No fair, they ain't playing by the RULES!" WTF? This is war, people. If you start it, then don't expect people to play by some arbitrary rules. The US ignored the UN when it suited them but then had the unmitigated gall to say that they were "upholding the dictates and rules of the UN". How much self-serving can you get" I had to laugh when Rummy got all indignant about the possibility of US soldiers being tortured. What the hell did he expect? It wasn't meant to be a tea party. That's what happens when you declare war. And unfortunately it sucks for the US soldiers because they're caught between a rock and a hard place. They're good people, trained to do their jobs and brainwashed by their leaders and then turned into pawns for a sick, disgustingly greedy political game. The sad part about it is, checkmate will only be reserved for those in power. The board will be littered with the pawns in uniform trying to do what was ordered of them.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.

[dekalog]

I went to the movies and was late for my show, and the friend I was with hadn't seen Bowling for Columbine yet - so I decided I could see it again. I had seen it more than a year ago, and seeing it again tonight was really weird.



And so the spread of fear by the media and those in power continues. DMW I wish I could believe that Bush and Rumsfeld and those in the Pentagon truly cared about the peace in Iraq. I don't - watching tonight reminded me again about the propaganda of war, and how insidious it is. I hope you are right and that they don't go in anywhere else, but then again I would have thought with Afganistan, Bosnia et. al. still unsettled, the middleeast situation the way it is, and the ample fuel that this kind of action would throw on the fire of terrorism that diplomacy would win out in the end. There are many people happily getting rich of this war, and more and more it seems that people are buying into the fear factor, so I really think if he can sell it he's going to go for it.



I guess the new enemy has been found.

[sparrow]

Actually that very much was my point.

And yet, I just can't seem to care
Buffy as you know it is over

[Kieli]

Your point was not what I was addressing. What I was addressing was your response to Ruth's point, which you apparently missed.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.

[friskylez]

I dont know where those who are saying the soldiers are "taught" to think this or that or they are killing machines or taught to fight, is coming from..If you havent been in the military then you have no idea what someone is taught or not taught...



The infantry and support soldiers are two entirely different types of soldiers..I was in the army for 6 years and i dont remember a time when i was taught to kill, taught to fight, taught to be in a war, whatever..



I was an air traffic controller and unless i was on a field exercise, i pretty much had a 9-5 job just like civilians..I fired an M-16 in basic training cause everyone has to qualify with it, but i sure the hell didnt carry it around with me every day..



It might be better if you didnt lump all soldiers together...The infantry, airborne, rangers etc are elite groups in the military and yes they are trained to kill/fight..I on the other hand was not..



Nor would i have been thrilled at the idea of having to shoot someone..Would i have done it had i gone to war, maybe if it was a case of survival or self defense, I dont know..i dont really think we know what we will do in a situation like that until it happens..

"Life is what happens while waiting for your ship to come in"

[xita]

But were you in the army during times of war? I talked to someone who was in the army to fix generators but as soon the war talk started months and months ago, they've been training for war. I got detailed descriptions of running in their chemical protective suits and feeling like you're going to pass out, talks about geneva convention guidelines that should be ignored, what to do if you were going to be taken in as a POW. Everything he did for months was war training.

-----------------------------------

Si nos dejan buscamos un rincón cerca del cielo

Si nos dejan haremos con las nubes térciopelo


José Alfredo Jiménez

[tommo]

friskylez, I'm basing my suppositions on what I happen to know as fact. I know, as I'm sure does everyone in this thread, that you have been in the military. However, please allow us "civilians" some intelligence for actually basing our ideas on a factual information. I happen to know, for example, that British soldiers are given background details that help them appreciate the culture and nature of the place they are being posted. This has been standard procedure for all soldiers going to Iraq.



My point, however, was not that the military are "taught" to kill people. I'm sure, in times of peace, that the armed services provide many valuable skills. But the fact still remains that the armed services are just that. Nobody's pretending, surely, that people who join the military hope to have a desk job for their tenure.



I was merely expressing an opinion that I was disappointed with the actions of troops in Iraq. I don't appear to be alone in that.

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

Edited by: tommo at: 4/16/03 10:50:07 am

[bzengo]

When I was in the US Army, even the support troops had to qualify yearly on the firing range, and pass a field exercise to prove their combat readiness.



Not prove their ability to shuffle paper, treat patients, or land planes. Prove their combat readiness. Yearly.



