h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Della"
There have never been any *hate*, put-downs, personal insults, accusations of personal issues or mental problems from/between the other people : Zagreb, Tacsatduck, Frogbit, etc..,"

Subcom:
Della, I think you might have glossed over some posts between Zagreb and Frogbit back there. There was a moment back there when, if this had been a hockey game, the gloves would be off.

Starbirth:
Sits by and rubs some of his bruises recieved in this thread.But in fairness admits to throwing a few punchs in the earlier days.

Sorry Zagreb, I was away for awhile.

"What bait?"

The bait, as I mentioned, was having an American diplomat tell the Iraqi government that America had no interest in defending Kuwait.

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html

"Analiese can type up a storm when she's in the mood, but I think her complaints about the treatment of Native Americans relate directly to the current situation in Iraq. Imperialists are using the same pretexts for invasion that they have used for centuries, and the results in Iraq will probably be similar to other places we've invaded."



Analogies aside, the concern I have is with length. If there is an argument put forwrard, based on these analogies, then I have missed it on account of the extrodinary length, coupled with my limited concentration span.

Please keep all arguments to the length of a pancake recipe.

The beginning the argument.

The middle of the argument.

The end of the argument.

Oops, didn't have room for the argument. Oh well, anybody interested in a frybread recipe?

Just shows how the same words can mean different things to different poeple. The way I read it, the Amassador was saying that the US did not wish to become embroiled in Arab conficts, and was only in US-Iraqui relationships. At no time was defending Kuwait mentioned. That would have been taking sides.

>>But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.>>

Sounds like perfectly sound diplomatic language to me. Its called not taking sides. However, if something different was said to Kuwait, that would be cause for concern.

Stuart

I agree! Down with American/Western imperialism!

You can do anything if you have the most powerful military that's ever existed in human history.
And remember not to eat Iraqi or Serbian/Balkans food if you can help it!

The paralell I think is accurate. We need to stop this guy BEFORE he does things as terrible as Hitler and it will be an uphill struggle stopping him.

We would have had our arses kicked if it weren't for America in WW2 so we shouldn't be so anti them (europeans only really!)

Whether you agree or not, I personally would rather be on George Bush's team when the guns roll out and frankly that's not just because I'd get blown to bits on the other side.

The West doesn't want to stop him doing things as terrible as Hitler. The West helped him when he was doing things as terrible as Hitler--i.e. murdering Iranians and Iraqi Kurds with illegal poisonous gas that the US, UK, etc. sold him.

The Americans only helped us (i.e. Europe) because Germany's ally Japan attacked Haiwaii. Otherwise, they'd probably have joined with Hitler to fight the Soviet Union, and supported the Nazi occupation of Europe (like they support the Israeli occupation of Palestine now). Of course, if Hitler invaded the Middle East we wouldn't be having all these problems with Iraq or Israel or whatever because Hitler would have come up with a simple solution to Jews and Arabs all fighting each other and themselves: i.e. kill them all!

thats cool unless your waiting for a little brown envelope to come through the door telling you that you've been called to duty..

Isn't it telling that the above posts you can't actually tell which person they are talking about, Saddam or Bush, because of the lack of names mentioned?

Ste

I noticed that.

Hey folks, those of you who believe that military adventure, war, or colonialism are not, any of them, a good thing and especially if you happen to live outside the USA, here are three suggestions for you to act on:

1, work to make your governments remove US military bases from your countries; why you ask: there are so many US troops posted in so many countries it actually is a subtle form of virtual occupation.

2, ask your governments to repeal the visa waiver programs - even as an interim measure - between the US and each of your countries; why, again: so that each move is subject to scrutiny.

3, ask your banks to scrutinize and make the information available to the public on all flows of funds at or above $250,000; why, to follow the money of course.

I think they messed up a bit with trying to associate Saddam Hussein & Bin Laden. They were trying to link Saddam with terrorism, but its backfired because it lets Saddam claim to stand for the Arab world against the west, pose as champion of Palestine etc. Its also nonsense.

Then you've got the weapons of mass destruction. The evidence that these exist at present are some warheads that could concievably be used in chemical weapons and missiles that exceed the 90 mile range limit. Not to mention the sheer hypocracy of the US using this as an arguement when it has a confirmed stockpile of said weapons and a history of using them.

Personally, I think that as long as weapons inspectors are cooperated with in Iraq then there is no reason for any further action. Far more important to diffuse the main cause of Arab-Western tensions by finding a permenant solution to the problems in Palestein & Israel.

Whoa! Who said that the West sold poison gas to Iraq? Secondly, I don't think they sold much stuff to them, all the equipment I ever saw was Soviet/Warsaw Pact hardware (tanks, fighters etc.).