In 2003 when we universally joined against the Booshe war in Iraq

[DainBramaged]

It was because we knew it was illegal. Today, with turmoil throughout the Middle East and the long-repressed peoples of many nations rising up to fight their oppressors, why has selectively choosing which war is good and which war isn't become the rage here? Afghanistan was fought to free them from the Taliban, and we are bogged down. I though the war in Iraq is over, yet we remain. Now we are bombing a dictator that we just recently began trade talks with (and apparently shipped 'terrorists' to for interrogation at some point) and we are supporting "rebels" who we don't know.

Who do we bomb next in the name of freedom?

When did we become a waring political party? Did I miss something? This isn't what I signed up for over 43 years ago. This isn't the Democratic Party that told me to hope for change, this is the same old same old.

[Catherina]

1. Rec'd. To no avail. n/t

[DainBramaged]

2. It's OK, what goes around comes around

they want the thread to die.

:hi:

[Forkboy]

3. If we're waiting for American politics to fix things, we're all dead.

[Distant Observer]

4. You have company. I am so dissapointed that Obama would join in this new killing field

I would understand some action to defend the innocent, but what I see is the usual demonizing of the
enemy and their cowardly and bloodthirsty destruction based on all kinds of questionable pretexts and the
typical "imperial" justifications.

[DainBramaged]

7. We've selected 'targets', who knows the truth about those 'targets'?

[Desertrose]

5. Another rec into the black hole.....

I agree...not the hope & change at all...same sh*t, different day.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. rec. nt

[Catherina]

8. I kept thinking about this while cooking. If you really think about it

when have we not been a warring party? When's the last time you can point to when we haven't been involved in a war somewhere?

It's a sad statement that our system can't survive without meddling in other country's internal affairs. We have everything we need in this country to be self-sufficient but apparently we act as if we don't have enough and the whole world needs to subsidize our lifestyle.

[Ozymanithrax]

14. Actually, we cold not be self sufficient...

There is not enough oil, rare earth elements, fruit (we import massive amounts and would have to drastically increase the cost of fruit while reducing its availability), and this is just a fraction of the things that we are not self sufficient in..

Self sufficiency in the modern world is not possible. North Korea has tried the self-sufficiency route and it's people are drastically malnourished.

[Catherina]

18. We most certainly could and there most certainly are.

Start by ripping up that all that cement poured over former orchards to grow your own fruit instead of destroying orchards so corporations can have stately buildings.

Self sufficiency is more than possible. We just don't want it. It's easier to subjugate and steal instead of cleaning up the land, water and air poisoned by greedy bastards with no conscience.

If a people can't be self sufficient, it doesn't deserve to live on this earth.

Our ancestors stole a resource-rich PARADISE from Native Americans and people are now complaining there aren't enough resources to go around? To go around for whom? Oh you must mean to go around for people who think happiness is plush golf courses in the middle of the desert and a stock portfolio from speculating on the price of food and how much we can squeeze out of less well-armed nations before they revolt at theft by governments of the first world.

Watching the profiteers of the first world complain about lack of resources sickens me as much as their cry of population control for the poor.

[Ozymanithrax]

19. So what you are saying is that if we just changed everything to something else...

and let the people die who are too poor or too uneducated to move out in the country and become subsistence farmers starve to death, why we would have a paradise on earth.

Our ancestors lived in a tiny fraction of the numbers we have now. They lived short brutal lives, the average life span being 39 before 1900, dieing in childbirth, working themselves to death, or in grotesque accidents.

In those countries where self-sufficiency is practiced, such as that beautiful picture of vulture and its luch, famine and disease are rampant.

Before you peddle self-sufficiency, you should decide which 3/5ths of the 300 million people should die. The vast bulk of people here have neither the training to grow so much as a tomato, nor the desire to eat lotus blossom promises of self-sufficiency.

[Catherina]

20. No that's not what I'm saying. I said what I meant to say. Thieves steal

and then complain there's not enough for everyone.

[Ozymanithrax]

22. We have 300 million+ people in this country...

Most of whom live in cities. Most of whom have no clue how to be self-sufficient. We are not going back to an idyllic age because there never was an idyllic age.

Yes people steal, and in every society the rich exist. I suspect that is a flaw in the human psyche, especially when we grow to bigger groups than a few hundred.

Studies I've read of hunter gatherers like the Kung Bushmen show that small groups of hunter gatherers could find enough food to meet their minimum requirements in an average of 6 ours a day. But their lives were far from idyllic, and it only works in small numbers. The answer may be that there are just too many of us humans and the ecosystem will collapse at some point and then rebuild itself.

I don't know what the answers are, but I think they will have to be systems of organization that allow us survive and be more humane.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. We supported Egyptians, Tunisians, and even Libyans when

their protests were peaceful.

So Libya decides to murder its protesters,and all of a sudden we don't know them.

That whole "we don't know them" argument is rank hypocrisy because we have to do something besides applaud over the internet. We don't know them because we actually have to do something dificult.

[DainBramaged]

10. They are being murdered in other Arabian countries, should we pick and choose?

h wait, we are picking and choosing...


Doctor speaks of 'hundreds of casualties' in Bahrain


Hundreds of people have been injured in clashes in Bahrain, according to a doctor who spoke to the BBC by phone from the Gulf state.

He also said that soldiers and police had seized ambulances and appeared to be firing on anyone in their path, but that it was impossible to identify where those responsible for the violence were from.

On Monday troops from neighbouring Gulf states were sent to Bahrain to help deal with continuing anti-government protests. The king of Bahrain has also declared a three-month state of emergency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12752675

[Ozymanithrax]

12. We should not accept this anywhere it is being done.

whether it is Libya, Bahrain, the Ivory Coast, or Afghanistan.

If those governments want to be hypocrites, we can't stop that. We don't have to be as civilian citizens.

In my opinion, any government shooting its citizens for wanting more freedom should be added to a no fly list.

Justifying doing nothing to protect civilians in Libya because the Arab League governments is made of of hypocrites is a piss poor argument.

If a person is a pacifists absolutely opposed to violence and war and makes an argument based on that belief and tells me that we should not use violence even in the defense of others, I can accept that as a reasoned and ethical decision, even if I don't' agree with it.

I have yet to see an argument made here that war is wrong and war in defense of the innocent is still war and wrong and unacceptable. They want to say it is all about oil, or we don't' know these protesters, or Europeans are afraid of being overwhelmed by refugees and want to stop people from fleeing a war zone, or the Arab League are a bunch of hypocrites that do this to take attention from their own crimes.

[DainBramaged]

13. Tomato, tomatoe

:beer:

[treestar]

15. +1

Well put.

[pampango]

11. The UN has no business telling dictators not to kill their own people?

If national sovereignty trumps everything, then the UN has not role to play indeed in pretty much anything. The UN rarely authorizes military action unlike the US and it congress which done so repeatedly in the past 50 years.

[indimuse]

16. KNRx1000

Thank you. I don't know what happened around here either ..

[DainBramaged]

17. And it remains at zero!

My point > proven.

[Suziq]

21. Representing the Lurkers . . .

who agree with you wholeheartedly. +1

[xchrom]

23. Recommend