In the current threat environment, it is expected - expected - that the troops several hundred miles from the front lines, so called, may suddenly find themselves engaged in combat. Yes - the combat arms take the brunt of the attack. And the combat support arms are right behind them. But the logistical tail is a target, as the POW's from the Quartermaster company in Iraq found out. They made a wrong turn, and suddenly a bunch of them were dead, and the rest, captive.



Soldiers who thought their jobs in the military were to do this or that, but not to fight, in my view, didn't have a clue what their job actually was. Or how either their superiors or the rest of the world views them.



Here's a hint: Annual Combat Readiness Exercise

bzengo


Robert A. Heinlein The Earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep all your eggs.

Prof. Gerard K. O'Neill Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

Edited by: bzengo at: 4/16/03 12:24:53 pm

[friskylez]

Xita i was not in the military during a time of war, i believe i said that..My point was that not all the soldiers in the army, i cant speak for other services, are combat trained regularly



Im not saying that they didnt train to go to Iraq, itd be pretty stupid of the army not to give the soldiers some training, just in case something happened like it did to the 507th..So im not sure we even disagree...



Ruth, the comments i was refering to were " a soldier's job is to KILL another human being" and "but it's understandable that, at some (post-deployment) point, soldiers would want to do the job they were trained for, i.e. to make war".. I should have clarified what i was talking about, sorry..



Bzengo, I dont know when you were in the military, not that it matters, but im only speaking for what i went thru and i had no combat training...i know what training i had and i was with an infantry division..



We went to the field alot but it was spent sitting around drinking cokes, playing cards and waiting for an aircraft to want to talk to us..No war exercises there...



As for your experience, i am not going to say no you didnt go thru that..It depends on the unit, if it is a time of war, what MOS one has etc..



I qualified with an M-16 every year as well and i just managed to hit the target, I could barely hit the broad side of a barn...Did that mean they wouldnt have sent me to Iraq, i doubt it..



So one can be "trained" all the military wants, it doesnt mean that one is combat ready, but theyll probably send ya anyway..Some of us just do our jobs and if we are lucky, we get out of the service without ever having had to go to war..



I was addressing what appeared to be a common misconception for some that all soldiers are trained for combat and to kill....

"Life is what happens while waiting for your ship to come in"

Edited by: friskylez  at: 4/16/03 10:11:34 pm

[Gatito Grande]

Ah, but friskylez I wish you were. Furthermore, I wish that every single voter and/or taxpayer were trained for combat . . . in the sense of fully understanding what war is---what the entire military-industrial complex is about. If we *all* understood how we were contributing our part toward blowing children's arms off, we might begin seriously questioning the whole damn business, and not merely measuring our "support of the troops" when "they're in harm's way" (like this was some act of god, rather than the result of very human decision-making).



It's too easy to hide behind the "I wasn't trained to kill" portion of the military, just as it's too easy to hide behind the "well, geez, I have to pay my taxes, even if they are paying for cluster-bombs" or "OK, my favorite candidate supported the war on Iraq, but hey, didn't they all?"



It's an old cliche, but if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem---and that goes for every single American, starting w/ myself. I could have done---still could do---a heck of lot more to resist the U.S. war of aggression than I have so far.



Like Martin Niemoller said about life under the Nazis: "They came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews . . ." (et cetera ad nauseaum). I'm not calling Bush a Nazi, but the principle deferring responsibility in the face of injustice is the same. Everyone has to look in the mirror and ask "How have I cooperated w/ this? Where's my place to say 'No. Stop. This is Wrong.'" It's not about what the troops (current or former) are doing, it's about what the rest of us aren't doing.



GG When they come for the Kittens, who will be left to speak up? Out



And still my dissertation-revision deadline screams "GG! Shut up about the war already! (and get off the internet!)"

[tommo]

GG, I hear what you're saying, and in some respects, I agree. We (and hear I mean society in general) have some kind of collective responsibility to stop things happening, or to change and divert the course of events in history. Indeed, history has proved that people can and often do this. However, the fact still remains that in London, and all over the nation in the UK, anti-war protests drew thousands upon thousands of people from their homes to join together in protesting the onset of war. Children were granted a day off school, if they wanted it, to go and join the demonstrations in their local city centre. I've never seen anything like the number of people who turned out to protest the decisions that were made by Tony Blair. Hell, he even faced down opposition within his own political party.



