Massachusetts Law Professor Calls Care Packages for U.S. Troops 'Shameful' Read more

[ABikerSailor]

Hey MikeK..............got news for you chumpsteak, but you don't support a war by sending care packages to soldiers.

Sending care packages to soldiers actually represents gratitude that you have for them defending your rights back here in the states.

If you truly support a war, you re-elect the politicians who start them.

 

[MikeK]

I'll see your My Lai and raise you Hue. The vast majority of atrocities commited in Vietnam were commited by Vietnamese.

The Huế Massacre (Vietnamese: Thảm sát tại Huế Tết Mậu Thân) is the name given to the summary executions and mass killings perpetrated by the Viet Cong and North Vietnam during their capture, occupation and later withdrawal from the city of Huế during the Tet Offensive, considered one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

During the months and years that followed the Battle of Huế, which began on January 31, 1968 and lasted a total of 28 days, dozens of mass graves were discovered in and around Huế containing 2,800 to 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war.[1] Victims were found bound, tortured, and sometimes apparently buried alive.

A number of U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities as well a number of journalists who investigated the events took the discoveries, along with other evidence, as proof that a large-scale atrocity had been carried out in and around Huế during its four-week occupation. The killings were perceived as part of a large-scale purge of a whole social stratum, including anyone friendly to American forces in the region.

The major discrepancy in your reasoning is what the Vietnamese did they did in their own country, not ours. Do you acknowledge the legal, political and moral differences between what they did in their own country and what we took upon ourselves to aggressively travel thousands of miles and spend massive amounts of money to do?

And while the Hue atrocities vastly outweigh the My Lai massacre let us not forget the sum total of destruction we visited on that nation via Agent Orange defoliation, the carpet bombing and the legacy of minefields and cluster bombs -- which are still killing and injuring children.

What have you to say about that?

 

[Navy1960]

Sadly, as I read this thread it's hard for some as it's been over time to separate the soldier from the politics that send the soldier to War. In all Wars be it a declared one, or one that is simply called a police action, I can assure you, when you are the one being shot at, you make no such distinction. While it's true in War, that there are those that carry out atrocities, from the Gremans at Malmedy, to the Christian Crusaders at Jerusalem, to Lt. Calley in Vietnam, to Mao in China, to the Spartans who were wiped out by Xrexes at Thermopylae and on and on throughout human history. To blame the soldier,sailor,airman, and marine for the actions of a few much less, the actions of the Govts. that send them into battle and deny them the simple pleasures of home based on that perception is to take a very narrow minded view of the world and to take the easy way out when it comes to trying to find real answers to peace.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
Nelson Mandela

I frankly find it shameful that someone would look back into history to a War like WW2 and judge the actions of the United States at the end of that War on a barbaric empire to somehow justify the actions of young men and women today. I will take up the challenge of defending the United States during WW2 and will start here,

The Bataan Death March (Batān Shi no Kōshin (バターン死の行進?)) was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners.
Bataan Death March - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers—and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%
Japanese war crimes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YES War is a terrible thing , anyone who has ever served in combat will tell you that, however when you call into question those that take up the task of defending the nation in which they live, and often times even other nations as well, you bring dishonor on yourself the nation in which you live and most of all the young men and women who fight to defend it, most of whom would just rather you say nothing if you do not have the ability to say thank you, and most of the time thats not even expected. I will leave you with this..

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 and the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its ½ mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.
American Battle Monuments Commission

They never came home to their homes and are where they fell and died not only defending this nation but died returning the ground in which the fell to it's rightful owner's and brought back peace to them with their lives, so do not judge people like this, if you do not have the ability to send a care package or do not even want to as they do the work that most choose not to do.

 

[asaratis]

...to read all the bullshit in this thread.

I challenge any and all of you idiots that agree with the liberal nutcase that is the subject of this thread to go and spend time in any one or all of the countries in which we are fighting for freedom from oppressive dicks like Hussein, Gadhafi and others like them.

You'd best be thanking the guys that keep this country free. They put their lives on the front line for YOU. Little do they know that many of you are today not worth the shit that your mammy cleaned off your ass before you learned to wipe your own.

It takes no brains at all to denigrate the military.

