Gore Calls for Rumsfeld, Rice and Tenet to Resign

[Joe King]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

Far more likely the Europeans will immediately make a deal with the terrorists who did the act in order to prevent themselves from becoming the next target.

After the attacks on 11/09/01, NATO voted to activate its mutual defence clause (for the first time), declaring that they would all work to defend their allies against the attack. The vast majority of Europe supported the war in Afghanistan, because there was a clear link between Afghanistan and these attacks. If there was another attack on America, the again Europe would support the US in attacking a county if that country was proved to have a clear link to the terrorists. They most definatly would not make a deal with the terrorists - Europe is already a target. Spain was attacked. The head of the Met (London police) recently said that an attack on London is inevitable. Europe is every bit as determined to fight terrorism as the US, its just that Europe didnt agree (for the most part) that Iraq was part of the war on terrorism.

And yes, Al Qaeda will thrive on chaos. Chaos and uncertainty enhance their position until they're the only stable factor left so they can just walk in and take over.
Divide and conquer. First drive Europe and the USA apart, then fraction Europe.
Start by taking over small countries to get you a powerbase and once you have that start taking on ever larger ones.

Right. So there's going to be some kind of Islamic uprising in Europe is there? :roll:

[Joe King]

Originally posted by Hussein Baghdadi:
Hi Axel...
I respect germany (and Japan), because they build their economy after the WW2 and now they considered the one of the best economies...
beside, I like german cars (BMW, Porsche, Audi... )

This is quite an interesting side effect of defeat in WWII and the following cold war. After WWII, Germany and Japan, like many other countries (especially in Europe) had large amounts of their cities devastated and in need of rebuilding. Unlike the victors of WWII, Germany and Japan were banned from having large armies and therefore only had small military expenditure. As the rest of the west went nuke crazy during the cold war and started building up missiles, tanks and planes all over the place, Germany and Japan put their money into their economies instead. This combination of having to rebuild from scratch a lot of their infrastructure, and the inablity to have a large military budget has meant that Germany and Japan have now become incredibly strong economies (in relation to their size and resource base).

[Joe King]

One trouble with the Israel-Palestinian issue is that its just not a simple good guys vs bad guys situation. Both sides have reasons to want vengeance and both have committed atrocities - neither are "good guys". The Palestinians say that they want their own country (which the UN partition gave to them and the Israelis subsequently annexed), but then Palestinian terrorists attack civilians with suicide bombers - they are not "good guys. Israelis says that they are defending themselves against terrorists, but last week shot several members of an un-armed protest and then bulldozed a zoo for no apparent reason - they too are not "good guys". The situation has now reached the point where most children in the region grow up with a reason to hate the other side, making peace very hard to negotiate.

The other factor making peace hard is the fact that both sides believe that they have a lot of support to carry on what they are doing - Israel knows that the US is more likely than not to veto any UN SC resolutions against it. The Palestinians believe that they have the support of the Arab world. While both sides see this kind of support then peace is not likely - they both think that they can win. What we need instead is for the rest of the world to push for peace. Luckily this is happening - the US sponsored the "road map" and some Arab countries supported it, but at the same time resolutions were being vetoed and Arab militia groups where entering the west bank and Gaza. Maybe the best option would be to build a big wall around Israel and the occupied territories and let them get on with it without any foreign help - a bit like shutting two squabbling children in a room together until they can sort their differences. Ten years later we can look over the wall and see if they've come to their senses yet or not.
[ June 01, 2004: Message edited by: Joe King ]

[Arjun Shastry]

How about changing the name of land/country to Palesrael?
1)then install and configure Democracy with the help of other nations.
2)Csutomize it according to people needs.
3)Patches if any will be supplied by UN in future.

[Max Habibi]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
I learnt to play chess when I was 6! And what do Persians understand in caviar anyway?

Well, for one thing, we know that children should be learning chess @ 4

M

[Mapraputa Is]

Then you won.

[Paul McKenna]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
When you ask this kind of questions, there is always a possibility somebody will make profound conclusions from what you reveal. Sometimes you don't want to fit into somebody's sets of preconceptions.[/QB]

Map, you didnt get my point. I was not going to judge Max by his ethnicity. I had already judged him to be reasonable and rational, this even before I asked him about his ethnicity.