I think what I understood as an outcome of this is that public opinion, certainly in this case, wasn't just ignored, it was flagrantly flouted. In the end, it felt like the people, or society, indeed, was ignored. Nobody listened. At least, the people who were supposed to be listening turned conveniently "deaf" whilst these demonstrations were going on. I think there's a feeling of frustration, certainly in this country, with the overwhelming realisation that our politicians, elected by us, have failed us. In the end, the decision to go to war was made by a very small group of people, against the wishes of the masses. And there was nothing the collective "we" could do to prevent that.



I think a lot of people in the UK would say that they did try to stop this. They would say that they did everything they could without the privilege of power or social standing. The grossest misconduct of the politicians in the UK, namely Tony Blair and those who supported him, was that they failed to listen to the people who put him into office. I'm sure that this will have recriminations in the future, in terms of how upcoming elections will play out. There's a local council election in early May, actually. I had the Labour party candidate come round to my house canvassing, and honestly, my first response was that she belongs to the party who took us to war.



When the people do demonstrate; when the people do speak up, and they are ignored, what then? I think it will be a long road forward, with many repercussions. Certainly my faith in a government elected by the people, for the people, and the responsibilities that come with that, has been shaken. Has democracy failed us? I don't know. But I do know that to go to war, in the face of such overwhelming opposition, has brought into question the whole notion of governmental accountability in this country, for me, at least.

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

[Diebrock]

tommo, that reminds me of the situation in Germany. The opposition is accusing Schroeder of populism (among other things) because of his anti-war stance which, and there is no doubt about it, played a big part in his reelection last fall.

I am starting to think it's criminal for a democratically elected politician/government to be in agreement with the majority of the people.

Something is wrong in the state of Denmark and every so-called democratic country, when the fact that the government and the majority of the people (which they are supposed to represent) have the same stance on something important, is seen as an indicator that the government's position can't be right.

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[friskylez]

GG, you are correct, we can all do more to show that we do not support the war, the President who was responsible for us going to war and the politicians who supported the President..There is a saying "if you cant "change" the people, then change "the people"..I didnt vote for Bush last time and i certainly wont be voting for him next time..In the grand scheme of things my one little vote may not matter, but alot of little votes will..

"Life is what happens while waiting for your ship to come in"

[Kieli]

GG: I think this is the reason why Switzerland has been so successful at maintaining strict neutrality over the decades. All of their citizens are required to have a certain period of military service. And yet, they are a peaceful country fully capable of going to war to defend their country if need be. It's interesting to note that NO OTHER COUNTRY fucks with them or drags them into international disputes. You don't see Bush threatening them if they don't support the US. I really do think the US might get its comeuppance if they did. Going against a country where almost every citizen has military training would tend to make one think twice....they surely wouldn't be pushovers.



I think the reason why Switzerland has remained neutral is because they really do understand what war is. Being required to serve at least some term in the military, I'm sure has made its citizens very very aware of the dangers. The US should have a similar policy. Maybe our fellow citizens on both ends of the opposition scale would have a better understanding of how horrible war is and how the decision to make war should not be taken lightly. How is it that the Swiss still have an extremely successful nation despite their neutrality? I think Bush needs to take a few lessons from the Swiss. The world might be better off if he did

Time flies by when the Devil drives.

[tommo]

Ah, the days of National Service. I don't know if anyone saw it, but last year they had a programme in the UK called Lad's Army. Basically, what they did was put a group of 18 year olds and upwards through basic training of the type they phased out in the 50's. Honestly, I think it really gave those lads a real appreciation of their lives outside of the training regime.



My dad was the first year to not do National Service here in the UK. I wonder how things might be different if all youngsters did have to do that. I know that they still do this in other countries - does it have an effect of a positive nature?

So are you to my thoughts as food to life; Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

[xita]

I want to state that certainly knowing the realities of war would be most benificiary in keeping people from wanting war, but I am not sure mandatory service is the best way.



Kieli, I am not sure that's the main reason Switzerland continues to be neutral. Turkey requires that every male citizen serve at least 2 years. As a result they have one of the biggest most powerful armies in the world. This isn't keeping them from conflict.



I think there are many reasons why Switzerland has been able to remain neutral. The biggest one is probably that they have a commitment to stay neutral. I wonder how successful they would be at staying neutral if they had the third largets supply of oil in the world.