Right out of the box, I saw that this pseudo-intellectual "professor" was from Massachusetts. Being a liberal in Massachusetts is enough to prove lunacy.

Massachusetts...the second most fucked up state in the union.

 

[MikeK]

Hey MikeK..............got news for you chumpsteak, but you don't support a war by sending care packages to soldiers.

Sending care packages to soldiers actually represents gratitude that you have for them defending your rights back here in the states.

If you truly support a war, you re-elect the politicians who start them.

How has your twisted reasoning managed to work it out that the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing wasted effort in Afghanistan does in any way defend our rights?

You can't be that stupid or you wouldn't be able to operate a computer. So you need to understand that you've been brainwashed and try to get your mind adjusted. I suggest you start by trying to understand the only beneficiaries to our aggression in the Middle East are the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex which President Eisenhower warned us about.

Sending gift packages to strangers certainly does tacitly suggest you approve of what they are about. What other motivation could there be? If you don't understand that it's because you don't want to. And that state of mind is the likely result of Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck boring into your poorly defended brain.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Hey MikeK..............got news for you chumpsteak, but you don't support a war by sending care packages to soldiers.

Sending care packages to soldiers actually represents gratitude that you have for them defending your rights back here in the states.

If you truly support a war, you re-elect the politicians who start them.

How has your twisted reasoning managed to work it out that the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing wasted effort in Afghanistan does in any way defend our rights?

You can't be that stupid or you wouldn't be able to operate a computer. So you need to understand that you've been brainwashed and try to get your mind adjusted. I suggest you start by trying to understand the only beneficiaries to our aggression in the Middle East are the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex which President Eisenhower warned us about.

Sending gift packages to strangers certainly does tacitly suggest you approve of what they are about. What other motivation could there be? If you don't understand that it's because you don't want to. And that state of mind is the likely result of Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck boring into your poorly defended brain.

No MikeKunt, sending packages to fellow Americans who you know are serving overseas to keep you safe back here is an act of gratitude that everyone should express.

It's the politicians you stupid asshole who send the troops into combat. As a troop, you really don't have much say in where you deploy.

It's a fact I know very well after serving 20 years in the US Navy.

 

[9thIDdoc]

"And that was not the only such incident. So how can you criticize people for being ashamed and angered by such things done in their names?"

That would be because you knowingly defamed a few million innocent Americas who were never even suspected of any wrong doing. You are obviously not a big fan of due process.
How can you not be angered and ashamed by those who flaunt our enemies' flag on our own streets during time of war while throwing down and urinating on Old Glory? Sometimes I wondered if we weren't shooting the wrong batch of communists.

"We were there killing people who represented no threat to us -- including a hell of a lot of innocent women and children."

Speak for yourself. Those names on the wall aren't imaginary and they were certainly a threat to our ally-including a hell of a lot of innocent women and children.

"-- but it's quite another thing to do it and believe you have the right to be proud of it and expect others to respect you for it.

I have known many Vietnam combat veterans who would tell you our actions in Vietnam lacked legitimate purpose and therefore were nothing to be proud of."

Soldiers are NOT lawyers charged with quibbling over the fine points of "legitimate purpose". It's not part of the job discription. Soldiers go when and where instructed by the American people to carry out the mission(s) assigned. Soldiers did that during the World wars and have continued to do so through the present. Who-if anyone-you respect is your business but soldiers who have kept faith with their bros. and the American people have earned your respect weather you choose to give it or not.
I did not want to join the military. I did not want to go to Vietnam. Those were duties that you (if you consider yourself part of "we the people") laid on me. I'm not ashamed of anything I did and am at least at little proud of what I managed to do. Your words shame yourself and no one else.

 

[uscitizen]

What qualified Newt for that job anyway?

Sounds like a 1%'er pulled some strings for Newt?

 

[uscitizen]

I have and do support the troops in the ME.
However I do NOT believe the crap that they are keeping us safe.

 

[MikeK]

I have and do support the troops in the ME.
However I do NOT believe the crap that they are keeping us safe.

Not only is their presence not keeping us safe it significantly adds to the existing level of hatred and resentment most Islamics harbor for Americans. But the deluded flag-wavers and masturbators have themselves convinced that Iraq and Afghanistan are analogous to Normandy and Guadalcanal.

