Mr Saddam, you have mail!

[Moiraine]

Originally posted by Nachtrafe: Simple Dunda...WE DONT! Sure, we do our best to maintain the lawn, and paint the walls. But we're not forcing anyone to watch. And we have our own problems. Rats in the bastment, silverfish in the walls, and crap on the tv. But we are pretty good about policing our own. And when we have the cleaning vehicle come down the road to flush out the spetic tank, why, then the WHOLE neighborhood feels the need to come out and kibitz, and tell *US* how 'we're not doing it right'. And then, what happens when we look out at the rest of the neighborhood and see that some people are in less nice houses, or, are being forced by some nutjob to live 20 to a room with little food and no freedom, then we are forced, by simple compassion if nothing else, to react and try to help those persons? *WE* are the ones who are derided. *WE* are the ones accused of being 'mean-spirited' or of 'sticking our noses in'. Why is that? To be honest, I still haven't figured that one out yet. *tosses [img]graemlins/twocents.gif[/img] on the table* EDITED: Cause I narfed up the quotes. :S

Problem, Nachtrafe, is to set the line between giving a hand and intruding.

Reading your post, an image came into my mind, an image from an Italian movie of the sixties, don't remember which : A child had done a prank, so his father starts yelling at him, so his mother starts yelling at the father, so all the family starts chasing each others and yelling at the top of their lungs. Then a guy arrives and tries to stop them. Then all the family together start chasing the guy and yelling at the top of their lungs ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

As my father's family is the Italian kind, we all yell a lot. In fact, in a family meeting, the more shouting aloud, the more happiness ! When someone stops yelling, it usually means something is wrong with him. But suppose, say, a Swedish guy comes around. As in his culture people yell only when things are very bad, he would be appalled and possibly try to calm things down ... which noone wants him to do ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

It is in your culture to want to act as soon as you perceive there is a need. It is in our culture to be wary of possible intrusion and its consequences. Both viewpoints are useful - together. That's what the U.N. is about, IMO. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by johnny: Funny statement about the house. It may look big and flashy on the outside, but inside it's pretty messy if you ask me. Your "big nice house" needs some cleaning up.

Your opinion has been duely noted and will be taken under advisement [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 10-29-2002, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by Charean: As far as Bush and his reasons for going after Saddam: I am not convinced this is for the good of this country. I haven't seen convincing evidence that he is linked to Bin Laden. I also wonder why something was not done sooner when he didn't comply with UN regs. At this point, going in there on our own will only sow dissent with the rest of the UN. I think that would be a huge mistake. Not only would we have only ourselves to rely on, but Saddam may pull in some allies and we may not be able to beat back all of them. From what the White House says, they only want regime change. I am sure that they can pull that off without going to war. Whatever happened to simple assassinations? That would be a LOT more efficient. (And before I get bashed for being Liberal - I am not. I am a moderate and registered Independent. I do not toe party lines of Anyone.) I'm not knocking you for being a liberal (you aren't) I just disagree 0n your assessment of the hows and whys of our current campaign against Iraq. I think there is ample evidence to warrent our actions and I think it should have been done the first time SH violated his terms of surrender. But only time will tell if it is good for the US or not As far as us going in to Kuwait: Oddly enough, I was over there. Oil was a factor, but not the main one. As far as most of the military and me were concerned, we were going over there to protect a country that could not defend itself. It was a UN effort and they all went in there to keep Kuwait free of a dictator.

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by MagiK: Just wanted to say, thought this was a wonderful allegory [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks Magik. I was feeling in a relatively quiet, contemplative mood this morning. Had some amusing news when I got up. [img]smile.gif[/img]

EDIT: Dammit! Narfed em up *AGAIN*!!

[ 10-29-2002, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: Nachtrafe ]

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by johnny: Funny statement about the house. It may look big and flashy on the outside, but inside it's pretty messy if you ask me. Your "big nice house" needs some cleaning up.

Erm...not sure to whom you're referring johnny...but if it's to me, then, if you read my post, you should have noticed that I addressed that issue with the statement below.

And we have our own problems. Rats in the bastment, silverfish in the walls, and crap on the tv. But we are pretty good about policing our own.

If you were referring to someone else...my apoligies.