Anyway back to an old topic here, frustration. What else can we do? I have been listening to a lot of radio, kpfk if you are in LA, and I hear that from a lot of people. It isn't just enough to hold rallies and hold peace signs. What other types of grassroots efforts can we do that will make a difference. For any americans here, I think it's crucial that we elect a new president next year. We can't allow them to steal the elections from us again. But yeah it certainly has felt since this man declared himself president, that the people's opinions don't matter.

-----------------------------------

Si nos dejan buscamos un rincón cerca del cielo

Si nos dejan haremos con las nubes térciopelo


José Alfredo Jiménez

[dekalog]

Well you also have to figure in that Swizterland is ground zero for all those rich corporate, illegal and high end bank accounts.



I think it's more complex than that. Personally I have never held nor wish to hold a gun. I've taken Tae Kwon Do, but enjoy it as a sport/philosophy and can't imagine ever using it ON someone. I don't need training to know the costs of war, there is enough proof out there for that. I just feel that there is a deeper incentive here as to why Governments/People get pulled into these situations. Us against them. Fear. Hate. People who think their way is the best way. People who don't want to listen to other's POV's. There are so many complex variables at work here. Bottom line on this war though is business and economics - and not just about the oil. Control and power. HAving more people in the world knowing how to blow someone else's head off will not help extinguish the desire for others to have power over someone else. Then again that's just my opinion.

[tommo]

Well, the question of power opens up yet another can of worms. History has taught us that, no matter how egalitarian a society's principles, there will always be people who will "rise to the top" if you will. How does a society extinguish the desire for power, for having it and using/abusing it? I'm not sure there is a solution to that.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life; Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

[dekalog]

Agreed tommo - I never meant to imply that it was an easy solution.



However, I think that's where checks, balances, discussion, and negotiation come in. It is why organizations like the UN exist. I know that there are problems with it, and most other bodies, but at least it allowed a place where discussion on issues, and power imbalances could be heard.

[Diebrock]

I'm pretty sure the Swiss military isn't that great. Sure they have almost every male able to handle a firearm but every professional army will be a lot better trained.

At least that is what I would expect from the experiences with the draft that we have in Germany.



Switzerland has always been COMPLETELY neutral. Not just pretended to be and in the background favored certain factions.

It is also pretty small and neither really blocks the way nor is it of real strategic importance or else Germany would have attacked and invaded it in WW2 (as happened with other countries).

They had no border disputes with neighboring countries nor internal trouble with the different ethnicities (which is often used as a reason for outsiders to interfere).

The Swiss NEVER even tried to interfere in other countries to further their own interests and thus never had to resort to military action to support and protect those interests.



And I think in the end the mentality is that the Swiss are the best nation in the world but they don't go out and try to convince the other nations of that. They know they are and don't have anything to prove. A stance like that doesn't provoke anyone to show them that no, they aren't.



There are only three countries I would even consider to immigrate to (if they would wanna have me is another question ). One is New Zealand, because they have the best landscape there is and really nice people.

The other two are Sweden and Switzerland because of all the things that made/make them stay neutral. There is a certain attitude that goes along with that, that I really admire.

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[Kieli]

Quote:

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Turkey requires that every male citizen serve at least 2 years. As a result they have one of the biggest most powerful armies in the world. This isn't keeping them from conflict.

---

Actually that statement is incorrect. Turkey is indeed among the top twenty but it does not contain the biggest or one of the most powerful. Those armies are among the Asian contigent. It might be that Turkey is among the list of the most well trained armies of the world. But not the biggest or even the most powerful. That distinction belongs to China, although the Chinese army is not very well trained. They got that distinction by sheer numbers of personnel and equipment. Israel also has mandatory service for citizens if my memory serves me. They are also among the most well-trained international armies.



World and Regional Armies as of 1994...this link shows the status of world armies as of 1994. Turkey's armies and military might has dropped significantly since that time and thus its status amongst the world's largest armies, while not totally insignificant, has been greatly diminished over the past ten years.

Quote:

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There are so many complex variables at work here. Bottom line on this war though is business and economics - and not just about the oil. Control and power. HAving more people in the world knowing how to blow someone else's head off will not help extinguish the desire for others to have power over someone else....



History has taught us that, no matter how egalitarian a society's principles, there will always be people who will "rise to the top" if you will. How does a society extinguish the desire for power, for having it and using/abusing it? I'm not sure there is a solution to that.