I honestly don't know how one can support the troops without supporting what they are consigned to doing, which in fact is severely counterproductive to the ultimate interests of this Nation. What I have to say to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is don't re-enlist. Get the hell out of there and warn as many others as you can to not make the same mistake you made.

I am sincerely sympathetic toward those National Guardsmen who expected nothing more than weekend maneuvers in exchange for the monthly check but were shanghaied by George W. Bush. I do feel sorry for them. But this war crime and debacle in the Middle East has been going on for so long I can't imagine that anyone who enlisted in the Army or Marines didn't know he/she probably would be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan -- and what were they expecting? If they just wanted to serve to fulfill a patriotic obligation, or if they needed the enlistment bonus or college benefit, they could have joined the Air Force or the Navy.

When I joined the Marines in 1956 there were no enlistment bonuses and a Marine Private was paid about $35 a month. My motivation was a sincere willingness to fulfill an obligation. I was willing to defend my country which at the time I would not have believed would engage in and consign me to the kind of shamefully outrageous criminal bullshit which has taken place in the Middle East over the past decade. There is no way I would have allowed myself to be misused as are the current generation of enlistees.

So the bottom line to my rant is I want to hear someone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan tell me how his/her actions and experience have served my interests or the interests of anyone but the super-rich in America.

Thanks for your honesty and clear vision.

 

[MikeK]

What qualified Newt for that job anyway?

Sounds like a 1%'er pulled some strings for Newt?

No doubt about that. He is a slimy little bastard -- as his name suggests.

 

[MikeK]

I did not want to join the military. I did not want to go to Vietnam.

If you were drafted and sent to Vietnam you have my sincere sympathy.

Those were duties that you (if you consider yourself part of "we the people") laid on me.

I consider myself very lucky to have been fully discharged from military obligation by the time Vietnam got started. And realizing how wrong it was to misuse our military in that way I became an active protester. So how have you worked it out that I was in any way responsible for sending you to Vietnam? If anything I like to think I helped to create the pressure that put an end to it.

I'm not ashamed of anything I did and am at least at little proud of what I managed to do. Your words shame yourself and no one else.

I'm sure that most of the troops who served in Vietnam did nothing there to be personally ashamed of. But in the final analysis an overall assessment of our presence in Vietnam reveals nothing to be proud of. The real tragedy is we clearly have learned nothing from it because here we are doing it all over again, only worse. This time in the Middle East.

 

[marcell]

They do 'invest' in our soldiers. The 'care packages' provide those of us who appreciate their service to demonstrate that appreciation. If you've never served, or had family who serve, then perhaps you wouldn't understand it. But most Americans support our military - whether or not we agree with the fight. We differentiate between the politics of a war and those individuals who volunteer to defend our Constitution. Perhaps we're just smarter than you.

Ok, but as human, can't u see that PEOPLE doesn't see nationality, when we're speaking about LIVES? So if USA's people support the soldiers, then attacked people and the rest of the world will think that USA's people is supporting the WAR. And don't come telling the bullshit that you don't care about the world, 'cause USA can be the most powerfull military and economic country in the world, but you depend of another countries too. So it's important what the rest of the world thinks about wars started by USA.

I've heard that most people that "volunteered" to "defend your constitution", made it because of the military carrer and the wages. Your constitution must be defended, but not from people that lives in Iraq or Iran and Afghanistan. Your constitution must be defended from your leaders. Don't you remember, in the olympics, when USA was being booed in most of the games? It wasn't for the athletes performance, I can ensure you. Smarter than me? You can't look anywhere else, but to your own shit. Does it mean smartness to you?

Your 'English' is neither UK English or American English. It is not your native language. You most certainly do not write like a native of either of those great countries. You write English like a French national. Just sayin'.

As I told, my english is not the best. I don't really sound like any native english speaker. Maybe my speech is like a french national's, but I'm not french and je ne parlé français. Got it? As I said to an argentinian friend, speak well your native language. If you know any other, don't lose your natural "features", cause it'll make you different and will be part of your ID.

Or maybe like a native Portuguese speaker.

