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

"EU army, if that ever arises."
I thought the proposals for that had gone through? Mind you, haven;t heard anything about it for ages so maybe not.

I thought it was on the 'stalling forever' list. I think the Rapid Reaction Force has come into existence, but I meant a proper, fully integrated, full power army

http://xiando.org/fun/George_Bush_State_of_Union_Parody_Video/

Scroll down and click on 'download the video'




az

Bouncy said:"Also note that Japan is extremely pacificistic these days."

Erm...the current government and right wing here in Japan are doing their best to change that. The country has officially been pacifistic since the end of WW2 when the occupying Allies (read: USA) imposed a constitution on Japan that forced it to become democratic (it isn't really that democratic the same party has been in power for 60 years, with only a brief blip about 15 years ago when they shared power. Between a quarter and a third of the seats in the parliament or Diet are held by the offspring or close relatives of the people who held the seat previously and many seats have been in the same family for three or four generations.) and pacifistic.
The Article 9 of the Japanese constitution states:

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. 2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. "

Sounds good, right? But Japan has the seventh largest spending on military hardware in the world and the one of the largest and most sophisticated militaries in Asian. Oh excuse me, its not a military, its a "self defense force" (just like Israel's) There is a huge push on right now to get rid of the bulk of article 9 in a sweeping constitutional revision.

Add to this the outright denial by the right in Japan to recognize and apologize for past atrocities committed in WW2 and you can understand why the Chinese are getting a bit shirty about the latest move in Japan to approve textbooks that gloss over the Rape of Nanjing and the issue of wartime sex slaves while Japan seeks a permanent seat on the UN security council.

Some documentation from the Japanese media

http://kevinswoodshed.blogspot.com/2005/04/historical-revisionism-misinformation.html

http://kevinswoodshed.blogspot.com/2005/02/revisionism-and-denial-daily-yomiuri.html

I've set up a separate forum thread for the Japan vs. China discussion.

I live in the US, & I completely agree with the opinion that if my country isn't at war, it will create a reason to get into one. Some people need an enemy to feel good about themselves, unfortunately. I could live without enemies easily, & I cannot understand why some people just cannot stand it if they don't have an enemy. I guess this is why I am a Democrat instead of a Republican.

Tammy

<>

That's the general impression I have got about the USA myself, especially from Hollywood... Poor dears seemed so confused for a while after the end of communism, and made a few forgettable movies with South African villains for a while - and then, no doubt to their great relief, along came "evil Islamists".

As the ever-wise Lisa Simpson observes, everybody needs an enemy or an opponent, I think one of the ways we define our points of view is to criticise those views that are different to ours. The only problem arises when you are a superpower and have the ability and inclination to fight others, rather than just dealing in rhetoric

Hello! Absolutely new here. Sorry if this is unwelcomed but i need to barf all my school knowledge out for my own sanity.
====
Armed conflict may be subdivided in terms of level of intensity

1. Minor armed conflict:

a. at least 25 battle-related death per year and
b. fewer than 1000 battle related deaths during the course of the conflict

2. Intermediate armed conflict:

a. at least 25 battle-related deaths per year and
b. an accumulated total of at least 1000 deaths, but
c. fewer than 1000 in any given year.

3. War: at least 1,000 battle related deaths per year
====
thank you.

Well...the first thing I would ask is where that interpretation came from.

If it's from Fox, then swell!!

http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/07/doonesburys_interview_with_rupert_murdoch.php

That's brilliant, cl zoomer !

The US is at war because our government has persuaded citizens that their freedoms must be limited to protect their security. Whether we are actually at war with anyone is a different question--but we're at war because we're acting like we are.

Here'a a question for those of you that so seem to so blithly accept that the USA is *not* 'at war';

If the events of the 11th of September 2001 had been carried out by a nation state (let's call it Bezehkstan, for the state of argument), would that have constituted an act of war?

And here's a corollary;

If the actions of Bezehkstan *would* constitute an act of war, why is it any less an act of war when commited by an organization or loose affiliation of organizations?

"those of you that so seem to so blithly accept that the USA is *not* 'at war'"

Who are they?