---

I very much agree with these statements. Can the very human (and rather unfortunate) urge to seek dominion over another person be supressed? I agree with Ruth in that there may never be a solution to that. God knows, we've had thousands of years to try to remedy that problem and are no better off than we were at the very beginning (except for enhanced intelligence and an even greyer moral and ethical boundary nowadays). Now things seem more complex and there are more variations to the situations as nations have grown more aware of each other and their places in the world order (god I hate that term).



While I agree with dekalog's statement:

Quote:

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However, I think that's where checks, balances, discussion, and negotiation come in. It is why organizations like the UN exist. I know that there are problems with it, and most other bodies, but at least it allowed a place where discussion on issues, and power imbalances could be heard.

---

I think these things are limited by human interests and the lack of education in logic. Just having fora where open discussion can happen is simply not enough. Yes there are problems with it but I think the problem lies in that those within these organizations and our leaders are given FAR too much leeway to make decisions for their countries. They are no longer held accountable for their actions (or rather, the measures for accountability no longer have any teeth. Those that would enforce those measures no longer have the means by which they can be enforced. The elected leaders have seen to that...). The peoples of the countries involved need to have more of a voice. Hell even here in the US where the electoral vote can override the popular vote this has become an issue. It's no longer a democracy (relatively speaking since no government in the world is a true -ism in any form but rather a blend of several or a few) but merely a ghost of democracy. Money and influence decide our leaders and not the people per se. In a place where I'm forced to vote for the lesser of two evils instead of it being for the person best qualified to fill the position, I am deeply disturbed by this.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.

Edited by: Kieli at: 4/17/03 12:49:06 pm

[tommo]

You didn't, dekalog. What you did do was make me think very hard about a lot of democracy-related issues, not simply on a political basis, but also on a societal one. Thanks.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life; Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

[xita]

Kieli, I didn't say Turkey was the biggest most powerful Army. I said it was one of the biggest most powerful armies. It is a sleeping giant, there is a reason the US is not pushing Turkey around. Anyway, you prove my point. Israel does require service in the army and I would hardly call that a peaceful nation.

-----------------------------------

Si nos dejan buscamos un rincón cerca del cielo

Si nos dejan haremos con las nubes térciopelo


José Alfredo Jiménez

[dekalog]

as did you I, tommo

[Kieli]

Quote:

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It is a sleeping giant, there is a reason the US is not pushing Turkey around.

---

Well that's not entirely true. Turkey may have a large army but like China they are woefully undertrained. That never stopped us from trying to manuever China around. And it never stopped us from trying to pressure Turkey into using their airfields as landing pts before going into Iraq. That never stopped us from going toe to toe with North Korea and accusing them of being in the "Axis of Evil" even though presently North Korea's army is actually larger than Turkey's (by the most recent statistics and not by the ones used in the 1994 table of data that I gave a link for).



Simply saying that other nations that require military service aren't neutral so thus Switzerland's requirement is not reason for neutrality is unfounded. The requirement for citizen military service could very well be THE reason why they've remained neutral for decades. You and I have no real proof that it's not. I was merely positing a theory but, until we have proof otherwise, it's quite possible that could be the truth. Who knows? So no point is actually proven. You've not posited any real truth only that other nations require military service of its citizens but chose not to remain neutral. Each nation that has that requirement may have specific reasons for their lack of neutrality.



Take Israel. Since it's a created state and had been occupied by the British and the French for a very long period of time (then called Eretz-Israel) prior to the Balfour Declaration, it had no established army and no other way of creating one other than to draw from its own citizens. Since they were bordered by Palestine, who was not entirely happy with the creation (and still isn't) of a Jewish state, Israel had to have a way of defending themselves once the British and French pulled their armies. Turkey was an already established country and was once the Ottoman (or Osmanli in Turkish) Empire until Kemal Ataturk had the Ottoman Caliphate abolished in 1924 to form the present republic. It already had a history of requiring male citizen military service (this replaced the Janissaries by the 1600s: www.fsmitha.com/h3/h21-ot.html) So naturally it would contain one of the largest armies in the world.



Then there is Switzerland. In 1291, the states of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden joined to found the Swiss Federation and were soon joined by other surrounding states to help protect each other from the German emperors (at the time of the Federation's creation, the Hapsburgs were in power and the Swiss Army had defeated the Hapsburg army to secure this independence from Germany). In 1648, it called itself Switzerland and under the Treaty of Westphalia it became an Independent Nation, and declared its policy of neutrality. The Treaty of Vienna in 1815 re-established Swiss neutrality. So the Swiss had seen enough of war in their time, had been conquered and re-conquered time and again until the Hapsburg Reign.