Maybe? You should hear me talking. I sound totally like brazilian. I couldn't sound like portuguese.

Oh, people around the world! WE DON'T FUCKING GIVE A SHIT WHAT THEY "ARE GETTING ENOUGH OF," MORON.

It's funny. I once heard a joke, that involved many countries (brazilians and argentinians were the victims of it), including USA. It told "USA has a big problem on understanding the meaning of "the rest of the world"." You make USA's people be ashamed with this shit. You should be banned for swearing.

However I do NOT believe the crap that they are keeping us safe.

This...

 

[daveman]

Isn't it funny that protesters played a morjor role in the course of the war in Vietnam and especially it's out come but are never willing to admit any responibity?

It would be interesting to know what kind of twisted reasoning led you to that conclusion.

Reality is not twisted reasoning.

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story

Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese general who led his forces to victory said Friday he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, one of whom was presidential candidate John Kerry.

"I would like to thank them," said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 93, without mentioning Kerry by name.

--

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."

"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.

Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."

"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.​

 

[The Gadfly]

They do 'invest' in our soldiers. The 'care packages' provide those of us who appreciate their service to demonstrate that appreciation. If you've never served, or had family who serve, then perhaps you wouldn't understand it. But most Americans support our military - whether or not we agree with the fight. We differentiate between the politics of a war and those individuals who volunteer to defend our Constitution. Perhaps we're just smarter than you.

Ok, but as human, can't u see that PEOPLE doesn't see nationality, when we're speaking about LIVES? So if USA's people support the soldiers, then attacked people and the rest of the world will think that USA's people is supporting the WAR. And don't come telling the bullshit that you don't care about the world, 'cause USA can be the most powerfull military and economic country in the world, but you depend of another countries too. So it's important what the rest of the world thinks about wars started by USA.

I've heard that most people that "volunteered" to "defend your constitution", made it because of the military carrer and the wages. Your constitution must be defended, but not from people that lives in Iraq or Iran and Afghanistan. Your constitution must be defended from your leaders. Don't you remember, in the olympics, when USA was being booed in most of the games? It wasn't for the athletes performance, I can ensure you. Smarter than me? You can't look anywhere else, but to your own shit. Does it mean smartness to you?

Your 'English' is neither UK English or American English. It is not your native language. You most certainly do not write like a native of either of those great countries. You write English like a French national. Just sayin'.

As I told, my english is not the best. I don't really sound like any native english speaker. Maybe my speech is like a french national's, but I'm not french and je ne parlé français. Got it? As I said to an argentinian friend, speak well your native language. If you know any other, don't lose your natural "features", cause it'll make you different and will be part of your ID.



Maybe? You should hear me talking. I sound totally like brazilian. I couldn't sound like portuguese.

Oh, people around the world! WE DON'T FUCKING GIVE A SHIT WHAT THEY "ARE GETTING ENOUGH OF," MORON.

It's funny. I once hear a joke, tha involved many countries (brazilians and argentinians were the victims of it), including USA. It told "USA has a big problem on understanding the meaning of "the rest of the world"." You make USA's people be ashamed with this shit. You should be banned for swearing.

However I do NOT believe the crap that they are keeping us safe.

This...

Marcell,
I think I understand what you are trying to say.I think sometimes the picture of America's actions that people in other countries have, is like that on a TV that is not working well; sometimes the picture is full of static and distortions, and the sound isn't always clear, and sometimes the signal goes away completely. Now, if you were watching a soccer match under those conditions, you might be able to keep up with the score, but you would have a hard time following all the action, no?

Now, I think you know enough history to know that after WW II, America became the most powerful nation on the planet. Europe and most of the Far East were devastated by the war. The great nations and empires of Europe (including Great Britain) had lost two generations of the best of their youth in two great wars. They could hardly sustain themselves, let alone the colonial empires they had, and so, those empires broke up. There was a power vacuum, and two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, were left to fill it. The world of today is the legacy of those great events; the end of European Empire, and the superpower conflict we knew as the Cold War that followed.