It was my mistaken assumption, that Max was a muslim, that made me want to find out his ethnicity. I wanted to see if other muslims from the same ethnic group had similar thoughts about America. No judgement / conclusions had been made yet..

I dont think knowing my ethnicity, anyone can make judgements about my community. But they certainly can try and find if other people in my group feel the same way I do.

[Michael Ernest]

Muslim? I thought Max was from Ohio.

[Paul McKenna]

Originally posted by Michael Ernest:
Muslim? I thought Max was from Ohio.

??? No muslims in Ohio??

[Mapraputa Is]

PM: Map, you didnt get my point. I was not going to judge Max by his ethnicity.

I got it now. You were going to judge Max's ethnicity by Max. Seriously, I didn't say *you* will. But when you ask this in a public forum, well, you have public. It's almost impossible not to assume anything (that's how our brain works, we always make assumptions), and these assumptions can be irritating, I suppose. (like you assumed Max is a Muslim when he is not). But I only guess here, maybe Max has very different considerations...

[Max Habibi]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Then you won.

No, the damned 6 year olds would kick my ass...

M

[Bert Bates]

Ok, so there are about 5 different sub-threads in this thread, I want to go back to an earlier sub-thread...


Has anyone read "Colossus" by Niall Ferguson? (I haven't, but I heard him interviewed, and I've read some of the reviews, therefore I'm fully qualified )...

In it, he compares the British empire to the U.S.'s foreign policy over the last 50 years or so. One point he made was that of all the interventions that the U.S. has made (how many, 50?, 100?), the only times a country really converts to a stable democracy (which is maybe 3 times?), from something else, it's taken DECADES of U.S. military presence.

So the point is, history would tell us that Iraq will only become a stable democracy if we're committed to being there for DECADES...

From the reviews, it seems that his view of imperialism is fairly even handed (in other words it's not necessarily a bad thing). A key point is that the U.S. really is an empire, albiet in denial, and that as such, we ought to at least be honest and realistic about what that means.

So, that sounds good to me... maybe being an empire is OK, but we really ought to be upfront and realistic about it. For instance, if we're going to 'convert' Iraq, let's know going in what kind of committment we're making.

[Mapraputa Is]

Bert: Ok, so there are about 5 different sub-threads in this thread,

Wait until this evening, I plan to attack Max on his anti-poll theories.
[ June 01, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Max: Polls demonstrate correlative, not causative, relationships. Consider the various ways in which phrasing can affect the answer to a question

Ok.

1999, The Gallup Poll.
"Would you favor or oppose the United States increasing economic aid to Russia?"

Favor43%
Oppose53%
No opinion4%

1999, NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll:
"As you may know, Russia continues to experience economic difficulties that some fear may threaten the country's stability. Do you think that the United States should or should not participate with other countries to provide financial assistance to help stabilize Russia?"

Should55%
Should not33%
Depends (vol.)6%
Not sure6%
http://www.pollingreport.com/russia.htm

:roll:

But Max, this is just a badly made poll. Are you sure you don’t substitute "a badly made poll" for a poll in general?

Polls demonstrate correlative, not causative, relationships.

Don't correlations sometimes indicate a cause?

Consider the ways in which phrasing can affect the answer to a question, the discrepancies over what a 'sample population' is, the non-impartial nature of the people conducting the polls, different interperations of the means on polls: no, polls aren't a worthwhile measure of reality. Much better, IMO, to observe to world around you.

What you advocate here looks simply like "a poor man poll". At least, in "real polls" efforts are made to ensure a random sampling, and this idea is missing in your "observe to world around you". "The discrepancies over what a 'sample population' is, the non-impartial nature of the people..." -- Ok, but at least the people who conduct the polls are well aware of these issues and specially trained on them, which cannot be said about us.

I can ask John Smith what he thinks about, say, this years' elections, but this will be just John Smith's opinion. If I want to generalize what "American people think", then well, I thought this is what the Statistics Science is for! And you seemingly just dismiss it.

[Max Habibi]

Map, See here
[ June 01, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

[Jeroen Wenting]

90% of statistics cannot be trusted and the other 90% are unreliable.
That's been statistically determined...