I really do think that their policy of strict neutrality stems from a) their very intimate experience with war in the early days and b) their desire to not become a conquered nation again (and that could have happened especially since Hitler was running through Europe like a runaway train during WWII). And thus these are the reasons why I feel that their citizen military requirement and subsequent neutrality was based on their personal (as a country) war experiences. In addition, there are very different situations for which certain nations have citizen military requirements as is shown in the histories above. The Swiss have only recently joined the UN in 10 Sept 2002 so now that it's a very real possibility that their neutrality might be compromised.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.

Edited by: Kieli at: 4/18/03 7:21:01 am

[kukalaka]

I haven't been around for a while and I don't think I'll be able to catch up on the complete thread, so please don't hit me if I bring something up that's already been mentioned.



There are so many things about this situation deeply concern me. Apart from the most obvious:



There really is no system of checks and balances in the world anymore. "power corrupts... " ... "and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It really scares me. And I'm so frustrated by the fact that it's the US I'm scared of. I actually happen to like them/you, that is why I'm so mad about that. And yet I have to keep hearing that attitude is "anti-american". It just couldn't be further from the truth.



After 9/11 there was so much solidarity with the US. To think of that and then think about where we're now is depressing.



The way some supposedly democratic governments ignore the overwhelming majority of their people is a shame. And if you think Britain is bad, have a look at Spain, that's even worse.



The way Germany's opposition leader keeps saying "We 100% back the US in everything they do, because of our common values" is sickening. Like "common values" (I think the German expression she's using sounds a lot worse) in themselves are reason enough to back a war.



I'm mad at the German opposition because they've stripped me of pretty much any choice of whom to elect. I just can't vote for them now, I'd feel like betraying myself. And yet, I want to have a choice. (Something that would be even more important seeing how the current government is completely f...ing up home policy at the moment.)



Most of all, I had a discussion with a Macedonian in september 2001. I told him that "western governments" think there are reasons for going to war, I even admitted that they might not always be right about those reasons, but that I'm convinced that they never actually want it. And I really believed that. This feeling is gone and it will probably never come back. Granted, I probably was naive to begin with, but I still hate being taught that way.



And, sadly, I've actually started to lose interest. I've been interested in politics and the like since I was a teenager, but right now it sometimes is just too mentally exhausting to care. And I really think I'm too young for that kind of attitude.



Sorry for talking so much, shutting up now.

---

To look life in the face, always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is, to love it for what it is.

[Kanina]

I was trying to catch up on this thread but I think it's impossible, so I'll just add my 2 cents. Let me just state for the record that I'm against our occupation/liberation of Iraq and I've never been in the military. First off, I have very little respect for the UN, except for it's field workers. And having worked for many monolithic bureacracies including a UN agency, I can say they are definitely the most bureacratic & wasteful that exists. Talk about power hungry. If anybody knows anything about the UN and all it's agencies, they know it's filled with exactly the kind of people that we say the war mongers are. The politics are no less brutal at the UN then anywhere else. Unfortunately, its the starving and dying people of the world who suffer for their political fighting. And all under the auspices of how fabulous those people who work at the UN must be.



If Kofi Annan had really wanted to make a statement, he would never have pulled out of Iraq. The UN would have stood by it's supposed calling and said we're not pulling out. They could have told our short-sighted President that if you bomb and kill or destroy any UN people or property, the US will be held accountable. I'm not saying that would have stopped our administration hell bent on this war, but at least the UN would still have some dignity. If anybody has every met a field worker, you know that they are called to their duties in a deeply profound way. A majority of the Iraq population relied on UN assistance for their basic needs and yet, they pulled out their workers so the we could protect oil wells and destroy the little that the general population possessed.



I also wish that as a world we were less concerned with what "I" have and more concerned with what "we" have. I for one am a firm believer in the idea that there is enough to go around for everyone. As for what I can do, I know and have protested this war in ways that I haven't since the early 1990's when Pete Wilson tried to trample on the rights of gays to be free from employment discrimination in California. He didn't know all the rich white gay boys wouldn't take kindly to that. And we were definitely the best dressed protestors.



Oh, how time flies when you're so full of yourself. Gotta go!