I think a good case can be made that America and the American people were unprepared for that new role in the world. Europe needed our help to rebuild; newly independent countries all over the world needed help to develop, economically and politically, and they basically now had two places to turn for help-America, and the Soviet Union. Both superpowers naturally attempted to establish their own spheres of influence, to block the aggressive expansion of the other. Many countries became puppet states, or at least "client states" of one side or the otherUnable or unwilling to confront each other directly, America and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of what we might call "proxy wars", pitting client states of one side against the other. Korea was one such, the war I fought in, Vietnam, was another. I tell you all that because we can't understand where we are, if we don't know exactly where we have been. Those events,which occurred over the last half of the twentieth century, shaped the situation as we know it today. As the competing superpowers battled each other for dominance, America tried to spread American-style democracy, while the Soviets attempted to spread Soviet-style communism.Neither was entirely successful, both were often clumsy and awkward, and both frequently settled for allied governments which were less than either might have wanted. The result was a number of dictatorships of varying sorts, and a number of failed states, all across the developing world. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an example of one of these dictatorships; Afghanistan an example of one of the failed states (countries which could neither govern nor defend themselves). Those byproducts of the Cold War are at the heart of our present conflicts. It is important to understand that background, and so I have tried to give you a simplified explanation of it in this post. I'll address some of the other questions you have brought up in my next one; meanwhile, this will give you an American perspective on how we got to where we now are.

 

[xotoxi]

The Professor is entitled to his opinion.

God willing, rational, decent human beings will ignore it and tell him to go fuck himself.

In addition to the aforementioned people, Willow Tree will ALSO tell him to go fuck himself.

 

[MikeK]

No MikeKunt, sending packages to fellow Americans who you know are serving overseas to keep you safe back here is an act of gratitude that everyone should express.

Again -- exactly how is what our military has done and is doing in the Middle East keeping us safe back here?

What effect do you think things like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detentions and torture, the 42 day bombing of Baghdad in which tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis were killed or maimed, and American troops kicking in doors and searching civilian homes has had on the Iraqi mentality? And what effect do you suppose our actions in Afghanistan is having on those people? Can't you understand how our actions in those two countries over the past ten years has fostered a loathing in the Islamic mind that is sure to pay us back in spades one day? Are you not capable of reversing the situation in your own mind and imagining how you would feel if you were Iraqi or Afghani? Or are you really as oblivious as you seem to be? Our actions in the Middle East aren't keeping us safe, they are making another 9/11 attack, or worse, inevitable.

It's the politicians you stupid asshole who send the troops into combat. As a troop, you really don't have much say in where you deploy.

But it's the troops who wouldn't be troops if they didn't sign on the dotted line -- genius.

For your information were it not for the fact that the majority of troops in Vietnam were drafted the protest would not have been effective and we probably would still be there. So you may rest assured if the draft were still active we never would have gone into the Middle East. Our existing military quotas are facilitated by attractive enlistment bonuses and college grants -- not conscientious patriotism.

It's a fact I know very well after serving 20 years in the US Navy.

Is this what twenty years of chipping paint and swabbing decks did to you?

 

[marcell]

They do 'invest' in our soldiers. The 'care packages' provide those of us who appreciate their service to demonstrate that appreciation. If you've never served, or had family who serve, then perhaps you wouldn't understand it. But most Americans support our military - whether or not we agree with the fight. We differentiate between the politics of a war and those individuals who volunteer to defend our Constitution. Perhaps we're just smarter than you.

Ok, but as human, can't u see that PEOPLE doesn't see nationality, when we're speaking about LIVES? So if USA's people support the soldiers, then attacked people and the rest of the world will think that USA's people is supporting the WAR. And don't come telling the bullshit that you don't care about the world, 'cause USA can be the most powerfull military and economic country in the world, but you depend of another countries too. So it's important what the rest of the world thinks about wars started by USA.

I've heard that most people that "volunteered" to "defend your constitution", made it because of the military carrer and the wages. Your constitution must be defended, but not from people that lives in Iraq or Iran and Afghanistan. Your constitution must be defended from your leaders. Don't you remember, in the olympics, when USA was being booed in most of the games? It wasn't for the athletes performance, I can ensure you. Smarter than me? You can't look anywhere else, but to your own shit. Does it mean smartness to you?