Nacht

[Nachtrafe]

Originally posted by Moiraine: Problem, Nachtrafe, is to set the line between giving a hand and intruding. Reading your post, an image came into my mind, an image from an Italian movie of the sixties, don't remember which : A child had done a prank, so his father starts yelling at him, so his mother starts yelling at the father, so all the family starts chasing each others and yelling at the top of their lungs. Then a guy arrives and tries to stop them. Then all the family together start chasing the guy and yelling at the top of their lungs ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] That's hilarious! [img]smile.gif[/img] I saw something similiar a long time ago on some black and white movie. Cracked me up.

As my father's family is the Italian kind, we all yell a lot. In fact, in a family meeting, the more shouting aloud, the more happiness ! When someone stops yelling, it usually means something is wrong with him. But suppose, say, a Swedish guy comes around. As in his culture people yell only when things are very bad, he would be appalled and possibly try to calm things down ... which noone wants him to do ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

The problem is, we're not *just* talking about shouting. If people in other countries want to get angry with one another...that's fine. You dont see the US jumping into British elections, or even into Iraqi 'elections'(even though the latter are a joke). It's when it gets beyond just shouting and being loud and turns into armed conflict that it becomes a problem.

And heck...sometimes we even let that go. Other sovreign countries are allowed to have their internal problems. And sometimes those problems even spill over into other sovreign nations. And again...we(the US) generally are even willing to let that go, unless we have a mutual assistance treaty with the attacked nation.

But when another nation asks for help, or one group is being 'ethnically cleansed'...well, are we not honour bound, again, by simple compassion, to help? The U.S. spends more money on foreign aid than ANY OTHER NATION ON EARTH(I'm talking raw dollars, not percentages)! That's pure compassion. Are you going to denegrate us for being compassionate to our fellow human beings?

There are a great many of your fellow Europeans who are more than willing to do just that.

It is in your culture to want to act as soon as you perceive there is a need. It is in our culture to be wary of possible intrusion and its consequences. Both viewpoints are useful - together. That's what the U.N. is about, IMO. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well...let me offer you an analogy. I'm no mechanic, but, I have owned several cars(and some of them were even those 'evil' 4 wheel drive types [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). And I *know* that it's a heck of a lot cheaper to practice preventative maintainence than to wait for the engine to seize up and replace it.

Now, I understand where you're coming from about culture differences Moraine, but, given the option, I'd much rather jump the gun and make a 'interfere'(and even be villified by the finger pointers of the world), rather than give a madman the chance to 'cleanse' millions. Just my opinion though.

Erm...and dont even get me started on the UN. The only thing the UN is good at is sitting on it's collective thumb and flapping it's collective lips. Period.

[ 10-29-2002, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Nachtrafe ]

[Iron_Ranger]

Originally posted by Barry the Sprout: Just a quick point Iron Ranger (and others, of course): You admit that people are mad at the USA, you also admit that this anger is a large cause of the actual and potential terrorist attacks on America. Without going too much into the issue of whether or not the anger in question is justified (been there, done that... got the scars...) isn't it simply rational to want to care about the problem? If you ignore the causes of international terrorism and just go around bombing people then, I hate to say it, its quite likely to happen again. How do you think we should get rid of terrorism? I have come to the conclusion that someone who arranges the genocide of 3000+ people cant be neogotiated with. These are NOT rational human beinings. Saddam proves we cant neogtiate with over the top middle eastern terrorist. Hes been proving that for a 10 years now. It's always been my position that America didn't "deserve" the Sept 11th attacks, but maybe I think precisely this attitude is why people didn't see them coming. Ignoring this feeling, right or wrong, is a very dangerous course of action.

Who exacly do you mean didnt see it coming? American syvlians? Your right of course, pre Sept 11th Americans wouldnt have thought in a million years something as awful as that could happen. Our minds wearnt on such things. In all honesty I cant remember what was important to me pre 9/11. But if your talking about the goverment, they did see it coming. They wear just a little to late in trying to stop it.

[Charean]

In a way, that reminded me of our response to Pearl Harbor in WW2. We actually knew it was coming - the intelligence worked.... but nothing was done till it was too late.

Oddly enough, the Japanese were very ashamed that the bombs got to us before their declaration of war.

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: Nah I dont think thats true. Anyone that watches the news will see that people hate America. Its just, I for one, dont give a crap.

cobblers. you see a few people intervieweed don the telly and that's dictated how ALL of us feels does it?

DUH!!

[Kaltia]

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: Anyone that watches the news will see that people hate America.

Only thing I hate about America is DAMN MICROSOFT! Grrrrr......*as her system crashes again* the @$$holes will pay for this.