I haven't had the impression that anyone on the thread was blithe about the question. Apart from the Starfleet silliness, the question has been discussed with a certain attention to detail which has, I think, demonstrated that there is a little bit of complexity to the question.

It's funny. I've just come back from the States. Whilst I wouldn't claim it made me an expert, a period of time spent in New York did give me a few insights into the way people think there.

And it is transparently obvious to me that that there are many, many average US citizens who sincerely believe that they *are* at war. And what scares them most is that they do not know who they are at war with. And is grossly unfair to assume that those people simply feel that way because the President and the media are manipulating them, as must be the assumption behind those who state that the USA is *not* at war. I suspect the bloody (literally and metaphorically) great hole in the ground in lowwer Manhattan may be one reason why they feel this way.

And, as I often find on HooToo these days, the question at the heart of a post goes unanswered while you choose to pick up on the periphery. Care to answer the question?

I gave my answer in post 5. I didn't think I was picking up on the periphery.

If the single act counts as an act of war, then the U.S. has been at war with Sudan since the Clinton days.

According to U.S. law, the country is not "at war" until Congress declares war, something it has not done to this point in the War on Terror. I don't see that anyone on this thread doubts that invading a couple of countries constitutes war in a less formal sense.


As an aside: Do you think the President and the media are not manipulating the people? I certainly don't think that the people 'simply' feel anything: their feelings are intensely complex. I've watched my parents feelings on the subject of 9/11 quite closely ever since they arrived in Manhattan on 9/10. They watched from their hotel window as the planes hit and the buildings fell. Before they'd whiped the dust from their eyes the media from the other side of the continent was calling them to record their feelings, thus forcing them to articulate before they had finished coming to terms. 'Something should be done about the people who did this' became in ensuing days and months 'the response is worse than 9/11'. But nobody from the media called to ask them for a considered response six months later.

"there are many, many average US citizens who sincerely believe that they *are* at war. And what scares them most is that they do not know who they are at war with."

My opinion, based solely on what you've just said, Blues, is this: those people ARE at war. Their enemy is the government. *Their* government. It's their government that is sending them and/or their children to Iraq to be maimed and killed by IEDs. It's their government that's restricting their liberty. It's their government that's doing and saying things that make carrying an American passport a bad idea. The only thing that surprises me is that hardly any of them have made this connection.

I read an interesting factoid the other day. There's a massive decommissioned nuclear bunker at Kelvedon Hatch in southern England. It's a tourist attraction now. Apparently in its lifespan of over forty years, costing £3million pounds a year, it was never once at red alert status. In fact, it only once ever even went to amber. During the Cuban missile crisis? No. The Six Day War? No. The invasion of Afghanistan? No. Operation Desert Storm? No. The Falklands War? Hardly. The bunker was put on amber alert status in 1984 - for the miners' strike. The government seriously considered the possibility of civil war, and had their bolthole prepared. Makes you proud, huh?

H.

I didn't say I don't think that the media and the President manipulate the people, merely that it wasn't the sole reason. I'm also intensely aware of how the media on both sides of the Atlantic has a tendency to paint as 'abnormal' (in whatever way they can) those who express 'forgiveness' for the aggressors. (Thats been happening here since the first IRA bombings.) And the 'doorstepping' of victims and witnesses and the failure to folow up on those witnesses and victims is a shortfall in media coverage on virtually every subject.

Strangely, I know all about Kelvedon Hatch - it's about 3 miles from my front door, and I've driven past it regularly. I'm not sure that there is a parallel between Thatchers rabid hatred of the NUM and the US citizenry and their president though. I need to think about that.

My basic point remains though. Whilst I appreciate that *constitutionally* the USA is not at war, it's difficult to see 9/11 as anything other than a huge act of aggression carried out on American soil by foreign nationals. It is not analogous with Pearl Harbour, but perhaps more accurately with the sinking of the Lusitania.



as an aside, I loved the pictures of Cheney with 'Spiderman' and 'Captain America' promoting whatever nonsense Marvel were pumping out. I can only imagine what the British press would do to 2 jags were he to attempt the same sort of stunt...