As I told, my english is not the best. I don't really sound like any native english speaker. Maybe my speech is like a french national's, but I'm not french and je ne parlé français. Got it? As I said to an argentinian friend, speak well your native language. If you know any other, don't lose your natural "features", cause it'll make you different and will be part of your ID.



Maybe? You should hear me talking. I sound totally like brazilian. I couldn't sound like portuguese.



It's funny. I once hear a joke, tha involved many countries (brazilians and argentinians were the victims of it), including USA. It told "USA has a big problem on understanding the meaning of "the rest of the world"." You make USA's people be ashamed with this shit. You should be banned for swearing.

However I do NOT believe the crap that they are keeping us safe.

This...

Marcell,
I think I understand what you are trying to say.I think sometimes the picture of America's actions that people in other countries have, is like that on a TV that is not working well; sometimes the picture is full of static and distortions, and the sound isn't always clear, and sometimes the signal goes away completely. Now, if you were watching a soccer match under those conditions, you might be able to keep up with the score, but you would have a hard time following all the action, no?

Now, I think you know enough history to know that after WW II, America became the most powerful nation on the planet. Europe and most of the Far East were devastated by the war. The great nations and empires of Europe (including Great Britain) had lost two generations of the best of their youth in two great wars. They could hardly sustain themselves, let alone the colonial empires they had, and so, those empires broke up. There was a power vacuum, and two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, were left to fill it. The world of today is the legacy of those great events; the end of European Empire, and the superpower conflict we knew as the Cold War that followed.

I think a good case can be made that America and the American people were unprepared for that new role in the world. Europe needed our help to rebuild; newly independent countries all over the world needed help to develop, economically and politically, and they basically now had two places to turn for help-America, and the Soviet Union. Both superpowers naturally attempted to establish their own spheres of influence, to block the aggressive expansion of the other. Many countries became puppet states, or at least "client states" of one side or the otherUnable or unwilling to confront each other directly, America and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of what we might call "proxy wars", pitting client states of one side against the other. Korea was one such, the war I fought in, Vietnam, was another. I tell you all that because we can't understand where we are, if we don't know exactly where we have been. Those events,which occurred over the last half of the twentieth century, shaped the situation as we know it today. As the competing superpowers battled each other for dominance, America tried to spread American-style democracy, while the Soviets attempted to spread Soviet-style communism.Neither was entirely successful, both were often clumsy and awkward, and both frequently settled for allied governments which were less than either might have wanted. The result was a number of dictatorships of varying sorts, and a number of failed states, all across the developing world. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an example of one of these dictatorships; Afghanistan an example of one of the failed states (countries which could neither govern nor defend themselves). Those byproducts of the Cold War are at the heart of our present conflicts. It is important to understand that background, and so I have tried to give you a simplified explanation of it in this post. I'll address some of the other questions you have brought up in my next one; meanwhile, this will give you an American perspective on how we got to where we now are.

Man, you're right. This is what I've been trying to tell. I know that after the WW 2, USA and Soviet Union became the most powerful nations in the world. USA's industries helped Europe to rebuild, just like Japan. And we can't forget the ballast that Dollar had, equating and basing itself on gold. I think this is what watergate crysis was about, wasn't it? I never understood it very well.

And the main idea is that sending soldiers to war cannot ensure your freedom. It may only ensure territories and resources to the rich american guys. Unless there is a direct aggression against the USA's freedom and integrity. So USA will defend itself. But send soldiers to ME... what do they need to do there? Most of them die, for sure. You were in Vietnam. Did the soldiers protest too? I know that people did. But the soldiers... did they do it too?

 

[Unkotare]

Again -- exactly how is what our military has done and is doing in the Middle East keeping us safe back here? ?

If you really don't know (and I believe you are just being disingenuous) then you are a short-sighted fool and you should thank your lucky stars that your betters are looking out for you where you cannot look out for yourself.

 

[California Girl]

The Professor is entitled to his opinion.

God willing, rational, decent human beings will ignore it and tell him to go fuck himself.

In addition to the aforementioned people, Willow Tree will ALSO tell him to go fuck himself.

I actually did. But I did so quite politely. I prefer to tell people to 'go forth, increase and multiply'. Has more class.